Healing the Trinity: Church, Human and God

[Note: This essay was crafted for a theology class, not for a scripture class.]

Healing the Trinity: Church, Human and God
by
David Bottorff

I am moved by the dynamic synergy I see between God, the church and humans. Particularly striking are parallels between the church and the individual around issues of healing. Rather than separate, I see church and the individual as two expressions of the same thing: God’s grace.

Everything I read about healing points in one direction – restoration of wholeness. This applies to the individual recovering from spiritual, physical or emotional injury, as well as to the institutional church. The centrifugal forces of modern society, which as in physics are fictitious, work to tear both individuals and churches apart. By resisting entropy, the church is better positioned to heal those in need. Likewise, the individual who resists chaos brings wholeness and spiritual integrity to the church. The binding force in both cases, the thing that brings order out of the mêlée, is God. I see wholeness through spirituality as a key component of pastoral counseling.

Gestalt Theory teaches that the whole of an individual is greater than the sum of that person’s parts. So, too, is the church greater than the sum of its discrete parts. Gestalt therapist Tilda Norberg[1] has played a key role in bringing the concept of wholeness to pastoral counseling. John Koenig, writing in Practicing Our Faith,[2] noted Norberg’s credo: The healing ministry of Jesus is still continuing in the community of faith; healing includes the whole person – spiritual, physical, and emotional; and God wills our wholeness and is actively involved in our growth. Healing, Norberg says, is not just a matter of fixing things that are wrong. Rather, “Real health, for my Christian point of view, is coming to the fullness of your vocation as a child of God. It means becoming Christlike.”

One of the paradoxes faced by Christians is that healing and new growth emerges from pain and injury. Koenig notes that the point of change is represented by the cross, whether the cross upon which Jesus suffered and died before being reborn, or the cross roads we encounter in daily life, sometimes in the form of crisis or injury. Unlike the patient-physician paradigm, Christians understand healing as something much larger: restoration to wholeness, including right relationships with God, family, friends, and neighbors.

Interestingly, 12-step recovery programs are premised on the concept that change, and especially spiritual growth, occurs when a person reaches crisis or “bottom.” Fortunately, the bottom is where the person decides to stop digging, implying life can start anew at any moment, provided we seek guidance from a power greater than ourselves.

I also would like to note that just as I see parallels between the church and the individual, I see parallels with the living organisms we call family and society. Indeed, just like the church and the individual, families and society are vulnerable to a wide variety of injuries, including war, environmental degradation, and poverty.

Much of the pastoral counselor’s mission is to help clients find meaning in life. Koenig points out, the word “shalom” represents an all-encompassing peace free from meaningless suffering. I contend that all suffering is meaningless in and of itself, and that we are challenged to make meaning from the suffering. Like the pastoral counselor, the church, as a manifestation of God’s compassion, has a mission to find meaning in suffering and bring about healing and wholeness. If there is any doubt as to the Christian church’s charge to heal, Koenig draws attention to the many times Jesus either healed the sick or issued directives so to do, including Matthew 10.1, Mark 6.7, Luke 9.1-2, plus Acts 1.1-10, 4.30, and 9.32-43.

 Sister Kathleen Popko currently is executive vice president of strategy and ministry development for healthcare provider Catholic Health East. Koenig quoted her as saying, “Throughout the centuries, the church's mission has been to create the human conditions where one can experience God, particularly in those moments of vulnerability and brokenness.” Koenig said that when we embody God's healing presence through touch, concern, or liturgy, “we take part in God's activity of healing the world.”

Just as individuals use laying on of hands to facilitate spiritual and physical healing, so too, in a figurative sense, must the church lay its hands on those suffering in the world.

Both churches and individuals can get caught up in ego self-aggrandizement, in their own sense of differentness, in their own logistics and bureaucracy and politics. Ultimately, the theology of the church as well as the theology of the individual can become compromised, leading to a loss of integrity. In Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology, Daniel L. Migliore stresses that the church is not charged with promoting its own survival or expanding, but with representing the highest values of Christianity.[3] I contend the exact same can be said of an individual Christian. Just as Liberation Theology calls on the church to take action in the world with an eye toward justice, so too are individual humans called upon to take action in the world with an eye toward compassion. Although usually applied to the church, I believe the term “ecclesiology” also can be applied to the individual. In both cases, healing is facilitated when theological integrity – that is, adherence to the highest principles of Christianity, particularly sharing in God’s communion – are maintained.

