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Tuesday, April 28, 2009

A Published Poet

I received word today from the editors at Anglican Digest that a poem of mine is to be published in their next edition.  Funny thing, I submitted it over a year ago and completely forgot about it!  I wrote this in February 2008 as I was preparing a sermon on the Feast of the Transfiguration.  I liked the idea of us--we, the Body of Christ--being bread to the world.  Admittedly, though, it is not my favorite poem or even my best work.  It's always interesting to see what others think of your work.  Nonetheless, after several various submissions, I can now claim to be a published poet!  

These Transfigured Loaves
by Chad M. Krouse

O Jesus,
your body for us:
taken, blessed, broken, and given. 

We, O Lord, are yours.
Come, O Come we sing:
The light that transfigures us
turns us into bread for your world. 

It returns to you not empty, but 
fills hungry mouths with insatiable
strength.

We too, O Lord, are loaves taken, blessed,
broken, and given to the world. 
We lay our sacrifice upon your altar
and all creation rejoices with you.
For we are bread.       

Sunday, April 26, 2009

The Faces of God: God as Mother

I want to begin this reflection as "God as Mother" by borrowing from Henri Nouwen's famous book, Return of the Prodigal Son.  

"Often I have asked friends to give me their first impression of Rembrandt's Prodigal Son. Inevitably, they point to the wise old man who forgives his son: the benevolent patriarch.

"The longer I look at 'the patriarch', the clearer it becomes to me that Rembrandt has done something quite different from letting God pose as the wise old head of a family. It all began with the hands. The two are quite different. The father's left hand touching the son's shoulder is strong and muscular. The fingers are spread out and cover a large part of the prodigal son's shoulder and back. I can see a certain pressure, especially in the thumb. That hand seems not only to touch, but, with its strength, also to hold. Even though there is a gentleness in the way the father's left hand touches his son, it is not without a firm grip.

"How different is the father's right hand! This hand does not hold or grasp. It is refined, soft, and very tender. The fingers are close to each other and they have an elegant quality. It lies gently upon the son's shoulder. It wants to caress, to stroke, and to offer consolation and comfort. It is a mother's hand....

"As soon as I recognized the difference between the two hands of the father, a new world of meaning opened up for me. The Father is not simply a great patriarch. He is mother as well as father. He touches the son with a masculine hand and a feminine hand. He holds, and she caresses. He confirms and she consoles. He is , indeed, God, in whom both manhood and womanhood, fatherhood and motherhood, are fully present. That gentle and caressing right hand echoes for me the words of the prophet Isaiah: "Can a woman forget her baby at the breast, feel no pity for the child she has borne? Even if these were to forget, I shall not forget you. Look, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands."

Clearly, Nouwen reminds us that we need both masculine and feminine imagery when we speak about God.  I was challenged right at the beginning of my seminary formation to begin using "inclusive language" for God-talk.  At first, I really did not like using words like "Godself" in writing papers for class.  I was able, though, to move past this.  I remember having a conversation over inclusive language with my parents during the first Christmas break--my father refused to give in!

Why are we afraid to see God as feminine?  Do we lose something by the reference?  Quite the opposite, I believe.  "Expansive language" is more cutting edge these days, expanding the adjectives and metaphors for describing God.  We lose far more when we limit God and Godself to being simply male.  "There is no longer Jew or Greek," writes Saint Paul, "there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus" (Eph. 3:28).  Put into the positive, there is both Jew and Greek, there is both slave and free, and there is both male and female in Christ. Paul understands that the distinctions are exploded in the risen Christ.  And yet, we are still afraid to loosen our masculine grip on God. 

