Archive for the ‘theology’ Category
The Divine Recluse
“They say that God is everywhere, and yet we always think of Him as somewhat of a recluse.”
– Emily Dickinson
A philosophy of religion professor I greatly admired said to me that “God is either in everything, or in nothing.” I have often thought of this and think I will never let go, entirely, of the sense that this question is very close to the center of our existential dilemma. The declarative testimony of some preachers often clashes with our own, and often profound, sense that God is a very long way off. Perhaps this is most true of ‘high mileage’ ministers; Ministers who say, week after week, that “God is near” or “God will provide”, or “God is love” while at the same time living lives of personal spiritual desolation.
Saint John of the Cross, a Carmelite monk and famous Spanish mystic of the 16th century, spoke of “The Dark Night of the Soul”. Though I can lay no claim to mysticism due to my own proclivity for skepticism and rational thought I do not believe that the spiritual desolation that many know today can be equated with his experience of exquisite sorrow. For one thing his travail was a stage in a life long journey toward greater awareness of the nearness of God. Ours, by contrast, is a contemporary and increasingly empty wasteland. A wasteland that is the consequence of longing or lust for something other than God.
When I retired from public ministry almost fifteen years ago I was met by objections from colleagues and friends. One, I remember in particular, said, “Don’t do this, you will lose your faith.” Really? I suppose the epicenter of this concern depends on what is meant by faith. What often passes for faith is not faith but enthusiasm for it. That is, what many consider ‘faith’ is an emotional rush associated with tantalizing hope for ________ (fill in the blank with health, wealth, power, the winning lottery numbers). Longing, not faith, is the hallmark emotion of our age. We are obsessed with this sense of longing and the market is eager to exploit the demand. Consider our entertainment, the means by which we create and then fill idle hours. Today the ‘leading brands’ are fueled by longing. American Idol, Next Super Model, The Bachelor/Bachelorette are testimonies to our ambition for something more. In contemporary religion we are all too often exhorted to believe so that we too can have __________ (you may borrow from the previously completed blank).
Week after week the disenfranchised, the wealthy, the overwhelmed, and the overlord exhort their personal deities to grant a boon. And, to assure success, they (we) cry all the louder, “Hear Us!” The regular worship of many takes on the trappings of a pep rally and we, the worshippers, are the fans. Fans of Faith.
It is this kind of “faith” that can be easily lost. And when it is lost the heart of our hearts is a desolate, without relief from the scorching winds of self reproach, doubt, and despair. This is no “Dark Night of the Soul” it is a living hell.
When I first began to compose this piece the juxtaposition of statements by poet, professor and parishioner occupied my mind. In 1993 my wife, deeply loved by me and all her family, died. In the seven years prior to her death we struggled, together. For my own part, I was not so troubled by some sense that God was absent. Instead I was haunted by an inexplicable sense of pervasive good. I began to realize more fully that we live in an ugly world where cancer is part of nature. I saw the compelling evidence that pestilence is an unrelenting condition of life. Likewise, poverty is the norm for most people in this world and yet… in the midst of such a world I held in my heart something mysteriously beautiful. In the fifteen years since then I continue to question many things but what I question most is how could we all seem to miss the outrageous eruption of good in a world so utterly hostile to it.
Far more than the presence or absence of God I am amazed that any of us ever has a sense of God’s presence. We, in spite of ourselves and our distance from conventional means by which we articulate faith continue to be amazed by God. I suppose this is the real meaning of “amazing” in grace.
Tool Time
Been in the basement a lot this week. Making clouds of dust to see what I can produce just short of spontaneous generation. I am reminded of high school when we were taught to politely sneer at the ‘science’ that proclaimed life could emerge ‘spontaneously’ from a pond. How simple minded those pre-enlightenment fools were to think that fish could just spring into existence as if of their own volition.
Today we teach our children an either-or tale of similarly stunning foolishness. We teach them that life either sprang, like Athena, full grown from the divine skull or it popped into being from an accidental combination of various compounds. Maybe we should coin a new phrase to label our own implausible possibility; “the divine mistake”. There was a god who liked to spend time stirring dust in the cosmic basement. Being a careless divinity some etheral compounds leaked onto the pile of molecular debris and, voila (this instance of divinity must be French, of course), life was percolating on the cellar floor.
