seethrough

the bible has some great advice for people who want to communicate more effectively.   today i took three phrases from the bible - 2 from Ephesians and 1 from James - and used them to guide our reflection on good communication.

James says that we should be “quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger”.  But what makes a person quick to listen?  I think it’s a spirit of curiosity.  Certainty is quick to speak.  It is sure of itself and in an argument is slow to consider that there may be more to the conflict or argument than is is able to grasp.  But Curiosity sense that there is more to discover.  I think it would be a fascinating exercise - to ask ourselves in the middle of an argument “what am I missing here?”  I think there’d be more questions and less categorical statements…

In Ephesians we read “putting away falsehood, let us all speak the truth”.  In this verse we are not just told not to lie.  It’s stronger and broader than that!  We are putting falsehood aside!  How much falsehood can exist between people without a word being spoken?  We don’t have to lie to allow deceit to exist between us.  BEING NICE is the curse of many religious people.  In the noble insterests of not hurting a person feelings, we may entertain falsehood by not speaking honestly when there is a need to do so.  I don’t think we are being given permission to speak honestly without care.  But we are being encouraged to live honestly.  It’s harder to live honestly than to be nice….

Finally, I reflected on another phrase from Ephesians: “let no evil talk come out of your mouths, but only what is useful for building up”.  The real test of whether we should speak - once we have taken time to listen, and reflected on whether we are living honesty with ourselves and others - is held in this question:  will it build the person up?  Perhaps the best communication advice the Bible gives us is the challenge to speak constructively.  Imagine setting out to speak words that build people up in your daily life.  Suddenly every moment, every encounter, every conversation would be touched by your spirituality.  “Religion” would get out of a building and seep into our everyday interactions and relationships.  People would benefit as their confidence grows.  And we would benefit because our communication would be effective and enduring.

three questions for reflection:

• am i quick to speak or quick to listen?
• do i want to be nice and popular or do I want to live honestly?
• are my words constructive?  do they build people up?

the cliched advice to people who talk alot is: “think before you speak”  ok, so that’s common sense advice.  but i find it fascinating how much talking (speaking) helps me to think.  It’s almost as if for me (and I assume many other people) it’s better (necessary?) to speak before you think.  Somehow the process of language (or of conversation) provides new possibilities.

I get excited when I hear myself saying something that just sounds like it’s going somewhere…

Like tonight… a friend and I were talking about spirituality and religion.  her initial question related to the fact that many different people pray to different Gods - All?h, Yahweh, Vishnu, Jesus, etc. - and they all find a measure of help in doing so.  how do we make sense of all these different experiences of the divine?

- one common response is to simply reject and condemn any expression of faith other than your own.  This response works well for some, but for people who work with or live with (or are married to) people who believe differently, this no-compromise approach could lead to hurt in homes, families, friendships and communities.

- another response is the “many roads up the mountain” view of religion.  this view is all-embracing - suggesting that the different names for God, and religious expression, are all ultimately leading a person to the same destination along a different path.  This view works well for those who don’t want to condemn people who are different to them.  But it doesn’t really honour the vast differences and distinctiveness of the different world religions.

As I was talking with my friend I suggested some ideas that seem to be an alternative to both the above positions.  I don’t think it is a middle-road, but rather quite a different way of thinking about the spiritual journey.

We humans have notoriously “made God in our own image” (I think Frederich Schleiermacher first suggested that idea).  There is a lot of Talk about God.  But we need to distinguish between Talk about God and God’self.  Surely we must all agree that all conversation about God is limited by our human understanding.  Language cannot fully or finally contain mystery.  Our words only point to the mystery.

By saying this, I am not suggesting that God is not Real.  The reality (or existence) of God is not in question.  Faith takes the Creator, the Source, as a foundation of all conversation.  We kind of take it for granted.  Asking “Does God exists?” is not even a consideration.  Without the Source, there wouldn’t be anything to ask a question.  So the question (and the questioner) assume there is a Source.

But what is in question is how helpful our Talk about God is.  There is a lot of talk.  And there is a lot of difference and disagreement.  Some people say God is like this… others are sure God is like that…  and no-one is willing to give an inch.  Some people even say “there is no God” - which seems like a different category of statement at first, but ironically it turns out to be a part of the same Talk about God.  And the surprising thing to discover is that the so-called “Atheists” have valid things to say about religion, faith and God!  They are some of the most ethically and morally convicted people in society…  and some highly regarded spiritual teacher once suggested we should “judge a tree by the fruit it bears”…

Athiests have recognised, along with many contemplatives and mystics, that Talk about God can easily degenrate into a powerful idolatry.  We worship our idea of God.  Our God loves Jews (or Americans or Christians or straight people or “born again” people or whatever WE decide…) and hates others.  Our religion becomes a prejudice of our own making.  There’s very little about it that is connected with the Source.

