An Incarnation Metaphor for Christmas Eve

"There is a drama in which a King, desiring to win the love of a simple country shepherd girl, appears to her as an ordinary shepherd youth. In this form, she can understand him and talk to him. He speaks of the King of the country as if he were someone else. Finally the shepherd youth weds her in royal pomp and brings her to the palace. Then, to her surprise, the shepherd girl realises that he whom she loved as a shepherd youth is the King himself; the shepherd and the King are one, and her lover makes her a queen." --Dhanjibhai Fakirbhai, Khristopanishad

On Mysticism and Critical Realism

"Again, it seems to me that a critical realism, which found room for the duality of our full human experience--the Eternal and the Successive, supernatural and natural reality--would provide a better philosophic background to the experience of the mystics than the vitalism which appeared, twenty years ago, to offer so promising a way of escape from scientific determinism. Determinism--more and more abandoned by its old friends the physicists--is no longer the chief enemy to such a spiritual interpretation of life as is required by the experience of the mystics. It is rather a naturalistic monism, a shallow doctrine of immanence unbalanced by any adequate sense of transcendance, which now threatens to re-model theology in a sense which leaves no room for the noblest and purest reaches of the spiritual life."

Evelyn Underwood, Preface to the 12th edition of Mysticism, 1930, viii.

On Prayer and Works

"And the most deplorable thing of all is that the vain wisdom of the world compels them to apply the human standard to the divine. Many people reason quite the wrong way about prayer, thinking that good actions and all sorts of preliminary measures render us capable of prayer. But quite the reverse is the case; it is prayer which bears fruit in good works and all the virtues."

--The Way of a Pilgrim, p. 7

On Religion, Properly Understood

"Religion is not a departmental affair; it is neither mere thought, nor mere feeling, nor mere action; it is an expression of the whole man."

Muhammad Iqbal

Escape from the Prince of Evil

For just as from one Adam the race of men was multiplied over the earth, so one depravity of passion infiltrated the entire human race. The prince o evil is thus able to sift all of them by continued crass, vain and passionate thoughts...he fills every soul with a dark ignorance, blindness and forgetfulness. Only those escape him who have been reborn from above and have been transported in mind and heart to another world, as it is said, "Our citizenship is in Heaven" (Phil. 3:20).

Macarius-Symeon, Homily 5.3 (George Maloney translation, 1992, p. 64)

On the Son of Man

And at that hour that the Son of Man was named
In the presence of the Lord of Spirits,
And his name before the Head of Days.

Yeah, before the sun and the signs were created,
Before the stars of the heaven were made,
His name was named before the Lord of Spirits.

He shall be a staff to the righteous whereon to stay themselves and not fall,
And he shall be a light to the Gentiles,
And the hope of those who are troubled of heart.

All who dwell on earth shall fall down and worship before him,
And will praise and bless and celebrate with song the Lord of Spirits.

...

And the Elect One shall in those days sit on My throne,
And his mouth shall pour forth all the secrets of wisdom and counsel:
For the Lord of Spirits hath given (them) to him and hath glorified him.

I Enoch 48:2-5; 51:3
(tr. R. H. Charles, 1917)

Perspective

Circumstances can be a matter of perspective. Taken from this page. I like this.

On Salvation

By salvation I mean, not barely, according to the vulgar notion, deliverance from hell, or going to heaven; but present deliverance from sin, a restoration of the soul to its primitive health, its original purity; a recovery of the divine nature; the renewal of our souls after the image of God, in righteousness and true holiness, in justice, mercy and truth.

John Wesley, "A Further Appeal to Men of Reason and Religion"

From the Rose Garden of Mystery...

'That man a liege of Christ I hold to be,
Who from all ties and trammels is set free.
To whom the Holy God is fane and shrine,
Whose home the Spirit, ageless and divine.
Such men of Christ's pure Spirit have received,
Who was Himself of Holy Ghost conceived.
Thou also hast from God the soul inmost,
Which is the sign in thee of Holy Ghost.
Whoever earth's entanglements decries,
Enters the Holy Presence in the skies.
Whoever on angelic pureness bent,
Like Christ, ascends the starry firmainent.
So Jesus said, who now is heaven's light,
'The Father's Voice is calling from the height.
Dear son, go thou to thy Father's heart!
Others have gone; remain not thou apart!'

