The Divine Universe

St Francis is the most popular saint in Protestant Christendom. Even agnostics and atheists have a soft spot for him for his unspoken challenge to the corrupt and worldly 12th century Church. Pet-lovers adore him - a kind of patron saint of birdbaths. But the Francis of prayer cards, stained glass windows and statuettes ring slightly untrue to me – that long, clerical habit (the habit preserved in Assisi is a short worker’s tunic), the ever-present birds and often a rather soppy expression.

The Francis I read about in the early hagiographies however also makes me uncomfortable. Extravagant legends of his sanctity evoke a slightly embarrassed scepticism. Challenges in his written exhortations to a literal interpretation of the Gospels make me feel ashamed and inadequate. I am neither holy enough nor devout enough to really identify with all this, though I often wish I could.

However, G K Chesterton’s popular biography of the mid-20th century gave me a clue to something I can identify with. He suggested that Francis was one of the great nature mystics. Christian mystics such as Julian of Norwich, Meister Eckart and Teilhard de Chardin have not enjoyed a warm welcome by the Church authorities, but mysticism has had a revival in recent years. New-agers, post-modern philosophers, theologians and quantum physicists have been rediscovering what Western culture lost during the Enlightenment, the modernist scientific era. I refer to our intrinsic unity with the living organism we call our universe.

During the modernist era we regarded humankind and the rest of physical nature as quite separate. We imagined that we observed nature objectively. Nature was perceived as an intricate and wonderful machine, designed and created by a God who still manipulated the controls occasionally from a distance. We are still in the eventide of that era. Dinosaurs like Richard Dawkins and Bishop Spong still wave the banner of modernism.

St Francis anticipated the Renaissance; he also anticipated post-modernism. The resergence of mysticism is linked to the post-modern era. I suppose you’ve heard about the mystic ordering a hamburger: “Make me one with everything.” Francis obviously felt this union deeply, though he never expressed it in philosophical, theological or scientific terms. He saw God, worshipped and glorified in everything around him, and felt it all as an extended family. Everything was God’s offspring and his sibling. Only in self-centred and self-destructive humans, including himself, did Francis see cause for sorrow.

This unity is clearly expressed in the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. God is not simply a spirit; God is also embodied, incarnate in physical nature – the cosmic Christ. The Father and Son are not two gods, but one God: one single, dynamic total reality, transcendent and immanent. Ultimately, God is the only reality.

During the industrial revolution, people almost totally lost sight of our relationship with the rest of nature. The result of that now threatens human survival and many other species as well. Nature is now delivering a prophetic ultimatum and the first to hear this cry of warning has not been theologians but scientists; not devout religionists, but the sceptical, inquisitive and rigorous interrogators of nature.

The resurgence of mysticism in the West, some of it in the church, may have come at a providential time. Those with a mystical and contemplative bent were probably the first to appreciate what the scientists were saying. There are mystics in the science community too. Quantum physics has made a strong appeal among many who are interested in what they call “spirituality”. Quantum physicists recognise clearly the unity of everything in a mysterious, dynamic dance of energy. Each of us is not only related to everyone else; we are remotely related in cosmic energy fields to everything, even the most distant galaxies.

I don’t know how Francis would have reacted to industrialisation. I suspect he would not have been comfortable with it. It would not be the affluence of the industrial world that he would weep about, but the mindless and destructive exploitation of nature.

Ordinary people have recently woken up to the crisis, though we still need to discover within ourselves our unity with everything and a love that only the Holy Spirit can inspire. We still love our cars, our interstate and overseas flights, our coal-powered heating and cooling, and all our gadgets, and politicians are afraid to act. But scientists have been to first to see light beyond the tunnel. We have the technology to meet our needs with renewable energy sources. At first the cost will be considerable, but many new jobs will emerge, and later on the savings will be enormous.

Long-term survival, the whole process of life and evolution, involves dying as well as living, and we are all dying even while we think we live. “Unless a seed enters the ground and dies, it remains a bare grain,” said Jesus. Francis loved life as passionately as we do, but he welcomed “Sister Death”. For him, living and dying were one glorious process.
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The post-modern philosopher, Don Cupitt, once nearly died of heart failure several times within a few days. In a book written later I came upon these words.

“We seem to have forgotten how to die. . . . We live by dying, unattached, pouring ourselves into the flux of life in such a way that death, when it comes, is not a threat but a consummation.”

He could well have had St Francis in mind. In this age of individualism, such thoughts of total absorption into the flux of life totally contradict the spirit of our time. Francis was one of the outstanding and very eccentric individuals of European history, but he rejected fame and fortune, pouring himself, destitute, into the flux of life. The heavenly fool saw Christ as his model. The self-giving life of Christ, glorifying the Father and glorified in him, is manifest in all the world around us, living and dying. This was Francis’ wonderful discovery.

What we do about climate change is still being debated. Scientists have done all the real work so far. Politicians have been the most timid and tardy. We all fear and resist change. Public awareness is awakening, but I believe the real problem is more spiritual than technical or political. Francis and the great nature mystics of every age, Christians, Hindus, Buddhists, Australian and American aborigines and even non-religious mystics can teach us. We must share something of their vision of mystery and beauty. Saving grace first, then saving technology and political action will follow.