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Chaos signifies an infinitepotentiality which may become goodor evil in its actualizations, but is the

stuff from which all things come.

A Publication of Process & Faith, based on a Relational Vision of Reality

Volume 12 Number 1 ISSN 1062-4708 WINTER 2003

exploring the growingedge of religious lifeTransformation

Creative

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Process & Faith News

Making a Difference

New columnP&F is pleased to announce anew column on social justice,written by Douglas Sturm. Dougis Professor Emeritus of Religionand Political Science, BucknellUniversity. He is a frequentcontributor to this journal and theauthor of several books, includingSolidarity and Suffering (SUNY

Press, available from P&F for$21.95/members $17.56).

Whitehead Film Festival

Starts January 29, not January 30,

as previous reported. See page 25for more information.

New membership

categoriesP&F has changed from a slidingscale to a basic membership rateof $35/year ($20 student/senior)with, of course, opportunities tocontribute more! Let us know if

you want brochures for yourinformation racks.

Beardslee Consultation

The 2003 consultation will takeplace May 5, 2003, at Temple

Beth Tikva in Fullerton, CA, with

the evening discussion open to

the public. This years theme is

ecology, and participants will

once again come from the Jewish,

Christian, and Muslim traditions.

New seminarsBy the time you receive this, thefirst Creatively Transforming theChurch seminar will have beenheld. These new seminars, facili-tated by Rick Marshall and PaulLance, P&F Council members,are still in the pilot stage. Thefirst one, focusing on youthministry, was held January 11 at

Seaside Community Church UCC,in Torrance, and the next one,focusing on worship, will takeplace March 15 at Brea Congrega-tional UCC.

If you would like to attend theMarch 15 seminar, contact theP&F office: 909.447.2559 oremail: faith@ctr4process.org

Summer courseJohn Cobb and Marjorie Suchockiwill team-teach the Theology ofBelonging course June 23-27 2003.The format will be as follows:

Morning class, 9-12Picnic break, 12-2Feature film, 2-4Animated discussion of relationbetween film and class topics, 4-5

Vespers, 5-5:20

Look for more details in thespring issue, or consult thewebsite!

CPS seminars

Many good ones coming up. See thecomplete list at www.ctr4process.org

P&F DatebookFeb. 2-4, 2003;John Cobb andClark Pinnockwill speak and

respond to each other at theUniversity of Calgary. Theme: TheTheology of Gods Openness.Contact: dshantz@ucalgary.ca

February 24-25, 2003; MarjorieSuchocki: United Theological

Seminary of the Twin Cities,Minneapolis. For more informa-tion, call 651.633.4311.

March 14, 2003; David Griffin:Whitehead as a Basis for Spiri-tual Psychology, CaliforniaInstitute for Integral Studies;1453 Mission St., San Francisco;at 7 p.m.

April 4, 2003; Marjorie Suchocki

will give the Lowell Lecture atBoston University School ofTheology, and also lecture April 2at Trinity Church, Boston.

April 11-12, 2003;John Cobb:Lectures at Green Lake Church,Seattle, WA.

Conferences

Two Whitehead conferences arescheduled for March 2003 atClaremont School of Theology.

Schleiermacher and Whitehead:System and LifeMarch 6-8, 2003

Whiteheadian Philosophy andGenuine Religious PluralismMarch 27-31, 2003

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Making a Difference

The Lost Chaos of Creation

Catherine Keller

This verse cries out, interpret me!

Rashi, Genesis

According to the mathematicaltheory of chaos, minute changes

can have immense effects.Scientists formulate this principleof complex dynamical systems(such as weather) as: extremesensitivity to initial conditions.Popularized as the butterfly

effect, extreme sensitivitymeans that through the inter-connections of wind currents andresulting amplifications, the flapof a butterflys wing in your town

can cause an avalanche in theHimalayas. For me this is a secretlesson in hermeneutics. If we reada numbingly familiar text (like the

opening of Genesis) just a bitdifferently, the entire system canshift. And because the secondverse of the Bible is all about acomplex chaotic systemand theearth was tohuvabohuand darkness

was on the face oftehomand ruachelohimwas vibrating over the face

of the watersmight this theoryof initial conditions not havesomething to tell us abouttheological content as well?Translate tohuvabohu withoutform and wild. Tehommeansdeep, ocean and chaos.And it was Gunkel who first

translated the oscillating motionof Spirit with the verb vibrate.Even these translational minutiaemight touch our sensitivities!

Careful thoughscience cannotdictate terms to faith. ButChristianity has always borrowedcurrent cosmologies (such asAquinas took from Aristotle,

while Schleiermacher, Barth andBultmann presupposed modernNewtonian mechanism). We justdont want to get stuck inmodern assumptions about theuniverse that are passe andpredictable, reducing the

universe to something outside ofus and outside of God, and

reinforcing deadheadedpolarizations like evolution vs.creation. I dont even want usto absorb a cosmology: just ametaphoric clue from theavowedly non-reductionist,postmodern science of complexity.

But what use is a clue without a

mystery? Let me suggest thatGen. 1:2 poses not only a

mystery, but a murder and motive.Let us call the mystery: the case ofthe missing chaos. Historically, thisverse virtually disappeared fromtheology by the fourth century.When it begins to reappear abouta hundred years ago, it does so instrangely hostile, nonbiblical

Catherine Keller is professor of

constructive theology at DrewUniversity, The Theological School.Her newest book isFace of the

Deep: A Theology of Becoming(London and New York: Routledge,2003). She is also the author ofFrom a Broken Web andApocalypse Now and Then.

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ways. Why? And why does itmatter? Because beginningsmatter: and Genesis continues tomaterialize disproportionateeffects. Not because it gives a

pseudoscientific account of theorigin of things, but becausewith an intuition only nowachieved by scienceit poeticallychannels that extreme sensitivityto initial conditions. But I meetmore pastors who get therelevance of this new sciencethan theologians.

How did the chaos get lost? In a

nutshell: it got swept under thecarpet of the doctrine of creatio ex

nihilo. Theologians keep declaringthat this creation by the Wordfrom absolute nothing is theevident meaning of the Bible. Yetthere is no such biblical teaching: notin Genesis, not elsewhere. Atmost God calls into being thethings that are not [Rom. 4:17]

which posits a strong sense ofGod as creator of newness [cf.Heb. 11:3; 2 Mac. 7:28; John 1:1for the other quotations used toback up the ex nihilo]. Biblicaltexts may ignore or dread thechaos, but they never contradictthe chaotic initial conditionsobtaining when God created.

Of course ex nihilo solved ahermeneutical problem: if there is

something already when Godcreates, does this not constraindivine omnipotence? Or posit adualistic or di-theistic system?Ironically, it was the ChristianGnostic Basilides who inventedthe doctrine of creation fromabsolutely nothing. Irenaeus then

made it a touchstone oforthodox

Christianity. While most wouldskip over the verse, Augustinecreatively struggles with it, evenarguing for multiple trueinterpretations. Yet his solution,

that the chaos is the first stage ofcreation, seemed just asproblematic. Barth called theverse a veritable crux

interpretumfor how can Godcreate chaos, if creating isordering? And why creation of

heaven and earth land in the firstverse, when they occur only on

the secondand thirdday,respectively? No wonder theologyput the lid on its tehom!

It got out again: just in time forthe twentieth century, with itsdevastating mix of creative anddestructive chaos. Gunkel

absorbed for Old Testamentstudies the shock of newdiscoveries of mythologicalantecedents for creation fromprimal waters. The Babylonian

Enuma Elishpresented eerieparallels of structurethesequence is too close forcoincidence. And then thereemerged the etymological link oftehomto Tiamat, the Sumerian-semitic term for the watery chaos.No wonder the feminine tehomisused without an article, like aproper name. It alludes to Tiamat

who before anything wasnamed mingled her waters withher mate Apsu. From them thegods precipitate. But Apsu wantsto kill the noisy grandchildren (Iwant to sleep!) he protests inagony; the grandchildren kill himfirst. Immersed in the mythic

version of clinical depression,Tiamat then gets in touch withher anger. Breeding monsters, she

morphs into the image of evil.The great warrior Marduk, chiefgod of Babylon, becomes Lordthrough his gory slaughter ofGrand Mother. From her carcasshe constructs the universe, in the

sequence that Genesis echoes.

Is tehoma priestly allusion to

Tiamat, and Marduk to Yahweh?Appalled, Barth himself decided

that the second verse does notrefer to Gods Spirit at all, butthat this impotent bird flutter-ing over sterile waters is aparody of mythology, of themonstrous world of chaos to

which God said No from thebeginning. But others took theunveiled mythic chaos more

This would bebad news for

women. Theprimal femininewaters reflect thesalt waters of the

womb; the

warrior-ethos isbased on a cosmicmatricide.

