DESIRE 101- Part 4

What’s With This Stuff?

Copyright © 2006

People make two big mistakes about creation. The first is the most common. This error treats the things around us as if they were everything. It considers food, or nature or family or art or our own bodies as if they were the end of life. It’s the grossest sort of idolatry. We’ll call it “Nothingbutteryism,” because it says that reality is nothing but time and stuff. This is a mistake because it simply gets things wrong. It leaves things out. What’s missing? Anything and everything that we can’t see- God, the entire heavenly realm, the world to come…even our emotions and dreams. People who commit to option one say that life should be lived for stuff, because that is all there is to live for.

It’s not just athiests who live out this error; many who believe that life is more than stuff, live as if they don’t. All of us do this more than we want to admit. It’s the easiest error to fall into because so much of this world is so beautifully and obviously wonderful.

Like all errors involving reality, Nothingbutteryism is cruel because it says life should be lived for something that can never give final fulfillment or happiness. That’s because verything we see is passing away. It’s impossible to find meaning in something that will one day rot and be infested with worms.

The second error is usually lived by those who want to avoid the first one. They see the evil that’s part of life and the temporary nature of the reality around them and conclude that this world isn’t important. They treat creation as if it didn’t…or at least shouldn’t matter. They’re concerned with “spiritual” truth only. They are disgusted…or at least feel as if they should be…with the distracting things they can see and touch. We’ll call this painful error “Angelism,” because it teaches that men and women ought to long for and be interested only in a nonphysical reality.

This error is cruel because it denies what we all know to be true: our bodies and this world do matter. It forces us to reject a large part of who we are as unimportant…maybe even nasty.

Many people see these as the only real options. But they’re wrong. They have to be. Think about what we’ve said concerning our God. Would such a God create a world that was anything other than gloriously important? On the other hand would such a God view the suffering around us as good? Let’s think about it.

The self-giving God we’ve been discussing made all of this stuff for the purpose of revealing his glory (not in the selfish way we think, for the Father seeks to glorify the Son, the Son the Father, and the Spirit the Son and Father). Like a finger that points beyond itself to something else, the beauties and joys of creation point to the God they were meant to hint at.[i] Creation is a great street sign pointing towards the location of the Trinity’s party. The error of Nothingbutteryism treats the sign post as the real party. It misses the point. Angelism believes it can find its way while ignoring or degrading the signs the host has provided. We shouldn’t be surprised if they don’t recognize the party when they get there.

All of creation was meant to image something about God.[ii] And basic to our God is the exchange that marks his existence. All around us we see the wonderful truth that “the way to receive is to give” acted out for us. Everything we have, we have as a result of something or someone else. Can you think of any exceptions? The shoes we wear were created by the effort and sacrifice of another. The bread and meat we eat required the literal sacrifice of the wheat and animal. Each of these items arrives at our home through an exchange of goods for money. Everything lives and grows through an infinite dance of these ever present exchanges. I believe God did this on purpose.

Men and women have a special place in the great dance of creation. Because men and women are persons, they must choose the type of being they are to become. Of course there are limits to this (and we’ll talk about those in a bit), but while the water cycle, quarks and neutrinos, and world economy inevitably declare in their own cyclic way the truth of God’s giving, man must decide to live a life that mirrors truthfully his Creator’s love. On the most basic level of existence men and women can’t help but participate in the exchange that simply comes with being a creature of the Triune God, but where mankind stands above all the rest of creation, as a person, we can choose a life that refuses to give or receive. To deny either is to deny the dance. It’s to remain seated alone against the wall as partner after partner asks us to join them on the dance floor. Why go to a dance if you have no intention of dancing? But, people refuse all the time.

Fortunately, we can also accept the invitation. When we hold the door open for another, let another into traffic, get up in the middle of the night to get a drink for a brother or sister, we are imaging the self-giving nature of our God. To do so is to live in a truly human way. It is to be like our Father God. It is why we were made.

If a life of self-giving is a reflection of how things are done in heaven, we can accurately label the other way of grasping and self-importance as hellish. One way declares “I (an immeasurably valuable person) am here for you.” The other selfishly demands “You (an object for my pleasure) are here for me.”

Every man and women, girl and boy still declare “this is what God is like” in all we do. This is simply what it means to be human- we speak about God because we are his image bearers.[iii] The problem is that we lie. We declare God to be selfish, dishonest, and hateful in each and every one of our acts of selfishness, dishonesty, and hate. That’s what sin is- falling short of the glory of God.[iv] And when mankind became a false witness about God, the world itself became broken. Many of the images have become cracked and bent. An evening watching the Discovery Channel will show you what I mean. We see the violence of our own hurtful words in the venom of the spider that dissolves it’s victims from the inside out. We can see the pain of a life lived apart from God in the emancipated body of the starving child. The terror in the eyes of the young Wildebeest being dragged to the ground by the Lion’s claws shows us what we do to each other for pleasure or money. We live on the blood and suffering of others. The exchange is there, but we take what’s not given and it’s violent and ugly.

Like evil itself, these anti-images work their message through the truth of loving exchange gone wrong. Hell has no reality of its own. It must distort and dirty up the Creation that God has made.

