Every day is the last day when glory unveils the Day of ‘I AM.’ ‘I AM’ is one, as glory is one at wisdom’s centre where all centres coincide. Wisdom’s love of liberating paradox does not attempt a rational account of glorification but offers signs, signifying not solutions to problems but mysteries of uncreated grace, indicating what reason fails to grasp and the senses overlook. The extremes of cryptic, gnomic utterance serve wisdom’s divine intent, which is to awaken hearts from shallow, narrow opinion. Always a sign of contradiction in a flatland world, wisdom bears witness to timeless, advent glory without separation, restoring original glory with eschatological glory without division. Desert love of wisdom preserves an archaic ethos that lives from the mysteries of Logos rather than discursive logic, and confronts the heart with aporia, impassible narrows, which say ‘no way’ to sophist presumption so as to safely unveil saving glory to wisdom. Shallow and narrow opinions are thrown into profound doubt so that shock strikes awe into flamed wonder and the eye of the heart opens. Wisdom awakens to glory when the Name ‘I AM’ unveils and wisely veils God in the midst. ‘I AM: One: All.’
Glory to come is always already present as pure presence, unveiled through the Name as wisdom ever-aware: ‘I AM.’ When, in time, we look forward to wisdom’s coming, we overlook her, but when addictive seeking stops, the grace of glory’s pure presence manifests. The desert calls this the theophany of glory, which is the advent of wisdom’s catalytic epiphany. Addition to ‘I AM’ is always diminution, because when extraneous created predicates are added to the divine Name, confusion intervenes and there is immediate fall from grace and glory. The pure presence of glory, being ever-present, is future glory for whom past glory is no longer lost but paradise regained. If we feel her lack, it is because we have absented ourselves from wisdom. It is because we are resisting her and imposing our separation from her, for glory is always already present as pure presence which gracefully precedes us. We would never be able to yearn for her completeness if her presence had not already found us. ‘I AM: All: One.’
It is in glory that glory glorifies the saints, just as it is in light that light illumines them. Saint Symeon the New Theologian imparted these mysteries to Hesychast seers, as Saint Gregory Palamas bore witness. Saints bear witness to glory when they are attuned to wisdom, which is when, through wisdom, they see glory opening from glory to glory. The Logos of glory is reflexively apophatic because wisdom doubles back on us as glory, being glory before the beginning coming to meet us as glory after the end. Wisdom discerns glory’s circular completeness that never ceases to encircle us as pure presence always already aware of glory. Glory sees glory as light sees light, and it is through wisdom that light awakens to glory without end. Because wisdom is one, all ends and means, being glory, do not impose separation. The saints are light of glory when glory to come completes time, chronos, by uniting with glory before time in timeless presence, kairos. There is no separation when glory glorifies the saints, when they are caught up in the presence and awareness of glory, shaking off all falls from glory like drops of dew from a leaf. Wisdom is one as the Name is one, imparting union and communion to the glorified on the inside of great tension. The strain matches the stress, like a back-stretched lyre, resonant and beautiful. The Logos of glory encircles elders and saints, filling them to overflowing with ineffable completeness that embraces the incompleteness of their mortal brokenness. The tension of wise glory does not slack, neither does it snap, letting the music of the wisdom of glory resound. Glory wisely cleaves to wisdom as wisdom wisely cleaves to glory, in accordance with the wisdom logic of wise Logos.