Vocation

   I've been desperately craving a vocation - a life-call to a certain work, career, or mission - for the past ten to fifteen years. At some point in my early adulthood I went from being free, curious, and hopeful about my vocation to being anxious and distressed about not having one.
   Why not just pick a career, right?! I haven't been able to! Mysteriously that has always felt really really wrong, like a short-cut, like cheating, like a lack of faith. 
   God is supposed to tell me what to do, and if She hasn't told me yet, then I shouldn't presume to pick for myself. Where in the world did I get this notion? 
   My parents didn't teach me. Our church didn't teach this. The Bible talks plenty about call, but that's a call to follow God, prophetic words and actions, starting nations, saving the world and so forth, not a 9-5 job.
   I've tried to talk myself out of it. "My vocation is to follow Jesus, and I can do that just as well working in accounting or horticulture." "Vocation as 'career' is just a capitalist take on religious commitment."
   I've sought out advice, and found some very good wisdom. From what I've learned at Richmond Hill, vocational discernment usually involves four overlapping principles, explored in solitude and in discussion with friends.

1. Play to your strengths. Do what you're good at. God gave you talents so that you could serve with them.
2. Follow your heart. Do what you love. God gave you passions and wants you to pursue them.
3. Answer the call. Respond to the needs around you. God calls you in the context of your community.
4. Trial and error. Examine your past experience. What works for you? What doesn't? If you hate your job, well, at least you've learned what you don't like.

   And sometimes, but not usually, God will spell out your career path, in a vision, a voice, through another person, etc.. No one has ever told me that I should expect God to do this for me, but somehow I've fixed this, or God's fixed this, way down deep in my soul. As a four on the Enneagram, maybe this is simply a product of my need to feel one-of-a-kind, hand-picked, the lonely romantic hero.
   Also, those four overlapping principles haven't worked very well for me. I swear, I've tried!

1. I don't have clear, stand-out strengths. In school I did fine in all subjects, but I wasn't exceptional at anything. My work record has been the same.
2. I don't have clear, stand-out passions. I like lots of things, but I've never been consistently dedicated to an activity, or issue, or subject.
3. This has worked for me, a little. But still I haven't been able to plug in, heart and soul.
4. I guess this step continues to help.

Ruah Reflection Paper

Ruah Reflection Paper

6/12/19

David Vinson

Stupefy yourselves and be in a stupor,

Blind yourselves and be blind!

Be drunk, but not from wine,

Stagger, but not from strong drink!

For the Lord has poured out upon you a spirit of deep sleep;

He has closed your eyes, you prophets,

And covered your heads, you seers.

The vision of all this has become for you like the words of a sealed document.

If it is given to those who can read, with the command, “Read this,” they say

“We cannot, for it is sealed.”

And if it is given to those who cannot read, saying, “Read this,” they say

“We cannot read.”

                                                                        Isaiah 29:9-12

“If you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all.” No one ever taught me that, so I’m sorry in advance for the negativity in this paper! As you may have learned this year, depression is a regular part of my life, and right now I’m in a stinky, though tolerable, trough. When I’m here it’s difficult to say much, but if I need to say something, it is often helpful to start with the experiences close at hand – bitterness, frustration, failure, sleepiness, confusion, and so forth.

Answer the Door!

What the heck, God? Why won’t you answer the door!? What happened to “knock and the door shall be opened unto you”? I know, I know…I’m probably knocking my knuckles raw at the wrong door, or a door that’s unlocked with a big sign that says, “Come on in!”, in a language I can’t read, or maybe I’m inside already but think I’m outside, or maybe the door is actually open but all I know how to do is knock, or maybe I haven’t yet learned how to knock properly.

In any case, Ruah has heightened, or highlighted, my desire for God, need for God, perceived lack of God. I’m a widow with a legitimate complaint but this jerk judge won’t hear me out…guess I better keep on knocking. I’m an “importunate” neighbor, badgering my buddy for snacks in the middle of the night because I forgot my in-laws were on their way and don’t have anything in the cupboard…come on man, open up, I know you’ve got some triskets and salami.

Having the opportunity each month, in a supportive and safe group, to answer the question, “Where have you seen God in your life?”, has helped me to see just how insistent and foundational this feeling is for me. Knocking, locked out, feeling disconnected, the big Something is missing. This is the main reason I identified as a four on the Enneagram. And this is not new, of course, and I bring it up in various ways with my spiritual director, or in other contexts. I think the monthly chime, or muffled thud, depending on how I feel, of this our peer-group question has helped tune my ears to the regularity of my own knocking. For better or for worse, most of my prayer life is simply calling out to God, hoping for some response. Perhaps the best thing I’ve written in my journal this year is a page of angry and desperate prayers, “where you at?” followed by a page of scribbles and stabs of ink.

Many Hands Knocking Makes a Louder Noise

This isn’t a proverb, but I like it. Thanks be to God for my classmates and for you faculty, because with all of us knocking at the same time we create quite the racket. There’s no way God can sleep through all that! Now that I think about it, maybe we should be careful…in the Mesopotamian version of the great flood, the chief god Enlil is fed up with noisy, annoying humans and decides the world would be better off without them. Thankfully Ea warns someone to make an ark, and other gods pitch in to help humanity survive. If the gods thought we were annoying back then, wait till they hear about all the greenhouse gases we’re pumping out, or the traffic on the beltway, or the world’s most powerful leader spending half his day tweeting insults in all caps then in the next sentence saying God bless America. (“My brothers and sisters, this ought not to be so” - James 3:10)

In all seriousness, the people of Ruah have been, far and away, the best part of Ruah. Their stories, sharing from the heart, seeking truth and faith, what can I say, this has all been so precious. Each person has inspired, encouraged, and fascinated me.

