Little Lamb Who Made Thee

May, 1993
Brooksville

September, 1995
Lakeland

Re-write from 1982

Opening Words:

I am aware that I am speaking to many of you who are at least two generations following mine; I have grandchildren younger than some.

My purpose today is not to proclaim certainties when there are many doubts.

My intention is not to disturb your convictions, for if you have convictions, you can respond.

That which sustains me is not a metaphysical absolute or a religious creed, but the human values and human civility without which we could not gather in peace.

Here we have freedom to inquire into any and all the major and minor ideas and issues of the human enterprise. My purpose is not to impress you with my beliefs or my doubts, but to stimulate you to ask yourself, “what sustains me?”and attempt an answer. If that occurs, my time will have been usefully spent.

William Blake
THE LAMB

Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?
Gave thee life, and bid thee feed,
By the stream and o’er the mead;
Gave thee clothing of delight,
Softest clothing, woolly, bright;
Gave thee such a tender voice,
Making all the vales rejoice?
Little Lamb, who made thee?
Dost thou know who made thee?

Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee,
Little Lamb, I’ll tell thee.
He is called by thy name,
For He calls Himself a Lamb.
He is meek, and He is mild;
He became a little child.
I a child, and thou a lamb,
We are called by His name.
Little Lamb, God bless thee!
Little Lamb, God bless thee!

William Blake
THE TIGER

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies
Burnt the fire of thine eyes?
On what wings dare he aspire?
What the hand dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder and what art
Could twist the sinews of thy heart?
And when thy heart began to beat,
What dread hand and what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain?
In what furnace was thy brain?
What the anvil? What dread grasp
Dare its deadly terrors clasp?

When the stars threw down their spears,
And water’d heaven with their tears,
Did He smile His work to see?
Did He who made the lamb make thee?

Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

May Swenson
THE UNIVERSE
[not yet in public domain]

Phyllis McGinley
TIMES THREE
[not yet in public domain]

Sermon:

William Blake’s two questions, enclosed in his vivid, mystic images, emphasize the dilemma one finds when attempting to deal with the question of a Creator. Blake deals with the creator of the gentle lamb with the answer that the creator incarnated himself as a little child, God becomes child. But Blake with his image of the fearful, savage tiger, he does not answer – leaves only the question. The question: can a good creator who makes the gentle lamb also bring into being the fierce tiger? That poetic economy expresses the quandary, ever-present, when an effort is made to discover what God is, what God does, or even if God exists.

I trust my remarks will show a certain modesty. Although the libraries are abundantly shelved with books on the subject; and sermons from most pulpits, are replete with pronouncements pleadings and persuasions about God, talking about God reminds me of a sentence I once read defining “journalism”: “a profession whose business it is to explain to others what it personally does not understand.” The last line of Phyllis McGinley's poem applies, “God knows which God is the God God recognizes.”

[Crossed out: It is also a “given” in a Unitarian Universalist society that when the minister talks about God, there will be a mix of reactions – the bored (what's he talking about THAT dull stuff for?); the hurt (he’s attacking my cherished belief); the patriotic anger (“this country was founded on God, and he’s trying to shake the foundation”). It may or may not come as a surprise to you, but ministers receive many criticisms as well as some compliments. Which reminds me of a minister’s story about the time he was ordained: An old lady, a family friend, asked him, “Was it your own idea or were you poorly advised?”]

Let’s begin with definitions – “a good dictionary is one of the best lie detectors.”

An atheist denies the existence of any god or gods.

An agnostic holds that it is not possible to acquire with certainty knowledge of whether or not god(s) exist. As originally coined by Thomas Huxley, the word “agnostic” indicated a suspension of judgment about ultimate issues.

A Deist believes that there is a god who created the universe, analogically like a clockmaker who makes a clock, winds it up – and departs. Such a god is not the source of goodness, not a moral being, and has no communication with human beings. Many times referred to, as Jefferson did, the God of Nature.

A Theist usually believes that God is a personal both above and within the Universe and who has moral relations with persons.

A Humanist is even more difficult to define briefly. She/he may be theist, deist, agnostic, or atheist as far as the idea of God is concerned, but holds that the proper focus of religion should be fixed at human life on earth; life here and now. To repeat the familiar and classic definitions of humanism: “man is the measure of all things.” (Protagoras ) – “the proper study of mankind is man” (Pope). In another sense, the Humanist may believe that the only source of human knowledge is from human perception, individual and collective, natural only, never supernatural; that beliefs in god(s) are the product of human culture and heritage, individual and social; that religious beliefs are always relative, never absolute.

Usually, the questions about God can be roughly divided into those who have different answers to such questions, as, is God a human-like Creator dwelling in a supernatural realm? Or is God an impersonal force? Others answer in terms of verbal or artistic symbols which point to the mystery in growth, change, creation, destruction.