--Mahmoud Shabistary (d. 1320), In Gulshan-l-Raz (Rose Garden of Mystery), tr. Norman Sharp

(quoted from H. B. Dehqani-Tafti)

"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God"

Jesus and his disciples passed by a dead dog, and the stench of it was over-powering. His disciples exclaimed, "How this corpse smells!" But Jesus replied, "How lovely is the white of his teeth!"
--Recounted by Abu Hamid al Ghazali,
in his classic Ihya Ulum id-Din (Revival of the Religious Sciences)

A Muslim View of Jesus' Power and Holiness

"It is my conviction that Christianity began to lose its power of sanctification as it lost its Eastern home and character. It was in this Eastern piety and spiritual dynamism of the holy desert fathers tat Islam was born and nourished. It was not dogma but holiness, victory against demonic spirits of uncleanness, which spoke to the needs of men and women. We dismiss as a bit of Eastern superstition that Jesus cast out unclean spirits. Yet it was this piety of healing and sanctification, whose ultimate source Jesus was, that played an important role in the life of the society of the ancient Near East, and that can once again rejuvenate the materialistic society of out world today."

--Mahmoud Ayoub, A Muslim View of Christianity: Essays on Dialogue, 77

O Sea of Love!

O Sea of Love!
O Sun of Wisdom dispelling the darkness of sin!
O God who for thy humble servant's sake didst become man and didst give up thy life!
I knew not this truth, and was a worthless wretch.
Now is the time to make me thine.
I offer up my heart to thee, O Prince of Virtue!

--H. A. Krishna Pillai, 19th century Tamil poet and hymn writer

A Couplet from the Tomb of Hafiz

A beautiful couplet is found on the tomb of the Persian poet Hafiz, and written by the poet himself. This was translated by the great scholar A. J. Arberry:

And if the Holy Ghost descend
In grace and power infinite
His comfort in these days to lend
To them that humbly wait on it,
Theirs too the wondrous works can be
That Jesus wrought in Galilee

Moulana Rumi on "The House of `Isa"

'The house of 'Isa was the banquet of men of heart.
0 afflicted one, quit not this door.
From all sides the people ever thronged,
Many blind and lame, halt and afflicted,
At the door of the house of 'Isa at dawn,

That with his breath he might heal their ailments.
As soon as he had finished his orisons
That holy one would comc forth at the third hour.
He pondered those impotent folk sitting,
Troop by troop, at his door in hope and expectation.
He spoke to them saying.- 'O stricken ones,
The desires ofyou all have been granted by God,
Arise, walk without pain or affliction,
Acknowledge the mercy and beneficience of God.'
Then all, like camels whose feet are shackled,
When you loose their feet on the road,
Straightway rush in J'OY and delight to the halting place,
So did they run upon their feet at his command.'

-Jalaluddin Rumi (translated by E. H. Whinfield)

On the Word for "Faith" in Masai

"I was sitting talking to a Masai elder about the agony of belief and unbelief. He used two languages to respond to me -- his own and Kiswahili. He pointed out that the word [we] had used to convey faith was not a very satisfactory word in their language. It meant literally to agree to." I, myself, knew the word had that shortcoming. He said "to believe" like that was similar to a white hunter shooting an animal with his gun from a great distance. Only his eyes and his fingers took part in the act. We should find another word. He said that for a man to really believe is like a lion going after its prey. His nose and eyes and ears pick up the prey. His legs give him the speed to catch it. All the power of his body is involved in the terrible death leap and the single blow to the neck with the front paw, the blow that actually kills. And as the animal goes down the lion envelopes it in his arms (Africans refer to the front legs of an animal as its arms), pulls it to himself, and makes it part of himself. This is the way a lion kills. This is the way a man believes. This is what faith is." Vincent J. Donovan, Christianity Rediscovered, p. 48

Ecclesiastes for the Middle Class

Several years ago, I bought a provocatively titled book by Douglas Coupland, Life After God. Coupland's writings have had some degree of influence; it was he who coined the term Generation X. I initially bought the book because I wanted to understand the thinking of those who considered religious belief to be completely irrelevant; indeed, the given theme is, "You are the first generation raised without religion." (something which would resonate more in some parts of the West than in others) As it turns out, Coupland's collection of vignettes about rootlessness and irony ultimately seem to be pointing to the emptiness of seeking solace apart from God. These little interconnected stories and observations culminate in a confessionastories and observations culminate in a confessional paragraph. His protagonist narrates,

Now--here is my secret: I tell it to you with an openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words. My secret is that I need God--that I am sick and can no longer make it alone. I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me to be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love (Douglas Coupland, Life After God (New York: Pocket Books, 1994), p. 359)

I see this as reflected in the Biblical book of Ecclesiastes, in which the author laments on the meaninglessness of life without God, even with all the wealth and pleasures a fabulously wealthy king had available. It is famously reflected in another famous passage as well, which I will reproduce here, from Blaise Pascal's Pensées. The author writes,

All men seek happiness. This is without exception. Whatever different means they employ, they all tend to this end. The cause of some going to war, and of others avoiding it, is the same desire in both, attended with different views. The will never takes the least step but to this object. This is the motive of every action of every man, even of those who hang themselves.

