The joy of trains

 Matthew Fox, In the beginning there was Joy: a cosmic celebration for kids of all ages (Fairfield CA: Viriditas Press, 1995) 

In 1936, the New York Central Railroad began the transcontinental shipment of a 200 in mirror telescope blank to California. Reports indicate that it was guarded not only against breakage or other accidental damage, but out of concern that those who held to a literal 7-days of 24-hour creation would damage it deliberately, believing that humans had no business exploring the scientific wonders of the universe. That group would probably not be very happy with this book, which tells us that it is the first of a series to be known Father Fox's Fantastical Fables.

While too many have lost a sense of joy when it comes to the universe and its wonders, it is still real for many. For those who appreciate the idea that "a little child shall lead them" (Isaiah 11.6), this sense of openness is clear in this book. To a large extent, this is because of its use of superb images and design from Barbara LeVan Fisher. The writing style reminds me of Dr Seuss. Some of its references draws on medieval mystics. Through it, Fox retells the creation story and takes up an extended story of the coming of humans. With this, there is a place to find joy in diversity and the justice that must inevitably flow from it. It is quick to read, but also profound in its implications, and well worth returning to at a later time or times.

 

"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? . . .

When the morning stars sang together,

and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?

(Job 38:4, 7 NRSVue).

This is essentially a story book, so I would not expect to find a discussion of the role of myth or fable in it. However, a proper understanding is necessary to appreciating this book fully. Terms such as myth do not mean fiction; they refer to stories that tell us why things exist the way they do. When stories reach beyond our limited linguistic resources, including science, they explain to us. And in this book, they explain without losing the wonder of life.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

References:

• https://penneyvanderbilt.wordpress.com/2016/03/25/the-famous-palomar-telescope-in-california-received-its-lens-from-corning-new-york-via-the-new-york-central/
• https://digital.library.ucla.edu/catalog/ark:/21198/zz002j7jw1
• https://libanswers.cmog.org/faq/144100

#InTheBeginningThereWasJoy

A box for God

Human understanding often accepts received assumptions as something contained in a box. Inside the box is truth that is beyond examination, and thus cannot be tamed or controlled. “God” is a case in point. Moses tried this at a bush and lost. But he was not alone: years later John Wesley continued to ask if people would limit God. C. S. Lewis explores such limits in his less-well-known Space Trilogy, as a character states that "the laws of the universe are never broken. Your mistake is to think that the little regularities we have observed on one planet for a few hundred years are the real unbreakable laws, whereas they are only the remote results which the true laws bring about more often than not, as a kind of accident" (C. S. Lewis, That Hideous Strength, in The Space Trilogy, New York: QPBC, 1997, 710), again reaching outside the box. Thoughtful study with the brains God gave us should lead to thinking about something too big to be one thing, and to conversation and exploration rather than categories of control. 

Kristin Swenson engages in this process in her recent A Most Peculiar Book: the Inherent Strangeness of the Bible (Oxford University Press, 2021). A book that contains “lofty wisdom, inspiration, comfort, and guidance” also contains “bewildering archaisms, inconsistencies, questionable ethics, and a herky-jerky narrative style” that is often made worse by similar tactics from translators. The crux of it all is that “God . . . is simply far more complicated than these reductive efforts can sustain” and “far too big to be just one thing” (xii-xv). And back to where we started, compounding this is that much of what we think we know is a collection of received assumptions, interpretations, traditions, music and other arts, and simplified stories told to children (xvii). 

Like Dietrich Bonhoeffer's “cheap grace” that makes religion a market commodity in keeping with much of American culture, Swenson refers to “cheap faith” that reflects this god-in-a-box attitude of a power to be controlled and manipulated, as Moses tried to do at the burning bush. As a collection of books, authors, reflects cultures and practices in languages that are quite different from today’s, the Bible still invites us to explore as an act of faith  (36, 57, 101). 

To get beyond this, a good beginning is to approach the Bible and not assume that we know what it says and let it speak to us. Doing this recognizes that the Bible is diverse, and requires the use of all of our faculties in the same way we are to love God (231). In doing that, we ought to rethink received traditions and interpretations in light of new knowledge and experience. People with disabilities will be familiar with this idea. The Bible repeatedly enjoins us to fair and equal treatment, but in its pages we can also see the persistence of outcasts created by stigma and discrimination. The old notions about disability still keep God and all of us boxed away.

We might ask who the outcasts are as well as how those people came to be outcasts. We might also ask why a book that asks us to think of everyone as our neighbor has been taken by some to allow—if not command—discrimination. The teaching of Jesus about disabilities would be a good lesson. We see that he does not wipe out the old—rather, he reminds us of what the Torah and Prophets mean without the accretions of traditions from culture. Jesus repeatedly included people with disabilities in his work, and went so far as to restore them to society. And he never sent them a bill, told them to start a Go Fund Me, complained when their debts were remitted, or sent them home hungry. The Zen-like and Moses-comprehending Jesus hasn’t changed.

