Lived Theology: An Interview with Kimberlee Conway Ireton
EJ: As a woman and
mother how do you think of your personal theology and practice? Is
it more down to earth and practical? Does academics only go so far?
KCI: I must confess
that I actually like academics. I have a spirituality of the library,
you might say. I meet God most often in books and words and ideas.
This gets tricky when you’ve got little kids asking questions about
death (our beloved cat died last summer) and Heaven. How to take
those beautiful academic ideas and translate them for a
four-year-old?
So yes, academics only goes
so far when you’re interacting with children. While my bookish
tendencies remain strong, I have begun to encounter God far more
through the natural world (especially bugs!) and embodied reality
than I ever did before I had children. It’s opened my eyes to a
whole new way of being in God’s presence. You might say it’s
opening me to a more incarnational spirituality-which my
word-oriented self loves, given all the brilliant prose and poetry
that’s been written about God’s incarnation in Christ.
EJ: In The Circle
of Seasons you give a cursory overview of the liturgy with
vignettes from your family and your friends family. Do you see
theology being worked out and tweaked by these family groups and
close knit communities?
KCI: Absolutely. I
had coffee with a friend yesterday who lives with her husband, three
children, and her brother-in-law’s family (his wife and two young
kids). For Lent, they decided to eat rice and beans because, as my
friend said, "It’s what most of the world subsists on most of the
time." To make it an easier transition, they’re not going
straight to rice and beans all the time, but adding one day a week.
By Holy Week they’ll be eating rice and beans every day.
I see this as lived
theology. These families believe that God calls us to care for the
poor, and they are giving their young children a bodily understanding
of what it feels like to eat the same food day after day-an
opportunity to identify with people who have far less than they do.
EJ: Your writing is
very convincing without a whole lot of definitions or big words. You
use stories to communicate the meaning and importance of holy days
and practices. Do you think of theology as story?
KCI: I love story. I
love that the Bible is a story. I love that God made us to
participate in the unfolding Story of creation, that God gives us a
role (our own stories) in helping to bring about the end of the
Story: redemption. I don’t know that all theology is story (some of
it is really academic and esoteric), but the theology that I love,
that excites me, is narrative in nature.
EJ: Do you see women
as guardians (or better co-guardians) of theology within the family?
How can women pass on theology, the knowledge of God, to their
children?
KCI: I like the
Catholic designation of the family as the "domestic church." As
co-pastor of our little domestic church, I sometimes struggle to
know how to best pass on knowledge of God to my children. Most of
what I do at home is fairly simple. We light a candle at dinner (the
color changes with the liturgical season) and say a short
call-and-response litany (which also changes with the season). We
pray for our friends and family at bedtime. We read Bible stories. My
children say the refrain when we’re reading the daily psalm.
Sometimes we talk about God directly, but mostly we don’t. My son
is not interested, and my daughter is too young. And I don’t want
to push them. Instead, I try to weave our faith into the fabric of
our lives, so that it will wrap around my children and hold them.
I worry sometimes that I’m
being too oblique, that I’m neglecting my duty to train up my
children in the way they should go and all that. But even in the
midst of my worry, I try to remember that they are in God’s hands;
ultimately, they are God’s children, not mine, and God loves them
far more and far better than I ever could. I take my role as
co-pastor of the domestic church seriously, but I also try to hold it
lightly and not get a savior-complex about it.
EJ: How have you seen
the different liturgical practices your family participates in shape
your family theologically? Does this overflow into your extended
family? Your church? Your neighbors?
KCI: My children are
still young (five and two), so I’m not sure how what we’re doing
is shaping them, though I hope that it is. At this point, they like
to light the candle at dinner (they’re mostly very good about
taking turns) and lead the litany. We just shifted to a purple candle
for Lent, so that gave us an opportunity to talk about why the candle
is a different color and why we’re saying a different litany.
In the car today, my
daughter wanted to listen to the Hallelujah chorus, which gave me a
chance to talk more about Lent and the good-bye to alleluia. I was
surprised that both kids were okay with my saying no. They seemed to
understand that we’re waiting for Easter so that we can more fully
appreciate the alleluias we’ll say and sing then.
I actually just wrote a
family devotion for Lent, which I emailed to friends and folks at
church, our co-op, and my mom’s group. (It’s also available for
download on my website: http://www.kimberleeconwayireton.net/resources) So
that’s one way that my own liturgical practices are extending
beyond our home to our church and other communities we’re a part
of.