There seems to have been a history of change in the idea of God. Long before history was written, human worshiped the gods of the seasons. In autumn, vegetation and foliage withered, fruitfulness was ended. When spring came, the earth revived. The mysterious process of seedtime, growth, and harvest stirred deep religious feelings. The spirits of corn and wild were worshiped as gods, who, through will and whim, sustained humans. The Greeks called the mystery, Adonis; the Babylonians, Tammuz; the Celts and Scots, John Barleycorn – and such are only a few of the names of the dying-rising savior god of vegetation, who was a “hero with a thousand faces,” as Joseph Campbell described in his book of that name.

The belief that God created man in his image is a foundation of the Judeo-Christian religious tradition. Although most persons are relatively uninformed about the sacred writings of the Jewish and Christian traditions, nearly everyone would know that somewhere in the book of Genesis, there appears the statement that God made man in his (God’s) image. (1/26, “let us make man in our image after our likeness.”) The implications of the plural “our” seem not to bother believers, even though it is a contradiction of “one god.” I go along with those scholars who believe that ages ago, prehistoric, God was both male and female (androgynous); or that, in some cultures, two gods, one male, one female, shared the powers.

In the Western world, our roots are mainly in Indo-European stock of peoples, even though the origins of Judaism, Islam, and Christianity are Semitic. Historically, God has been masculine, bearded, with European facial, skin, and hair characteristics, generally. That is what God is, because we are his image, or so it is widely believed. After all, that is the way Michelangelo painted God on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel.

Would there be the same picture if we were African, Polynesian, or American Indian, untouched by Western Christian culture? Of course not. More than 2500 years ago, Xenophanes, poet and philosopher of ancient Greece (540-500 BCE) observed the religious scene of his day. He noted that the gods and goddesses of his land were Greeks of beautiful body, possessing the qualities of strength, courage, and intellect which were valued and admired by Greek people. As Xenophanes, long ago, came to know Africans, he discovered that their gods were black of skin. The gods of Asians were cast in Asian mold. So Xenophanes, long ago, came to the conclusion that man creates his gods in man’s image. If our culture had been maternal instead of paternal, woman would have Created God in woman’s image.

As best as we can understand pre-historic peoples, the pressure of survival shaped their gods. The storm threatened, the drought would starve, the flood would drown. But a balance of sunshine and rain provided people with enough food to survive. Little wonder that the powers of nature stirred fear. The gods of sun, rain, thunder, vegetation, water were ritually worshiped with awe and wonder – and sacrifice.

Gods came to be worshiped because of other beginnings. Perhaps one person gave great and heroic service. Within a few generations because of impact and memory, the tribe promoted the hero to god-ship.

When one considers the ancient Hebrew legends and myths, Yahveh may have been a mountain god, originally, perhaps an active volcano. This may be the origin of the reference in the old scripture that the children of Israel were led by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night. This would describe with some accuracy an active volcano being used as a distant point of guidance.

Then, gradually, the image of God began to display new attitudes and concerns. From scanty evidence at first, we can trace the growth to an image of God concerned about the poor, the oppressed, the sinful. The ethical prophets, Amos, Hosea, Micah, Jeremiah Isaiah, proclaimed this image. The image becomes more and more inclusive and all peoples became included in God’s dominion. Everyone must answer for his conduct to this one eternal and universal Yahveh. One scholar (Welch – JEREMIAH) wrote, “the Old Testament prophets are terribly one-idea men. They all believe that Yahveh acts.” If the image of God in your mind is a uniting of creation and high morality, then you owe much of that image to the Jews. That image is their religion.

Centuries later, another Jew, Jesus, was emphatic in attributing additional form and qualities to the image. The image became like one’s father. Jesus lived in a social setting where the father of the family was the law-giver. But a good father was not only a firm ruler, he was also kind and just, who should be loved as well as obeyed. For Jesus the image became warm, strong, and affectionate, “Our Heavenly Father.” One wonders if Jesus had been reared in a maternal rather than a paternal culture he would have prayed to our “heavenly mother.”

Then the Christian church added to the image – rather, the theologians multiplied it. The Lord who was one became three, the Trinity. The person of Jesus as well as the Holy Ghost became part of a three-in-one image. In a cartoon strip which appeared in the Lakeland newspaper, a character referred to the Trinity as “three awesome dudes.”

Although most Christians still pray to the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost (or Spirit), the idea of God has changed. When tyrant kings were all-powerful, the image of God became that of the monarch. In the ferment of change when there were increasing constitutional liberties and in some countries increasing scientific knowledge of cosmology, biology and psychology, the image became the God “within”, the divine spark in the soul to which persons voluntarily could respond. God, for many, was no longer the arbitrary monarch, but rather, the pervasive Presence in all life.

Then in the late 19th century, theology was hit with a bombshell, with delayed fuses still igniting. Led by Freud and his successors, who analyzed human behavior, it was pointed out that we tend to make gods of our childish wishes that may have been unfulfilled and unforgotten, but repressed. The mixture of fear and love with which with which we reacted at depth to our fathers had been unconsciously projected onto the screen of religious faith – The “Fatherhood of God” strikes deeply within us and echoes those mixed feelings of fear, jealousy, love, and awe. The late Father Thomas Merton, the Cistercian monk who wrote such penetrating meditations, observed, “Our ideas about God tell us more about ourselves than they do about God.”