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Creation Stories

seriously. They draw on divinewarrior motifs (especially in Isaiahand Psalms) to make a strong casethat (a) God is a divine warrior(b) the chaos is evil itself and (c)

God creates and redeems notfrom nothing but from thestruggle with the chaos [Cross,Batto, Levenson]. In other wordsthey discover in Gen. 1:2 a quietreplay of creation by murder. Isthisthe mystery of the lost chaos?Is it hidden because it echoes thisbloody warrior myth?

This would be bad news for

women. The primal femininewaters reflect the salt waters of

the womb; the warrior-ethos isbased on a cosmic matricide. Weacknowledge that the Hebrewsabsorbed the patriarchy of theenvironment; that its monotheism

therefore inevitably made Godmale; that the divine warrior doesrecur in the Bible, indeed preemi-nently in the Apocalypse. ThereTiamat the horror of Babylon is

represented by the Whore ofBabylon; and salvation means nomore sea. Is a kind of sexisttehomophobia what an honestexegesis reveals?

A third way exists. Rashi, theeleventh century Jewishinterpreter, insisted that Gen. 1 isnot a sentence, but a dependentclause: (1)Asin the beginning

God was creating the heaven andthe earth (2)thenthe earth was

tohuvabohuand the darkness uponthe face of the deep and the spiritof God was moving on thewaters (3) then God said, letthere be light. Rashis inference?

The the text does not intend to pointout the order of the acts ofCreationto state that these(heaven and earth) were createdfirst.[Pentateuch with . . . Rashis

Commentary, Heb Pub Co NY, 2f].So the translation itself breaks upthe idea of a linear sequence.Already a bit of syntacticalturbulence disturbs whatWestermann had lauded as theeffective monotone of theaccount. Several recenttranslations follow Rashi [NRSV;

New Jewish]. But interpretersalso note that once the linearorder is broken up, the entireprocess of creation reads as co-creationGod has the waters andthe earth after all do their ownproducing [v. 20,24]; and calls thegreat sea monstersJobs

Making a Difference

From ChinaIn the beginning there was chaos. Out of it came

pure light and built the sky. The heavy dimness,however, moved and formed the earth from itself.Sky and earth brought forth the ten thousandcreations . . . and all of them take the sky and earthas their mode. The roots of Yang and Yinthemale and female principlealso began in the skyand earth.

(The Yellow Emperor)

From GreeceBefore the ocean was, or earth, or heaven,Nature was all alike, a shapelessness,Chaos, so-called, all ruse and lumpy matter,

Nothing but bulk, inert, in whose confusionDiscordant atoms warred: there was no sunTo light the universe; there was no moon . . .

Whatever god it was, who out of chaosBrought order to the universe, and gave it

Division, subdivision, he molded earth,In the beginning, into a great globe . . .(Ovid, Metamor phosis)

From IndiaWhen neither Being nor Not-being wasNor atmosphere, nor firmament, nor what is beyond.

What did it encompass? Where? In whose protection?What was water, the deep, unfathomable?Neither death nor immortality was there then,No sign of night or day.That One breathed, windless, by its own energy;Nought else existed then.

In the beginning was darkness swathed in darkness;All this was but unmanifested water . . .(Rig-Veda X)

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Leviathan good! Might wesense here the survival of atehomophilic tradition?

Then feel again the intimate

vibration of God the Spirit uponthe face of the deep: no polytheis-

tic regression, but a repudiation of

the warrior-model and its oppres-

sive Order. Does tehomsignify an

unrealized depth of reality, an

infinite potentialitywhich may

become good or evil in its actual-

izations, but is the stuff from

which all things come? But then

how does complex order arise

from such chaos? Some chaostheorists refer to the irony of

turbulence: Chaoswhich is not

disorderbut a complex pattern of

turbulent fragmentationseems to

arise from the systems infinitely

deep interconnectedness[Briggs &

Peat, Turbulent Mirror, 52].

Might we imagine tehomas the

very depth of God? Not identicalwith Godwho as the trinity

Once the linearorder is brokenup, the entire

process of creationreads as

co-creation.

teaches is internally complex,

precisely as interconnectedbutas the Other in Gods self, likethe Godhead of the mystics?

Over our heads but not out ofour depths? Can such a theologyof complexity outgrow the violentcertainties and exclusions ofmuch simple faith? Might we

live more creatively with the innerand outer chaosthe uncertainty,unpredictability, turbulence andcomplexityof our own lives?Our souls, our sexualities? Ourcommunities? Our cultures?Created in the image of Godcan our spirits learn again tovibrate with wisdom on the

waters? Perhaps after all this isnot a mystery to solve but to livewith. Perhaps we may participatein the mysterynot of a creatio exnihilo but of a creatio ex profundis.

Some foolish men declare that Creator made the world.

The doctrine that the world was created is ill-ad-vised, and should be rejected. If God created theworld, where was he before creation? If you say hewas transcendent then, and needed no support,

where is he now? . . .

Know that the world is uncreated, as time itself is,without beginning and end, and is based on theprinciples, life and the rest. Uncreated and indestruc-

tible, it endures under the compulsion of its ownnature, divided into three sectionshell, earth, and

heaven.(Mahapurana)

From North AmericaIn the beginning nothing was here where the worldnow stands; there was no ground, no earthnothingbut Darkness, Water, and Cyclone. There were nopeople living . . . It was a lonely place.(Apache)

From Central America

This is the account of how all was in suspense, allcalm, in silence; all motionless, still, and the expanseof the sky was empty. This is the first narrative . . .(Maya, Popul Vuh)

From AustraliaIn the very beginning everything was resting in per-petual darkness: night oppressed all the earth like an

impenetrable thicket. The gurra ancesterhis namewas Karorawas lying asleep in everlasting night . . .(Aranda)

From the Pacific IslandsIo dwelt within breathing-speace of immensity.The Universe was in darkness, with water everywhereThere was no glimmer of dawn, no clearness, no lightAnd he began by saying these words,That he might cease remaining inactive:Darkness, become a light-possessing darkness.And at once light appeared . . .(Maori, The Myth of Io)

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Excerpt fromFace of the Deep: Tehomic homily: waves

Why are you so cowardly? You still dont trust, do

you? (Mark 4:35ff.). So grumbled the one awakened

from his nap on a cushion in the stern. The wind is

howling, the boat was already filling. He is not an-

noyed with the sea or the storm, however, but with

his tehomophobic friends. Recall that phobia is not

just fear, which warns of a dan-

ger. Phobia signifies the obses-sive reiteration of fear, which

cripples the ability to face the

fear. We glean from Jesus irri-

tation that the opposite of

faith (pis tis, trust) is not

doubt, but cowardice. Faith here

signifies a trust that is kin to

courage. It cannot be identified

with belief, with knowledge,

with any stash of propositions. It does not then ex-

pect God to calm the waters for us. God lets us

do it ourselves. Bearthe fruit, usethe talent, healthe

sick,feedthe hungry, uncoverthe flame, makethe peace.There may be no life-saver there next time. Those

who follow this activtating gospel have been vari-

ously suspected of Judaizing, gnosticism, Arianism,

Pelagianism, atheism, socialism or feminism. Still the

tehomic grace left traces all along:

Dont cry to GodThe spring is in you

Dont block the opening

and it will flow right through.1 (Silesius)

This do-it-yourself message (is it mystical or

activist? can we afford the binary?) has little to do

with the self-sufficiency of a lonely ego. Masterful

self-enclosureas surely as cringing depen-

dencywould block the flow-through. Thus

Marduks ego was produced by the phobia of his

comrades. The resultant systems of injustice,

compounds of control and greed, enact sin

from a tehomic perspective. The original sin

would be first of all a block-

age:a habitual obstruction ofthe originary flow.

Since theologians belongamong the original sinners, Ihave in penance diagnosedthe creatio ex nihilo as thesymptom of a systemicobstruction. At the very siteof its originative nonorigin,the flow of flows, the ocean

of springs, got linguistically frozen. Gods omnipo-tence was accoridngly shored up to replace human

responsibility for the world, while Christian moral-

ity was left to monitor bodily openings and efflu-

via. An orderly fear of God quietly superseded the

dead Jews tehomic courage. (Do theophobia and

tehomophobia then merge?) As for this Jew, the

great de-clogging agent, he was rewritten as the

only-and-for-all of the settled past. Christ was

then deployed to restrict divine incarnation to the

singularitythus blocking out, keeping outside our

finite bodies, the very one to whom we cry?

1. Angelus Silesius, Der Himmel is in dir : Von der Seelenlust

mystischer Froemmigkeit(Zurich: Benziger Verlag, 1986) 55.[Kellers translation.]

Graphic illustration by Graham Annable.

