By Michael Commane
In conversation with friends the topic of certainty came up, specifically in the context of religious certainty.
It was agreed that anyone who expresses certainty about anything, especially in matters of religion needs to be treated with caution.
Some days later I was discussing the story of the Prodigal Son, which is tomorrow's Gospel, with a man in his 90s. We both admitted that forgiveness is a central theme in the story. The conversation moved to the son who had stayed at home and was peeved with how his brother had been so well received when he returned from his days of debauchery.
The forgiveness of the father is a lesson for all of us but the reaction of the peeved brother is a fabulous insight into how ‘incomplete’ the best of stories are.
Everything about our world has the element of ‘incomplete’ about it. Maybe it is the defining difference between mankind and God. We are always in process, we are always thinking and moving and changing. But God is perfection. God is goodness. There is nothing ‘incomplete’ about God. If there were then she/he could not be God. It’s our hope to experience this complete God. We call it heaven.
In the meantime everything about our lives is surrounded by incompleteness. It seems an extraordinary arrogance for anyone to say that their way is perfect. It’s like saying that they have been given an insight into life, which leaves nothing to question, as if everything has been decided by some grand design.
It cannot be like that. The evidence to date tells us a different story.
Fintan O’Toole described the late Seamus Heaney as someone who struggled with contradictions, paradoxes, conflicting impulses.
“His genius lay in his ability to hover between them, to give each side of a political or emotional equation its full weight and proper due without becoming the prisoner of either.”
O’Toole talks of how Heaney humanised uncertainty and made ambiguity rich with possibilities.
Every generation thinks that it has ‘arrived’, found the magic fix to solve all the problems of the world. Maybe that model is particularly true of religious zealots, who believe they have been ‘called’ by God to change the face of the earth. The word ‘incomplete’ is not part of the vocabulary of zealots. For them there can be no room for doubt or uncertainty.
It’s easy to look back in history and see the mistakes that are made. It’s embarrassing too.
The Ireland of the 1940s, ’50s and part of the ’60s were suffocating. There was a blanket ideology to which everyone was expected to subscribe. Those who didn’t were considered to be outcasts or misfits. There was no room for any sort of ‘incompleteness’, especially when it came to matters of religion.
But that’s not to say there is not a blanket ideology in place today. It’s a different ideology.
The late ’60s and ’70s threw up confusion and ‘Flower Power’. In many ways much was in disarray. And it seems now as if there is a new call to return to orthodoxy and especially so in matters of religion. Doubt and hesitancy is beginning to be seen as some sort of weakness, some sort of prevarication that is seen as not being healthy for the community.
Tomorrow’s Gospel is a fabulous example how even when everything seems to be going so well, there is almost the perfect ending, and yet there is something amiss. The peeved brother is sulking in the corner.
That’s life, that’s the way of the world, that’s the way it’s going to be until we reach completeness with God.
In the meantime I remain scared stiff of the purveyors of certainty. No one owns God.
In the meantime all our life-stories have elements of the peeved brother about them. It’s our challenge and our good fortune to spend our time concentrating on the forgiving father, knowing that he is our ultimate goal. In the meantime there will always be nooks and crannies that never make sense.
“Two buckets were easier carried than one.
I grew up in between.” Seamus Heaney.
In conversation with friends the topic of certainty came up, specifically in the context of religious certainty.
It was agreed that anyone who expresses certainty about anything, especially in matters of religion needs to be treated with caution.
Some days later I was discussing the story of the Prodigal Son, which is tomorrow's Gospel, with a man in his 90s. We both admitted that forgiveness is a central theme in the story. The conversation moved to the son who had stayed at home and was peeved with how his brother had been so well received when he returned from his days of debauchery.
The forgiveness of the father is a lesson for all of us but the reaction of the peeved brother is a fabulous insight into how ‘incomplete’ the best of stories are.
Everything about our world has the element of ‘incomplete’ about it. Maybe it is the defining difference between mankind and God. We are always in process, we are always thinking and moving and changing. But God is perfection. God is goodness. There is nothing ‘incomplete’ about God. If there were then she/he could not be God. It’s our hope to experience this complete God. We call it heaven.
In the meantime everything about our lives is surrounded by incompleteness. It seems an extraordinary arrogance for anyone to say that their way is perfect. It’s like saying that they have been given an insight into life, which leaves nothing to question, as if everything has been decided by some grand design.
It cannot be like that. The evidence to date tells us a different story.
Fintan O’Toole described the late Seamus Heaney as someone who struggled with contradictions, paradoxes, conflicting impulses.
“His genius lay in his ability to hover between them, to give each side of a political or emotional equation its full weight and proper due without becoming the prisoner of either.”
O’Toole talks of how Heaney humanised uncertainty and made ambiguity rich with possibilities.
Every generation thinks that it has ‘arrived’, found the magic fix to solve all the problems of the world. Maybe that model is particularly true of religious zealots, who believe they have been ‘called’ by God to change the face of the earth. The word ‘incomplete’ is not part of the vocabulary of zealots. For them there can be no room for doubt or uncertainty.
It’s easy to look back in history and see the mistakes that are made. It’s embarrassing too.
The Ireland of the 1940s, ’50s and part of the ’60s were suffocating. There was a blanket ideology to which everyone was expected to subscribe. Those who didn’t were considered to be outcasts or misfits. There was no room for any sort of ‘incompleteness’, especially when it came to matters of religion.
But that’s not to say there is not a blanket ideology in place today. It’s a different ideology.
The late ’60s and ’70s threw up confusion and ‘Flower Power’. In many ways much was in disarray. And it seems now as if there is a new call to return to orthodoxy and especially so in matters of religion. Doubt and hesitancy is beginning to be seen as some sort of weakness, some sort of prevarication that is seen as not being healthy for the community.
Tomorrow’s Gospel is a fabulous example how even when everything seems to be going so well, there is almost the perfect ending, and yet there is something amiss. The peeved brother is sulking in the corner.
That’s life, that’s the way of the world, that’s the way it’s going to be until we reach completeness with God.
In the meantime I remain scared stiff of the purveyors of certainty. No one owns God.
In the meantime all our life-stories have elements of the peeved brother about them. It’s our challenge and our good fortune to spend our time concentrating on the forgiving father, knowing that he is our ultimate goal. In the meantime there will always be nooks and crannies that never make sense.
“Two buckets were easier carried than one.
I grew up in between.” Seamus Heaney.
2 comments:
Glad to see an acknowledgement of "incompleteness" in the parables.
Along with the Prodigal Son, I would cite the Talents and the Unjust Steward.
I remember once in religious class in school, the teacher asked if there were any questions. I put up my hand. Suspecting that he might be in trouble if I asked the question in front of the class he asked me to come up and tell him (privately?) what the question was. I told him I never understood the message in the Unjust Steward, as it seemed to me that the steward was using his boss's funds to feather his own nest with his prospective new employer? Could he maybe explain it more fully? The teachers blood pressure started climbing, his colouring rose, and, eventually, he screamed out at the top of his voice, in front of the whole class: "I don't know. I'm not Jesus Christ".
So maybe a little elucidation on the incompleteness, aptness to our times and other aspects of some of these parables needs a little revisiting.
Thank you for your comment. It's nice to get feedback, seemingly something unknown to so many people in 'leadership' positions in the Catholic Church. Using the word 'leadership' scares me.
September 14, 2013
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