Friday, February 24, 2012
40 Days with Still: Day 2, February 24, 2012
Winner writes about her marriage saying "God became an abstraction. God became puzzling, like field theory, and far away" (p.7). Have you ever reached this point, where God no longer felt close or clear, but rather like an abstraction? If so, what did that mean for your faith and your understanding of your spiritual life?
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4 comments:
Is our relationship with God limited by our lives staying within our imposed parameters? When life becomes difficult/different we seem to rationalize that God is distant, puzzling, or abstract. During the times of challenge we must rely on faith to direct us through the shades of grey in our lives rather than thinking that everything must be this or that.
Sure there have been times when I haven't felt God's closeness. But
I don't think that God moves closer or further from me but that I block God's closeness. I think that is part of the spiritual journey.
There are times my/our lives are bleak, times I/we wander into desert spaces. Likewise there are times when I/we have mountain top experiences. God IS there during all our experiences whether I/we acknowledge it or not.
We need all the experiences in our lives in order to grow spiritually and in our faith.
When I don't feel God's presence in my life I have to ask why don't I want God to be with me now?
Is God an abstraction? In some ways God has to be for our brains are not wired to be able to imagine or contain God. He is more than we can ever imagine.
When taking EFM (Educaton for Ministry a wonderful program offered for all through parish based learning developed by The University of the South, School of Theology) we had an exercise to develop a description of God. We tried . . . each time we went beyond "God is" we found we limited God. In the end we produced our description of God - God is! As God told Moses when asked for his name, "I am". But that is hard for us to rest with. We want more, more detail, more comprehensiveness. But for now all we can handle is "God is!" The older I get the more comfortable I become with "God is!"
Interesting question, Michael. This is a gross oversimplification and not true for all people, but I think there's a tendency to do just that--to impose parameters on God. The two extremes that come to mind: God is more present when life is hard and I pay more attention to God or God is more present when life is good, and I know this because I feel "blessed" (which means God must love me, right?). I don't mean to sound snarky, I'm just aware that it's easy to get caught in those two extremes and I think it's also eas(ier) to rationalize the presence of God in those spaces.
For me, those times when God feels distant, or like an abstraction, I'm usually clear it's about me. And it's often neither good nor bad, it's just me being in a different space. I think there's incredible room for growth (as well as frustration) in those spaces, because I find that in absence, I often get in touch with what I most need, and can then ask for it.
I agree with you that any perceived absence of God is clearly our own issues and that my question is simplification of a very complex situation. It seemed that Winner was writing in terms of the two extremes that you mention.
I can't say that I've ever felt that God has been distant from me but I'm clear that I have been distant from God. And, most certainly, I've had my share of being lost and completely lost as to why life takes its various turns.
I think Nancy hits it on the head when she says that God must be an abstraction. Sometimes we are uncomfortable (particularly in our age of the internet) with mystery. We yearn for the cut and dry.
See both of you in church!
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