The following is excerpted with permission from Kellersnew book, Face of the Deep (London: Routledge, 2003)

214. It is available from Process & Faith for $25.95/members $20.26.

Making a Difference

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Patricias Ponderings

Patricia Adams Farmer

While the Sun Was Napping

On this November day of my fall

vacation, the sun was napping anddark clouds gathered. But still,there was a goldenness radiatingfrom the center of the city park, aperfect tree standing out amongthe other trees like a candle in thedark. It seemed to be lit fromwithin the center of itself.

It drew me in, away from the neatconcrete pathway, and so I leftthe other walkers on their way to

shops and cafes nearby and treadboldly onto the grass that leddown to the trees, the leaves, andall the fun. Yellow reddish leavesthat looked liked a truckload ofpink lady apples strewn aboutcrunched and crackled under mysensible shoes that I had verysensibly chosen for this afternoon

walk in a new city. My flat, comfypenny loafers, which take me to

work each day and home again,now took me deep into the lushleaves of this alluring tree, untilthey could be seen no more.

I was besotted. All sensibilityvanished with my shoes. I was nolonger on my way to dazzlingwindows full of things to buy, butankle deep in Novembers charm

and especially in the grip of this

particular tree.

Beauty is so distracting at times.

When I arrived at the tree, it wasno less mystifying than it wasfrom afar. Not like some thingsyou know what I meanthings

that look alluring from a distance,but up close they reveal flaws andshabbiness and lead only todisappointment. No, not this tree.The glory of it left me utterly

motionless for a bit. Only my eyesmoved to watch it letting go of itsfullness with such gentleness.

Tiny leaf kites floating throughthe crispy air.

I gathered the most perfect leavesas if picking up shells on theseashore. I handled them as ifthey were made of delicate glassand worth a good hundred dollars

each. Putting them neatly in a flatpocket of my purse, I felt like achild about to press my leaves inbetween waxed paper. And

perhaps I would do that still asmy most precious remembranceof this new place.

The seemingly inner radiance ofthe golden tree on a dreary day

had brought me herenot against

my willbut attuned to mydeepest nature that seeksbeautyeven to distractionanda sense of connection to theuniverse. And once I arrived I waswashed clean in its radiance.

Not far off a little girl with darkhair was being buried in leaves byher big sister and mother, and therewas rolling, crunching, hollering,and laughing. Leaves floating willy

nilly into the apple crisp air teasesone let loose and play!

And it all happened while the sun

was napping.

There is a darkness in the world.

And it is growing. There is no-where to hide, so we may need tospend more time with trees all litup and golden. And people atplay, and a hundred colors at our

feet. We need all this to remind usthat we are not alone in the darkbut are part of something that isbright and beautiful, still.

Part of the earth, part of God.

Part of hope.

The light shines in the darkness, andthe darkness did not overcome it.

John 1:5

Keep your faith in all beautiful things;in the sun when it is hidden,in the Spring when it is gone.

Roy R. Gibson

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Making a Difference

Process from Our PerspectiveSt. Georges Episcopal Church

Paul S. Nancarrow

Process theology makes a differ-ence to St. Georges EpiscopalChurch in three kinds of ways.

The first way is through teaching

opportunities where, as pastor, Ican say explicitly, This is aprocess-theological idea. InAdvent of 2001, for instance, Itaught a class in prayer using

Marjorie Suchockis In GodsPresenceas the principal resource.People in the course were used tothinking of prayer as a way ofgrowing in communion with God;but it was something new to them

to be introduced to the idea thatGod uses our prayers as resources

for good in the world. I sharedwith them the process idea thatGod works with the world as it isto bring the world to what it canbe; and the idea that our prayingadds somethinggoodwill,thanksgiving, agapeic loveto

the world that wasnt therebefore, something in the worldthat God can work with to open

up new possibilities for good.Several people who were in thatclass became very interested inprocess thought, and at theirsuggestion I am now teaching a

whole course in introductoryprocess theology. In other words,for some members of the parish,process theology is becoming a

way of thinking about God thatcan be talked about by name.

A second way process theologymakes a difference is more subtleand far-ranging; that is, I useprocess ideas in preaching orpastoral care or conversation,without explicitly pausing andsaying, You know, this comesfrom process theology or I read

about this in Hartshorne. Forinstance, one of the things thatreally got me hooked on processtheology when I first encounteredit in college was the way itallowed me to think about theChristian doctrine of redemption.

I was struck by Whiteheads linesfrom Process and Realitythat God

uses what in the temporal worldis mere wreckage, and that Godhas a tender care that nothing belost. I understood this to meanthat God can open the way tonew possibilities for good even inthings that seem to all earthly

appearances to be nothing butwreckage and loss, and, inexplicitly Christian terms, I could

then understand the cross andresurrection of Jesus as thearchetypal and definitivetransformation of wreckage intonew life. For me, this was a whole

new way to think of redemption:not just as Gods judicialdismissal of the charges againstus, not just as a cleansing from

stain by means of a bloodsacrifice, but as an actual changein the routes of becoming open tohuman lifemyhuman life, myfriends human livesthrough thecreative, transformative work ofGod. The process idea helped me

to understand redemption asmoving from Why did this badthing have to happen? to Whatnew way toward good will Godopen next? It made the doctrineof redemption a way of focusingnot just on the sin of the past thathas led to wreckage and loss, buton the promise of a future thattakes up that loss and makes it

the beginning of a greater good.This understanding of redemptionhas been a constitutive part of myfaith ever since.

Not long ago a family in ourparish was confronted with thesuicide of a family member. Theirgrief, confusion, anger, and losswere very profound and very

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difficult. I shared with them in

our pastoral conversations, and inthe sermon at the funeral, myunderstanding of redemption, mybelief that in God nothing is lost,

my faithful hope that with Godthere are always new possibilitiesthat take us beyond the wreckagewe see now to a transformation incompassion and love. I didnt use

technical process jargon, ofcourse, and I did not try to taketheir grief away from them toosoon; but whenever I could, Ispoke of turning the questionfrom Why this? to What next?Weeks after the event, one of thefamily members told me how

much that idea of redemption hadmeant to her, how much it hadgiven her a pathway through grief.

There have been many instancesof this sort, where my ownprocess approach to faith andtheology has come through mypreaching and pastoral care, and

as such has been taken up bymembers of the parish and hasmade a difference in their prayer

and understanding. These ideasmay not always be explicitlylabeled as process thought, butthey do form part of ourcongregations shared faith.

A third way that process makes adifference for us at St. Georges is

in our practice and the shape ofour community life together.Process theology emphasizes

Gods lure to us, the aims Godgives to the moments of ourexperience, Gods ongoing call toto grow into new possibilities asthey are given to us from thesuperjective nature of God. This

means that one criterion we canuse for making decisions, plan-ning actions, and conducting ourinstitutional life together, is tolook for the new possibilities

taking shape in our midst and toask how God is calling us torichness of experience and depthof love and creative transforma-tion in those possibilities.

That principle applies to animportant transition our parish isgoing through at this time. For

These ideas may notalways be explicitlylabeled as process

thought, but they doform part of our

congregations sharedfaith.

three or four decades now, St.Georges has had a perception ofitself as a parish composedmostly of young nuclear familieswhose main reason for belongingto the church is that they enjoyeach others social company. Withtime and demographic shifts,however, that self-perception is

no longer very accurate. We arenow some empty-nesters andretirees, and some very active anddedicated younger families, andsome extended, blended, andstepfamilies; and people have avariety of reasons for attending,of which belonging to the same

social circle is only one. Thatdisconnect between our perception

and our actuality can be uncom-fortable, and there are two sorts ofways we could respond to it. Wecould worry about why the churchis changing and try to rebuild the

way things used to be; or we couldacknowledge the new factors inour situation and look for the newpossibilities, the new ways to belured into Gods envisaged future,that are given to us in our situa-tion. Weve had our share ofresponding in the first way; but wehave also had some leaders in theparish who have begun to take

steps to discover who we reallyare,not just who we think we are, andwho is in our neighborhood andcommunity, and how we mightdiscern new possibilities formission and ministry to which Godmay be luring us now. To be sure,this willingness to look at changes

in our identity is not solely theresult of learning to think inprocess terms; there are many

factors of organizational characterand leadership style that go intothat mix. But the fact that we arediscovering process thought, inboth explicit and implicit ways,certainly contributes to the way we

as a parish frame the question ofwho we are and who we are calledto become.

What process means to us, then,

is a particular school oftheology to study, a runningtheme in preaching and pastoralcare and prayer, and a principlefor practice and decision-making.On all these levels, I think

process-relational theologizing ismaking positive differences in thefaith and life of our congregation.

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whole, rich and poor, male and

female, Jew and Gentile. Themessage and activity of Jesuschallenged the purity system atits most fundamental level.

Instead of affirming Be pure asGod is pure, Jesus said, Becompassionate as God iscompassionate. In a social

world whose core value waspurity, Jesus advocated analternative social vision whosecore value is compassion.

