Things have changed. I am now comfortable with taking the Bible into my heart, not just my mind. It was hard work because I now see my heart was guarded by very talented stoic soldiers and I had to ask these internal guards to leave my heart open to attack by emotions. They listened. It is still hard work, for the Bible challenges me.
I think of my time at the Jesuit Center in Wernersville. Spend a week in silence, allowing for at least three hours of reflections on the Bible each day, and something has to crack. I didn't know what I was headed for on my first long retreat, I thought it would be a break from the daily routine, relaxing, a vacation. In my room was a suggestion, "Read and reflect upon Psalm 139." It ripped into my heart possibly even killing a stoic guard along the way. What emerged at first was anger and sadness which had been there for over 30 years. Four days later, God's love began to fill in the space which had been emptied.
Things have changed. A few weeks ago while worshiping at Wernersville, the beginning of Psalm 139 was read, while we chanted on being wonderfully made. I can believe, even with our flaws, that God creates us wonderfully. Is it that what we deem not wonderful, is truly wonderful? I see this as true. I struggle.
But God is never finished. Last week, my spiritual director directs me to Psalm 139, and now I am to face that God has chosen to create me in this way, at this time, at this place, with these joys, and with these pains. Again my faith is challenged to believe in a God who chooses so much, but I surely didn't chose these things, so who did. Was it God or was it nothing?
There are extremes here and I know folk at both ends, but I don't want to be in either camp. I can't imagine God choosing every thing that happens, and I can't imagine God having no choice. I explain this to my spiritual director who says profound things like, "this is good, you are awake, the exercises are getting things stirred up inside of you."
Showing posts with label hermeneutics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hermeneutics. Show all posts
Tuesday, September 25, 2007
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Hermeneutics of Discernment.
At this stage the idea of the Bible being a sacred text became a possibility in my thinking. I began to trust it as a place to search for answers. And that brings to mind how the United Church of Christ here in southeast Pennsylvania has hired a woman to be a spiritual leader for the conference. A month ago, she bowed in front of me as we leave a Mexican restaurant and says, "Oh great spiritual master."
I say, "No, taking classes to get a masters in spirituality does not make me your spiritual master."
she bows again and like most times we get together we laugh and smile.
Things started when I began to Walk With God. The PA southeast UCC'ers have a yearly spiritual retreat at a place called Mensch Mill. I have been to most but not all of these annual events. Sadly I will not be there this October because I am expected to be at work that weekend for professional training. I wish I could call out spiritually ill. I do take spiritual health days, but this weekend I can't get out of without major frowns from bosses.
Time with the Bible has led to it sinking from my head to my heart. Lectio Divina has been introduced on my retreats. One Lent I spent Saturdays travelling to be in a group of UCC'ers who took a spiritual journey together reading Joyce Rupp's Cup of Life.
The Bible has many images and names of God and it was during this stage that I let that list grow. The hermeneutics of Antipathy had blacklisted names, now I could begin accepting God in different ways.
I remember reading the Bible one day and coming across Jesus as master. It jumped out at me because it was ready to be considered. Yes, healer was easy, but master for me was not. I had thought of master as one who commands because of a need to exploit and control, not as one who guides through love. To this day some of the commands are difficult, for example I have yet to sell all my possessions to follow Jesus. That is when God, the one who forgives us, comes to mind. The one who celebrates each year as more and more of our money is given to those who feed the hungry, house the poor, and care for the abused. Well, I hope there is celebration.
I say, "No, taking classes to get a masters in spirituality does not make me your spiritual master."
she bows again and like most times we get together we laugh and smile.
Things started when I began to Walk With God. The PA southeast UCC'ers have a yearly spiritual retreat at a place called Mensch Mill. I have been to most but not all of these annual events. Sadly I will not be there this October because I am expected to be at work that weekend for professional training. I wish I could call out spiritually ill. I do take spiritual health days, but this weekend I can't get out of without major frowns from bosses.
Time with the Bible has led to it sinking from my head to my heart. Lectio Divina has been introduced on my retreats. One Lent I spent Saturdays travelling to be in a group of UCC'ers who took a spiritual journey together reading Joyce Rupp's Cup of Life.
The Bible has many images and names of God and it was during this stage that I let that list grow. The hermeneutics of Antipathy had blacklisted names, now I could begin accepting God in different ways.
I remember reading the Bible one day and coming across Jesus as master. It jumped out at me because it was ready to be considered. Yes, healer was easy, but master for me was not. I had thought of master as one who commands because of a need to exploit and control, not as one who guides through love. To this day some of the commands are difficult, for example I have yet to sell all my possessions to follow Jesus. That is when God, the one who forgives us, comes to mind. The one who celebrates each year as more and more of our money is given to those who feed the hungry, house the poor, and care for the abused. Well, I hope there is celebration.
