Monday, January 14, 2008
Settings
I wanted to pass on that I've changed my settings so that anyone can leave a comment, as opposed to having to be a member of gmail or blogspot. Thanks.
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
The Perils of Grace and Beauty
This may seem an obvious statement for all who know me, but I’m a big Flannery O’Connor fan. When I first read her work, I was struck by her insight into and representations of pride and hubris. In fact much of my understanding of human nature and theological anthropology can be traced back to her short stories. I believe it would be safe to say that my interest in the “darkness” mentioned in the title of this blog can be blamed to a large extent on her, if one would care to lay that blame.
Only more recently however have I begun to digest her understanding of God and grace, and the manner in which God interacts with the hubris in her characters. This interaction is of interest to me because it seems God is wholly silent in her stories, yet grace abounds, seeming to act as the voice of God speaking into the terrible darkness of her vision of the South. However, because her characters are emotionally, spiritually, and even sometimes physically grotesque and twisted, the grace must come in a form grotesque and twisted as well.
Inherent to this understanding of twisted grace seems to be an understanding of revelation as a shocking event in which God breaks through our impotence or indifference and grabs us at the core of our being and shakes, sometimes less gently than others. As overwhelming as this experience may be it is to O’Connor a moment of grace, though it may not seem at the time like “an undeserved kindness”. It’s in this vein I want to quote a lecture Rowan Williams gave on O’Connor in 2005. In it he refers to Tarwater, a character in her 1960 novel The Violent Bear it Away. The details of the story are unimportant for Williams’ point. But this portion of his sermon I think sums up nicely the parts of O’Connor’s depictions of grace and revelation that really resonate with me:
A God who fails to generate desperate hunger and confused and uncompromising passion is no God at all. It is not that Tarwater’s life and faith are held up as a model of or for anything; they are what they are. And they are what they are because God is as God is, not an agent within the universe, not a source of specialized religious consolation. If God is real, the person in touch with God is in danger, at any number of levels. And to awaken the hunger that Tarwater at last recognizes is to risk creating in people a longing too painful to bear or a longing that will lead them to take such risks that it seems indeed nakedly cruel to expose them to that hunger in the first place.
Taken from:
http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/sermons_speeches/2005/050210.htm
On a side note, I wonder if we consider this when we evangelize, that is the sheer terror involved in being in relation with an all powerful, devastatingly beautiful, entirely free and loving God who was willing to sacrifice a Son to be reconciled to humanity, and to individuals. We love what that means for us, it makes us feel safe that God loves us so much that “God gave his only begotten Son”, however I’m not sure we look at the flip side of that coin that often. It seems to me the flip side is that we who have trusted Christ are now also “sons and daughters of God”. If this is the manner in which God’s love is shown through the suffering and death of a Son, and we now share a son or daughtership with Christ, then what rightful expectation can we have to temporal security and safety?
A friend once told me that risk reveals love, that our love for someone is evidenced by what we are willing to risk for them. If the Father is willing to risk the Son in order to evidence that love, then should we not as fellow sons and daughters expect to walk the same path in order to communicate and embody that love? This picture of God reminds me of the manner in which Lewis writes Aslan in his Narnia books, as terrible and terrifying, yet loving, wise and good. I’m with most people who tend to love the wisdom, goodness and faithfulness of the Lion, and ignore its freedom, power and beauty.
At any rate, Williams gives wonderful voice to the dark beauty of grace, revelation, and incarnation in O’Connor’s works. It seems in her stories that God’s grace is always unexpected in its existence, timing and form. I find this resonating with my experience of God, with God’s grace often coming as a shock, perhaps because of to whom that grace is given, either myself or some person I sadly estimate is not worthy of that grace, or perhaps the manner in which it’s given. As for myself I find my passions, longings, and joy being kindled by this grace, and I sense the danger in that.
I sense in these longings a hunger that can’t be sated. It’s a hunger that seeks to encounter unmediated the beauty of God, but must experience that beauty mediated through broken, unreliable, hurting people in a world that appears unhinged. So I find myself, like Gimli after his encounter with Galadriel in Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring, desiring to experience the beauty of God again, and pursuing the paths God has blazed in which that beauty must be experienced.
That hunger to be in contact with the beauty of God however leads I think down the path in which Christ expressed that beauty in love and that’s through risking my own well being, esteem, emotions, and security in service of the least of these. I agree with Williams that on the surface it seems cruel to expose people to this, to relation with this God who calls us to follow through such danger, except that I think that perhaps there is something of the beauty of God that we will never experience until we travel these paths. Now this may seem entirely self evident to some, and of them I am truly envious, because this path is such a struggle for me to find, let alone walk. If it weren’t for the joy mediated through the beauty of God I experience when on this path in some fashion I don’t know that I’d be inclined to walk it at all…
Only more recently however have I begun to digest her understanding of God and grace, and the manner in which God interacts with the hubris in her characters. This interaction is of interest to me because it seems God is wholly silent in her stories, yet grace abounds, seeming to act as the voice of God speaking into the terrible darkness of her vision of the South. However, because her characters are emotionally, spiritually, and even sometimes physically grotesque and twisted, the grace must come in a form grotesque and twisted as well.
