Soteriology For The Material World

{Here's my theology paper on Soteriology, which is the doctrine of salvation}

Jesus of Nazareth died. I don’t know anyone who would disagree with this fact. There is, however, much disagreement as to what happened next. Christians believe that he rose from the dead, appeared to his disciples, and ascended to the father in heaven—offering salvation to his people in the process. Many people think of this as simply a far-fetched story, and there are countless others who because of differing religious views, believe it to be heresy. So while the death of Jesus is most certainly a fact (for death comes to all of us), his resurrection is a much harder detail to confirm. However, while the resurrection may or may not be a historical fact, the existence of the story of it is very real. The resurrection of Jesus did happen, at least in the religious narrative of Christianity. And within this narrative, belief in Jesus’ death and resurrection brings one salvation. The problem with a narrative of salvation that requires a death is its effect on humanity’s relationship to suffering.

Narratives, especially dominant narratives, are always wrapped up in history. In the last chapter of New Testament Story, David L. Barr discusses the nature of history. He recognizes the fact that “History always remains a tentative reconstruction of the past based on the available evidence, which must then be rigorously tested.” In relation to the historical method of testing evidence, he notes:

Generally, modern historians are trained to be skeptical of their sources, to subject them to careful analysis, to prefer empirical and testable data, and to use only natural explanations. These factors raise problems for the ancient historian, whose sources are few and distant, but the last point raises special problems in investigating religions.

Supernatural stories of resurrection are difficult to rigorously test. Barr goes on to say that the available sources regarding Jesus of Nazareth are documents of “faith and imagination.” In other words, all we know about the resurrection of Jesus, and what it means for salvation, is what we can glean from the ancient stories people wrote about him. The narrative is all we have.

People can—and many do—spend their lives searching for proof of an actual resurrection or an accurate portrait of the historical Jesus. Others choose to spend their energy discerning the symbolic meaning of the narrative. Some want physical proof, while others are willing to simply accept the narrative as a divine story. Both styles of inquiry are ultimately after the same thing—an attempt to understand who God is and what the means and meaning of salvation are. Regardless of whether the narrative is viewed as a historical fact, religious symbolism, or mere nonsense, its influences on the world’s view of salvation can’t be denied. Religious narratives, such as the terribly familiar death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, are powerful. Barr is right, they are stories of human ‘faith and imagination.’ And as such, they act in the material world.

The Christian narrative identifies the death of a man believed to be innocent—Jesus of Nazareth—as the redemptive act that offered salvation to all of humanity. It is believed that by Jesus’ innocent suffering, the guilty are set free, they are saved. Therefore, the suffering experienced by Jesus is celebrated. Implicit in the Christian narrative, then, is the notion that suffering can be good for humanity, that it can be something worthy of celebration. Arguably, without the suffering and death of Jesus Christ salvation cannot be attained. As the Book of Hebrews puts it, “But we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.” Or again, “It was fitting that God, for whom and through whom all things exist, in bringing many children to glory, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through sufferings.” It’s clear that in the Christian narrative suffering is not only a prerequisite for avoiding death, but also a “fitting” means by which to be brought to glory. That is, to be saved seems to necessitate suffering.

According to the Encyclopedia of Religion:

The term soteriology means “doctrine of salvation” or, more concretely, the “way of salvation,” and derives from the Greek soteria, which in turn is built on soter, or “savior”…[and] is usually used to refer to the salvation of individuals.

In the Christian narrative the ‘way of salvation’ for individuals is indeed built on a ‘savior,’ a personal savior offering reconciliation to the Father God through belief in the suffering Son. Jesus, in the Christian narrative, is the ‘way of salvation.’ In response to the question, “How can we know the way?” Jesus responds, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” Even so, ideas of salvation don’t exclusively belong to the Christian narrative.

There are a multitude of religious narratives in the world, hence there are numerous stories regarding the ‘way of salvation.’ Religious narratives play a critical role in the creation of identity and community for those who believe in them. The narratives people believe impact the way they interact with the world. As Anis Bawarshi, in his work on genre theory has noted “‘lived textualities’ interact with and transform ‘lived experiences.’” Put another way, narratives matter, in fact, they shape our world and experience of it. Thus when an influential narrative like Christianity teaches that salvation comes through suffering, humanity’s relationship to suffering is negatively impacted.

Many people would take issue with my claim that salvation comes through suffering in the Christian narrative. They would argue that the focus of Christian salvation is the empty tomb, the resurrection—not death. And they would be right. However, it’s impossible to have an empty tomb without first having a crucifixion. In order for Jesus to rise, he first had to die. Consequently, the Christian narrative accepts suffering as necessary. It has to, for the only way to acknowledge the resurrection, is to first acknowledge the death, in this case the torturous violent death, of Jesus. So while Christianity may focus on resurrection, it cannot escape the role suffering plays in its ‘way of salvation.’

In the town I live in, I see church reader boards with messages such as, “God can use your suffering for His good.” and “Jesus died for your sins.” I concede that I also see signs celebrating the resurrection; however, these are usually limited to Easter Sunday. One would be hard-pressed to find a church reader board claiming “Jesus resurrected for your sins.” The common understanding of Christian salvation does not exclude suffering. These reader board messages—designed to help people find salvation through Jesus—teach of the goodness, or at least, the usefulness of suffering (God used the suffering of his son to bring about salvation for the world). I find this belief to be dangerous however, and think it causes damage in our world by distorting views of real human suffering. In his essay, “There is No God” for the popular series This I Believe, Penn Jillette (of Penn and Teller) writes:

Believing there is no God means the suffering I’ve seen in my family, and indeed all the suffering in the world, isn’t caused by an omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent force that isn’t bothered to help or is just testing us, but rather something we all may be able to help others with in the future. No God means the possibility of less suffering in the future.

Looking at Jillette’s last sentence from the other direction, I can say that as long as redemption is understood to come through suffering, suffering will always be understood as acceptable, necessary and even justified.

One of the most well known verses in Christian scripture is John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life.” This verse is displayed on reader boards in sports stadiums, handed out in pamphlets on the street, and has been memorized by countless children. The familiarity of the verse has seemingly blinded people from its horror. It is offered as a verse of hope, of the generosity of God, and of the saving power of Jesus. But as I have worked to de-familiarize myself with it and read with fresh eyes what the words actually say, I have come to understand the injustice, abuse, and demand inherent in it’s words. Since I’m familiar with the rest of the Christian narrative, I know that God is giving his only son over to be tortured and killed. According to John 3:16, the reason God is doing this is because he so loves the world that he wants to save his believers from perishing, and apparently, belief in this divine act of child abuse offers eternal life. I am left struggling with deep questions regarding the nature of God in relation to this narrative. Why does God need his only child to die (I’ll leave the question of how God has an only child for a paper on the doctrine of the trinity) in order to offer salvation to his believers? Why is suffering and death necessary for redemption?

