Final Post –> New Blog!

Hello friends: old, new, and cyber! 

As I transition out of my role as student and into the realm of grown-up-real-life, I say goodbye to this blog.  What began as a class assignment struggled to maintain its place in my varying interests by representing a small selection of subsequent classes during the time I spent at Fuller.  I think it’s served its purpose faithfully and with great perseverance.

Now I welcome you all to visit my new blog: of the garden variety.  (Don’t get too excited; there’s nothing really there yet.)  I plan to blog at least once a week in 2010, probably posting Tueseday evenings.  Do follow, comment, and thrive with me as I attempt to document my growth into adulthood with snapshots of the various flora and fauna that flourish in the garden of my soul.  Now wasn’t that poetic?

Happy journey, brave ones!

Sincerely, your lovely host: lauraknowles

On Rain and Torn-Down Houses

It rained all day today, and that is a rare moment in southern California. To celebrate, I posted an old poem I wrote in college on my Facebook page. I thought I’d post it here as well, just for fun. Enjoy!

On Rain and Torn-Down Houses

I miss the sound the rain made at my house
when I would sneak out to the porch at night
on tiptoe, quiet, so as not to rouse

my mother, who could stop me in mid-flight
from watching as the sleepy world got wet.
The vinyl awning kept me dry in spite

of Angel, dripping, begging me to pet
her slick black fur and licking at my knees
all goose-bumped in the hurried wind that let

my unclipped hair swirl tangled in the breeze.
I miss the mist that held onto my skin
and how the rustling leaves fell from their trees

and dropped like unwrapped gifts from distant kin
to lie forlorn and dying at my feet
before the wind would whip them up again.

I sometimes wander down that lonely street
and wonder if the rain still falls as sweet.

The Development of My Body Theology

Below is the link to the first part of “Call of the Artist: a recovering of image in the Church,” a piece I wrote about 18 months ago exploring the connection between the human body and art in the Church. (I never posted it because it includes a story involving another Fuller student, who has since graduated and moved away.) You can find excerpts from the second part through the “theology pop culture and emerging church” category at the bottom of the page, or follow the links at the end of this post. I am posting this first part in its entirety (sans footnotes), so for the sake of space, you can access the majority of the piece through the link below.

Here’s the opening paragraph as a teaser:

My body betrays me. It attracts attention I don’t want. It fails to attract attention I do want. It crumples into a weepy heap when I get angry or frustrated or tired. It breaks down entirely on occasions when it has a responsibility to get me to work on time. It reminds me of my ability to procreate at the most inconvenient time of the month. It sweats and farts—so very unladylike. Most of all, it ties me—the real me, the me inside, that spiritual, ethereal self—to an existence that often wearies me beyond expression. It, this body I am reduced to, is not on my side.

***

Part 1: Body Theology

The Journey

A friend of mine accidentally gave me this poem, and I accidentally read it.  It accidentally struck just the tender chord in me, so I am with intentionality and purpose including it here without any commentary or insight of my own, just to rest in the knowledge that yes, someone else knows what it is to walk alone.

“The Journey” (by Mary Oliver)

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice–

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

“Mend my life!”

each voice cried.

But you didn’t stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations,

though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen

branches and stones.

But little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do–

determined to save

the only life that you could save.

Psalm 89 – A Lament

How long, O LORD ? Will you hide yourself forever?

How long will your wrath burn like fire?

Remember how fleeting is my life.

For what futility you have created all men!  (Psalm  89: 46-7)

Psalm 89 moves chameleon-like through different emotions of the psalmist, almost as though there are different speakers.  First, there is praise, then an oracle of the Davidic covenant, and finally complaint and plea before God.  Though there are several different sections to the psalm, Psalm 89 is clearly at bottom a psalm of lament.  The fact that the psalm does not resolve into praise at the end supports this claim.  Thus the psalm’s purpose is to accuse God of not fulfilling God’s covenantal promise to David to be faithful and steadfast in his love.  The psalmist is calling God to account first by reminding God of his covenant agreement and then by describing the facts of the current state of the king that contradict that agreement.

The psalmist clearly has no trouble pointing out exactly what he or she expects God to be doing and asking God when circumstances will be righted again.  It is difficult to have a picture of God that seems imperfect.  I remember my mom once double-checking a children’s book against the biblical text of the story of Noah’s flood because she did not like that it said, “Then God remembered Noah,” as if God had forgotten him for a while. (Incidentally, it does say that in the biblical text as well.)  But this psalm exemplifies just this tension between God’s sovereignty and our participation: God is acknowledged as being faithful, yet God is being reminded of that faithfulness.  This tension is something that must be dealt with both in the psalmist’s mind and in our own context today.  When God is described as remembering something, it simply means to the Hebrew mind that God is once again mindful of a situation and is going to do something about it.  When the psalmist asks God to remember the covenant, there is no real fear that God could have forgotten it.  It is rather a call to action: “hey, we’re over here feeling abandoned, so come put things back the way they should be.”

