It’s time for another Wednesday audio delivery of Spark My Muse. This is Soul School Lesson 89 [SSL89]
Scroll down for the AUDIO PLAYER.
Look! New Year’s Blue Mint SPARK t-shirt!
Check it out the other colors and flavors, click here.
Proceeds keep the show running!
The featured image is entitled “Black Bear” and is one of 25 gorgeous woodcuts created by David G. Klein for the book by Gayle Boss called, “All Creation Waits: The Advent Mystery of New Beginnings”, that I mention in this episode.
This is a lovely book you can come back to year-after-year.
Welcome to SOUL SCHOOL – a bit of nourishment for your inner world.
A new one is released each Wednesday.
When I was little, I pictured God as an old white man with a white beard, just like I had seen in paintings. He was mostly scary. He could be very loving and kind, but he also had a bad temper and would deal out very harsh punishments (just like my dad did, strangely enough. Well, it’s not strange at all, really.) Children have a hard time picturing the abstract, so pictures and stories can help, but they only take us so far. Spiritual growth and personal growth demand more.
Today, I’ll talk about moving beyond how we tend, even as adults, to personify God much like children do with rabbits in storybooks.Please pass along the episode to someone else and chat about it with your friends. Or contact me with your thoughts, if you’d like.
(Also enjoy the music of my people from my father’s side of the family – Puerto Rico! I put more music in than I normally do.)
If you want to share an audio clip, click the red and white logo on the right below.
This week is the celebration of 1 year of podcasting! #weekofSPARKle (To party with us, you can search #weekofSPARKle on Twitter for contests, videos, and zaniness, and on eBay for some tasty and whacky auction/collector’s items.)
• MORE INFO HERE
Adam Narloch and John Williamson started a podcast and after just a few episodes, they had thousands of listeners–find out why. Our conversation is wide-ranging and fantastic!
SHOW NOTES:
MIN 1:30
The deep seated need to find a home to talk about uncomfortable issues of faith and doubt.
4:30
Talking about the Bible first and having a wide range of guests, worldviews, and topics.
6:40
A no debate policy
10:00
Asking “Is this a Christian podcast?”
13:00
Realizing audience and context
14:30
Tempted to lead double lives when you can’t ask questions.
17:00
The conservative Christian bubble and fear-based groups.
26:00
The difficulty of building our lives around mystery.
We aren’t saved through scripture.
27:00
All the ideals are mystery. Many concepts can’t be measured.
29:30
Metaphor and biblical metaphor and historical truth.
A return to mystery in science and faith that beautifully underpins reality.
32:30
Confirmation bias and protecting our identity.
CS Lewis – the Weight of Glory (and other essays) influenced Adam
A Grief Observed
Surprised by Joy “temples building not built”
It’s about mercy
Francis Schaeffer
Catholic writers write about the spiritual dark night
Shownotes: PART I
A conversation (in 2 parts) with
the author of Vulnerable Communion: A Theology of Disability and Hospitality, by practical theologian Tom Reynolds
Bio:
Tom joined the Emmanuel College (part of the University of Toronto) faculty in 2007. He is committed to an interdisciplinary, practical, and relational vision of theology, his teaching and research address a range of topics related to constructive theology (particularly the doctrine of God and theological anthropology), theological method, intercultural and interfaith engagements, contextual theologies and globalization, philosophical theology, disability studies, and the thought and influence of Friedrich Schleiermacher.
Incorporating the theology of disability into his work training pastors at Emmanuel Seminary, because theology is personal, and not disconnected from the real world concerns of the church and people living their lives.
4:30
About his son Chris sparking his interest and work in the theology of disability.
5:30 Learning that disability isn’t a problem to figure out, but rather it’s about a person who I love and live with, and care with and for, which radically reoriented my perspective on theology.
5:50
Disability and God’s Providence
(Questioning does God “cause” disability as a curse or opportunity for healing…or a kind of moral lesson…)
6:30
His son exploded the theological categories (and assumptions) pertain to Providence…making everything confusing and needing to be re-thought.
7:00
What is abnormal? What is “faulty” humanity?
Amos Yong, Hans Reinders, John Swinton writing on the topic too.
8:15
Tom details the new book on the Theology of Care which builds on the first book.
8:40
Some churches stress Cure over Care in terms of disability.
8:50
(Lisa) My visit to a church where the leadership was interested in healing my son from his non normative experience of the world.
10:00
The range of responses churches have when encountering people with disabilities.
The church’s “urge to cure” is better than outright exclusion, which plenty of families have encountered.
11:00
It comes from the the idea of remaking and fixing someone in a way that is more comfortable for non disable people and normalcy (what they consider normal). Not helpful or Christian.
12:00
About the church that didn’t want his son as a disruption and a church that did receive them.
13:00
“How can we help you?” was water for his parched soul. How the church accepted and welcomed the uniqueness of his son.
14:15
Hospitality vs. a narrow view of what is preferred.
15:00
The messiness of various kinds of people, in general, means we have to expand our view of grace.
15:30
Who gets to be a full-fledge member of the church community?
and the “mascot syndrome” for those with disabilities.
