The Light in Every Thing
Deeper conversation on the mysteries of Christianity with Patrick Kennedy and Jonah Evans, directors of the Seminary of The Christian Community in North America.
In this podcast we engage the great questions of life and do this through a spiritual approach to Christianity made possible through contemplative inquiry and the science of the spirit known as Anthroposophy.
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The Light in Every Thing
“Christian Ecstasy” - Episode 49 in the series, “Letter to the Ephesians”
What is the relationship between Christ’s light and the darkness in and around us that does not bear fruit (Eph 5:11-14). As Paul himself experienced so dramatically on his way to Damascus, the road walked with Christ is not filled with condemnation of others or ourselves. Christ’s light shines on all of who we are. Can we bring all of who we are to him and open ourselves to the transformative, healing processes flowing towards us? When we are filled with God, the qualities sought in states of ecstasy are available — expansion, revelation, communion, connection, etc. But, at the same time, our humanity dignity is enhanced, not debased. These are the questions and themes explored in today’s episode.
The Light in Every Thing is a podcast of The Seminary of The Christian Community in North America. Learn more about the Seminary and its offerings at our website. This podcast is supported by our growing Patreon community. To learn more, go to www.patreon.com/ccseminary.
Thanks to Elliott Chamberlin who composed our theme music, “Seeking Together,” and the legacy of our original show-notes and patreon producer, Camilla Lake.
Good morning Patrick.
Speaker 3:Hi Jonah.
Speaker 2:Here we are again, another episode.
Speaker 3:We get to do this.
Speaker 2:So wonderful, can't believe it actually. Yes, this is our work.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm not worried about four hours of sleep. That's right, we'll see. Yeah, you had a big one day trip to hotlanta with all the excitement I've traveled these days, especially around the toronto airport yeah, yeah, a number of our young priests who are coming up for continuing education couldn't even get here because of their flights and stuff.
Speaker 2:So happy to be here the snow is real here and welcome everyone again to another episode of the Light in Everything, where we seek to understand on a deeper level, through conversation, the mysteries of Christ.
Speaker 3:So we're going to start, as we always start, with a word from the Gospel of John. From the Gospel of John in the eighth chapter. That speaks as a kind of guiding orientation for all that we do in this little podcast Chapter 8, verse 12. Again, jesus spoke to them saying. Again Jesus spoke to them saying I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness but will have the light of life.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's very interesting already just again, how this John 8 that we read every time seems to always connect to what we're doing. This unique kind of light Seems to always connect to what we're doing, this unique kind of light. What stayed with me from last conversation is when we're talking about and working with this chapter five in Ephesians, when Paul here is talking about becoming, learning to orientate yourself toward the light of Christ, and he says in verse 14, awake, o sleeper, and arise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you. And Christ will shine on you. And one can think, okay, well, now that I've got the light, there's no more darkness, I'm good, I'm on the good path. And what I found so interesting from last conversation was that we tried to understand what Paul says here. He doesn't put it in pure dualistic terms. Basically, try not to do works of darkness, but instead enlighten them or expose them. It says in the ESV which I don't like that word as much but illuminate them.
Speaker 3:Bring them into the light.
Speaker 2:Bring them into the light, bring them into the light, bring them into the light, bring the brokennesses and the weaknesses and the sin, the darkness, into the light. And you could say, well, that's not so great, but he says it in this way. He says but when anything is exposed by the light, it becomes visible, for anything that becomes visible is light. And that's a deep mystery which we tried to wrestle with with how does the darkness in me, the brokenness, when it's illumined by Christ's light, become light? In other words, how does it actually become? It seems to be that he's implying that it becomes something helpful, that it becomes something helpful, and I think that's what really stuck with me, patrick, from last time this starting to break out of the simple kind of generally assumed relationship to religious life where you're either good or bad, you're either on the right track or you're going to be doomed. But here Paul seems to be saying that actually there's necessary darkness that needs to be enlightened by the light of Christ so that it can become light helpful. So with that kind of in the background, I want to ask you if we read on, how then do we understand the rest, where he does really put it in what could seem kind of traditional be good and don't be bad, and how you understand that, how you understand that.
