TRAVERSE CITY (AP) – Surrounded by some new art, and sitting beneath a sign that designated the space as purgatory, about fifteen people of various lineage gathered at the Pub during Holy Week, or more precisely, on Maundy Thursday.
What exactly is Maundy Thursday?
Great question – but they weren’t there to answer that. (Though it’s apparently also known as the Thursday of Mysteries.)
Some wonderful brews on tap, not least of which was the Darkstar Stout flowing from the cask. (You can never go wrong with the cask).
First topic:What is your earliest memory?
if i could only remember back far enough...
There were several good ones. Here’s a taste:
– “I remember being spoonfed a sundae by my mother at Dairy Queen while sitting in the stroller…”
– “There was an old barn across from the apartment complex we lived in. I remember distinctly sitting on the hill by our apartment, watching a large barn across the street burn to the ground. I was three.”
– “Something about being on the stairs, and my sister wasn’t around yet, which makes it about the only memory I have from then.”
– Mine: “I was probably four, in the basement with a friend. My mom was doing the laundry in the room next to us. We were throwing plastic bowling pins up at the naked lightbulb. Eventually we managed to hit it – throwing glass and darkness all over us. There were screams.”
– “My earliest memory is of my older brother having his dirty diaper changed, which means I must have been about six months old. Wait… that can’t be right.”
– The best one: “I have no particular memory of my early years. Just some vague feelings.”
open for interpretation
There was general debate about when the earliest you can remember is… Some said three, others said four. One claimed to have a memory from much earlier.
I noted that my kids watch videos of themselves from when they were babies and toddlers, and we all sort of wondered about what that would do to their memories as they grow up. (I make a year-end video of the kids every December – Lubbergho. Perhaps I’ll post one on youtube one of these days).
It was a great opening conversation, and we went various places from there, hitting on a few of these topics:
1. Have you ever felt truly alone?
Describe the situation. What did you do?
Are there practices that help you in those moments?
2. What is your favorite day of Holy Week?
Do you connect more with Good Friday or Easter?
3. What do you believe happened on the cross?
4. “To believe in the gospel in today’s day and age, one must first understand that language does not only denote objective realities.”
5. Does all knowledge derive from experience?
6. Do atheists get respect in our culture? Why/Why not?
one tasty beverage
We wrapped up the evening by musing on the following poem:
Alone
I am afraid
The gulf between us is vast
As all eternity
The frozen hand of death
Touches my throat
Catching my words unspoken
Alone we die
Together we live
Reach out now
Help me live
In love together
We cannot die
If you have a thought on the above, or an earliest memory you’d like to share, post it below!
It was a surreal night at the pub, which began with the ominous hint that we might be meeting in purgatory. That clarified a lot of things for everyone, like why we’d all had feelings of being stuck, of going in circles, of having been here before. Or something like that.
The CEO Stout was back on the board, which pleased many folks, as did the Fat Lad, an imperial Russian oatmeal stout. I stuck with the Black and Blue Porter, a roasty porter fermented with Michigan blueberries. It’s better than it sounds (the blueberry is subtle).
So, a nice turnout this past Thursday, and we began with the question of anxiety.
First Topic: In what ways has your faith been influenced by anxiety? Fueled anxiety? Calmed anxiety?How has anxiety played a role in your spiritual journey?
The first respondent noted the way that faith can cause anxiety. The example was being in a challenging situation, and finding oneself wanting to pray or make some sort of request of God, even though she wouldn’t normally consider herself a person of faith. This then could cause a sort of anxiety: why am I doing this? Is there some deep-rooted spiritual reality within me, or is this just a culturally and socially-conditioned habit?
Another person noted that faith often calms anxiety. It is a realization that things which are out of our control are in God’s hands, and this brings an enormous sense of calm and well-being. That reminds me of something Jesus said: “Do not worry about your life… Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things… therefore do not worry about tomorrow.”
Someone countered with: “But if it’s out of your hands, why are you worried about it at all? Why bring in God to the situation? It’s out of your hands, so worry about the stuff you can deal with, and leave the rest alone. It will take care of itself whether God is involved or not. (And it often seems he’s not).”
just another beer in purgatory
I could resonate with all three of these comments, at least in part. On occasion there are times I wonder if I’m not just talking to myself when I pray (if I’m honest), or if God really is paying attention or cares… but at the end of the day, my experience more generally is that prayer does give me a connection with the divine, and my faith allows me to *trust* that God is there, whether I always feel it or not, and this does give me a sense of calm, and respite from anxiety. He’s working things out in his ways, his timing, and ultimately it’s not up to me.
