[Dialogue] 3/19/20, Progressing Spirit: Toni Anne Reynolds: Faith and Fate; Spong revisited

Thu Mar 19 06:18:48 PDT 2020

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Faith and Fate
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|  Essay by Toni Anne Reynolds
March 19, 2020
The below offering was inspired by a conversation with my favorite Rabbi Brian Zachary Mayer and the late, great Peter Tosh. Thanks for inviting the Selah, Rabbi. Rest in Power, Peter.
..............___________________________________________

After a half hour catch up session, Rabbi fills the natural pause in the conversation,“So, what do you think about fate these days?”.

I hear “faith” so I proceed accordingly. I have a habit of talking fast, and that’s what I was doing before Rabbi blessed me with a Selah. A request to pause.

It was then that he informed me that he said “FATE, not faith. But faith works too!” How poetic. As my mind moved faster than my mouth, I realized that my sense of faith is in close relationship with fate.

These days I’m thinking of faith more differently than I ever have. Not by way of any theological shift. But a shift in personal power, or truth perhaps. I used to think that faith had much more to do with the belief in a force somewhere out there. Over the rainbow. Up in the clouds. On the edge of the Universe. Even in a volcanic place beneath my feet held a power far beyond me. There were certainly entities that had the power to create and destroy. To make life, take life, and dangle life in front of me as a perfectly motivating carrot that I may never reach. Both God and “anti”-God (the Devil or Satan) felt wobbly, like frienemies (friends+enemies=frienemies) just older and much, much smarter than me. If I wasn’t careful, disaster could strike at any moment because of a negative thought or a simply human moment wherein the fear of God failed to motivate me in the way of righteousness. Or, I could be experiencing a streak of luck and find that it was really the work of the Devil tricking me, or so I was told. All of it was so confusing.

I don’t think I ever had the details fully etched out in my spiritual imagination, but the silhouettes of person-like beings were there. Profoundly there, in the depths of my mind and at the root of my worries, prayers, actions, etc. Truthfully, I was as afraid of God as I was of the Devil. Yet, I would say the prayers I was taught “I am in you, you are in me, and we are in God.” Or, the completely worn out John 3:16. I would move from affirming God’s love for me to being sick with worry that he would find a reason to drown me like he did the people of Noah’s day, and was predicted to do in the end days yet to arrive. These fears seeped to the base of my mind. My dreams became intense, and I started working with a Jungian analyst to better understand the language that was being spoken to me. I need this symbolic view because something about this belief set felt... not quite “right”. If my body was a temple because God lived there, then why would it be a temple full of so much fear?

Selah.

“Love is what first made my heart to beat”, Peter Tosh said some years before he was murdered.

This quote has taken up residence in my mind since I heard it 5 years ago. It made me think about the first heartbeat of a human being, how electricity suddenly causes a human, submerged in water, to hold a rhythm in their own body. I was once on course to be a doctor, so I get the science of it enough to know it can be explained in at least one way. But that way falls short in a profound way for me.

“Love is what first made my heart to beat.”

My heart. Something made it beat once years and years ago. Right now, I trust that the Something was inclined to a type of love that will take the rest of my life to fully understand. A Something that trusts me enough with its electric pulse to live a life in the flesh.

And this quote from the late, great Tosh feels like a lightning bolt itself.  It feels like each time I say it, I can aim it at a particular doubt and the truth of this phrase will transform the doubt. After many a lightning strike I have found that the faith I need has been living in my chest all this time.

With help from the holy, and persistently truthful dreams, and an incredible Jungian analyst, I’ve spent the last two years reimaging the Force I have faith in. It has meant that before I look to the stars for a faceless God, I turn inward to see if there’s something I can learn about the rhythm that’s held in my chest. As a result of this new and improving practice, my sense of fate has changed, too. If I move with the truth that Love is literally living in my chest, trusting me with such a strong power, can’t I operate with some confidence? Can I trust myself the way this force has trusted me? Maybe this first heartbeat was really an invitation to co-create something. To participate in fate because I have faith in this spark that’s keeping me alive.

I said all this to Rabbi, in some form. Except probably less coherent because of the speed talking thing. Again, he asked me to slow down. Selah. Such a great Rabbi move.