Now, to view God as compas-sionate and to understand thereligious life in terms ofcompassion is quite different fromwhat have (unfortunately) beenthe dominant images of God andthe religious life. One of the more

common images of God is that ofa stern Law-giver and Judge whohas established certain ethicalrequirements that humans mustfollow. Such a view of Godlogically leads to understanding

the religious life primarily as anattempt to measure up to these

requirementsa lifestyle thatresults in an inevitable divisionbetween those who do measureup (or think they do) and thosewho do not, a division betweenthe righteous (or self-righteous)and sinners.

Perhaps it would help us grasp

or rather, be grasped byJesusvision if we were to examine theHebrew word for compassion, theword Jesus would have had in

mind when he uttered Luke 6:36.The most commonly usedHebrew word for compassion isderived from a root meaningwomb. Thus, to be compas-

sionate is to be womb-like. What

the womb is to a developingfetus, compassion is to thosewho receive itlife-giving,nourishing, caring.

Compassion is more than afeeling; it is a feeling thatmanifests itself in a distinctiveway of living. Frequently thegospels writers remark that Jesuswas moved with compassion, and

in each case his compassionmanifested itself in an actiondesigned to alleviate suffering andpromote well-being: he healed theblind, cleansed the leprous, taughtthe ignorant, raised the dead, andfed the hungry.

When we act compassionately,our compassion becomes a wombfor others. Our compassionnurtures them, cares for them,embraces them. In a very real

sense, then, our compassioncreates the environment thatenables them to be reborn.When we are grasped by thisprofound biblical metaphorametaphor that aptly expresses theprocess vision of lifethe powerof creative transformation isunleashed in the world.

RONALD L. FARMER is Deanof the Wallace All Faiths Chapel and

Associate Professor of ReligiousStudies at Chapman University inOrange, CA. He may be reached atrfarmer@chapman.edu

When we actcompassionately,our compassion

becomes a wombfor others. Our

compassionnurtures them,cares for them,

embraces them. Ina very real sense,

then, ourcompassion createsthe environmentthat enables them

to be reborn.

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14

Process in Practice

Violence, Nonviolence, and theCommunity of Life

Douglas Sturm

I. Americamore specifically, theUnited States of Americawasborn in violence. That proposition

cannot, I believe, be gainsaid. Inrecent decades, we have becomeever more fully aware than beforeof many ways in which the NewWorld came into being throughdoing violence to millions of

peoplesto indigenous, enslaved,immigrant peoples, as well as towomen and children. The stories

of these peoples need to berehearsed repeatedly lest weromanticize our history to glorifyour identity, a mighty temptationduring times when a simplifiedform of patriotism dominates thepassions of the land in angry

opposition to those identified asour enemy.

We need to recognize that theUnited States remains at the

present time very much a violentnation, domestically as well asinternationally. In a recent columnin The New York Times(October28, 2002), Bob Herbert, reactingto a raft of random attacks oninnocent citizens by snipers in theD.C. area bemoans that fact.

The nation is saturated withviolence. Thousands uponthousands of murders are

committed each year. There aremore than 200 million guns incirculation. Murder is so routine,including the killing of children, it

doesnt even warrant serious newscoverage in most cases. We dontknow what to do about all this

violence. We dont know how toprocess it. We sensationalize it,glamorize it, eroticize it.

The nation issaturated withviolence . . . we

dont know how toprocess it. We

sensationalize it,glamorize it,

eroticize it.

In his complaint, Herbert doesnot merely go after the immediateperpetrators of violent crime. Hepoints an accusatory finger at usall, remarking that, across this

land, we have tolerated,encouraged, even embraced aculture of such violence and

relentless dehumanization thatdaily murders tend to mean littleto us but an ephemeral story. Wehave created, he implies, apervasive culture of violencesuch that, despite a sometimes

indignant response to especiallyegregious violent acts, we seemsatisfied to give support to that

more encompassing climate ofviolence out of which those actserupt. And that, he suggests,exacerbates and deepens thewrong. In fact, I suspect most ofus, if asked directly, would reply

that violence is wrongat least,usually wrongeven as we may,in ways explicit and implicit,

perpetuate that wrong.

By itself, however, that reply begstwo important, but controversialquestions. First, a question ofidentification: what are thecharacteristics that qualify anaction or culture as violent?

Second, a question of moraljudgment: why do we thinkviolence is wrong? Thesequestions are not unrelated.

Indeed, I mean to suggest that arelational perspective on themeaning of life bears on how wemight ponder both of thesequestions and should force us toconsider the tradition ofnonviolence as an alternativeway of life, a way productive of

a culture of peace, but a waythat would require us to rethink,in radical ways, how we conductour lives on all levels, personaland political.

II. Amidst a plethora of efforts todefine the marks of violence, we

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Continued on page 28

may isolate two as distinctivepoints on a spectrum ofpossibilities. First, in everydayconversation we usually think of

violence as the use of physical

force to do injury to otherpersons, to their property, perhapsto animals. Cases, particularlythose whose impact is vivid, areobvious: rape, assault, murder,mutilation, torture. When bloodspills, when a victim screams,

when a body is broken, whenanguish and agony are evidentwe are quick to declare thatviolence has been done, that

those victimized have beeninjured, that the resultantsuffering and injustice runcontrary to fundamental moralprinciples. We are, after all,

charged by a long-standing moralintuition to do no harm. Violence,within the framework of thisminimalist understanding, is theintentional doing of harm through

physical intervention. It is a formof interaction between self andother during moments of

conflicting desires through whichthe life of the other is seriouslydeprived if not utterly nullified.

Upon reflection, however, itseems clear that many kinds ofconflictual interaction havesimilar effect and might properlybe considered violent, rangingfrom the severe psychic damagedone to youngsters throughdegrading language and gesture to

the economic and culturaldeprivation of masses of peopleresulting from systemicunemployment and abidingpoverty. Violence, that is, is bothphysical and psychological; it is

both interpersonal andinstitutional. It may be blatantand overt, but it may also besubtle and covert. It cuts across

spheres of private life and public

life. It is present in domiciles andclassrooms. It is caused by thoseeconomic systems and politicalpolicies whose operationsemanate in the needless sufferingof some peoples for the presumedbenefit of others. It is even built

into the highly sophisticated wayswe have constructed to resolveour problemsthrough lawenforcement (with its threats of

deprivation for purposes of socialcontrol), capital investment (withits preeminent concern for thebottom-line to the exclusion ofall other considerations), military

defense (with its highlysophisticated technologiesdesigned to wage war againstthose considered a threat tonational security). If violence is

a moral concern, then surely allthese kinds of structuralviolence must be considered as

much of a moral concern asinterpersonal violence.

Once we extend, as I believe weshould, our understanding ofviolence to encompass these morestructural and cultural dimen-sions, we need to reframe ourdefinition of violence accordingly,particularly if our comprehensionof life is informed by a relationalperspective. Violence, from this

angle, specifies any kind of actionor inactionphysical or psycho-logical, personal or institutionalthat obstructs the flourishing ofthe ongoing community of life.Given this definition, violence

Violence isharmful to the

ongoing adventure

of life and, assuch, is wrong,even when

invoked as anallegedly

legitimate means

of defense or socialcontrol.

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Process in Practice

I have just returned from mycousins funeral, where I wasfreshly confronted with the powerof creationboth in my cousinslife and in the God whom heworshipped. George was a farmerwho loved the land and workedside-by-side with his father and

children and children-in-law. He

was a leader in his Texas commu-nity, taught Sunday school, andbuilt up the schools, gin, andfarming operations in his commu-nity. Georges wife Sharon calledhim a builderalways buildingsomething in his shop or in the

community. With his carpen-ters eye, he could see things thatno one else could see; he often

saw possibilities in people whomothers ignored. Georges daughterSusan said, He was always tryingto make things better, alwaysasking what if so that he wouldnot settle for something that was

not quite right. She concluded,If you needed to move a moun-tain, he was your man.

George points to realities of Godand Gods creation that are oftenoverlooked when Christian theol-ogy centers on sin and redemption.George points to the Builder-Godof the second creation story(Genesis 2:4b-25) and the Wis-

dom-Woman of Proverbs (8:22-36). Similarly, George points to theimportance of educating people asbuilders and wise sages. Teaching

Discovering Builder-God andWisdom-Woman

Mary Elizabeth Mullino Moore

cannot be limited to the sinfulness

of human nature and graciousnessof God; it cannot focus only onthe limits of human understandingand abundance of Gods wisdom.Education is an opportunity touncover wonders of the Builder-God and Wisdom-Woman, and toinvite people into active partner-ship (as co-creators or co-carpen-

ters) with God.

