For the Joy of the Journey

Theology

George December 16, 2023 THEOLOGY 0 Comments

: the study of religious faith, practice, and experience
especially : the study of God and of God’s relation to the world¹

“someone who studies the nature of God, religion, and religious beliefs“. ² By that definition I am a theologian.

The impetus for this post occurred during a recent group discussion about a theological subject. As the conversation deepened one participant remarked, “I’m not really into theology, I’m more concerned about faith.” I was surprised about the comment; it was a catalyst for thinking more about theology.

My general observation is, theology/ theological concepts are not usually a topic of casual conversation among many Christians I encounter. That is understandable. In my spiritual heritage, theology was avoided. Charles Taylor observed: Restoration clerics appealed frequently to reason. It was a way of returning to a simpler, less theologically elaborate religion, which would give less purchase to divisive disputes. Through reason one could hope to define a compact core of unquestionable belief.³

Through out church history, theological issues were at the center of division and violence, staining the reputation of Christianity. “…after the terrible struggles around deep theological issues to do with grace, free will, and predestination, many people should hunger for a less theologically elaborate faith which would guide them towards holy living.” ⁴ The hunger for”a less theologically elaborate faith” characterizes much of western Christianity producing a faith that ” stresses feeling, emotion, a living faith which moves us.” ⁵

If God is slowly dying, it’s because Christians stopped seeking God and started to focus on being good.⁶

In an all to typical human response to a perceived threat, eschewing theology appears to be a classic case of “throwing the baby out with the bath water”⁷ C. S. Lewis in “Mere Christianity” noted the difficulty of writing about theology, and offered a helpful perspective on theology:

Many people have advised me not to share what I’m going to reveal in this final book. They say, “The ordinary reader isn’t interested in theology; give them practical religion instead.” I’ve disregarded their advice because I don’t think the ordinary reader is foolish.

Theology is the study of God, and anyone who wants to contemplate God would appreciate having the clearest and most accurate understanding possible. You are not children, so why treat you as such?

I understand why some people are put off by theology. I recall an incident when I gave a talk to the Royal Air Force, and an experienced officer stood up and said, “I have no use for all that stuff. But mind you, I’m a religious man too. I know there’s a God. I’ve felt His presence when I’m alone in the desert at night—the immense mystery. And that’s precisely why I don’t believe in all your neat little doctrines and formulas about Him.

To someone who has encountered the real thing, they all seem trivial, pedantic, and unreal!” In a way, I agreed with that man. I believe he had genuinely experienced God in the desert. And when he turned from that experience to Christian creeds, he probably felt like he was moving from something real to something less real.

Similarly, if a person has stood on a beach and looked at the vast Atlantic Ocean, then later examines a map of the Atlantic, they are also transitioning from something real to something less real—a shift from observing actual waves to studying a colored piece of paper. However, there are two essential points to consider about the map.

First, it is based on the collective experiences of countless individuals who have sailed the real Atlantic. The map integrates their diverse experiences, unlike your solitary glimpse from the beach. Second, if you want to go somewhere, the map is absolutely necessary.

While walking on the beach and having your own glimpses may be more enjoyable than looking at a map, the map becomes indispensable when you want to reach America.

Theology is like that map. Simply learning and contemplating Christian doctrines, without going further, is less real and less exciting than the profound experiences my desert-dwelling friend had.

Doctrines are not God; they are merely a form of guidance. But this guidance is based on the experiences of countless individuals who have genuinely connected with God—experiences far more profound and coherent than any fleeting thrills or pious sentiments you or I might have. And if you wish to progress, you must make use of that guidance.

The truth is, if you don’t engage with theology, it doesn’t mean you have no ideas about God. It means you have a plethora of incorrect, confused, and outdated ideas. Many of the ideas about God presented as novelties today are actually concepts that genuine theologians explored centuries ago and dismissed.

