"A field is beautiful and natural. I love all the colors."

"It has more choices and feels more open-ended. It seems deeper, more urgent."

"It holds a lot of history. It has more vibrations in it. There are no rigid or sharp edges. It is soft. It seems mysterious and quiet."

"I can see all the seasons there. Everybody can be there together in more of a meeting place."

"A field seems more interconnected, more relational. It feeds me. There is something sacred there."

The field makes me feel like I don't have to be anywhere or anyone. It gives me a sense of time and wonder. It makes me just look at it and not have to do anything else -- that is enough"

"It seems playful, fun, childlike. It seems inclusive and welcoming. It seems recognizable. I want to spend more time there."

A faith metaphor

Metaphors are truly alive. At their core live rich seeds of wisdom. When a metaphor "works," it can deeply transform us. It can reshape our lives, our image of God and our entire universe. On the other hand, metaphors can also become tired and grow old. A metaphor remains vital as long as we can make sense of it. But when a metaphor no longer speaks, how do we acquire a more appropriate metaphor?

We can question the metaphor of faith that we currently use (namely, "journey") and evaluate it. Does this metaphor still support our faith and our ministry? Next come more risky questions: If a fresh and useful metaphor exists (namely, "field"), could we integrate it into our faith world, ministry and daily lives? Can we test the metaphor to discover if it has value in every profession, every faith community and every arena of life? Wouldn't that be the criteria for authentic church, work, mission and faith in this contemporary moment? In this spiritually hungry age, are we using a spiritual language that is age-appropriate for the 21st century? Are we currently exhausted from the "journey" and finding ourselves more in the "field"? Let us place our life/faith/Spirit-story alongside this new metaphor and test it.

The teacher of metaphors

"Explain to us the parable of the weeds in the field."

Jesus said in reply, "The field is the world." (Mt 13:36-38)

Jesus taught faith in parables, using images that everyone could understand. As Jesus speaks of field, it is comfortingly familiar. Is it also new? How can the spiritual metaphor of field apply to our lives and our work now? We have changed our metaphors many times before today. Each metaphor attempts to describe what "the kingdom of God is like," building on and including the previous ones in some deep way. 

Spiritual language and images

1. Spiritual life

In the 1950s, people often used the words "spiritual life" to describe spiritual reality. This metaphor sprung from the image of creating "lay spiritual life" based on the spiritual classic, The Imitation of Christ by Thomas á Kempis (a book popularized from the pulpit). Following WWII, the atomic explosions, and the seeming absence of God, more laity invited themselves into spiritual questions. Catholic college students studying philosophy and theology (in English) began to explore the mystery of the Mass (in Latin still). New questions arose. Having an ongoing relationship with God now included fostering a spiritual life, not unlike that of the religious life of priests, ministers, rabbis, yogis and nuns who were now more conspicuously present in media and culture. Archbishop Sheen was on TV every week. Laity with spiritual lives seemed more important than plain laity. The mystical writings of Thomas á Kempis gave new meaning to the simplest actions of the dads at the office and the moms at home. Spiriutal life was an empowering metaphor. People integrated their home life and work life with the divine.

2. Spiritual growth

The late 1950s and early 1960s were marked by unprecedented economic, political and cultural growth in the United States. With the expanded information resources of TV and university and the luxury of leisure time to integrate the information, a new metaphor arose to describe religious experience: "spiritual growth." Growth was the metaphor that spoke to the times. We were like plants in a terrarium, the great solarium of God, grounded firmly in our faith and being asked to keep growing, growing, growing in our Spirit, to reach higher and higher to God. Our spiritual task was to grow by doing trowel work on our own soil. The growth was done solo or construed as something to be done solo. People, like plants, grew independently, vertically, up, towards God, towards the sun. Catechetical textbooks responded; the image of little people, studying and growing up in faith, firmly planted this ideal, child-like, spiritual growth metaphor into our language. But it was safe growing, not really conversion or transformation. The plant metaphor left us two choices -- growth or death. 