Wake up!

My success and failure in following through with our program (reading, journaling, other disciplines), has been closely linked to my emotional ups and downs. September and October were decent; November, December, January were dumpy; February, March, April on the up and up; and the last month has been difficult. Thankfully I had already read much of our book list, but I really hope to do better next year.

Centering prayer is key for me, but with seven years of trying I have yet to find consistency, week to week, month to month. It’s so frustrating. I feel particularly called to silent prayer, so please pray for me that I will find that rhythm. May my failure to find a regular practice not discourage me but encourage me to whatever prayers I can muster. I love this line from Cassian’s Conferences, “The recollection also of our coldness and carelessness has sometimes aroused in us a healthful fervor of spirit. And in this way no one can doubt that numberless opportunities are not wanting, by which through God’s grace the coldness and sleepiness of our minds can be shaken off.”

Time to wake up! So says Ruah. At least, that’s my take on year one. My three most common day dreams, well, other than sexual fantasy or depressive episodes, are 1- breaking something, smashing it, perhaps cutting it in half, or jumping through it, like a window; 2- being inundated, water pouring over me, from a burst pipe or sudden waterfall; 3- jumping off high things, or driving off high things. I usually interpret these as desires to wake up, be free in the active sense, break through, take control, while at the same time, let go, be free in the passive sense, lose control. This is the kind of spiritual dance that is Ruah. I thank God for this experience, with the companions, teachers, authors, environment, and Ruach that create it.

Give Up Catching Up

Wait, it's June? What happened to half the year? Work, sleep, home improvement, too much TV. Can I find any trails through the little I've read recently?

All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing - Cormac McCarthy

Two 20th century, coming of age, western adventure stories. By western I mean horses, ranches, nostalgia, toughness, wide open spaces, gun fights, deserts, mystical indians, orientalized mexico. McCarthy leaned hard on his vision of "old Mexico", a land where the past still lives, a land where mythic forces undulate close to the surface, full of needs and questions projected by white america, so on and so forth. Pretty Horses was much smoother, tight and familiar, very much the hero's journey. The Crossing was weirder, longer, more interesting. By the time I got to Cities of the Plain, the third book of the "Border Trilogy," I had lost momentum. That had more to do with my depression and less to do with the books. McCarthy certainly enchanted me with his layered descriptions - landscape, spirit, rhythm, emotion, religion, back to lanscape.

Jesus and the Disinherited - Howard Thurman
The Essential Enneagram - David Daniels and Virginia Price

The only two books I've read recently for my Ruah class. I was trying to remember exactly when I first read Jesus and the Disinherited, I know it was during a summer in college. Anywho, at the time I was more unconvinced than convinced that my religion was, at least, potentially helpful. This book pulled me into its living faith.

Our class discussion and investigation of the Enneagram was very exciting, and it's been a lot of fun talking about it with Lindsey as well. I self-typed as a "four," woe is me, something is missing in my life. Five and nine were strong candidates. I sympathized with one of my classmates who objected, "But this is all made up!" I think he's right, it is made up, but is it more made up that Id, Ego, Super-Ego? Or is it more made up that archetypes and the collective unconscious? Is it more made up that Introvert, Extrovert? Maybe so. In any case it was a good retreat.

Being Peace - Thich Nhat Hanh

I really wish I could hang out with him for a year.

On Prayer - Tertullian, Origen, and Cassian

Selections on prayer, centered on the Lord's prayer. Tertullian was wild. Was he always itching for a fight? Origen's piece I had read before. The selection from Cassian's Conferences lit me up, so I hope to read the rest soon.

Older Birds

I never quite understood why birds were so exciting, and then I turned 30. Let me rephrase that...I never quite understood that  birds were so exciting, delightful, thrilling. I still don't know why they are, or why I enjoy them so much more than before.

A few weeks ago Lindsey gave me a bird feeder for our back porch, and the cardinals, doves, and these little birds have been gorging themselves and making a big old mess. The robins and mockingbirds haven't been as interested. Once I spotted a male house wren, with the red cap (perhaps the same one whose mate built a nest over the back porch last spring?), but he hasn't reappeared recently.

We're slowly learning a few names and calls. I think most of the little guys at the feeder are house sparrows and song sparrows, rather than wrens, because their beaks are smaller and stubbier.

Another regular visitor is, or looks likes, a Carolina Chickadee

The craziest sounding bird we've recognized so far is the Cat Bird 

The other day, driving home, I spied the biggest crow ever, scary big, with extra fluff on the neck, sitting on the guardrail of my exit. I think it was a raven! never seen one of those up close!

Also there's a giant nest on one of the signs over the 95 bridge, on the southbound side.  A couple times I've seen a bird fly up to it...looks like an osprey...maybe?

 In February, on our Texas trip, we saw what looked like extra purple, extra long legged starlings playing in a puddle. Grackles!

 Also in Texas, on one of the lakes we drove past, pelicans swooped and paddled around.

