The image of the Divine Human in our spiritual life and practice seeks to become known as more of a perception for us than an image. This perception guides us in how we respond to external life conditions and events, not just in our own lives but in how we hold and respond to events in our wider environment too; like the tragedies war or the existence of social and economic inequalities, or the disruptions from disease and disabilities, or the changes in our global environments and ecosystems.
Perception is more than just an ability to make decisions from conscience. It enables us to be moved through states of feeling overwhelmed because it occurs when our understanding becomes one with the will of the Lord’s love in us, and so we move from a state of questioning into a state of insight or knowing.
We receive perception from the love of the Lord leading us in our quest … allowing us the wisdom to know that it IS the Lord speaking.
So our perception of the Lord, of the Divine Human, is an ever expanding experience rather than an actual sensual image of a person or an object or a specific set of concepts or knowledges… it’s more of a constantly moving state of affections and thoughts. They are large and encompassing and include qualities like mercy and holiness, and gentleness and blessedness, and assuredness and knowing.
And these qualities are conveyed through the questions His presence evokes and yet the questions that we hear convey these very qualities of His presence. For example, the questions that we hear lead us into a deeper perception of His mercy but the very fact that the question has been asked and raised in our awareness, seems to demonstrate His mercy as well.
So the Lord that we experience through the questions that we hear Him asking us and calling us to hear, is the means by which the Divine is made known and manifest to us … and thus is the Divine Human, since the Divine Human is none other than that which expresses and makes known the Divine Itself. This is how the Word makes known the Lord Himself or the truth of wisdom makes known the good of love itself.
We read here about the importance of questions and the way they lead us into a deeper and deeper knowing and experience of the Divine…
Verse 13. And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, Who are these that are arrayed in white robes, and whence came they?
Verse 14. And I said unto him, Lord, thou knowest,signifies the desire of knowing, and the will of interrogating, and the answer and information.
The reason why John was questioned concerning these things, is, because it is common in all Divine worship, that man should first will, desire, and pray, and the Lord then answer, inform, and do;
otherwise man does not receive anything Divine.
Now as John saw “those who were arrayed in white robes,” and was desirous to know and to ask who they were, and as this was perceived in heaven, therefore he was first asked and then informed.
The same occurred to the prophet Zechariah, when he saw several things represented to him, as may appear from Zechariah 1:9, 19, 21; 4:2, 5, 11-12; 5:2, (6,) 10; 6:4.
Besides, we frequently read in the Word, that the Lord answers when they call and cry;
as in Psalms 4:1; 17:6; 20:9; 34:4; 91:15; 120:1;also, that he gives when they ask, (Matthew 7:7-8; 21:22; John 14:13-14; 15:7; 16:23-27).
But yet the Lord gives them to ask, and what to ask; therefore the Lord knows it beforehand;
but still the Lord wills that man should ask first, to the end that he may do it as from himself, and thus that it should be appropriated to him;
otherwise, if the petition itself were not from the Lord, it would not be said in those places, that “they should receive whatsoever they asked.” (Apocalypse Revealed 376)
To be in a state where we hear questions is to be in a state of wakefulness to the Divine, to the Lord. And the Word is the means by which the Lord can ask us questions because the Word is the Lord Himself made flesh, made alive and real to us.
When we read the Text, the questions that we start to hear convey the nature of its ability to be psychoactive in that it activates our affections and thoughts. It holds a mirror up to our face and reflects back what is of the Word in and with us. It shows us what we are ready to see …
Now whenever maturity may be coming, that which is out of an instalment shall be discarded. When I was a minor, I spoke as a minor, I was disposed as a minor, I took account of things as a minor. Yet when I have become a man, I have discarded that which is a minor’s. For at present we are observing by means of a mirror, in an enigma, yet then, face to face. At present I know out of an instalment, yet then I shall recognise according as I am recognised also. Yet now are remaining faith, expectation, love – these three. Yet the greatest of these is love.”
