I want to use this little story as a peg on which to hang some reflections about my own writing, both here and on Caring Bridge, as I approach my death from cancer. Unsurprisingly, as the end approaches I find myself reaching more often for the language of my faith, talking more about Jesus and the “work he accomplished at Jerusalem”, about God and God’s revelation which, while some demand a miraculous sign and others seek after wisdom, is in fact “Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God”, the one in whom “all the promises of God find their Yes”. And this talking causes me several sorts of botheration---like Winnie-the-Pooh, another easily botherated sort of guy. If you wonder where all this faith language is coming from, and perhaps share or at least want to understand my botheration, read on...
Botheration #1 is my fear that by using this language I am simply, without intending to, excluding my many dear friends who don’t share my faith tradition. I want to say to these beloved people, “You are welcome here from the bottom of my heart. I know that some of what I write may just make no sense at all. If it helps, remember that many dying people describe mysterious journeys which are, in some way, private to them. If thinking of things that way will help you be present with me, then go right ahead. I value your love and support more than I can say. Thanks so much for being here.”
Yes, it's true, what I see as going on here is more than the mysterious individual journey of a dying person - amazing and deserving of honor though that may be, whatever that person's background and self-understanding. But this is not the moment for me to be preaching about that (unless you want me to - email me and I'll preach up a storm). It is the moment for me to say, thanks again for sticking with me. You find out who your brothers and sisters are at this moment. Some who talk the talk find they can't walk the walk. May they receive mercy. Some who I feel I'll never understand reach out with a touch of real kindness. May you be blessed.
Botheration #2 is in a sense the opposite of botheration #1. It comes from those who want to say, in one way or another, “Your faith is an inspiration”, or “You are a role model” or something like that. I wrote earlier about how the role model language can actually be frightening - for surely there will be times when I won' feel like anyone's role model, and what then will I do with your expectations? But there's also something deeper here, I think, something in common between the two botherations. Both of them seem to proceed from the assumption that I start with something before faith - some "common human experience" if you like - and then by some commendable exercise of will power (botheration #2 people) or some level of sheer nuttiness (botheration #1 people) I impose a reinterpretation of this raw experience in faith language, a language which is a kind of second-order reconfiguration of the facts. Something like a scientific theory, or even like J.G. Ballard's notorious title The Assassination Of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered As A Downhill Motor Race.
That is also what I think Feinstein thinks Barrett is up to. Feinstein believes (I think) that Barrett has access to the language of neutral discourse which she, as a good liberal, shares; it is just that Barrett insists on passing it through the "Catholicizer" (I guess I envisage this as a kind of food processor), a process which those who wish to interpret her jurisprudence then have to reverse. But (and this is Botheration #3 and final), it does not feel like that (at least to me).
Look, it has been 45 years since I prayed that God would forgive me, make me part of God's self, drench me with the Holy Spirit, incorporate me into the death and resurrection of Christ. (No, I would not have put it quite like that back then.) Forty-five years during which I have been at least trying to inhabit the world of Scripture as my primary world. Forty-five years during which that Lord has been present as a living, unpredictable, sometime-startling and sometimes-consoling reality. That changes you. In particular, over time faith stops being a thing you do and starts being a thing you are. At some point the vocabulary and imagery of scripture starts being the primary vocabulary and imagery that you reach for.
I don't mean (I hope) that I have become one of those tiring people who have a proof text for everything. It's more like Scripture is like a giant pile of fireworks for me. Set a spark going anywhere - say, a thought about how the "growth now" economy puts our desires above our childrens' - and before a moment has gone by we have connected to the vicious caricature by Ezekiel of the idea that child sacrifice will bring economic growth, and then we're over to Isaac and Ishmael, and Mount Moriah and the ram caught by its horns, and "No person shows greater love", and the whole New Testament theme that Christ is victorious over Hell because He has been there and emptied it out, like a kind of giant enema (pardon me, I have constipation on the brain right now), except that what is emptied out is not sh*t but people, people loved by God who are not sh*t and not abandoned, even after death, people whom God is not so fastidious as to avoid in the work of redemption, and... Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Can't you hear those fireworks going off? That's how it is a lot of the time. (Not all; that would be a lie. But a lot.) And then all that has to be calmed down so I can write a single sentence or two in Mathematics for the Environment about the work of Herman Daly. God is always way ahead of us, with an understanding that is way deeper than ours can be, and a judgment (like the work of a great cancer surgeon) that is way more precise and penetrating than anything we could come up with.
So what's the botheration? The botheration, I suppose, is the feeling that I should keep that all under wraps. But with little time to run on the clock, I don't really care so much. Let it hang out. If I've succeeded in sharing to one person, just a little bit, "how wide and deep and broad and long" is this inexhaustibly patient redemptive determination that we call "the love of God", I've done something that matters, because God's enabled me do do it. Look for the peace. It is so close. It is nearby. It is in the hands of God. Reach out your hands and let those other, scarred hands enclose yours. Do it now.
