"I don't talk about God with
people
who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground."
...
"There is no sense talking to
people
about beingness as long as they have a mind, because the mind will
subvert what you say into its own model, and the mind works with
symbols,
it does not work with
direct experience.
So if you talk to a being and its mind about beingness, no matter what
you say, it is a lie because that mind will
symbolize
and systematize what it is that you convey."
...
"For me this is a practical matter. Instead of having the answer about
God like
some guy
or some thing or some explanation or some anything, I have a space of
possibility like an openness, like
a place for God to show up
in my life."
...
speaking with Reverend Terry Cole-Whittaker about God
This essay,
Ass From A Hole In The Ground,
is the twenty first in a group of twenty one
reflections
of
God:
I am indebted to Robert Walker who contributed material for this
conversation.
In fleshing out various possible screenplays for this essay, I began to
speculate
about what its title might be. I liked "Ass From A Hole In The Ground"
a lot as it harkened to Stan Getz's "Girl From Ipanema" and Kirk
Douglas' western classic "Man from Snowy River". "Ass From
A Hole In The Ground" could also be referring to a donkey from "Hole in
the Ground", a town with a wild-west sounding name. More pertinently
(ie the bottom line), "Ass From A Hole In The Ground" is that to which
Werner
is referring when saying if you don't know yours, he doesn't talk with
you about God. That was the
source
for this for me.
What would you have to bring to the table ie what would you have to
ante up so that
Werner
would become
interested
enough to talk with you about God? What might that be, refer to, or
allude to which, if you don't know it, he doesn't talk with you about
God? In any case, how did he get from God so adroitly to "a hole in the
ground"? (and vice versa). I was intrigued. So I began inquiring into
various scenarios of what that might be. This is what I came up with.
It's distinction really (no, that's not a typo: I didn't mean to say
"It's a distinction really") - or it's
making distinctions if you prefer. Secondarily it would be
distinguishing between two somethings. Primarily it would simply be
recognizing and exercising your power to make distinctions in the first
place. But if you are not facile enough with distinguishing your ass
from a hole in the ground, it is almost certain that you won't be
facile enough with making the necessary distinctions about who God is
either (and about who you really are in
relation
to God) to have a
worthwhile,
valuable conversation with
Werner
about her.
Almost universally, what we neglect to take into account when talking
about God (when talking about anything, really - but for now, let's
keep it focused on talking about God) is how all our pre-conceptualized
notions and prejudices, our
epistemology
if you will, shape and color whatever we
consider
God to be. What's even worse is that as our
epistemology
shapes and colors whatever we
consider
God to be, it does so outside of our recognition that it's doing it. So
while it seems as if whatever we know about God we know freely and
clearly and untaintedly, what is closer to
the truth
is that we really have no grasp at all of exactly how pervasively our
epistemology
shapes and colors what we all erroneously assume to be an open, clear
view
when we're talking about God.
I'm not invested in my own
epistemology.
Look: don't get me wrong here. There's
nothing wrong
with
epistemologyper se. We're
human beings,
so we've each got a rich
epistemology.
It's just that I'm not overly
attached
to mine. If it
disappeared,
faded, or plain relaxed and released its grip on my
thinking,
I wouldn't miss it. In being
interested
in the way things are ie in the way God is, I'm not really enamored
with being in a
relationship
with God about which I already have all the understanding, familiarity,
and facility. That's simply a recipe for disaster, ensuring I'll only
know about the things I already know about.
Werner's
adroit "I don't talk about God with
people
who don't know their ass from a hole in the ground" is
vintage Erhard,
piercingdirectly
to
the heart
of our foot-dragging
consideration
that whatever our notion of God is, it is likely to be an
epistemological
version of God only, and not what she actually is. To get to what she
actually is, requires first distinguishing the
epistemology
which masquerades as a reliable
source
of information for us of what God really is.
