In the Name of God
At the start of our events we often light a candle to signify the Divine presence and the light that has come into the world in Christ and in the Spirit. As a way of bringing our attention to that light and presence, I wrote a few words to draw us to an awareness of being embraced fully by the Spirit.
We light a flame
In the name of God, the Creator, who breathes life into every thing.
In the name of the Christ who embodies God's love and embraces life, death, and life again.
In the name of the Spirit who helps us remember who we are.
I’m creating a few blog posts to say a bit about each line of this “invocation”. Today we will be considering this line:
“In the name of God, The Creator, who breathes life into every thing”
The word “God” is so outstandingly complex, multidimensional, politically charged, expansive, and limiting all simultaneously. Perhaps that is a place to begin with trying to understand what it means to gather “In the name of God”. It is an acknowledgement that we are gathering together in the embrace of eternal Mystery that in many ways is undefinable. The Divine is far beyond any human language, concept, or belief system. Just by uttering the word, we acknowledge that it is only a word that is meant to orient our thoughts, attention, and energy toward awareness that we are in the presence of that which is Being itself. God is that which we seek down in the depths of our soul, and we always have. God is the Source from which we come into Being, contains and energizes our life, and receives us after this life.
Perhaps the most important word that speaks of God’s essence or definition is the word or idea of Love. Poets have forever tried to articulate Love, and the best of them admit that all they can do is point to the presence and hope of Love without going too deeply into trying to define it. Love is undoubtedly real and we know that we long for it, but it is just out of reach. It can’t be controlled or captured. The best poets and the most alive of human beings always move toward Mystery without needing to obtain or capture it fully. Love is perhaps the most vague and certain paradox available to us. What better word to describe God. God is love. God is ours to experience but never to obtain. God is the deepest yearning of our heart and the greatest expression of Love because God is love, not just a form of love, but love itself.
So many words, like Love, can guide us to the heart of God without letting us capture God. I always like to capitalize these words as my way of indicating the ultimate, mysterious, grand, and essential nature of these ideas which radiate from the heart of God. Beauty, Life, Love, Essence, Being, Creator, Source, Mystery, Spirit. All of these words, including the word “God”, fall short of the real mystery, but they call our attention to that which is beyond the words and will always draw us beyond our limited self and into the Bigger. God is Life that gives life to all things, and God is the heartbeat of the soul.
Here in our candle words, we say that God is Creator. We awaken again to the fact that we are not the author of our own life. As much as we may try to imagine it, we cannot create life. Perhaps the closest imaginative expression of such a quest is the Frankenstein story in which our attempt to create life only results in a freakish representation of life which cannot ultimately sustain itself. Only Life can spawn life. The fact that anything is alive at all is beyond comprehension. From where did life come? What is consciousness, energy, or matter itself and how did it all arrive? These are humbling questions indeed because they call us to a humble admission that we are not in control, nor are we the ultimate point of anything. We are a manifestation of life authored by Life itself. We are blessed to carry life for a short time on Earth and then return that life back to the Source. The Creator is ever-present and without that presence we would cease to exist. What could be a more humbling admission than that.
So, we begin by acknowledging God. We do not summon God as if Life weren’t here already, but instead we call ourselves to attention. We awaken again to the presence of Life and Love. And we fall again and again into the embrace of God. Indeed, it would be impossible for it to be otherwise.
Kirk Webb
Director of the Celtic Center