Uncovering the Builder-Godand Wisdom-Woman

In Genesis, we see God forming aman from dust and breathing his

own breath into the mans nos-trils. God plants a garden withtrees and a river running through

it. Then, God places the man inthe garden to till it and keep it(2:15). With instructions to theman about what to eat and whatnot to eat, God looks once again

with his carpenters eye, anddecides that the man needs ahelper and partner. God thuscreates animals to roam the fieldand sky. Still seeing a need andstill longing to make creation

better, God takes a rib from theman when he is sleeping andmakes a woman to be his partner.

When the man awakens, herecognizes this woman as boneof my bones and flesh of myflesh (22-23). In this narrative,we see the Builder-God, notjudging and forgiving, but return-

ing to the creative process again

and again to make creation better.

Turning to Proverbs, we discover

the underplayed (mostly ignored)role of Sophia Wisdom in thework of creation. God createdSophia in the beginning as a firstact of creation; thus, Wisdom-

Woman was present when Godcreated springs of water, moun-tains and hills, earth and fields,heavens and the deep, limits to

the sea, and foundations of theearth (22-29). Sophia was besideGod like a master worker orlittle childdelighting God,rejoicing before God, and rejoic-ing in Gods creation (30-31). Theimage of Sophia is one of appren-

tice, co-worker, and joyful enthu-siast. The text ends with encour-aging readers to listen to Wisdom-Woman and follow her ways, forhers is the way to happiness, life,and favor with God (32-36).

These biblical images are notalone in pointing to the Builder-God and Wisdom-Woman. TheBuilder-God is reflected in many

actions of Jesus, who continuallylooked at the world and sought

ways to make it better. Onestriking example is his healing ofthe bent-over woman. Jesus seesthe woman across the synagoguewhere he is teaching and realizesthat she is crippled by a spirit oflong duration (eighteen years). He

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calls to the woman and sets herfree from her ailment, thus

initiating a controversy abouthealing on the Sabbath day (Luke13:10-17). Here we see the

Builder-God looking around atthe world and seeing something inthis woman that others cannotseethe possibility of healing.Longing to heal the woman, Jesusacts and then faces the contro-

versy that follows.

The image of Builder-God also

involves looking to the future.God, with a carpenters eye, is

able to look at the world and seenew possibilities. In Lukes Gospel,we find a familiar text with afuture-orientation that is oftenmissed. A woman with a twelve-year hemorrhage interrupts Jesus

journey by touching the hem of hisgarment. This woman has violatedpurity laws by her act, but hersinfulness is not the center of thisstory. The center is her healing and

the future toward which it points.With the touch of Jesus garment,the woman is immediately healed;however, when Jesus discovers

who has touched him, he says,Daughter, your faith has madeyou well; go in peace (Luke 8:48).A better translation of the lastwords would be: Go into shalom.Jesus did not send the woman outas a perfected person. Truly, she

was healed, but Jesus wanted morefor her. He claimed her as a childof God (Daughter) whose faithhad made her well; then, he senther INTO SHALOM (wholeness).

Just as the Builder-God is evidentwhen we uncover biblical texts,so we hear echoes of Wisdom-Woman in other biblical texts.

Most obviously, we meet Wisdomagain in the Gospel of John: In

the beginning was the Word, andthe Word was with God, and theWord was God . . . (1:1-5). John

does not associate wisdom with awoman, as in Proverbs; for John,the Word is Jesus Christ. ForElizabeth Johnson and othertheologians, however, JohnsWord is related to Proverbs

Wisdom, thus identifying Jesuswith Sophia. The word associa-tions are real, and the uncoveringprocess is one of the ongoingeducational adventures.

Inviting people into partnership

Educational challenges do not endwith uncovering. They also includeinviting, inspiring, and encouragingpartnership. The word partnershipechoes the Genesis 2 story of Godcreating partners for the first per-son; it also echoes the partnership

between God and Wisdom in the

Proverbs story of creation. Part-nership here is not a sweet idea,but a binding relationship with joyand responsibility. Consider thefirst mans delight in discoveringthe woman who was bone of mybones and flesh of my flesh.Consider Wisdoms delight in the

Lord, and the Lords delight in her.Consider the responsibilities givento the first peopleto till the

garden and eat only what Godpermitted. Consider the responsi-bilities of Wisdom-Woman todispense wisdom and instructionsfor living. These are exciting and

demanding relationships.

Where does this point education-

ally? One can find significantdirection for teaching in the life

of my cousin, who loved the landand in biblical texts of creation.

Seeing possibilities that others

do not see: As God kept tinker-

ing with creation, and as George

saw possibilities that othersmissed, so teachers are called torecognize and bring forth newpossibilities in the human com-munity and in the land wheretheir community dwells.

Delighting: Teachers are alsocalled to delight in God, theirCreator, and in other people, whoare bone of their bones and flesh

of their flesh.

Working alongside: As George

worked alongside his father andchildren, and as Wisdom-Womanworked alongside God, so teachersare called to work alongside othersThey are partners and also mentorswho inspire partnership in others.

Building: As God built theCreation from dust and water, and

as George looked with hiscarpenters eye on the thingsaround him, so teachers are called

to look at the world and try tomake it better. They are not onlypartners with God and oneanother; they are co-carpenters.

Bearing wisdom: As Wisdom-Woman was with God from thebeginning of creation and bears

Gods wisdom throughout theages, so teachers are called to bearwisdom. They share Gods wis-dom, not for the sake of demon-

strating their superiority, but forthe sake of nourishing otherstoward life and favor with God.

May this creative process ofteaching and learning have no end!

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Every Person CreativityRobert and Adrienne Brizee

Process in Practice

Toby is experiencing growingtension in his marriage, the heavydemands of his job and itspossible loss through downsizing,the conflict with his increasinglyindependent teenage son, abothersome ongoing acid stomach,

the recent loss of many dollars instock market investments, theworry that his specialized Army

reserve unit will be called to activeduty, and the pain of watching hisrespected father increasingly losehis memory.

Toby is at the center of theserelationships and many more! Formany hours of the day most of

these relationships are present yetoutside his awareness. His rela-tionships are many, complex, and

often unconscious. He may wishfor simplicity, but there is none tobe found.

Conventional wisdom tells us thatto be creative one must be arenowned musician, artist, orpoet. In contrast, we affirm thatcreativity is an everyday event of

every person. Our theology statesthat we are composed of ourrelationships, a proposal whichcan be both good and bad news.Relationships can bring us intenseenrichment and numbing immo-bilization. Most of us have hadboth experiences.

Through the example of Toby wecan look conceptually at how we

are constituted by our relationships.

As a person, psyche, soul, self, oran I, we are a creative process,the content of which is relation-ships. We feel and receive relation-ships, blend them together, orderthem in terms of their relevancefor this moment, and finally shape

them into our unique response. Itis like the Tillamook Cheesefactory in Oregon. All the ingredi-

ents are transported to the factorywhere they are processed into avariety of cheeses. A differentcombination of ingredients yieldsdifferent varieties of cheese. So

we, likewise, make something outof what is given to us. We haveboth process and content.

If one by one our relationshipswere taken away, all that would

finally remain would be thiscreative process. This is a positiveway of saying what we are not, thatis, a contained self with certaingiven and inherent qualities whichmoves through time unchanged by

all that we encounter.

A person as a process is infused

with, intersected by, intertwinedwith, made up of, or constitutedby relationships from the very,very small to the very, very large;from those with physicalattributes to those which areethereal. Technically speaking weare related to occasions of

experience and societies ofoccasions found in four majorrelationships: the world, our past,our body, and God.

If we were to attempt to draw apicture of our relationships wewould probably begin with thosewho are persons like us, having acenter of awareness andcreativity. Then we would depictthe multitude of other entities

with various degrees ofawareness, after which we wouldsketch in social institutions and

culture. Finally, we might riskcreating a symbol to represent anentity with total awareness,responsiveness, and creativityGod. Within this complexity of

relationships we live and moveand have our being.

There are no relationships whichreside within us or outside us,only the multitudes which occupy

the same space at our center ofawareness, swirling, dancing, andblending so as to create ouridentity for the next moment.

The curse of being made up ofmany relationships is that we canbe overwhelmed, immobilized,shattered, or ripped apart by too

many with too much intensity atany given time. At the otherextreme we may be leftlanguishing in boredom andtedium by the lack of stimulationwith too few and too routine. Theblessing is that we can experiencethe joy, rapture, and euphoria of

heightened intense moments.

Certain relationships take priority

during given stages of our life:

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our relationship with our largemotor muscles when learning towalk, our newly emerged sexualfeelings at puberty, our loverwhen we have fallen in love, and

our vocational options when wemust decide upon our career. Thatgiven relationship seems to be all-consuming, pushing all otherrelationships to the sidelines untilothers arise at later stages.

Relationships ebb and flow, takecenter stage and later exit stageleft. A call from juvenile detentionthat his son was being held there

drastically altered Tobyskaleidoscope of relationships.