Now, here’s the good part: All of creation was an expression of God’s love and provision for man. Everything was given as gift. This means that everything, every physical thing, was an example of God’s love and a means of learning about and growing closer to God. When Adam ate the food that God had provided, it was an act of Communion with God. There was no option one or option two.

Nothingbutteryism says there is no nonmaterial reality. It erects a wall between reality and what it sees as fanciful dreaming. Stuff exists. The intangible doesn’t. Angelism disagrees. There is a spiritual reality and it is at war with the material one. Angelism is determined to maintain a distinction between the two-between what matters and what doesn’t or even between evil and good. It seems these two views couldn’t to be farther apart, but they share a common root. Did you see it? Both agree that there is a line separating the Material world and the Spiritual world. More than that they teach that this division ought to be there, but Adam didn’t choose between eating and relating with God. Rather eating was one of the many ways of communing with God.

Men and women in their prideful rebellion have trouble seeing this. This is because the first man and woman rejected it. Adam desired the fruit of the tree apart from the gift of God. And by doing so he was the first to conceive the ugly division. He grasped at the food even if it meant loosing communion with God. And so creation, instead of being a means of fellowship with God, became a competitor. The result was the perceived division between the creation and its Creator and the certain death that can only come when man attempts to live by bread alone or laments the fact that he needs bread to live. Apart from God food is merely dead stuff we consume. Apart from our food sustained bodies we are ghosts fit only for haunting- not men and women created to embody life.

The Gospel heals this screwed up way of looking at all the glorious things around us. For those who don’t understand the end for which creation was made- to bring God to man- God wrote it as large as possible by putting creation on himself. God became man.[v] And it is in the body of that man that we most fully see and experience God. We don’t do so by confusing man with God or by denying his humanity[vi]. We see God and Creation brought mysteriously together.

Christ’s human body does in an extreme way what all of creation was designed to do- allow us communion with God. This is the Christian answer to the question of “what is creation for?” The world responds with one of two cruel answers: “it is the meaning of life” or “it is insignificant and dangerous.” But we know, however, that it is much like an advertisement. Its like those free samples at the grocery store, it can never be enough. You’ve got to buy the whole package if you want to be full. The hunger and desire we feel can only be fulfilled in God.

Man’s proper response to creation is to bless it. What does that mean? Consider water that has been blessed. We call it Holy Water[vii]. To bless water isn’t to turn it into something it wasn’t before. Holy Water isn’t different from other water. Rather, Holy Water is water that we have asked God to help us see his love through. Really, what is true of Holy Water is true of all water: it was created to bring us closer to God. To bless water is to attempt to see, through God’s grace, what it already is. Or consider a more everyday action, the blessing of a meal. What are we doing? When food is blessed we acknowledge that it comes from God, that he gives it to us for our good and that we ought to thank him for it. To bless our meals is to see them for what they really are: God’s love to us.[viii]

All of this is terribly important. It means that every thing is tapping our shoulder. When we turn to ask what it wants, it points us towards our God. It means that every action we choose points towards heaven or hell. Everything we do declares “I am for you” or “You are for me”. But the thing I want you to notice is so obvious that you might miss it. Everything we do, we do with our bodies.

We and our bodies are indistinguishable. Angelism says our bodies aren’t important to who we are. According to its view of Creation our bodies are like clothes we put on or take off. We are angels trapped in bodies. In fact, many people believe that our salvation is completed when we are separated from our bodies, when we die and go to heaven. The sad thing is that most of these people were taught this by those who have spoken for the church. While various individuals may have taught this, the church has always affirmed belief in the resurrection of the body.[ix] Do you see what this means? God saves us, and we are human beings. Being human means having a body. That’s how God made us. He saves our humanity and he does so without destroying it. We’ll get our bodies back, only better.

Someone has written that our bodies are the part of our souls that our five senses can touch. Though it’s not exactly right, that comes very close to what our ancient faith teaches. Our bodies and the bodies of others are how we know each other. There simply isn’t any other way.

But more than that, I’ve said that it is not only our actions but things themselves that mean. If all of creation declares God’s glory, what might the bodies of men and women declare? That’s where we’ll go next.

[i]For a wonderful introduction to a more ancient way of seeing meaning in the warp and woof of creation see Thomas Howard, Chance or the Dance? (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, n.d.) also C.S Lewis The Discarded Image
[ii] Isaiah 6:3, Psalms. 8:3-4, 19:1
[iii] Genesis 1:26-28
[iv] Romans 3:23
[v] John 1:14
[vi] Christ was truly God, perfectly man, distinctly both and indivisibly one
[vii] Numbers 5:17
[viii] Alexander Schmemann, (For the Life of the World, New York: St. Vladimir Seminary Press, 1973) pp 11-22
[ix]See N.T. Wright (The Resurrection of the Son of God, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003) for a masterful exposition and defense of the orthodox doctrine of physical resurrection being a cardinal belief of the early church.

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DESIRE 101- Part 3

Of Gifts and Giving

Copyright © 2006

Believe it or not, in order to understand why cute guys make girls so happy and why girls make guys smile, we need to begin by looking at our God.

Now I know that’s the sort of thing religious types are supposed to say- especially when speaking to someone younger. I’m sure you saw it coming. We do tend to goof this kind of thing up-remembering what we’re supposed to say while forgetting why it needs to be said. We end up making the “ought to” and the “ought not to” stuff all dull and boring.

