At the Center of the Center
PostedTwo years ago, my mom and I visited my aunt in Washington D.C. There was an exhibit at the Smithsonian's Sackler Gallery of Bibles and Bible texts from before the year 1000 that I was keen on seeing. Both my mom and my aunt are indulgently tolerant and they agreed that we would all take in the exhibit. It was interesting...and relatively boring...especially considering that none of the texts could be read what with the all the Greek and Hebrew and eventually Latin I suppose (I'm just assuming those were the languages - the only thing I recall with absolute certainty is that English was not prominently featured in those early texts). My aunt stayed with me throughout the exhibit, and I have no way of knowing if she was truly interested, or if she was just humoring me. Whatever the conversations we had during that afternoon, I came away from it wanting desperately to communicate something. After coming home from the visit, I wrote the following page in a notebook. It is two years old, so the current events are somewhat dated but it accurately reflects the heart of that something I am still so desperate to communicate.
Just strip away the chaff. Peel away the layers of death. Only then will you find the center of the center of the center.
I said, "I just remove all the excess, all the dressing, strip it all away until I am left with only Jesus."
She said, "How is that possible?"
We need to move from a place where it is possible. Where we peel away religion: robes and liturgy and popes and hats and crusades and holy wars and white supremacy and abortion clinic bombers and God Hates Fags and Jim Bakker and Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson and James Dobson and yes even Billy Graham and Mother Theresa and Martin Luther King Jr and careless words and false prophets and poverty and HIV/AIDS and Katrinas and terrorists and tsunamis and horribly disfigured babies who live to become horribly disfigured adults and injustice and religious right.And THEN when it is all stripped away - still present - oh God help us - ever and always still present. But when we fight through it - pushing each piece of excess to the side, clinging to the hope that somewhere at the center of it all is something that is True! Something that is Right! Something that can take it all and filter it and something that will make sense of everything. It is at this center, that we find Jesus.
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I can definitely see where stripping the clutter, the clothing, the titles, the labels, everything, would help us become a better, stronger community. But do you realize what that would take? I am not a firm believer in organized religion, so maybe I'm a touch bias.
Rochelle! I'm so glad you came to visit...I hope you'll come often. I agree that it would be nearly impossible to strip away the clutter on a community level; the stripping away that I'm talking about is more internal and personal. I have seen how easy it is for people do awful things and slap Jesus' name on it like it was his idea. And I have seen people so weighed down by extra "stuff" put on them by religious leaders who claim that Jesus requires the extra stuff. This kind of crap makes people want to write off Jesus immediately without having had a chance to see him without the shadow of people's mistakes and ignorance and ambitions hiding him as he truly is.
When I see these things, rather than blame and hate the God whose name got attached to them, I have to fight to find the truth of who God is underneath the Twin Towers rubble and behind commands from men to not eat meat on Fridays between a certain Wednesday and a Sunday 40 days later.
I also have to say, that I completely loathe organized religion. Most people would call Christianity an organized religion, but at its core, Christianity has nothing to do with organized religion. With all my heart I believe that God is not a fan of organized religion either.
I must agree. It's funny how easily God is obscured by all our stupid clutter. If you compare a NT letter to one written in the 2nd century (only a generation later) it is amazing how quickly Christianity got gunked up. I also think you put it very well. May I quote you on my blog?
mike - i'd love to see an example of what you are referring to in the 2nd century letter...where can i find that sort of thing? and by all means...quote me if you like! that would be quite an honor.
what is so amazing to me is that in spite of what we do, God's sovereignty riegns throughout it all...and He is never suprised by it, never thrown off His game.
Eventually it will all be stripped away, Jessica, and it is that process itself that helps to make us worthy of the lamb...ya know?
Christ does it all, we just keep turning more over to him each day and let him do the work. That alone can chisel away from our pride, arrogance and self-importance.
I'm still amazed that God holds a chisel to me...so glad he does!
This conversation was originally posted on my facebook profile in response to this post. I have copied it here in order to continue the conversation in the very near future!
"Kyung Endres at 1:52pm September 18
I'm so sad that you left the bible exhibit disappointed. I found it profoundly moving in a disconcerting sort of way. Take a stroll down memory lane http://www.asia.si.edu/exhibitions/online/ITB/html/introduction.htm. History of belief systems were being tested and recreated before our eyes. Man figuring out how to use divinity for self-promotion. The tug between culture and religion was at our fingertips. All of the ceremony and mythology of religion was promulgated on those pages. It told us so much about how we got to where we are today. Too bad I can't think of any particular examples outside of some vague recollection of the Babylonian culture introducing and pushing the idea of hell as an option of the afterlife which others were not that keen on.