So, there you have it, perhaps we are the product of a cosmic Tim Allen. Isn’t that just as comforting as the alternatives offered by the battalions of opinionated critters engaged in our current cultural war?
A Tale Told Twice?
Preachers, sales people, and raconteurs tell tales, we know. But our tales tell more than one story. Often it is the unconscious story by which our world view is shaped. I am not an advocate of political correctness but I wish to champion the role of story tellers as those who help shape our perception of the world around us.
In the comments that follow I am equally subject to the indictment that I would lay at the feet of others. Mea culpa.
Recently I read an attractive story of a drought apparently relieved following the prayers of many people. Among those who prayed was a child who bore an umbrella; a sign of deepest faith. It was touching as such stories usually are.
What struck me in the tale was the role played by each of the characters. I thought of how predictable the arrangement was and it seemed to comply with an unstated rule, “Children have faith and adults don’t.”
In many circles ‘child-like faith’ is idealized. Set aside the biblical precedence, please, and indulge me for a moment. It seems too easy for story tellers to rely on children to have this kind of faith but I wonder how much more powerful might the story be if a child is presented as a skeptic. Maybe the child was admonished by her parents to show evidence of faith by grabbing an appropriate talisman such as a bible, a rosary, etc. Maybe the child is cajoled by his mother on the way out the door and as a form of protest he seized an umbrella from the corner where it has lain, dusty from disuse.
Imagine how the story might proceed as the child raises this symbolic act of skepticism and watches the rivulets of water wash the dust from the protective shroud?
By avoiding the easy road where the story teller admonishes us to, “look at this childish act of faith” and by taking a less predictable path we who remain skeptical are confronted. Before us emerges a new possibility of grace rather than dregs of remorse over the loss of our childish innocence?
We live in a skeptical age. Unlike the scene in the New Testament where children are viewed as incapable of appreciating Jesus for who he is, it is we, the adults, that appear to suffer from an impaired capacity to believe. To paraphrase, Jesus might well have said, “Suffer those who struggle (and yet believe) to come unto Me, and forbid them not: for of such is the kingdom of God.”
Balancing the Books
When God made Mr. Harold Dempsey’s face he used silly putty. Harold’s face consisted of one rolling wrinkle after another. Shaking his head, we watched; a classroom of fascinated boys. His heavy jowls waved in counterpoint as he uttered a familiar declaration, “Boys, I would rather God ‘took a mill stone and tied it about my neck’ than to cause you any harm.
I couldn’t imagine what possible harm he might do. Could he infect us and reduce our faces to a similarly drooping state?“Now boys,” his eyes drooped joining the general sag of his cheeks, “you are innocent today. But someday you won’t be.”Remembering his words today they seem more coherent than they did to my ten year old ears. Innocence was something Perry Mason dealt with. You couldn’t be innocent of something until you were accused of something and, apart from repeatedly misplacing my father’s tools I was clear of all charges.I wanted to move on. Any distraction from the looming lecture would do. Perhaps we could divert his attention to one of the pictures in our illustrated King James bibles. One favorite was Moses with what looked like fresh baked loaves in his arms. Even though lunch was still a few hours away I could look at the picture and smell the bread. Heck I could taste the melted butter and grape jelly.
Yep, it would have been fine with me if we had moved straight ahead to one of those pictures but it was revival season and Mr. Dempsey was duty bound to press his point. “Yes sir, boys, you may be innocent today but soon, maybe sooner than you think, you are going to have to explain yourselves to God.”By this point I was probably investigating the picture where Delilah was cutting off Sampson’s hair. There was something about Delilah that I couldn’t figure out. And it started near her neckline and I was making progress when Mr. Dempsey’s next words pulled me back to the classroom.“Boy’s! if you don’t give your hearts to Jesus… well I don’t know how else to say it… if you don’t you’re goin’ straight to hell.” There was something about the phrase “straight to hell” that disturbed my “intense” examination of Delilah. I jerked my head up, the bible fell to the floor and Mr. Dempsey looked at my glowing red face.His next remark was a cinematic event. “Well, that’s something you don’t have to worry about… ” the lighting shifted, silence surrounded us and his baritone shifted to bass. He continued, “’til you reach the-age-of-accountability.”Ah, “the-age-of-accountability”, I didn’t know what it was but it was clearly associated with hell. Not that I knew a lot about hell either. I must have known enough. I wouldn’t eat deviled eggs because they were, well, Devil-ed. And I certainly didn’t want to go to hell by any road, curvy or straight.Maybe “the-age-of-accountability” was like ear wax or tooth decay. Maybe it was something that could be avoided, or if encountered, could be undone. Avoided. Undone. If only the weight of our failures could be so easily remedied.Somewhere in my growing up “the-age-of-accountability” snuck up on me. Mr. Dempsey’s warning seemed opaque when I was ten. Now, having begun what is likely the last third of my life, I find myself accountable. I do not fear hell but I recognize that an answer is due. I must account for things done.Even more, though, I must account for things not done. Sartre once suggested that hell is other people. I can’t say I know his hell. The one I know consists of undone kindnesses, unexpressed grace, unstated affection, under appreciated love. This is a hell I know well. It is for these that I can offer no reasonable accounting. It is from this hell that I most deeply yearn for deliverance.
