My theology, in one paragraph.

My extended unit of CPE is almost over. Nine months seemed so long back in August when I was getting ready, and suddenly I'm working on my final evaluation paper. It's going to be fairly mammoth, I think; there's an entire page of questions! One of those questions asks for my "statement of theology" in a single paragraph.

Poetry has taught me valuable lessons about concision, but it's hard to explain my understanding of God in brief. I've been working on a response, and I keep fighting the temptation to add more to it -- I'm afraid I might be forgetting something important.

For kicks, and because it might spark interesting conversation, and because I think it might be helpful for me to see the paragraph in a context other than my paper draft, I'm posting my draft of that theology paragraph here:

***

My theology holds that our world is imbued with God's presence, and hence with opportunities to encounter holiness. I believe that each of us is a reflection of God, created in the endless diversity of God's image. I believe that God transcends our understanding and our words -- and that even so, each of us in our finitude partakes of God's infinity, because there is a spark of God in each of us. I believe that doors to God's presence open both in our moments of greatest joy, and our moments of greatest grief. According to my theology, God manifests in the world in a variety of ways on a variety of levels (the four worlds paradigm and the schema of sefirot or divine attributes expressed by the Jewish mystics are two ways of understanding God’s unfolding). I believe that God is available to all of us. As we evolve, as we learn and grow, as we become more compassionate and loving, we grow closer to and we increasingly resemble God. I believe that God is present wherever two of us truly meet one another. I understand God as fundamentally unitary: the Oneness underlying all things, which can inform and transform our existence if we open our eyes.

***

(Draft, April 24, 2006 / erev 27 Nissan, 5766.) I welcome responses, of course. And if you want to tackle this question too, please drop me a link to what you write. I'd be tickled if "my theology, in one paragraph" became a meme.

Technorati tags: religion, Judaism, theology.

Comments

[Preston]

I'm sorry to hear your CPE unit is coming to an end. You might be relieved, but I will miss your posts on chaplaincy.

I also wrote a theological reflection for my residency. I take a different approach to words. Perhaps I'll dredge it up and post it, so we can compare.

[Preston]

I put it up. Check it out here.

[Jean]

Every part of your statement resonates with me, although I'm not someone who uses the word God (I'm a Buddhist if anything). You can take this as endorsement or criticism, I suppose :-), but I certainly mean it as praise.

[Rachel]

Preston -- Thanks for the kind words. I'm glad you've enjoyed these posts.

Honestly, I feel a lot of sadness about finishing with CPE. It's been so valuable to me -- I've learned so much and grown so much in the process, both as a person and as someone engaged in ministry -- and I feel like my fellow CPE students this year have become brothers. I can't do another unit now; there's too much I have to do for school, and it's going to take me years as it is. But I am considering volunteering once or twice a month as a chaplain at a local hospital, if they'll take me with only one unit of CPE (and given our underserved rural community, I imagine they might), and I think someday I would like to do a unit of CPE again.

I look forward to reading your theology -- thank you so much for the link!

[Darius]

I agree with the general tenor of what you say, but to perhaps bring more focus to Preston's comment: if God underlies all things, is God distinct from Being or Reality - an "Other" - or an aspect of being-itself?

[Rachel]

Jean -- Thank you; I'm flattered.

(As a note to myself, just because it's useful to have all of this in one place: Chris posted his version here.)

Darius -- What an excellent question you ask!

In all honesty, I'm not sure there's a simple answer for me. The question presupposes a binary division that I'm not sure applies. The early Jewish mystics conceptualized God simultaneously as the ultimate and purely transcendent Other (the ein-sof, "without-end") and as a force which is increasingly immanent and embodied-in-creation (through the sefirot, manifestations of divine attributes); what I like about their paradigm is how it acknowledges that God is both distinct from our reality and suffuses our reality, at the same time.

