Union With God

Today I’m going to leave writing and and stuff alone and return to reflections about God, the Cosmos, and me. There are thoughts that niggle at the back of my brain that sometimes just need to be turned loose on the World.

Over the years that I have pursued God, or maybe God was pursuing me, through various forms of contemplative prayer, the idea of Union with God has peered through the mist from time to time.
I’m no historian, but I have read and heard stories of certain practitioners of various religious traditions seeking to become ‘one’ with, or joined together with deity.
In the Christian tradition that concept became famous during the Middle Ages through various mystics who then wrote about their experiences with “Mystical Marriage.” Or, they described their contemplative journey as a pilgrimage up mountain or into some kind of many layered mansion. These journeys culminated in some kind of mystical, ecstatic experience that left that person somehow changed.
It seems that this concept of Union with God is still the prevalent one today.

I don’t see it that way.

That way of experiencing God’s presence in one’s life seems too, well, individualistic. The journey is a solitary one. The trials along the way are ‘me’ against the powers of darkness that would stand in my way. Obstacles that I would need to prove myself worthy against in order to prevail.
Eventually, if I had remained steadfast and faithful, I found the prize and claimed it as my own.
That sounds all cool and everything. Especially, in our Western culture that elevates the individual to some kind of cultural sainthood.
But, I’m sorry. I just don’t see that model of Spirituality anywhere in the Scriptures.
Yeah, I get it that God is concerned about us each individually. And, God delights when we each desire to be with God. We, each of us, is precious to God.
I don’t think that’s the end of the story, though.
The whole idea of “Me and Jesus against the World” just doesn’t ring true.

So, how does Union with God fit into any other schema?
It seems by its very name to be something that only affects a particular individual.

Over the past few years I have had the idea of Humans as Ikons of God. That’s pretty much what the stories in Genesis calls us when the writers mentioned ‘in Our Image.’ Humanity is, in these stories, created to fill the role of Steward in God’s Good Creation.
A steward is a representative of someone else. The steward has authority to act in the Name of that someone else. The steward, in effect, partners with that someone else in order to achieve the benefit of, not just that someone else, but of All that is under the authority of that someone else.
For us, that entails the entirety of the Cosmos.

Union with God, to me anyway, seems to be more about partnering with God in order to achieve God’s Good Will in the Cosmos than with any kind of individual ecstatic experiences.
Union with God seems to be contingent, not just on my efforts against unseen enemies, but on my willingness to hear Jesus’ knock on the door of my Heart. Then, opening it so that He may come in and “abide” with and in me. Not for my benefit alone. Although, there is that. But, for the benefit of All.
Paul wrote to the Church at Rome about how the creation groans waiting for the daughters and sons of God to show up.

The further that I walk on this path of my life and seek God’s Presence, the more I am convinced that this life is NOT simply some kind of preparation for ME in order to be ready for some after life. That is not, CANNOT, be the purpose of God for the Cosmos.
God’s purpose is redemption of ALL. Life for ALL.

HERE!

NOW!

IN THIS LIFE!

Union with God means to partner with God, Work with God…

Love with God.

Are we ready for that?
Maybe.
But, together, United with one another in Union with God I believe that we can be.