Heading to Epiphany
In the provencial naivete of my youth I was curious why, while traveling in Spain, they still had Christmas lights up in January. Having no familiarity with Epiphany and only vaguely aware that the “Twelve Days of Christmas” had some basis in fact left me clueless.
Since then I have aquired an affection for a theological understanding of the term and I have adopted it as a frame of reference to explain the unexpected intrusions of good ideas into my otherwise mundane life.
Epiphanies, if not ‘the’ Epiphany, are intrusions in fact. I imagine being seated in a comfortable chair quietly assimilating the characteristics of a potatoe when an idea, a good one, lands somewhere above and to the right of my hippocampus. My rapid transformation into barely sentient starch is halted by an immediate, if not always welcome, reaction.
I find, as years pass, that the frequency of these intrusions has not abated but my ability to resist them has grown. My resitance to these is unfortunate for some but as my epiphanies have not produced any vaccines, life transforming technologies, or even a particularly good sermon, the declining number of reactions has hurt no one other than myself.
Realizing this leads me to think that it may now be time for me to pursue such moments rather than wait for them. I need to hitch myself to a team of verbs and ‘go’. Of course I recall my preferred cliche for explaining my inaction, “My get-up-and-go got up and went.”
Why don’t I want to ‘go’? Is it because those with whom I would most wish to share are unaffected or, worse, alienated by my experiences? My children are generally disinterested in the things that interest me. This is as it should be, I suppose. Their epiphanies may have another source and, in any case, another direction.
As for me, I find myself aware of God’s presence, or more often God’s absence. I find myself seated in church and keenly aware that God seems to have taken a long sabbatical. Maybe “The Almighty” is looking for new material or is engaged in the plight of more interesting parishoners. I can’t say where God is, but I feel pretty certain of where God is not.
God seems to have little relevance to my children which is a shame because I am certain despite God’s prolonged absence it is a temporary state. Perhaps their generation has confused God with church? Church, temple, mosque, shrine, mantra, etc, as expressions of religion, are not synomyns for God. But that is an epiphany for another day. The point here is that sooner or later God will come looking after us whether we happen to be looking for God. Surprise!
Someone, a friend now estranged by distance and time, recently called me. (An epiphany?) He found my number in the debris of abandoned letters and called. “How are you?” came the question to which I replied, “I get up. I eat breakfast. I go to work. I come home. I eat supper. I go to bed. I start over.”
Even as I complained about the grossly mundane nature of my life I realized that it is far more complicated than that. “How are you?” “Oh, well, I am on the road to Epiphany.”
I know not when, where, or how but the day is closer now than ever, the day of my greatest Epiphany. It is not simply a matter of ‘the great sleep’ that awaits us all. It is the moment of final wakefulness when some of us, at least, find our conscious minds alert to the reality that the road has reached it’s end and the moment of transition has come.
Whether it is simply a transition from sensibility and intent to decaying matter vaguely familiar to the bereaved (“Oh, he looks so natural.”) or something more I cannot say. I do not know. It is a mystery. The most avid athiest can be no more authoritative in this regard than the most ardent fundamentalist cleric. It is a mystery but I hold to the notion that in that moment there is a cosmic ‘surprise’.
I am on the road to Epiphany. I hope I have a ways to go; A long ride down a bumpy road loaded with smaller ephanies. And I hope, in the meantime, to be more vigorous in response to the little epiphanies of each day.
On a whim... 