Speaker 2:So, verse 15, if we go on, look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil. Therefore, do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is, and do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart. Give thanks always and for everything to God, the Father, in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. So I mean, it could seem that. So I guess, for me, the the question is how do you relate to when paul says, do this and don't be bad, which so often falls into a kind of condemnation, connotation for humans? And how do we integrate this more subtle, deeper reality for Paul that it's also about bringing the brokennesses and the sin into the light? How do those two things come together, or how would you approach that?
Speaker 3:Yeah well, I was really moved by our meditation on his tremendous challenge as the one who was really so involved in forming the very first Christian communities, and we spoke last time about the moral guidance and orientation that permeated the culture he grew up in in his family and his deep spiritual practice of living in Scripture, in the Hebrew Scripture and the moral law of God. There are things that are good and there are things that generate the opposite, that are evil, and your actions and your thoughts and your feelings and your word. You need to see it and feel it in the moral light of the word of scripture and follow that guidance and his goal and hope to follow it to the absolute, last letter. Yeah.
Speaker 3:So we talked about that. So we talked about that, and so in the city of Ephesus you really have one of the very strong, rich cultural centers of pagan life and so many of them drawn to the power of spirit that was present in the Christian community as it was founding, and we started to talk last time well, how is Paul trying to receive that destiny that God is drawing together into a new people, peoples who have been divided, this theme of a one humanity where all the spiritual streams are coming in? I think in this letter it's, it's particularly powerful and strong. It's going to get stronger as we go. And so, on the pagan side, they had built into their religious practices and spiritual practices.
Speaker 3:It wasn't just behavioral questions, but also how they worshipped. God was, for the Jews, like evil, and that included, for example, just the fact that they would include pigs as a part of their sacrificial animal, or and and and feast food, which is totally something you wouldn't touch. And yeah, and I think the connection there is, the pig as an animal is an animal, almost a pure desire to, to follow your nose and go after what you desire to consume, and the, this abandonment into the enjoyment of the food that a pig can do. It's just a really incredible sight if you've ever fed pigs.
Speaker 2:It's pretty scary. It can be scary. I remember I was like are they going to eat me? It's really intense, yeah if you've ever fed pigs.
Speaker 3:Unleashed desire yeah, lot of the mystery stream in the pagan traditions of his area there to also periodically have festivals where you lose yourself in your desires and get really drunk and hopefully, if you get enough into the celebrating, the dancing and drunkenness, you'll be filled with another spirit than your own and spirit possession was like a goal of a whole group of people in the Dionysian tradition, for example.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in many cultures, in many, many cultures. I remember attending a traditional I forget, but I think it was a group from Burkina Faso in Africa that was present where I was growing up, in Sacramento, where we grew up, and they did this ritual, this group ritual, at one of my friend's houses and it involved imbibing alcohol and really getting into a state through dance and through that was meant to bring in the spirit and that was just part of their culture. Many cultures have that. It's a different way, but Paul clearly here is describing another way.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I just find it so interesting where he says in verse 18 of chapter 5, do not get drunk with wine for that is, and this translation says debauchery, asotia, so our word like to disassociate, associate. This is where that greek word comes from, um losing your mind.
Speaker 2:A socia, yeah, and the socia is connected to this consciousness, right losing your Using your earthly, awake mind consciousness, because that for many traditional cultures in ancient times was actually a block, that's the block For the spirit. You couldn't, it was in a way, unredeemable, it didn't match the substance of the spirit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so you had to let it go. Somehow. You have to find a way, yeah, to get beyond that mind. It's the, it's the blocker.
Speaker 3:There are lots of ways and one of them was this this festival, joyful, join, the kind of dance of reality, and the wine warms you and starts to extend you beyond your borders and the dancing does with its rhythm and actually overstimulation. So you actually want to get to a state of extreme joy, extreme pleasure, extreme, like people who go, or any of us who have gone to even just the leftovers of this, are like a club where you have such loud music pulsating with such strength. Your own heart starts to go to the rhythm of the pulse, of the pounding beat. That means that everyone in that room has a shared heartbeat and they're all a part of this larger beat which the room is full of and you can have this feeling like so the self-conscious self stuck in its skin is overcome and you're now like a part of, like a hive pulsing, and you don't even need, if you add to that actual ecstasy, drugs or alcohol or some other substance that also breaks down the functionality of your frontal cortex.
Speaker 2:Normal consciousness, yeah.
