Raymond Klassen – Ideals and Identities

How we experience any moment is how we do life. How we treat the grass under our feet, or the person in front of us, is how we do all of life. The Buddha encourages mindfulness for a reason. Will you listen to me to see if I am Christian Reformed enough? Inclusive enough? Too mystical? Not Mystical enough? Am I a heretic? Too orthodox?

As a trained philosopher, having gone through a Canadian Bible College, I have listened to every sermon I heard with a readiness to say “no.” Well, once we start from no, it is so hard to get to yes. We have been trained in our education system to look for things we don’t accept, we don’t like. Our minds are judgment machines. 

You may not like me: too tall, too fat, not old enough, too old, not diverse enough. But I want to give one thing to you today, that if nothing else, you will remember:

Let’s consider an interesting fact that was well known in the contemplative tradition, echoed by Francis of Assisi, by the Desert Fathers, by Augustine, by Meister Eckhart, and interestingly, by the Sufis …

For the ancient Israelites the vowels were left out of all words, including the word for God in Hebrew writing. While every educated Jew knew the vowels, they were not to say them when speaking the name of God, because “as we know” the Third commandment is “Do not take the name of the Lord God in vain.” We, of course, still think of phrases like “God damn you!” and “for God’s sake!” as examples of breaking the third commandment. But we miss the real point when we interpret the third commandment that way. Certainly, they are not nice things to say. However, if you pronounce the name of God in Hebrew, a remarkable similarity emerges – it sounds exactly as you would if you breathe. (breathe slowly 3 times) Let’s just take a moment to breathe. For 30 seconds, sit in silence and direct your thoughts at your breath. If other thoughts come in during the moment, try to let them go, and bring your attention back to your breath. Don’t do any special breathing technique, just breath as you feel comfortable. Notice, your breath is like all other breaths, Jews or Gentiles, Canadians or Americans, it’s the same for Caucasians as it is for persons of color, the same for trans people, for men and for women. 

“Absorbed by the Truth: Knowledge as Gift”

Okay, let’s begin.

Like my brother who came before me, and like God is calling me to do, I hereby take on the role of “ex-philosopher.” This does not mean I have stopped thinking. It means I have stepped away from the illusion that spiritual knowledge is something to be seized or possessed. I have come to believe what Thomas Merton expressed so clearly: knowledge is not a grasping of the truth; it is being absorbed by the truth. It is not a lust for answers, it is a balance of revelation and uncertainty. This shift changes everything.

In a sermon on knowledge—something philosophers have long held dear, and which Saint Thomas Aquinas illuminated with extraordinary brilliance, I no longer stand in the old place. I now stand in a different part of the garden. I no longer see knowledge as a type of mastery: over the world, over God, or over the self. It is not the light that comes from my brain by which reality is revealed. Rather, knowledge is awareness that the Light, the true Light that illumines all things, also illuminates me. As 1 John 3 says: “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God—and that is what we are.”

Why do I say ex-philosopher? Because, since Descartes and perhaps before, modern Western thought has turned knowledge into a problem to be solved. Rationalism, empiricism, idealism, phenomenology, utilitarianism: all these systems tend to make knowledge into a mechanism of control, a means of prediction, a form of power. Descartes and Locke both used the word “apprehend,” which means to grasp, to seize. But Scripture and the contemplative tradition offer something far richer and more humbling. Knowledge, in the Spirit, is not control. It is a gift.

Paul calls knowledge a gift of the Spirit in 1 Corinthians 12. Isaiah (11:1-5) speaks of it as something that leads to rest. Revelation, not reasoning, is its mode. Knowledge is not made; it is uncovered. Not constructed; but received. Not possessed; but shared. Not a weapon; a window. Not a prize for the clever, but a light for the humble. Not something we get, but something we are taken into.

For the better part of seven years, I’ve been reading the writings of Thomas Merton… slowly, carefully, with the prayer of one who wants to be changed. Books like New Seeds of Contemplation, The Ascent to Truth, No Man Is an Island, The Seven Story Mountain (free downloads), Thoughts in Solitude and The Sign of Jonas have taught me this: knowledge is not a grasping of truth. Rather, in Merton’s words, “the one who knows is absorbed by truth.” That phrase turns the modern project on its head. The gift of knowledge is not possession, it is transformation. We don’t hold it; it holds us.

Let me make this concrete. I once pursued the dream of being a philosopher in Southern Ontario. I had recently finished a Master’s degree and had received PhD acceptance letters from the Universities of Chicago, Toronto, Queen’s, McGill, Northwestern, and SUNY. I had something to brag about. But in becoming a philosopher, the rest of my life had fallen apart. I was divorced. I was poor. I was lost in addiction. Sin had made me a slave. I had built the tower of intellect high, but the foundation of my soul had crumbled.

