Between God and the soul, there is no in between

In my last post I spoke about the number of funerals I've conducted recently. I also noted that I don't know why some people find their faith strengthened and some lose their faith when they confront death. I still don't know why that is, but I want to explore it a bit further here.

I think religious truth is more of a way of viewing the world than it is a body of information. Ultimately Christianity is about something more than what we say we believe about the Trinity, or the Resurrection, or the nature of Sin. I think this extends to other religions, too, but the one I know best is Christianity. You could grasp what Christians teach on all of these issues but that doesn't nudge you one step closer to belief. (There are undergraduate religion departments all over the country you can check out if you don't believe me on this point!)

There is a kind of "knowing" that goes beyond our senses. I'm aware that this is innately easier for some than others; it may be simply how we are hardwired. Call it intuition or a sixth sense or a mystical eye. Sometimes people tell me that they want to believe but can't make the leap; I believe them. Sometimes the problem is theological - they need to let go of some poor theological training to become open to a new way of seeing. But that doesn't always work.

For me there simply is a reality greater than what I can know with my five senses. I can't prove that, especially to people who put all of their faith in what they can "know" by way of their five senses. And this is, of course, the challenge. But religious knowing is not make-believe, or denial, or wishful thinking. William James explored these issues, of course, in The Varieties of Religious Experience - and I am trying to speak of what he called a unitive experience. Speaking very personally, I have often said I feel more affinity with a thirteenth-century Muslim mystic like Rumi than with many twentieth-century Christians. It's because Rumi was interested in uncovering the "really real" side of life rather than ideology. It's because, like Dame Julian, he knew that "between God and the soul, there is no in between." Admittedly we only get "hints and guesses" of this reality in this world. But just because we cannot quantify it doesn't make it less real.

And what I think happens when we stand and face the reality of death, particularly the death of a dearly beloved, is that our guard comes down. We come into a vulnerable and "thin" place. It is always the case that between God and the soul there is no in between but we go about our lives normally as if God lives up in heaven and we are busy doing our thing on earth. But the veil is torn when we stand at the grave, I think; when we confront loss and ultimately our own mortality as well. We find ourselves in a place where God is present and we are changed. Or at least some of us are, some of the time...

I don't tend to use language like Fanny Crosby very easily(Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine, O what a foretaste of glory divine...) but I am trying here to speak of that same reality. Even at the grave we make our song; we know that life is changed and not ended. I'm a lot more comfortable again with Dame Julian: all shall be well, and all manner of things shall be well. But either way, sometimes in those liminal places we discover, we see, we understand, that we are created and that we are loved. And that all of life is sacred. Beyond that, our faith seeks understanding and there may be more we can say, but the further we are from that unitive experience the more cautious we should be.