As a human institution striving to align with God’s will, the church must admit its shortcomings if it is to give full voice to the mystery of God’s divine actions in the world. Likewise, the individual Christian is invited to abandon the trappings of ego and embrace humility as a doorway to salvation. While this guidance should apply to everyone, I see it as particularly true of pastoral counselors and other caregivers. “When we honestly admit the problems of the church – which have their roots in our forgetfulness of the profoundly social meanings of all the articles of the faith as well as in our failure to hold together faith and practice – we may begin to catch sight of the mystery of the church, which is to bear witness to the Trinitarian love of God,” Migliore said. Sometimes pain and suffering creates that doorway to mystery. It is when we embrace suffering as an opportunity to find spiritual meaning that we begin to heal, and as we heal we more fully engage the God’s mystery.

The Bible uses a wide variety of terms and expressions to describe God, just as it does to describe the church and the people of Earth. The fact no one term completely encapsulates God, the church or a human speaks volumes to the inherent enigma of each entity and advances the argument they all act in parallel as different expressions of the same thing. Most branches of Christianity embrace the Trinity, or the notion that the Godhead (ousia) finds expression as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Is it too bold to find affinity for a different type of Trinity, one that finds expression as God, human and church?

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[1] Norberg, Tilda (2007). Stretch Out Your Hand: Exploring Healing Prayer. Cleveland: Pilgrim Press. Norberg is a United Methodist minister and founder of Gestalt Pastoral Care.

[2] Koenig, John (1997). Healing. Dorothy C. Bass (ed.), Practicing Our Faith. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

[3] Migliore, Daniel L. (2004). Faith Seeking Understanding: An Introduction to Christian Theology 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans).

Pastoral Counseling and the Old Testament

[The following was written as an extra-curricular exercise for my class on Theology and Pastoral Counseling. It regards a case study we are reading. A section relevant to the Hebrew Bible falls near the end. This is a thought exercise and not an assignment of any kind. No replies are expected although all respectful criticism is welcome.]

Gary is gay. I admit to bringing to my analysis hypersensitivity around this subject but all the indicators are there.

Red flags went up when I first started reading he Gary case study in Chapter 5 of Shared Wisdom by Cooper-White. The first profile items to leap at me included: lives with cats, drinks white wine, and eats quiche; drives a spiffy car; and is a fastidious, judgmental, and narcissistic perfectionist.

Gary’s effete characteristics play into stereotypes of gay men but are not without precedent. Some of these characteristics are compensation strategies designed to demonstrate uniqueness and worthiness to a world that often perceives gay men as less than full citizens. The case study attempts to explain Gary’s behavior as an attempt to over-compensate for his family’s socio-economic status but ignores the possibility that it is driven by a sense of “otherness” and inferiority borne from his sexual orientation.

Gary is 40-something and single. “His perfectionist habits have spoiled two serious relationships, and his perfectionism has further inhibited him from forming close relationships or romantic ties, because no one is ever quite perfect enough to suit him,” we read. In common parlance it is normal to omit gender-specific pronouns when referring to same-sex relationships as a way of disguising the truth, e.g., “My ‘partner’ and I went to the theatre.”

Gary is an alcoholic – perhaps not a “problem drinker” but an alcoholic. Routine alcohol consumption is used throughout the gay community to suppress feelings of inferiority while lowering inhibitions against same-sex encounters.

Gary, not his father, has an overly intimate relationship with the maternal figures in his life. He was his mother’s emotional and spiritual partner, and projects his mother expectations onto his female supervisor.

Gary would have been the third child born to his mother but ended up as a sensitive only child. The incidence of homosexuality increase with the number of children a woman carries.

Gary's uncle Bob is gay and in a long-term relationship with Steve. The genetic influences behind homosexuality are well established. In examining the genogram, this case study overlooks the gay uncle.

Gary only has hostile relationships with the heterosexual men in his life – his father, his mother’s boyfriend, and his client’s husband. The case study attributes his hostility straight men to a disdain for alcoholism, irresponsibility and absenteeism. This attitude toward also can be explained as a response to internalized homophobia.

