"The Lord himself... will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them... (1 Thessalonians 4:17-17)
"... the trump will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed..."
"I will go on the visions and revelations of the Lord. I know a man in Christ, who fourteen years ago -- In the body? I do not know. Out of the body? I do not know. God knows (that I am not lying). -- such an one snatched away as far as the Third Heaven. And I know such an one -- In the body or without any body? I do not know. God knows (that I am not lying). -- snatched away into Paradise." (2 Corinthians 12:2-4)
A great spiritual gift has been given to me, a special revelation. And in my weakness, I feel called to testify to what I have learned through offering a fresh interpretation of St. Paul's revelation of "a man in Christ... snatched away into Paradise." I know this will sound like an astonishing claim, but for the sake of clarity, I will say it as directly and simply as I am able: I think I know the type of revelatory experience Paul was speaking of because I think I have been given one like it.
I offer my testimony as a kind of "wisdom, secret and hidden" (1 Cor. 2:6) as it relates to of St. Paul's teaching on "death" and "resurrection." Let us begin with "death." In Paul's words, the body that dies, the "perishable" body is characterized by "dishonor," and "weakness." (1 Cor. 15:42) The body that dies is "the image of the man of dust" (15:49). As "flesh and blood," the body that dies "cannot inherit the Kingdom of God." Paul writes, "...in this tent we groan... we groan under our burden, because we do not wish to be unclothed" (2 Cor 5:2,4). As a thirty-three year old student of the New Testament, I thought I had some sense of the meaning of mortality as St. Paul understood it, but in the moment before the experience of being "snatched away," my mortal condition was "unclothed" as never before, and what I felt was not a feeling I would have wished for, that is an understatement -- it was sheer horror being at the point of unveiled awareness of the "death" that stings (1 Cor. 15:55), "in the body" undoubtedly and painfully "away from the Lord" (2 Cor. 5:6). I felt like groaning as never before, but I was unable to breathe -- my pneuma, my wind, breath, spirit, was knocked out of me.
As I lay in bed, flat on my back in the night, breathless and in horror, the change came. It came so suddenly that in the first moment it gave me a feeling of sheer, distilled terror -- it felt like my body was literally being levitated up from the bed by some terrible force. The word Paul uses for being "snatched away" is harpazo. The Septuagint, (the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures that Paul used), employed the word harpazo to refer to what thieves do -- they "snatch" things away, against the will of their owners. That connotation of unwilling terrifying abduction by a thief at the moment of being "snatched away" (1 Thes. 4:17) comes through in a saying that Paul repeats: "...the day of the Lord will come like a thief in the night." (1 Thes. 5:2). Similarly, he compares the change to a "destruction" that comes like sudden labor pains, and from which "there will be no escape" (1 Thes. 5:3). My immediate reflexive body reaction was to struggle with every bit of strength in me to flail my arms and to sit up in order to escape. The effort was useless.
In the next fraction of a second, recognizing my utter weakness in the face of this overwhelming power, I surrendered. In the moment of surrender, hellish terror turned to heavenly bliss. In his account of his revelation of being "snatched away," Paul points to this sense of being taken bodily -- "In the body? I do not know." The unmistakable feeling within was of being taken "in the body." When it comes to legends of levitation, and myths of bodily ascension, I was and still am a modernist, I do not take the stories literally, but in that moment, the inner bodily felt sense was so convincing, it made even me wonder.
My eyes were blinded by a bright light. My ears were deafened by a rushing sound like wind. My skin was made insensible to the sheets that would have somewhat impeded a literal ascent, made insensible by what seemed like a vibrating explosion of powerful light like fire -- "fire" was my first thought -- like blazing bonfire in force and brightness, but without the searing heat. The "fire" came from within but seemed to extend beyond my skin.
Like Paul who asked, "In the body?" I felt like I was being snatched away "in the body" and I wondered what was actually happening. Also with Paul, who said "I do not know," I did not know what was happening. I was not in a position to assess with my outer senses what was actually happening from an objective point of view. While I was in that phase, I was reminded of the biblical story of the bodily translation of Elijah into heaven. As the story goes, Elijah was taken in a in a chariot of fire and horses of fire and he ascended "in a whirlwind" into heaven (2 Kings 2:11). Likewise, my experience gave the sense of "fire," the sound of "wind," the feeling of ascending, and the sense of it being heavenly and it gave an account of a bodily disappearance.
