A Prayer for Serendipity

God of Chance,
Contingent Creativity,
Pregnant with possibility-

Energy and matter once intermingled
on barren lands.
Energy and matter now intermingle
in Tristan und Isolde, Gabriel Garcia Marquez.
I hear and read Your evolutionary fervor.

How inspiring Your breath-of-spirit!
How animating Your breath-of-life!

I cannot help but smile and wonder
at this miracle.

God of Serendipity,
Surprise me.

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Mercy

A recent survey concluded that the more often an American goes to church, the more likely she is going to support the torture of suspected terrorists. Well, almost. Breaking down this generalization by tradition, the report indicates that over 60% of white evangelical Protestants advocate torture, in comparison with 40% of the religiously unaffiliated and just over 30% of 'mainline' Protestant denominations. The study's undeniable limitations in terms of breadth and scope leave us with more of a suggestive gesture than any reliably 'empirical' truisms. That being said, on my view the findings point beyond a mere political impasse to some significant differences in ethical reading styles. The Hebrew Bible and New Testament (especially) are replete with calls for merciful justice. What does this report tell us about differing encounters with and interpretations of the parable of the unmerciful servant, for example (Matthew 18:23-35)? If taken seriously, what role does the story advance for humans in the acts of mercy and forgiveness (Matthew 18:35)?

I cannot help but think to Micah 6:8 - "What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?"

God of All,
God in All,
Minister of magnanimity,
Provider of patience,
Endower of empathy -
Please shower us with Your Mercy,
And carry us across the terrifying world-ocean.
Amen.


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Point of Intersection

Leafing through the Unitarian Universalist hymnal Singing the Living Tradition, I was thrilled to find closing words by Tegh Bahadur, the ninth Guru (1666-1675), who was executed by the Mogul emperor Aurangzeb:

Why do you go to the forest in search of the Divine?
God lives in all, and abides with you too.
As fragrance dwells in a flower,
or reflection in a mirror,
so the Divine dwells inside everything;
seek therefore in your own heart.

[UU: Hymnal #599 || Sikh: pannaa 684]

Interestingly, the following line in the Sri Guru Granth Sahib affirms a strict monotheism reminiscent of early antitrinitarian heresies during the Christian Patristic Age: "Outside and inside, know that there is only the One Lord."

Does this point of intersection mark the beginning of my newfound call?

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Belove

Rev. Michael Relland got me thinking: Etymologically, the term 'believe' derives from the Proto-Germanic 'ga-laubjan' - to hold dear, to love. What would it mean to move from a religion of believing to a faith of beloving?

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Opening Bodily Gates

We are likely quite familiar with Jesus' declaration, "I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved" (John 10:9). Here, Jesus functions as a deity whose open gate beckons those followers desiring salvation. In the Catholic ritual of Eucharist, the breadly host undergoes transubstantiation as its reality is changed to that of the divine body - an open gate through which believers may enter. In Christian theology more generally, Christ serves as the head of the unified church, imagined to represent a divine body comprised of many parts: Paul explains, "Now you are the body of Christ, and each one of you is a part of it" (1 Corinthians 12:27). In both schemes, there emerges an engrossing interplay between the figure of Jesus, the body and the opening of gates.

This morning's shabad from the Sri Guru Granth Sahib extends and inverts this trope. After poetically describing the way in which the True Guru trickles Ambrosial Nectar into the mouth of the faithful, the texts reads:

ਦਸਵੈ ਦੁਆਰਿ ਪ੍ਰਗਟੁ ਹੋਇ ਆਇਆ ॥
My Tenth Gate has been opened and revealed.
[Guru Ram Das on pannaa 1069]

In SIkh teaching, the Tenth Gate refers to a region in the head that eventually opens through the study of sacred texts (Gurbani) and self-discipline in the ways of the holy (Gurmat) - in contrast to the Christian invitation into God's body, the Sikh invites God into her own body. It is only through an opening of the self - a turning oneself over to the spirit of God - that we achieve a state of heightened awareness re: ourselves, those around us and our world as a whole. In short, by giving ourselves over to the workings of the world and opening our own gates, we find a life not of happiness but of joy deep within the soul: "In intuitive peace he wakes, and in intuitive peace he sleeps" (Guru Ram Das on pannaa 1069).


