A Jew is asked to take a leap of action rather than a leap of thought. He is asked to do more than he understands in order to understand more than he does.” Whereas the term ceremony merely expresses what we think, mitzvah expresses what God wills: a mitzvah [commandment/good deed] is “a prayer in the form of a deed.”abraham heschel
As I sit here listening to Heschel's words I notice how appropriate to the season of waiting and noticing - especially to guys like hose that need to be emotionally involved :)Leap - is not the wild eyed plunge of a bad trip but the step of the martyr that understands cost and sees beyond the mechanics. In "noticing" some took me as though I were talking of not engaging. The king, in the day of the coming messiah, only saw through his interpretation and fear of loss rather than thinking about the possibility of intention outside of his human experience. Had he noticed, the act of incarnation would have overpowered him and prevented genocide....but he never noticed
Posts
The challenge/blessing of growing up outside of the faith is that I am someimtes baffled as to what folks are talking about within the faith. Instead of humbling myself and asking,(which would probably save a lot of time) I sometimes look things up or try to find some insight or answer on my own. Call me stiff necked, I yam what I yam..
ReplyDeleteImagoeyes..So, I knew what "eyes" were, of course, but not "Imago". When I looked up definitions of Imago, before anything having to do with Christianity came up, there was a definition of an imago being a mature insect.
I thought, "What in the world would anyone be doing with insect eyes?"
"I am never going to get this Christian thing, am I?"
I thought about how fly eyes are multifaceted and not in the least bit like our own. They don't even perceive colors in the same way that we do. Certainly they would not be judgemental because the insect has such a rudimentary brain that there simply aren't enough cells left over to think with.
Then, I saw the connection to Imago Dei, the image of God. "Oh," I thought, chuckling. Yes you could insert a "Duh" here, it would be appropriate, I suppose. (If you were forgetting that you were trying to be Christ-like..)
The step of a martyr that understands cost and sees beyond mechanics..
Walking the walk. Can we? Can we see the possibility of intention outside our human experience? Can we look beyond our own fear of loss?
An insect operates only on instinct. It does not see beyond the mechanics of eating, resting, reproducing. It does not question nor contemplate nor deliberate about ethics or faith or love or commitment.
A human, made in the image of God, differs from other creatures in that he has the ability of free thought and decision making. Being made in God's image doesn't mean just our looks, (does it?) but also our emotional and spiritual selves -
To use our imago eyes, then, is to not "just notice" but realize our great responsibility in having the ability to notice and then, if necessary, to act in a Christlike way to right a wrong, or, conversely, not to act when it is clearly not appropriate to do so.
Having choice, we must not act without responsibility.
Experiential noticing: awareness of our humanity and of our God walking with us at all times and in all places(?)