Part 2: Lived Theology

For people who don't know - I'm a Street Pastor. The most common question we get asked is "What is a SP?" Well there are 20 of us from different churches in the town. We undertook a 12 week training course covering CPR, counselling, sociology, rape crisis etc. etc. We have 2 teams of 3/4 people out every Saturday night in the town between 10 pm and around 3 am (sometimes it can be a bit later depending whether we're involved in a conversation or an incident). We are on rota every 3 weeks. We carry space blankets, flip flops for girls who take off their incredibly high heels and try and walk home barefoot, often there is broken glass so it can be dangerous. We hand out spikeys which girls can put in the tops of their bottles to stop them getting their drinks spiked. We have sharps containers and heavy gloves for picking up glass. We put any bottles or glasses we find into the bins so they can't be lifted in the heat of the moment and maybe used to assault someone. We are there to help, and to create a safer atmosphere in the town and we're there to listen to anyone who wants to talk to us. We're not there to talk about God, although if people do want to talk about God and faith and raise the subject with us, then we are happy to do this.

It's been 6 months since Street Pastors started in Dunfermline. I haven't blogged much about it because I'm conscious that we are talking to all sorts of people and they tell us all kinds of stories about themselves and I wouldn't want to compromise anyone's confidentiality. The response from people on the streets is overwhelmingly positive we could probably count on the fingers of one hand how many negative comments we've had (all of us) in the last 6 months. Women are really pleased we are there because we're someone safe and if they need us we're here. We get hugs and banter and they tell us about their night and thank us for the flip flops and when we hand out spikeys they tell us about times they or their friends have had drinks spiked. Sometimes they have things they want to speak about and we listen and we care. They sometimes split up from boyfriends and cry on benches and we make sure they're safe and listen. Sometimes they get comprehensively drunk and need someone to lean on so they get to a taxi and safely home. Young men are interesting because they too, randomly shout to us that they think it's great or give us the thumbs up when we pass by, but we've been struck recently when we've reflected back over the time, about how many young men want to talk about things that have happened or things they are worried about. Some of them are a bit taken aback at how much they open up to a stranger. We have serious conversations, nonsense conversations, deeply spiritual conversations, conversations which break your heart.

When I think about why I do it - it's about connection. Karl Rahner talks about everyone having a "pre-apprehension of being", the mind reaching out beyond any given object towards infinite being and therefore God. That infinity which we experience ourselves exposed to also permeates our everyday activities. He calls this transcendence. "A person can of course shrug his shoulders and ignore this experience of transcendence. He can devote himself to his concrete world, his work, his activity in the realm of time and space ...a person also has the experience of emptiness, of inner fragility and ...of the absurdity of what confronts him. But he also experiences hope, the movement towards liberating freedom". People might be so caught up with the everyday that they do not reflect on this at all, or they might be aware of it but decide never to explore it. We're not there taking God to people, because as I've said before, he is already there; but I think if I'm about anything at all - it would be to prompt through an action or a word people asking the bigger question of what exists beyond the horizon of the everyday.

Part 1: Philosphical Theology

We had a discussion at the housegroup last night after listening to some inputs on "faith". So, OK, honestly I really struggled with it. I wasn't wilfully mishearing the thing - I just couldn't get it. How it sounded to me was "this is the way to get God to give us stuff" (I know guys - that's not how you hear it) how do I build faith, how do I get healing - for myself and also for others. But really it felt to me like "if you can see that the supernatural world is more real than the natural world then you can ask God for anything". I worry that this is about trying to commodify God, if only we can reduce him to a set of formulae, then everything will be fine. The trouble is God doesn't think like us. He just doesn't obey our rules and we cannot cannot cannot put God in a box.

I think my head is just in a different place ("as usual" I hear my friends shout!). One of the places my head is in is with Karl Rahner. Reading him has been interesting. It is slow going because I don't seem to have had too much time recently but also because it's not the easiest read. It is brilliant and requires quite a bit of thought and concentration, but he has taken me further down the whole philosophy track. The way Rahner sees things is just different. He talks about God in terms of holy mystery and that makes sense to me.

So I found myself listening to a podcast by Emergent Village (you can download it free on iTunes) - a discussion involving John D. Caputo and Richard Kearney, 2 pre-eminent philosophers and people of faith. Some of the comments they made were really interesting to me, here are some highlights:

80% American teens self identify as Christians but their understanding of God is as a cosmic butler, there when you call, it's a hyper individualised experience, "me and God - we talk, we have an understanding", the "fix all" God – if we call loud enough he’ll come to the rescue. They talked about how this traces its roots back to Greek philosophical thought not Jewish or Christian. God as patriarch, emperor, caretaker of the world - a god that one isn’t really involved with most of the time just, when you need him – distant and abstract – don’t think about it till you need a fix “god was born for me”, and is deeply embedded in our liberal individual tradition so prevalent in the west.