Selah.

Then, I found myself sharing another currently loved quote from the analyst that’s been helping me fish through my un/subconscious mind. Some months ago, after working through some heavy symbols, he said to me “Toni, do you know the difference between fate and destiny?” I was a little annoyed that I didn’t have some answer saved in my pocket so I admitted to him that I didn’t know the difference. He continued with this gem,

“Fate is the cards you’re dealt and destiny is how you play them.” 

Selah.

I wanted to weep when he told me this. So, I did.

The perfect paradox. From zero control to freedom. Freedom to choose. Freedom to fold. Freedom to cheat. Freedom to see a way forward and win. Freedom of choice.

Before I knew I was an “I”, Love found me. You, too.

Selah.

My faith was so outwardly turned that part of me felt wholly incapable of directing this life of mine. Sure, I’ve done some cool things and have my name on some cool hardware and pieces of paper. But all of those things were done while I was following some North star, hoping that I didn’t mix up my cardinal directions. Following a Light without, and having a pretty great go of it. But, what about the Light within? What about this Love that gave my heart its first beat? I wish I could convey the way that question makes me feel!

Your fate was, and is, the same as mine- to receive Love. I know this with certainty because your heart is beating while you read this. The first and foremost faith I need(ed) to maintain is in the Love that first sparked my heart to beat. As long as that Spark is still playing its rhythm in my body, my faith ought to begin with an inward turn in order to face that reality. The truth that my fate was to receive such a profoundly mysterious love. That is my fate. This is the basis of healthy faith.  From there, movement outward can be stabilized. From center, my own heart can be the grounding force as I continue to travel the road and search for greater inner-standings.

Your fate was to receive Love. Something out there trusts you to use it well. What destiny will you make with this precious hand you’ve been dealt?

Selah.

~ Toni Anne Reynolds

Read online here

About the Author
Minister Toni Anne Reynolds is committed to singing flesh onto the bones of the Christian tradition by incorporating recently found texts of the ancient world into liturgy, sermons, and poetry. Toni’s Christianity forms a holy trinity with the psychological medicine of Tibetan Buddhism and the eternal Life found in Yoruba traditions. Balanced in an eclectic faith and focused in theology, Toni’s ministry offers a unique perspective on life, theology, and spirituality.
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Question & Answer

Q: By Bryan

Hi, I am An Episcopalian now, I was Roman Catholic up to about four years ago, I’m 62. I would consider myself a progressive christian, but I’m wondering is it necessary to go attend Sunday services? I sometimes wonder if I’m doing it out of guilt or that God will show me favor or listen better. Yours thoughts please and any reading on said topic would be much appreciated.

A: By Rev. Amanda Hambrick Ashcraft

Dear Bryan,

I think “necessary” might be the wrong word here.  Necessary says to me obligatory, and my faith doesn’t tell me I’m obligated to attend Sunday services…. especially considering how organized Christianity is largely colonized and thrives within a white supremacist patriarchal system. 

I often ask the question instead - what does God desire? 

God desires being in relationship with her, so that we can best know and bring about her kin-dom on Earth as it is in heaven.  

So then we ask, how does one know God’s desires?  We learn God’s desires through the practices of our everydays.  In waking our children up for school, in commuting to work, in seeing a stranger across from us on the Subway, in the clouds, in our meditative practices, in our study of Biblical texts, in our prayers.  Additionally, we know God in community, and therefore attending SOMETHING with other God seeking and believing people enhances and equips our faith and our relationship with God.  This could be a book study, a dinner group, a service activity, or worship.  All of these things, then, become rehearsing the reign of God, which is important to our faith.   

Finally, I do not believe that God shows favor or “listens better” based on our Sunday service attendance; but rather, we become more like God in our intentional relational practices to seek and see and commune with the Divine.