[Francis]

A GOOD exercise... OK, here's mine. I have few beliefs; what I have are a handful of core in-my-bones feelings, gnoses, insights, which have "come to me" both as "a-ha" moments of joy and unexpected consolation in what I was certain would be hellish circumstances: 1. What for want of a better term we'll call G*d is essentially everywhere and beyond, within and without (Jesus said the Kingdom is inside and outside us, Gospel of Thomas 3 -- parenthetically, I am not Christian; I feel Jesus was badly misunderstood and/or misinterpreted by both the Jewish _and_ emerging Xtian orthodoxies. Anyway, back to G*d). God is unimaginably small, unimaginably huge, unimaginable period, save that the divine attributes of love, grace, wonder can be experienced via the agency of what's variously called Spirit, Sophia, the Light etc. (I think Jewish mystics would say Shekinah?) 2. Intervention by any human agent, mediator, or any specific practice in any specific place or places is NEVER an exclusive gateway to the Divine Presence. This is available to everyone, anyone, any time any place. 3. At this point my personal jury is out regarding things like reincarnation, life beyond the body, predestination (as Calvinist doctrine I would have said I loathe the very notion of it but things have happened in my life that I can't escape feeling were absolutely inevitable). On these and other issues I am content to receive further clarity or not as it comes or doesn't. As someone wisely said, What is is, what isn't isn't. 4. On some fundamental level it's OK, it's always been OK, and it will always be OK. Yeah, # 4 is I guess pretty sappy viewed in broad daylight but it's what came on the Spirit Wind in lieu of expected despair. take it or leave it.

Yes I too think this would make a good meme. Shanti, Shanti, Shanti, Shalom, Peace & Grace.

[beth]

It's wonderful to read this summation, Rachel - and it is very close to what I believe too. And a comment to Darius: I've always liked Paul Tillich's phrase describing God as "the ground of all being". I do think of God as Being, but also interpenetrating everything else; that we are all part of God (and this alone is reason enough for us to show compassion to all other humans, as the Buddhists would say, or "to seek Christ in all persons," as Christians would say) but God is also more than the creation we can "see". I suppose I do think of God as having a consciousness of his/her own (heck, I think of God as speaking English!) but actually as being beyond our conceptions of anything we "know" or can describe.

[Asherah Batya]

Beautiful summary. There's a lot of overlap with my own theology here, particularly your comments of God's manifestation on many levels, including those of the four worlds and sefirot. Thank you so much, and blessings!

[dichroic]

Maybe it's because I grew up in a Jewish community in a Quaker city that a lot of your theology works for me. I was explicitly taught that God is everywhere, that we need no intermediary, but the Quaker concept of "the Light within" is a better way of saying that for me.

[Rachel]

Thank you all for sharing these reflections!

Francis, I admire your contentment with receiving further insight if it comes, and not if it doesn't. Sounds simple but it's a tough place to get to sometimes. Bravo!

Beth, yes -- I love that phrase of Tillich's for that very reason. I think, also, of Thich Nhat Hanh's concept of "interbeing" -- that independent existence is illusory and in truth all things "inter-are." In that sense, God inter-is with everything we can perceive...and everything we can't, too.

Asherah, thank you for the kind words. I'm glad this resonated for you.

Dichroic, I'm glad this largely works for you! The Quaker concept of the Light within, as I understand it, is a really beautiful one.

[Susan Reynolds]

I usually have problems - some major, more minor - with statements of faith. This one is clear, concise and includes much to agree with and admire.

Perhaps a search for the spiritual is behind a good part of what many of us do each day. And finding the Divine in our work and our larger lives is surely worth the mindfulness the effort to look for it takes. My more serious nature based artwork certainly contains aspects of that search for me (as opposed to artistamps which are just fun and joyful "work"). Thanks for reminding me.

[Sun Warrior]

Rachel,

How has your chaplaincy changed your faith?

When I ask questions about ourselves and God, and our relationship with Him, I begin it with what the true nature of reality is.

The reality of God runs counter to our civilized belief that reality is divided between inert matter and spirit. Humans are somewhere in the middle between finite animal and elevated consciousness.

It is difficult to break out of the inert matter paradigm. What does it mean that all that exists is spirit? It raises many questions.

But if you get past inert matter, it is much easier to realize that spirit is everything. Spirit by its nature is conscious. And consciousness demands structure, meaning.

Then the leap can be made. God is spirit, and can only Create spirit. Reality IS God and we exist in and from His consciousness, like all else that is not part of Void.

Like the worlds we create in our thoughts, God's Creation is the reality of His thought. This is how God can be everything, as well as a distinct consciousness interacting with His Creation.

Just the illustration I like to use to describe the age-old question that can get mixed up with our confusion that reality is only God, humans and inert matter, divided and distinct.

Thanks,
Sun Warrior