OldSoul.blog

I borrowed the title of this piece from an Alban Institute article I read in 2019.  I don’t recall much about the article, but the title has bounced around the cobwebs of my mind ever since.  And as I continued to reflect on the present state of the world – a train of thought that has informed my recent writing – it bubbled to the surface once again.  I believe it captures a core tension for those of us who were raised in the evangelical Christian church but have become dissatisfied, perhaps even disillusioned, with the evangelical quest to ‘save the world’, and with the formula we were fed as being ‘the answer’, and with the inconsistencies, abuses and emotional damage that quest has evinced over the years. 

I will say more about all that below, but because I want to set a more positive framework for this piece I begin with the gentle, inspirational writing of Mary Oliver:

The Summer Day

Who made the world?

Who made the swan, and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper, I mean-

the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.

I don’t know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down

into the grass, how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.

Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn’t everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me, what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

[Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, 1992. Beacon Press, Boston, MA]

Ah, yes.  What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?  Is it to save the world or to savour it?  Such a profound question!

The churches of my youth were certainly fuelled by the evangelical fervour to ‘save the world’ – or at least to save as many individuals in the world as we possibly could.  The world was viewed as ‘lost’ and ‘sinful’ and we, the ‘saved’, were charged with separating ourselves from that lost world and calling our friends, and anyone else we engaged with, out of that world, to be saved by the sacrifice (the ‘blood’) of Jesus.  I guess many Christian churches continue to operate with that imperative.

The notion of a ‘lost’ world arises from the traditional Christian teaching that people are by nature sinful and unclean (the theology of ‘original sin’) and salvation comes from acknowledging our sinfulness, expressing deep sorrow and regret (repentance) at having done so many bad things, and throwing ourselves upon the mercy of God, who is able to embrace us because of the atoning sacrifice of Jesus.  But we are never truly free of the burden of our sin and are reminded regularly through preaching, singing and teaching that we are unworthy of the sacrifice that Jesus made on our behalf.  Is that an exaggeration of evangelical doctrine?  Perhaps, but it does capture the flavour of the environment in which so many evangelical Christians were raised.  And all because of the flawed theology of original sin!

Flawed?  Yes, because the theology of original sin is a human construct from the fourth and fifth centuries that aimed to establish the Christian Church as the exclusive avenue of God’s grace, and to empower the priesthood as the primary mediators of grace and forgiveness to the people.  This theology has produced a judgmental church that speaks of the redeemed and the unredeemed, of the ‘saved’ and the ‘lost’.  It is a theology that has been misused and abused by systems of power and status in terrifying and destructive ways.  And, as Marianne Borg has noted in her Awe and Wonder website, for many of us it has been personalised and internalised and subverted by our superego to wreak havoc on our own sense of self-worth!

But I don’t agree that we are ontologically stained, or (as the Catechism puts it) by nature sinful and unclean.  In fact, I delight in Matthew Fox’s principle of ‘original blessing’ – that all creation was declared ‘good’ by the Creator and that all creation is ‘blessed’ by the Creator, all the time.  That is not to deny our ‘brokenness’, our limitations, our imperfections, but it is to assert that the faults of which we are so acutely aware and with which we are so often confronted are actually ‘integral to our humanness’ (Denise Levertov, Annunciation), and rather than deny them or apologise for them, we do better to acknowledge them and accept them – with humility but not with shame. Perfection is not our goal. As Paul asserts, only God is perfect and God does not require that of us, so why do we so often beat ourselves up in the pursuit of it!  Leonard Cohen captures it well in his song Anthem: 

Ring the bells that still can ring

Forget your perfect offering

There is a crack, a crack in everything

That’s how the light gets in

Those who view the world as lost and sinful are more likely to address the problems they perceive from a negative place of judgement and hopelessness.  They are more likely to picture the quest as a battle, as a fight with the forces who rage against them.  Such a mindset is rarely constructive or healthy.

The alternative is to view the world, to view all of creation, as blessed, and to savour its beauty, to bask in its wonder, to feel gratitude for the gifts that creation bestows upon us every moment of every day, whether the awe of a mountain vista, the delicate beauty of a rose, or the gentle touch of a fellow pilgrim.  Those who adopt this perspective are more likely to address the problems that confront them from a positive place of generosity and grace, of compassion and care.  Such a mindset is more likely to be constructive and life-giving.  And, surprise, surprise, is more likely to save the creation in which it revels! 

Save the world or savour it?  If we can recognise our limitations, acknowledge our failings, address our problems in the context of savouring creation, and with an orientation of gratitude to the Spirit of Creation that blesses and graces and sustains all things, then we will be in a great position to answer Mary Oliver’s question: What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?

David Brooker

17^th July 2024