What about you? How does worry or anxiety play a role in your faith journey?
Second Topic: Is theology simply archival, or is there more work to be done?
In other words, has all the real theology already been done, and our job is simply to dig in the archives, or the library, pull the dusty tomes off the shelves and memorize what’s already been accomplished? There was one sarcastic yes (it’s simply archival), but everyone generally agreed, theology must be an ongoing discipline, a necessary engagement for everyone and every generation. We didn’t spend much time on this, but my own sense is not that we reinvent theology every generation, but rather that we build upon the foundation we’ve already been given, with the occasional need to deconstruct former assumptions. We certainly don’t start from scratch. We have been handed a tradition, and it is our job to be faithful *within* that tradition, which does not mean being slaves to it, but reappropriating and rearticulating it for today.
Third Topic: “We have not allowed the meaning of the facts of our infinite universe to affect us and our view of God.”
This one came out of a paper delivered by Lissa McCullough at the Future of Continental Philosophy Conference, entitled: Affirmations, Negations, Counter-Reformations: How God Outgrew Religion. In other words, much of our theology was developed when the idea that man was the center of the universe and the crown of God’s creation was taken for granted. But once it was noted that the earth is not the center of the universe, nor even our own galaxy or solar system, this idea was necessarily strained. The contention in the paper was that “We have not allowed the meaning of the facts of our infinite universe to affect us and our view of God.” In other words, we haven’t experienced it. We still talk in ways that seem that God is concerned primarily with not only humanity, but each of us individually. That claim was pressed by Lissa, who noted that rather than being us who killed God, it was God who killed man, the God who is de-centered and apparently loves galaxies (of which there are, at last count, at least 500 billion), each containing millions of stars and possible worlds like ours. Her contention is that our God is too small, and we need to realize that God is clearly a universal God, not simply a tribal God. Giordano Bruno (b.1548), an Italian Dominican Friar who was also an astronomer noted that we must seek “joy in the infinite… joy in an infinite universe which is the image of a God who is not simply anthropocentric.”
Fourth Topic: “It’s impossible to escape the constraints of language and objectively say whether our beliefs are true or not. Whatever your choice, faith is required.”
In other words, we cannot move beyond language into the actual. All our words are approximations, attempts at describing the actual which is always in some sense beyond us, and certainly beyond our conceptualizations of it.
A couple of quotes help here:
“Truth cannot be out there—cannot exist independently of the human mind—because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there. The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not. Only descriptions of the world can be true or false. The world on its own—unaided by the describing activities of humans—cannot.” – Richard Rorty
“The truth is that there is no answer in the back of the book to which there is assent, no final arbiter who will finally adjudicate rival claims – not in this life anyway. And most of those who want absolutes tend to accept authority only if that authority makes the absolute claims to which they are already disposed. At this point we only have perspectives on ultimate truth and not ultimate truth itself.” – Walter Brueggemann
–
I think these are helpful perspectives for us to carry what many call a ‘chastened faith’, or a hermeneutic of humility. Yes we have God’s Word, as Christians, but there are endless interpretations of those words by well-meaning Christians throughout history. It seems when the church acts on certainty and an unwarranted confidence that its views and perspectives and understandings are absolutely right, it tends to cause serious problems in the world.
There are absolute truths, of course. But no one has indisputable access to them. We grasp them, as believers, by faith. A faith that is humble, but hopeful.
(And gets us out of purgatory).
Have a thought on the above? Leave your comment below!
Posed in the subjunctive, what would Jesus do or deconstruct, the question turns on the structure of the archive, of memory and repetition. How does the New Testament preserve the memory of Jesus? I prescind from all historical-critical questions here, which open up another abyss (about the arche itself). One abyss at a time! I treat the New Testament as an “archive,” a depository of memories, which presents a certain way to be, a certain “poetics” — not a politics or an ethics or a church dogmatics — that I like to call a “poetics of the kingdom,” which lays claim to us and which calls for a transformation into existence.
