Dissonance
Time is, like all halfway decent things, a slightly irregular sphere. I just want it recorded somewhere that this is my own damned idea, one un-disseminated in my rightfully un-published science fiction writings of the last several years. That I come to it via cut-rate literature rather than the quadratic equation betrays my own stance regarding science and theology: science is a tool. I don’t mind it, especially, and I certainly don’t fear scientific claims, but I don’t feel particularly beholdin’, to use the vernacular.
I don’t really think that Pythagoreans take the Holy Spirit captive, of course, but I do throw my lot in with the mystics. Forced to choose, I would vow with Blake that a ball rolling halfway up a ramp after its descent is simply the work of ten thousand sweating angels, if for no other reason than it’s more interesting that way. My own theology being primarily based in transformative experience rather than in inductive and deductive reason, I’ve always taken it as assumed that God creates the heavens and the earth; if one encounters Otto’s pneumen in any significant way one must consider scientific findings to be something beside the point.
Which is not to say that science has no say, but it is to say that I’m neither metaphysical realist nor biblical literalist and think that no matter what we might make claims about, all we get back from what we describe is more scientific and/ or religious language, or, failing that, everything we cannot essentially describe. One sees the theistic difficulty. God is both a synonym for transcendent reality and for human limitation.
To say all of this another way, science is only ultimately valuable in so far as it illuminates the nature of God and constitutes Augustine’s second revelatory ‘book of nature.’ Otherwise, I’m not particularly interested. Of course there will be conflict: if there were an evolutionary advantage to lying, say, one would have to ask hard questions about the right position of evolutionary development in human society, a task for which the language of creation seems more suited than the scientific language which describes evolution in the first place and does not necessarily surpass it.
So it is not that creation and evolution are ‘a collection of unrelated language games,’ as Barbour disparagingly phrases it, but that the language games, being all we have, are inescapable and intertwined, in no ways unrelated. As a Christian, I privilege one, but would hope to know both, and would hope that knowing one would improve my pronunciation of the other, especially as they both, of course, remain languages of God.
In my aforementioned fiction, time’s spherical – and thus nonlinear and noncyclical – nature means that time can have a center from which all events originate. The language is only poorly scientific. But it is particularly theistic, and creational. One of course would not have to press very hard to guess the event I would place at the center of the ever-expanding sphere (and no, it's not the Big Bang). What would such a creation say about the shape of God? About God’s intent and our dependence? And what would the irregularities imply?
So I avoid Barbour’s call for an evolutionary metaphysics. I don’t see the need to integrate something already inherently integrated in human activity: the same people, being human, after all (though too few of them) are speaking about both creation and evolution. We don’t need a system to combine them because we are the system, and, so far as we speak of them, they are thus already combined. What we need is not a metaphysical system but a system of people with the appropriate polyglot fluencies. Will they be synonymous? One would hope not: that would erase the point of our twin tongues.
So I would beware of any sort of synthesis: it doubts the ability of the intelligent to hold two disparate ideas together, and it certainly would erode the value of each one to sharpen the other – as iron sharpens iron, so to speak. To affect a system, one must introduce something external to the system. One would certainly not want to advance the problem of the Disappearing Theistic Evolutionist (behold, a system! And he vanishes, no longer being necessary). No, no, my own language of faith would insist that a certain tension must endure, however little we might like it.
Monday, October 26, 2009
On Barbour's Natural Theology: Consonance
Consonance
In a short story I once portrayed God as an overweight hack romance novelist, his son Jesus as an exiled Israeli construction worker, and the Holy Spirit as a little yipping dog they kept in their shared and tremendously cluttered Cleveland apartment. The Holy Spirit was taken captive by a cabal of Pythagorean geometricians; an order of Franciscan mystics eventually rescued the pup.
I liked that tale. I felt it had good cheer. The developments in Eden, the story-within-the-story, were a scripted surprise for everyone, one of those moments that astonishes you but you really should have seen coming all along.
So I resonate strongly with the idea of creation being both structure and chance; it relates to my elsewhere paradoxical notion of truth being both constitutive and transformative. And I am glad to see that we are perhaps ready to stop seeing God as some kind of damned German engineer, though I doubt we’re ready for the lesbian poet-goddess. Maybe God as an Anglican lion singing creation into existence is about as far as we dare go. I’d settle for that.
Regardless, chance seems required. One can only change a system by introducing elements not contained within the system – a system can only transform itself if it has maintained some elements over which it does not have absolute control. And one can certainly say that there are vast elements of nature which seem to be under no one’s absolute control, however interconnected they might be: it is difficult to imagine God juggling the atoms of Hurricane Katrina.
The play in the universe is like the play that used to exist in the drive chain of my father’s Ford Bronco: it thumps, especially in reverse. The drive chain of the universe works but does have its hiccups. One can perhaps imagine God as a jazz musician listening for the right cords to play along the resonating frequency of the universe. Does God incorporate the discord? Doubtless it only makes full sense at the end of the performance, however the trends play out along the way.
But it does not need to even do that much. A philosopher of religion once noted that determinists have a hard time with chance, via the quantum firings of our brains, being an element of free will: our choices being subject to the laws of probability does not seem to make us any freer than being subject to the laws of biology. I insist, on the other hand, that it is precisely the element of chance that makes free will possible, lest we be like computers programmed by our own reasons. Choices might be to some degree arbitrary; they certainly seem that way.
We have to be willing to surrender absolute control of our self-systems for our self-systems to change. Chance critiques the universe. Or, the Christian account is not that the raw self is free, but the transformed self is. To continually run out the script of one’s own desires is to be no more free than one would be under the laws of probability. So, surrender as such cannot be to God lest it be a bribe; it must simply be surrender, resignation to the chance that God will work.
Did I even read the reading? Yes, yes I did – creation ex nihilo means that God creates forever! – but there is no greater demonstration of play in the universe than the emerging reality of global climate change. It is not our will, lest it destroy us. It is not God’s will, lest God’s work be undone (or it is the apocalypse, but it seems too restrained for that). Yet it happens nonetheless, contingent both on our willed behavior and God’s continuing willed creation of the universe.
