Universalist Physics.
17 April 2008 - 13 ניסן 5768 by Huw
Since moving to Buffalo, I’ve had the time - and the sleeping schedule - to rededicate myself to trying to pray on a regular basis.
I love the Western Offices - I’ve been using my Monastic Diurnal. The tradition of reciting large parts of the psalms every day is wonderfully edifying. But the traditional western office has no intercession: I love having my daily prayer list. The traditional morning prayers in the Russian form of the Eastern Rite (as used by laity) are very intercessory - just a little too wordy and non-poetic, in fact. So I fluctuate. I can pray every day, but I have trouble staying with any one traditional form for very long.
I spend too much time talking in the ER. I spend no time praying in the WR. Lately, I’ve been reading the traditional prayers on the website of the International Sufi Order. They are beautiful and simple. They are easy to read for a Christian - as well as for just about anyone else. They remind me of the daily prayerbook written by Caitlin Matthewes in that respect: the idea being the *words* are so neutral they can be used by just about anyone. The art is so well done that the daily prayers are beautiful and profoundly spiritual. But you have to supply the content yourself. But these, too, are not very intercessory, except in a couple of cases. This is also why I love the Jewish prayer tradition: which is split evenly, between praising God and interceding for others.
But “praying around the world”, as it might be described, leads me to a Universalist position. When I go looking on the net for Universalist writing, (other than the Church Fathers) I end up in murky, swampy places with no ground that is not quicksand.
My current “status” line on Facebook reads, Huw wonders if there is a way to be universalist, pan-traditional and incarnational at the same time.
Every time my readings drift towards the Universalist side of the spectrum, people start to undercut things that I think are terribly important. I like the Universalist Sufis, but they get very Gnostic - denying the importance of this world, of the body, of the physical. Among those Jewish writers that I most enjoy there is a seeming- or near- denial of the other world, of the spiritual realm. Both of these are different from the “incarnational” teachings of Christianity which say, rather straight forwardly, that the physical world, the physical body, the flesh (the Sarx) is so important that God became flesh to restore the union that had been broken. God can and does work through the physical world because the union that was broken has been restored. Other traditions also have incarnational concepts but it seems once you drift to “oh we’re all doing the same thing” the first thing that goes out the window is the physical reality of humanity and our world.
Don’t get me wrong: please don’t confuse my infatuation with incarnation as an Ode to Orthodoxy. When you say, “Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt.” “All things that are, are lights” (attributed to Scotus Erigina), you may not forget that light is physical. When one calls God the “Father of Lights” and couples that with “Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt”, one is being profoundly incarnational. One can be all newagey Spiritual -”Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt” and yet mean really that the Logos has become Sarx. The Spiritual and the Physical are united in one. The saved world is both particle (sarx) and wave (logos). “Omnia quia sunt, lumina sunt”
“Universalist” is usually taken to mean “everyone is saved” and that is usually projected into some hyper-spiritual eschatological future. But Christian salvation is an on-going process of working in co-operation with the Divine. Salvation is a journey to wholeness, one that takes place in this world and the next, one that involves my “individuality” in communion with God and you. Of course you’re being saved as well: I can not be saved without you. But salvation, in this context, affirms the entire physical world - the one we’re messing up daily - and all of life.
Is it possible to affirm - in a Universalist way - the connexion, the attachment of all paths to the process of the salvation of life-kind, while at the same time, not implying that life is other than incredibly physical and spiritual?
Being Anglican and thus, in the end, and a liturgical hunter/gatherer, a Palaeolithic Liturgist, as it were, I can imagine and build a daily prayer cycle that uses the Orthodox opening, the BCP Psalms and readings, prayers and intercessions modelled on the New Zealand BCP or the Jewish 18 Benedications and cap it all off with a Sufi benediction or the Celtic Devotional…
But I’d like to find others of like minds without having to explain the necessity of Cur Deus Homo.
I have been experimenting with different forms of prayer for years. I bounce between the Prayer Book Office of the Episcoapal Church and the Brieviary of the Roman Catholic Church. I love the eastern liturgies but they do not lend themselves to individual prayer.
I find it interesting you mention Scotus Erigina I just started reading him. He is big in the Celtic Spirituality world.
For the main part of my daily prayer, I pray the Mercy Chaplet of St. Faustina. It may be found here.
It is a Western Catholic prayer, but the scope of the intercession (”for the sake of His sorrowful Passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world” ) could not be any broader.
I also use the Fatima Prayer: “O my Jesus, forgive us our sins. Save us from the fires of Hell, and lead all souls to Heaven, especially those most in need of Thy Mercy.” Again, a plea on behalf of “all souls”. Again, the breadth of the intercession is maximal.
Your mileage may vary, but these mean a lot to me.
Lee
Lee - I rather like both of those prayers. I add the Fatima prayer to my Rosary - even when I was Orthodox. Those “most in need of” God’s mercy must certainly include me! The Divine Mercy vision never got to me because of the whole White Bread image. But the prayer is very nice.
Nice to see you around the blog again! Stick around after Pascha for some serious Liturgy Geek posts!