Atheism

My Dear Faithful Reader,

We have come to the first anniversary of my blog. First of all, thank you so very much for the affirmation of reading my blog (some of you more than my own Mama!) and sharing with me the places my writing touched you and your story. I must say I am rather surprised by all of this! What started as a way to post photos of my then six week-old puppy Emma–who was still living with her Birth Mother at the time–transformed into something I never expected. I grieved the loss of a meaningful relationship. I worked through much of what it meant for me to work as a hospice chaplain. I highlighted the hilarities of my dating life. And, most importantly, I educated you on men in tank tops!

Given Top Ten Lists are so passe I say, “Nine is Fine!” Here are my favourite nine posts from this last year:

9. I Heart Atheists! This post is dedicated to my patient “Hank,” of whom I wrote. I am glad he is no longer struggling to breathe or to find love.

8. Posting My Big Secret This post received the most private email because people were worried about me. In many ways it was the hardest to write. I reveled an important secret, and in so doing found a way to tell my closest and dearest just how much despair (my definition of anti-hope) I felt following the break-up. This post continues to have meaning for me due to my continuing love of Post Secret, and because I hope by exposing my pain–even as a minister–others fearing the only way through is out might feel comforted.

7. I’m Coming Out: Jesus Know About My Vibrator The year’s most embarrassing and second funniest post. I still cringe when people ask me for my website address thinking about them reading this particular post. Of course this is exactly why it is on this list–I am a glutton for embarrassing myself on this blog with the bitter truth. For the record–and thankfully–I have had sex since I wrote this post! (Once.)

6. The Whispering God Where is God when bad things happen to good people? In part, this post contains my answer to this question and my own thinking about God’s intervention–and lack there of–in our lives.

5. 40 Reasons I Make A Great Girlfriend (and her evil twin 40 Reason I Will Drive You Crazy & Am Not Perfect) This was so much fun, and I met my friend in Austria through putting up the “Great Girlfriend” list on craigslist.

4. A Rose Garden Relationship I continue to think about what I wrote in this post. If there is such a thing as your own writing being a gift to you, it would be this post. I feel it helped me clarify what relationship values continue to remain important to me and also what I ultimately have to offer all of my relationships, including the one I have with myself.

3. You Play, You Pay This post about my prayer for my Aunt Charlyne to come to terms with her cancer and still remains at the forefront of my thinking about her. She finished her second round of chemo, and she will find out next week the results of her latest PET scan. She told us at Christmas she feels the cancer is spreading.  All my work with patients has taught me our bodies tell us the truth–even long before the tests and doctors do–so I cannot help but wonder if hers is telling her a truth now. I do not know what will happen with her body, but I know she will be surrounded by love regardless of the outcome. This is what matters most.

2. Tank Top Wearing Man Candy? The single funniest thing I have ever written! I cannot see a man in a tank top without thinking: “Baby, if you only knew how I felt about THAT!” If you love it too, please go out to Urban Dictionary and suggest “The Tribble Factor” for a word/definition.

1. The Mango Tree My homage to my father and the continuing bonds of love death cannot separate us from and how these bonds continue to inform our present and propel us into our future.

Here is to a wonderful Year Two!

I am applying to Vanderbilt’s Graduate Department of Religion, and today finalized my application. W00T! (Which, is now officially a word.) Here is my Statement of Purpose, a.k.a. why the heck I would want to subject myself to more education and debt:

In order to understand why I am applying to Vanderbilt’s Graduate Religion Department’s program in Religion, Psychology, and Culture, I must first paint for you the two important intersections of my life these last eighteen months. The first road began when I started dating an atheist. Yes, once upon a time an atheist and a minister met and fell for each other. Despite the curious rumblings of friends and family, he proved to be the one person (thus far) most similar to me when it came to the questioning the role of religion in society, the individuality of the faith story/existential quandary, and the core essence of spirituality, namely curiosity. We asked similar questions, and while we fell to either side of a dividing line due to differing conclusions, we could easily reach the other one over that line.

Our conversations awoke a deep need and desire in me to discuss the fragile and hurting world through the lenses of Pastoral Care, with its tenets of “being” and “healing,” and logic. I had already read Rabbi Lerner’s The Left Hand of God, but he pushed me to read Neo-Atheists such as Harris, Hitchens, and Dawkins, as well as the economist Naomi Klein and philosopher Jamie Whyte, among others. We began a blog reflecting the core issues we felt must be addressed for the future of humanity. He wanted his voice to be one of reason and science in the face of religiosity and mythology. I wanted mine to be the voice of a servant to the hearts and minds of hurting people with a strong commitment to logic. After we parted ways, I struggled to find ways to continue this conversation. I began my own blog and reworked the one we started. I kept reading. I volunteered and started a chapter of “Drinking Liberally” in order to meet other people to talk with about these things, but these actions are not enough. So, on one hand, I am applying because of a post break-up intellectual void. I need the conversation, discipline, exposure and mentoring only a graduate program can offer me at this point intellectually.