The system, to change, must incorporate elements external to the system. Order and chaos displayed in the symphony of humanity’s ongoing brinksmanship with its own destruction. We can tell that something enormously bad is going to happen, but cannot say precisely what, let alone our ability to reverse the damages. God must surely sympathize. Not all creation may have will, but all creation does have freedom. One doubts that even God could run computer simulations capable of predicting the results of excessive carbon emissions on long-term worldwide atmospheric conditions – though God might, of course, be able to write a pretty bad novel about it.
Truth is both constitutive and transformative. Creation is an avalanche: you can tell that there’s going to be one, but even God can’t say precisely where it goes.
In a short story I once portrayed God as an overweight hack romance novelist, his son Jesus as an exiled Israeli construction worker, and the Holy Spirit as a little yipping dog they kept in their shared and tremendously cluttered Cleveland apartment. The Holy Spirit was taken captive by a cabal of Pythagorean geometricians; an order of Franciscan mystics eventually rescued the pup.
I liked that tale. I felt it had good cheer. The developments in Eden, the story-within-the-story, were a scripted surprise for everyone, one of those moments that astonishes you but you really should have seen coming all along.
So I resonate strongly with the idea of creation being both structure and chance; it relates to my elsewhere paradoxical notion of truth being both constitutive and transformative. And I am glad to see that we are perhaps ready to stop seeing God as some kind of damned German engineer, though I doubt we’re ready for the lesbian poet-goddess. Maybe God as an Anglican lion singing creation into existence is about as far as we dare go. I’d settle for that.
Regardless, chance seems required. One can only change a system by introducing elements not contained within the system – a system can only transform itself if it has maintained some elements over which it does not have absolute control. And one can certainly say that there are vast elements of nature which seem to be under no one’s absolute control, however interconnected they might be: it is difficult to imagine God juggling the atoms of Hurricane Katrina.
The play in the universe is like the play that used to exist in the drive chain of my father’s Ford Bronco: it thumps, especially in reverse. The drive chain of the universe works but does have its hiccups. One can perhaps imagine God as a jazz musician listening for the right cords to play along the resonating frequency of the universe. Does God incorporate the discord? Doubtless it only makes full sense at the end of the performance, however the trends play out along the way.
But it does not need to even do that much. A philosopher of religion once noted that determinists have a hard time with chance, via the quantum firings of our brains, being an element of free will: our choices being subject to the laws of probability does not seem to make us any freer than being subject to the laws of biology. I insist, on the other hand, that it is precisely the element of chance that makes free will possible, lest we be like computers programmed by our own reasons. Choices might be to some degree arbitrary; they certainly seem that way.
We have to be willing to surrender absolute control of our self-systems for our self-systems to change. Chance critiques the universe. Or, the Christian account is not that the raw self is free, but the transformed self is. To continually run out the script of one’s own desires is to be no more free than one would be under the laws of probability. So, surrender as such cannot be to God lest it be a bribe; it must simply be surrender, resignation to the chance that God will work.
Did I even read the reading? Yes, yes I did – creation ex nihilo means that God creates forever! – but there is no greater demonstration of play in the universe than the emerging reality of global climate change. It is not our will, lest it destroy us. It is not God’s will, lest God’s work be undone (or it is the apocalypse, but it seems too restrained for that). Yet it happens nonetheless, contingent both on our willed behavior and God’s continuing willed creation of the universe.
The system, to change, must incorporate elements external to the system. Order and chaos displayed in the symphony of humanity’s ongoing brinksmanship with its own destruction. We can tell that something enormously bad is going to happen, but cannot say precisely what, let alone our ability to reverse the damages. God must surely sympathize. Not all creation may have will, but all creation does have freedom. One doubts that even God could run computer simulations capable of predicting the results of excessive carbon emissions on long-term worldwide atmospheric conditions – though God might, of course, be able to write a pretty bad novel about it.
Truth is both constitutive and transformative. Creation is an avalanche: you can tell that there’s going to be one, but even God can’t say precisely where it goes.
Tuesday, October 20, 2009
Sermon: The Lies We Live By
The Lies We Live By
“James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you."
And Jesus paused. It’s not there in the text. But Jesus paused. He had just said: “the Son of Man will be handed over…they will condemn him, mock him, spit on him, and flog him.” So we’ve been through this, right? Just last week! The First Shall Be Last, the Last Shall Be First. But the disciples of the Way of the Servant come up and start off with they want him to do something for them.
So Jesus…pauses. A rabbi, a teacher. Knows that this is what we might today call a teachable moment. Not the first one. Matter of fact it’s the third, just on this topic. But that’s alright. We keep going until we get it.
And he said to them, "What is it you want me to do for you?" You see, this is great. Jesus gets to play this out, to see what’s inside their darned fool heads. And he gets to do it by being the demonstration. This is Jesus, right? History’s biggest object lesson.
So you know, when the Hebrews of the Old Testament responded to a call – Moses, Moses – what did they say? “Here I am” or “Ready!” is better translation. Present. Ready. Waiting. What is it you want me to do for you? The same attitude.
And they said to him… "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory." And Jesus takes a big, deep breath. It’s not in the text. But Jesus takes a big, deep breath.
Now it’s a little easy to be hard on the disciples. They’ve been thick. But are they that stupid? I mean, what similes would they have for Jesus? What precedents would have fit? The Romans, right – they understand submission! What about the Pharisees – they know love, they live it out, right? No?
No. Think of the disciples as people who have been lied to. Every moment, every occasion, of every living day. People who were told that all Romans were citizens, unless they were women. People who were told that all men were free, unless they were slaves. People who were told that they had a voice in the Empire, unless they lacked property and pedigree.
And that’s just on the Gentile side of things, that’s not even talking local politics. Israel politics. Temple politics. The culture of the Temple being built on the backs of day laborers working for a pittance after the Romans had taxed them off of their own land.
Were they daft, the disciples? Or did they simply live in a world so thick with the lies of status and wealth and privilege and hierarchy that they could not breathe in any place where those lies were not.
Now that’s not us, right? We aren’t lied to. We don’t get false messages about who we are or what we want. We aren’t told literally 5,000 times a day that we can purchase happiness, that pleasure has a price. We aren’t told that all men and women are equal, so long as they can afford some decent clothes and dental work. We aren’t told everyone is free, so long as they can afford a vacation, a car, a retirement fund, a nice little ranch house. We aren’t told that we still have day-laborers in this country, this city, this neighborhood, but that’s okay because that work just gets done, they need jobs, don’t worry about it – no, we aren’t told that, of course.