And yet, after such a great number of years, no one without faith has reached the point to which all continually look. All complain, princes and subjects, noblemen and commoners, old and young, strong and weak, learned and ignorant, healthy and sick, of all countries, all times, all ages, and all conditions.

A trial so long, so continuous, and so uniform, should certainly convince us of our inability to reach the good by our own efforts. But example teaches us little. No resemblance is ever so perfect that there is not some slight difference; and hence we expect that our hope will not be deceived on this occasion as before. And thus, while the present never satisfies us, experience dupes us and, from misfortune to misfortune, leads us to death, their eternal crown.

What is it, then, that this desire and this inability proclaim to us, but that there was once in man a true happiness of which there now remain to him only the mark and empty trace, which he in vain tries to fill from all his surroundings, seeking from things absent the help he does not obtain in things present? But these are all inadequate, because the infinite abyss can only be filled by an infinite and immutable object, that is to say, only by God Himself. He only is our true good, and since we have forsaken him, it is a strange thing that there is nothing in nature which has not been serviceable in taking His place; the stars, the heavens, earth, the elements, plants, cabbages, leeks, animals, insects, calves, serpents, fever, pestilence, war, famine, vices, adultery, incest. And since man has lost the true good, everything can appear equally good to him, even his own destruction, though so opposed to God, to reason, and to the whole course of nature.

Some seek good in authority, others in scientific research, others in pleasure. Others, who are in fact nearer the truth, have considered it necessary that the universal good, which all men desire, should not consist in any of the particular things which can only be possessed by one man, and which, when shared, afflict their possessors more by the want of the part he has not than they please him by the possession of what he has. They have learned that the true good should be such as all can possess at once, without diminution and without envy, and which no one can lose against his will. And their reason is that this desire, being natural to man, since it is necessarily in all, and that it is impossible not to have it, they infer from it...(Blaise Pascal, Pensées (tr. W. F. Trotter), (1660; English translation 1944; , accessed July 13, 2007), Ch. VI section 425)

Augustin said it more concisely, but perhaps with equal elegance, when he said, "You have created us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you."

Interesting Prophecy in Ancient Jewish Literature

The following is from an ancient Jewish book usually referred to as the Wisdom of Solomon, though written not by King Solomon, but rather by an unnamed philosophically minded Jew. Most likely in Alexandria, Egypt, the same city which produced Philo, whose writings carry a similar flavor. The excerpt below is not only a writing of great beauty, but of deep spiritual and perhaps supernatural insight. Wisdom as a whole shares elements in common with both Philo and with the writings revealed to John in the Injil Sharif, particularly in presenting an understanding of Wisdom as being a personification of the Uncreated Word of God as Savior and Creator. In the passage below, however, it adds something more: A prophetic description of the Death of the Living Word and Wisdom Himself on behalf of humankind. It was most likely written in the late 1st century B.C.E.

"Let us lie in wait for the righteous man, because he is inconvenient to us and opposes our actions; he reproaches us for sins against the law, and accuses us of sins against our training.
He professes to have knowledge of God, and calls himself a child of the Lord.
He became to us a reproof of our thoughts;
the very sight of him is a burden to us, because his manner of life is unlike that of others, and his ways are strange.
We are considered by him as something base, and he avoids our ways as unclean; he calls the last end of the righteous happy, and boasts that God is his father.
Let us see if his words are true, and let us test what will happen at the end of his life;
for if the righteous man is God's son, he will help him, and will deliver him from the hand of his adversaries.
Let us test him with insult and torture, that we may find out how gentle he is, and make trial of his forbearance.
Let us condemn him to a shameful death, for, according to what he says, he will be protected."
Thus they reasoned, but they were led astray, for their wickedness blinded them,
and they did not know the secret purposes of God, nor hope for the wages of holiness, nor discern the prize for blameless souls;
for God created man for incorruption, and made him in the image of his own eternity,
but through the devil's envy death entered the world, and those who belong to his party experience it. (Wisdom of Solomon 2:12-24, RSV translation)

True Fana fi'llah

I posted the below earlier in the comments of an earlier post, but I thought it worth presenting in its own right:

My personal favorite analogy of a proper perspective of concept of Union with Allah is the description given by the great Sadhu Sundar Singh nearly a hundred years ago. He wrote:

Seeker: Is the goal of prayer to lose our individuality and dissolve into oneness with God?

