A Journey: Chris Adey

 

I grew up in what I would call an ‘atypical’ [both my parents were converts to Catholicism] ‘typical’ Catholic home – baptism, weekly mass, from an appropriate age regular confession, daily Rosary, nightly bed-time prayers, altar server, Catholic schooling.

Looking back, I can say that I have always believed in God, even though at one stage I decided that I would no longer believe. That didn’t last long, because somehow, I “knew” that God existed. The God of my childhood was mostly ‘out there’, but at the same time close enough that He, yes, definitely He, could see when one time during Mass [I was about 10], I held up my Missal to show Him that I was up to page 100!

 
As I aged,  I accepted that God was Father, Son and Spirit. However, when I thought of “God” it was Father that came to mind. Jesus was somehow separate, and mostly divine [how else could he do those miracles], and I couldn’t get my head around Spirit. I had a literal understanding of the Gospel stories. Acceptance is probably a key word – I took as truth what I was taught.

 
After school I entered the Seminary, fulfilling a “nagging” that had been with me from year 9. The Seminary was important because it provided me with an intellectual understanding of Catholic teaching and ritual, giving me answers but to questions that the Seminary decided we needed to ask. The Catholic Church was definitely THE arbiter of Truth.  

 
Fifteen years into my teaching career I wanted to update my theology. I enrolled at Santa Clara University, California, completing a Masters in Pastoral Liturgy.  This was the beginning of an awakening for me: new insights into Sacraments and Scripture, new understandings about God, exposure to Feminist theologians, all language about God had to be inclusive, space to ask questions and be answered. So many questions! 

 

Part of that awakening came about because the God I was coming to believe in mirrored the father of the “Prodigal Son” who was always seeking to be in relationship with his wayward son.

I have come to believe in a God whose very nature is to be “outpouring, self-giving”, a God who has been present in the unfolding of this universe we live in for its 13.8 billion years, drawing forth ever richer diversity; a God who is ungendered but fully gendered, for how else could humanity be made in the image and likeness of God unless God was also both; a God who is at the core of our very being; a God who is continually inviting us to become our best selves.

 
I believe that Jesus was fully human, that he had to learn to be open to his God, had to search for the truth that guided him, who struggled with doubt and at times second-guessed himself, as Gethsemane shows us; that he was THE ONE who was most fully open to the Spirit in his life, and thus is our best guide and model, and shows us what is possible for us. To be fully human means that Jesus could not have seen himself as divine; that was for others to determine.

I believe that the Spirit is “vibrating love” that is immersed in all creation. If Einstein is correct, then, contrary to what is obvious, everything is energy, and I believe that the most powerful energy is love. It alone has power to transform fully. Is this not an image of marriage [and all love relationships], where the love, one for the other, enables the other to become, not an image of the one, but the fullest version of themselves.

 
I believe that Eucharist is the most radical act we can perform. At its core is Jesus, broken and outpoured [in God’s image] for others, being radically inclusive, compassionate and forgiving.  To eat and drink is to commit to being the same, opening oneself to being transformed so that we become what Jesus was but in our own small weekly time and place.

I have set aside my literal understanding of the Scriptures, and the Gospels in particular. They are drama, and need to be understood symbolically. I believe we have to ‘break the myth’, literal and metaphorical, to be able to get to the truth; so we have to relearn, for example,  what Luke and Matthew were saying about Jesus’ birth: a human [unvirgin] Mary who like us, had to understand over time who this child of hers was and would become.

I have rejected the whole notion of Original Sin, a construct to rationalise why infants should be baptised. We are born, as Matthew Fox wrote, blessed, for is this not what is meant by being made in the image and likeness of God! Similarly, I have rejected the Fall-Redemption model, for the God I believe in is the outrageous father of the prodigal son, who never stopped loving and at the first hint of the son’s returning, even when he was a long way off, ran out to gather him back into the family. As a father, this image speaks to me.  

 
I do not believe there is a shortage of priests, nor in the need for an ‘ordained priesthood’. Any baptised person, male or female, can validly preside at Eucharist. To suggest otherwise is to say that there were no valid Eucharists in the first two centuries of the Jesus movement. I would also contend that the Church, with its emphasis on control and silencing of legitimate differing theological opinions, is far from the kingdom that Jesus envisaged. I also believe that there is no part of humanity that is “disordered”, as the Church teaches. Rather the whole of humanity reflects the infinite diversity that is God and so is, of its very nature, ‘very good’.

 
Finally, I have come to believe that God is not outside of creation but fully immersed in it. As a result, I have come to understand that God is in me and I am in God. As Julian of Norwich said, “we are not just made BY God, we are made OF God”. But, if this is my reality, then it is true of every other person too, and that has serious implications for how I see and treat others. So, my new greeting is “Namaste” – which means, ‘the Divine in me honours the Divine in you’!

 
Where  I am today is very different from where I was 20 years ago, and where I will be  in the future. I am on a journey into a fuller understanding of God, creation, humanity, and myself.