Those relationships which were inthe foreground just before the callare shifted rapidly to thebackground. The appointmentbooks and the to-do lists for thatday are summarily erased.

Toby would be overwhelmed werehe to return home from juvenile

detention with his son to an emptyhouse and a note from his spouse

saying that she had left him.Earlier that day he had heardmore rumors that the downsizingwas imminent at his corporation,seen an unfavorable stock marketreport, and heard on his car radiothat a major crisis in the MiddleEast had resulted in a number ofreserve units being placed on alert.

Our efforts to creatively managethese relationships take a number

of forms.

Toby may attempt to blank out

his worry about his Army reserveunit being called up, yet there willbe daily reminders from themedia. Likewise, he may throw

himself totally into his work toblock out the pain of hisrelationships with his spouse andson. The nagging stomach painmight be relegated to the realm of

his imaginationits all in myheadrather than regarded as animportant symptom that is real anda warning that needs to be heeded.

While Tobys attempts to dealwith his matrix of relationshipsmay be effective at some times,they are ultimately limited invalue, just as are other methodswe may choose: I wont think

about it. I just dont read thenewspaper anymore. I guess

its just my fate to be torn up allthe time. I simply do not havewhat it takes to make big deci-sions. I say live and let live. Illtake care of me, let them takecare of themselves. Guess Ima hypochondriac. Let thosewith better minds than mine

figure that out. I must be doingsomething wrong.

We want to simplify. Our ownneeds for safety and comfort callus to narrow, blunt, muffle,deflect, reduce, discount, avoid,ignore, suppress, or redefine theawesome complexity and intensityof the matrix of relationships inwhich we live. Yet there must bea better way, a way which is

enduring and effective.

Our experience in the counseling

office has provided us with theopportunity to discover somepositive ways to live within thisawesome complexity. We offer thefollowing:

acknowledge that we all live

within the swirling complexityof relationships;

hold in tension the naturaldiversity and contrasts among

our relationships; remain open to unexpected

happenings;

accept change as a given reality

expect the ebb and flow ofthe urgent and consuming;

search continually for balanceand harmony among themultitude of relationships;

listen to the whispering of thedivine in the midst of allother relationships.

We suggest that this is the every-day creativity of every person. Itmay be so routine and familiarthat we are reluctant to call it bysuch a sophisticated name, butdeveloping an ever-shifting

balance and harmony within this

great complexity is to engage increative transformation.

In times of engulfing anxiety, fearor sorrow, the most balancepossible may be to feel out ofbalanceand to be hopeful for anew day. Surely, balance andharmony are relative.

Most importantly, we areempowered in our effort when weaffirm that there is One who is

continually present in the midstof our relationships offering ussurprising possibilities of beautyand harmony. In this new year,may we add ways of beingcreative to our list of resolutions!

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Process in Practice

Creation as Liturgy: The CeremonialDimension of the Cosmos

Paul S. Nancarrow

Many faith communities today areexploring the relation betweencreation and liturgy. For many

churches, the operative questionis, How can we make ourliturgical expressions morerespectful of the created worldaround us? How can we be more

inclusiveof the whole cosmos inour human liturgical action? It isa valid and a pressing question,and it has given rise to some

exciting developments in ritualand worship. From prayer booksto pamphlets to websites, moreand more intentionally creation-centered liturgies are becomingavailable for use in a variety offaith communities.

But for the ancient church, thequestion of the relation betweencosmos and liturgy could be

rather different. In a sense, theancient church approached thisrelation from the other direction:it was taken as a matter of faiththat the creation itself possesseda liturgical character, so thequestion was less how to make

human liturgy more cosmic, buthow to make the human presence

in the cosmos more like liturgy.

Consider, for example, Psalm 148.

Psalm 148 is a wonderful hymnof praise to the Creator; butstructurally, it is laid out as aseries of calls to various orders ofcreatures to raise their own

voices in praise to the Onefrom whom they come. PraiseYHWH from the heavens; praise

God in the heights, the psalmbegins, praise God all you angelsof Gods; praise God, all Godshost. The call to praise begins bysummoning the heavens and the

supernal creatures to raise their

voices; it proceeds next to astro-nomical phenomena: Praise God,sun and moon; praise God, all youshining stars. The call to praise

then turns to the earth, to themythical depths (sea-monstersand all deeps), atmosphere (fireand hail, snow and fog), wild

nature (mountains and all hills;wild things), domesticatednature (fruit trees; all cattle),human society (Kings of theearth and all peoples, princes and

all rulers of the world), andfinally to the faithful people(God has raised up strength for

Gods people, and praise for allGods loyal servants). The hymndescribes concentric circles ofpraise, not unlike the concentriccircles of the Ptolemaic universe;

but here each circle is not simplythe orbit of a planet, here eachcircle is a rank of creatures; andall the ranks of creatures are

called to offer their own uniquepraise to God in one universalcosmic harmony. In Psalm 148the universe is presented with aliturgical shape, as the wholecosmos arranges itself in the formof a choir before God. At the

center of the choir are the faithfulpeople, who have a special role toreflect back to the whole creationits own innate liturgical character,and to summon creation to its fullliturgical reality.

This vision of cosmic liturgy wascarried over in the early Christiantradition as well. Louis Bouyernotes the patristic thinking that

the whole world is essentiallyliturgical . . . a celebration of

uncreated glory through the wholetime of creation. He goes on:Through sacramentalparticipation in the Saviorsglorifying cross, [humankind] thusjoins the faithful angels,themselves forever celebrating,

The whole cosmicactivity is a singleongoing liturgy,and the proper

role of humans isto be participantsin that liturgy.

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Whenever human

action in theworld assists theworld itself to

flourish, then weare acting as

priests in thesacrament of the

cosmos.

from the first moment ofcreation, the Ancient of Days.1

In this view, the whole cosmicactivity is a single ongoing liturgy,and the proper role of humans is

to be participants in that liturgy.

This view of the cosmos asliturgy, and of the human place in

the cosmos having a liturgicalcharacter, has some concrete andpractical consequences for humanactivity in the created world.Think about how St Pauldescribes worship in hiscorrespondence with the faith

community in Corinth: Whenyou come together, each one has

a hymn, a lesson, a revelation, atongue, or an interpretation. Letall things be done for building up.If anyone speaks in a tongue, letthere be only two or at mostthree, and each in turn . . . Lettwo or three prophets speak, andlet the others weigh what is said

(1 Cor 14:26ff). This is a visionof the many coming together,joining their differences in acommuning action, and becomingone in the Spirit of God.

Essentially the same thinghappens in our liturgies today,too. One person reads a lesson,another person leads theintercessions, a few persons sing achoral piece, another person helps

administer communion, anotherperson presides and guides thewhole assembly through theirprayers. All the different roles andgifts are woven together for thegood of all. In the liturgy weexperience a way of beingtogether that is differentfrom the

way human society usually works:

in the liturgy we celebrate a God-graced unity-in-diversity thathelps us be individuals andacommunity in a way that is deeperand broader and more far-

reaching than our usual day-to-day way of being. Worshipingtogether shapes us to valuetogetherness and cooperation andmutualwell-being as ideals in allour activities.

And if we think of the cosmosas having a liturgical shape, thenour worship-taught values oftogetherness and cooperation

and mutual well-being carry overinto our action in the naturalworld as well. Human beingsbring their gifts to the cosmiccommunionbut so do pinetrees, and supernovas, and spermwhales, and bacteria, andhummingbirds. Human beings,however, have a special gift: thegift of recognizing, knowing,

contemplating, appreciating thegifts the other creatures bring.We can name and raise up andcelebrate the other creatures, notjust for what they mean for us,

but for what they are inthemselves, for their own uniquereflection of Gods creating love.In that sense, human beings takea place at the center of the choirof praise, human beings act aspriests in the liturgy of creation,human beings are called to becelebrants who assist the

creatures in bringing forth theirgifts and becoming thanks andpraise to God. Whenever humanaction in the world assists theworld itself to flourish, then weare acting as priests in thesacrament of the cosmos.

So for us today, not only for theancient church, the vision of thecreation itself as one vast liturgyholds keys to rethinking our

human place in the cosmos andour human action in nature. Forus, too, the question may not beso much How can we make ourliturgies more inclusive ofcreation? as it is, How can wemake our action in creation moreinclusive of our liturgy?

1 Louis Bouyer, Cosmos: The World

and the Glory of God, trans. byPierre de Fontnouvelle(Petersham, MA: St. Bedes

Publications, 1988) 200ff.

