Archive for April, 2006
April 30th, 2006
For a number of years during the 90’s until a couple years ago, I used to escape to Ephphatha house, a small Catholic community, and take part in the daily Chaplet of Mercy and Liturgy of Hours. We were a sparse and motley group, aging and bent, a few scattered misfits.
We sat in silence. When the Chaplet began we repeated at length, “For the sake of your infinite passion, have mercy on us and on the whole world.” Voices, some halting, some frail, some not, made a foray upon the void. But so weak and hollow and barren and seemingly parochial was this whole effort that I despaired for the survival of Ephphatha into next week.
Leaving, I felt emptier than I did when I came. Maybe that’s not completely accurate, it’s more like I felt the familiar longing more deeply. My emptiness became emptier. But I kept going back. It remained one witness to the resurrection. It also somehow sharped my desire for God and displayed for me a kind of spiritual poverty, and curiously, hope crept in.
While I was there I remember thinking that I would feel embarrassed to bring someone from our church here. I thought that odd but upon reflection it’s probably because there so little here, or so little “here” here.
I wouldn’t counsel anyone to go to Ephphatha. Places like these need to be “personally” found. But it still strikes me as weird to think that the Christian church has these places that are apparently “other” to each other. Ephphatha is a different climate; almost pain inducing in its “uselessness”, yet for me, it was necessary.
April 29th, 2006
“I would like to believe that the “childhood” of Christendom is over, that it is breaking away from ideology and legalism, no longer emphasizing concepts–the western representation of things–tearing down its doctrinal scaffolding, or at least keeping it at a distance, something for specialists, and becoming at once more feeble and more strong, more apt to express itself in terms of our common anthropological foundation.”
The forgoing is a quote by priest and writer Jean Sulivan (1913-1980). I came across Sulivan’s quote in Gil Bailie’s amazing book “Violence Unveiled”. Bailie follows this up by saying, “One of the many paradoxes with which Christians must wrestle, is the fact that, by its very nature, a “pro-Christian position is antithetical to the spirit of the gospel.”
The great distressing problem too many of us Christians have, particularly us western Christians, is that we don’t see the paradox. We don’t see that a “Christian rally” is anti-gospel.
Just another reason to consider the call to “non-Christianity”.
April 28th, 2006
Therefore be merciful, even as your heavenly Father is merciful. (Luke 6)
It’s not just the driven people who worship at shrines of self-expectation. We all have laws that we manage to set just beyond reach and reason. We don’t do this consciously. Somehow, by the time we notice, we’ve already been operating by them for years. They’re just there, inherited. They accuse us when ever we let up. And we twist ourselves out of shape racing away from them or rigidly adhering to them, which in the end amounts to the same thing. They remain in control.
Hope Mission, as part of our Spring Banquet celebration is honouring the Graduates of our Addiction Treatment program. There’s a good chance that the people we will hear from tonight have learned that the way through this double-bind is self-mercy. And it’s also a good chance they’ve learned it the long way. Learned as well that growing mercy is a life-long process. Learned that it goes hand in hand with God’s ever-present mercy and the mercy of others which is very nearly the same thing.
We can’t be perfect, that is, “perfect†in the vernacular. I’m not sure, but I think the perfection mentioned in the Bible is of a different variety. We can aim for excellence–a good thing–but we tend to let our aim harden into a crust that is again impervious to mercy. And when we inevitably fail to live up to ourselves, or the perceived expectations of others, we stuff justifications into the gaps and become prickly.
We need a very large garden of mercy to wander in until our prickly hearts soften, until the inner knots slacken and release. The garden needs tending but don’t over water or over weed. It grows on its own, offering possibilities.
We never really know about gardens. They’re a mystery. Except that God likes to wander in them in the evening.
So as you go…clear out the clutter you can, but accept a bit of litter in your life. Allow yourself to be angry at injustice. Visit a friend who really knows you. Have tea on a patio. Buy a mouth-harp. Find a stone or a piece of wood, rub the dirt off and carry it in your pocket. Remember the place you picked it up. Listen to real slow bluegrass…visit your garden in the evening…and grow mercy.
April 27th, 2006
I wonder if some “Christians” are called to be non-Christians, even atheists?
This is not a new idea, just one I’m willing to play with because of the Copernican shift (in my mind at least) my theology has taken. Or rather, the shift I have been swept up in–from fundamentalist theology to an anthropology of God.
