Irreconcilable Differences

Yesterday, I came across this in Andrew Greeley's book Home for Christmas:

"Eye has not seen, nor has ear heard, nor has it entered into the hearts of men those things which God has prepared for those who love Him." -- St. Paul

Such imaginings involve imagining what God is like. ... I believe firmly and confess gladly that in this conversation I have underestimated the mercy and love of God -- and also his wit. There is no way that one can comprehend the ineffable, as much as humans try. Along with St. Therese, however, I believe that God is nothing but mercy and love and the more we reflect on that, the better off we will be.

The book is about a near death experience had by an American soldier in Iraq. An earlier scene showed him rushing into harm's way to rescue two toddlers who had wandered into the line of fire. Such heroism is commonplace among our troops. We have rules of engagement and murdering toddlers is not on our agenda. Not so in the ancient Middle East.

I have read a great deal of scripture in my life - from all the world's religions. This year I began reading the Bible - beginning with the Genesis. Currently, I am in the middle of Judges. I am appalled at the bloodthirsty nature of warfare - the Israelites, under the direction of God, swept into cities and killed everything that drew breath - men, women, children, even at times the animals that lived there. Deuteronomy 7:2 has God instructing the Israelites to show no mercy.

I cannot reconcile these two images of God. I'm at a total loss. Is it that our understanding of reality and super-reality has changed over time? You see that progression in scripture - I've lectured on it - religions change and our understanding of religion changes through the generations just as we see the cosmos differently as a toddler than we do as an adult. Yet, if that is the case, how do we take scripture, what place does it hold in our spiritual journey?

Kodi

The plan had been to adopt a German Shepherd mix as a guard dog. Riley might have a terrier's fierce heart, but she was only 8 1/2 pounds of ferocity. I wanted to feel safe in our new home. I saw a photo of "Alfred" on the Humane Society's website. He was six months old and reportedly an Aussie/Akita mix. Two large, protective breeds. When thirty pound Kodi was brought out and immediately climbed into Dana's lap, I knew he'd never top forty pounds. I tried to talk Dana into waiting for a better fit; but, Kodi was the dog for her. Riley, amazingly enough, liked him. We filled out the paperwork and were told we could take him home once the home check was done. That Saturday we visited again to play with and walk Kodi. A volunteer came up and said, "Did they tell you he was deaf?" I relied that I had not been told that, but, it just meant that he was more special. I understood why he hadn't been adopted when all his litter mates had gone quickly. He'd spent almost all of his puppyhood in a cage. It was time for him to have a home. These thoughts warred with the fact that I felt like Jack from Jack and the Beanstalk, I had managed to pick out a deaf watchdog. I had to laugh. It turned out that timid, peace loving Kodi is very protective of my daughter, highly intelligent, loving, and not at all deaf. Whether that was a miracle or not, who knows? Even the vet that checked him out confirmed his deafness. I'm so glad we took a chance and gave this guy a home :).

Nothing to Say, Nothing to Pray

I sit here, virtually empty of ideas, wondering why I ever made this Lenten promise to begin with when I have nothing to say. In my frustration - I've already lost one start on today's entry - I remember Romans 8:26:

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 

Religions around the world have many non-verbal ways to reach out to the Divine. Dancing, drumming, singing, chanting - I've done them all and I've been taken up into something blissfully outside my own all too small intellect.

Perhaps these are the times when we should take a deep breath and simply listen.

A Lack of Imagination

I remember being fascinated by an old copy of Dante's "Divine Comedy" as a teen. The etching of Dante's visions of Purgatory and Hell were rich in detail. Heaven? Not so much. Heaven was boring. But I think the problem is a lack of the imagination. We think of Heaven with an earthly mindset.

It's like the Buddhist story. When asked about Nirvana, the Buddha said that trying to describe Nirvana to those who had not attained Nirvana would be like a frog returning to the pond to describe air and land to tadpoles. He could only describe it in negatives. Land is not wet, no you cannot swim in it, etc. he could not explain what it was.

It's hard not to fear, hard to trust that all things will work to the good when we look at our lives in earthly terms. It is only when we accept the reality of Heaven that fears melt away.

Impression Management

Julie Ackerman Link has spoken once again to my experience as a teacher. She wrote:


Some of us may feel pressured to be perfect when we go to church so that people will think well of us. Metaphorically speaking, we work hard to make sure we have every hair in place. But a healthy church is a place where we can let down our hair and not hide our flaws behind a façade of perfection. In church, we should be able to reveal our weaknesses to find strength rather than conceal our faults to appear strong (http://odb.org/).

This week, one of the discussions in my classes is on impression management and a student wrote about the importance of impression management in church because it was horrible to feel judged in church. I agree - it is horrible to feel judged because being judged rather than loved flies in the face of everything Jesus taught. Considering the serendipity of this - I have to wonder what I am meant to learn here. Feel free to comment - I'd love to continue this discussion and see where it leads.

God is Love

In many of my religious studies classes, I've commented that those three little words, at the end of 1 John 4:8 were, in my opinion, the most profoundly elegant and beautiful scripture I knew and I've read the scriptures of many of the world's religions. I was thinking about those words the other day as I walked and thinking about John 3:16 and it occurred to me that this was a truly radical viewpoint. Every person I looked at - from the homeless people who spend the days on the beach, to the elderly couple walking by, to the teens who I was sure should have been in school, to the toddlers and their mothers - according to these scriptures God loves all of them -  with a passionate love deep enough to die for that person. I cannot truly comprehend a LOVE that expansive - a LOVE that is God - a God that is Love. It sounds simple - three little words - but they contain something so profound that a lifetime of meditating on those words wouldn't begin to plumb the depths of their meaning. Maybe that's what Heaven is for ;).