Lewis’ is correct. I started this post with the declaration that I am a theologian. Ater a few of weeks pondering and studying the subject of theology, I need to qualify that declaration. I am a naive and simple-minded theologian, largely because I haven’t truly engaged theology. Lewis’ conclusion is a frightening mirror image of the truth about theology in my life:
“The truth is, if you don’t engage with theology, it doesn’t mean you have no ideas about God.It means you have a plethora of incorrect, confused, and outdated ideas. Many of the ideas about God presented as novelties today are actually concepts that genuine theologians explored centuries ago and dismissed.”
It is my intention, in days ahead, to consistently engage theology, ever conscious of my “enlightenment lens” seeing theology as one describe—a human endeavor as well as a God-given gift.

So Much to think about.

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

1
https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/theology
2
Collins English Dictionary
3
A Secular Age – Charles Taylor
4
ibid, pg 225
5
ibid, pg 488
6
Beck, Richard. Hunting Magic Eels (p. 35).
7
an avoidable error in which something good or of value is eliminated when trying to get rid of something unwanted.

So Much To Think About

George December 12, 2023 Notes Anthology 0 Comments

My mind is like an internet browser. At least 18 open tabs, 3 of them are frozen, and I have no clue where the music is coming from.

Are you thinking like a golfer?

Bad shot? We tell ourselves it has to be the balls or the clubs, which is why we’ll purchase a dozen balls for $50 despite knowing we’re likely to lose at least two or three a round because we’re not as good as we think we are, or we’ll spend thousands on irons because we believe they will make our shots travel longer and straighter without the required practice time. Poor drive? Has to be the driver, which is why we’ll spend hundreds to replace the one we purchased the year before.

Jim Trotter

Self-preservation

When you prioritize self-preservation above all else, it pleases no one. If you try so hard to split the middle, you’ll have diluted any sign of genuine conviction or commitment.

Shadi Hamid

Divination

Jesus often uses the metaphor of a wedding to describe what God is doing—preparing and drawing us toward deeper intimacy, belonging, and union. The Eastern Fathers of the Church affirmed this belief; they called it the process of “divinization” (theosis). They saw it as the whole point of the incarnation and the very meaning of salvation. The much more practical and rational church in the West seldom used the word divinization. It was just too daring for us, despite the rather direct teachings from Peter (1 Peter 1:4–5; 2 Peter 1:4) and Jesus in John’s Gospel: “I pray not only for them, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, so that they may all be one, as you, Father, are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us, that the world may believe that you sent me” (John 17:20–21).

Richard Rohr

Calendar

The calendar in the Hebrew Bible, the calendar Jesus lived by, told a Story. In fact the calendar preaches. It proclaims(ed) the mighty acts of grace by Yahweh. It is a God filled, grace saturated story of life under God. So we read about the festivals Sabbath, Passover, Tabernacles, Weeks, Purim and Hanukkah. The festivals tell the Story of God:

– God creates the world [Sabbath],
– God delivered by grace Israel [Sabbath and Passover],
– God walks with Israel in the wilderness [Tabernacles],
– God provides food and gives torah [Weeks/Pentecost],
– God protects from annihilation [Purim],
– God redeems his temple [Hanukkah].

Bobby Valentine

Where are 85 + year old people living?

…roughly half of the 5.9 million Americans age 85 and older are living with family, including spouses and adult children, while more than 40 percent live alone, including in independent living or assisted-living facilities. A quarter live in multigenerational households, with people of two or more generations under the same roof, and about 8 percent live in nursing homes or memory care facilities.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2023/where-do-americans-live-after-85-look-inside-homes-11-seniors/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_most

Christmas

Christmas isn’t about coming to Bethlehem and to find Jesus. Christmas is about a God who came to Bethlehem to find us. Christmas celebrates the outrageous gospel message that God has come into our world. This God we have been looking for has come to our world looking for us. Christ, in our world, looking for us. Christmas is about a God who pursues His children.

So, if God won’t stay where we put Him, do we have any idea where He might be?

