Sometimes...

I often feel pressure to post on this blog. It is, after all, a tool of professional and theological development for me. Hopefully, it is a repository of insights; realistically, it is a "height-chart" that will show me, years from now, how far I've come. In the end, the professional aspect will fade away: theology is not about how many accolades, or publications, or positions one holds. Rather, if theology is done according to its own nature (logoi in a Maximos-ian sense), then it is the record of a journey into the love and mercy of God. Theology is, at best, an attempt to tell others about a relationship of great and intense intimacy: sometimes, details are left better unsaid, but a solid, staid fidelity must be asserted and witnessed. But a theologian, at the same time, is not the recipient of this intimacy: rather, he (or she, of course) is the witness to the cosmic love that the Father holds for His kosmos, His adorned creation. The theologian is one small part of that cosmos, but he (or she) is in a relatively privileged place: the bard that sings of the love held between Lover and Beloved. The one who describes the dance (the perichoresis) that the Beloved has been brought into, and through the tremendous mystery of the hypostatic union, has always been a part of.

Sometimes words are needed to describe; sometimes all the bard can do is provide background music (nothing, and I mean nothing, is worse than when a theologian interjects into this divine dance); sometimes all they can do is point others and say "join."