Ways of Knowing

Fourteen years ago when I started this blog, I chose the name “Know That I Am” because it describes the paradox of my faith.  I have always known a deep yearning for God but struggled with having a solid sense of relationship with God. I want to “know” the God with no name who simply says “I am.” Bur, how can anyone know God?

Mark 12:30 states “You shall love your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength.”  This passage is a daily part of my life through the Morning Prayer Service from the Northumbria Community.

 Call:             Who is it that you seek?

Response:    We seek the Lord our God.

Call:              Do you seek Him with all your heart?

Response:    Amen. Lord, have mercy.

Call:              Do you seek Him with all your soul?

Response:    Amen. Lord, have mercy.

Call:              Do you seek Him with all your mind?

Response:    Amen. Lord, have mercy.

Call:              Do you seek Him with all your strength?

Response:    Amen. Christ, have mercy.

Answering these four questions each day with the affirmation of “Amen” has reminded me to engage in all four ways of loving God through my heart, my soul, my mind and my strength.  However, when I was younger, I thought only one way of knowing God was necessary. 

My years pursuing a Master of Divinity at Wesley Theological Seminary are a good example.  Taking classes in Christian theology, scripture, and history, I sought to know God with my mind.  The seminary seemed to teach that an intellectual knowledge of God that would settle all my doubts and questions. I thought that if I mastered knowing God with my mind, I would find peace from my doubts.  However, the answers I developed fell short of resolving my doubts, and just raised new questions.  Completing the degree did not mean that I had settled anything.

Yet, during my time in seminary there were many seeds planted about the other ways to know and love God. Those seeds waited for years before I noticed them and nurtured them.  So while singing in the Chapel Choir was important to my faith, it was decades later that I understood how music emerges from my soul.

It surprises me when specific memories of my years in seminary come to mind in my ordinary daily life.  Yet when I take the time to pause and notice that memory, I see one of the seeds planted during that time.  Curiously they are not the intellectual issues and topics I studied or wrote papers about.  They are the other aspects of knowing the “I Am” I know to be God, with my heart, my soul and my strength.

 

 

Let Go

Earlier this week I was reading Robert Alter's translation of Psalm 46, and was struck by his alternative version of verse 11, which begins "Let go, and know that I am God."  This was a surprise. I know that verse which begins in the Book of Common Prayer with "Be Still." However, this time it is prefaced by the command "Let go."

I use Robert Alter's The Book of Psalms because of the cadence of the translation and his extensive commentary.  Reflecting on the verse, Alter notes that the Hebrew verb used literally would translate to "relax one's grip on something. . . to unclench the warriors fist."  As I read those words, I could feel them sink into me.  The common thread of my life at this time is how I need to practice letting go, relaxing my grip on things.

Much of my learning in Clinical Pastoral Education has a foundation in the ongoing need to let go.  In order to be extend an open hand in ministry, to extend vulnerability by coming alongside, I must unclench my hand and let go of behaviors and feelings that become barriers.  I am learning to recognize when I hide behind particular habits or attitudes.  I am breaking out of those shells that block my growth and limit my freedom to be with others in their time of struggle and need.

Later in his commentary, Alter comments that "The eschatologically triumphant God speaks directly, declaring His supremacy over all the world."  I struggle to remember through my letting go I am opening up to the possibilities and demands of God, opening to the Holy Spirit so that it can move through me as compassion and healing for those broken in body, mind or spirit.

It can be very scary letting go, going against all instincts of self-preservation.  Yet, as my first spiritual director would often remind me, "scared" and "sacred" are the same word with just two letters in reversed.   

Climbing Mount Horeb

One of three peaks in the Sinai mountains, Mount Horeb has been believed to be a place of significant biblical events for over seventeen centuries.  At its base is the well where Moses helped the daughters of the priest of Midian (Exodus 2:15-21).  The burning bush was encountered on its side (Exodus 3).  Later, when Moses brought the Israel tribes out of Egypt,  Moses climbed it to receive the Ten Commandments (Exodus 19-20).

