Note: We did not do our usual framing of this podcast! We just dove right in and followed the threads. Welcome to our meandering spontaneity!

Both of us are energized by the topic of paradox and contradiction, and while this Sunday promises to be very rich with Jim Bankston joining Bill for a conversation, we are a bit giddy about preparing for our conversation the following Sunday too. Inspired by a meditation inspired by Meister Eckhart (are you with me?) we are inspired to walk through an active imagination process with the story of Saul’s conversion (see Acts 9). if you enjoy homework, read it a few times before then!

So much of what excite me around paradox is the both/andnessof reality. None of us, no thing, is just one thing, but a multitude of things. We are both light and dark, blind and seeing. We started this podcast with yet another mediation from Meister Eckhart’s Book of Secrets. I can’t recommend this little book enough!! God loves the dark because it’s an opportunity for the light to shine, thus when the dark beckons you, do not fear it. Go towards it. The dark is not nothing, but holds everything. And the juxtaposition of the light against the dark is stunning.

Yes, Darkness
I.
Everything glorifies God
in its own way.
Yes, Darkness, too,
the one out there
and the one that
hides within me
in my difficulties
and tribulations.
II.
And what, after all,
would God be
without it —
for it is where God wants to be,
so that light
can have its way
with me and
my darkness.

Sit with that for a bit. You are where God wants to be. However you conceive of God or mystery or the unknown, it loves your dark and your light. Growth is in deconstructing pretty much everything and being comforted by nothingness which is everything. Okay. Enough riddles. Go ponder. Thanks for leaning in. We cannot do this without you, and yet the journey is entirely individual. What we can be sure of, when it comes to Jesus, is that every single one of us is welcome here. Saul. Paul. Judas. Jesus. You. Me.

You are welcome here.