light with light, fire with fire If we are to believe Goethe, man has been created from a dialogue: ‘Man is the first creature whose existence is caused by a conversation between God and nature.’ If we take what is said in countless places as being true, namely that nature is the manifestation of the divine, we may deduce from it that man, after all a being of this nature, was originally, very long ago, of divine descent.
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owever, his divine status becomes very topical and is brought very close to us in expressions like ‘spark of the fire’ or ‘drop from the (divine) ocean’ or even ‘child of God’. So many honorary titles; for a moment, we taste the poetry – and pass on to the order of the day again, because it is too much honour, as this order of the day no longer shows much of the essence of this ‘image and likeness’. Any person who is not wholly blinded by conceit, experiences his limitations and his impotence to arm himself against the unexpected twists of fate. Instead, he creates a higher power, to which he can appeal, a god. Then he pours out his whole heart to this god who is subsequently worshipped with all honour and adoration which he is able to summon, in order finally, on this prepared ground, to be presented with his wish list. It is a somewhat simplified image of god; on the one hand, accepting a humble, subservient position; on the other, revolt and bitterness, if the desired help fails to come or works out altogether differently. This context agrees with a prayer culture that has maintained a distorted image of god and man, similar to the way in which we consider a constellation: our consciousness sees the stars concerned in a plane, but their distance to our eyes differs by an order of magnitude that can sometimes hardly be grasped by numbers. In itself, nothing is wrong with this; we know that we are dealing with an optical distor-
tion and that we, for a more concrete image, can fall back on another frame of reference, like scientific instruments. With regard to the traditional ideas about the image of god, we cannot do so. However correct and profound concepts like the Lord may be, they mainly evoke images of awe, power, punishment and reward in our earthly consciousness. Even the redeeming ‘God is love’ is often reduced to conventional goodness. However, despite all of this, quite a lot of bona fide sources urge us to pray, and even to ‘pray unceasingly’ like, among others, Paracelsus or Master Eckhart. We find it abundantly recommended in many writings from the universal wisdom concerning the liberation of the soul. ‘Unceasingly’ is quite a remarkable qualification. This can never refer to the quoted ritual of lamentation-song of praise-supplication, or can it? If this were the case, we would easily satisfy this ‘unceasingly’, because almost every second of our life we have wishes, expectations and desires. What should our daily comings and goings then look like? Even if we permanently withdraw into the solitude, we are still confronted with a number of worldly needs, tasks and obligations, which will distract us from this praying. Therefore, this ‘unceasingly’ seems to be an impossible demand, unless such statements hide more than seems to be the case at first sight. A much deeper meaning is hidden behind the concept of ‘praying’. Note that, in the context of praying, the menlight with light, fire with fire 35
