Currents of Faith: Open and Unfolding Reflections

My theology leaves me with a number of questions, wonderings, and imagining. They go in all directions: outward, inward, backward, forward, downward, and upward. In fact, directions fail me when I ponder the realms I do not understand and wonder about possibilities which might come into being. Process theology does not grant me all the answers, but rather lures me more deeply into mystery. Indeed, I find that I am quite comfortable without a complete and full certainty. Mystery is a welcoming place to live.

A sculpture of Renoir’s “The Thinker” lives on the window sill by our front door. I love that figure as much as my beautiful carved wooden “St Francis of Assisi” who lives on the window sill of our study. While in many ways I am a practical, realistic doer, I also claim the part of me who is the thinker. I am glad that I value and cherish that part of me because I doubt that I could remove it. Thinking, imagining, wondering, and questioning is what I do. I share now my flights into the unknown.

I wonder how God does it. I am convinced that God is within every entity in the universe persuading each one toward beauty, intensity and complexity, yet it is well beyond my imagination how God can do it. I can use images and metaphors which point but they do not explain. Like a stained glass window they can allow me to look through to the mystery but not necessarily understand. I think of images like a web, a fog, an ocean tide, a vapor, and glue. I can use the comparison of the complexity between the butterfly and me and so between me and God. Yet such expansiveness and presence is beyond my comprehension.

If I take a flight around the planet I see over six billion people and am awed that God is intimately present with each. If I walk into my own yard and garden, God is present in each tiny bulb, seed, plant, flower, bud, leaf of grass, angle worm, insect, bird, and morning dew. Whenever I mow the lawn God feels with those cells which are cut and fall. Whenever a bird plucks a sunflower seed from our feeder, God feels the gustatory satisfaction. Whenever a small insect draws near to our outside lights, God feels the warmth with it. Whenever the daffodil bulb within the soil thrusts its roots downward to reach the nourishing water and lifts its stem toward the surface of the sun warmed soil, God feels the straining of that new growth. And as Jesus said, God knows every bird who falls.

I will continue to ponder and wonder at this awesome mystery of God. I will probably grasp only metaphors, images and analogies. I will create stain glass windows. While continuing to experience the presence of God in my own daily life, I will remain in mystery in my efforts to explain this universal presence.

I wonder how God lives with the pain which occurs hourly on this planet. To be present with persons throughout the globe is to experience with them all forms of tragedy: disappointment, injury, disease, abuse, oppression, torture, and death. The pain which God receives must be massive and continual. Yet God is grace and both receives and gives gracefully. I feel sorry for God that God must experience such pain.

Still I am heartened by the joys that must be received also by God: birth, a first kiss, new love, sexual embrace, wondrous accomplishment, fantastic discovery, new awareness, budding friendship, and heightened spiritual moments. I am reassured that there is a balance between pain and joy. I feel the wonder and awe which Captain John Newton must have experienced as he penned “Amazing Grace.” I wonder: might this reception of pain and joy by God be a model for our daily living which is likewise usually composed of both tears and laughter? Each is to be accepted.

I wonder who will be the person to follow the creative thought of Marjorie Suchocki about world religions and will inspire faith traditions to truly accept and affirm one another. If God works with persons and traditions where they are, their history, culture and environment, and calls them to who they might become, then it is understandable that the religions of the world as we know them today are unique and contrast with one another. Is it possible that each of the world prophets, Abraham, Moses, Buddha, Confucius, Jesus and Muhammad, tapped into unique dimensions of God and reality? If there are parallel universes, as some physicists believe, then we may have uniquely complementary inspirations being offered by those who came close to God.

I wonder what will happen when a significant number of people take seriously the new understanding of power: power as persuasive, not coercive. Will this persuasive form of power allow us to live on this planet together in peace? Our new communication technology allows us span the globe in seconds, so that we live in a different world than when people never went beyond fourteen miles of their village. New means of relating call for new understandings of power: negotiation, trust, risk-taking, conflict resolution, diplomacy.

