Sunday, November 30, 2008

Advent Musings...

Experiencing "my" Christian identity is like admitting I have a dysfunctional family. I've spent a long time trying to figure out ways to hide that I'm Christian. I've spent a long time trying to deny that I feel moved by (read: love) my tradition in ways that defy language. I've even spent a long time focusing on other people's Christianities in order to escape my embarrassment of what we have in common. It's true: I belong to the same religion as Fred Phelps, Jim Jones, and those who operate Trinity Broadcasting Network. I also belong to the same religion as Anne Lammot and Jeremiah Wright--people who tell the truth with unparalleled wisdom and compassion. At some point I've got to accept the fact that what I have in common with other Christians doesn't really matter. Maya Angelou once said "becoming a Christian is a life-long endeavor." Touche. Life-long perhaps because it's so easy to think it's this versus that, or us versus them. High Christology. Low Christology. Textual literalism or liberalism. Life-long perhaps because love is so much softer, in its whisper, than these screaming lines drawn in the sand.

This morning while sitting in church I began to think about the fact that people were killed in Walmart this week b/c of the materialism frenzy that spreads like wild-fire (in America) during Christmas time. It's a damn shame, for real. But then we have these high and mighty types who pull out their "Jesus is the Reason for the Season" signs and shame all things non-Christian in response. I agree that Jesus would vomit if he saw how his memorialization process got manipulated into retail therapy for our (economically) depressed souls, but I also think he would detest his name being used as the "reason" too. Jesus was almost always pointing to something greater than himself, to the "kingdom of G-d." Why are folks so quick to throw Jesus' name out but so slow to look at the life he lead, the values he professed, the way his disciples ministered to their communities in honor of him after Calvary? Sometimes I think people pull on Christ just to judge their neighbors instead of getting curious about their neighbors or touching their neighbors' pain. He has become a war cry, a rallying "name" for the barricades of our faith. How sad. Well, not today. Not in G-d's name. As I endeavor to "become a Christian" today I will seek the whispering Word, the kind that comes to connect and heal, the kind that stirs in the belly of a womyn promising to infuse life with wonder and delicacy...

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks, Emily, for this post. It was just what I needed to see today. I think for those of us who consider ourselves "liberal" or "progressive" we get stuck sometimes on the details. But it's really the process that matters.

Michelle Puckett said...

"Jesus was almost always pointing to something greater than himself, to the "kingdom of G-d."
Yes. Thank you for grappling with these questions, and thank you for doing so publicly. And thanks for the comments on my blog. Peace.

Tai Amri said...

I love it, two of the most loved and respected womyn in my life reading each other's blogs. Jah is good! And thank you for reminding me that being a Christian is an everyday process.

My church was cleaning out its huge, and rarely updated library these past weeks. There is an unbelievable amount of work to be done in it. Including addressing books like, "Man and God" or "God and His People" with a cover full of Jewish men. It's also interesting to see what books on men the church has. One made me think of you, it was called "Jesus and his Sisters" and it was a novel about the life of Jesus from the perspective of his sisters. You remind me of what I would think Jesus' sisters would be like, the ones who tried to point out to the people that Jesus wasn't pointing to himself, he was pointing to a way to Jah. Thank you Sister,

Tai Amri

Kate Anger said...

What is it? I find myself repulsed by the symbols of the season that usually make my heart glad. I'm so turned off by those in loud proclaim, the reason-for-the-season folk you write of, but I know that really, it's only a finger pointing back at myself. How are we called to live? How have I responded? Did Jesus even wish for the any of the institutions we have built? So I choose the Nutcracker-themed stamps over the Madonna & Child, trying to ignore my discomfort with the use of these symbols. Thank you for opening a forum for this type of discussion. I know you understand ambivalence.

insta-wade said...

yeah...I like your reading of Christianity. I like that it's work. I just out of a class where we talked about how Christology and Christian theology in general is built on the Western philosophical foundations of singular truth. The professor's take is that you can't be Christian unless you buy into it or engage it sufficiently. To base it solely on experience is to ignore the philosophical foundations of your own experience. I came back to your blog to remind myself that the struggle is important.
Thank you also for your tribute to Diane Thomas. I barely knew here, but this place feels like there's a slight vacuum, like it's been punched in the stomach and hasn't caught its breath.