This hit home after reading a recent CBC opinion article about October’s disability employment awareness month: a tale of being told someone can’t do a job, without even a cursory evaluation. The medical model of something being wrong with the person, rather than the limitations of facilities, results in pervasive ableism. This box of ableism is compounded in churches by not considering what the Bible really tells us and an unwillingness to confront cultural attitude. The truth will set us all free, but we have to explore beyond the boundaries of the box of cheap grace. That, again, is the kind of thoughtful study using the brains God gave us, but it also requires conversation, not the imposition of control.

Disclaimer: I borrowed this book from the Indianapolis Public Library, promising to return it within three weeks, which I did, even though they no longer threaten to fine late returns. In this I was aided and abetted by borrowing it as a Kindle book, which is automatically returned. They also kindly reminded me that by using my library card, I have saved over $700. 

 

Gospel Empowerment

A review and response to Dennis R. Edwards, Might from the Margins: the Gospel's Power to Turn the Tables on Injustice (Harrisonburg Virginia: Herald Press, 2020).

As every year draws to a close, Lake Superior State University issues a list of words that should be banished from use . I watch for it with generally fulfilled hope that we might find respite from banal, overused, and oxymoronic language. But one word that stands high on my personal list has yet to make it to this esteemed group: I’ve long been tired of “empowered.” It’s not the idea of empowerment that bothers me, it’s the paternalistic and hypocritical way in which the word is usually used. Only rarely are pronouncements about it accompanied by true empowerment—usually it means that responsibility for things that go wrong has shifted down, but not the authority to change the patterns that caused the problems. 

So I rejoiced when, early in the book, the author stated “I no longer use such language. The power of the Gospel comes from God, not from other humans—particularly not from those who fear losing control and influence” (31). It is those who fear losing control who use these tactics the most, as a soporific to make others think they’re getting somewhere.

 

This book explores various aspects of power within the gospels in relation to the church. Edwards focuses on racism as an African-American, but notes that many other abuses exist: he explicitly extends its reach to patriarchy, wealth, and being physically attractive or able-bodied. This group includes the people who typically are at the top layers of social stratification, and they also typically view their position as resulting from their own work or strength, or flowing from a sense of divine right. Later in the book, Edwards extends the traits to include charisma and extroversion, which work together to create an atmosphere of self-promotion. This is a close relative of social Darwinism, a self-justifying ideology that turns away from the idea of adaptability as a virtue in favor of survival of those who label themselves the fittest. It’s odd that those who champion the use of Darwin as a social phenomenon are often those who deny Darwin’s thoughts elsewhere, but such is how things often go.

The gospels call us to freedom. But too often, the gospels are used to construct misleading readings that justify our prejudices and the systems that support them. The gospels are a story of empowerment, but have been turned from a story of outreaching grace into a series of propositions and rules that one assents to. Did you dance? Out. Did you go to the movies? Out. Were you born with a disability? Oh, my, what sin are you hiding? Did you give someone a quarter? Oh, good. Did you think about the reason why that person needed the quarter? We won’t talk about that.

Into this breach between grace and practice step the prophets, who see behind the world's glamor and status symbols. Prophets point out injustice as they call people to hear God. They call for action, because the well-being of God’s children is endangered, and they are angry, because things are not right. 

Prophets call to us across the ages. The Negro spirituals are a historical example: they connected slaves to the biblical story, and found a way to live in faith with a God who promised deliverance for those who lived as chattel. Their songs still offer hope to everyone who is marginalized. In this light, I  think of the ability to discern a different, more honest reality during this “Autism Awareness Month.” These prophets have a message that we comfort ourselves with that “awareness” that tries to avoid “acceptance.”

Prophets offer hope. This includes hope for many whose disabilities mean that their “bodies struggle in environments not designed for them” (139). Those who are disabled, whether physically or otherwise, along with others who experience suffering, are the ones who can truly understand hope. Hope is not, as Edwards reminds us, a vision held by an affluent teenager in some bedroom community who hopes for a Lexus on her birthday. Hope comes from those who live with the painful realities of life, those who are also the ones who can understand what renewal is like, what it is like to be where God intends.

If this idea strikes a chord and you see this in time, the Methodist Federation for Social Action and the Association of Ministers with Disabilities are sponsoring a discussion with Kathy Black, one of the first theologians to take on ableist misreadings of the gospels in her book A Healing Homiletic. It's on April 17, 2021, and you can check it out here.  

