Michael Christman illustration for Coming Out to God
His
five-year-old daughter offered a prayer while burying a sparrow who died flying
into a window pane. “Dear God, we have buried this little sparrow. Now you be
good to it, or I’ll kill you.” When told by her mother she didn’t need to
threaten God, she said, “I just wanted to be sure.”
John
Fraser tells this story in a collection of essays entitled, Befriending Life: Encounters with Henri Nouwen, to which I also contributed a chapter. Fascinated by the story,
Henri wrote about it in his book, The
Road to Daybreak.
I
once buried a sparrow who died similarly, trying to fly into what appeared a
welcoming space within glass walls of a campus chapel. I wrote about it in my
book of prayers, Coming Out to God. It
made me think of many who hit invisible barriers trying to enter our churches.
Jesus once told his followers not to be afraid, that not one sparrow falls to
the ground without God knowing.
What
strikes me is that this prayer of a five-year-old is often the prayer of
adults. Karen Armstrong says as much in her “Death of God?” chapter in her History of God. When we conceive an
all-powerful God, then God is responsible for all that’s wrong with the world—in
her word, “a monster.” And I have pastorally and personally witnessed those who
suffer or those who suffer loss doubting God’s intentions or God’s existence. An
omnipotent God who fails to care must be distrusted or killed.
I
believe Christianity is conducive to this way of thinking, as it conceptualizes
a God of compassion, willing to be vulnerable to the point of death—all out of
love.
We
often conceive of God as “the best” at everything. When you consider your “best
friend,” do you think of someone who is powerful or someone who is loving? Just
as we would classify a best friend as loving, so is our best God. It could be
said that love is God’s power.
When
we look for love, would we choose a lover who is dogmatic and demanding, or one
who is trustworthy and welcoming? Even so with God, for biblically God’s love
is steadfast and inclusive.
And
when we consider our best leaders or pastors or teachers, do we think of
someone who is controlling or one who is persuasive? Just so, our “best God” is
persuasive, a good shepherd, one who stands at our door and knocks, one who
wants to be invited in to commune with us, one we want to follow.
And
lest God become thought of as just another thing or being as “best” implies,
it’s better to think of God as the most:
the most loving, the most welcoming, the most loyal, the most inclusive, the
most persuasive. To borrow a word from comedian John Oliver, that’s the God
with the “mostus.”
This
line of thinking is how process theology “saved” God for me long before I went
to seminary.
Armstrong
observes, “Throughout history people have discarded a conception of God when it
no longer works for them.” And later, “Those of us who have had a difficult
time with religion in the past find it liberating to be rid of the God who
terrorized our childhood.”
She
suggests that often what “saves” God are poets, artists (of all kinds),
visionaries, and mystics who glimpse something through the imagination, through
their disciplines, and through silence, something that cannot be known so much
as witnessed. In Care of the Soul
Thomas Moore noted that imagination is perhaps our most underutilized spiritual
gift. And Saint Ignatius, who gave us
his Spiritual Exercises and founded the scholarly Jesuits, believed the
spiritual life required imagination.
I
would add that too many readers of the Bible refuse to see it as the work of
poets, artists, visionaries, and mystics—not an objective record or
rulebook—rather, one that invites our own imaginations to play and to pray as
we discern God for a new generation.
One
of the worst things that can happen to God, Armstrong suggests, is when “the
more educated, sober, and responsible element” in a given faith discard
religion altogether, instead of re-imagining God, because too many others
prefer to worship the manmade* Golden Calf rather than the God hidden on the
mountain, or in the sound of sheer silence, or in a newborn’s cry.
Armstrong
recounts a story that echoes the accountability required by the five-year-old
in my opening story. It is told that in Auschwitz, some Jews put God on trial
for cruelty and betrayal. They found God guilty, worthy of death. A rabbi gave
the verdict, and announced that now he would lead evening prayers.
The
God who inspires human beings to be tenacious in the face of calamity is worthy
of reimagining.
*The
use of this non-inclusive term is intentional.
Related posts (also
linked in the above text):
Copyright © 2016 by Chris R. Glaser.
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