2013.01.02 What is God Like, Really Anyway?

How can we possibly imagine that anyone who constantly hears, pray, sings, and reads “Oh praise HIM, Oh praise HIM,  Alelluia Alleluia”  and the like, will think of God as anything but male?

Godde needs a wardrobe change. It’s not fair to women who feel excluded from Divinity,  and it’s not fair to men who may feel proud and powerful as demi-gods at first, but then suddenly realize what a set up it is. As Dad used to say, “we’re riding for a fall.”

And, most decidedly, it's not fair to God!

No, this vocabulary  must change. We can do it. It’s not hard. In this new year I hope to write, and make it the case in my memoir, that God is not exclusively male. 

Let’s hope it won’t take another century to revise our language and images of Divinity.  Jesus of course was a man, a good and great one, divinized to a high degree.  The Christ, however, is not a man. If Christ were a man, how could we seek and serve Christ in all persons, when half of these christ-bearing persons are female! !?? 

A friend recently wondered if God were really perfect and immutable and all the things she’d learned in church. It didn’t make sense to her, and, in an article she’d read and shared, the author had written that the God of the Bible was none of these things. In fact the biblical deity was quite moody and changed HIS divine mind regularly. HE  had also made a very far from perfect creation program.

Sounds right to me. So..... language is not immutable.

God isn't perfect, because Godde chooses to mix it up with all of us. Divinity is about love not perfection,  and we all know how blooming imperfect love is.  We are free to give and receive love; so is Godde, although I happen to believe that God, more spacious of heart, is able to love a bit better and more gracefully than most of us are. And Godde consistently chooses connection over distance.

The Bible is a patriarchal document out of a patriarchal age. It’s language for God is all masculinized, though translations over time have made the language for humankind inclusive, so we address humankind as brothers AND sisters now.  We can do more. So what if the word for God in Hebrew or Greek is gendered? English nouns have no gender. What are we afraid of?

This grand memoir of faith has a thrumming spiritual truth that vibrates through it and keeps us all wondering— which is the point. Let’s help the truth along.

Our religion consistently proclaims the glory of God, while our pronouns, with equal consistency, proclaim God’s maleness. Enough already. 

2012.31.12 Holy Innocence

Isn’t it true that we often remember, best and most lastingly, the small pieces of advice from wise teachers in elementary school when we are most vulnerably wide open to awe and wonder— before worldly sophistication sets in.

Here’s one from a third grade teacher shared by our parish priest ,who never forgot it.  The children became tense at the sound of a loud approaching siren. The teacher asked what the siren meant.  “Someone has been hurt,” they said,  and called out their own fearful speculations: fire, an accident, an bad emergency. 

The teacher listened to the children’s apprehensive associations. She affirmed them all with the compassion that only good listening can offer. Then she said:  “All this is true, children, but remember too, that whenever you hear the sound of a siren,  it also means that someone is on the way fast to bring help.” 

The time between Nativity and Epiphany, when the Magi finally make it to Bethlehem, thanks to a good star + wise astro-physics and astro-theology,  is a time for breathing after the rush and panic of conspicuous consumption.  

It's a time for hope, enormous hope, unknowing hope.

Something brand new has happened, and we have no idea what it means yet. It’s also very dark time,  full of many “sirens.” A time of mixed fear AND wonder.

When I was pregnant with each of my children and in their early infancy I felt the same—excited wondering, and also exhaustion from the weight of it, and the worry about whether this child would be all right, and would I be a good enough mother?

You know that any “child” will face all of life’s challenges, some more intense than others. Being born whole is a blessing, but only the first step. In church, therefore,  we keep on singing hymns that include cradle and cross, because we know we need to keep hope alive amidst the sirens that signal both hurt and help.

For who knows? Three weird desert types, from the east or the streets, may just ride in, on camels or in hot green sneakers, with wisdom and gifts that may get us through the night, help us understand that there is more than hurt and fear in store—always.

The third graders and their teacher had it right. Help is on the way, and some of it is up to us. 

2012.30.12 Mary, Joseph, and Santa Claus

In a neighboring town in a Boston suburb we saw a creche set-up, effulgent with strings of lights, strung about on hapless trees. Creche figures stood tall, gathered in a threesome: Mary, Joseph and Santa.

The sight amused and teased me. The first temptation was to scoff and scorn such cheap excess.  The second was to lament the way the religious meaning of Christmas has been all but lost. And the third was to wonder if Santa was an image of Divinity, of Christ.