Having had both parents in my life as a child, I saw clear distinctions between the roles of mother and father.  My father was the busy bank executive who did what he could to spend time with me and my brother--coming to the baseball games, Scout camp-outs, and the annual father-son fishing extravaganza.  Dad was everything that you would expect in a fatherly role. Mother, too, filled the womanly role. She was the one who cooked, cleaned, and also worked full-time outside of the home.  When you put the two parenting roles together, everything was covered.  Separated, my mother was the one who, more often than not, spent time listening to me and encouraging my creative side.  I was always close to my mother, and now in my adulthood, I am growing closer to both parents.  My mother never used guilt to force my hand in a decision. On the contrary, she excessively worried for me over the decision!  And still does, bless her heart. 

Growing up, I felt as though both mother and father helped expand my view of the world by offering unconditional love and support. When I fell, and I did quite often, they helped me get back up and examine where things went wrong.  They never protected me from the world, but rather let me see and feel my own way in it.  They were always a few steps behind me, just in case. 

God as Father fits the mold of my childhood; my theology was shaped by the roles my parents filled.  God as the bread-winner and busy executive. God as the person that needs a drink at five o'clock following a hard day of meetings, and so forth.  It was harder to accept God as the cook, God as the laundry lady, and God as the healer of all the scratches and cuts.  But it works, doesn't it?  It makes sense that God fills both parenting roles.  God certainly can fulfill both roles.  

Our Father and Mother, who art in heaven. . .

Thursday, April 23, 2009

The Faces of God: God as Father

"God is not an object," screams my Theology and Ethics Professor during our first day in Seminary.  "Huh," I thought, "what a way to begin three years of spiritual formation!"  I realized his point in time--and he effectively made his point, over, and over, and over again--is that we tend to turn God into an object, a convenient and handy object.  There's a human tendency to do this and it can be spiritually dangerous.

The image of God as the grand old man in the sky works as a child, it is less helpful to me as an adult.  Yes, I grew up with that image, a God who lives high up in the heavens surveying creation and keeping count on our sins and offenses.  This idea is even less helpful as a sinning adult!  The problem with the grand old man image is that some faithful refuse to let go of it--God is father and that's that.  Pastorally speaking, this is also less helpful.  If we maintain that image or face of God, we lose sight of the creative God who created humankind in "our image" (NRSV translation).  God created us to be in relationship with us, not to leave us to our devices and demise.  We need God just as God needs us--a dynamic ongoing salvation history from God establishing the covenant with Abraham all the way to the Word made flesh in the Incarnation.  This relationship is repeatedly given credit throughout scripture.  

The God on high who sits in judgement does not help a young rape victim who is faced with the difficult decision over abortion, or the elderly man who keeps begging God to let him die.  We seek, above anything else, a God of Compassion.  "I AM the I AM," to me means that God is the God who remembers, the God who saves, the God who listens, the God who can change God's mind.  I think of God saying, "I AM the compassionate one."  Some remote God does not intervene in the course of human history.  A remote God does not enter into covenants with humanity, much less seek to fulfill them. Ours is a God of relationship.

I think it is extremely important to see that our ideas of God, and the many faces of God, change as our understanding--based on experience--changes.  The grand old man works for a small child, but as that child grows, so too does the image.  If God has been limited to an object, then the object remains static and unable to grow into a deep relationship with creation.  

In Book One of Saint Augustine's Confessions (Oxford, Penguin Ed.), Augustine writes, "how shall I call upon my God, my God and Lord?  Surely when I call on him, I am calling on him to come to me.  But what place is there in me where my God can enter into. . . Lord my God, is there any room in me which can contain you?  Can heaven and earth, which you have made in which you have made me, 
contain you?"
"We need God just as God needs us."

Augustine goes on to ask, "who then are you, my God. . . most high, utterly good. . . deeply hidden yet most intimately present, perfection of both beauty and strength, stable and incomprehensible, immutable and yet changing all things, never new, never old. . .In your mercies, Lord God, tell me what you are to me. 'Say to my soul, I am your salvation (Ps. 34:3). Speak to me so that I may hear.  See the ears of my hearts are before you, Lord.  Open them and 'say to my soul, I am your salvation.'  After that utterance I will run and lay hold on you. Do not hide your face from me.  Lest I die, let me die so that I may see it."

