Hidden & Revealed

This is a post which contemplates identity, self and personhood...

I think it relates to previous posts of mine such as: Remember, Censorship, Out on a Limb, and Anxiety & Irresponsibility among others
And also Silas post Stories Collide Pt.1
And Danielle's Shake it like you mean it!

we are mixtures of light and shadow 

the hidden and revealed

both to ourselves and to others

we are both exposed and concealed

I was struck tonight by the vast number of ways I identify myself. Some of these identities are in conflict or at least seem to be. Many of the nuances of reality are simplified for various reasons. For example I am both proud and ashamed to identify as Scottish, part of my family heritage for which I am named and have since tatooed onto my body forcing the issue into conversation more than I really intended. I am in reality much more dominantly Dutch. However, when I did not receive the tall genes of my father and opa this became a sore point more than a source of pride or identity. I am defined precisely in paradox. 

What makes up our identity? We are a blender of nature, nurture, context, culture, history, tradition, narrative, and genetics... We are simultaneously unique and deeply connected. The book Beauty of the Lillies by John Updike, which I just finished reading highlights the intergenerational quality of the story of our lives. We are born into a story, continue it and pass it on... I think the Bible also highlights this intergenerational narrative of our lives of faith. "I am the God of you forefathers: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob" declares Yahweh... 

I try and situate myself in a intergenerational narrative: I am the fourth generation of film maker/photographer, following my father, opa and my opa's father. I am the fourth generation of my mother's family to worship God on the west coast of BC, following my mother, grandmother and great grandparents. It is this point that is interesting because it highlights the way we shape and mould our stories and identity. The way we edit. What we choose to reveal or hide, either by omission or intentional concealment. I rarely share my family's west coast history. This is at least in part because I am only minimally familiar with it and those who held this piece of my heritage died when I was young. My mother grew up in Sarnia and moved "home" to Victoria in her teens. My dad was born in Vancouver, but grew up all across America and in Holland, moving back to BC for University. British Columbia holds a gravity for my family that I tend to deny and have been trying to shake my whole life. I barely consider myself Canadian, identifying rather as European immigrant, having grown up on my Opa's stories of the Old Country, my Dad's stories of moped vacations in France, and my parents 6 month honeymoon of European travels. Stories held life and depth in contrast to the plastic and stick frame life of suburbia... My mother's father was born English and fought with the RAF in WWII. How I promote or demote these various facets of my life and many others deeply impact how I view myself and the story I find myself in. My dad's parents being still alive to participate and tell stories. This part of my history, therefore, has been in a bright spotlight for most of my life. This however, has cast into much deeper shadow, my mother's parents and family, shrouded in the silence of death. I find myself moving amongst the light and shadows of my own life desiring to explore and reveal parts and pasts hidden and to shade brighter spots. I am trying to both to understand and find my role in the intergenerational drama into which I have been born. Am I the heir to leap from amateur to professional in the photographic arts? I continue to try. Am I the exiled or prodigal son destined to return home to Europe? Or is escape to Europe merely another prodigal journey? Am I scholarly vindication of my frustrated grandfather, who didn't complete his Ph.D? With a family heritage of university education and teachers, education has been a value I was slow to embrace but now find that I love. Am I the white, educated, christian, suburban BC boy required to repent and and do penance for the sins of those before me responsible for residential schools and destruction of First Nations culture? Culture and history I share by direct family line and not only group association (I have at least one relative who taught in a school and my great grand father who worked for the government on reserves...)

I am unable to be seen completely by human eyes. Dark unknown spots and sins and shame merely shine brighter when revealed overpowering the rest. I experience my life as a frustrating puzzle with so many pieces I believe connect but I have lost the lid and cannot see the whole. I have moved more and more toward a desire for integration. All the jumbled pieces need to connect and as I search I find both connections and also more pieces... I feel like a tourist with amnesia searching through my suitcase trying to determine where I was supposed to go. 

i cannot hide but with revealing 

my revelation explicitly concealing

In my hiddenness I am most exposed

and in my nakedness remain unknown

Ok and now the theological question: How does God reveal himself in absence? Can God's presence be made known in absence? How? Why? etc.