So, while not officially on a pilgrimage, the group of Episcopal priests, deacons and family touring Egypt shifted into pilgrim mode upon arrival at the base of Mount Horeb. As many thousands do each year, we intended to climb or ride a camel up the lower portion of the trail, then continue up the "steps" to the top.  It was not going to be easy, and the bus arrived much later than planned.  The sun was already low behind the mountain we were climbing.  We probably should have chosen to start the climb in the middle of the night to watch the sunrise.  But we didn't.

I chose to walk the broad, rocky, steadily rising trail, rather than ride a camel.  I have climbed many mountains over my life, and enjoy the challenge.  This time was different, because we were racing against the clock, the quickly arriving sunset.  I focused on climbing, not looking around to experience the bare granite mountainside or views out across to other ranges. I held onto the hope that I would be able to see the sun drop behind adjacent peaks.  So I did not pace myself, but kept pushing hard to keep moving.

The few times I did stop to look around and take pictures, the view was awesome.  The bare granite mountains were as alive with colors as they were devoid of any plant life.  They continue as far as the eye can see, with no plants to soften their edges  There is no protection from the heat during the day or the cold at night.  The Bedouin people lived along the trail in low buildings with rock sides and flat wood roofs.  The camels slept on the bare ground where they were tied up.

After passing the final stop for the camels, I started the steep section referred to as "the steps."  There was nothing regular, level or consistent about them.  Many places it was hard to see a good place to put your foot down.  My legs were sore and no longer solid under me.  Forty feet or so up the trail, I stopped to rest, and turned around to look. This is what I saw:

The last of the sun was at the tops of the peaks behind me, and the guide said it was another 30 minutes to the top.  Even with the flashlight in my pocket, it would be difficult to know how to climb down section I had just come up.  Once the sun was gone, night and dark would be arrive in minutes.  I turned around, disappointed but clear it was the right choice.  There would be no pictures from the top.  I joined a group at the Bedouin hut at the base of the steps waiting for the rest of the group to return.

After waiting over an hour in freezing temperatures, the five of us started down, without the group climbing to the top. We tried to join another group going down, but they were much younger and faster.  Soon, we were on our own.  David was the scout in front, calling out loose rocks or tricky spots.  I was in back, shining my flashlight forward, to highlight the roughness of the trail.  Two of the group were walking slowly, tentatively, setting the pace for the whole.  We knew we needed to travel together.  I invented silly lyrics to familiar tunes, so we could laugh.  Twice we stopped to turn off the flashlight to look up at the half-full moon and stars in the sky.  Over those two plus hours walking down, we became a community with a common purpose - caring for each other, being aware of the dark rocky desert around us, and walking safely down the mountain of Moses. 

I could not know when I started that afternoon that the place I would encounter God upon his mountain in the Sinai desert would not be on the mountaintop.  God joined the five of us, loving and journeying together in the pale light of the guardian of the night, a pilgrimage of grace I will never forget.  Thank you Susan, Hyacinth, Masud and David.

Reluctant Mystic

Kerry Walters notes in Soul Wilderness: A Desert Spirituality that a “Mystic yearns for an immediate encounter with the Divine, for an unfiltered experience of the replete nothingness of God.” This deep sense of an intimate need to know God without all of the layers and protections that shield our frail humanity from the dangers of direct encounter with God are both a gift and a curse. One’s yearning cannot be completely banished out of mind once its epiphany has been noted. Nor can it be put away without the soul noting its removal and recording its hiddenness. The yearning waits quietly and patiently, looking for the next opportunity to become known and to be acted upon.

When starting down the spiritual path, no one can provide a map that outlines the upcoming choices that must be faced. But the yearning keeps driving the seeker down the path, searching for a sense of God even though that sense is never found by one’s own volition. Yet, there is the continued hope for something will lead to deeper answers.

There is the need to understand more even as that which is being understood becomes incredibly more complex. As more is learned and comprehended by the soul, the difficulty of describing or explaining becomes logarithmically complex. One turns to poetry, paradox, and absurdity because language and description inevitably reduce the clarity of what is being described.

This sense of the inexpressible confronts an intellect that is trained to be articulate, to know and use the right words. If only that which is yearned for, that which is of God, were of this world. Then it would permit a clear, even scientific description of who and what it is. But the yearning pushes into the clouded, fog filled areas of seeing and understanding. The groping to understand cannot be gained through the five body senses. Those senses may begin to note some of the shape of that terrain, but it is unable to be described by sight, sound, taste, smell and touch.

