Category: religious experience

Will I Be Invited to the Sound

This Sunday I will be preaching from the book of Jonah.  I am framing Jonah as a parable (nothing new I know) and I thought I would spend some time on the work of parables.  They perform upon us irritating, rubbing, smoothing, caressing.  Jonah eventually reveals the line that was at work upon him, “I know you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.”  This line worked on Jonah to the point where he fled from God due to its implications.

The parabolic line at work in me is often “let those with ears hear.”  This line can almost drive me mad.  I went to fit it into a conceptual epistemology.  What is this line telling me about knowledge?  But it is not concerned with knowledge it is concerned with the ear, with sound, vibrations.  I recently purchased Sufjan Stevens’ Seven Swans.  The first track is All the trees of the field will clap their hands.

If I am alive this time next year
Will I have arrived in time to share?
Mine is about as good this far
I’m still applied to what you are
And I am joining all my thoughts to you
And I’m preparing every part for you

I heard from the trees a great parade
And I heard from the hills a band was made
Will I be invited to the sound?
Will I be a part of what you’ve made?
And I am throwing all my thoughts away
And I’m destroying every bet I’ve made
And I am joining all my thoughts to you
And I’m preparing every part for you

There is an engagement here, a wrestling with the possibility that despite all effort he might not be ‘invited to the sound.’  While I believe there are important expressions of knowledge that are equally available in accessible models of discourse I am troubled that there remains something, perhaps I should not even call this knowledge, that I may well not have access to at this time despite any efforts.

There is a recent trend in certain strands of contemporary theology to explore an out-of-control mode of theology.  This is rooted broadly in the traditions of Yoder and Hauerwas.  In as much as I resonate with these expressions a suspicion lingers that securing and controlling the discourse is rarely escaped.

And I am throwing all my thoughts away
And I’m destroying every bet I’ve made
And I am joining all my thoughts to you

There is at once a discarding and a returning to thought.  A throwing and a joining.

As I said this parabolic language haunts me.  I hope in turn it forms me.  There is something more than knowledge.  Knowledge is the product of structural process.  Knowledge is not bad.  But there is a sound.  Sound is not knowledge.  Sound is action, motion, presence, touch.  I think we have (well I have) yet to learn (or to learn again) what it means to receive.  I think there needs to be maintained not an absolute but a working and living distinction between knowledge on one hand and insight and imagination on the other.  They are of course not exclusive but neither are they identical.

And I’m preparing every part for you

Religious Experience

For the past number of summers I have helped to organize some Friday night events for my church. We have abandoned the traditional model of ‘summer bible school’ were kids come during the day and learn verses, sing and do crafts. Instead we have hoped to create a more inter-generational experience gathering around a campfire for a less more formal time while still trying to be engaging across the ages.

In any event there is usually a small group time where people get together and share or work on a project. Last night people gathered to talk about an early and formative experience of God. After the small group sharing I asked if anyone wanted to share their responses with the whole group. There tends not to be a flood to the microphone. Three people did share (including myself) and I found the cross-section quite illuminating. One man shared about a road trip he took with his parents to Alberta. It was there that he saw the Rocky Mountains and Lake Louise. He said the experience almost moved him to tears as he wondered how something so beautiful existed and what that told him about the world and God. A woman shared about her experience at a youth conference. This was a bi-national event and so for worship there thousands gathered together. This experience also deeply moved her to reflect on things greater than herself. Finally I shared. My experience was from early grade school. It was the year they handed out those little red Gideon Bibles that contained the New Testament and the Psalms (I heard they still do this in some public schools). I remember being alone in my room and at the back of my Bible it talked about the commitment that God calls people to in the Bible. There was a place you could sign your name if you wanted to make that commitment. I can’t actually remember if I signed my name or not but I remember being alone and experiencing a sense of commitment. I have tried to neither under- or over-emphasize this event but the reality is that it remains fixed in my memory.

What I found interesting about the sharing is that one was focused on an experience in relationship to nature. The second was in response to a gathering of people. And the third was alone removed from nature and people. This was helpful for me because I tend to downplay and even be suspicious of people who talk highly of encountering God in nature. I have also found it intriguing that in the Mennonite churches in this area that I am in contact with I find that when I ask people about their faith they most often talk about the church (that is the people around them) as opposed to a relationship with God. Both of these expressions strike me as secondary as flowing from something more primary. It is easy to see now why Kierkegaard resonates so strongly with me. For him our very nature or selfhood is established in the God-self relationship. There is nothing prior to that and everything else flows from it. I suspect what I need to explore or be more open to is the manner in which this primary relationship is formed. Or is it even helpful to talk about a primary relationship. Is life too complex and layered to think that I can reduce or strip away other factors and influences so that I can be alone before God? Or is this God-self relationship a discipline in which I delineate the role of nature and neighbour to be secondary and therefore these influences are neither a cause of anxiety or fear when they appear threatening or uncertain and neither are they a false sense of security when they appear stable and generous.