Thursday February 17, 2022

From my office chair, I can look up and see a an eight-foot shelf filled with books I helped to publish. I recognize every title. I know every author. I remember delving into every subject. 

            I had a hand – or at least a pencil – in every one of those books. 

            And then, abruptly, the authors, the subjects, the textual content, are all strangers. They’re still good books. Still worth reading. But they’re not mine anymore. 

            In serious discussions of faith and doctrine, a friend frequently ventures something like: “I’m not sure that I know what I’m talking about, but isn’t this all about ego somehow?”

            Yes it is. It’s almost always about ego.

            The books that I feel a direct connection all  flatter my ego. I helped to shape them. I worked with the authors. I went over the manuscripts, line by line, word by word, to get them right.

            Often, I designed their covers. I took the photographs. I chose the title.

            I was intimately involved. And then, one day, I wasn’t. I retired. 

Both good and bad

            I’m not arguing for or against ego. Ego – one’s sense of one’s own value – has been a happy hunting ground for psychologists for years, from Freud and Jung to the latest fad out of southern California. 

            Ego can be a good thing. It pushes architects to explore new designs – from Notre Dame in Paris to the Sidney Opera House – that will ensure their place in history. It drives sprinters to shave hundredths of a second off world records. It persuades writers like me that some people out there actually want to read our words.

            Ego can also be a bad thing. What else would push Vladimir Putin to invade a neighbour nation, against massive global disapproval? What else would convince Donald Trump that the same electoral processes that got him elected were corrupt and fraudulent when he lost?

            Much of our theorizing in biology, theology, sociology, and anthropology is our fumbling attempt to isolate and understand our own ego roles. Who am I? How did I come to be what I am? How do I fit into the great scheme of everything? And what will happen to me, eventually? 

            I sometimes suspect that we humans invented the idea of heaven because we could not imagine ourselves – or our heroes -- simply disappearing when we die. The idea of nothing, of not-being, of not mattering anymore to anyone, is intolerable. 

            What’s an empire without an Alexander? A faith without a Messiah? A life partnership without a partner?

            Similarly, then, we invented hell because we couldn’t imagine someone else getting away with murder, so to speak. 

Clearing the ego

            The mystics of every faith tell us we need to let go of ego, to clear ego out of the way, so that God can get in. 

            I wonder if that’s possible. Don’t we – speaking generally – create the God we worship in the image of our own ego? Or at least, in the image of what our ego would like to be? Wise, understanding, thoughtful, kind, compassionate, fair… Does anyone imagine themselves as the opposite? 

            So who, or what, are we making room for?

            My friend is right. Underneath everything, it’s all about ego. 

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Copyright © 2022 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved.

                  To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca

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YOUR TURN

Several of your letters supplemented my musings about the name of God. 

Tom Watson: noted, “One translation of the ancient Hebrew text is ‘I am what I might yet be.’ You can substitute ‘become’ for ‘be.’”

Ruth Shaver had similar thoughts:” Ruth Shaver: “I love that ‘YHWH’ encompasses ALL of the ‘to be’ possibilities: past, present, and future. Which means God is telling us everything we need to know in that simple statement, not just ‘I am who I am’. God is also saying: ‘I am who I was,’ ‘I am who I will be,’ ‘I will be who I was.’ And so on. The statement is both identifier and promise. When we turn to Jesus' echo of that statement in the Gospel of John, the specificity of the statement does not limit but gives examples of God's ways of being in the world, particularly as enfleshed in the man named Jesus. This is so simple that fourth and fifth graders have understood it, yet so complex that even as a seminary-trained pastor with 25 years of church experience, I wrestle with just how revelatory this is about God.”

Ted Spencer: “I first heard ‘It is what it is’ from someone I considered to be a thoroughly reprehensible human, and it encapsulates the fatalistic acceptance of modern-day horrors, from spam calls through corporate exploitation to Ukrainian invasions. We in ‘Vacuum Land’ (the late CBC’s Alan MacFee’s expression) shouldn't ask any awkward questions. 

               “I wonder if God really wants that sort of docile behaviour from us. No -- I don’t wonder; I very much doubt that that is part of The Grand Plan. Maybe the ‘two or three’ are supposed to ask the awkward questions. I hope so, because we certainly do ask them.”

Stan Wilson connected Exodus wih Paul’s “ ‘the ground of our being’. Not that God is in everything, but everything is in God – [thus] not "pantheism" but "panentheism".

Steve Roney did link my musings to pantheism: “[In] the Hebrew letters YHWH …God is identifying himself as the ground of being, the one being who exists necessarily, who is self-existent, while all other beings are dependent on him for existence.

            “The commandment against graven images is not that you must not make an image of God, or YHWH, but that you must not make a graven image of any natural thing, and then bow down and worship it as God. In Judaism, this has also become a prohibition on images of God, but excavations show this is a relatively recent development. Otherwise the Bible would be violating the commandment every time it used the word YHWH. Printing was, until recently, done by engraving, and the term is usually understood to mean an image reproduced by any means.

            “Your position in the column seems to be pantheism: God is everything.”

Randy Hall added a different dimension: “Jim, didn’t Popeye also proclaim ‘I am what I am’?  First time I ever connected that statement with Moses’ encounter with the burning bush! Maybe the bush was a spinach plant?”

Janet Hicks King: “I really enjoyed reading this. Over the centuries so much evil and destruction has been carried out in the name of the un-nameable.  Nowadays, it is simple greed for power and money (as it always was!) And when people finally find the courage to ‘gather together, to promote peace and goodwill’ – chances are their neighbours will tell them to shut up and follow the rules. 

            “You are blessed to have your ‘Golden Guys’ to get together with!”

And finally, on Vic Sedo’s assertion about Spam, John Shaffer wrote: “You can list it as a fact -- Spam is a favorite food in Hawaii.  I lived there for one month once, when I was the minister of the month at the UCC Church in Hana.  Lots of cans available in the grocery store.”

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Psalm paraphrase

When I first wrote this paraphrase of Psalm 63, I asked, “Why do we need churches? Because a few people come there to seek sanctuary.”

1          Crowds of people crush me.
They bump and bounce my mind;
they break my concentration.
I feel like nothing more than a means to an end, 
a cog in the machinery.
I long for the gentle touch of loving fingers, 
the intimate whisper of acceptance. 

2          So I have come looking for you, Lord, in your holy places. 

3          In this dimmed light, in this hushed silence, I sense your presence.

4          I wish I could feel you as near me in the rabid frenzy of life in the city core.
I want to reach out and touch you in the marketplace as well as the chancel. 

5          Then I will not feel alone; 
you will be part of every thought and every breath. 

6          I will know you at my desk and in my den, 
in my bed and in my bathtub.

7          Nothing will come between us. 

8          And I will hold you close in the forest of my fears.

You can find paraphrases of most of the psalms in the Revised Common Lectionary in my book Everyday Psalmsavailable from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.

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TECHNICAL STUFF

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PROMOTION STUFF

To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols. Some spam filters have blocked my posts because they’re suspicious of some of the web links.

                  Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca He’s also relatively inexpensive!

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                  Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom (NB that’s “watso” not “watson”)

ALVA WOOD’S ARCHIVE

                  I have acquired (don’t ask how) the complete archive of the late Alva Wood’s collection of satiric and sometimes wildly funny columns about a mythical village’s misadventures. I’ve put them on my website: http://quixotic.ca/Alva-Wood-Archive. You’re welcome to browse. No charge. (Although maybe if I charged a fee, more people would find the archive worth visiting.)