"You shall not make wrong use of the name of the Lord your God; the Lord will not leave unpunished the man who misuses his name"
(Exodus 20.7).

The Lord is beyond all names, but it is all too easy to attain a familiarity with the Deity as a person through thoughtless usage in daily life. This can be nourished by formal worship in which the liturgy subtly replaces the mystery of God instead of leading the worshipper in awe to that mystery. An easy familiarity with God brings with it a constant temptation to enlist his help for our private ends. Indeed, popular religion thrives on a system of punishments and rewards depending on our obedience to the god image we have constructed - or, more accurately, that has been constructed for us by our ancestors - in our own minds. It is on this account, among others, that God cannot be adequately spoken of in purely personal terms, no matter how positive and edifying these may be. Embracing all personal concepts, there is a mystery that transcends human reason. What we can name and define we can master; what lies beyond our rational grasp can alone lead us on to our final destination and show us what we might become. The supreme I-Thou relationship is between God and man, for divine knowledge is attained by perfect self-giving; we give our naked impotence, as the publican in Jesus' famous parable (Luke 18.9-14), and God gives his whole being, as is his nature. In this way we are filled with the divine grace and in time can offer ourselves without reserve to do the apportioned work of serving the world.

Once, however, God becomes an object or a finite being that can be manipulated by the mind, the deep transforming relationship is forfeited, and an I-It relationship of usage and convenience takes its place. Then we begin to use God for our own ends, even swearing falsely in his name. Perjury is indeed the ultimate evil of this type, for here the divine name is used deliberately in attesting to falsehood sworn as truth. In this way God's name can be used to injure an innocent person. The unpremeditated use of the divine name, sometimes in an attitude of exasperation or frivolity, or when we are agreeably surprised or deeply shocked, is far less reprehensible in that it is articulated without malice, but it trivializes what is in essence holy. To say "Thank God" may be an exclamation of reverent gratitude for a favour received. On the other hand, it may be an ironical response to what we regard as small measure for the efforts we have made - "Thank God for small mercies". It is evident that the use of God's name without reverence is unnecessary and often deeply offensive. Therefore the use of the holy name should be premeditated and the pledge of a holier way of life. Indeed, the name is so holy that it should be left unuttered except in the context of prayer. When we make wrong use of the name, God is not diminished, for his holiness is inviolate. What is sullied is the divine image implanted in the depth of the soul. We are committing a grave sin inasmuch as we have betrayed something sacred in our own nature. We have failed lamentably to attain the mark set for us; indeed, we have demeaned and lowered the high calling of that mark so that it is contaminated with the stain of the world's commerce rather than illuminated by the divine effulgence. If we persist in abusing the divine name, God ceases to be a presence in our lives, and we remain rooted to a purely animal level of existence.

God's name is holy. It is sacred, and it brings sanctity to all who use it in humble reverence. The supreme prophet of God's transcendent holiness is Isaiah. His marvellous vision in the temple at the beginning of his ministry is one of the Lord lifted up above all creation so that even the angels cannot confront him directly.

I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted, and the skirt of his robe filled the temple. About him were attendant seraphim, and each had six wings; one pair covered his face and one pair his feet, and one pair was spread in flight. They were calling ceaselessly to one another, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of Hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory". And, as each one called, the threshold shook to its foundations while the house was filled with smoke (Isaiah 6.1-4).

Isaiah was overwhelmingly conscious of his own sinfulness and the uncleanness of his compatriots as he witnessed the vision of God's holiness. Only when a seraph took a glowing coal from the heavenly altar and touched Isaiah's lips with it was his iniquity removed. Then he was ready for his prophetic mission.

St John was inspired when he wrote that God is love, a love disclosed definitively for us by his sending his only Son into the world to bring us life (1 John 4.9). But this love is something greater than our limited human understanding can encompass. God is also holiness: while love brings us together, holiness separates us from God. God is transcendent not merely of his creation, but also of the emotional life of his sentient creatures, of which the human is the most advanced in our world. They are unclean, selfish, predatory and destructive whereas he is seen as uncreated light, a fire devouring all that is unwholesome and impure. It is no wonder that the Bible repeatedly asserts that no person can see God and live. Even the great theophanies in Scripture, such as Isaiah's vision in the temple and Moses' meeting with God in the burning bush, are manifestations of the divine creative energies rather than a direct meeting with God. Likewise, in the height of union, the mystic is brought with all creation into the divine presence, whose emanation is light and whose nature is love. Yet although the divine presence is everywhere, God cannot be limited to any point or time. Furthermore, all such encounters and visions are evanescent, lasting at the most a few minutes. They give intimations to the prophet or mystic (the two are often combined functions) about the nature of eternal life, but the remainder of his earthly life has to be dedicated to bringing down to earth what he has been shown.