Whatever was happening, I was convinced that I was departing life as I had known it. I wanted to say some parting words to my wife. Since I still felt like I was "in the body" I tried to cry out with my physical voice. No sound came out, but in terms of evidence of still being "in the body" I was successful in one small aspect: I felt my physical jaw go slack.
However, in the instant of my jaw going slack, there was a distinct inner sensation of floating up and away from the physicality of my body. There was a feeling of weightlessness. My inner senses were telling me quite clearly that I was "out of the body." But Like Paul who asked, "Out of the body?" and then said, "I do not know," I too had an I-do-not-know puzzlement. The inner sensation was unmistakably of being "out of the body," but my critical mind was not decided about what was actually happening.
Perhaps one reason why Paul does not elaborate the feelings is that the sensation was notably, and perhaps for him, embarrassingly like the pleasure of sexual union and orgasm. The fact that there was no sensation of skin was in no way in impediment to this pleasure, indeed, the absence of skin felt like a liberation, enabling a surpassing experience of the essence of such pleasure without any of the awkwardness of physicality. Surely this is one aspect of what it means to call the ascent heavenly. There was a feeling of reward or compensation so dramatically more wonderful than ever before, just a moment in time seemed like a compensation for a lifetime of waiting. There was no need to have any thought of the future for this was "it." It was, in the language of a benediction in Ephesians, "infinitely more than all we can ask or imagine."
When Paul discusses the contrast between earthly bodies and heavenly bodies in relation to the body of death and the resurrection body, he distinguishes three types of heavenly bodies: "There is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars..."
That sequence fits with the "glory" of the ascent. The first stage, the "In the body?" stage, was the brightest, most fiery, most physically blinding "glory," like an inner "sun." The second stage, The "Out of body?" stage, was a softer brightness, and less fiery glory, like an inner moon.
And then there was a third phase that had no perceptible brightness or light, but also no sense of absence that the word darkness sometimes suggests. It was a heavenly darkness of sheer bliss. The third phase, the phase of darkness, was also different from the first two in that there was no more pleasure harkening back to the pleasure of bodily orgasm. But as with the absence of light being in no way a deprivation, the passing of orgasmic pleasure was likewise in now way a loss. Every moment was its own reward, and there was no loss, nothing to hope for.
Paul's language suggests that the "Third Heaven" was the upper limit of the ascent: "I know a man snatched AS FAR AS the Third Heaven." So it was with me, there were three distinct heavenly stages, the brightness of sun, and the feeling of being snatched bodily, the brightness of moon, and the feeling of being snatched out of the body, and then the third phase of heavenly darkness and release from pleasure. In that phase there was still a sense of ascending upward, a sense of motion, but that third phase is "as far as" the sense of motion persisted. After that third heavenly phase, there was consumate stillness that I take to be what Paul calls "Paradise" the resting place, the "sleep" of the blessed dead.
Experientially, the transition from the third heavenly phase ascent to the phase of ultimate stillness was going from alert consciousness, and lucid thought, to something like deep sleep. But it was different from deep sleep not only in how it was entered (it was the climax of a three step heavenly ascent) but also it was different from deep sleep in how it felt "awakening" -- there was no groggy phase.
The first perception of awakening completes Paul's sequence of there analogous heavenly bodies, indeed, it was the most remarkably apt analogous sensation -- the first perception was "in the twinkling of an eye" (Cor. 15:52) seeing a point of light in a field of darkness up above. The point of light splayed out in to several streams of light on the black background. The light was like a star, and like shooting stars. The analogy came to mind early in my interpretive process, long before I linked it to Paul's discussion of heavenly bodies.
The next sensation after "seeing the star" was of being "in the body" -- the obviously same physical body I had before being snatched away, and it was in the same place as before, in my case, I was in bed, positioned on my back. The sheets were just as before, confirming the modernist assumption that there had been no literal bodily levitation. But the body awareness that accompanied this return was in stark contrast to the awareness of death that preceded being snatched away. This body awareness was indeed glorious -- there was an inwardly perceptible luminosity, and a sparkliness, as if the field of light in and around the body were made of thousands of starry sparks. There was a sense of floating, but without any feeling of defying gravity. It was just that the skin and flesh did not seem weighted down. Instead of a feeling deprived of pneuma (breath/spirit), breathing was effortless and with no sense of lacking anything. While on one had, it was the same body, on the other hand, given that the last sensation was of entering paradisiacal deep sleep by way of a three tiered ascent, there was a sense of being beamed down from the star above -- indeed, it was like having become a star-like heavenly body on earth. The mind felt empowered for discenment, but was, in that first awakening, utterly free of content. There was a remarkable absence of any sense of desire.
