Order Council

Summer 1973

THE HAPPENING OF TRANSPARENCY

The meaning of life is to behold the mystery in everything--or better put, in relations to things. This means beholding the relation to the mystery in every relationship. And since I am my relations and the absolute relation is the "final" real self and is the relation to the mystery, to behold that relation is to be aware of the self. Human fulfillment is this awareness of the self. To know mystery is to know self and vice versa. But there is more. This mystery relation is never independent. It is present only in relations of temporality. (This is the ensoi.) Moreover, as the mystery appears in the temporal, the temporal is expanded ultimately--so that the specific relation becomes relation to all of creation. So that transparency and universality in the sense of relation to all, are inseparable. The "pour soi" is my freedom which is the relation to the mystery but this freedom I am before the foundation of the world is expended but on nothing less than all that is. To be absolutely free is to be absolutely committed. This is the transparency in any given situation. This is to behold the mystery relation which is the self I am. The extinction of self, the resignation, submission, annihilation of self is the cruciform decision to give yourself on behalf of all. This is obedience to, the vision of, the love of being, mystery, God.

This and this alone is human fulfillment. It hold together Mystery-world-self. The fruit of this or better the interior qualities of transparency are: first, enlightenment or certitude in the midst of absolute nothingness; second, peace or Problemlessness in the midst of bearing the indescribably problems of the world; third, rapture or joyfulness in the midst of the tragedy of life and fourth, immortality or endlessness in the midst of absolute contingency. (Herein is the discovery of the blind spot of all mysticism: the world in the gap between self and god. This underscores the incarnation and the cruciform principle. It is applying the insight "in but not of." It centers on service, mission, love of man.)

In spelling this out we have to consider: 1. The journey to the state; 2. The concept of union; 3. The delineating qualities; 4. The ideal of practices. All of this is from the perspective of the various insights that define our context, such as the 12 listed on page 5. One of the crucial insights in he doctrine of transparency is the "indicative of humanness." Because this is the indicative of humanness (what humanness is all about) one who is not it, has an invisible sense of emptiness, he is bewilderingly homesick. This is the ground of the feeling of being lost, things are askew and the like. It is a sense that the real is not here, that it is somehow hidden, and I am hence not quite myself. The first step on the journey toward Fulfillment is the happening that enables us to come to terms with this. That is with our lostness. And this involves the appearance of the other--the nothing--the Mystery. And the awareness that this is our foundational and defining relation. This happening is happened by our decision to be our radical relation (indicative) that is our relation to the mystery beyond yet addressing us in every happening.

The second step on the journey is the expenditure of this self. This is not renunciation but expenditure. It is not annihilation but cruciformity. And in this is our fulfillment. How these two phases relate to each other relative to time is difficult. In the first instance, time - has no meaning here at all. The two stages are two sides of the same coin. They can happen simultaneously. And in one sense neither has really occurred unless both have. Still for some there may be an interval of some time elapse between them. (All of this is crudely spelled out in my Summer '70 talk on "Being on the Journey to the Center." ) It's like when the second phase is delayed the first somehow compensates for it. Anyway, the second begins with the awareness that: 1) Your temporality (en soi) is all of creation plus the fact that you must relate to all of creation. 2) That relation to the transparent mystery is only present in the temporal and in every temporality. The nothingness is everywhere in everything. 3) That you emerged from the universe, creation, humanity (not family, race, nation, etc. ) and that you belong to the all. 4) That history is created, not fated, and that this journey of man is your journey and hence you are responsible for this journey in every clime and every age. 5) That your self (K-D-B) is all of you and that this burden of the all is your burden and that it must consume all of you.

This means that you become aware of your all-ness, your integrity, on the radical level. It is the expenditure of your freedom, the submission of your selfhood to involvement. It is cruciformity--the giving of your all. Your denying yourself for the sake of all. It is death. A dark night. It is blindness, aridity, and hell.