16:30 – 17:50
Levels and types of responses:
• Tolerate disabled, but they do not get to be a true part of the church.
• “Inclusion” sometimes means means the the “outsiders” get invites to the inside group based on the good graces of the in group, but are still treated as problems to be solved, or people that are to receive the gestures of charity from others (people for whom things are “done for (them”)”. Doing for instead of “being with”.
18:00
What is access? In is not just accommodations (i.e. ramps and special bathrooms) and alterations but ongoing…
Faith communities may be not expecting and not ready to receive those with disabilities.
18:30
It’s not an issue about outsiders, because disability extend to a broad range of issues, both visible and not visible, including mental health challenges that are already there.
18:50
Thinking of the word “BELONGING”
as in “to be longed for when you aren’t there in the fullest sense.”
John Swinton and belonging
19:40
Jean Vanier “In giving and receiving do we really thrive as people”
20:30
Unconscious bias that includes “fear of the stranger” and “fear of the stranger within”.
21:00
We fear weakness and vulnerability.
21:30
Before “mainstream”…the stigma of “retard”…and fearing and disposing weakness.
22:20
Nathan means gift. (Lisa) I learned that I had to recognize weaknesses (shortcomings) in myself the I saw reflected in my son…and communities can do the same type of thing unconsciously.
23:00
“The encounter with disability punctures the illusions of what we think of as our own strengths.”
23:50
The journey with a child with disabilities is isolating.
25:30
Societal epidemic that fears being vulnerable or perceived as weak or unable to perform in ways that are considered valuable by society.
26:00
We have to see what are myths about autonomy, independence, and productivity where are assume we are self-reliant and these qualities are prized so highly. “Able-ism” (The idea that being able in body and mind is normal and most vital which serves as the lens by which we see and judge the world and others outside those parameters as faulty.)
27:00
Tom’s latest work called “A spirituality of attentiveness”. Christianity: St Paul’s strength in weakness serves as a prophetic witness against a society that prizes the strong as the main thing of value. 1 Corinthinians pretense of strength undercuts our ideas of grace)
29:20
We are all only temporarily-abled. (Lisa).
31:00
On hearing “You must be so blessed to have a disabled person as a teacher.” Is this sometimes a reframing of the situation that spins the situation to be more palatable? A glossing with spiritual truths and making it about spiritual growth.
31:20
Instead, Chris’s life seeks its own flourishes, and he may at times function as a teacher.
33:00
Thoughts on intellectual ability (or inability) and belief in terms of Salvation.
God’s works God’s own path in different ways and in different capacities with people. This undercuts my arrogance (as a theologian), so I don’t think I can so easily map it out definitively and universal for all people in all places.
34:00
His son’s atheism (who is the God he doesn’t believe in)…and how that challenges our presuppositions about God.
34:50
“It is in the kind of relationships of mutual belonging that the full image of God is borne out.”
35:30
(Lisa) To my son I said, “when you see someone who is loving you, you are seeing God.”
(Lisa) On how I changed from thinking “right belief” as the way to understand God was central. Our intellectualizing what God has done is not salvific.
38:00
Martin Luther’s theology of the Cross:
The pretense that we know exactly where God is and how God works. Where God is most hidden is where God is most vividly revealed in saving ways.
38:30
“Who I am to declare that God’s grace only works in some ways? and the God’s capacity and God’s own mystery is limited to what I would deem and my community would deem adequate.”
39:30
What the practical theology of disability tells us about Grace with God and relationships with others.
40:00
“The longer I live and work as a theologian the more I realize the limitations of theology and the true infinite mysteries of God.”
Jesus was disruptive to religious pretense and suppositions. “You say this..but I say this…”
Theodicy – The question of why does God allow suffering and how should we think about suffering.
How Tom, as a theologian, answers the question,
“Why would a sovereign God allow a person to be born disable and encounter such suffering?” (This is great!)
The best is yet to come! Come back for part II next week.
Will you help me meet my goal of raising $100.00 in August to keep Spark My Muse going? Use the Donate button on the left sidebar. Thank you for being a big ball of love!
This might read heavy because I’m confronting some pervasive concepts. It’s like I’m playing the heavy, but try to read it in a gracious spirit because it is meant to bring clarity not conflict. Plus, I have a damp sense of humor [not too wet and not super dry either] so take that into account. Chill and stuff.
Okay, buckle in for the bit of Groundwork:
First, from my end, I make no secret here that I see things from the paradigm of a Christian worldview. This has been my family background, my life experience, and the central feature in my graduate education. That’s my lens.
In having a lens I’m not alone. In fact, every one sees reality through his or her own lens, but not everyone will really investigate and coordinate their worldview in a consistent way. I won’t either, not because I’m not making an effort, but because seeing the task to completion is so massive and unwieldy. As I approach this topic I come with a vatanage point…and so do you.
