Being in America I wanted to write this on Thanksgiving but couldn't get to a computer! So pretend today is the 23rd November as you read this.
Shortly after the death of the great Blaise Pascal in 1662 (at the age of 39), a servant was sorting through his clothes and noticed something sewn into a coat that Pascal had often worn.
Out of curiosity the servant made a cut in the cloth and discovered a small parchment, inside of which was a faded piece of paper. The parchment and the paper both contained, in Pascal’s handwriting, nearly identical words. Evidently the paper was the original draft and the parchment was a carefully prepared copy.
In addition to the text, both the paper and parchment contained hand-drawn crosses. On the paper we find the following testimony (I have included the closing lines of the parchment),
From about half-past ten in the evening
until about half-past midnight.
Fire.
The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob.
Not of the philosophers and intellectuals.
Certitude, certitude, feeling, joy, peace.
The God of Jesus Christ.
My God and your God.
Your God will be my God.
Forgetfulness of the world and of everything except God.
One finds oneself only by way of the directions taught
in the gospel.
The grandeur of the human soul.
Oh just Father, the world has not known you,
but I have known you.
Joy, joy,,, joy, tears of joy.
I have separated myself from him.
They have abandoned me, the fountain of living water.
My God, will you leave me?
May I not be separated from him eternally.
This is eternal life, that they know you the one true God
and J.C. whom you have sent.
Jesus Christ.
Jesus Christ.
I have separated myself from him. I have run away from him,
renounced him, crucified him.
May I never be separated from him.
One preserves oneself only by way of the lessons taught
in the gospel.
Renunciation total and sweet.
Total submission to Jesus Christ and to my director.
Eternally in bliss, in exchange for a day of hard training
in this world.
May I never forget your words.
This day marked a turning point in Pascal’s life. He renounced what he called his self-serving activities and resolved to devote the remainder of his life to the worship and service of God.
Despite the significance of his conversion, according to most accounts he never once mentioned his “night of fire” to anyone. Instead he secretly kept those scraps of paper next to his heart for the rest of his life to remind him of his experience. While he wrote some of the most penetrating and moving reflections about God ever penned he kept silent about this day.
Just a quick note to say that I am currently travelling around the US and so have not been posting very much. I am currently giving a number of talks at different places and thought I would share them with you,
Forming Faith Community’s with/out God
This seminar looks at the creation of faith groups which acknowledge the importance of absence in Christianity. I explore how groups like ikon forge an environment in which seeking, desiring and longing are encouraged both by those who believe in God and those who do not.
Pascal and the (anti)apologetic of desire
This seminar takes the great seventeenth century thinker Blaise Pascal and argues that his work is critical for understanding how emergent cohorts in the US and other similar groups around the world should organise. While I try to show that Pascal’s work requires re-appropriation and modification I attempt to practically show how his writing can take shape in concrete faith communities
Heretical Orthodoxy
This seminar attempts to rediscover the ancient notion of orthodoxy as that which brings glory rather than that which offers correct doctrine. I explore how orthodoxy and heresy have traditionally been seen as opposites and show that this is not in fact the case. In this talk I uncover the epistemological foundations of the contemporary church and show how they either encourage or fail to discourage a form of conceptual idolatry in which God is reduced to an object rather than encountered as the absolute subject
The Fidelity of Betrayal
Here I explore the role and nature of revelation, arguing that the Judeo-Christian tradition requires that we sometimes betray our beliefs precisely in order to retain them. To do this we explore the Abraham and Issac story, reflect upon the bestowing of the name ‘Israel’ and employ the insights of mystical and deconstructive thought.
Heeding the Voice of God after the Death of God
This seminar looks at how Christianity can listen to, learn from and respond creatively to the criticisms of Feuerbach, Marx, Freud and Nietzsche.
My main desire in all of these talks is to show how this theoretical stuff has been enriched and embodied in the ikon community and thus to show how the paradigm shift in thinking refects in the development and running of concrete faith communities