And if we were lied to, we would see right through it, wouldn’t we? If we were told that all we needed to do to be saved would be to give all we have to poor and follow Jesus, we wouldn’t even hesitate. We’d hear that, right? If we were told that all this church would have to do to was empty the coffers, pour everything out, just dump the entire budget into the Shelf Of Hope, we wouldn’t even blink. We’d see to that straight off. Here I Am. Ready. What do you want us to do for you?
You know, we’re ready to talk down that Prosperity Gospel. We know that’s wrong. But you start actually talking about the Way – you start talking about the Poverty Gospel – oh, that’s different. If Aron got up here and started talking about how this church, how Gethsemane Episcopal still just has too much money, that’s what’s holding us back! Too much dough!
Well then that’s harder. And if you change that around, start talking about other kinds of wealth, if you start talking about It Is Easier For a Camel to Go Through the Eye of a Needle Than for A Nice Church Building to Serve the Kingdom of Heaven, then that’s harder still.
People start looking at you funny, like they don’t hear you just right.
So, not so stupid, these men. Think of the disciples as people who have been lied do. They’ve seen the Way, they just haven’t seen the way out. Not yet.
But Jesus – Jesus lets out that big, deep breath – and says "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?"
Now we don’t even know exactly what this means. Could be Eucharist and Baptism. Could be crucifixion. Could be the Heavenly Feast for all we know – Table Arrangements at the Apocalypse. You do not know what you are asking.
They replied, "We are able." Isn’t that nice? Last week we’ve got the truly righteous young man, this week, we’ve got the disciples all ready to do you know, whatever. Good stuff! We Are Able. Not: what do you want us to do for you? But: We Are Able.
This way, you know, you get to be a servant without actually worrying about the service. Because we love service in general. It’s only the particularities that are unpleasant. We Are Able. To do what, exactly?
Then Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.” Well, if they don’t get it now, they’ll get it later. They’ll look back and remember that certain things were said. The lesson, after all, is soon going to become one great big undeniable detail.
“But to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared." Because the table’s already set, right? Raised up right* and left*. Who sits there, eventually? Two bandits, thieves. Criminal scum. Maybe a drug dealer, a day-laborer. These are, you know, his people. Right before this you got Jesus blessing the dirty rugrats and turning away That Nice Young Rich Man. Right afterwards, he treats with a blind beggar. His people.
At my right and left hand, says the Lord. For them it’s been prepared. Think of the disciples as people who had been lied to.
What do lies do? The disciples have been through this three times now: Jesus is going to die. And if they follow Him, so will they. Jesus has been clear. Unequivocal, even. Plain, ordinary, everyday Aramaic. And time and time again they don’t get it. Are they stupid? Or does it seem like there is just maybe something wrong with them…doesn’t it? Something wrong, what, like an illness, like a spiritual thing.
Think of the disciples as people who have been lied to. So that they cannot see the truth.
And by the way, that later blind beggar gets exactly the same question from Jesus: “What would you have me do for you?” And of course it’s “Teacher, let me see again.” So pop! It’s done. Your Faith Has Made You Well.
Think of the disciples as people who have been lied to.
So Jesus called them and said to them, "You know that among the Gentiles those whom
they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.”
There’s this book, a scholarly classic, ‘Metaphors We Live By’. Two ideas shape everything we do: the stern father, the nurturing parent. Not right or wrong, these metaphors. Just what we get being in a family, being a kid. Stern father. Nurturing parent. Among The Gentiles Their Rulers Lord It Over Them. Stern father. Paterfamilias is the Roman word.
“But not so among you, whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. Nurturing parent? Those are the details, right? Their diapers and food and clothes and toys. Messes and necessities. So we’ve got this right: hope does go on a shelf. Service is no idea. Service is physical reality. Let The Little Ones Come To Me. Nurturing parent. There's a lesson.
Think of the disciples as people who have been lied to.
“For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
For who? How many? The criminal who the Romans released instead of Jesus? All Israel preserved for giving up one of its own? Everyone in here? Everyone out there? Or was it, maybe, for those disciples, who would get it in the end, in every sense of the term. Maybe that’s just how much it took. Maybe the lies were just that strong. Maybe it’s not just metaphors we live by. Maybe it’s lies, too.
Well. I’m not going to ask Gethsemane to empty out its budget. Or you to give up your possessions. But I am going to tell you: You are being lied to. Every minute. Of every day. And we don’t get it. If we did, the world would be different. We would be different. But we’re not. And it’s not.
So. You disciples: Who is lying to you? When, and why? And what truth are we so blind to? And if you could ask Jesus to do for you, would it be a place at the right hand of God, or would it be, finally, simply, to see clear through all that bull.
Amen
“James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came forward to him and said to him, "Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you."
And Jesus paused. It’s not there in the text. But Jesus paused. He had just said: “the Son of Man will be handed over…they will condemn him, mock him, spit on him, and flog him.” So we’ve been through this, right? Just last week! The First Shall Be Last, the Last Shall Be First. But the disciples of the Way of the Servant come up and start off with they want him to do something for them.
So Jesus…pauses. A rabbi, a teacher. Knows that this is what we might today call a teachable moment. Not the first one. Matter of fact it’s the third, just on this topic. But that’s alright. We keep going until we get it.
And he said to them, "What is it you want me to do for you?" You see, this is great. Jesus gets to play this out, to see what’s inside their darned fool heads. And he gets to do it by being the demonstration. This is Jesus, right? History’s biggest object lesson.
So you know, when the Hebrews of the Old Testament responded to a call – Moses, Moses – what did they say? “Here I am” or “Ready!” is better translation. Present. Ready. Waiting. What is it you want me to do for you? The same attitude.
And they said to him… "Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory." And Jesus takes a big, deep breath. It’s not in the text. But Jesus takes a big, deep breath.
Now it’s a little easy to be hard on the disciples. They’ve been thick. But are they that stupid? I mean, what similes would they have for Jesus? What precedents would have fit? The Romans, right – they understand submission! What about the Pharisees – they know love, they live it out, right? No?
No. Think of the disciples as people who have been lied to. Every moment, every occasion, of every living day. People who were told that all Romans were citizens, unless they were women. People who were told that all men were free, unless they were slaves. People who were told that they had a voice in the Empire, unless they lacked property and pedigree.