But to think about ourselves not as an autonomous individual but someone who is “laid claim to” by something that had us before we had it, then our faith becomes not about rights but about responsibilities; not about individuals but about community, about ‘the other’, the least of these.

Richard Kearney talks about Etty Hillesum – ‘An Interrupted Life ’ who eventually died in Auschwitz. When asked how God could allow the death camps to happen she replied “We must help God to be God". "One should want to be a balm on many wounds." We need to preserve within us the dwelling space for God to be and to enter the world even in the midst of hell. This is the God of the constant call – unless we open the door the messiah can’t enter. Answer evil in terms of vanquishing it – not individually but by seeing God in “the least of these” Christ enters, the humble and broken God. We need to treat each moment in time as a portal through which the messiah is trying to enter. I understand through Jesus, the vulnerable God, a God who calls modestly and incessantly.

I think that's why I struggle with both a simplistic view of God and, what feels like, a liberal individual view of God.

Now I know this is tricky and I probably haven't explained it that well and you might just think that this is some kind of intellectual exercise, but in all honesty all this grounds itself for me in my experience out on the streets on a Saturday night as a street pastor. It might seem philosophical but actually this is really about "lived" theology.

Living in Exile

I like to listen to podcasts in my car on the way to and from work and today I was listening to a podcast from Artisan Church and a few thoughts came together. I've talked before about Michael Frost's book Exiles:Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture, which is excellent. How do we live authentically in our communities? Artisan were considering this passage which holds some keys about how we do this.

Jeremiah 29:5-8 (New Living Translation)
“Build homes, and plan to stay. Plant gardens, and eat the food they produce. Marry and have children. Then find spouses for them so that you may have many grandchildren. Multiply! Do not dwindle away! And work for the peace and prosperity of the city where I sent you into exile. Pray to the Lord for it, for its welfare will determine your welfare.”

I like the bit about working for the peace and prosperity of the communities in which we live - 'for its welfare will determine your welfare' - that's an interesting thought and I'm not sure that it's one which most churches consider when thinking about their purpose. Our church statement is; “Followers of Jesus Christ; a welcoming community of people, encouraging one another to reach our potential in God, living and working in society to creatively share His message of hope for all.” , which I like (we worked hard to get a form of words which talked about us as a community of believers as well as our place in the wider community). But it's interesting to consider a church statement which simply says something like 'Working for the peace and prosperity of the community we live in' - I quite like that.

Kester Brewin in his fantastic book 'The Complex Christ' says - ‘The local Church needs to ‘incarnate’ in a specific location and a specific culture..we too often experience Church as an organisation that has absolutely no need for it’s surrounding community or area. It’s an appendage – something slightly apart and independent – not needing the neighbouring culture in order to survive'

He says, ‘Churches must aspire to become centres of gift exchange in the broadest sense ..whatever gifts there are in the community, the church should be the place where they can be exchanged or shared .. this is about engaging with the local environment and having open boundaries ..it’s about declaring our interdependence with the locality we find ourselves in’

Artisan Church here.

Kester here

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While I'm on the Subject...

Since I'm in poetry mode - here is, probably, my favourite. The language is really beautiful and clever and it's a real joy just to read the words and hear the sound of them. But the ideas and the complexity behind it makes me reflect on issues which are close to my heart.

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;
As tumbled over rim in roundy wells
Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's
Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;
Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:
Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;
Selves -- goes itself; _myself_ it speaks and spells,
Crying _What I do is me: for that I came_.

I say more: the just man justices;
Keeps grace: that keeps all his goings graces;
Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is --
Christ. For Christ plays in ten thousand places,
Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his
To the Father through the features of men's faces.

Gerard Manley Hopkins

What does it mean? - I think it's worthwhile taking some time to think about the themes of this poem. It's talking about the unique thing that each created thing does. The reason for it's creation and being true to that calling, whether a dragonfly or a stringed instrument. It's talking about the interiority of our being - a good Ignatian theme - inside ourselves (indoors) - our very essence - what we're here for. What I do is me - it's more than just something objective - it's at the very heart of me - it is me.

What does the just person do? - they 'justice' - what does a Christian do - what is our essence - surely it is to 'Christ'. There's an interesting thing to reflect on and pray with - what does it mean for me to 'Christ'? The word Christian literally means 'little Christ'. Christ plays through us, through our hands and our feet, through our faces. We were created to reflect our Creator and everywhere we go, to take his likeness. To keep grace - that keeps all our goings graces.

The Summer Day

I recently came across this poem again which I love;

Who made the world?
Who made the swan, and the black bear?
Who made the grasshopper?
This grasshopper, I mean-
The one who has flung herself out of the grass,
The one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
Who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-
Who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass,
How to kneel down in the grass,
How to be idle and blessed,
How to stroll through the fields,
Which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?
Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?
Tell me, what is it you plan to do
with your one wild and precious life?

Mary Oliver

It's a challenge - we only have the one life; wild and precious - what will I do with it?