Anselm’s satisfaction theory of atonement works to answer these questions. The satisfaction theory claims that through the sinfulness of humanity, God has been dishonored. Therefore, humanity must give satisfaction or be punished. According to this theory:

While humanity must provide this satisfaction, only God can provide it…For this reason God has become human in Christ. In his perfect obedience unto death, satisfaction is rendered, justice is done, God’s honor is restored, and sinners are forgiven.

In other words, blood and violence are prerequisites for salvation. Justice (punishment) must be done in order for God to offer forgiveness. In Faith Seeking Understanding, Daniel Migliore highlights the fact that Anselm comes from “the medieval thought world and presuppose[s] then-current understandings of law, offense, reparations, and social obligations.” Migliore follows the tradition through John Calvin, who “wavered on the question whether the motive of the atonement was the need to satisfy God’s righteous anger or whether God was moved by pure and freely given love for the world.” He then moves on to Karl Barth who went “beyond both Anselm and Calvin by consistently interpreting the atoning work of Christ as motivated solely by the holy love of God.” I would argue, however, that the Christian narrative has not moved beyond Anselm’s “medieval thought world.” As I look at the rampant use of the death penalty in America, (between 1930-2007 thousands of people have received the death penalty ) I find that contemporary views of ‘law, offense, reparations, and social obligations’ aren’t that different from the thinking of Anselm. And as the common church reader board messages of Jesus dying for us indicate, soteriologies based on satisfactionist theories of atonement are still very real in Christian churches.

The death of Jesus is clearly presented as being for us in scripture. I’m not attempting to argue that it isn’t. Rather, I’m trying to point out the dangerous ways in which this narrative is working in our world. Migliore highlights the fact that many believers have skillfully disguised the violence of Jesus’ death. In other words, they can hide it and ignore it. They can “become accustomed to gilded and bejeweled crosses.” When we are so desensitized to the violence of Jesus’ death that we are celebrating a killing machine by wearing it around our necks, our relationship to violence is severely damaged. How effective can a narrative that offers salvation through suffering, violence and death, actually be at challenging violence and suffering? Migliore makes the claim that:

The crucified Christ embodies the love of God in our violent world, conquering the hatred that inspires violence and the spirit of revenge that prompts counter-violence. In the teaching, ministry, and crucifixion of Christ, God exposes the lie of the inevitability of the circle of violence and counter-violence. God refuses to oppose evil with evil. The cross is God’s free and costly gift of love whose goal is the transformation of the world.

While I find this to be one of the most convincing arguments I’ve encountered regarding the necessity of the violent cross, I still disagree with it. According to the Christian narrative, God didn’t ‘refuse to oppose evil with evil,’ he opposed sin by sending his only son to die. Divine child abuse does not fall outside the bounds of evil. And how can the cross be simultaneously ‘free and costly?’ It can’t. The cross cost Jesus his life. There was nothing free about it.

Another theory of atonement working to answer why Jesus’ death was necessary for humanity’s salvation is the Christ as Victor theory. In Faith Seeking Understanding, this theory is described as:

[A] dramatic struggle between God and the forces of evil in the world…Under the veil of his humanity, Christ triumphs over the demons, the devil, and all the principalities and powers that hold human beings captive. By his cross and resurrection, Christ decisively defeats these powers and thus frees their captives.

While Migliore has problems with this theory, he still finds important truth in it. The theory is further explored in Journeys by Heart by Rita Nakashima Brock:

[Jesus’] death is seen as a death for others, a cosmic event in which the death of God in Christ becomes the death of death…His resurrection is interpreted as the sign of divine triumphal powers that vindicate Jesus as the true messiah...The passion narratives have been interpreted as the story of a heroic savior who faced his enemies alone and unaided. Jesus’ death becomes the battle of unilateral powers. In returning Jesus to life, divine unilateral action conquers the power of sin and death.

Both Brock and I struggle with this theory. One of the most obvious problems is the fact that the emphasis of the Christ as Victor theory lies in other worldly battles. When the battle between good and evil is over-spiritualized, it fails to connect to the actual battles of good and evil happening on the planet earth. How can powerful and oppressive structures be fought in this world when our narrative tells us that the battle has already been won? According to Brock, the Christ as Victor theory teaches that “only a transcendent and powerful deity can save us, for all human power has failed.” In other words, the powerful and oppressive structures of our world cannot be fought, at least not with human power. But in the Christian narrative of salvation, we are told not to worry about our failure to fight oppression and suffering because the resurrection has already defeated them. Herein lies my problem with Christian views of soteriology that hold the violent death of Jesus as necessary and victorious. In Brock’s words: “To make claims that any person’s tragic, painful death is divinely willed or necessary for others to be saved mutes our ability to be angry about unnecessary suffering.” If we live with the assumption that we are saved, that evil has already been defeated, and that salvation can be offered to all of humanity by offering them belief in Jesus’ death and resurrection, how are we to fight the hidden and explicit injustice that exists in our world? We can’t; but the bigger problem is that we often don’t even think we need to.

I realize that many believers, because of their faith in the Christian narrative, have spent their lives working to end suffering, violence, oppression, and injustice. I celebrate their work and no way mean to deny or demean it. However, I argue that because traditional views of soteriology—such as the theories of substitution and Christ as Victor—are so prevalent in the systems and beliefs of the Christian narrative, they are also prevalent in the systems and beliefs of the entire western world. Hence, I live in a society where suffering and violence are viewed as acceptable—sometimes necessary and justified—and always inevitable.

Brock has put forth a feminist view of Christology that de-centers Jesus from the doctrine of salvation. She says “We must find the revelatory and saving events of Christianity in a larger reality than Jesus.” By challenging the narrative’s longstanding focal point, namely that the death of one individual leads to salvation, she aims to rewrite the Christian narrative in a way that prevents suffering from prevailing. In my view, her work suppresses any cause to celebrate suffering. For she proposes that the locus of the redemptive act is not the individual death of Jesus, but is rather found in what she calls the Christa/Community, which takes a relational view of Christ. For Brock:

The power that gives and sustains life does not flow from a dead and resurrected savior to his followers. Rather, the community sustains life-giving power by its memory of its own brokenheartedness and of those who have suffered and gone before and by its members being courageously and redemptively present to all.

In the Christa/Community Jesus participates in the life-giving power, just as the rest of us do. He is not the life-giving power. The Christa/Community calls each one of us “to risk a commitment, as a caring community, to the promise of…a domination-free community.” In other words, salvation is everyone’s responsibility. In her epilogue, she says:
No one heroic or divine deed will defeat oppressive powers and death-delivering systems. We cannot rely on one past event to save our future. No almighty power will deliver us from evil. With each minute we wait for such rescue, more die.

