God Beyond God – Evolutionary Devotion
“This is the most dangerous prayer you can pray, you know?”
I remember the words but not the speaker. I remember because I was bold enough and perhaps naïve enough to think I was up to the task. My spiritual ego was still quite strong and my zealous traditional Christian upbringing had prepared me well for the moment. Yes, I was ready. I could do this. I knew enough to know that I didn’t know what the consequences would be, only that they would be beyond what I could imagine at the time.
I’m pretty sure I literally, physically got down on my knees. And I opened my mouth to pray:
“Whatever it takes.”
“Whatever it takes to be wholly yours. Whatever it takes to live a life with eternal significance. Whatever you need to do to purify me, to strip away all that is not of you, let it be.”
Little did I know it at the time, but I was praying the prayer of evolution. The prayer of self-abnegation, the prayer of renunciation. I was admitting that whatever was necessary is beyond me, beyond my own comprehension and understanding, beyond my own effort and will, beyond my own achievements and charities—and as I would learn later—even beyond the God I thought I was praying to.
Renunciation: Ultimate Concern
“An awful solemnity is upon the earth, for the last vestige of earthly security is gone. It has always been gone, and religion has always said so, but we haven’t believed it.”
—Thomas Kelly
As a classic devotional practice, renunciation is the disavowal, or abandonment of something that is less than worthy of our life. Traditionalists renounce the devil. Monastics renounce “the world.” Many spiritual teachers talk about a renunciation of the self, or the false self.
Behind these rejections is the impulse that there is something greater, something more than our normal, everyday experience of life. And anything that stands in the way, anything that is less than this core meaning of life should be relinquished. This is putting primacy on our Ultimate Concern, a term coined by Paul Tillich to describe that our true faith is shown in that which we care about more than anything else. Renunciation is the act of courage to fully acknowledge this reality and to live one’s life accordingly.
“The ultimate concern gives depth, direction, and unity to all other concerns, and, with them, to the whole personality.”
While historically the practice of renunciation often has been a bit extreme and dualistic, within its zealous fervor is a sincerity and devotion that our age is often sorely lacking. Not in that we must cast aside the substance of our lives, but that without something to give ourselves to, we end up living only for ourselves. Deep down, most people are dissatisfied with a life like that. We long for something greater to live for, and such devotion focuses life into coherent meaning and direction.
The main problem comes when the Ultimate is replaced by a lesser item that is not fully worthy of ultimate devotion, such as “the church,” a specific community, a spiritual authority, a set of beliefs, or even our understanding of God. When the object at the center is seen to be insufficient, when what we thought was worthy of our life, our time, our energy is found lacking—instead of continuing deeper, we often fall into the common traps of the disillusioned and deconstructed.
Denial and Cynicism
When faced with the inadequacy of our substitute ultimate, which might include our spiritual community, leader, or practice, one common response is simply denial or avoidance. We continue going on in the same pattern as before, not letting ourselves recognize that it is no longer working. Denial can only work for so long, but some remain in this space for quite some time—not letting themselves admit the change that needs to happen and the cost it would require.
What is no longer working for you? What are you done with?
Another trap is cynicism. This is often the trap of the postmodern, realizing that anything can be deconstructed and torn apart. In that perspective, nothing is worthy of the center of Ultimate Concern because nothing that can be put there will ever be fully and completely sufficient. And in a way, this is correct. Not in that nothing should ever be put there, but rather that our personal understanding and experience of whatever or whoever we put in that place will eventually prove lacking. The cynics answer to this dilemma is to put nothing there, to risk nothing, to have no Ultimate Concern.
If you are able, what can you see beyond your current disillusions?
Those who keep going, beyond resorting to denial or cynicism, who keep peeling back the onion—they are the ones that evolve. This is the gift of the practice of renunciation, because it requires the courage, the sincerity, and the faithfulness to continue—even through the deconstructions and the dark nights, through the always necessary losses of our previous Ultimate Concerns, even the primary one which we often call “God.”
God Beyond God
“The life of faith is the untiring pursuit of God through all that disguises and disfigures him [sic] and, as it were, destroys and annihilates him.”
—Jean-Pierre de Caussade
The God we know now is not the God we knew before. And the God we know tomorrow will be more than today’s. Our knowledge, understanding, and experience of God is always evolving, so we shouldn’t be too tied to our present form of God. When we become overly attached or identified with our current perception and understanding, not only do we become stuck, but we also fall into the trap of pride.
A devotion with humility is to the God beyond God. “God rid me of God” prayed Meister Eckhart. The path to God continually lies beyond what we currently know and experience as “God.”
The Infinite God of mystery is always beyond us.
Now that doesn’t mean our present experience of God isn’t true or good. It is deeply meaningful and crucial. God-beside-us meets us where we are at, coming to us in the ways and forms we are ready for now. And we co-create from our side according to our own personal history, understanding, and experience. It’s not that you can never know God. It’s that you can always know more of God.
God-beyond-us always beckons us further onward, even and especially in who we know and experience God to be. In this sense, our commitment is to the act of continuing. The act of going beyond. The pursuit of Ultimate Concern is ever and always unfolding. It is not unknowable; it is infinitely discoverable.
Faith then becomes not a calcified certainty, but a freeing release through constantly renewing evolving emergence. This frees us because we are always discovering God anew. It also allows us to admit that we were wrong. We can admit with humility that our present understanding, our current ideas are limited and must ever evolve. It is never static. We have never fully arrived there. The vows are never finalized.
“Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.”
Romans 12:2
Continual and constant renewing beyond the momentary understanding of your mind and the conformity of this time. Ever forward and onward. What an exciting way to live!
The Way It Is
William Stafford
There’s a thread you follow. It goes among
things that change. But it doesn’t change.
People wonder about what you are pursuing.
You have to explain about the thread.
But it is hard for others to see.
While you hold it you can’t get lost.
Tragedies happen; people get hurt
or die; and you suffer and get old.
Nothing you do can stop time’s unfolding.
You don’t ever let go of the thread.