“There are times when, in a sudden flash, we see what treasures of goodness towards his fellow man lie hidden in the heart of man”[i]  – Teilhard de Chardin, 1918

What makes us want to possess something?  What is it within us that drives us to attempt to possess something or indeed someone?  What do we think we are obtaining by this possession?  A car, a house, a spouse, a friend, a job?  Possession seems to rely on the idea that there is something missing to begin with.  In other words, something is unfulfilled.  I am unfulfilled, dissatisfied, unhappy, incomplete and this something or this someone is what I need in order to be fulfilled, complete, happy, satisfied.  I wonder if incompleteness is as real as we imagine, or if it could be something else that drives this yearning.

What if we were yearning not so much to be complete or fulfilled but to be ‘more.’  But then, the question becomes what is this ‘more.’  Is it a ‘more’ determined by levels or degrees of possession?  That would put us back to our original question.  Could it be a ‘more’ that flows from an already received abundance recognized and appreciated which now must be given away or flowed out to others?  This would be a ‘more’ that flows in and out without a real starting or stopping point.  It would be a way of being or living that was not possessive, but that was dynamic and constantly moving.  The ‘more’ would be only measured inasmuch much as it was given away to others.  This ‘more’ then would look more like a moving abundance that picks up more and more momentum through its interaction and relationship with everything and everyone else.

The Franciscan theologian, Ilia Delio, describes this ‘more-ness’ in terms of consciousness or awareness that involves “belonging, mutual affirmation, participation, and creative love by which one gives of one’s own self freely to others.”[ii]  This would mean that we become ‘more’ precisely through our interaction with each other.  And the ‘more-ness’ from this self-giving interaction makes us more of who we are.  We become more personal and indeed more precious inasmuch as we relate to the whole, i.e., everyone else of whom we are inevitably a part.[iii]

This tends to fly in the face of the commonplace idea that in order to become more individual we must set ourselves apart from each other, ‘make a name for ourselves,’ ‘strike out on our own,’ so to speak.  Our sense of being individuals many times gets trapped in identities that we convince ourselves are our ‘selves’ – my job, my family, my culture, my heredity, my opinions, my talents solely define me.  It’s not that these aspects of our lives are not important and real, but it is a question of whether or not these things comprise who we truly are.  Is our particularity and personalization dependent upon these identities that we ‘possess,’ or is there a treasure greater than this that makes us precious by mysteriously drawing us together into a wholeness that is not a bland fusion of sameness but a unity marked by uniqueness and personality.

What if this is what Jesus means when he speaks of the kingdom of heaven in Matthew’s gospel as a treasure found in a field (Mt 13:44-46).

Jesus said to his disciples:
“The Kingdom of heaven is like a treasure buried in a field,
which a person finds and hides again,
and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.”    

It is interesting to note that the one who finds the treasure in the field does not remove the treasure from the field but buries the treasure back in the field and then “out of joy” goes and sells everything to purchase not simply the treasure, but the field in which the treasure was discovered.  Could the field be the context for the treasure in the same way that perhaps the preciousness of each one of us is contextualized within the whole universe of all of us?

The treasure of ‘more-ness’ is discovered in a field.  What is this field?  Is it a place of growth and interdependence that must be nourished and cared for?  Is this field the whole of our lives that demarcates the preciousness of each of our lives?  Is the uniqueness of each one of us ultimately tied to the interconnection of all lives, not through comparison and competition but rather through self-giving transformation and personalization?

To possess the precious treasure, we must ‘buy’ the field, embrace the whole in a way that acknowledges that we are each participants in the whole without exclusion.  This means giving up the notion that we possess anything at all.  This means embracing ourselves as becoming whole by giving ourselves away.  This is giving up self-possession and receiving self-giving.

How could we envision our lives – ourselves – as treasures buried in a field, precious persons not only found within but made so precious by the ‘field’ itself?  This would be a way of seeing God as a ‘field’ of Love that permeates everything and in so doing supremely personalizing and thus making ultra-precious all of creation.  And it would not stop there.  We have to not only find the treasure in the field, but we must actively belong to the field (‘buy that field’) – i.e., embrace the divine inclusion of all persons and life by participating in the cultivation of the field’s diverse fruit!

Could this be another description of the ‘kingdom of heaven,’ here and now waiting to be discovered and embraced so that we become ‘more’ who we are as unique creations in and through the ‘more-ness’ of the field of abundance of God’s Self-Giving?  This would mean that the only thing sacrificed would be the illusion that there is no field wherein our treasure can be found.   There is no treasure without the field, since our preciousness depends upon God coming to us in each other and all of creation all the time.   In giving up the possession of ourselves, we gain ourselves and the treasure of goodness is perfected in an ever-growing field of abundant preciousness!

[i] Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, “The Great Monad” in The Heart of Matter (Harcourt: 1978, p. 187

[ii] Ilia Delio, A Hunger for Wholeness (Paulist Press: 2018), p. 90.

[iii] Ibid.

Peace,

Thomas

(Originally published Autgust 1, 2018)t