Sure, the question as a kind of trope. But the call to be a non-Christian is not that bazaar. If you’ve been going to an Evangelical church, or a Catholic church or any conservative church that attaches a degree of gravitas to their tradition (not necessarily a bad thing), you can, using a bit of imagination, feel the indignation that the Pharisee’s would have felt when their “liturgical” systems were being flouted by Jesus and his followers. To the Pharisee’s, Jesus and his band were “non-Christians”.
Is it possible that our loyalty to the atonement system; a prescribed loyalty through fundamentalist and Anselmian weaning, (St. Anselm is generally seen as the formulator of subsitutionary atonement doctrine.) is of the same order as the strict pietism and traditionalism of the Pharisees?
So it may be that we are called to be non-Christians for a time. And as people who no longer see God as sacrificial, we are also atheists of a sort.
But really, the only important thing in all of this is the continual waking up to our own complicity in the sacrificial system. And this awakening often requires heart breaking self-honesty. Which is Christ-ianity.
April 26th, 2006
“I see so much in the life and death of Jesus, but I’ve always had difficulty seeing an angry God that needed appeasing, and so I try (in tiny little ways) to live by those things. But because I’ve questioned that cornerstone theology, I’ve have had my faith and in fact my God questioned, been told it’s a different God I pray to, and been asked why I would even want to call myself a Christian if I can’t accept that most basic premise of the faith.”
The task for all of us is to, ahem, “Grow Mercy”. (The web site with the verb, as my brother-in-law pointed out.) Forgive that.
But not this: Only in learning mercy, which is nothing short of a walk in the wilderness, can it be shown that the so-called basic premise of faith (propitiative atonement theory) is the same thing as our basic (premise) structure of human culture and religion.
What I mean is that the parable of the murderous labourers in the vinyard, (remember them?) and their collective expulsion of the victim, is at the root of culture and religion. This is what Christ blows up. But half blind and ears ringing, we Christians still cling to atonement theory (sacrificial ways of being and understanding) because it’s all we know. (This is as good a definition of original sin as you’ll likely get from me.) Perhaps it’s just taking this long for the right concussive ripples to hit.
April 25th, 2006
Let your mercy come to me, that I may live; (Psalm 119)
Mercy is the stuff of life. You can live for eleven days without the regenerative endowments of sleep, but you can’t live one moment without mercy.
We are all given life, sustained in life, held together, glued to this cosmic spinning rock, by the merciful gaze of God.
Our souls flourish through the mercy of others. We grow only in so far as we show mercy to others. Without mercy we perish, long before any life-giving properties offered by any vision. Without showing mercy, others die to us, and to themselves.
Why do we suppose Jesus enjoined us to forgive others so that we may be forgiven? (Why do we think that these words refer to a spiritual balance sheet? We compulsively spiritualize blocks of scripture and then trip over the deeper truth they hold. The truth often being anthropological rather than theological.) Do we suppose that the forgiveness command is given so that it will please God when it is obeyed? Or do we suppose reciprocal mercy is asked for so that we humans can live, and grow and experience full life? Which truly pleases God.
Our world runs down because we fail to give and receive mercy. Without mercy, in the daily rough and tumble, how are we to value or honour each other the way we all want to be valued and honoured?
Years ago, my friend Mary told this story–a story from a different time. I recall it as follows:
An esteemed and wealthy man came to an island to find a bride. Custom required the man to assess the available women and offer the number of cows that the assessment determined. Thus, there were one, two, even three-cow women.
On the island lived a dowdy, inelegant, and self-conscious woman. The distinguished suitor astounded the father of the woman by offering seven cows for his daughter. He then left the island for the appropriate period of time to allow for a decision.
When he returned, the woman, his bride-to-be, was transformed. During his absence, the woman’s father, who had given up on her, began to treat her with respect. Those who knew the woman changed their minds about her and met her with new regard. And as the story got out, people in the community addressed her with the honour due a seven-cow-woman.
And she, in burgeoning response to this change in reception, straightened her back, lifted her eyes, and having regained her own latent beauty, became truly beautiful.
April 24th, 2006
Lisa said, "I’m trying to absorb the concepts in your Easter article. How do you see the sacrificial system given to the Israelites in the Old Testament fitting in? Or the segregation of women? These are aspects of God’s interaction with His people that I’ve always struggled with. What do these things show about His character?"
I'm thinking that the presupposition here, the one that still haunts those of us reared within evangelical fundamentalism, is that the Old Testament stories are not simply true, but 'literally' true. So when the bible say's God destroyed all the cities of the Plain, or when God commands the wiping out of a neigbouring nation, we assume that God clearly and unequivocally communicated that he wanted was the slaughter of the Canaanites.