Disclaimer: I borrowed this book from the Indianapolis Public Library, with the understanding that I would return it in three weeks, which is exactly what happened. I also notice that they have now ordered six more copies. Empower on! 

 

 

Searching for the scriptures

 Review and reflection: Karen Armstrong, The Lost Art of Scripture: Rescuing the Sacred Texts (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2019) 

The Bible is generally regarded as the most influential book in the world, and is consistently among the best-sellers. Whether that is for good or ill is less certain—it may sell well, but it doesn’t seem that all of the buyers read it, as this meme reminds us. And when it is read, disputes about how to understand it are nothing new, as church history tells us. Many forget the principle of starting from the larger view and moving on to the details, and get lost in the proverbial forest because of the trees. 

Armstrong takes a larger view in this book, first by including the other scriptures of the world, and linking them to historical developments. This method of surveying of Hebrew, Christian, Greek mythology and philosophy, Hindu, Muslim, Sikh, and Chinese writings produces fascinating insights and parallels. This approach views sacred texts not primarily as instruction manuals, but as prods to seek that which is behind our great questions. In this, she would seem to agree with the classic view that divine matters come to us as an enigma, understanding comes from seeking truth, imbued with a sense of wonder (Plutarch, De E Apud Delphos 384, 385). 

This quest to pursue an enigma engages both sides of our mind. Failure to understand this, along with the role of each of the two sides, leads to an imbalance that is literally killing us. It is multiplied when listening to those who cherry-pick completely non-representative passages from scriptures and use them to characterize their prejudices in a way that leads to increasing strife and misunderstanding. 

Regaining the balance of the two sides gets a lot of attention here, and to me, it’s the best part of the book. Neurology tells us that the truth behind Plato’s cave parable (Republic 514a-520a) is reasonably accurate: we don’t have direct contact with the world. What we do have are perspectives gained from our senses, which are only representations of reality. Our mind’s left side senses linear, scientific ideas, while the right side deals with relationships and a desire for justice, as well as unity. The right is also more attuned to “other” and “Other.” Armstrong maintains that the right side is where prophets, speaking poetically, expressed their scriptural insights, and that the prophets have been among the few to integrate that with the practical left side. However, in today’s world, a scientific mindset has upended the balance, and seeks to define (i.e., set limits to) the infinite, thereby containing it. 

Scripture, in all faiths, is a product of civilization, which is also a science (a body of knowledge which requires specialized skills and training), but it is also an art. As a sacred text, often divinely revealed, it is authoritative. But it is also something that lives in the right hemisphere of the brain, the land of music and poetry. It does not “mean” anything as such, but is meaning itself (just as, some theologians state, God is being itself)—and as Armstrong writes, like all religious language, it “must eventually segue into the silence that is an expression of awe, wonder and unknowing” (68). 

The origins of scriptures are not in writing, but in performance—singing, reading, acting, and liturgy, and thus it requires interpretation, the same as a musical score. It is not intended to confirm a stance, but to challenge and call for transformation. A note on writing: as Armstrong notes, while known in the ancient world, writing was unwieldy and used as a memory tool or for records. It was not intended for daily use or, and it was understood that one who studied the stories knew them by memory (Plato, Phaedrus 274c-275b). We can also note that this approach, evidenced by quoting the first lines of a passage, is found in the Gospels and Epistles. 

However, since the Enlightenment, especially in the West, everything, including scripture, is increasingly read with a scientific approach instead of a spirit of wonder and enigma. Its byproduct, the Reformation, celebrated the written word and sought clarity and definition.  Armstrong doesn’t note the irony of the “law of unintended consequences” here—the Reformation spawned not only this attitude, which has befuddled the meaning of scripture, but also set off demands for personal and political freedom which came to haunt religion and the governments that established churches supported. 

Armstrong concentrates on a shift from scripture as a prod to radical change to using it as proof-texts for what becomes an increasingly smaller view of the world. One of the casualties of this search is the insistence of Augustine (among others) that scripture taught only love of neighbor. She notes that the Chinese philosopher Fang Yizhi (1611–71) wrote that this misleading, mechanistic approach created a West that is “detailed in material investigation … [but] deficient in comprehending seminal forces” of the ineffable (390, Fang Yizhen, Wu li xiao, 1.25a, 1.6, 12a). As the doctrinally-centered approaches which this pursuit results in increase, there is a loss of transcendence, which leads to self-serving justifications that are cruel, divisive, and complacent. In this regard, Darby is little different from Qutb or many others today: scripture is read to confirm one’s views rather than to seek transformation. If more people read the scriptures with a seeking attitude, there would be a lot less disability exclusion and a lot more acceptance in a shared, inclusive journey. Scripture is incomplete when, as the United Church of Christ suggests, we place a period where God places a comma.