You don’t know? We’ve been singing it for weeks now.

“And His name shall be called Emmanuel, which means, “God with us.”

Christmas isn’t about where Jesus was, but where He is. Immanuel. God with us. Merry Christmas.

Mike Glenn

Ifs

There is no steady unretracing progress in this life; we do not advance through fixed gradations, and at the last one pause: – through infancy’s unconscious spell, boyhood’s thoughtless faith, adolescence’s doubt (the common doom), then scepticism, then disbelief, resting at last in manhood’s pondering repose of If. But once gone through, we trace the round again; and are infants, boys, and men, and Ifs eternally.

—Herman Melville, Moby-Dick

Technology

Technology is, by nature, mono-dimensional. It functions to advance efficiency and productivity. It optimizes. That is its reason for existence. When considering innovation, we implicitly ask, “Can technology do this better?” Increasingly, the answer is “yes.”

Kevin Brown

Awe

Awe is more than an emotion; it is a way of understanding, insight into a meaning greater than ourselves. The beginning of awe is wonder, and the beginning of wisdom is awe.

Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme. Awe is a sense for the … mystery beyond all things. It enables us … to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple; to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal. What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe.

Faith is not belief, an assent to a proposition; faith is attachment to transcendence, to the meaning beyond the mystery.

Knowledge is fostered by curiosity; wisdom is fostered by awe. Awe precedes faith; it is the root of faith. We must be guided by awe to be worthy of faith.

Theologian Bruce Epperly

Concert as Worship

Can attending a Beyoncé concert be a religious experience? To that, his answer is a resounding yes — or perhaps a loud amen. It’s certainly true that the modern concert, which gathers like-minded acolytes in an enclosed physical space to, quite often, experience something close to spiritual rapture, has no more obvious analogue than a church service.

We might sometimes forget that “sanctuary” has at least two meanings in a religious context: a sacred, consecrated place, and also a place of safety and refuge. The conversation around this year’s big concert tours has largely focused on the difficulty of accessing them — the expensive admission, the elusive tickets. But as Dyson reminds us, once we make it to them, concerts can provide rare spaces that allow us to feel truly welcome as we are, and part of a community much larger than ourselves . NYT

Sharing beliefs

I have had to stand before crowds for years and describe what I thought I believed, and then I often had to ask myself, “Do I really believe that myself?” And in my attempt to communicate it, I usually found that I’d only scratched the surface of understanding. In sharing, in giving it away, you really own it for yourself and appreciate more fully its value, beyond what you ever imagined.

Richard Rohr

View from the lanai

Waiting

At the start of the spiritual journey waiting on God is experienced as frustrating and alienating. God seems uncaring, passive, and delaying. There are severe temptations here. Waiting can sour into disillusionment and disillusionment can curdle into unbelief.

But as you spiritually mature, waiting is transformed into deep soul work. You come to realize you’ve spent most of your time waiting on some good outcome to transpire. Waiting on God to “do something.” You slowly come to see that you’ve never really been waiting for God. You’ve been waiting for some favor or blessing, but not for God himself.

I’ve waited for this or that, but I haven’t waited for you.

Richard Beck

STILL ON THE JOURNEY

So Much To Think About

George December 5, 2023 Notes Anthology 0 Comments

Lettin’ the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin’ it back in.

Sharing beliefs

Richard Rohr – Dancing Standing Still

Misinformed

Combine vast choice with algorithmic sorting, and we now possess a remarkable ability to become arguably the most comprehensively, voluntarily and cooperatively misinformed generation of people ever to walk the earth.

David French

Oil Production

American oil fields are gushing again, helping to drive down fuel prices but also threatening to undercut efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

Only three years after U.S. oil production collapsed during the pandemic, energy companies are cranking out a record 13.2 million barrels a day, more than Russia or Saudi Arabia. The flow of oil has grown by roughly 800,000 barrels a day since early 2022, and analysts expect the industry to add another 500,000 barrels a day next year.