And that’s just on the Gentile side of things, that’s not even talking local politics. Israel politics. Temple politics. The culture of the Temple being built on the backs of day laborers working for a pittance after the Romans had taxed them off of their own land.
Were they daft, the disciples? Or did they simply live in a world so thick with the lies of status and wealth and privilege and hierarchy that they could not breathe in any place where those lies were not.
Now that’s not us, right? We aren’t lied to. We don’t get false messages about who we are or what we want. We aren’t told literally 5,000 times a day that we can purchase happiness, that pleasure has a price. We aren’t told that all men and women are equal, so long as they can afford some decent clothes and dental work. We aren’t told everyone is free, so long as they can afford a vacation, a car, a retirement fund, a nice little ranch house. We aren’t told that we still have day-laborers in this country, this city, this neighborhood, but that’s okay because that work just gets done, they need jobs, don’t worry about it – no, we aren’t told that, of course.
And if we were lied to, we would see right through it, wouldn’t we? If we were told that all we needed to do to be saved would be to give all we have to poor and follow Jesus, we wouldn’t even hesitate. We’d hear that, right? If we were told that all this church would have to do to was empty the coffers, pour everything out, just dump the entire budget into the Shelf Of Hope, we wouldn’t even blink. We’d see to that straight off. Here I Am. Ready. What do you want us to do for you?
You know, we’re ready to talk down that Prosperity Gospel. We know that’s wrong. But you start actually talking about the Way – you start talking about the Poverty Gospel – oh, that’s different. If Aron got up here and started talking about how this church, how Gethsemane Episcopal still just has too much money, that’s what’s holding us back! Too much dough!
Well then that’s harder. And if you change that around, start talking about other kinds of wealth, if you start talking about It Is Easier For a Camel to Go Through the Eye of a Needle Than for A Nice Church Building to Serve the Kingdom of Heaven, then that’s harder still.
People start looking at you funny, like they don’t hear you just right.
So, not so stupid, these men. Think of the disciples as people who have been lied do. They’ve seen the Way, they just haven’t seen the way out. Not yet.
But Jesus – Jesus lets out that big, deep breath – and says "You do not know what you are asking. Are you able to drink the cup that I drink, or be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?"
Now we don’t even know exactly what this means. Could be Eucharist and Baptism. Could be crucifixion. Could be the Heavenly Feast for all we know – Table Arrangements at the Apocalypse. You do not know what you are asking.
They replied, "We are able." Isn’t that nice? Last week we’ve got the truly righteous young man, this week, we’ve got the disciples all ready to do you know, whatever. Good stuff! We Are Able. Not: what do you want us to do for you? But: We Are Able.
This way, you know, you get to be a servant without actually worrying about the service. Because we love service in general. It’s only the particularities that are unpleasant. We Are Able. To do what, exactly?
Then Jesus said to them, "The cup that I drink you will drink; and with the baptism with which I am baptized, you will be baptized.” Well, if they don’t get it now, they’ll get it later. They’ll look back and remember that certain things were said. The lesson, after all, is soon going to become one great big undeniable detail.
“But to sit at my right hand or at my left is not mine to grant, but it is for those for whom it has been prepared." Because the table’s already set, right? Raised up right* and left*. Who sits there, eventually? Two bandits, thieves. Criminal scum. Maybe a drug dealer, a day-laborer. These are, you know, his people. Right before this you got Jesus blessing the dirty rugrats and turning away That Nice Young Rich Man. Right afterwards, he treats with a blind beggar. His people.
At my right and left hand, says the Lord. For them it’s been prepared. Think of the disciples as people who had been lied to.
What do lies do? The disciples have been through this three times now: Jesus is going to die. And if they follow Him, so will they. Jesus has been clear. Unequivocal, even. Plain, ordinary, everyday Aramaic. And time and time again they don’t get it. Are they stupid? Or does it seem like there is just maybe something wrong with them…doesn’t it? Something wrong, what, like an illness, like a spiritual thing.
Think of the disciples as people who have been lied to. So that they cannot see the truth.
And by the way, that later blind beggar gets exactly the same question from Jesus: “What would you have me do for you?” And of course it’s “Teacher, let me see again.” So pop! It’s done. Your Faith Has Made You Well.
Think of the disciples as people who have been lied to.
So Jesus called them and said to them, "You know that among the Gentiles those whom
they recognize as their rulers lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them.”
There’s this book, a scholarly classic, ‘Metaphors We Live By’. Two ideas shape everything we do: the stern father, the nurturing parent. Not right or wrong, these metaphors. Just what we get being in a family, being a kid. Stern father. Nurturing parent. Among The Gentiles Their Rulers Lord It Over Them. Stern father. Paterfamilias is the Roman word.
“But not so among you, whoever wishes to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be slave of all. Nurturing parent? Those are the details, right? Their diapers and food and clothes and toys. Messes and necessities. So we’ve got this right: hope does go on a shelf. Service is no idea. Service is physical reality. Let The Little Ones Come To Me. Nurturing parent. There's a lesson.
Think of the disciples as people who have been lied to.
“For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many."
For who? How many? The criminal who the Romans released instead of Jesus? All Israel preserved for giving up one of its own? Everyone in here? Everyone out there? Or was it, maybe, for those disciples, who would get it in the end, in every sense of the term. Maybe that’s just how much it took. Maybe the lies were just that strong. Maybe it’s not just metaphors we live by. Maybe it’s lies, too.
Well. I’m not going to ask Gethsemane to empty out its budget. Or you to give up your possessions. But I am going to tell you: You are being lied to. Every minute. Of every day. And we don’t get it. If we did, the world would be different. We would be different. But we’re not. And it’s not.
So. You disciples: Who is lying to you? When, and why? And what truth are we so blind to? And if you could ask Jesus to do for you, would it be a place at the right hand of God, or would it be, finally, simply, to see clear through all that bull.
Amen
Monday, October 19, 2009
on John 18:1-13: Christ Saves
Christ contests, Christ triumphs, Christ saves. The beginning of the eighteenth chapter of John is not about an arrest. It is a battle. How do we know this? We begin: Jesus leads his disciples across the Kedron, where there is a brook. Now this is a place. It is a military place. David fled there. Defeated, David fled the fury of his own son Absalom at the place called Kedron and crossed over into the wilderness. David did not triumph at the Kedron. Will Jesus? Will Jesus turn his tail and run?