How are we to translate this soaring poetics into reality? Were this figure of Jesus, who is the centerpiece of this poetics, or theo-poetics, to return today, what would he look like? An illegal immigrant? A child dying of AIDS? A Vatican bureaucrat? And what do we imagine he would expect of us here and now? The question calls for a work of application, interpretation, interpolation, imagination, and self-interrogation, and all that is risky business. To interpret is always a high-wire act, balancing oneself on a line stretched across an abyss and in constant danger of constructing idols of its own imagining. The name of “Jesus” is too often a mirror in which we behold our own image, and it has always been easy to spot the sliver in the eye of the other and miss the two-by-four in our own. The question presupposes the inescapable reality of history and of historical distance, and it asks how that distance can be crossed. Or better, conceding that this distance cannot be crossed, the question resorts to the subjunctive and asks how that irreducible distance could be made creative.
cracks let the light in
How does our distance from Jesus illuminate what he said and did in a different time and place and under different historical circumstances? And how does Jesus’ distance from us illuminate what we must say and do in the importantly different situation in which we find ourselves today? The task of the church is to submit itself to this question, rather than using it like a club to punish others.
The church, the archive of Jesus, in a very real sense is this question.
It has no other duty and no other privilege than to bear this memory of Jesus and ask itself this question. The church is not the answer. The church is the question, this question, the gathering of people who are called together by the memory of Jesus and who ask this question, who are called together and are put into question by this question, who stand accused, under the call, interrogated and unable to recuse themselves from this question, and who come to understand that there are no easy, ready-made, prepackaged answers.
hurley!
The early church is a lot like the characters in the hit TV series Lost —the title is appropriate!-– waiting to be “saved,” which is the soteriological significance of that show where everyone is given a new being, a fresh start. At first, the survivors hang around on the beach waiting to get “picked up” (in a cloud, St. Paul said). After a while, they conclude that the rescue is not going to happen anytime soon and so they reluctantly decide to dig in and prepare for the long haul. Hence the existence of the church is provisional – like a long-term substitute teacher – praying for the kingdom, whose coming Jesus announced and which everyone was expecting would come sometime soon.
But this coming was deferred, and the church occupies the space of the “deferral,” of the distance or “difference,” between two comings. (I just said, in case you missed it, the church is a function of différance!) In the meantime, and it is always the meantime for the church, the church is supposed to do the best it can to bring that kingdom about itself, here on earth, in a process of incessant self-renewal or auto-deconstruction, while not setting itself up as a bunch of kings or princes. The church is by definition a call (kletos) for renewal.
deconstructable
That is why the church is “deconstructable,” but the kingdom of God, if there is such a thing, is not. The church is a provisional construction, and whatever is constructed is deconstructible, while the kingdom of God is that in virtue of which the church is deconstructible.
So, if we ask, “What would Jesus deconstruct?” the answer is first and foremost: the church!
For the idea behind the church is to give way to the kingdom, to proclaim and enact and finally disappear into the kingdom that Jesus called for, all the while resisting the temptation of confusing itself with the kingdom. That requires us to clear away the rhetoric and get a clear picture of what “deconstruction” means, of just who “Jesus” is, and of the hermeneutic force of this “would,” and to do so with this aim: to sketch a portrait of an alternative Christianity, one that is as ancient as it is new, one in which the “dangerous memory of Jesus” is still alive – deconstruction being, as I conceive it, a work of memory and imagination, of dangerous memories as well as daring ways to imagine the future, and as such good news for the church.
It was a nice evening this past Thursday. A couple of birthday beverages were definitely enjoyed: Pinetop was in the cask, and the Black (Eye)PA was back, and it was *black*. A small crowd made for good conversation.
The topics were all taken from various tweets that came across my twitterfeed:
Topics for tonight via Twitter:
1. #God is all about people, not theology.
2. You don’t have to believe in heaven to find life after death
3. I really enjoy that my OT Teacher is talking about how sometimes we use too much history interpreting our text. i respect that.
4. If misunderstood / used incorrectly, theology can be the handmaiden of Satan… #discernment
5. What we see depends mainly on what we look for.
6. I believe that there is no more important doctrine for the church today than this: _______. If we understand this doctrine correctly, we will avoid many traps
Marx
7. Alienation is at the root of Marxism and theology. The difference is defining the object and subject of the alienation. #marxism #class #god
Given that it’s been a few days, not much on the recap this week… though I do recall the answer for no.6 – any guesses anyone has on what to fill in the blank? Or what you would put there?
