There is comfort, safety
in the cold, certainty of the tomb.
In the hard sureness of sin,
set firmly in Augustine’s dream,
sin in the getting, sin in the growing,
doomed to dust and ashes, evil
and rotten at the heart
lets us off from a great deal.
Confirms our worst suspicions,
everyone is as bad, as I
fear myself to be
deep down inside my secret shame;
we make justice in oppression,
punishing our own hated hearts
in all those we gleefully
suspect are just as rotten fruit.
The alternative: terrifying
lightness in the joining
one to the other, holiness
growing within, divine seed
blooming in the warm, messiness
of womb every face so full of They
who created, that we stumble
dazzled and star-struck
from one encounter
to the next, drunk on one
another, intoxicated
with goodness and suddenly
all the excuses for not seeing,
for murdering that Light
within our enemies
strangling it inside
ourselves becomes
filth, smeared across the face
of the Divine. You may have
your tomb of averted wrath,
sterile safety. I will take
the womb, full
to overflowing with
(S)he who dreamed us.
Theology isn’t always good, and bad theology it is down right dangerous. My own tradition is full of horrible, evil theology. I imagine Jesus got weary of getting angry at how horrific human beings are to one another, and the ways we excuse that horror.
And I renounce it, leave it behind to mulch back into the soil of time. I’m more done with is the sort of theology that says it is inevitable that we be shitty to one another; that denies the beauty and humanity of those who are different.
I do not believe that the Bible Christians read contains the only truth in this world. It is but one revelation, just one complex witness to Truth. In its pages I see the continual call of God to humanity to live into our created-ness as Images of God’s own self. And in the world, which is itself revelation I see witness every day to the goodness inherent in the world and in each of us. From my big powerful dog who sighs, and squeezes her eyes shut so patiently when the kitten pounces on her (again) and bites down hard (again) in an attempt to play, and never ever does the violence she is capable of; to people who have never met outside the internet carrying a paper cutout of a taxidermy raccoon all over the world to make those who are too anxious, sick, or afraid to leave their homes feel a little more free, a little less alone (bravo to you all). There is the heart of the universe showing through, in these and a million other moments of beauty we find the heart stopping goodness that is at the center of all.
I refuse to allow theology to reduce the glorious goodness with which we were each endowed, to muddy it or shame it. Each precious human being on this Earth is a soul shaped like the Divine, and it is the task of our lives to honor that shape, in those around us, and ourselves. This does not discount evil, harm, or what some call sin. It gives sin meaning. Sin is the departure from our nature of goodness, togetherness, beauty; sin is tragedy. Redemption becomes a meaningful act of restoration, the clearing away of that which does not belong that the Light might be seen again.
You are beautiful, and indescribably holy. If you live with crippling shame, self hatred, or the urge to harm or dishonor the image of God in others or in yourself please seek out help. There is no shame in admitting that to honor the Divine image in your own heart you need the help of others, for we are created for one another. We are pack animals, we cannot be ourselves without each other, and we cannot fully express Beauty without one another either.
Let us look on the world as with eyes full to bursting with the Divine, and carry Holiness in our very body, brave enough to sing out yes when the voices of violence and hatred tell us NO. Let us look on the world with the dazzled eyes of the mystics, laughing and crying at how impossible our task is, and yet how sweet: for we are the instruments on which the Universe plays the song of eternity.