Monday, September 17, 2007
Hermeneutics of Appreciative
When I returned to church ten years ago, I decided that if I would ever leave the church again, I wanted to know what I was leaving. So, I became a lay biblical scholar among other things.
I read the Bible from front to back and discovered a thing or two (thousand) along the way. Psalmists wanting enemy children bashed on rocks comes to mind. At that time , I had many doubts about God and so I think it was read with this lens of hermeneutics between me and the written word.
It carried forth into the time I began to lead adult classes at my church. I would go to commentaries and then talk about the meanings of Hebrew and Greek words. Talk about what was happening when the text was written. Talk about the story being told. If memory serves me as I reflect on this, it was this talk that was primary to my lessons. Reflecting on how the story touched my life was low on the priority. How scholars and authors across time had been touched by it was primary. I was in search of knowing what Christianity was about, not yet open to feeling an emotional response.
The above image of the mountain speaks to me as I think of one class which I taught. With concordance in hand I found fifteen passages from the Bible which mentioned a mountain. Each person in the adult class randomly chose a passage and then read it out loud. It was a whirlwind trip from here to there. Fascinating, but there was no time for reflection. They were read to tell the stories in the Bible, not to tell the stories in our hearts. I am looking at this image of a distant mountain seen through weathered rock. The mountain is framed. I am not seeing the full picture or fully experiencing the mountain.
I read the Bible from front to back and discovered a thing or two (thousand) along the way. Psalmists wanting enemy children bashed on rocks comes to mind. At that time , I had many doubts about God and so I think it was read with this lens of hermeneutics between me and the written word.
It carried forth into the time I began to lead adult classes at my church. I would go to commentaries and then talk about the meanings of Hebrew and Greek words. Talk about what was happening when the text was written. Talk about the story being told. If memory serves me as I reflect on this, it was this talk that was primary to my lessons. Reflecting on how the story touched my life was low on the priority. How scholars and authors across time had been touched by it was primary. I was in search of knowing what Christianity was about, not yet open to feeling an emotional response.
The above image of the mountain speaks to me as I think of one class which I taught. With concordance in hand I found fifteen passages from the Bible which mentioned a mountain. Each person in the adult class randomly chose a passage and then read it out loud. It was a whirlwind trip from here to there. Fascinating, but there was no time for reflection. They were read to tell the stories in the Bible, not to tell the stories in our hearts. I am looking at this image of a distant mountain seen through weathered rock. The mountain is framed. I am not seeing the full picture or fully experiencing the mountain.
Saturday, September 15, 2007
Hermeneutics of Antipathy
this is stage one of five during which I will travel with the help of some new big words provided from my professor at Chestnut Hill College. Ok, so I am blogging to get started on a paper due any day now.
When I was an undergrad in the early 80's I was given a paper to read in one of my environmental science classes that stated with some certainty that the mess we humans had created were all caused by Christians. It was all because God told us to subdue the world. At the time Ronald Reagan was president, James Watt was by his side, and I was an angry young man having just experienced a general lack of joy for three semesters at a conservative Presbyterian college. So it made sense to me. The Christians that made it into the media truly did seem to have a lack of concern for the ecology of the planet.
So, I became a humanist and saw more and more "deleterious consequences for human life" perpetuated by the Bible. Apparently this is what a hermeneutic of antipathy sees and looks for in the Bible. I still see it, but I see more.
So, why a photo of a Pileated woodpecker. The first one I ever saw made my heart leap for joy, something my stoic self tried to prevent. I was an undergrad. My love of nature had warmed my heart. My association with a group of like minded students had led me to the Smokey Mtns and there I saw this woodpecker the size of a crow. I have seen many in Pennsylvania since then, but that was my first sighting, and the joy leaped through my body. An early seed to break the antipathy.
When I was an undergrad in the early 80's I was given a paper to read in one of my environmental science classes that stated with some certainty that the mess we humans had created were all caused by Christians. It was all because God told us to subdue the world. At the time Ronald Reagan was president, James Watt was by his side, and I was an angry young man having just experienced a general lack of joy for three semesters at a conservative Presbyterian college. So it made sense to me. The Christians that made it into the media truly did seem to have a lack of concern for the ecology of the planet.
So, I became a humanist and saw more and more "deleterious consequences for human life" perpetuated by the Bible. Apparently this is what a hermeneutic of antipathy sees and looks for in the Bible. I still see it, but I see more.
So, why a photo of a Pileated woodpecker. The first one I ever saw made my heart leap for joy, something my stoic self tried to prevent. I was an undergrad. My love of nature had warmed my heart. My association with a group of like minded students had led me to the Smokey Mtns and there I saw this woodpecker the size of a crow. I have seen many in Pennsylvania since then, but that was my first sighting, and the joy leaped through my body. An early seed to break the antipathy.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)