But there’s always reasons for God’s instructions and they’re never boring or dull. “Doing the right thing” is really about being truly and fully human; and human persons are the glorious, fiery, and wildly alive reflections of our dangerous God. Nothing boring there. If we sigh when we hear the word “godly,” it’s because we were never told that “godly” really means “godlike.”

Now, everyone wants to be like a god. Everyone desires to be glorious and powerful. Everyone. I know this is true, because I know that is the way our God made us. We were made in his image and…he is true power and glory. God put the desire to be godlike in the hearts of every man woman and child who has every lived. But the question is “what is god like?” People kill, scheme, hurt and steal in an attempt to satisfy that desire. Young girls starve themselves and older women pay to have their bodies cut on all in an attempt to receive power or glory. Others of a more religious inclination… starve themselves and beat their bodies, kill, scheme, hurt and steal for the same reason: godliness. Most of what passes for godliness is about as godlike as paper masks are lifelike. They’re just not very, and deserve both a sigh and a roll of the eyes- maybe even our dread and horror. But that’s because we’ve been swindled. It’s because we are confused by what we mean when we say both “god” and “human.” So give me another chance and hear me out. Let’s take a look at our God.

It’s the obvious place to start. After all, he is the source of all that is, and we live life fully when we live it in a way that agrees with how he made it. Surely, he knows how things work. But more than that, everything was made to work so that it reflects his glory. To understand God is to understand the creation that bears his image. So, we need to know how creation was meant to work, and we can come to know that by understanding what our God is like.

The most awesome thing about the true and living God is that he is love. Most people mean by this that God loves. Of course that’s true; but it’s not what St. John says. Love isn’t simply something God does. St. John says that Love is what God is[i]. What could this mean?

Well, if it’s true (and we know that it is), then God must be more than one person. If you’ll think about it, you’ll see why this is so. In order to love, there must be another. If God were a single individual like you and me, then for all eternity he sat alone- like a hermit in a cave. There was no one to love, no one to care for and communicate with. Do you see what this means? Love, Relationship, and Communion wouldn’t be part of what and who God is. Love, Relationship, and Communion would be extra things added to what is most real. Like popcorn at the movies, they would be nice… but in the end disposable and unnecessary.

It’s hard to see how a being that doesn’t relate, love or communicate could be personal at all. Wouldn’t that being be more of an “it” than a he or she. More like the ocean tide -a powerful force, maybe, than a person?

That can’t be right. There must have always been another whom God loved, related to and communicated with. But in that case there must have been many gods. That can’t be right either, because then none of those gods would be the final god at all. We can’t make God personal by making him less than God.

What to do? The answer is precisely what Scripture has given us through the Church. We call this distinctly Christian understanding of who God is the ‘Holy Trinity’. God is one in being but three in person.

Now, this is where it gets really cool. You might remember how we declare during Sunday Worship[ii] that we believe the Son is eternally begotten of the Father and the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from the Father and the Son. Sounds complicated and it certainly is marvelously so. But the important thing to notice is that there is movement and gift within God. What is given? God gives himself.

God the Father pours everything he is into the Son- the Son is eternally begotten of the Father. The Son responds by pouring everything he is back to the Father. And likewise the Holy Spirit eternally proceeds from both the Father and the Son. Each of the persons of the Trinity is the Giving and Receiving of the others. This self giving is how God exists. The Son is the Father’s gift, the Spirit is the Father and Son’s Gifting. The Father is the fountain Giver. If the Father’s giving stopped, there would be no Son, but if there was no Son then there would be no Father, because a Father requires a child whom he has begotten. The same is true of the Spirit. In fact, the Spirit is the bond of love between the Father and the Son. Our God exists as perfect and eternal self-giving. Our God is Love.

The church has a fancy word for this eternal gifting. We’ve named it Perichoresis. You might hear words like Perimeter and Choreography when you say it. They come from the two Greek words that make up the word Perichoresis. Those roots join together to mean something like “Circle Dance.” Imagine a wedding party where everyone has linked arms to joyfully dance around a blazing fire. This movement of celebration is how the early Christians imagined our God of Love. But the unity wasn’t simply a matter of Father, Son and Holy Spirit working together (like the happy dancers avoiding each others toes and moving in the same direction), rather the circling was the very heart of how Father, Son and Holy Spirit exist. Each member of the Godhead gives himself totally to the other and then receives the other back in a great Circle Dance of being.

Because of this giving and receiving, each of the Three are said to be totally in each other. You can see Jesus talking about this in John14 and 17. Someone has suggested that we draw a circle and label it Father. Everything the Father is will be found inside of that circle.[iii] But if we look closely we will see that everything inside of that circle is labeled Son, and everything inside the Son circle is labeled Spirit. If we began with a circle and labeled it Son, we would find Father and Spirit written inside of it. And so, also the Spirit. It’s sort of like an endless image of mirror within mirror. Except instead of going deeper and deeper, it goes around and around: One God eternally existing as three persons.