~ Rev. Amanda Hambrick Ashcraft

Read and share online here

About the Author
Rev. Amanda Hambrick Ashcraft is an activist, organizer, Baptist minister, and mother of five-year-old twins Zane and Levi and four-year-old Skyler.  She is the Executive Minister for Justice and Movement Building at Middle Collegiate Church and the founder of Raising Imagination, a platform that examines social change at the intersections of faith, parenting and politics. Her activism has been featured on CNN, MSNBC, Yahoo, the Wall Street Journal, Refinery29, and Bust and she is a regular writer and inaugural board member of The Resistance Prays.  She and her family live in the East Village of Manhattan and fight the patriarchy and examine their racism and spirituality together, one cheerio at a time.
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Bishop John Shelby Spong Revisited

The Origins of the Bible, Part XXIII: Job, the Icon of New Consciousness

Essay by Bishop John Shelby Spong
March 26, 2009
Three books of the Bible, Jonah, Job and Ruth, are known as "protest literature". We treated Jonah in the section of this study on the prophets. We turn now to Job and Ruth. To those outside the traditional religious circles, the Book of Job is probably the best known book in the Bible. It raises the deepest human question and deals with the most ancient of human fears. It examines the issue of meaning through the lens of human suffering and the absence of fairness and justice. As such, the Book of Job has a counterpart in every religious tradition of the world. The great 20th Century psychiatrist Carl Jung used this book as the basis of his probing the dimensions of human life in what I want to believe is his most profound work, The Answer to Job. Solving the question of why there is evil and suffering has been part of the human inquiry forever. It should surprise no one that these themes find a place in the Bible.

The original story of Job seems to date from about 1000-800 BC (BCE) and versions of it can be found among many nations, leading us to suspect that this is a universal human narrative. The biblical version of this story, however, did not get written until the 500s. We can date it fairly accurately, since it reflects elements of Persian religion that came into Jewish awareness during and after the exile of the 6th Century BC. The Book of Job, for example, introduces the figure of Satan into the biblical story, but in this book Satan is not yet an evil figure or even a fallen angel. That would develop later.

In Job Satan is simply a part of the heavenly court who acts on God's command. The prologue to this book sets the stage for the drama. God and Satan are discussing the faithfulness of God's servant Job. Satan suggests that Job's faithfulness is only because he has been blessed with riches and a large family. "Why should he not be faithful?" Satan asks, "since the system of reward and punishment works for him?" Would he still be faithful, Satan wonders, if his faithfulness was not so abundantly rewarded? God defends Job's faithfulness as sincere, but resolves to determine whether God or Satan is correct. God authorizes Satan to test Job for a season. Satan would remove the rewards of the good life from Job in order to determine whether his faithfulness would continue. This is when tragedy sweeps down on Job. His wealth is destroyed, his wives and children are killed and his health is taken from him. Job then tries to reconcile the established wisdom that God rewards faithfulness and punishes evil with his experience. Job is a righteous man. There is no debate about that since even God has certified his goodness in the introduction. Job, however, has now been brought low by these calamities. If calamities result from an evil life, he wonders, how can the righteous Job goodness explain his misfortunes? The stage is set for the entrance of Job's comforters.

Three of Job's friends, Eliphaz, Zophar and Bildad, hear of Job's tragedies and come to console him. The conversation between Job and his friends goes on for some thirty chapters. Supporting their conclusions, Job's friends have the common wisdom of that age, made up of undoubted "truths". God, as a just deity, rewards righteousness and punishes evil. For God to punish a righteous man would not only be inconceivable, but blasphemous. Job's friends buttress their argument by quoting scripture, since the Bible was filled with this traditional interpretation of God. Every defeat that the people of Israel had ever endured was seen by them as God's punishment for their disobedience. The message of the prophets was clear. The Jewish people had been punished with boils when King David conducted a census that displeased God. Moses had been punished with death because he had put God to the test in the wilderness of a place called Meribah. God had rewarded the people of Israel with the Exodus and the miracle at the Red Sea for the faithful endurance of their sufferings under the oppression of the Egyptians. This idea that if one obeyed the law and worshiped God properly one could count on blessings from heaven was a central tenet in popular Jewish religion. If one did not, the vengeance of God was said to be sure and swift. Deep down this firmly held belief delivered the Jewish people from the threat of meaninglessness. There was purpose, not chaos, in life. This purpose was best revealed in that human behavior controlled the response of God. Human goodness put God on one's side with rewards. Human faithlessness and evil brought God's wrath and divine retribution. Job's friends were confident in the rightness of their convictions.