And yet love and holiness are not mutually exclusive; they are, on the contrary, reverse sides of the single coin of God's eternal presence and his caring for all he has created. His transcendent holiness, while inevitably separating us in our present imperfect form from him, is ultimately to purify us in the fire of life's further experience, so that we too may be holy. When the Lord spoke to Moses, he said, "Speak to all the community of the Israelites in these words: you shall be holy because I, the Lord your God, am holy" (Leviticus 19.1-2). The Decalogue is a charter of holiness, a theme expounded in the last eleven chapters of Leviticus. Love accepts us unconditionally for what we are at this present moment in time, whereas holiness prepares us for what we are to be in eternity: witnesses to the fullness of humanity in the likeness of Christ himself.

In the Law of Moses holiness has a strongly negative side; to separate oneself from what is morally or ritually unclean is an important aspect. As the way of Christ unfolds, so does holiness assume a more positive character. In Peter's dream, symbolic as it is, a great sheet of sailcloth descends, and in it all kinds of creatures are contained. Peter is bidden to kill and then eat them. When he demurs on account of their ritual uncleanness, he is told that he is not the arbiter of cleanliness. He has no right to call profane what God counts clean (Acts 10.9-16). Previously Jesus had taught that it was not what goes into a man's mouth that defiles him, but what comes out of it. What we eat obeys the natural laws of metabolism and is ultimately discharged in one way or another. But what comes out of the mouth has its origin in the heart, and this is what defiles a person. Wicked thoughts, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, perjury and slander all proceed from the heart, and these are the things that defile us (Matthew 15.20-20). In the flow of life we cannot separate ourselves absolutely from the elements of our environment, no matter how invidious to our propriety they may appear. We have, like Jesus, to mix with all manner of people in order to gain deeper self-knowledge, to develop a broader view of life and to help reclaim that which is lost. The process is dangerous - it cost Jesus his life in terrible suffering - but it is the authentic way of holiness. The spiritual life does not promise invulnerability; it does, however, provide an inner strength to withstand the assaults of evil forces and a growing love to embrace them so as to aid their neutralization and ultimate transmutation. A holy person radiates the love of God to us, so that the divine presence within us is kindled. Then we too participate in that holiness. It is in this way that love and holiness come together in a point of sacred dedication to God and man.

Since the holiness of God forbids us to use his name except in the willed ascent of the mind to him in contemplative prayer, should we therefore banish all direct thoughts of God from our daily work? Can the transcendent God of holiness be a possible source of meditation in our disturbed world of forms? The answer is, to the contrary, that until the holiness of God is a constant accompaniment of all we do in each moment of life, whatever we achieve will finally be consummated in futility. Man's own works founder on the rocks of decay and death; what God has inspired alone survives the attrition of time and place, illuminating future ages with a vision of splendour and a service that are timeless. But we have to move beyond the usual selfish demands for rewards and favours. God may be a "very present" help to us in trouble, our shelter and our refuge, in the words of the opening verse of Psalm 46, but his help and concern are for all other people equally. He may be our special friend, but his concern is impartial and universal. The anthropomorphic god of punishment and reward is an idol who tempts us to cajolement and bribery. Nor is God, our timely, very present help, a dominating figure who watches us continually, rather in the style of "Big Brother", so terrifyingly delineated by George Orwell in his prophetic study Nineteen Eighty-four. Such a constant companion would thwart and diminish us until all free will was removed and we depended entirely on his generosity for our survival. This mental construct is an illustration of the Freudian super-ego magnified and personalized to gigantic, horrifying proportions. Until this image is expunged from our minds, the true, nameless God will be excluded from our knowledge.

