A week ago, I was at Canada's Wonderland, a nearby amusement park. I was waiting for some friends to finish a ride in which I had no interest and I was reading a book. The passage I was reading inspired this writing in which I want to talk about atonement, or, as some like to say, “at-one-ment.” The words I read that day were so crystal clear to me that I had a moment when all else around me melted away, or maybe more accurately, it just all became a part of me and I a part of it. I was very much in the moment with the ‘aha’ moment that I was having.
Unfortunately, after that day, I struggled to find that moment again. My husband and I have been looking at buying a house, so much of our days have been preoccupied with paperwork, showings, and all the stress and nervousness that comes with purchasing a home. I’ve had a lot of appointments, meetings, and obligations this week and it has been very difficult for me to get back into that moment, which caused me to struggle in my writing. How do I write about “at-one-ment” when I feel so at odds within myself, and feeling more chaos than peace.
The book I was reading is called “The Bible According to Noah: Theology as if Animals Mattered” by Gary Kowalski. He
I know that you can do all thing and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.
Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.
I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you;
therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.
In the passage I had been reading at Wonderland, Kowalski talked about Jane Goodall, a well-known primatologist and anthropologist. Kowalski refers to Goodall’s autobiography and I’m going to read this passage straight from the book, because I found it to be so profound and moving. This story is from her autobiography and follows about a year and half after the tragic and difficult death of her husband. She describes a time when hope once more entered her universe.
She had traveled back to Gombe, on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, after weeks of lecturing in America. At home again with her beloved chimpanzees, she found herself caught together with them in a drenching rainstorm, then basking in the soft glow of sunlight that followed. “It is hard – impossible, really – to put into words the moment of truth that suddenly came upon me then,” she says. “Even the mystics are unable to describe their brief flashes of spiritual ecstasy.”
It seemed to me, as I struggled afterward to recall the experience, that self was utterly absent: I and the chimpanzees, the earth and the trees and air, seemed to merge, to become one with the spirit power of life itself. The air was filled with a feathered symphony, the evensong of birds. I heard new frequencies in their music and also in the singing insects’ voices – notes so high and sweet I was amazed.
Each leaf on every tree seemed indescribably rich in shape and shading, with a delicate tracery of veins forming a pattern that was individual and unlike any other. The fragrances of the soaking forest mingled in a heady perfume, yet every odor remained distinct: the scents of moist earth and the mouldering aroma of decaying, overripe fruits, the loamy smell of damp bark, along with her own wet tresses and the steaming hair of the chimpanzees. The sweetness of crushed vegetation was intoxicating. She sensed rather than saw another presence, then looked upwind to spy a magnificent bushbuck quietly feeding, with spiralled horns shimmering in the luminous air. Goodall felt at that moment that she was a part of a natural order that “dwarfs and yet somehow enhances human emotion.” She realized in a powerful and visceral way that she was connected to a Reality that held all life within its embrace, bringing her a sense of serenity and strength she had never known before. The forest had given her, she says, “the peace that passes understanding.”
Kowalski writes that when Job has his encounter with God, Job became “a changed man.” His response, as I shared before, was revealing, but the phrase he utters that is usually translated “I despise myself,” is misleading. Kowalski writes that, “Job is not having a self-esteem problem or indulging in a bout of self-hatred. He is describing something quite different. His words would be better rendered as “I melt away”… or as “I melt away into nothing.” Job’s old persona is dissolving.
Last week, I talked about the Cosmic Christ. The sermon is on the website if you would like to hear it or read it, but basically, I talked about how Christ isn’t just the man who walked this earth 2000 years ago. Christ is in every thing, Christ is in every time. Christ is in everyone, in you, in me, here and now.
Atonement is sometimes described as making reparation for a wrong. In churches the meaning centres around reconciliation of God and humankind through Jesus Christ. So might reconciliation of God and humankind through Jesus Christ look like these “melting” moments. Might reconciliation be those moments when we are at one with the Spirit, at one with Christ, at one with all that is around us, “melting” or blurring the lines and the boundaries that separate us from each other, from other sources of life, from the very air we breathe. Might “at-one-ment” look like those moments experienced by Goodall and Job, bringing “a sense of serenity and strength” and a “peace that passes understanding.”
Now this may be a stretch for a lot of us. Most of us don’t have the opportunity to be outside in a drenching rainstorm with chimpanzees, but how many of us take the time to pray, to sit with God, or to meditate? How many of are able to find moments when we can be centred, grounded, and in the moment? Especially in these days of constant distractions from cell phones, emails, flashing signs, and constant appointments, these moments of clarity or centredness are less common and more precious. We really have to be intentional, make space, if finding those moments is important to us.
These moments of reconciliation, of being one with all that surrounds us, are those moments when we feel God. Those are the moments that some of us long for in our lives, to give us peace and healing, but they are also some of the most fleeting moments and the most difficult to find. I promise you though, they’re worth it when they are found. So take time to be. This might happen in a number of ways. It might happen when you are praying or meditating, practicing those moments to empty your brain of all the details of life. It might happen when you are walking, especially in a forest, on a prairie, on a mountain, by the water, in the rain, in freshly fallen snow. It might happen when you are connecting with another soul, whether it be a two-legged creature, or a four-legged one. It might happen doing something you love, playing your favourite sport, drawing, singing or dancing, spending time with a child.
My advice is to find more of these moments in your life, to include more of them. God can be found in these moments. The cosmic Christ, in all things, in you, in me, can be felt in these moments. Atonement, reconciliation of the divine and humankind, and I might add, of the divine and self, is at our fingertips. This at-one-ment is not a fairy tale or only reserved for mystics or the most holy of people. It’s there for each one of us, if we can give that most precious of commodities, our time.
Like Job, may your struggles and questions and doubts be answered with the profound mysteries of life. May you find the cosmic Christ, oneness, the melting away of boundaries, the peace that passes understanding in moments of simply being. May the Spirit be your guide as you reach for at-one-ment, not in all moments, but in those sacred moments, those moments of strength and unity with all creation. Amen.
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