 

Wake up, Dave

  A couple years back, the Ruah class gave a poster sized print of an icon similar to this for the prayer room off the chapel. It's centered above the hefty old Monumental Church altar.
   When I first saw it I didn't realize it depicted the Transfiguration; I was thinking more along the lines of Judgment Day. Three dudes getting stabbed in the eye - ouch! - disoriented and falling off the page. They must be going to hell. Their postures of dramatic defeat reminded me of a mosaic I saw in Patmos, depicting St John defeating a magician and his demon buddy.

But when I looked again I recognized Moses and Elijah, up top hanging out with Jesus. Whoa. Is this what enlightenment looks like? Getting poked in the eye with a sharp stick? Here's Saul, becoming Paul, getting smacked in the face himself. I'm not sure I'm ready for all of that.

  Waking up is a bear. Or waking up is fine, but not when you're a hungry, half-in-hibernation bear. 
   It's like nails across the chalkboard. Not enough air in the room. Caught in a web of cold rusty chain links. Open the door of consciousness...guilt, shame, failure, craving, anger, anxiety are usually my first visitors (did I ask to wake up? and who invited all these jerks?). Some mixture of chemical depression and anxiety and just general confusion. Yuck, tastes bad.
   But life is good, ya know? I pray to learn to wake up more peacefully and enthusiastically, but in the meantime I'm grateful to wake up one way or the other. Help us, Lord.


"It is good to give thanks to the Lord,
To sing praises to you name, O Most High;
To declare your lovingkindness in the morning,
And your faithfulness by night,
To the music of the lute and the harp,
To the melody of the lyre.
For you, O Lord, have made me glad by your work;
At the works of your hands I sing for joy." (92:1-3)

"My heart is fixed, O God, my heart is fixed;
I will sing and make melody.
Awake, my soul!
Awake, O harp and lute!
I myself will waken the dawn" (57:7-8 or 108:1-2)

"Give ear to my words, O Lord;
give heed to my sighing.
Listen to the sound of my cry,
my King and my God,
for to you I pray.
O Lord, in the morning you hear my voice;
In the morning I plead my case to you, and watch" (5:1-3)

"But I call upon God,
And the Lord will save me.
Evening and morning and at noon
I utter my complaint and moan,
And he will hear my voice." (55:16-17)

"With my whole heart I cry;
Answer me, O Lord,
I will keep your statutes.
I cry to you; save me,
That I may observe your decrees.
I rise before dawn and cry for help;
I put my hope in your words.
My eyes are awake before each watch of the night,
That I may meditate on your promise.
In your steadfast love hear my voice;
O Lord, in your justice preserve my life." (119:145-149)

"Rouse yourself! Why do you sleep, O Lord?
Awake, do not cast us off forever!
Why do you hide your face?
Why do you forget our affliction and oppression?
For we sin down to the dust;
Our bodies cling to the ground.
Rise up, come to our help.
Redeem us for the sake of your steadfast love." (44:23-26)

"Wake up! Bestir yourself for my defense,
For my cause, my God and my Lord!
Vindicate me, O Lord, my God, according to your righteousness,
And do not let them rejoice over me." (35:23-24)

"Then the Lord awoke as from sleep,
Like a warrior shouting because of wine.
He put his adversaries to rout;
He put them to everlasting disgrace." (78:65-66)

"Yours is the day, yours also the night;
You established the moon and the sun.
You have fixed all the bounds of the earth;
You made summer and winter." (74:16-17)

"But I, O Lord, cry out to you;
In the morning my prayer comes before you.
O Lord, why do you cast me off?
Why do you hide your face from me?" (88:12-14)

"I lie down and sleep;
I wake again, for the Lord sustains me.
I am not afraid of ten thousands of people
who have set themselves against me all around." (3:5-6)

"Morning by morning I will destroy all the wicked in the land,
Cutting off all evildoers from the city of the Lord." (101:8)

"You have made the moon to mark the seasons;
The sun knows the time of its setting.
You make darkness, and it is night,
When all the animals of the forest come creeping out.
The young lions roar for their prey,
Seeking their food from God.
When the sun rises, they withdraw
And lie down in their dens.
People go out to their work
And to their labor until the evening." (104:19-23)

"It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest,
Eating the bread of anxious toil;
For he gives sleep to his beloved." (127:2)

"I wait for the Lord, my soul waits,
And in his word I hope;
My soul waits for the Lord
More than sentries for the morning
More than sentries for the morning." (130:5-6)

"If I take the wings of the morning
And settle at the farthest limits of the sea,
Even there your hand shall lead me,
And your right hand hold me fast." (139:9-10)

"Answer me quickly, O Lord;
My spirit fails.
Do not hide your face from me,
Or I shall be like those who go down to the Pit.
Let me hear of your lovingkindness in the morning, for in you I put my trust.
Teach me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul." (143:7-8)

"Sing praises to the Lord, O you his faithful ones,
And give thanks to his holy name.
For his anger is but for a moment;
His favor lasts a lifetime.
Weeping may linger for the night,
But joy comes with the morning." (31:4-5)

"Day to day pours forth speech,
And night to night declares knowledge." (19:2)

"Make me to know your ways, O Lord;
Teach me your paths.
Lead me in your truth and teach me,
For you are the God of my salvation;
For You I wait all day long." (25:5)

"You sweep them away;
They are like a dream,
Like grass that is renewed in the morning;
In the morning it flourishes and is renewed;
In the evening it fades and withers." (90:5-6)

