How My Life Is Being Changed by Seminary

Last week, when I was in the middle of reading Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy (and actually enjoying it!), I found myself thinking, "There's no way I would ever do this on my own."  That's not to say that I would not engage with the Hebrew Scriptures in some way; but, without taking this required course, I'm pretty sure that I would never have taken the time to wade through these books as I am now doing.  Instead, I'm fairly certain I would have cherry-picked a few passages that I liked and ignored the rest.

And this morning, as part of my site work for my Community Studies course, I met a homeless man who, at age 60, decided he wanted to learn to read and has been going to classes for the past couple of months.  Last week, at his recovery group meeting, he read the serenity prayer out loud to open the meeting.  Would I have met this man had I not been in seminary?  Not likely.  I might have waxed on about the determination of many homeless people to learn and grow, but this kind of first-hand engagement probably would not have occurred.

So, what I'm learning from seminary is not so much "things" (as in facts and figures); rather I am learning how to engage with the world in new and meaningful ways.  In other words, that whole "living our way into new ways of thinking" thing seems to be working for me.

I am so grateful for this opportunity for deep and profound learning.

And here's a common thread across courses that I just picked up on: embodied experience.  It's a term that's central to the theology of Sallie McFague (whose work I'm learning about in my reading for my upcoming Liberal Theology course); it's also what I'm learning about in my field site; and it's definitely a central theme in the Hebrew Bible.  More on this topic later . . .

But the word is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart . . .

Deuteronomy presents a number of challenges, but I found it interesting, if only because of the lofty rhetoric employed to recapitulate (and, in some cases, reformulate) the story of the Israelites, the hardships they faced in Egypt, their escape from the cruel tyranny of the Pharoah, their struggles in the wilderness (always led by God just before them), their various battles with other tribes, their laws, and their eventual deliverance.

The book reads as a series of sermons to rouse the troops and to remind them of the good that will surely be theirs if they obey the law of the LORD, and the curses that will befall them is they do not.  As usual in the Mosaic books, the curses outnumber the blessings by about 4:1, so it was clearly the theory back then that the stick was more effective than the carrot as a motivational tool.

So, as I said, Moses rouses, reminds, reassures and harangues the Israelites in this lengthy valedictory address.  And then, toward the end, in chapter 30, my favorite passage appears:

"For this command which I charge you this day is not too wondrous for you, nor is it distant. It is not in the heavens to say, 'Who will go up for us and take it for us and let us hear it, that we may do it?' And it is not beyond the sea to say, 'Who will cross over for us beyond the sea and take it for us and let us hear it, that we may do it?'  But the word is very close to you, in your mouth and in your heart, to do it."

Here Moses proclaims that the era of the mythological hero is over.  It's not up to some superhuman to go find that elusive something from the gods that will help us lead our lives and fulfill our destiny.  Rather, the word (the word!) is already with us in our mouths and in our hearts.  And it is up to each of us to live up to it and to live into it.

May it be so!

" . . . and things of this sort befell me": Reading Leviticus

I found Leviticus pretty rough going--especially the lengthy section on the particulars of burnt animal offerings. And the God character is still huffing and puffing and refusing to conform to any of our contemporary warm and fuzzy notions about Him.

And then I came to the 10th chapter, which begins with a startling narrative about two of Aaron's sons who bring "alien fire" before the Lord, and, because of this offense, God kills them on the spot.  Moses tries to explain to Aaron why this was necessary, but, of course, his words don't quite seem to hit home. As the Bible says, "And Aaron was silent."

Then Moses starts to insist that Aaron and his remaining sons eat a meat sacrifice in the proper place and the proper way as an offense offering in order to atone for the wrong that their family has done.  And it's at this point that Aaron speaks:

"'Look, today they brought forward their offense offering and their burnt offering before the LORD, and things of this sort befell me. Had I eaten an offense offering today, would it have seemed good in the eyes of the LORD?' And Moses heard, and it seemed good in his eyes."

I notice something interesting about this rather poignant passage.  One of its messages seems to be that Moses' relationship with his brother Aaron trumps priestly law in some way.  Moses did not continue to insist that Aaron and his sons make further sacrifice, nor did he chastise.  Rather, he simply "heard."

I find it significant that there are echoes of Genesis 1 here; and notice how that echo moves from "seemed good in the eyes of the LORD" to "seemed good in his [Moses'] eyes."

I am reminded of one of my favorite Miraslov Volf quotes: "Relationship is prior to moral rules; moral performance may do something to the relationship, but relationship is not grounded in moral performance."

I was also thinking about one of James Luther Adams' observations about covenant: "The covenant can include a rule of law but it is not fundamentally a legal agreement. It depends on faithfulness, and faithfulness is nerved by loyalty, by love . . . Ultimately the ground of faithfulness is the divine or human love that will not let us go."

And such was the love, it seems, between Moses and Aaron.

Up to My Neck in the Hebrew Bible: Big, Muddy Wisdom

I've been reading a lot of commentaries, criticisms, and reflections about the Hebrew Bible for my Hebrew scriptures class.  Almost all of it is interesting and helpful, and much of it is ambiguous and leads to more questions than answers.