In Himself this gifting is pure joy, communion and fellowship. We would say that it is ecstatic- a word which means to “stand outside of oneself.” We use ecstasy to describe events that are so intensely joyful that we seem to leave our surroundings. We forget or don’t care where we are... or who’s watching. These experiences are very rare. Great pain produces a similar experience. Unfortunately, most people know how this feels. We smash our finger and forget who’s listening, saying something in front of a parent, parishioner or child that we’d normally not say. Ecstasy is like that, only in a good way. Of course we don’t really live outside ourselves. We only feel as if we do. But with God the ekstasis is literally true. He exists by eternally going out of himself. He lives by giving himself to another. His existence is pure light, pure gift given and received, pure ecstasy. It’s no wonder that we refer to our God as the Blessed Trinity.

If this is just how our God is, if he can’t help but give himself away, then what must happen if we see him involved in a world of guilt and misery? Would this self-giving takes a different form? Might it look like a King kneeling to wash the feet of foolish and proud fishermen? Might it weep in a garden and lay total power down for the good of the other, even to the point of horrific death? This type of thing was nothing new for our God. It simply took a different form when he actually entered the world of the suffering men and women he loved so much. He has spent eternity pouring Himself out as gift to another. This is who He is. Our God is Love; and this love consists in a total self-giving and receiving to and from another.

To see what this has to do with the special tingle we feel when our hand brushes against you- know-who’s hand, we need to take a quick look at the other half of reality. We’ve mentioned the Creator. Now let’s look at his Creation.

[i] I John 4:8
[ii] When we recite the Nicene Creed
[iii] The one thing that must not be included in this claim is what theologians have referred to as the personal properties of each member of the Trinity: the Father alone is Unbegotten, the Son alone is Begotten of the Father and the Spirit alone proceeds from Father and the Son.

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DESIRE 101- Part 2

INTRODUCTION- FOR HANNAH

Copyright © 2006

I’ve a secret and it’s a whopper. Mom and I have known since we were your age. In fact, all adults know. It’s something that you may be figuring out yourself, and I think it’s high time it was explained to you….There’s no good in dragging it out, so I’ll just tell you straight up- people are the most enjoyable things in the world.

Doesn’t sound like a whopper? Well, just wait… we’ll get to the whopper part. Right now you need to notice that I said “enjoyable?” That little word is why I’m writing this to you. It presents us with a problem. Maybe you can guess why. People can be enjoyed in very wonderful ways, but also in a very hurtful ways. Understanding the difference is so important to being happy. But more importantly it is necessary for being all that our Lord intended us to be.

There are so many things that need to be said about all of this, but we only have time to make a beginning. There will be many questions that won’t be answered. You certainly need to ask them. But here at the beginning I want to make sure that you understand what it all means. This is a question no one seems to ask, but it’s the most important question of all. You don’t really need anyone to tell you that that people can be enjoyable. Your own heart will do that for you. But you do need someone to explain the why of it all. Please be careful who you ask. Here’s why:

Just about any adult can tell you about the power of the desire to enjoy another person, but few know where this power comes from. Most would say that it’s only about changes in your body. Even if they were right (and I don’t believe they are) this wouldn’t explain why it is that God has made our bodies that way. We’re almost constantly aware of attractive people and this constant attraction is one of the things that separate us from the animal kingdom. Why did God make us so? You see, people think they’ve answered one question, when they’ve really answered something else. That’s a round about way of saying they’ve gotten it wrong.

But before we can talk about these two different ways of enjoying- of living, really- we need to admit that people are the most enjoyable creatures in creation. That can be a little embarrassing- the kind of enjoyment I’m talking about, anyway. So, I’ll admit it first.

I know this about you because you’re growing up and feeling this way is part of becoming a man or a woman. It’s true that people have always been incredibly important to us. God has ensured that we come into this world with and around other people. There was never a time when you were alone. There was never a time when you wanted to be alone, not really or for long. I can remember how you asked to go play at your friends’ house or have them come down to play with you. You’ve always enjoyed being around other people. Other people have always been important. That’s part of what it means to be a human being.

But I’m talking about something different… something that goes beyond all of that. Here it is: There is nothing as exciting and wonderful as noticing and being noticed by that cute girl or boy.

Not so bad? Let me try again. What is it that attracts? What is it that’s being noticed? It’s good that you’re careful here, but no one can hear what your answer is. Daddy knows, though, because he’s experienced it himself. So has Mom. It’s the body of that other person that makes our heart sing. Strong muscles, round bottoms, beautiful eyes- it’s almost more than we can stand. What’s going on and what does God think of it?

The answer is the most important secret you’ll ever learn. It is the secret of what it means to be who you are, of what it means to be truly godlike and blessed. And it is a secret that only grown ups can feel to be true. I think you are ready to know that secret; and I want to share it with you. But it’s going to take some doing. Some of that explaining may take us over things you think you already know. Please take the time to read everything I’m giving to you. It might be that you will understand something you already knew in a whole new way. I’m almost sure of it.

All of this wonderful attraction is God’s idea. That doesn’t meant that anything you might do with it is ok; but it means that it is perfectly alright to feel the way you do and that it has a wonderful purpose. You already knew that, though. Didn’t you? You already knew that something so wonderful had to be as important as it felt. The truth is that you’re not the only one who is enchanted with the idea of girls and guys. God tells us that he finds it wonderful.

Proverbs 30:18-19
“There are three things which are too amazing to me, four that I don’t understand…(one is) the way of a man with a maiden.”

Let’s find out what this means.