I read this as a powerful call away from dependency on a Father God who offers salvation through his suffering Son.

As Brock argues that we must de-center Jesus from the doctrines of salvation, I argue that we must go even farther. We must de-center the Christian narrative itself from ideas of human salvation. We must shock ourselves out of the normality of the Christian narrative and closely re-examine what it is we claim to believe. The feminist theologian Mary Daly has called soteriologies that proclaim as salvific the death of Jesus, necrophilic. This statement would shock (and no doubt insult) most Christians, but it is exactly the kind of statement that will call for a re-examination of the Christian obsession with death as the bearer of salvation, and consequently, its celebration of suffering.

In order for the idea of salvation to really matter in our everyday, very human, decisions and actions, we must pull it down from the skies of transcendent reality and place it squarely in the material world. We must take full responsibility for it. Only then will salvation be possible for ourselves and our world. Every time the human spirit of love, generosity and kindness stands up against violence and oppression, humanity is brought one step closer to understanding the meaning of salvation for our lives. Assuming that salvation and the defeat of evil have already been accomplished, the Christian narrative excuses people from very real work that needs to be done. It allows for the acceptance of suffering. If we are to be saved, we have to work out our salvation together, right here in the physical world.


{my footnote numbers didn't copy, if you want to see them let me know and I'll send you the Word Doc. sources are below...}

Barr, David. New Testament Story, 3rd ed. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 2001. p. 472
Ibid, p. 471.
Ibid, p. 473.
Hebrews 2:9
Hebrews 2:10
Smart, Ninian. "Soteriology" Encyclopedia of Religion. Ed. Lindsay Jones. Vol. 12. 2nd ed. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 8526-8530. 15 vols. p. 8526
John 14:5b-6
Devitt, Amy J., Anis Bawarshi, and Mary Jo Reiff. “Materiality and Genre in the Study
of Discourse Communities.” College English 65.5 (May, 2003): 541-558. p.549
Church reader board messages in Richmond, IN
Jillette, Penn. “There is No God.” The Portable Atheist. Ed. Christopher Hitchens. USA: De Capo Press, 2007. 349-350. p. 350
Migliore, Daniel L. Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology. 2nd ed. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 2004. p. 184
Ibid, p. 184
Ibid, p. 184
Ibid, p. 184
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/glance/tables/exetab.htm
Migliore, p.188
Ibid, p. 190
Ibid, p. 182-3
Brock, Rita Nakashima. Journeys by Heart: A Christology of Erotic Power. New York: Crossroad, 1988. p. 90-1
Ibid, p. 91
Ibid, p. 94
Ibid, p. 68
Ibid, p. 105
Ibid, p. 96
Ibid, p. 105
Ibid, p. 90

Remembering Lazarus’ Sisters

{This is a hermeneutical essay about Lazarus and social location I wrote for NT class}

I approach the bible as a white, educated, middle class, American woman. While these basic descriptions tell you where I fall on the race, class, gender continuum, they cannot fully explain the reasons I think and believe the things I do. In order to understand the way that I interpret the bible, you have to understand a bit about my journey with religion. Without recounting my entire spiritual autobiography, let me offer a few important details. Raised without religion I found Christianity as a young adult and for almost a decade I tried on several religious hats: new believer, fundamentalist Christian, liberal Christian, Quaker Christian, agnostic Quaker, and finally, non-believer. I in no way mean to trivialize my religious experiences by listing them in this flippant manner. Rather, I mean to show that I have personally read and interpreted the bible from many perspectives. I know what it feels like to approach the bible as the inerrant and holy words of God. And I am learning to deal with what it means to approach the bible as a non-believing seminary student who very much appreciates the power of the bible—albeit power given by the belief and actions of human beings.

As I sit with the passages that make up the eleventh chapter of the Gospel of John—the story of Lazarus being raised from the dead—I find a fantastic story of friendship, love, mourning, belief, disbelief and power over death. There can’t be a greater power than power over death. Death is terrifying, and while I don’t know for sure, I have a hunch that death scares most people—regardless of their social location. Hence, it makes sense why a story of someone being raised from the dead is appealing. Resurrection from the dead is, of course, a crucial component in the Christian narrative and the story of Lazarus doesn’t shy away from this fact. Jesus has the power to take away death.

That is exactly what the Australian Catholic priest Francis J. Moloney finds so powerful in this text. Moloney has an extensive resume, sometimes listed with seven sets of initials after his name. He is currently living in Australia and is the Provincial Superior for his order, the Salesians of Don Bosco. He has studied at pontifical universities in Rome and Oxford University in England. He has taught at colleges in Australia and America. While it would take too long to list all of his accomplishments in the Catholic world, suffice it to say, he is a well-known and well-respected theologian in western Christianity.

In 2003, Moloney wrote an essay called Can Everyone be Wrong? A Reading of John 11:1-12:8. The thrust of this essay, as the title indicates, is that everyone gets the story of Lazaus wrong. Moloney claims that each character inside the story and the majority of interpreters outside the story fail to understand Jesus’ goal and the meaning of his message. According to Moloney v. 4 is a crucial text, for this is where “Jesus sets the theological and christological agenda for the events that follow” (510). The end of v. 4 reads, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it” (John 11:4b). Moloney argues that Jesus wanted Lazarus to die; therefore, he waited to go to him. This decision seems odd when judged by human standards, especially in light of Jesus’ love for Lazarus and his sisters as portrayed in v. 5. Moloney’s point, however, is that the Jesus’ decision to wait shouldn’t be judged by human standards. It reflects the larger agenda for the Lazarus story, namely God’s design (511). He writes:

The focus of the reader’s attention must not be upon the fact of death, but upon the revelation of the glory of God and the beginnings of a process that will lead to the glorification of Jesus, the Son of God. (510)

This is precisely where, according to Moloney, the characters in the story, Mary, Martha and ‘the Jews’, get it wrong. They are unable to transcend their human grief over the death of Lazarus and come to an understanding that it is all for the glory of God.

Moloney is particularly critical of Martha. He says we must not be distracted by her confession of faith in v. 27, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world” (John 11:27). Moloney asks us to remember the question to which she offered this answer. In vv. 25-6, Jesus asked whether she believed that he was the resurrection and the life. According to Moloney, “she affirms her long-held view that Jesus fulfills her messianic expectations,” but does not answer the direct question (514). Moloney highlights two other confessions of faith by Martha. Besides resting on messianic expectation in v. 27, he says that she also thinks of Jesus as a God-directed miracle worker in vv. 21-2 and confesses to believing in the resurrection at the end of times in v. 24 (515). He contends that she misses the point each time because she fails to “acknowledge Jesus’ self-revelation in vv. 25-6 as the resurrection and the life” (514).

