"When God Was a Bird" - a review

“When God was a Bird: Christianity, Animism, and the Re-Enchantment of the World” by Mark I. Wallace. New York: Fordham University Press, 2019.

The older I get the less certain I am about language related to God. God is neither this, nor that as well as both this and that. I also have difficulties with God and prepositions: I/we/everything am in/with/through God; God is in/with/through me/us/everything.

And into that blurry language Mark Wallace brings an engaging book with a fascinating premise: God is a bird. The book is his case for a biblically based Christian animism, but it’s his particular emphasis on the avian-God that grabbed my attention. He’s taking some of the bird language in the bible, grabbing hold of it, and running with it. This curious and specific claim of an avian God is why I chose to read this book.

Essentially, this book is Wallace’s argument for a historical biblical animist faith which he feels is needed today as a response to our world’s ongoing ecological crisis. That, and the Holy Spirit is a bird. The format of the book is “an exercise in theology, philosophy, nature writing, and personal anecdote” (x) which provides the reader an nice blending of voices.

Is that through which we encounter God, of God? Is it God? Is venerating something as sacred, the equivalent to calling it God? Is there a real difference between “is God” and “as God”? These questions kept churning in my mind as I read the book. Wallace seemed to be quick to say that encountering God through the natural world tells us that God is the natural world. But while he makes a plea for God is a bird, he also does not claim a pantheistic belief that nature is God. While at times his language about God feels very specific and concrete, he will also make seemingly contradictory statements which tells me that his understanding of God is not simplistic.

Wallace extends God’s incarnation to the animal world. He advocates for “animotheism – the belief that all beings, including nonhuman animals, are imbued with divine presence.” (2) He occasionally extends it to the rest of the natural world, but his interest is primarily animalian. In his trinity the Father represents the otherness of God, Son is the Humanness of God, and the Holy Spirit is the animality of God.

Wallace clearly states what his book is about, or what he is trying to accomplish, “My book’s thesis: Christianity, at its core, is a carnal-minded, fleshly, earthy, animalistic system of belief just insofar as its understanding of the human Jesus (Christology) and the avian Spirit (pneumatology) is rooted in its divinization of human and nonhuman creatures (animality). In this telling of the Christian story as animocentric, God is an animal, without denying the difference between God and animals, because the primary Trinitarian grammar of biblical religion centers on the double enfleshment of God in human and avian modes of being the Son and the Spirit respectively.” (14)

I found his engagement with the biblical text endlessly fascinating, even when I wouldn’t go along with his interpretations. He helped me look at some biblical themes and texts in new ways and for this I am very grateful. Wallace made me stop and reconsider biblical language for God. Is a metaphor such as God brooding over her chicks always just a metaphor, or can it reveal something deeper about God and birds. It may be too easy for us to gloss over the language of “spiritual things” like the Holy Spirit descending as a dove. That being said, I feel like Wallace was very quick to jump from Jesus referenced some animal to Jesus considered it sacred.

I’m not as convinced of a historical biblical animist faith as Wallace is, however, I’m not sure that matters very much; at least to me. The lessons of encountering God in/though/with the natural world and it’s reshaping of our current beliefs, decisions, and activities still resonates.

One thing I try to always be attentive to in reading a book of nonfiction is to be aware of who the author sets up as the enemy. It seems that we often create convenient bogeyman to act as foils against which we can make our claims. (And please note my intentional “we” in the previous sentence. I am as guilty of this as anyone.) Wallace argues against “Central strains of classical Christian opinion” (p. 21) which is admittedly a broad brush. “Classical Christianity” is also filled with voices who take very seriously the place of animals in our spiritual lives.

In the second half of the book he highlights the animist beliefs of Hildegard of Bingen and John Muir as examples of Christianimism. I was surprised that other indigenous and Celtic examples did not figure more prominently. Wallace spends quite a bit of time considering John Muir. While he acknowledges some of the challenges with Muir’s thought, I find the fact that Muir’s ideal wilderness was one where the indigenous people have been removed is more substantially troubling. If the wilderness through which you encounter God is a wilderness that reflects you, as Muir may be guilty of, then have you have potentially created wilderness and God in your own image?

The chapter on Muir also raised concerns for me about historical context. What the natural world meant to civilizations 2000 years ago is very different than what it means to modern, western folk. We are very protected from the vicissitudes of nature. We observe nature as this detached thing over there that only in rare occasions has life or death control over us. Does this protection from the natural world lend itself to our romanticizing or fetishizing the natural world.

Mark Wallace has given his readers a fascinating book. In these kinds of exercises in drawing the boundaries or portraits of God all our definitions fall short. All our descriptions of God are not God. And yet, they are still valuable and teach us of God. Whether one is convinced by Wallace’s biblical interpretation or not is not as urgent is recognizing with Wallace that we encounter God through the natural world and our destruction of the natural world limits our experience of God.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the author and/or publisher through the Speakeasy blogging book review network. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.

The Hospitality of Silence

(This post initially appeared on the blog for the Hermitage Community.)

Silence is a core practice, a core value, a core gift of The Hermitage. Silence welcomes us no matter our rank or status, no matter our theological or political preferences. Silence enfolds and embraces us no matter our desires or fears. But silence does not force itself upon us. Silence is there to be received, or not. It is ready to engage us in deep attentiveness, or just passing exploration.

The experience of silence draws many people to our retreat center, although not without trepidation for some. Our desire is that the silence of this place will be received as a welcoming space that receives each guest

When we introduce new retreatants to the Hermitage there are two things I try to mention: “We offer each other the gift of silence” and “We practice a gentle silence.”