I am curious when military language will lose its grip on our lives. I think we are often unaware how much we are shaped by phrases such as, foothold on the island, new worlds to conquer, veni, vidi, vici, winning the West, we and they, and courageous battle with cancer. Even the image of Jesus portrayed in the Christmas season as the Prince of Peace carries with it the language of hierarchy: King, Queen, Prince, Princess. Who will introduce the new words of peace which will form us? Who will take the graceful nature of God as a model to create words to guide us: Love, Forgiveness, Community, Grace, and Transformation.

I wonder when the belief that the world will end will itself come to an end. I know that the belief took form in eschatology and apocalyptic expectations. These ideas arose from those so radically oppressed that it appeared there was no way out other than a mighty divine act from outside the world. I am curious about the origin and history of the Greek, eschaton, things pertaining to the end times. What purpose does this conviction serve in our lives? Why do we need such an idea imbedded in our faith? Have we been trapped in this idea?

Belief in the end has led to serious environmental damage through neglect of the earth and is now guiding a number of Christians to applaud increasing violence in the Middle East as the beginning of the final battle, Armageddon. Could a new idea come forth, one which does not require an end? Indeed, we are frightfully aware that the human species may end through nuclear holocaust, environmental collapse or global warming, but that is a different form of ending. Other entities would probably survive, both living and non-living.

A new image would be an everlasting world, in whatever form, filled with whichever entities survived at that time. They would be in relationship with a persuasive, gracious and intimate God calling them to increasing intensity, complexity and beauty.

Scientists predict an end to the sun, erupting as a super nova and darkening its present light. Even in such an event, I believe God will be present with whatever remains of earth and its inhabitants. Earlier less destructive events have occurred in the history of earth and God has continued to create with whatever and whoever is left. In light of these possibilities, I wonder who will rise up and question the end of the world and proclaim an everlasting earth.

I wonder who will explore how divine inspiration comes to us. We know that it comes as Marcus Borg states in the “thin spaces of life.” Is there a pattern or a usual pathway through which God’s possibilities enter into our being? Or is each inspiration unique? We know that in near death experiences there are some common elements: seeing oneself from above, a bright light, a gracious guide, and a choice to continue or return. Are there similar happenings in inspiration? I wonder about the experiences of those who created process theology: Alfred North Whitehead, Charles Hartshorne, John Cobb and others. Is there a commonality between their inspiring moments and those of Mozart and Beethoven with music and Kekule with organic chemistry?

I am curious about whether there are ways to be open to inspiration. I am certain that holding the belief that inspiration does occur and being open to that happening would be enhancing. I wonder if persons struggling with some issue or problem would prompt its coming. Since inspiration is such a central and recurring event in process theology, I look forward to those who will explore how it occurs.

Along with inspiration, I wonder how we feel the world. How do events occurring at other locations in the planet affect us? To name a few, I think of a tsunami, volcanic eruption, planes crashing into the world trade center, miners trapped in the earth, a child lost in the woods, marshal law imposed on a nation, torture in prisons, and a bomb detonated in a market. How are we affected by such events even if we do not know they have happened? Are we affected in our experience in ways which we do not know and cannot identify? Is part of my moodiness, sadness, or depression on a given day an unconscious response of my total being to such events?

We cannot do an experiment in which one group is plucked off the planet while another stays on the earth and test the differences in their many physical, mental, and spiritual experiences. I wonder how we will ever know in this interconnected, relational world how the world affects us. I do know that when asking such questions we are entering the mysterious realm of our sensing beyond our five senses.

We have stories that tell us of a person knowing the exact time a pet died though miles from the event and being filled with pain at the moment that a relative died nearly half way across the country. I am curious to know more about those experiences we call the paranormal and extrasensory and the role they play in theology. Even the prefixes, para and extra give us a clue that these events are usually considered out of the ordinary and questionable. I would rather say that they happen regularly and people both lack the language to describe them and are embarrassed to speak of them.

When we are aware of such powerful events, we know we are affected. Most have empathy for those directly involved. We worry until the child is found in the woods or the child is pulled from the underground pipe. Many pray for the rescuers, others cannot sleep or eat. I am curious about how different people feel, sense, know, and experience the uncertainties, tragedies, as well as the joys, of others.