Botheration #1 is my fear that by using this language I am simply, without intending to, excluding my many dear friends who don’t share my faith tradition. I want to say to these beloved people, “You are welcome here from the bottom of my heart. I know that some of what I write may just make no sense at all. If it helps, remember that many dying people describe mysterious journeys which are, in some way, private to them. If thinking of things that way will help you be present with me, then go right ahead. I value your love and support more than I can say. Thanks so much for being here.”
Yes, it's true, what I see as going on here is more than the mysterious individual journey of a dying person - amazing and deserving of honor though that may be, whatever that person's background and self-understanding. But this is not the moment for me to be preaching about that (unless you want me to - email me and I'll preach up a storm). It is the moment for me to say, thanks again for sticking with me. You find out who your brothers and sisters are at this moment. Some who talk the talk find they can't walk the walk. May they receive mercy. Some who I feel I'll never understand reach out with a touch of real kindness. May you be blessed.
Botheration #2 is in a sense the opposite of botheration #1. It comes from those who want to say, in one way or another, “Your faith is an inspiration”, or “You are a role model” or something like that. I wrote earlier about how the role model language can actually be frightening - for surely there will be times when I won' feel like anyone's role model, and what then will I do with your expectations? But there's also something deeper here, I think, something in common between the two botherations. Both of them seem to proceed from the assumption that I start with something before faith - some "common human experience" if you like - and then by some commendable exercise of will power (botheration #2 people) or some level of sheer nuttiness (botheration #1 people) I impose a reinterpretation of this raw experience in faith language, a language which is a kind of second-order reconfiguration of the facts. Something like a scientific theory, or even like J.G. Ballard's notorious title The Assassination Of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered As A Downhill Motor Race.
That is also what I think Feinstein thinks Barrett is up to. Feinstein believes (I think) that Barrett has access to the language of neutral discourse which she, as a good liberal, shares; it is just that Barrett insists on passing it through the "Catholicizer" (I guess I envisage this as a kind of food processor), a process which those who wish to interpret her jurisprudence then have to reverse. But (and this is Botheration #3 and final), it does not feel like that (at least to me).
Look, it has been 45 years since I prayed that God would forgive me, make me part of God's self, drench me with the Holy Spirit, incorporate me into the death and resurrection of Christ. (No, I would not have put it quite like that back then.) Forty-five years during which I have been at least trying to inhabit the world of Scripture as my primary world. Forty-five years during which that Lord has been present as a living, unpredictable, sometime-startling and sometimes-consoling reality. That changes you. In particular, over time faith stops being a thing you do and starts being a thing you are. At some point the vocabulary and imagery of scripture starts being the primary vocabulary and imagery that you reach for.
I don't mean (I hope) that I have become one of those tiring people who have a proof text for everything. It's more like Scripture is like a giant pile of fireworks for me. Set a spark going anywhere - say, a thought about how the "growth now" economy puts our desires above our childrens' - and before a moment has gone by we have connected to the vicious caricature by Ezekiel of the idea that child sacrifice will bring economic growth, and then we're over to Isaac and Ishmael, and Mount Moriah and the ram caught by its horns, and "No person shows greater love", and the whole New Testament theme that Christ is victorious over Hell because He has been there and emptied it out, like a kind of giant enema (pardon me, I have constipation on the brain right now), except that what is emptied out is not sh*t but people, people loved by God who are not sh*t and not abandoned, even after death, people whom God is not so fastidious as to avoid in the work of redemption, and... Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam! Can't you hear those fireworks going off? That's how it is a lot of the time. (Not all; that would be a lie. But a lot.) And then all that has to be calmed down so I can write a single sentence or two in Mathematics for the Environment about the work of Herman Daly. God is always way ahead of us, with an understanding that is way deeper than ours can be, and a judgment (like the work of a great cancer surgeon) that is way more precise and penetrating than anything we could come up with.
So what's the botheration? The botheration, I suppose, is the feeling that I should keep that all under wraps. But with little time to run on the clock, I don't really care so much. Let it hang out. If I've succeeded in sharing to one person, just a little bit, "how wide and deep and broad and long" is this inexhaustibly patient redemptive determination that we call "the love of God", I've done something that matters, because God's enabled me do do it. Look for the peace. It is so close. It is nearby. It is in the hands of God. Reach out your hands and let those other, scarred hands enclose yours. Do it now.
1 comment:
I love this post, and not only because you managed to connect Pooh and sh*t through my favorite word, "botheration!" Thank God you don't let these bothers keep your reflections under wraps. I especially like the distinction you make between faith as accessory vs faith as essence: "over time faith stops being a thing you do and starts being a thing you are."
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