Exomologesis

The Prayers Upon My Wall

2009-08-10T18:07:00.004-05:00

Its been a while since I wrote and I have little original thought for now. I am in the process of moving and in the decorating process thought it interesting what prayers and such that were on my wall were the ones I brought along.
This is one of my favorites. The first line of which always conjurs the chanting of the trisagion in my mind.

Almighty and eternal God,
so draw our hearts to you,
so guide our minds,
so fill our imaginations,
so control our wills,
that we may be wholly yours,
utterly dedicated to you.
Use us, we pray, as you will,
always to your glory and the welfare of your people;
through our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

And the Litany of Reconciliation from Coventry Cathedral

"All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God."

The hatred which divides nation from nation, race from race, class from class.
Father forgive.
The covetous desires of men and nations to possess what is not their own.
Father forgive.
The greed which exploits the labors of men and lays waste the earth.
Father forgive.
Our indifference to the plight of the homeless and refugees.
Father forgive.
The lusts which use for ignoble ends the bodies of men and women.
Father forgive.
The pride which leads us to trust in ourselves and not in God.
Father forgive.

“Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.”

Mourning

2009-06-26T13:21:00.008-05:00

Three thoughts, which I'll share before coming to a point:
1. I had a conversation yesterday with a friend about how much Christianity focuses on life-and-death issues, or life after death issues, etc. Some religions have very little to say or do with what happens in or after death.
2. Brian McLaren, writing in the beginning of Finding Our Way Again: The Return Of The Ancient Practices about interviewing Dr. Peter Senge, wrote about some why books on Buddhism and spirituaity sell so well, especially as compared to "Christian" books. "I think it's because Buddhism presents itself as a way of life, and Christianity presents itself as a system of belief. So I would want to get Christian ministers thinking about how to rediscover their own faith as a way of life, because that's what people are searching for today. That's what they need the most."
3. Several celebrities died yesterday (Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson). A dear friend is leaving to go back to the other side of the world and I don't know when I'll see him again. The manager at the store I had worked at for several years, who seemed to be the rock on whom the entire thing was built, was suddenly fired and I am unsure if I will be in contact again. An old co-worker from the same store died about a week ago.

These three, somewhat separate issues, have run together into one single, albeit complicated, issue. How do I deal with loss? How do we, as a culture, deal with loss? How does "Christianity" deal with loss? How should it?

Our culture has a strange relationship with death. We fight aging in every way possible. We do all we can to maintain separation between the meat we buy at the store and the breathing bleeding animal it comes from. We simply refuse to think about it until it happens, then it sneaks up on us and leaves us with heads spinning. We run coverage of the lives of celebrities for days at a time. Why? I think it is because it scares us and we don't know how to respond to the fact that we ourselves are mortal. Here I suggest the point I have been building towards: We no longer know how to mourn. We look back on the lives of celebrities who seem much bigger than us. We re-play their lives until we are media sick of them, like a song over-played or too much cotton candy. Then we forget about them. It reminds me of a friend who won't drink scotch anymore because he had two nights of drinking till he puked on it.

In our personal lives, we are little better. Even when dealing with the loss of little things (i.e. not the death of people, but the loss of a job, the loss of a valued item, even the loss of a parking spot!) we are frequently unsure how to cope. In an interview on Fresh Air with Terry Gross, Gabriel Byrne, the star of HBO's "In Treatment", discussed how people in acting classes dealt with "hard stuff" (my words not his, read as raw emotion, deep issues, etc). He said that men typically respond easily when needing to bring out anger and women the same with tears. Its all in them, bottled up, "our bodies acting as repositories for those emotions". We face loss, do not know how to process it, feel anger or tears, and hold on to them. These are our "lives of quiet desperation." In death, we are left confused, angry, and/or sad, and it sticks that way for the rest of our lives, wounding us, paralyzing us, and just adding to that emotional build up until we explode or collapse or die ourselves.

