One of my most important thoughts over the summer, during my CPE program, has to do with the word “subconscious.” (Even my sister Libby pointed out to me that this word occurs on my blog, no insignificant fact for a Boulter.)

Think about when you are just beginning to fall asleep. Have you ever noticed that all kinds of strange, expansive thoughts & images pop into your mind, apparently at random? For example as I am falling asleep I might sense such bizarre images in my mind as some acquaintance whom I have not seen for weeks walking past me, or perhaps a scenario in which I am talking before a crowd of people about some topic, say blogging or eating your vegetables, or I might have a scene in my mind which is an adaptation from some movie like Finding Nemo (all recent examples).

Where do these thoughts and images come from? It is not as if I consciously or intentionally constructed them. It seems like they just emerged on their own. But did they? No: they are all formed from the “raw material” of my experience. Whether it is a new acquaintance or some movie or some life theme or some group of people or some place, the content of these images comes from my experience. And this means that what I experience matters. It is not neutral. It is not insignificant. It affects me, and it affects me deeply.

Two implications flow from this realization:

1. Destructive habits damage the self very deeply.
2. We must engage in healing practices which will address this damage, whether self-inflicted from a destructive habit, or ways in which we have been abused or victimized by others. Contemplative prayer is just such a practice, and perhaps one of the most important ones.

Related here is Thomas Keating’s  identification (in his The Human Condition) of three areas which impact how we develop our false and / or true selves: survival and security; affection and esteem; power and control.

Catherine Pickstock gives the word “liturgy” a wide resonance. But she also devotes many pages of her book AW to analyzing a specific liturgy: the celebration of the Christian Eucharist, in which the elements of bread and wine are said to become the body and blood of Christ. Drawing particularly on the writings of Thomas Aquinas, she asks how Christ is made present in the Mass.

I found that the understanding of presence that you get in Aquinas’ understanding of the Eucharist is not the kind of fetishized presence of modernity. It is not one that is somehow “enthronable” or “stockpileable.” It is a presence which is mysterious, and one which seems to bring the meanings of words together. One thing that stuck Aquinas about the Eucharist is that although it is perhaps the highest instance of God’s action through human action on earth, nevertheless it seems to use the most ordinary objects, it seems to use the most banal objects: bread and wine, grape and grain. Nothing could be more local and more summoning or ordinary labor – transport, commerce – all the things which ordinarily seem to take us away from “high piety” – and one of the things that A says about the choice of elements is precisely their ordinariness and their association with human conviviality – eating and drinking and the good smell of the bread and wine. Plus it was significant for him that bread and wine involve human trade and travel and commerce and so forth, and so the lowest and most basic elements of human survival and human operation are brought into the moment of heightened realization of divine presence. And so for all these different reasons you can see the ways in which we are being reminded in the Eucharist that there really isn’t an area of human operation which isn’t somehow preincluded in God’s gift. And we’re are reminded also that liturgy is something which all of human action and human operation leads toward and presupposes. If, even, in the manufacturing of bread we are being led toward the Eucharistic celebration, it helps us to reposition our understanding of all human labor as praise of the divine. And again this brings us back to the idea that liturgy isn’t something that we should think about only on Sundays or high feast days but its something that all our human labors might become, that human labor itself might be liturgy. And so there isn’t necessarily a separation between life and liturgy. Even washing up could be offered up as a sort of divine praise. All human actions could be.

And so, equally, if we think of the tree which I referred to earlier as fulfilling its “tree-ness” by worshipping God – and this is the way in which Aquinas saw the world around us, where everything is worshipping God in its own way – and so when the tree fulfills its telos as a tree, that moment of fulfillment is the tree’s worshipping God, or copying God in its own manner. And so a Eucharistic sensibility is one in which one sees everything as participating in praise of the divine.” — Catherine Pickstock in an interview which one can listen to here.

