Photo by Nemuel Sereti on Unsplash
I am from a time when my mother went to the hospital and never came back;
when my toys were in a box by the curb as we drove away.
I am from singing in the darkness of night
Putting myself to sleep with the sound of my own voice.
I am from playing backyard baseball with tennis balls, Wiffle balls, even roundish gourds.
from weekend sleep-overs
from orange push-ups
from fallen leaves kicked up in swirls on walks to school,
from early morning radio announcements of a snow day — no school! *
Where is God from? God is from singing in the darkness at night, too, and from fallen leaves kicked up in swirls on walks to school. God is from the world. Our experiences, and those of all other living beings, become God's life. God is from the world.
Not completely. There's a side of God that is eternal and unchanging, thinks Whitehead. He calls it the primordial nature of God. It feels or prehends all a world of infinite potentials in a timeless but unconscious way. You might imagine it as the mind of the universe. Not before the universe but with the universe in an eternal way.
But there is another side of God which does indeed come from the world. Whitehead calls it the consequent nature of God and writes: "the consequent nature of God is composed of a multiplicity of elements with individual self-realization. It is just as much a multiplicity as it is a unity." This side of God is made from the past actual world just as you are and I am. And this side of God grows from each new experience, just as you do and I do. To be sure, this side of God is not located in a single body, as are you and I. It is ubiquitous, everywhere at once, always receiving new things into its heart as they emerge in the world, and being changed by what is received. You might imagine God as a poet who receives our experiences and tries to createa poem of them in a loving way, so that our own lives, even if not poetic in ways we might wish, become beautiful in God's life. This side of God is pure empathy, pure love, says Whitehead, holding everything with a tender care that nothing be lost. But it begins, again and again, with fallen leaves kicked up on swirls on walks to school, and singing in the darkness at night. And the time when our mother went to the hospital and never came back. These are God's life, too. Our life is God's life.
- Jay McDaniel, 5/2/21
* from "Where I'm From" crowdsourced poem below.
when my toys were in a box by the curb as we drove away.
I am from singing in the darkness of night
Putting myself to sleep with the sound of my own voice.
I am from playing backyard baseball with tennis balls, Wiffle balls, even roundish gourds.
from weekend sleep-overs
from orange push-ups
from fallen leaves kicked up in swirls on walks to school,
from early morning radio announcements of a snow day — no school! *
Where is God from? God is from singing in the darkness at night, too, and from fallen leaves kicked up in swirls on walks to school. God is from the world. Our experiences, and those of all other living beings, become God's life. God is from the world.
Not completely. There's a side of God that is eternal and unchanging, thinks Whitehead. He calls it the primordial nature of God. It feels or prehends all a world of infinite potentials in a timeless but unconscious way. You might imagine it as the mind of the universe. Not before the universe but with the universe in an eternal way.
But there is another side of God which does indeed come from the world. Whitehead calls it the consequent nature of God and writes: "the consequent nature of God is composed of a multiplicity of elements with individual self-realization. It is just as much a multiplicity as it is a unity." This side of God is made from the past actual world just as you are and I am. And this side of God grows from each new experience, just as you do and I do. To be sure, this side of God is not located in a single body, as are you and I. It is ubiquitous, everywhere at once, always receiving new things into its heart as they emerge in the world, and being changed by what is received. You might imagine God as a poet who receives our experiences and tries to createa poem of them in a loving way, so that our own lives, even if not poetic in ways we might wish, become beautiful in God's life. This side of God is pure empathy, pure love, says Whitehead, holding everything with a tender care that nothing be lost. But it begins, again and again, with fallen leaves kicked up on swirls on walks to school, and singing in the darkness at night. And the time when our mother went to the hospital and never came back. These are God's life, too. Our life is God's life.
- Jay McDaniel, 5/2/21
* from "Where I'm From" crowdsourced poem below.
I am from travelers and adventure
from "Be seen, not heard!"
from ritual and plainsong
from England and exile
from mint sauce and lamb.
I am from casseroles and canned tuna
Kennedys and Saturday morning cartoons
I am from Tang in a Daffy Duck glass
from wall phones with mangled cords stretched during private calls in a room too far
I come from popcorn ceilings
dining rooms of glossy mahogany
I am from bed sheets
Draped over our dining room chairs.
from the trees Littering the backyard
The sweet taste of mulberries Staining my fingers red.
I'm from big hats under rainbow umbrellas
Buckets of wet sand and unstable castles
I'm from orange and vanilla custard
with a pizza slice the size of your chest
From hot July days and cool summer nights
I am from Sunday night pizza and Monday Night Football
I am from marbles
From empanadas cooking in the street
I am from orchids and mango trees
I am from la torta tres leches and ruana
I am from happy and serious
From hard work and sweat
I'm from grit, respect, and discipline.
from big family reunions and endless laughs.
