Theology face down
The other day a friend of mine sent me a remarkable photograph of an ordination scene: two young men in albs lying face down, straight as arrows, hands crossed under foreheads, on an oriental rug placed before two marble steps mounting to an altar; and off to the side, a little boy in shorts imitating their posture, face down on the bare floor. To the ordinands, I imagine, it was a moment of supreme awe. To the little boy, it must have looked like naptime; yet to judge by his perfect prostration, this was naptime of a very novel and solemn sort.
If you’ve ever been present at a rite in which prostration occurs, you know what a striking impression it makes. It’s not often that one gets to see a fellow human being making an act of total self-surrender. Among Christians, the gesture is reserved mainly for life-changing events such as monastic profession, the blessing of an abbot or abbess or the conferring of Holy Orders. Ordinary laypeople are typically onlookers; yet no one can observe the act of prostration without feeling drawn in—and half-wanting to imitate to it, like the little boy in the picture. There is a powerful, built-in desire to give ourselves wholly to God. We feel that if only we could place ourselves in such a posture, everything in our muddled hearts and minds would be set right.
No doubt that’s why prostration is practiced in many religions. For observant Muslims, prostration—with forehead, nose, hands, knees and toes touching the floor—recurs throughout the repeating cycle (raka’ah) of obligatory daily prayer and is the paradigm expression of worshipful submission. According to the Qur’an, God commanded all the angels to prostrate themselves before the newly created Adam. Only Iblis (Satan) refused. So God said: “O Iblis! what is your reason for not being among those who prostrated themselves?” And Iblis, who took pride in being made out of pure essential fire, replied: “I am not one to prostrate myself to man, whom thou didst create from sounding clay, from mud moulded into shape.” But it was not Adam’s clay that God wanted Iblis to worship: it was God’s creative sovereignty. Had Iblis not been blinded by pride, he would have discovered that there is joy in taking the lower position at the table, and freedom in a duly prescribed prostration, whereas to be “spiritual” is in itself of little account.