Liturgy, as Catheine Pickstock explains it, signifies an underlying attitude and not just a specific order of celebration. It is, as she says, “a way of being on the way.” A way of receiving, and releasing, what is only ever present in passing.

Liturgy isn’t just going to church on a Sunday. When I was analyzing what a liturgical worldview might be like, I tried to conceive it as a way of life, rather than as a text or as something we did every now and then. And this is something I found in Plato again, when he is looking at the life of the philosopher and the philosopher’s desire to recollect the highest principles of the good and to communicate them to his pupils. He was trying to show that philosophy isn’t a decadent pursuit which occurs on the ancient Greek version of a high table at a college, but rather is a way of life, where everything must be orientated toward a vision of the good, and if one can Christianize that vision…. Well, in a way that is what I’ve been doing in my analysis of liturgy: trying to show how a way of life might help us to unsettle all the dichotomies and pernicious categories that I analyzed in secular modernity.” — Catherine Pickstock, in an interview one can listen to here.

John Milbank sees the church as an encompassing an ultimately cosmic community. And this view is complemented by the emphasis in Catherine Pickstock’s work on liturgy. Liturgy, in its most basic meaning, refers to the order of words and actions that is prescribed for public worship. but in her book After Writing, CP has given the term a much wider meaning. She argues that he muddles and uncertainties in which modern philosophy has ended up can only be overcome by recognizing that language only finally fulfills itself in praise and celebration. That is, in liturgy. And so she she subtitled her book “On the Liturgical Consummation of Philosophy.”

In my subtitle I was trying to hint at the ultimate argument of my book which is that the spatialization of modernity as I have described it can only be shattered or in some way challenged by a liturgical worldview where one is no longer trying to enthrone one’s own constructs but is now trying to reposition one’s self in that broader context which sees  the whole of reality as arriving from a divine creative source, and that we can only undo these dichotomies by some kind of liturgical enactment. One of the things I did in my book when I was analyzing secular reason is to show that the human self is by definition a divided self when it is trying to enthrone its own constructs. It starts to lead an almost duplicitous life. But a liturgical self is one which acknowledges fully its own dependence on a divine transcendent reality and is so committed to that reality that it can’t admit any divisions or internal contradictions. There is something completely simple about liturgical language. It simply says “I am nothing, and I worship you and I depend on you.” And along with this liturgical worldview comes the recognition that everything around us is in the mode of gift and is a gift from God. And so not only does it affect our relationship with our self and with God, but also our relationship to the world around us, and how we receive it.” — Catherine Pickstock in an interview which one can listen to here.

Catherine Pickstock gives liturgy a much broader sense. She argues that the muddles and uncertainties in which modern philosophy has ended up can only be overcome by recognizing that language only fulfills itself in praise and celebration, that is, in liturgy.

The spatialization of modernity can only really be shattered or in some way challenged by a liturgical world view in which one is no longer trying to enthrone its own constructs but to reposition ones self in that broader context which sees the whole of reality as arriving from a divine creative source. We can only really undo all of these dichotomies by some kind of liturgical enactment. One of the things I did in my book when I was analyzing secular reason is to show how the human self, by its self, is a divided self, and when it is trying to enthrone its own constructs it starts to lead an almost duplicitous existence, but the liturgical self is one which acknowledges freely its complete dependence upon another being, a divine, transcendent reality, and is so committed to that reality that it can’t admit to any kind of internal divisions or contradictions. There is something completely simple about liturgical language. It simply says, “I am nothing, and I depend upon you and I worship you, and along with that liturgical worldview comes the realization that everything around us is in the mode of gift and arrives as a gift from God. And so not only does it affect our relationship with ourself and to God himself, but also to our relationship with the world around us, and how we receive it.” — Catherine Pickstock, in an interview which one can listen to here.