In admitting that yearning, confessing the desire to be in a much deeper relationship with God, I must admit that I am becoming such a mystic. Yet I am reluctant both in allowing others to see it and in fully owning that label. What good is a mystic, so separated from the world with a head in the fog, with more questions than answers? Or, perhaps my feet are solidly standing on the ground and I am just seeing the world in a new way?

Trusting God to be God

The words jumped out at me as I read the page, resonating beyond my half-focused attention to the book in my hand. “[W]e are primarily or even exclusively trusting God to be God in the ways we have become accustomed to thinking about God.*”

How true that is. It is so easy to settle into a habitual and narrowly defined relationship with God. Habits grow out of a desire for some predictability and stability, like the morning routine I follow to get ready for each day. While a morning routine cannot hurt you with its automatic patterns, habitual ways to approaching and thinking about God eventually will shut God out.

The routines or habits, done without thought, get in the way of seeing or responding to what has changed around us. Those accustomed ways of thinking about God become sinful, when sin is understood as a willful separation or turning away from God, because there is no attention focused on how God may be present or available in the moment.

Continuing reading, “Trusting God beyond the God we have understood or known up to now can feel very uncomfortable.” Learning to trust God is much more complicated than human relationships. It is easy to lose the sense of ongoing connection with God. There are times of doubt, times of wondering if God is even there or a self-delusion. Praying can feel like leaving messages on an answering machine. The words are said and the feelings expressed, but we are often left wondering if God is screening the calls, not picking up the phone.

Listening to directees, I hear a common experience of waiting without knowing, wanting some sense of connection and often finding none. Those times of not knowing undermine a sense of trust, especially during times of fear and emergency when the need to trust in God’s concern and support are the highest.

Over and over again we need to be alert to how God may be reaching out to us, in a new way, and learn to trust that God is there even when we do not perceive it. As I have re-read old journals, I have been able to see God’s action in my life in retrospect, even though I could not see during those periods of my life. Sometimes the ways God reaches out to us is so outside our understanding that God seems absent and invisible. It is only after the old understanding is broken apart that the new understanding can be found.

Bakke then points to the hardest part for me to swallow, “we are called to depend more on God than we do on ourselves – a very unlikely possibility unless we are aided by grace.” Or, in other words, only through acknowledging and accepting the grace that God extends to us will we be able to depend upon God. I struggle with this because it has a circular logic, or begs the question. In order to depend upon God, I need to be aided by grace which comes from God, and if I don’t recognize or accept the grace, then I cannot depend upon God.

I am quickly getting to the edge of what I learned about logical fallacies in college some (let’s leave the number out) years ago. I know that from a logical perspective, Bakke’s statement is false, but that doesn’t make it false as a faith statement. Since I claim to have experienced God in some small way, can I let go of my aversion to the circular argument, rather than getting caught in the intellectual barbed wire?

This is the leap of faith, moving far beyond my comfort zone at this time. I will leave it there for now, but it will still be nagging at me.

*Holy Invitations: Exploring Spiritual Direction by Jeannette A. Bakke. Baker Books, Grand Rapids, MI, 2000. page 63.

Sidewalk Directions

I was walking from my home in DC to a movie theater, a journey that takes me across the Mall, with its views of the Capital to the east and the Washington Monument to the west. A young, clean-cut man in his twenties, who was pushing a stroller, asked me which direction he would find the Museum of Natural History. He had emerged from the Metro station and lost his way, several blocks the wrong direction. As I gave him directions, he started out to find it, but since my trip was going the same direction we settled into a conversation.

He told me his name was “Christian.” That caused a bit of surprise, and led me to pay closer attention. It is not everyday you meet a person who introduces himself as Christian! A flag went up in my mind signaling that this could be one of God’s playful intrusions into my life.

It was not a dramatic conversation. He had newly moved into the area and was just beginning to explore it. As a long time resident, I noted how there is always much to do, especially with children. I realize now that I never even saw his child or learned anything about her. Or maybe it was a him? Talking about children isn’t the usual male topic.