In important ways Santa is a christ figure.   In equally important ways,  Santa falls short, because the old elf's generosity and love has conditions (naughty and nice lists.)  But.....Godde's love in Christ offers unconditional love.

Christmas is surrounded by other holy day traditions with similar meanings. Hannukah is a celebration of liberation for the Jewish people, ancient and modern. The day after Christmas, Kwanzaa is celebrated. It’s a pan-African celebration of “first fruits”—all the best offerings and gifts coming together in a celebration of shared life. Kwanzaa started during the Black Freedom Movement in the United States in1966, but has ancient roots in Egypt.

All these days honor the mystery of the human spirit. Religious interpretations attribute a portion of that mysterious expansive spirit to God working within human strength, empowering us to go beyond our limits for love, liberation, and generosity.

Kwanzaa’s founder, Dr. Maulana Karenga, chose to make the holiday cultural rather than religious, so that people of all faiths could gather to celebrate.

American culture right now has more Santa-awareness than Christ-awareness. Christmas has become more holly day than holy day,  a day more cultural than religious.

Some Christians rue this as religious loss, but I wonder if it’s gain? 

2012.12.25 Merry Christmas For Ever

Many of the words people have used to speak of the Dec. 14th  Newtown CT.  tragedy are negative. They are un- words: unbelievable, unreal, unimaginable, unspeakable, unheard of, unbearable, unmanageable, unholy, ungodly.

I’ve noticed that many of these same words—unbelievable, unimaginable, unheard of, unreal, even ungodly—are also used to describe Christmas, a time when Christians believe by faith that God was born into human flesh as an infant, a God who gives UNconditional love. How ungodly! Not our almighty, divine, alleluia Lord! Unbelievable!

The only way to catch the grace of such an unbearably unreal story is to tell another unbelievable story.......then wait and see.

Once upon a time there lived a king of great power, wealth, and majesty. He ruled over a small kingdom and lived in a palace, full of riches,  jewels and treasures. The king’s castle sat atop the hill overlooking his kingdom, which he ruled with justice and equity.

The king loved to ride about among his citizens in his royal  or on horseback.  All the people cheered and bowed as he rode by.

One day the king caught sight of a beautiful maiden carrying a basket of bread home to her cottage. He watched. He took in her pleasant face and form, unable to avert his gaze. In short, the king became smitten with the young woman, and every day he would ride along the route she took. His heart’s desire was to marry the young woman, love her, and bring her to the castle to live with him—happily ever after.  

How would he make this happen?  He devised many schemes to make his will done.

First, an edict announcing that he would have her in marriage. No one would disobey a king’s orders. But no, the king knew better: love never happens by commandment or control.

He thought then to send his most eloquent messenger in person to deliver the king’s proposal, begging her assent. But no, true love is never indirect, no matter how elegantly it’s presented.

Then the king decided to shower the maiden with gifts and jewels that would please anyone. But no, she would be grateful, but so what?  Love and gratitude aren’t the same, and true love can not be bought or sold.

Ah, the king finally thought.....I’ll go to her house myself. I will appear at her door in all my royal finery and splendor and dazzle her. Then surely she will fall in love with me. The king was sure of this plan, but his Spiritual Director cautioned him: “You will blind her with your glory and make her afraid. Even the most holy awe isn’t love. Think and pray some more, my Lord King. Love is never from a distance, any distance at all.

Quickly, the king thought of a disguise, and just as quickly he unthought it.  She might fall in love, but when he revealed his true identity as king she might get angry at the trick. True love doesn’t wear a mask and doesn’t work by deceit.

Months passed and the king grew weary and was ready to give up. But no, his love for the woman was growing stronger, so strong it made him weep.  What could he do? Immediately, from deep within his longing soul he knew what he must do: He must stop being king.

This path made the king very sad and very scared. To give up all his wealth and privilege and position was terrifying.  To be himself, not an almighty king, was even more terrifying. 

But the most awful part of this plan was its risk. What if the woman didn’t fall in love with him? What if he, after he met her, didn’t like her? 

Still, this is what the king did. He went and lived among her people, worked and played, laughed and cried, came to know her and her people and they all came to know him—up close and personal.

The king’s plan took time and sacrifice but it worked. He and the woman married and lived happily ever after.

Their love grew ever nearer and ever greater, ever nearer and ever greater. 

The End For Ever.

(The above legend is not entirely original to me. Parts of it came from19th century Danish Christian existential philosopher/theologian, Soren Kierkegaard.)