Yellow Rose of Texas

   As Lindsey navigated the traffic from Dallas-Fort Worth Airport to our airbnb-RV on Lewisville Lake, I broke out into song, as I often do in the car. And as I often do, I only knew, like, half a verse or less. "The stars at night, are big and bright!" clap clap clap clap, "Deep in the heart of Texas!" "Blah blah blah blah, doo doo doo doo," clap clap clap clap, "deep in the heart of Texas!" (I learned a lot of culture from Pee Wee's Big Adventure). All together now! One more time! 
   "And now for "The Yellow Rose of Texas!'"...but I couldn't remember it. Not that I ever knew any words anyway, but I thought I knew the tune.
   Two days later I woke up in the RV humming it - some fife and drum ancestor must have whistled it to me in my dreams - and I hummed it for the rest of the day. 
   That same day Lindsey and I had a good conversation about our Governor's and Attorney General's blackface admissions, and I tried to unpack my own history of "playing" Black.
   Growing up my circle of white male friends frequently used, or played with, popular black culture and stereotypes. I'm trying to work out what for...To be cool, for sure, but help me break that down...
   To create a buffer between our "youth" world and our parents' world. To enjoy transgressing, from the safety of our middle-class whiteness, into a fantasy "gangsta" style of toughness, danger, and sex. To break out of what we perceived to be a stale, unimaginative standard English. And, in the tradition of minstrelsy, to entertain ourselves by degrading others, amusing ourselves with stereotyped imitations of "improper" Black English and "over-sexualized" black styles of art or dress.
    You might think that these goings-ons were in exclusively white company, but that's not the case. I often acted my "blackest" when in predominantly black contexts, usually also sports contexts. But in those contexts I was much less experimental, much more conservative, sticking to words or gestures that I believed would fit "safely" into the flow of the situation. The dance of authenticity is intricate, I guess, in any social situation. There seemed to be levels of realness for whites using black language; that is, there were levels of "credible" or acceptable white use of popular black language in majority black social situations, based on the user's socio-economic background, relationship circles, and consistency of style. (If you know me you're probably laughing right now, because in middle and high school my "words or gestures," white or black or any style, were almost non-existent; I barely spoke and was stiff as a board).
   Black friends and friends of other races also used hip-hop and black pop-culture to explore their own identities and differentiate themselves from their parents. More recently, during my time as dorm counselor at a boarding middle school, the ethnically diverse student population - many of our students came from other countries - gravitated toward black slang, music, and professional athletes as their cultural currency.
   Nonetheless it seemed that, at least in my growing up, white boys played black with a peculiar and perverse mixture of enthusiasm, admiration, objectification, envy, freedom, and consequence-less-ness (what is a good word for that? privilege? power?); and we played especially enthusiastically in majority white male contexts. In such contexts, we often stretched or completely jettisoned any rules of credibility and acceptability that had been developed in the majority black contexts.
   Where am I going with all this? Well this morning I thought I'd write a blog post about our Texas trip, and I hoped the lyrics of "The Yellow Rose of Texas" would give me some inspiration. I looked it up...guess what! It's first recorded iteration is a minstrel song about a black man yearning for his Texas home where his "yellow," or "mulatto," sweetheart resides. Later it was transformed into a song about a soldier longing for his home and beau. Is it a coincidence that I unconsciously remembered the tune and had a conversation about blackface on the same day? Yeah probably, but it's a likely coincidence, considering how deeply playing Black (and American Indian), runs in my history.

Read the Bible with Origen in 10 Easy Steps

Origen of Alexandria


The Roman Empire was well entrenched by Origen’s lifetime; Julius, Augustus, Trajan - they were all statues; Virgil and Ovid had penned their masterpieces. You might think all the Mediterranean world would be cursing in Latin, trying to get wine stains off their togas. But Greek language and philosophy were still the backbone of Imperial intellectual life. The city of Rome itself claimed Trojan ancestry. You might say Italy was “hellenized” even before Alexander the Great started “sharing” Greek culture by conquering everybody.


But Hellenism wasn’t a one-way street. As Shaye Cohen writes, “within a very short time after [Alexander’s] death all the cultures of the East began to contribute to the new creation we call Hellenism.” It was an “amalgamation of various cultures” (Cohen 28). If any city epitomized this “amalgamation,” it was Alexandria. If fact, Greek thought and religion had Egyptian influence from the beginning. Even though the “Hellenistic period” was over by Origen’s day, he grew up in a city brimming over with “hellenism.”


Origen is sometimes accused of depending too much on Greek philosophy, and I can sympathize with that argument. Reading On First Principles, his description of the Christian worldview, is like being swallowed up by whale named philosophy. I only made it through book one and four before it spit me up.


For example, the distinction between corporeal and incorporeal is a basic philosophical assumption that Origen uses over and over again. Really, does it have to be either-or? And isn’t it all philosophically messy in the Bible anyway? Origen admits in First Principles that “incorporeal” isn’t in the Bible, but he argues “invisible” means basically the same thing. For Origen, the idea than an incorporeal God could “beget” a son, or that this son could be “made flesh” - is the greatest philosophical adventure of all time. He obviously enjoyed, and felt compelled, to find ways to express “the truth of the Gospel” in the “Platonic idiom of his day” (Greer 6).