He explained why he chose Alexandria after leaving the Air Force, with family near by and lots of opportunities matching his “skill set.” I answered his question about what I do. It is the common getting-to-know-you chatter in a city of career focused people.

As he turned left to walk down towards the museum while I was continuing straight, the goodbye was a simple and understated as our getting to know each other. His “Thank you for helping, Sir” caught me by surprise. Clearly his military training to respect an elder, but I am unused to being called “Sir.”

During those few minutes we walked together along the sidewalk, I experienced more than I expect in casual sidewalk encounters or providing directions around a confusing city. I cannot say with certainty that God was with us. I cannot know that anything happened beyond the unusual event of one man asking another for directions, and our breaking through the usual anonymity of city life to actually talk together for several blocks.

I walked on toward the theater with a new sense of hope for him, for me, for our future as two men journeying through life. For a short time we experienced community, which is definitely a gift from God.

Intimate Wrestling

While researching the story of Jacob with the angel, I looked for images available on the Internet. This drawing by Bonnat makes it dramatically visible how intimate wrestling is. Bare flesh against bare flesh, and faces held just inches from each other. The intimacy is not just physical. It includes all aspects of a person, such as the emotional and intellectual, as two persons battle to gain the upper hand, moving into a position of power.

How does this adult who avoided wrestling in high school gym class engage with this image? As a teenage male, holding another boy closely made me anxious. It was too close to the intimacy I desired even though society told me it was wrong. Even now, I want to avoid the intensity of wrestling, especially with God.

So, how can any of us put himself or herself into this story am imagine we can wrestle with God? As I try to picture what that would be like, I want to make it into an interior rather than an exterior struggle. I am good at intellectual manipulation of ideas and thoughts. That feels much safer. Yet, my own body betrays me with a knot in my stomach and tight shoulders. I am wholly caught up in the struggle.

One of my cherished images of God is a companion on my journey. I have been comforted by the idea of God walking beside me, often in silence, but there to turn to as I needed. There has been a comfortable distance between us, the equivalent of the 30 or so inches that social norms require for friendship. So, when did the One who has been nearby but not deeply engaged become so closely and intensely entangled in my life?

Didn’t I keep saying, praying, and hoping for a closer relationship with God? But I did not expect this kind of conflict between us, this struggle over who would be stronger. I want God to do it my way. Just like Jacob, I want to define the direction and set my own goals.

How dare I take on the all powerful, all knowing creator of my own flesh? Not only is it dangerous but it is totally foolish. There really would have been no match if God chose to be all powerful creator of the universe. I would have been beaten into submission at the first sign of my resistance. Maybe this is an invitation from God to move into a new level of relationship, or intimacy?

Crying at Baptims

This Pentecost with the baptism of an infant, Karl, as well as his mother, I found myself crying again. It started early in the presentation and reached full flow when I joined the rest of the congregation in saying “We receive you into the household of God . . .”

I have been much more aware of my emotions during church services in the last few years, and am still learning to adjust to them. Often during some point in the Eucharistic Prayer a few words will suddenly jump out at me, speaking directly to something I have been dealing with in my life. I believe it is a gift, God wanting to reassure me. That doesn’t make it any easier.

It can become incredibly awkward since men are not supposed to be emotional. I have decided that I am not going to stifle the emotions just to make other people more comfortable. That would feel like I am stifling God. In consideration for other’s sensitivities when the crying starts, I wait until people are busy making a joyful noise singing a hymn to blow my nose. Or, when my eyes are full of tears, I blink them back until there is a time for prayer and people are supposed to be paying attention to God rather than the guy several feet away who is dabbing his eyes.

I should not have been surprised by the tears last Sunday, as I looked at the parents and their young son. I saw their hope for Karl and the love of those standing with them. Baptism is a time for hope, for bringing the salvation of Christ into his life and in the welcoming him into a community that pledges to teach and encourage him into the faith.

Alongside that hope, I thought of all of the pain and grief that Karl would experience in growing up and becoming a mature person in faith. I wondered what kinds of problems he will encounter in his life, and if he would be overwhelmed by situations. I prayed that he will be given the strength and courage to face those problems.

