The Touch of Transcendence: A Postcolonial Theology of God

---

And some people, perhaps reacting to the image of God as King, are repulsed by the very word "God. And yet both groups experience touches of transcendence: I began to use the phrase in the title of Rivera's book to name part of what I think is happening when people listen to, and singalong with, popular music.

I began to say, and still say, that they are experiencing touches of transcendence. Her focus in The Touch of Transcendence was on how we experience touches of transcendence when encountering the presence of other people who are more than us but make a moral claim upon his. In the "face of the Other," so she said, influenced by the philosopher Levinas, we experience the contours of a transcendence difficult to name but present to us in the here-and-now. But toward the end of the book she also spoke of how we might experience such touches in the more-than-human world: I was on board.

Her book was, and remains for me, one of the best books in theology I had read in a long time.

Download The Touch of Transcendence: A Postcolonial Theology of God by Mayra Rivera PDF

Mayra Rivera seemed to me then, and seems to be now, a theologian with her eyes and ears turned to the world, to this life, to how "transcendence" can be found in the flesh. It was not surprising for me to learn that her next book, published in , was called Poetics of the Flesh. In that book she offers a unique understanding of flesh which she distinguishes from body and helps me realize that flesh is indeed the place where we find the vitality of life, if we find it at all. Flesh is not juxtaposed with spirit; it is in its own way the place of spirit. Rivera offers us a deep materiality: She well realizes that some of these entangled connections are deeply unjust and filled with agonies.

Down-to-Earth-Theology: Learning from Mayra Rivera - Open Horizons

She writes with attention, not to privileged middle-class whites like me, but to those with shattered histories. She has no interest in her ideas being transformed into a "system" or an "ontology. This page is simply an expression of thanks to her, hoping that what I say might encourage others to read her books, learn from her, and learn with her.

Lord, Hear our Prayer It is the beginning of attention, a seriousness—which leads us to explore the world again in wonder, to describe it faithfully. We pray that our bodies may keep us open to others, to sense the entanglements of our carnal relations. Poetics of the Flesh Duke University Press, Theology can be more than dry-as-dust prose.

Reviews in Religion & Theology

Below please find eight kernels of wisdom from Mayra Rivera about life in flesh, taken from her Poetics of the Flesh Duke University Press , her video interview below , and her article called "Glory: The First Passion in Theology. Flesh is more than skin.

It is our felt connections with the world, positive and negative, as lived from the inside, in embodied ways. Flesh includes our skin but also our subjectivity. It includes pain and pleasure, sadness and joy, despair and hope, hatred and love.

Poetics of the Flesh

Loveliness is more than prettiness. It is the value of life itself - in and for itself - anywhere and everywhere. It's something as simple as gathering in community and playing music their own music, dancing to the music, and just sharing together. We touch what some might call God. Part of what I want to see in flesh is vitality. What are the possibility of people imagining different realities, different ways of constituting the world, so that their own bodies can develop, can flourish in ways they have not been allowed to flourish.

The flourishing of the person is tied to the flourishing of the community It's something as simple as gathering in community and playing music their own music, dancing to the music, and just sharing together The practices helps persons develop their own sense of having value in ways that are different from the broader society The commitment to fight for political change is grounded in a deep sense that things can be different, and grounded in sense of value, in a sense that the world is redeemable.

There is something lovely about the world, and you fight against those things that are preventing the flourishing. It's based on a conviction of the loveliness of the world. The First Passion in Theology?

Volume 15 Issue 2 (March 2008), Pages 141-285

So many of the phrases in the excerpts above can be, and should, be, the first sentences of poems. Or perhaps combined into a poem, like this: The flickering of glory in ordinary life. This is the theological question of transcendence, and theology has long struggled to find answers that affirm a human relationship with God.

In this provocative new work, Mayra Rivera's answer is that God is not within human grasp but is. In this provocative new work, Mayra Rivera's answer is that God is not within human grasp but is always within human touch. With a strikingly relevant concept of God as transcendent within--transcendence different from the ideas of God as far away, as outside human life and experience, or as above the human plane of existence--Rivera concentrates on transcendence as a relationship and uses it to describe how humans can touch God.

Post navigation

In doing so, she engages a number of theological movements, including liberation theology, Radical Orthodoxy, feminism, and postcolonialism. We will send you an SMS containing a verification code. Please double check your mobile number and click on "Send Verification Code". Enter the code below and hit Verify. Free Returns Changed your mind, you can return your product and get a full refund.

Cash on Delivery Pay for your order in cash at the moment the shipment is delivered to your doorstep. Don't have an account? Update your profile Let us wish you a happy birthday!

• The Night Falls
• American Trails Revisited-Oregon Trail in Nebraska
• Traitors Gate: Book Three of Crossroads
• A Companion to American Literary Studies (Blackwell Companions to Literature and Culture)
• Feminism, Objectivity and Economics (Economics as Social Theory)
• Crazy for You (Contemporary Erotic Romance)
• El saludo de las Brujas (Spanish Edition)