Inherent to this understanding of twisted grace seems to be an understanding of revelation as a shocking event in which God breaks through our impotence or indifference and grabs us at the core of our being and shakes, sometimes less gently than others. As overwhelming as this experience may be it is to O’Connor a moment of grace, though it may not seem at the time like “an undeserved kindness”. It’s in this vein I want to quote a lecture Rowan Williams gave on O’Connor in 2005. In it he refers to Tarwater, a character in her 1960 novel The Violent Bear it Away. The details of the story are unimportant for Williams’ point. But this portion of his sermon I think sums up nicely the parts of O’Connor’s depictions of grace and revelation that really resonate with me:
A God who fails to generate desperate hunger and confused and uncompromising passion is no God at all. It is not that Tarwater’s life and faith are held up as a model of or for anything; they are what they are. And they are what they are because God is as God is, not an agent within the universe, not a source of specialized religious consolation. If God is real, the person in touch with God is in danger, at any number of levels. And to awaken the hunger that Tarwater at last recognizes is to risk creating in people a longing too painful to bear or a longing that will lead them to take such risks that it seems indeed nakedly cruel to expose them to that hunger in the first place.
Taken from:
http://www.archbishopofcanterbury.org/sermons_speeches/2005/050210.htm
On a side note, I wonder if we consider this when we evangelize, that is the sheer terror involved in being in relation with an all powerful, devastatingly beautiful, entirely free and loving God who was willing to sacrifice a Son to be reconciled to humanity, and to individuals. We love what that means for us, it makes us feel safe that God loves us so much that “God gave his only begotten Son”, however I’m not sure we look at the flip side of that coin that often. It seems to me the flip side is that we who have trusted Christ are now also “sons and daughters of God”. If this is the manner in which God’s love is shown through the suffering and death of a Son, and we now share a son or daughtership with Christ, then what rightful expectation can we have to temporal security and safety?
A friend once told me that risk reveals love, that our love for someone is evidenced by what we are willing to risk for them. If the Father is willing to risk the Son in order to evidence that love, then should we not as fellow sons and daughters expect to walk the same path in order to communicate and embody that love? This picture of God reminds me of the manner in which Lewis writes Aslan in his Narnia books, as terrible and terrifying, yet loving, wise and good. I’m with most people who tend to love the wisdom, goodness and faithfulness of the Lion, and ignore its freedom, power and beauty.
At any rate, Williams gives wonderful voice to the dark beauty of grace, revelation, and incarnation in O’Connor’s works. It seems in her stories that God’s grace is always unexpected in its existence, timing and form. I find this resonating with my experience of God, with God’s grace often coming as a shock, perhaps because of to whom that grace is given, either myself or some person I sadly estimate is not worthy of that grace, or perhaps the manner in which it’s given. As for myself I find my passions, longings, and joy being kindled by this grace, and I sense the danger in that.
I sense in these longings a hunger that can’t be sated. It’s a hunger that seeks to encounter unmediated the beauty of God, but must experience that beauty mediated through broken, unreliable, hurting people in a world that appears unhinged. So I find myself, like Gimli after his encounter with Galadriel in Tolkien’s Fellowship of the Ring, desiring to experience the beauty of God again, and pursuing the paths God has blazed in which that beauty must be experienced.
That hunger to be in contact with the beauty of God however leads I think down the path in which Christ expressed that beauty in love and that’s through risking my own well being, esteem, emotions, and security in service of the least of these. I agree with Williams that on the surface it seems cruel to expose people to this, to relation with this God who calls us to follow through such danger, except that I think that perhaps there is something of the beauty of God that we will never experience until we travel these paths. Now this may seem entirely self evident to some, and of them I am truly envious, because this path is such a struggle for me to find, let alone walk. If it weren’t for the joy mediated through the beauty of God I experience when on this path in some fashion I don’t know that I’d be inclined to walk it at all…
Friday, January 4, 2008
First Time for Everything
I'm giving in and starting a blog... I know it's the trendy thing to do, but in reality, I'm doing it because I need your help. I'm hoping that I can share my gestating ideas regarding the intersection of imagination, theology and the arts, and dialogue with those who might be interested in reading those thoughts, hoping for help in finding my blind spots and the unintentional negatives my thoughts might be leaning toward.
