The intersection of the timeless moment...

What is it about Meister Eckhart today? Three of my favourite blog authors, Jan, Gabrielle and Inward/Outward, all mention him this morning. Well, to be strictly accurate, Gabrielle mentions Thomas Merton mentioning Eckhart. She quotes Merton as saying, in Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, "Eckhart, in a sermon on the divine birth, says that, when a person is about to be struck by a thunderbolt, he turns unconsciously toward it.  When a tree is about to be struck, all the leaves turn toward the blow.  And one in whom the divine birth is to take place turns, without realizing, completely toward it."

I was myself struck all of a heap when I read these words. Scientifically, I think they're true. The electric field that precedes a lightning strike can reach tens of thousands of volts per square inch (ref.) and I can well imagine the leaves of a tree, probably already wet with rain, turning in a field of that strength. I was once within 10 yards of a direct cloud-to-ground stroke that completely destroyed a small stone building, and I will never forget the deep sense of power, almost a sub-bass hum, and the peculiar prickling of my skin, that preceded the stroke. I certainly turned directly towards the building, which seemed to shine briefly with a brilliant pink glow, an instant before the stunning crack of the ground stroke, and the huge physical blow of the shock wave. I can't say I actually saw the little generator house explode - but when I came to myself a second or two later, it was in smoking, roofless ruins.

If that is what a mere electrical discharge is like, how much more amazing is the work of God?

Inward/Outward quotes Eckhart, "Be prepared at all times for the gifts of God and be ready always for new ones. For God is a thousand times more ready to give than we are to receive."

Isn't that preparedness turning towards God, towards his transforming gift, just as we turn instinctively towards the glorious power of the lightning?

Jan quotes from Pierce, Brian J. We Walk the Path Together: Learning from Thich Nhat Hanh and Meister Eckhart, Orbis Books, 2006:

Meister Eckhart says emphatically, 'There is but one NOW.' In other words, This is it! For Eckhart, to limit the understanding of eternity as life after death is rather strange. When we pray, are we not in the presence of God's eternity, God's fullness? Rather than life after death, it would be better to speak of life after life. In other words, the God who is present now, and the God who will be present then (i.e., after death) is simply present - now and always. God is not limited to time and space. It is not that God lives an endless number of years and can be everywhere at the same time. The eternal presence of God is like our very breath. We cannot touch it or measure it, but without it there is no life.

Praying in the presence of God's eternity, God's fullness - isn't this like standing in the presence of that great electric field, feeling one's skin tighten and tingle with voltage, seeing ordinary things transformed into transcendent beauty in the very instant of their ending? You know, I wasn't afraid in that storm - though I had the normal shock reactions afterwards, as well as some temporary hearing loss, and so on - I was exhilarated and somehow glorified by the sheer wonder of that power. There was something sacramental about that moment. No wonder the psalmists connected lightning with God.

"There is but one now." TS Eliot said:

          If you came this way,
Taking any route, starting from anywhere,
At any time or at any season,
It would always be the same: you would have to put off
Sense and notion. You are not here to verify,
Instruct yourself, or inform curiosity
Or carry report. You are here to kneel
Where prayer has been valid. And prayer is more
Than an order of words, the conscious occupation
Of the praying mind, or the sound of the voice praying.
And what the dead had no speech for, when living,
They can tell you, being dead: the communication
Of the dead is tongued with fire beyond the language of the living.
Here, the intersection of the timeless moment
Is England and nowhere. Never and always.

(Little Gidding)

"The intersection of the timeless moment" - that's it, isn't it? The place where our temporal self comes into the presence of the Eternal, in an instant beyond all measurement of time...