Building sandcastles

Back in the 1980s when I was small, my two favourite girls' names were Lucy and Jennifer. So when I got a new teddy one day, I already knew what I would call it. I would combine both these names, to make the most perfect, prettiest girl's name in the whole wide world.

"Mum! Here's my new teddy. Meet (beaming with delight)... LUCIFER."

Yeah, it wasn't a go-er with my Mum.

I think my biggest boy has inherited my love of word-play. The other day he introduced me to one of his toy cars: "He's called Smackhead."

(Because he smacked his head on the skirting board, apparently.)

Which brings me onto the topic of this post, and another word that's made of two parts. I've been wanting to write this post for a while, but struggled to find a way to write it. But I'm fed up of waiting for the right words to show up, so I'm just going to go for it as best I can.

So here's the word: Reconcile.

It's made of two bits, re (back) and concile, from the latin conciliare (bring together). Do you notice that the word has a sense of space to it, of bringing something back together that had been separated? I'm just pointing it out here, because this is going to be a bit of a theme.

A couple of thousand years ago, a spiritual man wrote a letter to his friends. He was trying to explain some insights he had about God, Jesus and people, and he wrote this:

God was in Jesus, reconciling the world to himself... 

He was writing in Greek, not English, so instead of 'reconcile' he wrote katalasso. But katalasso has a similar sense of space to it: kata (down to an exact point) and allasso (to change). So its a picture in a word, of two things changing their position (there's the space theme), and coming together to an exact point, a meeting place. He was trying to describe a change in space, a change in position, that leads to a meeting 'down to an exact point' of God and humanity.

He had a further insight, and completed his sentence like this:

God was in Jesus, reconciling the world to himself... not taking account of their 'paraptomata'.

Paraptomata. (I hope all these words aren't making you dizzy). Paraptomata. It's another word that talks about space and position. It means 'to fall away, after being close beside.' He's saying that humanity has somehow changed position, moving from being close beside God, to... somewhere else. But God 'doesn't take account' of it, so wherever the somewhere else is that humanity finds itself, there's no blame attached to us being there. God is busy reconciling - bringing together God and humanity, wherever they happen to find themselves.

A while back I wrote about an abyss, and a cliff, so naturally I left things on a cliffhanger. I said that I no longer believe that God and I were ever separated. There never was an abyss between me and God. The abyss was within me.

How so?

It's my paraptomatoes you see. I have moved from being close to God, to being somewhere else. And yet the unending truth is, the Spirit of Life and I are one. He is in me, and I am in him. So how on earth can I still find myself 'no longer close beside'? By building. I build a concept of me that is devoid of God, as though we were actually separate. It's paraptomata, creating a kind of fake, separated self that stands alone, as though it's no longer close beside God. This self-build me has taken years to create. It looks like a castle, but it's made of sand. It's paraptomata. My Sand Castle Self. It's a whole way of living that's curiously oblivious to the beautiful truth. Goodness only knows why we do it.

But despite the snub, God doesn't hold a grudge. There is no blame attached. He reconciles.

If you want to know what the English word for paraptomata is, it's this: Sin.

I always thought that sin was about moral failure. Doing things that are Bad. Doing things that are Morally Wrong. It's why I hid behind a door to pray some fervent apologies at the age of 13 when I said a rude word at school, which I won't repeat. It was hardly the F-bomb, but to my mind it fell into the classification of Things That Are Bad. I was terrified. So after that, I worked out a better way. I could avoid sin by just a few careful tweaks to the odd vowel sound in my life. Like this: "Shoot, I forgot my PE kit!" See, it's kind of like saying Sh*t, but it's sin-free! What could be better! It's guilt-free cool. Sort of.

Except no-one told me that sin isn't really about moral successes or failure, it's about paraptomata. It's about the building of a smaller, isolated version of you, a sandcastle you, that thinks and acts as though it's separate, and somehow forgets it is and always has been one with the beach. And yet still there's no blame attached.

I find it very difficult to write the word sin, so great is the weight of condemnation I associate with that word. I actually feel as though the word traumatised me. It was the word that was always there, between me and my obsessive-compulsive god, who insisted on regular and thorough spiritual hand-washing to get rid of every last speck of sin before he would touch me. He was a reconciling god, but a neurotic one.

There are some words that Jesus spoke that have been like a healing balm to me.

I didn't come to judge the world.

I didn't come to judge the world.

I didn't come to judge the world, I came to heal it.

Judgement has separation at it's heart. It's about separating the good from the bad. It's very black and white. It's either good or it's bad - not both. It's the ultimate addiction of humanity - to separate and categorise things. We do it to everything. Food. Emotions. Purchases. Decisions. Other people. Good. Bad. Bad. Good. And the problem is, we do attach blame. Pick anything you've put in the Bad camp and see if it doesn't have a whiff of condemnation about it. If you've ever found yourself lumped in someone else's Bad category, you'll have felt the sting of condemnation.

When I believed sin was to do with morality, it's no wonder I felt the weight of condemnation. Morality as a system relies on people making judgments. We have to judge what is good and what is bad, and then tow the line (generally for good reason, since it protects society from the worst excesses of evil). But nevertheless, the whole set-up of morality has judgment as its foundation. And where there is judgment, there is also condemnation.

But if there's one thing about God, he doesn't seem to like separating things. He seems to be more into making things whole again, or healed (whole/heal - they're the same word really). I am made of good and I am made of bad. Sometimes I do good things and sometimes I do bad things. I am both. To judge is to separate, but I can't be separated - at least not without some damage occurring. But Jesus said he didn't come to judge. He didn't come to try and forcefully separate good from bad. He didn't come to judge. To make the point he told a story about a man who owned a field of wheat, and then found a load of weeds in it. 'Argh!' shrieked his servants, 'Panic! Should we pull the weeds out master?!' Nah, he said. Let both grow together until harvest. Jesus can cope with both things - good and bad - being there. He honestly doesn't mind getting his hands dirty while he's hanging out with me - he's not OCD after all.

So, where does this leave us?

Jesus is not interested in judging me, he is interested in healing me. He is not about separating, he is about reconciling. He brings things back together. It's time for me to leave my sand castle self behind, and rediscover the deep, truest me, where God and I are one. The reconciliation is the discovery that God and I are actually in the same place, and have been all along. And it's less that I found God in me (although that is true), it's more that I found myself... in God.

And standing here, secure in the presence of my God, I can let the waves wash away the paraptomata, the sand-castle self, and the whole system of morality, and judgment and separation and condemnation.

And as I let it all slip away, that way of living is gone, and a new way of living is birthed. It will take a life-time and beyond to learn. It's the way of Truth. It's the way of Life. It's the way of Love.

PS. I bet you want to know what the rude word was.
PPS. It was 'damn'. I know, bad-ass.