I got in an argument (I should say a spirited conversation) with a colleague at our recent clergy conference. I made a statement that the notion of an unchanging God, the unmoved mover, a faceless and aloof God, unseen, lost in the heavens is just untenable after having passed through the lens of process, liberation and feminist theologies of the twentieth century…in and through what Phyllis Tickle describes as the Great Emergence wherein there has been a great deconstruction of the Enlightenment mythologies across all academic disciplines(see last week’s blog). My colleague responded, “say what?” I answered, “Wouldn’t it be hopeful if our God were learning, growing, moving towards completion with us. If God were unchanging then God couldn’t be “moved” by compassion or mercy or solidarity. No the created order entire is moved by process and decision…individual iterations and occurrences that affect the very nature of the cosmos in instant after instant. It is heartening to me to believe, and to at least act as if God is an intimate part of this process, experiencing along side us the wonder and mystery of life and eternity in its unfolding. Does this way of thinking make God somehow less? I think not. God is all the more present, still about the mystery of Creation; still reaching out in saving love to those who because of circumstances and adverse decisions are not empowered for the creative process and empowered agency….the way God sees us: …creative beings for love.
Another collegue at the table said, “but love is unchanging.” That gave me pause….Well I said, could it be that a better way to say that is that love is eternal….not unchanging, but always present…In reality love must change in order to embrace the process and potential of creation…love must always be ready to improvise…find its life again when it has been wounded…Love never ends…but love is always on the move…It is for us as people of conscience and faith to pay attention to where love is and where love might be…and where love could be….love as platitude is lifeless…love as embrace is life giving and full of potential. Love keeps open the possibilities in life because love is forever sacrificing for the good of the whole…Love the faithful midwife to all that is and is to come.
On our flight just yesterday from New Orleans to Houston in our descent we crossed over Galveston Bay where it empties into the Gulf of Mexico: A vast expanse of blue green tremulous with possibility. At fifteen thousand feet, tiny vessels about some mundane matters of commerce, their wakes glistening in the sun, borne by the taut energy of the sea’s meniscus, our great mother, bearing up the enterprise that is creation itself…a fine metaphor I thought of the infinite potential in which we live…anything can happen on the sea…great destroyer and great life giver….unpredictable, and dangerous but full of life and engendering of hope….but of all the things to say about her, she is beautiful, and beauty is always made manifest in change or the potential for change….or the process of it…and certainly the decision for it…and God along side us still calls this marvelous becoming…good.
Very well done, sir. And if you’d just said something along the lines of “this potential sings beyond the genius of the sea,” or at least made mention of water-lights, you’d’ve knocked it out of the park! 🙂
It did cross my mind JF