That Shekinah smoke

So…
Me and the Lord, we close, tighter than the tightest,
Stay in that Shekinah smoke, higher than the highest, the
Abyss of the Void doesn’t frighten in the slightest, ‘cuz
In the darkest times, that’s when the Light shines the brightest.

See,
Nothingness is our nature, ‘being’ is a Grace-gift,
From the Lifter of our Heads, a holy face-lift,
Made over in the Maker, not the Makeshift,
Journey through the Infinite in time without a spaceship.

Don’t get it twisted, though, I still know how pain feels, my
Dreams walked in and out of my life in the same heels,
Tried to chase ‘em but kept slippin’ on the same peels,
I lost it all, life went off the rails like some train wheels.

I even had the thought of just ending it,
But the Voice of the Lord came suspending it:
“Ok, you asked for more Grace, and I’m lendin’ it, but
Till you die, Christ-Crucified, and you keep defending it!”

So I lost a dream or two, but I got the Prize,
I went to school of Unlearning and forgot the ‘Wise’,
My mind is blown daily, but I bet the Lord is not surprised,
He said a broken heart with contrition he would not despise.

So, I stand, broken and yet I’m still whole,
for my Beloved, soft-spoken and yet I’m still bold,
Blazing with the Flame of Glory, yet I’m still cold,
Stayin deep in the Pocket of Presence like a billfold.

(Dwayne Polk)

Desire, Worship, & Idolatry

 

Interesting thought I recently ran across in George MacDonald (GM, the Scottish writer/mystic/Christian universalist) in a passage examining Christ’s temptations, particularly where Satan offers Christ all the kingdoms of the world and their glory if Christ would simply bow and worship him. GM suggests Christ is here offered a vision of what he knows will be manifestly his eventually – the whole world, but it is here offered to Jesus on different terms. GM says here was have an example of good and right things being pursued on false grounds.

GM ends the passage with something that shocked me a bit, but with which I could only agree:

“Not even thine own visions of love and truth, O Savior of the world, shall be thy guides to thy goal, but the will of thy Father in heaven.”

One can possess the God-given forms of things, but possess them falsely. Only the Father’s will (God himself) can be truly, rightly, desired. This may explain the distinction Paul realizes in 1Cor 13 when he says one can perform any of the common acts we associate with doing rightly or well, or serving God (i.e., exercising spiritual gifts, giving all we have to the poor, sacrificing our lives to save others, etc.) without these acts being right and good if they’re not intended by, or as, love. The same act (giving to the poor) can be false or true depending on the love with which it is performed, for the end we intend defines our actions (as loving, meaningful, etc., or as worthless). This has to stand within Paul’s admonishment in Col 3 that we do what we do with all our heart “for Christ, not for people.”

Christ had to bring his (our) humanity to God in the same terms. GM’s point is that while the whole world was bound to come to Christ, to be his in all its glory, nevertheless to pursue this end as such, to intend it and not the Father, is equivalent to worshiping Satan. One needn’t sacrifice a goat and bow down within a pentagram to be beholden to evil, for desire (when it takes shape within intention) is worship. Idolatry, then, isn’t just a form of worship that involves images other than God. It is desiring anything other than God.