Speaker 3:And can allow your soul, spirit, to interact with your body in a different way, then you can aid that experience of a higher state, or I won't say higher, a different, an altered state, an altered state, an altered state of consciousness, a state of consciousness where you're not in a self-reflective mode, so you're not anymore kind of in this place where you're aware that you're a self and maybe not the best or could be better. What do they think of me? What do they think of me? What do they think of?
Speaker 2:me. All that kind of normal ego sense witnessing yourself melts into an ecstatic state. Yes, and you can kind of forget about all that stuff. There's a kind of relief, yeah, to forget about all that stuff.
Speaker 3:It's there's a kind of relief. Yeah, and there are these stories of groups of young revelers from this tradition and they, you know, would wake up on the hills somewhere a day and a half later like what happened?
Speaker 3:How did we get here? You know what all happened in the course of the evening. And the satyr the half goat, half human is a part of the picture of the accompanying servers of the Dionysian rites. And I can't do justice to all of the Dionysian rites and I can't do justice to all of the Dionysian rituals at all, and that's not our point, of course, but it's just to say that was even just then, in celebratory events at a home in this period of the early Roman Empire. That was a way to build a sense of community, of that warmth and joy. And let's get drunk.
Speaker 3:Let's eat delicious foods and have music and let's lose ourselves into one another. Yeah, and then this experience, that, of course, of when it wears off. Mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:And that warmth and togetherness not necessarily still being there, no, no, no, depending on how all the festivities really proceeded. So he doesn't just say then don't do that. So he says do not get drunk with wine, but be filled with the Spirit. So another way I think you can say that logic of the sentence is do not get drunk with wine, get drunk with the Holy Spirit. He's actually doing a direct replacement. You do want to grow beyond yourself. You do want that warmth of heart. You do want to have a joyful celebrating and sense of community, of music and pleasure together, but be filled with something that enhances and doesn't have to get rid of your sense of self. I think this is the new mystery language that he's trying to lead them into right.
Speaker 2:Yeah, in a way, it's similar to what we often say there's a good impulse there, yeah, it just needs to be directed this way. Paul is saying as opposed to that way yeah, like that is.
Speaker 3:If you take away the, the powers of the awake and aware self where the captain of the ship resides, and just let the and in German they have this expression actually lass den Sau raus. And that's like let the pigs out, so all those things that are kept in check. The way to get to the ecstatic is to open the pen and let them do whatever they want to do yeah yeah.
Speaker 3:So sink, go beyond yourself by sinking actually into more of an animalian state. That's also so, I think, the satyr the half human, half animal, like put the human aside, let the animal out yeah yeah, which were the animals are?
Speaker 3:we are part animal yeah, there's lots of little little gremlins in all of us, yeah we know we often use the word beast and it means like some kind of negative thing, but it really was the old word for animal right, right, and the only negative thing is that we're meant to be humans when the animals are animals. God bless them.
Speaker 3:They're being themselves, right, but when we're animals, it's not good because we're supposed to be humans. Yeah, and that's the call he's trying to. There's a way in which we can experience something that is expansive. Mm-hmm. God connecting Mm-hmm that is expansive, god-connecting, community-building, revelatory, but actually utterly awake, right, and you come away from it not forgetful of what happened or ashamed but having your sense of dignity enhanced because the Spirit has filled you.
Speaker 2:So in a way he's saying it's just a better way if you want to deepen your humanity.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and not debase it.
Speaker 2:And not debase it yeah yeah.
Speaker 3:So I think it's one example of how he just does not condemn. Once again, no, he says don't do this, but then doesn't follow up with. Or else here he really tries to channel those energies yeah into worship life with one another. Fill yourselves with the spirit. Verse 19, then, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God, the Father in the name of our Lord, jesus Christ, and that's the spirit possession I think that he's pointing.
Speaker 3:The future is now yes, in the Dionysian cult, you wanted to reach a state, through this ecstatic experience, where the God would fill you. Here comes the real deal. That's exactly our goal, so much so that the name of the one who lived in Jesus will live in your own being, you'll be inhabited by the name of Christ. Yeah, rehabited by the name of Christ.
