Monday, June 21, 2010

where's daddy?

Q: why does the rhetoric of the church regarding the character, purposes and actions of God so often default to something that would shock us as abusive or otherwise neglectful if modelled by a parent?

A: because we (like isaiah, the biblical prophet) struggle for words, models and comparisons when it comes to understanding the things of God... especially God's silence.
***
in henson's 90's television series dinosaurs, there is an episode which delves into the troubling silence of God in a fun way.

the story of the film so far...

fran and earl sinclair discover that their child (tellingly named baby) is not their natural offspring due to a nest mixup back when he was hatched. bacause of baby's rather bombastic personality and some marked rejection of earl as 'NOT THE MAMA,' earl has never really bonded with baby. he is very open to a switch because, in his words, they're 'not exactly trading down.' fran will, of course, have no part of it without proof and so, after a battery of tests, the babies are declared to have been regretably switched at birth. baby goes to live with the other family and aubrey, the other child, comes to live with the sinclairs.

after a very short time, earl discovers that aubrey has no athletic ability, and so (at approximately 5:25 of the clip posted below) they choose to play a game that is less physical: peekaboo.


aubrey, however, panics and has an anxiety attack when earl invites him to cover his eyes and then asks 'where's daddy- where'd he go?'

AUBREY: Father! Father! Where have you gone? Oh! Don't abandon me! Ah! Ah! I'm having an asthma attack!

after taking a couple puffs from his inhaler, aubrey becomes a bit more lucid...

AUBREY: Oh what a cruel, cruel game- I felt so alone! Promise me you'll never play that again, Father!

he misses the point. earl is just playing a game, inviting interaction, but with his own hands over his eyes, little aubrey fails to see it. the immediate absence of the father from view preys upon his deepest fears of non-connection and abandonment. in his panic, he is unable to be reasoned with or even spoken to because he is busy putting into words these deep-seeded anxieties.

i'm not saying that all the pain and confusion we encounter is just God playing a game with us. i dare not say that. truth is, most days i don't know where a lot of that stuff comes from or why it is permitted here. that's been the subject of debate for greater minds than my own for millennia, with no satisfactory conclusion in sight. however, as i thought of how ready we often are to push the panic button when we lose sight of God, this clip came to mind. silence and darkness challenge our faith like nothing else, enflaming our fears of rejection, abandonment, and helplessness. it could be that we are simply engaging with the silence in the wrong ways.

i recently posted a question online:
What do you do when it feels like God is hiding?

a number of responses came back. a friend of mine provided a link to powerful piece of writing by latter-day beat poet, bradley hathaway. his poem silence says much which is consistent with my picture of who God the father is and how he interacts with us, even as we rant and blaspheme like the psalmist on his darkest days... our hands placed firmly over our own eyes.

What’s happening here?
I was once so alive and now I’m so full of dread and almost dead
Show me your wounded head that is lead to communion with the father
But where did he go?
His presence seems farther and farther away each day
but I’m trying so hard to steer his way
Yet still lonely and confused on this cold hard ground I lay

Speak to me wise mouth and say “it’s all good kid, it’s nothing that you did, and though it feels like I’m not here with you right now just be still and silent and listen for that sound..
Shhh..
Did you hear it?
Listen again.
Did you hear it?
That silent voice that just spoke nothing, that is me, I’m listening to your plea with open ears Counting all your tears flowing from your irritated eyes
Searching the skies looking for that hope that beyond there lies.

Oh you young worrisome sparrow, find rest
Lay your battered head upon my omnipresent breast and make it your nest
No strong cold wind could ever blow and carry you from this your home
Look around, see the life shooting up from the ground
Spring colors springing fourth and celebration of your trusting

It’s a constant process this is
Growing you into the man you are to become
But when you sense the setting of the sun know it is only rising and has just begun
Now go fourth, sing songs of faith, and lift up others in the midst of this race
And if you can’t keep the pace or lose sight of my face
Know that I’m always near so you need not fear
But don’t worry about all that right now
Just sit here and enjoy the peace I offer in my silence
When I am silent I am listening, and not abandoning.


8 comments:

Anonymous said...

It starts to make one wonder why the answers to theological "Q and A" more often then not begin by "because we -fail-" Why is it always us that fails? Or is the answer to that question yet another "its humanity's fault for not understanding our own existence"

jollybeggar said...

wow. thank you for this comment!

hmm
why is it always us that fails? great question. i know i ask myself that regularly... especially after i fail.

the pat answer is that 'all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God...' (romans 3.23) which is true, but still hangs there going 'yeah, but WHY do we sin?'

apparently paul and the church in rome had some heavy late night debates over this one because he goes into the whole 'why am i so much better at doing the things i know i mustn't' thing in romans 7.7-25, concluding that it has something to do with his nature being somehow corrupted and in dire need of a reinstall and reboot.

in this regard, i suppose it definitely IS humanity's 'fault' (flaw, weak spot) but whether this has anything to do with not understanding our own existence is probably a different convo. we must keep some distance between fault and blame. even though they often walk hand in hand, they are not the same thing.

back to your original idea about answers to theological Q and A often falling flat with 'because we fail', i suspect that the default answer is a bit of a red herring- one of those things we say when we don't have anything better. i mean, theology is supposed to be the 'science/knowledge of God' and yet the common answer/conclusion seems to be more about humanity. the answer should somehow have God at the centre, yet more often than not, we place ourselves there.

could it be that much of our theological questions have more to do with our trying to understand ourselves through the lens of God and ending up drawing conclusions about God by squeezing God through our limited framing? yikes- there's gonna be some clipping there...

anyway, those are my thoughts... what are yours?

jollybeggar said...

ha ha- so i reworked the opening words of the post to reflect a bit of this convo... thanks!

Anonymous said...

what would our theologies gain/lose if we were to jettison the idea of original sin?
Some preliminary thoughts are that we would do a whole lot less denigrating of ourselves and humanity, which, depending on how you read the whole "made in the image of God" could be seen as a denigration of the God as well. There would be no need to dwell on our failings and confirm them in our founding cosmology that reeks of disease but instead we could be convinced of our ability to do the heroic in such a way that the prefix "super" in "super-human" would become superfluous.
As an etiology for the separation of humanity and the transcendent the idea of original sin seems to have a function but beyond that the creation narratives in Hebrew Scripture aren't meant to function as a recipe for constructing (or worse yet, discovering) the metaphysical structure of the universe.
All I'm saying is that discussions of where God is when God is silent could have nothing to do with us and could be much more as simple as divine prerogative.

jollybeggar said...

so i got going on this one and realized that i was in the middle of another blogpost.

i'll call you when it's ready.

jollybeggar said...

hmm
hmm
and again i say
hmm

http://e-pistles.blogspot.com/2010/06/dogma.html

hineini said...

"AUBREY: Oh what a cruel, cruel game- I felt so alone! Promise me you'll never play that again, Father!"

"Promise me you'll never play that again, Father!" At least in the clip the father listens to the pleading child and agrees not to play the game anymore. And he is only a dinosaur.

jollybeggar said...

does my inability to interpret silence in ways that bring me personal comfort or insight somehow obligate God to speak or reveal himself differently? isn't requiring another to act a certain way in order to satisfy my need a form of 'murder'?