More Than Stone

I happened upon a blog today. (HT to Bit of Smoke) In my daily meandering of the blogosphere, I happen upon quite a lot of blogs. This particular blog, however, caused my heart to skip a beat and tears to come to my eyes.

“I am a 36 year old mother of three children. I am also a widow. My husband died in an accident in June 2005. I never expected to do life this way, with this identity, with this element of struggle.”

“For the first three and a half decades of my life I think I had this “connect the dots” theology about my life and God’s plan for my life. In other words, I thought God had this grand “connect the dots” plan for my life and all I had to do was make sure I understood where the next dot was.

Fast forward to today….after 15 months worth of thinking, analyzing, searching….I no longer believe in a “connect the dots” theology. I look at Scriptures and find very few passages that talk about a specific plan for each of us…a connect the dot picture….the majority of references that talk about a “plan” are pointing out the uselessness of man and his plans.”

“Going from “we” to “me”…”

“That conversation also draws me back to my questions about “God’s plan”….I just don’t know what I really believe or what is really true….it isn’t something that paralyzes my faith or causes me to doubt God….rather, it reinforces the notion that God is God and I am not….I will never completely understand His ways…but I have experienced His love, comfort and peace….I guess that’s enough for now….”

“Every once in a while I have an opportunity to see “meaning” develop from the “madness” of my life. I have this need (and I am not sure if it is always a good thing) for the tragedy that I have experienced to have some “meaning”…to be able to see God use it to achieve His purposes.”

“In the past 2-3 days the following has been said to me by different people:

**I hear you are being spontaneous…and playing practical jokes again….it is good to hear that.

**I hope and pray your heart is healing. (and I believe it is)

**I don’t know when I have seen your kids laugh so much as when blah, blah, blah happened the other day…

Random comments….from random people….I think we are going to make it.”

“I miss being married….I miss Brian….I wish he were here to see the kids growing and developing….and to help me with all the “stuff” that goes with being a parent.”

“I think I have made my faith far too complex…I haven’t lost my faith…I just am not sure how to use my faith anymore…..without questioning myself too much….without wondering if I will be wrong again……”

“I was talking to someone today at church and she mentioned how rampant the view of “we get what we deserve” from God is in her sphere of influence. It, of course, made me wonder what those type of people thought I had done to deserve to lose my husband at 35.”

“In many, many ways my faith has been strengthened over the last year and a half. Yet, in some ways, there are parts of my faith that seem more uncertain than ever before.”

“I know I can’t hold on to your memory at the expense of rebuilding our lives….and so I am trying to let go of what I need to let go of in order to reach forward for the life God is calling me to live…it isn’t easy and at times it even seems disloyal….to think of life being great without you in it….but…”

“I’m alone with my grief now. The crowds have gone home. No one is watching. I can let my emotional guard down and not worry if someone is going to notice.”

“I don’t understand God’s goodness….it comes unexpectedly….”

“It doesn’t mean that I like it….it doesn’t mean that I don’t still have questions in the back of mind….it just means that I have resigned myself to believe that I will never understand….

I think, for me, that is progress….and a little bit of healing…..and for that I am grateful.”

If you have had loss in your life, if you’ve wondered why God has allowed the loss, if you’ve experienced loss that transformed your faith, brew a cup of tea and read this woman’s honest, heart wrenching journey through grief. Thank you, Shelly, for sharing your journey.

Ten propositions on political theology

1. The doctrine of the ascension is the basis of all political theology – and why there can be no such thing as apolitical theology. The church cannot be a cultus privatus because Jesus of Nazareth, “crucified under Pontius Pilate,” reigns and his edict is public truth. Remove Christ from the forum and it does not remain empty: nature abhors a vacuum; idols love one and soon fill it.

2. God is political. Cut the political bits out of the Bible – as Jim Wallis and some friends once did – and you’re left with “a Bible full of holes.” God is political – and God takes sides. In the Old Testament, Yahweh’s exodus and covenant “bias / preferential option for the poor” is now a well-worn phrase – but an undeniable fact. And the New Testament – Luke in particular – doesn’t drop the ball: the Magnificat and the Jubilee Manifesto suggest the game plan.

3. In my view it is legitimate to speak of an “epistemological privilege” of the excluded and oppressed. Bonhoeffer, writing in prison, was avant la lettre of liberation theology: “We have for once learnt to see the great events of world history from below, from the perspective of the outcast, the suspects, the maltreated, the powerless, the oppressed, the reviled – in short, from the perspective of those who suffer.” Here is the “more rewarding principle for exploring the world in thought and action than personal good fortune.”

4. With a shrug of their shoulders, conservatives love to quote the text, “You always have the poor with you” (Mark 14:7), as if poverty were an order of creation (cf. “the rich man in his castle, / the poor man at his gate”), and there is nothing we can – or should – do about it. But Jesus was not being cynical, or even realistic, about the inevitability of an excluded underclass, rather he was reminding his disciples where they will be found if they are faithful – among the poor and oppressed.

5. The point is not that the poor and oppressed have a monopoly on virtue, let alone that they are an elect group, rather it is simply that they are the ones who get screwed – and God doesn’t like people getting screwed. So God sends his servant Moses, his spokesmen the prophets, and finally his Son Jesus, their Big Brother, to take care of the bullies, though he fights with his mouth not his fists. Not, of course, that God loves the oppressor any less than he loves the oppressed; indeed his rescue mission is to liberate them both, the latter from their humiliation and suffering, and the former from their pride and violence.

Read the other 5 propositions….