Power Part 1 | The Isness of Power
Models of Worldly Power & Walking Naked in the Garden with God
In today’s essay we are examining models of power that we are calling rumours of power to differentiate them from what we are calling true isness power, which we will define in a moment. Fair warning—this essay is a little heavier than recent essays and so for your enjoyment you will be reading it with an assortment of classic literature beavers. My AI bot was compliant at the start but drew a line in the sand at some point and would only give me Mary Shelley after which it was done creating your favourite authors in beaver form so I had to get creative with my descriptions. You’re welcome.
The Isness of Power
Models of Worldly Power & Walking Naked in the Garden with God
In a world that worships control and celebrates domination, we often forget that true power lies not in mastery or ability, but in the humble, transfiguring fire that illuminates and warms us from within. In the so-called developed world we are conditioned to receive warmth via a radiator system, and light from electricity almost to the point that we forget that they are secondary forms of light and heat to the exclusion of one another. Light a fire and you have both light and heat—though you may burn the house down. This is the nature of true power; not that it is a sense of mastery, productivity or ability but that it is revelatory, rendering impermanent things disassembled, and new life to everything in which the seed of permanence is planted. In this essay we will explore rumours of power such as Mastery and Ability as well as examining the idea of Power as Grace and Glory
The Mastery Model
The Mastery Model is the view of power as a metric of usefulness towards forward momentum of one’s purpose. This rumour of power can be harnessed to a certain degree but every level of abstraction and control we place on power that results in a consistent, directed flow, moves us deeper into a metaphysical deception about the nature of true power. This particular deception is that power is meant to be harnessed; enslaved to the will of a Master unquestioningly obeyed. The flick of a switch, the press of a button, the oversized lever with the satisfying *chunk* and the proverbial yes masta’ that lights up our screens and brings a smile to our faces and warmth to our hearts at the instantaneous buzz of power.
The Ability Model
The Ability Model is the view of power as a metric of actualized potential. In this model, success at anything renders one power over it—especially if they laid it out, planned it and succeeded. The deception in the Ability Model is that ability equals responsibility—success is a moral positive and failure a moral negative regardless of the metrics detailing what success and failure constitute. For instance: we think of God as all-powerful, “able, more than able” so when God comes to us in the form of weakness we see this as an immoral use of power—ability equalling responsibility —but God bears no responsibility towards us in the form of furthering our own deceptive desires. We are therefore powerless in that this rumour of power is also not the case. We sit a mile away from the fire in our homes huddling against a radiator under a dim light wondering why our faith in secondary interfaces fails to provide safety, legitimacy and provision and bids us to do everything to “keep the lights on” and help more people, but all we accomplish is the perpetuation of our deceptions about the nature of power; namely that of Mastery and Ability.
The Appointment Model
The Appointment Model posits that power is not a metric at all, but a position that can only be given. It is supernaturally attributed and naturally recognised, such that the natural aspects of power are superseded by the supernaturally ordained order. Texts like, “Man looks at the outward appearance but God looks at the heart,” 1 are appropriated to mean, “God has chosen this person. You may not like it, or understand it or agree with it, but tough cookies, “God works in mysterious ways”2. The deception of The Appointment Model is that power is meant to be practiced upon and over one another in a way that God seems to exercise power upon and over us.3 The fallout from the Appointment Model is that while we are quick to claim Divine Appointment we are much less likely to follow Divine Direction.
As with any abstraction of witnessed principles, these all bleed into, inform and permit one another’s existence as metaphysical deceptions. The true nature of power escapes their grasp and so they are ever reminded of their shame; which is why they remain rumours of power rather than possessing anything close to resembling true power. I find the middle voice of the ancient Greek to be helpful in explaining true power.
The Middle Voice
If I stand next to a fire to get warm and someone records it in the ancient Greek it will say “Daniel warmed”. I achieve warmth by stepping close to the fire. It can’t be said that I warmed myself but that the fire is hot and I drew close to it and achieved warmth. I have no power4 to warm myself with nothing but myself. I require the fire for its warming nature. The fire could be anywhere; in a fireplace, a fire pit, a forest fire, a house fire. I warm regardless and am truly powerless if I remain ignorant to this fact—I freeze to death with a full book of matches because I only want radiators to warm me and light bulbs to offer light. I wander blind and cold because I do not accept wild, unharnessed light and heat.
There is a secondary positive sense in which my ignorance renders the fire’s heat as grace—neither for me nor against me but existing in a state that blesses me by its presence at the exact time I need it. The fire, of course, existed before I perceived my need and continued long after I perceived I needed it. The middle voice removes notions of my total agency and divides it amongst the primary interface; everyone and everything involved. Even the result of my warming is a biproduct amongst biproducts. What the fire is doing has very little to do with me, my presence is the actual secondary presence—not the fire. The fire is doing far more in its simple state than I am doing as an onlooker, though to a certain degree I can control where the fire goes by understanding the nature of fire and controlling one of the three elements that sustains its existence. I do not exercise power over fire in the sense that I can snuff it out—not even control over the fire to enlist it to do my bidding. I invite fire and service its needs even as it services mine. In this way there is a mutual respect between us spoken in a consumptive language learned over a life-time. Fire comes more quickly to those who know its true name—it is a slave to no one.