The Allegorical Method


The spirit of hellenism, according to Cohen, was “post-classical.” The great myths and scriptures had been established, and the role of intellectuals and religious leaders was interpretation and re-interpretation. Homer’s Illiad and Odyssey had nearly sacred status. Roman poets and playwrights looked to Greek classics for inspiration. Mystery cults worked over mythology from Greek, Egyptian, and Mesopotamian sources. The Law, Prophets, and Psalms were securely canonized in the Jewish communities. Jesus himself said he didn’t come to abolish the law, but to fulfill it.


Scholars speak of an unofficial Alexandrian school or tradition of Biblical interpretation, founded by Philo, the Jewish exegete and philosopher, and the Christian teachers Clement and Origen (Grant). These three followed in the footsteps of a tradition of “allegoresis” (allegorical interpretation) formally developed by Stoics and other Greek authors. Greta Hawes writes, “Evidence for ancient allegorical practice consists of a diverse series of extant texts and fragments. The ‘tradition’ (if we can call it that) spans early interpretations of Homer attributed to the sixth-century critic Theagenes of Rhegium, the religious speculations of the Derveni Papyrus, Stoic philosophies of language,” and she gives more examples (Hawes 125). [Note: we shouldn’t understand this to mean that Greeks “invented” allegoresis; symbolic narrative and interpretation is found in many traditions]


For allegorists, generally speaking, allegoresis isn’t just a handy tool to use whenever we want. The texts or myths themselves cry out for a “deeper” or “higher” understanding. Philo argues, “We must turn to allegory, the method dear to men with their eyes opened. Indeed the sacred oracles most evidently afford us the clues for the use of this method. For they say that in the garden (of Eden) there are trees in no way resembling those with which we are familiar, but trees of Life, of Immortality,,,of the conception of good and evil.”


Origen often makes the point that many Biblical passages are absurd is taken literally, like the anthropomorphic descriptions of God’s arm, nostrils, et cetera, or, what mountain is high enough for Satan to show Jesus all the kingdoms of the world?, or, how could a circumcised man become uncircumcised (1 Cor 7:18), or, my favorite example from Origen, “But if we must ask also about impossible laws, we find an animal called the ‘goat-stag,’ which does not even exist...and the lawgiver prohibits eating the ‘griffin,’ which no one has ever mentioned or heard of being able to fall into human hands” (Green 190). [Maybe Origen just mistranslated those words]


Origen argues that the “Word of God arranged it that some ‘scandals,’ so to speak, ‘stumbling blocks’ and ‘impossibilities’ would be mixed in with the law and the writings so that we would not be totally swept away by the attractiveness of the reading and either, because we are learning nothing worthy of God, fall away from the true teaching, or, by not parting from the letter, learn nothing that is more divine” (B 207). Anything that is literally impossible or incorrect is really a sign from God to look for a deeper meaning. We must find a meaning “worthy of God.” Or, to put it negatively, if we stay only on the literal level, we mock God’s wisdom and dishonor God’s word by preaching contradictions. Heraclitus makes a somewhat similar argument in his Homeric Problems, “If Homer did not compose allegorically, then he was entirely impious; desecrating myths, full of blasphemous madness, tear through both texts” (Hawes 126).


Most exegetes would agree that the Bible at times uses figurative language that should be understood in kind. The Alexandrian school just kept looking, and looking, and looking for figurative language. Origen claimed that all the Bible had multiple levels of meaning. “I, believing in the words of my Lord Jesus Christ, think that even an ‘iota or dot’ is full of mystery” (B 163). Origen certainly affirmed the literal and narrative level, “Now the whole multitude of believers, which believes quite faithfully and simply, is a witness to what great profit lies in the first meaning” (Greer 184), but he felt called from spiritual milk to solid food, to “rise above the letter” to a spiritual understanding (B 181).


How to Read the Bible Like Origen in 10 Easy Steps

Here are what seem to be Origen’s guidelines for interpreting the Bible (based largely on Peter Marten’s work in “Revisiting the Allegory/Typology Distinction: The Case of Origen”).


1) Orthodoxy: Your interpretation has to prove the church’s beliefs, or at least not conflict with them. Origen fully intended to hold fast to the “tradition of the apostles.” “I want to be a man of the church,” he said. He upheld belief in one God, the humanity and divinity of Christ, the mysterious unity of the Trinity, the divine inspiration of the Scriptures as he knew them (the Christian Bible was still being debated). Some of Origen’s theological conclusions were condemned after his death, but if he had known they were heterodox, he probably would have found ways of avoiding them. “When in reading the scriptures you come across a passage which...is a stumbling stone, put the blame on yourself...First believe, then you will find” (B 183).


2) Christocentric: Find Christ with every interpretation. “Split a log, I am there. Lift up a rock, you will find me there” (Gosp Thom 77b). As Peter Widdicombe puts it, “For Origen, the writers of the New Testament, and the Old for that matter, all told one story about one subject” (316). Ultimately the meaning of Scripture was Christ, the Word, the Logos. Origen said, “You are therefore, to understand the scriptures in this way: as the one, perfect body of the Word” (B 156).


In a circular fashion, Christ is not only the meaning, he is the key to unlocking that meaning. “For when the Word became flesh, he opened up with this key the scriptures which were closed before his coming” (B 130). We cannot find God without the guidance of God: “human nature of itself does not have the wherewithal to search for God and attain clear knowledge of him without help from the object of its search who then lets himself be found…” (B 148).