Sad Dogs?

My back went out this morning and working was harder than usual and notably slow and unproductive and I decided to schedule a massage instead of going for my usual walk. Despite these disappointments, both Kodi and Riley are now sleeping by my feet. Just another of the things that we can learn from dogs about how to love, how to be loyal, and how to be happy and relax no matter the circumstances.

Ash Wednesday

Today marks the beginning of Lent. It's a solemn day; but, I'm going to start Lent in an odd way, by sharing something that makes me smile and fills me with joy. Daffodils. I love flowers, but, daffodils are my favorite. Dana and I planted these. Daffodils are like bright cups full of joyous sunshine. These are by our front door and it's wonderful to leave and enter our home sharing a smile with our daffodils :).

Question Authority

I came across this idea by a teacher - Julie Ackerman Link - that "question authority" can mean something other than "challenge authority." It can simply mean to ask questions and as such is advice she gives her students. She pointed out that some scholars believe students learn more from discussions - where they freely ask questions - than they do from lectures. As a teacher, I agree with this observation. In addition, discussions are a lot more fun ;).

The Value of Community

Today, my best friend shared this quote from Max Lucado:

Christ distributes courage through community; he dissipates doubts through fellowship. He never deposits all knowledge in one person but distributes pieces of the jigsaw puzzle to many. When you interlock your understanding with mine, and we share our discoveries . . . When we mix, mingle, confess, and pray, Christ speaks.

Recently, my sociologist students were asked to discuss the differences between three terms - religion, religiosity, and spirituality. Almost all of them gave answers that extols the values of spirituality (which was viewed as a solitary and individual affair) and dissed religion big time - sharing stories of how they had been hurt, disillusioned and disappointed by a church, synagogue, or temple congregation when they were younger. Religion to them empty, dry, and meaningless. It compared to spirituality in the same way that a stale Chips Ahoy cookie would compare to a homemade Toll House cookie hot from the oven. I spoke about how all human institutions and groups are made up of human beings and that human beings are fallible and imperfect and that any group - religious or not - made up of humans has its share of problems. I spoke about the value of community in my response and asked what value they could find in a community of believers - whatever the religion - and none of them came up with a single idea. My prompts and examples fell on deaf ears - this was a class full of people who had had their fill of religion and wanted none of it and this included those who still attended religious services!

I'm not sure where to go from here - this question comes up in every class and in every class the response is the same. I have no idea how best to respond to this. Whatever a student's religion, it saddens me deeply that they find no value in sharing that faith with other believers. Our society is individualistic and the divide between people seems to have grown immensely even during my lifetime. I'm not a preacher and my job as an instructor is not to share my religious viewpoint; however, as a scholar of religious studies I've visited many religious services in a wide variety of religious traditions and I've seen much of value there and I've experienced the Divine and met an answer to the hunger that is spirituality. How do I share that?

A Cuddle of Cats

It's official (I looked it up in several dictionaries) - the official term for a group of cats is a clowder. I would like to respectfully disagree. I think a better term would be cuddle. A cuddle of cats fits my years of catty experience far more than clowder - a word I imagine only Jeopardy champions ever have on the tip of their tongue. Take a gander at my cuddle of cats and see if you don't agree that clowder doesn't describe what you see nearly so much as cuddle.



I've learned a lot from my cuddle of cats. Lesson #1 is that it's okay to find and enjoy your place in the sun. It's a blessing and we are meant to delight in our blessings. It's what thankfulness is all about. Lesson #2 is that blessings are even better shared. Even, ahem, if you share them with a dog ;).

Helping

I came across an interesting quote today that expressed our tendency to pray to God to help where we are unwilling to meet a need ourselves. Of course, the Cosmos is a huge and complicated place and there are many things we literally cannot make better; however, I wonder if perhaps my first thought when I pray for another is to ask myself what I could do to help. C. S. Lewis wrote that if our giving doesn't pinch a bit and smack of being a bit more than we can easily afford, then we aren't giving enough.

I think often I want more, more, more for myself out of fear. This is an uncertain world and the current drama over my full time job taught me how very fragile my self-reliance is - it doesn't take much to totally change one's circumstances and I am often fearful of what lies around the corner. In Philippians 4, St. Paul states that he has learned to be content no matter his circumstances. I think equally important to present contentment is having the security to know that I will still be content - whatever tomorrow brings.

I am so, so far from St. Paul in my attitude. Though I wonder sometimes if fear and stress about possible hardship is, in the end, far worse than the actual hardship. I think it is. What do you think?

Friendship

"Friendship improves happiness and abates misery, by the doubling of our job and the dividing of our grief." Cicero's words are a blessing as I spend a few moments this Valentine's Day thinking about my friends and how they have far more than halved my grief. 

"Two are better than one, because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, one will life up his companion. But woe to him who is alone with he falls, for he has no one to help him up" (Ecclesiastes 4:9-10). This verse also extols the value of friendship. 

Valentine's Day - these days - emphasizes romantic love; however, it is an important day to remember all the other forms of love out there - in my life I am very blessed by the love of God, the love between myself and my daughter, the love of my parents, the love I share with my furry family members, and the love of my friends. 

I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you for being a part of my life.

Expansion

I'm not sure if this is an attempt to work more of my life into my spiritual journey or simply a recognition that, in the end, everything we do is part of our spiritual journey. Spirituality, after all, isn't like a job, where you have set hours and time off and even vacations. Nor is it like making and keeping an appointment. It's who we are at the core and most essential part of our beings and everything secular, when looked at in that light, becomes an opportunity or opening for the sacred. I think this viewpoint allows for a great expansion of spirit, where we all too often spend our lives trying to thrust our spirituality into ever smaller boxes.