Searching for God # 14

 In the last post here, there were two lists of experiences, as I encountered and interpreted them. And while the question of interpretation is open to review, reflection, the issue of their occurrence is less open to review. The specific time, date, a location might be fuzzy, especially for an octogenarian; the reality of the image that each experience has, however, is somewhat resistant to amendment.

Those disappointments of bishop’s reactions, or absences, can be considered clustered in some psychic gestalt of what seems to be an ingrained skepticism, even suspicion and lack of trust of authority on my part. I have deep and lasting experiences of the abuse of authority by different agents from my past and while they emerge in different stages and theatres, they tend to have a “place” in my perception of the universe that consistently triggers reflex responses of criticism. Is there something inherent in having authority and power over others that brings with it a degree of ‘need’ in that person for such power? Are those who consider themselves ready, able and justified to seek positions of authority, executive power, leadership authority and responsibility worthy of being automatically suspect, in my eyes? What kind of compromises have they had to make in order to rise to this level of ‘status’? Can I trust that their words, actions and attitudes are, to the greatest extent, compatible with the best interests of their ‘organization’ or institution or corporation, or even their family?

Is it, I ask myself, another example of transference for me to apply a similar lens to what others call the absolute ‘word of God’ as the most powerful and trustworthy of authority figures in the Christian’s life? If so, I plead guilty. Literal interpretations of scripture have no place in my theology. Dogmatic rules of ecclesial ethics and morality, too, fall into the same telescopic frame, or perhaps microscopic frame. Indeed, the very notion that the church has hijacked cultural morality in its own terms is one with which I feel sadly comfortable.

Indeed, my detachment, and skepticism and suspicion of authority stretches into the pulpit, where, in my experience, much unadulterated ‘bull-shit’ echoed through sanctuaries, as ‘gospel inspired’ and motivated truth. Indeed, many cultural norms, for example, the archetype of the ‘caring parent’ (more recently described as the helicopter parent) evokes disdain from my skeptical lens. Self- indulgent parents who wish to provide ‘luxuries’ to which they were (or considered themselves to be (deprived) have carried their ambition over the cliff. Similarly, the cultural norm of psychological cheerleading all students in schools, without regard to either learning limitations or impediments, has given rise to at least one generation of young people who have inflated expectations of their entitlements in adult life. The question  of how to regard, interpret and react in the face of behaviour we deem unjust, lies at the heart my theology and psychology. Indeed, my hot-button issues have almost invariably, if not exclusively, come from what I consider to be  and unwarranted stimuli.

Saying ‘no’ to those moments when unnecessary (from my perspective) hurt or punishment or abandonment (and here it gets very nuanced) or even isolation prompts a negative response, whether or not I act on that response or not. There is such obvious cultural agreement in judging visible acts or words of ‘contempt’ for the other; there is not the same kind or degree of public acknowledgement of behaviour, attitudes, silences for which there is no visible sign of injury. Included in my lexicon of ‘things I detest’ (and not coincidentally very low on that totem pole) is the pain that results from what Anglicans call sins of omission….things left unsaid, things lift undone, relationships that suffer from a failure to enter, and enter here means, to the degree that both parties can concur on the mutuality of commitment. As the cliché puts it, if you want to know if the person you love feels loved, they are the only answer that matters. Saying ‘I love you’ does not carry with it the authenticity and veracity even or your best intentions. If the other person is not ‘getting’ it, (not only emotionally but in his/her gut) then something is missing and discerning what that missing element is can be both enlightening and terrifying.

There is a serious downside to my ‘constant critic’ reacting to the most trivial of offences. As Jung reminds us, all obsessions, even those to idealism, are addictive. And in exploring our strengths, tendencies, obsessions and profound fears, we have the opportunity to ‘peel the onion’ of our own blindness….blindness not only to the parts of the external world with which to which we are blind, (not merely our cognitive or intellectual gaps) but also to those ‘intrinsic’ or interior parts of our person and our experience to which we remain insensitive, another form of blindness.

