Essay About L. William Countryman And Everyday World

Outline of My Theology Paper
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Outline of My Theology Paper
My theology is being shaped by my reflection of my experiences in encountering the mystery that is God and about the relationship with the Mystery in whom we live and move and have our being. I am guided by L. William Countryman in my understanding of my encounter with the transcendent God who is the Hidden Reality yet profoundly connected in our lives in every moment of our human experience.

I am appropriating Countryman’s use of the metaphor of “the human encounter with the Holy as life in a border country” in my understanding of the mysteries of God’s work in my life. He points to

a place in which, at privileged moments of access, we find ourselves looking
over the from the everyday world into another, into a world that undergirds the
everyday world, limits it, defines it, gives it coherence and meaning, drives it.
Yet this hidden world is not another world, but the familiar world discovered
afresh. It is the everyday world seen at new depth, with new comprehension.
(Countryman, Living on the Border of the Holy, p.8)
I see this as similar to my pagbabalik-loob experiences where I make a intra-psychic journey to my past as I try to make new meaning of my experiences in the present. Countryman speaks of a place where I have always lived but seen in a new and clearer light. This reminds me of an old Tagalog proverb that admonishes: Ang hindi lumingon sa pinanggalingan, ‘di makararating sa patutungahan.(Those who don’t acknowledge where they come from will never reach their destination.)

I find this metaphor very helpful as I make meaning of my struggles. Yet this also helps me see the transcendent in the ordinary and realize that the dullest circumstances can be sacred if seen in different light. Moreover this image is helping me shape my role as a CPE supervisor to that of one standing in the boundaries between two borders as I journey with students and help them make meaning of their experiences.

I also find Marcus Borg instrumental in helping me gain a new understanding of God that allowed me give up my previous monarchial model of God and its subsequent image of an oppressive taskmaster and embrace the model of God as Spirit with images that stressed relationship, intimacy and belonging. This eventually led me to a “crossroad” experience where I have transitioned from being a Baptist to becoming an Episcopalian and since then embraced both a Christocentric spirituality