Before Abraham was

Grammar carries the metaphysics. Not “I was,” which would place Christ on Abraham’s timeline a little earlier, but “I am” — the name of being itself, present, unterminated. Abraham came to be. The one speaking does not come to be. He is the is-ness in which coming-to-be happens.

Read inwardly, this is the difference between the self that has a birthday and the awareness that watches every birthday arrive. You are not asked to deny history. You are asked to notice what in you does not begin when the story begins. That awareness is not a possession of the private person. It is the divine name, living. To touch it is to touch what was never absent, even when the story was.