Unbearable Lightness of Being

I love the theology of Karl Barth.  There... I said it.  I realize that for some in the circles to which I belong Barth is a 4- letter word.  So I always have to be careful with whom I share my secret "man crush".  Every time I engage his ideas I come away joyfully exhaling.  Yesterday I was doing some research when I came across this piece from the Archbishop of Canterbury Rowen Williams.    "Not Being Serious: Thomas Merton and Karl Barth"   Oh, I should also say I have been delving into the writings of Thomas Merton lately.  I have this attraction to Roman Catholicism that I can't quite shake - remnants of my time at Newman Catholic High School I'm sure.  

The piece examines the influence of Barth in Merton's thought.  Here is a line that stood out...

Merton... had apprehended something central and focal in Barth's vision: 'We are not pleasing to God: yet God wills to be pleased'.  That's to say that we are not condemned to keep God happy, we are not bound to the fiery wheel of entertaining God, placating God or preserving God's good moods.  Because God's pleasure is God's being and God's will directed towards us in creation and redemption, and therefore all we can do is say 'yes' to it.  And to know this is to be finally free from the idols of the self.  

In class the other day I used Barth's theology to set up the Christian engagement of culture.  We read bits from "The Humanity of God" - in which Barth emphasizes that God loves humanity and in Jesus Christ God has eternally decided to be FOR humanity...  I always say God chooses to need us.  My point is that God wants us to be human... not some disembodied soul.  Our humanity is not something to be overcome.  In Jesus Christ God is at work restoring us to our humanity - giving it back.  Taken further, I believe God takes pleasure in our human-ness - in the things we do - the things we create.  He loves theater, he loves baseball, he loves a good beer, and romantic evenings.  For Barth, it meant that God loved the music of Mozart.  

Here's another quote from Williams:

'I think I will have to become a Christian', says Merton, meaning, if I read him correctly, 'I think I will have to understand that a proper theology of the death of Christ tells me I'm not serious: God is serious; my condition is serious; sin is serious; the cross is serious.  But somehow, out of all this comes the miracle, the 'unbearable lightness of being' as you might say: the recognition that my reality rests "like a feather on the breath of God"'.  It is because God speaks, because God loves and it is for no other reason. 

For Barth it's all grace.  Our very existence proclaims the goodness of God's grace.  Not just in a redemptive sense... but in a creation sense.  God brings forth creation as an act of love and grace.  In one way sin is trying to make of ourselves more then what we are.  Thus, God's word to us in Jesus Christ is that in him we just need to "be". 

One final quote:

...the whole of our life, our universe, our individual pilgrimage swept up into that movement of outgoing and returning love, a love bestowed, a love which is also our homecoming, a love so profoundly anchored ontologically in the reality of God, eternally, non-negotiably, that the only thing we can do about any attempt ourselves to think that we have a part in this is to laugh.

Theological reflection rooted in laughter is reflection that sees the big picture.  All of the stuff we fill our lives with that we think is sooo important.  All of it is an attempt to make something of ourselves.  And yet the gospel is the call to rest... to open our eyes to the gift of grace all around.