I am from houses never locked
from the projects in Brooklyn
and dominoes in the park
I am from salsa and the car horns blaring
I am from diners and malls and accents that put an "aw" in coffee.
from silky lingerie and sweat socks, bruised knuckles and scars I gave myself
from longing to be someone, somewhere else.
I am from a mother who was still a girl;
whose beauty kept her shy
I am from dirt and fences
from strength and toughness
I am from ashes flicked into the tray
the despair of divorce
bonds gone unappreciated
eviction and being thrown away
running and begging to stay
I am from a little girl who just needed a break
I am from a time when my mother went to the hospital and never came back;
when my toys were in a box by the curb as we drove away.
I am from singing in the darkness of night
Putting myself to sleep with the sound of my own voice.
I am from playing backyard baseball with tennis balls, Wiffle balls, even roundish gourds.
from weekend sleep-overs
from orange push-ups
from fallen leaves kicked up in swirls on walks to school,
from early morning radio announcements of a snow day — no school!
I am from the South and the North.
from immigrant grandparents and Civil War soldiers.
I am from the red dirt clay of Virginia
From the sounds of the fiddle to the beauty of a choir
From the jig and the reel
to the cloggers and the dancers.
From collard greens and fat back,
chitterlings and white bread
I'm from hymns learned on Sundays,
hypocrisy displayed on Mondays.
I am from Tom Petty
and baby oil in the hot sun
rye bread and salami.
I am from black cows,
tacos, bicycles, and
The gentle lure of crickets.
I am from James Brown and Santana.
from Groovin' on a Sunday Afternoon
and Crystal Blue Persuasion.
I am from endless steps,
from California and Texas, and Durango, Colorado.
From unknown ancestors of the ancient Southwest,
cliff-dwellers and puebloans.
I am from the earth --
from from cityscapes and sleepy suburbs
from cicada clicks and firefly sparks
from the call of books and breathing through struggles.
I am from you
and you are from me
We are love
We are home
We are from this day forward.
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Metaphors
There are many definitions of metaphor. Many people say that it is a figure of speech in which an implicit comparison is made between two things that may or may not have something in common. For example, Shakespeare's "all the world's a stage" is said to be a metaphor. We process theologians think of metaphors a bit more dynamically,in terms of how they function in the imagination as lures for feeling and invitation for action. They are what Whitehead calls propositions made of contrasts. In Whitehead a proposition is a proposal or an idea which may or may not be articulated inverbal form. It can be a figure of speech but also a figure of dance or figure of music. Still it is always working with a contrast. Perhaps the yin-yang diagram can illustrate the point. It is a metaphor, too.
Unconscious Memories
In Whitehead's philosophy most past events shape our lives subconsciously rather than consciously. In this respect Whitehead agrees with Freud and much contemporary neuroscience, which says that most of our experience is non-conscious.
He also agrees with Jung and the idea that we carry within our hearts and minds memories, not only of our own personal experience, but also memories of experiences that have happened to other people, including people who lived before us, and memories of the more distant evolutionary past. Our memories include a personal unconscious and a collective unconscious, the latter of which may well contain energies and intelligences which become archetypes in our imaginations.
When we dream, for example, or when we engage in active imagination, some of these memories may surface. It makes sense to think that part of our vocation in life is to establish a dialogue between the conscious and unconscious dimensions of our lives. It is somewhat like saying a cork must establish a dialogue with the ocean upon which it floats. Consciousness is the cork; the unconscious is the ocean.
Metaphors are means by which the unconscious parts of our lives become conscious. At a a conscious level, we do not simply make the metaphors that mean something to us. They make us, too. They rise up from a deep place and speak to us. They are poems.
In Whitehead's philosophy most past events shape our lives subconsciously rather than consciously. In this respect Whitehead agrees with Freud and much contemporary neuroscience, which says that most of our experience is non-conscious.
He also agrees with Jung and the idea that we carry within our hearts and minds memories, not only of our own personal experience, but also memories of experiences that have happened to other people, including people who lived before us, and memories of the more distant evolutionary past. Our memories include a personal unconscious and a collective unconscious, the latter of which may well contain energies and intelligences which become archetypes in our imaginations.
When we dream, for example, or when we engage in active imagination, some of these memories may surface. It makes sense to think that part of our vocation in life is to establish a dialogue between the conscious and unconscious dimensions of our lives. It is somewhat like saying a cork must establish a dialogue with the ocean upon which it floats. Consciousness is the cork; the unconscious is the ocean.
Metaphors are means by which the unconscious parts of our lives become conscious. At a a conscious level, we do not simply make the metaphors that mean something to us. They make us, too. They rise up from a deep place and speak to us. They are poems.