Jesus goes forth with his disciples. Jesus goes first. The disciples follow. Christ is here being what tradition calls ‘the captain of our salvation.’ We can say that he is, in military parlance, leading from the front. Where is he going? Where is he taking them? Across the Kedron, to Gethsemane, where he and his disciples often meet. He is, again in military terms, choosing the field of battle. Would that all commanders knew all that was going to happen to them.
Christ contests. Christ combats. But who does Jesus fight? “Judas brought a detachment of soldiers together with police from the chief priests and the Pharisees.” Sound like a battle now? The opposition has a captain, too – the betrayer, Judas. He’s leading, too – for now. And he brings the full detail: “lanterns and torches and weapons.”
You almost want to hear how many, don’t you? 6 lanterns and 16 torches and 53 weapons: this is that kind of list. Soldiers would come equipped. But what did the disciples have? What were they, in the dark? Christ combats. But maybe this isn’t going to be the kind of battle that we might expect.
Christ comes forward, apart from his men, we presume. This doesn’t look like a battle. This looks like what we might call a parley. This looks like what we might call an act of negotiation. And he asks: “Whom do you seek?” Uh-oh. The captain of our salvation is about to give someone up.
Wait, Christ triumphs? But they answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Wait a second: they answered him? What happened to their captain, their representative? He’s just standing there. Not too much authority. So maybe things might turn out after all. And Jesus asks first. That’s good negotiation. That’s good standing. Matter of fact, that’s just rank. And the other side falls down! For guards and soldiers, that’s not good. You fight standing. You fight in formation. You don’t do too much stabbing from below. Christ triumphs. He and his disciples might even get away, now.
But he asks them again, “Whom are you looking for?” Wait, he still wants to give someone up? Not the kind of battle we’ve been looking for. And they say again ‘Jesus of Nazareth,” and he says “if you are looking for me, let these men go.” Aha! The good captain goes down for his troops. The good captain gets his men out alive. Jesus contests, Jesus triumphs, Jesus saves. But saves who? What are the disciples going? Have they fled?
And Peter draws his sword. We see why, right? It’s a battle. Who wouldn’t draw a sword? And he cuts off the ear of the slave of the high priest. After the battle has been won and after the arrangements have been made. A soldier out of place. A man endangering the mission. Put your sword away, Peter. It is no suggestion. Christ gives Peter a command. So that Peter can keep his head – even after he’s already lost his head. Jesus saves.
And they arrest him and bind him and take him to Annas and they do not do anything to his disciples. Christ contests, Christ triumphs, Christ saves.
It is not the kind of battle we might expect. Gethsemane is a war of words, of statement and surrender. And it is not the kind of triumph we might expect.
Our captain, our command, is lead away in cords and chains – a symbolic defeat if ever there was one.
And Gethsemane is not the kind of salvation we might expect. It is not ethereal. It is not about the next life. And it is not salvation of the particularly deserving.
Instead, Gethsemane is the salvation, especially, of a hot-blooded fool whose passion overcomes all good judgment – but one who, nonetheless, gets to live just another day. A rock of the church if ever there was one.
No, none of these things are what we might expect. But Christ contests, Christ triumphs, and Christ saves nonetheless.
Jesus goes forth with his disciples. Jesus goes first. The disciples follow. Christ is here being what tradition calls ‘the captain of our salvation.’ We can say that he is, in military parlance, leading from the front. Where is he going? Where is he taking them? Across the Kedron, to Gethsemane, where he and his disciples often meet. He is, again in military terms, choosing the field of battle. Would that all commanders knew all that was going to happen to them.
Christ contests. Christ combats. But who does Jesus fight? “Judas brought a detachment of soldiers together with police from the chief priests and the Pharisees.” Sound like a battle now? The opposition has a captain, too – the betrayer, Judas. He’s leading, too – for now. And he brings the full detail: “lanterns and torches and weapons.”
You almost want to hear how many, don’t you? 6 lanterns and 16 torches and 53 weapons: this is that kind of list. Soldiers would come equipped. But what did the disciples have? What were they, in the dark? Christ combats. But maybe this isn’t going to be the kind of battle that we might expect.
Christ comes forward, apart from his men, we presume. This doesn’t look like a battle. This looks like what we might call a parley. This looks like what we might call an act of negotiation. And he asks: “Whom do you seek?” Uh-oh. The captain of our salvation is about to give someone up.
Wait, Christ triumphs? But they answered him, “Jesus of Nazareth.” Wait a second: they answered him? What happened to their captain, their representative? He’s just standing there. Not too much authority. So maybe things might turn out after all. And Jesus asks first. That’s good negotiation. That’s good standing. Matter of fact, that’s just rank. And the other side falls down! For guards and soldiers, that’s not good. You fight standing. You fight in formation. You don’t do too much stabbing from below. Christ triumphs. He and his disciples might even get away, now.
But he asks them again, “Whom are you looking for?” Wait, he still wants to give someone up? Not the kind of battle we’ve been looking for. And they say again ‘Jesus of Nazareth,” and he says “if you are looking for me, let these men go.” Aha! The good captain goes down for his troops. The good captain gets his men out alive. Jesus contests, Jesus triumphs, Jesus saves. But saves who? What are the disciples going? Have they fled?
And Peter draws his sword. We see why, right? It’s a battle. Who wouldn’t draw a sword? And he cuts off the ear of the slave of the high priest. After the battle has been won and after the arrangements have been made. A soldier out of place. A man endangering the mission. Put your sword away, Peter. It is no suggestion. Christ gives Peter a command. So that Peter can keep his head – even after he’s already lost his head. Jesus saves.
And they arrest him and bind him and take him to Annas and they do not do anything to his disciples. Christ contests, Christ triumphs, Christ saves.
It is not the kind of battle we might expect. Gethsemane is a war of words, of statement and surrender. And it is not the kind of triumph we might expect.
Our captain, our command, is lead away in cords and chains – a symbolic defeat if ever there was one.
And Gethsemane is not the kind of salvation we might expect. It is not ethereal. It is not about the next life. And it is not salvation of the particularly deserving.