“I’m very much in a tradition of Anglican thinkers going back to John Neville Figgis who have insisted that the church is the purpose of salvation, it’s not just the collection of believers or the saved. The church is the realization of salvation, because the church is the realization of reconciliation, ultimately b/t everybody. Ultimately the church is, as the Eastern Orthodox stress, bigger than the cosmos, because it’s the cosmos linked to God and returned to God. So church for me is a very big reality. It’s the site of the true human sociality. So, again, very much in the tradition of Anglican socialism I tend to see the church itself as the political vehicle. You don’t need a political party, b/c the church has a social purpose that goes beyond the political understood in the normal sense, because it’s not just about equal sharing and punishing wrongdoers. It’s about forgiveness and reconciliation and restoring and giving superabundantly to each other. So it involves some kind of social purpose that can’t be fully realized in this world but can to some extant and goes beyond the social purpose and the political purpose of the state, so much so that even ideally state functions should be minimalized in relation to ecclesiastical functions. The more we had real church in our economic practices, in our social practices … the less you would need these state functions. Liturgy also is crucial here: the sense that worshipping God is the true social purpose and that everything, all our economic activities are ultimately oriented to making the true worship of God in the kind of ritual patterns of the daily life that come to a head in what happens in a church. Without a sense of what binds us together you don’t have a real society.” — John Milbank, in an invterview which you can listen to here.

As a part of my journey into deeper catholicity, I have begun to sign the cross in worship. I had a pivotal conversation a few months ago about this with a close and knowledgeable friend, which I have been thinking much about.

In addition to it being ancient tradition, there are many theological reasons why we make the sign of the cross on our bodies at certain times during the liturgy, but I want to focus on one in particular: the participatory nature of the Christian life.

Christian theology teaches that humanity’s ultimate end is participation in the triune God of Scripture. Ultimately, this refers to Thomas’ mysterious beatific vision on the last day, in the new heavens and the new earth. And yet we begin to participate in God in this life as well, bringing the eschaton into the now.

Like the eucharistic liturgical actions performed by the priest, to make the sign of the cross on one’s body is a symbolic movement through time and in this sense it consecrates time. It is symbolically to say to God and to others not just “I want my life to be marked by the cross,” but also “My body, which is a living sacrifice, and which will be raised on the last day, and which represents the totality of my life / being, is destined for full oneness with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.”

In navigating the waters between Presbyterianism and Anglicanism, I have come to see that one watershed divide between the liturgical churches of the “great tradition” and more Reformational churches is the issue of whether the church is the continued incarnation of Christ on the earth.

I have come to land on the side of the issue that does affirm that this claim is an true characteristic of the church, that the church is incarnational in this way.

I offer below two patristic quotations (thanks to Doug Harrison) which testify to ancient precedent in seeing the church in this way. The first is from St. Augustine:

“The Body of Christ,” you are told, and you answer, “Amen.” Be members then of the Body of Christ that your Amen may be true. Why is this mystery accomplished with bread? We shall say nothing of our own about it, rather let us hear the Apostle, who speaking of the sacrament says: “We being many are one body, one bread.” Understand and rejoice. Unity, devotion, and charity! One bread: and what is this one bread? One body made up of many. Consider that the bread is not made of one grain alone, but of many. During the time of exorcism, your were, so to say, in the mill. At baptism you
were wetted with water. Then the Holy Spirit came into like the fire which bakes the dough. Be then what you see and receive what you are. — St. Augustine, Sermon 272 (quoted in Henri de Lubac Catholicism, p 37 - 38).

The second is from chapter 9 of the Didache (which I recently saw dated at 100CE!):

Now about the Eucharist: This is how you are to give thanks: First in connection with the cup. “We thank you, our Father, for the holy vine of David, your child. To you be glory
forever.” Then in connection with the piece [of consecrated bread], “We thank you our Father, for the life and knowledge which you have revealed through Jesus, your child. To you be glory forever. “As this piece was scattered over the hills and then was brought together and made one, so let your Church be brought together from the ends of the earth into your kingdom. For yours is the power and the glory through Jesus Christ forever.”