Here’s a poem (untitled) from the backside:
On a hill above the days of winter There stands a child as lonely as the snow He is a question looking for an answer If you don’t have it kindly let him go
He is the offspring of an ice-storm fire Brother to the forest and the sea He’s walked the paths of hell; the hills of heaven Looking for the why of what must be
Give him what you freely have to offer Or simply walk beside him for awhile Don’t ask of him that which he cannot answer Or judge him harshly when he does not smile
For he may follow visions you’re not seeing A message that your ears may never know He is a question looking for an answer If you don’t have it kindly let him go
1972
Love to have any thoughts you have on the above – as always feel free to post them here!
A low-key evening at the pub, and some very enjoyable conversation. The Black and Blue Porter was a nice addition on the whiteboard – a roasty porter with some blueberry mixed in (better than it sounds). Speaking of sounds, did I mention Gish was mixed in the soundtrack last night? “And she knows and she knows and she knows…” Excellent.
Topics for the evening:
Does love win?
forgiveness
heroic gestures
free gifts
the future
Topics in detail:
1. Does love win?
2. Is God’s forgiveness unconditional? Is it for everyone?
3. “The ultimate heroic gesture that awaits Christianity is this: in order to save its treasure, it has to sacrifice itself – like Christ, who had to die so that Christianity could emerge.” What might this look like?
4. Is there such a thing as a ‘free’ gift?
5. “Does the future of evangelicalism lie with progressives who can adapt and change or with conservatives who remain faithful to the old paths?”
6. “What is the biggest problem in the church: people can’t stand us or we can’t stand the gospel?”
7. “Conversation works in the foyer, but behind the pulpit clarity is king.”
—
So discussion began with number one. Does love win? What does that mean? Well, after reading the book my understanding was this: if the vast majority of people who have ever lived – billions and billions of human beings, created in God’s image – end up suffering eternal conscious torment and horrible suffering in hell, then love does not win. In other words, God cannot be rightly called good, loving, and all-powerful if this is how things ultimately turn out. He admits that if this is how things go, we can say God is all-powerful, but don’t call him good and loving, or call him good and loving, but clearly not all-powerful. Something like that. He does a much better job, so read the book if you want the straight scoop. Yet it appears that there are many many people who are not Christians, who don’t appear to ‘choose Christ’ or worship the God of the Bible. Will they all be in hell? And what is hell? Is it separation from God? Is it being in God’s presence but not being able to stand it or enjoy it? Is it death and annihilation? Will there be a chance for people to choose God after they die? Is there a statute of limitations on repentance that’s limited to this life? Here’s an excerpt from the book:
From Love Wins, by Rob Bell:
“Millions have been taught that if they don’t believe, if they don’t accept in the right way, and they were hit by a car and died later that same day, God would have no choice but to punish them forever in conscious torment in hell. God would, in essence, become a fundamentally different being to them in that moment of death, a different being to them forever. A loving heavenly father who will go to extraordinary lengths to have a relationship with them would, in the blink of an eye, become a cruel, mean, vicious tormenter who would ensure that they had no escape from an endless future of agony.
If there was an earthly father who was like that, we would call the authorities.
If there was an actual human dad who was that volatile, we would contact child protection services immediately.”
Wait – did he get this off my blog post – An Angry God? 🙂 (which I wrote a week before Love Wins came out).
What do you think? Is this a picture of God you adhere to? Is it accurate?
a powerful symbol
On to topic no.2 – Is God’s forgiveness unconditional? Is it for everyone?
The first response:
“No, it is not unconditional. I grew up in the church hearing that if God forgives you, you’ve got to start living differently, otherwise it obviously didn’t make any difference, and in that case – you’re not really forgiven. There are conditions.”
Next response:
“What about God removing our sins as far as the east is from the west? And what about Jesus saying that we need to forgive people seventy times seven? Doesn’t that imply that forgiveness is unlimited, and therefore unconditional?”
Other examples came up: the lost sheep, the lost coin, the prodigal son (all Luke 15, btw) – which all seem to note that forgiveness happens before repentance. That forgiveness happens regardless of our response or of our deserving it. So in that case, forgiveness appears to be unconditional.
