Is the Economy Stupid?

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Center for Popular Economics

Poetry: Expect Nothing

by Alice Walker in Anything We Love Can be Saved: A Writer’s Activism.

And I ask myself: What can I give you for comfort on those bleak days to come—and they will—when you are wondering if “this” (whatever the limit is that you have reached) is all there is. I can give you this poem:

EXPECT NOTHING

Expect nothing. Live frugally
on surprise.
Become a stranger
To need of pity
Or, if compassion be freely
Given out
Take only enough
Stop short of urge to plead
Then purge away the need.

Wish for nothing larger
Than your own small heart
Or greater than a star;
Tame wild disappointment
With caress
Unmoved and cold
Make of it a parka
For your soul.

Discover the reason why
So tiny human giant
Exists at all.
So scared unwise
But expect nothing. Live frugally
on surprise.

Catechism III: Q & A

“As you do not know the path of the wind,
or how the body is formed in a mother's womb,
so you cannot understand the work of God,
the Maker of all things.” – Ecc. 11:5, NIV

“As you do not know the way the spirit comes to the bones in the womb of a woman with child, so you do not know the work of God who makes everything.” – Ecc. 11:5, ESV

I have a hard time with many philosophical yes-or-no questions, especially when in one party’s opinion the state of one’s soul or fitness for ministry are at stake. ‘I don’t know’ and ‘that depends’ are generally the wrong answers, even if that is true. The following is part of my ongoing process of recovery from Sunday-school ‘answers’ and how I was taught to think (or not think) about what I believe. (Put your orthodox reflexes on mute momentarily and hear me out on this one . . .)

* * *

Hypothetical Inquisitor: Do you believe that the holy scripture, the Old and New Testament, is the Word of God and the only perfect rule for faith, doctrine, and conduct?

Me: That depends on what you mean by ‘word,’ ‘perfect,’ ‘rule,’ ‘faith,’ ‘doctrine,’ and ‘conduct.’ I believe that ‘Word’ is not limited to verbal revelation, that the Creation and the Incarnate person of Christ also proceed from (or are) the Word. Also, I suspect that the scriptures were not dictated verbatim by God into your favorite contemporary language translation. They might actually be at least partially the result of a human process involving cultural context and literary sophistication unfamiliar to modern readers and therefore need not (and cannot) be taken as face-value literal statements in order to be rightly valued and appropriated as Truth. As there are different translations, they cannot all be equally perfect, and there are no perfect interpreters. Even the decision to take something literally (or not), or to translate a word one way rather than another, are acts of interpretation. Also, I’m not sure that the Bible was ever trying to be a ‘rule,’ and I do not understand ‘faith, doctrine, and conduct’ as separate categories.

I am committed to interacting with the Bible as a paradigmatic story for adoption into the family of Christ and participation in the Realm of God. There is a great deal of mystery involved that might not be best served by verbal definition phrased in absolutes. Faith-doctrine-conduct is a matter of identity and belonging, who you are and (most importantly) whose you are, not a regimented series of formulae to be navigated, propositions requiring assent, and a codified list of behaviors to avoid, appearances to maintain, and errors according to which we not only may but ought to look down on other people.

* * *

Does answering ‘yes’ to the above catechism question really lead to a situation in which the whole canon of scripture is forming and guiding the church? (“Something that serves to form character and guide discernment and action” would be a definition of ‘rule’ I can live with.)

One example: “See poverty? See evil? Look up, and you’ll see corruption and love of money.” Despite centuries of orthodox propagation (and enforcement) of the Faith, this recurrent theme of the Bible has hardly become paradigmatic for the way institutions and individuals going by Christ’s name approach interpretation of and engagement with reality.

In much of church tradition, the Bible is perfect, and relevant to conduct, only insofar as it is convenient for those whose social location bestows upon them, in their sovereign opinion, the exclusive and inalienable right to (and capacity for) accurate, normative interpretation of scripture. When not convenient, whole passages can be ignored, trivialized, banished to the archives, hidden under a bushel, rendered merely figurative or metaphoric, spiritualized, or otherwise explained away in deference to the highest task of much self-described ‘orthodox’ faith: the formulation and defense of Doctrine.

Historically, individuals or movements that question this arrangement are given the official seal of disapproval, assigned an epithet by which they can be summarily condemned without a hearing, and sometimes violently dispatched. The official records tend to erase public consciousness of such troublemakers when possible. If said troublemakers are not sufficiently forgettable, those whose version of history has the most political, financial, and ecclesial backing either co-opt renegade characters and ideologies to neutralize their subversive power, or they anathematize them as heretics. Naturally, histories, scripture translations, and venerable institutions endorsed by socially ensconced persons are a simple fact of the created order, divinely revealed, ordained, and appointed, and therefore free from all interests, agendas, biases, ideologies, and contextual perspectives. Any ‘alternative’ and ‘marginal’ voices that might beg to differ are obviously illegitimate.

* * *

Answer ‘no,’ and may God have mercy on your soul. Because knowing all the right answers about God and how He works is why He put us humans here in the first place. That and keeping score, making sure that prior to eternal judgment at least a degree of mercy is withheld from everyone who falls short of God’s purposes.

(Really? Where is that written?)