Speaker 2:Yeah, which doesn't amazingly, doesn't take away your self-consciousness, it fulfills it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it adds. Yeah, what would you say happens to that block, jonah, in your experience? Like the negative self-awareness that inhibits you from just being able to let out and express who you are in this universe, because you're stuck in these hyper self-awareness and judgment and so forth. What happens to the mind, the ego, mind that is now being filled and included in a Holy Spirit, Christ-inhabited experience? Good question how does it deal with the block?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I mean first and foremost what comes to my mind and heart, if I just kind of reflect a little bit on my experiences of this. Very often, when I'm in a state of self where I'm feeling blocked from the spirit myself, my consciousness is mostly directed and concerned with my own self. I'm worried about what other people think, I'm worried about my reputation, I'm concerned about the way I look or what other people are talking about concerning me.
Speaker 2:Right Reputationally obsessed or I'm just reflecting on myself in such a way that I'm kind of stuck in myself like, oh, I wish I so. My experience is when, if I imagine myself like a cup and wherever the opening is directed to, that's what I'm filled with. When my cup is pointed toward myself, you could say downward if you want then I'm blocked from what's coming from above.
Speaker 2:If that's an image, yeah, and my experience is, when I learn to consciously open through reverence and devotion, because the ecstatic, fulfilled self comes from receiving the light of Christ Jesus, the joy, the love of Christ Jesus as a gift from him that actually brings me myself. So I've learned that myself isn't fulfilled when I focus on it. When I focus on it. My self is fulfilled when I focus on Him and open to His life, love, light, peace, joy, and start to feel blessed by an influx into my cup of a life and a love that's beyond me, that's greater than me, and then, once I start to feel that that's actually real, my heart starts to rejoice and I start to feel gratitude and when I start to feel that I just want to find him everywhere. You get drunk, I get drunk, you get a little bit drunk. Yeah, it often happens in the consecration of the human being.
Speaker 2:Often it happens in conversations like we have here in class. But I noticed that the crucial kind of spiritual psychology of it is when my self is focused on my lower self, my personal self, then I'm blocking, I'm getting blocked. But when I learn to let that go and focus on receiving the truth, goodness, beauty of God as an influx of grace, then I start to open up into that kind of ecstasy where I'm still aware I'm not unconscious, I haven't lost myself, it's just the cup of myself has turned.
Speaker 3:It sounds, like the way you've described it, even that the thing that was the block was part of what you had activated as the quote-unquote cup.
Speaker 2:Well said, well discerned, well said, well discerned. The self, in other words, what I set my mind on I become. What I decide to put my attention to gives me its fruit. So if I'm obsessed with my worldly self, my lower self, that kind of puts me in a prison of myself. But when I turn that, decide to set my mind on the grace of God, in the mystery language sometimes it's called the door that no one can open and the door that no one can shut but you.
Speaker 3:So I experience that I have to decide then where to turn, where to open to so your, your inner authority remains, whereas in the other path, I'm seeing if I can put the authority to sleep or somehow get around him. Yeah, somehow, but self-forgetfulness is the goal period.
Speaker 2:That's right that.
Speaker 3:I find so cool.
Speaker 2:Isn't that?
Speaker 3:interesting, so beautiful.
Speaker 2:And there can be a free-willed self-forgetfulness yeah when you still feel I have agency over this process throughout, Whereas the other way is you will to take a substance that then takes away that consciousness. Yeah. And you don't have agency throughout.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think a lot about what we do for a living in terms of teaching. Yeah, Like stepping up as you do on Wednesday mornings in front of 90 people online and you know 20 people sitting in person here and you're living with Christ group group and all the feelings that can accompany you at least me when I fill in, for example, in a situation like that, before we get started.
Speaker 3:Am I prepared? Am I gonna make a fool of myself? Like there's. So the like part of me that is fearful and self-obsessed gets louder the closer the start is. And then, when I actually then step into the room and step in front of all these eyes looking at me, the invitation from that self to follow it and be swallowed up in its own self-consciousness is very strong.
Speaker 3:And I have, I think I, I think both of my parents gave me skills to like deal with the first part of that, just to kind of boldly step past it and ignore it, to start get going. You know what I mean. Like just just go greet other people, like that's a great first step that you do. For example, I'm just like hi, you, I'm gonna look at you and acknowledge you and already I'm starting to not pay attention to me but to this other. And what happens? Good point, right, right away. Yeah, like you just see someone there, there's helene and helena and auburn. You see her, you acknowledge her. Joy increases it connection, it gets warmer, you know right, isn't it? It's amazing, it's so simple yeah.