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DESIRE 101- Part 1

HANNAH'S BOOK-AN EXPLANATION

Copyright © 2006

The responsibilities of parenthood are more various and challenging than I ever imagined. Diapers and long evenings I expected. Writing on sex I didn’t. But when Hannah (our third born of six) began asking questions, I came to the conclusion that it needed to be done. The following essays are what I cooked up and presented to her.

There are other books out there. When I was eleven, my mother gave me one of these to "prime the pump" before we talked. My wife and I used that same small volume with our two oldest daughters. But it wasn’t exactly what I wanted. It seemed all about “plumbing” and the bare “do’s and don’ts” of the matter. I wanted my children to understand the glory of the whole business, and that this business, like every imaginable business, finds it roots in the Triune glory of the Christian God. Not only did no one mention the Trinity along with round bottoms, but no one seemed to ask what round bottoms meant, at all. You’ll see that this is an intolerable situation. So I hope you’ll forgive my audacity in trying to remedy it myself. I presented it to Hannah at her graduation to Middle School- in front of her friends. Eleven years in our home have made her a longsuffering young lady and she handled it with much grace.

A common truth lies beneath every point that I try to make. It’s something I never quite get around to explicitly mentioning. Ask yourself, “What kind of God dreams up the marriage bed?” How great and loving beyond description! And so I’ll end my small effort as, I’m told, Johann Sebastian Bach ended his great compositions: Sola Gloria Deo. Not because our efforts are comparable, but rather because, as the bodies of men and women so clearly declare, God’s grace is the source of the most ordinary of blessings and in a world that began in the heart of our God- no blessing is merely ordinary.

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HALLOWEEN Part 5- A BRIEF INTERLUDE

You and I are sitting across from each other. I'm grinning. You're not. (You can see already that the cards are stacked in my favor. But it is my blog, and you, dear reader, as addressed in this Interlude are imaginary. Alas, I'm afraid all of my readers are imaginary ones) Your pained expression betrays the fact that you're not sure whether you heard what you think you heard nor what it would mean if you did. "Is he serious? Is he sane?" you wonder. "If so,…is that "spooky God stuff" okay to say?" You study my face. No reassurance there- same 'ole yahoo face. Should you respond? "Is there culpability in encouraging him" you question. You rub your face in exasperation. Then, you begin.


"Let me get this straight…um, we see God in creepy moments."

"That's right, or at least we were meant to"

"You're saying God is creepy, then? Is that what you're saying!?"

"I'm not sure. But I am suggesting that the unease we feel when we encounter spooky, eerie or uncanny places or things was God's idea. He put them there to teach us something about himself."

"That he's creepy? How can you say he's creepy"

"No, I didn't say that he was creepy. That would be like looking around for Divine feathers because Isaiah declared that God lifted him on eagle's wings. Eagles…and foreboding windy black nights point to God, but I don't believe he's a winged creature or a meteorological event."

"But an eagle speaks of strength. A comparison with an eagle says "God is strong." What does a comparison with a haunted house imply if not "Creepiness?"

"I see you're point. I'll try to answer it after I skillfully maneuver your conversation into the appropriate query- that way I'll look in control, but until I figure out how to do that, I'd say that a haunted house teaches not only that he's "Other" but what it might be like to be in the presence of "Otherness." Creepiness connotes creeping, loathsomeness or things foul. I'm not meaning to include them- at least not at this point. What I'm after is the fear of the unknown- the unknowable. I'm not sure what to call it precisely, but it's present in a haunted house. You're not scared because you believe you will be hurt, but rather because you are with something you do not understand, that doesn't belong there, but which you imagine could very easily work in unpleasant ways. It's the effect that unnatural things have on us."

"But unnatural…that's bad stuff. How can you say that God is unnatural?"

It depends on what you mean by unnatural, doesn't it. If you mean "bad stuff or bad behavior", then certainly God is not unnatural. If you mean outside of nature, he's certainly unnatural. I could say "supernatural', I guess; but that would create problems that we'd have to clear up later. What we think of as supernatural is really a large segment of creation or nature."

"But unnatural!"

"It seems to me that calling God unnatural is less problematic than calling him natural. What could that possibly mean? Anyway, I…"

"Tell me what I'm to learn of God from seeing my neighbor in a Freddy Krueger mask! It's horrific. Violent, even demonic- Freddy hurt people. Where's God in that?"

"Let me try again. I've been talking about eerie places or things- trying to argue for the positive value of this category as a category. That isn't to say that every individual example of creepiness is positive. I'm sure that sexual desire was first dreamed up by God, but that is a far cry from saying that I endorse everything that invokes sexual desire. Also, Creepy always involves fear. But there are other sources of fear, as well. Witnessing a violent car wreck ought to scare you, but that's a whole different thing. Don't you think?"