3) Every Jot and Tittle: Investigate everything. “Search the scriptures...they are they which testify of me” (John 5:39, KJV). Origen says that, just as botanists study every plant to find its use or healing property, “so too is the holy and spiritual person a kind of botanist who reads every iota and every dash...and finds out the power of the letter and what it is good for, and knows that nothing written down is superfluous” (B 191). Or, when investigating scripture, we are like hunters with their dogs’ keen sense of smell, following the scent of understanding (B 216). No word is insignificant. Etymology, the study of word origins, especially of names, is particularly fruitful for allegorists.


4) Treasures Old and New: You Need the Old Testament to understand the New and vice versa. Origen combatted with Marcionites and other heterodox Christians who protested that the Old Testament God was un-Christian and therefore should be discarded or demoted. “If the poor heretics could only understand this, they would not be constantly repeating to us: Do you see how the God of the law is savage and inhuman, since he says, ‘I kill and I make alive?’” Origen responds to them, “Don’t you see in the scriptures the message of the resurrection of the dead?” (B 948).


Just as the spiritual meaning depends on the literal meaning, so the New Testament depends on the Old. “We have need of the splendor which can pass away for the sake of ‘the splendor that surpases it’” (B 189). Origen insists the Old and New are complimentary, “for neither one has fullness of life without the other” (B 250).


5) Intertextual Harmony: Interpret Scripture with Scripture. Building upon the last three rules, Origen proclaims that the Bible is “one body,” it is the Word made flesh in letters, and the body parts, though different, belong to one another (Rom 12). Every verse is connected to every other verse, one way or another. Origen merges, mixes, overlays passages as the Spirit leads…”the one perfect and harmonious instrument of God is the whole of Scripture” (B 154).


6) Three Levels: Look for the Body, Soul, and Spirit of the text. In First Principles, Origen describes a three-level understanding of scripture, corresponding to body, soul, and spirit. He also uses the three levels of Noah’s ark as an illustration, “make [the ark] with lower, second, and third decks” (Gen 6:16).


The “body” or “flesh” of the text is the literal-historical meaning. Origen takes this to be the most concrete meaning possible, so that in some instances (like those referenced above), the literal meaning can’t be taken seriously. Nevertheless, the literal-historical should be honored and recognized. According to Robert Grant, this distinguished Philo, Clement, and Origen from some of the Gnostic Jewish and Christian allegorists who completely left behind the body and letter (Grant).


The second level, or “soul” of the text, is the personal life application or moral embedded in the scripture. As an example Origen quotes Paul’s analysis of “You shall not muzzle an ox when it is treading out the grain” (1 Cor 9:9-10). Paul writes, “Is it for oxen that God is concerned? Does He not speak entirely for our sake? It was written for our sake, because the ploughman should plow in hope and the thresher thresh in hope of a share of the crop” (Greer 184).


The “spirit” of the text, the third level, is the mystical level. It speaks of God, the Word, the Holy Spirit, the end of the world, and other great mysteries. Again he quotes Paul, “O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are his judgments and how inscrutable his ways!” (Rom 11:33). Origen believed that the Logos deliberately hid the spiritual level so that, 1) we would have to work for it, and 2) we wouldn’t “throw pearls before swine” and carelessly handle such divine knowledge. [In a similar way, he believed that our souls had been enfleshed, embodied, so that we would have to struggle through flesh towards the spirit. “It was with wood that the fire was lit.” God gave us bodies so we could become spiritual.]


7) Flesh vs Spirit: Interpret “spiritual things spiritually” (1 Cor 2:13). More often than three distinct levels, Origen presents us with two interpretive directions: flesh versus spirit, earthly and heavenly, surface or depth; “for the letter kills, but the spirit gives life” (2 Cor 3:6). “Woe to you scribes!” is directed at those “who understand nothing but the letter.” Scribes of the kingdom of heaven are those who “read the law and listen to it and tell its allegorical meanings.” They know the “sure way up to the spiritual.” (B 1015).


8) Be Ye Doers of the Word: You have to follow Christ to understand his Word. ”The pure word in the soul and an irreproachable life” are “inseparable,” says Origen (B 641). Origen draws another interpretive circle, or more of an upward spiral: we must listen to Christ’s teaching in order to walk with him, and we must walk with Christ in order to understand the deeper meanings of his teaching.


“But if, like the apostles, we never move away from him but remain with him in all his trials, he will then privately explain and interpret for us what he had said to the multitudes, and illuminate us much more brightly” (B 664). When we are denying ourselves and living in charity, the scriptures are “sweeter than honey,” but when we sin we “turn all the sweetness into a bitter taste” (B 691).


9) Neo-Platonism: Be philosophically consistent. As I said earlier, Origen appears to be committed to certain philosophical language and rules, like corporeal vs incorporeal, most of which I don’t really understand. Rowan Greer claims that “Origen, as well as Plotinus, must be regarded as one of the founders of Neoplatonism. He shares with Plotinus a concern to move beyond skeptical and dualistic forms of Platonism” (5). Origen’s understanding of the relationship of the Old Testament to the New, and the New to the End, sounds Platonic to me. Just as the law was a “shadow of things to come,” and Christ is that true reality “unveiled,” so also our current life in Christ is “hidden,” and we only know in part, but then we shall know fully. In both cases, visible realities are shadows of heavenly Ideals.


10) Image and Likeness: The symbolic meaning must bear some similarity or have some common association with the literal meaning. As Greta Hawes explains, “Allegorical interpretations are thus built on observations already considered more or less ‘obvious’; their laborious imposition of meaning extends patterns of narrative logic apparent elsewhere” (130). Allegories, like dreams, are built with symbols from our cultural or religious tradition.