Importantly, Gary identifies with the Ingemar in the movie My Life as a Dog. In this film, the protagonist is banished to a land of “eccentric villagers,” not unlike the eccentric people in Greenwich Village or the Castro. As with any gay man sent away from home, Ingemar is thrust into a position of isolation and responsibility, and feels disconnected. Eventually, however, he finds in "intimate friend" his own age. This film parallels Gary’s story, minus the happy ending.

When studying the Hebrew Bible, some scholars employ midrashim, which is a way of understanding incomplete or contradictory passages by creating “what if” scenarios, among other methods. It is not at all difficult to imagine Gary is gay and no evidence is presented to the contrary.

Unless presented with evidence to the contrary, we tend to imagine everyone is like us. For many Americans, that may mean assuming Gary is a heterosexual Caucasian Anglo-Saxon Protestant. As pointed out in Chapter 4 regarding the case study of Yvonne, we see those types of assumptions can be misleading. The fact Yvonne and her counselor are African American plays an important role in understanding their motivations.

In the entirety of Shared Wisdom, “sexual orientation” is only mentioned three times, and each in a list of other classifications, e.g., race, gender, religion, etc. On two of the three occasions the words “sexual orientation” appear in editor’s brackets ([xxx]) as if to say, “Don’t bother to read this.”

Cooper-White found time to discuss quantum physics and the theory of relativity in a book on pastoral care and counseling but didn’t find time to discuss same-sex attraction and the social and religious complications it creates. I believe Cooper-White, in compiling the composite character Gary, consciously or subconsciously omitted Gary’s sexual orientation. My fear is that she did so to smooth the reading experience for an audience hostile to the age-old reality of homosexuality.

To bring a theological edge back to the conversation, I would like to examine the etymology of the word "eunuch." Although interpretations differ, one version holds that the word "eunuch" is derived from the Greek words eune (bed) and ekhein (to keep), hence "bed keeper," and only by extension does it mean a literally or figuratively castrated male. They are men who could not have children and were not attracted to women, and therefore safe to have as titular heads of house. Far from being disdained, eunuchs were placed in positions of authority as chamberlains, officers and officials.

In discussing marriage, no less a source than Jesus Christ said in Matthew 19.12:

For there are eunuchs who have been so from birth, and there are eunuchs who have been made eunuchs by others, and there are eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the sake of the kingdom of heaven. Let anyone accept this who can.

We understand this passage to include gay men, castrated men, and celibate priests.

In Isaiah 56:3-5 we read:

Do not let the foreigner joined to the LORD say,
 “The LORD will surely separate me from his people”;

and do not let the eunuch say,
 “I am just a dry tree.”
For thus says the LORD:

To the eunuchs who keep my sabbaths,
 who choose the things that please me
 and hold fast my covenant,
I will give, in my house and within my walls,
 a monument and a name

 better than sons and daughters;
I will give them an everlasting name
 that shall not be cut off.

It would be a huge mistake for a counselor to ignore their own sexual orientation as part of the countertransference self-evaluation. Were I to counsel Gary, I might bring these passages to his attention (and join him in laughing away the double entendre behind “shall not be cut off.”)

Summary of Preface and Introduction to "The Search for Meaning" by Dennis Ford

Summary of Preface and Introduction to
The Search for Meaning: A Short History
by Dennis Ford
(University of California Press, 2008. ISBN 0520257936, 9780520257931)

PREFACE

Biography

Dr. Dennis Ford, author of The Search for Meaning: A Short History, earned his Ph.D. through Syracuse University after graduating from Macalester College and the Iliff School of Theology. He studied with religious studies scholar Huston Cummings Smith, author of the popular book The World’s Religions (1990), and psychologist James Hillman, credited with pioneering Archetypal Psychology.[1]

Definition

In the preface to Meaning, Ford argues it is human nature to ask the question “Why?” Although child-like in its simplicity, the question “Why?” generates profound ramifications, especially when applied to finding Meaning. He takes care to note the difference between asking “Why?” as in, “Why am I alive?” as opposed to “How,” as in, “How should I live my life.” Motivation – the answer to the question of “Why?” – is crucial to the value of our actions, he says.[2]

Meaning is the answer to the question of “why.” When we understand the meaning behind something, we understand why it is or why we do it. In some sense, “meaning” is similar to the word “purpose.” Why do we raise children? To perpetuate the race. Meaning is found in the fulfillment of that purpose.