The name of the blog might seem a bit daunting at first. You may say "God isn't about darkness." I suppose you are right, and I believe correct to feel the tension in the title, it's intentional. God is about glorifying God, the means by which God does that is what is of interest to me, thus the title, which is nicked from an early 80's Christmas medition by Hans Urs Von Balthasar (who has possibly the most pretentious name in the history of theology, and that's saying something). As an introduction I will post a portion of that meditation below. I suppose it's as good a starting point as any in kicking this off:
"But who will step out along this road that leads from God's glory to the figure of the poor Child lying in the manger? Not the person who is taking a walk for his own pleasure. He will walk along other paths that are more likely to run in the opposite direction, paths that lead from the misery of his own existence toward some imaginary or dreamed-up attempt at a heaven, whether of a brief pleasure or of a long oblivion. The only one to journey from heaven, through the world, to the hell of the lost, is he who is aware, deep in his heart, of a mission to do so; such a one obeys a call that is stronger than his own comfort and his resistance. This is a call that has complete power and authority over my life; I submit to it because it comes from a higher plane than my entire existence. It is an appeal to my heart, demanding the investment of my total self; its hidden, magisterial radiance obliges me, willy-nilly, to submit. I may not know who it is that so takes me into his service. But one thing I do know: if l stay locked within myself, if I seek myself, I shall not find the peace that is promised to the man on whom God's favor rests. I must go. I must enter the service of the poor and imprisoned. I must lose my soul if I am to regain it, for so long as I hold onto it, I shall lose it. This implacable, silent word (which yet is so unmistakable) burns in my heart and will not leave me in peace.
In other lands there are millions who are starving, who work themselves to death for a derisory day's wage, heartlessly exploited like cattle. There too are the slaughtered peoples whose wars cannot end because certain interests (which are not theirs) are tied up with the continuance of their misery. And I know that all my talk about progress and mankind's liberation will be dismissed with laughter and mockery by all the realistic forecasters of mankind's next few decades. Indeed, I only need to open my eyes and ears, and I shall hear the cry of those unjustly oppressed growing louder every day, along with the clamor of those who are resolved to gain power at any price, through hatred and annihilation. These are the superpowers of darkness; in the face of them all our courage drains away, and we lose all belief in the mission that resides in our hearts, that mission that was once so bright, joyous and peace bringing; we lose all hope of really finding the poor Child wrapped in swaddling clothes. What can my pitiful mission achieve, this drop of water in the white-hot furnace? What is the point of my efforts, my dedication, my sacrifice, my pleading to God for a world that is resolved to perish?
From a worldly point of view everything may seem very dark; your dedication may seem unproductive and a failure. But do not be afraid: you are on God's path. "Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you Good News of a great joy... This day is born the Savior", that is, he who, as Son of God and Son of the Father, has traveled (in obedience to the Father) the path that leads away from the Father and into the darkness of the world. Behind him omnipotence and freedom; before, powerlessness, bonds and obedience. Behind him the comprehensive divine vision; before him the prospect of the meaninglessness of death on the Cross between two criminals, Behind him the bliss of life with the Father; before him, grievous solidarity with all who do not know the Father, do not want to know him and deny his existence. Rejoice then, for God himself has passed this way! The Son took with him the awareness of doing the Father's will. He took with him the unceasing prayer that the Father's will would be done on the dark earth as in the brightness of heaven. He took with him his rejoicing that the Father had hidden these things from the wise and revealed them to babes, to the simple and the poor. "I am the way", and this way is "the truth" for you; along this way you will find "the life". Along "the way" that I am you will learn to lose your life in order to find it; you will learn to grow beyond yourselves and your insincerity into a truth that is greater than you are. From a worldly point of view everything may seem very dark; your dedication may seem unproductive and a failure. But do not be afraid: you are on God's path. "Let not your hearts be troubled: believe in God; believe also in me." I am walking on ahead of you and blazing the trail of Christian love for you. It leads to your most inaccessible brother, the person most forsaken by God. But it is the path of divine love itself. You are on the right path. All who deny themselves in order to carry out love's commission are on the right path."
Taken from:
http://www.godspy.com/faith/Setting-Out-into-the-Dark-with-God-A-Christmas-Sermon-for-a-Troubled-World-by-Hans-Urs-von-Balthasar.cfm
I really like this as a starting point. It's a very thoughtful medition on the what the incarnation means to us, and what it means for our action in the world. What does it look like for us to imitate Christ's incarnation? Is there a portion of the Christian experience, namely a certain joy that can't be experienced until we begin to live in this incarnational way? I want to say yes based on the meditation and scripture, but that appears to mean that there is a portion of the intended Christian experience that is off limits to much of the American culture, if not all of western culture, and that's a frightenting thought. So that's where I'll leave it now, with a question and a frightening thought, but that's just my style I suppose.