That proverb about ‘seeing the speck in another’s eye while remaining blind to the log in my own is more relevant every day, in my life, and I conjecture, in the lives of many. Hypocrisy is a word that many associate with social lying or self-deception, saying one thing while doing its opposite. And while the issue is pressing and penetrating for each of us, coming to terms with the moments when we catch ourselves in its grasp can be, indeed will be, both freeing and comforting.

We have all been raised by voices of one or more ‘critical parents’ and those ‘tapes’ continue to play in our mind for decades. Recognizing those that are relevant from those that are almost exclusively projections of another’s self-doubt, can also be very helpful in lowering our shoulders from the nervous strain of not being good enough that comes with every Christian birth and life.

It is the domination of the ‘original sin’ that, from this perspective, has served as a tyrannical, moral, ethical and even spiritual noose around the necks of those whose early orientations came from the traditional Christian ‘education’ program to which I object. And, like so many other ‘images’ that have had generations in their thrawl, the absoluteness of this endemic, inescapable and spiritually cancerous image, fossilized into a belief, has handicapped millions or perhaps knee-capped them into a partial fulfilment of our creative potential.

The adage proffered by clergy of my acquaintance that ‘we are in the hope business’ has some truth and relevance; however, it too is not absolute. It too can be and often is, falsely proferred as “God’s gift of love and presence” when such hope defies reality in that circumstance. And in that instance, can have precisely the opposite impact of the one offered.

Indeed, the culmination of my skepticism, cynicism, doubt and penchant of seeing things from ‘underneath’ as it were, rather than from ‘on top’ has given me the opportunity, along with considerable risk, to rail against injustices to which few others had given even a glance. In the belief and conviction that if any injustice is ever to be ameliorated, or eliminated, first it must be named, acknowledged and then addressed. And while it is a perspective and role that carries with it the scorn and contempt of the establishment, whether in the academy, the corporation, the classroom, the research lab or the sanctuary, as has been demonstrated so often under the rubric of the prophetic voice, those voices have often, if not always been silenced.

T.S. Eliot in his renowned poetic and prophetic voice in the Four Quartets, following a series of poignant and both verdant empty images:

Go, go, go said the bird human

kind

Cannot bear very much reality.

Those precise words were uttered by a bishop in an interview midway through my first year in theology school, as a way of warning and cautioning me against what he saw, (and had heard reputed) as a risk in my entering formal church ministry. And therein lies the fulcrum on which the church founders: it has bought into the notion of the kindly care-giver, the Good Samaritan, the promise of salvation, following confession, the penitential and emblematic of and epitomized by the Cross and Resurrection.

Presumably others more steeped in theology than this scribe concurred that ‘too much darkness’ (reality) would likely be a threat to the very survival of the institution itself, and such positions as the privatizing of sin have enabled the church, as an entity, to escape the kind of vigilance on morality and ethics and self-reflective critical discernment and discipleship it honoured in individual humans beings. In such a template, what happens to the truth with the church, for example, that those with deep pockets are valued much more highly than those scraping by on pennies? What happens to those, within the church, who have political and social stature and status, as compared with those who are barely clothed, fed and housed who might seek refugee within the church?

How does the church, for example, countenance a trust fund of a half million dollars, while people on the same street are struggling to survive? How does a bishop, when asked about the spirituality of a warden, respond meekly, “Oh, I guess he is red book!”

In the Anglican church, the ‘old’ and thereby treasured prayer book had a red cover; the new, book of alternative services has a green cover. And, if one’s spirituality can be defined as adherent to the colour of a book used in liturgy, (when, as the joke holds, ‘we don’t use either in heaven’!) how can anyone expect to engage in an conversation, or a homily or a study session within the church confines that is open to honest, straightforward, fearless and empathic exchanges about subjects which in  polite society are considered ‘distasteful,' or ‘politically incorrect'?

Perfection, of whatever sort and kind, is neither the expectation of a God worthy of worship. Having come that we might have life, and that more abundantly, are we not urged to aspire to a full, reflective, open and honest apprehension and appreciation of ourselves and each other. And if our faith stretches us into those places where we would otherwise never even attempt to ‘go’ that why can’t or won’t the church embrace what it is attempting to preach?