God’s Seduction Plan: A Homecoming Journey with Hosea

By Thomas Ramadhani SJ

What happens when a familiar passage in the Bible begins to sound like your own life and those verses want to shape a new story only you can tell?

Confronted by that question when his life was disrupted, Father Ramadhani turned to writing as his tool to search into the depths. In this spiritual monograph on Hosea 2:4-25 and 3:1-5, he offers a narrative of a homecoming journey through eight metaphors—Prostituting, Stripping, Caging, Unveiling, Seducing, Purging, Owning, and Sitting.

This is the second book in his ‘Trilogy of Redemption’. When everything is gone, the only option is to walk into the unknown in the wilderness. Utter loss can be the only way to rediscover God and reinvent life. This leads to a bigger grace, a better gain, and a more liberating path. God’s seduction plan will bring every sinner home.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Partridge Publishing Singapore
• Release date: Jan 17, 2020
• ISBN: 9781543755992

Thomas Ramadhani SJ

THOMAS RAMADHANI, SJ holds a Doctorate from Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University, Berkeley, and a Licentiate from Biblical Institute, Rome. He is the author of Sewing God: Inner Paths in the Fashion World, The Talking Puzzles: Conversations with Images, and God’s Seduction Plan: A Homecoming Journey with Hosea.

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Copyright © 2020 by Thomas Ramadhani, SJ.

Library of Congress Control Number:    2020900356

ISBN:                  Hardcover                        978-1-5437-5601-2

                            Softcover                           978-1-5437-5600-5

                            eBook                                978-1-5437-5599-2

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Scripture texts in this work are taken from the New American Bible, revised edition © 2010, 1991, 1986, 1970 Confraternity of Christian Doctrine, Washington, D.C. and are used by permission of the copyright owner. All Rights Reserved. No part of the New American Bible may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the copyright owner

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Fratribus carissimis in Societate Iesu

In Memoriam

Fr Stephen F. Pisano, SJ

(16 April 1946–7 October 2019)

CONTENTS

Prologue

Acknowledgement

Introduction

From ‘Reading’ to ‘Living’

Historical Context

Metaphor

Translations

Hebrew Poetry

Biblical Spirituality

Structure

1.    Prostituting

Reading (Hosea 2:4)

Accusation

Face

Breasts

Removal

Living

2.    Stripping

Reading (Hosea 2:5–6)

Nakedness

Thirst

Lifelessness

Living

3.    Caging

Reading (Hosea 2:7–9)

In and Out

On the Road

Better Offer

Living

4.    Unveiling

Reading (Hosea 2:10–15)

Dispossession

Humiliation

Disruption

Living

5.    Seducing

Reading (Hosea 2:16–17)

Openness

New Perspective

New Hope

Young Again

Living

6.    Purging

Reading (Hosea 2:18–20)

Intimate Inequality

Mouth Rinsing

Cosmic Reconciliation

Living

7.    Owning

Reading (Hosea 2:21–25)

Betrothing

Responding

Sowing

Living

8.    Sitting

Reading (Hosea 3:1–5)

Illogical Demand

Intentional Delay

Nothingness

Living

Epilogue

PROLOGUE

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My Philippine Airlines flight PR 536 touched down at Ninoy Aquino International Airport, Manila, early morning on 20 November 2012. I was devastated. Confused. Depressed. Lost. And of course, angry. That was an unplanned trip. In a matter of just two weeks, since 5 November 2012, I had lost everything. Circumstances had grown into a no-other-option solution: I had to leave as soon as possible.

Success, fame, and unresolved personal issues had led me to an unmanageable life. It was dark, and all I could see was darkness. On my shoulders, there was that heavy burden of shame, guilt, and hopelessness. I fell from being someone on my native soil to being no one in a foreign land. That, however, was also how this long, painful, and blessed journey began.