The other trajectory of my life unfolded for me by working as a hospice chaplain. I currently serve as a Home Team Chaplain in a middle to upper-middle class area. My typical patient is over sixty years of age, most likely Jewish or Roman Catholic, married, and retired. Repeatedly I heard the same story of faith narrated to me, and I began to call my patients and their families “The New Agnostics.” [1] I described them as such because regardless of what faith tradition they report historical and familial roots to, their descriptions matched one another. I see three distinct characteristics in this group: 1) A move away from the precepts of their historical religion, while still keeping some limited rituals from the tradition; 2) The centrality of a benign and altruistic God, who is best exemplified by the love of their family and/or friends; and 3) An co-opting of language, ritual, belief, and values specific to traditions other than their own seen as being coherent with their own spirituality. On the whole, they eschew attendance to services, with only some Catholics wanting a ritual visit from a priest—one they almost always have no connection with whatsoever. For example, I provided care to a woman who left Reformed Judaism for Kabbalah, only to not be connected at all but who reported that the two most important factors of her faith were “The Golden Rule and Karma.” Often to my surprise, they have read, seen or otherwise been influenced by the writings of the current Neo-Atheist movement. [2] They disagree, and still believe in “a higher power,” but they keep reading them and report to me the “good points” raised. Paradoxically, when they move away even from this kind of agnosticism and completely abandon their faith, or spirituality it is almost without fail due to the love of family or friends no longer being available to them. The larger systems of community or congregation based social interaction no longer provide “back-up” to their individualized spiritual belief.

By comparison, when I worked in Chicago as the Pastoral Care Resident for the Trauma Department, I saw young men of colour replace their family of origin with their family of choice—namely their gang affiliation. The search for meaning so great, that even in the face of the failure of society as a whole to address the needs of persons of colour—whether that be by the modalities of education, employment, access to services such as healthcare or training—another type of connection was found without regard for its inherent destructive nature. I saw a whole generation eschewing the spirituality of their mothers and grandmothers and a kind of unidentified atheism within them. This was in sharp contrast to the agrarian based spirituality I encountered in North Carolina regardless of economic or educational background. In other words, the types of spiritual crises I minister to has been largely dependent on geographies, economics and education. And within these larger structures of society, fractured, discarded, or amalgamated religious belief emerges.

I firmly believe humanity is at a crossroads where the potential for radical change—if not total abandonment—of our religious systems is imminent. The rise of fundamentalism across the globe speaks to a deep spiritual hunger, as well as an economic and educational famine the whole of humanity must contend with, but especially those of us in the One-Third World. I fully own that my own practice has thus far been limited to those living within the luxuries of the One-Third World, even as they are sometimes impoverished within it. What I see as opportunistic from a Pastoral Care standpoint is the types of interventions we offer as providers are more needed now—on both the individualistic and societal levels—than ever before. While at the same time, I also see a need to rethink these interventions outside of the systematic hermeneutics most seminaries ascribe. I want to be a part of this re-tooling and creation, and I want to be able to both research emerging spiritualities and teach how to provide essential spiritual care that creates an opportunity for genuine healing even in places where traditional religiosity has been abandoned. Let me be clear: I believe religion on the whole has failed, and I want to be a part of the phoenix of faith rising from her ashes.

The esoteric and existential questions posed to me now by my patients and their caregivers require me to “sit Shiva” with the failures of the religions of my patients. As a result, I provide care to people whose spiritual needs are much more difficult to map than ever before. I know my Spiritual Assessment skills are excellent. I even surprised one of my supervisors in Chicago—the inimitable George Fitchett—with the depth of information I garnered from my patients during my Residency! I can see all of the intersections, but my studies have not always prepared me for these emerging spiritualities, and what to do when they are in-fact in crisis. What interventions can be offered when the replacement spirituality no longer works? The emphasis on “being” with those we care for is important, but spiritual care providers are asked profound questions related to meaning. Although I do not believe we ought to answer these outright for those we serve, I do think our active listening, teaching, preaching and other interactions must reflect an understanding of what is at stake for those we care for.