"But the whole Halloween monster thing implies violence. You can't have a monster without implied violence"

'Well, I'm not so sure about that, but I do understand that Halloween tangles many different themes into its celebration. I was meaning to start by looking at only one- the spooky, eerie aspect. I think you can distinguish the experiences of being on a lonely tree lined road, or in a windy autumn night, or hearing a wolf's baleful howl- I think you can distinguish those things from the grotesque. Maybe not. But for me that would most likely mean that the grotesque has something to teach us about our God, not that the grotesque should be totally avoided. Anyway, I've had nothing to say about the whole grotesque thing. Let's talk about it next. Right now its all more than I know"

HALLOWE'EN Part 4- WHY I THINK SPOOKY MATTERS

I've a suspicion that the lessons of nature that go unlearned end up being...well, unlearnable…period. Let me try again: Our knowledge is metaphorical and imaginary….Let me try again: We cannot appreciate a concept unless we have had an experience from which we can image it. No, wait, wait, wait. This is what I mean, if I tell you that a Krag is a creature with wings like a Jorg and the teeth of a Mulph, how much have I told you? Maybe you've learned some new words, and if they're Latin ones, they might be useful in sounding intimidating in a smart sort of way. But beyond that, not a lot has happened- not much was learned. No communication took place. But if I say a Krag has the thin skinned wings of a bat (only these wings are enormous) and that its head resembles a lion's head, then you can begin to form some idea of what a Krag may be. Does that make sense? We cannot appreciate a concept unless we have had an experience from which we can image it.

When we are told by St. Paul that God's attributes are evident from nature's book, we should expect to find the creaturely finger that points to his power, beauty, justice etc. And they are very evident. Now, if I were to say that God is acertonastical. What does that mean? Maybe I'd add that it refers to an indefinable, completely and utterly unexperiencable state of acertonisty. "Oh" you say knowingly, "I see," but you're lying because there is nothing there to learn. If you've not experienced something analogous, there is nothing there to see.

How about the word holy? What does it mean? If Otto was right about the Numinous, then where do we go in our experience to fill up the meaning? More often than not we go to one of the other attributes- to things like power or justice. "Holiness is really one of these", we say. We end up making God's people speak in redundancies- "God is good and (good)." We might as well drop one of those "goods", and it really ought to be the one that isn't spelled g-o-o-d. Holiness disappears.

This is one of two possible outcomes, if what we are talking about is beyond our experience. Either the particular facet of God, to which the word Holiness is meant to refer becomes lost because mistaken for something else, or we are simply going around mouthing words that have no meaning at all. Either way, the practical molding influence that only an understanding of God's Holiness can provide is lost. Is that a big deal? It depends on how important God's holiness is. You tell me.

It seems to me (another suspicion) that there is more than coincidence involved in the fact that experiences of "Otherness" are "pooh-poohed" in both nature and in the worship of nature's God. A disregard for the transcendent seems to lie at the heart of the whole business. Or worse, it's the collapsing down of the transcendent into the mundane and immanent. Spooky moments are nothing but superstition and irrational fear. God is nothing more than Creation blown infinite. A lot of "Nothing mores" and "Nothing Buts" going on there. But that is the great error of our time- "Nothingbutteryism."

We know (for dissection has established it to be a fact) that one place is no different than another. Any desire to lower your voice in a cathedral, a graveyard or darkened forest is "nothing but"…and should out grown. God's holiness is nothing more than sheer power and majesty and so you should obey him simply because he can squish you like a bug if you resist. Just like Hitler or…wait. That can't be right. Why do we follow/worship God?

Practically, I believe that a disregard for the mysterious and disturbingly "other" experiences of our world is both a symptom and a cause of the loss of reverence. That's where the piper comes to be paid- in the loss of Reverence. There is nothing in this world that is truly unnatural, uncanny…spooky- at least not for the educated. God is explicable in terms of human qualities- only ones blown up really big. And so we should approach him like we approach anyone else- only really loud. In our relationships there is no area, station or calling that can be considered "other." There is nothing sacrosanct. Not the umpire overseeing the game- "punch the blind bastard", not the King- "who does he think he is?", nor a woman's honor.

The whole concept of Reverence seems as old fashioned and nonsensical in our culture as taking seriously a child's fear of the night. But that is the point.

Thomas Howard tells of a group of students taken by a learned cultural anthropologist into the depths of an unmapped jungle. They wander into a village just in time to see a scantily clad witch doctor slicing the head off of a chicken. Violently flinging the warm blood across the altar in front of him, the old man repeatedly bows towards the image. The scientist turns towards the students and says "Here we have a perfect example of the earliest stages of religious evolution and a clear manifestation of the myth of the fertility god's enacted death…" Obviously, the two men see something very different taking place.

If you had to choose, who would you side with? Are you with the Scientist or the Witch Doctor? Seems a clear choice to me: The witch doctor knows many things the Scientist does not- that there are some things before which we must bow, that sacrifice is required and that it must be made in blood, that there is more to reality than can be seen, etc, etc

The battle is decided when one side concedes the bedrock contention of the other. It seems to me that we need to be careful whose weapons we are using and what we are aiming at.

If there is "more than" to God, if he is truly "other", then that otherness finds expression in the image of his creation. Those innocent, profound and radically molding places, times and encounters should be recognized and treasured- brought captive to the King to whom they rightfully belong. This is simply seeing them for what they are- facets of our God's great glory. Since the garden, this has been man's challenge- to properly name God's creation. It's always been that way. Modern men and women have the distinction of adding an additional challenge- they have set out to feel shame at the awareness of certain creatures (Spookiness wasn't the first) or to deny that they exist at all. That's a tough row to hoe...because they do.

