Like Pitmann McGeehee, “I find myself in a dynamic theological place, and I think that’s the best place to be”—at least most of the time.
My “dynamic theological place” no longer has any “anthropomorphic images” of God. I seldom relate to a male “He” or a female “She”. I don’t think much along the lines of “Father God” or “Mother God”. If I think of God in any of those terms, it’s usually as Lover or Beloved. Even before I lost my anthropomorphic images, Love was the only image of God I related to, and mostly in the form of Jesus. Some may think it sacrilegious, but I think of God more in terms of “It”; i.e., Every-Widening Horizon, The Edge, Life Giver, etc.
One of my favorite meditations is to ponder Paul’s words: We live and move and have our being IN God. The only person I ever lived and moved and had being in was my mother. But one day I outgrew that Space. God, on the other hand, is Space for growth—I can grow and grow…why I can grow as large as the Universe and still live inside that Space we’ve named God! I can never outgrow God—there will always be more to the Great Mystery, and that’s a resting place for me, except…
…except when I hear, read, or attempt to discuss “the wrath of God”.
When God’s wrath comes up, it feels like my feet get tangled. I get so darned tripped up. I’m at least “ok” if I can put the book down and walk away, but the “shaking” really gets to warp speed when I’m in a discussion and can’t walk away. I usually wind up feeling foolish and trapped. And the last couple of book studies I’ve been in at St. Timothy’s have attempted to speaking of the wrath of God, and off I go.
So, I’ve been pondering “why”—actually, I’ve been fretting the issue a lot! It was really amazing to me when I woke up yesterday morning with an analogy that seemed to fit my understanding. Maybe I won’t have to sweat it anymore. The analogy was just there, in my head and heart, all neatly explained, and speaking itself to me.
One of my favorite images of God is Creative Energy—Energy that creates from nothing, Energy that makes all things new, that vivifies, regenerates, resurrects…It could even be called Perpetual Spring.
But for today, in “answer” to this conundrum, Creative Energy will manifest Its Self as WIND. Where does WIND come from? Where does WIND go? I don’t know. It wasn’t here a moment ago. Creative Energy always has been. But for the sake of this analogy, God/Creative Energy has now manifested as WIND.
And WIND just is.
WIND begins blowing North—but wait, I’m headed South. I’m simply walking South on a windless day, when this WIND comes from nowhere and blows fiercely against me. WIND feels like wrath, especially as It blows harder, and I determine to keep moving against it. For me, that’s the most simple explanation I have of “the wrath of God”.
So, what does that have to do with my ugly grapefruit?
The wind that blows our here on the Creek is constant, and sometimes fierce, even when there's no hurricane in the Gulf. And the result of the constant wind on my grapefruit tree is apparent in this photo...
The wind that blows at my house isn't angry at my grapefruit tree--it's just that my little tree stands in the path of where the wind is blowing Add to our sometimes gale-force winds, the natural thorns on the tree, and this is what you get--ugly grapefruit. But thanks to thick skins and the way nature works, these ugly little grapefruit are still juicy and sweet. Go figure.
I also tend to get hung up on “God hates the sin but loves the sinner,” a phrase which tends to come up in discussions on “the wrath of God”.
But in my analogy, the WIND doesn’t hate me for walking against It. And I may not even be “sinning” by walking against it. Walking in the opposite direction might even strengthen me.
That’s another conundrum I’ve been in for a long time. What the heck is “sin” anyway? When my image of God changes, my definitions seem to morph as well. I can’t define “sin” as something I do or don’t do, like adultery, or sleeping with a lover outside of marriage, or being selfish, or getting angry. Shoot, I can’t even define sin as stealing and murder. Those are moral judgments that affect my horizontal relationships, and may not be good choices for living in a civilized society, but I question whether or not sure the WIND hates anything. I know, I’m moving very close to the edge of what religion will tolerate in its thinking, and mind you, I’m not completely settled on this point, but for the sake of this story of the WIND…
Between the WIND and me, perhaps “sin” IS my refusal to change directions and move with the WIND.
I remember sitting and looking outside my window a few years ago. It was a very windy day, and there were leaves on my deck. I began to watch one particular leaf as it “danced” with the WIND. Sometimes it was a flutter—sometimes the leaf was dashed to the deck, only to be picked up and tossed again—then miraculously, caught in mid-air and danced again. And I remember praying:
“God, may my life be such that I always move with Your Wind. May my fears be diminished enough that I can let go and move with the Wind.”
We used to call those RCP prayers—radical commitment prayers that we lovingly pray without much thought—until we’ve been slammed against a few walls and broken. For some of us, that’s how we learn to dance.
But, back to the WIND in this story. The WIND isn’t angry about the direction I choose to walk. Nor does the WIND hate my choice. The WIND simply IS. But if I want to be a part of Creative Energy, for my sake and for the sake of what the WIND is up to, I’ll turn around (repent) and go with the WIND.
So, for me, the “wrath” of God (the WIND) simply isn’t. Furthermore, the term, “the wrath of God”, feels like a tool, a cattle prod, a manipulative tactic to get me to go along with religion’s “majority report”. And the phrase “God hates the sin and loves the sinner” kind of “feels” the same way. For most of my life, when someone says that line, they’re speaking of a particular person and/or “sin”, and it’s a line used to justify judging someone else’s sin. At least, that’s my opinion.
So, does God “hate” sin? I don’t think so. I could be wrong—I certainly have been before, but I’m not even sure the word “hate” falls into language about Creative Energy that vivifies and gives life, that resurrects, that makes all things new. The WIND may certainly feel and look like “hate” (re-examine the skins of my poor grapefruit), but who can know the “mind” of WIND?
All I know is that for me, when the WIND blows, I am empowered to turn and move in Its direction. And there’s appears to be no way I can look into someone else’s life and declare they are in “sin”, simply because I’m not living their life, and I can’t feel which way the WIND’s blowing (or not). Neither do I know the direction they are walking. I can certainly judge whether or not to me it looks healthy for them or the people around them. But I can’t know what it might take for them to learn to dance with the WIND.
I’ve had some experience with folks declaring my sins to me, folks who never knowing what the WIND was up to in my life. Shoot, most of the time I’m still clueless to what the WIND may be up to in my life, until hindsight and time reveals it.
And that’s another story for another day.
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