So does God forgive everyone? If we are called to ‘love our enemies’ and forgive ‘seventy times seven’, and if while we were enemies, Christ died for us – doesn’t that imply that forgiveness is not based on response? Or at the least it seems unconditional. But does this apply to *all* of God’s enemies? Which would include everyone, right? It seems that there is a case to be made for this. That God forgives everyone, but not everyone chooses to accept that forgiveness, or live in the reality of that forgiveness. (There’s a nice chapter on this issue in Love Wins, by the way). Also, if we are called to forgive seventy-times seven (i.e. infinitely) and to love our enemies – doesn’t that also apply to God? Or does that not apply once you die? And someone asked, “How are we going to love our enemies when we’re in heaven and they’re in hell? That puts us in an awfully difficult spot. Or aren’t we supposed to love them anymore – which would make us held to a higher standard here on earth than in heaven, which is supposedly perfect.”
Other tangents that came out of this: was Jesus’ death necessary for God to forgive us? If so, then it wasn’t unconditional. It was dependent on a certain condition happening, i.e. someone dying in our place. *Or* was it the case that God unconditionally forgives – that is his nature – and the cross was the outworking of that reality – the expression of the love and forgiveness that God already extends (because clearly we see God forgiving in the OT, or was that just ‘provisional forgiveness’ but not the real thing? Or somehow backwards dependent on a future event?)
Another tangent: if Jesus ‘became sin for us’ and took on ‘the sin of the world’ – why would anyone be punished anymore? The theological way around this is that actually Jesus didn’t die for everyone, which again, isn’t really that good of news. Not to mention that it seems to deny the cross the fullness which it is due. But we have to explain why not everyone gets in, and also that God is all-powerful, so then we say that actually Jesus only died for those who actually respond to him. But then the offer of salvation to all people isn’t actually a genuine offer, and the whole thing unravels (or is given a fancy theological name).
Or could it be the case, that Jesus *did* die for everyone, and God *does* forgive everyone, but not everyone chooses to live in the reality of that forgiveness (see the older brother in the Parable of the Prodigal Son). He’s standing right there at the celebration (heaven), but doesn’t join in the party (hell), despite the reality that the father says, ‘all that I have is yours’. (again, great chapter on this in Love Wins).
a free gift?
We skipped no.3, and went on to no.4 – is there such a thing as a free gift?
First response: ‘I was trying to buy something the other day, but there was a minimal debit card purchase amount, and I didn’t have any cash. The clerk decided to buy it for me. I was amazed. A free gift!’
Second response: ‘Was it actually free? He still had to pay for it.’
Here’s where the question came from:
Excerpt from The Puppet and the Dwarf, by Slavoj Zizek:
“Is there such a thing as a ‘free’ gift?
Or does such an offer aim at putting you in a position of
permanent debt? When the message is: “I don’t want
anything from you!,” we can be sure that this statement
conceals a qualification:
“…except your very soul.”
On a more anecdotal level, is it
not clear that when, in a lovers’ quarrel, the woman
answers the man’s desperate “But what do you want
from me?” with “Nothing!,” this means its exact
opposite?”
What do you think?
And a bonus post from the backside, from a blogger who has issues with some of the theology in Love Wins, as it seems many do, most especially over theories of atonement (relates to above discussion):
Posted on a blog:
“Any Christian worth listening to loves the cross and is
loath to see it robbed of its glory. To ridicule what the
cross accomplished is to make war with the heart of the
gospel and the comfort of God’s people.
J. Gresham Machen understood this well: They [liberal preachers] speak with disgust of those who believe ‘that
the blood of our Lord, shed in a substitutionary death, placates an
alienated Deity and makes possible welcome for the returning sinner.’
It never seems to occur to modern liberals that in deriding the
Christian doctrine of the cross, they are trampling upon human hearts.
No doubt, some Christians get worked up over the
smallest controversies, making a forest fire out of a
Yankee Candle. But there is an opposite danger–and that
is to be so calm, so middle-of-the-road, so above-the-fray
that you no longer feel the danger of false doctrine. You
always sound analytical, never alarmed. Always crying for
much-neglected conversation, never crying over a much-
maligned cross. There is something worse than hurting
feelings, and that is trampling upon human hearts.”
We didn’t actually get very far discussing this post, but it isn’t exactly clear what is meant by ‘trampling upon human hearts.’ It seems it’s just a fancy way to sound theologically adept and serious, while making people afraid. It attempts to create fear when alternative ways of reading the story are presented, more than actually living in the delight of the story, which at its heart is a bit of mystery, after all.
Do you have a thought on any of the above?Post your comments below!