Speaker 2:And people, when they, when they feel from the outside something is overjoyed to see them, their hearts start opening Right and then this flow starts to happen. This is a flow, yeah, yeah, exactly. So it doesn't even have to start with quote unquote, God opening to God. It can just start with something other than you.
Speaker 3:The other.
Speaker 2:Something other, even a tree, right, yes, Even a flower, another human being. I was listening to this person last night on my YouTube feed and he said something very wise. Who it is doesn't matter, but he said "'If you wanna be happy in a marriage, it's very simple". Extremely simple. You just practice making the happiness of your partner more important than yours. You just focus on helping them and dial down the volume of your own, trying to extract happiness from them for yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's the path of misery. There you go, great.
Speaker 2:So it's like if I'm focused get your needs filled. Yeah, if I'm focused on getting my needs met by this other being, then I'm going to go on a path to misery, misery, but okay, so let me ask you another question Okay, interesting, sorry, but just that's so beautiful.
Speaker 3:It's just so beautiful.
Speaker 3:Maybe one last piece about then to watch you then in that same Wednesday morning, or to experience myself. We start the class and at first it's not full of the spirit, it's very flat, we're just in a kind of empty room. But we just start a journey of attention. Let's look at this. Let's look at this we're headed to. We all know we want to find God here today and feel God in our midst. But we're not going to take, we're going to just start, follow a track with our, with our minds, turning our attention to some truths of existence, some facts of life.
Speaker 3:Some, you know right, we just, you know, start like a trail of crumbs Look at this, look at this, look at this. And the next thing you know, because those are like dot to dots in the image of God, you start to feel him radiating through that attention, beautiful, and you start to feel ooh. And then wonder starts to grow and you're like, oh, my Lord, isn't God of Eden? And the next thing you know, you're self-forgetting on all of that stuff I talked about at the beginning, it's gone. It is so long gone I have zero nervousness, or or fear about your reputation.
Speaker 3:I don't care, it's so uninteresting compared to the beauty of what we're looking at beautiful, it's not even close to interesting compared to it right and that's infectious. Then people see like they're feeling it too, like, yeah, who cares about that stuff? Look at god, look at us, look at life like we're looking at something else and through it, the mind of god, the spirit of god is coming into our minds and we feel healed, winkled, expanded, warmed, thankful, wanting to sing a song of hymns and praise when it happens, and the distinct experience.
Speaker 3:It was another. It was more than us. Yeah, and it's present, yeah, it's filling the room, yeah, yeah, yeah, but yet every single time before the next session, right? This darkness arises, the self-obsessed mind is ready to go, but we've done it so often. We're like we know if we go the road being other-focused and God-focused, it's going to change pretty quick. Anyway, just as a real concrete, lived example. We live over and over again.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, no, yeah, yeah, no, no. That seems to be a really detailed phenomenological description of what Paul is getting at in terms of taking the impulse for unity.
Speaker 3:Real ecstasy, real ecstasy, real enthusiasm, enthusiasm For the spirit in joy, joy and using a different route than the route of substance or loss of self-consciousness through a diminished consciousness, rather than the filling of our minds with the mind of God in an enhanced consciousness. Right, yeah, but you were wanting to.
Speaker 2:Well, I was thinking in a way. You talked about a kind of a darkness in the soul at the beginning of the journey. Yeah, of the journey. I could also imagine someone who has practiced a lot with alcohol or has various inclinations in the soul and finds themselves often falling into those things. The traditional mindset in kind of the Christian connotation would be okay. That's a sin to be consumed with yourself or to fall into again and again Interesting.
Speaker 2:And don't do that. You're going to go to hell if you keep doing that, and this way we're describing is the good way, and you're going to go to heaven if you do that. So I guess what I'm wondering is what would you say? How do we weave in this insight this picture of Paul that says don't let the sun go down on your anger, don't allow the light of Christ to also enlighten the darkness? What does that mean? Yes, how do we make sense of that element? Because it seems so key if we're not going to fall into the condemnation this way and not that way? Yeah, this.
Speaker 3:Thank you, I think the way you've asked it has unlocked it. For me it just feels like whoop. It's all coming together now. So it seems the theme from all this.
