Epiphany

Brad Hill shared interesting thoughts in a recent article in The Christian Century (“Perception Gap,” Nov 17, 09, 26-28). What it boiled down to was the collection of perceptions held by people in the church that contributed to radically different conclusions. One particular story could have been told by any pastor on the planet: Two people, same Sunday, sharing exactly opposite perceptions about the church in general or some particular ministry. Which person has it right? Well, all opinions are all based on certain perceptions, some of which are more unique to that individual than others.

My favorite quote from his article was this: “Perhaps the church is a kind of Rorschach experience. People see in it what they impute to it and find what they expect to find.”(27) True, true.

Like in the rest of life people make sense of things mostly by what they bring to any situation. We project reality onto the canvass in front of us according to the lens of perception through which we peer. So when you hear an opinion of some kind it is frequently more a commentary about the person doing the seeing than about the actual issue at hand. The problem is when someone claims that their view of the world is the only one!

So, some questions: How can we move beyond being merely a compilation of Rorschach projections? Is that all there is, a collection of subjective impressions? Where then is truth other than “my truth” of the moment?

Are there some measuring sticks by which we may make theologically informed judgments?

Though experience is important, we can’t leave it only to that. Everyone has a base of experience and the perceptions that emerge from it are not all of equal value: Ghandi has his truth, Hitler has his, Idi Amin has his, Mother Teresa has hers …

We need to make judgments about which experience base bears more consideration. Experience as an authority base is not sufficient alone.

What about reason? That’s a good start and of course reason plays an enormous role in our decision making process. The ways that we employ reason matters. But reason and its conclusions are often steered toward certain ends by the power that directs them. Some in the past found it “reasonable” to conclude that some whole groups of people were inferior according to ethnic origins, skin color or nationality. And because they were obviously inferior it was quite alright to abuse, enslave, or liquidate them. It all seemed eminently reasonable. But what biases stand behind the supposedly objective reasoning?

How about spiritual intuitions? We’ve often been inspired by the insights and revelations of prophet or oracle. Who couldn’t appreciate the flights of spirit found in Teresa of Avila or Meister Eckhart? But Jim Jones of drinking-the-Kool-aid fame had them, too. There is a razor’s edge of difference between the visions of the mystic and the ravings of a madman.

Tradition can be a help, of course. It points us in the direction many others have gone in the past. Collective wisdom helps chart important courses. But our collective actions and thinking have not always been stellar. To appeal to an overused but true statement: The Crusades were not our finest Christian hour. But at the time nearly everyone believed that they were commissioned of God. That’s part of our larger “tradition.” What use shall we make of it?

Scripture is for us a collection of witnesses all pointing toward God. We listen to their council and take inspiration from their spiritual experience in their place and time. The Biblical texts ask hard questions of us even as we ask hard questions of them. But all of us know that even within the Bible we find a kind of hierarchy of truth; some texts stand more at the center of the divine life than others. Some Biblical stories reflect little more than the culture of the time, and it’s not always enviable. Others seem to grant license to do the horrible. And a number reflect an understanding of God that is reprehensible not only to us, but other authors in those same scriptures (The book of Job is the poster child for a book written to correct a theology found in our same canon of scriptures). Since the Bible is a living witness of living communities of faith, it often finds itself embroiled in its own intra-textual argument. And we often find ourselves drawn into the fray. “It is like a diamond,” said one Rabbi, “that has a thousand facets.”

Seeking truth or truths is not an easy thing. It is even more complex today in a post-modern environment when universals and “meta-narratives” (overarching stories that claim to describe the way things really are) are highly suspect. Even granting that the pursuit of truth is highly subjective and shaped by the seeker as much as the object, I’m still for doing it. I’m for moving beyond a Rorschach only assessment.

If I have discovered anything it is that there are profound truths that lead us to sacred life and practices that draw us toward holiness. To find them, however, we must appeal, more than ever, to deep and persistent discernment in the midst of a covenanted community. This will require the use of everything in our toolbox – prayer, meditation, community conversation, the insights of some “seers” in our midst, the witness of scripture, the insights of tradition, and the finding of a common mind.

It is the season of Epiphany, the season of lights. The star wanderings of the Magi commission us to quest. There is something deep in the soul that longs to find and be found, to follow the stars whatever form they take. I have a deep and abiding trust that if we search we will find. This finding may not be what we expected, and often isn’t. But it is a finding none the less. Which Magi could have possibly anticipated the end of his quest? This young boy was not surrounded by the accouterments of royalty. And yet God’s new thing was breaking through the illusions of the world so that people could be shattered into seeing differently.

Have you ever thought that we might be God’s Rorschach test?