We recognize that each retreatant is here to do their own work and be attentive to their relationship with God. We honor this by not intruding on their space with noise or conversation.

When I greet guests who seem particularly anxious about the silence I offer the statement about the gentle silence. The silence at the Hermitage is not strident and absolute; it is not to be a source of fear. If you have a question, please ask it. If you have an insight needing to be shared, please share it.

One of our characteristic practices at is eating meals in silence. For people new to silence this particular experience of silence in community causes some people anxiety. Silence alone in your room is one thing, silence at a meal table, with a group of people is shockingly counter-cultural. And yet, once that initial unsettling settles down, the silence of communal meals can also be received as an expression of deep hospitality. In it, we all receive the other guests as they are without social expectations or demands.

Silence welcomes us into a relationship with God free from noisy distractions. And in this silence we are open to turn the ear of our heart to listen to our welcoming God.

I am You: on becoming an American

I am a new American. On November 9 my wife and I traveled to the Gerald R. Ford Museum in Grand Rapids for my citizenship ceremony. People from more than 20 countries became citizens that day.

I grew up in Canada. As a white Canadian I know I’m not the image that comes to mind when most Americans think of immigrants, but I feel as much an immigrant as person coming from a country thousands of miles away.

One quality that many Canadians hold dear is that they are not Americans. Living next door to the world’s political and cultural superpower, it is hard not to feel a little threatened by our neighbors to the south. Former Canadian prime minister Pierre Trudeau once said of the USA “Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt.” Canadians spend a lot of energy protecting and reinforcing their Canadian identity from the “twitches and grunts” of this elephant.

When I was a youth one of the ways we did this was by making “American” jokes. This often involved telling stories, typically laced with hyperbole and imagination, of our run-ins with Americans. They often involved scenarios of Americans coming to Canada in July and wondering where the snow was. This also included making fun of American’s comparative ignorance of Canadian geography or politics. We knew much more about the US, than Americans knew about Canada. Our stereotype of Americans was they were fat, stupid, arrogant, and armed, and our stereotype of Canadians is that we were none of those things.

Then I moved to the United States. There is nothing like meeting real people to break apart imagined stereotypes. I have lived in California, Indiana, and Michigan. But for the 25 years that I’ve lived in the U.S. I’ve lived as a non-citizen – first on a student visa, and then, after marrying an American woman, as a permanent resident with a green card. I liked this in but not of, relationship. My language only needed to switch from “those Americans” to “you Americans.” “What is it with You Americans and guns?” “What is it with You Americans and your health care system?” “What is it with You Americans and invading countries?” Sitting on the sidelines and making snide comments may be briefly satisfying, but it is not very constructive or kind.

And now I feel I must no longer stand safely apart. I have finally recognized that this place is my home, and “you Americans” are my family, my neighbors, my coworkers, my people.

This doesn’t mean that I’m not occasionally confused and frustrated by the actions and attitudes of Americans, but no less than I’m occasionally confused and frustrated by my own actions and attitudes. But I am now committed to participate in this country; to get my hands dirty and work to fix the things I think are wrong, and to hold up the ideals that I think makes this country great.

I finally made the choice to become a citizen because I am You.

Why Should I Vote?

A letter to my state representative. (I’ll let you know how he replies, if he replies.) 

Greetings Representative Miller,

This past summer my wife and I moved near Three Rivers and into your state district. We have long loved this area and after nearly 20 years in Lansing are glad to call this place home.

After 25 years of living in the US (I am from Canada) I became a citizen in early November. It was an important decision to pursue citizenship, and one I did not, and do not, take lightly.

A representative of the MI Secretary of State’s office was at the citizenship ceremony and I was able to register to vote that same day. Voting is obviously and important privilege, right, and responsibility.

But my question to you is, Why should I vote?

I have lived in Michigan for nearly 20 years and while not able to vote, I do pay close attention to state government. In my time I have seen state representatives redraw district maps in such ways as to disempower voters from the other party which means that even when a majority of the votes are cast for Democratic candidates, a majority of the seats are filled by Republicans.

I have seen state representatives draft voting rules and regulations that make it more difficult to vote.

I have seen state representatives take ballot measures that were supported by the majority of the voter and undermine the will of the electorate by watering down those ballot initiatives so they barely resemble the electorate’s wishes.

I have seen state representatives take steps to remove the powers from elective offices – for the sole reason that someone from the other party was elected to those offices.

Both parties share some blame, but the Michigan Republicans seem to be going overboard with their disregard for the decisions of voters.

So, I ask you, why should I vote? What can you tell me to convince me that my vote will be a participation in true democracy, and not something disregarded by the whim of a party.

Don’t get me wrong, I will vote, but I would love to hear from you why you think I should and how my vote will matter.

Blessings to your and your family this holiday season,

Kevin Driedger

 

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Prayer for an attentive ear

 “An attentive ear is the desire of the wise.” (Sirach 3:29)

O deep, listening wisdom,

who am I to desire the desire of the wise?

I ask that you listen to a fool like me,

for I’ve listened enough to know that an attentive ear is not only the desire of the wise,

but also the source of their wisdom.

Give me ears to hear the laments of the broken-hearted.

Give me ears to hear the cries of the displaced.

Give me ears to hear the voices too scared to speak up.

Give me ears to hear the breath of persistent life.

Give me ears to hear the hidden rhythms of the earth.

Give me ears to hear the chorus of the universe.

Give me ears to hear the melody of truth.

Give me ears to hear the resounding echo of your love.

Listening one,

I desire that the ear of my heart be always inclined toward you,

and in the silent space of our mutual listening

wisdom will sing herself into being.

Amen