“...he liked his transcendence out in plain sight where he could keep an eye on it -- say, in a nice stained-glass window -- not woven through the fabric of life like gold threads through a brocade.” ― Neal Stephenson, The Diamond Age: Or, a Young Lady's Illustrated Primer
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The cleansing of the temple comes up for the second time this week (we read John's account of this on Sunday). I think it is difficult for us to understand the centrality of the temple in Israel's faith life. We, who worship in whatever corner, wherever 2 or 3 are gathered, have trouble understanding what it must have been to have one holy location to which we attached the presence of God. Sure, Christians travel to the Holy Land or to Egypt, and some place their hands in holes cut in the floor where Jesus was believed to be born and in Golgotha. When visiting these sites, I remember feeling a sense of loss... walking on the Via Dolorosa felt like walking on any other street. Being in the Church of the Nativity seemed like being in any of the old churches I have visited. The spaces were not transcendent for me. God did not seem to draw any more near to me in these places than anyplace else.
I wonder if part of the problem is that we are programmed to chase experiences, to chase feelings, to chase satisfaction; all of these are to chase the wind. The problem with having experienced the transcendent is we cannot help but hunger for that experience once it has passed. The problem with believing the transcendence is an experience and not a way of life prevents us from seeing God drawing near each time we behold the body and blood of Christ. I wonder if all of our chasing prevents us from seeing the truth that, day after day, God continues coming to us, masked and hidden in creation, but nonetheless present in the growing grass, the laughter of a child, the rain, the sun, the wind, in bread and in wine, and in the meeting of two strangers that find themselves knit together by something far greater than themselves. Our feelings and our experiences are fleeting. We could spend a lifetime chasing them and always feel as though we have been shortchanged. It is when we grasp by faith the mysteries of God, present in all creation, that we see the glimmers along the path and realize that they are enough to draw us peregrini forward on the journey.
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