My theological education provided some helps, especially Mary McClintock Fulkerson’s approach to Theology from a perspective of practice and story. Also, I took two spirituality classes with Father Phillip Leach, which I still find invaluable in my own practice but more from the standpoint of self-care than application. Admittedly, I did not study Pastoral Care while in seminary. Finding myself to be a “duck to water” (per Nape Baker, my first Supervisor) during my CPE Internship was a surprise, and my own interests centered more on Medical Ethics at the time than the philosophy of Pastoral Care or Psychology. In fact, as I researched PhD programs while in my CPE Residency at Rush, I looked for programs where by I would be exposed to the theories behind the practices.[3] I am an avid reader, so I have sought out books on my own and read psychological theories on-line, but I see the places where I lack the theory behind the practice. In large part, I believe this program will fill in those gaps and accelerate my own thinking and practice.

I also see the ways these emerging expressions of spiritual thought influence me. For example, so greatly has my own understanding of the need to speak of God without imperatives become that I no longer speak of my own beliefs as being normative, but instead temper with “God is for me…” in all of my interactions and writing. I see the issue of faith and its efficacy impacting my colleagues…oftentimes, ministers—even those from the more progressive traditions—in theological crisis. We are wholly affected by the ponderings of those we care for, but we are not wholly supported in trying to flesh out the implications of these questions on our own spirituality and pastoral care practice. I see ways of negotiating these waters, but often lack the time, training, or resources to work on these dilemmas to benefit my colleagues and myself. One recent success stemmed from teaching my fellow chaplains about how to incorporate Healing Touch modalities into their practices, and it was also taking a course in Healing Touch that led me to seek a PhD program now. I came away from the seminar knowing I needed an opportunity to take my practice to a new level and to be able to offer a wider array of interventions for those I care for. Lastly, I do not think we speak often enough of the manipulative nature of the “helping professions,” which is why I think these issues are not just paramount to those we tend to but also to ourselves. How do we arrive at our own theological clarity (not to be confused with certainty)? For without this we are more susceptible to compassion fatigue, manipulation and the eroding of our own healthy boundaries.

When I am asked why I am applying to Vanderbilt’s PhD program I answer this way: I want to study emerging spiritualities, specifically Neo-Agnostics and Neo-Atheism and the Pastoral Care emergency they generate not only in the types and efficacy of interventions offered, but also the spiritual crisis that can result for the provider when the failures of systematic doctrines are exposed through logic and science. Quite honestly, most people shake their heads and roll their eyes a bit. However, there are the few—especially some of my pastoral care colleagues—who pump their fists up and down and say, “Yes! Yes! We need that!” One such colleague, Paul Veliyathil, who is from India, an avid student of Eastern philosophy and spirituality, and of the Disciples of Christ tradition commented to me when I first began my application process, “You are on the cusp of it all. This is what it is all about, but no one teaches these things or talks so much about them. As long as the conversation continues to only mention emerging spiritualities or give passing reference to the Ancient Eastern Philosophical mindset, we will not be able to provide the type of care needed desperately for our patients and for the world as a whole.” I will admit that his words have been a comfort to me these last three months because it is one thing to be fully convinced that you are on the right track for yourself—it is another to inspire others to support you in that pursuit.

Another person who added an unexpected blessing to my thinking and process is Naomi Klein. She recently spoke at my congregation about her book The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism. I found myself fascinated by her use of narrative language in framing the societal hunger for meaning following a disaster. One of Duke’s many gifts to me has been the theological emphasis of the Divinity School on Narrative Theology. I asked her how she would suppose to offer wide-scale healing when in my own work as a chaplain dealing with individuals in crisis demonstrates just how difficult intentionality towards healing often is. She commented that my question was “brilliant” but that she is more focused on identifying the issues and not on offering the solutions.

I, for one, want to be a part of creatively thinking about healing paradigms and how they might be offered to individuals and communities. As my Spiritual Director in North Carolina once commented to me: “You are called by God once and for all and called by name, but what God will call you to, Jacqueline, will change over time.” I know that I want to first have the opportunity to learn and add more theory to my practice, but I also want to be a part of a wider conversation about how we prepare seminarians for ministry in this ever-evolving world where access to information has created unparalleled spiritual diversity. I hope that at some juncture I will be able to serve in a hospital again, where I would like to do research and work on the application of emergent spiritual models in crisis situations. I also know that my future is unwritten and yet to be explored. I recognize some hurdles in-front of me, including mastery of French, which was not needed on the side of the tracks I grew up on! But I also see an amazing opportunity for me if accepted to Vanderbilt, and an opportunity for Vanderbilt to benefit from my experiences, gifts and enthusiasm.

