Sunday, December 23, 2012

Divine Dimensions


The blizzard that we had didn't seem to produce a lot of snow.  The wind blowing from the northwest, however, was so fierce that it wrapped around these pines and stuck snow on their southeast side.  Today's early morning sun made them look like they had been whitewashed.   Clicking on the picture enlarges it.  
For two years now I have been trying to use dimensional metaphors to try to grasp what it means for God to come from heaven to take on flesh and become one of us.
I don't find it helpful to think of God coming "down."  The preposition that I find more helpful is "through."  Christmas is God moving through dimensions we can only imagine to become one of us.
It's as if divine dimensions and earthly dimensions coincide.  They ocupy the same space and time.   
God is everywhere, so God fills all dimensions.  In these earthly dimensions, however, we can't experience God with our senses.  We see and hear and feel God's presence in the Goodness and Beauty around us, but we don't experience God directly with our senses. 
God wants to be completely available to us.  So God moves through dimensions we can only imagine to enter Mary's womb and take on human flesh.  Without ceasing to be divine, God becomes fully human.  God lives in our earthly dimensions as one of us.  Mary, Joseph, the shepherds, the magi see and hear and touch God in this human baby.  Love, another name for God, is born at Christmas.







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