| Lord
of the "between"
Art has always experimented
with this phenomenon. Art deliberately re-configures familiar
conventions or objects, making them strange to our senses in order
to make explicit our investments of meaning in phenomena, necessary
and superfluous, that surround us. These also have a capacity
to mean something otherwise. Art can make apparent
what we tend to assume. We inhabit a world of the “between,” usually
without explicit awareness of not knowing things in themselves—until
we disagree over the value, meaning, purpose or significance of
any particular thing in itself. Everything around
us has a surreal dimension—sur-real,
suggesting above or beyond what it is (sur
above). Visible or tangible matter is already apprehended through
concepts in our perception, individually and within cultural pods
of like-perception. Consequently, for all their familiarity to
us, we have differing perceptions of what appear to be straightforward
tangible things in themselves. For all the apparent
solidness of an object, it is our perception of it that gives
it a certain appearance. Things are loaded with varying degrees
of significance. There are things that do not appear to us because
we are not aware of their presence. They remain on the fringes
of awareness (Husserl). They have little or no significance. The seemingly solid
and incontestable is already mediated by perception. Perception
is a sur-real dimension of our engagement with
the world—surreal because we can juxtapose anything in a thought,
such as mermaid, tinned sardines and coffin. This is a source
of creativity. It is also a source of confusion about the meaning
of life as people combine diverse phenomena in the quest for meaning.
Accordingly, art can both generate and muddy meaning. Where then does reality
lie? Always “between,” for meaning is both received and given
individually and culturally through language, values and relationships,
yet reality also exists beyond the fringes of awareness. When
we think about surrounding phenomena, we do not think about these
as they are in themselves. Instead, we have perceptions of these
things. Yet there is always more to everything than our perceptions
and interpretations. As a consequence we are haunted by potentially
different values given to the familiar phenomena of life about
us. v The modern passion
for a reasonable view of reality that can be manipulated for human
betterment is made overwhelmingly by reference to phenomena. Pursuit
of this reality seeks clearly to distinguish this from that concerning
phenomena. Such distinctions are made in order to keep life reasonably
straightforward. Yet our reality consists of as many possibilities
for a “between,” which remains largely unrecognised—between intention
and world, between self-awareness and non-awareness, between classification
of others and the mystery of another, between a command of life
and the power of life to throw us off balance. Christ
comes to the “between” of our existence—between our perceptions
of life and life beyond our distinctions—especially as this relates
to the integral meaning of being human. A perspective
of Christ that is aligned with our conscious grasp of phenomena—what
“is”—will ultimately work with images within the frame of human
questions concerning phenomena, such as: What is it? How can we
define, categorise and therefore manage or control it? It is
easy to espouse a view of Christ that is entirely within the phenomenal,
giving Christ certain plausibility in a world that seeks to exclude
the “between” in thinking. Yet this exclusion of the “between”
resorts to dichotomies of authentic versus inauthentic without
adequate ways of thinking otherwise than claims to true or false,
proper or improper merely within the scope of phenomena. By seeking
compatibility with the field of phenomena—that is, articulation
of Christ as just one more discourse about the stuff of life—the
possibility of speaking to pervasive experiences of the “between”
in human existence is lost. In biblical
apocalypse, the “between”
is articulated by strange
paradoxes—losing life to save it; dying to live; inversion of first and last, humble
and exalted—that suspend both neat designations of human life
and arbitrary combinations of phenomena. These
paradoxes have their quintessential focus in Christ the ultimate
paradox who navigates the “between” of human existence—the triune Word becoming flesh in the missio Dei of self-giving love to the extremity of human experience—traversing
the expanse of every conceivable expression of the “between” in
life and death. Of human reality, in spite of all our sciences and disciplines,
we have never succeeded in getting to the human in itself. The more we think we know about human
beings, the more the nature of being human eludes us. We remain
an enigma to ourselves. Some dimension of
the “between” has always been accorded to the human phenomenon:
between animality and spirit; neither just a material body nor
an exiled spirit entombed in a body; neither solely individual
nor wholly corporate. Accordingly, Christ traverses the “between”
of body and spirit, freedom and responsibility, life and the horizon
of death, as inseparable as these tensions are in human experience
and identity. v Christ the word speaks to the contradiction of human existence that is
torn between the hard edges of our mortal limits and yearning
for eternity. Within this permanent “between” of human life, we
are addressed, both in the bond and schism of the finite and eternal that runs through all human life,
time and experience. Through self-justification,
self-denial and self-elevation, we attempt to throw so many bridges
over this silent “between” in order to cover our wounded and compromised
existence. Yet human reality can find its truest expression, precisely
where we are vaguely aware but also fearful of the “between” of
human existence within our self-deceptions in attempting to hide
it—the stuff of sin. The risen Christ is
present in the permanent “between” of human existence that we
inhabit in our fallible and fragile mortality, desire and possibility.
As Lord of the “between” who is as near as breathing
and perceiving our immediate world, Jesus Christ can negotiate
the “between” of all experience and perception of reality. People can gain an
inkling of the meaning and significance of the incarnation in
its resonance with the paradox of being human—the experience and
awareness of a “between” in the constitution of human identity,
existential demands and inter-personal challenges of life. These
include the desire for meaning, purpose, ethical responsibility,
relational integrity, nourishing memory and hope, and above all,
enduring love. Jesus Christ is not
determined by a norm of human identity but rather, exposes the
very limits of any human norm. Christ is Lord of the “between,” providing incomparable
possibilities for human reality—which is no less embodied in also
being otherwise than all our stuff—without diminishing either the integrity of
human existence or the possibility for God. In Jesus Christ, both
are given their most complete expression. Reference: Husserl The Essential Husserl: Basic Writings in Transcendental Phenomenology |