Respectfully submitted by Rev. Jacqueline Hope Derby

1. I am now familiar with Winifred Gallagher’s book by the same name, but I was not when these thoughts began for me.

2. I realize calling it a “movement” might be seen as a leap, but I really do see an emerging “evangelical” atheist movement. The blog de-conversion.com with its accompanying forum is a good example of the by-products of this movement.

3. I seriously investigated two other similar programs, but in talking to colleagues who attended these institutions and those who attended Vanderbilt, I came away feeling that your program and faculty would be the best fit for me.

I often think of the themes in my life as acting like boomerangs. Something may happen to me–a great pain or loss–that sends out the very best of me scatted against the wind, but eventually they all return to their rightful home within me. This last year has been full of this kind of scattering, and if you have ever read my blog, you know what I am talking about. A year of more challenges and stress than my body, mind or spirit could handle, and a heart so broken I thought it was beyond repair for most of this year.

Now there is just something about a list that I dearly love. Lists organize my life! I have running lists for the things I need, the things I want to accomplish (like having more sex in the coming year–twice in 12 months is just not enough!!!), lists of places I want to experience, lists of problems I am facing, and, well, the list goes on and on and on… This blog has been full of some great lists:

• A list of my experiences right up to my blindsided break-up: Post-Mortem: My November
• A list of the reasons why I am a good girlfriend: 40 Reasons I Make a Good Girlfriend
• A list of all diseases, losses and freak-outs of the last year: The Stress Mess
• A list of why I don’t trust men in tank tops (and my personal favourite post): Tank Top Wearing Man Candy?
• Not to mention the list of all the men I loved before (go on and hum it, you know you want to): The Dating Game

So in honor of my little list making fetish, I offer up on my one-year anniversary since this unbelievable year began with my emergency root canal the following list of all my gratitude for what this last year gave me–in no particular order:

1. My Ordination. This day was full of more love than I could have ever imagined, and I have drawn deeply from those waters this year.
2. Surviving This Year! If you read “Posting My Big Secret” and “Shift Change” you know that this is an ACCOMPLISHMENT all by itself! Not only do I feel I survived, but I feel stronger, happier and more at peace with who I am than at any other point in my life.
3. EMMA! Gotta love Miss Puppy Girl. She is my joy. We have really fallen in love these last few months, especially after her mean cousin Morgan left! Morgan, my niece, is part of the Puppy Gestapo. Her departure turned on the “My Mommie is not a meanine.” light over Emma’s head. Plus, she is FINALLY growing up…a little bit. She still has to wear a leash in the house–all the better to catch her and take my stolen bra out of her mouth with!!

   

4. Paparazzo. I have said it before, and I will say it again: I do not know how I would have made it through without him. I tease him that he is always “pulling my pigtails,” i.e. driving me nuts just because he can. Yesterday morning while doing crunches on the living room floor, Emma bit my ponytail and pulled hard. The more I would go to stop her the more she would pull. I ended up in a pool of tears and laughter! No wonder the two of them love each other so much–they are cut from the same cloth!
5. Casa Derby. I lived for 2.5 years without my own belongings, so coming home in February filled my heart in ways I cannot even describe. I missed my Red Turkey Rug! I missed my books, music, bed, sofa and enough dishes to host a party for an army. How sweet it is to be home again. Moving home also brought new friends and neighbours. They met me mid Apocalypse and adopted me straight away. I needed the affirmation of new friends, and so I am grateful the latest incarnation of Casa Derby came with some.
6. My Mama and My Sista. These two continue to show me love, love, love, even when I am only full of fear and despair.
7. My Work and Team. I get unbelievable joy knowing I am doing the kind of work that crosses the religious divide and finds people right where they are and ministers to their hurting hearts in that place. My patients and their families are my teachers, and I value their lessons. Ministering to my atheist patient this year, and the work in general, has given me my inspiration as I apply to Vanderbilt’s PhD program. I also have a wonderful team to work with, but especially my manager, my social worker, my secretary, and my nurses Wendy and Lisa. They all make each day a worthy sacrifice. (Trust me! At what I make, the word “sacrifice” is perfect.)
8. My Bereavement Group. If I ever have a friend go through a crushing break-up, I will immediately buy them Alan Wolfelt’s book Understanding Your Grief: Ten Essential Touchstones for Finding Hope and Healing Your Heart . Working through this book with my group, and the group’s grieving processes in general, helped me to identify that what happened to me was just the normal grief one experiences when someone you love dies. I suddenly no longer felt so isolated in my grieving, and listening to them give voice to their mourning, gave me an opportunity to accept my own. Once I got that the person I knew and loved did in fact die–metaphorically and literally, in as much as that person was no longer real or real in my life–I could finally find the courage to accept the past as it was, accept the me that I truly am, and move on towards my own best future.
9. My Bike. My Bike. My Bike. I love my shitty bike, and I am accepting cash donations (through PayPal of course) towards my next ride. It may just be one of the crappiest bikes on the planet for someone to ride 50-70 miles a week on, but she keeps on going strong. I love waving to the guys mowing my golf course at 6:30 in the morning with their headlights shining out in the dark. I love riding with Emma! I just love riding her period. Giant, Specialized and Cannondale may get quite a bit of my internet window shopping, but she gets my attention day-in-and-day-out. I would have gained a TON of weight without the bike given my knee, so I am so appreciative to have this bike even if it is not all that good of one or all that cool. She does what she is supposed to do–for the most part–and I am grateful.
10. My Blogs. Writing has given voice to my despair and to my hope, both of whom are constant partners in my dance of life. The affirmation of my faithful readers and the new friends I have made as a result, gave wings to the fact that I did in fact have a meaningful future without the one I had loved. He and I began a conversation–an important one for me personally and one of importance for the world in which we live–and when it ended abruptly I feared the conversation died too. In working on this blog and Don’t Be A Christian (which will be more fully operational January 2008), I found new partners in that conversation, found I could do it on my own (dammit!!!!), and the impetus to be bold enough to go after a PhD. I was once sent an email from someone wondering if this blog was the beginning of something else because she could sense something brewing in me from my writing. The truth is the blog began as a way to show photos of my new puppy! What it has become astounds me, but I also know it has been central to my healing and to my reaffirmation that indeed my middle name is hope.