To our contemporary ears, it seems brash and even insulting to accuse God of anything at all.  We are taught to accept whatever happens as part of God’s plan.  Psalm 89 proves that God allows our interaction with him even when it closes the distance of king to subject.  The psalmist approaches God’s throne as an angry child approaches a parent: “you’re not being fair; you said I could such-and-such; how long do I have to wait?”  That kind of intimacy is almost frowned upon in many of today’s western churches.  In attempting to set God apart, we separate ourselves from God.  This psalm serves as a necessary righting of that false mindset toward God.

Sometimes we do not feel like praising because God seems to be the opposite of what we would say in God’s honor. The psalmist gives us permission to remind God of his promised steadfast love and faithfulness, whether we are praising or lamenting.  The psalm can serve as a reminder: God doesn’t want you to stay this way, so it’s okay to ask God for help!  Sometimes we feel forgotten by God, like we do not matter, as if God is too busy elsewhere to notice our particular pain.  We think we are not allowed to require of God.  But God has promised.

This psalm gives us permission to call God to account, to remind God that we have not forgotten that he should be steadfast and faithful.  It is okay to tell God we feel forgotten and remind God of his promises.  Sometimes God may want us to wait on his timing, but other times God may be waiting for us to interact with him, to let him know we want him.  Thus, this psalm can be used to remind people not only that it is acceptable to complain to God but also that God is a personal God who wants to interact with us.  God is not a watchmaker who winds up the world and sits back to let it run all by itself.  Sometimes God allows us to fall into situations that will remind us that God is there, waiting to be acknowledged again.

I have learned from this psalm that lament is an acceptable form of prayer to God.  More than that, I have learned that it is necessary at times to leave lament in its raw state of pain rather than attempt to temper it with praise.  Clearly, Psalm 89 is not entirely a psalm of lament.  The first 18 verses praise God for all the goodness in creation and the covenantal promises.  The next section even details the nature of that promise.  It is not until verse 38 that the lament begins, so the psalmist certainly cannot be accused of simply griping to God all the time.  This is no complaint in our modern terms but a genuine expression of distress and frustration.

I have not always felt free to express my own lament to God without couching everything in praise to avoid offense.  There is great freedom in being able to express hurt and anger, even to demand that God make good on his promises, instead of meekly accepting life situations as ordained by God and suffering in silence.  Silence breeds resentment, and resentment breeds death.  Psalm 89 teaches us to break that silence, even when God seems silent toward us.  God may just be waiting to hear us acknowledge that we notice the lack of God’s felt presence.

Ash Wednesday

Another little piece from my writing lab…

(desert pictures are copyrighted!!)

There is something haunting about the barrenness of the desert. The dry, cracked earth produces little more plant life than bristles, thistles, and thorns. I am sitting on the hillside overlooking St. Andrew’s Abbey in Valyermo, California. The cemetery rests behind me, just up the winding dirt path. The sun is unmerciful, but I shiver, defenseless against the wind. It is Ash Wednesday. I have never been to a monastery before. I envy this rhythm of life so firmly established here, so deeply rooted in history, tradition, and meaning. I envy the unrushed movement of the brothers as they go about their daily tasks with studied patience. Mostly, I envy the cultivated attitude of reverence toward solitude and stillness. Ash Wednesday, the first day of the Lenten season, is marked by fasting, prayer, and quiet. I have hiked up this hill, away from the monks and visitors, in order to break the silence with my sad song.

My experience at the monastery is nothing like I had expected. I’ve never been in the desert before. I’ve never really been able to understand the draw of barrenness and wasteland on the human soul. I find rest and restoration for my thirsty soul in the calming presence of green and growing things, in the canopies of the Appalachian mountains, in the cool shade and roar of the misty waterfalls. Retreat for me is seclusion in the deep forest, crunching leaves and underbrush under my feet or drinking hot tea under a warm blanket at the picture window overlooking an undisturbed lake. But the desert? I never understood how one could draw peace and strength from a place where nothing grows, where it is at once hot and cold, where desolation and isolation reign. I never understood until this moment, perched on a bolder with my hair wild and lashing my face, watching a hawk in flight. I see him take off, flapping wildly in his ascent, struggling in the wind. Suddenly, the fight is over; the hawk catches a thermal and glides, free and calm, coasting on the breeze that carries him along the way. I’ve never actually seen a hawk fly over the desert before. There is no peace like that moment when the wind takes over and the wings can rest on the journey. I see myself in this moment, resting mid-flight and trusting that the wind will hold me up. I never expected to see myself here in the desert. I stop singing. Suddenly, silence is everything.

