On believing

If we take beliefs as contructs determined by the multiple levels of contexts, then the substance of a set of beliefs lies not so much as the content of the ideas but the reasons behind holding on to such ideas. Why do people believe in a powerful deity? Why do others believe in a vulnerable one? Why are some people's more rational than the others? If we are to tell anyone that they believe wrongly, it is somewhat of a hubris to expect others to think as we do. If we tell someone that their ideas are not useful, perhaps we misdiagnose the situation. What is more real is the real life reasons that make the beliefs attractive, or for other reasons appealing to oneself.

So in a way, our myths and ideas provide a very powerful tool to understand self, or to perceive the ways communities are, or possibly to reflect on the human condition.

All these are true if we hold the assumption that each person, or community is free to hold its own idea (there is of course tension between what a person believe in and that which her community subscribe to); but we know this is not the case because there are powers that be that want to make one set of beliefs more viable, or more true than others. Then there is the genetic disposition that determines the ideas to which one is inclined towards.

Looking at the Narrative Craft of the Creation Stories

Just got back from a work trip from Desaru - keeps one wondering the sort of career I'm into. It was a good time. Had plenty of time to think and to talk with colleagues I'm quite likely to find few more entries in the next few days. One of the things I did was to look at the narrative craft of the creation story of mankind and noticed the genius of the story. The word 'quaint' for childhood narrative is hardly sufficient. It is hilarious. Humorous point number 1: You've got young Adam in a garden and what does he do? He talked to animals and gave them names. Humour number 2: You bring in the Daddy figure God and put him with Adam, and what do they talk about? Eat this vegetable, eat that vegetable, but don't eat that thing - its not good for you. Familiar? Humour number 3: You have a garden paradise, the perfect holiday getaway with the most exotic flowers, fruits, birds and bees. And you have a naked man and a naked woman. What do they do? The man writes love poems (lousy ones though)

Flesh of my flesh, blood of my blood; I call you woman

And the next moment he complains of the food she prepared for him.

The story teller then uses this context to introduce profound themes as I've considered in a previous blog. But they point to the earliest philosophical reasonings. Death was after all the initial stimulus towards theological and anthropological philosophy. "Why is there death?" The moment of waking up to the realization of toiling by the sweat of one's brows points to the question of 'What is the meaning of life?' And then the thistles and the brier, and Eve's labour pain ask the question -" Why the suffering?." In all, a synchronic connection across diverse cultural reflections.

An attempt to answer these questions from a Christian perspective will be to say that the questions find meaning in the 'Resurrection' of Christ. Christ lived fully and passionately in the presence of God. He went through his passion fully in the love of God, even when it seemed absent. He died and brought the presence and the love of God to the place of the shades so that hell and death cannot exist because God is presence there, swallowed up in the life-giving light of God. This is the idea of the 'Resurrection' - the Anastasis.

Answering the question of where death is present, we point to a fuller reality beyond death, that is the presence of God - an idea not restricted to the Christian faith. Then 'what is the meaning of life?' In the midst of death and disorder it is easy to think that God has forgotten us, so the redemptive living out the meaning of this life is to bring the presence of God to this part of life; by being 'poor in spirit' and 'meek'; realizing that we are 'naked' and not the centre of the universe. "Mourn", cry with the present God for brokenness. "Be merciful", recognize that others are in need of the same amount of grace, naked as we are. Be 'pure in heart', with hope and faith in the present God in this life, and resisting despair, in spite of tragedies. "What about suffering?" Our duty is to go beyond what is suffering to do something about it. "Thirst for justice" even when persecuted for it and be 'peacemakers'.

Nice thread of thoughts - but there's one serious problem. Consciously as I wrote it, there was a deliberate attempt to avoid the question of suffering.

[Listening to: Antiphon - The Cathedral Singers and Chamber Orchestra - Rediscovered Masterpieces (01:10)]

South Asian Vulnerable God theology.

Found this excerpt from 'Thinking Anglicans'- I don't have access to Time's subscription services, but this quote from the bishop of Colombo, Duleep de Chickera, is good enough for documenting here.

What have you to say about the kingdom of God? ( now clearly implied) was the question fired at me by a Buddhist from a leading local NGO as soon as I sat down next to him at a lecture in Colombo. This forthright (theological) question centres on God in the tsunami. For the churches of South Asia, steeped in poverty and within living memory of dominant colonial Christianity the vulnerable God theory is relevant.

A powerful dominant God is distasteful and alien to the poor and powerless. Much more, the vulnerable Godtheory flows very much from the text as well. The incarnation clearly conveys a God of love who deliberately takes on vulnerability to identify and save.

