So, The University of the South: Sewanee, where my residential seminary was, is located in Middle Tennessee, on top of a mountain at the very southern tip of the Cumberland Plateau. I don't know what it is about the confluence of weather patterns there, but as often as not, it was foggy. Now, we get fog here in this area, but, y'all, the fog there was FOG! I mean it was where San Francisco came to take fog lessons. It was actually just clouds, but when you are in the middle of a cloud, that's some serious fog. In fact, I still have a tee shirt somewhere in one of my drawers from my seminary days that says, “Fog Happens.” That's how famous this area is for fog.
It could get so foggy that if Brooks and I were walking from the seminary to the library, we'd only be able to find it because we recognized the pattern of the lights along the sidewalk, and the smell of the cafeteria.
I remember one particular late afternoon. We'd had a long day of classes. Now Brooks was the head sacristan in the chapel, and that day he had to clean up after Evening Prayer. So we were later than usual leaving. I had driven that day, so we were walking back to the car which was parked on the other side of the campus rugby pitch. And it was FOGGY! We were walking by the pitch, and we couldn't see a thing except the vague outline of the goalpost. But we could hear the guys playing and shouting. How they could see enough to play was beyond me, but there they were, out there somewhere, shouting and laughing and cheering.
And then, the weirdest thing happened. The noise got closer and closer. Suddenly, they appeared in the shadows. A half dozen guys all chasing around, grabbing after a ball. And just as they were becoming clearer, they turned around and faded away as they ran back into the fog.
We looked at each other and smiled. That was what life was like on The Mountain. And it was something we were going to always remember. But I think I do this experience an injustice. Maybe you just had to be there.
We had a professor there that would sometimes refer to Sewanee as “the cloud of knowing,” because it's a school located in that fog. But it is a take on the middle ages book, called “The Cloud of Unknowing.” No one knows who wrote it, but somehow it's managed to survive all these centuries. Essentially, it's an ancient self-help book. The gist of it is that we spend so much of our time trying to suss out God. We want to put boundaries on God and describe God like we would all other things in existence. God is this. God is NOT that. God is “omnipotent,” “omniscient,” “omnipresent.” Then we go on to describe what “omnipotent,” “omniscient,” and “omnipresent” mean. But then we tell ourselves that, really those definitions don't quite hit the mark, but they are close. And we say God is “love,” or “justice,” or “faithful,” or “peace.” And we still have trouble defining those to capture God.
Well, The Cloud of Unknowing just says, ditch all of that. You won't get there that way. You need to get rid of all your “knowing” of God. Instead you need to empty yourself of all of that and “contemplate God.” And then the book gives various ways to achieve contemplation.
And folks, I'm here to tell you that I've read that book...and I still have no idea what the dude is saying! I mean, I kinda get where he's going with all this, but I can't get to where he's at. I'm not the most contemplative person in the world.
My reaction to such things is more like Peter's. We've just seen Jesus sitting around with Moses and Elijah. We've just seen Jesus transfigure (another word we try to define but can't because only one person was transfigured and we weren't there to see what actually took place). We've just seen Jesus transfigure, and my reaction is like Peter's – do something. React! Make a plan. Form a committee. Try to describe it. Build a monument. Put up a plaque. Do something!
We still do this. How many of our brothers and sisters in Christ cannot keep themselves from turning to thinking they know about God to knowing they need to beat that knowledge into others? And how many times does that sureness of rightness turn loving their God into hating their neighbor? And how many times does this turn people away from Jesus? I am fully convinced that one of the main reasons people have drifted away from Christ is because we Christians know too dang much!
But God does not approach the disciples on that mountain with full outlines, in living color, spouting all the answers, touching our heads and filling our brains with knowledge and rightness. No, God approaches them in a cloud, unseen, unknown. And with all that is God, all that shows up to them, all that they experience, is a single sentence. This eternal being, before all time, outside all time, creator of all there is, a being beyond comprehension, says only a single sentence.
“This is my Son, my Chosen: listen to him.”
And then God disappears back into the cloud, unseen, unknown, leaving them alone again. And I think Jesus tells them not to run out and tell others not because he wants them to have secret knowledge, but because they'd make fools of themselves trying to explain this experience. Instead Jesus wants them to live with the experience for a while, let it settle into their souls. And they will know when they are ready to share the experience when they know that the only way to describe God is, “Y'all, you just had to be there.”
Like those rugby players on Monteagle Mountain, you just had to be there. I think that maybe God in the foggy cloud is not so bad. I think maybe not knowing the right words to describe God is just fine. Because God will always be there in the fog, ready to be heard, ready to be known, if only just a little bit. If you asked me how those guys on the rugby pitch could play in that dense fog, I would say, “I don't know. But they did.” If you asked me what happened at the Transfiguration, I would say, “I don't know. But it was something miraculous.” And if you ask me who God is or why God does what God does,” I am perfectly comfortable in saying, “I don't really know. And it's ok if you don't either.” It's ok to live in the fog. Because God is there, speaking to us now and again. And we will continue to grope about, learning as we go.
Because always, always there is a guiding light in that fog, leading the way. “This is my Son, my Chosen: listen to him.”
Amen.