Christianity, has often spent years in debate and discussion of what happens after death, sometimes with the "discussion" elevating to the point of bloodshed. When faced with death, we assuage ourselves with bumper sticker theology and pithy phrases. "They're in a better place" "Its all for the best. God has it all as part of his plan." We quote Paul's letter to the Thessalonians and say that "we do not mourn like those who have no hope." But this comes back to Senge and McLaren's statement that Christianity posits itself as a system of belief rather than a way of life. We know what we are supposed to think, believe, say. But we, like everyone else in our large cultural bin, are left unsure what to do. So how then do we create a way of life that allows us to cope with death, with failure, with loss? I sure don't know, but I am certain I am in need of it myself.

Working out salvation with fear and trembling

2009-06-23T15:52:00.002-05:00

I have had fifty ideas bouncing around the past few weeks that are the culmination of my most eclectic of theology the past few years. One of the more significant issues is relating to the concept of grace. Grace- the means of our salvation. I have these two conflicting ideas about sacramental grace. My liturgical side says that grace is conveyed through the sacraments. That is, they are the vehicles, as it were, by which grace comes to us. My Quaker side says that the physical aspects are superfluous, that life itself is sacramental. My instinct says that it is both. Grace is given to me in the traditional sacraments AND in all of life God is offering sacramental grace. I find grace sporadically though. Yes it is offered at all times, but sometimes I am very aware of it and better able to receive it. That conversation I really needed, the touch that said it would be ok after all. In A Generous Orthodoxy, Brian McLaren said something akin to liking longer lists of sacraments than shorter ones. This is my attempt to make the list as long as necessary :)

No More Front Porches?

2009-05-06T17:38:00.002-05:00

I spent a substantial amount of study in the latter half of college looking at the idea of community. I studied what the term meant to different people, how it was developed, how it was hindered, how it ties in to the current lifestyles we find ourselves in, and how individuals or the church relate to it. It was a focus piece in several of my classes and I spent a semester in an independent study looking at differing communities and what was formative for them. From street gangs to monasteries there were numerous overlaps in what bonded the groups together. One of these things was a dreaded phrase heard in the small town of my childhood all too often: "being in each other's business." That is to say, when you are in community you are often so close to others, often in ways you might not even want to be, that you begin to "intrude" on other's lives. You may even be a spectator for much of it, but eventually, if there is any care for the other person, it is hard not to get involved, to step in, to help out. One of the books I read when looking at this subject was No More Front Porches by Linda Wilcox. In it she talks about how through much of American culture, houses had front porches on which people sat. "Whether you had a large verandah that circled the house, or little more than a front stoop, you adorned it with comfortable chairs and spent hours there, talking with friends and relatives, watching what was going on in the neighborhood, looking out for others, and keeping in touch with your world. Front porches symbolized relationships and being involved with life beyond your front door. Today, life has changed. Few new homes offer a place to nestle as twilight sets in and few people have the leisure time for this lifestyle, or even for the relationships that it represents." In the busyness of our current culture, this happens little. But today I sit on the great gift my rent buys me here in Grand Rapids: a front porch. It sits across from a main road, behind which is a wooded hill leading up to the zoo. Beside me the road curves around to meet another major urban artery and each has its sidewalks paralleling on either edge. People walk past: a guy in a grey J Crew windbreaker with a well-manicured poodle, a scruffy looking probably homeless man with three bulging plastic bags of grungy clothes. When I am out here I am no longer a consumer watching corporate ads and satellite television or even seeing the world through the high definition pane of our bay window. When I am out here I am part of the neighborhood. I am local. I am in the same category as the blossoming apple in the front lawn, the flagpole, the geese across the way, the littered cans, the neighbor watering her plants who smiles and talks to me for the first time since we moved here nine months ago. The homeless man who walks by affects me. We are part of the same world now. The littered cans I have driven by forty five times make me think of picking them up for the first time. We are part of the same world now. They affect me and I affect them. I am no longer a spectator. I am no longer a consumer. I am able to be a force for change and I fight my apathy and distanced cynicism by living here, on this porch, in this world, in their world.
"And the Word became flesh and made his dwelling amongst the world." This is missional in its core meaning. How often do we, as churches, stay inside our air conditioned "sanctuary" and hold programs to invite in consumers to come to where we are? How often do we sit on the front porches of our churches and actually live in the community, caring for its needs as a member of it, rather than the pious missionaries hoping to save its occupants? As I see it, where one and a front porch are gathered, there is Christ in the midst. Here he sits on the couch beside me and smiles as I begin to care.