So contemplatives and mystics suggest that a good way to God is the apophatic way.  this refers to the way of negation.  the apophatic way senses that God is being - to be experienced, not an idea to be described or understood.  Along with talking about God goes pictures, symbols and complex rituals and practices.  Instead the apophatic way embraces simplicity and silence.  In the silence (and the negation of thoughts, ideas - our mental activity and agility) mystics seek encounter with the very being of God.  Be still and know (read experience or encounter) that I Am God.  I Am.

The cataphatic way - the way of affirmation - celebrates what can be known, spoken, proclaimed about God.  This is the way that celebrates scripture as revelation.  Lots of words.  And also Jesus as the Word of God.  It’s no surprise that the cataphatic way loves preaching.  There is conviction and certainty.  These are the evangelists.  They have a truth to proclaim - because it can be heard, considered, accepted (or not), believed and therefore received.  Jesus is the Truth - and that truth feels a lot like a set of ideas (teaching) about life and God that ideally must be believed, accepted as true.

I think both ways have insights to offer, and both have grave dangers.

The apophatic way is in huge danger of a withdrawal from the everyday experiences of ordinary people.  (This might, in part, explain why so many ordinary people embrace the certainty and mindlessness of certain expressions of the cataphatic tradition.)  The cataphatic way must answer for many expressions of faith that lack compassion and actually encourage judgement, condemnation and self righteous religion.

I believe we need to distinguish between God and our Talk about God.  Keeping that distinction allows us to embrace both traditions.

The distinction is made from the apophatic insights that all descriptions about God are deficient - they can never contain the whole truth.  But, the distinction also honours the cataphatic tradition - in that it allows us to continue our Talk about God.  We need a language.  We need symbols, and songs and words and conversations and doctrines etc…  We aren’t mystical saints living in some higher plane.  We are ordinary people with the need to share together in community a common life of worship and service.  So we embrace Talk about God with one proviso - we never equate our Talk about God (and the conclusions we draw) with God.  We always remember that our conversation is limited.  It is connected with Reality - but it isn’t the whole reality.  It is vitally in touch with the Source - but it never contains or totally grasps the Source.

If it needs a description,  perhaps this “way” could be called honouring mystery in the midst of the ordinary.  A bit cumbersome…  perhaps someone can suggest a word to describe this “way”…

one last thought:  colossians 1:19 says that “in him (Jesus) the fullness of God was pleased to dwell”.  could it be that the bible presents us with a “way” in Jesus, that honours both traditions - the immanence and tangibility of Jesus, Emmanuel, God incarnate…  affirming the cataphatic way.  but also, the recognition that Jesus is in many ways limited in ways God is not (e.g. God is omnipresent while Jesus squeezes the fullness of God into time and space.)  So Jesus represents this apophatic insight - that there is mystery and wonder beyond the Jesus we can see. (and hear and follow…)  The Word is more than enough - everything we need to know about God.  But it doesn’t delimit God - God remains the Creator God, ground of our being, Source, that is mystery, beyond our full and final comprehension.

let’s talk! (about God)

the rules are always changing. the way we tell the stories about our lives is constantly evolving.

this morning i read a story about a woman who has significantly affected the current US presidential race. 61 year-old Mayhill Fowler - a financially contributing supported of the Obama campaign - joined a volunteer journalistic programme that gave many ordinary “untrained” people an opportunity to report on the campaign. the programme, initiated by The Huffington Post, is called “Off the Bus” and was designed to give ordinary people an a voice.

So when Mayhill Flower got into a private fund-raiser and recorded Barak Obama speaking about the bitterness of certain American communities, she was placed in an awkward position.  She was disappointed that he sounded like those people that buy into generalisations about certain communities. But she had also followed him around and covered his campaign out of her own pocket (with no allowance from the Huff Post) - motivated by a desire to see him become the next president. She knew that reporting what he had said would hurt his campaign. She sat on the story for 4 days reflecting on what she should do. Finally she published the report and news quickly spread.

Was it journalistic integrity that won out?

Are the ethical rules of journalism changing? (she didn’t announce herself as a “journalist” but then she also isn’t being paid, so one could argue that she’s just an ordinary person - an ordinary person with a laptop and a wireless internet connection… increasingly powerful tools to influence history it seems…)

Should journalists announce themselves so that politicians are aware who they are speaking to? Or, is this revolution of information and the ordinary person’s voice making politicians more honest?

the thing that most impacted me about the story was that she was not paid - not even for her costs. She travelled around and reported at great cost - all at her own expense.