The essential teaching of the Wisdom literature of the Bible is, "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom". This fear is a holy awe, not an attitude of dread. Awe brings every faculty to vibrancy; it makes us listen, not only with the ears but with all the senses; it makes us psychically aware and intellectually taut. In other words, the fear of God awakens us from our customary somnolence and heightens our responsiveness. It makes us realize that we are witnesses and partakers of a mystery, whose unfolding is beyond our grasp, let alone our prediction. Perfect love banishes fear (1 John 4.18), a fear of being punished by the one we worship, but it does not decrease our awe for our Creator. Indeed, it deepens our respect for the mystery of each creature. Whom I really love, I respect and accord full reverence, even as husband and wife are pledged to honour and protect each other in the varied course of their life together. The rapt awe that the Psalmist articulates when he contemplates the wonder of his own creation is the most perfect love we can offer God directly, "Thou it was who did fashion my inward parts; thou didst knit me together in my mother's womb. I will praise thee, for thou dost fill me with awe; wonderful art thou, and wonderful thy works" (Psalm 139.13-14). That love must then be sent out into the world as we regard God's other creatures with equal respect and delight, pledging ourselves to their protection and service in the name of God. When all people attain this height of self-awareness and self-giving, the world will indeed move beyond the slavery of decay into the glorious splendour of eternal nature. But this will surely also be the moment of the parousia, the second coming of the Lord who is always with us but whose presence is hidden from our vision in worldly consciousness.

Therefore our relationship with God is something more than easy familiarity. It is the full relationship of son to father, who most certainly sustains us day by day, but also makes great demands on us: "there must be no bounds to your goodness, as your heavenly Father's goodness knows no bounds", as Jesus taught (Matthew 5.48). Our strivings after goodness are tried and tested in the school of experience, in which the light of happiness is complemented by the shadows of suffering. We are to grow into mature sons of God, capable of performing the work set before us, as Jesus did in his own life. Were it not for God's presence in our lives, no growth would be possible; once his presence is conscious, spiritual growth is initiated, and we progress to a full humanity, witnessed by the great saints of all the traditions, culminating in the work of Jesus. For this presence to be constantly before us, the practice of prayer is the essential work. To set aside a special period of time each day - preferably on a number of occasions - in which we give ourselves wholly to the practice of awareness in silence is the beginning of our deeper relationship with God. Prayer is not speaking to the God of our imagining; it is listening to the God of eternity as he reveals himself even to us. "Thus speaks the high and exalted one whose name is holy, who lives for ever: I dwell in a high and holy place with him who is broken and humble in spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, to revive the courage of the broken" (Isaiah 5). The first beatitude complements this teaching: "How blest are those who know their need of God; the kingdom of Heaven is theirs" (Matthew 5.3). When one is aware of one's own nothingness, one is in a position to be filled with good things provided one opens oneself in trust and dedication to the highest one understands.

The experience of the presence of God has a mystical quality as one is still, so one is lifted up and a fresh appreciation of reality dawns on one. We could never give a concrete name to this presence, yet it is one with which we can communicate in profound intimacy. It fills us with aspiration, hope and love. We can communicate with it in spoken or mental discourse, but in time such conversation ends in complete silence. In this silence, the divine presence accompanies us wherever we are and whatever we are doing. It neither directs nor dominates us; it is simply a constant source of strength and caring. As our prayer life grows with assiduous practice and unremitting perseverance, so the presence of the nameless one is always available to us, and is finally always with us. If we are so inclined, we can address this presence directly, but in due course we learn that such a conversation is at least as much to ourselves with the tragically divided consciousness we inherit as to the one whom we love with devotion and awe. Jesus' teaching on prayer is very relevant: he tells us not to go babbling on like the heathen, who believe that God's response is directly proportional to the volume of their petitions. Instead he teaches us the Lord's Prayer, reminding us that in any case God knows our needs even before we ask him (Matthew 6.7-13). When we pray in words and thoughts we are addressing the conscious mind through the unconscious, which is energized by the Holy Spirit. The conversation between the split portions of the mind is conducted in God's presence, so that in the end a closer collaboration is effected between the conscious and unconscious life of the person. As the personality becomes better integrated through inner conversation, so it can dedicate itself in willed, single-pointed awareness to God and his Kingdom.