Sadhu: We have been created in the image of God. Our destiny is to be restored into that image. God came to us in the Master to restore us to God’s divine nature. In this way, the Master transforms us into flames of spiritual fire. To become spiritual fire means to become like God. Even the smallest flame of fire is fire and has all the qualities of fire. This does not mean that our spirit is God’s spirit, as some pantheists and philosophers suppose. We are not fragments of God’s spirit. We are not God. God is distinct from us, but our souls can only find peace in oneness with God.

A sponge lies in the water and the water fills the sponge, but the water is not the sponge and the sponge is not the water. It is the same when I immerse myself in God. God fills my heart and I am in complete union with God, but I am not God and God is not I. We are distinct though not separate.

People are very different from one another – in character, temperament, and abilities – even though we are all created in the image of God. Indeed, if all the flowers in the world were of the same color and scent, the very face of the earth would lose its charm. When the sun’s rays pass through colored glass, the color does not change, but the sun highlights and reveals its varied hues, its true charm. So the sun of righteousness shines through the varied characters of spiritual men and women, revealing God’s boundless glory and love." (Sadhu Sundar Singh, The Wisdom of the Sadhu (E-Book)(Kim Comer, ed.; Farmington, PA: The Bruderhof Foundation, 2003), pp. 121-123)

Eid Mubarak!

A few months ago, the Muslim world celebrated Eid ul-Fitr on one of several days (amid a fair amount of confusion internationally as to the precise day it was supposed to be), the Muslim Festival of fast-breaking signaling the end of the fasting month of Ramadhan (or Ramazan, in some parts of the world). It is a beautiful festival, with strangers exchanging Muslim-style, triple hugs in the street, and wonderful food. So often one is confronted with sensationalized web images of terrorists subscribing to Islamist ideology, but I thought you might want to see what a typical Muslim looks like; a father and son, on the morning of their most beloved festival, heading for prayers. Afterwards, they would doubtless head home to one of the great feasts of the year, with presents and new clothes for everyone in the family, especially the children. In many ways, it reminds one of Christmas celebrations among the more spiritually inclined in the West.There is another very interesting similarity between Eid ul-Fitr (and Ramadhan) and Christmas that are worth exploring at a deeper level, however. What are Ramadhan and Eid ul-Fitr supposed to be celebrating?

Sunni Muslims believe that the Qur'an is the uncreated Word of God, with no beginning and no end, not made, yet always in existence.

According to Abu Hanifah, the great Sunni Imam, the Qur'an is eternal, in its original essence. He says, "The Qur'an is the Word of God, and is His inspired Word and Revelation. It is a necessary attribute (sifah) of God. It is not God, but still it is inseparable from God. It is written in a volume, it is read in a language, it is remembered in the heart, and its letters and its vowel points, and its writing are all created, for these are the works of man, but God's word is uncreated (ghairu 'l-rnakhluq). Its words, its writing, its letters, and its verses, are for the necessities of man, for its meaning is arrived at by their use, but the Word of God is fixed in the essence (zat) of God, and he who says that the word of God is created is an infidel." (See Kitibu 'l- Wasiyah, p. 77.)(quoted in Thomas Patrick Hughes, Dictionary of Islam (London: W. H. Allen & Co., 1895), p. 484)

Ramadhan and Eid ul-Fitr are meant to be a celebration of the revelation of the Qur'an, of the coming of the very Word of God to humankind. This is also what Christmas, true Christmas, is meant to celebrate as well: The Coming of the very uncreated Word of God not merely to, but among humankind:

In the beginning the Word already existed. He was with God, and he was God. He was in the beginning with God. He created everything there is. Nothing exists that he didn't make. Life itself was in him, and this life gives light to everyone.

The light shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it. God sent John the Baptist (that is, Yahya) to tell everyone about the light so that everyone might believe because of his testimony. John himself was not the light; he was only a witness to the light. The one who is the true light, who gives light to everyone, was going to come into the world. But although the world was made through him, the world didn't recognize him when he came. Even in his own land and among his own people, he was not accepted. But to all who believed him and accepted him, he gave the right to become children of God. They are reborn! This is not a physical birth resulting from human passion or plan – this rebirth comes from God. So the Word became human and lived here on earth among us. He was full of unfailing love and faithfulness. And we have seen his glory, the glory of the only Son of the Father.

