If your theology causes you to think you’ve got it all wrapped up and well-understood, it’s bad theology. Theology should produce wonder. Not that theology should be hard to understand, abstract, unclear, or embrace a false humility that claims we can’t possibly know anything. Theology is as clear and easy to understand as sheep, water, bread, fig trees, and vineyards.
And it produces wonder.
The fact that we don’t think these things are filled with wonder demonstrates just how far we have gotten off the path of the truth. G.K. Chesterton wrote,
Just as we all like love tales because there is an instinct of sex, we all like astonishing tales because they touch the nerve of the ancient instinct of astonishment. This is proved by the fact that when we are very young children we do not need fairy tales: we only need tales. Mere life is interesting enough. A child of seven is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door and saw a dragon. But a child of three is excited by being told that Tommy opened a door. Boys like romantic tales; but babies like realistic tales — because they find them romantic. In fact, a baby is about the only person, I should think, to whom a modern realistic novel could be read without boring him. This proves that even nursery tales only echo an almost pre-natal leap of interest and amazement. (Orthodoxy, Chapter IV)
True, when we grow old we are to “put away childish things,” but sinners have a tendency to mis-understand what is childish and what is not. Paradoxically, we fallen people are described well in Rich Mullin’s song, “Growing Young” – “We are children no more, we have sinned and grown old.”
Or, as Chesterton wrote,
Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.
We grow old, lose our wonder, and become theologians who have it all figured out.
This is one of the many concepts that draws me to the importance of rootedness in place; and, conversely, rootedness in place teaches me these concepts. Fighting weeds while trying to restore a backyard that’s suffered 15 years of neglect puts me in a place and makes me have to do one of two things: get bitter that I don’t have more time for sitting in front of a computer debating theology with people dumber than me, or find the wonder in creation, consider the tragedy of the fall, and find even greater wonder in redemption.
Most people are bored with the monotony of one place, and we’ve become very transient people. I’ve written about this before. I think that boredom is a weakness which plagues us, and I’m fighting hard against it. I wrote recently at The Rabbit Room,
Lately, I’ve been trying to gather the strength to “do it again” as many times as Sophia requests it, and I’ve been trying to summon the wisdom to find joy in the repetition.
It is much more often foolishness, not wisdom, that makes people want to move away from family and community for ideas of finding a “better life.” We’re bored with the monotony. We’re thinking we’re better than this place. We’re weak. We’ve sinned and grown old.
Theology and place – they’re interconnected and full of wonder.
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I’m not dumber than you even though I’m sitting at a computer talking theology.
Nor are you dumber than me. On first glance I agree with the main thrust of your article. Need to read more in depth to answer better. But right now I’m drinking beer, which is indispensable for doing theology, but also waiting for my wife to get home from work, which makes my mind distracted even more than normal. Maybe tomorrow I can comment further.
Good work, though.
We trick ourselves into believing that if we move and do the same monotonous things with new and different people it will be somehow better. Or at least they won’t know me as well and I can hide for a bit longer. Maybe we start saying we’re better than this place when this place knows us too well for our own good.
My mum worked long hours and when she saw the sunrise she’d stop and watch. Maybe without even realising it she was playing ‘Do it again’ with God. She delighted in the colours and always egged God on: ‘You couldn’t possibly top that!’ So he did. The sunrise was just a prop. It was a Father/daughter thing, a time to rejoice in one another.
Your comments on “Do it again,” besides making me think of a Kinks song, are very well put. Children love repetition; it’s we adults who think we’re beyond it & thus we tend to get bored very easily.
I’ll throw out some thoughts in no particular order. I like how you do make the distinction at the beginning regarding theology, especially that theology should not “be hard to understand, abstract, unclear, or embrace a false humility that claims we can’t possibly know anything.” The last part of that is especially relevant in our oh so relativistic day & age.
Theology, that is to say the study of what God has given us in His Word, should always be challenging, driving us always back into it as we grapple with questions & issues during our daily life. And by definition, it is always full of wonder. It’s us that gets bored with it or contemptuous, as the old saying goes “familiarity breeds contempt.”
