This video is brought to you by Complexly, The Poetry Foundation, and curators Charlotte Abotsi and Sarah Kay. Learn more: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/
Process Theology and Goosebumps
Andrea Gibson's poem communicates ideas that process theologians admire and affirm: beauty is the telos of the universe, beauty is everywhere, beauty haunts us if we try to avoid it; beauty is in the ordinary as well as the spectacular; and when we experience beauty deeply, we get goosebumps. We have a bodily response to beauty.
True to the genius of poetry, Andrea Gibson communicates these ideas, not through prosaic generalities of the dry-as-dust variety, but through specific images, humor, and tone of voice. We feel the ideas. Which is as it should be. In process theology as influenced by Whitehead, all ideas are felt. Thinking itself is a form of feeling (prehending) ideas with emotions (subjective forms) which clothe the feelings. If a theology of beauty doesn't evoke goosebumps, it's missing something.
If I wanted to introduce a process theology of beauty in a classroom or coffee shop, a church or a brewery, I would invite people to listen to "Acceptance Speech After Setting the World Record in Goosebumps." And if, after the listening, someone asks "And where is god in all of this?," I would answer "everywhere."