I am equally curious about those persons who consciously shut themselves off from the world. I recall a cartoon showing several frames: an egg, pecking appearing, a hole in the shell, a small wet head appearing, a looking around, and a pulling back into the shell. This little bird did not want to enter the world it saw. I recall a song of long ago, “We’ll build a nice little nest way out in the West and let the rest of the world go by.” Today the song describes persons who live in gated communities, do not subscribe to a newspaper, avoid listening to the radio, or decide not to watch the evening news. The world is shut out in order to protect oneself. The fear is that one would be torn apart and be in continual grief over world events. Thus, I wonder how much we can take. What is the balance between taking in and closing out. Does theology allow us to be open to receive the world?

I wonder about life throughout our universe. I wonder if we would be welcoming to any beings who ventured our way. I know they are usually called aliens, which already speaks of a “we and they” approach and accentuates our differences. Most of the films about such encounters are frightening and combative. I much prefer the term, extra-terrestials, which is simply descriptive. They are beings who are not from this planet earth. Would we have advanced enough in our dealing with diversity among humans to take a leap of hospitality toward such visitors? Astronomers are convinced by the size of the universe that there are other life forms present. I wonder if our theologies will grant us the graciousness to offer hospitality.

I am curious to know if the new understanding of personhood will catch on in our society. I was delighted to see the cartoon character, Opus, present the new image. After many frames in which his friend was talking about “finding himself,” Opus adorned himself in an array of amusing, garish clothing topped off with a wide brimmed hat laden with fruit, photos, and ribbons. He said, “Always kinda figgered it was creating yourself.” [The Wenatchee World, October 29,2006] I wonder how the words of Opus might be said in a way to engage others. I consider looking to be so much more passive than creating. I wonder if this idea might make a real difference in both our personal and community life.

I wonder if the search for the web could become as popular as the search for the gene.
We learn regularly about a new gene which has been discovered which determines some facet of our physiology or personality. The search goes on expectantly, a fervent and productive search that I respect. On the other hand,  I am curious to know what would happen if we were just as devoted to discover influences from the far out as the deep within. I fear reducing the cause of our behavior to small inherited entities within our body. I think exploring the expanse about us could be equally productive.

I speak of the web as though I knew it intimately, as if I knew in detail what it is. I do not. I am simply intrigued by the possibilities which lie within that image. I affirm that God is the web or God creates the web. Hildegard of Bingen, an awesome mystic, painted vivid pictures of the universe as the body of God. I expect that in our tradition there are equally innovative visions. I think that in our education we learn that certain ideas are of great importance while others are neglected. The web would be one of the ignored.

Taking the contemporary physicists seriously, I wonder how it is that an event occurring across the universe is present with me almost instantaneously. This assertion must mean that we are constantly receiving multitudes of happenings from around the universe. I am intrigued with these events which crisscross the divine web in ways even more mystical than the world wide web of the internet. I am wondering who will lead us to discover the nature of these events, how they reach us, how we receive them, how we deflect them, how we sense them, how we gain an awareness of them, and how we project our personal happenings into the web.

I am curious about the degree to which Jesus’ kingdom of God and the reality of God proposed by process theology are alike. So far, I find great similarity. I am convinced that the words, images, and stories of Jesus originated in his deep relationship with God. I see them emerging from his continuing experience of God. Today, I find many of the qualities of God spoken of by recent process thinkers to be in accord with the nature of God which Jesus proclaimed. I wonder who will pursue this quest in depth and detail. The result would offer great understanding and satisfaction to many seekers.

I delight in the words of Dr.Charles Harshorne, “I don’t know what its like to be an atom.” If such an awesome intellect who spent his life studying God spoke of this mystery, then I can readily join him in wondering. I wonder about the experiences of the non-organic entities of our universe. What are they like? I am convinced that they are more than matter in motion, the earlier description created by modern science. He is pointing rather in the direction of Maria singing, “The hills are alive with the sound of music.”

Creativity surrounds us and subjects are in the process of becoming. They are hardly the same centers of creativity as the conscious human, but nonetheless subject creating themselves. I doubt that we as subjects will ever come to know what it is like for them as subjects, although one never knows what ways of knowing may emerge. I am left with the option of embracing the mystery!

Words can free us, words can trap us. To be wordless is to engage mystery. I have written many words, yet my greatest affirmation is when I stand silent!