The Day Science Died part 1: Into and Disclaimer

2009-04-24T20:40:00.003-05:00

All my life I believed in objectivity as one of the great pillars upon which the modern mind, and through it the modern world, is built. My hero, my father, was a scientist. A self-made man with a background in biology and later-than average entry into medical school, my dad extolled the sciences as though they were the true measure of a person's importance. "If you can make it in the sciences, you can make it anywhere." Modernity's virtues of reason, rationalism, and empiricism were those I was taught to cultivate and the objectivity of science, was the pedestal from which one could look down on all the other wishy-washy fields. But my belief in objectivity turned out to be the same type of belief most Americans hold towards that other great pillar our society, capitalism. By that I meant that they cling to the ideal and will defend to the death the right to private property or the market to self-regulate. But when it is their job being cut, their industry failing, their children going hungry, the indignation of betrayal streams forth and they take all they can. So it was with me and objectivity. I upheld it until my experience showed me its limits and then I rejected it. I do not mean that I don't believe one should not make great strides towards objectivity. Indeed, especially in the sciences, one should be as objective as possible. But being as objective as possible is a whole different thing from being objective. I believe, as I should think most do, that people should be as righteous as possible. Few think people are actually fully righteous. "Basically good" is the most even the optimist will. Science is a means to an end.

The Followup to "Man's Inhumanity" and "Plots To Kill"

2009-02-08T14:47:00.003-05:00

I don't believe anyone reads this regularly (I certainly do not write regularly) but if you do, I apologize for the long delay in my response to the "Man's Inhumanity To Man" post. My long consideration of the issue and the normal length of time between posts combined with a busy beginning of the year led me to my conclusion:
I don't know.

I would like to come down on one side or the other on the appropriateness of violence in all situations. I cannot, however, do so with any integrity. There are a few statements I can make with some certainty however.

Violence is never the best possible solution. It may seem to be the only expedient solution or the only viable solution. Conceivably at least, there is a better possible solution. And the Kingdom is about the power of the improbably possible. As Bonhoeffer (who immediately comes to mind when I think on such matters and was one of the two sources that helped me come to my [lack of] decision) stated in Discipleship, “There is no thinkable deed in which evil is so large and strong that it would require a different response from a Christian.”

The issue of violence directed at the less powerful by those in power seems clear cut to me. The power of the powerless and the efficacy of non-violence seems clear cut to me. Here the issue is an extreme. It is the issue of violence towards those violent ones in power. Or, can we in any way justly be the latter sword in "live by the sword, die by the sword"? Assuming we accept our own returned death by the same proverbial blade, can violence be used for the Kingdom. Certainly, it can be used, yes. Anything can be. But is it ever something one can do rightly. Is it ever the appropriate and righteous action, and (a whole different can of worms here) in God's will? That is where my eternally qualified maybe comes in.

I am obliged to give credit to John D. Caputo for his work What Would Jesus Deconstruct? for these next thoughts. Concerning the same sort of decision in approaching abortion, he writes "all too often ethical life comes down to choosing the lesser of two evils, and we are not afforded the luxury of choosing an undiluted good... The demands of love and justice are self-conflicted in those situations. There is no one right answer. Life is not fair."

The Last Paper I Wrote In College

2009-02-01T17:48:00.004-05:00

This is the last thing I wrote in my last class at Wheaton. Bear with the section specifically on Pilgrim's Progress. I had to tie that into my own pilgrimage story. It was a pleasure to read the book again and see it through much older eyes than those of the twelve year old who first picked it up. If you have not read it, I heartily urge you to do so.