(1 Corinthians 13: 10-13)
The light of the Word’s truth shows us contrasts in what we understand and don’t, or in what feels like the Lord and what doesn’t, or in what we are drawn to and what we aren’t. And it is then these contrasts that give rise to questions and help us form tasks for our spiritual work focus. Often even the very words of the Text itself, asks us the questions directly…
Why can’t we eat from this tree?
Why do we have to build this boat?
When will the waters stop rising?
Why does my wife have no child?
How can I possibly be with child at such an old age?
Who will be the wife for this child who is now a man? How will I find her?
What does this dream mean?
Why is this being asked of me?
Why is it taking so long?
Why am I in this pit? How will I get out?
Why is this work so hard?
Why is their famine in my land?
How did you know to provide this all for me?
Who will save my child? Why is he being hunted?
Why am I being persecuted?
Why should I give up and leave this comfortable life for one in the wildness?
How will you possibly get me out of these waters that threaten to drown me?
Why are they not listening?
Why do we keep repeating the same mistakes?
Why are we asked to set up the tabernacle in this way? What does it mean?
Why can’t I enter the promised land now?
Why have we been left in the desert?
Why aren’t you feeding me?
Why can’t I hear you?
Why can’t I see you?
Why is that army so big?
How will I fight them?
Why are these walls so high and why are you asking me to break them?
Who will be the next king and how will I find him?
Is that the Lord calling me and why is He calling me?
Why are you asking me to walk in fire?
Why are you feeding me to the lions?
Why me?
Why not me?
And when the Word becomes more visible and prominent in our thoughts and affections, we start to hear more challenging questions …
How can the Word be birthed in me?
What is being asked of me?
Why does He heal on the Sabbath when it is forbidden?
How can He feed all these people with such a small amount of food?
Why does He wash my feet and not my whole body?
Why does He question my faith?
Where is His body?
Then we start to hear the Lord ask us more directly, to penetrate more deeply…
Why do you doubt me?
Why do you doubt her faith?
Why do you question what she offers?
Why do you send the children away?
Why have you forsaken me?
Why are you looking for Me in the place of the dead?
Why do you STILL doubt me?
And then even when we have been shown and we think we are convinced, He leads us again through His questions…
Why am I cast off and isolated on this island after all that I have done for Him?
What do all these visions mean?
Why are His words so strange and complicated?
Why can’t I see and understand it all now?
Why is it taking so long?
Why is their still so much destruction and fear amongst so much beauty?
When will there be no more tears, pain or curse?
How long will it be?
When will He come quickly?
But it is not the ability to answer our questions or complete our spiritual work tasks that bring enlightenment. In fact having answers can be a state of sleep, a state where we blindly follow the blind unquestionably, perhaps even follow the Lord unquestionably. In this state we can easily slide into a state of death to the Lord’s life, a state where the Word as the Lord isn’t acknowledged as the one authority that knows but instead our own self is. This is a state where the proprium of self love rules.
Without questions we can’t come to know that we don’t know.
And if we don’t know that we don’t know, then we can’t acknowledge the Lord as the only Knowing.
So the use is in the questioning itself, the setting of the task itself. The use is a response to a need for the Divine to be constantly reborn in us. As He asks us to respond, the quest is in HOW we respond and that is the journey. How we respond to what we hear determines where we walk to next in seeking out answers… only to be met with deeper questions again.
On some paths we meet dragons and foes and things that threaten to harm us.
On others we meet with those who offer wisdom and beauty and reassurance.
And on others we meet with pure awe and delight.
But always, on every path, we are met with more questions. An insight of perception leads into yet another question.
The quest therefore is the questions that the Word ignites in us and asks us to carry, and they are what lead and guide us to the Holy Grail of heavenly, eternal life. The Holy Grail is not an object or a thing but rather a state, a path in which we walk and live in. An eternal path that always leads us into the increasing blessedness of the Lord’s life.
And he breathed into his nostrils the breath of lives and he became a living soul. (Genesis 2:7)
And Jesus breathed on them saying receive ye the Holy Spirit. (John 20:22)