Herein is a man's integrity defined. He knows what is required, not from the outside, but from within. Once this has happened--a decision must be made. The decision is unavoidable for this is what radical humanness is. So one either says yes and dies or he becomes a zombie-either malignant or benign. If he says Yes and embraces his unlimited humanness then he is the man. He is humanly fulfilled. As described above, he experiences certitude, peace and joy and endlessness. He lives his unlife in service of humanity. There are no external absolutes here. No measuring sticks. One is left in the life long pain of interiorly deciding again and again and again. There are no external signs-such as rags or riches. There is the eternal re-occurrence of one's freedom, of the mystery and the needs of the world. All of this is what we mean by the love of God--our love for God. Event one is God's love for us which enables this second event--our love for God. The love of God then is: 1) assuming the burden of the world, 2) giving ourselves entirely in the process, and 3) accepting this given as our full and overflowing fulfillment. This is the losing of the self in God. Again, this is internal. There are no external criteria. Success is here an irrelevant term. Yet this is not subjectivity. This internality is utter objectivity. It is what humanness is all about. There is no mortifying the flesh. It is investment of flesh and the creating of other flesh. It is detached engagement with the passion of willing one thing. One is at this moment aware of the power of agape pulsing through him. He is aware of his sharing in being itself (which is the ground of the state of endlessness). He is aware of being in harmony with all creation. He is a fig tree going about being a fig tree, as he was made and called to be.

We have been dealing with Transparency. The transparent fulfillment. The transparent integrity. The transparent love. Just transparent or Jesus love is not a matter of pleasant affirming feelings toward another. Nor is it primarily a relation to an individual. This love is a love for all manifest in a particular act. This love is an expression of a total expenditure of being in a particular act. This love is an expression of my total fulfillment. It is me. It is my being.

Second Transparency of Jesus integrity is not a matter of being faithful to some rule or image superimposed. It is a primal integrity which I myself define in each situation relative to loyalty to the race of man or to creation. It is the beyond of integrity. It is loyalty to being human--to the relationship to the Mystery that defines me. It is my wholeness, or the whole expenditure of my wholeness--my one life on behalf of humanity or creation. Integrity is the over-watching of my death. Again this is a matter of spirit--between God and myself. No other can live, judge, though he can and must be an ever occurring judgment upon me. Thirdly, this love is transparent or Jesus fulfillment. Here the sheer nature of indicative reveals itself. To be sure I have received my life--decided it, as it is in the midst of tragedy, failure' brokenness and all, to be my given, my fulfillment. Yet there comes-not as consequences but as essential ingredients--certitude, bliss, and eternality. It's as if I choose these and they are l-here. My embracement enables the invisible to be present. When I choose my life as cruciform service, there is the deliverance of certitude, ecstasy, and endlessness. These are not additions, not rewards, not special graces. They are the way things are, were, and ever shall be.

The sum of it all is to be found in witnesses from the past. It is perfect love, sinlessness, and blessing. It is love, righteousness, and peace. It is perfection, outward, inward, and forever. It is beatitude--vision, perfection, and happiness. It is the running over cup right in the midst of this tragic life and vale of tears. It is the double XX. The glory of the Mystery, the divine presence. These, of course, need careful spelling out. The above is but a rough outline of the direction. If you take the categories of love, virtues, and bliss, then you must see these as interdependent dynamics. Each related to the other plus each related to the whole. The whole is love of God. The love of God then is each of the dynamics and their inter-relation. First, the love of God is universal benevolence or the love of the world in God and the love of God in the world. Secondly, the love of God is radical integrity, or the love of self or the love of self in God and the love of God in the self. Third, the love of God is Endless Fulfillment, or the love of God in God or the love of God in God and the love of God in God. This last is the all in all-certitude, bliss, immortality, (the state of endlessness). All of this has to do with the now in which the past and the future exist. This is what state of being mean. To love God then finally is at-home-ness, certitude, at-home-ness peace, it is at-home-ness forever.