Turning to Mary and the Jews, Moloney focuses on the verses that involve weeping. He puts forth the idea that until Mary joins the Jews in weeping she is actually on the right track. He claims that v. 32, in which Mary kneels at the feet of Jesus and simply tells him that if he had been there, her brother would not have died, “transcends Martha’s aggressive understanding of Jesus as a miracle worker and Messiah (vv. 21-2)” (517). But by joining in the mournful weeping, Mary fails to see the larger picture. She fails to see that Lazarus’ illness and death are “for the glory of God and the means by which the Son of God will be glorified” (517). A careful reader would, of course, notice that Jesus himself weeps in this narrative (v. 35). Moloney responds to this with a careful study of the original Greek. He compares the words used to describe the weeping Jews and Mary and the words used to describe Jesus. He contends that Mary and the other Jews are wailing, they are mourning the loss of Lazarus. Jesus, on the other hand, is not wailing. According to Moloney:

Jesus is angered and deeply disturbed emotionally—even to the point of tears—by the universal lack of faith. His profound annoyance and emotional disturbance lead him to tears, but the verb used to speak of Jesus’ weeping singles him out from others who mourn the loss of Lazarus. (519)

As noted above, Moloney holds v. 4, “This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it” as the crucial theological and Christological point of this narrative; therefore, Jesus weeping over his friends death makes no sense to him. Rather, “Jesus, the resurrection and the life, is angered, deeply moved, and he weeps, as all his attempts to lead his disciples, Martha and Mary into a true understanding of life and death meet failure” (519).

It is not Moloney’s intention in this essay simply to lambaste the characters in the Lazarus narrative. He is being faithful to his own understanding of what the author of John is trying to do—invite his readers into a deeper understanding and faith. The last lines of Moloney’s essay get at the heart of his personal interpretation of the raising of Lazarus:

The emotional mood of the death-shadowed world—in which both life and love are precarious—is shocked into another level of reality. Another purpose is at work. It owes nothing to death nor social expectations flowing from our mortality. “This illness is not unto death; it is for the glory of God, so that the Son of God may be glorified by means of it” (11:4). (527)

Moloney believes that the author of John is inviting his readers to join Mary and Martha on their journey: “The narrative is designed to lead the reader away from mourning and weeping toward faith in Jesus as the resurrection and the life” (517).

I find Moloney’s interpretation of the Lazarus story fascinating, but deeply saddening. It seems he wants all humanity removed from the story, yet from my perspective, it’s the humanity that makes the story great. Someone has died and the people—including Jesus—are weeping. Human beings live in the death-shadowed world Moloney describes, in which both life and love are precarious (527). Over and over again in this essay, Moloney is asking me to transcend my human reaction to death so that I can understand that Jesus has power over death. I do see that Jesus has power over death. But as I read the story, I see it in the very material action of Jesus calling Lazarus from the tomb in v. 43, not in his esoteric claim in v. 25 to be the resurrection and the life. According to Moloney, I, along with the rest of the story’s characters, fail to understand the true message.

I also find Moloney’s continual focus on Jesus wanting Lazarus to die so that God might be glorified to be unhelpful. However, given his background, I don’t find it surprising. I see this theology echoed on church billboards with slogans such as, “God can use your suffering for his glory.” In the modern world I live in, suffering abounds and I find this theology of suffering to be dangerous. I do not believe that suffering glorifies God or that God wants it to happen so that God can be glorified.

Oo Chung Lee, a theologian from Korea, provides a different perspective on the theology of suffering. Through her work to help re-establish relations between members of North and South Korean families separated for fifty years and her work with Asian “comfort women” of WWII, Lee understands the suffering of humanity in very particular ways. As the vice-moderator of the Commission on World Mission and Evangelism, Lee presented a bible study at the 1985 Commission meeting in Limuru, Kenya entitled, One Woman’s Confession of Faith. In it, she compares the story of the woman anointing Jesus present in all four gospels. In the gospel of John, this story falls directly after the story of Lazarus and the woman anointing Jesus is Mary, Lazarus’ sister.

The story of Mary anointing Jesus seems connected to the raising of Lazarus for the author of John. He introduces Mary in v. 11:2 as the one who anointed the Lord and then he wraps up the story of Lazarus with the actual telling of Mary’s anointing in v. 12:3. Moloney argues “Mary’s extravagant preparation of Jesus’ body for burial indicates that she has overcome the menacing realm of human mortality” (526-7). In other words, she no longer has to deal with that annoying human grief. But in Lee’s study, it is precisely this human grief that brings Jesus and Mary together. Lee discusses the oppression of women in Jesus’ time in both religious traditions and culture. She talks about how much women must have loved Jesus because of the way he related to them as equals (216). Lee says, “Jesus and the women knew that only where they shared pain, fear, oppression and discrimination would there be salvation and resurrection” (216). According to Lee then, Mary anointed Jesus with oil, not because she had transcended her humanness, but because she felt it so much in relationship with Jesus.

Using Lee’s work, I return to my previous disagreement with Moloney over Jesus’ tears. As in Lee’s quote above, resurrection comes from shared pain. I would re-word this into restoration and transformation coming from sharing grief, from mourning together. I am deeply moved by the text’s account of those mourning the loss of Lazarus together, a mourning that causes Jesus to weep. Like these mourners, I’ve experienced mourning the pain and grief of death with other loved ones, and I understand the desire to bring someone back from death.

Martha understands my perspective, for she desperately wants her brother back. In vv. 11:21-27 Martha and Jesus have an extended conversation and as I noted earlier, Moloney criticizes Martha for expecting Jesus to be a miracle worker and missing the larger picture of his message. But Japanese theologian, Satoko Yamaguchi, argues, “Martha’s words…contain two elements of the traditional Jewish lament, namely the address and the complaint” (331). Martha sent a message to Jesus that her brother was sick and he didn’t come until it was too late. Still hopeful even though he’s delayed, she tells Jesus in v. 11:22 that “even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.” For Yamaguchi—who was the co-director of the Center for Feminist Theology and Ministry in Japan at the time she published the essay Christianity and Women in Japan in the Japanese Journal of Religious Studies in 2003—Martha is an important character.