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Process in Practice

Bruce G. Epperly

Listening to Your Life:Your Life as Lectio Divina

The practice of lectio divina, orholy reading, is at the heart oftraditional Christian spiritual

formation. Grounded inBenedictine spirituality, lectio

divina incarnates the words ofscripture within the living wordof human experience. Easilypracticed by individuals orgroups, traditional lectio divinainvolves the following steps:

1) listening deeply to a scripturepassage, so that it truly soaks

into the unconscious as well asconscious mind;

2) identifying the word or phrasethat speaks to ones life;

3) reflecting upon and repeatingthe phrase, or word, in order toground it in experience;

4) awakening to the meaning ofthe scripture for ones life and itsimpact on ones actions;

5) gratitude for Divine guidanceand revelation in ones life.

Traditional lectio divina is restrictedto meditation upon Godsrevelation in the Holy Scriptures.While process thought affirms theinspiration of scripture as adynamic narrative of the divine-human encounter which awakens

us to Gods lively presence in ourlives today, process thoughtequally affirms the universality ofDivine revelation beyond thepages of scripture. The light ofGod shines in all things, includingquotidian human experience.With a Christian mystic, processthought affirms that all things are

words of God. The poet of theworld enables us to become

what Emerson described asbards of the Holy Spirit,creating our own unique verses inpartnership with God.

Process spirituality opens thedoor to new models of spiritualformation. In particular, processspirituality creatively transformstraditional practices such asBenedictine lectio divinaand

Ignatian imaginative prayer.2

The world lives by the

incarnation of God in itself.Each creature reveals andconceals the divine. Eachmoment is an epiphany, amanifestation of Divine wisdom,for those whose senses areawakened to the Holy in the

ordinary. Every moment arisesfrom God and manifests theinterplay of divine and creaturelycreativity and artistry. Each lifeand experience can be the objectof religious reflection and spiritualformation. Put simply, your life is

the primary material for yourspiritual reflection. Spiritualformation enables us to experience

the holiness and adventure hiddenin every day experience.3

Process theology invites us bothto affirm and transform thetraditional practice of lectio divina.With the traditional Benedictinespiritual guides, process theologyaffirms the importance of a

personal encounter with scripture.This intimate encounter frees

scripture from outworn and literalinterpretations. In so doing,scripture truly becomes a livingword and new light is shed on oldpassages. Yet, process thoughttransforms lectio divinaby

expanding it to include our ownexperience as revelatory of God.

A process version of lectio divinafocuses on the incarnation of

God in each persons life. Forexample, at the end of the weekor as the day concludes, one maychoose to look back at aparticular moment, insight, orencounter as embodying Godswisdom in ones life. In order toexplore the presence of God in

that moment, a person may

God is the mirror which discloses toevery creature its own greatness . . .Every event on its finer side introducesGod into the world. Through it [Gods]ideal vision is given a base in actualfact to which [God] provides the idealconsequent, as a factor saving the world

from the self-destruction of evil. Thepower by which God sustains the worldis the power of [the Divine] as an

ideal. [God] adds [Godself] to theactual ground from which every creativeact takes its rise. The world lives by itsincarnation of God in itself.1

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Hope, along with faith andlove, is a theologicalvirtue. That means it is

not based on changing

circumstances. It does notcalculate prospects for the future

based on the current situation. Itdoes not have a specific content.It is not undercut or negated byadverse outcomes, even veryterrible ones. It is not a matter ofoptimism or of a particulartemperament.

Hope does have assumptions. Formany traditional Christians it isgrounded in the belief that God is

omnipotent. I will not rehearse theproblems to which that foundationgives rise. For those who areinfluenced by process thought, thebasis is different. We believe thatin every situation God works tobring forth the best outcome thatis possible. Without this belief in aprocess or power greater than

ourselves working for the good,events might at times make usoptimistic, but it would not bepossible to have hope. With thatbelief, we cannot give up hope.

To have hope is to believe that weourselves, and other people aswell, can become what we now are

A Homily on Hope

John B. Cobb, Jr.

notmore loving, more sensitive,more open to learning from others.To have hope means to believethat institutions can become more

just, that the world can becomemore peaceful and equitable, that

ecological destruction may slowdown and stop.

Each of the preceding statementsis about possibility. To have hopedoes not mean to expect that weourselves or others will grow inlove, that institutions willfunction more justly, that theworld will become more peacefuland equitable, or that ecological

degradation will end.Expectations of that sort areoften, indeed usually, falsified.But hope does assume that,because of what God is doing andwill continue doing, positiveoutcomes are possible, and thatelements of such improvementare discoverable everywhere. It

means, therefore, that it isworthwhile to give ourselves tothe effort to increase love, justice,and peace among people and withour natural environment, that indoing so we are not alone.

It cannot be pointed out toofrequently that the results of

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Critics Corner: FilmCharles Yancey

A Beautiful Mind

A review of the filmA Beautiful

Mindin light of faith and processcould go in many directions. TodayI am moved towards a focus onquestioning, one that I see as beingcentral to process theology.

A Beautiful Mindand a theologyof process are both about askingquestions. They are a refutationof permanent answers. Both seemto notbe about struggling to holdtogether a static worldview, one

whose small set of questions wasanswered long ago. Localworldviews have always beenvulnerable to the internal stressesthat form their own history. Thesestresses first form cracks in thefortress walls of tradition. Thenthey become absurd by the globalcombination of a multitude of

uncertainties within and amongthe separate fortresses across a

global landscape.John Nash, mathematician andparanoid schizophrenic, socialmisfit, seeks public identity inthought rather than feeling. To hisintellectualquestions about theworld around him his advisorsays: Do you realize this flies inthe face of 150 years of

economic history? Nashcounters: Adam Smith waswrong. So much for stability. Somuch for doctrine. To Nashs

emotionalquestions about theworld around him, his thoughtcreates delusional characters and

situations that offer him life.A Beautiful Mindand process areboth about falling in love, whichalso does not resolve questions.Soon to be wife of John Nash,Alicia, asks: How big is theuniverse? John: Infinite. Alicia:How do you know? John: All

the data indicates it. Alicia:How do you know for sure?John: I dont, I just believe it.Alicia: Its the same as love, Iguess. Alicia and John marry,have a son, but dont settle intothe myth of suburban life. Theyencounter the unknown unkowns.

Eventually there is therapy.Psychiatrist Dr. Rosen: Imagineif you had suddenly learned thatthe people and the places, themoments most important to you

were not gone, not dead, butworse, had never been. What kindof hell would that be? Soundslike a theological question. Or

one about ordinary life?

Its a story about faith in the face

of distressing uncertainty thatacts on and against thought andemotion. Its not doctrine set

apart from real life. Processtheology never admits toresolving all the questions.Indeed, it seeks questions and the

boundaries of context on both thequestions and our perishableresponses. Much of global

religious history has been aboutgetting the children to accept thequestions and answers that havestood the test of time. Processsays No, not because it isagainst resolution, but because

Gods creation is always on themove. God keeps changingeverything, keeps stirring up thestew. Any process, chemical,mechanical, thermal, organic,

cognitive, emotional, romantic,has questions. Thereby process is

uncertain. A Beautiful Mind, asonly a particular expression ofprocess theology, declares thisemphatically.

To the few words about the filmitself, I will offer some thoughtsabout the story inside the story.The DVD recording format offers

additional features, in this caseseparate commentaries by directorand screenwriter. Of course thatmultiplies by three the time

invested in witnessing a film, butthe reward is a revelation of theextraordinary devotion of artistsand craftspeople. There are alsoaspects presented that are not at

Universal; DreamWorks: 2001Ron Howard, DirectorStarring: Russell Crowe, JenniferConnelly, Ed Harris

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Process Resources

Critics Corner: BooksEmbracing a Beautiful God, by Patrica Adams Farmer (Chalice Press,2002; 120 pp.; paper; $16.99). Creative Transformation is pleased to

reprint Marjorie Suchockis Foreward, by permission of ChalicePress. The book is scheduled for publication in March 2003.

This is one of those rare booksthat IS what it is ABOUT:Beauty. In poetic images, PatriciaFarmer invites us into her ownreveries about God and the world.

Her theme is a theology ofbeauty, of finding inspirationand consternation!in the small

ordinary things of daily life.

While this inspiring book draws

us into the simple beauties of asandy beach, of a lovely path, ofdeeply satisfying personal rela-tionships, it neither hides uglinessnor paints for us a utopian world.Rather, beauty for Patricia Farmeris holding the contrasting tensionsof the good, bad, and indifferenttogether in such a way that

transformation can occur. We aretaken not only into the beauty ofa meditative moment, but alsointo the ugliness of a consumersociety gone amok, of corporategreed, of terrible conflict. Whatare we, as ordinary individuals, to

do with such facts about ourworld? Farmer suggests that wecan live into the tension createdby the contrast between theseugly facts and the more wondrousside of existence. This tensionitself can inspire us to act fortransformation of the negativeinto more positive ways ofcommunal being. The beauty

found in meditating upon thelovely provides a stark contrast tothe negative elements of greedand guns. This contrast pushes ustoward the work of creating

beauty in our social lives. Andwhile our actions may seem likesmall deeds in our personal and

communal living, the interdepen-dence of our world is such thatevery action invites a reaction.We can be agents toward beauty;our efforts matter.

