Why Don't I Capitalise god?

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Laurie Montgomery asked me what I don't capitalise 'god' in the 'About Me' section of this blog.  I appreciate the question - and while I don't have a firm rule about the grammar of names for the divine, some wider thoughts below: A note on God: I don’t think we can really talk about God.  The name cannot begin to conceive of what ‘God’ might actually be.  Woody Allen famously asserted that asking him about his belief or non-belief in God was pointless given that he couldn’t even get his typewriter to work.  Dealing with small things is difficult enough without facing the deepest existential questions.  Given that I don’t use a typewriter, I’ll risk just a little more theologising than Woody, but still bear in mind that whatever we say about God will be inadequate.  My friend Pete Rollins writes beautifully about what he calls a/theism – the idea that our best ideas of God will fall short; by the same token, our most profound denials of God cannot come close to describing what Meaning is.

On the one hand, the notion that the Ground of all Being can be restricted to only having personal attributes makes God nothing more than a more powerful version of Santa Claus.  On the other, the rejection of the idea of there being Something Beyond us seems to me to be rooted in disappointment with life at least as much as with a rigorous commitment to science, as many proponents of so-called ‘non-belief’ would want to say.  For the record, I don’t think God/god/G-d is a magician in the sky, nor a friendly but more capable universal grandfather.  Nor do I think we came from nowhere and have nowhere to go.  Talk about ‘God’ is always inadequate; it’s far too big a word that it can’t fail to destabilise any sentence that tries to contain it.  The paradox is that I think we have to talk about God if we are to discover what it means to be human.  So I apologise for the failure of my words to convey what I mean – and I hope you can trust that when I use the word ‘god’ I’m talking about something unimaginable.  And that my assumption about this ‘God/god/g-d’ is simple: he, she or it is either made of love, or we’re in trouble.

Update on Celtic Spirituality and Radical Activism Immersion Experience August 2010

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Hi folks - just to let you know that we're deep in preparation for the Celtic Spirituality and Radical Activism Immersion Experience, taking place in just over two months in my home of Northern Ireland.  Unfortunately, due to unforeseen and unavoidable circumstances my co-facilitator and good friend Ian Cron has had to withdraw from the retreat; but I'm very happy to announce that I'll now be joined by Carl McColman as co-facilitator. Carl will tell you more about the retreat/immersion experience here.  Good news: if ten or more people sign up in the next week, we may be able to reduce the cost by up to $200 per person.  So please do click on the link to Carl's blog, read about the retreat, and let us know if you're interested: places are limited and we hope to fill them soon...

Celtic Spirituality and Radical Activism Gathering

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We're making some final plans for the Celtic Spirituality and Radical Activism Event - a week in Northern Ireland in August, leading up to Greenbelt.  There are still some places left, but we need to make some decisions this week about numbers - so if you're interested we need to hear from you very soon.  More details on the event here - if you're interested in participating, let us know...

Letting Go...Some Thoughts on 'Lost'

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Of course many of us saw, are still thinking, and want to talk about 'Lost'.  I'm no expert (that appelation belongs to good folk like Chris Seay), nor even that much of a fan, but I have followed the show, in good times and bad.  My brief thoughts on the implications of how it ended and why I liked it: 1: It does what good conclusions always do: allows for us to go back and watch from the start with enhanced enjoyment.

2: It genuinely lets characters breathe, and despite the surreal contexts of the narrative, do things that real people actually do, which makes it better than almost anything else currently screening on network television.

3: It ends up being more like a film that I never considered a progenitor until last night ('The Last Temptation of Christ') than its most obvious grandfather ('Star Wars').

4: It earned the right to attempt serious points partly because it was always able to laugh at itself.  ('Christian Shephard?  Really?')

5: It suggests something hugely significant about our current popular culture: the narrative of personal transformation dominates, and the link between facing your own death and making a good life is front and centred.  John O'Donohue always said that the greatest privilege of working in a pastoral context was helping people to die well; in that sense, at its best, 'Lost' is like a meta-level good priest, a comforting myth, a reassurance that every moment allows for the possibility of miracles: the miracle of human beings in conflict forgiving each other, the miracle of lives well lived, and the miracle perhaps most underthought, that of the ability to choose.

But before we get too excited and announce the Second Coming of Tolstoy, there's a shadow side:  I think part of why the ending of a show like 'Lost' affects people is because we're all longing for lives that seem as rich as the characters in good fiction; or, frankly, we want to have lives as rich as the lives of people who work in television seem.  Of course this is to collude in a myth that is ultimately oppressive: while we may be thoroughly enjoying and learning from 'The Sopranos', 'The Wire', 'Six Feet Under', 'Battlestar Galactica', 'Lost', and now 'Treme', we're also paying for it by sitting through advertising, or buying Dharma Initiative branded lasagna; more than that, we're subject to the temptation to confuse reading directions with climbing mountains (how many young men saw themselves in Neo, were inspired to re-evaluate their lives and sense of vocation, made emotional commitments to living subversively, and fleshed this out primarily [or exclusively] by purchasing the Playstation 2 game?)  The map is not the city.  'Lost' is over.  It's time to let go.