Selfies

There is a deep connection between God and the self within Christian understanding. Obviously, they are not the same thing, but we do not know one without the other. It is possible to say that we only know God to the extent that we know ourselves and that we only know ourselves to the extent that we know God.

To know yourself is an inner activity, made particularly difficult in an outer-directed culture. Though we live in the age of the “selfie,” we are, nonetheless, an age that is distracted from the true knowledge of the self. The “selfie” has nothing to do with self-knowledge and everything to do with an objectification of the self – how I would like myself to look if I were someone else. What the selfie never shows is how we truly perceive ourselves.

Fr Stephen Freeman

Merriam-Webster’s Word of the Year for 2023 is authentic—

authentic saw a substantial increase in 2023, driven by stories and conversations about AI, celebrity culture, identity, and social media.

Incarnation

Jesus, in the song you wrote
The words are sticking in my throat…
Peace on earth
Hear it every Christmas time
But hope and history won’t rhyme

– U2, “Peace on earth”

Sometimes I wonder what the Incarnation changed.

In the Incarnation, God is saying…

Life on earth matters. People matter. Pain matters. When I made all I made in the way I made it, I knew what I was doing. I understood the cost of free will, which I know may seem hard to believe. So I’ll take on your frame. I’ll experience all you feel and more. I’ll show you how to live at peace in a troubled world, how to be an unhurried and healing presence. I’ll come in the flesh to be an example to you. Then I’ll come in the Spirit to be life in you. My rescue will be fast. Your adoption will be quick as a hammer’s swing. My rescue will be slow. Millenia will pass before the fullness of the Kingdom comes. My slowness is not cruelty or lack of care. On the contrary: I’m birthing a people of everlasting joy. That takes time.

Brian Morykon

For a New Baby

Kind Father

Thank you for your gracious gift of Miles.

God, please give Miles all that is required for a good way of life and for a good way of living.
Please let Miles bring joy and pride to Gabriel and Kyle and all their families. We will give all that is needed to this child. And do our best to guard and protect Miles for his lifetime.

Amen

Adapted – Author Unknown

Lord willing

To say “Lord willing” isn’t to say that God is a puppet master picking and choosing who has a safe trip home or an accident. To say “Lord willing” is, rather, an admission of our frailty, dependency, and mortality. As it says in James, we are but a vapor. Saying “Lord willing” brings my finitude into view, that my time in not in my hands. To say “Lord willing” is a memento mori.

I think old timers said “Lord willing” a lot because they lived in agrarian cultures, where they had little control over the elements that affected their crops. Their fate was not in their hands. They had no power to make it rain. Saying “Lord willing” put them in a proper frame of mind. Farmers had to be humble.

But as we move further and further away from those times and places, we grow more prideful, thinking that we can control our own fates. I don’t think we bristle at “Lord willing” because of theological concerns about providence. I think we chaff at “Lord willing” because we don’t like to admit our lives are not in our hands. I think we avoid “Lord willing” because we’ve lost the humility of our ancestors. Our technology has insulated us from our neediness and dependencies. They prayed for rain, we turn on our sprinkler system. They sat on front porches fanning themselves through hot summers, we turn on our air conditioner units.

They said “Lord willing” their entire lives. We never say it at all. And between us, who sees life more truthfully?

Richard Beck

Eucharist

… from the earliest times, the offering of Christ’s Body and Blood has been known as the Eucharist. It is the Thanksgiving. Were this not so, the Church would have named this most central act of its life something else: the Lord’s Supper or Holy Communion. These are later titles given in an effort to distinguish Protestant worship from Catholic. The word Eucharist is returning to common usage, however. It will be truly significant when the Eucharist (thanksgiving) returns to Christians as a way of life.

Fr Stephen Freeman

View from the Lanai

Writing today and for the next three months from Florida.

A significant part of my activity while here is reading and wiring. I just finished and highly recommend :

STILL ON THE JOURNEY