We dutifully suppose that there is no gap between the record and the interpretation. But this requires us to work out a system like dispensationalism to explain how God used violence to accomplish his will at one time, but uses peaceful means in the New Testament; and presumably will again need to use violent means in the future.
But, as is appropriate to mediate upon this time of year, one of the amazing things that the resurrection uncovers for us is a new understanding of just who God is, what God's character is like; not at all capricious, vengeful, or wrathful but completely gratuitous and forgiving.
If the Passion doesn't utterly change the way see everything, then Christ retains status of a prophet, but nothing more. Gil Ballie says, The spectacle of God dying at the hands of a murderous mob while praying forgiveness on his murderers can hardly be thought to have left intact Old Testament notions of God’s punishing wrath.
But beyond this, it was Christ's return, as James Alison would phrase it, as "forgiving victim" that forces upon us a crisis. And this crisis, when embraced, frames for us a new possibility, a new self-revelation, and a new understanding of God. All this compels us to read scripture anew. That is, in a non-sacrificial way.
April 23rd, 2006
A total of 15 Canadian soldiers and one diplomat have died since 2002 when Canada first became involved in Afghanistan following the ouster of the hardline Taliban regime.
This weekend 3 more soldiers were killed. War, this war, like all wars are complicated and leave us perplexed and paralysed.
Is it possible to find and commit to a Christian position?
“Do you think that [Jesus] was sent [by God], as might be supposed, to establish some sort of political sovereignty [tyrannis], to inspire fear and terror? Not so. But in gentleness and meekness He sent him… Christians are not distinguished from the rest of humanity either in locality or in speech or in customs. For they do not dwell somewhere in cities of their own, neither do they use some different language… But while they dwell in cities of Greeks and Barbarians as the lot of each is cast… the constitution of their citizenship is nevertheless quite amazing and admittedly paradoxical. They dwell in their own countries, but only as sojourners… Every country is a fatherland to them, and every fatherland is a foreign country.” (The Epistle of Mathetes to Diognetus)
April 22nd, 2006
“It has taken me a while to learn that there is no “them” and “us” in the eyes of God.”, writes Bev Curtis in today’s Religion section of the Edmonton Journal. Bev Curtis’ story will resonate well with ”mission-types”; it’s a wonderful piece of writing.
But the experience of being blessed by giving, is something that is not reserved for mission or church workers, it’s a universal human experience. It’s a sign our common humanity points to something far beyond our hide-bound individualism. In Matthew 25 terms, the Jesus we serve in others always brings out the Jesus in us, and vice versa. Through active compassion the categories break down.
I wish this, no “us” and “them” lesson, was one that once learned, always remembered. In my case, I find I need refreshers. The categories need deconstructing every day. And the deconstruction is only done through acts of human kindness.
Which brings me to my wife. Debbie works at an inner-city mission as a Human Resources consultant. Her door revolves with, as they say, people issues. She told me this morning of the thought that crossed her mind as one more “unscheduled” person knocked on her door the other day. “You’re interupting my day…!”
However, she did invite the person in and she listened and learned and cared and after, felt encouraged and inspired.
You’re interupting my day…no, you are my day.
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April 21st, 2006
This is just to let you know of my basic frame of reference concerning Grow Mercy.
Two years ago my wife brought home an essay by Dr. David Snartch on marriage, sexuality and human desire. In the essay was a quote from Sebastian Moore, a Benedictine monk, “Sin stems from a lack of desire for pleasure”.
Because of my interest in things Benedictine I began to look for stuff by or on Sebastian Moore, but admittedly, his thoughts on desire were even more intriguing. (More on this later.)
I found some articles and one used book in a Catholic book store called, ‘The Language of God’. It was not very accessible. I further discovered that much of Moore’s work is out of print. However, as I continued to comb through links and references I came upon a forward Dom Moore had written for a book by James Alison. The book was called ‘Beyond Resentment, Fragments, Catholic and Gay’.
This is an amazing book that reveals a wonderful mind and a most gracious heart. I have been reading James Alison since then.
I soon found that James Alison regarded the work of anthropologist Rene Girard as more than significant. Alison and others see Girard’s central thought and hypothesis as monumental in scope and touching all disciplines. The “Girardians” are growing in number. Still, far too few have discovered Girard’s work. An interesting aside to this is that before Girard’s work took a decidedly Christian turn, a turn his research compelled him to take, he was highly esteemed in the secular academia.
James Alison however is more than an insightful interpreter of Girard. His theology is borne from long existential engagement with a God of love without borders. And his life and voice reflect a liberated and liberating desire. More, his life reflects the mercy of a borderless God of love.
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