pitter-patter

I wrote my final paper last semester on doing theology from an ecological foundation. We tend to do well at remembering that when it comes to God the sky is the limit, but I think more often than not we forget that the earth is our springboard. It is easy to imagine the bearded old man in the sky, the Our Father (who art in heaven), fielding our prayers. It is not as easy to remember that it is Mother earth who props us up and provides the substance for those prayers. It is she who cases our spirits with matter. Mother/Mater pittering our prayers to Pater/Father. The breaths we breathe, the flesh we bear, the relationships that sustain us and give us purpose – she accounts for them all. And while there is no telling whether or not our abstract image of the God out there is accurate, there is plenty of God right here to hold on to.

But hopefully our theology breaks through these simplistic dualisms of spirit and matter, female and male, earth and elsewhere. What if our theology did not thrive on static absolutes that fix God untouchably in the center of our lives? God is not an entity for us to gawk at. What if instead our theology thrived on the dynamism of possibilities? God is not a point of focus or a fixation. God is a blur of activity that occurs always in the peripheral. God happens at the margins of our vision.

I heard recently that the classic translation of Exodus 3:14’s Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh, “I am who I am”, is not the most accurate translation on the market. The translation fits well into a western mentality where the best things are established things, things that are fixed and secured and absolute. But whether or not we westerners like it Ehyeh Asher Ehyeh implies motion and becoming more than it does completion or a conclusive entity. It means something closer to “I will be what I will be” or the even more counterintuitive, “I will be that which I am”. This story of God’s intimate moment with the prophet Moses teaches us that God is something other than fixed reality. God is reality in flux.

A contingency of being open to God as reality in flux is that it requires one to foster a hyper-awareness. I have to be alert and attentive to what is happening around me and within me, and I must do my best to attend to what is happening around and within others (and not just other humans). The comfort of fixing God to an absolute standard of stability (God as unchanging, unmoving, the same yesterday today and forever) is that I can close my eyes to the others around me and neglect the dynamics that swirl within me. I can take comfort in the certainty that even if the world gets tumultuous I will be secure, barnacled to my monolithic God. This metaphor for God – my rock and shelter in the storm – has a profound function. It can be used as devotional assurance in turbulent times. It is especially available to those who are dispossessed – the homeless, the refugee, threatened and abandoned populations.

But it is not an absolute description of reality. There are equally profound metaphors that suggest that God is more akin to the storm itself. God is not primarily a being to latch onto for comfort – especially for we who are already excessively comfortable. God is a forceful occasion to participate in. Contemplation and devotion are not excuses for inaction. We reflect on God in order to engage divine momentum. Our meditation functions to sharpen an intuitive responsiveness to the moment, every moment, wherein God occurs.