Reality, Part 2
“Real isn’t how you are made… It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become Real.”[1]
Traditionally and irrationally, we often expect something or someone to be unchanging and reliable in order to be considered real. The physical sciences show that nothing in our material universe meets that standard for reality. In religious circles, some claim God to be unchanging, but the constantly evolving nature of God’s creation indicates, at the very least, that God manifests in diversity, change, and fluidity. If everything in our world changes, which it clearly does, then our defined reality must align itself only with that which changes slowly enough so as to not be too obvious. We continually seek for what is always true, even though what was true for us 20 years ago is true for us no longer, and what is true for us today will no longer hold true 20 years hence. We can believe that God never changes, and there is a sense in which that is probably correct, but no-thing from God, whether a tangible object or a collection of God-inspired writings, will exist unchanged forever. God’s reality is change, at least as we perceive it. This truth is an invitation to find our realities in the changing nature of God and God’s evolving creation.
Last week I concluded my thoughts by suggesting that reality is fluid and contextual. I suggested that we often only consider something real during certain portions of its natural progression of existence. Clouds, for example, are only considered real during the phases of their existence that are visible to us, even though the essential components of clouds exist long before and after our eyes can detect them. And the nature of the reality of a cloud is to always change its shape and color. In addition, the immediate appearance of a cloud changes depending on the angle from which one views it. Regardless, most of us consider clouds real, even though there is nothing solid or unchanging about them. Our doctrines and relationships, like clouds, also evolve and change, although at a slower rate of change, as is true for mountains and the orbits of planets.
As we consider what is real I am reminded of the children’s book, The Velveteen Rabbit, written by Margery Williams over a century ago. It is a story of a little boy and his stuffed rabbit, whom the boy considers real because he loves it. This is an example of an inanimate object being granted realness or becoming animated by the love of another, in spite of its increasingly worn and ragged nature. “Real isn’t how you are made…It’s a thing that happens to you.” The boy loved the stuffed rabbit for a long time, and the rabbit became real, at least in the eyes of the boy. As the story goes, the boy got sick and his room and toys had to be disinfected. The rabbit was sealed away in a sack and exiled outside to the garden. A fairy appeared and turned the stuffed rabbit into a living rabbit – a different type of realness – so the bunny could keep company with other outdoor rabbits. As only stories, parables, and myths can do, a truth about reality is exposed in a way that the factual telling of events could never reveal. Does that make the facts of events untrue? No, but it does reveal that facts are only real and true in limited times and contexts. As the times and contexts change, so do the facts. Higher, more inclusive truths can be revealed only by story over the course of its telling, as opposed to by the details of any stage in the telling. In other words, the truths revealed in story transcend the facts of any specific event. One truth about realness told in The Velveteen Rabbit is that realness is granted by others.
So it is with what we consider broader realities and truths. Our realities change with our circumstances, as our relationships change, and as our needs and understandings of the world change. Reality, at least as far as we can comprehend it, is only real in this moment and in this context, as is truth. It cannot be otherwise in the earth-bound phase of our lives, nor need it be. Just because something is contextual does not make it less relevant or useful. There is no past or future reality except that which is accepted and related to as real and true in the present. It is helpful to hold our certainties about reality and truth loosely and grant them their fluidity – as we do with clouds – knowing they will change as the storyline of our life unfolds.
This is the 22nd in a series of Life Notes on Time, and Eternity. The opinions expressed are mine. To engage with me or to explore contemplative spiritual direction, contact me at ghildenbrand@sunflower.com.
[1] Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit, George H Doran Company, 1922.
Contemplating Grace 