***** ***** *****

Lent is the season of repentance, the space between Christmas and Easter when one’s spirituality is devoted to sin, darkness, and death in preparation for the joy, blessing, and life that come with the celebration of the resurrection of Jesus. I never liked Lent or paid much special attention to it as part of the church calendar. But this year, the year that marks a quarter-century in my life, Lent has taken on an unexpectedly profound significance. Being a graduate without any sense of definition for my occupational future has thrown me rather roughly into a deep, unstable darkness. My identity is wrapped in a shroud of uncertainty. My right-brained creativity should be my salvation, but it has only fed into the anxiety of left-handed living. Lent reminds me just how weak I am.

I am an anxious person. When I don’t understand, or when I feel out of control, my anxiety overwhelms me and destroys any chance I have at the rest I have been called into in this season of life. I am most anxious when I lack the words to express myself or define the world around me. This season of waiting, this moment of rest on the journey, has produced an intense experience of rootlessness. I have been like the hawk, flapping anxiously upward, desperate for the invisible breeze and unable to find it—until that moment on Ash Wednesday when I see the hawk rest on the very wind that had caused him to struggle in flight. In that moment I realized what the Abbey brothers have always known: silence is the sister of waiting. I have been trying, and failing, to describe this place I live in these days, this holding cell between my past and future life, between who I have been and who I am becoming. I have been failing because it is an impossible task, like the hawk fighting the wind. The time has come for silence. The time has come for acceptance of this weakness, this waiting. Words fail and anxiety immobilizes; rigor mortis sets in. I do not move on, not because I will not but because I cannot. I wait because I can do nothing else, but in the waiting—I am learning—I must be silent, as silent as the grave.

Mary & Martha

Here’s a little bit of the piece I’m working on currently for my writing lab.

I love the story in the book of Luke where Jesus comes to stay with Mary and Martha. Lazarus is there, I always imagine, sitting near his friend and playing the host while his sisters ready the guest room and prepare the evening meal. I often wonder what he thought when his sister Mary put down her laundry basket, entered the room quietly, and sat at Jesus’ feet. But Luke allows us a glimpse only into Martha’s inner world as she breaks into the conversation in a fit of frustration and demands from Jesus what she feels she deserves: “Tell my sister to help me!” She was only asking for what she felt was right. She was only requiring of others what she was also willing to sacrifice. I always identified with Martha, the oldest child, the helper who finds her worth in performing, in conforming. Martha was a doer, and so am I. Now that I think about it, I bet Martha was right-handed.

There are days when I set out to complete a task, to fulfill an obligation, to meet someone else’s expectations that I feel every bit of my left-handedness weighing me down, holding me back. Being left-handed is my weakness, my inability to fit the round peg that I am into the square hole of the world. Or maybe I’m the square, and my corners are too sharp and awkward to slide across the smoothness of the world’s curve. Lefties are the gangly, uncoordinated adolescents that society passes over when choosing teams in kickball. Lefties are the benchwarmers, the underdogs—but doesn’t everyone love to see the underdogs win? Isn’t it in the very nature of the right-brained person to turn her weakness into some undiscovered strength?

That’s what I am learning, as I sit in the waning afternoon sunlight, watching my soy candle burn into dusk. I’m learning to embrace my sharp corners with my uncoordinated limbs and wait, and wait and wait. I have tried to be Martha too long, the active, capable, do-everything-er who always plays by the rules and never once steps out of place. Now I wonder if Mary isn’t a more likeminded role model. Did Mary like washing dishes, I wonder. Was she as careful at folding the laundry or sweeping the steps as her sister expected? Maybe she wasn’t that good at housework. Maybe Mary’s sharp corners grated on Martha’s round world. How long did Mary wait for the right moment to enter that room, when her brother was sufficiently enraptured in Jesus’ voice and her sister engaged with the servants? Did her heart beat and her palms sweat with anticipation? Did she know, when Martha barged into the room, what Jesus’ response would be?

I think she did. I am learning to wait in the darkness with just that anticipation, with only my candle for light. I am learning to sit as Mary once did, at the feet of Jesus. When Martha complains in front of Lazarus and their guests, Mary never even flinches. It is Jesus who rises to her defense; suddenly, Mary’s inadequacy as a be-er in a doer’s world—suddenly her apparent failure—is transformed into the “better part.” Suddenly, Mary’s weakness becomes her strength.

I am Jonah

The description under this picture has a profound significance for me in this season of my journey–in limbo between school and work, child and adult, past and future: “We each must enter into the belly of the whale and risk being spilled forth on unfamiliar shores. Resting in the body of the whale is just one letter away from resting in the body of the whole.”  

I like this carving because it is reminiscent of a child in the womb.  I feel like an unborn child these days, being knit together in the darkness, waiting quietly in the secure warmth of the Mother for the birthing pains to come.  Sue Monk Kidd writes of being both the pregnant mother and the unborn child as we undergo transformation.  