3. Spiritual journey

Think of Vatican Council in the early 1960s. For the first time, airplanes allow the whole church to easily journey to Rome. Simultaneous translation technology allows everyone to speak to one another. The educated laity, observers and guests from the other faith traditions were invited. At one point, Pope John XXIII actually marched all the cardinals and bishops into the Sistine Chapel. He asked them to look at Michelangelo's rendering of the fate of the damned in his painting "The Last Judgment." The pope says, "Look, this is what is at stake here." It is said that after that church leaders' hike, new decisions and new theology emerged in the writings of Vatican II. It was a monumental birth moment in the history of a new metaphor: "spiritual journey." We make our way by walking. Christianity was seen as a movement. Faith was viewed a movement, a journey, a road, a path, a way of walking. In the 1960s, everyone met everyone else (and their ideas) in the crossroads of their faith journeys. Everyone was included; the people of God moved toward the kingdom of God on a spiritual journey. We reclaimed our rites of Christian initiation as a journey of faith. We were able to have a spiritual life and continue our spiritual growth with others (not in isolation) and in our vernacular language with communion rails down. The journey metaphor connected us to the age. (And, just for the record, the Catholic journey was viewed as the correct and best journey.)

We were a pilgrim people entering the marketplace and joining in dialogue with the world, other faiths, and other professions. It should come as no surprise that during this time the construction of the interstate highway system was underway. Metaphors are drawn from the familiar images of the age. Roadwork, roadsigns, and movement were the hallmarks of the time. The women's, the civil rights', the black, the native American, the gay, the 12-step, the peace, and the anti-Vatican II movements were all afoot. The world saw itself differently and being on journey was important. Dialogue and personal conscience emerged as signposts. The church was catching up with this world movement. 

Who knew everything on the road would speed up? Information superhighways, computers, faxes, cell phones and answering machines only increased the dialogue at the crossroads. Things got paved. Roads got entrenched. Now there are the right roads and the right paths. Those that stray off the path, or make a wrong turn on the road of faith, are now fallen-away or returning Catholics because the Roman Catholic Church still supposedly had the superior map for faith journeys.

Who knew 35 years later we would find ourselves still on a spiritual journey? Only it is faster, an eight-lane superhighway. We are exhausted, burnt out and stressed. The journey metaphor has tired, its power is not as persuasive in this age. People want out of the rat race. To do less seems very appealing. To "stop and be" seems valuable again. A move from constant activity to contemplation is welcome. Getting off the journey and living somehow less road-based feels good. We are noticing the side of the roads more, the field. Is this metaphor calling to us now? 

A 21st century image: Spiritual field

"For we are God's co-workers; we are God's field" (1 Cor 3:9).

A field has no fences or hard walls. It goes on and on, opening into forever. A field is filled with life, and no one and no thing can fall out of it -- no matter how far they run or how hard they try. The number of creatures romping in a field is infinite, down to the smallest atomic particle. All are included and incredibly intertwined forever. The field is full of seasons, change and creativity of all kinds. The field sustains us and gives us our next moment. Most of what we eat comes from the field. We rest there. We come from the field and we return to the field, each day and in life. Are we finding ourselves in a "spiritual field"?

The documents of Vatican II encouraged us to communicate faith with language that speaks to the people of our times. "Spiritual field" is a more age-appropriate spiritual metaphor to describe faith in the 21st century. By reclaiming a natural, ecological, interfaith, work-related, multivalent, and rich image like "field," we can reconnect our universe, self, God and neighbors to the biggest faith-field possible. But for this metaphor to succeed, we first need to find it in our lives, language, faith and work.

Discovering the field metaphor 

Science: Energy fields, magnetic fields, gravitational fields, telekinetic and telepathic fields and radioactive particle fields all are part of our modern understanding of life. We have no problem accepting the fact that microwaves, radio waves, and cellular phone waves are all simultaneously pulsing through our bodies in giant fields of electromagnetic energy. We find ourselves happily in more than one of these fields at a time. Field language does not escape us, even when wave fields are mysteriously invisible. 

Nuclear science teaches that the smallest particles of matter can never be removed from the same energy field; no matter how far we split them or separate them, they are still connected in the original field. What's more, each particle and every being emits a light energy field. We see this energy in each rock, flower, animal and person we meet.