Paul writes; "...we wish not to be unclothed but to be further clothed, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. He who has prepared us for this very thing is God, who has given us the Spirit as a guarantee." Coming out of Paradise sleep into a kind of personal paradise of earth fits with the notion of being "further clothed." It was the same body but with none of that horrible sense of being stripped naked before one's own mortal limitations. There was a feeling of being given a whole new life, a life enveloped in spirit, indeed given a "pneumatic body" -- powerful, honorable and being starlike, imperishable. But it was not a body stripped of "flesh and blood." Here the mixed language fits: "...this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality.
On the other hand, what if Paul and I had not come back from our ascents to our previous mortal bodies? Then we would have been with the dead, and in Paradise sleep. The logic of Paul using second person, and boasting about "a man in Christ" as distinct from himself, treats the man in Christ as a dead man who retired after death blessed rest in Paradise. That is why the third person language stops in Paradise without reference to the "perishable body" putting on "imperishability." Afterward Paul does speak of his own body as "power made perfect in weakness." But he emphasis is on the weakness side because the power side is a spiritual discernment made clear in "signs and wonders" and in the perception of those who no longer judge "according to the flesh."
Monday, February 14, 2011
Tuesday, February 8, 2011
"snatched away"
I think I know experientially what St. Paul means when he talks about being "snatched away" into "Paradise."
I have been "snatched away" only once. I had just come out of dream sleep, and was flat on my back in bed, mind alert. I tried to take a breath but was unable to move. My body was still in the paralysis of sleep. That sort of thing had happened before, and I had learned to wait, trusting that my breath would soon resume. But that night as I lay waiting something happened that had never happened before, and that has not happened since.
Paul uses the word "harpazo," a word use in the greek translation of the hebrew scriptures to describe what thieves do: they steal things by force, against the will of their owners.
It seemed my body was being, suddenly and by force, snatched away, levitated up from the bed. It was the most terrifying thing ever, sheer distilled hellish terror. Reflexively, I tried to flail my arms and sit up, but nothing happened. Seeing that I was powerless to fight back, I surrendered, and with that surrender, the hellish terror turned instantly into a thrilling heavenly bliss. I still felt like I was in my body and that my body was seemingly being carried away. It seemed very final, like the end of my days on earth, and I wanted to say some parting words to my wife who was in bed beside me, and increasingly, it seemed below me. I tried to call out to her, but no sound came from my mouth. All that happened was that my jaw went slack and when I felt my jaw go slack, it seemed that a separation took place between me and my body.
Paul described the process of being snatched away to the heaven in these words: "In the body? I do not know. Out of the body? I do not know." That sequence describes what happened to me. There was a feeling of being snatched away in the body followed by a sense of being separated out of the body, and in both phases there was an "I do not know" thought. It was all so sudden and unexpected and strange that I was unable to asses what was really going on. I could not feel anything outwardly against my skin. I noticed that there was no sense of blankets holding back the ascent of my body. I might have attempted to open my eyes early on when I was trying to sit up and flail. I am not sure. But in any case, I saw nothing with my outward physical sense of vision. So there was a clear "I do not know" thought, but after I surrendered, this not knowing was in no way a worry. I had never been so worry free before.
The in the body, out of the body ascent took only a few seconds maybe, and then I went from being completely alert and observant and blissful to blanking out. Looking back, it was sort of like a deep sleep, but with no groggy phases going into it or coming out. When I came out of that heavenly deep sleep I was back in bed breathing naturally completely awake. In that first moment of return to the body there was a perplexity about where I had come from. I remembered the sense of going up into the air, but there was no sense of having come down. I just woke up in my body. Had I been somehow in my body the whole time? It was obviously the same body, in the same bed as before the heavenly ascent. Or had I been somehow up in the air without any body?
This perplexity about where I had been during the heavenly deep sleep mirrors what Paul says about being snatched away into Paradise. I was obviously "in the body," the same body as before. But there where had I been a moment before: "In the body, or without any body? I do not know." If you have ever awakened in an unexpected place and taken a moment to reorient, that is what it is like. You ask: Where am I? In that first moment awakening out of heavenly deep sleep, I was not prepared to be in my body or in bed or on earth.
There is much that Paul leaves unsaid. Obviously, the "I do not know" phases were preceeded by and followed by being "in the body" and knowing it.