There are certain songs that have supported me too, but especially the words to two Bjork songs: The whole of “All is Full of Love.” I keep reminding myself that I am full of love to both give and receive, and although it may not come from the places I expected, it is always right there within me and for me. The other song is “It’s Not Up To You.” The lyrics are amazing. She sings, “I wake up and the day feels broken. I tilt my head. I’m trying to get an angle…if you wake up and the day feels broken, just lean into the crack…notice how it sparkles.” This has been a year of leaning into the crack, and much to my surprise it has sparkled in ways unimaginable last year. Me too. I still sparkle.

With gratitude for the 525,600 minutes of this last unbelievable year,

Rev. Jacqueline Hope Derby

Photo Credit: PAPARAZZO

I got tagged by Grace from 13 Graces for this little bit of fun, however, I am so new to the blogging world I know practically no one else who blogs! I got tagged “You’re It!” and now am sitting in the A/C enjoying a margarita and letting everyone else play on without me. Hope you enjoy these totally weird but true facts about me:

1. When I was a baby I screamed for a couple of months. It was so bad, my parents considered relocating me to the garage, per my pediatrician’s advice. He also said that “studies show these kids are really really smart.” Mother finds ways of working this into conversations as a way of saying, “My daughter has been brilliant since birth.” I always reply with: “Yes, Mother. I get that from Daddy!”
2. I had my mouth bitten badly by a German Shepard when I was 3. I still have the scars. My mother was getting mangoes, which she remains addicted to up until now. I have dreams where she is trying to get me to steal them for her. We are in full-on mango season now, so the nightmares shall commence shortly.
3. I went to private Christian school in Miami from 4th grade through 10th. Then I went to public again, but I dropped out my senior year. I ended up graduating the same day from High School that I moved into my dorm room at college.
4. When I was in late Elementary and Junior High, I volunteered at a wildlife rescue. I would catch chickens to feed to the boa. Gross, but fun.
5. I went to camp in NC most summers of my childhood. I would ride a small rodeo there each week, and do the Barrel Racing, Chug-A-Lug (usually hot Hawaiian Punch–yuck!), and the Hog Catch. My favourite was the Hog Catch-N-Wrestle where the pigs would be greased up with Vaseline and you would throw yourself in the mud to get them. My times were camp records!
6. I use a “u” in colour, favourite and neighbour in honor of my Grandfather from England. In fact, I love all things British, except some of the food!
7. I have perfect colour sense, much like some people have perfect pitch. I can remember colours like other people remember dialogue or music. I can also match colours perfectly. I was used as the “example of what to do correctly” while taking Colour Theory in college, but it was my Professor for Leonardo Da Vinci who told me it is called “perfect colour sense.” I am loosing some of the yellows as I get older or maybe because of not working with colour as much. I tend to second guess the yellows sometimes…but not always!
8. I cannot park my car worth shit. I have excellent spatial relationships outside of things. ..when I can see them from above. I would have made an amazing architect, but I suck at anything that requires me to use my body too. Parking, dancing, walking in a straight line, etc. I always end up crooked. Let me apologize now for bumping into any of you if we were to walk somewhere together.
9. I come from a matriarchy, and I love that. The women in my family are amazing and fun and a bit nuts. They also drive me batty sometimes with a ton of questions, but I also know they only ask because they are so interested in me and my life. They are my biggest cheerleaders.
10. I am a fan of the “third way.” I always think there is another way to look at something…not a compromise necessarily, but a third option. Example: I am not a fan of evangelicalism, but I do not think converting them to atheism is the only solution. I do think there is a way to reinterpret one’s faith and give up the certianty of a particular mindset while still finding a way to speak of faith without causing harm to self and others. I like to try and think of another way to get at something without just replacing the original idea with a mirror image, albeit a different one. In other words, don’t replace Fundy 2.1 with Atheism 2.1. What do you really have? You may still find Atheism 5.4 is your best expression of beliefs, but it is not just drop loaded as an “either/or” paradigm.

