Mysterious Ways

When I catch myself staring at Lucas (which happens a lot), I can't help, at times, but feel a deep sadness come over me. Don't get me wrong, I love every moment of fatherhood. Especially the ones where I'm exhausted, he's crying and then, all of a sudden, he stops, pauses, and smiles at me. Yes, he's now old enough that I can say, with full biological confidence, he's smiling (it's not just 'gas' anymore).

The sadness comes from knowing how temporary (frail, the poet Shelley would write) life is. Lucas will be 18 before I can say "Gerber baby food." I'm going to wake up one morning and realize I am not nearly as young as I perceive myself to be.

---

Some day, maybe later than sooner, Lucas is going to ask me about the mystery of the Spirit. I'm going to do three things. At least, today this is what I'd say.

First, I'd talk about Jesus's conversation with Nicodemus in John's gospel. What an interesting conversation. Of course, I'll save him all the academic interesting tidbits like the difference between Greek, Hebrew, and Aramaic (I'm guessing he won't be interested in that in a long time). I also won't bring up the literary point about when Jesus stops talking and John (the writer) picks up. After all, John's Gospel is a series of conversations. Here's what I'll say: Lucas, do the trees move the wind or does the wind move the trees ("The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, buy you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going")?

If that doesn't satisfy, I'll talk to him about U2's song "Mysterious Ways." If you are not familiar with this song, which I'll assume most of you are, you can click here to read the fascinating lyrics. There are three ways this song is interpreted by U2 experts like my friend Greg. 1) This is a song about a boy falling in love with a girl (and the mystery that lies within this roller coaster ride) 2) An explicit ballad written to describe the role of the Spirit in the life of Jesus follower OR 3) A midrashic commentary on the life and death of John the Baptist. Which one is right? The answer is probably "yes."

If Lucas is still awake at this point, I'll tell him what I should have told him all along.

When your mother and I were newly married, your mother had a dream. She dreamed that she was in a huge building. While walking near the top of this large sky-scraper, an enormous wall of water came crashing over the top of the building. Immediately your mom awoke and told me, in an urgent voice, of the dream.

The next morning I woke up to the news on CNN that a large tsunami had devastated parts of Asia, leaving thousands of people dead, many more without food, water or shelter. One of the worst tragedies of my lifetime. I'm guessing hundreds of people had similar dreams that night.

When you were just a baby, your mom had a dream that she was pregnant with a girl (which was not true). The nurse in this little dream was Kara's friend Sara Whitten. Random. Totally random. She does not work in the medical profession.

The day following the dream, Kara learned that Sara Whitten had herself just learned of her unexpected pregnancy (in real life).

There are other stories. Stories for other days.

The wind moves the trees.

Talk about the things you can't explain.

You hear its sound but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it's going.

Slumdog Dishin' Out Theology

As I write this, I'm watching Slumdog Millionaire with Kara. Unless you've totally sworn off all things "culturally relevant" you've probably heard that Slumdog is all the rave. I know I've written about Slumdog before. However, watching this movie for second time gives me new windows to look through.

It's a film about love, hope in the midst of poverty, globalization, friendship, and family. If that's all the film covered, it would be enough.

Watching the film this time, I'm struck by the tension that exists between determinism (known in Christian circles as "pre-destination") and openness (free will). These two poles, as with most poles in modern thinking, find their way into politics, religion, sociology, philosophy, and education (among many).

Determinism is fatalistic. This pole says your future is already determined. Your next step is already written into the fabric of the universe. Christians in this camp talk about "ordering every step" . . . of "knowing every hair on one's head" . . . etc.

Openness says the future is limitless. Your fate is not determined. Your plight in life can be altered as you have the ability to imagine the world differently.

This is what Slumdog, in my opinion, is really about.

The movie doesn't buy into complete fatalism. Our choices matter a great deal. We can take on the strength of that which we overcome. We can become more. We can be better people. We can build better futures.

The movie also doesn't buy into total openness either. There is a mystery to things that cannot be explained. People reappear. Lives are spared for inexplicable reasons. Systemic patterns do what patterns do--they repeat themselves. Our particularity and specificity cannot be separated from who we are as humans.

Calvinists and Open Theists. Determinism (Hinduism) and Free Will (Islam). Fatalism and Choice. It's woven into the fabric of our life.

But maybe it's not so simple as picking between the two poles.

The further things appear to be a part, in a two-dimensional world, the closer they might actually be in a three-dimensional world (think here of the difference between a line on chalkboard and a circle in real life . . . depending upon your perspective, they can appear to be the exact same thing).

Or, in the language of Slumdog: It is written.
Maybe the answer about God's activity in the world is not "a" or "b" . . . maybe it's yes. Because humans are not science formula's. We're more like the characters in Slumdog than we are an experiment in a chemical lab.

Voices

One of my students at RC (an excellent thinker and deeply spiritual leader) . . . Shalmar Hylton . . . read this to our class recently. I think it is absolutely brilliant.


"All nature speaks with an articulate voice: everything in it is song, music and sound. All beings whisper, sigh, hum, quaver, chirp, roar, howl, bellow, groan, shriek, weep or murmur. The song of the crickets, the cicadas and the frogs, and the whistling of which the stripped squires greet each other, and all the other voices of the fields are one great prayer. This is the reason for the silence observed by those contemplative monks who have dedicated their voices to the choral chant. They know that every voice is a prayer."

