Being important is over-rated. About ten years ago, I shopped around a book proposal. The publishers who looked at it said they liked my writing but that I needed to have a “platform.” Social media followers and the like. I’m all for building thoughtful, community-oriented platforms to share creativity, services, and work. Tucked in with a genuine passion for writing, though, lurked a motive from the shadow self—the desire to be important. This desire was nebulous, always elusive and undefinable, but the shadow self said that important people write books, and thus to be “someone of note,” I must do the same. Thank God for the rejection.
I’m more convinced than ever that the people of the most transformative spiritual depth are not Instagram influencers. They are not important in any external way, but their importance centers the world. Sure, it’s possible to straddle both depth and influence well, and Glennon Doyle Mellon’s raw and honest wisdom, I’ll be honest, touches my heart. Talking with my longtime spiritual director and mentor recently, however, got me thinking of the importance of a man named William Meninger, one of the founders of the Centering Prayer method who died recently. A true spiritual genius. When, in the 1970s, the monks at St. Joseph’s Abbey in Spencer, MA sought to recover a practical meditation method from the Christian tradition, William Meninger looked to the fourteenth-century work The Cloud of Unknowing. Meninger and the other monks compressed that teaching into some user-friendly steps of releasing thoughts and surrendering to God’s presence that—I think I say this without hyperbole—have changed Christianity. Now that’s impact—but most people have never heard of William Meninger. The glory of God just might be found in the pursuit, as the Cistercians write in their constitution (3.5), “to persevere in a life that is ordinary, obscure, and laborious.” That’s at heart what I mean when I refer to “ordinary mysticism.”
“The twenty-four elders fall before the one who is seated on the throne and worship the one who lives forever and ever; they cast their crowns before the throne, singing.” —Revelation 4:1
The circle of heavenly leaders around the throne of God all place their crowns before God’s presence. Scratch that, they throw them down (Greek word here). John’s vision of divine presence describes four living, strange creatures participating in this liturgical drama. Four creatures, one each respectively like a lion, an ox, a human, and an eagle—six wings each, covered with eyes (picture that!)—sing to God day and night. And whenever the creatures sing, the text says, the twenty-four elders join in the worship and hurl their crowns at God’s feet. Since the creatures worship day and night, well, that means the cycle of worship is ongoing. It never ends.
Who are these twenty-four elders, anyway? It doesn’t matter. It’s fun to dive into the imaginative depths with John. Maybe they are symbolic of the twelve tribes of Israel and the twelve apostles. Who really knows? Better to follow the insight of one Oecumenius (Commentary on the Apocalypse, 6th century), who wrote “God alone, who knows every mystery, and that person to whom he might reveal it, might know the identity of the twenty-four elders who are seated upon the thrones.” John’s many references are all steeped in biblical symbolism and yet at the same time, nearly impossible to pin down. John is painting with words rather than constructing a logical argument or, heaven forbid, an end-times calendar. The effect of the entire book is to invite us to participate in the throne room worship, too. If we try to make sense of it we miss the evocative, worshipful power. John of Patmos, I think, would concur with the 19th century Eastern Orthodox mystic Theophan the Recluse, who wrote, “The principal thing is to stand with the mind in the heart before God, and to go on standing before Him unceasingly day and night, until the end of life.” Sounds like a description of the divine throne room to me.
Why would these mysterious elders cast their crowns down? On the one hand, the crowns are the fruit of significant struggle and victory. They represent the earlier promise of divine presence, the overcoming of injustice, and the gift of unending life that God gives those who “are faithful until death” (2:9). On the other hand, John’s liturgical removal of crowns is a ritual of resistance to Empire, since kings taking off crowns in the presence of Caesar, the very important “king of kings,” was expected. Here is a presence bearing infinitely greater authority than the Empire, and the elders show where true authority lies when they place crowns down before God and not Caesar.
Arriving face to face with God calls into question our allegiance and sources of importance—what false crowns do we wear and bow before? What is really important to us? In such a Presence as God, there is no reason or room for our self-improvement projects, addictive patterns, and egoic plans. God may promise a heavenly crown, but the crowns we are most familiar with on this side of the veil are all wrapped up in the importance we seek—security, control, affirmation, and the systems that we build around them. Pilate could not comprehend a king apart from Rome’s power, and the cruel thorns crowning Jesus revealed far more than Pilate conceived. In John’s vision of Divine Imminence, Rome’s false power (or America’s, or Amazon.com’s) carries absolutely no weight. True Royal presence renders pretenders to the throne irrelevant. Especially as the world responds to Meghan and Harry’s tell-all Oprah interview, it’s worth mentioning that domination, the misuse of power, not to mention the racism inherent in all royal, colonial projects have no place in the divine throne room. The elders (whoever they are) find their importance in the cyclical flow of love, and the divestment of false crowns as they join the choir in an eternal now of praise. That should be good enough for us.
But also this: in the throne room of God, the divine presence is not separate from us anymore. It’s both “out there” and “in here” at the same time. There’s no real reason to wear crowns because the elders have realized their true royal personhood in the Presence of God. Throw the crowns down or keep them on; it’s all one movement in the unending cycle of worship. For German mystic Meister Eckhart, as I mentioned in this post, everyone is already important, a king or queen at heart. It’s only the flimsy crowns (Burger-King-like) of our lives, and a hefty dose of untruth, that keep us from disbelieving our essential importance, obfuscating Divine Presence in us and the same essential importance in everyone and everything else, too.
Apocalyptic culture moment: Son House, John the Revelator
Apocalyptic quote of the week: “What visions do you revel in? Do you truly long for peace? Or is your hope for God’s reign merely an alibi that masks a delight in fantasies of the slaughter that supposedly must precede it?” —Damon T. Berry, writing in the April issue of Sojourners, on how evangelical Christians embrace of apocalyptic doomsday scenarios paved the way for QAnon.
Image credit: Aloys Wach, Chris with crown of thorns and triangular halo, 1933, painting, Wikimedia.
P.S. as usual, I heartily welcome your comments or responses to this email. I will respond, even if it takes me several days. Have a great week.
Convicting and encouraging, thanks for making the throne room alive this morning.
Mark reading your blog leaves me speechless. Thank you for ushering us into the presence of God and reminding us that our minds must be brought into our hearts. May God bless your ministry.