Quaker writer Parker Palmer talks about an image that St. Paul used 2000 years ago when he said, "We have this treasure [the sacred, the presence of God, the Spirit, an experience with the Holy . . . or whatever else one may call it] in earthen vessels." Frail, transitory "vessels" that "hold" the Holy -- be they words or metaphors or rituals, religions -- are not what is Holy, sacred. They are important, but they are not the Holy.
Our religions -- our sacred texts, our traditions, our ways of "understanding" God . . . these are always incomplete, flawed, misleading, and subject to all sorts of abuse. But they are what we have.
Palmer writes,
"Every container we create to hold the sacred treasure is earthen, finite, limited and flawed -- and is it never to be confused with the treasure itself lest we confuse God's power with our own. These containers include everything from the words and propositions that constitute our theologies and creeds, to the forms our worship takes . . . "
"If our containers prove too crimped and cramped to hold the treasure well, if they domesticate the sacred and keep us from having a live encounter with it . . . then our containers must be smashed and discarded so we can create a larger and more life-giving vessel in which to hold the treasure."
He tells of an old Celtic story about a monk who died and was interred in the monastery wall. Three days later, the monks head noises coming from inside the crypt. When they removed the stone they found their brother alive. He was full of wonderment, saying, "Oh, brothers, I've been there! I've seen it! And it's nothing at all like the way our theology says it is!" So they put him back in the wall and sealed the crypt again.
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