John (Yahya) pointed him out to the people. He shouted to the crowds, "This is the one I was talking about when I said, 'Someone is coming who is far greater than I am, for he existed long before I did.'" We have all benefited from the rich blessings he brought to us – one gracious blessing after another. For the law was given through Moses; God's unfailing love and faithfulness came through Jesus Christ. No one has ever seen God. But his only Son, who is himself God, is near to the Father's heart; he has told us about him. (John 1:1-18, New Living Translation)

This passage describes what is what is at the heart of what Christmas celebrates. It is about the Incarnation of the Word of God. For the uninitiated, the term Son of God can sound terribly jarring, as though the living God, the creator of the Universe, took a consort and had physical children. This passage makes it clear that that is not, indeed could never be the case. When John, writing under the Holy Spirit's inspiration, refers to Jesus, Isa, as "Son of God" (e.g., in the final verse of this passage), he is using it in synonymously with Logos or eternal Word through whom God created the Universe, as a parallel of sorts with the first verse of this passage.

May our hearts be filled with gratitude as we celebrate this Christmas, this Eid to the living and eternal Word of God Who "became human and lived here on earth among us."

Is Islam Necessarily, Inherently Violent?

Especially since 9/11, there has been a lot of discussion regarding the very nature of Islam, particularly in relation to violence. Increasingly, there have been incidents of violent, mob reactions to perceived slurs or negative comments about Islam or especially Islam's founder, and correspondingly a response, particularly from the West, questioning if this does not illustrate the inherent intolerance and violence of Islam as a faith. Does not the Qur'an not say, in the often-quoted Sura 9:5 (Sura At-Tawba):

"But when the forbidden months are past, then fight and slay the Pagans wherever ye find them, and seize them, beleaguer them, and lie in wait for them in every stratagem (of war); but if they repent, and establish regular prayers and practise regular charity, then open the way for them: for God is Oft-forgiving, Most Merciful."

On the surface of it, it could seem that this would be an apologetic for forcible conversion, and in fact it has been used as justification for forcible conversion at times. The question, though, is whether this is how this verse is interpreted by scholars within the context of Islam. Are there voices within Islam itself which seem to disavow such violence? To be sure, one increasingly comes across writing in the Western press discussing how Muslims must be made "to embrace secular modernity". This seems reasonable on the surface, if one regards a modern or even postmodern worldview as that which will ultimately lead to world peace and harmony. To many Muslims, however, this would come as something of a call to apostasy, to an abandoning of what Muslims, at least, perceive as a revelation from Heaven. Thi was discussed in a recent article by Ted Olsen in which he noted that when Western writers say that Islam needs its own "Reformation" and a "Muslim Martin Luther" to lead it,

"Actually, the pundits' description of what this reformer would do suggest that they're more interested in a Muslim John Shelby Spong than a Luther: someone who would dismiss the Qur'an as unscientific silliness and bring Islam in line with Enlightenment values." (Ted Olsen, "Does Islam Need a Luther or a Pope?", Christianity Today, November 2006, , accessed 24 October 2006)

The question then, is whether there is would be considered an Islamically faithful counter to the Islamist interpretations of passages such as these.

On a recent visit to Southeast Asia, I happened to pick up a slim volume which is an example of what I have looked for in this. In searching for a link for it, I came to discover that it is online: Defending The Transgressed By Censuring The Reckless Against The Killing Of Civilians, by Oxford-based Malaysian Shaykh Muhammad Afifi al-Akiti is a fatwa, that is, a religious judgment or opinion which takes to task specifically Islamist interpretations of quranic passages such as this one, in what is meant to be a clear-headed critique of terrorism in general and suicide bombing in particular from an theological, Islamic perspective. This has been positively received by other Muslim writers such as Dr. Hisham al-Zoubeir and H.A. Hellyer, who take essentially the same position. It is especially interesting that while al-Akiti could not on any level pro-Israel (note his reference to the "disasters of 1948 and 1967), he nonetheless has the considerable courage to address the issue of suicide bombing anywhere, against anyone, including Israeli civilians.

While this doesn't remove the importance of arguments regarding, for example, treatment of non-Muslims in Muslim-ruled lands as dhimmis (please note that the preceding link is to a PDF document) as has been noted in the preceding article and other writings by, for example, Bat Ye'or, I believe approaches such as that being pioneered by Sheikh al-Akiti give hope that within the house of Islam itself, voices will begin to be heard calling for peace.