I have been "snatched away" only once. I had just come out of dream sleep, and was flat on my back in bed, mind alert. I tried to take a breath but was unable to move. My body was still in the paralysis of sleep. That sort of thing had happened before, and I had learned to wait, trusting that my breath would soon resume. But that night as I lay waiting something happened that had never happened before, and that has not happened since.
Paul uses the word "harpazo," a word use in the greek translation of the hebrew scriptures to describe what thieves do: they steal things by force, against the will of their owners.
It seemed my body was being, suddenly and by force, snatched away, levitated up from the bed. It was the most terrifying thing ever, sheer distilled hellish terror. Reflexively, I tried to flail my arms and sit up, but nothing happened. Seeing that I was powerless to fight back, I surrendered, and with that surrender, the hellish terror turned instantly into a thrilling heavenly bliss. I still felt like I was in my body and that my body was seemingly being carried away. It seemed very final, like the end of my days on earth, and I wanted to say some parting words to my wife who was in bed beside me, and increasingly, it seemed below me. I tried to call out to her, but no sound came from my mouth. All that happened was that my jaw went slack and when I felt my jaw go slack, it seemed that a separation took place between me and my body.
Paul described the process of being snatched away to the heaven in these words: "In the body? I do not know. Out of the body? I do not know." That sequence describes what happened to me. There was a feeling of being snatched away in the body followed by a sense of being separated out of the body, and in both phases there was an "I do not know" thought. It was all so sudden and unexpected and strange that I was unable to asses what was really going on. I could not feel anything outwardly against my skin. I noticed that there was no sense of blankets holding back the ascent of my body. I might have attempted to open my eyes early on when I was trying to sit up and flail. I am not sure. But in any case, I saw nothing with my outward physical sense of vision. So there was a clear "I do not know" thought, but after I surrendered, this not knowing was in no way a worry. I had never been so worry free before.
The in the body, out of the body ascent took only a few seconds maybe, and then I went from being completely alert and observant and blissful to blanking out. Looking back, it was sort of like a deep sleep, but with no groggy phases going into it or coming out. When I came out of that heavenly deep sleep I was back in bed breathing naturally completely awake. In that first moment of return to the body there was a perplexity about where I had come from. I remembered the sense of going up into the air, but there was no sense of having come down. I just woke up in my body. Had I been somehow in my body the whole time? It was obviously the same body, in the same bed as before the heavenly ascent. Or had I been somehow up in the air without any body?
This perplexity about where I had been during the heavenly deep sleep mirrors what Paul says about being snatched away into Paradise. I was obviously "in the body," the same body as before. But there where had I been a moment before: "In the body, or without any body? I do not know." If you have ever awakened in an unexpected place and taken a moment to reorient, that is what it is like. You ask: Where am I? In that first moment awakening out of heavenly deep sleep, I was not prepared to be in my body or in bed or on earth.
There is much that Paul leaves unsaid. Obviously, the "I do not know" phases were preceeded by and followed by being "in the body" and knowing it.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
greatest gift
"On behalf of such a one I will boast, but on my own behalf I will not boast, except of my weakness." St. Paul (2 Corinthians 12:5)
Paul's revelation of being snatched away to Paradise was not Paul's to boast about. It was a sheer gift. It revealed the blessed saints to him, the blessed dead in Christ who went to Paradise.
Likewise, I see my revelation of the mystery as a gift I have received. It is not this little me, this son of Elmer and Martha, this husband of Cindy, this brother of Jay and Candace, this man who has received 21 years of formal education and two masters degrees. This gift has nothing to do with that "self," that Gregory. All of that is dung, compared to this gift. It is a rare gift, and extraordinary grace. I am weak, I am dishonored, I am powerless. I am flesh and blood. I am no different than anyone else in that all can receive the fruits of the gift, even without the direct experience if only they practice the faith in a life of prayer. It is the life of prayer that I recommend.
On the other hand, there is a mystery that has been passed down from generation to generation. And I receive that too. I have received in the deaths of my grandparents. I have received it in the humility of my parents, and siblings and wife. I have received it through my educational connections in the teachings of Nouwen. My hope is that my death, my weakness, my powerlessness, my shame, can become a gift too for those who live on.
Paul's revelation of being snatched away to Paradise was not Paul's to boast about. It was a sheer gift. It revealed the blessed saints to him, the blessed dead in Christ who went to Paradise.