What motivates a person to do that?

What makes you do what you do? Do you love what you do? (would you do it even if they stopped paying you?)

those who regard the Bible as a book that fell out of the sky, ready-made for Christians to read and obey - a “Manual-for-Life” as I’ve sometimes heard it called - are remembering the role of the Bible in a remarkable way.  They have edited out some inconvenient aspects of the history of the Bible and introduced previously non-existent ideas and concepts which I would argue can best be understood as a reaction to more recent historical developments (as opposed to a faithful ongoing witness from biblical times).  as i have said before, the work of re-member-ing is not just clarifying and reinforcing the dominant story.  it involves a challenging journey of investigation, in an attempt to recover lost threads - especially when those lost threads have been lost by a certain generation or season in history as they wrestled with their own context and circumstances.

a few thoughts to re-consider:

1. the Bible is not 1 book but a collection of books.  Recent Protestant and conservative christian movements (churches) seek to argue that God has determined exactly (i.e. verbatim, word for word) how the book appears to us today.  Of course this claim is impossible to deny - how can anyone prove that God didn’t do as they claim.  But this conviction that the Bible is verbatim “from God” overlooks a significant historical fact.  The church existed before the Bible as we know it today.  In fact the church existed and grew for nearly 300 years without the body of text that we call the Bible.  of course, fragments existed and were circulating - which suggests that scripture has a very practical origin and purpose - to teach and build the local church.  but it was only in the 4th century (from 367) that the 27 books of the New Testament as we know it today began to be regarded as the norm.  This list of 27 books was finally authorised by a Council (Carthage) in 397.  Trying to deny that this 400 year process of discernment was a product of partnership between the Holy Spirit and the authors is futile.  It’s impossible to convince someone that God didn’t intend it all to work out this way.  What is worth considering though is how the church survived for those 300-400 years (or even the first 50 years if you want to argue that “scripture” was still floating around and having an effect)…  i think it survived without a homogenous and finalised Scriptural TEXT because the Word of God is always first experienced by a hearer (not a reader).  It is a living dynamic spoken Word - and that Word is most clearly and dynamically experienced through Jesus.  Followers of “the Way” - the early Christians were a community of faith that represented faithfulness to the life, teaching, example, values, witness, death and resurrection of Jesus.  This “way” is obviously laid out in the New Testament - the Christian scriptures.  But before it was laid out - written down - is was still possible to follow Jesus.  the community held the tradition, values and stories and faith of their saviour and lord…

2. for more than 1500 years scripture was only available in a very limited way through the church - which had originally given birth to these texts.  scripture was painstakingly copied and recopied so that local church communities would have access to at least ONE copy so that they could follow the instructions offered to Timothy… to “pay attention to the public reading of scripture”.  this was the only “way” scripture could be accessed - through the community of faith.  it is only with the advent of the printing press and lower printing costs that followers of Jesus could enjoy their own “personal” copy.  seems that the call to “pay attention to the public reading” is more relevant than ever!  I find it interesting that some of the most individualistic expressions of the Christian faith arise in areas of the world with the greatest access to the Bible…

3.  during those first 1500 years of the church, followers of Jesus traced the thread of authority not through scripture, but through Peter!  It was the continuity of apostleship that provided confidence that the tradition of “the Way” was being upheld and applied in new and changing circumstances.  Always with reference to scripture.  But scripture was never the ONLY authority.  Neither was it regarded as a purely literal book.  The church acknowledged the diversity of it’s texts and encouraged a variety of different approaches to the scriptures.  The focus was always on listening and remaining open to the many layers of meaning in the text.  Along with all the effort required to guard and copy the scriptures, the church also encouraged dedicated scholarship.  Scholars studied scripture and applied their minds to the questions that were raised by new times and changing circumstances.

4. the common contemporary view that scripture is the ONLY authority for all teaching and ethical reflection is a very recent historical occurrence.  perhaps only in the last 150 years has this view really taken root.  As the excesses of the Roman Catholic Church undermined it’s influence, Protestants looked for another rock (other than the “Rock on which I will build my church”).  IN an (understandable) attempt to escape the authority of the Papacy Protestants and Evangelicals have raised the profile of the Bible so that it could take the place of the Church and Tradition in the quest for reliable authority.  Making scripture the highest authority hopes to avoid the pitfalls of the Papacy.  It tries to eliminate the problem of sinful humanity.  The Bible becomes the unquestioned authority - and supposedly the final word on everything.  Except, it doesn’t eliminate the problem.  Actually, ironically, it exacerbates it!  Now it’s not just a carefully chosen select group of human-beings (and their sin) that come into play.  Now the sinfulness of every reader comes into play…  We need to reflect deeply on the status of church unity since the Reformation (Protestants breaking from the Catholic church) and the easy availability of the Bible.  In the last 300 years there have been numerous splits, breaks and divisions in churches, both in main-line denominations and in informal church groupings.  Every person is free to read their own copy of the Scriptures, and interpret it how they prefer.  Of course, this is democratic.  But it’s alos contributed to judgement, division and a lack of united and peaceful Christian witness.  We fight more amongst ourselves than we do any significant evil in this world.

