Onward, Upward...well, onward anyway

"New occasions teach new duties/ Time makes ancient good uncouth/ They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of Truth/ Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be/ Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea/Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-rusted key." James Russell Lowell

I think I have made my way through the deepest part of my 'slough of despond.' At least, I have come to some resolve about some of the issues troubling me lately. I was helped by a conversation with my friend Pete, wherein we both expressed some similar thoughts and ideas--that doesn't solve anything of course, it just helps to know that you are not the only one wrestling with some key issues. I still have a lot of 'life issues' to work through, but at least my thinking about things is moving forward and not stuck in a quagmire of crisis over what others might or might not be thinking about things in this way.

So for me there are three key areas that I am planning on teasing out in my thinking. Interiority is a major area of interest for me. I am pretty clear on my lack of confidence in views about the soul etc--the subjectivity of personhood and all that, so now I need to think through what I make of the 'interior' life, a subject of much focus in religion. Secondly, as I have moved well past the metaphysical god, and live somewhere between 'after god' and the 'god who may be,' what is my diminished(?-probably in the eyes of others but not in my own mind) sense of god, or at least my rejection of more classical views of the divine, inviting me to consider about the nature of being etc? I am leaning toward a view of god (well, I'll use that term for ease) that is neither power or authority above or over us, nor the ground beneath us or of being (Tilich-style) but the connection between us--Moltmann has spoken in these terms a bit, but I am not that familiar with his broader thinking on this, but I might take a deeper look into what he is saying.

And finally, in spite of these two major shifts in my thinking, I find myself committed more than ever to a christic relationship to the world--(I need to find some new vocabulary to cover this territory, because words like discipleship, kingdom and other Jesus-related paraphernalia don't prove that helpful to me). So a decidedly material view of life and a material view of faith--for me, this is the life, and coming to terms with the implications of this awareness is my present goal. Perhaps, in my own way, I have reached that place of religionless religion, or something to that end.

Anyway, none of this is particularly new in my thinking,I have been moving towards this for a long time, but committing to framing and working it through has a new urgency for me. I don't want to carry the weight that I have been lately. There may or may not be life-change implications in all of this, if there are, so be it--life is too short to spend caught in the undertow of things.

“Life is very much about rule breaking, about confrontation. Otherwise history would just stand still. Someone has to come along and break the rules and try for whatever reason to go about things a different way. Even if it is a simple sense of adventure, a sense of exploration. You explore concepts and things that interest you, but you are also exploring inside of yourself.” Ed Paschke

Comments

[Christian McCabe]

There are a lot of parallels in this particular liminal stage of my faith journey. I really identify with the Interiority and subjectivity of the soul, ideas. As far as the metaphysical God, what do you make of Ken Wilbur's (I'm sure borrowed) idea of the three perspectives on God? 1st, 2nd and 3rd person. Does any of that stuff resolve anything for you?

Also regarding interiority, through meditation' I have had experiences, which i realize could be pure illusions, but truly feel as if I am existing in another form of being (a flame would be the closest thing i could describe) but his flame was attached to something.... I have been calling it the Ground of Being ala Tillich and playing with calling it the Zero Point field ala quantum mechanics....

I love the idea of Gkd being the space between us... Especially given the scriptures focus on love, which can only exist between us... I have given up trying to "feel" the love of God, the meditative and interior experiences I described earlier, for me, have no connection to God. I believe I am simply accessing deeper parts of my own being (or imagining that i am).

Let's chat soon because this poat is so resonant with me personally (maybe not professionally... Maybe not for either of us :-) )

Watch out for that Pete Rollins character, he'll fuck with your head... In a good way!

[Adam Moore]

Catching up on your blog and wanted to say thanks in particular for this post and the "too much God" post.

For awhile you and Pete have been two of the only theological thinkers I feel some relation to - thanks for that.

Would love to chat in person some day.

Peace.
Adam