Likewise, I see my revelation of the mystery as a gift I have received. It is not this little me, this son of Elmer and Martha, this husband of Cindy, this brother of Jay and Candace, this man who has received 21 years of formal education and two masters degrees. This gift has nothing to do with that "self," that Gregory. All of that is dung, compared to this gift. It is a rare gift, and extraordinary grace. I am weak, I am dishonored, I am powerless. I am flesh and blood. I am no different than anyone else in that all can receive the fruits of the gift, even without the direct experience if only they practice the faith in a life of prayer. It is the life of prayer that I recommend.
On the other hand, there is a mystery that has been passed down from generation to generation. And I receive that too. I have received in the deaths of my grandparents. I have received it in the humility of my parents, and siblings and wife. I have received it through my educational connections in the teachings of Nouwen. My hope is that my death, my weakness, my powerlessness, my shame, can become a gift too for those who live on.
Nouwen on the hidden resurrection
# Ryan Hart:
December 2nd, 2009 @ 10:48 pm
“…as we grow more deeply into the spiritual life - the life in communion with our risen Lord - we gradually get in touch with our desire to move through the gate of death…”
Henri Nouwen was, when he wrote this, already in deep communion with the risen Lord, a communion of spirit and also of spiritual embodiment.
# Ryan Hart:
November 29th, 2009 @ 12:08 pm
A year before writing Bread for the Journey, Nouwen expressed similar thoughts about death. On one hand death is final. On the other hand, “…nothing that belongs to God will ever go to waste…” Then he adds something he does not say exactly the same way now. He adds, “not even our mortal bodies [will not go to waste].” Our Greatest Gift p. 109
In Our Greatest Gift, Nouwen says, “…I want to make Paul’s words my own” but then he expresses a hesitancy: “my hesitation in writing about this is connected with my conviction that the resurrection of Jesus is a hidden event.”
I think that whenever Nouwen talks about resurrection, that of Jesus or of ours, he is talking about something hidden. So his problem, in other words is how to talk about something real and bodily but also hidden.
In Bread, what is new is his attempt to get at resolving that problem with Paul’s metaphor of the seed. The mortal body is a seed that must die for the spiritual body to rise. That takes us into the future and the unknown. But it is also here and now in that it is what happens in the baptismal mystery and the spiritual body becomes present in a hidden way, and it is our mission to express that mystery with our visible, mortal bodies.
# Ryan Hart:
November 28th, 2009 @ 10:46 am
It was on this day in 1995 — 14 years ago — that Nouwen sat down at his desk to continue writing in his daybook and he did not know where to go. It was the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and Nouwen was writing in a little apartment attached to the home of his friend’s Jonas and Margaret Watertown. He wrote about that day in Sabbatical Joureny: “Last night I got stuck in my writing…. not knowing how to articulate that, on one hand, our bodies will return to “dust” while, on the other hand, nothing we have lived in the body will go to waste.” What helped him get un-stuck was reading 1 Cor 15:35:38 — the text we see in todays thought. Nouwen wrote: This answer really woke me up! It was as if I heard if for the very first time. Our life is a seed that has to die to be dressed with immortality! Things suddenly came together and started to make sense, spiritual sense.”
Much of what we read in Bread for the Journey drawn from teachings he has offered in other books. It seems that his reflections on the relationship between the body that goes to dust and the body that gets dressed with immortality are particularly fresh teachings for Nouwen.
I see Nouwen as having been dressed in immortality even when he was alive. His flesh and blood body was limited in time and space. He could only visit one friend at a time. But his immortal body was free from the constraints of time and space — it is that body that visited my home, and it is after sensing that presence that I witnessed the mystery first hand: there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. First comes the natural, then the spiritual. And here is the hidden mystery Paul speaks about: “we will not all die (before the second coming), but we will all be changed.”
Nouwen knew that the second coming and the resurrection are here and now for those with eyes to see, and he lived his life as he did in the hope of helping many people to see.
# Ralph Bormet:
November 25th, 2009 @ 9:24 pm
To All Readers:
Have a Blessed and Happy Thanksgiving!
# Ryan Hart:
November 24th, 2009 @ 10:19 pm
What does Nowen mean when he says “…nothing we are living now in our body will go to waste.”
What about our sins? I sometimes think of my bad deeds as “a waste.” My slothful times as “a waste.” My missed moments as “a waste.” But Nowen seems to question that.
One angle is to say in the present, here and now, that all of my life experiences, past, and future, and present, even those less than exemplary, can and will somehow be redeemed, and made part of God’s story of blessing.