I’m not arguing for a return to Autocracy - the rule of the Pope.  But I am arguing that the Protestant Project of scriptural authority has failed.  What we need is a re-member-ing of the wisdom of Christian History - that reveals a much more rich and dynamic way of dealing with the questions of authority and influence.  We must value scripture.  The Bible has not continued to have influence by accident.  It is a powerful gift to the church.  Likewise, we must value the Tradition of the Church, when the community of the the faithful have witnessed passion and obedience to God’s living Word to them - in whatever context and circumstances they found themselves.  Could the church’s witness in previous difficult times provide insight for how we can begin to respond to contemporary overwhelming problems… like global warming, poverty…?  The church has needed thoughtful and prayerful reflection.  We prayerfully engage our minds - common sense must honour God when it applies the best knowledge available to everyday challenges and ethical dilemmas.  Finally, we will shoot ourselves in the foot if we fail to recognise the very practicality of God - the work of the Spirit in the secular - the ordinary of our everyday.  Our experience of life and God and of relationship and marriage and family and worship etc. will continue to provide helpful insights and wisdom that will most often find resonance in the text of scripture as well as in the wisdom of tradition and reason.

Christians are (by definition) followers of Jesus - followers of “the Way”.  How did we get side-tracked by this distortion of our common life of faithful witness?

Cate was baptised yesterday as my family gathered to celebrate her life. Cate is an easy going, contented child who laughs easily and watches what goes on arround her with great interest.

I baptised my daughter, a sign of God’s single, unrelenting attitude toward us - that we are loved, that our lives are a gift, and that there is nothing we can do to earn Life - it’s given.

I found a phrase from a poem by Meister Eckhart which begins “all beings are words of God”. I used that phrase as a starting point for a prayer, which i read at the Baptism yesterday…

If all beings are words of God
Then, once again you have spoken

If all of creation is part of The Song
Then God, this majestic music invites us
to join in the singing

If every moment is a touch of Your brush
on canvas
Then God, you enthral us with the beauty
of the masterpiece you are working on

We celebrate the life of Cate:

a gentle word
the first movement of a magnificent symphony
an artwork that claims our attention

We anticipate

thrilling conversation
tears and joy as the song is heard
moments that humble
when we see
when we really see the gift

For a child has been born for us, a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders;

Without any announcement, one day he just arrived
No-one really knows where he came from…

and he is named
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,

…and he’s like, humble, ordinary
he’s a man of the people

Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

consistent in his kindness, filled with compassion

His authority shall grow continually,

He has great influence among those who follow him

and there shall be endless peace for the throne of David and his kingdom.

and brings a measure of peace in this world filled with violence – all we can really hope for!

He will establish and uphold it with justice and with righteousness

His Way is gentle – an invitation to follow him

from this time onwards and for evermore.

but without force, without violence,
without a qualification
not everyone is convinced he’s the real thing

The zeal of the Lord of hosts will do this.

and the patient, Patient
God of all Creation
loves His gentle Way - and waits…

when last did you use the phrase “reading between the lines”. it commonly refers certain unspoken assumptions or special knowledges that are not referred to explicitly in the text. reading between the lines is then the “art” of interpreting a text based not only on what has been said but also on what has not been said.

it seems to me that what has not been said can sometimes prove more significant than what has actually been said. one of the effects of not saying things is that it excludes certain listeners. for instance, if certain specialised knowledges are taken as read by a speaker or writer, then only those who are familiar with those knowledges will easily be able to access the message. this is one of the ways that knowledge and power work together - to the extent that philosopher Michel Foucault chose to refer to them as a single entity, referring to “knowledge/power” in some of his writings.

when “subtext” is used to consciously exclude people i believe that this is unethical use of knowledge/power. but it is probably much more common - in everyday communication - that subtext plays a role without any malicious or prejudicial intent. subtext refers to anything that is not said in a communication, that is still playing a part in that communication. even if that subtext be unconscious or unknown to the speaker or writer!

what will help us to speak (and to write) with greater clarity and simplicity?