- Ernesto Cardenal in To Live is to Love (page 28)

As I prepared to preach at Rochester Church yesterday . . . these words were on my mind: "For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, 'Do it again' to the sun; and every evening, 'Do it again' to the moon . . . It may be that he has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we." --G.K. Chesterton

I know I've posted that before . . . but I love this depiction of God.
---

I was able to watch the U.S. Men's basketball team defeat Spain (thanks to modern technology). What an incredible game. One has to give credit to Spain for constantly coming back just when it looked like the game was over. If not for some guy who speaks fluent Italian (Kobe), Spain might have the gold instead. That was a fantastic game to watch. I still think this team is a notch down from the original Dream Team of 1992.

Who's Telling the Story?

I recently came across a story regarding the human brain. The story began by describing the genius of Virginia Woolf’s writing—specifically her propensity to create complex, paradoxical characters in Mrs. Dalloway. According to the author, Woolf had the ability to create real characters who were at one moment full of joy, the next, drowning in despair—and she was able to do so in way that felt incredibly “accurate” to our everyday experiences. Woolf writes from the inside of the “diffused, despaired mind” begging the reader to ask “what is that that holds me together?” If it’s true, as scientists tell us, that there is no single cell that performs the role of the “center”—what is the “there there?” What holds a single human together? Full of contradiction, opposing sentiment—the search for the “glue” becomes the chief obstacle for neuroscientists.

The writer began with this introduction because he was interested in recent discoveries regarding the human brain. It seems that recently, scientists and doctors have made great strides in understanding the relationship of the “right brain” and “left brain” within the human person (a fascinating area to read and research). In order to understand the relationship, doctors severed the nerves or connecting points between each side of the brain in patients who suffered from epilepsy and mysterious seizures.

The discovery made by doctors was remarkable. They found, that if the right/left brain were severed, a person, over the course of time, could actually develop as two people within one. A man, for instance, would fight himself over reading a book. He would open the book with one hand, and shut it with the other . . . turn the light on with one hand, turn the light off with the other hand. Once the mysterious connection between the (now) polarizing regions had been severed, the patients became a person at odds within their own person.

Fundamentally, we are narrative creatures. This is why the writer began with the observation regarding the writing of Virginia Woolf. She knew, decades before these scientists, that humans are complex creatures. Art and science are just now coming together on this issue. I personally think one could go back even earlier to, let’s say, the character of Jacob in Genesis.

Most important in this discussion is the notion that humans are people who primarily learn within the context of a story. We remember in narrative fashion. We react in narrative fashion. We look towards the future in narrative fashion. When the patients mentioned in this study went about the rehabilitation process, they did so within the context of stories—trying to remember where they used to go, who they used to go with, why they used to behave in certain fashion. The only way a human can perform the previous is by remembering and retelling the stories of their lives.

At the conclusion of the piece, the writer asked an innocent but provocative question, “We are narrative creatures . . . that’s for sure . . . But the question remains: we cannot for certain determine the identity of the one who is telling the story.”

Theodicy

The relationship of God (and God's subsequent activity) and evil is a subject that I cannot escape in my thought world. Evil, for me, is not merely a subject or intellectual problem.

Evil is evident in the young Jewish girl who's just had both eyes ripped out by a young German solider in a Warsaw prison camp. Evil is seen by the countless African women who've had their breasts cut off in the name of religion. Evil is felt by the thousands of innocent children who've died or live in starvation due to wars being waged by the countries of the world. Evil is experienced up close when Jesus, the embodiment of God and man within creation, is crucified by the religious and political leaders of the day. Evil showed up when 800 thousand Rwandans (the case study for successful Christian evangelism movements) died in one of the bloodiest genocides of modern world history.

Evil cannot be a mere subject, it must be discussed and addressed from within the realm of human relationships.

Recently, a trusted friend handed me Greg Boyd's God at War: The Bible and Spiritual Conflict. It is a "meat and potatoes" book--if you are going to read it, pack a lunch. I finished late last night and was challenged in my personal outlook toward the world. This book got me thinking about some things I've written about in other places.

Regarding death, violence, sickness, decay, chaos, and discord (what Christians are taught to call "sin")--God's response to the obvious reality that humans participate in the brokenness can be understood in (at least) these four ways.


1. There is no God. Humans have created God in order that we might feel better per our existential and spiritual angst regarding identity, community, and belonging.

2. God created the world but is no longer involved. The world is in chaos but cannot or chooses not to do anything about the plight of creation or humanity. The end result is no different than #1 save the fire insurance of heaven.

3. God and creation are one and the same. God's way are a mystery and the in the fullness of time God will make sense of the suffering a) he's caused or b) he's permitted to happen. This sentiment is felt when people can say, after the death of a child, "God needed another angel" or . . . "God's ways are not our ways."

4. God created the world, though He is in some ways separate from the world (not separate regarding geography but in being and essence). Part of his creation (Satan, Devil, demons, powers, forces, dominions, etc.) stands at odds with him and we experience this battle in both the spiritual and physical realm--an important reminder to conservative Christianity which tends to only seem interested in the "spiritual" elements of life (ignoring the material teachings and actions of Jesus) and to liberal Christianity which seems hyper-fixated on the physical realm (ignoring the inner formation of the disciple, and the larger cosmic forces at work in the world).

God decides, by the power of Jesus' resurrection, to create a community of people who engage the "powers of darkness" as agents who foreshadow the coming day when sin, death, cancer, disease, poverty, and abuse are no longer. A community who pray for God's intervention. A community which believes that God is still about the business of victory, triumph, hope, and mercy.

The Eternal Appetite of Infancy

From G.K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy:

. . . it might be true that sun rises regularly because he never gets tired of rising. His routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grow-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes daisies alike; it may be that God makes ever daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that he has the eternal appetite of infancy, for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.