One night you'll be alone. The moon will be full, but ducking behind the gray stretched clouds, as if afraid to watch. A solitary dog will bark in the distance and a cold blast of air will send the dead leaves past your face and swirling upwards. A thought occurs to you. Not a thought really, more of an awareness; and you respond by glancing over your shoulder at the woods that lay behind. You're looking for something in the almost perfect blackness that lies between the trees. Not sure what, just …something. You shudder and gather up the groceries as quickly as you can; trying to tell yourself that nothing is going on.

Is there? Anything going on, I mean. I hope you answer, "Yes, Indeed" and offer thanks for the visitation.

HALLOWE'EN Part 3- SPOOKY CONT.

When ya'll were small we taught you that "God is a spirit: infinite, eternal and unchangeable in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, goodness and truth." I regret it now- not because I think any of that stuff is wrong, but rather because taken together I think it gives the wrong impression. It's too impersonal. Too…well, precise. I wouldn't define any of you in that way. Maybe a tractor or a college course- but not a person. Instead I'd say "that one is charmed when it comes to animals. Why once she…" or "That one is too much like me; she…" You see, I'd tell them a story.

Moderns (and I'm sure you know that's not a category I want any of you to fall into) subscribe to the whole reductionistic definition thing. They believe we understand something best when we've taken it apart and labeled all the innards. The problem with that is you loose the thing you're trying to get to know and the sort of knowledge you end up with is of a rather limited kind. If I were to gut your mother and analyze precisely her chemical makeup, I wouldn't learn half as much about her as a trip to the beach would reveal…and I'd get to take her home afterwards, too. You can see the advantage. The definition of God up there can (I didn't say must) give the impression that our God is a substance of some sort (maybe a giant glowing silly putty like blob of "BEING") or simply the sum total of his various attributes. If it's not possible to define your mother in that way, it's surely not possible with your God.

You can see that there's something else there- something beyond all the parts. Rudolph Otto has written the classic work on that "something." His book is called The Idea of the Holy. C.S. Lewis listed it as one of the ten most important books in his life. In it Mr. Otto claims that the "something" is really the heart of our concept of the Divine. It, not the attributes listed above, is common to all the religions of man. He calls it the Numinous. I like that word. Numinous. Anyway, it refers to the mysterious, indefinable and overwhelming sense of power, inapproachability and raw energy of God. He is similar in some respects to his creation, because she was created to be so; but there is an unbridgeable chasm between the Creator and his creation. He is "Other". He alone is God. People know they are in the presence of the Numinous by the effect it has on them. This effect has been called the mysterium tremendum . That's a mouthful, so people have tried awe, dread and similar words to describe it. But they don't quite do the trick either. When you're in the presence of the Numinous you're struck dumb in amazement because it is so different from what you expected to encounter, you shudder as this Absolute begins to touch the deepest points of your feelings, and there is a profound awareness of your creatureliness, our dependence, our vulnerability and sheer contingency before this Totally Other. C.S Lewis illustrated it in the introduction to his Problem of Pain,

"Suppose you were told that there was a tiger in the next room: you would know that you were in danger and would probably feel fear. But if you were told "There is a ghost in the next room," and believed it, you would feel, indeed, what is often called fear, but of a different kind. It would not be based on the knowledge of danger, for no one is primarily afraid of what a ghost may do to him, but of the mere fact that it is a ghost. It is "uncanny" rather than dangerous, and the special kind of fear it excites may be called Dread. With the Uncanny one has reached the fringes of the Numinous. Now suppose that you were told simply "There is a might spirit in the room" and believed it. Your feelings would then be even less like the mere fear of danger: but the disturbance would be profound. You would feel wonder and a certain shrinking–described as awe, and the object which excites it is the Numinous."

Along with the mysterium tremendum comes an almost irresistible attraction. Otto called this the mysterium fascinosum. Here's an observable distinction between animalistic fear and the mysterium tremendum. We long to get away from what we fear. We are drawn to that which fills our heart with terrifying awe.

The traditional word for all of this is holiness. It's not first and foremost about right behavior. Rather it's about the "Otherness" that lies at the heart of our God. To be in the presence of the Holy is to be struck dumb, trembling and on our face. Witness St. John in his Revelation- the same John who laid his head on the Savior before- falling down speechless at the Holiness' manifestation. It is terrifying to behold…and yet ecstatically beautiful and attractive. With sin, certainly, a new experience of fear began. But the mysterium tremendum is part of the Creator's and his Creation's relationship. It never depended on sin for its kindling. "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of Wisdom." This was as true of unstained Adam as it was of David untold ages later.

If it's true that Creation was meant to point towards it creator, if it's true that we see his power in the sea, his care in a mother's look, his beauty in a flower and taste his goodness in a nibble of stinky cheese, then where do we find creaturely images of his Numinance? This seems to me to be a very important question.

Lewis hinted towards my view in his comment about ghosts in the quote above. There are dark corridors that frighten and draw us, shadowy, solitary stands of trees that touch us to the point of shuddering as we contemplate passing through them. There's Luna's bright roundness flirting out the wolf's lonely howl. We stop to look. We stop to listen and shiver at the thought. Could it be that certain creatures have been gifted with this particular "telling." Is it coincidence that both Egyptian and Celt shuddered at the passing of a black cat? Or are there places and things that were "painted" just so to remind us that He is frightening because…well, like the face in the window He doesn't belong- not to this world.