And for extra credit: I am moving my blog to my own site–still using Wordpress, but .org instead of .com–as of August 1st. Don’t worry, I will keep you posted on the move when it happens.

Until then BLOG ON!!!

Miss Douglas once asked me, “If you were not a minister, what would you be?” I replied, “A porn director.” As true as this might be from a strictly imaginative standpoint, mostly likely I would have been a doctor…other roads not traveled and all. I also know I would be an Atheist if I was not a Jesus Follower (opposed to being a Christian). Atheism makes sense to me on so many levels, and my spiritual life still includes doubt, questions, ponderings and out-and-out rejection of theism.

And I still possess an image of a loving God whispering in my ear.

Both. And.

“Hank,” a patient of mine, is an Atheist, and we get along famously. He journeyed through periods of Protestantism, then to Jehovah’s Witness while his wife was dying of cancer, and now self-identifies as an Atheist. I know we get along in large part because I never try to move him from his convictions, even as I see his spiritual pain. I also hold him in my heart with great compassion over just how isolated Hank is from the rest of humanity. Hank is not a “Happy Atheist.” Hank is heart and spirit broken.

When I did my Clinical Pastoral Education Residency at Rush University Medical Center, George Fitchett–the Grand Pubah of Spiritual Assessment–supervised me. In a landmark study he conducted with Duke University Medical Center on health care outcomes and spiritual practice, they found those patients who were content with their spiritual path–from “Happy Atheists” to Southern Baptists to Buddhists–had decreased hospital stays and increased outcomes. Health is not affected by affiliation –or lack there of–it only mattered that you were “happy” with your spiritual choices. My Spiritual Assessment of Hank ranks him as “dissatisfied” with his spiritual choices. Highly dissatisfied.

I also do not believe Hank “needs God”–as his nurse does–in order to find the lacking satisfaction. However, I do believe Hank needs to come to terms with his prior vision of whom he believed God to be and his anger that God did not turn out as expected. The fundamental flaw I find in all religions stems from an insistence on having a special revelation about not only the nature of God, but also how God does and does not act in the world. Again and again, we humans–the creators of said religions–set up one another up for failure by claiming unknowable information as not only known, but Divine Truth. What argument can be made against such claims, especially as they are transmuted by various means over centuries into “the inerrant word of God?”

I find so many people these days are what I like to call “The New Agnostics.” People who gaze into the vast universe, see the complexity and beauty, and wonder about an Original Designer, Instigator or Force. This may be why, in part, the masses do not decry Intelligent Design; they suspect it themselves in its most simplistic understanding. (Not to be confused with the political and religious agenda of the Christian Right, in particular, on this front.) These folks are also totally disgusted with the failure of their religions to accept plurality, change, science, women, gays, etc. They leave their religious traditions behind in part but not in full as they seek spiritual connection without the religiosity of their past. “Spiritual, Not Religious” then becomes its own religion of one. I understand this because even as an Ordained Minister I always fill out on-line dating forms as “Spiritual, Not Religious.” I never want to be confused with the dominant perception of what it means to be a Christian.

Of course, there are some like Hank, who abandon their Higher Power all together. I hold no inner issue with this choice, but I question their satisfaction with it when it comes as a result of being disillusioned with other human beings and their perceptions, insistence and hate-mongering in the name of their “God.” I keep reading stories of those dissatisfied with God because of the ridiculous nature and behavior of religions and religious people. Are these the same thing?

