The Dance of Co-inherence is first of all a dance of God in God through God as Holy Trinity, then a dance of uncreated and created energies in Christ that embraces us by grace in the Holy Spirit, then a dance of wisdom and glory in the Holy of Holies that Biblical prophecy calls the Bridal Chamber. On the natural plane, it is the dance of male and female that generates babies and nurtures them, nourishing future generations. On the spiritual plane, it is the dance of co-inherence that regenerates saints, transmitting wisdom and transfiguring elders in ways that renew sacred tradition and restore glory to God. Indeed, co-inherence is everywhere in one way or another, but in God it is the dance of love in Holy Trinity, embracing saints with a kiss of peace and a gaze of wisdom that discerns glory. Created in the image of God, humanity is created God-centred, called to be like God in his wisdom and glory. Wisdom’s companionship discerns the glory of wisdom in the world’s great wisdoms in a manner that addresses the shadow in different religions, discovering what was missed or unresolved in earlier generations.
Co-inherence of wisdom and glory dances in and out within and around us, generating union out of confusion and communion out of division, turning the dogmatic definition of Chalcedon, ‘no confusion, no division,’ into living wisdom handling Jewish Kabbalah and Islamic Sufism in ways that co-inhere with Indian Advaita and Tibetan Dzogchen, Buddhist Zen and Chinese Tao, freeing confusion into union, division into communion where integral difference is completely integrated When we gather together in wisdom fellowship, we therefore experience wisdom’s differentiated co-inherence in many ways, religious and secular, releasing the knots that bind or obstruct us when we fixate on what we think we know, instead of letting grace liberate us from ourselves into what we do not know. Indeed, wisdom’s depths of co-inherence are growing in our time, due to seers like Thich Nhat Hanh, who died yesterday in Vietnam, the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who died on Boxing Day last December. In Christian circles, Dom John Main and Father Thomas Keating, Father Richard Rohr and Cynthia Bourgeault, have transmitted Benedictine, Cistercian, Franciscan and Carmelite Catholicism, co-inhering with oriental wisdoms like Ken Wilber’s Zen and Dzogchen, opening wisdom to wisdom, through manifold wisdom, in ways that inspire an integral embrace.
When we gather in on-line retreat, wisdom co-inheres in multiple but coherent ways, although it is not always possible to pin them down analytically. Wisdom communicates as uncreated, creative energy rather than just academic rigour, although wisdom’s rigour should not be underestimated. Wisdom’s rigour is doxological rather than logical because the Logos in Saint John, resonating with the Logos in Heraclitus and the Stoics, conjoin in ways that unveil the glory of God. We live wisdom’s co-inherence in our time in ways that open us to many co-inherent wisdoms, gathering us into many modes of glory, awaiting ahead of us, beckoning us to come, turn and see. We do not yet know all we shall be but we can love wisdom, who always already abides in all we are and can be. Loving wisdom releases us into mysteries of glory that have not yet been revealed, but already await us in wisdom’s grace of co-inherence, whispering the saving Name, freeing us to be whom God has in mind for us to be. Trust leaps into the arms of love, unveiling glory to wisdom, severing wisdom from confusion, sharing the dance of co-inherence with all who turn and see.