Becoming Human

As I have grown in my understanding of what it means to know Christ, since my early days in saying “Yes” to following Jesus, something rather unexpected has taken place.

I have become more human, not less.

I intentionally use the word, unexpected, because from my earliest church experience it was taught, both explicitly and implicitly, that to mature in the faith I would feel…

… more and more a stranger in this foreign land

… more spiritual, which was more floaty and less fleshy

… more holy, which was taught as being more absent or distant.

But as I have grown, I feel more integrated rather than segregated. I feel more human, not less. More fleshy, less floaty.

Of course. Because matter, physicality, has always been the hiding place for Spirit, where we are invited to endlessly discover it fresh and new.

When we have eyes to see, to experience the ordinary as extraordinary, we no longer need to strive for or demand the extraordinary in order to believe.

To encounter the Divine is to become more fully present, not less, to become more aware of the physicality of, well, everything.

So I now call this awareness unexpected JOY, because in the moments in which I experience a heightened union with the Divine, I am more aware of my physicality, not less. I can see the Divine spark in others, which is a more complete seeing of their personhood.

The visible world is an active doorway to the invisible world, and the invisible world is much larger than the visible.

This is the mystery and power of Incarnation, to which we find this truth revealed in Jesus as the Christ. Jesus, the visible, revealing a hidden and utterly overwhelming depth and breadth which we know as the Christ.

Jesus reveals the eternal in the present, the vastness of the Divine in the smallness of the person.

Welcome to the art of becoming human. Welcome to the invitation of Christmas.