I am a fan of logic, and it seems rather illogical to me for anyone to insist on knowing anything concrete about who God is and how God acts in the world or who God is not or how God does not act in the world. The information is simply unknowable. (Read this wonderful “This I Believe” by Bill Nunan.) Will this always be the case? I do not know. I do believe we live in an age where we cannot say with certainty–like in the same way we might assert “2 + 2 = 4″–anything about God at all. Whatever I say, even as a minister, is strictly based on my own inner vision of who God might be and whom God is to me. Get that? Whom God is to me. Period. In fact, I am so passionate about this stance, I will only reflect back to my patients and their loved ones words they use to describe who God is to them. This is why Hank and I get along so well. I never reject his language about who God is not to him.

I want to advocate for Hank to be at peace with his Atheism. Atheism is a reasoned, intelligent and ethical spiritual path for many. I want Hank to be a “Happy Atheist,” but I also know his “unhappy” Atheism is only one small tendril of the pain wrapping itself around his life and choking it out of him, literally. As his Chaplain, I feel my job requires me to try and help Hank make peace with all of the ways life did not turn out how he wanted or needed. All the “doing” of the different religious paths he choose did not earn God’s favour and keep him from harm. His wife is still dead. His children still absent. His addictions still present. Loneliness and isolation being his constant companions. Whatever vision he possessed of God and God’s children failed him, and I desire to walk beside him with compassion (His favourite word for me.). It is the least I can do as his Chaplain, as a minister, as a human being.

I feel part of my job as a Chaplain is to advocate for those I care for to be able to ask the deepest of metaphysical and ontological questions with a member of the clergy. Too often, clergy sit back on the revelations of the past and do not entertain the curiosity and creativity of the present. I do not advocate with my patients a change in their tradition, but instead affirm the ways their spiritual resources give life to their dying and provide curiosity when I witness ways it is not life giving. Mostly, I find I need to “sit Shiva” with those deeply hurt by the certitude of their religious bodies that left them dissatisfied, rejected and cast out from the one place they thought all would be accepted–God’s House.

I read the following on a blog* recently, and I must say it has me thinking:

Things That Cease To Exist Without Belief In Them:
Homeopathy
Gods (anyone want to make the case for existence of Thor, Zeus, Hera, or Kali?)
Truth
Vampires (Bram Stoker-style, not the clinical pathology of drinking blood)
Hope, Love, Hate, Jealousy…emotions in general, really
Astrology
Spell-casting, Prayer, Divining, and other summons of supernatural powers
Obviously, these examples would anger, annoy, offend, or otherwise put off the majority of people out there. The good reader would question why I would put Vampires and Spell-Casting with Love, Truth, and God.

Well, would not all of the above examples cease to be without someone believing in them? I can go down the list and show that each of these points simply are not “real” in the same way mathematics, gravity, and aloe vera are.

Things That Exist Regardless of Belief:

The wet qualities of water
The elliptical motion of the earth as it orbits around the sun
The Macro- and Micro-evolution of organisms on planet earth.
The efficacy of aloe vera in soothing sunburns
Human Intelligence (and lack thereof, in some individuals)
The dramatic change in the earth’s climate caused by man’s pollution and neglect of their place in nature
Mathematics and all disciplines that stem from it

Now, the idea here is simple (if you haven’t caught on already): the above examples exist whether or not one believes them to exist. I can stop believing in evolution and global climate change, but they still most definitely exist. I can proclaim that I do not believe that pi does not equal 3.14, but it still will. Water is wet, the sky is blue, oceans are deep, etc. These things do not require belief; not believing will not cause water to be like sandpaper, the earth to rotate around the sun in a rectangular pattern, etc.

I think the fundamental problem with this kind of logic is how it requires us to break life apart and segment it into manageable elements. The parts cannot fully describe the whole. To use the water analogy: Water coming out of my sink may be just as wet as the waves crashing down on the beach during a hurricane, but their metaphysical properties are dramatically different. In other words, the wetness of water says nothing about its power for good or destruction. And even as those aspects are “real”–we can see the videos New Orleans post-Katrina or of a barren land and recognize its power–the way the wetness of water gets played out in our lives is best spoken to through our stories of pain, abandonment, terror, fear, love, compassion and heroism.

Love, pain, vision, inspiration, despair (to name a few aspects) may all require “belief” but they also are the required elements of any kind of art form or relationship. If we can only assign value to a “whole” based on assigning scientific proof to its individual parts, what meaning can the whole possibly have? We utilize story, poetry, painting, photography, design, sculpture, music, etc. to capture what is fundamentally important to us as individuals, as groups or as a whole. Where we screw up when we assign “factual value” to these parts in such a way as to empower our ability to harm one another. We do this because we disagree on said value, and when we feel someone else does not posses “right belief,” i.e. agree with us. The illogical loop then begins.

