Speaking Reality
It was a -20 F day at the Knox Retreat Center in interior
Alaska. Along the edges of the
lake where the trees met the ice a parallel edge formed, a curtain of ice
crystal suspended like fog in the air, restricted only to the edges of the
lake. It was cold outside and the
wood stove inside provided both heat for the building and a charming ambiance
for the people to gather.
Fourteen people had traveled from across the state to spend
time together renewing their connections and revising the purpose and plans for their work. One of the purposes for the group has to do with building
connections and communications between congregations across Alaska. This is not simple since nearly half of
the presbytery’s congregations are in rural Alaska, without connections by
road, and often with extremely slow internet connections. How do we communicate and build
relationships that would make a difference to these small faith communities?
Of course we began with a sense of dissatisfaction with what
we had been doing so far—if we had been happy with the status quo we wouldn’t
have needed much of a conversation!
We really had to big questions: How could we better understand why
communicating and connecting was so important at this moment in our work
together, and what could we do that would better fill the need?
The human need to describe what we are finding in the role,
and our role in relating to what we find, is huge in the Bible. In Genesis 2:18-24 we have this
familiar passage out of the Bible.
Then the Lord God said, “It is not
good that the human should be
alone; I will make a helper as partner.” So out of the ground the Lord God
formed every animal of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to
the human to see what the human would call them; and whatever the human called
every living creature, that was its name. The human gave names to all cattle,
and to the birds of the air, and to every animal of the field; but for the
human there was not found a helper as partner. So the Lord God caused a deep
sleep to fall upon the human, who then slept; then God took one of the human’s
ribs and closed up its place with flesh. And the rib that the Lord God had
taken from the man he made into a woman and brought her to the man.
Then the man said,
“This at last is bone of my bones
and flesh of my flesh;
this one shall be called Woman,
for out of Man this one was taken.”
Therefore a man leaves his father
and his mother and clings to his wife, and they become one flesh…
This is the first story in the Bible describing ur-human in
action. The first thing the human
does is begin naming everything.
We do this, too, but our naming is not just assigning “names.” Our naming is about describing the
reality we are encountering so we can live in proper relationship with what we
find. To the degree that we
describe things well, we live well; and to the degree that we describe things
poorly, we live poorly. For
instance, to the degree that we describe cancer well, we can prevent it or
treat it well. To the degree that
we don’t understand cancer and can’t describe it well, our approaches are
ineffective.
Perhaps one of the best ways for understanding ourselves as
God created us is as “naming creatures.”
We seek to live well in the world, which means understanding this world
we live in and understanding healthy and proper relationships within this
world.
There is both power and limits in our abilities as naming
creatures. The Genesis passage
points out the limits quite clearly.
For Adam (note that the passage only names Adam as male at the end of
the passage, after God turns Adam from one human creature [which is what the word Adam means] into one pair—a
man and a woman) the search to describe reality in a way that deals with
his/her loneliness turns out not to be something she/he can control. Ada, names absolutely everything he/she
can, searches everything and is still alone in the end. Yet God understands the underlying need
and provides for Adam’s need in ways that Adam cannot.
This passage tells us that all of our searching and seeking
does not make us self-sufficient.
In the end, all these important things we encounter and discover on our
own are important, but there is a responsiveness within God that Christians
call grace, who provides new possibilities where we cannot.
this also raises questions in my mind:
ReplyDelete1. If describing (naming) our surroundings and experiences is central to being human, how are we to determine better and worse philosophies, worldviews and theologies? Do we measure these things in terms of prosperity (check out descriptions of Solomon’s wisdom in the Bible), or in terms of my personal sense of “peace in my heart,” or in terms of societal justice (the maximum empowerment of all classes of peoples, maybe), or in terms of obedience to a law that is higher than we are?
2. Human beings have been learning, and will always be learning, which shows itself in the ways our teachings develop. How, then, are we to understand “revelation” from God? Are we to be rigid in theology, because we believe it to be God-inspired? Surely not! We see how many holy wars are fought throughout the ages, and even in our homes. How does human naming and learning fit into a relationship with God? But if we do not have a rigid religious stance, how are we to understand revelation and authority?
3. If human understanding has limits that turn us, like Adam, toward God’s grace for fulfillment, how does that work, and what can we expect from God?
4. It looks to me like Adam in the Genesis story did not expect to be recreated into something new—into a relational duo rather than a self-sufficient mono, yet that is the story we are given. What does that say about personal-and-solo understanding? I mean, what if the other really is wrong…or what if I am really wrong? And what does this passage imply about transformation as being normal-and-real for human beings living with God? Do we see that in reality? How are we to understand this?