To my sensibility, ancient allegoresis can look pretty wacky. Sometimes it looked wacky to folks back then. Celcus, another second century philosopher, is quoted by Origen as saying, “The more reasonable ones among the Jews and Christians try to allegorize these stories in some way; yet, they are not susceptible of any allegorical interpretation...the allegories on these [Biblical] myths are far more shameful and unlikely than the myths themselves, since, with astonishing and totally senseless madness, they link together things that are absolutely and completely incompatible with one another” (Ramelli 351). Celsus wasn’t dismissing allegory per se, just allegoresis on the Bible, and his critical criterion was the compatibility between the symbol and what it refers to.


Origen responded to Celsus with a defense of Biblical allegory, but he more or less agreed with Celsus’ criterion. Compatibility, or similitude, between symbol and symbolized, is crucial for a convincing allegorical interpretation. For example, in his analysis of the passover, Origen comments that “Most of the brethren, indeed perhaps all, take the word ‘passover’ as referring to the passion of the Savior. But among the Hebrews, the feast in question is not called ‘pascha’ but ‘phas’...which, translated, means ‘passage’” (B 1036). Furthermore, “The lamb is sacrificed by the saints or Nazirites, while the Savior is sacrificed by criminals and sinners” (Martens 311). Origen affirms that “Christ our lamb is sacrificed for us,” but that the passover is more accurately allegorized as the Eucharistic feast, not the passion narrative.


Allegories of Reading


Here are some examples of Origen’s method. He finds in the Bible allegories about reading allegorically; this is how he wants us to learn from the Bible how to read the Bible.


Flesh and Spirit: As I mentioned earlier, Origen understands Paul’s flesh and spirit distinction to apply broadly to literal versus allegorical interpretation. We are to set our minds on the things of the spirit rather than things of the flesh.


Isaac’s Wells: Just as Isaac uncovered the wells which his father Abraham had dug, but which the Philistines had covered up (Gen 26), so too Christ, our Isaac-like sacrificial figure, wants to “renew the wells of the Law and the Prophets,” which had been covered over by “those who put an earthly and fleshly understanding on the Law and block[ed] up its spiritual and mystical meaning” (B 7).


Jesus on the Donkey: Jesus, the Word, enters our soul just as he entered Jerusalem, riding on a donkey, “riding, I say, upon the simple letters of the old covenant now made clear by the two disciples who loosed them.” He is also said to ride on a “young foal,” which is young and new like the “new covenant” (B 160).


A Net Cast into the Sea: “The kingdom of heaven is likened to a net of varied texture because the scripture of the old and new testament is woven together from all kinds of variegated thoughts.” Some people are caught “by the prophetic net...by this or that expression...others by the net of the law, and others by that of the gospel, and some by the apostolic net...It is thus in the gospels and the words of Christ, and through the working of the apostles, that the texture of the net has been completed” (B 188).


The Pearl of Great Price: “Let the prophets stand so to speak for the mussels which conceive [pearls] from the dew of heaven, becoming pregnant with the heavenly Word of truth - the good pearls for which the merchant in this text is searching.” Eventually, the merchant finds “the pearl of great value...the Christ of God” and sells all his old understanding for the new. “That is why Paul says, ‘I count everything as loss that I might gain Christ’” (B 189).


Dung Around the Fig Tree: Though the old covenant may seem like refuse because of the “surpassing worth of the knowledge of Christ,” “perhaps this refuse is the dung put down under the fig tree by the vinedresser (Luke 13:7-9) which is the cause of its bearing fruit” (B 189).


Like Treasure Hidden in a Field: “That field, it seems to me, is the scripture, planted with what has become clear in the words and other thoughts of the histories, law, and prophets...But the treasure hidden in the field consists of the concealed thoughts of wisdom hidden ‘in mystery’ and in Christ, ‘in whom are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge” (B 198).


Seeds: “It seems to me that each word of the divine scripture is like a seed whose nature it is, once it has been thrown into the earth and regenerated into an ear...to be multiplied many times over


Journey to the Promised Land: “And just as those who were making their way towards the promised land were afflicted at times and suffered hunger for physical food in order to receive the manna from heaven...we see this daily in ourselves when we are seeking some understanding of the truth in the scriptures: before we find what we are seeking, we experience some inability to perceive, until that poverty of perception is lifted from us by God who ‘gives food in due season’ to those who are worthy” (B 217).


Behold, Your Mother: “No one can grasp [the gospel’s] meaning who has not lain on Jesus’ breast [like John] and also received Mary from Jesus as one’s own mother” (B 220).


Water into Wine: “For truly, before Jesus, the scripture was water, but after Jesus it has become wine for us” (B 227).


The Song of Songs: Jesus, our lover, comes “leaping over” mountains, “namely, the books of the law” and “bounding over” the hills, “the prophetic books.” “It is as if she [the soul and/or the Church], paging through the sheets of the prophetic readings, now that the veil which at first covered them is taken away, sees him emerge and spring forth and break out in unmistakable appearance” (B 225).


The Multiplication of Loaves and Fishes: “As long as the loaves remain whole, no one is fed or refreshed, nor do the loaves themselves seem to increase. Well then, consider how we break the few loaves; we take from the divine scriptures a few words, and how many thousand people are filled!” (B 203).


