The page is a scan from my mother's cookbook, and is one of the cleaner pages! The book is now falling apart from use, and has become a family heirloom. This recipe is for "fluff pudding", a family favorite that my mother would make. Add some hot custard, and it's a treat for any occasion. If the custard is runny and hot, the fluff melts as you eat to make the most amazing taste sensation. I'm miffed by church recipes! miffed - aroused to impatience; put into an irritable mood, especially by an offending incident Every Easter, Christmas, Communion, Sunday, Funeral, Wedding: like lemmings off a cliff we perform to formulaic recipes and presume to be "done" I'm miffed by the church. By the institutionalization of relationship. By the way people assume that "I've done that, so I'm ok now"
So why am I miffed? Because when we make our gatherings at church around a recipe, we end up with no nourishment, and any relationship we might have is with the food, not the cook.
I want my relationship with the cook to be front and center. The liturgy is a wholesome ingredient, but is it called for in today's meal? That song is melodic, but do I need this time? The trappings of communion ... are they letting me hug my lover, or embrace my pillow? (Mixed metaphors -- what a wonderful language we have!) But MOST OF ALL: is the food of my fellowship nourishing our relationships? This Easter, did we offer a cordon bleu meal of a beautifully decorated plate with a little unidentifiable something arranged in the center? Did we make a potpourri of foods so everyone could find something they liked to eat on their own? Or was my Easter a rambunctious gathering around a laden table with arms intertwined as we stretch to partake in the feast from the cook. I'm miffed. I missed my rambunctious feast, I missed the repartee of the cook, I missed the celebration of food that satisfies my hunger ... I missed the expression of my and our relationship.
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When the eggshell of your secure little bubble cracks, what will you find?
But, God's true lovers put a spanner in the works of the world. All at the same time being a knife, a light, a comfort, a warrior, a peace maker, a listener, a confronter, a thinker, a convention breaker, a giver, a server, a faith builder -- walking not the middle road but always definitive of Truth, humbly imperfect.
Is there a God? Yes. Is He a person? Yes. Does He want to know me? Yes. Can I know him? Yes. Is He worth knowing? Yes, beyond my wildest dreams. How do I find Him? Look beyond the myths of the institutionalized religion, have courage to leave your comfort zone, be honest with your reasoning, and you'll find Him standing in plain sight before you. Jesus: rational, defensible, testable, true. Continuing with exploring the dimensions of my theology ... I read a blog today ... and I objected. I don't agree. Awkward, because its a blog from a friend who is a church minister. Today he wrote about living by a Rule of Life, in which he turned his thinking about his relationship with God into a set of Rules of Life that expresses his response to God. Really, they're just principles, in themselves they're fine ... good principles to live by, I have no quibble with that. But, being the pedantic person I am, I could not stop myself objecting. You cannot frame Life by rules or principles. That's a contradiction in terms! Especially life with God! (More after the photo ...) Tell a plant to live by rules. Tell the moss that grows tenaciously the rules it must live by. That's nonsense!
Our existence is not a product of rules. Yes, we can identify in our existence the patterns of normative experience and call them rules, we can see the actions that are destructive and constructive ... the principles if you like. But these are our own constructions that we lay over a much more raw reality ... life has no cognizance of principles. Life in plants, animals, and humans exists in relationship with its environment. And my environment is one where I swim in God's creation, as God's creature. At my own peril I can ignore this reality, while to my undeserving benefit I can learn the blessings. Terry Pratchett, in his usual insightful manner, writes about someone: "Jeremy tried to be an interesting person. The trouble was that he was the kind of person who, having decided to be an interesting person, would first of all try to find a book called How to Be An Interesting Person and then see whether there were any courses available." How sad it is that we all do this. However much we deny it, we are each constantly in search of those rules that will make life Just Work. There's safety in rules, because then I have no responsibility. It's the rules. And my success of failure is simply dependent on whether I followed the rules. Underpinning everything is how I relate. My relationship, with the world around me, with people, and with God. Relationship. There is nothing more fundamental than that. And relationships do NOT start with rules. Relationships are dynamic and rich and deep and nuanced interactions that build or destroy. What we call rules are no more than our identifying those patterns that make relationship. And Rules of Life are no more than our recognition of how relationship works ... what God created us for. To serve and love others, through strength in humility, acknowledging in bruising honesty all that I am, and all that I am not. Rules of Life help me see the structure of relationship. Rules of Life do not define my relationship. And with God, there's often an exception to the rule where so many of the human-constructed rules are simply guidelines. God forbid that my relationship with him should ever begin in rules. In God's grace I will understand my relationship and live it, dynamically, ever changing, always developing, melding more and more into the God-intimacy I was created for. (Now I wonder how many people will mis-interpret what I mean ... there are only two real "rules" in life) Blessed are the cracked for they shall let in the light (Groucho Marx) I'm wrestling with thinking about thinking. Like this idea: http://xkcd.com/1163/ It's amazing how something cracked can give rise to illumination. So this blog post is, I suppose, by way of introducing a possible future series of blog entries on thinking about the difficult bits of my theology, even perhaps to try and describe my theology. I'm cracked, I know that. So how do I know if the my thoughts are merely products of the cracks? You see, reason and logic are about the only foundations we have to build anything that has strength. Opinion and feelings come and go as readily as I eat, drink, and go to the toilet. Reason, on the other hand, is testable in so far as we are true to the logic frameworks that are independent of our mood. What is a theology but a coat rack to hang your understanding on. It has form and function, and we try hanging our ideas on it. Some fall off, some barely stay on, and others hook on well. The ones that hang securely do not necessarily mean we have the right coat rack in all respects -- we need to have a frame where everything can find a hook of consistent understanding. The God of the old testament and the God of the new testament, judgment and mercy, grace and justice, these should all rationally hang comfortably on our theological coat rack. Likewise, issues of homosexuality, the death penalty, abortion, poverty, suffering, ambition, success, war, and so on and so on, should all have a place in our theology where they are rationally at ease with everything else. The danger is when we arbitrarily change our theology because it offends our sensibilities. The moment we do so, we find something else falls off our frame. But when the theology is right, all hangs secure and any remaining discomfort we have is our problem ... its not a reason to change the theology. Rather, we need to examine ourselves in honesty and ask why we don't like it. Be true to that which is permanent, not that which is transitory. |
Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
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