# Ryan Hart:
November 12th, 2009 @ 9:05 am
Belonging to the communion of saints means being connected with all people transformed by the Spirit of Jesus. This connection is deep and intimate. Those who have lived as brothers and sisters of Jesus continue to live within us, even though they have died, just as Jesus continues to live within us, even though he has died…. They are the source of our constant transformation. Yes, we carry them in our bodies and thus keep them alive… - Henri J.M. Nouwen, Bread for the Journey, November 12th.
For me, I believe, and have evidence that Henri Nouwen was a source, an author, an authority behind an intimate transformative experience. It was very sudden, but lasting in its impact. I think I do carry Henri in my body now, but not as some weird imposition; rather, Henri, as a saint, has helped me to carry my own body in deeper contact with our shared source in God. Inasmuch as I walk in the resurrection of Jesus and the saints, I am remembering saint Henri well. Of course there are times when I feel depressed, I have that tendency, and the written words of Henri Nouwen helps me to move through those times knowing that it is part of being human.
# Ralph Bormet:
November 11th, 2009 @ 6:57 am
Ryan: Why not share your hope with your sister? Not in a sanctimonious way, but in a faith-filled prayer way.
# Ryan Hart:
November 9th, 2009 @ 8:44 pm
“…saintliness is not just for those who lived long and hardworking lives. These children, and many who died young, are as much witnesses to Jesus as those who accomplished heroic deeds.” - Henri J.M. Nouwen, Bread for the Journey (November 9)
My sister in law was called upon by a neighbor when a child died in his sleep. She tried CPR, but the child was already dead. It horrified her, and she was easily brought to tears for weeks. Maybe it would help her to think of that child now as a saint, guiding her on the way. Maybe she already does.
December 2nd, 2009 @ 10:48 pm
“…as we grow more deeply into the spiritual life - the life in communion with our risen Lord - we gradually get in touch with our desire to move through the gate of death…”
Henri Nouwen was, when he wrote this, already in deep communion with the risen Lord, a communion of spirit and also of spiritual embodiment.
# Ryan Hart:
November 29th, 2009 @ 12:08 pm
A year before writing Bread for the Journey, Nouwen expressed similar thoughts about death. On one hand death is final. On the other hand, “…nothing that belongs to God will ever go to waste…” Then he adds something he does not say exactly the same way now. He adds, “not even our mortal bodies [will not go to waste].” Our Greatest Gift p. 109
In Our Greatest Gift, Nouwen says, “…I want to make Paul’s words my own” but then he expresses a hesitancy: “my hesitation in writing about this is connected with my conviction that the resurrection of Jesus is a hidden event.”
I think that whenever Nouwen talks about resurrection, that of Jesus or of ours, he is talking about something hidden. So his problem, in other words is how to talk about something real and bodily but also hidden.
In Bread, what is new is his attempt to get at resolving that problem with Paul’s metaphor of the seed. The mortal body is a seed that must die for the spiritual body to rise. That takes us into the future and the unknown. But it is also here and now in that it is what happens in the baptismal mystery and the spiritual body becomes present in a hidden way, and it is our mission to express that mystery with our visible, mortal bodies.
# Ryan Hart:
November 28th, 2009 @ 10:46 am
It was on this day in 1995 — 14 years ago — that Nouwen sat down at his desk to continue writing in his daybook and he did not know where to go. It was the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and Nouwen was writing in a little apartment attached to the home of his friend’s Jonas and Margaret Watertown. He wrote about that day in Sabbatical Joureny: “Last night I got stuck in my writing…. not knowing how to articulate that, on one hand, our bodies will return to “dust” while, on the other hand, nothing we have lived in the body will go to waste.” What helped him get un-stuck was reading 1 Cor 15:35:38 — the text we see in todays thought. Nouwen wrote: This answer really woke me up! It was as if I heard if for the very first time. Our life is a seed that has to die to be dressed with immortality! Things suddenly came together and started to make sense, spiritual sense.”
Much of what we read in Bread for the Journey drawn from teachings he has offered in other books. It seems that his reflections on the relationship between the body that goes to dust and the body that gets dressed with immortality are particularly fresh teachings for Nouwen.
I see Nouwen as having been dressed in immortality even when he was alive. His flesh and blood body was limited in time and space. He could only visit one friend at a time. But his immortal body was free from the constraints of time and space — it is that body that visited my home, and it is after sensing that presence that I witnessed the mystery first hand: there is a natural body, and there is a spiritual body. First comes the natural, then the spiritual. And here is the hidden mystery Paul speaks about: “we will not all die (before the second coming), but we will all be changed.”
Nouwen knew that the second coming and the resurrection are here and now for those with eyes to see, and he lived his life as he did in the hope of helping many people to see.