All of this has to do with the other world--the world of transparency. That world in this world, our time: is the Age of Resurgence. Our proclamation is the Mode of transparency. This is not a new structure, a new faith, denomination, church or religion. It is a mode of living, a religious mode to exist in the midst of established religion for the sake of revitalizing it. The mode of transparency has to do with the happenings or the events; one and two (described above). It has to do with the internal qualities (4 or 16 or 64 on Other World chart). It has to do with practical exercises (as in the 144's). It has to do with missional engagement or historical roles (such, as the religious and the work). It has to do with social forms (the dynamical structures of the movement). It has to do with the context of the post-modern world view. And primarily it rests upon the understanding of the contentless Christ.

This last is becoming clearer every day. In these three sayings it is all held: Take up your cross; thy sins are forgiven; my peace I give unto you. In the first Jesus is the exemplar of taking the salvation of the world upon his shoulders even unto death. He is there as the first fruit on the way. Indeed, his person has become the judging sign. To behold him is to behold the humanness of universal benevolence. He is our condemnation and our confidence. In the second Jesus is the one who grasps sinlessness through grace as none other. Even to the point of seeing that whosoever's sin you (or he) forgave on earth would be forgiven in heaven (by being). It is as if he runs to forgive before you have sinned. He is our integrity. The ontological deeps are probed. Our only concern is to follow and trust. This is righteousness. Sinlessness. Integrity. It is walking in the way of universal concern in confidence. It is the way.

The third "My peace--not as the world," This is the state of fulfillment of humanness. The peace that Jesus had in the midst of suffering and tragedy--that of his own and that of the whole world that he made his own--is the peace of any who follow him in being human. What is his because he dared to embrace the indicative is any man's who does likewise. The nature of this peace is dealt with above. Jesus showed the way in word and deed and being.

In dealing with this. whole matter we must consider the Sea of Tranquillity, the Mountain of Care, the River of consciousness. These have above been roughly covered. Now we must turn to the 1,and of Mystery. This is the whole, the center, the essence. The present in a~ 1. It is love of n.od as such. So we must consider the Mystery and the Awe. Two sides of the same coin. To stress one without the other is falsification and destructive. And to deal with these divorced from freedom, agape and peace is perversion. The mystery meets us in situations only as freedom, love, or fulfillment. So also there is only awe of freedom, awe of love and awe of peace in the second stage or phase or step of humanness. Awe for the sake of awe is demonic. Inducing such for the sake of inducing is doubly so. Here we touch upon the practice, the exercise, the means, the rehearsal, the way. This is difficult, dangerous, and important. The issue is the above, holding together the mystery and the awe in relation to love, freedom, and fulfillment. Both mystery and awe have the quality of the objective. There is the "other-than." What keeps all of this from becoming subjective, ethereal, and dis-involvement is the injection of the world between God and self. When mystery and awe are met in the world (Incarnation) the great danger points are avoided. Freedom is the relation to the Mystery, which is both dread-filled and fascinating. So with love. So with peace. It is like the Mystery in each case is Yes and No and No and Yes. Judge and Redeemer. Creator and Denier. He who does not hate the mystery does not love it. And he who does not love the mystery does not hate it.

The practices relative to this participation in humanness have too often been the reality itself. This actually is their form of denial of life. For us the exercises are rehearsals of the reality. Now they are the reality, this they must be to be rehearsals but they are for the sake of being aware of that reality in the very midst of everyday life everywhere all the time.

THE UNIQUENESS OF OUR RADICAL EMPIRICISM

Transparency

1. The category of Transparency

2. The context of Incarnation (sarcous)

3. The idea of cruciformity

4. All that is is Good (Being)

5. Sanctification as burden of the world

6. Relational view of the self

7. Matter into spirit

8. Concept of the Indicative

9. The Other World Concept

10. Justification and sanctification (Relation of the Word)

  1. Knowing, Doing, Being
  2. Ontological vs. Moral

Joseph W. Mathews