Interdependence is the majorsupposition of Farmers work.She is a process theologian whothinks and lives from the basicreality that all things and peopleand events are interconnected.

Gods work in this interrelated-ness is always toward the produc-tion of beauty, taking up what isand nurturing it toward what ityet might be. Our own opennessto beauty is at the same time anopenness to God, answering the

divine invitation to participatemore fully in Gods creative work.

Beauty, then, is not just a happen-stance of the universe, not some

totally subjective construal depen-dent wholly upon human imagina-tion. Is a sunset beautiful whetherwe see it or not? In Farmersworld, yes. Is this strange and

awesome confluence of green andblue that makes up our planet justincidentally beautiful? Or was it

only beautiful when we saw it sofrom space photographs? InFarmers world, this planet isintentionally beautiful. Beauty isnot some side benefit invented byhuman perception. Rather, beautyis at the heart of all things, beautyis at the heart of God, and thebeauty that we seeand even

createis like the trailing wakefrom Gods hand across the oceanof the universe. This is why, inattending to beauty, we becomeopen to the mystery of God. Inattending to beauty, we openourselves to participation inGods own transformation of

things to modes of beauty not

yet realized, but hovering still onthe edges of becoming.

So take a Beauty Break, asPatricia Farmer puts it, andwander into these words that waitfor you. You will go beneath thesurface of things, and come upwith new wisdom in your owndaily participation in beauty.

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A Baptism BlessingMarjorie Hewitt Suchocki

Rebeccas Blessing

You are born in life, and for life:

Be blessed with the wonder of life;

Grow into a woman with zest and gladness for the adventure of life,

And you will be a blessing.

You are born in love, and for love:

Be blessed by the loving care that surrounds you;

Grow into a woman whose love flows deeply, freely,

And you will be a blessing.

You are born in peace, and for peace:

Be blessed with the joy of peace;

Grow into a woman whose zeal for peace contributes to

the flourishing of earth

toward life, toward love, toward peace,And you will indeed be a blessing.

Amen

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embraces any violation of human

rights. It embraces any degradationof the delicate balance of livingforces that constitutes the ecologi-cal system. Violence, so compre-hended, is harmful to the ongoingadventure of life and, as such, iswrong, even when invoked as anallegedly legitimate means ofdefense or social control.

If, as sometimes asserted,violence is ever a genuine

necessity for the flourishing ofthe community of life, it must beconsidered as nothing more than atragic necessity. Even if, undersome circumstances, violencemay seem to be effective, thatshould never be a cause forjubilation. Violence, even when

deemed necessary, still results inloss both for the immediatevictim and for the wholecommunity. Violence in all its

shapes and under all conditions iscause for grief.

III. Over against the pervasiveculture of violence that seems tohave us in its grip despite itsinherently destructive bent, thetradition of nonviolence presentsus with a powerful and persuasive

alternativean alternative that, Ipropose, constitutes both a moral

necessity and a historicalpossibility. Throughout thetwentieth centurythe mostviolent century in humanhistorywe have convincingevidence that the tradition of

nonviolence constitutes aneffective resource for the peacefulresolution of conflicts and

significant political trans-formation. Cases in point includenot only movements directed byMohandas Gandhi and MartinLuther King, Jr., but innumerable

other instances where strategies ofnonviolence have provensuccessful to defuse conflicts thatotherwise would have resulted inmassive death and to advance thecause of human dignity and peace.

We should take note, as well, ofsignificant efforts drawing onpeoples throughout the world topromote nonviolence as a

morally superior, if not morallyobligatory, way to approach our

interactions with each other,personally and collectively. Overthe past few years, the GeneralAssembly of the United Nations,following the leadership ofUNESCO, adopted a Declarationand Program of Action promotingthe formation of a Culture of

Peace and launched anInternational Decade for a Cultureof Peace and Nonviolence for theChildren of the World in 2001.The Earth Charter movement,with contributions andendorsements from diversecultural traditions through itsextensive work over the past five

years, insisted, as the culminatingprinciple in its standard for a

sustainable way of life, on theneed to promote a culture of . . .nonviolence and peace.

All of these developmentsassume that violence andnonviolence are grounded onantithetical understandings of lifeand its conflicts. The use of

violence assumes an oppositional

thesis: in the scramble for thegoods of life either I win and youlose, or you win and I lose. Theuse of nonviolence, in contrast,assumes a relational thesis: our

lives are so entangled andinterdependent, we need tocollaborate with each other,however deep-seated ourdifferences, to develop ways tolive together. If we resort toviolence, we both lose. If wedevelop nonviolent means ofresolving conflicts and getting on

in life, we both win. Even inthose painful and complicatedcases where only one partyinitially eschews violence byadhering to nonviolence, we bothwin at least over the long haul asthe realization deepens that theworth of life is derived from ourtogetherness within thecommunity of life. Thats why,from a relational perspective,nonviolence is a moral necessity.

Thats why we confront the needto engage deliberately andaggressively in a massive effortthroughout all our social practices

to dismantle the culture ofviolence that has us in thrall andto create a culture ofnonviolence. Only in that waycan we do justice to thecommunity of life that is ourinheritance and our destiny and

demonstrate our faith in theCreative Source of all our being.

Sturm, continued from page 13

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P&F Connections

Wenatchee, Washington

Members of Process and Faith, with evergreens,pruners, wire, and bows, helped children makeChristmas wreaths and swags at our churchs annualAdvent Event on December 4. On December 8 adivision of P&F, The Committee for Peace withJustice in the Middle East, jointly sponsored acandlelight peace pilgrimage, the second peace eventin which we have participated in Wenatchee. OnDecember 22, we will hold our Twenty-Ninth

Annual Old-Fashioned Family Carolling Party wherepersons give loved ones, especially those home-

bound, a gift of music forty to fifty voices singingat their front door. In January at our traditional BleakMid-Winter Potluck we will decide by vote whichbook we will study next in our Sunday class. We willopen the new year with a six-week class titled, MeetJohn Cobb, where we will study Johns biography,teachers, students, and contributions to theology,

culminating in a birthday party on February 9 wherepersons will be invited to become charter membersof Process and Faith: Wenatchee. Although we haveexisted for many years, this will inaugurate ourformal status as a Connection. For more information,contact Adrienne and Bob Brizee atbrizeeab@aol.com

Belgium-FranceFreddy Moreau, our correspondant in Belgium-France has been busy with a number of translations.He has completed his translation of God & the Worldand several articles from the summer issue ofCreativeTransformation. All this and more is on his website,

which all readers are encouraged to visit. You can goto it directly at the address below, or follow the linkfrom the Process & Faith website. Tell your French-speaking friends. Brush up on your own languageskills! Contact Freddy directly atfreddy.moreau@skynet.beor visit his website at:http://www.protestantismeliberal.be/

Minneapolis-St. Paul

The Twin Cities Connection is growing. After Marjo-rie Suchockis Rochester lecture in October, Divin-ity and Diversity: Does God know about otherreligions? a group of people interested in exploringprocess theology further developed in that city ashort distance away. Several of their members cameto our November meeting. They have volunteered tohost our January 2003 potluck-and-conversationmeeting at Christ United Methodist Church in

Rochester. The date and agenda are to be an-nounced, and the time will be 7:00 p.m. We are also

planning to hold our quarterly business meeting onTuesday, February 25, 2003 at Luther Seminary inSaint Paul. The meeting will be at 7:30 p.m. MarjorieSuchocki will offer public lectures at United Semi-nary in St. Paul on Monday evening, February 24 andTuesday morning, February 25. For further informa-tion about all of these events, contact Kirsten

Mebust at kirsten.mebust@cgu.edu.

AtlantaWe will be starting the Whitehead reading group inJanuary. Already there has been some good interestfrom current students and a couple of faculty mem-

bers at area colleges and universities. The group isdesigned for people with some familiarity withprocess thought who want to know what it is thatWhitehead actually said. It is a reading group, thoughand not a class. Think coffee shop, comfy chairs andWhitehead two evenings a month. If interested,contact Monica A. Coleman atrevmonica@worldnet.att.net or 404-235-6807

Florida Alert!

JoAnne and Ed Riedesel are eager to start a P&FConnection in Florday. They live in Sebastian, near

Vero Beach. Contact them at ejhbr@ixpres.com.

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Process & FaithA Program of the Center for Process Studies

1325 North College AvenueClaremont, CA 91711-3199

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Its here!Marjorie Suchockis introductory pamphlet,What Is Process Theology?a simple,readable explanation of process theology,perfect for church study groups. Availablefrom Process & Faith for $5/$3 members(plus tax and shipping). Call 909.447.2559

or write faith@ctr4process.org.