I'm sure I'm not the only person who is involved in scripture studies who asks himself--repeatedly--why am I reading this and what real relevance could it possibly to life as I know it?  And, as with most questions that I've stumbled across recently, the answer seems to be "nothing" and "everything."

The textbook we're reading makes it clear that the Hebrew scriptures are literature and not mathematical formulas or scientific data.  Nor is this literature historical in a contemporary sense, although the historical elements are very important.  But what's there is, at its most essential level, narrative and poetry.

So any appreciation, I think needs to start from that place.  We're not likely to find hard and fast historicity or hard and fast anything, for that matter.  The genius of the Hebrew Bible, at least in part, is its stubborn and apparently purposeful ambiguity.

We are so far removed from the authors/editors/redactors/copyists of these works that it's pretty much impossible to understand exactly what they were thinking and what the exact significance of this literature was to them.

So, the tradition that becomes most important is the one that points to the narrative itself, to the poetry, the wordplay, and the other devices employed to create something that is endlessly meaningful.  And how does meaning (and in some cases Truth) emerge from that which is so ambiguous?

I'm beginning to learn that meaning and truth are elusive targets.  I'm beginning to learn that the struggle which is ours is informed and enriched by the struggle that others have had for centuries when facing these same ambiguities contained in the Hebrew Bible and elsewhere.

Jacob wrestled with God and was rewarded for his efforts, even though he had no idea what he was doing.  We, as students (of life, of love, of meaning and truth), wrestle with what we have inherited--the myths, the poetry, the redundancies and inconsistencies--in order to reap the reward of making sense of what is going on in our own lives in our own time.

We can't fully know what the scripture meant to those who wrote and developed it, but by building our own relationship to it, we can find our own meaning.  And therein lies the great big, muddy wisdom of the Hebrew Bible.

The Story of God Learning to Be God

I've been reading Genesis for my Hebrew Scriptures class, and I really like the idea, suggested in one of the commentaries I read, that the book of Genesis is, at least in part, the story of God learning to be God.  He's all over the map in terms of his relationship with humankind, sometimes stern, sometimes forgiving, sometimes seemingly indifferent.  And he's willing to strike bargains.

At one point, Abraham is trying to save his nephew Lot and asks God if he will spare Sodom from destruction, despite the depravity of everyone living there.  God says if 50 virtuous men can be found there, he will spare the city.  Abraham eventually talks him down to just 10 men.  But none of that seems to matter as God's angels start destroying the city before anyone can even start the search for virtuous men.

In contemporary parenting parlance, we might say that God had boundary issues.  The experts tell us that we are supposed to set firm (not rigid, but firm) limits with our children and enforce those limits consistently.

But not only does God keep changing his mind about the limits, he's also very selective in how he enforces them. Is it any wonder, then, that humankind has turned out to the the petulant, whining, wild child that it is?

As Genesis progresses, it does seem as if God gradually backs away from so much direct involvement in human affairs and is content with sending angels to do his business for him.  So is this backing away sort of like the father who yells at the kids and then returns to watching the football game?  Or is it more like the parent who has found out that some (if not most) lessons are best learned without a parental mediator?

Still, even in the midst of all this dysfunction in Genesis (and there's a lot of it), there are moments of grace, like the way Joseph deals with his brothers:

"Fear not: for am I in the place of God? But as for you, ye thought evil against me; but God meant it unto good, to bring to pass, as it is this day, to save much people alive. Now therefore fear ye not: I will nourish you, and your little ones. And he comforted them, and spake kindly unto them."

Beauty Walk

The first assignment for our Community Studies class was to read an essay by Carol Lee Sanchez, "Animal, Vegetable, and Mineral," and then take a mindful walk through our neighborhood.  We were to describe where we walked and one thing that surprised or delighted us.

Carol Lee Sanchez is an artist and poet who believes that Euro-Americans waste resources and destroy the environment "because they are not spiritually connected to this land-base, because they have no ancient mythos or legendary origins rooted to this land . . ."  She attempts to articulate the "concept of 'relationship' or relatedness and the idea of the sacred in our lives, from a Native American-American Indian perspective and to suggest some ways of embracing a Tribal way of thinking."  Sanchez posits that there is nothing in this world that can be called unnatural or separated from Nature: "Indians say that to live a good life is to walk in Beauty."

Below is an excerpt from my own 'beauty walk."

I am surprised by the first hints of fall—the tinge of yellow on the edges of leaves, the delightful coolness of the morning, the beginning diminuendo of chirps and buzzes, croaks and flutters.  When I left five days ago, it was late August in North Carolina—temperatures in the upper 90s, sun-scorched yards, and humidity that only the mosquitoes could enjoy.  But sometime during my absence, a seasonal shift began, and now the morning is filled with the clearly discernible whisperings of autumn . . .

Many of the houses here, including my own, are “mill houses” constructed for the workers and their families, who had to pay rent to the mill owners for the privilege of living in these small wooden structures, built low to the ground.  Many of them still have their original tin roofs; almost all of them have additions that have been constructed over the last 75 years or so to accommodate our ever-expanding lifestyles and the advent of indoor plumbing.

