Jim's Primeval Journey: Roots

My name is Jim Paulson. I am half Swedish and half Norwegian, which is boring. I grew up in Minnesota which is a very pretty state, but other than Iowa is probably the most boring state, being half Swedish and half Norwegian. I grew up in the Evangelical Covenant Church which is a pietistic off-shoot of the Swedish Lutheran church. So we were boring but saved. The two most famous Scandinavian foods are lefse (tortillas but more boring) and lutefisk (fish cooked in lye – google it if you don’t believe me). OK, being potentially lethal, lutefisk may not be boring but lye is the dumbest cooking ingredient ever, and only extremely old Scandinavians eat it. Then they die. The famous symbol of Scandinavia is the “dala horse” which looks like the kind of horses I drew in kindergarten (google it if you don’t believe me). Talk about dumb. And boring.

When I was a young boy, what mattered was being an American. Being the world’s big, strong good guys felt pretty good to a white American boy in the 60’s. (Confusion would come later in Jr High when the hippies were protesting the Vietnam War). But I was figuring out that America was a nation of the grandchildren of foreigners. My grandma and her disconcerting Norwegian accent was a constant reminder that she wasn’t born in my country. Grandma seemed like a foreigner and it sort of creeped me out. So while my citizenship as an American was the coolest thing, my nationality as Norwegian and Swedish was…see above.

This is the last installment of my reflections on how the Primeval Narrative of Genesis 1-11 bumps into, speaks into, and interprets my own primeval (earliest days) baggage. I realize that there are several possible implications (complications?) spinning off of the Tower of Babel story (Genesis 11). Was the confusion of languages simply punishment? Was it God “forcing” his Genesis 9:1 blessing “be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth”? Was God threatened by the human accomplishment of the tower? Was the tower all about paganism? Was it all about human hubris?

I just want to focus on one implication: God made sure that “people groups” happened. When humankind tried to stay together in one big homogeneous group, God scattered them. He even jump-started cultural distinctions by creating lots of languages.

It must have been like the methods of forcing you into a little group when you are at a retreat. “Look at your nametag, Notice that it is a certain color. Find everyone with the same color nametag. That will be your group for the weekend!” And you end up in the dumb or boring group. Or the group full of jerks. (I’m trying to be edgy like David Foster Wallace or Douglas Coupland or Donald Miller. That’s why I said “jerks”).

The result of Babel for me Jim Paulson: I ended up stuck between the Norwegians and the Swedes. Like the two dorkiest kids in the school fighting for the crown of “only the second dorkiest kid.”

But I’m changing my attitude. Anne and I went to the American Swedish Institute in Minneapolis last summer. And the Hjemkomst Center in Moorhead. And Scandinavian Heritage Park in Minot. My sister and niece visited Norway a year ago and have fallen in love with our Norwegian relatives. I have actual kinfolk in Norway! And #1 son Steve is enthralled with Scandinavian folklore, mythology, legends, Viking pillaging, etc. For one year now, I’ve been on a mission to overcome yet another chunk of primeval baggage: disrespecting my roots. I’m finally trying to embrace my heritage and my nationality. My people.

Jim's Primeval Journey: Feelings

I’m pretty much a feelings-focused guy. When I think about a topic, whether big or little, my feelings dominate. Let me say it another way: the topics I think about are those that I feel the strongest about. These days I’m stuck on the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. I’m sick over it. But it goes for personal things too, like my job. I got behind during a particularly crazy March and April, and until I’m caught up, all my job-thoughts revolve like satellites around my job-feelings. It feels lousy to be behind.

But the best way for you to get a glimpse of how feelings-driven I am, is to look at these Primeval Journey reflections. I am processing my baggage, and my baggage is heavy with feelings: curiosity, romance, guilt, hate, the freak-out.

God has feelings. “And the Lord was sorry that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him to his heart. So the Lord said, “I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them.” (Gen 6: 6-7). His feelings are mentioned 3 times: “was sorry…grieved him to his heart…I am sorry I have made them.”

This is God. This is weird for me. Other aspects of God’s character are easier to grasp—OK, to believe. I get it that he is all-knowing and everywhere and all-powerful and perfectly holy. I don’t get it that he feels.

I think I know why I don’t get it. Because having felt things so strongly all my life, I don’t think I’ve ever had an untainted feeling. On my most God-loving, God-following, God-worshipping days, my feelings are tainted with self-centeredness and pride. Even when I’m thinking right (as right as I can), my feelings get twisted. Twisted around me. I can be thinking quite biblically about God’s goodness, but he only “feels” good to me when I’m feeling good about me (feeling cozy, comfortable, content). If I’m feeling bad about me, it’s like: “God, I know you are good, but could you please work your goodness a little more in my favor?”

I think one of the surprises waiting for us in the New Heaven and New Earth will be the sensation of pure feelings; righteous feelings; truly God-centered feelings instead of our always-a-little-bit-self-centered feelings.

But when God feels, he feels purely. Our struggle to accept the wrath of the flood (Gen 6-8) should make it obvious that there is a gap between his purity and our self-centeredness. We feel God was a little bit bad to react with a universal flood. But the flood was not God being bad; it was God being good. For me this is simply an article of faith. But I admit that my feelings haven’t caught up to my faith. That’s my point.

I feel things; God feels things. My feelings don’t line up with his feelings. For years I’ve prayed, “Lord let me see things as you see them.” Now I want to add: “Lord, let me feel things as you feel them.”