Instead, Gethsemane is the salvation, especially, of a hot-blooded fool whose passion overcomes all good judgment – but one who, nonetheless, gets to live just another day. A rock of the church if ever there was one.
No, none of these things are what we might expect. But Christ contests, Christ triumphs, and Christ saves nonetheless.
On the Great Schism
It continues to be a paradox that while Noll clearly does not advocate a Great-Man perspective on history, his focus on events, even perhaps Great Events, leaves him to talk about significant historical forces in the hands of those who exemplify them.
Hence Humbert, leaving his letter of excommunication on the altar of the Hagia Sophia. The long string of causes that this springs from, and the longer one that it entails, might perhaps then indicate that, for Noll, the events which have shaped Christianity have not done so as history a se, but simply as the import of social symbols resounding through public time.
This is not to speculate far afield of the Great Schism, but it is to ask what kind of history Noll is about here as he describes the historical record. At any rate, might one say that that letter of communication began the long and unseemly history of separation of the church?
That is, is a Roman leaving a letter on an Orthodox altar at all the same sort of symbol as Luther leaving 95 theses on the Wittenberg door? Perhaps that is to go too far afield, or ahead. But the question must certainly be one of authority and defiance. It was authority that the Latin Leo desired over the Greek churches under threat of Norman knights; it was defiance that led Cerularius to reach out to control more Latin churches instead, and to shut them down when they defied. And it was certainly papal-imbued authority that sent Cardinal Humbert to Constantinople – and a sense of his own authority to write a letter of condemnation by himself!
One wonders what choice Cerularius would have had but to defy the critique. (One is reminded of Jesus’s own critique of the Gentile ie Roman rulers lording it up over their people, and wonders if a chief benefit of Christ’s approach would be precisely that service doesn’t generally provoke defiance). At any rate, the letter of excommunication, that perfect synecdoche of both authority and defiance, certainly sealed the deal.
Noll is certainly correct to trace the other divisions cultural and linguistic and theological to the formation of the Schism itself, but in choosing a great event or turning point one must say that the ingredients cannot overwhelm the alchemy; the point, the moment, must be greater than the sum of its parts. It is not just that the East spoke Greek and the West spoke Latin, but it is that a Latin-speaking foreigner marched right into the heart of Orthodoxy representing the very outsized authority that the four patriarchs the Orthodox recognized and demanded something like contrition.
That is beyond bad form. Did he gouge out the eye of an icon while he was there? And shout the filioque? (Perhaps one could advance a historical perspective concerning Very-Bad-Men and be more entertained.) Events that become historical are those stones that, in rolling, do in fact accrue meaningful moss.
And provoke more of the same. It is interesting to note that while the Orthodox clergy tended to support the efforts at reconciliation, it was the Orthodox churches themselves who resisted repairing the breach – perhaps because of the purely emotional effect of Roman authority overreaching in the past? But whatever the reasons for the failure of reconciliation as a whole, the Fourth Crusade and its unholy destruction within Constantinople became a ringing symbol of the formal separation that Humbert had begun.
When two sides are willing to go to war, one cannot deny that there is in fact some separation between them. And a Christian war does not seem to be more ready to gather forgiveness than any other. War is, after all, the greatest exercise of authority and defiance that one can possibly imagine.
Hence Humbert, leaving his letter of excommunication on the altar of the Hagia Sophia. The long string of causes that this springs from, and the longer one that it entails, might perhaps then indicate that, for Noll, the events which have shaped Christianity have not done so as history a se, but simply as the import of social symbols resounding through public time.
This is not to speculate far afield of the Great Schism, but it is to ask what kind of history Noll is about here as he describes the historical record. At any rate, might one say that that letter of communication began the long and unseemly history of separation of the church?
That is, is a Roman leaving a letter on an Orthodox altar at all the same sort of symbol as Luther leaving 95 theses on the Wittenberg door? Perhaps that is to go too far afield, or ahead. But the question must certainly be one of authority and defiance. It was authority that the Latin Leo desired over the Greek churches under threat of Norman knights; it was defiance that led Cerularius to reach out to control more Latin churches instead, and to shut them down when they defied. And it was certainly papal-imbued authority that sent Cardinal Humbert to Constantinople – and a sense of his own authority to write a letter of condemnation by himself!
One wonders what choice Cerularius would have had but to defy the critique. (One is reminded of Jesus’s own critique of the Gentile ie Roman rulers lording it up over their people, and wonders if a chief benefit of Christ’s approach would be precisely that service doesn’t generally provoke defiance). At any rate, the letter of excommunication, that perfect synecdoche of both authority and defiance, certainly sealed the deal.
Noll is certainly correct to trace the other divisions cultural and linguistic and theological to the formation of the Schism itself, but in choosing a great event or turning point one must say that the ingredients cannot overwhelm the alchemy; the point, the moment, must be greater than the sum of its parts. It is not just that the East spoke Greek and the West spoke Latin, but it is that a Latin-speaking foreigner marched right into the heart of Orthodoxy representing the very outsized authority that the four patriarchs the Orthodox recognized and demanded something like contrition.
That is beyond bad form. Did he gouge out the eye of an icon while he was there? And shout the filioque? (Perhaps one could advance a historical perspective concerning Very-Bad-Men and be more entertained.) Events that become historical are those stones that, in rolling, do in fact accrue meaningful moss.
And provoke more of the same. It is interesting to note that while the Orthodox clergy tended to support the efforts at reconciliation, it was the Orthodox churches themselves who resisted repairing the breach – perhaps because of the purely emotional effect of Roman authority overreaching in the past? But whatever the reasons for the failure of reconciliation as a whole, the Fourth Crusade and its unholy destruction within Constantinople became a ringing symbol of the formal separation that Humbert had begun.
When two sides are willing to go to war, one cannot deny that there is in fact some separation between them. And a Christian war does not seem to be more ready to gather forgiveness than any other. War is, after all, the greatest exercise of authority and defiance that one can possibly imagine.
Monday, October 12, 2009
On the Coronation of Charlemagne
The coronation of Charlemagne by Pope Leo III on Christmas Day in the year 800 CE consolidated minor changes in European and Christian history that had been happening since Constantine into a significant instance that would reverberate until, arguably, the end of Christendom sometime within the collapse of the European colonial systems. That instance was not the union of, but rather the desired harmonization of, the vast social systems of church and state throughout the fragments of the Western Roman Empire and its environs.
