Coinherence

By Brad Henderson

While reading through Esther De Waalʼs The Celtic Way of Prayer, I discovered a new word the other day: “In todayʼs society, which increasingly likes to treat us as isolated units, and which seems to encourage an individualistic and competitive approach to life, the Celtic tradition brings another set of values. It speaks instead of harmony, interrelationship, unity, interdependence, and all that is meant by coinherence…”

Even De Waal, a great spirituality scholar, is not quite sure what “incoherence, ” a word she discovered in the works of Charles Williams, means. And it sent me scrambling for a dictionary. What I found was that dictionary.com didnʼt even have an entry for the word. Neither did merriam - webster.com. Nor Googleʼs English dictionary. But finally at freedictionary.com I found a form of the word, coinhere, meaning “To inhere or exist together, as in one substance”.

De Waal uses the word to describe not only the spirituality of the ancient British Isles, but also the way the Holy Trinity moves and has its/their being together. Father, Son and Spirit exist as one substance, perhaps different in function (creating, redeeming, sustaining), but in essence, One God. It reminds me of Jesusʼ prayer in John 17: "I do not ask on behalf of these alone [the disciples], but for those also who believe in Me through their word; that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me. ”

It is striking that one of Jesusʼ last prayers, is about not only the unity that exists in the Triune God, but that which is also desired for us... the ones made in his image. We are meant for each other, just as Father, Son and Spirit are meant for each other. I cannot be all that I am without you, and neither can you be all you are without me. As we reach for the heavens, while rooting ourselves in Godʼs creation, we do so together.