Spittle and Mud: Just as Jesus spit on the ground to make a paste to heal the blind man, so the spittle of Christ, “divine ideas,” mixes in scripture with the “reporting of histories and human deeds” to make “such clay with which the eyes of the unseeing must be anointed, and after this to be sent away by God to the pool of Siloam” (B 218).


The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil: “Thus the law contains both: the letter that kills and the Spirit that gives life. One should perhaps consider whether an image of this is contained in that tree which is called “of the knowledge of good and evil” (B 253).


Moses and Elijah with Jesus: Just as Moses and Elijah appeared with Jesus on Mount Tabor, so “the law and the prophets and the gospels always come together as one and stay together in one glory” (B 256).


Garments White as Light: Up on Mount Tabor, in the vision of Jesus with Moses and Elijah, “the garments of Jesus are the words and letters of the scripture which he had put on. But I think that the things said by the apostles about him are also the garments of Jesus, and they too become white for those climbing up the high mountain with Jesus” (B 429).


Crossing the Sea of Galilee: Just as Jesus sent the disciples across the Sea of Galilee, and during the night, when the boat was buffeted by the wind and waves, Jesus came to them walking on the water, so too must we “cross over” from literal to spiritual understanding. We must “go beyond material things to ‘the things that are unseen and eternal.” It is a difficult journey, but Jesus will come to us in our “temptations and trials” (B 254).


Blind Bartimaeus: “Would that we too, understanding from this that we are blind and do not see, as we sit by the road of the scriptures and hear that Jesus is passing by, might by our prayers make him stop and tell him we want our eyes to be opened” (B 631).


Mystery of Marriage: “If someone, then, in searching through the law and going through the texts which speak of the marriage of women and men thinks that there is nothing more there than the literal meaning, that person is in error, and knows ‘neither the scriptures nor the power of God’” (B 989).


Dowry from the Father: “the church was given for its dowry the books of the law and the prophets” (B 686).


Clean the Inside of the Cup (then the outside will also be clean): “The letters of the law and the prophets are the cups of the soul’s spiritual drink...The scribes and Pharisees search after external and common meaning...but the disciples of Christ try to purify the internal and spiritual meaning” (B 727).


Good and Bad Fruit

Judging someone else’s interpretive method seems almost as silly as judging someone else’s breathing. Are you breathing? Yes. Okay that’s good. If you are enjoying a conversation or a book then you seem to be doing pretty well with interpretation. But with art (whatever that is), interpretation becomes extra thorny, as well as exciting, and it can be helpful to debate with each other, criticize and engage with each other. And then with sacred texts or myths...well, then we’re playing with fire. It’s so important to engage critically with each other, but it’s hard to do so without fighting.


Origen’s hermeneutic has been both applauded and disparaged over the years. He wasn’t the first to read the Bible allegorically, neither was he the last, but he was so very prolific and influential that he became, and to some extent has remained, the poster child of allegoresis. As a conclusion I’d like to reflect on how certain aspects of his method work and don’t work for me.


Parables with Parables


Robert Funk writes that we must interpret parables with parables (I wish he had taken his own advice more often). I absolutely love that idea, it is such an inspiration, and I hope to discover ways to do that. Origen demonstrates something of the sort as he uses Biblical symbols to interpret other Biblical symbols. His enchantment and enthusiasm for intertextual harmony are infectious.


However his doctrinal commitments preclude him exploring intertextual dissonance. To him the Holy Spirit might inspire a literal contradiction, but only to encourage us to look for the moral or mystical levels. I think he misses some of the beautiful movement of scripture by closing his ears to possible disharmony.


Near Sighted or Far Sighted?


Origen is so intent on going deeper, getting higher, that some of the Bible’s narrative and poetic art gets left behind. Sometimes it feels like he’s missing the forest for the trees. Greta Hawes says it well, “Allegorists [shine] lights into hidden corners of the mythic tradition, but cast a blinkered gaze over other aspects of it.” Origen’s method appears to be well suited for religious and spiritual reflection, but not so well suited for appreciating the rhythm of a poem, or the suspense of a plot. On the other hand, maybe we can’t really eat our cake and have it too. Perhaps we have to be either at least a little bit near sighted or far sighted.


Higher Ground


Origen is like an energetic mountain guide, leading us, coaching us, encouraging us to understandings ever higher, higher. Wait, why is higher necessarily better? He uses the Pauline flesh-vs-spirit, body-vs-spirit distinctions to argue for allegorical readings, but I think we can object that flesh-vs-spirit shouldn’t always equal literal-vs-allegorical. Also, Origen’s obsession with upward spiritual and intellectual mobility has its dark side. Elitism rears its ugly head. He describes literal or ordinary reading as “base” or “unworthy,” and he associates it with the “masses.” Allegorical reading according to him takes more work, more talent, more spirituality, and “few there be that find it” (Matt 7:14, KJV).


Christocentrism


Origen’s love for Christ continues to burn in his writing, and his Christocentric readings are inspiring. I want to learn to see Jesus in every word of the Bible, as well, but then again I want to see each word for “what it is,” and not demand that anything be there. Moreover, I want to welcome and engage with non-Christian interpretations. Origen set an example for us, both in his desire to walk with Christ, and in his desire to learn from other traditions. However, in contrast to Origen, I don’t think it’s right or necessary for Christians to discount or “disprove” interpretations that don’t find Christ. There is more treasure hidden in the field of the Bible than Christians could ever find by themselves.