Unknown said...

Thanks for checking me out Kate! I look forward to our continued conversations though I'm sad about the screens between us. Alas...

I love the question you ask, "Did Jesus even wish for any of the institutions we have built?" This question runs through my mind often, especially when I drive by certain religious buildings that look like a cross(!) between Las Vegas lush casinos and the Vatican. All that money and architectural pomp--for what? It reminds me of a news report I saw yesterday on the Queen of England's desire to increase support for low-income-families in 2009. They juxtaposed this report with telling the viwers of the million dollar jewels embedded in her royal crown. I was on chaplaincy rounds in the psych ward while watching this segment of television and a schizoprehenic patient said, "if she wants to help poor people, maybe she should take off that hat."

...and these are the people we lock up and call "crazy"??!!

For me, again, it's like the recognition of a dysfunctional family. I see what's wrong and yet I'm totally implicated by/in it. When I was 11 I was repulsed by my dad. Everywhere we went I tried to keep a distance because I was so "cool" and he was so uncool, nerdy, out of style, so--adult! I hadn't differentiated enough as "Emily" to be anything other than "Bill's daughter" in my own mind. Being with him in public just reinforced this. That's where I'm at with Christianity. I haven't differentiated and developed my own Christianity enough to know where I start and these fundamentalists/bible-literalists stop. It's not that I want to "other" them, but I certainly want to offer an alternative to their way-of-being in the choices I make and faith I profess. Being "in public" with them just reinforces that I have work to do in my relationship with G-d, Christ, Mary, my community of faith, etc. I know where I stand on the Nutcracker. But how to address the dichotomy of divinity and humanity running through my religion, especially as its rhetorically linked to a "virgin"--(read: non-sexual yet pregnant womyn)--that's a tad more difficult. Yes Kate, ambivalence is at the heart of it all.

stevecaks said...

"At some point I've got to accept the fact that what I have in common with other Christians doesn't really matter."

I think that what we as Christians have in common is vital. We share Christ as a savior and life-giver--and "forgiver." Christ, as our elder brother, paved the way to life for us to follow. Each of us follows--and is allowed to follow--her or his own gait when following but to minimize the importance of the commonality is to stray from the path, which each of us desperately needs to stay on. Those who stay on the path realize that the "uncool" father gets smarter as time goes on.

Unknown said...

I disagree that there's "one" path. In fact, that's exactly what's at stake here for me (and for the world). How can you explain the diversity of Christologies, the immense amount of denominations making polar claims all in "Christ's name"?? I'd rather we just admit that we are ALL interpreting Jesus for our own ends.

I think what we have in common (and, by extension, what we don't have in common) is less important than how we live. Period.

stevecaks said...

I am beginning to think that we may be saying the same thing but approaching it from different angles.

How I live reveals the path that I am on. How I treat others reveals Christ within me, or not in me. It is what Jesus saw in the Gentile centurian and Syro-Phoenician woman that He did not see in the Pharisees and Sadducees, proud of their status as "chosen." It was true of the "sheep" who did not know they were encountering Christ when they ministered to "the least of these." Implicit in the reply of the "goats" was that they were "trying"--how could they not be on the path.

Denominations do not make one aware of God's path. Some may come closer than others but none have a "corner on the market." The torture that you feel is perhaps a rending of yourself away from devisive denominationalism toward the path of which I speak. If your heart is right, you are on God's path, not necessarily even realizing it. If your heart is elsewhere, the path eludes you, despite your best efforts to find and follow it. The "next best thing" is only a simulation, which might persuade other people for awhile, but doesn't fool God for a second.