The Choice Between Definition and Delight
by Tom Baker
Lesson: "This is not a course in philosophical speculation, nor is it concerned with
precise terminology. It is concerned only with Atonement, or correction of
perception." (Manual for Teachers, p. 77)
Date: March 22, 2009
One Sunday at our Course In Miracles meeting someone asked me if Tthe Course In Miracles defined God. I replied that it didn’t have one definition of God but lots of them, as if it were trying to dodge an exact definition that would finally close the subject altogether. God is blankity blank. That’s settled. Now we can go on to something else. In my other life as a priest/theologian I asked lots of people to define God and I got lots of legitimate answers: God is love (most people), God is the unmoved mover (Aristotle), God is the ground of being (Paul Tillich), Our Father in Heaven (Catholic church), Jesus, my personal Lord and Savior (Baptist Pastor), the bishop (my pastor in a cynical moment), Santa Claus (my pastor in another cynical moment), my calendar (me in a hurried moment). Children were more imaginative: a big burst of light, Howard (as in Howard is thy name) and finally the closest, one child who smiled and made a big circle with her outstretched hands. She came the closest, but all fell short.
The one person in my life who came the closest to defining God was the one
who absolutely refused to participate in the defining process. He was the
worst student I ever had, yet he taught me more about the definition of God
than anyone else. His name was Norm. It was my job to teach Norm and all
of my students how to talk about God because I was their preaching teacher
or Homiletics Professor. My constant lesson was that in order to talk about
God you needed to have a form. You must be concrete, tell a story, give an
example. I would regail them with my examples. How at Midnight Mass at
Christmas I would pause dramatically and listen to a crying child then say,
"2000 years ago on this very night that was voice of God." The mothers loved
it. " My little Suzy, she was God this Christmas." Or I would relate how on
Good Friday, at St. Bernards, just as I read the dying words of Jesus on the
cross, "Now it is finished," lightning struck and cracked the big stain glass
window in the back of the church. People listened to my sermon that day as
if I were the voice of God. A teaching moment: "That wasn’t God," I
explained, "That was lightning. Don’t take it personally." People heard me
but they didn’t believe me. Church was packed on Easter and I heard
confessions through dinner time on Saturday. When you make God concrete
people respond. So all my students began to tell God stories and make God
examples, expanding on their points, weaving their tales, all except Norm.
When it came time to give a sermon Norm stood up and said, "God is
contagious." Then he sat down. And of course I stood up. "Is that all Norm?
Good start. Concrete. God is as contagious as what? A yawn, a giggle, the
flu, a smile? Potentially a fine sermon, but we need more." Norm just looked
back. He looked baffled. "That’s all I got."
"No more?"
"That’s it." Usually the problem with the beginning student of preaching was that they go too long, they can’t finish, like a plane trying to land in an updraft. But not Norm. Too brief. At least that’s what I thought. The people in the parish thought Norm was great. "Short and to the point," said, "Makes you think. I never used to remember sermons before, I always remember Norm’s. God is contagious. I never thought about that before." Norm made people reflect on God for the first time in their Catholic lives. And people listened. "We can’t wait to hear what he’s going to say." His sermons at school which were referred to as Word of God Lite and were always the subject of intense discussions: "What did he mean by 'God is sometimes your cat.' or ‘God has never left.'" You’d walk into the dining room days after one of Norm’s tiny sermons and discussions would be raging. One sermon said, "God is always smiling." One group was sure the smile meant God was happy, another group thought that the smile meant that God knew something that He wasn’t telling, like the Mona Lisa; another group pointed out that in scripture Jesus weeps but he never smiles, so how could Norm be right. Norm never explained, never commented, just shrugged his shoulders and chewed his food.
The faculty did not like Norm. Most thought he was weird. Norm was not the norm. Norm moved all the furniture out of his room and lived and slept on the floor. He could be seen in the church often, praying long into the night. His ministry was picking up hitchhikers which we repeatedly warned him against----to no avail. He did poorly in all of his subjects. His papers were not much longer than his sermons. One semester Norm did not come back to school and no one really asked any questions. The era of Norm was as brief as his pulpit pronouncements and Norm was soon forgotten.
Until last week I had forgotten Norm too, then came the request for a definition of God and up popped Norm. Today Norm seems like a kind of holy genius to me. The fact that he did not say anything else than what he briefly said, was part of his genius. He stopped and refused to follow where you were going and invited you to come back to God and be in a very simple place. Instead of forging ahead with a definition, Norm rested in his experience of God. Helen Schuckman, who channeled A Course In Miracles, once had a vision in which Jesus handed her a scroll. In the center it simply said, "God is." She knew that if she unrolled the scroll to the left she would see all of her past and if she unrolled the scroll to the right she would see all of her future. She was content however to simply stay with God is. A voice said to her then, "You made it this time." Despite our doubts about Norm, I think maybe he made it this time too.
Norm taught me that when it comes to God I had better beware of definitions. Definitions box you in and, at the same time, box you out of the experience of whatever you are defining. The defined God is out here, in a book or a catechism or a creed. Not in your present life. I had a professor in the seminary who used to not let us take notes, saying that notes were a way not to be present. He insisted we be with him in the Now. To love God is to not so much knowing what God is as it is to encounter love in the present whatever the form. Like my wife. God in the form of my wife. I have sometimes said that the more I love my wife the less I know her. If I were Norm I would simply sit down after saying that. The statement the more I love my wife the less I know her is pretty Norm-like. But I am the preaching teacher so I will expand. When I say I know her less I mean that I can define her less, judge her less. Definition and judgment keep us outside the experience of the person, the experience of the whole person. Love is about taking in the whole person and allowing that person to change you, influence you, love you for what they love you for. People are easier to judge because they do have a form and we hang our judgments on their forms: eyes are too blue, voice is too northern, she’s too frugal, she’s too quiet, she’s too stubborn, yet the entire experience of her is delightful. What goes for God, goes for each other: beware of definitions and lose yourself in what you do not know.
© Copyright Tom Baker 2009