As with any other human moment, the coronation of Charlemagne proceeded from mixed motives and proceeded into clouded actions. This is not to say that nothing clear occurred, but it is to say that what happened and why it happened is grounded in complexity. For example, the rise of the Roman papacy to the position where it could even crown a monarch had been developing since the martyrdom of Peter and Paul in the very first century of Christianity.
This occurred not simply because Rome was the power-hungry see in the seat of the Empire but, more complexly, because it was flattered into prominence. The scriptural prominence of Rome became its status as the seat of apostolic succession which became, in turn, its place as the spiritual center of Roman Christianity which then became its authority, after the legalization of Christianity by Constantine, as the court of appeal for the decisions of local councils – recall here the practice of Episcopal audience, where bishops judged Imperial law as a service to the city.
Would this have made the bishop of Rome first among equals in the eyes of Imperial courts as well as Imperial churches?
Regardless, the Roman see’s position as spiritual and political center was becoming clearly established by the time the Empire collapsed, and certainly, undeniably, by the time of Gregory the Great circa 500 CE. While one can hardly say that the Bishopric of Rome ascended to control as a selfless act of love for the common people, one also cannot say that through the centralization of Rome as the heart of Western Christianity, absolutely no good was accomplished. The servant of the servants of God would, by both choice and necessity, spread Christianity throughout a crumbling European social order and of course to some degree became that order.
When Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne, Western Christianity was ready for the marriage, both through the centralization of spiritual authority and through its own territorial expansion. But was the King of the Franks ready, for his part, to defend so much of the faith? The Islamic conquests of the period actually did recognize the distinction, conquering states without forcing conversion – still, it stopped by law the territorial expansion of Christianity that had been happening through its zealous missions.
Stopped it south and westward, that is – making Rome not the central seat of a Mediterranean Christianity but the fount of a northward-seeking Christianity centered precisely in the territory governed by the Frankish kings. Those kings were themselves experiencing a consolidation of power through the mediation of those like Charles Martel who arguably saved Europe from Islam at the battle of Tours in 732, the punctuation of a brilliant military career that, two generations before Charlemagne, both subjugated potential rival powers and aided Christian missionaries in the land.
But where did all of this go? The harmonization of church and state in Christendom meant the increased power of the church to touch all areas of life for its believers, from cradle to marriage bed to grave at the same time as the church’s theology swerved toward the sacramental – an alteration which was by no means coincidence, as grace manifested to the people became the church missiology and the arms of the Carolingian empire reached out to everyone.
But a relationship is not a merger, and intended harmony is not its actuality, as the respective powers would alternately try and succeed to trump each other and righteousness, of course, did not follow the designs of any social system. Still, the harmonization of church and state in Christendom meant a sense of direction from top to bottom which Western Civilization had not seen before and arguably would not see again.
As with any other human moment, the coronation of Charlemagne proceeded from mixed motives and proceeded into clouded actions. This is not to say that nothing clear occurred, but it is to say that what happened and why it happened is grounded in complexity. For example, the rise of the Roman papacy to the position where it could even crown a monarch had been developing since the martyrdom of Peter and Paul in the very first century of Christianity.
This occurred not simply because Rome was the power-hungry see in the seat of the Empire but, more complexly, because it was flattered into prominence. The scriptural prominence of Rome became its status as the seat of apostolic succession which became, in turn, its place as the spiritual center of Roman Christianity which then became its authority, after the legalization of Christianity by Constantine, as the court of appeal for the decisions of local councils – recall here the practice of Episcopal audience, where bishops judged Imperial law as a service to the city.
Would this have made the bishop of Rome first among equals in the eyes of Imperial courts as well as Imperial churches?
Regardless, the Roman see’s position as spiritual and political center was becoming clearly established by the time the Empire collapsed, and certainly, undeniably, by the time of Gregory the Great circa 500 CE. While one can hardly say that the Bishopric of Rome ascended to control as a selfless act of love for the common people, one also cannot say that through the centralization of Rome as the heart of Western Christianity, absolutely no good was accomplished. The servant of the servants of God would, by both choice and necessity, spread Christianity throughout a crumbling European social order and of course to some degree became that order.
When Pope Leo III crowned Charlemagne, Western Christianity was ready for the marriage, both through the centralization of spiritual authority and through its own territorial expansion. But was the King of the Franks ready, for his part, to defend so much of the faith? The Islamic conquests of the period actually did recognize the distinction, conquering states without forcing conversion – still, it stopped by law the territorial expansion of Christianity that had been happening through its zealous missions.
Stopped it south and westward, that is – making Rome not the central seat of a Mediterranean Christianity but the fount of a northward-seeking Christianity centered precisely in the territory governed by the Frankish kings. Those kings were themselves experiencing a consolidation of power through the mediation of those like Charles Martel who arguably saved Europe from Islam at the battle of Tours in 732, the punctuation of a brilliant military career that, two generations before Charlemagne, both subjugated potential rival powers and aided Christian missionaries in the land.
But where did all of this go? The harmonization of church and state in Christendom meant the increased power of the church to touch all areas of life for its believers, from cradle to marriage bed to grave at the same time as the church’s theology swerved toward the sacramental – an alteration which was by no means coincidence, as grace manifested to the people became the church missiology and the arms of the Carolingian empire reached out to everyone.
But a relationship is not a merger, and intended harmony is not its actuality, as the respective powers would alternately try and succeed to trump each other and righteousness, of course, did not follow the designs of any social system. Still, the harmonization of church and state in Christendom meant a sense of direction from top to bottom which Western Civilization had not seen before and arguably would not see again.
On Johnson's Feminist Trinity: Dissonance
Dissonance
I keep lobbying for the sign of my church to read “Ask about our Threesome,” on Trinity Sunday, not to be glib but to stretch the imaginations of those who would dare to think three times about God, the very least consequence of which might be a lesson on the original meaning of erotic love and our continuing degradation of it. And the very greatest consequence might be a discussion of the consideration of the physical in regards to the sacrosanct and the divine.