At first, I thought that the end was just around the corner, and I would have to say goodbye to the path I had been treading for three decades. I was, however, wrong. Something happened, and it changed everything in the way I perceived and lived the new chapter of my life. I cannot remember exactly how it happened. All I can recall was that one afternoon, when the sun was shining its glory on my weary mind as I was walking with heavy steps along the open corridor in the secluded quarter of the Jesuit community on the fifth floor of the East Asian Pastoral Institute building, these words flowed from my heart, ‘I refuse that this will become the end. I claim this time to be one of the most productive periods in my entire life.’ Somewhere at the background, I heard God’s gentle but firm voice telling me one single word: ‘Stay!’

Just like that. I was not even in the middle of praying or doing anything spiritual. Where did that inner voice come from? I only knew how, after that, all the doubts were one by one loosening their grips on my soul, like soldiers deserting their troop. I felt energised. I became so determined to walk the path wherever it led me and whatever it took, in complete obedience to all my superiors.

For me, it was a privileged experience of receiving ‘clarity without doubt’ or the ‘first time’ in the Ignatian classification of discernment. I did not plan for it. It came out of nowhere, and I have been living the impact and the fruit of that experience until today. Apparently, God did not want to give up on me, and by God’s grace, I obeyed the inner stirrings to stay and to keep walking. I have learned to walk this slow journey with a deep trust that I am not alone. God has always been with me.

After that experience, however, things were not magically turned into a smooth and easy glide I was hoping for. With my heart still at times hardened, I did not always return to that experience and cherish it. Deep within, I could still feel a gentle tap on my bleeding heart. Hard as it was, I felt encouraged to try to find some solid ground on which I could still stand. A passage from the book of Hosea soon began to echo and to grab my attention. It became the biblical text that spoke about my own story of sin and, in the process, also of conversion, redemption, and restoration. That was enough to sustain my spirit from spiralling further down. I had a strong sense that I was being led by God to my ‘Valley of Achor’, a valley of troubles which was also a valley of a new hope, even though I was scared to death in the face of what would come next.

I embarked on intense praying and writing while at the same time letting myself be led by God through the second chapter of the book of Hosea. I was juggling between my own spiritual experiences in this journey and my own way of wrestling with a not-so-easy biblical text like the book of Hosea. A substantial chunk of the materials here was written during those lonely and depressing days in January 2013.

Yet at one point, I could not go any further. It was the time when I arrived at the third chapter of the book of Hosea where the idea of a long wait and delay was too obvious to ignore. I dropped everything because I felt that it was already too much. I could not believe that there would still be another long delay. Did God not know that I was getting tired of all this?

I felt lost again and somewhat angry with God, but that single word from God was too strong to dismiss. It kept coming back. I had no option but to obey and stay. Feeling stuck with the book of Hosea but still trying hard to stay sane, I plunged myself into another writing project focusing on the biblical stories related to rumours. God willing, the result of that project will be published in a separate book after this one. Stay tuned!

Long story short, following an intensive and thorough assessment; a wrong medical diagnosis that forced me to take medication for six months for the sickness that, as it turned out later, had never been there; and a series of emotional and spiritual ups and downs, I was then sent to a residential treatment in another foreign land. My narrative about that chapter in my life can be found in a previous book, The Talking Puzzles: Conversations with Images.

After my treatment, I continued with psychotherapy and spiritual direction. I walked the journey of healing with many good, God-sent people through various spiritual group fellowships. I took my earlier manuscript and began to work further on it. By that time, after more than one year, I was ready to return to that scary third chapter in the book of Hosea.

What you hold in your hands now is the result of that extended writing journey. I hope that you can feel here not only my brokenness but at the same time also the power of God’s grace working in this human being through some parts of the Bible. I hope that this can also be a companion in your journey, especially when your life or the life of your friends or your loved ones feels like arriving at a dead end with no foreseeable hope.

I do not have a magic wand to change the past. What I can still change with the help of God and many people of goodwill is the way I live the present, one day at a time, as a better human being. I can only continue to pray that this journey with God might one day be a vehicle for a better future, abundant with God’s healing for many.

This is a love letter filled with hope … from the Valley of Achor.

Thomas Aquino Deshi Ramadhani, SJ

Quezon City 2013, Toronto 2014, Jakarta 2015–2019

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

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My heartfelt gratitude goes to my Jesuit brothers at East Asian Pastoral Institute in Quezon City, Philippines; at Canadian Martyrs’ Residence in Toronto, Canada; and at Saint Aloysius Gonzaga Community in Jakarta, Indonesia. I thank all of you for giving me more than enough space to stay and to go deeper in my journey.