Even after the centuries when Augustine wrote this, we still wrestle with the many faces of God.  Wrestling is part of the journey of faith.  Take to heart one Augustine's most famous quotation from Confessions, "our heart is restless until it rests in you" (Oxford Penguin Ed.).We should wrestle with seeing God as a black woman, a Chinese teenager, or an Inuit man. Otherwise, I think we reduce God in size--we reduce the believer's capacity for the need of a certain face of God that speaks to them.  God is not an object!  And please, this is not reducing God to relativism either!  I think this idea is deeply embedded in the tradition of Byzantine iconography, where one is not allowed to write or paint a human image of God.  

It has taken me many years to grow in my relationship with God and how I see God.  I've stopped referring to God as just "Father" or any masculine reference for that matter.  God indeed has many faces, many voices (spoken and silent), and above all, God longs for us as we long to be in relationship with God.  We also need feminine imagery for God--God is also "Mother," but more on that subject later.

  

Rooting Social Justice in Silence

Social Justice in Silence?  Cognitive dissonance?  Answer: No.  

If we take away the life of prayer, and here I am referring to contemplative prayer, you risk turning a Gospel-witnessing of social justice into simply becoming self-righteous anger which can lead to rage.  Episcopal Priest and author Malcolm Boyd--himself a Freedom Rider in the Civil Rights era and now a voice for Gay Rights--speaks of the unholiness of rage and anger.  In his article, "Rage is Not Holy," Malcolm writes:

"Rage is too much with us. Some people speak of “holy anger.” Rage is not holy. In all the years that I encountered Martin Luther King in myriad public situations, he was never enraged. He was demonstrative. He was impassioned. He was committed to nonviolence. Once I heard him describe nonviolence as the way one should pick up a telephone receiver to respond to a call—a simple act of wholeness and integrity instead of a big public relations gesture or a political act for the 10 o’clock news.

"This is why Christians engaged in the work of social justice need to cultivate an inner spiritual life centered in prayer and quiet reflection. This is indispensable for a public life of debate, action and complex relationships. When I became a Freedom Rider in 1961 and, following the example of Martin Luther King, opposed the Vietnam War—which included participation in a Peace Mass inside the Pentagon—I sometimes neglected my inner spiritual life because of the pressure of immediate demands. At such times I veered toward self-righteousness and became shrill and angry.

"I see clearly what went amiss. I denied the central place of prayerful reflection in my life. In recent years I have undertaken the task of being spiritual director for around a dozen women and men, mostly clergy, ranging in age from late twenties to early seventies. I feel that anyone involved in the work of social justice needs to be actively engaged in the discipline of centering prayer. It enables a needed perspective, integrates the inner life with the outward life, and allows humility to serve as a companion in one’s public, bigger-than-life controversies." Click here to view the entire article.

"I sometimes neglected my inner spiritual life because of the pressure of immediate demands. At such times I veered toward self-righteousness and became shrill and angry."

I find myself seeing how my passion for certain social issues can quickly turn into anger.  When your angry, your thoughts are not clear, and your well-intentioned words are received bitterly sometimes by a discerning ear.  Silent contemplative prayer is the ground of one's being--simply resting for nourishment in the presence of God.  The fruit of silent prayer is harvested in the daily give-and-take of life.  Clear thoughts, clear words, and Gospel values are just a few of those God-given fruits.  

As I contemplate and discern my future ministry, committing myself to helping others embrace the Kingdom of Christ, I know that everything must have this sacred "groundedness," otherwise I'll simply flounder along with mediocre sermons, pastoral care that ignores my own woundedness, and generally serving as a part-time Christian.  The fullness and richness of silent contemplative prayer is not always apparent in the early stages.  If you consider the early three-fold stages of 1) Purgation, 2) Illumination, and 3) Union with God, then you must prepare yourself to run a marathon and not simply a short sprint.