I have enjoyed reading a couple of Ilia Delio’s books on science and religion. Delio is a Franciscan sister who has a doctorate in science, as well as historical theology. I know the religion side of what she is doing, but I lack the scientific knowledge she possesses. And so I wanted to be informed. It makes no sense for me to teach and be a leader and be cultural uninformed. I have students who major in Chemistry or Physics and I work with folks in the world who have advanced engineering degrees. While I am not going to know everything they do, I do feel responsible to them not to be teaching about a God working in a world that somehow is not real. That would be a bit like insisting adults have to believe in Santa Claus! God is not Santa Claus.
Delio is a good writer and is able to make complex material understandable. Of course, that does not mean it is easy. I find it interesting. At times, Delio is able to describe God in ways I find intriguing and, sometimes, even compelling. For the purposes of this inspirational piece, I would like to focus on two quotations, each from one of the books I have read.
The first quotation comes from her 2011 book, The Emergent Christ: Exploring the Meaning of Catholic in an Evolutionary Universe. Delio confesses, “Belief in God incarnate is belief in the wildness of divine love to seize us from within, turn us upside down, and move us in a new direction.” I think I both laughed when I read this and was taken aback. I laughed because of the pizzazz with which she talks about God. I certainly believe that God became incarnate---became human. That is the core of John’s Gospel. God became human---became a man we call Jesus. Nothing surprising there for me.
But then, Delio adds the note that incarnation also implies belief in the wildness of divine love. This put me on my heels. I am not sure I thinks about God’s love as wild. I like the idea. I think it fits. Of course, the opposite is to see God’s love as tame. That’s not appropriate. I believe she is right: God’s love is wild---some might even say crazy in a good way. Because God’s love gets tied up with grace, there are times God’s wild love makes no earthly sense. But that’s the point! The rest of Delio’s sentence talks about the effect of this wildness of divine love.
That wild love seizes us. That is a powerful verb. It seizes us from within. It does this in order to turn us upside down. That almost sounds like a roller coaster of love. It sounds like “heads over heels” kind of love. Not only does it turn us upside down; it also moves us in another direction. That makes sense as I read the gospels and the history of the Spirit’s work in the world. It is the way to understand the life of someone like St. Francis or a Mother Teresa in our own time. The wildness of God’s love seized them, turn their lives upside down and moved them in a new direction.
As I ponder this, it is no wonder so many of us actually prefer a tame love. We don’t really want to be spiritually messed up. We prefer our own will be done that pray the Lord’s Prayer. We don’t want a radical kind of faith. We prefer a more culturally acceptable “nice” religion. When I think about it this way, I realize I am not surprised a Franciscan sister wrote this. She has been willing to affected by the wildness of divine love. She became a follower of St. Francis’ way. I want to be vulnerable to wildness, too. I want to risk it.
Delio’s second quotation comes from her 2013 book, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love. In some ways it describes the same experience for the church, which was just applied to each of our human lives. In this second book Delio claims, “The livingness of God disrupts and disfigures every stabilizing structure, thereby keeping the playful whole in movement.” Once more, she writes about God’s wild love and the effect it has on the community of believers in the world. She talks about the livingness of God. This dynamic God disrupts and disfigures. These are powerful verbs. And the act on the institutions and structures humans have created to organize their spiritual lives. When we belong to one of these, we should almost say, “Watch out for the livingness of God.”
That God is disruptive. Be careful of stability and, particularly, stasis. Don’t become too comfortable. Don’t be too serious. The disruptive, disfiguring God will come into our midst to keep the playful whole in movement. If the Spirit is dynamic, don’t try to domesticate it in our structures and our programs. While religion is sometimes life and death, it also tends to be playful and, often, deals in irony and paradox.
The nature of the evolutionary world is change. That should be true of our theologies and our institutions. We need both theology and institutional ways of community life, but they need to be adaptable, flexible and vulnerable. After all, faith means to trust. And love requires vulnerability. And ministry is always other-focused.
The wildness of divine love---I like it.
Delio is a good writer and is able to make complex material understandable. Of course, that does not mean it is easy. I find it interesting. At times, Delio is able to describe God in ways I find intriguing and, sometimes, even compelling. For the purposes of this inspirational piece, I would like to focus on two quotations, each from one of the books I have read.
The first quotation comes from her 2011 book, The Emergent Christ: Exploring the Meaning of Catholic in an Evolutionary Universe. Delio confesses, “Belief in God incarnate is belief in the wildness of divine love to seize us from within, turn us upside down, and move us in a new direction.” I think I both laughed when I read this and was taken aback. I laughed because of the pizzazz with which she talks about God. I certainly believe that God became incarnate---became human. That is the core of John’s Gospel. God became human---became a man we call Jesus. Nothing surprising there for me.
But then, Delio adds the note that incarnation also implies belief in the wildness of divine love. This put me on my heels. I am not sure I thinks about God’s love as wild. I like the idea. I think it fits. Of course, the opposite is to see God’s love as tame. That’s not appropriate. I believe she is right: God’s love is wild---some might even say crazy in a good way. Because God’s love gets tied up with grace, there are times God’s wild love makes no earthly sense. But that’s the point! The rest of Delio’s sentence talks about the effect of this wildness of divine love.
That wild love seizes us. That is a powerful verb. It seizes us from within. It does this in order to turn us upside down. That almost sounds like a roller coaster of love. It sounds like “heads over heels” kind of love. Not only does it turn us upside down; it also moves us in another direction. That makes sense as I read the gospels and the history of the Spirit’s work in the world. It is the way to understand the life of someone like St. Francis or a Mother Teresa in our own time. The wildness of God’s love seized them, turn their lives upside down and moved them in a new direction.
As I ponder this, it is no wonder so many of us actually prefer a tame love. We don’t really want to be spiritually messed up. We prefer our own will be done that pray the Lord’s Prayer. We don’t want a radical kind of faith. We prefer a more culturally acceptable “nice” religion. When I think about it this way, I realize I am not surprised a Franciscan sister wrote this. She has been willing to affected by the wildness of divine love. She became a follower of St. Francis’ way. I want to be vulnerable to wildness, too. I want to risk it.
Delio’s second quotation comes from her 2013 book, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love. In some ways it describes the same experience for the church, which was just applied to each of our human lives. In this second book Delio claims, “The livingness of God disrupts and disfigures every stabilizing structure, thereby keeping the playful whole in movement.” Once more, she writes about God’s wild love and the effect it has on the community of believers in the world. She talks about the livingness of God. This dynamic God disrupts and disfigures. These are powerful verbs. And the act on the institutions and structures humans have created to organize their spiritual lives. When we belong to one of these, we should almost say, “Watch out for the livingness of God.”
That God is disruptive. Be careful of stability and, particularly, stasis. Don’t become too comfortable. Don’t be too serious. The disruptive, disfiguring God will come into our midst to keep the playful whole in movement. If the Spirit is dynamic, don’t try to domesticate it in our structures and our programs. While religion is sometimes life and death, it also tends to be playful and, often, deals in irony and paradox.
The nature of the evolutionary world is change. That should be true of our theologies and our institutions. We need both theology and institutional ways of community life, but they need to be adaptable, flexible and vulnerable. After all, faith means to trust. And love requires vulnerability. And ministry is always other-focused.
The wildness of divine love---I like it.
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