Then, too, the idea of a good loving God with concern for all his children has always been flush up against the wall of unmerited suffering. Not the evil that persons do to persons. The terrible tragedy in Waco cannot be blamed on any god – but on the madness some religions incite. But there is also the suffering that the forces of Nature inflict upon persons. Just recall the March 13th storm and less recent, but still fresh in our minds, Hurricane Andrew. [CJW note: Tornadoes annihilated 5000 Kobe, Japan, January; Okla. City] There are volcanic eruptions in the Philippines, recently, devastating green fertility to a dead, gray wasteland. How does one fit a good, caring God into such disasters which happen somewhere every month or so. One is reminded of Robert Ingersoll’s statement that if he had been God, he would have made health infectious instead of disease. Or as Shakespeare has Gloucester say to King Lear, “As flies to wanton boys are we to the gods; they kill us for their sport.”

“Tiger, tiger, burning bright
In the forests of the night –
What immortal hand or eye dare
frame thy fearful symmetry.”

Or, as poet May Swenson inquired,
“and what if the universe
is NOT ABOUT us?
Then what?”

[CJW note: Hume quote]

It must also be said, however, if the constant presence of disastrous evils creates a trackless wilderness when seeking a good God, one must also account for goodness – not only the gifts of Nature which have provided a world where we can live, eat, love, mate, and find shelter, but also a world where in spite of evil men and oppressive movements, there are good people, kind women and men, persons who give of themselves so that others may live and grow. Then, too, why are we conscious of anything at all, particularly loving and nurturing?

In recent decades, theologians, philosophers, scientists have been asking, is there a God beyond the god of fertile crops who must be appeased by sacrifice? Beyond the warrior gods? Beyond the gods of our wish projections? Beyond the father in heaven? Beyond the god who manipulated the three-story universe in the age before Copernicus? Is there a God beyond the gods of human thought and imagining? There are attempts: Tillich wrote of God as the “ground of Being” - not A being, but being itself (if you can under-that) – A Tao, a Way from which all beings and things emanate – which cannot be known – has no form or attributes – is unconditioned when all we know is conditioned – is infinite where all we know and can know is finite?

The late Eustace Haydon, who taught history of religions at the University of Chicago, commented, “Scientific philosophers and theologians who cannot still believe in the robust god of Christianity have in the last generation offered us substitutes for Him. They include the Impersonal Absolute, The World Soul, the grand Etre, The Spiritual Nisus of an Evolving Universe, the Unknowable, the Totality of Life, the Life Force, the Common Will, the Determiner of Destiny, a Growing God, a Cosmic Mathematician, the Principle of Concretion, the Utterly Other, the Imagined Synthesis of Ideal Ends, and many more.

But it seems to me that inventing a name, however intriguing, does not demonstrate there is an objective entity behind the name.

Now it may seem rude, but to me all these substitutes for the fading old gods are simply contrived name tags on that which cannot be named; putting labels on mystery which cannot be fathomed; asserting knowledge which cannot be verified and is, thus, speculation.

Where all this strikes you, I cannot guess. But the older I get, in matters metaphysical, the less help I get from theologians, scientists, philosophers. The poets, composers, artists, musicians, dramatists do not inform me of proper theological discourse (I’m glad of that), but I resonate to some of their creative imagery. I will never know all I am, but I feel that in me and in you, are the forces of what we call the Cosmos – gravity, atomic structures, electro-magnetism, positive and negative discharges of electricity, chemical synthesis and re-synthesis, growth, change, creation, destructions. But naming such processes do not fully explain who I am, who you are, who we are.

Sometimes I feel the mood which grasped Francis Thompson, poet-mystic, when he created the “Hound of Heaven.” Do you remember these lines from that poem:

“I dimly guess
what Time in mist confounds;
Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
From the hid battlements of Eternity;
Those shaken mists awhile unsettle, then
Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again.”

What the poet described as “the trumpet sounds,” Abraham Maslow called peak experiences. When this happens we have broken through the crust of Self. The interpretations we give these moments differ, not only because of unlike heritage and different experiences of each of us, but also, words are inadequate, for me at least, and I attach no deity-name to the experience. Alfred North Whitehead was more eloquent than most of us when he wrote (quoted by Margaret Isherwood, FAITH WITHOUT DOGMA), “this creative principle is everywhere, in animate and so-called inanimate matter, in the ether, water, earth, human hearts. But the creation is a continuing process, and the process itself is the actuality, since no sooner do you arrive than you start on a fresh journey.”

May I make a personal witness? I have pondered the great mystery for many years. Yes, I am an agnostic. I do not know the answer or even the proper questions. But in my ninth decade on this earth, I am more and more a SEEKING agnostic. It is not fear of death, even though I have lived at least 9/10ths of my life. I do not know that when I die I will meet a totally blank wall or a door opening to some uncharted surprise. Meanwhile, I try to travel with an open mind and a seeking heart. That is the “Triptik” for my journey till the day I die, reminding myself occasionally of the saying by the medieval woman mystic, Julian of Norwich, “all will be well; all will be well; all manner of things will be well.”