There was a sermon on church which has fundamentally altered the way I perceive religion, the Bible, and, ultimately, God. Not bad for 20 minutes, right?
I'm going to recap what I understood or feel to be the most salient points, the ones I have mulled for a full day now. And, because I try to keep my blog relatively anonymous, I'm not linking to the text or the minister, but can help you if you send me an email.
What I Have in Common with the Religious Right
Shocking, no? Me and the Southern Baptist Convention?
We're both, the minister suggested, literal interpreters of the Bible, though with totally different outcomes and agendas: (in my case) they because they believe it word for word and me because I don't believe it word for word. Gone is any appreciation of the subtle art of metaphor, perhaps a better way for a religious liberal like me to approach scripture. Surely as an art historian and educator I can do better than black and white.
"Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalms 46:10), which Mama learned as "Be still, and know that I am," apparently has a different connotation in the original Hebrew, the minister told us. "Be still" is closer to "let go" or even "unclench." Is that like "relax"? Stop being uptight? Stop taking it literally? Let go of the baggage of your indifferent atheist upbringing in a Southern Baptist world and your existence as a feminist lesbian mom in a country where feminism has become a bad word and same-sex marriage and/or parenthood is illegal in the majority of states? No wonder I find that so hard to do. Who wants that God?
As the minister pointed out on Sunday, much of the misunderstanding starts with the word "God." Taking the word literally, as a conscious patriarch on high, I can't open the King James or New Revised and flip the pages in any seriousness, much less belief, especially considering how the Word has been used by its enthusiastic and literal followers. I hadn't given much thought to taking the word metaphorically, at least not so specifically. Sure, I've heard "God is love" (1 John 4:8--didn't even know it was a Bible verse til Sunday. And yes, unless it's a medieval altarpiece or Cecil B. DeMille movie, I am biblically illiterate), but still tripped over that first part. And so when the minister began substituting "love" for the name of God (taking John literally, I suppose), particularly in Deuteronomy 6:4-9 (part of the traditional Jewish prayer, Shema, and utilizing a Jewish tradition of questioning scripture to more fully understand it), it transformed the verse:
Love our God, Love is one.5 Love Love your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. 6 These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. 7 Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. 8 Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. 9 Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
And got us all thinking . . . .
What Color is Your Ultimacy?
Because the minister asked us to name God. Think of the value, the "ultimacy," that is most important to you, the one by which you guide yourself on the path of life, the one which matters to you most above all. Substitute the word "value" for "God" and we religious liberals are all over that. We understand what we value; we have a list of principles to help clarify it for ourselves and others. Anything to avoid using that extremely laden word.
Do you have one? Had you thought to name it before? Some said family, others hope, still others children, some interconnectedness, some peace. And, of course, love. What for me, existed before, exists now, and will exist after me and is more important than anything? I paced (because I still don't sit in church) and contemplated it. Do I live (or try to live) a value, a single value, that encompasses all? Does it really need a word (even if, "in the beginning was the word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God (John 1:1)? "Family" seemed too constricted, leaving out the importance of community. "Community" seemed too limited locally. "Love" struck me as too cliche, which makes it hard to think on, especially during the month when love is literally for sale for Valentine's Day. For now, I've settled on "compassion," which I think includes love and respect, care and concern, locally and globally, for people, animals, the earth, my vegetarianism and non-violent communication and mindfulness/meditation practice and Unitarian Universalism.
Lingering Questions
But is compassion "God"? Do I need to call my values "God"? Aren't I still an atheist, since even if I name God "compassion", I don't believe in heaven, hell, or a divine patriarch? Don't such spiritual matters really transcend language, which is imperfect to capture what we mean, much less the truth, which I find unknowable (see the fascinating Rabbi Lurie's "The Rabbi Who Believed in Zeus")? Would the Religious Right and I really be communicating if I were thinking metaphorically and they were thinking literally? And why do we need to communicate? Does the religious left need to engage the Religious Right on their own playing field? Doesn't that give the Bible more authority than I think it should have in our society, our government, and our laws? Would I be willfully misunderstanding the intentions of the authors of the Bible? Does it matter? Or can I find value in the Bible the way I do in the spiritual texts of other faiths, past and present, letting go, "unclenching" so to speak, my prejudice against it? And what do I tell the children? Is "God is Love" literally and metaphorically the answer?
Definitely something to chew on . . . .
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Food for the Stomach
And there was soup!!!
Spicy sweet potato and coconut soup
(you might cut this in half, this recipe feeds 14)
3 1/2 lbs orange-fkeshed sweet potatos
2 tablespoons & 1 teaspoon vegetable oil
2 1/4 (2") pieces fresh ginger root, thinly sliced
2 tablespoons &1 teaspoon rede curry paste
2 1/4 (15 Oz) cans unsweetened coconut milk
7 cups vegetable broth
1/2 cup lemom juice
2 1/4 teaspoon sea salt
2 tablespoons & 1 teaspoon toasted sesame oil
1 cup & 3 tablespoons chopped fresh cilantro
Baked the Sweet potatoes at 400 degrees for about 45 min. until tender , remove from over let them cool.
Heat the oil in a large soup pot over med.heat. Add the onion and ginger, cook and stir until tender, about 5 min. Stir in the curry paste and heat for about a min. then whisk in the coconut milk and vegetable broth, then reduce heat to low and simmer for about 5 min.
Remove the skins from the sweet potatoes and cut into little bite size chunks. Add to the soup and cook for 5 more minutes so they can soak up the flavor.Stir in the juice and season with salt.
Ladle into bowls and garnish with drizzle of sesame oil and a bit of cilantro.
Today I forgot the cilantro, Sorryyyyyyyyyy.
Miss O
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