ਕਹਤੁ ਕਬੀਰ ਨਵੈ ਘਰ ਮੂਸੇ ਦਸਵੈਂ ਤਤੁ ਸਮਾਈ ॥
Says Kabeer, the nine openings of the body are being plundered; rise up to the Tenth Gate, and discover the true essence.
[Devotee Kabir on pannaa 339]

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Divine Incomprehension

In his Berry Street Lecture of 1871, Charles H. Brigham detaches the category of principles from that of doctrines. The former, he argues, pertains to the ideas that move a religious community and give it power. Conversely, the latter embodies constantly shifting, temporary opinions. At the start of his lecture, Brigham teases out seven core values that animate and ground Unitarianism: the right of private judgment, that reason is the arbiter of truth, that no man is infallible, that no creed can contain the whole of religion, that differences of faith are inevitable, that sincere faith is the only true faith, and that character is better than profession of any kind. Brigham then goes on to address the doctrine of God. He writes:

The finite cannot comprehend the infinite. And [Unitarians] say of God, that no searching can find him out, and that all dictation of what he must be and what he must do, is foolish and irreverent. They affirm, as much as any sect, the mystery of the Godhead; only it is to them real mystery by its greatness and fulness, and not by its mathematical enigma. God is the eternal wonder of the human soul, so high, so vast, so complete in glory, that no thought can attain his being.

This statement, while explicitly marked by a specific context (and witty anti-trinitarian jab), resonates with the wholly Otherness of the divine as expressed in the Sri Guru Granth Sahib:

ਅਕਲ ਕਲਾ ਨਹ ਪਾਈਐ ਪ੍ਰਭੁ ਅਲਖ ਅਲੇਖੰ ॥
God is not found by intellectual or clever devices; God is Unseeable and Incalculable.
(Sri Guru Granth Sahib, 1098)

ਖਾਲਿਕੁ ਖਲਕ ਖਲਕ ਮਹਿ ਖਾਲਿਕੁ ਪੂਰਿ ਰਹਿਓ ਸ੍ਰਬ ਠਾਂਈ ॥
The Creation is in the Creator (God), and the Creator is in the Creation, totally pervading and permeating all places.
(Sri Guru Granth Sahib, 1350)

In both Unitarian and Sikh formulations, then, the act of meeting God trumps the futile attempt to name God.

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James Baldwin's Intuition

In his collection of brilliant essays entitled Notes of a Native Son, civil rights activist James Baldwin advances more than a few poignant axioms about selfhood, critique and the function of literary arts. I have listed and reflected on some of my favorite points below:

1) Rock of Ages: Baldwin - foreshadowing the post-structuralist work of Butler et al - puts forth the supposition that the accumulated 'rock of ages' stands between the singular ego and the self-in-community. In other words, our own past - in Baldwin's case, the oppressive burden, overwhelming responsibility and emancipatory imperatives of being black in mid-20th century America - serves as the rock against which our identities are shaped. In his words, "in order to claim my birthright...it was necessary to challenge and claim the rock." What socio-cultural inheritances, justly received and unjustly imposed, must we claim to achieve "the hope of salvation - identity"?

2) Connected Critic: Americans should perpetually criticize America as Americans, Baldwin suggests - it is through a deep and implicated connection to a culture and a people that visions of improvement emerge. Further, all theories are suspect to the demands of life, such that the 'common citizen' possesses a pragmatic agency to reform. How does the element of connection to - of a bonding with - community alter our understanding of and approach to critique? How are we thereby stripped of our 'objective' distance as an outsider?

3) Unending Circle: Anticipating Foucault, Baldwin illuminates the relationship between master and slave: "It must be remembered that the oppressed and the oppressor are bound together within the same society; they accept the same criteria, they share the same beliefs, they both alike depend on the same reality." Here, Baldwin gives voice to the power of discourse to shape reality as it circulates through and maintains institutions, convictions and rhetoric. As many post-colonial theorists note, victims of imperialism frequently internalize the tactics and logic of the colonizer. Are we left lamenting with the biblical writers that "What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun" (Ecclesiastes 1:9)? Where is the ark in which to escape the waters of the all-pervasive flood (Genesis 7:7)?

4) Literary Care: Any piece of literature with a social purpose to persuade must also carefully attend to its art. This is also true in our justice work and daily lives: we must resist the tendency to dehumanization, whereby we depict persons as carriers of a moral or political agendas, i.e. as types. On the contrary, we must learn to operate within the complex human web of ambiguity.

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