SPIRIT JOURNEYS:
still searching for meaning

August 13, 2023 • Eleventh Sunday after Pentecost
Readings: Genesis 3:8-19, Psalm 131:2-3
Adapted from The Inclusive Bible
Rev. Jim Norton, Guest Preacher

[You can view the full worship video recording at: https://youtu.be/5z_NudzXg3s]

A baby is held but no one speaks—all is silent.
To receive inner wisdom, one has to feel held while truth is being imparted.
Primally, if one has never been held and spoken to at the same time,

one may eventually get to hear the words,
but the words cannot become inner wisdom,
cannot be received inwardly, which is
wisdom.
The reception of wisdom is predicated on an openness
that is borne out of intimacy.
The disciples felt Jesus’ genuine compassion for them
before the words could ever become wisdom.
The absence of the spoken word creates a chasm between language and wisdom, and one wonders if it will ever be bridged.

The Word is the substance of wisdom.
The warm embrace is the agent of wisdom.
One without the other spells an end to wisdom.

j.e.norton
April 21, 1987

Strange how the mystery of life unfolds.  This summer series of messages focusing on individual spiritual journeys has opened windows in this space revealing wondrous transformations.  Our individual stories shared here are contributing to a complex collage of courage that dares to be honest, knowing that whoever and whatever, we are still family.

I am a CODA.  No, not the kind denoted in the Latin word for “tail,” that appendage that sometimes wags the dog, or in music the finale or last line in a piece of music, a brilliant conclusion.  I’m far from that!  CODA, rather as an acronym for “Child of Deaf Adults.” 

My sister, three years younger, and I grew up in a government housing project consisting of 31 three-story orange brick buildings, each containing from six to eight apartments.  Deprivation and punishment pervaded the atmosphere.  I cannot remember a time when the stigma of our family’s sign language didn’t meet with expressions of disdain.  Sometimes looking out the living room window, one particular neighbor kid walking by seeing me would gesticulate using mocking arm motions, usually ending with the upraised third finger of both hands for added effect. 

Transitioning into the hearing world was primarily religious and involved both mainline Methodism and Assemblies of God Pentecostalism.  My baptism in the Methodist church was met with the urging of a Methodist lay steward to be sure that my sister and I were taken to Sunday School.  The Pentecostal influence came early also as a neighboring family realized I was hearing, and their influence landed me a year early in the housing project kindergarten, which provided the only speech therapy available in that day, and it must have been good enough; I’ve been talking ever since, which today you may regret.  But both Methodist and Pentecostal influences provided loving atmospheres that contrasted with the realities at home.

The idol of divine shoulds, along with shaming or more stinging retribution reigned in our household, upholding the biblical principle of “Spare the rod and spoil the child.”  The predominant image was “Father knows best,” and perhaps some fathers were benevolent, but no amount of persuasion will ever convince me that they necessarily knew best.

Sarah Capers and I, week before last, were commiserating over the telephone about what life was like growing up in the Forties and Fifties when the GI generation unquestionably was in charge.  None of the programs that today provide protective services for children existed then.  Should children who were abused or assaulted by adults in those days dare to report it, they would not be believed.  Pedophile priests were not the only adults who preyed on children when I was growing up.  Tom Brokaw’s depiction of “The Greatest Generation” is misleading when contrasted with adult behavior that many of us children experienced in those days.

I think Sarah would agree that the problem of life in the Forties and Fifties was much deeper than the anxiety-ridden, guilt-evoking parenting at home and the search for genuine affection elsewhere.  The problem was systemic, dating back to our primordial roots, especially as they have come to us through popular biblical interpretations.  There are many names for God in the Bible, some, such as this morning’s reading from the Psalms, depict God in feminine imagery.  But the name that is most oft repeated, and there’s hardly a week in our worship services where it doesn’t crop up in the scripture readings, is the one that depicts God as a militaristic, all-powerful male god who will have his way no matter what, and whose power knows no limits to brutality.  That is the god depicted in this morning’s first lesson: a god consumed with harsh anger and condemnation at being disobeyed.  Whatever our view of God as reflected in the Bible, there can be little doubt that throughout Judaic-Christian history a most pervasive idea has been “God will get you if you don’t watch out.”

  This god gave us victory in World War II, and the grateful GI generation assumed a similar personality of pushing its weight around to get its way, no matter what.  The same model continues today in white privilege that enslaves people of color and then pretends that the bondage was good for them; in classrooms when teachers and professors berate and even abuse students; in elitist hypocritical, maybe even corrupt, Supreme Court Justices and politicians who sell out to the highest bidder; in wealthy self-interest that blocks measures to protect our fragile planet and the environment; and, perhaps, no where more symbolic, than in the election and possible reelection of a president with pathological visions of god-like absolute power dancing round in his head.  Our primordial animalistic attributes leaning toward traditional male, hierarchical domination are alive and well.

Katie Reimer’s selection of the bulletin cover picture this morning is so on target, brick walls closing in, narrowing our view of the fullness of how life can be.   

Had there been no other models growing up of how life can be, what difference might that have had on personality development?  Chances are that I would have ended up in prison.  But the strange mystery of life’s flow makes available clues that life is meant for more.  My summers spent on my grandparents’ farm, especially my mom’s sister, Aunt Kitty and her husband, Uncle Woodson, and their gentle spirits of caring and love showed a better way.  My wife, Polly, in our sixty-one years of marriage, standing beside me, especially through the times of congregational craziness when domineering patterns erupted, Polly was persistent in her love, devotion and courage.  Churches typically insecure and aggressively arrogant, nevertheless, possessed persons whose kindness and support were unwavering.

Reconnecting with a high school friend after retirement; maintaining significant connections with those who have been friends through the years; and the serendipitous wonder of new, mutually meaningful relationships, including those here at the Church of the Village, represent the inbreaking of the mystery of presence, accompanied by increased wisdom and meaning.

The bad memories continue to return and tough times persist, sometimes depressingly so, but more than ever before, I am convinced that each and every moment contains stirrings or “troubling of the water” that can tap unlimited resources for healing and wholeness that have always been available in the Cosmos.

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