We can take as a given:
Our beliefs will cloud our perceptions and our perceptions will work to evidence our already held beliefs–except in rare cases where we make a focused and conscious effort to consider or accept another point of view. Those cases are quite rare because we tend to use our life experiences to back up what we already think is true. (I’m reiterating.) So, when a change happens–it can be big. This is essentially how the Christian idea of “conversion” plays out too: A person is thinking one thing about reality, and somehow becomes convinced of something else and has a turnaround to something new. Christians would also say God had a direct part in igniting that process.
Peeking outside the Bubble:
In learning more about the people outside the Christian belief “bubble,” I’ve noticed that plenty of my assumptions about non Christians were flawed, false, or incomplete. Other times, I’ve noticed that while some of these perceptions may ring true at first blush, they more often reflect a universal truth about what it means to be human, (and do not effectively describe the group that doesn’t ascribe to the Christian belief system.)
The 10 misconceptions are things that many Christians want to be true. If they are not it could convince them that Christianity doesn’t provide the best answers. This fear can cause people to be even more unreasonable or averse to mystery…even though Christianity is chocked full of mystery. I’ve come to a place where I am more settled with mystery.
Christianity provides a framework for me, and everyone has a framework whether they know it or not and whether they like it or not. Christianity takes many shapes in different eras and in different cultures. Since I came from a conservative fundamentalist background I first saw the world through that lens. I haven’t retained all those same beliefs. Now the beliefs I ascribe to are not as important as the person I am becoming. Jesus as God-man is plausible and that is fine for me. For others, that simply will not be enough. For non Christians it will be too narrow for their spirituality. I also realize that Christians may sometimes perpetuate myths for an imperious framework needed to maintain fervency.
Better that we see these misconceptions for what they are than run afoul with them and forget whose image is the object of our recreation. (That would be Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, if you aren’t following me.) I give you these misconceptions to expand your ideas about the Christian framework and how it can help more than hurt.
Now to the 10 Misconceptions:
1. Non believers aren’t spiritual, or at best they are pseudo spiritual.
This is false because the amount of mystery and the unknown in life as we perceive it (being finite in mind and body) all point to the spiritual (the unseen). What is pseudo spiritual to some is more likely to be something that smacks as out of sync with one’s prescribed Christian beliefs. We are all spiritual and what we try to understand outside of we what is know is be definition spiritual, whether is a referred at that or not. The interest in spiritual things has been vibrant throughout human history as long as we have been trying to understanding our world. The “brand” (if you will) of spiritual that is may be may be off-putting depending on your experience, training, or preferences. Ex: “Using Tarot cards is pseudo spiritual.” Actually, using them is an attempt to understand the spiritual, but for Christians it falls outside the scope of what is acceptable because of the tenants residing in the Bible.
2. Non believers aren’t happy because they don’t know Jesus.
This is a complex and interesting misconception because it assumes that Christians are happy, by contrast. Many are not. Many are miserable and their Christian belief system has not given them this happiness. Christians may behave as if they are discontent or unhappy also. Certainly some Christians are content and at peace for periods of time, and some are remarkably hopeful and peaceful is even the most horrible circumstances. Nevertheless this is also true of non Christians.
3. Non believers do good things to “get them to heaven”, or to otherwise alleviate their sin-guilt.
What is more often the case is that people (Christian and non) try to do good things because they feel they should. Their motivations are quite varied and prove to be shallow or to be deep. Christians, though they may feel their eternal destiny is secure, will do good things sometimes for reasons just as poorly conceived as non believers. Strangely, it can boil down, in the final count, to semantics. It’s false to guess the true motivations of why people do good. Better to do Good for the love of it and accept the good at face value as it can only be originally sourced in the Source of goodness–apart from whom no goodness dwells. The idea that actual goodness cannot come from non Christians contradicts the Christian precept that a good God has created all of us and that same God works through all of creation, (and even those who do not knowledge “him”.)
4. Non believers can’t have peace with God.
For Christians, peace with God usually looks like a publicly confessed accession to the belief that Jesus is the Savior who died for the sins of humankind (i.e. somehow understanding atonement). But, in general, peace with God is probably as varied as there are people in the world. Grace is sufficient and comes in a manner of ways that point to the ultimate work of Grace that is of and from God. If by peace we are really speaking of contentment, and not atonement, then many do arrive at peace with God at some point in their lives. Many also arrive at a place of grace and forgiveness as it is God’s prerogative how this happens. The very idea of grace necessitates that a mental ascension is not the crux of the matter at all. Sometimes it is not at all involved as any modicum of studying a Christian theology of (mental) disability will reveal. Grace does not require anything on the part of the recipient accept perhaps a sort of acceptance. What that does or doesn’t have to be has be a rueful point over the years but is actually quite simple and easy if we are to believe in its true nature.
5. Non believers have misperceptions about reality and their place in the world.
Our finite minds give each person the opportunity to routinely misperceive reality, regardless of her beliefs in Jesus or God. No one has the corner on this problem. We share our foolishness in this regard across the whole spectrum of humankind. To think otherwise is to underscore the misperception.
Since this post is getting too long, the next 5 misconceptions will be revealed in the next post-here.
![In Darkness, All Creation Waits [SSL89]](https://lisadelay.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/BlackBear.jpg)
Look! New Year’s Blue Mint SPARK t-shirt!