CYOA - Choosing our Language

CYOA  Numbers 21:4-6

And they journeyed from mount Hor by the way to the Red Sea, to compass the land of Edom: and the soul of the people was much discouraged because of the way. 5 And the people spake against God, and against Moses, Wherefore have ye brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? for there is no bread, and there is no water; and our soul loatheth this light bread. 6 And Jehovah sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people; and much people of Israel died. (American Standard Version)

       At first I was not at all sure what to write about when I read this passage. I was not even offended by it. Thinking about my initial reaction I am a put off at how nonchalant I was to the deaths of these people because they were grumbling. I think that reflects more on me and others who read the Bible than on the story. It was as if an inner switch turned on when I went to read the passage, and it went something like this...Well that is terrible, but it is in the Bible, and God can do as God pleases, and God  gives just judgement, so then that is a great story. Realizing this was quite disconcerting, as I realize the extent to which I am still brainwashed by Church culture to not take the Bible seriously enough to read what it actually says.

So here are a few thoughts, after some more reflection. I think Numbers 21:1-3 is also important to read when contemplating 4-6.

1 And the Canaanite, the king of Arad, who dwelt in the South, heard tell that Israel came by the way of Atharim; and he fought against Israel, and took some of them captive. 2 And Israel vowed a vow unto Jehovah, and said, If thou wilt indeed deliver this people into my hand, then I will utterly destroy their cities. 3 And Jehovah hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities: and the name of the place was called Hormah.

       The connection may not be immediately clear. Why would I want to bring in a passage about genocide of one ethic/religious group by another religious/ethnic group. Is it not just Serbia and Kosovo in ancient times? Yes, it is exactly Serbia and Kosovo, and that is the point. In this specific passage the genocide is initiated by the human side of the relationship. The Jews retaliate and destroy the Canaanites, and the Bible records that Yahweh listened and then gave them the Canaanites. I find this incredibly telling. I see God agreeing to communicate with the Israelites in terms they can comprehend, and if those terms are nationhood and genocide, the standard of the time, then God agrees to communicate in these terms even though they are less then the ideal.
       I think this helps me understand God's recoded reaction to their grumbling. The Israelites have communicated that the "language" they understand is that of life and death. In so doing they have stated the terms of communication they expect from God, so the reprimand comes in similar "language".
       I think this "language" changes throughout the narrative of the Bible, as there is a movement away from stories such as this one (although they never completely disappear as there are NT examples). I think biblically one sees this in regard to this specific story by looking to 2 Kings 18:4. Moses makes a bronze snake to remedy the problem of the snakes. This symbol/fetish is a highly "primitive" form of religion. It is thus "out grown" by the progressive revelation of scripture. The fetishism had become fully developed around the bronze snake by the time of Hezekiah came to the throne, it is recorded that he is responsible for its destruction.

4 He removed the high places, and brake the pillars, and cut down the Asherah: and he brake in pieces the brazen serpent that Moses had made; for unto those days the children of Israel did burn incense to it; and he called it Nehushtan. (2 Kings 18:4 ASV)

I think this reflects back on more than just the bronze snake, I would read this passage to reflect as a condemnation of interacting with God like the the Israelites did in Numbers 21.
       That is my main thought about this passage, it is a mediocre answer as all answers are. I am forced to again contemplate my underlying presupposition about inspiration and understanding of the compilation of scripture. As I read this passage and wrote this blog there was always a nagging in the back of my mind, the idea of scripture being the record of a people grappling with the dissonance between their experiences and a belief in the supernatural. Thus when bad happens, they have done wrong and when they are victorious it must have been because God condoned it. I think with a little bit of this understanding underlying one's reading, progressive revelation becomes even more important to struggle with as our consciences are no longer comfortable with genocide.

P.S. We need some more passages you would like us to write about (they don't all need to be difficult, maybe it is your favourite and you would like to see what we have to say, or a passage you have never heard a sermon on). Post any passages you want us to write on in the comments section below and they will go into the pool of passages we draw from each week.

CYOA - To Deny or Explain?

Daughter of Jephthah

Judges 11
 ^29-31 God's Spirit came upon Jephthah. He went across Gilead and Manasseh, went through Mizpah of Gilead, and from there approached the Ammonites. Jephthah made a vow before God: "If you give me a clear victory over the Ammonites, then I'll give to God whatever comes out of the door of my house to meet me when I return in one piece from among the Ammonites—I'll offer it up in a sacrificial burnt offering."

 ^32-33 Then Jephthah was off to fight the Ammonites. And God gave them to him. He beat them soundly, all the way from Aroer to the area around Minnith as far as Abel Keramim—twenty cities! A massacre! Ammonites brought to their knees by the People of Israel.

