You imagine an adult life of consequence and meaning, marked by tangible results that bear your name and provide you status and permanence… or in the word’s of George Bailey: to build skyscrapers a hundred stories high and bridges a mile long. But then you wake up, pre-midlife, working in the humanities, teaching, writing, software, at the church, doing music; the sorta stuff that can’t be touched or quantified and whose impact is definitively subjective or spiritual. This is my syndrome.
If my children follow me into the realms of church or art I will weep. And then, I hope, muster the courage to support them above and beyond the parental call, knowing that they will be fortunate to experience flashes of brilliant purpose, amongst long months of mundane and meaningless striving.
Some days I wish I was an architect.
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My parents have occasionally suggested I sign up for one of the many online matchmaking services, but I can’t seem to get the gumption; something about consumer-dating just doesn’t jive. Of course, I know several fine couples who met online and it is certainly wise to start with someone whom you share interests and beliefs. I am finding though, that my access to nearly infinite information coupled with a belief in the perfect choice has debilitated me from choosing at all. A hundred years ago I would have married a family friend who lived in my neighborhood, had children and a career by twenty and called it good. Today, if I can’t find the perfect soul mate, job, university, church, camcorder, toothpaste, I haven’t done the research or prayed long enough or repented or taken enough medication or all of the above (pick your crap ideology).
We have been deceived into thinking that more choice is better, but as psychologist Barry Schwartz states in this enjoyable TED Talk, it isn’t always the case. And speaking globally, the more consumer choices we Americans afford ourselves the less the rest of the planet has; we’re depressed from too much choice, the have-nots are depressed from too few. The case for Christian jubilee perhaps.
Maybe I’ll fly to Angola and marry the first nubile woman I find at baggage–ew gross… baggage.
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Creating gender neutral pronouns in the English language has a long and inconsequential history; it is expectedly difficult to swap out the most commonly used words (shemself, hetself, sie, eir, cos never quite made it to market). Of the solutions that have begun to catch on though, there is one I particularly fancy that does not require the cumbersome ‘he or she’ game–the ’singular they’ form. When the gender is unknown you simply use the ‘they’ form: “The doctor had to leave because they were tired.” Not bad.
So, recently, writing gender inclusive liturgy and working with hymns, Scripture and other works of antiquity brought me to the following realization: referring to God using the singular they form is actually a rather profound acknowledgment of the Trinity. ‘They’ are many and ‘they’ are one and ‘they’ are beyond gender. Whether Christ’s penis made it into heaven or God is a Father, or the Spirit is female is not really the issue. Nor would we be better off abandoning God’s Fatherness, just as early feminism failed by annihilating gender difference. Neo-feminism has it right, the genders are indeed different and should be celebrated as such. To borrow from Reverend Wright, different but not deficient. The nature of the Trinity is complicated and diverse and mysteriously encompassing all-of-the-above genders. It may be awhile before I have the nerve to sing ‘They are exalted on high’, but I’m getting there. Zadok circa 2000 would have my head on a pike.
And yes, the title for this post is just horrible.
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Finally saw Ridley Scott’s ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ last night; an interesting story/concept that projected blandly on the screen. I hear the Director’s Cut is a far better film and I may just carve out 3 hours for it someday. And I’ve concluded that Orlando Bloom is not a leading man–neither Scott, Peterson nor Crowe could suck enough gravitas out of him.
The most profound moment in the film was as the Christians were burying their dead during the siege. To avoid the spread of disease within the city walls they were forced to burn a mass grave, which the priest warned against as it would delay their bodily resurrection until the final judgment (rather obscure theology there I think). The protagonist’s response: “God will understand, my lord. And if he doesn’t, then he is not God and we need not worry.” Wow, what does that even mean. I like it no matter. A fine way of correcting someone’s perverse view of God I suppose.
Somehow this seemed related to something I’ve been wondering lately: is God an idealist? I don’t even know what that means either.
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