In the fall of 2001, I left Canada. I stepped away from those offers. And on October 11, 2001 (one month after the 9/11 attacks on the US), on a flight to Seoul, I made a vow. I still remember the words, which I wrote in my journal at 35,000 feet:

“I do not know how long I am going to Korea, Lord, or what my apartment will even look like when I get there, but I will seek You in all that I do. Wherever You lead me I will follow. And I will stay or go as long as I am a servant of your will. And since I know that you have promised to give me all good things, I will receive these blessings as a gift, and not as something I have earned. You desire all good things for me, and since I became lost, you have also been seeking me. Until now, any good thing in my life that I do enjoy—Jesus; the presence of the Spirit; my birth family; my opportunity to travel; the education I come with; the clothes on my back and in my suitcase; and the health of my body and mind—have been gifts from You.”

I stayed in Korea for five years. In Asia for fifteen. And from that vow flowed a life I could not have predicted: a calling, a life-partner, my children, and, remarkably, even forgiveness of my student loans. But more than any of that, I began to receive the gift of knowledge—not knowledge as certainty or achievement, but knowledge as awakening. Not mastery. Not self-definition. But light. A light that showed not what I possessed, but who I was: Known. Loved. Changed.

“Beloved, we are God’s children now,” John says. Not someday. Now. And what we will be has not yet been revealed—but we know that when God is revealed, we will be like God, for we will know God as God is. This is the heart of knowledge: not that we see everything clearly, but that we are seen and loved clearly. We are known. If we look at the two great moments of revelation (Moses on Mt. Sinai, and Jesus on Mt. Tabor) there is revelation and cloud cover. There is a mixture of light and darkness. Such is the encounter with the presence of God.

So, this gift of knowledge also includes the painful process of disillusionment. Merton wrote of it often. Knowledge, he said, is not learning how to grasp answers, but learning how to let go of the illusions we cling to—especially those rooted in ego, fear, and pride. And here, Merton is not abstract. In Thoughts in Solitude, he reflects:

“To know ourselves as ‘nothing’ is not to fall into self-hatred or despair. It is to see our total dependence on God, and to love even that dependence. Not to reject what we are, but to embrace it in humility. The proud person loves their illusions. The humble person learns to love their insufficiency. For it is there, in that emptiness, that grace can enter.”

This is true self-knowledge: not self-disgust, but honesty. Not hiding from weakness but inviting grace into it.

And how does this knowledge relate to the world around us? Merton’s famous line: “The world is transparent, and God is shining through it” offers a vision for our life in the world. This is not romantic escapism. It is a way of knowing, of attending, of letting creation speak its truth. The world is not raw material to be mastered, but a communion of meaning. Psalm 19 reminds us: “The heavens declare the glory of God.” Merton simply invites us to take that seriously.

But we forget to relate. We look at the world and see only problems to be solved, things to be used, futures to be managed. The gift of knowledge restores our ability to see.

Whenever I arrived in a new country (38 of them now), the most uncertain things were the future, and the words that I heard and saw. But my senses were turned on. I could see things clearly.

Knowing re-teaches us reverence. When the Spirit grants this gift, we are no longer at the center. The world becomes transparent again. We become children again.

And finally, the gift of knowledge must be wedded to love. Merton said, “Any knowledge that is not grounded in love is false.” And John reminds us: “All who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.” Love is the measure of true knowledge. We are not given insight to dominate, but to serve. Not to elevate ourselves, but to awaken to Christ in ourselves, in the world, and in others.

So, I leave you with this invitation. Let go of the need to know in order to control. Let go of the illusion that you are your possessions, your résumé, your degrees, or your successes. Let yourself be seen. Let yourself be absorbed into the truth.

Not to possess it, but to be possessed by it. Not to grasp it, but to be grasped by grace. Not to know everything, but to know that you are known.

You see, when the gift of knowledge is given you will seem to be the same person that you have always been: in fact, you are more yourself than you have ever been before. You have only just begun to exist. You feel as if you were at last fully born. All that went before was a mistake, a fumbling preparation for birth. Now you have come out into your element. And yet now you have become nothing. The situation of the soul in knowledge is something like the situation of Adam and Eve in Paradise. Everything is yours, but on one infinitely important condition: that it is all given.

You know yourself in God, and you know God is in you. And you just breathe… Yah-weh! The first expression you came into the world with was a breath that was not in vain. Yah-weh! You may worry about what prayer you will say when you die. Well, your final breath will also not be in vain. Yah-weh!

You have been praying at every moment. You just haven’t realized it.  Yah-weh!