God's Words Upside Down

In one of my college art history classes, I remember seeing a lovely medieval painting in which God was speaking to someone. You could tell it was God speaking, because the text was upside down. The positioning, according to our professor, symbolized not only God’s place “up there,” but also the difficulty that we have understanding God.

Could this symbolism help us live more comfortably with our scriptures?

Right now, I’m in a phase where nothing about the Bible makes sense. I reread passages whose meaning I’ve “understood” for 20 years—and I see something different in them. (Some of these lessons have blessed me mightily, so it’s not all bad.) Turns of phrase that once seemed drop-dead clear are now maddeningly obscure. Don’t even get me started on the outright contradictions.

And my 21^st-century mind is sorely tempted to ask, “What’s wrong with you writers? Why can’t you be clear and consistent?”

To be sure, we’re reading texts written millennia ago by multiple writers with multiple viewpoints, and that’s part of the issue. But I think there’s more to it: namely, the impossibility of explaining ultimate reality directly. No wonder God’s words are upside down: in a sense, they cannot be any other way.

I see the same struggle to express reality outside the texts of faith traditions. In Ulysses, James Joyce takes 700-odd pages—some of them nearly incomprehensible—to present a three-dimensional portrait of one man on one day. Cubist portraits translate 3D onto a flat surface by displaying each feature of the subject on its own plane; the result is a more complete presentation of the elusive reality than a standard portrait could be.

In short, reality will not be nailed down.

What does this mean for us? Maybe it means the pressure is off. We don’t have to pinpoint exactly who Jesus was, or define God in a neat way, or be “right” about details. The pursuit of truth becomes less pursuit and more exploration. Humility gets the chance to flourish in our souls. We can hold what we’ve learned lightly, in case we learn something else to turn those lessons upside down.

And without the need to be “right,” we can turn more of our attention to God, where we will find far more truth anyway—and the love we desperately need to leaven it.

Is Mary for Everyone?

A monk friend of mine (Episcopalian) has been heard to say, “I don’t do Mary.” To be sure, a lot of people outside Roman Catholicism feel the same way. For me, though, a devotion to Mary has added substantial depth and color to the spiritual journey.

Perhaps a bit of background is in order. Maybe 10 years ago, I started wondering exactly what Catholics saw in Mary, so I went to the only source I knew: the Gospel of Luke. Here’s some of what I found:

• In the sixth month the angel Gabriel…came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. (Luke 1:26-29) Notice something about Mary’s reaction. She’s perplexed, she’s pondering, but she’s not scared out of her wits, as most people would be when confronted with an angel. This tells me that the world of angels—more generally, the world of God—is well known to her. She shows a spiritual awareness exceptional in a young teenage girl.
• Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” (Luke 1:38) The angel Gabriel has just turned her world upside down: she’s about to become an unwed teenage mother in a culture that could very well put her to death for it. And yet, at such tremendous personal risk, she yields herself to the Divine will.
• But Mary treasured all these words and pondered them in her heart. (Luke 2:19; see also v. 51) A apt description of a contemplative spirit, yes?
  

So in these first two chapters, I found a portrait of a reflective, spiritually precocious young woman that deeply moved me. This was someone I could model myself after.

It was also someone I wanted to talk with. And so I have.

I don’t think that’s unusual. A good friend and fellow parishioner is profoundly skeptical of the mystical side of Christianity; he doesn’t believe in a literal Resurrection, let alone literal miracles, etc. And yet, in a time of deep personal crisis, he suddenly found himself saying the Hail Mary.

There is something very deep, very ancient, to which we connect when we connect with Mary. Perhaps it’s the simple yet timeless comfort of a mother—an especially strong pull for those of us who didn’t have perfect childhoods. Maybe it’s the deep sense of interrelatedness that seems to spring naturally from the feminine. Maybe it’s the wisdom of the archetypal wise woman. I couldn’t tell you.

The strange thing is, whenever I use Marian prayers or simply contemplate Mary, I always find myself moving on eventually to God. The Catholics know this experience well: they take Mary’s direction at the Cana wedding—do whatever he tells you (John 2:5)—as a universal sign that she always points to Christ.

None of this means I subscribe to all the various church doctrines about Mary. But I don’t think such a dogmatic belief is necessary. If that is indeed the case, then devotion to Mary can fit comfortably in many faith traditions. For me, at least, its value is inestimable. Maybe the same is true for you too.