# Ralph Bormet:
November 25th, 2009 @ 9:24 pm
To All Readers:
Have a Blessed and Happy Thanksgiving!
# Ryan Hart:
November 24th, 2009 @ 10:19 pm
What does Nowen mean when he says “…nothing we are living now in our body will go to waste.”
What about our sins? I sometimes think of my bad deeds as “a waste.” My slothful times as “a waste.” My missed moments as “a waste.” But Nowen seems to question that.
One angle is to say in the present, here and now, that all of my life experiences, past, and future, and present, even those less than exemplary, can and will somehow be redeemed, and made part of God’s story of blessing.
# Ryan Hart:
November 12th, 2009 @ 9:05 am
Belonging to the communion of saints means being connected with all people transformed by the Spirit of Jesus. This connection is deep and intimate. Those who have lived as brothers and sisters of Jesus continue to live within us, even though they have died, just as Jesus continues to live within us, even though he has died…. They are the source of our constant transformation. Yes, we carry them in our bodies and thus keep them alive… - Henri J.M. Nouwen, Bread for the Journey, November 12th.
For me, I believe, and have evidence that Henri Nouwen was a source, an author, an authority behind an intimate transformative experience. It was very sudden, but lasting in its impact. I think I do carry Henri in my body now, but not as some weird imposition; rather, Henri, as a saint, has helped me to carry my own body in deeper contact with our shared source in God. Inasmuch as I walk in the resurrection of Jesus and the saints, I am remembering saint Henri well. Of course there are times when I feel depressed, I have that tendency, and the written words of Henri Nouwen helps me to move through those times knowing that it is part of being human.
# Ralph Bormet:
November 11th, 2009 @ 6:57 am
Ryan: Why not share your hope with your sister? Not in a sanctimonious way, but in a faith-filled prayer way.
# Ryan Hart:
November 9th, 2009 @ 8:44 pm
“…saintliness is not just for those who lived long and hardworking lives. These children, and many who died young, are as much witnesses to Jesus as those who accomplished heroic deeds.” - Henri J.M. Nouwen, Bread for the Journey (November 9)
My sister in law was called upon by a neighbor when a child died in his sleep. She tried CPR, but the child was already dead. It horrified her, and she was easily brought to tears for weeks. Maybe it would help her to think of that child now as a saint, guiding her on the way. Maybe she already does.
It sounds strange to say it, but I have become convinced that I had an experience like St. Paul's experience revelation of being snatched away to paradise. This is very rare.
Part of what convinced me is that Paul's three "ouk oida" moments mirror my own. Another key marker is the notion of harpazo -- the sudden, forcible, snatching. That definitely mirrors my experience. My experience was heavenly in the sense of being blissful and it seemed to be the afterlife. It also had three distinct stages mirroring a first second and third heaven. The snatching culminated in an intermediate stage like deep sleep, and when I awoke from that special kind of sleep on earth, my body was both the same and transformed.
Part of what convinced me is that Paul's three "ouk oida" moments mirror my own. Another key marker is the notion of harpazo -- the sudden, forcible, snatching. That definitely mirrors my experience. My experience was heavenly in the sense of being blissful and it seemed to be the afterlife. It also had three distinct stages mirroring a first second and third heaven. The snatching culminated in an intermediate stage like deep sleep, and when I awoke from that special kind of sleep on earth, my body was both the same and transformed.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
"ouk oida" -- "I do not know"
In Paul's rapture to paradise text, he three times repeats the phrase "ouk oida" -- I do not know. Meditation upon this thrice repeated phrase in light of my own harpazo ascent sixteen years ago has provided me insight into what I consider the experiential core of the narrative. Each "ouk oida" preserves a moment, a distinct authentic experiential moment.
"In the body? I do not know." This first "ouk oida" moment, reflects a first heavenly phase of harpazo ascent where there is a clear, overwhelming felt sense of being snatched, suddenly, forcibly, and irresistably away bodily into a blissful, unearthly realm. The "ouk oida" is the non-anxious observation that since the ordinary external senses are suspended, there is no way of knowing what is actually happening to the physical body.
"Out of the body? I do not know." This second "ouk oida" moment reflects a distinctly noticeable second phase of harpazo ascent where there is a distinct felt sense of being released from the ordinary body. There does however remain a sense of a body shape, and a feeling of bodily pleasure. The "ouk oida" in this phase is a non-anxious observation that with the external senses still suspended, there remains no way of knowing what is actually happening to the physical body.
