1,
God does not create humanity dualistically Separate from him, as the Occident claims; God does not create humanity monistically at One with him, as the Orient claims. There is nothing at risk for Creator or creation in both of these positions. The former promotes this-worldly autonomy and the domineering of ego-centrism; the latter promotes other worldly escape and the dissolving into impersonality. Both these opposing positions are false; the truth is ‘not this, not that.’
God creates humanity as a genuine Other. The Other is created through love, but this love has to open a wound in God, and has to open a wound in humanity.
‘To have a heart’ is to know the heartbreak in God and to know the heartbreak in humanity.
God of the heartbreak, God of the black grieving, God of the flaw in love: this is the only true God.
The other ‘gods’ are idols.
2,
In creating, God takes a risk.
He risks what he creates, inherently: this is redemption as heaven on earth vs. earth as hell.
He risks himself to what he creates, inherently: God could end up walking the heavenly earth with us, or God could end up in our hell; God asks us to join the conjoint risk, to share its burden and its honour, to carry it together, to sweat, cry and bleed for it, together, in order to plant its spark and kindle its fire.
This conjoint venturing of risk, this sharing of burden and honour, this joint sweating and crying and bleeding, that is operative ‘between’ God and mankind, I call ‘passion.’
Christ is the extreme of passion, human and divine, because in him it is God making the decisive sacrifice to mankind, not just mankind making sacrifice to God.
All older religions of any validity knew sacrifice as the central lodge pole. But in earlier times, the earth is sacrificed to the Spirit. This is asceticism, this is morality, this is what we offer from ourselves, out of love for God. In Christ, the Spirit is sacrificed to the earth. This is Passion’s Nobility. The Greater suffers for the Lesser; the Greater carries the Lesser; the Greater pays for the Lesser.
Those who have reached passion in this most fiery sense are the ones who will be required to give more, lose more, plumb the human pain more, because they will have picked up the burden everyone else has put down. It is on our passion that the passionless lean.
The sacrifice of passion: I offer myself, at cost to my own fullness, to the other person.
Unless a seed goes into the ground and dies, it will not bear fruit.
3,
In the heart’s depth is black inexplicable pain. In the black inexplicable pain is the God of the heartbreak.
The black pain reduces everything to nothing. Red fire is forged in a furnace of dead ashes.
It is only in the abyss of black pain, where the God of heartbreak dwells, that the red fire of passion is kindled. Thus for the life of passion, only two colours are sacred: black and red.
Passion takes on a Danger, and becomes a Venture.
Passion takes on a Gap, and becomes a Journey.
Passion takes on a Hardship, and becomes a Struggle.
Passion takes on an Unknown, and becomes a Leap into Mystery.
Passion takes on an Undetermined Outcome, and becomes a Battle.
Passion embraces the Deep, and becomes the action that stands on, and
stands up for, the Truth upon which the heart is staked.
The red of passion throws off warm, bright colour, but emanates from a deep black.
In Flamenco, this black in the red is ‘duende.’ In an interview with a newspaper [3Febr06], Cristina Hoyos ‘points the inevitable finger towards her heart’: “Flamenco comes from ‘muy de dentro’, very deep inside of you. And you can be a great, great dancer, perfectly poised, have a very sophisticated technique, but if your dancing does not give people goose pimples…it cannot be great flamenco.” Duende is the power that electrifies the heart only when it is in the deep heart suffering and in the deep heart fight.
Passion binds itself to the killing ground where our sweat, tears, and blood are spilled.
4,
There is no hope. All hope is futile and vain.
There is something darker, more mysterious, more powerful.
There is the grieving, and there is the flame.
There is the God of the heartbreak who will not leave any heart alone, until it is in grieving and it is in flame.
God of the heartbreak: come now, and finish what you began.
5,
God creates through a wound opened by love.
In Eros, this wound is the soul’s desire for God: God heals it by joining with the soul.
In the Daemonic, this wound is the heart’s fervour for redeeming the world: God sacrifices his own and humanity’s passion to it.
God of the heartbreak: God of the black grieving, God of the flaw in Love, God of the Suffering for Love, God of the Fight for Love, God of the Black and God of the Red.
This is the only true God.