A Useless Faith
All of our lives, even our spiritual lives have been undermined by productivity. The Industrial Revolution of the 18th century enforced a pragmatic ideology of production on all of western life. Ever since, the poets and artists have been calling us back to a “use-less-ness” of being. Mary Oliver asks, “what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” To which she answers simply, pay attention. In Manifesto: The Mad Farmer Liberation Front, Wendell Berry calls us to invest in the two inches of humus on the forest floor.
“Ask the questions that have no answers. Invest in the millennium. Plant sequoias. Say that your main crop is the forest that you did not plant, that you will not live to harvest. Say that the leaves are harvested when they have rotted into the mold. Call that profit. Prophesy such returns.”
To exist, to create and imagine in ways that have no product, that have no pragmatic marketable use. What do we do in our daily lives that has no definable purpose?
Theologian and artist, Makoto Fujimura, writes in his book Art + Faith;
“there is a type of need to justify the existence of the institution of church (or any nonprofit organization) to be “useful to society,” and thereby useful to God. … The Christian Church to this day has been undermined by the utilitarian mindset of the industrial revolution. We see our existence and value only in terms of “fixing the world.” … Ever since the industrial revolution, how we view the world, how we educate, and how we value ourselves have been all about purposeful efficiency. But such a bottom-line utilitarian pragmatism has caused a split in how we view creativity and making. To what purpose, we ask, are we making? If the answer to that question is “we make to be useful” then we will value only what is most efficient, what is practical and industrial.”
To what purpose are we making, creating, praying, reading, walking, gardening, playing?
Fujimura’s question to the church strikes me as particularly important, what is the purpose, the reason, for any spirituality or religious practice? While “fixing the world” is noble and very (very) much needed, is that God’s sole purpose for us? (And we must ask, fixing by whose definition?) Do we pray when we don’t have a specific request or petition? “Give us this day or daily bread.” Meanwhile, the poets teach us to pay attention, “to fall down into the grass,… how to be idle and blessed…” They urge us to “do something that won’t compute” and “come into the peace of wild things.” They remind our busy minds that stillness is one of the doors
On Sunday let’s explore this idea of a “useless faith.” What would it look like to embody a spiritual practice that does not look for quantifiable results or expect an predetermined outcome? How to we live a faith that is of no use to anyone else?
Sunday, September 6 4 pm 110 Eleventh Ave SE, upstairs
Join us *most* Sundays at 4:00 pm | 110 Eleventh Ave. SE
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