"Out of the body or without any body? I do not know." This third "ouk oida" moment is very different than the first two. The first two moments happen in rapid succession as the first two distinct phases in a three phase heavenly ascent. By contrast, the situation of the third "ouk oida" is paradisiacal stillness.
The narrative is divided into two parallel parts, the first climaxing in "the third heaven," and the second climaxing in "Paradise." Studies of the cosmology of the time find a range of meanings in Paul's language. My understanding draws on the findings of these studies, but selects from the range of possible meanings according to what fits with the core experience markers, the three "ouk oida" moments.
I understand "the third heaven" as the portal to "Paradise." This understanding of reflected in Clement's paraphrase of the ascent "to the third heaven and from thence into Paradise." I understand "Paradise" mythically as the resting place of the blessed after the death of the "psychical body" and the portal to resurrection in the "spiritual body." The intermediate stage is experientially something like a deep sleep, but without any grogginess before and after. The experiential context of the of the third "ouk oida" moment is the moment of awakening out of this Paradise deep-sleep, awakening into Paradise embodiment. The immediate sense upon awakening includes a completely non-anxious perplexity about one's body: There is both a memory of entering the paradisiacal deep sleep with a "third heaven" felt sense of being "without any body," and there is also a sense of somehow having been "in the body" -- in the same physical body -- the whole time. It is particularly perplexing since the descent from "without any body" sense back to the "in the body" sense takes place with no sense of the process of descent -- the experience is of waking up out of heaven on earth. To put it differently, there was a conscious ascent to heaven, but no conscious descent; thus, upon awakening, there is a stark juxtaposition of two distinct prior conditions: embodiment and absence of any body -- thus the third "ouk oida" moment is a perplexity about which memory to regard as the source of the present moment. Was I "in the body" or "without any body?" Given that the immediate past is a pure mental blank, a gap, the response spontaneous, non-anxious response is "ouk oida."
"In the body? I do not know." This first "ouk oida" moment, reflects a first heavenly phase of harpazo ascent where there is a clear, overwhelming felt sense of being snatched, suddenly, forcibly, and irresistably away bodily into a blissful, unearthly realm. The "ouk oida" is the non-anxious observation that since the ordinary external senses are suspended, there is no way of knowing what is actually happening to the physical body.
"Out of the body? I do not know." This second "ouk oida" moment reflects a distinctly noticeable second phase of harpazo ascent where there is a distinct felt sense of being released from the ordinary body. There does however remain a sense of a body shape, and a feeling of bodily pleasure. The "ouk oida" in this phase is a non-anxious observation that with the external senses still suspended, there remains no way of knowing what is actually happening to the physical body.
"Out of the body or without any body? I do not know." This third "ouk oida" moment is very different than the first two. The first two moments happen in rapid succession as the first two distinct phases in a three phase heavenly ascent. By contrast, the situation of the third "ouk oida" is paradisiacal stillness.
The narrative is divided into two parallel parts, the first climaxing in "the third heaven," and the second climaxing in "Paradise." Studies of the cosmology of the time find a range of meanings in Paul's language. My understanding draws on the findings of these studies, but selects from the range of possible meanings according to what fits with the core experience markers, the three "ouk oida" moments.
I understand "the third heaven" as the portal to "Paradise." This understanding of reflected in Clement's paraphrase of the ascent "to the third heaven and from thence into Paradise." I understand "Paradise" mythically as the resting place of the blessed after the death of the "psychical body" and the portal to resurrection in the "spiritual body." The intermediate stage is experientially something like a deep sleep, but without any grogginess before and after. The experiential context of the of the third "ouk oida" moment is the moment of awakening out of this Paradise deep-sleep, awakening into Paradise embodiment. The immediate sense upon awakening includes a completely non-anxious perplexity about one's body: There is both a memory of entering the paradisiacal deep sleep with a "third heaven" felt sense of being "without any body," and there is also a sense of somehow having been "in the body" -- in the same physical body -- the whole time. It is particularly perplexing since the descent from "without any body" sense back to the "in the body" sense takes place with no sense of the process of descent -- the experience is of waking up out of heaven on earth. To put it differently, there was a conscious ascent to heaven, but no conscious descent; thus, upon awakening, there is a stark juxtaposition of two distinct prior conditions: embodiment and absence of any body -- thus the third "ouk oida" moment is a perplexity about which memory to regard as the source of the present moment. Was I "in the body" or "without any body?" Given that the immediate past is a pure mental blank, a gap, the response spontaneous, non-anxious response is "ouk oida."
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