What’s more, I have learned in my studies of Anglican ecclesiology that seeing the church as the incarnation of Christ on earth actually presupposes much of what the ancient fathers & mothers of the church have to say about deification (or what Anglicans sometimes refer to as holiness).

[The Church] is called Catholic then because it extends over all the world, from one end of the earth to the other; and because it teaches universally and completely what one and all the doctrines which ought to come to men’s knowledge, concerning things both visible and invisible, heavenly and earthly; and because it brings into subjection to godliness the whole race of mankind, governors and governed, learned and unlearned; and because it universally treats and heals the whole class of sins, which are committed by soul or body, and possesses in itself every form of virtue which is named, both in deeds and words, and in every kind of spiritual gift.”

From Ephraim Radner’s “Children of Cain,” in Ephraim Radner and Philip Turner, The Fate of Communion: The Agony of Anglicanism and the Future of a Global Church (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2006), 33-34.

For one of my classes at ETSS, I am reading John Wall’s edition of The Classics of Western Spirituality volume devoted to 17th Century “country parson” and mystical poet George Hebert.

One of the most noteworthy marks of Herbert’s spirituality, and indeed his ministry as a parish priest in Bemerton, is its public nature. As A.M. Allchin points out in his introduction to the volume, “The Country Parson is a man of the Church, the public and visible sign of God’s presence in the world.” (6)

Allchin and other Herbert scholars apply this principle to the way Herbert conceived of and practiced the discipline of daily devotion. For Herbert, the backbone and center of daily discipline is the use of the Daily Office from the Anglican prayer book. This, though, is not merely private, since it often takes place within a small gathered community (perhaps a family or a couple of friends) and also since the Daily Office is woven together in all kinds of ways with the other public services of the church’s gathered worship, including Holy Eucharist.

Allchin rightly points out that the public character of Herbert’s conception of daily devotion (which he faithfully modeled to his parish community in Bemerton) stands in stark contrast to the prevailing religious ethos which was beginning to dominate 17th century Stuart England.

Puritan Calvinists, stressing the importance of divine election as the true test of Church membership, encouraged individuals to evaluate their lives for signs of divine favor. The fragmenting results of such an emphasis are visible throughout England in the seventeenth century. For instance, John Cotton, the Puritan rector of Saint Botolph’s Church in Boston, England, for twenty years before he emigrated to America to become the minister at the First Church of Boston, Massachusetts, overtly rejected the claims of the visible congregation to be the true Church; instead, he stressed the authenticity of the invisible company of the elect and formed a separate “church” within his parish, made up of those who could meet his standards for inclusion.” (8)

John 4 is probably my favorite story in the whole Bible. Truly, this story is (as the church fathers described the Gospel of John) a puddle that a small child can wade in, and at the same time an ocean that an elephant can swim — or drown! — in.

John 4, the story of the woman at the well, is the Gospel lesson for this morning, the third Sunday in Lent, based on the Revised Common Lectionary. (You can listen to my sermons, and those of our pastor John Ratliff, here.)

Here is my little sermon outline so far, though I do hope to preach this “narrativally,” and not so much like a bullet-point lecture.

Opening Question: “Why is this woman alone?” First, because she is excluded from her community in every possible sense (racially, gender-wise, socially, morally, theologically). Second, nobody wants to be with her (why would they, given all of that?) and she does not want to be with anyone (she feels the shame of exclusion). This is why, at “the sixth hour,” when the sun is directly overhead and there are no shadows, she is alone at the well performing a task which in that day was never done alone (drawing water).

Note: what might be viewed as evil in her life God was using for good. Just like Mary Magdelen, who was so mentally tormented and tortured that Mk 16:9 says that she had “seven demons” cast out of her. Only til you lose everything can you really find Jesus. Only then can he find you. You will never find the one thing til you lose everything.

Then I am going to look at three images which are intensely prominent in John’s Gospel, which are huge in this story as well.