I have been blessed with wonderful spiritual companions, especially Fr Priyo Poedjiono, SJ, in Quezon City; Fr Douglas McCarthy, SJ, in Toronto; Fr Hendra Sutedja, SJ, in Jakarta; and Dan. With them I was able to be in touch with those areas I did not want to see, those paths I did not want to take, and those voices I did not want to hear. Thank you for all your surprising questions and your listening hearts.

Fr Joseph B. Gavin, SJ, with whom I had the privilege to live in the same community in Toronto, read the first draft with a caring and generous heart of an older brother. Without his constant encouragement (as a seasoned historian!), telling me that writing could be my new mission, I would have never finished this book. Thank you for being a different set of eyes for me.

Before the final manuscript was sent to the publisher, Fr Martin Harun, OFM, read it through and gave me some helpful feedbacks. I was fortunate to have him as my professor many years ago, and it was he who inspired me to follow the same track in biblical studies. Thank you for your generosity amid your busier schedule now as a full-time emeritus.

Every writer knows that writing is a lonely enterprise, and every Jesuit knows that it means a lot to have a constant support from the provincial. I thank Fr Sunu Hardiyanta, SJ, for trusting me with this opportunity. Thank you for having faith in me and in all my efforts to produce writings that may one day reach out to people’s heart and help them understand and experience God’s Word.

The whole Partridge team has always been very helpful in the process of bringing this book to birth. I thank Emman Villaran and Clyde Pontillas who worked hard in copyediting the manuscript, Jade Bailey who initiated the conversation for this publication, and Kathy Lorenzo who supervised the whole journey with constant encouragement. Thank you all for accompanying me with your undeterred commitment.

My journey has become less boring because of the supports and prayers of countless sisters and brothers in different parts of the globe. You all have helped me experience the dryness in my Valley of Achor with the freshness of a vast fertile green valley of a new hope. I cannot stop thanking you all.

INTRODUCTION

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Go, get for yourself a woman of prostitution and children of prostitution, for the land prostitutes itself, turning away from the Lord.

—Hosea 1:2b

Receiving forgiveness requires a total willingness to let God be God and do all the healing, restoring, and renewing.

—Henri Nouwen¹

You come to an old building in beautiful Rome, and you know that you need to go through the door to get in. Without thinking, you push the door, but it does not open. You push harder and harder and harder. You become frustrated. No one is around you. You want to walk away in dismay, believing that the door is locked or broken. On the door you read something, but it is in Italian, and you do not bother to investigate the meaning. Just when you are about to leave, you feel a nudge to reach for your smartphone. You check your Italian–English dictionary app, you type tirare, and on the screen, you read: pull. Without effort, the door swings open as you pull it.

From ‘Reading’ to ‘Living’

Many years ago, when I was still a young Jesuit scholastic wrestling with Hebrew and Greek, Fr James Swetnam, SJ, from whom I learned biblical Greek, kept reminding us of a precious advice in biblical studies. I cannot remember the exact words, but he said something like this: ‘We read the Bible now, but eventually, it is the Bible that should read us.’ That bit of wisdom has been with me since then.

For a newcomer in biblical studies like I was, with all the big dreams and ambitions to learn the biblical languages to be able to read the Bible in its ‘original’ languages, it was so tempting to approach the Bible as if I were the one who would be able to control it. While it is true that on the one hand I must work hard to deal with any given biblical text, on the other hand, it is also true that at the end, I must let the text read my life. My reading is useless if it does not lead me to a place where I can be as transparent as possible before the Divine Word to let it scrutinise me.

To borrow from the Bible itself, I have come to believe that my reading is not only useless but also misleading, even destructive, if I do not let God’s Word be ‘living and effective, sharper than any two-edged sword, penetrating even between soul and spirit, joints and marrow, and able to discern reflections and thoughts of the heart’ (Hebrews 4:12).

It is, of course, easier said than done.