Christianity makes this mistake all the time. The Church Fathers fought with one another from the Book of Acts onward to distill their belief into manageable “facts” on which to hang their faith. Once they agreed, by vote no less, “The Church Proper” became more formed, hierarchical and political. Being able to describe Jesus’ ontology with a creed–The Nicene Creed especially–allowed The Church Proper to mandate “right belief.” If you are a Christian, then you must believe these things to be true in order to meet your membership requirements. In fact, I got a comment at the end of “The Ground Floor” saying…”I thought Christianity was about…” In other words, what I wrote was so counter to the accepted “right belief” the only way to challenge what I said was to point out the contradiction. In essence, the elements of belief have become so dogmatic and static they now stand in for “facts” instead of “personal truth.”

I do not think it is a fluke this guy sets up his argument with math and science in one corner and the religious aspects in another. He is only speaking to the systemic dichotomy The Church Proper has not only worked hard at creating, but also at institutionalizing across the boundaries of church and state, regardless of creed or country. ** Also, as fans of logic know, The Church Proper makes for a perfect target since the elements of right belief include a virgin birth, resurrection from the dead, and young earth creationism. So silly and simplistic to the logical mind, they would be disregarded all together if The Church Proper had not wielded its power for so much evil, then and now. In a world where revelation comes at the hands of scientific discovery and not tablets coming down the mountain, those of us who are not willing to buy into The Church Proper’s insistent decrying of Evolution, let’s say, are outside of “right belief” regardless of whether or not one self identifies as Atheist or Jesus Follower.

The problem in the argument–one he alludes to on his post–is that science may in-fact prove the biological existence of our existential selves…feelings and emotions being his example. Of course this leaves “real” and “provable” as being not only synonyms but exact replicas of one another. I disagree.

I have two schools of thought here: The first is a brief nostalgic ping about the children’s book “The Velveteen Rabbit.” In the end, what made the rabbit real was love. When he was well-worn, shabby, falling apart, stitched back together then he was real. Maybe love is not “real” in a Periodic Table of Elements kind of way, but then again maybe it is what makes us real as human beings. In the same way, I do not model my own life after Jesus because of the virgin birth, but because over time being Jesus’ Disciple and following his example of radical love and acceptance has given my life more meaning and made my own capacity to love and forgive greater. I have become “more real” in the way of the Velveteen Rabbit, if not in the way of my cells existing in time and space to any greater or lesser degree.

The second thought centers on the relationship between mathematics and music. Music is fundamentally math. You can use math to distill the elements of a musical piece, and the more complicated the piece the more complicated the math. But you cannot ever use music to describe a theorem. The whole is real in a way beyond the capacity of the elements to describe. For you Trekkie’s, I offer the way Data could learn to play the violin with utter perfection (He is an android, for you non-Trekkie’s.), but he never could capture any one’s imagination and heart with his playing because precision in the elements did not make for breath taking music.

I do not want to live in a world full of “right belief” because it confuses–dangerously–personal experience and truth with facts. But I also do not want to distill the experiences of my life, and the truths they represent to me, into categorical facts. Those facts cannot give meaning to my life, in the same way they have no real power over my spirituality and faith. James William McClendon, the theologian, names these facts “numerical data.” I like his wording here because he supposes that any kind of doctrinal agreement is only about this numerical data and tells us nothing of what it means to experience the love of God or be Jesus’ disciple.***

In the same way, knowing I was born February 28, 1971 at 7:30pm to Audrey and Jack Derby, or that I graduated from Duke Divinity School, or that I was molested as a child, cannot tell you the full story of who I am or what it means to know me and be loved by me. I am my own song, and you must hear it, experience it, let it wash over you, in order to say that you do in fact know the real me. And each listener always has a different take, but these differences cannot take away from who I am or my real existence in the world. The elements of belief may be informed by facts, truths, wishes, desires, but our individual perspective ultimately dictates the picture we experience, in the same way portraits of me by Modigliani, Picasso, Rembrandt or Botticelli would also differ. I am sure I would feel they all captured me, and that they did not.

*blog link

**Note: Christianity is not the only religion good at this, but given it is my own historical tradition, I feel I can only speak to it properly. One of my own personal litmus tests about any spiritual path and its veracity is: Does it allow for plurality and encourage it? If not, I deem it to be “sinful,” i.e. breaking fellowship between persons, self and God.

***I could not find the exact quote, but I am pretty sure it is from his Systematic Theology book.