But, of course, it’s never going to happen. Too bad. The history of theology is the history of believers with great intelligence but perhaps too little imagination. Johnson is right to suggest that we move beyond the one model of Trinity, though, perhaps not for the reasons that she believes. She would have us resign the Father and the Son and to a lesser degree the Spirit because they are inherently patriarchal – a point well taken, but perhaps not necessary and certainly occasionally overstated.
One wonders if words can be inherently anything, and one notices also that the patriarchy in fifteenth-century Europe was perhaps considerably different than the patriarchy in the Ancient Near East. The biblical fathers are given us as almost unimaginably lax. They are not particularly authoritarian; however hard the priestly laws may seem one has a great deal of trouble imagining Jacob having Joseph stoned.
The point of the metaphor of Father and Son was thus only partly about the delineation of authority and also about the conveyance of blessing: “this is my Son, with whom I am well pleased.” The language of masculinity fails then not because patriarchy fails to describe the Godhead (though it does) but also and I would say primarily because masculine language because of semantic drift fails the experience of canonical patriarchy itself. We suffer from the eternal impoverishment of words.
And we always will. Jesus came to tell us the name of God (it turns out to be Abba) but the problem comes because we still try to speak it and have spoken it for two thousand years. The term has become not heart-stoppingly intimate but heart-breakingly casual. We glibly think that God is Father. The solution, I would then propose, is not to find another substitute name for God – none are adequate, or ever will be, not even She – but simply to never repeat it, to never step into the same Trinity twice.
We would thus never stop speaking about God or hopefully to God but might well pause to listen for the breath of God in each analogy, to not just use the forms of God our fathers handed to us but to hand a profusion of forms of God to our daughters and our sons. There are not nine billion names of God as in the science fiction story but simply all names of God. For Christians, reality is not only plural but is in fact infinite.
The created poverty of words means that we cannot exhaust the uncreated reality of God; with regards to Trinity then we can thus stop worrying. We don’t have a handle anyway. Think of the possibilities! For the ancients: the God of Holy Wind, the God of Loving Water, and the God of Warming Fire. For the moderns: God the Web Server, God the Web Page, and God the Holy Hyperlink. For the cathedral scene: God the external sunlight, God the illumined window, and God the light-wash throughout the room.
Or, perhaps existentially: God the Spirit of Awe, God the Spirit of Clarity, and God the Spirit of Authority. Instead of the Greek Orobouros, the snake that swallows its own tale, the River of Life could be its own Source, Mouth, and Stream – who wouldn’t want their names written in that! These things could really flow.
For tropical situations: God the concealing fog, God the dappling dew, and God the saturating humidity. For the scholars: God the Text, God the Word, and God the Holy Page. For those of a celebratory nature: the Inviting God, the Insisting God, and the Bringing God, so long as it’s all the same party. Or for the philosophers: the Proposition, the Argument, and the Proof, so long as every word is true.
The point is not that any of these would work, but that none of them would, and that we would work out for ourselves how best to call the One(s) we love in each incarnation of our lives. Word by word, one Trinity at a time.
I keep lobbying for the sign of my church to read “Ask about our Threesome,” on Trinity Sunday, not to be glib but to stretch the imaginations of those who would dare to think three times about God, the very least consequence of which might be a lesson on the original meaning of erotic love and our continuing degradation of it. And the very greatest consequence might be a discussion of the consideration of the physical in regards to the sacrosanct and the divine.
But, of course, it’s never going to happen. Too bad. The history of theology is the history of believers with great intelligence but perhaps too little imagination. Johnson is right to suggest that we move beyond the one model of Trinity, though, perhaps not for the reasons that she believes. She would have us resign the Father and the Son and to a lesser degree the Spirit because they are inherently patriarchal – a point well taken, but perhaps not necessary and certainly occasionally overstated.
One wonders if words can be inherently anything, and one notices also that the patriarchy in fifteenth-century Europe was perhaps considerably different than the patriarchy in the Ancient Near East. The biblical fathers are given us as almost unimaginably lax. They are not particularly authoritarian; however hard the priestly laws may seem one has a great deal of trouble imagining Jacob having Joseph stoned.
The point of the metaphor of Father and Son was thus only partly about the delineation of authority and also about the conveyance of blessing: “this is my Son, with whom I am well pleased.” The language of masculinity fails then not because patriarchy fails to describe the Godhead (though it does) but also and I would say primarily because masculine language because of semantic drift fails the experience of canonical patriarchy itself. We suffer from the eternal impoverishment of words.
And we always will. Jesus came to tell us the name of God (it turns out to be Abba) but the problem comes because we still try to speak it and have spoken it for two thousand years. The term has become not heart-stoppingly intimate but heart-breakingly casual. We glibly think that God is Father. The solution, I would then propose, is not to find another substitute name for God – none are adequate, or ever will be, not even She – but simply to never repeat it, to never step into the same Trinity twice.
We would thus never stop speaking about God or hopefully to God but might well pause to listen for the breath of God in each analogy, to not just use the forms of God our fathers handed to us but to hand a profusion of forms of God to our daughters and our sons. There are not nine billion names of God as in the science fiction story but simply all names of God. For Christians, reality is not only plural but is in fact infinite.
The created poverty of words means that we cannot exhaust the uncreated reality of God; with regards to Trinity then we can thus stop worrying. We don’t have a handle anyway. Think of the possibilities! For the ancients: the God of Holy Wind, the God of Loving Water, and the God of Warming Fire. For the moderns: God the Web Server, God the Web Page, and God the Holy Hyperlink. For the cathedral scene: God the external sunlight, God the illumined window, and God the light-wash throughout the room.
Or, perhaps existentially: God the Spirit of Awe, God the Spirit of Clarity, and God the Spirit of Authority. Instead of the Greek Orobouros, the snake that swallows its own tale, the River of Life could be its own Source, Mouth, and Stream – who wouldn’t want their names written in that! These things could really flow.
For tropical situations: God the concealing fog, God the dappling dew, and God the saturating humidity. For the scholars: God the Text, God the Word, and God the Holy Page. For those of a celebratory nature: the Inviting God, the Insisting God, and the Bringing God, so long as it’s all the same party. Or for the philosophers: the Proposition, the Argument, and the Proof, so long as every word is true.
The point is not that any of these would work, but that none of them would, and that we would work out for ourselves how best to call the One(s) we love in each incarnation of our lives. Word by word, one Trinity at a time.
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