Mount Shoop notes that there are two collective wounds of our dis-embodied faith: the wound of intellectualization and the wound of fear. Again today we will listen to her thought about the first - intellectualization.
It is perilous to keep our faith above the neck. In psychoanalysis, "intellectualization" is a defense mechanism that protects us from stress, anxiety, and discomfort associated with confronting painful problems or fears.
In mainline religion this intellectualization is a collective defense against an embodied surrender to the mysterious and idolsyncratic nature of religious experience. It keeps us from acknowledging and expressing embodied pain, confusion, delight, and ambiguity. These are the marks of how we are created, yet we awkwardly conceal ourselves from such disclosures in church. The habituated nature of this collective defense has entrenched our dis-embodied dis-ease. We instead tend to reason our way through divine mystery with theology, through human pain with theodicy, through religious experience with orderly liturgy, and through diversity with mission statements about inclusion. This arsenal of intellectualization leaves us feeling cut off, denied, and blocked from embodied expression by our holy habits of operation.
Sounds like we are quite good at keeping the 'sacred' at arms length. Not too close that we would be pull into it and not too far away that we could not talk about it - from a safe distance. What we miss is the balance. We must let ourselves move into the ambiguity of the holy and yet we also have the responsibility to make sure we are not being pulled into a holy mess that is not at all reflective of the God of all hopefulness. So there is a need to be able to discern spirits. And yet, we do not do that from a distance. We must be close up and walking into the middle of all the life that disturbs us and makes us quake. It is there that we cannot just comment or try to put things in order. Rather, the Spirit makes us experience the fullness of the mess that is life that is holy, sacred, utterly human.
Connection: Recently a woman said that she was afraid that she might start to cry when she came to worship - the words of the hymns are powerful - the music stirs her - the variety of people inspire her. Mix all of that together, and there is a good chance there will be tears. Well, then let there be tears. Let there be a humanity present that is overwhelmed by the sacred and aware of the brokenness and pain and joy that is in all of our lives.
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