Rest For The Weary: A Tired Pilgrim’s Reflection on Spiritual Pilgrimage
(1) Pilgrim’s Digress – Musings on My Meanderings
My journey has always been. By that I mean that there was never a time when I was not being pulled or impelled or stepping towards the place where I am now, spiritually speaking. Some of my earliest memories are classically “spiritual”. I remember prayers, my mother singing psalms and Christian songs to lull me to sleep, moments in Sunday School My other early memories, and the continuity of my childhood containing so much I do not remember, contribute just as much to my faith. There was my mother’s love and listening ear, my father’s smile of satisfaction of simply being with me, habits formed, morals learned, development encouraged. I look back at my childhood in an amber afterglow, the halcyon days of romantic youth. Yes, there were rough times. I am the eldest child and thus the only one who remembers living on food stamps or the darkness surrounding my mother’s pallid pregnancy with my brother. But the child is the father of the man as it is said, and everything I now value, even that which I do not possess, is owed to the seeds planted in me then. Curiosity, critical thinking, appreciation, care for others, respect for truth, these are the atoms which the fusion and fission of time have used to construct who I am.
Childhood strains awkwardly into adolescence, then bursts through without care for the feelings of those involved. It came upon me in realizing the world was not just mean sometimes, like the friend who sometimes would not share, it was quite often cruel and capricious. A change in wardrobe and ceasing to raise my hand when I knew the answer (betrayal or hiding of myself as I thought of it in this social experiment) brought respect and admiration from peers. “You’re so much cooler than you used to be,” exclaimed one classmate. To feel welcomed and a part of something is every adolescent’s dream, so in sixth grade, the “me-who-was-not-me” became the face I was to wear. But faith continued to blossom. In the youth group at my quite familiar church were kids who seemed cool, older kids who were funny and actually invited me to do stuff with them. At their helm was the youth pastor, my new spiritual guide. It is no wonder to me that for so long the Church has called those who direct the flocks “father”. As teenaged eyes rolled in shame at out of touch earthly father, here was a new man who was incredibly cool, really pious, and knew all the right answers to all the right questions. We followed our piper in joy in our tight knit community, where our searching souls found a place, and I learned what it meant once again to belong. Everyone was together was together and we had everything in common. Things were sometimes rough outside of our group. I was mocked at school for not swearing or wanting to talk about sex. But I learned about daily devotions and there and in community of believers I felt God often. I was not always good enough, but I repented a lot and did a lot, and God felt very real. Unfortunately Eden as we think it never lasts. Family problems tore the beloved youth pastor from our midst and feelings of betrayal tore at my soul. Yet, as he left, he commissioned me to go out and put into practice all I learned from him. In what was my third trip to Alaska that summer, I finally enjoyed myself as I began to actually live as who I felt I was.
Now my senior year loomed before me and I was a bit perplexed. I suppose it is here I should say that I never thought I would live that long. I knew, deep in my being, that I would not have to worry about college. Jesus would come back any second now (there were many fearful moments when I came home to my house to find it empty and I was stricken with the terror that the rapture had happened and I had been left) or sometimes feeling more likely, I would killed. I had spent time in conversation with the father of a girl who was killed in the Columbine massacre purportedly for standing up for her faith. Perhaps I would die like that, my death a glorious testimony. Or perhaps it would be something more random, a car accident maybe, and countless from the town would come and the gospel would be heard by multitudes. But clearly I was still there and now forced to make decisions about my future. My friends from church had dissolved and gone their separate ways in the wake of the youth pastor’s absence. I was betrayed, abandoned, isolated, and the God who would use my death was no longer felt. I repented more. I prayed for hours. The sheer immensity of the future let itself press upon me. God would answer me, though, if I asked enough. “What should I do? Where should I go?” I felt nothing, I gleaned no response. Application deadlines loomed closer and I was kept from doing anything else until they were done. So very alone, my heart turned to despair and I wandered my house, quoting Shakespeare in my hurt. “To be or not to be, that is the question.” Knives clutched in my hand, I wondered how best to go through with my death, or if I could summon the courage. I could not, and I convinced myself that if I did not want my life, I would give everything to Jesus, to do as he pleased. This platitude satisfied my for quite sometime. Despite his lack of guidance, I simply (and somewhat unhappily and questioningly) chose a college. Soon, a girl came into my life. “Should I date her or not God?” Again I received no response. She came on strongly and so lack of action led to a relationship (albeit one always tinged with doubt about it being in God’s will).