2012.12.23 Mary, Mary, Mary

MAGDALENE POEM
        by John Taggart

Love enters the body


enters

almost

almost completely breaks and enters into the body


already beaten and broken


peaceful if breaking if breaking

and entering the already broken is peaceful


untouchable fortunately

untouchable.



This poem almost broke and entered my heart.  Some Christians will say it’s the “wrong” Mary. We should be honoring the Blessed Mary Mother Virgin Divine on the fourth Sunday of Advent, just before Christmas.  But no.  There are multiple generic Marys—all sacred, all blessed, few virginal, all bursting with love to give and to receive.  

Who this Christmas will break and enter your battered and yearning heart—peacefully? 

2012.12.20 Teen-Holy

Here’s what Izzy looked like when she was a tween, that is between single number ages and thirTEEN. Twelve seems like the longest year.

She has just turned 13 and is bursting with hormones and mood swings. A seminary professor once compared a grinning ball of energy called a teenager, suddenly appearing without warning on a stair step as you’re ascending carrying a bundle of laundry, with the Holy: a mysterium tremendum et fascinans. 

Teens are a tremendous and fascinating mystery.  They are goofy and wise, in your face and secretive in equal measures.  I remember one of my sons as a young teen asked for a hairdryer with a style comb, a stuffed teddy, and a lock for his door—all for Christmas. He got the first two.

I think of Jesus’ disciple Thomas, whose calendar day it is today. He wanted proof of identity of Jesus in resurrected form. And Jesus said, OK touch me and see. I’m the same one you love and follow, just in a different form. A teen might say, Here I am, the same one you birthed and love, just in a different form.

Having a FaceBook page is an age-related privilege Izzy loves. Perhaps she has age on her brain. Recently she posted the names and ages of all the 20 children and 6 adults who were murdered at an elementary school in Newtown, CT. Adult ages:  56, 52, 27, 30, 47, 29. Children, 16 aged 6, 4 aged 7.

Then she wrote a small prayer: "God please help their families and friends cope with this tragedy."  

By the time Izzy is old, like her Grammy, I bet she will post a prayer also for the murderer, the one just as holy though not as innocent. And post a prayer for his mother, whom he shot before he went on his rampage. I bet Izzy will think of that,  because that’s how she is at heart.

No one really knows why this happened, and may never know.

The young man was developmentally disabled, and himself a “child” of 20. He shot his mother who had tried to love him, and then headed for the school and sprayed bullets around the office and first grade classrooms in a Newtown school. And finally he shot himself.

These two more lives were lost also in this holocaust.  These two lives are grieved by someone somewhere—and in heaven.

But the reported death toll has been consistently reported at 26, and that’s what I read in most newspaper articles and heard on television. Twenty-six. 26. 

Twenty-eight lives were lost on that fatal day. 28.  

2012.12.19 Bloody Marvelous Hope

Blessed is the act, the act of defiance, the act of justice
that fills the mouth with blood.
Blessed is the act of survival that saves the blood.
Blessed is the act of art that paints the blood
redder than real and quicker, that restores
the fallen tree to its height and birds.

These are words of poet Marge Piercy written on a visit to a holocaust site. She was saying kaddesh as she jotted down her poem.  Kaddesh in Hebrew means sanctification, derived from the word holy.  It is the first blessing prayer said over the cup of wine you drink at the Passover meal.  “Blessed are you, Lord our God, King of the universe, who has kept us alive, sustained and enabled us to reach this wonderful moment.”

I felt renewed anguish seeing the images of 20 small caskets, donated (what more can we do?) by the funeral home in Newtown CT. They will house tiny bodies; they will be present at funerals, rituals of remembrance and intimacy, containers for unmanageable grief, a way to DO something.

 In Advent Christians wait for this “wonderful moment” we call Jesus Christ, the Christ event.  And we ACT in the Eucharist, as Piercy wrote, by drinking “blood,” the wine of holiness. It is an act of defiance—and hope.

In hope, we bless God, in our odd blood-stained meal of justice, intimacy, and remembrance, called Eucharist. God, we say in faith, brings forth (Hebrew ha motzi)  fruit from the vine, bread from the earth, freedom from captivity, truth from error, peace from violence, and life from death.  Go and do likewise!

In the absence of certainty beyond faith, we act in hope—over and over—bloody marvelous hope. 

Are we all nuts?  Of course!  But no: it is certainty that is nuts, not hope.