Both figures learn the same lesson–that waiting, far from the passive negation of responsibility and participation, can be the most active part of our spiritual journeys; it is during the waiting that we are moved, and it is only through the waiting that we can ever arrive at another place. This being still is what reveals God’s character to us, even as we reach new depths of our own.  I’ve been looking for an image to help me define my journey.  The cocoon, the winter-frozen field, and this carving that seems at once the whale and the womb–these are the creative expressions of my dark night of the soul.  What are yours?

Thoughts on Body Theology

The term “body theology” is traditionally used to refer to body image and sexuality; however, I believe a true body theology is much more holistic, involving not only what we look like but who we are as human beings and what we do with our bodies. I believe body theology is based on the incarnation of Christ: God took on flesh, not merely the appearance of flesh; God lived and suffered and died—and rose again!—in the actual, fleshly sense. A systematic development of body theology should, thus, begin with John 1 in conjunction with Genesis 1-2 as a basis for identity–always with the underlying principle belief that our bodies were made good and, though corrupted by the fall, have been redeemed through Christ. Healthy body theology allows us to realize our true identity in Christ, against the lies that can be perpetuated through culture, and be empowered to enter into the redemption Christ offers both for our bodies and how we use them in the world (which will also empower us to redeem culture as we grow in knowledge and discernment).

As I was reading on Saturday for a class, I was suddenly struck by this question: is body theology foundational? Is this concept–the way I define and understand it–part of the rock bed of the Christian faith? If Christ is the cornerstone, is Christ set in body theology? It’s an interesting question, and a necessary one if I ever want to publish the concept for real. So I started thinking: just how much of the Christian faith is wrapped up in my definition of body theology? Sexuality, community, media literacy, service. What else? Should sexuality be its own category, or should it fall under something broader like “physicality?” We must understand ourselves as physical/sexual/worthy beings before we can engage in healthy community, media literacy, and service. Everything flows from the identity source. Sexuality simply must be dealt with first because it is the biggest and deepest lie; it is the lens that must change first or it will color all the other areas. It’s true that identity can only be discovered in community, but the wrong messages have already been internalized. Before we can change the community, we have to exchange God’s truth for these lies about our bodies in order to engage in community rightly, culture rightly, and service rightly.

It makes me think of The Fountainhead. Ayn Rand was right in a sense: altruism is born out of and perpetuated by personal lack of worth. Nevertheless, individualism without community is not the ultimate end of humanity; rather, individualism is tyranny of oneself over others. Do nothing out of vain conceit, Paul writes convictingly. I think my professor was right when he said last week that the marker of adulthood is the consistent choice to put community’s good above one’s own desires. So what Paul is saying to the church, then, is: grow up! Stop putting self above community. Now one can only do so in a healthy way when one’s self concept is already healthy (love others as you love yourself!), not instead of dealing with one’s own self. This is why a balanced, godly concept of (what Nelson calls) the “bodyself” is so important. Dying to self is a choice, not a coping mechanism; and the dying is for the purpose of Christ, not for other people. When one dies to self and lives again in Christ, then one’s self concept, body image, etc. are rightly oriented and centered out of a deep conviction of who one is in Christ.

I think, to answer my question, that Christ of necessity must be set in body theology precisely because God entered the world in human form–as a body! Christ cannot be set in any theoretical or spiritual foundation because that negates the very meaning and purpose of the incarnation: God incarnate; God dwelling among us in the flesh! That is the foundation of body theology. Our bodies matter because God used BODY to create us, to relate to us, and to redeem us. Thus, of course Christ is set in body theology, and of course body theology is foundational. It is our human response to the incarnation of Christ to accept ourselves as the holistic bodyselves we were created to be–with a right theology of bodily sexuality, bodily community, bodily cultural discernment, and bodily service. Because God is relational and we are the image of God, our ability to physically procreate is the most foundational part of our humanity because procreation is what God is all about: God created humanity in order to extend relationship beyond the Godhead. And since we need both male and female together to be the image of God, what more perfect expression of humanity and imago Dei is there than the creation of new life? Thus, because we image God by being procreative, our sexuality is foundational to body theology.

Garota de Ipanema — Toquinho

“Laura” Lou Donaldson

Sine, Afterword “Something Really, Really Small”

It’s exciting and encouraging to read about all the new things that God is doing in really small ways through ordinary but oh-so-radical people all over the place.  We can’t replicate these communities, but we can learn from them and be inspired by them to go out and do our own thing that God is calling us to, so we can be part of the new thing God is doing in the world, through the church (however you want to define that these days).  I think the most important part of the new streams is networking, letting people know what God is doing in our small ways to continually encourage and support  each other.  Exciting stuff, for sure!