What's Your Accent?

I posted this on a discussion forum recently, thought I might broaden the audience....

Years ago, when I first started in seminary, I remember talking to a classmate. She had gone to University as a mature student and so was older than most of her class mates. In one class the instructor asked if anyone had an accent. She put her hand up. The rest of the class was confused because she spoke like any Prairie Canadian, so she obviously did not speak with an accent. But her point was that we ALL speak with an accent.

I propose that we not only all speak with an accent. We also think and write with an accent. We are all a product of a culture (in some cases we are the product of a fusing of 2 or more cultures). That shapes how we think, how we understand the world, what we expect from the world, how we respond to the world. This accent is the result of many factors. Some would include geography, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status/class, age/era in which we grew up, level of education of both ourselves and the key people in our lives, our religious background.

So what is your accent? What formed it? How does your accent determine how you interact in the world? How do you (or can you) translate/restate/revisualize things from your accent to make it more understandable to someone with another accent? How willing are you to understand one who has a different accent?

It is important to ask these questions. Because otherwise we forget that we have an accent, and then it is easier to complain about other people's accents. And then communication becomes just that much more difficult.

Does God Change?

It is a vexing question over the ages.  Does God change with time or is God eternally immutable?

For some people the idea that God might change weakens God.  For some it raises questions about how we know what truth is, if the basis of truth can change.  For others it is not a big issue at all.  I count myself in camp #3.

This week I have been working with the story of Noah.  And this is one of the stories where God appears to change.  Or at least that has been a line of discussion in a FB group this week.

SO does God change?  Not just in the Noah story but in the scope of Scripture as a whole.  Taken from a literary-criticism approach God as a character in the story certainly changes.  Or at least wears a variety of masks.  God is Creator but also Destroyer.  God is Advocate and Judge.  God is a Tribal God, fighting on behalf of God's People or God is the One God, Universal.  God the character is different, plays different roles, has different priorities in different parts of the story.

But is that change?  Is that change to the essence or change in view?  Is it God changing or the developing understanding people have of God?

Then there are times God changes God's mind.  The Noah story would seem to fit in here.  In fact God seems to change God's mind twice in that story--first God regrets creating humanity then God regrets the flood.  Other examples would be God and Abraham bargaining over the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah or Moses convincing God not to destroy the people of Israel in the desert.

Are these just changes of mind or are they deeper changes of self-understanding?  I would argue that especially the Moses instance is a change of self-understanding, particularly since that is pretty much the line Moses uses to convince God.

And certainly we see change in Jesus.  Most notably when he is challenged by the Samaritan woman about the children's food going to the dogs.   And if in Jesus we see God most clearly and Jesus changes/grows in understanding what does that say about God?

But in the end, for me, God has to change.  Scripture is clear that God is God in relationship with Creation.  Real relationship means growth and challenge and change.  Certainly the Scripture witness is clear that most of the change and growth happens on the Creat-ed side rather than on the Creat-or side.  And it will always be impossible to know how much of the change we see in God is in fact God changing or the result of a new understanding of God growing in the witnesses and storytellers.  But if God is truly in relationship with us, if that relationship is actually based in mutuality, then yes God is changed by the relationship.

And that need not be a bad or a scary thing.  It will however be difficult to sort out at times...

Book 13 of 2014 -- Peter Pan

During the summer the oldest girls and I have established a pattern.  Each night before bed I read them a chapter of a book.  This summer we started with The Hobbit which conveniently we finished just before going away on holidays (and the girls enjoyed it far more than they thought they would).  At that point they started asking what I would read when we got home.

I knew it needed to be something I could get finished by the end of August because we have learned that once school starts there is too much happening to have these reading sessions.  So I started checking what I had available.  As it happens I had picked up a free e-book copy of Peter Pan a couple of years ago to have something the girls could read on the Kobo should they want to.  I counted chapters and days and realized this would fit into the available time.  Accordingly in the middle of August we began to read it and finished it on Sunday night.

Strange as it may seem I had never read the full book of Peter Pan before.  I had seen the Disney movie of course.  I had listened to a record telling of the story based on the Disney movie (complete with songs of course) when I was young.  I had read an abridged version for early readers.  And I have seen 2 different stage versions.  But I had never read the full novel.  Until last month.

The story of course is known.  The story is pretty much the same in all versions.  Even Disney stayed pretty close to this one.

But I was not ready for the implicit violence and the acceptance of same than Barrie includes in his text.  Bloodletting happens with little or no concern or anguish.

Nor was I ready for the explicit racial stereotyping.  Maybe that is a sign of how long it has been since I read/watched the story (because now that I think of it the Disney movie included some pretty racist stereotypes in it too -- like the song "What Makes the Red Man Red") but the treatment of the "redskins" in the novel is terrible.  I know it is a product of an era that is long past but still it did come to the point where I had to talk about stereotypes to the girls as we were reading.

Peter Pan is an interesting story.  Pure escapism on the surface.  And yet I wonder if there is something more there that could be explored.  What does it mean to grow up?  What does it meant to live in "Neverland"?   ANd why do we forget?

Old Friends

I went to a funeral today.  For a person I have known for 42 years today (well not to the date but our families met each other on Labour Day Monday 1972). Our families are so close that we have long referred to each other as family.  And so Ron was Dad #2.  I know that family better than I know some of my own cousins.

As I sat in the back of the church this afternoon and watched people I was struck by the nature of Old Friends.  There were people there I haven't seen in decades.  And yet, given time I suspect we could start playing catch-up.

In our case the connection point was the church.  For many of us it was the Senior Choir where our parents sang.  In that crowd today were some of my former babysitters and Sunday School teachers (as they made sure to tell my girls).  Or there was my former Junior Choir leader.  Old friends, old connections, deep meaning.  Lots of remembered stories.

Sadly, because I did not feel I could lose another day of my week and the funeral was a 5 hour drive away, I did not have/take the time to truly reconnect.  Some other day perhaps.

But it also reminded me of the importance.  I have gone through much of life without making strong connections.  I have no friends from my undergraduate days.  I have limited contact (only through FB) with high school classmates, before that I had pretty much none.

And yet I think we need old friends.  We need those people with whom we share stories--even if part of us fears those stories being told. 

Old friends.  A great gift.

Rest in peace Ron.