Speaker 3:So chapter 5, verses 1 through 21, this whole kind of contemplation he's doing, with its central image of awake, sleeper, rise from the dead and Christ will shine on you. So there's this actual going from the horizontal into the vertical, enhancing your consciousness, coming out of a sleep and death realm, out of a darkness realm, and live in light. And then he says where was that? Was that earlier? Yeah, I think. He says walk in the light, yeah, be, yeah. Therefore, do not become partners with those who are sons of disobedience, for at one time you were darkness, yeah, but now you are light in the Lord. And I think the secret is not to understand light as always being always only doing the deeds that are themselves light, but that in all your walking, lift it up, go upwards, go towards light, as you mentioned, if something happens, if you follow a pleasure or a selfishness, do not subsume it in darkness or go downwards with it stoning it but seek to permeate it with his moral light.
Speaker 3:See it for what it is, understand it, own it. Say I did that.
Speaker 3:Seek mercy and forgiveness with those you have hurt on your way, to your pleasure or whatever it is that you have chosen out of that self obsession, this difference of not trying to abandon, abolish or condemn the sinner self, but to take that one also with you into the light processes. That's maybe a way I would say it that we've talked about before. Then you will be walking in light. Then you will be walking in light. All of your walk, all of it will be about bringing all of it towards and into that light so that it's transformed.
Speaker 3:So your desire to expand beyond yourself, yes, he says your ecstatic goal, yes, your hope to be filled with the God. Yes, I'm not saying no to any of that, but the way you're taking is into darkness, meaning lose your consciousness, not know what you did. So how could you take ownership for what you have done? You can't take it into the light because you don't even know what you did. Yeah, right, right, you see he's lifted up.
Speaker 2:But that's also so. There seems to be two aspects there in the light and journey towards this joy and ecstasy with consciousness, in communion with his light, and then the darkness, the weaknesses in me. It seems like what you're saying is what I think is really helpful is the way to bring it into the light is not to deny it or go to sleep to it, or it's to first witness it, take ownership. This is mine. And then you mentioned, like how can I then make amends or ask for forgiveness? So which amends? And forgiveness is part of Christ's light, amen. So then, all of a sudden, if that's the case, then my darkness becomes integrated and useful for more light, which is forgiveness For more light.
Speaker 3:You know it's a different kind, because what I, so yeah so if I back up, it's like none.
Speaker 3:Of this would mean it's all good, do whatever you want, right, I will. Because of my practice, of this ecstasy, which is other-oriented, then I start to feel, when I'm self-oriented, how destructive that is and it hurts. It hurts to see my spouse hurting because of me going to get what I want or need. It is not beautiful Because I brought it into the light. I can see and I have a moral aesthetic experience. It's not a rule from anybody. It's a wound to the beloved, it's a wound upon me and it's a wound upon the one I thought I was trying to connect with through my selfishness. I see all of that because I brought it into the light, so that's a gift of the light. But what I'm seeing is also the shadows cast and it hurts, it's a piercing. So I don't want to ever do that, ever, but I do. We do, we're going to.
Speaker 3:And so he has to give us another calling, which is I'm a healer too. Yeah, my light is also the work of healing what has been hurt. Yeah, so now, now that you've welcomed me into your heart, see if you can approach your brother or sister and add light to a place where there is a wound, and then you'll be increasing the light in this world where you had done darkness. And so now that darkness done as you said has become an invitation to a new birth of light. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:An invitation and if you actually fulfill that birth, it becomes part of that new life. Because it was what, also part of what, inspired you to yes, the pain of it and part of it inspired you to do the good yeah.
Speaker 3:And now we're in the very special territory of the beauty of his light, of the beauty of his light. It isn't a pure light where there is no sin or hurt, a pre-earthly pure spirit light. But it's the kind of light that's so, so specially beautiful because it comes about where we've hurt each other. And this is the part of the new light, the new heavenly light that is coming about on the earth where all this wounding is happening. On the earth, where all this wounding is happening, that experience with one another and the tears and reconciliation that takes place there, the forgiveness work, it's like this beautiful new spiritual substance of light that's coming into being on earth. That's never happened before. It's so holy.
Speaker 2:It's of course not, I think, this joy filled by the Spirit, celebratory imagery that he's working on right here, for example, imagery that he's working on right here, for example, but it, it's, uh, it's implied in the, in the question that you've asked about this darkness side, that piece of the darkness right, because I I guess clearly, clearly, he's talking about this kind of ecstasy, but I I guess in my experiences also about this kind of ecstasy, but I guess in my experiences also, when I'm really feeling in this joy with Christ and maybe that's more and more the case for me I'm not forgetting my weaknesses and brokennesses.
