Rollins' Hope to Believe in God

Well into the game, I've finally come upon Peter Rollins' blog. His post, One Day I hope to believe in God... hits a lot of things on the head for me.

If you have time for more reading, interesting pairings with it are Peter Morrow's comment to Rollins' post and Kester Brewin's parable, Footprints, also on Rollins' site.

Among my responses:

Many in and outside the church operate with the assumption "that we all have a shared understanding of what belief is and what we mean by the word 'God.'" (Rollins) The assumption isn't always true. Recognizing that it's operative and figuring out what to do about it is difficult, yet important.

The assumption is part of why meaningful religious conversation (with religous or non-religious people) and constructive changes in religious settings can be so challenging. We have our definitions of God in boxes. More often than not, those boxes resist being opened.

How do we have a conversation about God when we think about God quite differently than our conversation partner (and we may or may not realize this difference exists)? How do we talk about God when we know our understandings of God differ but we don't understand the other person's perspective, our partner doesn't understand ours, or we disagree with each other's perspectives?

I can see why our boxes resist being opened. Assumptions are strong and ingrained. It's difficult to conceive of what might be outside those assumptions. If we can conceive of it, we may or may not like it. Working with it takes energy in forms that can be hard to come by. It takes a lot of risk. It's scary and threatening. It can lead to reorientation of long held perspectives and beliefs and all they imply.

But not being able to find a bridge between differing understandings of "God" in relationships that matter has its own risks, frustrations, pain and sadness. This applies to personal relationships and to societal level relationships.

How can we communicate about God in ways that might be likely to start overcoming these challenges? How can we do so without throwing the baby out with the bathwater? Or in other words, how can we maintain that which we may find meaninful in religion and at the same time open boxes? How do we make it safe and appealing for ourselves and for others to open boxes? How do we let God and each other out of the boxes and more deeply, fully into our lives?

A Little Experiment to Prompt Awareness and Reflection

Proposal:

Try calling God She.
Call God She as prominently, often and casually
as God is usually called He.

How does that feel?
Is is hard to do?
What does it make you think about?
Why?

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Greeting Anyone

I've noted some juxtapositions in my life lately.

Engaging in social & religious conversation in the morning
with a member of a Baptist church that I used to call home.
Engaging in social & religious conversation that same evening
with a pagan high priest.

Reading quotations from the well known pastor of that same Baptist church,
indicating that women should not hold authority over men, even in some secular positions.
Reading "Dance of the Dissident Daughter,"
"A Woman's Journey from Christian Tradition to the Sacred Feminine."

Between, within and beyond such juxtapositions
are my life, my experience and the people I love.

Sunday at church someone explained to my children that in the time of the service called "The Peace",
you can greet anyone you want.

Another person followed up: "That is, if they're in church."

How true!
So many of the people with whom I want to exchange a sign of peace,
In fact with whom in various forms I do exchange signs of peace,
are not in church.

Some are in other churches (of many different kinds)
Some are scattered across the country or around the world
Some do not express their faith in the context of a religious community and
Some belong to religions with other names.


God is with you.
And also with you.

Let us rejoice in the power of the Spirit.
(found in many, expected and unexpected, wonderful places.)

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