When they confronted Job's calamities, there was, therefore, only one possible explanation. Job must be guilty of some unseen evil, so they came to help him come to grips with his sinfulness, to beg for forgiveness and to seek the mercy of God. They felt compelled to get Job to see the evil of his ways, believing that to be the only way to bring an end to his tragedy. Theological correctness was thus confronted by human experience and, as so often is the case, it simply did not fit.

Job stood alone against this common theological wisdom. He knew he was not deserving of these calamities. He could not deny the experience of his own character. He knew himself to be upright and honest, one who not only obeyed the law faithfully, but who also paid proper homage to the God of his ancestors. Yet he also knew that he had witnessed the loss of all that he valued - his family, his fortune and his health. In the most dramatic moment in the story, Job is portrayed as sitting on top of a garbage heap, scratching the infected sores of his body with a piece of broken pottery, alone with his inner integrity. None of his calamities made rational sense unless he was deserving of this treatment. The pressure from his friends was to face and to admit these things, to judge himself as evil and thus to make his suffering make sense.

The meaning of life itself was thus at stake in this debate. Only by the admission of his evil could he keep at bay the deep and perennial human fear that maybe there was not a God who was in control. If there is no God then perhaps life was chaotic, ruled only by chance, fate or luck, possessing no purpose, no meaning and no redemptive qualities. If that turned out to be the case then the human alternative was only to hope for the chance of blessing, since one could not earn it, or to endure endless suffering if that was to be his fate, with no further court of appeal. If the common theological wisdom did not operate then Job had to decide either that God was not just or that there was no God. This was the unspoken fear that Job's tormentors were resisting and like all theological fundamentalists, that was why they pressed their case with such single-minded fervor. Job, on the other hand, was willing to run this enormous risk because the common theological wisdom simply did not interpret properly his experience. With the unprecedented courage of one seeking a new human breakthrough, he stood against the conclusions of his friends, forcing on them a new alternative.

The Book of Job ends not with a negotiated settlement of this dispute, but with a new vision of God who spoke out of the whirlwind to challenge the inadequacy of every human attempt to state how God works and to discredit every human effort to define the holy. The voice of God reminded Job that the human mind cannot embrace the reality of God. "Where were you when the foundations of the word were laid?" The ways of the divine are not the ways of the human. That is always the fatally wrong theological assumption. Religion at its core is based on the arrogance of believing that human beings can not only discern the ways of God, but they can also act in such a way as to control the actions of God. The human sense of fairness is read into the understanding of God. The human attempt to control human behaviour reinforces the common theological wisdom that expresses itself in a reward and punishment mentality. Heaven and hell are nothing more than the assertion that the mind of God, as we human beings have created it, is still operating to reward or punish us after our deaths. Religion almost inevitably creates God in the image of the human being and then tries to force reality into that frame of reference. That is why there is no religious system that is eternal. That is why when human experience can no longer be interpreted adequately inside the traditional religious framework, the framework itself begins to die.

The death of a religious system is never easy. The fear engendered by the loss of religion, or even what we think of as the death of God, engulfs human life in a sea of potential meaninglessness. Such a death always produces emotional denial or fundamentalist fervor; a killing hostility directed toward that which or those who have shattered our religious delusions. It also, however, always produces emancipation from the evils of religion that many people welcome. It is the evils of religion that force us either into a new religious oppression or the building of a new secular city. The struggle to find a new alternative, however, also stretches our consciousness into new dimensions of what it means to be human and that is where hope is born. Job resisted the theological conclusions of his day. Job refused to let his experience be interpreted by the categories of the past. He held on until the birth of a new consciousness engulfed him. Job is thus an icon through which we can see the meaning of a profound religious paradigm shift.

Today we are experiencing exactly that sort of paradigm shift. Our experience has rendered the religious answers of yesterday to be inoperative. The defenders of the inadequate answers of the past are anxious. The critics of those answers feel a new freedom. The God of yesterday dies as we struggle to view the birth of the God of tomorrow. Job is thus an eternal symbol of that eternal human struggle.

~  John Shelby Spong
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