Audience

Ford says Meaning is targeted at both academics and individual searchers alike. The search for Meaning, or the answer to the great “Why” of our lives, entails subjectivity. Because the search is inherently subjective, Ford believes his book can address both individual searchers and so-called “objective” academics.[3]

Nettles

The search for meaning is riddled with hazards, many of which are as mundane as what others think of us when we ask such questions as, “What is the meaning of life?” Although the search for Meaning is common to the human condition, our friends often will look upon us with derision should we announce our search in public, Ford says. By asking the question we appear to be rejecting all the lessons about Meaning that church and family taught us as children. By asking we imply we operate without any purpose and are therefore on the edge of suicide. Those who admit to seeking Meaning in life can be considered haughty and grandiose.

Many consider the question of Meaning unanswerable and therefore a waste of time to pursue, Ford says. Considering the enigma Meaning presents, many live lives of quiet denial, Ford observes.

Assumptions

Ford’s introduction to the subject of Meaning rests on two assumptions: modern culture, including such ancient wisdom resources as the church, no longer provides adequate answers; and, life without Meaning is “unacceptable.”

In summarizing the need to explore Meaning, Ford says, “Without an answer to the why questions we may continue to exist, but we will fail to thrive.”

INTRODUCTION

Crisis

Ford uses Leo Tolstoy’s mid-life crisis as a template for exploring how simply asking the question “Why?” represents a step back from mundanity. Despite being fat and happy, Tolstoy dared to ask. “Those who seek the truth deserve the penalty of finding it,” Tolstoy quipped.

Having opened Pandora’s Box, Tolstoy realized he could not return to the innocence of “intoxication.” The fact he asked the question at a high point in his life, unchallenged by such burdens as poverty or ill health, demonstrates the inquiry is innate to the human condition, Ford argues.

Tolstoy’s first revelation was that the symbols and rituals of church and culture protect us from the Truth, which is that life is Meaningless. This was an unacceptable reality for Tolstoy, who came to believe there must be a Truth behind the truth of meaninglessness, Ford says.

Instinct

Pointing to his cat, Gypsy, Ford notes that operating on a purely instinctual level does not beg the question of Meaning. But, humans are part animal and part symbol, Ford contends.

For humans, the “surreality of culture” assumes the role of instincts in matters beyond animal nature, Ford says. This can be seen in both “primitive” and “advanced” cultures where symbols and rituals protect us from having to ask the question of “Why?” When these systems fail to supply unambiguous answers as to what to believe and what to do, as may be the case with death, birth or the Holocaust, no action or belief seems justifiable,” Ford says. Without answers to the question of “Why?” the landscape becomes flat, with no high or low points. “Choices are instrumental acts to achieve meaningful ends, but when those ends lack justification, choice is arbitrary and meaningless,” Ford says. “In a world without meaning, choice is a futile gesture.”

Ford points to Michael Novak as observing that the experience of “nothingness” is not neutral. Rather, it drives us to insanity.

Our inability to find concrete answers to the question of Meaning creates angst, or as Paul Tillich calls it, “ontological anxiety.” Ford poses a chicken-and-egg conundrum: Does angst cause depression or vise versa?

The following statement by Richard Tarnas, a cultural historian and professor of philosophy and psychology at the California Institute of Integral Studies, as quoted by Ford, is both relevant and hilarious:

Our psychological and spiritual predispositions are absurdly at variance with the world revealed by our scientific method. We seem to receive two messages from our existential situation: on the one hand, strive, give oneself to the quest for meaning and spiritual fulfillment; but, on the other hand, know that the universe, of whose substance we are derived, is entirely indifferent to that quest, soulless in character, and nullifying in its effects. We are at once aroused and crushed. For inexplicably, absurdly, the cosmos is inhuman, yet we are not. The situation is profoundly unintelligible.

Solutions

If answers to the question of Meaning does not have answers in either our biological instincts or the secondary instincts of our postmodern culture, Ford asks, “What to do?”

One “ultimately futile” answer is to return to our primary instincts, because if meaninglessness is not the problem, perhaps self-consciousness is. I find the following statement by Ford to be particularly salient to my life:[4]

Alcoholism, drug addiction, sexual obsessions, and adventurousness – in which meaning remains, but only while engaged in extreme and risky activities, including violence – have all been attributed to misguided and finally self-destructive attempts to suppress the question of meaning by drowning in instinctual behavior.

