Grace in the Gray by Mike Donehey

Author:Mike Donehey [Donehey, Mike]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2023-01-17T00:00:00+00:00

EASTERN/WESTERN

I grew up in a Western mode of thinking. For those of you who did as well, I want you to know it isn’t right or wrong, but it indelibly informs the way we see the world and ultimately how we learn to disagree. We in the Western Hemisphere are historically less prepared to hold tension. I would even be so bold as to say we are dramatically underequipped in this area. We aren’t often seeking a compassionate middle ground; we want to divide the world into winners and losers. The Greek systems that helped shape our systems of thought taught us a very certain way of seeing things.

Western thought is more absolute.

Eastern thought is substantially less binary.

In other words, I grew up either-or.

I’m learning to swim in the mystery of both-and.

A quick look into Eastern-inspired viewpoints reveals that our Greek-trained ways of thinking don’t always have solutions for the questions that arise. There tends to be more mystery than we had previously envisioned.

Ray Vander Laan was the first teacher to really blow my brain open in this area. It just so happens that he studied under a myriad of rabbis in Israel for years. When I was in college, a friend downloaded a few MP3s of his lectures on my iPod, and they really helped me realize how limited my viewpoint of God was. Later, I watched some of his seminars online and was transfixed for days as he opened my mind to an entire realm I hadn’t considered before. I felt like Peter Parker, mouth agape at Doctor Strange opening the multiverse in front of me. Vander Laan was my Doctor Strange of the Bible. (Ray doesn’t wear a cape or anything. He’s quite unassuming, in fact. I met him once at the Michigan high school where he’s taught for decades.)

For instance, in one of his lectures, Ray asked a classroom of students something to the effect of, “What does God smell like?” The classroom sat in dead silence. He said, “Well, any good Hebrew scholar would tell you, ‘Burnt meat and incense.’ ”

He followed it up with, “What does God taste like?” Another long pause ensued. “Honey! Because the psalm says, ‘Your word is like honey on my lips.’ A rabbi will show up in a kindergarten class with a honey bear in hand. He’ll dab a drop of honey on pieces of wax paper and remind the five-year-olds, ‘Don’t forget! That’s what God tastes like!’ ”

You see what I mean. I had never before heard anyone ask, “What does God smell like?” Ray continued to blow my mind with his teachings on the dust of the rabbi. He widened my perspective on Psalm 23 when he explained that “green pastures” were tufts of vegetation spread through the desert outside Jerusalem where the shepherds would lead their sheep in the cool of the morning. The promise of lying down in green pastures wasn’t sheep wearing sunglasses and drinking martinis. It was a promise that my shepherd God would lead me through the wilderness of life while providing just enough provision for each new day.

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