 ^34-35 Jephthah came home to Mizpah. His daughter ran from the house to welcome him home—dancing to tambourines! She was his only child. He had no son or daughter except her. When he realized who it was, he ripped his clothes, saying, "Ah, dearest daughter—I'm dirt. I'm despicable. My heart is torn to shreds. I made a vow to God and I can't take it back!"

This passage sucks because either you deny child sacrifice, which is good but are perceived to be hand waving or you don't and you have to deal with the ramifications of child sacrifice, which are horrific.

One angle I have heard is that this is a lesson against legalism and that Jephthah should have asked to be released from his vow... for which to some degree there are specifications for in Leviticus 27.

I would be happier with that explanation if we didn't have the story of Abraham being called to sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering, although clearly no issue of a vow in that case.

So people may ask what was he expecting to come out of a house? The implication appears to be an animal, which is plausible given that animals often lived in the house with the family as they contributed to the heat as well as were too valuable to keep outside without being tended. However, I think it is a fair statement that this is a bad vow to begin with... But it seems initially to be a vow full of faith and trust in God... or is it a vow bent on manipulating God? hmmm... Why does Jephthah need to make a vow? After his long diplomatic speech about God's victory over Balak and Israel's respect of Ammon in the preceding verses, the vow seems to actually betray a lack of faith rather than great faith.

There is something distinctly and spectacularly pagan about this whole story. Our bastard hero is exiled but then returns and and saves the day winning a great battle and the cost of his victory is his only virgin daughter. I would be reasonably happy to say that this is a pagan story attempted to be revised to fit Yahwehism...

But again I would be happier with that explanation if their wasn't this odd theme of child/self sacrifice that runs from Abraham and Isaac and is culminated in Jesus, another "bastard" child and if Jephthah wasn't celebrated as a hero of faith in Hebrew's 11.

39-40 It became a custom in Israel that for four days every year the young women of Israel went out to mourn for the daughter of Jephthah the Gileadite.

These final verses of the story seem to indicate that it is some sort of explanation for a social tradition.

Some commentators note that the passage ends focused on virginity not death and there is the suggestion that the daughter was not killed but devoted to a life of service as virgin, similar to nuns. This is argued  further based on the fact that the context of the situation does not fit a literal, levitical burnt offering. While clearly, a life of service, similar to Samuel, is preferable to filicide it seems possible to me that the concern with virginity rather than death is actually one and the same given that the Old Testament view is that one lives on through their children. Therefore, being Jephthah's only virgin daughter, her virginity represents the destruction of the entire family.

Sorry everybody I see all of the problems and I don't like it or any of the solutions, I welcome further thoughts...

You reached a dead end and were trapped inside the Pharoah's tomb.

Turn to page 47 if you don't like this ending...

Further Thoughts on Censorship

At my bible college there was a bulletin board that is mostly meaningless at this point - thanks to me. I apologize. The bulletin board is called the Wittenburg door and was supposed to be a location of free and challenging dialogue. In my first year a member of student council posted a page criticizing the student body for apathy and non-participation. I was unimpressed, not only with what I read as an unhelpful and self righteous article but also with student council, who I experienced to be disconnected, unavailable, and irrelevant. I posted a scathing rebuttle to the page which definitively crossed the line to personal and was a very public and specific criticism, full of exaggerated rhetorical flourish, of not only student council but individual people, who I didn't really know. The results were a nuclear melt down of emails and meetings and apologies and defense and discussion and rules. The rules, which I helped write will ensure that posts will probably never again challenge the powers that be and to that degree, the door has been destroyed...

What did I learn? I learned the importance of relationships and the priority of people over power-politics and rhetoric. That was a good lesson. I also learned that when you stick it to "the man" there will always be hell to pay and also usually an invitation into the establishment. I navigated the remainder of my bible college career without incident. I learned how to influence through friendships and relationships rather than very public and negative criticism and I learned how to ask questions rather than make accusations and to discuss rather than argue. These were all very good and important lessons. I also learned that churches have gatekeepers who will let you know in no uncertain terms if you cross their imaginary lines of orthodoxy.

I have for 4 years been clever with language and questions in order to create enough ambiguity to maintain relational acceptance. I have held my tongue when I want to disagree, or criticize, or argue. I have lost arguments in order to actually listen, which often leaves no time for a rebuttal. But I'm tired. I'm tired of always being concerned about what you will hear despite what I am saying. I am tired of being afraid of what you will think of me if I just tell you what I think. I am tired of valuing relationships with people who might reject me if I was open, authentic, and honest. We talk about integrity but encourage hypocrisy and social christian fakeness in order to maintain relationships, the status quo, and "future opportunities." I have decided I should probably take my mission statement seriously.