There are many definitions of metaphor. Many people say that it is a figure of speech in which an implicit comparison is made between two things that may or may not have something in common. For example, Shakespeare's "all the world's a stage" is said to be a metaphor. We process theologians think of metaphors a bit more dynamically,in terms of how they function in the imagination as lures for feeling and invitation for action. They are what Whitehead calls propositions made of contrasts. In Whitehead a proposition is a proposal or an idea which may or may not be articulated inverbal form. It can be a figure of speech but also a figure of dance or figure of music. Still it is always working with a contrast. Perhaps the yin-yang diagram can illustrate the point. It is a metaphor, too.
The Historicity of God
Yes, God has a past, too. God is historical. In Being and Time Heidegger has a footnote in which he suggests that there may be, even in God, a kind of divine temporality. Whitehead agrees. Here's how one of the most astute philosophical theologians of the 20th century, Schubert Ogden, puts it in an article called "The Historicity of God."
"Contemporary theology has had its attention taken by a footnote in Martin Heidegger's Sein und Zeit suggesting that God's being might be more richly construed in categories of primal temporality (ursprüngliche Zeitlichheit) which is infinite, rather than in those of a spurious eternity Among the reasons for this is the influence of Hegel on Heidegger, for whom eternity, like being, was an empty notion devoid of all determination until through the mediation of time it was sublimated into a pure becoming transcendent to both eternity and derived time. Operative too is, seemingly, the biblical view of a God of historical revelation in dialogue with humankind. (The Historicity of God)."
Whitehead says that each moment of our lives, and each moment of God's life, is an act of remembering -- of being formed by - everything that has happened in the past. When we remember things in a conscious and sensitive way, understanding the good that is been done and also the harms that have been suffered, we are sharing in the Deep Remembering.
The Deep Remembering -- Whitehead calls it the consequent nature of God -- always includes more than we can ever remember. We forget our loved ones quickly; the memory dies within generations even if we remember. God remembers everlastingly, as if it were yesterday. God takes what is offered by the past and transforms it into metaphors for the future. We discover these metaphors and try to live from them. Metaphors like "love" and "wisdom" and "courage" and "hope." We don't just think about them; we feel them.
In feeling them we are feeling God's feelings, too. It is another form of prayer. Not prayer as addressing God, but rather prayer as listening. Listening for the metaphors that help us make sense of our lives and love others. Sometimes it is very hard to find the metaphors. It involves much struggle. The struggle is prayer, too. Faith is trust in the possibility of metaphor.
Yes, God has a past, too. God is historical. In Being and Time Heidegger has a footnote in which he suggests that there may be, even in God, a kind of divine temporality. Whitehead agrees. Here's how one of the most astute philosophical theologians of the 20th century, Schubert Ogden, puts it in an article called "The Historicity of God."
"Contemporary theology has had its attention taken by a footnote in Martin Heidegger's Sein und Zeit suggesting that God's being might be more richly construed in categories of primal temporality (ursprüngliche Zeitlichheit) which is infinite, rather than in those of a spurious eternity Among the reasons for this is the influence of Hegel on Heidegger, for whom eternity, like being, was an empty notion devoid of all determination until through the mediation of time it was sublimated into a pure becoming transcendent to both eternity and derived time. Operative too is, seemingly, the biblical view of a God of historical revelation in dialogue with humankind. (The Historicity of God)."
Whitehead says that each moment of our lives, and each moment of God's life, is an act of remembering -- of being formed by - everything that has happened in the past. When we remember things in a conscious and sensitive way, understanding the good that is been done and also the harms that have been suffered, we are sharing in the Deep Remembering.
The Deep Remembering -- Whitehead calls it the consequent nature of God -- always includes more than we can ever remember. We forget our loved ones quickly; the memory dies within generations even if we remember. God remembers everlastingly, as if it were yesterday. God takes what is offered by the past and transforms it into metaphors for the future. We discover these metaphors and try to live from them. Metaphors like "love" and "wisdom" and "courage" and "hope." We don't just think about them; we feel them.
In feeling them we are feeling God's feelings, too. It is another form of prayer. Not prayer as addressing God, but rather prayer as listening. Listening for the metaphors that help us make sense of our lives and love others. Sometimes it is very hard to find the metaphors. It involves much struggle. The struggle is prayer, too. Faith is trust in the possibility of metaphor.
The Myth of Single Origins
When asked where we are from, we are likely to identify a region of the world: a city, a country, a nation. But this myth gets in the way of an important recognition: namely that, at any given moment of our lives, we are from many places, some geographical, some social, and some psychological, Always we are from many places. Always we are trying to turn our memories into poems.
When asked where we are from, we are likely to identify a region of the world: a city, a country, a nation. But this myth gets in the way of an important recognition: namely that, at any given moment of our lives, we are from many places, some geographical, some social, and some psychological, Always we are from many places. Always we are trying to turn our memories into poems.