I get together with friends every two weeks to talk about art: pieces we're working on, questions we're grappling with, etc. Last night, one of my friends told us that he's reading Julia Cameron's The Artist's Way but that he was initially uncertain if he would read it because the word "God" is used frequently, and he wasn't sure if he was comfortable with that. He decided to keep going after reading the introduction; in it, Cameron suggests that people uncomfortable with "God" substitute any other word that means creative spirit or force.
I heard similar instructions a few years ago when attending someone's exit interview from in-patient rehab. I asked the counselor essentially, "How are they supposed to go to AA if they don't believe in God?" I was told that it could stand for "Good Orderly Direction" and that AA is a spiritual, not religious, organization.
Sometimes pushing past or reconfiguring meanings in order to learn skills or receive larger messages is understandable. Sometimes re-framing the debate makes politics clearer (or at least more entrenched)! And I don't want to dismiss the power of groups reclaiming names that previously were only uttered as invective. Language is amazing, people! But when other than with "God" do we need such thorough contextualizing and explaining for a broader way of seeing, whether it's Cameron's creative force, Alice Walker's ecospirituality, or many Unitarian Universalist sermons? When else are we told, "Oh, just think of another word for that"?
The question you pose in your post sent me down a train of associations about language and reframing.
ReplyDeleteInterestingly enough (interesting because you mention AA) I think people are often encouraged to reframe recovery using various terms. For instance, if "rehab(ilitation)" has negative connotations for someone, "recovery" or even "therapy" might be suggested.
Another area that comes to mind is child development work. While many people use the word "discipline", I prefer to use "behavior management" and some might substitute "conflict resolution".
No, the terms I mention are not synonyms. "God" and "creative force" are not, I believe, synonyms either, at least in the strict sense that I tend to understand them. But if you think of "God" as a term for the elements of human consciousness/experience that are unknown to the user of that word, then that broad definition may be able to match up with "creative force" or "creative energy". In a similar way, if someone believes children need to be punished when they make mistakes, then that person might see "discipline" and "behavior management" as nearly the same thing.