God is...(A Meditation)

A candle in the darkness. Source: unsplash.com.

I close my eyes to see the light/A halo of shadow surrounds a flame

In my heart I felt deepest fright/For the closer I got, the darker it became.

This week, I'd like to start off with a meditation. It's one that I have held dear over the years as an exercise in doing life with the Divine. The official name of the exercise is known as an Apophatic meditation. It comes from the Eastern Orthodox Christian tradition and is rooted in the belief that language cannot possibly describe the "truest" aspects of the Divine. This is close to the idea of the Platonic Ideal–namely that physical reality is a shadow of a more perfect spiritual one.

In this way, language is a shadow of perfect silence. The closer we get to the ideal, the less words we have to work with. The less we can understand. And yet, it is in this darkness that we are most close. Like a candle, the closer we get to it, the more we are in the wax's shadow. Be warned though: a temptation in this closeness is to begin to mistake the shadow of the wax as the same thing as the flame itself. Though we are closest to the flame, the shadow is not all there is to know. The flame is still illuminating, still showing us new and wonderful things, and it is all ever clearer because we are in the darkness looking out on what is illuminated.

The meditation for this week is a short exercise that allows us to sit in the light, be close in the darkness, and know that the darkness is not all there is to know.

In this exercise, I want you to list at least 10 things you believe God to be. Try to keep it limited to qualities rather than actions, but there are no rules here. Let your heart guide you in the meditation as you list these 10 qualities.

Below are some I commonly gravitate to if you are looking for some examples:

God is...real.
God is...kind.
God is...good.
God is...father.
God is...man.
God is...proud.
God is...love.
God is...One.
God is...almighty.
God is...everywhere.

Take a moment and dwell on these words. Do any of them stir your heart? If so, how? Do they make you feel secure? Do they make you feel anxious? Are these words enough for you or do they feel lacking? Do any of these make you feel close to the Divine? Do you feel attached to any of these words? Have they guided you?

Take whatever questions I've listed, or come up with your own, to guide you in your dwelling. Pay attention not only to your perception, but also your body. Your chest, your throat, your waist, your eyes, your shoulders, your mouth, your breathing, your legs, scan your body with your mind and simply take note of what it all feels like.

Deep breath. Exhale. Let the thoughts and feelings stay in awareness, but let them be on their own. We have honored them and given them space and now it is time to move on.

The next part of this exercise is to now negate the things that we previously listed. We do this by simply writing that "God is not..." and the same words we previously used. This act of negation is not a doctrinal statement that you believe God is completely absent of these qualities–instead this is a gentle acknowledgement that how we perceive these qualities do not even come close to the Real quality of the Divine's character. Even statements of orthodoxy, though beautiful metaphors that provide helpful guardrails on our journey's to truth, are not exempt from this.

I'm going to use some other statements for examples to show you how this can work and can sometimes make us pause as we write or say these statements outloud.

God is not....real.
God is not...man.
God is not...father.
God is not...son.
God is not...spirit.
God is not...good.
God is not...male.
God is not...love.
God is not...caring.
God is not...engaged.
God is not...alive.
God is not...resurrected.
God is not...in heaven.

Once again, sit and dwell on what you wrote and check-in on your heart, mind, and body. How do you feel? Did you feel defensive of any of the words you negated? If so, which ones? Which words were easy to let go? Where in your body do you feel tense? Did any negation in particular make you feel that way?

As stated previously, use whatever questions you need to assess your heart and body.

Deep breath. Exhale. And let go.

We are in the darkness, for some this may be the first time. It can be terrifying. It can be liberating. It can be somewhere in the middle. Whatever the case, note how you feel and hold it in front of you. You can stay here as long as you wish. The first time I did this exercise, I sat in silence for awhile and grieved the words I used. I hadn't realized how much I wanted guarantees on what I believed to be right. But God, no matter the religion, is not one of guarantees.

For some this may be very uncomfortable. If you have to go back to the light, if you have to reclaim these words–I implore you to do so. This is an exercise in fluidity of language, but if you feel as though you are losing God itself, go back. I do ask that you reflect on the relationship you have with language and of the Divine presence. However, this doesn't need to be immediate.

Don't force yourself into a spiral. Trust me on this.

This last step is negating the negation. Yes, even our negation is not enough to properly qualify what the Divine is and isn't. God may not be able to be contained by the word Love, but we know that God is not the absence of that quality (if you were to put negative qualities such as hateful, evil, dark, etc. in the beginning exercise, this could also be of great benefit in understanding how you perceive and engage the Divine). So to do this, we are going to use a double negative in each statement–apologies to my 8th grade english teacher for the offense.

God is not not...real.
God is not not...kind.
God is not not...son.
God is not not...father.
God is not not...mother.
God is not not...good.
God is not not...dark.
God is not not...hateful.
God is not not...love.
God is not not...caring.

As you sit with these statements, reflect on your use of language. How are you attached to it? How do you use it? Is your language fluid or is it rigid? Does your heart feel enlivened by the limitations of language or does it feel disempowered? Where in your body do you feel deadened? Where in your body do you feel alive?

Take another deep breath. Exhale. And let go.

Through this exercise, we critically examined our reliance on language. For some, language is the limit by which they know the world. However, the Divine is beyond language, is beyond qualifiers. Just like ourselves. Just like others around us. We are not the summation of our qualities, how much more so the Divine? Use this exercise when you feel stuck, when you feel lost, and when you're trying to rebuild beliefs you once had. Instead of being objects to hold onto with a death grip, they can be pointers that guide us to intimacy.

I'll be posting here every Monday and Wednesday for the next few weeks. Please, feel free to share these with people. In no way do I want this to be some full-time gig, I already have that covered. But I'd love to connect with other likeminded people and even feature stories, articles, and exercises that originate from readers. If anyone comes to mind, please send this their way.