The Work Of Our Hands

God created.

What God created had particulars. In otherwords, God created trees and God created skunks and God created daisies (to help with the skunks). God created particular things. God also, it seems to me, created the particulars to interrelate - necessarily. So trees need the air that skunks breathe out in order to grow and live just as the skunk needs the tree for oxygen, etc. So in one sense, when we talk about the particulars of creation, we can make distinction, but (probably) not division.

So, God creates with distinction, but not division.

Humans created.

We've created many things, but perhaps the most powerful thing we create is culture. Culture - the great human enterprise. Yet, unlike God, we do not create ex nihilo - out of nothing. We start with God's creation and then arrange it, color it, form it into our own.

And this is good - really good. How wonderful that God created us imago dei - to create as well! I think God gets really geeked over good paintings and flower arrangements and dances and costumes and theater and mocha valenica frappachinos. I think he grooves on our creation - he loves it - is excited about it.

I get really geeked about God getting really geeked!

But at the same time, our brokenness affects our creations. There is such a thing as bad paintings, bad flower arrangements, bad dances, bad theater and bad frappachinos. (What makes a thing good or bad is an interesting topic, but for now let us assume this and keep moving.)

Now, culture is more than the collection of our visible creations. It isn't exactly the sum of what we tangibly make, because to "add up" our visible creations and call it culture would not truly represent what we call culture. The "song and dance" that Brittany Spears creates (or that her handlers do) cannot account for the culture that Brittany Spears creates.

(God knows what does...)

Anyway, culture also includes our thinking and believing. Thus, we tread cautiously onto the ice and say that our beliefs are just that - our beliefs. Our thoughts are just that - our thoughts.

And all the good Christians out there are saying, "think God's thoughts after him."

Ah, yes. Here we have come back to the reality that we do not create ex nihilo - we start necessarily with God's creation. We start thinking with God's thoughts.

We can pervert God's thoughts - thus run counter to God's thoughts - just as we can make bad paintings and bad frappachinos.

But the opposite of the perversion of God's thoughts is not that we would all think the same thoughts. In otherwords, there are good seascapes and good landscapes and good portraits and good abstract art and good impressionistic art...

Thinking God's thoughts is a wide open thing, not a little narrow thing.

And now, after all that, we come back to distinctions versus divisions. And more than that - the rightness or pervertedness of such.

First of all, if it is true that creation is all interrelated, then can we ever divide? A tricky, tricky question indeed. For there is, of course, the issue of sin. Is there an impenetrable wall around ourselves to divide between us and sin? If you are homosexual, you are on the other side of the wall. If you are lame, blind, unclean, a prostitute, a drug dealer...over the wall you go. And there is a long history of this. Of course, the damnable thing is when we find the sin inside our own hearts. And then, the question becomes is there an impenetrable wall between our "true selves" and our "false selves"? Tricky, tricky...

It is quite a disservice to divide between "sinners" and "good people" and likewise to divide between true selves and false selves. I know a man who is terribly afraid and so he prays against the "demons of fear." The fear belongs on the other side of the wall (it is a false self) and if only he could build his wall higher or stronger, pray harder and longer, then the fear wouldn't, couldn't come creeping over anymore.

But what if the fear is him? Then he is a man at war with himself. No matter how much effort he puts into his wall - no matter the force with which he prays - fear will always seep through the cracks, flood under the wall and rain down on him from on high. And on and on the cycle will go: he builds, he fails, he is ashamed, he builds again...

Yet, if the fear is him, but perverted, a whole new course of action lays before him. The question - the beginning place - is an embracing of fear - an embracing of himself. And then once held in the palm of his hands, he must ask and discern what has been perverted - and love that which has been perverted.

In this particular case, perhaps it is humility. Perhaps it is a sincere recognition of his place as a creature, his weaknesses, his frailty. And here we have a powerful aspect of personhood - a place that this man can stand in deep grace. It is a place from which he can reach and heal not only himself but others who are hurting.

Yet as long as it is on the other side of the wall - attributed to demons - separated from self - he is unable to move or live full inwardly and outwardly.

And so divisions seem to be a perversion of God's thoughts...

Distinctions.

Distinctions seem to aid us at times - they aid us in creation. I want a flower arrangement that is "cheerful" versus a flower arrangement that is "romantic" or "artistic" or whatever. Of course it can be very romantic to be cheerful or artistic - but as a description of a flower arrangement, the distinctions help us create.

Distinctions between male and female also help us create.

Children.

Distinctions also help us talk about things. They help us communicate. This is a daisy. This a skunk. Smell the daisy, not the skunk.

So when we think God's thoughts (distinctions) after her, we create and act more free and more true (and less painfully) than if we ignore these distinctions.

However, let's not let distinctions off the hook that easy. Sometimes, distinctions may be harmful. Here are some "distinctions" that I have heard used in the last couple of weeks.

Theological as distinct from spiritual.
Ideologically centered churches as distinct from relationally centered churches.
Mind as distinct from heart.
Thoughts as distinct from emotions.

Do these distinction help us live more free and less painfully? Or are the injurious?

Each of these distinctions, of course, should be considered on their own merits and not lumped together as I did when I listed them. For the sake of time, though, I want to look at just one of them.

Ideologically centered church and relationally centered churches.

This distinction was used in a conversation concerning local churches. Some churches are ideologically driven while others are relationally driven. This, it seems to me, is a perversion of God's thoughts.

Is it a reality? Sure. There are churches who are ideologically driven, so that if you disagree ideologically, you no longer have relationship - thus, church divides. There also are churches that are relationally driven, so they have "community" but no one knows why.

Is this distinction in the flow of God's thoughts? Is it right to be an ideological church? A relational church? Does it help us live more free and less painfully?

Of course not.

This distinction causes us to act as if we must choose between our ideas and our relationships. Either you agree with the church ideologically or you leave the church. "If you are not with us, you're against us."

Relational churches do the same thing in reverse - they choose relationships over ideas. "We will have no conflict, we just agree to disagree." And their ideas are meaningless.

We must redeem this.

Relationships are born from ideology. Ideas spring from relationships.

In fact, I have no ideas apart from relationship and I have no relationship apart from ideas.

And even more than that...

My relationships are ideas. My ideas are relationships. They invade each other's space and cut against the grain when mismatched.

To say that ideologically driven churches have poor relationships is obvious. What is less obvious, but just as true, is that ideologically driven churches also have poor ideas. And vice versa - relational churches tend to have very bad ideas but they also - and necessarily so - have very bad relationships - they are nothing more than sentimintality. They do not enlarge or grow. They are merely entertainment.

This distinction of "ideologically driven churches" and "relationally driven church" is a perversion. Though it is real (it really exist) it is not true.

And this...the work of our hands.

Let us not bow down to the work of our hands.

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 5/28/2005 09:49:00 AM