Ushered Into Death: meditations on the experience of Dr. Cornel West
There is a cry from the very foundations of our Christian Identity to begin in the darkness. We, as humans, are buried. Dust-centered. Earth-bound.
Yet we strive in our officially optomistic religion within our officially optomistic society (language borrowed from Douglas John Hall) to promulgate the "virtues" of the empire. We forget those who came before us, those whose identities have the power to shape our own...those whose identities have actively shaped our own. How do we enter into the understanding of our own Christian identities? I loosely quote Dr. West, through wrestling with the death grip and beginning with the night side of a sunshine America. We are reminded, as though standing at the foot of the cross, that we learn how to live by learning how to die. I would dare to say, that perhaps we learn how to live by recognizing that we have already died.
and how have we died?
We are dead to the recognition of humanity. I am dead to the suffering in my midst. Blinded by a false optimism that runs rampid through my society, through my race, though my sexual orientation, through my class. Even by that which I am taught to dream. In the grace-laden words of Dr. West, What happens when that dream gets wrapped up in the cross? The Peter-Pan mentality of ongoing innocence and negation of mortality crumbles into the dust of the earth where we all, once again, are reminded of that from which we came and that to which we shall return.
The Christian Identity.
Connected to a grace that empowers us to struggle in love.
Dr. West paints a picture in the mind of listeners of flying with wings on our feet while connected to the ground. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Dying to ourselves with the mere option of charity in the dark moment of the empire. Trite optimism remains. One questioner of Dr. West this evening proclaimed, ...no one will call reality what it is.. and the Heidelberg Disputation rings in our ears 21. A theologian of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theologian of the cross calls the thing what it actually is.
Thus we fail again. With Christ, an inconceivable grace echoes the final word.
Yet we strive in our officially optomistic religion within our officially optomistic society (language borrowed from Douglas John Hall) to promulgate the "virtues" of the empire. We forget those who came before us, those whose identities have the power to shape our own...those whose identities have actively shaped our own. How do we enter into the understanding of our own Christian identities? I loosely quote Dr. West, through wrestling with the death grip and beginning with the night side of a sunshine America. We are reminded, as though standing at the foot of the cross, that we learn how to live by learning how to die. I would dare to say, that perhaps we learn how to live by recognizing that we have already died.
and how have we died?
We are dead to the recognition of humanity. I am dead to the suffering in my midst. Blinded by a false optimism that runs rampid through my society, through my race, though my sexual orientation, through my class. Even by that which I am taught to dream. In the grace-laden words of Dr. West, What happens when that dream gets wrapped up in the cross? The Peter-Pan mentality of ongoing innocence and negation of mortality crumbles into the dust of the earth where we all, once again, are reminded of that from which we came and that to which we shall return.
The Christian Identity.
Connected to a grace that empowers us to struggle in love.
Dr. West paints a picture in the mind of listeners of flying with wings on our feet while connected to the ground. Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. Dying to ourselves with the mere option of charity in the dark moment of the empire. Trite optimism remains. One questioner of Dr. West this evening proclaimed, ...no one will call reality what it is.. and the Heidelberg Disputation rings in our ears 21. A theologian of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theologian of the cross calls the thing what it actually is.
Thus we fail again. With Christ, an inconceivable grace echoes the final word.
posted by abigail @ Tuesday, November 09, 2004
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