I walk past the one remaining mill building in town, which since the mid-1970s has been a shopping mall with clothing boutiques, a hair salon, jewelry store, restaurants.  The red-brick structure with rough-hewn hardwood floors sits at the center of town, and next to it is our beloved food co-op, whose yard serves as the unofficial town commons—a gathering place for shared meals and music and seemingly endless streams of conversation . . .

I turn to the right, onto a side street that leads me to the elementary school where my daughter recently began her career as a kindergartener, just across from the tiny house that served as her pre-school.  Our community has a rapidly growing Hispanic population, and my daughter is in a dual-language program, spending half of her day learning in Spanish and the other half in English . . .

I'm reminded of the Native Americans who must have lived here, probably close to the creek that runs a few blocks behind our house.  And I wonder if they enjoyed the first promises of autumn as much as I do.  As I return to my house, I begin thinking about the words of Rumi, "Let the beauty that we love be the beauty that we do."

The Goddess of Not Cleaning Up

A snippet of theological conversation between my 5-year-old daughter Ella and me tonight at bedtime:

"How many gods are there?"

"Well, different people believe different things, but I tend to believe there's one spirit that binds everything together, and that's what I call God."
"I think there's like 40 gods and goddesses."
"Oh, yeah?  Like a goddess of the moon and a god of the sun, and the trees and everything?"
"Uh-huh.  And a god of candy.  And a goddess of not cleaning up--and you know who that is?"
"Who?"
"Me!"

The music of what happens

If, like me, you are setting out to achieve something that seems at this moment impossible, something that simply can't be done, I direct your attention to this quote from Thomas Powers:

"The composer Stravinsky had written a new piece.  After it had been in rehearsal for several weeks, the solo violinist came to Stravinsky and said he was sorry, he had tried his best, the passage was too difficult, no violinist could play it.  Stravinsky said, 'I understand that.  What I am after is the sound of someone trying to play it.'"

Meadville Orientation Day 3

We started the day with another excellent worship experience, including a very nice homily by David Owen-O'Quinn.  The rest of the morning was devoted to learning about community studies site logistics, teaching pastor logistics and credentialing logistics.  There was a fair amount of anxiety about seemingly conflicting information and questions about special situations.  I started to drift away a bit during some of the discussion but regained a sense of place and purpose after staring at the stained glass window at the front of the chapel and writing a short poem (posted elsewhere on this blog).

After lunch, several second-year students presented their end-of-year projects for the community studies course.  All three were outstanding and aptly illustrated the kind of perspective-shifting experiences that each of us might expect over the course of the year.  I was especially taken with Jennifer's experience volunteering at Cathedral Kitchen in Camden, New Jersey.  She quoted a passage from Father Michael Doyle who has done a lot of work in Camden, which he described as being located ". . . one hour from Philadelphia's Independence Hall and zero seconds from God."

The students then took questions from us newbies, which was helpful, if somewhat anxiety-provoking.

We ended the day with vespers, being joined by all the faculty and the second-year students, whose congregational studies orientation begins tomorrow.  I wasn't expecting the faculty to process fully-robed into the chapel in such warm weather, but process they did, accompanied by some beautiful organ music and all of us singing "Rank by Rank Again We Stand."

Lee Barker delivered a very thoughtful and inspiring sermon, entitled "I Bloody Did That"-- a line borrowed  from the poem "Cathedral Builders" by John Ormond:

They climbed on sketchy ladders towards God, 

with winch and pulley hoisted hewn rock into heaven, 
inhabited the sky with hammers, 
defied gravity, 
deified stone, 
took up God's house to meet him, 
and came down to their suppers
and small beer,
every night slept, lay with their smelly wives,
quarreled and cuffed the children,
lied, spat, sang, were happy, or unhappy,
and every day took to the ladders again,
impeded the rights of way of another summer's swallows, 
grew greyer, shakier,
became less inclined to fix a neighbour's roof of a fine evening, 
saw naves sprout arches, clerestories soar, 
cursed the loud fancy glaziers for their luck, 
somehow escaped the plague, 
got rheumatism, 
decided it was time to give it up,
to leave the spire to others, 
stood in the crowd, well back from the vestments at the consecration, 
envied the fat bishop his warm boots, 
cocked a squint eye aloft, 
and said, "I bloody did that."

Chapel poem

Zoning Out During Seminary Orientation

Staring at this stained-glass window
Amid the arches at the front of the chapel
I wonder how many people have stared
At this window and what was held in their hearts.
What sorrows, what joys, what concerns,
How many prayers have found their way

Through this window, flying up and out
Over our heads, flowing through and around
This place, this sacred space,
This place of learning and worship.
The hymns that have stirred souls
Piping through the organ and in voices raised.

What can this moment filled as it is
With anxiety and unknowing have to do with
The beauty of the human soul revealed
In attitudes of praise and prayer and wonder?
Everything, I think, and nothing.
Still, something is moving.