Wheaton College became my new home and with it a new group of people where I felt I could be (mostly) myself. With college came people who raised questions and made better arguments and spurned the mindless fundamentalism I had embraced in my youth group. Also the question of a major and with it, that old specter, the future, raised their double heads. Several semesters of keeping up the sham of trying to live out what I thought to be my father’s dreams for me in the world of the physical sciences finally fell out at the bottom with my G.P.A. and any last shred of care I had for the field. I would be what I had longed for many years, someone important in that field of utmost importance; I would be a pastor. The news was broken to my parents and girlfriend over advent. My father seemed to think it a phase. My girlfriend thought it sounded abysmal.
Then I got mono. I was stuck in my bed with nothing but hours and hours and my doubts and fears and unable to connect with anyone. I sometimes think of the stages of my spiritual development in terms of the cardinal virtues. Here at one of my lowest points, I felt very distant from everyone and thus had little love and little hope, but I did have faith. I knew God was still there. I was mad that he would no longer answer me, but he was there. The mono abated, but my body has never been quite the same. As the mono subsided, so too did the depression, but the spiritual dryness continued.
Junior year of college came and with it girl troubles. My girlfriend of three years broke up with me and the world went dark again. Too soon I poured my affections into another girl whom I adored and who seemed to understand me better than anyone I had met. Very late nights staying up talking with her combined with a constant cycle of breakups and making up pushed me to my physical and mental limit. Depression set in again, but spiritually I was doing ok, still dry but ok. I knew I needed God in this time and there were lots of breath prayers and nights saying “help me, help me, help me” repeatedly for hours.
That summer I had an internship at my home church with the relatively new senior pastor. In that I found a new role model and I began to understand loving other people that were way different from me. For the first time, I hurt for the alien, the fatherless, and the widow. I felt as though I could be honest about my faith as I never could before, and that it would not break if I had doubts or questioned things. My spirituality became a little more real as I felt something again (hurt for other people, but it was a start. I no longer had a need to defend my faith as it was strong on its own, after all “all truth is God’s truth” and my soul could step from militant fundamentalism into something larger as I searched for truth.
I still felt nothing from God though, and this continued into my senior year of college. Another bout with depression, another bout with illness at the end, and a little misunderstanding in planning meant I could walk with my class on the assumption that I would finish a couple credits over the summer. Sicker still and isolated from anyone but my immediate family in my tiny town, I did nothing on the classes. My pastor and mentor left for another church and the congregation took another step or two in the conservative direction as I took a few in the progressive direction. I read a lot then and found some comfort in several emerging church leaders who used language that connected with my journey, had deconstructed what I was wrestling with, and yet maintained a vibrant spirituality that seemed to span the ages. Comfort does little to inspire towards growth though and after another year or two of trying very hard for any sort of feeling of God or connection with him, I began to give up. It had been nearly seven years since there was anything. So much before that was emotional manipulation anyway. Maybe I had just felt something because that’s what I thought was supposed to happen and the music moved me to that point anyway. Where was God in all the world’s suffering anyway? Where was he in my suffering? I slowly let the doubts sink in. At first I went to bed terrified many nights. Soon it all faded into a large dull blackness. It was not scary without God, just cold, empty, alone. I found joy where I could, in the company of others, in creative projects, and most of all in cooking and good food I could share with others.