But familiarity can also breed contentment, and contentment with an object or person allows us to see them in a better light, a light that allows us to see the wonders about them. Thus the more we know, the more we desire to know, & the more opportunities for wonder. Further up & further in.
Chesterton said “Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.”
That is an absolutely brilliant thought by Chesterton! “Perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony.” Wonderful stuff, & it immediately reminds me of two things that are especially applicable to the Church. One, the Holy Liturgy. Why are so many people so intent on changing the Liturgy of the Church? Because it’s boring. It’s not relevant, or at least not relevant in the way I want it to be.
But the Liturgy is boring & repetitive in the most marvelous way, constantly bringing to mind the same old wonders of God over & over again. Adults, of course, can’t stand it, unless they come to understand what’s going on in the Liturgy. But children, even teen-agers for heaven’s sake, can pick up on the wonderful monotony of the Liturgy & can exult in the repetition of it, in the same way they can watch a Disney movie five thousand times as if it’s the first time! There’s a security, a permanency in it that stands against all the flightiness of this passing world.
Something similar goes on with the simple teaching of the Scriptures & the Catechism. For Lutherans, it’s The Small Catechism, but I’m sure those who use the Westminster or Heidelberg or Catholic Catechism can sympathize. That is to say, people get bored with the Scriptures & the simple teaching of the Bible condensed in the Catechism very quickly. They want something deeper or more exciting even when they don’t know the basics very well. To use a sports analogy, it’d be like a kid telling the coach, “Okay, coach, I know how to dribble, so now teach me how to do a spinning behind the back over the top super slam dunk.”
But hearing the Bible stories & studying the basic teachings of the faith in the Catechism are something about which we should be saying like the little child, “Do it again!”
Just some rambling thoughts. Again, great Chesterton quote.
I had a friend at university who divorced his wife of 20 years for a younger, newer model. I was a bit dismayed because he is a Christian who seemed to really understand the importance/witness of marriage. I didn’t see him for a while until one day I saw him at the same shopping centre going into the same shops with his new wife that he used to go to with his former wife. All that had changed was that he now had more lines on his brow.
Get what I’m saying?
Korg, I get what you’re saying.
We love to think that a change will make things better, then we slip back into our old habits. And then when ennui sets in again we blame the new location/person/job and off we wander again. We definitely don’t look at our own hearts. We truly have the mark of Cain.
Revgeorge, I’m astounded at churches who are still jettisoning liturgy/hymns/prayer book because someone has told them ‘the young people don’t like them.’ Yet young people are rediscovering those same things and are drawn to their solidity, their ‘meat’ after so much fluff in most contemporary music and seeker-sensitive services. Many hunger for a connection to something deeper and older than today. Yet churches continue to abandon the very thing many are looking for. Well we’ve always been 10 – 20 years behind everything…
Korg, I too get what you’re saying.
Black Angus, yes, there are still people in my church body who are eagerly jettisoning the liturgy & hymnody because it’s not cool or relevant & replacing it with Baby Boomer praise songs or Christian rock bands.
Unfortunately, the Church seems to take most of its cues from the business & marketing world nowadays than it does from Scripture.
But I probably shouldn’t get started on this ’cause I could go on for a long time!
I wonder if we’ve had a problem with place ever since the fall. Running and hiding from God, expelled from the garden, Cain’s wandering. Jacob was always on the run until he was reconciled to God. Only then was he finally able to settle.
A new place keeps us distracted from ourselves. We can hide among new people. But when we’ve been there a while, people get to know us better than we’d like. And when we get into a routine our true self begins to raise its head. It’s safer to move on again.
My Dad suffered from depression and often moved house. I don’t know if he ever realised he was trying to run away from himself. The same place, like routine, can reflect yourself back to you like silence does.
Wandering reflects the restlessness of our heart: ‘Prone to wander, Lord I feel it.’ Maybe we can only enjoy place when we are reconciled to God, when we have found our inner rest in him.
“We were made for Thee, and our heart is restless till it repose in Thee.” ~ St. Augustine