[SB] Sabbath Blessing

[Molly Wolf]

Consider the Hollyhocks

I'm used to wildflowers bedecking roadsides out in the country. At this 
time of year the dominant bloomer is Queen Anne's Lace, to which I am 
exceedingly partial. I love the way the elaborate, composite flower folds 
itself up as it finishes blooming, closing in on itself like a child's 
fist. I'm also fond of the peculiarly dusty truest-of-blue cornflowers, and 
the little yellow jobbies I don't have a name for.

But I wasn't expecting hollyhocks.

There they were, though, along the country road I was driving, whole stands 
of them, quite independent from the garden hollyhocks from which they'd 
escaped. I don't remember seeing anything quite like this except for the 
wild lupines that used to march along the roadsides in Nova Scotia, when I 
lived there twenty years ago. I don't know if you could say that the 
hollyhocks graced the landscape -- unlike lupines, which are elegant 
plants, hollyhocks are as gawky as new colts -- but they certainly added a 
certain cheerfulness. As did the fields of sunflowers, row upon row bloom 
turned to face the sun like a classroom of attentive students listening to 
a respected lecturer.  I liked the hollyhocks more, though. They were so 
.... unintentional.

It struck me how unmediated their relationship was with creation and 
Creator. They needed nothing and nobody to intercede for them, no formal 
doctrine to keep them safe from error, no snug or pleasing rituals, nothing 
but sun and soil and an adequate amount of rain. They'd fend for 
themselves, these plants. They were in the simple, straightforward business 
of sexual reproduction, aided by bees, and they were getting along with it 
without a fuss.

I envied them. I have lately been caught between two books (never mind by 
whom), each of which sets up polarities and arguements and has all the 
right answers and points fingers at Those Evil Awful People Over There, 
whether the people are blind rationalists or hidebound clerical types, 
still spiritually strangled by Augustine's legacy. One calls for a way of 
purification, self-discipline, strict order, obedience, patience. The other 
calls for embracing the cosmos, tossing off old restrictions, pursuing joy 
headlong, flinging oneself into creativity, and becoming self-fulfilled. 
Each of them has something to contribute, and both of them are driving me 
nuts. (And I'm parodying both of them, but only a little.)

Why can't we just be with God, as the hollyhocks are? Why can't we turn as 
naturally Godward as the sunflowers turn their faces toward the sun? Why 
does it have to be so *complicated*?

The fear, of course, is that we'll get it wrong somehow -- make some sort 
of mistake with fearful consequences.  We've argued theology to death over 
the centuries; we've roasted one another, squabbled ferociously, published 
reams and reams of dead-tree stuff holding one viewpoint or another. We've 
boxed ourselves into corners, divided ourselves, gotten passionately angry 
and self-righteous... and does it work? Does it get us any closer to God?

Here's a thought: what if God doesn't care if we get it right? What if God 
only values the fact that we're turning Godward like a sunflower to the 
sun, that we're choosing to flourish -- and allow others to flourish! -- as 
the hollyhocks have no argument with the Queen Anne's Lace or the other way 
around?

What if God sees the value of every single human being, whether or not that 
person is behaving rightly and righteously by our standards?  What if God 
sees something in Paris Hilton that I can't, and what if what matters is 
God's love, not my judgment? What if God is not really terribly interested 
in whether we get it right, as long as we remember to point ourselves in 
God's general direction?

Maybe The Fall (as listed in Genesis) hasn't so much to do with original 
sin as it does with original fussiness. Maybe it's not so much that we've 
eaten of the fruit of the knowledge of Good and Evil as that we've tried to 
digest the inedible tuber of "I'm right and you're wrong". Maybe, just 
maybe, God's willing to extend more goodwill towards us than we are willing 
to extend towards each other. And maybe that's a problem. Ours, not God's.

I wish I could be really, truly, that fearless; I'm not. I was brought up 
with a theology of caution, of correctness, of "what if?' and "we mustn't", 
and even after all these years, those constraints still feel very natural. 
My head may argue with them, but my head isn't always in charge of my soul.

I have got to learn to trust more in the hollyhockness of faith -- in its 
sturdy resilience, its insistence on ignoring the correct in favour of the 
flourishing, its essential wildness, its fearless gawkiness, its blatant 
colour, its trust, its hardihood. It's hard, but I'm working on it.