Sea of Tranquility, World of Turmoil

During my April travels, I heard this interview with Emily St. John Mandel on the NPR show 1A. The interviewer and the author discussed the new book Sea of Tranquility, which sounded interesting. I first read Station Eleven and enjoyed it thoroughly, so I was predisposed to like this book.

In fact, I loved this book. I’d go so far as to say it's one of the best I've read in a long time. I started it Friday afternoon and got up early Saturday morning to finish it. I don't want to say too much about it because I don't want to ruin it for those who haven't read it, so let me just say that it was satisfying in so many ways, particularly in ways that pleased me as a writer. I was so impressed with what she managed to pull off.

This interview on the Ezra Klein podcast also inspired me to want to read this book. This morning I went back and listened to both interviews again. Emily St. John Mandel is a wonderful guest with a wide range of knowledge.  I’m glad that she’s younger, that we might have many more books from her to enjoy.

I was sad yesterday when I learned that Rosemary Radford Ruether had died. She, too, had a wide range of knowledge. She was one of the feminist theologians who helped change how we talk about God. She did groundbreaking, revolutionary work on gender issues and God talk. She's not one of the theologians whose work I go back to reread, but her work forms a foundation for many of the works of theology that have sustained me.

I wish I could say that her work was done, that it seems part of an earlier age and no longer relevant.  Sadly, that is not the case. Just last month I was part of an interesting conversation about changing references to God as a father. We talked about translation issues and gender issues and whether or not it was appropriate to have a more expansive language when talking about the creator.

The person who was most opposed to changing God the Father language was not in his 90s. I looked him up later to be sure. He's roughly my age, at the far side of mid life. I thought that most people in more liberal church denominations had accepted the need for careful language when it comes to the creator, a need to move beyond tradition. I was surprised by the ferocity of the conversation.

I held my own, while at the same time thinking of the decades of work that had been done on this issue of the language of God talk. It's also interesting to think of these issues in a week where the Southern Baptist Convention has had revelations of all sorts of horrible abuse. It reminded me of one of my undergraduate friends who went on to seminary in the late 80’s, right at the time at the Southern Baptists decided to stop ordaining women. I felt sad that the church world would lose her gifts.  I feel that sadness still.

We live in a time when the church world is losing the gifts of all sorts of people who turn away for all sorts of reasons. Some people scoff at the idea of language making a difference, but theologians like Ruether knew that change doesn't happen at the larger macro level without change happening at the micro language level. Maybe we need to return to some of those revelations.

This morning I took delight in reading this tribute to Ruether. Come to find out, the academic dean at Wesley Theological Seminary, where I am a student, studied under Ruether, and she directed his MA thesis. I have been so pleased this past year to be at this seminary, and discovering that the seminary has connections back to Ruether makes me even more happy to have made this choice.