Jessica Scott at 6:57pm September 18
Kyung, this is great, because nearly every day since my mom and I left D.C. I have longed to talk to you about this and so many other things that came up during our visit. Actually, a lot of what I plan to write for my blog is inspired by conversations we had. It's nice to hear that you found it moving (you are hard to read sometimes). I wouldn't say I was disappointed in the exhibit by any means! If I was disappointed in anything it was in my own ability to communicate effectively that which resonated in my bones. I think I saw how people I love, as well as people I've never met, are so distracted by the world's corruption and manipulation of what is true at its very core, that they possibly aren't able to see the beginning, or the source, with unpolluted vision. It's true, man has been using divinity for self-promotion since he was aware of the divine. But ultimately, can an true divinity be ordered by man's ambition? I think that is at the core of my intention.
Kyung Endres at 8:06pm September 18
I like to be mysterious (sometimes). I'm thinking that your question is rhetorical. But then I started thinking about what divinity really means to us. I looked it up on Wikipedia. "Divinity and divine (sometimes 'the Divinity' or 'the Divine') are broadly applied but loosely defined terms, used variously within different faiths and belief systems — and even by different individuals within a given faith — to refer to some transcendent or transcendental power, or its attributes or manifestations in the world. The root of the words is literally 'Godlike' (from the Latin 'Deus', cf. Dyaus, closely related to Greek 'Zeus' and Deva in Sanskrit), but the use varies significantly depending on which god is being discussed." What is your truth?"
Nice blog concept. I love talking about the things no one is supposed to talk about! Instead of a silent nod to "the way it is," why don't we speak truth into reality? Make it the norm?
To me the clutter is the unresolved conflict, the unmet expectations, the uncommunicated expectations, the insecurity that leads to constantly comparing ourselves to and manipulating each other, the selfish desires we all have and hope in vain that no one else is noticing, the passive-aggressive way we leave those things fester as if to ignore them would really make them go away in ourselves or others, the coping mechanisms we use in a world that's out of our own control, the ways we find to control something or someone. None of us really want to be at the top of the food chain - we just don't want to be at the bottom. That's where all the trappings come in, all the hoops we make each other jump through, all the concessions we allow ourselves.
Ben had a dream a long time ago that summed up our longing to clear this clutter...only it wasn't a house, it was a river. There was a faceless group of people standing on the banks of a polluted river cluttered with trees and debris of all kinds so the water barely trickled through. We looked at each other, acknowledged that this was going to be a crappy job, but this clutter just had to go, and somebody had to do it. We jumped in and started pulling stuff out of the water, and people looked at us like we were crazy. They didn't get what we were trying to do. But gradually as the junk started to clear and the fresh water started to flow through again, as the sun started to reflect and sparkle on the water, people suddenly realized what was possible and jumped in to clear the last of the debris away and soon everyone was jumping and swimming and splashing and playing in the river.
You're right, Jess, it does start internally and personally. If we all did this it would happen on a community level. What if we all cared enough about each other and ourselves to demand this kind of abundant life for our communities and be willing to go there ourselves?
My picture of heaven has changed since i was a kid - instead of cherubs playing harps on clouds and singing "i could sing of his love forever" - forever - i now think of it as freedom from the effects of the curse of sin and death in our lives and relationships, and imagine the possibilities then! Jesus died and rose again to break that curse but here we are still living under it as if it had any real power at all. The power that raised Him from the dead lives in us! Let's turn off the tv and stop letting it tell us where our life comes from! We can't blame it or anyone else for squandering the treasure that lives in us! Let's GO! Keep it comin'!
hm. I was quite tired when I commented, so looking back I see that I really didn't make much sense. Basically, I was trying to say that despite how much we "clutter" things, I find it assuring that God is still in control and we can't mess up what he is doing and I like that.
Also, he does the stripping little by little, and just knowing that we can't do it aside from Him is part of the process -- the process of being more humble before God.
Maybe that is more clear? maybe not, because I'm still utterly tired from a very long week of juggling too many kids, too many subjects, and too little naps.