It Comes Back...
Six years after I graduated from seminary, 3 years into a doctoral program in religion and psychology, 40+ years on this earth, and it still all comes back. What is “it,” you might ask?
Theology, embedded, stuck in my memory, twisted and turned theology. Religious thoughts and practices and ideas that I’ve long since sloughed off arise unbidden. Some of it is ugly, causing me to turn on myself, other times it is more innocuous, mosquito buzzing your ear annoying but relatively harmless.
Embedded theologies are the deep ingrained theologies we grew up with. They are the thoughts, practices, and formulations of our youth, our families of origin, our early communities of faith. They often have magical qualities to them. If I do this…, then I’m assured of this response.
To tell the truth, it hurts some when they come back. We think, we imagine we’ve moved on and then something stressful hits and the words or practices just roll off our tongues. Then we spit and cuss and shame ourselves for going back to that spot, to those thoughts. We want so badly to wipe our minds clean of those times, and yet they always return.
A dozen or so years ago, I don’t exactly remember when, my grandfather was in hospice in Georgia. I was in a doctoral program in Colorado.
I remember sitting in my carrel on the second floor of the library. That was when the call came through. He wasn’t dead, but he was close. They called to let me speak to him one last time. He was weak, tired, but he asked how I was. It was small talk, because that was all he could handle.
As the grandfather I knew best, he was the first real family member who died. While not my first rodeo with grief, it was certainly the most personal to that date. When I hung up, I knew that was the last time I’d speak to him.
I stood up, walked down the stairs, and out of the building. I continued down the street to a fast food place to grab something to eat. As I sat down, the words that came to my mind were, “Dear God, thy will be done…” and I stopped.
The flip side of embedded theologies are deliberative theologies (or values, philosophies, ideals, etc.). These are the theologies that we live into when there is time to think and pause and ponder.
When we deconstruct, we are constructing a deliberative theology. We are choosing what stays and what goes. We are moving, with eyes wide open, toward what we choose to believe, rather than what is chosen for us.
Deliberative theologies begin to arise when what we’ve believed before no longer works. The magic of our embedded theologies no longer holds our attention.
Now, it’s easy to think that a deliberative theology is better than an embedded one. In many cases this is true. However, the goal of a deliberative theology is that it replaces and becomes our new embedded one. With time to deliberate and choose, we hope that we choose things that are expansive, life-giving, and hopeful.
A deliberative theology that merely stays in our thoughts and has little impact on practice is nothing better than a mental exercise. We have to embed those life-giving, expansive, and hopeful things into the practices of our lives if we want to move beyond the embedded theologies we’re trying to escape.
The moment the words came to mind. I knew they were wrong. I didn’t believe them anymore. I couldn’t believe they were the words to fall either.
So, I stopped. I paused and wondered what I did believe.
I believed that God loved my grandfather, so I was thankful for that.
I believed that God called people into that hospice and they would care for him, I was grateful they were there.
I believed that my family was heartbroken and relieved, I wished them comfort and healthy ways to express their grief.
That was a prayer I could get behind in that moment (my theology of prayer has since changed radically). It felt authentic and real. It was aligned with where my deliberative theology was headed. It was a relief to say rather than a burden to bear.
Stressful events bring up embedded things (not just theologies, but old habits, patterns, and personality quirks). When we are triggered by a present experience, old things come back because our minds tag certain events with emotions. And, emotional memories are easier to recall, last longer, and are more vivid.
We can replace some of this with new emotional memories, but they will most likely come back. I’d like to say we always have a choice as to how we react, but that’s not true. We will react, and then we may feel ashamed or gross or angry with ourselves.
It’s what we do next that matters. You see, when a memory is open, there is a window to change what it means. While that time and space is there, we can play with it. We can insert new data into the experience. we can reorganize our thoughts or behaviors related to it. An embedded theology is lasting but not set in stone. It is malleable under the right circumstances and with the right people.
So, when the moments come up, get curious. What did this mean? Is it still meaningful? What’s worth keeping and what can I let go of? It takes a great deal of willpower not to be overwhelmed, and instead turn to reflection and response, rather than behavior and reaction. We all have the opportunity to make that choice when facing our triggers and leaning into a new future.