The sadness grew because there is nothing any of us, including his parents, his godparents or the rest of the community can do to keep that pain away or to protect this young infant from all that will happen. He alone will have to find his way to cope with and overcome the turmoil. I wish it could be different.

So, one more Sunday, I had to stuff my damp handkerchief into my pocket before turning to those around me to exchange the Peace of God, my eyes still damp from tears, and feeling a bit foolish. Foolish for caring about what might happen to Karl. Foolish for wanting to be emotionally open to God and for God.

Sue’s Reflection on Spiritual Hunger

Sue lived next door to me during our spiritual direction training program. While she and I come from opposite sides of the globe, we found ourselves dealing with similar questions and struggles - searching for where our call was leading.

Recently I wrote Sue, “ I doubt I will ever feel satisfied… because I always seem to want more…” Sue replied, “I smiled as I read your words: I have recognized the same in myself for so long; but you know, I suspect that might be a grace to keep us in touch with what is in fact a deep spiritual hunger.”

I struggle with her response, even though I know that she has described something very true. I started down this path to spiritual growth wanting it to lead to being calm, peaceful, and satisfied. While there are times of quiet and centeredness, those times are only brief, infrequent, and rarely when I really need them.

What keeps emerging for me are feelings of the incompleteness and of not having done enough. I feel it as a failure, so when Sue reminds me to consider it a grace, a gift from God to keep me open, I am startled. Rather than being a failure, she understands that yearning as a gift from God. God is stirring me up, calling me forward.

Sue went on to write, “Some people never tap into that hunger for more and don’t want to, because it’s uncomfortable at least, painful at most.”

It is definitely uncomfortable and gets in my way. I easily slip into distraction from that unsettledness. I can numb myself in different ways, such as watching television, staying busy with work or church business, or fantasizing about creating a perfect garden. But, if the yearning is from God, then numbing myself is denying God’s persisting call.

The yearning often recalls places of pain, either from the past or how my life is being lived today. I become aware of how I failed at something in the past or I feel inadequate to resolve a current dilemma. So again, numbing the pain becomes very tempting and it is very easy to slip away from reality.

Alternatively, wallowing in the pain feels safer than risking God’s desire for more. By becoming stuck in the feelings, I don’t have to take on the hard work and challenge of getting on with my life. It avoids changing those things either within me or around me that have closed me to God’s desire.

In her gentle way, Sue leads to her own response, “I’m learning to befriend it.”

Again, she surprises me with what seems obvious. Rather than push away the yearning and discomfort, she urges me to bring it closer, and get to know it better. If the yearning is from God, than by approaching it I am approaching God.

It is not unlike some yoga positions that I attempt while watching the limber young woman on the DVD. With this aging body, I will never move with the grace and strength that she has achieved. I can still approach the movement with the hope that even in my imperfect execution, I am getting closer.

So Sue asks the final question any good spiritual director would. “What happens when you take that holy longing and restless desire for more to your God?????”

But I am afraid to take it to God. What might God ask or even require of me if I were to directly ask the question? Would I be required to take a radical step out of my current life? More questions rise up to keep me away from God.

I don’t know why I am afraid, if I truly believe that God is loving and wants to bring me into closer relationship. But the fear is there, and perhaps that is what I need to take to God in prayer, at least for now.

Ringing Compassion

I have been thinking about compassion a lot. It started a few weeks ago when I was at a flea market, and noticed many sizes of Tibetan singing bowls in one booth. One large bowl, nine inches in diameter and four inches deep, had a deep pure tone when I rang it with the mallet. The vendor showed me how to hold the bowl in the palm of my hand and rub the edge of the bowl with a suede covered mallet. Soon, soft vibrations began, growing louder as it responded to the friction of the leather.

Around the outside in a strange script is some writing which the man told me is “Om Mane Padme Hum,” a repeated prayer for compassion. That convinced me to buy it. Every few days since then I have rubbed the edge of the bowl so it would ring out a prayer for compassion in its full voice.

I need to hear that prayer for my daily life as well as during my time providing spiritual direction. It is hard to be able to be compassionate and stay present to the pain in others. I am not alone in readily hiding behind a wall by offering advice or by judging and rejecting the person in pain or by being unwilling to listen. It is hard for all of us to lower the protective wall. Being fully present with someone in pain strikes the memory of our own pain like the hard mallet strikes the singing bowl.

