Let us find ourselves where we are

Geese and history In order to understand the way of the faithful we must be okay with understanding two things: Geese and History.
I live in Eugene Oregon and go to the University there. A bike ride away from campus is the Willamette River, and in the springtime I love to ride my bike along the paths and sit by the river. Of course it is far too cold to swim in, but I enjoy observing. On a particular day I rode my bike alone and parked the bike along the path to sit and watch the water and listen to the sounds of its movements. Let us be people that love

As I watched the river God began to reveal his majesty to me through the silence. I closed my eyes watching the colors change against the back of my eyelids, there, it occurred to me: the river was moving. I assure you that I was aware, before this time, that the river was moving, but why it was moving had never reached me. Amidst its humility and stillness it was moving. I then, opened my eyes and looked above me at the clouds blocking the warmness of the sun. They too were moving, and I realized everything around me amidst its stillness and humility was moving, the earth rotates and evolves, moves and changes. So too, in the stillness of our being God moves amidst us as men. Here is where the Kingdom of heaven exists. This is the kingdom of heaven. History is the kingdom of Heaven, not as a recollection of the past, but history as an Is, Was, and Will be. History is the understanding of our true existence. We are the Kingdom of Heaven; within it we dwell, with it we dwell, and with the king of Heaven we live. Thus, God dwells amongst us and in us, and in this busyness of it all we can find it. We can find him. In our quiet and solitude, as well as in our busyness amongst men we can breathe him. Where nothing new needs to be revealed because everything already has been before our own creation.
As I sat there longer I watched the geese float down the river with it, becoming part of God’s creation. I watched them float in such a beautiful rhythm, like the sky and the river, they too were moving. They knew everything God wanted them too, but it wasn’t a knowledge based upon what they had learned, but based upon the one fact that they knew they existed with God. What a beautiful thing to live as Geese. The Kingdom is the utmost righteous place, a garden so unfathomable that we as people can finally exist in it and grow in it as flowers. We can be made alive, but it is crucial to understand that we are never to believe that existence can only begin after we die, that our full assurance of being made alive happens after death. For the Kingdom does not just exist there. This is a foolish trick of the Devil, the fiercest of deceptions. God waits now for us to arrive in and with his Kingdom, where the geese are. To be of History: A lot of people think that History is something of our past, as if it’s a road we’ve already traveled, and so we don’t need to recall it. But if we do recall it, it is only for the benefit of understanding our mistakes and then fixing them: This is not history, at least not as intended of God. History is the mark of change, it is the revolution from one idea to another. History is the cause and the effect, the action, reaction and everything in between. Like a pendulum swinging, just as we are allowed to inhale and then exhale, God reveals himself amidst our histories. He lives amongst the changes and the stillness, and the revolutions of the earth. It is a complete understanding of balance, a unity between old and new, broken and fixed, revealed and hidden. We can come to an understanding of our purpose through it, as well as the purpose of the church. History is the description of our existence as people.

In 428 C.E there was a patriarch of Constantinople named Nestorius who sought to prove that Jesus had two distinct persons within him. There was a divine person as well as a human person, but they were completely separate from each other. Nestorius had questioned the suffering of God, which led him to claim that only the human person within Jesus had suffered and the divine person within Jesus had performed the miracles and resurrection. The controversy of split persons within Jesus erupted throughout the Byzantine Empire. In 431 there was an Ecumenical council held, the 3rd of 7. Here, Nestorius was repudiated by Cyril of Alexandria who argued that Jesus had to be both divine and human, unified together in order for God to save man. Nestorius was condemned and Cyril’s theology was held as orthodox. I use this example in Christian History to paint a vivid picture of action and reaction. Nestorius proposed a claim concerning the Christology of Jesus that was offensive to many followers of Christianity. Due to his actions there were many reactions. I also use this example because it is essential that we understand history not as divided like Nestorius thought Jesus to be, but unified. History can be seen as two persons in one body completely unified. A reaction must become unified with its action and not separated. Herein lies the restoration of man to God. History is the unity of opposites seen as one, where God is seen existing amidst its movements, changes, and stillness. History is the essential unity of reaction and action, thought and expression, Catholic and Protestant.

To be as Geese:

As I sat there on the side of the bike path watching the river, geese from the sky dove in towards me. One by one, but all together they merged into the river becoming a part of it. I watched them float completely content. The geese weren’t looking forward to tomorrow or to what they were going to be doing, they were living as they should, being a part of existence now. So often our lives are measured by time, and this variable of time presses in on us forcing us only to think about what hasn’t existed yet. How foolish we are, because we exist so perfectly here, but seem to always look somewhere far off in the distance. In order to understand the way of faith and the way of the church we must be okay with understanding our existence as it is made alive because of Christ. If we take off our shoes and sit a bit we can start to realize that everything around us is made alive completely because of their relation to God. In order to have relation there must be a balance. What better a balance then the restoration of perfect to imperfect, God to man because of love and grace. Just as geese play their role in God’s creation so too must we find our own, and play it well.