My lack of college degree was a bother though. I had finished, painfully and awkwardly, many of the classes I needed. One more, it seemed, remained. Just two credits in my major. This meant a class in Christian Education or something similar enough to convince Wheaton to take it. It had to be cheap though, and local. Spring Arbor University was close and had a one month class in January on Urban Ministry. My concern for the less fortunate had only increased with time and I knew my way around the Christian lingo that would be thrown in. I fought my way through the class, trying not to become cynical, or let my true feelings show when the talk became very small-minded and judgmental. I could not help but find myself swept up in the energy of the class though, and after meeting every day for a month and taking several weekend trips together, I came to truly care about most of the people. I found myself in a leadership role, esteemed amongst them, and my public prayers were long, heartfelt, and sincere. I winced at things they said periodically, but my faith was a mustard seed again. All too soon though, the class was over, and I, ever the odd one out, went back home as they returned to a normal campus life and their studies. The year continued, sometimes with glimpses of hope, sometimes darker than before. I had learned so much and had many great insights in the past years, but it was now eight years of parched spiritual dryness.
Then, one day, one glorious day, it was over. It came suddenly, and my heart so longing for it and yet so out of shape, nearly missed it. I do not remember what it was, except that it was spring, and for the first time in a decade or so, I could rejoice with new life. They came again and again, from unnoticed places, popping up in smiles and tears and consolations like bubbles in champagne. God was here. Writing even now, brings a tear to my eye. God was here all along and I did not even notice it. My doubts and questions melted, not because they were answered, but because compared with this, they were insignificant. Like the psalmist questioning God and then turning to praise with those questions still left unanswered, I was taken up in the glory of life. God was everywhere. Everything had beauty and significance and flowers and light. Even the dark and scary things I encountered only pointed at a need for this bright one in my life. Hallelujah.
I found I had yet one more class to take for my degree. It would have to be at Wheaton. I knew now, that seminary was indeed the place for me, so whatever distance I needed to cover to finish, I would undertake. Spiritual Theology was the class, and seldom have I been so excited or nervous for a single class. The enrollment process was labyrinthine and tedious. I had not been on campus for three years. I did not know the professor, although my always warm advisor Dr. Wilhoit recommended him with great fervor. Like a new convert, I devoured everything. Then, one night, the professor, Dr. Schwanda, talked about personality and spirituality. He claimed that some are “thinkers” and some are “feelers”, and that many times the “feelers” experience of God is thought to be the true experience of God and that the “thinkers” are often jealous of this. Light shone on all the last eight and a half years of my life. God was there too. I had experienced him time and time again, daily, or weekly at least. All this time, I was convinced I was forsaken. Why had no one told me this? The rest of class was a blur that night until a song later, when tears streamed down my face. The last decade was redeemed with a single sentence.
I continue to grow. I continue to see God everywhere. I know I am not very good at receiving his grace, but I am working on it. I think I have finally found a church in my new home where I can experience God in the service and find true community again. Sometimes I think back on my darkness in anger and in fear of it coming again and sometimes I laugh at how silly and myopic it was. I savor the anticipation of this advent season in looking to Emmanuel, the God who is with us.
(2) Pilgrim’s Process – Christian’s Spiritual Journey
The journey of Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress is deceptive in its simplicity. This year is the third time I have read it (albeit the first time was an abridged version) and each time it says something completely different to me. Christian leaves everything, family, home, city, to journey to Heaven. His goal is nearly always his focus, and the reason everything else falls by the wayside. He is certainly a simple character, intentionally so of course, and as such the journey seems a bit stark. His journey is never much about what he does proactively, it appears more about how he reacts to the circumstances, places, and people who come upon him. It is the other characters who interact with him who make the journey colorful. Most significant amongst these others are Christian’s two traveling companions, Faithful and Hopeful. Faithful, seemingly much less conflicted about his journey, has had a different journey altogether. He is not tempted by much of what plagued Christian, and although he did have conflicts, he stands quite firm in his proclamations in Vanity Fair. Seemingly denouncing nearly everyone in the city, his execution is not the death of Christian’s faithfulness, but rather the