but sub-text is not always bad. humour is often very reliant on the subtext of a conversation. the humour is reliant on not everything being said.

the other interesting thought in this regard is the perspective of postmodern philosophers who are inclined to return to the text. for instance, in the area of psychology, postmodern practitioners are critical of a previous tendency to privilege subtext over the actual words and perspective of the client. according to their critique, psychology became overly focused on the privileged and specialised ability to interpret the subtext of a person’s life. some recent writing encourages a return to the surface (as it were) - a renewed focus on the actual words that are spoken (and chosen) by the client in a therapeutic conversation. This perspective discourages delving into reflections on subtext.

interesting alternative views - perhaps we need to acknowledge the subtle role of subtext in communication while at the same time, being careful not to discount the importance of the actual words that people have chosen to use when seeking to communicate something…

do not think me gentle
because I speak in praise
of gentleness, or elegant
because I honour the grace
that keeps this world. I am
a man crude as any,
gross of speech, intolerant,
stubborn, angry, full
of fits and furies. That I
may have spoken well
at times, is not natural.
A wonder is what it is.

(A warning to my readers by Wendell Berry)

i received an sms this evening:

it’s over 6.30. no more suffering.

after a month of brave holding on, Henry stopped breathing this evening. he was a courageous man and someone i would want to have beside me in any scary situation. he never looked flustered - like he didn’t know what to do next. if he didn’t know what to do, he certainly didn’t let on…

I remember when i nearly turned his 4×4 onto it’s side coming down a sand-dune in Namibia - he quickly stepped in to get us back on the track.

At times like this we are so tempted to want to say something to a grieving family, something that will ease their pain. but all the “be strong” - “he’s in a better place” - “it’s better this way” comments sound like a cheap radio echoing in a huge empty room.

when i took the phone this evening to speak with Marietjie (elaine’s mom) all i could say was i don’t know what to say

i don’t have anything to say to ease the pain. the pain of losing is not a wound that responds well to a treatment of words.

but i do have something to say! Thank you. Thank you for Henry. Thanks for knowing him as much as I did. Thanks for being invited into a fabulous family and being drawn into family times. Thanks for the learning to drive tractors and mow the fields. Thanks for a day of branding cattle! Thanks for a trip through the Namibian desert and for being treated like a man - for being spoken to like an adult.

there’s huge gap now…

i have been thinking lately about how little we really actually change. I began writing on this blog with the value of Integrity as a theme. By Integrity, I mean an integration of all the things that have been broken, separated and polarised - at great expense to the health of humanity (well, let’s just say, at great expence to my health adn wholeness).

One could say this thing about being “open” and “real” is a bit of “hobby-horse” - it’s my little soap-box.

And then the other day I remembered an experience from my early childhood. My family were in the car on the way to church, where my parents were quite involved members. My dad was a senior leader… He and I were having an argument in the car which was not resolved when we arrived at the church. He wanted to stop the argument as we got out of the car, but I wanted to carry on arguing - citing “honesty” as my reason… “if we’re going to shout at each other in the privacy of our car, why shouldn’t we shout at each other in front of fellow church members?”

(by the way, the photo is not me - it’s of my dad, Guy Marshall)

I remembered that incident with such vividness, and the effect was to make me ask - has anything really changed? I’m still on about the same old hobby-horse that I was when I was a teenager, 25 years ago!!!

But then I had another thought - is this my Voice? Is this the thing that I’m being asked to say, with my life?

Perhaps for some people this message simply isn’t relevant. They are healthy and balanced in the area of Integrity and so they find my dwelling on the topic a little anonying. But perhaps, for people who have struggled with the Dualism that has severed their lives (and all of life) into binary categories of good and evil, right and wrong, light and dark, private and public etc.. - this is the word of encouragement that they need to hear. Perhaps, also, there are faith communities, that need to hear this word. A challenge to wholeness and integrity, where faith and life, religion and politics, secular and sacred… have been dangerously kept apart…

Am I finally realising my humble significance in this life - not to do extraordinarily great things - just to speak (live) the message that I’ve been asked to speak/live, to embody a value that many of us need to embrace, to bring a gentle challenge in one aspect of life where there is imbalance and unhealth?

am I discovering my Voice? (my dad would say I discovered it far too early…!!!)

what I like about the idea of finding my voice is that it helps me to have a limited, and therefore hopefully a humble view of my significance. the thought also makes me wonder about other people’s Voices? People I respect and admire - I wonder if they have discovered their Voice… Perhaps they are speaking, but are yet to stumble on the simple realisation that this is the thing they are called to say…

Have you discovered your Voice? (and, do you feel confidence to speak with it?)