Explaining the Unexplainable

How do you explain faith to people who have no specific faith?

It’s anything but easy. The language of the faith traditions is utterly foreign to these folks. Many of them are cynical by nature. They find more reasonable explanations in the world of science, the everyday, or the closed loop of human society (often with good reason). It doesn’t help that aggressive evangelists have made faith talk synonymous with the ol’ hard sell—and alienated many people into an outright refusal to consider faith at all.

This question certainly daunted Henri Nouwen, the Dutch priest, psychologist, and contemplative. In fact, he wrote a brilliant book (Life of the Beloved) to answer it; unfortunately, for his secular friends, it didn’t work.

And yet, God has given us this unutterably rich experience of life, and we want to share it so others can taste of its richness as well. But how can we do so in their language?

One answer came from a close friend who is deeply spiritual and just as deeply alienated from any specific faith tradition. As we discussed matters of faith one day, she explained her view of the Divine: “Just look around us. This all doesn’t just happen.”

In that spirit, maybe the following might help skeptics take one step closer to the Divine. Consider that, in a world without God:

· The universe makes sense. The earth does not.

· Function makes sense. Beauty does not.

· Cooperation makes sense. Love does not.

And yet the earth thrives. Beauty abounds. Love persists. Life, to quote Jurassic Park, finds a way. How is that possible when all things should naturally tend toward entropy and decay?

What else doesn’t make sense without God? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

What Is Truth? And Should We Care?

Truth is one of those words, like humility and virtue, that has fallen by the wayside. To the extent you hear any talk about truth these days, it tends to fall into one of two lines of thought:

1. Everything is relative. In our gloriously diverse, post-Christian society, who are we to judge others’ opinions of reality? Can we really say there’s a right or wrong? If not, doesn’t that make talk of “truth” obsolete? There’s so much to be said in favor of this approach: it can lead to tolerance, listening, mutual respect, and authentic dialogue.

And yet the problem with “there’s no right or wrong” is that ultimately it’s, um, well, wrong.

Consider the myriad of sincere, intelligent Christians in ages past who believed that the Bible condoned slavery, or anti-Semitism, or the mistreatment of women. The consensus in today’s Christendom (let alone the secular world) would call these interpretations wrong. That opens the door for an unsettling doubt: are there beliefs today that we take for granted but future generations will see as clearly wrong?

And if the answer is yes, wouldn’t that make the pursuit of truth—whatever that is—worthwhile?

2. I have the truth. We’ve all seen how much danger lies in claims to exclusive truth. If we have the truth, why engage in dialogue with those who disagree? Why not, rather, do anything we can to convince them of our belief? This so often devolves into many of the conflicts that plague our world today, from debased dialogue and insensitivity to outright violence.

But is there another way to think about truth?

I think there is, and perhaps the clearest exposition is in the Gospel of John. On the face of it, the gospel’s pages include both lines of thought we just explored. In the relativist corner, Pontius Pilate looks Jesus in the eye during his trial and dismissively asks, “What is truth?” (John 18:38). For the absolutist view, look at Jesus’ own saying: “If you follow my word, you are truly my disciples, and you shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:31-32).

Now look more closely. I wonder whether, in both stories, the gospel writer is trying to make a point. Pilate asks the question “What is truth?” and receives no answer—because he’s looking at it. Jesus speaks of the truth, not as a set of assertions, but as his word and indeed (John 14:6) as himself.

In both cases, we are presented with truth as a person.

Here’s the rub. People take a lifetime to get to know. People have myriad facets, sometimes paradoxical. If truth is like this too, the pursuit of truth becomes so much more than a quest for the right viewpoint or the correct proposition. Rather, it involves both an appreciation for the unfathomable complexity of truth and an unrelenting curiosity to seek it—no matter how inconvenient it may be.

In this view, truth is not to be mastered, but to be treated with reverence. We pursue it not with the goal of learning The Truth, but with the humility of knowing we can’t. We become like the blind men with the elephant: each grasping a small slice of the truth, yet needing one another to appreciate it more deeply.

A pursuit of truth that leads to humility, reverence, and interdependence of neighbors? Just imagine the good fruit that could bear.