Unlike Moloney, Yamaguchi does not think that Martha has missed the true message; in fact she asserts that Martha is right on. She compares the words of Martha’s confession in v. 27a to what the author of John says he wants his readers to believe in v. 20:31a:

But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God. (John 20:31a)

She said to him, “Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God. (John 11:27a)

Yamaguchi says that:

Martha thus takes on the role of the spokesperson who testifies to the faith of the Johannine communities. Here we see that in this Gospel Martha is assigned the representative leadership role that is assigned to Peter in all the other canonical Gospels (Mt 16:16, Mk 8:29, Lk 9:20). (331-2)

In other words, Martha does not misunderstand at all; rather, she is the author’s example of what it means to have faith in the “Son of God.” In her essay, Lee highlights the fact that Martha’s confession, though almost identical to that of Peter’s, is rarely given any attention (and in the case of Moloney, is even seen as invalid). Yamaguchi writes of the need to re-member Martha’s story. She uses the term re-member in order to convey Mary Rose D’Angelo’s “idea of bringing what has been hidden out of the shadows of history, of putting together what has been dismembered and of making someone a member of oneself/of the community in a new way” (329). From a feminist perspective, then, Yamaguchi offers a chiastic diagram of the Lazarus story in John 11:1-12:11:

A. Lazarus under death threat—deepened in A’
B. Martha’s faith confession—echoing contrast with B’
C. Jesus’ sharing in tears with Judean neighbors—opposing contrast with C’
D. Jesus’ life-giving sign in the raising of Lazarus—center of the
structure and story, foreshadowing Jesus’ resurrection.
C’. Judean authorities’ plot to kill Jesus—multiply foreshadowed plot
B’. Mary’s anointing service—foreshadowing Jesus’ foot-washing.
A’. Lazarus and Jesus under death threats. (330)

Martha and Mary’s roles in this story are unusual in biblical narratives. Women are not often named and given important roles in important stories. But here, the author of John names two women and uses them in the central story of his gospel.

In this story, Martha and Mary are allowed to use their voices. They are identified as disciples of Jesus. Yamaguchi offers a study of the Greek word diakonia. It is only used twice in the Gospel of John, once for Martha’s activity in v. 12:2 and once in Jesus’ discourse on true discipleship in v. 12:26 (332). According to Yamaguchi, this “very limited use of the word implies that the word is used as an important theological term, meaning a ministerial service” (331).

Martha and Mary are the only named individuals given voice in the story of Lazarus and they use their voices and actions to offer deep confessions of faith. Martha in v. 27 and Mary in v. 12:3. As Yamaguchi highlighted in her chiastic diagram, these confessions of faith illuminate the message in an echoing contrast within the entire narrative (330-1).

For Yamaguchi, to re-member the story of Martha and Mary in the story of their brother Lazarus:

is to seek justice both for ancient and contemporary women in ministry. Our struggle to stop all kinds of discrimination against ‘women ministers’ in our church and to build up better conditions for women ministers to work to their full potential is something for which we can claim a firm grounding in the spirituality and praxis in our Christian origins. (335)

As a feminist theologian, Yamaguchi finds comfort for herself and her community, women ministers in Japan, in the story of Martha and Mary in the Gospel of John. Lee, someone who has worked directly with human grief, finds solidarity and relationship as she reads the story of Mary anointing Jesus. And Francis Moloney, a catholic priest, educated in Rome, heard the call of Jesus, calling believers to transcend human grief and to understand that he is the resurrection and the life.

I consider all three of these theologians to be faithful to their life experience and their personal understanding of the story of Lazarus in the Gospel of John. I find it fascinating how three faithful people, reading the same text, can come up with such different points of focus. From my perspective—the doubting seminarian—I am enriched by what all three have to say. I’m convinced that if I were to read three more accounts, I would find even more diversity. And rather than finding this diversity confusing, I find it highly valuable. Different voices help to maintain balance. They help us, as readers of the bible, to avoid dangerous dogmatism.

When I first sat down with the story of Lazarus, I found a fantastic story. I still find the story fantastic, but I have a far richer understanding of it. I now feel a personal connection to characters I was surprised to see at the center of a story about a man being raised from the dead. I entered this study with the expectation of reading about Lazarus, but he remains oddly silent; it’s Martha and Mary that I’m walking away knowing better. And I am pleased to find such strong women, who were obviously very close to Jesus.

I began looking at this story in awe of v. 11:43, “Lazarus, come out!” But I leave it curious and slightly disturbed by v. 11:6, “after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.” Although I’m frustrated with Moloney’s focus—that Lazarus’ death and the consequent suffering happened in order to glorify God—I admit that his argument can be found in the text. Jesus did wait to go to Lazarus’ family and he does say that Lazarus’ illness is for God’s glory. I’m not arguing that this notion isn’t in there, it clearly is. But I don’t believe focusing on this particular element in the story is at all helpful. Teaching people to believe suffering is for the glorification of God, as Moloney would have it, is dangerous. It teaches people that suffering is what God wants and even blesses, leading to a theology that cannot only ignore, but also excuse the horrifying calamities that exist in our world, and it forces individuals to hide from their own personal suffering. Moloney is right, Martha and Mary are unable to transcend their grief, their human reaction to death. And in my view, they shouldn’t. Focusing on the women in this story, along with the other Jewish mourners and even Jesus’ tears, teaches us a very different lesson: humans suffer and death is a tragedy. But when we are able to acknowledge it and support each other through it, real transformation (resurrection) at least has a chance to occur.

Works Cited:
Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version. New York: Oxford University Press, 1989.
Lee, Oo Chung. “One Woman’s Confession of Faith.” International Review of Mission
74.294 (1985): 212-216.
Moloney, Francis J. “Can Everyone be Wrong? A Reading of John 11:1-12:8.” New Testament
Studies 49.4 (2003): 505-527.
Yamaguchi, Satoko. “Christianity and Women in Japan.” Japanese Journal of Religious
Studies 30.3-4 (2003): 315-338.

After Easter

I'm home now, which in my case means Richmond, Indiana.  But, I was just back home in Seattle and I miss it.  I miss the green, the mountains, the water, the city, the market (especially the red bean sesame balls we discovered this year) and the people.  

Sometimes I wonder why I don't just move back.  If I miss everything so much, why do I stay away?  Some days, I want nothing more than to own a home in the Capitol Hill neighborhood of Seattle or Peaceful Valley in Spokane and to live there forever, building a network of deep and familiar places and relationships.  But, on other days, all I want is to travel from place to place forever, meeting new people, seeing new places, and discovering more about this crazy world I belong to.  These are very different ways of living and I see goodness in both options--I wish I could do both.  But I seem to follow the path of the second, I seem to stay away.  Not for the sake of staying away, but rather, because something keeps me away.  There is something in me that isn't ready to move home.   

