Spiritual Autobiography

An assignment I did for class...

To My Future Children:

The imagination is a paradoxical thing: endless and somewhat limited. Endless in that we can conceive of anything and everything and limited in that our imaginations often fail to affect reality in all the helpful ways we think it should. The problem with humanity, once eloquently stated to me by my Professor of Christian History Randi Walker, is that we can imagine perfection yet our personhood is such that we cannot ever attain it. And this, my ones to come, is the story of my experience with(in)/of/for God. Theology and faith are like the imagination, paradoxical things: endless and frustratingly limited.

I wanted to write to you about “the question of God” being central in all my endeavors, yet this nomenclature doesn’t fulfill the communicative task at hand. Although theological questioning colors a majority of my personal religiosity, it does not constitute my faith entirely. My father, a minister, theologian, and institutional skeptic encouraged me from infancy to question everything. My mother on the other hand, when realizing what an extremist, intellectually inexhaustible child she had produced, encouraged me to live a life of balance. These encouragements to question and balance have been at odds with each other from day one. I am much better at the former; hence when I say “the question of God” doesn’t fulfill the communicative task at hand it is because much of my energy has also been spent trying (and failing) to decelerate the questioning process in a pursuit of balance. I believe this quieting of the mind falls under the category of faithful action, contemplativeness, or spiritual discipline. It is a somewhat problematic distinction, this ‘mind’ and ‘spirit’ thing, though I must admit in theory and praxis I have not been able to overcome or integrate it. Perhaps you will be the first in a lineage of Type A personalities to do so. May it be so, dear God.

The communicative task at hand is (near) complete with the concept of ‘orientation.’ That is: I have been theologically and faithfully oriented from the womb. Though I have no conscious recollection of my experience in the womb, I bring forth this metaphor to hammer home two points: 1) I believe the cosmos are situated in the womb of God therefore I could never have been dis-oriented from her; 2) I cannot imagine my life without the questions, pursuits, doubts, relations and language of religion/theology. The metaphor serves to illustrate this constitutive element of my identity. And speaking of metaphor, I want to pass on to you one of the most important things I have ever read, that strikes me as Truth (if any such capitalizing or pronouncements are permissible by the time you are born).
This comes to you from Adrienne Rich, one who often prophecies to my little helpless heart when the confines of language threaten to annihilate the planet and those trying to describe it with their stupid religions:

Of course, like the consciousness behind it, behind any art, a poem can be deep or shallow, visionary or glib, prescient or stuck in an already lagging trendiness. What’s pushing the grammar and syntax, the sounds, the images—is it the constriction of literalism, fundamentalism, professionalism—a stunted language? Or is it the great muscle of metaphor, drawing strength from resemblance in difference? The great muscle of the unconstricted throat? I’d like to suggest this: If there’s a line to be drawn, it’s not so much between secularism and belief as between those for whom language has metaphoric density and those for whom it is merely formulaic—to be used for repression, manipulation, empty certitudes to ensure obedience. And such a line can also be drawn between ideologically obedient hack verse and an engaged poetics that endures the weight of the unknown, the untracked, the unrealized, along with its urgencies for and against.

I have found the “muscle of metaphor” to be essential in the religious quest. This quest is one that depends on and deepens as a result of non-narrow communication. If one is talking about God or attempting to deconstruct the idolatrous gods of our culture, the biggest mistake is to employ literal language. I hope you come to know and be a part of the poetic enterprise; it will certainly enliven your time here on earth. May it be so, dear God.

There is a place where God cannot be known, a place where humans cannot even understand what they “know,” and a place where the limits of language obstruct humans from saying what they mean and meaning what they say. As a theologian, this is the place that I yearn to visit. As a worshipper, this is the place I praise for its majesty. As a person, this place reveals my finitude and serves as the great equalizer between me and my human family. I suppose this place is the “unknown, untracked, unrealized” that Rich writes about. Perhaps it’s the space that swims and swirls “for us”: a pool of messy and neat, soft and rigid, birthing and dying all the time. Perhaps it’s the great ontological enabler, our God. Who knows.

This is less autobiographical than I had anticipated, but to know your mother, is to know her thoughts about the great mystery. So in a sense, this is my autobiography. Just know that every move I have made, relationship I have formed, prayer I have said, fit I have thrown, atheism I have adopted, music I have played, body I have touched, or career path I have chosen, it was because that thing kept my orientation in tact.

And so I end as I began: with paradox. The more I pursue theology/religion, the less I grasp. The questions usually get me off balance. The balance, when it comes, often leads to new insights which bring about more questions. I have no answers and very little balance, only metaphors, paradoxes, and infinite hope that as Adrienne Rich says, I am on the side of the line that is capable of “enduring the weight of the unknown.” May it be so, dear God.

Actually: there is one last thing I want to say. I love you already, even before you are 'materialized'/born/here/alive. This is, without a doubt, the greatest illumination of faith and hope I can bring you. This world is an ugly place a lot of the time. People get hurt and then they get angry and punish people for their hurt. Then those people get angry and punish other people for their hurt. The cycle is on-going, some might say 'hopelessly' so. There are acts of horrific violence and violation that testify to this worldly ugliness every minute of the day. And yet...I still want you to 'be here,' to know the smell of morning time, the breath of the ocean on your skin, the secrets of standing alone after you've hiked a hillside, the give-it-as-you-go spirit of compassion, the grief of love lost, the beauty of your bodies...all these things. I have faith and hope, for you, for everyone but especially for you, that forgiveness and grace somehow infiltrate this world in ways that make life worth loving.