So… it’s official! I’ve been offered a book contract. The publisher is Cascade Books, a division of Wipf and Stock. They are out of Eugene, Oregon.
About Cascade Books: Established in 2004, Cascade Books is the most selective of the four imprints of Wipf and Stock Publishers. Under this imprint we publish new books that combine academic rigor with broad appeal and readability. Encompassing all the major areas of theology and religion, Cascade Books has published such major authors as Stanley Hauerwas, Jürgen Moltmann, John Milbank, John Howard Yoder, Margaret Miles, and Walter Brueggemann.
What’s the book about?
Well, it is a book about doing theology at the pub (>shock<). It will be comprised of stories, musings, and theology viewed through the prism of our regular Thursday evening gatherings.
Working Title: Pub Theology: Beer, Conversation, and God (what else?)
From the proposal:
From London to New York to Ann Arbor, people are gathering in pubs and bars to communicate, connect, and learn from one another over the topic of religion, of all things. In Pub Theology, pastor, writer, and pub theologian Bryan Berghoef draws from his own experience in one such setting in Northern Michigan. Speaking to fellow Christians, Berghoef explains how they must turn their evangelism mentality on its head: from being those who need to evangelize others to those who need to be evangelized by others. Through anecdotes, stories, and theological musings, readers will discover how to move from a place of preaching to a place of listening, from a place of teaching to a place of learning.
Tension:
Reality: We live in a culture driven by fear of ‘the other’. Other religious views, other sexual orientations, other political views, other ways of being in the world: these are no longer perspectives we read about in books or hear about on television. They are held by our neighbors, our co-workers, perhaps even our friends, but also by those we may never meet. We react to these perspectives too often from a perspective of fear. And we respond to this fear by getting louder with our message, by withdrawing ourselves from the culture to our own safe little enclaves, from which we toss grenades of ‘truth’ over the wall, often hoping to cause more damage than true positive change.
Hope: If the church wants to have an impact on an increasingly post-Christian and pluralistic culture, it must shift its emphasis from preaching to listening. It must move from the prideful position of teacher to the humble position of student. It is no longer our turn to stand and lecture. It is time for us to take our seat and listen. This is no easy shift. But it is critical. It is time for the church to move beyond its fear, to come out from behind the safe walls it has constructed and learn to actually inhabit this world we all share.
From the author:
“More than ever it seems that we as a culture are afraid of people who are different than us. This is especially true in the arena of faith. I have been involved in conversations about God at the university level, in Europe, in the States, in a Muslim culture, in the pews, on the streets, and in pubs. I am convinced that if we are willing to sit at the same table and listen, we will be changed from evangelists who see others as targets to convert, to fellow human beings – potential friends to love and understand.”
— Bryan Berghoef —
— If you have a story or thought from a night you’ve attended a Pub Theology gathering, post it here – you never know – maybe it’ll be in print!
We began the night with a toast to Saint Patrick, that giver of good tidings and slayer of snakes:
A Toast to the Saint!
Saint Patrick was a gentleman, who through strategy and stealth Drove all the snakes from Ireland, here’s a drink to his health! But not too many drinks, lest we lose ourselves and then Forget the good Saint Patrick, and see them snakes again!
So clearly the early discussion was over snakes, and St. Patrick’s real name. Was it Maewyn Succat?
Topics for the night:
St. Patrick
Snakes
God
Straw
Dreaming
Seagulls
In detail:
1. St Patrick: a toast. See above
2. “I am Patrick, yes a sinner and indeed untaught; yet I am established here in Ireland where I profess myself bishop. I am certain in my heart that ‘all that I am,’ I have received from God. So I live among barbarous tribes, a stranger and exile for the love of God.”
3. “We need God’s wrath in order to understand what mercy means.” Do we? What do you think?
4. “It’s all about God.” What do you think?
5. St. Augustine: “Even the straw under my knees shout to distract me from prayer.” Is prayer difficult?
6. Are you dreaming?
It was a lighthearted evening – everyone was happy to be out for Saint Patty’s. We expected to be fighting the crowds, but it wasn’t as busy as we expected. Perhaps the lack of a stout at Right Brain didn’t help; that and everyone was singing Irish tunes and watching MSU at Kilkenny’s. Regardless, we enjoyed talking about old Saint Patrick, favorite Irish tunes, and whether or not wrath is a good (or proper) motivator. Most came out opposed to wrath as a good motivator, and felt that it was setting up a non-logical argument. For example, you don’t have to say, “I really know how much I enjoy reading a book at the library, because I know other people are being tortured.” It seems one would feel motivated to go to the library and read by something positive, such as a goal to be gained, but probably not so much by a threat (though I suppose that could work in a pinch). There were other examples, but someone else will have to recall them.