Compassion is grounded in being able to listen, completely and lovingly, even when my own pain, whether in the past or the present, claims my attention. My ability to listen is shaped by how I have claimed, respected and healed from my own times of suffering. The more I have been able to accept and remember my struggles, the more likely I am able to decide to let down the wall and really be available to another.

As a man, I am trained by my culture to be invulnerable, to stay in control of the situation, to keep up the wall. So the decision to let myself be affected by other’s wounding, to be vulnerable with any other person is counter-cultural. It challenges my internal habits and others’ expectations.

The model for being counter-cultural became more clear this year as I moved through Holy Week. Throughout the events of the Last Supper, betrayal, sham courts, beatings, and crucifixion, Jesus chose to be vulnerable. He chose to give up control, and to endure the worst that humans can do to each other. God in Christ experienced the full range of the emotional and physical pain.

What the social culture did not understand then and still does not understand is that Jesus’ choice to be vulnerable also opened him to the power God’s healing. So too, when I am able to be vulnerable, I am opened to the power of God’s healing.

Compassion is not ethereal or abstract, but is experienced in our presence with and for each other, just as God became flesh and was available for us. In offering compassion to another person, and in my awareness of God’s continual healing and forgiving compassion for me, I may make manifest God’s presence and compassion to others.

When I hold the singing bowl to strike it, its vibrations touch not only my ears, but all of me. So it is with God’s compassion. We can experience the ringing pure tone that touches body, mind, heart and soul, God with us.

Alone in the Presence

I had seen it several times during the Spiritual Director’s International Conference at the end of March. It is one of a series of Prayer Vessels by Monica Armstrong, who had liberally spread her art throughout the meeting rooms. Titled Alone in the Presence, Monica honors the spiritual wisdom of Julian of Norwich.

Julian was an anchoress in 14^th century England, which means that she lived the last decades of her life in a small cell with the door locked so she could not go out nor others come in. Her cell had a window into the church from which she could hear the Mass and receive the sacrament. There was a second window on the outside wall where anyone could come and talk to her and ask for her advice.

The prayer vessel represents Julian’s ministry of prayer, contemplation and spiritual guidance. She lived her life physically in the middle, between the church and the world. While observing the daily offices, she was not cloistered from the world but available to any and all who passed by. The prayer vessel creates a similar physical inner space of prayer and meditation, a part of the world while apart from it.

Julian was a holy woman who experienced visions from God and took twenty years to write her understanding of them in Revelations of Divine Love. Her non-punitive understanding of sin was radically different from the Church of her time. Also, Julian often used feminine images of God, even describing Christ as “our mother.” Her sense of the inclusiveness of God’s complete love led her to state: “all shall be well, and all shall be well, and all manner of thing shall be well.”

Alone in the Presence provides a striking contrast to Monica’s other vessels in bowl or bottle shapes which are traditionally seen as feminine forms. It stands tall and narrow as a tower, strong and visible, which is a traditionally masculine shape. While I am not privy to Monica’s vision for her artwork, I can speak to my response. It illustrates one medieval woman’s ability to stand, separate and tall, independent in an age when a woman’s independence often meant ostracism or death. She wrote and spoke God’s truth as she knew it, opposing the fear and turmoil of those days when the plague or violence from other people could strike anytime.

Julian’s cell has not survived and the church was destroyed by a bomb during World War II. However as the first woman to write a book in English, her words continue to inspire many who continue to learn from her vision over six hundred years ago.

Alone in the Presence now sits where I can see it while I provide spiritual direction, a reminder of Julian who preceded me in listening to others on their spiritual journeys.

Human Limits in the Perception of God

An important first step in any research project is to think clearly about the frame that will be used because it affects both the course of inquiry and its results. Without taking the time to define framing, a short explanation can be found in the introduction to Simple Framing by George Lakoff:

Carry out the following directive: Don't think of an elephant! It is, of course, a directive that cannot be carried out – and that is the point. In order to purposefully not think of an elephant, you have to think of an elephant.