The name of the blog might seem a bit daunting at first. You may say "God isn't about darkness." I suppose you are right, and I believe correct to feel the tension in the title, it's intentional. God is about glorifying God, the means by which God does that is what is of interest to me, thus the title, which is nicked from an early 80's Christmas medition by Hans Urs Von Balthasar (who has possibly the most pretentious name in the history of theology, and that's saying something). As an introduction I will post a portion of that meditation below. I suppose it's as good a starting point as any in kicking this off:
"But who will step out along this road that leads from God's glory to the figure of the poor Child lying in the manger? Not the person who is taking a walk for his own pleasure. He will walk along other paths that are more likely to run in the opposite direction, paths that lead from the misery of his own existence toward some imaginary or dreamed-up attempt at a heaven, whether of a brief pleasure or of a long oblivion. The only one to journey from heaven, through the world, to the hell of the lost, is he who is aware, deep in his heart, of a mission to do so; such a one obeys a call that is stronger than his own comfort and his resistance. This is a call that has complete power and authority over my life; I submit to it because it comes from a higher plane than my entire existence. It is an appeal to my heart, demanding the investment of my total self; its hidden, magisterial radiance obliges me, willy-nilly, to submit. I may not know who it is that so takes me into his service. But one thing I do know: if l stay locked within myself, if I seek myself, I shall not find the peace that is promised to the man on whom God's favor rests. I must go. I must enter the service of the poor and imprisoned. I must lose my soul if I am to regain it, for so long as I hold onto it, I shall lose it. This implacable, silent word (which yet is so unmistakable) burns in my heart and will not leave me in peace.
In other lands there are millions who are starving, who work themselves to death for a derisory day's wage, heartlessly exploited like cattle. There too are the slaughtered peoples whose wars cannot end because certain interests (which are not theirs) are tied up with the continuance of their misery. And I know that all my talk about progress and mankind's liberation will be dismissed with laughter and mockery by all the realistic forecasters of mankind's next few decades. Indeed, I only need to open my eyes and ears, and I shall hear the cry of those unjustly oppressed growing louder every day, along with the clamor of those who are resolved to gain power at any price, through hatred and annihilation. These are the superpowers of darkness; in the face of them all our courage drains away, and we lose all belief in the mission that resides in our hearts, that mission that was once so bright, joyous and peace bringing; we lose all hope of really finding the poor Child wrapped in swaddling clothes. What can my pitiful mission achieve, this drop of water in the white-hot furnace? What is the point of my efforts, my dedication, my sacrifice, my pleading to God for a world that is resolved to perish?
From a worldly point of view everything may seem very dark; your dedication may seem unproductive and a failure. But do not be afraid: you are on God's path. "Be not afraid; for behold, I bring you Good News of a great joy... This day is born the Savior", that is, he who, as Son of God and Son of the Father, has traveled (in obedience to the Father) the path that leads away from the Father and into the darkness of the world. Behind him omnipotence and freedom; before, powerlessness, bonds and obedience. Behind him the comprehensive divine vision; before him the prospect of the meaninglessness of death on the Cross between two criminals, Behind him the bliss of life with the Father; before him, grievous solidarity with all who do not know the Father, do not want to know him and deny his existence. Rejoice then, for God himself has passed this way! The Son took with him the awareness of doing the Father's will. He took with him the unceasing prayer that the Father's will would be done on the dark earth as in the brightness of heaven. He took with him his rejoicing that the Father had hidden these things from the wise and revealed them to babes, to the simple and the poor. "I am the way", and this way is "the truth" for you; along this way you will find "the life". Along "the way" that I am you will learn to lose your life in order to find it; you will learn to grow beyond yourselves and your insincerity into a truth that is greater than you are. From a worldly point of view everything may seem very dark; your dedication may seem unproductive and a failure. But do not be afraid: you are on God's path. "Let not your hearts be troubled: believe in God; believe also in me." I am walking on ahead of you and blazing the trail of Christian love for you. It leads to your most inaccessible brother, the person most forsaken by God. But it is the path of divine love itself. You are on the right path. All who deny themselves in order to carry out love's commission are on the right path."
Taken from:
http://www.godspy.com/faith/Setting-Out-into-the-Dark-with-God-A-Christmas-Sermon-for-a-Troubled-World-by-Hans-Urs-von-Balthasar.cfm
I really like this as a starting point. It's a very thoughtful medition on the what the incarnation means to us, and what it means for our action in the world. What does it look like for us to imitate Christ's incarnation? Is there a portion of the Christian experience, namely a certain joy that can't be experienced until we begin to live in this incarnational way? I want to say yes based on the meditation and scripture, but that appears to mean that there is a portion of the intended Christian experience that is off limits to much of the American culture, if not all of western culture, and that's a frightenting thought. So that's where I'll leave it now, with a question and a frightening thought, but that's just my style I suppose.
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