A Sun-Like Self-Centeredness

The following is an excerpt of an email sent from Art to Will on 26 October 2014.


"Blake jacobsladder" by William Blake - William Blake Archive   Location Digital Collection hosted on servers at UNC Chapel Hill Established 1996 Website http://www.blakearchive.org/ http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/object.xq?objectid=but438.1.wc.01&vg=biblicalwc&vcontext=biblicalwc&landing=object&titles=short&java=no&mode=vcopy. Licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons.

Confused, lost, and in pain for stupid reasons (don't even ask). I know how God can bring me through what are relatively dark times for me--not dark at all compared to what so many people suffer! So many things to be grateful for that I'm embarrassed to call it suffering.

But these dark times are, even in some earthly ways, good for me.

As Creon says, "The riddling Sphinx had made us let dark things go, and was inviting us to think of what lay at our doors."

Funny how success, especially the vicarious kind, can make us focus outward and not on important things, like contrition, contemplation, equanimity--in a word, interiority.

That focus ultimately leads to the inner core, but since what I'm talking about is a ridiculously outermost orbit, just about anything would qualify as more interior!

Writing can be a powerful practice in this regard. Heck, even God moves back and forth Jacob's Ladder-like by means of his Word. Word is a critical aspect of our religion, not just some unfortunate accretion or necessary evil.

This is something God seems to be willing for the project.

Not eliminating the outer orbits, but focusing on one's inner core, starting with a sunlike self-centeredness that, paradoxically, radiates out even more brightly and effectually.

And this heliocentricity is not just self-centered: there is another Person waiting for us in that core of cores.

Perhaps the solar system metaphor breaks down at this point, but we also know that the universe is accelerating, which suggests some dark, unexplained, innermost reality that feeds the outward movement continuously.

Is this what Paul means when he boasts?

I know how to live in humble circumstances;
I know also how to live with abundance.
In every circumstance and in all things
I have learned the secret of being well fed and of going hungry,
of living in abundance and of being in need. (Phil. 4:12-14)

Surprised to see this smaller world open up with all its condensed unity and richness.