The frame used in the Baylor Religion Survey (BRS) illustrates how a human point of view can limit and distort our perception of God. The report identifies (page 28) the two dimensions that were used to analyze the research analysis: “God’s level of engagement” and “God’s level of anger.”

For the sake of brevity, I will focus on the dimension of anger. Since one side of the graph assumes that God has some degree of anger at humanity, all of the responses to the survey are interpreted with that expectation. In this case the “elephant” in the report is “God’s anger.” All of the analysis done and reported results have that image of the angry God built into them.

This reflects the theological position of Baylor, its founders, its faculty and its students, so it is an honest frame from their personal experience. Even as the survey shows, there are many in the United States that believe in the Authoritarian and Critical God, so the researchers do a good job of describing what they know.

However, there are many of us in this country who do not experience God as angry with humanity. When I was growing up, Sunday School teachers constantly reminded me that “God is Love,” and God’s love is one of acceptance and welcome. Just as Jesus gathered the children to him during his ministry, we sang the song “Jesus Loves Me,” further building up that image of a warm, welcoming and caring God.

The assumption of anger by the BRS researchers does not describe my religious experience. By forcing all religious believers into that assumption of anger, they force a theological and experiential bias that is alien to many other people. Just as you cannot forget the elephant in Lakoff’s example, there is no way to forget the frame of anger built into the research reports.

While I keep trying to find some way to salvage some good from the report, I keep running into that angry elephant. I am disappointed because I had hoped to use the research in my conversations with people as their spiritual director. Yet there are two aspects of this research that I can apply.

First, there are a significant number of people in this country who believe that God is angry at them, either as an Authoritarian or Critical presence. When I am with someone in spiritual direction, I want to be sensitive to that belief, to listen carefully to how it affects their relationship with God, and whether it supports or interferes with their spiritual growth.

Second, I want to be aware of my own spiritual frames, and to avoid imposing them upon those who come to me for direction. I want to listen for how God may be acting in the other person’s life, which may be very different than my own history and experience.

It is only with God’s help that I will move beyond my own human, limited perception of God. I pray that God will challenge and support me.

Baylor’s four views of God

Time magazine had a special report summarizing the ongoing research study American Piety in the 21^st Century at the Baylor Institute for Studies of Religion. This study suggests there are four perceptions of God in the United States:

• The Authoritarian God “is deeply involved in daily life and world events. God is angry at sin and can punish the unfaithful or ungodly.”
• The Benevolent God “is deeply involved in daily life and world events but is mainly a positive force reluctant to punish.”
• The Critical God “does not really interact with the world but is unhappy with its current state and will exact divine justice.”
• The Distant God “does not interact with the world and is not angry. God is more of a cosmic force that set the laws of nature in motion.”

Perhaps you have already determined which definition fits you, or maybe none of them seem to apply? It might have been quick and simple to say “this is it,” or you found yourself caught between different viewpoints? Possibly you see yourself as having started with one viewpoint, but now being in a very different place? Or, maybe its doesn't work for you at all?

One life journey through the viewpoints

As I consider my own journey, this sociological construct of views of God might be useful for reflecting on that journey. As I proceed, I will take these at face value, without considering possible bias.

I was raised in a mainline Protestant denomination that viewed God as Benevolent. In a protected middle class suburban community in the 60’s and 70’s life was comfortable. While there was conflict in the world, it seemed far away and did not threaten me.

The family church was one that provided safety, support and nurture. In spite of mistakes and stupid things, God was not hovering to criticize or punish.

Leaving home to attend college, there was a mainline Protestant chaplain who convened a student group of like minded believers in a Benevolent God. Unfortunately that chaplain left after my sophomore year because the church was cutting budgets. But at least I found a group of like-minded people.

Freshmen year led to an encounter with the Authoritarian God. Fellow students regularly proselytized everyone. They promoted the “Four Spiritual Laws” and proclaimed only those who followed their view of God would be saved. Their Authoritarian God was involved in human life only through Jesus, who was presented as friend for all. I was not interested in the God they promoted. In fact, I began hiding my Christianity since using the word led people to think I was a part of that group.