Speaker 2:I'm not forgetting the pain of my brother or sister. It's not as if, in that consciousness, I can't handle any pain of my brothers and sisters. Oh, okay.
Speaker 3:Like if, which would normally ruin the party Right.
Speaker 2:Like don't be a downer man. Like if you're in a party and you're in this other kind of ecstasy and someone comes and brings their pain, you're like dude you just ruined the vibe. Yeah, yeah yeah, but in my experience in this kind of joy, if someone brings authentic pain, I'm there for it. It doesn't diminish my heart's joy. It's like that kind of joy can embrace all levels of being Well.
Speaker 3:I think it's the nuance for me of the ecstatic practice of compassion, which is an utterly ecstatic experience. I am other-oriented, but I'm feeling into the suffering of another. Or if someone listens to me and I'm able to share, and we're flowing into one another and it's so holy and the isolation was the major hell, not the pain, and the healing is starting to flow because we're with compassion, we're suffering with one another. Yeah, the moods can be different, right, the tone of the, or maybe it's a joy moment of ecstasy and the beauty of God, maybe it's a compassionate prayer in community for a beloved who's really struggling right now and is in surgery or whatever. But we feel blessed and we feel healed. That's the common denominator. The core block that we talked about is being overcome.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I find that fascinating about the nature of this kind of joy and experience of enthusiasm. Yeah. That it's not hindered by any. It changes a bit, but it's always. You're always feeling bestowed upon and blessed by the Spirit, even if you're going into the depths with someone.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and he closes the whole thing, jonah, with this final. So this it leads, it culminates in verse 20, into this thanksgiving Always give thanks always, which is a big ecstatic experience as well, this gratitude flow. You're sensing the gifts of being bestowed on by the being of God in the name being in my eye and his eye, that communal experience. And then the last word, which is the setup for the next conversation. The translation is submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ, beautiful and for me, that term I think we've touched on in this other orientation.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, I feel like exactly that, right, yeah, even that word from this person that I was just listening to, that to put the other's needs and well-being above your own.
Speaker 3:Become your serving you. Yeah.
Speaker 2:The addition here. I think for Paul the secret is out of reverence for Christ Right, because I could be reverent to my wife, out of reverence for Christ right, because I could be reverent to my wife out of reverence for her. That's a stage, that's a step. But Paul here is saying I'm actually trying to be reverent to Christ first and because Christ is in this other. That's Paul's fundamental experience. Let's just remember that On the road to Damascus. Why are you persecuting me in these other people like Stephen? So Paul's fundamental experience of Christ is that he's working in the other person suffering what they suffer. So this is the ground from which, then, paul can say out of reverence for Christ, submit to one another as holier than you, so to speak.
Speaker 3:This is the setup, so beautifully said. So the culmination, then, of the Christian ecstatic practice is to be filled with Christ, the prayer that he prays in chapter three, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. That's the whole goal. It's super ecstatic meaning outside of my stasis and into something else yeah and in this case also the inflowing.
Speaker 3:So we're in the name of the lord, but that means if I look over at you, he is in you. How will that affect the social ordering? How do I relate to you when my God takes up dwelling in you? I'm going to submit to the God who has made his dwelling in you. My reverence for God leads me to write. Reverence to you.
Speaker 2:It's so radical. It's the key to overcoming egotism. And it's so radical, so challenging, but the fundamental medicine, and I can't wait for next time holy cow, we're right, we're here, we're gonna go right there.
Speaker 3:we're here because the next line, as a teaser, this ought to turn, this ought to kill the vibes, the famous line, verse 22,. Wives, submit to your husbands as to the Lord, the next line, and he's going to go into a whole meditation on the submission mysteries between one another in community, leading to the marriage mysteries in the mystical sense of the term. Amen. It's getting exciting.
Speaker 2:I love how we built a foundation for that, though Right that this is actually the fundamental way of the Spirit for all of us, all of us To submit to Christ in the other.
Speaker 3:Thank you, jonah, thank you, patrick ©. Bf-watch TV 2021. © transcript Emily Beynon.