October 05, 7:00 pm (Sare Gordy)
“All concepts of God are like a jar we break because only the infinite can contain our perfect love.” – Teresa of Avila
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Trinity @ 7
October 5, 2008
“All concepts of God are like a jar we break because only the infinite can contain our perfect love.” – Teresa of Avila
I love this quote. It is new to me, but all at once it seems to perfectly describe how I want understand God, and mostly how I experience God. And you know, I know others who have said the same about this quote. They, too, no matter what their religious background see a wisdom here that goes beyond most traditional religious upbringings.
Of course, the reality of the wisdom has a soft underbelly that is, or at least can be, painful to behold. You see, it is easier to watch someone else’s jar break, than your own. Particularly if that jar is something of an heirloom, so to speak. And yet, we are no where in this wisdom if we are not tending to our own jars. It does no good to live vicariously through our neighbor, in this respect.
I know many Christians, for instance, who are flexible to the point of becoming theological pretzels, but suggest that Jesus might not be God’s one and only actual and literal Son… and that is not a jar they are willing to break.
But I think Teresa had a point, however much she had her own jars that she, too, was loathe to break. I agree with her when she says, “All concepts of God are like a jar we break because only the infinite can contain our perfect love.”
I was discussing this with a friend before I decided what exactly to speak of this evening, and this friend of mine pointed out something so practical, so commonsensical that I didn’t ever consider it. “When a jar of something breaks,” she said, “it makes a horrible mess.”
Instantly, I thought of spaghetti sauce. I thought of dropping it one of those butterfingery moments we all have at some point. Sitting there thinking of it with her, thinking of the moment it would slip through the fingers of my right hand, normally so sure of their grip, I could feel the moment as if I was living it. That second split in half as the breath is held, the shoulders tense, the eyes go wide and you know with a certainty that passes understanding that you’re not going to be able to undo what is about to happen. The certainty that what is about to occur is going to take time to make life livable again, is going to take a serious amount of clean up, and may produce lasting stains. “This one is going to leave a mark,” I think, just as the family-size glass jar of spaghetti sauce hits the hard tile of the kitchen floor with a crack, and a splat. I close my eyes and wince and wipe tomato and basil off my face and look down at the horrible mess I’ve created.
“When a jar of something breaks, it makes a terrible mess.”
So it can be, I think, when one of our concepts of God breaks like a jar. The first crack can be a relief, to be sure, and indeed the whole jar tumbling down and shattering can be incredibly satisfying – if only to know that you don’t need to carry it around anymore, and that it was essential anyway. It can be a huge relief.
And yet, that first crack of the jar can also be anxiety producing, especially when it is the first crack in the first jar to go.
But whether it is a relief or not, it can produce one heck of a mess. We live, after all, in a world where it is acceptable to be non-religious, or even very slightly spiritual, and on the other end of the scale, it is acceptable to be an absolute zealot with a strict adherence to your practice. What it is not seemingly popular or culturally acceptable to do is to be a quiet lover of God, gently shaping your days in the way that seems best, according to what you understand God wants from you. These are the people, when they run for political office, that we try to make an issue out of their spirituality. These are the people, when if you ask them in a non-spiritual setting, like work for instance, if you ask them about their motivations, the room grows quiet and uncomfortable when they answer in a way that references God, or their practice of following God.
But of course, just because it doesn’t seem to be popular to be spiritual and normal, religious and normal in our society just at present, just because it makes a mess for us, and maybe our family, or perhaps our friends when we dash another jar, another concept of God to the floor, that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t do it at all…
But perhaps the point is to be aware and not panic when the jars to break. Perhaps this is not the moment to go pell-mell through your mental space and throw all of those jars to the ground, but when they inevitably shake loose, fall to the ground and shatter with time and the events of our lives, perhaps the idea is to let them shatter, mourn them, if that is what we must do, and watch as our understanding of God expands to fill our experience of God with each jar that breaks.
Then again, it may be exactly the right time for you and I to go pell-mell through that mental cupboard and take down a few dusty jars, concepts of God that we haven’t examined since we received them in childhood, to take those jars down and dash them to the ground.
