The union of wisdom and glory, awareness and presence, unveils the dazzling darkness of the Name and illumines mystical theology from within. The wisdom praxis of turning is one with wise theoria, enlightened seeing, and this practice of turned vision in God is a union of wisdom and glory, mystical theology. As the ground of all that is arising, ‘I AM’ is Father of all, source of ineffable oneness in God, revealed by the Son in the Holy Spirit. This hidden oneness is manifested as union between the uncreated and the created, revealed through the Son unveiling the Name ‘I AM,’ opened in ‘I AM,’ the Holy Spirit. The ineffable wisdom of the Name is what makes theology mystical. Although the Father is the origin of all, the presence of the Father is overlooked and unrecognised unless Christly wisdom turns and sees the glory of ‘I AM,’ communion communicated by the Son in the light of the Holy Spirit. The desert calls this mystical theology, fruit of Christian wisdom that turns and sees the glory of ‘I AM,’ curing the divisive confusions of our blind and hardened hearts. Desert elders call this experience of Holy Trinity mystical theology, which is not to be confused with academic theology, because it is the heart’s purification, illumination and glorification in the wisdom and glory of Christ.
Union with God is radical self-emptying, not a self-imposed achievement, a profound turning not an acquisition that leaves me intact at centre and God out there. When turning awakens seeing, it empties me into God at centre seeing God in God, triune awareness, Holy Trinity. Wisdom discerns dazzling glory, glory that grounds wisdom, awareness that is awake to the timeless presence of the hidden oneness of the Father. The wisdom of the Son bears witness to the Father, a union in the Spirit that the Spirit imparts as wisdom. The Father generates the filial awareness of the Son, but also sends the Spirit, pure awareness proceeding from the Father to abide in the presence of the Son. The Spirit shines forth in the unveiled face of the Son, proceeding from the Father through the Son to all who hallow the Name. These insights of wisdom are called mystical theology because it is this graced awakening to the dazzling darkness of glory that imparts knowledge of Holy Trinity. Nothing wavers from the timeless awareness of the Father, revealed by the eternal Son in the ineffable awareness of the Holy Spirit. Wisdom’s enlightening intent transfigures everything in God the Father, made visible through God the Son, in God the Holy Spirit. The Kingdom of God is this realm of wisdom and glory, present in act as uncreated triune energy, wisdom transmitting glorification through Christ’s resurrection and ascension, lived as wise turning and enlightened seeing.
All things arise in the uncreated light of divine awareness and are deified in the uncreated glory of divine presence, presence of awareness, awareness of presence, wisdom awake to glory in the midst. Without wisdom, there is no mystical theology, no Kingdom of glory, no awareness of the union of awareness and presence. The mysteries of wisdom are a participation in the glory unveiled in the Name. There is nothing contrived about these mysteries, which rest at centre as triune ‘I AM’ in the midst, free of obscuration and obstruction. Self-abiding awareness is recollected as wisdom in glory, awareness of presence, presence of awareness. Profound insight derives from the Spirit’s witness to the union of translucent awareness and transfiguring presence. Mystical theology knows that the only real ‘theologian’ is God the Holy Spirit communicating the Son’s dazzling insight into the Father, full of the grace of awareness, complete with the presence of glory. Abiding in this ineffable wisdom, glory is revealed, the glory the Son ascribes to the Father. Glorification is participation in this divine completeness, ineffably transcending yet embracing constricted incompleteness, without confusion or division. This completeness is ineffable peace, unrestricted openness without end, freedom of spirit born through a spiritual awakening of the eye of the heart. Mystical theology lives from the glory of the Great Peace, glory which hallows the saints, a union of wisdom and glory, awareness and presence, in the Kingdom come.
Desert wisdom integrates praxis and theoria in theologia, mystical theology, which is the gnosis of God through God, in God: Holy Trinity. This wisdom way of knowing unites knower and known in glory, conjoining awareness and presence in the practice of seeing, which is a union of seer and seen in the Name ‘I AM.’ Mystical theology is both ascent and descent, arrival and destination, beginning and end of the spiritual path. To turn is to see, and to see is to live the ineffable oneness that unites the Father and the Son, praying the Spirit’s unceasing prayer of union with the Father through the Son, which is mystical theology. This is dazzling darkness that transforms the spiritual death of the darkened heart into dazzling resurrection, raising ascension to glorification, not to be confused with the acquisition of sophisticated theological opinions that cultivate clever mystification. The path of ascent begins as ascetic renunciation but matures as mystical descent, God’s deifying embrace of all that was initially renounced, God’s loving embrace of his creation through God, God’s restoration of all things by the Spirit, through the Son, to the Father. Mystical theology remains hidden in lower approaches, but is unveiled when wisdom embraces ineffable glory in the Holy of Holies. The desert has never forgotten that the mysteries of glory consummate the mysteries of ascent with the descending completeness of Great Peace, glorification imparted through the Name in the Spirit. It bears witness to completeness as union of the Father and the Son, communion in the Spirit, unveiling Holy Trinity. Mystical theology bears witness to this completeness as defying union, the sacred marriage of wisdom and glory, awareness of glory awakening wisdom, presence of wisdom restoring all glory to God.