And while I'm pretty sure I'm not ready to move home, I'm simultaneously not sure why I live in Indiana...or why I'm a seminary student.  This move was carefully planned (most things I do are) and yet, I question it almost daily.  Over Easter dinner (one of my favorite meals of the year) one of my good friends talked about a group he's part of called, "Living the Questions."  I have been thinking about this title ever since.  I am very good at questioning, but not so good at living without answers.

I would love to have the answers about religion, more specifically, the answers as to what I believe about religion.  But just as I can't decide whether I want to settle down in one city, I can't decide whether I'm religious.  I suppose that's why people invented the idea of agnosticism--for those of us that honestly don't know.  I don't believe in a personal God.  And I don't think the universe owes me an explanation for my existence.  But I do believe that when humans believe in something and act on it, they give that something power. Example: while I don't believe the bible is inherently powerful or was inspired by a personal, creator God, I do believe that it contains human ideas about a personal, creator God, and therefore, every time someone acts a certain way because of the bible, their action or energy gives the bible and the idea of a personal God power.  

So where does that leave me?  I'm not exactly sure...I'm trying to live with the question.  

Since human beings wrote the bible it makes sense that it is a direct reflection of humanity.  It contains the best and worst that humanity is and can be.  As I look around, I see people doing wonderful and horrible things because of their belief in God.  My years as a believer made me a better person, I'm sure of that.  But, I can't ignore the awful things I did as a believer either.  On a bigger scale, I see the Christian Peacemaker Teams and the Moral Majority both claiming religion as the reason for their actions.  And I'm left in a liminal place.  Is religion good or bad, useful or not?  Of course, nothing is this simple.  Especially religion.  

There are a few things I do know for sure.  Religion isn't going anywhere, we can't escape it and we will never know what the world would have been like without it.  And we can't deny that the world is impacted and shaped by religion--religious ideas and people--everyday.  Therefore, we have to deal with it.  And as I am a firm believer in education, my way of dealing with it is to study it.  

Of course, I would be hiding something if I painted myself as a purely atheist academic.  There is something personal that draws me towards religion.  I love tradition and ceremony.  I love to mark occasions and seasons.  I am incredibly drawn to certain aspects of religious belief--ideas of transformation, new life, goodness, beauty, love.  There is something marvelous about sitting in a Quaker Meeting for Worship.  Participating in silent, expectant waiting with other questioning souls.  Waiting to hear from the divine.  Waiting for the impossible--together.

So here I am, at home for now in Indiana.  Waiting for the impossible and studying the biggest mysteries of life with the peculiar people called Quakers.  Missing the familiar people called Washingtonians. And simply trying to be.  Trying to live without answers. 

My intersecting classes

This semester I have three classes, all introduction courses. I am being introduced to the New Testament, Theological Reflection, and Quaker Life. It has been absolutely amazing to watch how the classes overlap and intersect. My head is spinning with all the thoughts fighting for attention and I have wanted to post several times about everything I'm thinking about. But it's all moving so fast and I never seem to find the time to sit down and articulate my thoughts. So, here I am, not pressuring myself to have the perfect post, but instead to set down a few ideas for further investigation...

1)
The ideas about suffering found in 1 Peter 2:13-25.

2)
The idea of "the preferential option for the poor" that comes from Liberation Theology.

MDiv vs. MA continued...

Yesterday, I spent a few hours in the living room of one of ESR's great professors.  We discussed a whole range of subjects, but the thrust of the meeting was the difference between the MA degree and the MDiv degree and which one makes sense for me.  Let me explain the major differences:

The MA in religion is similar to any standard Master's Degree in the humanities.  It is an academic degree and requires 36 credit hours of study, a major thesis, and oral examinations.  

The MDiv is a much more intensive degree in that it requires 81 credit hours.  The MDiv is considered a professional degree in that it has a lot more "practical" classes (applied theology).   This is the standard degree required for pastors.  Rather than a thesis, this degree requires a full year of field work.

For me, the MA seems to make sense.  I would prefer an academic degree on my resume and it reflects what I'm doing in a more honest way.  I am studying religion academically and I am interested in writing...

However, I am also interested in taking a lot of the classes ESR has to offer.  I want to take all the history classes, several of the Quaker classes, counseling classes (marriage and family), bible classes, greek classes, writing classes...you get my point.  The MDiv degree allows me a lot more room to take a lot more classes.  And because of the emphasis system, where we choose from several emphases: pastoral care and counseling, pastoral ministry, peace and justice, spirituality, teaching, unprogrammed friends ministry, and writing, I can focus on the things I'm interested in studying academically and avoid the training to become a pastor.  

Another piece is financial.  The full scholarship offered to most students covers two years for MDiv students and one year for MA students.  This means, that I would lose my scholarship next year if I switched.  That's a big financial hit.

So...even though I would prefer an MA on my resume, at this point I am planning to continue in the MDiv program.  I've learned that people in the writing emphasis have been doing major writing projects as their field work, which adds a good twist for me.  It would allow me to do a major written work similar to a thesis, but give me freedom to be more creative.  

In May I'm taking a two week intensive class designed to help us choose our emphases.  So, I'm sure I will be much more clear then.  One can only hope! 

MDiv vs. MA

I'm thinking about switching from the MDiv to the MA program. I'm really nervous about a thesis, but much more interested in the academic rather than practicum based program. I just emailed the dean. I'm afraid of how the move will affect my scholarship. Only one of my classes this year will count for MA credit, so I will essentially be starting from scratch next year. But, I would feel a lot more authentic as an MA student...

My Suitcase Full of Prayers

The first memory I can call to mind of personal prayer involves driving a car, so I must have been older than seventeen. I was driving up Holyoke St. in Spokane, WA. I remember leaning forward over the steering wheel and looking up and out the front windshield. I said, out loud I think, are you up there God? And then I said a prayer that I believe opened with, if you exist. I can’t remember what I was praying for. Yet, the memory of praying itself has never left me. It was an utterly surprising and out of character act. I must have been desperate for something.

Fast-forward to a post-conversion experience some five or so years later. I was in a small Bible study and the leader pulled me aside to inquire about my comfort level with praying. She wanted to know if she could call on me to open or close our study time. I said no and she understood. As a new Christian trying to do everything right, I starting listening to the way people prayed. I took mental notes and practiced in my head. Eventually I was ready and I offered to pray aloud for our small group.

These two experiences remind me of being a novice, an innocent, not yet immersed in analyzing any sort of theology. When I was seventeen, I truly had no idea what I thought of prayer, I just needed someone to trust. When I was twenty-three, I was slightly more aware of what prayer was supposed to be. As I sit here now at thirty—filled with memories of prayers, communion, baptism, church life, small groups, denominational understandings, rigorous religious study and personal reflection—I am amazed to think back to that first prayer, alone in my car. It is impossible to get inside the mind of my seventeen-year-old self, and as I try, I assault the memory with questions only my present day self would ask.