I. water: we see a movement from subsistence to life-giving abundance, from well (v6) to spring (v15).

II. spirit (which is both Hebrew and Greek is the same word as “wind” and / or “breath.” (All correct pneumatology begins with this observation.) In John water is never alone: it is always coupled with spirit. If you read about water in John, look around, and you will find “spirit” nearby. This means the Holy Spirit, and in a real sense this life-giving water is precisely the Holy Spirit which Jesus gives to the church on the day of Pentecost (John’s version of Pentecost is 20:19-23 when be breathes of the disciples and says, “Receive the HS.”). Also, spirit, like water, is a fluid, and there is something about fluids which, gives them, as opposed to solids (think of a rock) a certain “sovereignty.” They flow, and seemingly of their own accord. “The wind blows where it will,” Jn 3:8. Like a branch flowing in a river, the initiative is with the fluid, not with the branch. The water initiates and does the carries. The branch in a sense is acted upon. So we see a movement here from static to fluid or dynamic.

III. Life. From tenuous to transformative. Wells can get clogged up but springs cannot be held down. They will overcome any amount of gunk you throw at them. Jesus moves this woman from a state of being interested only in physical water (like the people in chapter 6 who are interested only in filling their bellies — 6:26) to becoming a holistic sharer for others. There is a movement from physical to holistic and from self-seeking to others-sharing. At first, she just wants to avoid dying of dehydration, but by the time Jesus is finished with he she rushes back to the community to share her new-found wealth, her new found well spring of life (which is Christ). Note: she did not have to be coaxed, prodded, or externally motivated to do this (did she stop by the bookstore on the way back to her villiage to pick up a copy of Evangelism Explosion or “The Four Spiritual Laws?” No: instead she told her story. Those things would have only stifled that!

“Eternal life” (v14) is not unending life lived in the eternal state. No: it is the indestructible, uncloggable life of a spring. But not just that, it is “eonic life.” Life of the God’s new eon. It brings about a new world.

This is the point of the “sowing and reaping” part of this story. Look at what this eonic life does: it brings about the transformation of the world. We see it beginning to happen in this woman’s life and in the life of her village.

C losing Question: “How did this happen?” Where did she get that boldness? Answer: verse 16. See, why did Jesus, out of the blue, say: “Go get your husband.” Is he changing the subject? No: he saw that she was alone and immediately had the suspicion (as any case-wise counselor or pastor in that day would have) that her social isolation was the result of something having to do with … men.

How does this happen? Through liberation. She was in bondage. She was drinking from some other well, which had become her false hope, her addiction, and Jesus set her free.

He said to her, “Woman, go get your husband.”

He says to you, “Christian, go get your ….” Your what? “Christian, go get your bank account. Go get your social life where you’re in the inner circle . Go get your children. Go get your stainless reputaton.”

Go get them and do two things with them. Compare them to me (the quality of life they give you), and see that they don’t stack up to real abundant life. And then, lay them at my feet. I will raise them back up. I will give them back to you, but now in a way that is healthy, now in a way that facilitates your new divine, abundant life with me.

Jesus puts his finger right on the issue, right on the pulse of her heart, and what does she do? She repents. How do we know this? B/c look at what she does! She runs back to her villiage. What? They very people who excluded her? The very people who did not want to be with her … and with whom she did not want to be. (You see, repentance is social and public.)

Phil Turner, here, argues that the current malaise of the Episcopal Church is not simply about morality, but rather about theology, the “working theology” of a church which is not so much found in the church’s official documents, books, and creeds as much as, for example, from the Sunday pulpit, week in and week out. Turner writes:

For those who view the Episcopal Church’s House of Bishops and its General Convention from the out­side, many of their recent actions may seem to repre­sent a denial of something fundamental to the Chris­tian Way of life. But for many inside the Episcopal Church, the equation of the Gospel and social justice constitutes a primary expression of Christian truth. This isn’t an ethical divide about the rightness or wrongness of homosexuality and same-sex marriage. It’s a theological chasm – one that separates those who hold a theology of divine acceptance from those who hold a theology of divine redemption.”

