I really get sick of pot holes.
Like today I was out for a lovely drive in through the countryside… enjoying the scenery… when I happened not to see the latest cavity. Bang! The whole car juddered and shuddered and an expletive escaped my lips. For the next few miles I endeavoured to regain my serenity.
My experience of church liturgies is often similar.
You see I am one of those people who don’t believe God is male. Or female either for that matter. Yet peppered throughout liturgical language are ‘Father’, ‘Lord’, ‘He,’ ‘Him,’ etcetera. These words are used almost as frequently as punctuation marks. I experience them as spiritual pot holes.
Now I pride myself on being a tolerant person. I know the maleness and anthropomorphic nature of the Divine is very important for a number of people. I also know that others enjoy the poetic nature of some older liturgies so much they are prepared to tolerate words they no longer believe. So for 20 years as a priest I have said and lead liturgies where this male God is present. I have done this because, using my driving metaphor, I enjoy the spiritual countryside so much that a few pot holes are not going to deter me.
However there comes a time when the road is literally littered with pot holes. Instead of spiritually swerving around them, using the best of my mental agilities, they are so numerous that I start to no longer enjoy the drive. If God is unassailably male, and we are constantly reminded of it, then the spiritual life of many Christians, me included, suffers.
Many years ago I was travelling in Chad. Most buildings sported bullet holes. The main roads had suffered a similar fate. Indeed the pot holes were so huge and numerous that the locals had created dirt roads alongside the main highway. Nearly everyone used the dirt roads.
My fear is that if the Church does not attend to its language, which is the primary means for portraying its images of God, and the pot holes of a male divinity continue unchecked, more and more people will choose not to drive on the road. In other words, people increasingly will choose to nourish their spirituality separate from the Christian Church, or just pay occasional visits.
Nobody likes pot holes.
About Me
- Glynn Cardy
- I enjoy hearing my children laugh, and seeing my wife smile. I enjoy the aroma of a nice coffee at my favourite cafe. I enjoy the time to talk without the pressure to conclude, and to write without the pressure to conform. These are great privileges and I am blessed. I love the sea, the sand, and the surf. It has sculpted my soul. I like talking to large groups of children because their responses are never predictable or boring. Their capacity for imagination has not been checked. They are therefore capable of seeing the expanse of God without being able to give it a name. When I grow up I want to be a postie. You know, one of those people who ride a bicycle all day and post letters in your letterbox. Only I want to anonymously write the letters too and illustrate them. I want to tell you that you're special, exhort you to be kind and generous, and encourage you to enjoy the great variety of people in this world. If we get those things right everything else tends to follow. I also want to write some letters that pull your leg and make you laugh.
Exhaustion sets in those doesn't it? I spend my days with about 300 teenage boys and they get so anxious when I fiddle about with the gender of God. Not being a bloke, I figure they are being more anxious about what a feminie God does to their place in the world but hey, I could be wrong here. Tell me!
ReplyDeleteSo ... mostly I try to stay away from gender but with a sneaking suspicion that because it's so hard to give the biff to that it's a mite more important than it seems.
I too struggle with the pot holes around the use of gender terms when speaking of God. The one problem I have is and I don't know how to get round is ,if I refuse to call God he or she when speaking of God what words do I use instead. I can't call God it. Any suggestions as to what could be used when one is speaking of God in this way? rather than having to use she or he as neither sit with my image of God.
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