An Expansive Theology - Joanna, Chuck, Me, Scout, Us
Fitting that a post about an expansive theology would be too long for email. Click through for the full post and the photos. :-)
I had originally started writing what was going to be a really long reflection with lots of personal history, progression of my theology, etc. But the more I wrote, the more I just was feeling like, “I wouldn’t read this - why would anyone else?” And then came finishing an The On Being Project podcast on Friday morning as I was driving for Scout and my morning hike at Long Branch Farm and Trails. It was a re-posting of a conversation between Krista Tippett, Joanna Macy, and Anita Barrows about the beauty, wisdom, and courage that sustains us. It was re-posted in remembrance ofJoanna Macy, who just recently passed away. As they talked through Rilke’s poetry and so much more, it came to a point where Krista asked Joanna and Anita about how they were feeling in facing this time of a “great unraveling / great turning” (words that Joanna had used to speak of the time in which we are living). Here is Joanna’s response. As you read it, I encourage you to followthis link for the actual audio and go to the 41:25 point to listen to it in her words. It is not just the words she says, but how she says it.
Well, it seems clear that we who are alive now are here for something and witnessing something for our planet that has not happened at any time before. And so, we who are alive now and who are called to, who feel called, those of us who feel called to love our world, to love our world has been at the core of every faith tradition, to be grateful for it, to teach ourselves how to see beauty, how to treasure it, how to celebrate, how, if it must disappear, if there's dying, how to be grateful. Every funeral, every memorial service, is one where you give thanks for the beauty of that life or the quality of what.
And so, there's a need, some of us feel, I know I do, to what is, looks like it must disappear to say, thanks, you're beautiful. Thank you, mountains. Thank you, rivers.”
And we're learning, how do you say goodbye to what is sacred and holy? And that goodbye has got to be in deep thanksgiving for having been here, for being part of it. I kind of sound like I'm crying, and I do cry, but I cry from gladness, you know.
I'm so glad to recognize each other. You can look in each other's face. See how beautiful we are.1
I went back and listened to that same section three more times and then pulled over to copy the text of it from the transcript. I was so moved by the expansiveness of what she shared both in her words but also in her voice. This follows on something she shared earlier in the podcast about a conversation she had with her husband about a year before they got married.
I remember about a year before we married, I'd been talking away as he was driving, and then he just looked at me and he said, what a world you've got inside you.2
And both of these brought me back to a scene in The Life of Chuck (which MaryAnn McKibben Dana3 and I will be discussing on Monday morning) where (very light spoiler ahead) the main character, Chuck, is given the words of a poem by a teacher in a beautiful and transformative way. The poem is Song of Myself4 by Walt Whitman with the central line offered to Chuck being this:
I am large. I contain multitudes.
Without spoiling much of the movie I cannot share more about it but since I saw the film a few weeks ago, I have kept going back to this phrase - I contain multitudes. And those three words speak to the theology in which I find myself living today. It is that we are each bigger than we understand ourselves to be. The world is bigger than we experience it to be. God is bigger than we often believe God to be. Love, hope, forgiveness, wonder, beauty, joy - all of these are bigger than we understand them to be. Through past theological lenses, I acted as if sin was bigger than any of these things. Sin was the definining thing about us as humans and the defining thing about God’s work. I am grateful that those are not the primary lenses through which I experience the world but I grieve the ways that these theological lenses are still the primary ones through which people hear about and experience Christianity.
While I still believe that there is a sinful nature within each one of us, I have shifted from an understanding of that nature being that which defines the whole of who we are and of God’s relationship with us. I have shifted to the fact that, if I truly believe that we each share in the image of God, then there is far more to us than just a sinful nature. There is the love, hope, forgiveness, wonder, beauty, and joy that are a part of who God is. We each contain multitudes. All of this is multitudes. All is bigger than we can imagine.5
I love the words of Paul in Ephesians 3 where he speaks of his desire that his Ephesian friends would have “the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” He follows this up with a short blessing that is so beautifully expansive...
Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.6
With Joanna’s words, the words of Whitman from The Life of Chuck, and this from Ephesians in my heart, my walk with Scout on Saturday morning was a gift. Using my new lens along with my macro lens, I wanted to see things around us that started off super close - seeing the multitudes that are present when getting up close to flowers, nature, and even Scout. But then moving wider and more expansive where those multiudes are still present but they are in the midst of so many more multitudes. These photos are a visual representation of the expansiveness of the theology that I have grown into and will continue to grow into and I invite you into as well.
Friend, I contain multitudes. You contain multitudes. Scout contains multitudes. God contains multitudes. All of this contains multitudes. And it is abundantly far more than we can ask or imagine.
Grace, Peace, Love, Hope, and Joy,
Ed
From On Being with Krista Tippett: Joanna Macy, In Memoriam — Beauty and Wisdom and Courage (and Rilke) to Sustain Us, Jul 22, 2025
Ibid
We will be doing another of our Pop Culture Pastors’ Hour conversations. The film is available to rent/stream for $9.99 from the major streaming sites. Basically the cost of a movie ticket. Totally worth it.
If anyone would like to hear about how I have grown into this theology, I speak to it in various places on this site or I’d be happy to set up a time to talk about it especially if you are feeling that the theology you’ve inherited feels more like it is about building walls and constricting than about expanding and widening.
Ephesians 3:18-21
Multitudes within multitudes.
So glad my friend Camille connected me with you!