{"id":533,"date":"2018-02-17T07:59:04","date_gmt":"2018-02-17T07:59:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/divergence.blog\/?p=533"},"modified":"2018-02-17T07:59:04","modified_gmt":"2018-02-17T07:59:04","slug":"the-glory-in-front-of-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/02\/17\/the-glory-in-front-of-us\/","title":{"rendered":"The Glory in Front of Us"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

One mark of modernity is dichotomy.\u00a0 The world was split asunder when the material and the spiritual were thought, one to be here, and the other, out there\u2026somewhere.\u00a0 From theological and philosophical moves made in the 14th<\/sup> Century, a two-story universe was constructed.\u00a0 From thereafter, faith and reason, science and religion, the natural and supernatural, and many other areas of thought and life, all began to move further and further away from each other until the divide became, it would seem, an infinity.\u00a0 The divide would eventually lead to the shipwreck of the 20th<\/sup> Century, its many graveyards, and the modern sensibility. Yes, I know, it was more complicated than that\u2014but still, I think there is some truth to those connections.<\/p>\n

After all, once such a division is believed to be true, it doesn\u2019t make room for the material and the spiritual.\u00a0 All it does is leave the material.\u00a0 The spiritual becomes so abstract, so apart from anything we can know, all one is left with is deism or agnosticism\/atheism.\u00a0 The ethical becomes something we can\u2019t specify and thus the technological becomes the mean.\u00a0 There is no basis for asking \u201cshould\u201d we do something, but only, \u201ccan\u201d we do it.\u00a0 If we \u201ccan\u201d we will.\u00a0 As Martin Luther King, Jr. noted, we end up with \u201cguided missiles\u201d used by \u201cmisguided\u201d men.<\/p>\n

We live in the flotsam and jetsam of those moves\u2014moves that led the world at that time, to no longer see the lighthouse of one world and thus the rocks beckoned, like sirens, black, jagged, and hidden just beneath the surface.\u00a0 And so, here we are, gazing up from the sandy bottom as the shimmering light shines down through the watery expanse.<\/p>\n

But what has changed really?\u00a0 Nothing.\u00a0 Only our perception of the world.\u00a0 We simply \u201csee\u201d the world differently now.\u00a0 No \u201cfact\u201d or fragment of information has changed the nature of the world.\u00a0 We imagine the world as split, divided.\u00a0 We do this with such hubris.\u00a0 We think we are grand cartographers.\u00a0 Having split the world in two, like atoms, we now set out to map our conquest.\u00a0 And in our mapping, we miss the glory in front of us.<\/p>\n

As an aside, the FG world reads their Bibles this way.\u00a0 As maps.\u00a0 This is where the FG world imitates the \u201cscientist\u201d in what they believe will show them as equals, just as serious, just as studious, just as educated, just as modern.\u00a0 If it wasn\u2019t so tragic, it would be comical.\u00a0 Imagining the Bible to be a map, they open and follow the directions.\u00a0 They note the longitude and latitude, north and south, east and west.\u00a0 They note distance and scale.\u00a0 There, see, it\u2019s right there and all who follow the map correctly will arrive at the same spot.\u00a0 And if they don\u2019t, they must have misread or missed an important directional clue or piece of information.\u00a0 Because, of course, we have our map and north, south, east and west, never change.<\/p>\n

The task of our time is to \u201csee\u201d the world anew, to imagine something greater than what we have been told, to re-narrate the world as one world.\u00a0 As Maximus the Confessor told us:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe world is one\u2026for the spiritual world in its totality is manifested in the totality of the perceptible world, mystically expressed in symbolic pictures for those who have eyes to see.\u00a0 And the perceptible world in its entirety is secretly fathomable by the spiritual world in its entirety, when it has been simplified and amalgamated by means of the spiritual realities. The former is embodied in the latter through the realities; the latter in the former through the symbols. The operation of the two is one.\u201d<\/p>\n

And this one world doesn\u2019t give easily to being mapped or controlled\u2014because it is not some dead thing.\u00a0 We are better off with the type of cartography and map spoken of here:<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/strong>Cartography<\/strong><\/p>\n

Then he withdrew from them about a stone\u2019s throw.<\/em><\/p>\n

And because no nation thrives without capital,<\/p>\n

he set a star in this world and drew a circle round.<\/p>\n

Though no trace of his print exists, the moon,<\/p>\n

hills, and trees all reveal his glory in the garden.<\/p>\n

Surveying his heart, unreliable landmarks slept<\/p>\n

in shadows as he found himself alone. Doubled down<\/p>\n

an angel from heaven attended him and gave him strength<\/em><\/p>\n

and he pounded his fist against his chest<\/p>\n

to ensure everyone spoke the grammar of his love\u2014<\/p>\n

his kingdom inaugurated with beads of blood<\/p>\n

pouring forth from the power of prayer aglow.<\/p>\n

Standing against the threat of the devil\u2019s deception,<\/p>\n

when he got up from prayer, he came to them<\/em><\/p>\n

a map flashing open from his mouth, the way<\/p>\n

tumbling forth as a single beam of light sped<\/p>\n

toward the chasm where silence bears his name.<\/p>\n

-Jae Newman<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

One mark of modernity is dichotomy.\u00a0 The world was split asunder when the material and the spiritual were thought, one to be here, and the other, out there\u2026somewhere.\u00a0 From theological and philosophical moves made in the 14th Century, a two-story universe was constructed.\u00a0 From thereafter, faith and reason, science and religion, the natural and supernatural, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3524,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[41,98,248,260,278,410,431],"class_list":["post-533","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-cartography","tag-dichotomy","tag-maps","tag-maximus-the-confessor","tag-modernity","tag-science","tag-spiritual"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Glory in Front of Us<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"One mark of modernity is dichotomy.\u00a0 The world was split asunder when the material and the spiritual were thought, one to be here, and the other, out\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/02\/17\/the-glory-in-front-of-us\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Glory in Front of Us\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One mark of modernity is dichotomy.\u00a0 The world was split asunder when the material and the spiritual were thought, one to be here, and the other, out\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/02\/17\/the-glory-in-front-of-us\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Divergence\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2018-02-17T07:59:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Darrell Lackey\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@darrelllackey1\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Darrell Lackey\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/02\/17\/the-glory-in-front-of-us\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/02\/17\/the-glory-in-front-of-us\/\",\"name\":\"The Glory in Front of Us\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2018-02-17T07:59:04+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2018-02-17T07:59:04+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/#\/schema\/person\/d88a32b8d4b5f40fbd6ccbfce4e0f813\"},\"description\":\"One mark of modernity is dichotomy.\u00a0 The world was split asunder when the material and the spiritual were thought, one to be here, and the other, out\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/02\/17\/the-glory-in-front-of-us\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/02\/17\/the-glory-in-front-of-us\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/2018\/02\/17\/the-glory-in-front-of-us\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"The Glory in Front of Us\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/divergence\/\",\"name\":\"Divergence\",\"description\":\"Commentary Regarding Fundamentalism - 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