It was also in college that I first encountered the Critical God. I assisted a woman student with cerebral palsy. She walked with crutches, so I carried her books and her tray at the cafeteria. She told me how her parents believed that her disability was God’s punishment upon her for some unknown sin. She was raised with that belief, yet struggled with it, wanting to reject it but not being able to overcome its dominance in her life. It was completely foreign to how I understood God, and it seemed a cruel belief system that caused her depression and suicidal thoughts rather than love and acceptance.

After leaving college, and beginning life as an independent adult, I began a period of deep personal questioning and doubt. While I attended congregations that proclaimed the Benevolent God, no one could show me how to know about God’s activity in my life. There were no guides to how to develop a relationship with God.

I attended seminary, hoping that along with the intellectual and professional training I would also find a relationship with God. While I had experiences that I now understand to have been of God, the academic atmosphere could not provide the perspective or the people to assist my understanding of God.

After seminary, I was a member for many years of a congregation in the Episcopal Church that took skepticism seriously and many are agnostic. It matched my growing sense of the Distant God. While God was not unimportant, the Christian education program focused on teaching an existential method for making decisions.

It was a powerful experience to get a practical process to think through how my decisions affect others as well as me. I could clearly own the impacts of the chosen action. No decision was fully right or fully wrong, because both sides of a decision involved costs and promises. That realization freed me to more fully reject the Authoritarian God or Critical God, which do not tolerate ambiguity.

However, as an existential process, God was not considered part of that decision making process. I struggled with that aspect. I wanted God to be involved, to be a presence in my life, and the congregation was uncomfortable with that perspective. The Distant God of the congregation was unable to guide me or comfort me.

But the Baylor model has some deep problems, reflecting many of the same biases as those Four Spiritual Laws that I encountered in college. But that is another topic.

Flames and Angels - Moses

When I graduated from seminary in the early 80’s, I bought a calligraphic print by Michael Podesta titled “Exodus.” The print illustrates the drama of Moses’ encounter with the burning bush. Framing the outside of the print is Moses’ plea to be left alone by God, his attempt to prove how unworthy he was of God’s attention. He argues “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” In the center of the print are orange flames rising up from the desert scrub with God’s words of promise and commitment, “I will be with you.”

Moses had been getting along just fine, in spite needing to flee to Midian after killing a brutal Egyptian overseer. He had established a life in exile, with a wife, son, and a home. The flaming bush appeared many years later, and God was calling him to leave all of that security behind. There was every reason to argue against God’s expectations for him to confront the overwhelming powers of government and civic religion.

When I try to picture myself in the story, once I got past my first response of grabbing the hose to put the fire out, I know I would do what Moses did. I would make excuses to get out of whatever those burning leaves were telling me. Who in their right mind wants to be told to quit their job, leave their family, and go to another country? I have bills to pay, and pension to think about, and responsibilities to my loved ones

Yet, several years ago, when I was teaching a class in which people could explore their own sense of being called, most of us wanted some kind of burning bush experience. As one person jokingly said, “I keep waiting for the billboard on the side of the Beltway to show up saying “Jan, your call is . . . .”

The appeal of the story for many of us is the clarity of God’s call. Maybe it is the residue of watching Hollywood’s version of the dramatic encounter with Charleston Heston as Moses. But that movie leaves out a significant part of the story; it downplays God’s demand for a dramatic change. Unlike the movie, the Bible tells us that Moses argued back. He complained about his fear of public speaking. He did not want the job.

Few people have those kinds of encounters. Maybe most of us would rebel against such a difficult and frightening expectation? Maybe we haven’t gotten as far off course from God’s hopes for us as Moses had? Maybe few are ever called to actions that totally reshape the history of a people and of the world?

For whatever reasons, God seems to prefer a more subtle approach, one which urges us along, gently pointing, opening or closing doors, and filling us with ideas and hopes. We are invited to join in being with God, to act as co-creators in building the dream God has for the world. Throughout that dream building, God is faithful to the promise made to Moses, the promise that “I will be with you always."

That is why I keep that print close. It tries to remind me of God’s promise to me, to always be with me. I don’t always remember that promise. Much of the time when I get caught in the distractions of work, adult responsibility, and commitments, I forget to listen for God. When I have been gripped with fear or loneliness in the middle of the night God seems far away. Then I start yearning for the burning bush, again.

But what I really want is to believe it when God says “I will be with you. Always.”