Currently, I find myself gravitating toward the concept of holiness. Part of this is that my recent Bible reading has included the book of Deuteronomy. It is a foundational book for the rest of the Hebrew Scriptures and it is one that I have not spent very much time with. But I am discovering that holiness is very much a part of the theological subtext within this book of laws. It is treated very basically that to see God, to know God fully, means death. To participate in theophony, to hear the voice of God, is frightening enough. Somehow, the nation of Israel survived hearing from God on the mountain. Just living through a Divine encounter is treated with awe.
While holiness may seem pretty basic, it is far from settled. It would be quite orthodox to say that God alone is truly holy and everything else just is not. At least other things cannot be holy in the same way that God is holy. Yet, many would contend that there is that which is holy in all things. Some may find panentheism compelling, that God's very self is present in all things. Also, certain spaces, objects, actions, and people are held as holy. Some traditions even find these things essential to faithful living. Perhaps God makes them holy, or holiness is something that human beings can assign. Maybe the effort to make life holy, even if it is theoretically impossible, counts for something. Attempting to create holiness could even be a basic human need.
There is good and bad in every approach to the Holy, but my own contemplative sense of things draws me into encounters with the Holy as completely other. Only in the immanent presence of a transcendent other can there be transformation. Not surprisingly, I find myself in a place of paradoxical tension. To speak of the transcendent having presence is contradictory. The very nature of God as transcendent being cannot really be understood. Hence the belief that to know God fully means death. Yet, the possibility of knowing God, the possibility of encountering the Holy and surviving, is what changed the course of history for the ancient Israelites and promises to change the course of our own history today.
