Communication

When I’m standing at the bus stop waiting for my bus, I like to people watch.  The other day on such an occasion I was intrigued by a young family who were communicating by sign language.  To see the adults signing is not so unusual but what caught my attention was their small child in the buggy, about 1½ - 2 years of age.  She was ‘conversing’ with her parents by sign language and was watching intently to their reply.  I was fascinated watching her.  Of course, by this age most children are beginning to communicate with others through the spoken word so really I shouldn’t have been so surprised that she was communicating in the way she had learnt in her own family.  Thinking about it, there are many ways of communicating.  It used to be by one to one conversation or by hand written letter.  Nowadays we have many forms of communication – phone, email, social networks, Skype, art, drama, poetry, newspapers, words, looks, tone of voice, reactions ... ... and so we could go on... ... each valid in their own right.  

 

I find reading other blogs interesting and sometimes comment – another way of interacting with people, some of whom I have not met in person and some who live far away spread across the globe.  We would never suggest that the particular way we personally communicate with someone is the only valid and true way.  And yet when it comes to expressing our spirituality, that’s exactly what we do.  As Richard Rohr comments,
 

Almost all religion begins with a specific encounter with something that feels “holy” or transcendent: a place, an emotion, an image, music, a liturgy, an idea that suddenly gives you access to God’s Bigger World. The natural and universal response is to “idolize” and idealize that event. It becomes sacred for you, and it surely is. The only mistake is that too many then conclude that this is the way, the best way, the superior way, the “only” way for everybody—that I myself just happen to have discovered. Then, they must both protect ... and spread this exclusive way to others. (They normally have no concrete evidence whatsoever that other people have not also encountered the holy.)

The false leap of logic is that other places, images, liturgies, scriptures, or ideas can not give you access. “We forbid them to give you access; it is impossible,” we seem to say! Thus much religion wastes far too much time trying to separate itself from—and create “purity codes” against—what is perceived as secular, bad, heretical, dangerous, “other,” or wrong. Jesus had no patience with such immature and exclusionary religion, yet it is still a most common form to this day. Idolatry is whenever we make something god that is not God, or whenever we make the means into an end. Any attempt to create our own “golden calf” is usually ... ... eventually false religion.
 

I also read a blog by a young Portuguese woman (she writes in English) who is very New Age.  Her profile says,
 

I started my pilgrimage around the world in 1996, year that my parents also moved back to Angola where they live now. In 1998 my life totally changed when I had a personal encounter, believe it or not, with Jesus Christ...this also in Angola...since then I've been walking with Him in a great adventurous life, which doesn't make any sense without Him anymore. I don't follow religion or "church" as an institution, I follow Jesus, my best friend, and I love to be and journey with those who have the same passion.   She hangs out with Jesus Freaks and other New Age people, lives in a commune, has piercings and tattoos.  She has had tattoos done since becoming a Christian. Somehow, I don’t think there are many denominations that would accept her into their flock unless she was willing to change and conform.  Yet through her tattoos she preaches to others explaining what the pictures and writing mean.  She goes to New Age gatherings and shares her experience of God with them.  I love her sense of freedom.  It’s not for everyone but surely her way of communicating with God and showing Him to others is just as valid as others who attend conferences and the latest centre of God’s outpouring of signs and wonders.  Looking at the variety of God’s creation, whether plants, animals, mountains, deserts or other landscapes, surely we know that variety is part of God’s nature.  He loves diversity.  There are many ways of communicating and mine is only one of them.  Others ways are not wrong or invalid, they are just different.  They say that variety is the spice of life.  We are in danger of making God smaller than He really is when we limit His expression to only our way.  We cannot limit God to our small way of thinking.  He has a habit of refusing to be limited.  We are reminded of when they tried to silence Jesus.  They thought they had been successful but then God ripped down the curtain in the Temple and burst out into the world.  That's my limitless God!