As waves ravaged humans, the vulnerability of this creator God of both waves and humans was sensed in the deafening silence. God is love and the freedom that love confers imposes inherent restrictions on controls on all creation. Human relationships, between parent and child or among spouses, bears this out. So the loving, liberator, parent God who was not in the wind, earthquake and fire was certainly not in the tsunami.

The vulnerable God however is not a passive God. This distinction is essential for faith to be kept. To borrow a phrase from Bishop Geoffrey Rowells recent pastoral letter to his diocese, this God is an insider. In Christ God took human form to stand with humans in our suffering and loss. The incarnation is historical fact as well as a telescope into the ways of the same God in past and future history. As God was in the historical incarnation, so God has been with those who suffer grief and loss. This God invites Gods people to do and become likewise.

The usually gentle waves of thesea are soothing to tired Asian feet that stand in poverty and bear an immense burden. The vulnerable servant Lord touched and washed feet. This was more than an act of humility. This was an enacted parable highlighting that relevant ministry begins fromwhere people are placed where they stand and addresses suffering.

Large killer waves destroy all within their path. Dominance, whether in our theologies about God, leadership, aid or attitudes, is anti-Christ and counter productive to peace, justice and reconciliation. The way forward for all, South Asians who grieve as well as the world at large, is mutually to touch and wash each others feet.

"In spite of what the Christian doctrine of original sin claims, we are not guilty simply by virtue of having been born as children to parents who fell from perfection. Nevertheless, the myth is still eloquent and instructive not because it describes an ancient catastrophe, but because it expresses permanent human realities."

* from The Myth of Original Sin - Richard Holloway *

I think I quite like the story of the fall of humanity in the Hebrew Scriptures. Peel away the neurosis of the readings of the church fathers, it has a freshness and vitality that speaks of truth for a long time more to come.

It is essentially a masterful religious narrative that juxtaposes millions of years of human evolution with the archetypal story of a young person entering into adulthood. On a level, there's this quaint representation of youth, in a neverland garden doing things like naming animals and having asexual relations with a member of the opposite sex. Added to the humour is the representating of the Divine as a Big Daddy figure, telling the boy to eat this, and not to eat that.

But the story, of course, is about losing that innocence and moving into adulthood - and woven into the story are adult themes that we still struggle with.

It is a story about humankind growing up with the realization of death - "You shall surely die". To understand the full import of the story, we have to realize that the narrative was written in the context of a lack in a belief in the afterlife. You shall surely die. Period. No resurrection. No second chance. Just nihilism.

It is a story about humankind growing up with the realization that in the face of death, we live in suffering. Before we kick the bucket, we toil, we labour; and any process of giving life to others, we must pay the cost of labour pain.

It is a story about humankind growing up with moral progress. A story about how we can't be satisfied with simply obeying father figures, with experimenting with transgression. A story about how we learnt to listen to the 'other voices' even if from the culturally most repugnant.

It is a story of human growth that carries no turning back into the garden of Eden because of the realization that 'we are naked'. Epiphany drives us from places of comfort. The disciples of Jesus, having witnessed the Epiphany on Tibor are immediately driven to another hill named Golgotha. Jesus, having experienced the Epiphany from John at the River Jordon is immediately driven to the wilderness. The wise sages at Bethlehem, having witnessed the Epiphany is driven to witness the massacre of the holy Innocents. And the world, having celebrated two millenia of the Nativity must confront the Innocents of today, not devoured by human cruelty, but by the arbitrariness of natural forces.

So exiled from Eden, we wonder what is next. Genesis is a story about the beginning and our lives are the continuation of that narrative. And if it is a story about the Fall, then it is a fall upwards because now we have to rely on our own resilient strength, stripped of the illusions of 'walking with God in the coolness of the evening'. No wonder we need greater faith - of a different kind.

The records label Naxos is interesting. It issues CD compilation with pieces so commercial you won't give a second look. Then it issues CDs so eclectic it whets your appetite. And then there's the arcane stuffs.

Bought from Borders, all from Naxos

Carmina Burana - Medieval Poems and Songs; Ensemble Unicorn
RVW- On Wenlock Edge, Five Mystical Songs
Stanford - Anthems and Services; St John's College
Ned Rorem, Selected Songs; Ned Rorem
Faire is the Heaven; Choir of St John's Elora (And this CD has Healey Willan!)
Mass of Tournai, St Luke's Passion; Tonus Peregrinus