To challenge the cultural status quo, corruption, stagnation and apathy both within and outside the church, as a teacher and artist in North America.

To pursue passionately faith, learning and creativity seeking to experience God’s transformation in myself and others.

If you are a defender of status quo you have hereby been warned. Do not threaten my future, do not try and intimidate me. I am no longer having any of it.

Voyeurism and Censorship

I would like to let you all in on a discussion that is ongoing behind the surface of this blog. Duncan touched on it here. Right now I am keenly aware that I am being watched. I had no idea how powerful this notion of being watched would be over my willingness to be transparent and live up to the goal we set for this blog, an uncensored place of free thought. I have to admit that I have begun to think in blogs, everything I think I shape into a blog with no restraints, yet it is incredible how many of these I am censoring. I find myself censoring because it is incredibly unnerving knowing that about 150 people a day, at the moment, will be reading what I write, I feel like a little bit of a spectacle, or as Duncan so adequately put it when we last met, "we are pastoring a small un-church" (or something like that). I feel a little bit like Miley Cyrus and Lady Gaga. This is a new experience for me as I enter into what feels like a one-sided relationship. I permit all of the internet a window into my existence every few days and there is surprisingly little feed back. Beside the few comments, a conversation, or a "like" on facebook, I have absolutely no idea who is "watching". Now to toss this back on you, because if I am using the concept of voyeurism to best explain how I am perceiving this blogging thing...that makes you the peeping tom :0 which is ok as long as we are all aware of the roles we are playing in this one-sided relationship :)

Having no idea who is reading this blog is trilling and disconcerting all at the same time. It is because of this that we as a group of bloggers are running into the constraints of censorship. How much is too much. How much honesty can the internet really handle? Censorship is not my expertise, I am usually overly blunt, I'll say what I think and ask for forgiveness later. Because of this I have a few requests. First, if we offend...Respond, post in the comment section. We are all more than willing to open a two or more way dialogue, and then I at least know who to ask forgiveness from. Second, if you are a regular reader follow us, it is really nice to know who is reading.

Censorship is complicated. It is nearly impossible to determine what people find offensive, as Duncan puts it "I always think its funny what people find offensive or a "big deal" its like swear words... which ones are really bad? I think my mom is probably more offended by cigarettes than by "losing faith". I say "damn" all the time without thinking. Other people love the word "fuck" but think "damn" is crossing the line... some people think "crap" is ok but not "shit," other people the reverse. Some of this is cultural both locally and globally but to me it is a reminder of the ambiguity of language and the inherent risks one takes when speaking. It is not surprising that public speaking is something that many people fear more than death - speech acts both spoken and written take enormous courage." (from our private ongoing conversation). I find that we are in a particularly interesting spot when dealing with censorship. We all have Christian educations which was four years of tip toeing around censorship issues, how much could one say, what would be too far, "if I say what I actually think will i be considered a heretic?" Sometimes all three of us through caution to the wind and said as we pleased, but i think for the majority of the time we played the censorship game quite well. The thing is the game is not over. As we pursue higher education and jobs it is likely people will find this blog. The thought then becomes will I loose job opportunities because of what I post here? Or maybe more significantly, will something I say here offend a person to such an extent that they stop being in relationship with me in the real world, outside of the intertubes? As our virtual and internet lives mesh I find things become more hazy, more uncertain. Hopefully as we pursue academia and careers we will land ourselves in positions that value freedom of thought, freedom to think without fear. Hopefully when perfect love casts out fear the absence of fear is presence in the intellectual realm as well, so we do not slip into divisive tribalism of fundamentalism.

I often find it helpful to communicate my ideas through other mediums people have already created and published. I ran across a music video this spring (one that did not get as much play as I think it deserved) which had some interesting thoughts about censorship tied in. I found it extremely enlightening when the same music video came out with a directors cut it was much more disturbing. Specifically enlightening is the contrast between the two videos. Many people will find the first offensive, but the message I believe is more apparent in the second. The song is Natalia Kills -Wonderland and here is the directors cut. I hope you enjoy the difference in the movies. For now I think I will be treading/blogging towards the official version, my posts at least will attempt to convey what I mean without becoming too over the top. But if you think I am not being fully transparent call me out in the comments section if you would prefer the directors cut on a certain post.