Currents of Faith: Open and Unfolding Reflections

I have decided to take pity on my readers and use a different medium to discuss the important area of judgment: a power point presentation. But first, a personal introduction   Judgment is clearly a part of my religious tradition. I had to come to terms with it, even though the idea is not attractive to me. Believing in a fully gracious God meant that I had trouble with a judging God. In my professional life, my clients had serious troubles but for a different reason. They wondered whether those hurtful, abusive and violent people who deeply offended them would ever have any consequences. They could not accept that these persons who caused them serious injury and pain would simply get away with it and go “scot-free.” They wanted judgment! I agreed with their wanting consequences, but could not agree with God as judging. Both personally and professionally, I needed to find answers.

Death was very much with me as a boy and youth. Already overwhelmed by the shock of my father’s death, it felt as though dying was occurring all around me. My father died in 1942, my maternal grandfather and my great uncle Louis Robert, my name sake, died in 1943, the president of our high school fraternity drove off the edge of the Snake River Canyon in 1946 and my good friend Don fell to his death in that same canyon in 1949. Perhaps such deaths are not unusual for anyone growing up, especially knowing that my father was aged fifty when I was born, however, since they followed my own family crisis and were surrounded by the daily report of casualties in World War II and the utter tragedy of the holocaust, it seemed death was everywhere. I could not avoid it but neither could I explain it. No one talked about death.

I used to think that I was a miserable failure at praying. After many years I now believe that I pray in a way which fits my theology. When I entered the church at age sixteen, I learned first about corporate prayer, those words spoken by the minister and the total congregation. The two prayers I heard most frequently were the pastoral prayer and the Lord’s Prayer. It would be much later when I would learn more about and engage in personal prayer. I must say that I have had quite a journey with prayer.

The two branches of the Brizee family in Twin Falls were divided. The family of Leland, my father’s youngest brother, and his wife Elizabeth were one branch, my mother’s family the other. If the division were present before my father’s death, I did not know, but the chasm was accentuated following his death. My lack of understanding arises from my young age at his death.

I have always had trouble with the word salvation and an even greater problem with the question: “Are you saved?” I was repulsed by them, feeling that they just did not fit in my vocabulary. My entry into the church at age sixteen marked the beginning of my struggle with salvation. I loved the church and eagerly participated. I did not like salvation.

During the Lenten season I decided to offer an evening class on the topic, “A Deeper Exploration of God.” I announced that the content of the class would come from the questions which people brought. Following are several of those questions:

“Why do so many bad things keep happening on earth under God’s watch?

My theology guides me to seek experience to understand events. I began with searching the books between the bookends of Jesus’ life, the actual history of what Jesus said and did. I now turn to my search for the experiences of the church expressed in the bookends of Christmas and Easter. I move from what Jesus said to what was said about Jesus, from proclaimer to proclaimed.

Let Jesus speak. Alas, the words of Jesus have waxed and waned in the 2000 years since he uttered them. Dr. Alfred North Whitehead spoke of Jesus as the “brief Galilean flicker.” In the church today we celebrate the bookends of Jesus’ life, his birth and death. Few pay much attention in that period of the church year called Kingdomtide, yet we all anticipate and lavishly celebrate Christmas and Easter. For me, however, the Kingdom is central, for there I find the voice of Jesus. In the bookends I hear the voice of his followers, the church. I value what Jesus said more than what the church said about Jesus.

I now move to how theology has informed my faith, focusing specifically upon areas which have been central to the Christian faith: Scripture, Jesus, Christ, Evil, Salvation, Forgiveness, Prayer, Death and Judgment. I begin with the Bible.

Adrienne and I were driving home from an early September visit with our daughter in Seattle. Two mountain passes separate Seattle and Wenatchee and we had crossed Snoqualmie Pass and were approaching the ascent to Blewett Pass. It was early evening and darkness was setting in. The brightness of the headlights of several cars coming  toward us limited my vision. As the last car went by I noticed movement ahead, some vague figures on the highway. I quickly pumped the brakes, slowing from the speed limit I had been traveling. There loomed in front of us a herd of elk crossing the road. I cried out, “Oh, God,” clenched the steering wheel and jammed the brakes even more forcefully. The tires squealed as we were thrust forward in our seat belts. I could not stop in time. The huge animals were as shocked as we, suddenly startled and blinded by our oncoming headlights.

I learned about a significant part of my past in a counseling office. Dr. Paul King was my first psychotherapist at the Michigan State University Student Counseling Center. I was learning to counsel by experiencing counseling from the other side of the desk. During this time period we were talking about my fears and my guilt. Frequently as I spoke I would feel a strong tightening feeling surging upward into my neck then my head would shake rapidly back and forth uncontrollably. This was truly puzzling and disturbing. On one such occasion a flood of memories rushed into my awareness. I re-lived myself as an eight year old boy sitting on the basement steps, horrified, and clinging to my mother. I experienced moments of my past which had been repressed for years, too overwhelming and intense for me to bear.

We drove through the gate into the school yard on that cold New Year’s Day of 1944. All our possessions were loaded into a pickup truck and our 1934 Chevrolet sedan. On our left was a small white building with windows across the side and wooden steps leading to a doorway. On the right was a tiny white frame house with a pile of coal near the door. Farther ahead were two out houses and a fenced corral. Two small trees graced the property. The school yard was surrounded by open fields, this time of year brown with skiffs of white from the most recent snow. Open space greeted our eyes in all directions leading to the majestic Sawtooth mountains in the distance. Our forty mile trip had brought us to Roseworth.