Faces of God: God the Enemy

We need God to be the enemy.  Why?  It's the age old question of theodicy:  God and justice. Why does God allow bad things to happen?  Job knows plenty of this.  God the enemy, God in the clouds playing puppeteer with creation.  Popular thought often portrays the Old Testament God as the God of anger, wrath, and destruction.  And somehow, with the flip of the page, the New Testament God is all-loving and now wants to enter into the course of human history. 

The reality is that we want to have a reason when something happens.  In Islam, the Arabic expression is insha' allah, or "if God wills."  Unfortunately, this idea gets applied equally to the tragic death of a child, news of cancer, and the unknowing depths of endless human suffering. Does God really will death and destruction for creation?  I believe the answer is an emphatic "no."  Following the days of creation in Genesis, God blesses the work by calling it good (Gen 1:31). The pain and suffering in the world is the result of sin--turning away from God's will and looking to our own for comfort and happiness.  Cancer is not from God, nor is HIV/AIDS, or even genocide for that matter.  From my experience of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) and working with death and dying in a hospital, I can speak from the depths of my faith that God is present somehow in the suffering and tears of humanity.  God's presence, whilst at times seems far away, is so close that we fail to recognize the comforting love of a friend.  God does not will destruction for creation, the rainbow set in the sky affirms God's promise to Noah that never again will God destroy the earth (Gen 9:8-16).

The only comfort that I can find in the problem of theodicy is simply that we find God's tears falling with our own.  We need to make God the enemy to rationalize why or how something so terrible could occur in our lives.  Again, see the Book of Job.  But even in Job's ordeal, he maintains faith.  Perhaps that's why this bit of the Old Testament gets a lot of attention because we cannot comprehend how and need to hear it over and over again.

There is no question that even in my own journey of faith I have blamed God for this or that offense, discovering only in the end that I am my own worst enemy.  I have also discovered that the more helpful route is to simply investigate where God is present in all my calamities.  That is the true question that we should be asking and the one that most likely contains the raw, painful answers that we cannot bear to face. God was not absent at Auschwitz; God was there amid the Hutu and Tutsi genocide.  God was there when I baptized 16-week old Jesus (Spanish) following his death.  God suffers with us because the suffering is not willed.  Yet, we do know that suffering and pain can serve as the furnace of transformation for our faith and life, but we cannot romanticize the tragedy.  

Living with the problem of theodicy is hard, faith-testing matter.  There is no one answer that completely satisfies the human heart, nor fills the cavernous voids of painful loss.  The only example we have is that of Our Lord on the cross, crying out in dereliction.  In the end, we do believe that God's justice is wrapped up in the Kingdom.  The Kingdom is where we live for God's will and not ours, where justice flows down like waterfalls, and everyone has just enough to eat.      

Faces of God: God the Lover

"God became man so that man might be engodded" 

~ St. Athanasius

The Oxford Movement of the nineteenth century did a lot for the Church of England.  In it, the reformers were harkening back to the age of the patristic Greek Fathers, that age of the Church when there was nothing "popish" within the institution.  One idea, however, that never seemed to gain much ground in Anglicanism despite the claims of the movement, was that of divinization or properly called theosis.  Known quite well in the Eastern Church, the concept of humanity's process towards becoming divine is deeply rooted in the Incarnation--some may easy say that this is the completion of that moment when the Divine and Humanity intersected in the womb of the Virgin.

What does this have to do with love?  Moreover, what does this have to do with seeing the face of God as a lover?  God creates out of love; humanity being formed in God's likeness and image is a powerful measure of God's love.  Eros, not agape, is the burning desire of God and humanity.  Eros is the Greek principle of a deep, erotic love which surpasses the mere physical limitations of human flesh.  Descending into the womb while exulting our human nature is the fullness of that love.  Episcopal priest Phillips Brooks, the legendary composer of the Christmas hymn "O Little Town of Bethlehem," is noted as saying that in this act of Incarnation we find, "the condescension of divinity and the exultation of humanity."  Ascent meets the descent and in that we know more about our God as the ultimate lover.  Interestingly enough, this may be the most erotic imagery in the whole of the Christian tradition.

So now let us move forward one more step.  God as lover woos us.  God woos us in the very wilderness we often find ourselves.  God creates, God provides, and God woos.  Even when Adam and Eve were kicked out of Paradise, God makes and provides clothing for them (Gen 3:23).  God is the constant lover of creation, bringing and calling it into the fullness of that lover.  We are no exception to this but often stand in the way of feeling God's tenderness or being tantalized by God's scent.  Thus, to accept theosis, one has to be willing to see inside the love that was born from above and to accept God's invitation to step onto the dance floor to take a spin with the Almighty.  I doubt that the principle here is to create millions of little gods and goddesses running around the Kingdom, but rather bring humanity to its fullness, to its completion which can only be found in God.  God took the first step in creation; the invitation has been issued and a reply is requested.

As is the case with any lover, there are the warts that we try to cover over and hide.  We don't want to be naked in front of the one that we try to seduce or vice versa.  The seduction of God is to be perfect bliss and causes the ultimate "release."  This release is complete and total freedom of the Kingdom of God which dawned in the coming of Christ, but alas is not yet fulfilled.  As we move closer with God in the dance of our lives, we take down those barriers and uncover the painful areas of lives.  Trust is the result of knowing that there is another hand out there supporting and guiding your spins.  The music is endless and so is the dance.  But there is always that fear of tripping over your feet or looking rather foolish with stiff legs.  

Will you fight?  Will you always accept God's advances?  Can you resist the heavenly aroma? We will certainly try!  We are human after all.  Theosis gives me hope that I'm always in process, always moving to a beat that my soul rhythmically gets even when I try and stand in the way. 

Personally, I can identify this image in my life.  The times when I have left the dance floor because of anger or simply lacking the courage to accept my own acceptance.  Each time I come back, I find that God is ready to pick up the beat again.  Ironically, there never seems to be the cursory, "I told you so."      

2009 National Day of Pilgrimage: The Shrine

Outside of the Shrine Church.

The main altar inside.

Another shot of the main altar.

A bishop's tomb.  I'm guessing not a low-churchman either.

As soon as you open the main doors, this altar greets you.

The Holy House inside the Shrine Church.  This is the actual shrine to OLW.

One of many beautiful side chapels inside the Shrine Church.

In all, I would have to say that I was most impressed with the Shrine Church and the surrounding grounds.  Everything was up-to-date and well maintained.  You certainly could tell that many faithful patrons support the Shrine and devotion to OLW.  

My recommendation would be to go without all the pomp and ceremony of the National Pilgrimage.  It was crazy, but you certainly got to see a lot of high church spikery at its finest.

2009 National Day of Pilgrimage: The Mass

The mass took place on the ancient grounds of the priory at Walsingham.  These grounds, so I am told, are only opened up for this grand occasion.

Everything was done with proper care to churchmanship, sometimes a tad over the top in places.  The weather was exceedingly agreeable and we had a nice spot over on the lawn and there we sat with our children.

My only complaint was that when I took my daughter up to receive Communion at one of the many stations, she put her hand out only to be denied the Body of Our Lord by the priest!  Instead, she received a blessing and then she promptly started crying loudly, "my bread!  I want my bread!"  I encouraged to cry even louder as I was terribly distraught over the out-dated eucharistic theology of this priest.