Acceptance versus redemption. What a wonderful way to put it. Anyone who has been in a real relationship knows that true friendship, true love, involves much more than mere acceptance. It involves things like confrontation and admonition. It involves honest pleas for change in behavior and attitude. Such is the love of God for us. Which is why God’s relationship with his church and his world is best thought of as redemption, not mere acceptance.

And what is most encouraging to me is that two of the men who have taught me this more than anyone else are currently serving as global leaders of the worldwide Anglican communion. Their names are Tom Wright and Rowan Williams, and both would heartily agree with Phil Turner’s diagnosis of the Episcopal Church’s current malady.

Thanks to Jeff Myers for pointing out this quotation:

Hooker had never heard of a religion called Anglicanism. He would
never have dreamed of trying to ‘convert’ any foreigner to the Church
of England. It was to him obvious that a German or Italian would not
belong to the Church of England, just as an Ephesian or Galatian would not have belonged to the Church of Corinth. Hooker is never seeking for ‘the true Church’, never crying, like Donne, ‘Show me deare Christ, thy spouse.’ For him no such problem existed. If by ‘the
church’ you mean the mystical church (which is partly in Heaven) then, of course, no man can identify her. But if you mean the visible
Church, then we all know her. She is ‘a sensibly known company’ of
all those throughout the world who profess one Lord, one Faith, one
Baptism (III.i.3)” (English Literature in the Sixteenth Century, 454).”

I am really thankful for this opportunity to delve into Hooker at ETSS. I am starting to see his relevance for many of the things I grappling with (Federal Vision / New Perspective type issues; the social nature of the faith; the right use of Scripture; the Greek speaking church fathers; etc.). A part of me is thinking, “Why focus on so much on ancient Greek speaking Easterners when we have (English speaking) Hooker?” That’s not to say that we should not read the Greek fathers, but maybe we should, to a great extent, let Hooker interpret them for us.

His Laws is mainly an argument against the “Puritans” (in this case, names like Travers and Cartwright) who said “Scripture alone is the rule of all things which in this life may be done by men.” In the Laws he is defending a certain ecclesial — and actually cosmic — liturgical order of things, including organizational features of the church not explicitly or directly authorized in Scripture (ie, we are talking about, among other things, bishops).

He has many key themes and distinctions, but none is more important than his emphasis on society. For Hooker, the chief end of man is to enjoy — with and in the Triune God and other people — the society of God.

He presupposes a traditional view of the atonement which includes the idea (listen for overtones of NT Wright here) that Christ offered himself for the forgiveness of sins. (Let me just say that, when it comes to the atonement, that is good enough for me right there. And I have felt this way for about a decade, ever since I read something along these lines by CS Lewis about how no “one theory” about how the atonement works ought to be absolutized, and I distinctly remember disagreeing with RC Sproul on this.)

It does seem to me that Hooker, with his upfront emphasis on society (divine and human, of course), implies something that NT Wright implies: soteriology is really ecclesiology.

Atonement is not where the action is for Hooker, relying as he does on the Fathers. The action is in the divine society and our participation in it.

I want to write so much more, but Ellie Bay is starting to cry.

Suffice to say that Hooker is opposing the Puritans, who want simply to “go back to Scripture” by relying more on the Nicene and Chalcedonian orthodoxy, which, in turn, rely upon Scripture. (So Hooker is explicitly relying on both tradition and scripture.) It is a different sort of argument.

One last point: it seems to me that Hooker is a really good blend of Calvinist / Reformed thought (Creator / creature distinction: “the finite cannot contain the infinite”) and Thomism (teleology: obeying the teleological law of our nature is a necessary condition for true society).

Welcome, Eleanor Bay Boulter (born Wed., Feb. 5, 2008), to God’s world, to Christ’s church, and to our family!