In my life I have been a non-religious, non-praying person. I have been a fundamentalist Christian who prayed for the souls of my lost family. I have been a liberal Christian who prayed for social justice with Quakers and Dominicans alike. And I have been a confused ex-Christian, unable to pray and in denial about the state of my faith. My mother always told me that people change a lot in their twenties, I had no idea how right she was. She’s never said anything about changing in your thirties, so I think I might be finally settling down into myself. At least as much as a person with a lot of questions and few answers can.

So what do I think of prayer now—as a somewhat settled, agnostic thirty-year-old with a suitcase full of jumbled prayer experiences? This is one of those big questions without very many answers. And of course, one cannot begin to think of prayer until one spends a good deal of time thinking about God. My persistent questions lately have been, who, what, or if, God is? I’ve been introduced to a few God’s over the years. Buddhist and pagan versions from my grandmother. Multiple Christian versions from multiple Christians. And the God=Energy version from a few of the new age hippies and nuns that I’ve known. I cannot discount the effect of these various God’s on my own peculiar understanding (or non-understanding) of God. I appreciate Marjorie Hewitt Suchocki’s understanding that our histories, memories, senses, and intellects intermingle to form what we know. In her book, In God’s Presence: Theological Reflections on Prayer she writes, “We bring a cumulative history to our knowing that shapes how and what we can know.” She also writes:


A God of presence renders suspect any so-called objective knowledge of God, and calls instead for an intersubjective knowledge of God. Such a knowledge will never be universal—it is too mingled with ourselves for that. And so it should be: It is the way of God’s working, and it can yield an adequate knowledge for our living.


I am struck by the concept of an adequate knowledge for our living. If I can’t know God (and I don’t think I can), is an adequate knowledge for my life still attainable? Maybe. Suchocki offers a metaphor of God as water—touching and filling all things in its path while simultaneously changing and being changed by all things it touches, albeit slowly and through continued contact. This feels comfortable to me. And while this metaphor doesn’t answer all my questions or satisfy all my intellectual wanderings, it does give me something to ponder with integrity. In Quaker terms, it speaks to my condition. Water makes up most of the earth and it makes up most of my body. I will die without enough of it, but I could also die with too much of it. I have power in some sense over a glass of water, but I will never have power over the tide. The absolute meaning of the previous two sentences is not entirely clear—they remind me of Zen meditation riddles—but somehow when I combine them with Suchocki’s metaphor of God as water, my adequate knowledge for living grows.

While my adequate knowledge grows, I am still left with questions too numerous to count and an overwhelming feeling that I will never be able to find a satisfactory explanation of God’s character. And yet, I continue on, past this first question, onto the question of prayer. What is it? What does it mean? Should I do it? And if so, how?

If I am to assume that prayer is praying to God, but I don’t understand God, how am I to understand prayer? According to the Encarta World English Dictionary, prayer is defined as:

1. a spoken or unspoken communication with God, a deity, or a saint.
2. the act or practice of making spoken or unspoken communication with God, a deity, or a saint
3. a religious service at which prayers are said (often used in the plural)
4. an earnest request for something
5. something that is wanted or hoped for very much
6. a slight chance or hope
7. a request contained in a petition

Four out of the seven entries make no mention of God, but the first entry (is that more important?) offers the common answer—prayer is communication with God. It makes it sound so simple. There it is, in plain English, in the dictionary. It must be true! So back I go to the question at the beginning of this paragraph. If prayer is praying to God, and I don’t understand God, can I understand prayer? Better yet, can I do it?

I could go in circles all day (and I do most of the time). But, at a certain point I sometimes find it helpful to go in search of experience. And this is how I ended up in a January intensive class called Prayer. For a week and a half I prayed for several hours a day—as part of my large class, as part of my small prayer group, and alone. I decided early on in the class that if I was going to get anything out of it, I had to submit to it. I had to give myself over to it completely. I had to surrender my constant analysis for ten days and just pray.

Because of my brief time in fundamentalism, I know how to pray. And by this I mean, I can fake it. I can stand in front of a room full of people and pray an acceptable, even eloquent prayer. This may sound offensive, but rest assured, I don’t use this skill. I bring it up simply to highlight a personal stumbling block. As I struggle to find and understand my own theology of prayer, I am not only plagued with intellectual questions, I am also constantly scrutinizing my level of sincerity. This is a personal flaw. I am not often able to relax into an experience, I am often watching from outside myself. So deciding to submit to the class not only meant pausing my analysis, it also meant giving myself permission to experience the praying—to allow myself to settle into it, to simply pray.

I missed the first day of class because of holiday travel, so my first experience of corporate prayer came immediately. I walked in and we all took out the book, Celtic Prayers from Iona written by J. Philip Newell. This book contains Monday-Saturday morning and evening prayers, each day with its own theme. That first day was a Thursday and the theme was Commitment to Christ. I thought, here we go. My lofty goals of submission were put to the test immediately. I took a deep breath and joined my classmates as we read the prayer Newell had laid out for us. And then that evening, around nine o’clock, I read the evening prayers to myself knowing my fellow students were doing the same thing all over the city. And the next morning, we prayed the Friday prayers together (on the theme of The Communion of Heaven and Earth) and again, Friday evening, we prayed the evening prayers alone—together. And as I participated in this ritual, I was able to see the blessing of it. I was able to feel the growing communion with and among my fellow classmates.

The last hour of each class was spent in our small groups. My group consisted of four people, two men, another woman, and me. I sort of knew two of them and had never met the third. We met daily in the “soft chair” room of ESR for silence, sharing, and prayer. I can say with all sincerity that this is one of my favorite forms of prayer. For eight months over the 2006-2007 school year, I met with three friends for what we lovingly called “Quatholics.” We called it this because the group consisted mostly of Catholics (the three other women), but we used Quaker process as our method. We met for two hours on the first Saturday of every month. We rotated through each of our homes and shared lunch together after our prayer time. Before we started to meet, we each wrote 3 queries—short questions about whatever we wanted, there was no set standard. We put our 12 slips of paper in a plastic bag and carried them from house to house each month. Our time began with silence and then the hostess would draw and read a query. For the first hour, we would take turns responding to the query out of the silence. There was no cross talk and we always left space between each person’s sharing. After everyone had shared, we naturally transitioned into the second hour in which we each shared whatever was on our hearts. Again, the sharing came out of the silence with plenty of space in-between and no cross talk. Someone always closed our time with vocal prayer. It was an incredibly sacred way of sharing with my friends. It is an amazing gift to truly listen to someone in quiet, without responses formulating in your head. It is also an amazing gift to be able to speak into quiet, knowing you are being heard—truly being listened to with no response coming. I treasured my eight sessions with the Quatholics, and so I was delighted to participate in a similar experience each day in class.

