Paradoxically, it is not knowledge that enlightens, but unknowing.

It is not the lack of doing or wrongdoing that are darkness but is instead the pursuit of meaning through doing.

It is in the open space of unknowing and un-judging that is created by grace where peace and love are born.

Without this self-emptying, we will naturally divide good from bad and restrict what we will accept.

We cannot love our enemy because there will be things in the enemy that we reject, we cannot love the enemy in ourselves because there are things in ourselves we have rejected, we cannot love the world, because there will be things in reality we reject. 

Thus, love can only exist when the field of grace is open and sin is no-thing. 

When sin is something, we judge it and fear it, when sin is no-thing, we have nothing to fear; from ourselves, from others or from the chaotic reality of life.

In this way, the paradox of light as the open space of unknowing created by grace allows us to “have fellowship with one another” (1 John 1:5-7), with ourselves and with the world. 

Grace has always been a dangerous and heretical idea. Christ was crucified as a heretic for living a life of radical grace. Meister Eckhart was tried and accused as a heretic. With grace we empty ourselves of all control and place ourselves in the hands of God - or in the hands of reality (call it what you will) - with no way to control how goodness or blessing is accessed.

With grace we have stepped out of the boat and onto the water, and it is here that we find the open space into which God can create.

But remember - if we have let go of our ideas about “god” as good or compassionate - we have no idea what will be created.