There was a philosopher named Kant who wrote of our knowledge and understanding relying mainly on our senses, because these are the main ways we perceive. He also wrote, though, of another sense of perception that lies within the constructs of continual motion and consistency, the way we perceive things that exist which can't be proven with our senses, for example, Time. What he didn't write about though, was what we read here in I John 1. There was a life, the essence of life really, with the Father before perception or senses or time. What's important to understand is that we would never have had the capability within ourselves to perceive this life in the form that it existed from the beginning. Thus, it was made manifest to us. We don't find the Father, He reveals himself to us. This life was translated by the father himself into a version that we could see, touch, hear, smell, and taste. But, like any translation, the fullness of it cannot be realized. We will never understand the fullness of Life, which is the Father, until we are apart from our earthly existence and mind. But the importance here is fellowship. John talks of fellowship being the reason for his writing about this at all. He also says that his Joy cannot be complete without this fellowship. I, for one, get lost in my own thoughts and ideas and don't want to share them with my friends for fear of being misunderstood or labeled a heretic, but if ever there were ideas of heresy, it was with the origins of Christianity, and John is pointing out how important the fellowship of brothers is within these radical thoughts, and this is true joy.
**Devin is the guitarist of Paper Tongues and a carpenter by trade.