Having the small group as a central part of the class was helpful for multiple reasons. It was important to me first and foremost because as I just mentioned, I personally find this form of prayer (in Quaker terms, worship sharing) to be an incredibly worthwhile spiritual practice. In the context of the class, it served as a place to process our private prayer time in an intimate way. And it was a source of accountability to help maintain our commitment to pray everyday throughout the 10-day intensive.

While I was grateful to have a form of prayer I’m very familiar with, it was also helpful to practice a few types of prayer that were completely new to me. In the middle of the intensive we spent a full day of retreat together. During this time we practiced multiple forms of prayer I had never experienced before. Of these, I was most impacted by praying with icons. We had an icon of Jesus set up in the middle of the room that we quietly gazed at together for about 10 minutes. In some ways it felt similar to breath prayer, in which you sit quietly focusing on your breath or some mantra that follows your breath. With an icon, you focus on the image rather than your breath. I’m incredibly visual and so in some ways having an image in front of me was more effective than simply focusing on my breath. Having the image helped to quiet my brain’s chatter. I was able to contemplate the person of Jesus without words. This was extremely helpful for my always-questioning brain that struggles to figure out my relationship with this deeply influential man.

After using an icon, we prayed over personal photographs. We simply sat quietly and gazed at our chosen image. I used a recent snapshot of my sister and me. For about ten minutes I sat and looked down at my sister and after awhile, I put my fingers on her face. I found words welling up in me, prayers for her well-being and happiness. Without this exercise, I would not have sat down to intentionally pray for her this way, mostly because I wouldn’t have known how to start. Sitting there quietly with her image allowed me to simply sit with her—to think about her and to reflect non-verbally on my love for her. Words came easily as I continued to focus on the image. I was able not to judge my words or their structure, enabling me to simply offer intentions out into the world. It was a profound experience. I have always struggled with how to pray specifically for other people and I think this experience may have provided me with an answer. It also gives me a way to be with the people who I currently live so far away from.

In addition, it reminded me of an old project. For several years I have been creating a prayer board. In the summer of 2005 I constructed a triptych out of pine and hinges. I painted it with wild colors and large designs. Over the years I’ve repainted it, added text to it, sanded it, and repainted it again. I have changed its appearance so many times that I don’t remember all of its incarnations anymore. Unfortunately, the one thing I haven’t really done with my prayer board is pray. I suppose it could be argued that the creation of it has been an act of prayer, but I’m not convinced. I think I’ve used it as an excuse or a cover-up during the denial phase of losing my traditional faith. It gave me something to do—to concentrate on.

After praying with images and icons during our retreat, I decided to drag out my old prayer board and give it one more makeover. I painted the entire surface—except for the three squares of gold leaf on the center panel—red. A bright red that reminds me of the Buddhist Dharma center my grandmother took me to when I was in high school. On the right panel I affixed twelve photographs I’ve taken of the Pacific Ocean. They show the sun, the shells, the driftwood, the cliffs, the sand, and of course, the water. On the left panel I affixed twelve photographs I’ve taken of the Gingko tree in my front yard. They begin in the summer and tell the story of the tree losing its leaves and finally show bare branches covered in snow. The board is absolutely stunning and something tells me it’s complete. I set it up in my art room with the prayer bench my sister made me for Christmas one year. I gave it its own wall and de-cluttered the area around it. It is my greatest hope (dare I even say, my prayer) that I spend time regularly in front of it, in quiet, focusing on the images and my breath.

At this point in my reflection, I must admit another personal flaw. I am an over-planner. I love to plan things and so I sometimes (as in the case of creating and creating my prayer board instead of using it) plan things rather than do them. I know that it is possible to both plan and follow through because I’ve done it a lot in my life (thankfully I’m not completely flawed!). But at this moment, I admit to being nervous about my goal of becoming a person with a regular prayer life. I would love to fill this page with beautiful and lofty goals of daily discipline, but I’m afraid I would simply be falling into my own trap. Prayer doesn’t’ require planning. To practice breath prayer, I just need to sit and pay attention to my breath. To practice image prayer (I’m not sure if this is an official name anywhere, but it works for me), I just need to grab an image and sit down with it. I’m not trying to belittle these forms of prayer, on the contrary, I’m trying to explain that part of their beauty lies in their simplicity. The simplicity of these prayer forms is what draws me in. But I also struggle with it because it means I can’t make excuses, i.e., I’m going to be an avid pray-er in a month. Let me just get this supply list put together first.

In his book, Living Simply Through the Day: Spiritual Survival in a Complex Age, Tilden Edwards speaks to this problem. In the section When to Pray, Edwards encourages readers to pick a certain time for prayer and to stick to it, at least for a week. He is encouraging us to make prayer a daily habit similar to brushing our teeth. To compare prayer to brushing our teeth might seem irreverent to some, but I really appreciate the point he’s trying to make. Prayer can become as natural to us as brushing our teeth, something we do without thinking about. It is also helpful in this analogy to remember that we weren’t born with toothbrushes in our hands. We had to learn how to do it, practice it, and be reminded to do it before it became habit. Prayer too takes practice. Edwards also talks about being gentle with ourselves when we miss (or skip) a day. He tells us “to lightly ‘see’ the resistance, and get on with it ”

One of the clear messages of Living Simply Through the Day is that a daily prayer practice should be helpful—it should help make every aspect of our day prayerful. My Quaker sensibility is quite comfortable with this idea. I believe that everything can be sacramental if we pay attention. In all of my confusion about who, what, or if, God is, I confidently believe in the sacredness of life. Every tree, homework assignment, and personal interaction (the list could on and on) can remind us of our desire for the holy.

At this moment I am greatly encouraged by several things. I am thankful for Suchocki’s metaphor of God as water. I am thankful for Edwards’ instruction to see prayer as just another habit in our daily lives—opening us up to lives of attentiveness. And I am thankful for his permission not to judge myself when I fail.

Between reaching into the depths of my personal prayer experiences and participating recently in an active prayer life, I have learned a great lesson. I realize I don’t need a clearly defined theology of prayer before I pray. In fact, I may never pray if I don’t let go of this assumption (especially because I probably won’t ever have a clearly defined theology of prayer). I just need to pray. I need to remember that I have found ways of praying that I can practice with sincerity and integrity. I need to remember that maybe, just maybe, after spending a great deal of time in the practice of praying, I might discover a few things that I can know about prayer. I may find treasures to bolster my ‘adequate knowledge of God for my living.’ And at this thought, I say, please—please.