Naked Glory
Would we say that Adam and Eve were powerless as they walked naked in the garden with God? The Scriptures say that when they ate of the fruit they acknowledged their nakedness and were ashamed and so they hid from God’s glory. I wonder at this notion—was God naked with them? Was He wearing flowing robes so that Adam and Eve wondered, what’s that? How come we don’t get those? I don’t think so. Adam and Eve were exposed to the full glory of God without shame at the way they were made or at the form which God took to walk with them in the cool of the evening. They became deceived by the lie of rivalrous, comparative power in the form of mastery, potential and ability. Through these glasses they now saw themselves as powerless against the backdrop of God the All-Powerful whom they became more-like after eating the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil only to realise that though they now possessed knowledge, their powerlessness to do anything about it was their shame. They attempted to hide from God’s glory which would expose their shame and be their destruction by the hands of God who would surely be angry thus birthing Angry God in their minds and in the minds of generations to come.
This, I believe is why the Scriptures seem to be written in the polemic language of rivalry, power and shame; they deal with humanity’s foolishness in the same way that God absorbs the myths of the nations and become the one who “rides on the clouds” and every other concept of what the nations thought it meant to be the Eternally Powerful Divine One. This is not because true power is rivalrous potential of ability, but because true power mocks the notion of rivalry as beneath power’s true nature in love. God has no rivals because God is love.
So our running definition of a rumour of power is that it is a measure of momentum of purpose by our perceived potential in contrast to the rest of the contestants. It is a metaphysical deception and yet God wins every time—even when it looks like He loses.
Rumour of Power: A measure of momentum of purpose measured
by our perceived potential in contrast to the rest of the contestants.
The nature of sin is that we see ourselves in contest with God and with one another and creation when by our own metrics of power we aren’t even in the race. What is there to be done but to pretend that God doesn’t exist and take advantage of the weak who must naturally fall under our power because as Uncle Ben says, “with great power, comes great responsibility”.
Glory as Power
God’s power resides in God’s isness;5 everything about God is what makes God powerful and indeed the most powerful. God has no need of anything and yet refuses to define power as agency. God can make anything happen in an instant and yet allows free will denying the definition of power as Mastery. God’s power is derived from within and so power itself is not defined by a heritage of power and so denies the power grants power trickle down definition of the Appointment
Model.
Let’s return to the garden for a moment. While God is clearly God in this picture and setting rules and eliciting authority it is not clear if there is a power dynamic among people yet. Adam and Eve do not yet consider one another to be above or below or anything. They are both surrounded by the glory of God every evening as they walk and talk. They just exist. They have no notions of agency, potential, or responsibility outside of what God has instructed them to do in the care of the garden. No notion of lack or doubt or what this task of dominion, subordination and ruling will entail. We can take an educated guess as to what the conversation surrounded in their late afternoon strolls with the Almighty. God had finished creating the entire world and pronouncing it glorious—perhaps these strolls in the evening were a show-and-tell with God walking them through the garden, tasting the fruit of the evening, experiencing intimacy, and unveiling the fullness of God’s glory; His isness and the isness of all creation. In this way, True Power cannot be grasped by those who would wield it to enslave the primary interface with the pen or the sword.
Like God, any true power that resides in us rests in our isness and our recognition of God’s isness in creation. True power releases control of the primary interface, sets the captive free, forgives debts, wipes away every tear. Like the fire, we exist in a state of grace and like our Father our presence is neither for nor against creation but they are blessed by drawing close to us; this is True, Isness Power; a power that deconstructs secondary interfaces that hide the glory of creation behind metaphysical lies.
3 Suggested Applications
Identify where your ideas of power and authority have equated Mastery, Ability or Divine Appointment without Divine Direction and submit them to God to reveal Godself to you in all God’s glory and isness.
Practice acknowledging the essential isness around you—seek to understand not only what is happening but why it is happening. True Isness Power begins with looking just that little bit longer at what others have long since ceased studying.
In your observations separate out when you witness people being treated as people and when the secondary interface is applied to them. Acknowledge when in your heart you say to yourself, this is how it has to be and wonder longer on if it truly must be this way or if we have put our safety, legitimacy and provision in the world’s vision of power rather than in God’s divine nature.
1 Samuel 16:7
Another favourite ripped from Ecclesiastes 11:5
An emphasis is usually made towards providing safety, legitimacy and provision for those under our care as a service to God.
as it were
circ. 1845 by philosopher James Stirling. A term for something’s status as being the case.