Creepy, Eerie, Uncanny, Disturbing, Awesome. Holy…Spooky. Amidst our overly familiar Christianity centered on a God who is little more than a "buddy from out of town" don't we need a better understanding of his untouchable otherness. "You think that was something" we should say to our friends as we're leaving this year's most unsettling haunted house. "Wait till you meet my God."

We'd be telling the truth.

HALLOWE'EN Part 2- SPOOKY, A START

He could have put us on a great, flat ping-pong table. God, I mean. If simply "being" was the point, then a ping-pong table would have been just the thing. Of course it would have needed to be big, really big…but "the world as table" is imaginable. He could have painted it all white, too. Nothing fancy. He could have done without the whole beautiful, rolling, landscape thing. No poofy dandelions. No "wet" water. No sunsets or peacock feathers. He could have, but he didn't. Do you ever wonder why?

Jesus' Nation has always answered that a big white table wouldn't, or couldn't, serve God's end. You know, like sleeping in a wet bed or taking your sister to the prom just doesn't cut it. It's imaginable, but not worth the trouble. There was more to food than fuel, more to legs than movement, more to love than reproduction. More! And that more was wrapped up in all the unnecessary, unpractical and seemingly superfluous stuff. The big white table isn't sufficient, because our God envisioned creation as having something to say. Something to declare. And a big white table just wasn't up to saying it.

Creation was meant to state, "God is like this. God is like that." He's a rock, a father, an ocean and a lion. Not those things exactly. They're creatures. He's Creator. But each has something to say about him. Each declares his glory. The whole creation, all of it, pulls on our sleeve and points upward to her source when we give her our attention. The whole earth is full of the glory of God. That was the idea, anyway. Since men and women began mistaking the advertisement for the real thing, Creation has gone wrong. But she keeps on declaring, none the less. While the naked bodies of husband and wife have something wonderfully important to say about the God who first dreamed up such a thing, the bleating terror of the baby wildebeest being flayed by lion's claws shows the reality of the same thing when love is removed. We're surrounded by images. Some of them "were from the beginning". Others came with the fall. Everything pulls at our sleeve.

I want you to think about a particular creature. Tell me if she was present in Eden before the damned serpent caused our parents to question the Fatherhood of their God. I'm speaking of Spookiness. Did she exist when our God declared all things good, or did she arrive only when the situation had changed and the new fallen reality required new ugly images? I believe she was always there. I think she will still be there at the very end, because she has something to say about God that needs saying. Finding what that might mean will require that we take a more direct look at our God. I hope to do that next.

HALLOWE'EN Part 1

"You ask me why we don't celebrate Halloween, Timmy? Because we're superstitious, reactionary, gullible, and we refuse to check things out for ourselves. Now, let me finish signing this petition so we can stop Madalyn Murray O'Hair from taking "Touched By an Angel" off the air. Why don't you take your mind off the fact that your friends are out having fun by reading one of your Left Behind: The Kids books?"

Funny stuff, that! But I wouldn't have always appreciated the humor. It wasn't so long ago that I was judgmentally prideful…er, grateful for our congregation's informed Reformation Day party- thankful that my children weren't like those unsuspecting (?) "devil's night" revelers quickly scurrying past my darkened porch- their poofy Wal-Mart purchased fairy princess wands calling out to the nether world like stinky chicken liver to a catfish.

The point being that I understand 'em. I can feel the strength of the objections. I know that they are sincerely held. I know they grow out of fear, and I've been held by the kind of fear that can make you blind (totally-never-occurred-to-me blind) to how horribly unloving and unneighborly it must appear to darken your home on the one night that our communities take on any appearance of…well, community. The irony of being the only foreboding, unwelcoming and darkened home in a sea of friendly, lighted and self-consciously welcoming front doors- all in the name of being a "beacon of love", was lost on me. Of course there was that other house, but everyone knew he was a mean bastard and you'd better stay out of his yard- even on Halloween, but you see that just makes my point.

In my vitriolic and reactionary "Hallowe'en- God's gift to an uptight, rationalistic, judgmental, gullible, uninformed…and worst of all, modernistic evangelical yahoo" response, I worry about giving my children the impression that there aren't lines to be drawn or that this some how doesn't matter. Of course it does, but not for the reason's usually given. It matters because I suspect that The Spooky is a gift of our God and must be returned in blessing- like all of our fellow creatures who look to our priestly service. It matters because it ought to, not because it ought not.

Anyway, I figure this is as good a place to start as any. I want to embarrass all who know me by thinkin' on the meaning of Spookiness, take a brief digression down the whole "edifying nature of the grotesque" thing, fumble through the "universal needs that even a pagan understood" bag, and finally explain my understanding of the actual historical pedigree of the Christian feast day itself. (Yes, I said Christian Feast day. It's my blog. You need one of your own to worry about.) That's the plan. We'll see how it goes.

Incidentally, I suspect that there may be a reason that I've never run across this sort of thing before- most people know better. So discretion (of which I have less than the average allotment) compels me to point out that this is half-baked and loosely held. I have no doubt that the epiphany will occur somewhere in the midst of my posting and I'll have to repent. That being said, I do think I'm on to something. Anyway, keep all of this in mind as you read. Read with discretion. Help me think it through.