Imagine you fall in love. You meet someone who understands you, knows you at a deep level. This person loves you unconditionally and joyfully promises to be with you for ever. You cultivate a giving relationship, where both of you make deep sacrifices and share parts of yourself. The union sprouts joy, and freedom.
But as the relationship grows more intimate, things start to change. Your lover begins to point out the many ways that you depend on them. They demand that you become scrupulous, apologizing for even minor mistakes. Continued love is conditional on constant contrition. Your primary means of communicating with your lover is through apology, and you find that they are pleased when you beg forgiveness. You alone are vulnerable; a power imbalance of servant-master becomes the norm. You are constantly on edge that your lover will abandon you.
We have words for this sort of relationship: manipulative, gaslighting, unhealthy.
So my question is this: why do Christians promote this sort of relationship with God?
I read scripture and hear the black song of manipulation. I read prayers written by the Church and still the same dark refrain. Here are a few examples from psalms, readings, and prayers I came across just this morning in Morning Prayer:
- "Have mercy on me."
- "In your compassion blot out my offense."
- "My sin is always before me."
- "[The Lord] scourged you for the works of your hands."
- "For your name's sake, do not abandon us for ever."
- "Let your forgiveness be won for us by the pleading of [your servant]."
This message is regular, continuous, overwhelming in the prayers of the Church. This posture seems to be the primary way that we communicate with our Creator, our Lover. And it seems to me to run contrary to the central story of love told to me by that same Church.
As an educated Catholic, I have been trained in a certain cosmology that involves 2 steps: (1) God created existence in an act of selfless love, and (2) God intends for all of existence to become one with Him in a response of selfless love. All of life is a process of deification, where creation literally becomes creator through the activity of real intimacy.
So what gives? If our relationship with God is to be a loving relationship, the most loving and most intimate relationship we ever experience, then why does our language betray a rather primal, unhealthy arrangement?
I get that these things evolve over time. I get that humanity has not always been in a place where "healthy relationship" is a concept with general understanding and acceptance. I get that power in relationships has had a particular character for many millennia, and the thought of transfiguring apotheosis via loving relationship didn't jive with lived experience.
But we're here, now. We have better vocab and better frameworks. We know better.
Honestly, I'm not sure where this leaves me. Yes, I'll continue to pray using the timeless language of scripture and yes, I'll continue to utter the beautiful words of the Church. But an internal dialog will persist, one that resists the vocab of sin and supplication even while the very words leave my lips. When the language of the Church falls short, my soul will fill the void.
Because I long for God. Deeply. I long for a lover, not a ruler. A partner, not a master. A presence that reaches out from the abyss to give meaning to existence.
Maybe this is the design, and I'm living a secret script. Maybe the given prayers and words are supposed to fall short, and each of us must pick up the song in our hearts. Maybe we're meant to improvise, to find the point where our artistry of holiness is no longer satisfied by the words of others.
In my experience, that is what loving is like--maybe God desires the same in this celestial tryst.
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