Is it all about God? Someone responded, “Maybe for God.” We noted that a classic approach in some theological traditions is voiced by the likes of Jonathan Edwards: “the end for which God created the world was his glory.” In other words, it is all about God, not human happiness or purposes or anything else.
Someone wondered whether it’s “all about connection, or interconnection, and God is the ground and center of that.” I think that’s a decent way to put it.
We noted that it is indeed hard to pray, and focus, and be silent…. But that for many of us, it is a necessary discipline and one we need to pursue more often. Others felt that we needed to focus more on the present moment, on mindfulness, ala Thich Nhat Hahn or Eckhart Tolle. That we can find God or the sacred in every moment, such as washing the dishes or shoveling the driveway. Someone else noted that such moments could be improved by listening to an audio book or lecture, and that there wasn’t necessarily any virtue in the act or moment itself. Also asked, “Is it possible to not be present?”
We all pinched ourselves and concluded that we weren’t dreaming.
“These birds are flying across the forehead of the Father. Dear birds, dear sea gulls, how I love you all. Your slow wings stroke my heart as the hand of a gentle master strokes the full stomach of a sleeping dog, as the hand of Christ stroked the heads of little children. Dear birds,” he thought, “fly to our Lady of Sweet Sorrows with my open heart.” And then he said the loveliest words he knew, “Ave Maria, gratia plena –”
There was, nor is, nor ever has been a purer soul than Pilon’s at that moment… A soul washed and saved is a soul doubly in danger, for everything in the world conspires against such a soul. “Even the straws under my knees,” says Saint Augustine, “shout to distract me from prayer.”
Pilon’s soul was not even proof against his own memories; for, as he watched the birds, he remembered that Mrs. Pastano used sea gulls sometimes in her tamales, and that memory made him hungry, and hunger tumbled his soul out of the sky. Pilon moved on, once more a cunning mixture of good and evil.”
Discuss the change in Pilon. Can you relate?
We all noted how we are all mixtures of ‘good and evil’, and how mundane, physical realities can break our highest spiritual moments, yet somehow those moments must happen in the mundane world, because that is where we live.
You sit in silence contemplating what has just taken place. Only moments ago you were alive and well, relaxing at home with friends. Then there was a deep, crushing pain in your chest that brought you crashing to the floor. The pain has now gone, but you are no longer in your home. Instead, you find yourself standing on the other side of death waiting to stand before the judgment seat and discover where you will spend eternity. As you reflect upon your life your name is called, and you are led down a long corridor into a majestic sanctuary with a throne located in its center. Sitting on this throne is a huge, breathtaking being who looks up at you and begins to speak.
“My name is Lucifer, and I am the angel of light.”
You are immediately filled with fear and trembling as you realize that you are face to face with the enemy of all that is true and good. Then the angel continues: “I have cast God down from his throne and banished Christ to the realm of eternal death. It is I who hold the keys to the kingdom. It is I who am the gatekeeper of paradise, and it is for me alone to decide who shall enter eternal joy and who shall be forsaken.”
After saying these words, he sits up and stretches out his vast arms. “In my right hand I hold eternal life and in my left hand eternal death. Those who would bow down and acknowledge me as their god shall pass through the gates of paradise and experience an eternity of bliss, but all those who refuse will be vanquished to the second death with their Christ.”
After a long pause he bends toward you and speaks, “Which will you choose?”
—
So, would you choose paradise with Satan or hell with Jesus?
There were differing opinions, and E. and B. disagreed and nearly came to blows over it:
“I would go to hell with Jesus.”
“No you wouldn’t.”
“I would.”
“What? Of course you wouldn’t! NO ONE would! You’d choose heaven.”
It brought up some great discussion. Why do we follow Jesus? Because of the payoff? If I think I would choose hell in this scenario, do I choose to find Jesus in the hells of this world?
The night ended with a rendition of “Oh Danny Boy” and it nearly got us run out of the place!
Have a thought on the above? Post your comment below.
