Drunken Monkey

There is a Zen proverb that says, "The mind is like a drunken monkey". I think there's more to the proverb than that and I'm probably taking it way out of context, but that image applies to me at this moment. For the past few days, I have been wandering through theological dilemmas and attempting to articulate the conflicts and struggles in my head. This has led me into some fantastic conversations, but I'm still struggling to formulate my disperate ideas and struggles into a coherent body of thought. As such, this entry is stream of consciousness, marked by sudden rifts and subject changes and full of overt mentions of God and theologies. I make no apologies, that's where my mind is at the moment.

A few months ago I said to one of my friends that I don't feel. It wasn't a good articulation, but it was what I had reached at that moment. I finally realized yesterday what I meant by that. It's not that I have no emotions or don't feel things, it is that I seldom feel spontaneous, gut reactions to stimuli in my surroundings. Instead, my "feelings" are completely enmeshed with my thoughts. Whenever I have a reaction to anything, my brain immediately begins analyzing and attempting to understand why I have that reaction. I could blame this on incredibly practical parents or on being a Thinker in the Myers-Briggs personality test. It probably also has roots in traumatic childhood experiences or insecurities or self-censoring. However, I don't think there's anything wrong with having emotions that are completely integrated with logical thought processes. In the past I have tried to change this aspect of myself because it seems too cold and, according to social norms, "masculine". I have come to realize, however, that to change that would be to deny a part of my personality and identity.

This integration also affects the way I understand my relationships with people and with God, especially on the topic of love. Love, in my experience, isn't an inexplicable emotion. "Falling" in love seems strange to me because that would require spontaneous, unconsidered feeling, which I have difficulty with. Thus, when I love another person, and when I love God, I love them with my heart and my mind and my actions. For me, loving is a matter of thought and action more than raw emotion. I don't know whether that's good or bad. I just know that, at this moment, that is my experience.

In Pastoral Care I have been reading about narrative therapy, which is a form of counseling in which the caregiver asks the careseeker to tell their life story, or the story of their current troubles, in order to identify the breaks and gaps in the story as hints to where the person's struggles may lie. The theological dimension of narrative therapy, then, is integrating the personal narrative of the careseeker with the divine narrative of God. As I began to think through the implications of this type of therapy in my own life, I was both reassured and troubled. I can see many ways in which my personal narrative interacts with my faith and my understanding of God. However, I have difficulty when it comes to integrating the Bible with that narrative. Scripture has been used throughout history as a tool of oppression and injustice. It has been used to justify slavery, war, imperialism/colonization, subjugation of women, exclusion of LGBT persons, and countless acts of physical and emotional violence. There are passages in Scripture that seem to support the very things I would spend my lifetime opposing. At the same time, Scripture is the basis of my Christian faith and, as such, essential to me. I am currently struggling to find a way to live in the tension between those things; I am trying to find a way to reclaim the oft-coopted Bible to give a message of hope to the oppressed, show love to all creation, and bring an end to injustice. I don't know just how to do that yet, but I suppose that is the struggle to which I am called.

I have been told that every preacher has one sermon that he or she gives over and over, just with different texts and words. I think that's a bit of an exaggeration, but, at the same time, isn't that true of all of us? Every person has particular passions and themes that he or she integrates, consciously or unconsciously, throughout his or her life. I'm not sure precisely what my themes are, and I certainly haven't identified my "one sermon" yet, but I am beginning to pick out a few things that I see weaving throughout my life. They are my passions, things I have learned to embrace and express without flinching. My staff share, for instance, revolved around the theme of courage, and not allowing fear to hold us back from that which we are inspired to do. One of my friends said earlier today that he thinks my sermon is equality because of my deep passion for recognizing the dignity and value inherent in all people. I'm beginning to think that it may also be to bring a message of hope, healing, and joy in the midst of brokenness, violence, and struggle of life. So far, my preaching voice is relatively undefined. I like to think that I won't have just one sermon, that I will be used by God to give many varied messages. My personal themes, however, are beginning to emerge.

I leave you with one question, the one I now drift off to sleep pondering: Once broken, can we ever be the same? And if we could, would we want to?