Cosmologists document the 15 billion-year-old history of the universe, telling the story of expanding and contracting energy fields, particle fields, black holes and wave fields. We believe that all of time, space, and the universe are connected through the same one Big Bang energy field. The universe makes and remakes itself out of the same energy and matter over and over. All of creation is connected, linked and held as one, just as it was "In the beginning…." 

The field language of science permeates our culture and contemporary thought. "Field" has begun to mark our times.

Psychology and ecology: "Field" is a natural image that speaks to us. Life-giving crops from the field are taken to the barns and then the field begins to wither and die. Airfields, battlefields, ball fields, minefields, oilfields and playing fields are part of our experience. The full range of life and experience is held in the field. Things get dumped in the field and gas leaks into the field. Pesticides, migrant workers, nuclear waste dumps, good and evil are in the field. The field is a familiar place and we fill it with positive and negative experiences. Our mind witnesses the contradictions and complexities of our world and our lives in the field. Our ecological concerns manifest in the field. We play out the seasons of our lives in the field. Birth, change, growth and death are honored there. People of all ages are delighted to be there. Our humanity is available there. We reconnect with earth, her rhythms and cycles. We bring faith and life together again. Justice, eco-justice and moral questions surface in the field. There is time for psychological language and process in the field. Our theology language becomes lived, rooted, earthy and radical again.

Interfaith dialogue: "The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a person finds and hides again, and out of joy goes and sells all that he has and buys that field" (Mt 13:44). Deep ecumenism lives in the field. It seems that all faith traditions include "field" images in their teachings, the natural place to link all of creation with God. When path and road images are erased, we all find ourselves in the field, standing next to people of all faiths, creeds, genders, colors, orientations and abilities. With roads and journeys we kept focused on destinations and being on the right or wrong path. In the field, we have all already arrived. We live in God and there is no "right journey" to God.

In the field, each tradition worships alongside the others -- universally connected. The field has a leveling effect; everyone is equal and unique. There is no spiritual monopoly; the field exists for all. There is no goal or end within the faith field. The field of God allows all to roam 360 degrees in free faith. There is no place outside the field from which to view God. All are included. All groups are included, all have a piece of spiritual wisdom to share. All communicate faith. No one can be excommunicated. People share the interfaith field language.

Professional work: In our work world, we specialize in a field and enter that field. By pursuing a field of study, our profession becomes our field of expertise. Each field is a contributing work to the mission of the church in the modern world. Each person's vocation is to bring the light of Christ to that workplace, that locus of salvation history. We go out to work "in the field," and new discoveries are made "in the field." Field experts emerge. Our workplace is the field. And our work is done along side all the other field hands. No work is greater or lesser than another. All work contributes to the greatness of the whole, included in the "great field of work."

The computer world picked up on the same language. Everything is arranged in fields. We check for data and information with searches in a field. The metaphor for divine work field has been planted in technology already. The "spiritual field" exists virtually, too.

Spiritual field

The field metaphor is in our culture. Could it be a more age-appropriate spiritual language for the 21st century? Imagine inviting people to come into the field rather than joining the catechumenate journey. Imagine people meeting at the parish to create the divine energy field. Imagine each grade gathering in the field of God, to rest and learn about the gentle breezes of the Spirit, rather than going to CCD classes. Are we already there? Come with me into the field. 

"We need a fresh image to challenge and push us as teachers and leaders. We need a more natural image to speak faithfully about our growing love and commitment to the earth."

"Our faith experience needs to be filled with more fun and childlike playfulness. 

Field gives us more hope when we are exhausted from our work. It lets us get off the journey and enjoy the field time much more in ministry. It values the contemplative needs of our times more. 

"It lets everyone in. It is more age-inclusive and more ecumenical."

"It gives us a bigger image of God. Everyone can relate to a baseball field; it's more American."

"The field speaks to us in all our various fields. It allows in more doubts and mysteries. It matches the liturgical seasons better. It is more counter-cultural, a more feminine image for our times. 

"The field invites us." 
ML