As a truly spiritually aware person grows in experience so he becomes increasingly conscious of God's constant presence. God knows us and can direct us provided we have the courtesy to ask for the directions. This he does by infusing us with his Spirit so that every function of the personality is quickened and strengthened. In this way we begin to practise the presence of God during our daily work, no less than in those times given over entirely to contemplative silence before God, who is best thought of as he who is. God alone is the true I am, and the more closely we give ourselves to his service, the more certainly do we realize our own identity. We know him ever more intimately as we approach him in wordless devotion. This is the highest worship we can offer, and it overflows in devotion to our fellow creatures. It is in this way that we make right use of the name of God, whether or not we articulate the word. The proof of that immaculate usage is the transforming effect our presence has on those around us. It is no longer merely ourself that is present, but God also: the life I live is no longer my life, but the life that Christ lives in me (Galatians 2.20).

It may be questioned whether special times set aside for silent worship are ultimately necessary if we are, in practice, to be aware of God's presence at all times. The emphatic answer is that, devoted as we may be to God's service, we need special periods of retrenchment when we can give ourselves totally and without distraction to him. The world bears down relentlessly on us all, and especially on the saints who have an enormous psychic burden to carry; they would be utterly crushed were it not for their practice of rapt prayer in the silence of self-transcendence when they are one with God. Jesus himself had to fight for survival during his encounter with overwhelming psychic darkness at Gethsemane; his proficiency at prayer was of crucial significance here, as is recounted in Luke's account of the agony in the garden.

When we know God well in the silence, we remember his presence during the vicissitudes of a day's work, but we are even more thankful than before to renew our intimacy with him in the quietness of an open heart when we are alone. The end of our spiritual life is to be in constant communion with God, to pray without ceasing, so that his nameless presence is on our lips and in our hearts whether we are in the hectic thrust of emotional chaos or in the controlled tranquillity of solitude. The strength of our fellowship with God depends on our deep intimacy with him in prayer, and it is proved in the life of the world by our calmness, awareness of others and self-control in the face of great provocation. None of this is easy, but it is the fruit of assiduous cultivation of the prayer life carried out over a long period of time. On the unfailing presence of God in our life as a conscious power depends our ability to fulfil the moral law that comprises the latter half of the Decalogue.

"I will show portents in the sky and on earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke; the sun shall be turned into darkness and the moon into blood before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes. Then everyone who invokes the Lord by name shall be saved" (Joel 2.30-2). Even when the revelation of all things is near at hand, when the total destruction of all material objects is threatened, those who knew God in truth will be saved; perhaps it will then be their duty and privilege to save that which is threatened with extinction. This may be the ultimate hope in our time, poised as it is precariously on the edge of nuclear destruction on the one hand and life-denying political ideologies on the other. Certainly the divided consciousness of man is no match for these terrible forces encompassing us.

The conscious presence of God in our soul is the guiding light of our conscience, that within us which provides a moral imperative for right action. To be sure, conscience is not simple and pure in itself, being also an amalgam of conditioning we have received in our earliest years (symbolized as the super-ego) and the impingent thrust of group loyalty on which we depend for the support of our peers in an uneasy world. But transcending these worldly influences on our moral decisions, there is the voice of God which will never leave us until we have obeyed the deepest call to authenticity: to be ourselves even to death, which swallows up all worldly wisdom. "What does a man gain by winning the whole world at the cost of his true self?" (Mark 8.36). This conscience, instead of enslaving us to the opinions of our elders and teachers, or shackling us to the contemporary prejudices of those around us, gives us the possibility to be ourselves as sons of the Most High, in whose service alone there is perfect freedom. The reason why the divine service sets us free is because it makes no demands on us other than to grow into the fullness of our own nature, whose end is Christ himself.

Jesus says in respect of using God's name improperly, "You have learned that our forefathers were told, "Do not break your oath" and "Oaths sworn to the Lord must be kept". But what I tell you is this: you are not to swear at all". The invocation of heaven, earth, Jerusalem, or one's own head are all equally vain if the inner integrity is lacking. Plain "yes" or "no" is all we need to say, indeed anything beyond that comes from the devil (Matthew 5.33-7). As we become open to the presence of God at all times, so he speaks through us and whatever we do is to his power and glory. Our integrity shines from us as the radiance of the sun, and we no longer have to assure others of the truth we affirm. In our civil courts the ritual swearing in God's name to tell the truth is a necessary safeguard against dishonest evidence. But we will never pass beyond the more subtle guiles of perjury until our consciousness is constantly illuminated by the presence of God. Then the Lord shall be the one Lord and his name the one name (Zechariah 14.9).