Return to Reverence (Jewish theology)

Awe is a way of being in rapport with the mystery of all reality. The awe that we sense or ought to sense when standing in the presence of a human being is a moment of intuition for the likeness of God which is concealed in his essence. Not only man; even inanimate things stand in a relation to the Creator. The secret of every being is the divine care and concern that that are invested in it. Something sacred is at stake in every event… (p. 74)

Awe precides faith; it is at root of faith. We must grow in awe in order to reach faith. We must be guided by awe to be worthy of faith. Awe rather than faith is the cardinal attitude of the religious Jew. It is ‘the beginning and gateway of faith, the first precept of all, and upon it the whole world is established.’ In Judaism, yirat hashem, the awe of God, or yirat shamayim, the ‘awe of heaven,’ is almost equivalent to the world ‘religion.’ In biblical language the religious man is not called ‘believer,’ as he is for example in Islam (mu’min), but yare hashem.

There is thus only one way to wisdom: awe. Forfeit your sense of awe, let your conceit diminish your ability to revere, and the universe becomes a market place for you. The loss of awe is the great block to insight. A return to reverence is the first prerequistite for a revival of wisdom, for the discovery of the world as an allusion to God. Wisdom comes from awe rather than from shrewdness. It is evoked not in moments of calculation but in moments of being in rapport with the mystery of reality. The greatest insights happen to us in moments of awe. (pp. 77-78)

On the Question of Theodicy (Problem of Evil)

God and suffering belong together, just as in this life the cry for God and the suffering experienced in pain belong together. The question about God and the question about suffering are a joint, a common question. And they only find a common answer. Either that, or neither of them finds a satisfactory answer at all. No one can answer the theodicy question in this world, and no one can get rid of it. Life in this world means living with this open question, and seeking the future in which the desire for God will be fulfilled, suffering will be overcome, and what has been lost will be restored. 

The question of theodicy is not a speculative question; it is a critical one. It is the all-embracing eschatological question. It is not purely theoretical, for it cannot be answered with any new theory about the existing world. It is a practical question which will only be answered through experience of the new world in which ‘God will wipe away every tear from their eyes’. It is not really a question at all, in the sense of something we can ask or not ask, like other questions. It is the open wound of life in this world. It is the real task of faith and theology to make it possible for us to survive, to go on living, with this open wound.

The person who believes will not rest content with any slickly explanatory answer to the theodicy question. And he will also resist any attempts to soften the question down. The more a person believes, the more deeply he experiences pain over the suffering in the world, and the more passionately he asks about God and the new creation. 

- Jürgen Moltmann (University of Tübingen, Germany); p. 49; The Trinity and the Kingdom

Artwork Above: Andrew Wyeth’s Up in the Studio

Prayer for Quiet Confidence

O GOD of peace, who hast taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and in confidence shall be our strength; By the might of thy Spirit lift us, we pray thee, to thy presence, where we may be still and know that thou art God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

— The 1928 Book of Common Prayer

Artwork Above: An illustration from Death By Love: Letter from the Cross by Chris Koelle.

Stanley Hauerwas on Greed

Greed is rightly called a deadly sin because it kills the possibility of a proper human relation to the Creator. Greed presumes and perpetuates a world of scarcity and want - a world where there is never “enough.” But, as Sam Wells argues, a world shaped by scarcity is a world that cannot trust that God has given all that we need; greed prohibits faith. But the contrary is true.

Wells reminds us that the problem is not that there is too little in God but there is too much. Overwhelmed by “God’s inexhaustible creation, limitless grace, relentless mercy, enduring purpose, fathomless love,” we turn away finding such a God “too much to contemplate, assimilate, understand.”

And so Wells reminds us it is in the Eucharist that we have the prismatic act that makes possible our recognition that God has given us everything we need. The Eucharist not only is the proclamation of abundance, but it is the enactment of abundance. In the Eucharist we discover that we cannot use Christ up.

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— Stanley Hauerwas, a professor of Duke Divinity School

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My kid’s drawing of Darth Vader

Weekly Prayer — 8.8.11

Jesus, hold our minds still, keep us from running off into the past or the future, so that we can meet you where we are — in happiness or in grief, in confidence or in anxiety, in life and in death. Amen.

— Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury  (Christ on Trial: How the Gospel Unsettles Our Judgement; 23). Image: Georges Rouault, Miserere Series

Weekly Prayer — 8.1.11

Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little, when we arrive safely because we have sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess we have lost our thirst for the waters of life; having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity and in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of the new Heaven to dim. Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery; where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. We ask you to push back the horizons of our hopes; and to push in the future in strength, courage, hope, and love. 

- Sir Francis Drake, a Vice Admiral for the English Navy

HT: Wayne Kijanowski, my director of design.

Sophia, the Wisdom of God

For wisdom is more mobile than any motion; because of her pureness she pervades all things. For she is a breath of the power of God, and a pure emanation of the glory of the Almighty; therefore nothing defiled gains entrance into her. For she is a reflection of eternal light, a spotless mirror of the working of God, and an image of his goodness.

- Wisdom 7:24-26

Photo above: Basilica of Hagia Sophia (Holy Wisdom); Istanbul, Turkey 

"Exposure to arts drives innovation and spurs economy" →

The study found that arts and crafts activities – such as painting, dancing and filmmaking – are closely related to success of the scientists, engineers and other innovators who create new companies and inventions that stimulate the economy.

Why asking ‘What can the Church do for Deaf people?’ and ‘How can the Church help Deaf people?’ are not productive questions. 

To use language of what the Church can do for Deaf people shows a church that does not recognize that Deaf people are the church already, but prefers to see Deaf people as objects of their paternalistic benevolence. Dominant majorities liberate minorities, not by providing an improved service, but by giving up their power to enable the Deaf churches truly to be empowered.

— Wayne Morris; Theology without Words: Theology in the Deaf Community; pg. 117