The Meaning

The Treehouse: Conversations About God

I wasn’t Lutheran when I entered seminary, but I was pretty quickly captivated by Martin Luther’s ringing question that forms the spine of his small catechism,¹ “What does this mean?” Granted, rote answers that “pass the test” were expected, but I think it’s not only a worthy question, it’s the seminal question for me with regard to any pondering about God.

Let me explain.

It took me 7 years to complete the 4-year M.Div. program, since I was a part-time student, so I did lots of things out of sequence. On a regular schedule I would have completed Greek the summer before my first year, Clinical Pastoral Education (supervised chaplaincy called CPE) in the summer between my second and third years, with internship the third year and the fourth year consisting of all academics. Instead, Greek and Hebrew were interwoven with other classes during the school years, and I took my final course and wrote my final Constructive Theology paper at the same time I was completing my CPE at Children’s Hospital.

I’ve always been glad, though, for how my schedule worked out. What could have been a strictly academic exercise became a crucible for my theology.

I mean, what could I possibly say about God as I sat with parents while they rocked their dying infant? What words about Jesus would comfort the mother whose toddler struggled with AIDS? What solace could my articulation of the Trinity provide to the father stepping out in the hallway to weep so as not to upset his 7-year-old with leukemia? The usual platitudes dried up. Theological formulae scattered like ash. Standing at the gates of hell, you’d better have something meaningful² to say, or keep your mouth shut.

After the death of my sister and two years later my infant son, I could recall little of what people said about God or Jesus, but the comfort of people showing up meant everything. A word, a touch. A cleaned kitchen. Warm cookies and cold beer and hot pizza. Shared tears. A wordless walk along a leaf-strewn path. These were the people who taught me how to be present to others, who demonstrated to me something holy with their presence and their kindness. If I felt the love of God in those moments, it was because of them.

Fast forward to this wild notion of creating an updated constructive theology — what would I say now, 30 years after being ordained, 15 years after jettisoning my faith, 8 years after tentative steps toward something newer, wilder, unboundaried — about what I believe? I put out an invitation to my Substack folks and dug into preparation, savoring the stimulation of jumping back into textual translation and study, which the nerd in me digs. I was fairly humming. This was going to be fun.

Then, just as I was getting started on this Treehouse thing, the morning after a routine breast cancer screening came a voicemail. “Your doctor has requested you come back for a diagnostic mammogram,” a woman said.

My maternal grandmother, mother, and both sisters have all had breast cancer (my mother, twice), and the disease took the life of my grandmother and one of my sisters. I’ve done the genetic testing and learned I don’t carry either of the two BRCA genes but may carry another that is still undetermined as far as risk. In 2000 I had a lumpectomy to remove a benign growth but since then no other issues.

To say that voicemail shook me to my core would be an understatement. While I’ve always known the risk is there — I was 10 when my mother had her first mastectomy — I wasn’t prepared for how blindsided I felt. I’d gotten comfortable, forgotten my vulnerability.

I waited a week for the diagnostic mammogram appointment, which resulted in another phone call instructing me to come back the following week for an ultrasound, which then led to the determination of a “probably not cancer” growth and “let’s look again in six months.” Relieved? Hell, yes. Rattled? 150%.

Faced with the fact of my frailty, the reminder of my mortality, at the same time I’m delving back into exploring my beliefs about God, the question “What does this mean?” has most assuredly elbowed its way back into the conversation, because what began as an academic pursuit for me quickly became all too real, reminding me that meaningful theology isn’t done in a vacuum but so often in the midst of anguish, alongside the crunching awareness of our own limitations and finitude.

Agnostic means “don’t know,” and most days that’s still how I identify. But.

What I did know in those three weeks of waiting to hear results about the lump that had been discovered in my breast, was no matter what I would face, I wasn’t going to do it alone. I knew that — I know that — in my very marrow. That means something to me. Maybe everything.

For that reason, I’m working hard to lift out meaning in the weekly Treehouse posts. So that you all have something meaty to chew on, something real to digest. And a little love to light your way.

1. From Greek, catechesis, “instruction by word of mouth.”

2. Meaningful to those suffering, not meaningful to me. Not the things we are tempted to say that make us feel better when our helplessness is too hard to tolerate.