Friday, July 9, 2010

GUEST POST: Andrew Bowen

Andrew Bowen is a thinker. A writer, an editor, a theologian, a philosopher, and did I mention one hell of a thinker.

That's why I'm kicked up nicely that Andrew agreed to write a guest post here at Bent Country. It is a true pleasure to give such a mind some room to run and not only have the chance to read the results but share them with others.

Now, read this heat-seeking essay, this "human narrative" as Andrew would call it, and enjoy.


A DIVINE THEORY

By Andrew Bowen

I’ve got a theory. Some of it has been proclaimed before but hey, like Muhammad said, I’m only here to remind you. Perhaps what follows will change mankind’s point of view; or maybe just yours. By the end, you just might come to understand that these are actually one in the same.

It all started with God, and God was small…very small. God was so small that there existed no volume, no space within. Picture a grain of sand. Smaller than that. With me? Imagine an atom. Smaller than that too. This was reason, what kept God’s substance together.

Then there was the heat. This heat was actually love; all the love that would ever exist. This heat was absolute, the temperature at which realities are ignited. Heat—love, wants to rise and expand. It is an electrical current, a heartbeat.

Like the constant push-pull fury in a star between the outward convection of its furnace and its own gravity pulling it inward, love and reason eternally fought. The density of God was so infinitely great that the resulting gravity withheld the heat—the love—thus creating a compressed core of molten passion, the heat and light of which could not escape God’s gravity. This is what theoretical science has called the singularity.

God wanted to create, to be known. For God to do this, gravity would have to surrender. All reason, the very force that held God together, would have to unfurl in order for love to bloom. This created a great risk. In the event of this release, God’s very essence would scatter outward in an uncontrollable flare across a vast landscape of time and space with little hope of ever coalescing again.

Unless, of course, Creation was made aware of its origins and was willing to join.

God’s passion grew too hot, too wild to control. Then, when the balance between love’s expansive heat and reason’s reigning gravity came to a head, he relinquished control and gave himself to passion. Gravity collapsed. This was the Divine Spark that set creation into motion.

And so it came to pass, that 13.5 billion years ago, God truly died.

The resulting explosion, an exponential spray of passion’s molten core, spread through a black nothing a tick faster than the speed of light. Theoretical science calls this the Big Bang.

Thus, God became the first martyr. His essence, countless sparks of primordial matter and energy, spread throughout the newly expanding bubble. Though ripped apart, he still had one more act to help ensure Creation’s hopeful recognition of itself as one. His last thought, “Love”, delivered a seismic burst into all matter and energy, thus animating its creative properties and the universal frequency of all. Mankind has listened. The phenomena we know this as are sub-atomic vibrating strings of energy called “quarks”.

Creation had a heartbeat, a vital sign of God’s collective existence. Our experiences in prayer, meditation, visions, and ecstasy are the background radiation of God’s former existence. An echo of our birth; an evidence of our base, shared substance. Our attraction to one another, toward peace, love, fellowship, and the cosmos is a natural and divine magnetism. God cannot come together without us doing so, and we will never know God without submitting to the same force of Love that ripped the divine asunder.

I made this up; it’s bullshit—a metaphor, but that’s what makes theology fun and enlightening. Only when we take ourselves and our traditions too literally or seriously do we miss the chance to come together and share our human narratives, to claim our birthright, to truly become the image of God.

Andrew's work has appeared in places like Prick of the Spindle, decomP, Metazen, Wrong Tree Review, and others. He is the founding editor of Divine Dirt Quarterly and blogs at www.bowenandrew.blogspot.com.

7 comments:

  1. This is gorgeous, Andrew! And, I would argue, not bullshit at all. There always seems to be this battle between science and religion, and you've proposed a nice way of reconciling the two that I haven't seen before. It probably comes closer to my personal beliefs than any organized religion I've come across. Keep up the great stuff!

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  2. this is a wonderful thought that will stay with me - i agree with j. lea: not bullshit at all. i like how you follow through, too. scientists don't know shit, actually (i should know, i was one) so definitely keep dreaming.

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  3. I too am on the no bullshit bandwagon. Andrew this indeed ponderous and yet basic in its premise at the same time, the concept of all the love that will ever exist in the form of matter/energy is overwhelming as I could not help but think that there must be corresponding quarks/vessels/whatever of hate/vitriol and all that sucks up positive forces in our lives. We have and will always struggle to bring order to that which we don't fully understand - thanks for stretch break of the gray cells with this one.

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  4. I agree with the above. It's not bullshit at all. I only have my own personal experiences to know the divine and this is true for all of us. Thank you for sharing this. Very thought provoking.

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  5. The sensuality which fills us comes from the God who died onto Herself, and become reborn with each Lover's embrace, each Lover's kiss, and each Lover's orgasmic feast....

    We are the seamless God;
    We are the seamless Love.

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  6. Well, I have to agree with all of the above. Divine enlightenment is as personal as DNA. No bullshit, no black and white....just individual personal perception.
    Very provocative post!:-)

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  7. Love this, just love it. The passion of God, and God being small. I'm a Unitarian Universalist (hey! married to a UU minister!) and I believe theology is as personal as who you have sex with. Whatever floats your boat, and this definitely floats mine. Peace...

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