The sounds of the water crashing against the shore and the waves engaging each other are the constant rhythms beating in the background. The skies change from blue to grey and then back again depending on the weather and the wind.
I’ve spent the past two weeks enjoying Hawaii. I’ve sat on the lanai of the condo overlooking the ocean from the 6th floor and 200 feet away. I begin each day with a question, “What does the sea have to teach me?” Some days I get an answer. Other days, I just breath into being.
When I sit on the lanai, this distance between me to the sea calls invitations. “Go, get in,” in one voice. “No, I’d rather watch,” is the other. It’s easier this way. It’s easier to ponder the sea from the distance and objectify its presence.
This can also be true in the work of theology and the study of God. To study God is to sit just beyond the reach of the Holy Mystery and explore the meaning and rational of its truth. This distance shapes the debate of good or bad theology be it in light-hearted conversations with friends over a glass of scotch or debates in church classrooms. It is satisfying for a retired pastor to admire this God from afar and to wrestle with ancient texts and modern contexts. I often enjoy the study God from an observing balcony.
What is different when I get down from the distance height of the railed lanai and enter the water? First, I notice the time I take to get in. Slowly, carefully I enter. First, a toe. Then up to my knees. Walking slowly, I find the courage and with a quick breath, I finally dive in. The water changes quickly. For it is no longer just beautiful to behold but I experience a power of buoyancy and bewilderment and fear. These waters send me surging into its energy. It can swallow me whole as I gasp for air. Will I disappear?
As I enter the water, I experience a change. If I am to survive, the water demands my complete attention. It bids me come, work with it, companion its strength as I engage my own. I realized both fear and love are part of this close experience of the ocean.
Fear and love is also what I know when I experience God. I know God as Love, Divine Steadfast Power of Love. I enjoy musing about God most often from afar with a good book, engaging conversations, or prayer-filled rituals bidding God to come. But something dramatically shifts when I get into the Mystery and swim with it, engage it and surrender to the currents or even fight it to stand on my own. For me God is Love, Love revealed within a majestic embrace of creative waters of Holy compassion and forces of justice. This is fear-filled and awesome. All at the same time.
Love is the ocean in which I long to swim. To discuss Love is one thing. Love radically transforms when I swim and engage within it. When I jump into the waters of Love, I change, not only in my thinking, but in my being. Not only in my watching, but in my acting. Not only in my longing, but in my experiencing. Not only in my speaking, but in the words I affirm.
The question then is not “Who is God?”, but rather “What is your experience of Love? What is your experience when you climb down from afar and splash in the waters of Divine Love?