Pursuing Perfection
How do I define perfection? In a word: Love.
What does that mean though? Love?
Is it emotions, sensations, ideas, spirituality? All of them?
I dunno, I think absolutely, God is Love. God also happens to be truth, and unsearchable.
I think unsearchable is often the conclusion many arrive at when pondering love.
However, what does that mean for humans? Great, God is love, but we can’t be God obviously so what now?
Well, God is sometimes referred to as “I am who am”/”I am who I am”/”I am He who is”. So relates Moises at least.
NOTE: Please review post number 1 at this point.
So God is in some sense, perfect integrity. He alone truly “is”. He truly exists. And the way that we might in our own limited way come to be like God is to mimic his integrity. How do we do that?
“Well, slow down there Rafael, what the hell did you even just say?”
Allow me to explain. When Moises asked God for his name at the burning bush, God responded with some phrase which can be translated into English in the following forms: “I am who I am”/”I am who am”/”I am He who exists”. Let’s run over them a bit.
“I am who I am” Often interpreted as God being dismissive of Moises’ question, I find there is more to this statement than a simple dismissal. Put it this way, are you who you are? Or to clarify a little more, are you who you say you are? Probably not, since all us humans tend to carry our fair share of hypocrisy along with us. So what is God saying here? God is saying that he is who he says he is. You know what we call that? Integrity (also honesty I guess). Being who you are in all things, or as the Oxford dictionary put it: the state of being whole and undivided. God is giving Moises to understand that he is Integrity itself, perfection, God.
“I am who am”/”I am He who exists”
Since these are essentially the same I’m clumping them together. Less popular translations, these give a clear statement that God is not dismissing Moises’ inquiry. He is giving a rather direct answer in fact.
Moises: “Who do I tell them that you are?”
God: “I am he who exists.”
The funny thing here is what God is implying. See, if you ask me who I am, then it is clear that whatever I answer for myself is not who you are. Particularly when we do not belong to the same contextual group. A human on an alien planet inquired of as Moises did of God could most accurately state, “I am the Earthling.” A Californian in the Middle East or Japan or the Philippines asked the same question could very accurately state, “I am the American.”
What is confusing about God’s answer, and at once what is enlightening, is that his response has to do with the fundamental nature of being.
God responds that He is the one who exists.
We must stand, somewhat taken aback at this response and ask one of two questions:
1. Do I not exist?
2. Can I come to exist?
And here we pick up where we left off. The answers to these questions are the same as the answer to how we, in our own human way, can come to be like God.
