Theo-poetics

Glynn Cardy

Blessed are moments found

where worry and weariness

fade from the foreground,

and a mist-like calm settles,

and we are at rest.

Blessed are we who lay

under the yellowing Ginkgo

that hard weight gone this day,

free now to pray and think, so

free to be restored.

‍

The most memorable prayers are poems. Our memories enjoy the cues of alliteration, rhyme, and anaphora (blessed are we… blessed are we...). Poems dance with our experiences and emotions. They are not a well-reasoned argument, and as such they are a much better pointers to the mystery we name as God.

Michael Leunig’s Winter Prayer, our Pānui Tahi today, begins with a little frog and winter’s fog. Then segues into the metaphor of ‘holy mist’ (playing on ‘holy mystery’) as an image of divine gentle healing. The third stanza names the central quality of this ‘holy mist’ as love. Then, like with all healing, it encourages us to respond with stillness, forgiveness, and adoring (honouring) “the softer, simpler world within (ourselves).”

The poem doesn’t use words like ‘God’ or ‘Spirit’ but, let’s be clear, this poem is simply using different language – language that non-religious people might hear and welcome – to talk about ‘God’ and ‘Spirit’.

The most memorable theology is story. Like the Prodigal Sons and the Good Samaritan. Stories that don’t have a God character. Nor is God behind the scenes pulling the strings. Indeed, like Leunig, one could posit that the story-teller was using non-religious language that ordinary people might hear and welcome.

In these two well-known parables it is the inter-actions between the characters that embody what we could call God. God, I would suggest, is best thought of as the strings, the threads, that connect us one to another, and along which goodness can travel.

In my book Pinches of Wisdom there is a story of me, after a wet walk in the Hunua’s with two dogs, driving to a local store to get a coffee. I’d been there before and the coffee, for a General Store, was surprisingly good.

But as I entered the open door, I noticed the lights weren’t on, and no one seemed to be about. Hesitantly I called out, ‘Hello?’

And the elderly proprietor who I guess hailed originally from India called back, ‘Don’t worry about us, we’re just making love back here.’

Then his wife, fellow proprietor, sheepishly moved her head forward into the doorway light and with a bit of a smile looked at me.

He then quickly explained the power outage, said they can still take cash, but can’t make coffee. Which, travelling only with cards did me no good, so I retreated outside accompanied by the memory of their grins.

Getting back in the car, I paused for a moment and allow the delightful aroma of their humour to filter through my rain-soaked exterior and I let out a chuckle. And as I drove down the road, I realized they had given me much more than any warm caffeine could.

God does not appear by name in this story, nor do words like ‘spirituality’ or ‘prayer’. But there is a cup of something very good here. Think of the couple at the store. With a power outage they were losing money. They didn’t get any from me, or from the guy who was pulling in for gas when I left. They could be grumpy with the power company, or the storm, or the government (as people do!).

But this elderly couple made a different choice. (And attitude is a choice). They chose to meet their bad luck with some risky humour and good cheer. They laughed. Probably at my surprised look! They smiled. And the smile stayed with me. It’s still with me.

I would suggest to you that this humour, the smiles shared, is like a thread of goodness that now connects me and this couple. And there are many other people, both inside churches and outside, who are threading other acts of goodness every day. Little kindnesses. Little acts of generosity. Little encouragements. Hundreds, thousands, millions of tiny invisible threads of goodness.

++++++++++++++++++++

Barbara Brown Taylor, the renowned American Episcopalian author and academic, has written a book called The Luminous Web: Essays on Science and Religion. Quantumphysics, and in particular entanglement theory, suggests that everything inlife – molecules, particles, and sub-atomic particles – is inter-connected. We are all caught up in an infinite web of relationships.

This ‘luminous web’ stretches endlessly across the universe. A plucking of the web in a singular place reverberates throughout the entire web. All of life is part of the web. For Taylor, God is revealed in this inter-connecting web that links us all together. Indeed, God is in the energy of unification that entangles us. Taylor thinks of God as infinite energy and love, as presence, and as mystery.

I like this idea of a luminous web of interconnection. I think the mystics of old, like Eckhart, Hildegard, and others would resonate. I like too the idea of how one action – good, bad, or indifferent – vibrates a strand in the web and thus creates consequences. Just as one act of good cheer on a wild Hunua morning creates a smile in my heart, and now years later makes a smile on many of your faces.

In the gospel we call John is that there is very little history about Jesus. All the unique stories it contains didn’t literally happen. But there is lots of history about the community that interpreted Jesus for their time and day (late1^st & early 2^nd century). And as such it is an encouragement for the community of St Luke to interpret Jesus for our time and day. The John community made up poems, like ‘Jesus is the light of the world,’ like ‘the Father and I are one.’ And stories, like the threatened stoning of the adulterous woman, like Jesus washing his disciples’ feet, to not only illustrate faith in action, but to encourage us to do likewise. That is to encourage us to make up poems and stories about our faith too.

A brief word about the Gospel reading today, and last Sunday. When all the language and meaning is deciphered by scholars (and remember the poetry wasfirst written in Greek) it simply boils down to this: If you in the Johncommunity want to see God, to see Jesus (after he’s died), then you will findboth in the acts and presence of love in your community. (Susan talked lastweek about what this love looks like). This love will usher you into a mysteriousoneness, a divine entanglement – you (singular and plural) in God, God in you,just as Jesus was in God, and God in Jesus. Such divine entanglement is not anexternal or public spectacle like a theophany at Sinai, or a magnificentTemple. It is seen as we love one another. Divine revelation is not aspectacle, but a practice.

Andour task today, just as it was for the community of St John, is to figure whatsuch loving entanglement looks like in practice, how to do it, and how toencouragement one another to do it.

So, I write stories about goodness and encourage connections. I write poems, particularly blessings, for I’ve found that theology is best expressed in liturgy (prayer and song), and liturgy is best expressed in poetry. John Caputo, the American philosopher, calls this theo-poetics.

Recently, as you may have noticed, I’ve taken to writing affirmations of faith. Growing up with creeds has made me wary of them. Or, to be more precise, wary of asking everyone to join in repeating words and theology we don’t understand, let alone believe, let alone feel committed to. So I’ve taken a sabbatical from creeds for a couple of decades, and haven’t missed them.

But last year after I visited Iona and stayed at the Abbey for a week, I reconsidered this. Iona is quite unusual in that it is a church community whose liturgical DNA is curiosity and innovation, rather than simply tradition and repetition. They use affirmations of faith, not to repeat what people believed in the past (though there can be a bit of that), but to find language to affirm and thus to encourage what faith looks like in practice today.

So here’s one that summarizes what I’ve been trying to say this morning:

I believe we were created for love,

to give and receive love,

to build trust and friendships,

to encourage and empower people,

and form communities of the same.

I believe we were created to care

for the vulnerable, support the weakened,

and dismantle the structures of injustice,

discrimination and other wrongs,

so that all may share in life's blessings.

I believe that love and care