Another untenable solution is, having struggled to find freedom from tyranny only to discover there are no choices worth making, we may revert to the authority of others, including spiritual gurus, celebrities or political leaders.

The Moment

Having presented the reader with a series of bewildering observations regarding how to find Meaning in life, Ford quotes Lionel Trilling:

If we are in a balloon over an abyss, let us at least value the balloon. If night is all around, then what light we have is precious. If there is no life to be seen in the great emptiness, our companions are to be cherished; so are we ourselves.

Conclusion

This book, in only its first few pages, rocked my world. In my statement of purpose for admission to IPS’s Pastoral Counseling Program I wrote:

Humans naturally are driven to understand and explain the world around them. When phenomena is inexplicable, as in why a person would act against their own best interests, humans gravitate toward metaphysical answers. The psychological genesis of spiritual pursuits may be explained at least in part by this theory.

This book is written for searchers, or those wishing to study, Meaning. It appears to not include those who already have established views on Meaning and/or are not willing to examine the many idiosyncrasies behind the subject. In this sense, left out of the conversation are those who defend cultural symbols and rituals, including those of organized religion, believing they provide timeless and unalterable answers.[5]

Meaning is particularly valuable because it challenges us to re-evaluate our own answers, or lack there of, to questions around Meaning.[6] As Pastoral Counselors it is valuable as a resource for understanding the importance of each client’s search for Meaning and for appreciating the great breadth of possibilities behind the question.[7]

The following is a summary of the book from its publishers:

In The Search for Meaning: A Short History, Dennis Ford explores eight approaches human beings have pursued over time to invest life with meaning and to infuse order into a seemingly chaotic universe. These include myth, philosophy, science, postmodernism, pragmatism, archetypal psychology, metaphysics, and naturalism. In engaging, companionable prose, Ford boils down these systems to their bare essentials, showing the difference between viewing the world from a religious point of view and that of a naturalist, and comparing a scientific worldview to a philosophical one. Ford investigates the contributions of the Greeks, Kant, and William James, and brings the discussion up to date with contemporary thinkers. He proffers the refreshing idea that in today's world, the answers provided by traditional religions to increasingly difficult questions have lost their currency for many and that the reductive or rationalist answers provided by science and postmodernism are themselves rife with unexamined assumptions.

The following are some quotes regarding the book:

“Touching on a wide range of philosophical, religious, and scientific approaches to the search for meaning throughout history, Ford sheds light on our relationship to these questions today, illuminating many of our most unconscious beliefs and unexamined assumptions in the process.”—What Is Enlightenment

“The Search for Meaning reads like an adventure novel of the mind. Supremely researched and also deeply personal, Dennis Ford has succeeded in rescuing experience from meaninglessness. The book's range is unusually wide, from the classical Greeks through Kierkegaard to contemporary thinkers like Huston Smith, James Hillman, and Joseph Campbell, combining a tough yet often impassioned look at the quest for greater truth. The reader will welcome this approach, realizing that there are far more strategies 'under the sun,' than classical philosophy in the perennial search for meaning in one's life.”—Phil Cousineau, author of The Art of Pilgrimage and Once and Future Myths

“Around its centerpiece—meaning—this book weaves a tapestry so encompassing, so intriguingly beautiful, I am stunned by its accomplishment. Ford approaches this centerpiece from many angles, touching on a broad range of historical, spiritual and philosophical themes. Written in a manner that is both passionate and accessible, his book shows how people throughout history have struggled with life's greatest question: Why are we here? Although the eight paths explored in this book are quite different in their assumptions and conclusions, each offers the possibility of achieving what we all desire most—a sense of meaning in our lives. The author compares and reflects on the similarities and differences between the paths, masterfully reflecting on what each school of thought can offer us today.”—Huston Smith, author of The World's Religions

“Ford deserves to be congratulated for addressing a terribly important message so eloquently. I found myself coming back to the book in order to revisit its honesty and questions.”—Jeffrey J. Kripal, author of Esalen: America and the Religion of No Religion

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[1] Q: What is the author’s professional background and social context? (‘Google’ your author and see what you can find: profession, geographic location)

[2] Q: What is the central topic of conversation in this text?

[3] Q: To what audience is the text addressed?

[4] Q: What ideas do you find most personal connection with? Why?

[5] Q: Who might be missing from this conversation?

[6] Q: How might classmates find this text valuable?

[7] Q: What might this conversation have to say to us as pastoral counselors?