impetus for a new travel companion. The second personification of a cardinal virtue, Hopeful, takes his more cheerful place alongside the rest of Christian’s journey. Evangelist (always looking like Billy Graham in my mind’s eye), who pops up from time to time on the journey, points towards Bunyan’s understanding that the good news of the gospel is not a one time conversion, but something continuous. We are always in need of conversion. Indeed Christian is quite well on his way before falling at the foot of the cross itself, where his burden is unleashed and he is clothed anew. At the House Beautiful, Christian is bolstered in every sense with food, advice, encouragement, armor, and a weapon. Bunyan will not have Christian’s journey completely an isolated work of the self.
It seems interesting that the people that waylay Christian the most are not those who directly confront him or challenge him physically, such as Apollyon, but rather those who direct him subtly astray, such as Worldly Wiseman. The castle of doubt looms for much of the latter journey, representing the nagging thoughts at the back of Christian’s mind. There the largest being in his journey, the giant Despair, imprisons the travelers for some time. Even as they near the Celestial City, they enter the land of conceit, where those who think themselves better for coming so far along in their journey are drawn. Bunyan, in somewhat stereotypical Puritan fashion, more easily rebukes the quite worldly pleasures of fleshly delights and physical distractions than he does the mental battles against the faith. Doubt and despair plague him for a long time and those who seek to slightly turn his focus, rather than those who bid him stay or cease his journey are the more troubling opposition.
(3) An Allegory Examined – A Comparison of Journeys
In light of my own fascination with the place of the three cardinal virtues in my spiritual development (first a God of love, then a God of faith, followed finally by a God of hope who brings back love and faith), I appreciate Bunyan’s choice for Christian’s traveling companions. When I think on Christian’s journey as a whole though, it seems like such an individual effort. It is merely him, sometimes accompanied, but never by more than a single companion for long. I look back on what I wrote above concerning my own journey, and while what I wrote there seems to be solely focused on me, my journey is always with, and a part of the movement of a community. Christiana’s story in this regard seems more apt. My responsibilities have never ceased just as hers did not. Her life came with her on her journey, rather than the singular focus leading to abandonment of all else that Christian illustrated.
Still, the giant of Despair in his castle of Doubt looms above much of my story as it did for Christian. Uncertainty and questions plagued my experience, falling in with depression chaining me to the wall of its dark dungeon. The key of promises were little help to me when the questions are doubts are concerning the reality of God himself. What good is a promise from a God who does not do anything and may not even have ever been there? Such were my questions and here I find my way parting from Christian’s. My journey has always been about God and his place in the journey. For Christian, it seems to be all about getting to the Celestial City and God has only an intervening role on occasion. He seems somewhat distant to me in Bunyan’s account. Heaven is a wonderful goal, I suppose, but in my understanding, it is neither my chief end nor the reason for my strivings. I think Bunyan shortchanges God in Pilgrim’s Progress. My journey is to come to love God with every last part of myself and to love his creation in reflection of that. God is here; the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. The life lived now is a reflection of that, ever striving to understand, be more like and be closer to our present God. Christian’s pilgrimage seems bleak, strivings toward some ultimate goal in which all his effort is rewarded. He seems to be transformed only a little in the process. I hope for Bunyan’s sake, that even though he is now in the heaven he seems to long for, that in his lifetime he experienced more of God’s grace than he seems to indicate that Christian did.
(4) Progress Indeed – Barriers and Joys in This Pilgrim’s Progress
In one of our last class sessions we spent time reflecting on the place of spiritual dryness in our journey. I thought about it for some time and came to the realization that at this point in my life, spiritual dryness was my journey. It has been so much a part of the last ten years of my life. My jobs have been affected by it. My relationships romantic, familial, and otherwise have been slanted and influenced strongly by it. My aspirations, my academic journey, my interests and readings, all of these are, if not centered on, at least dramatically altered by the dryness which pervaded what was most of my mature spiritual life. It was not until this class though that I could come to see that dryness as a process rather than a barrier. Through what I learned in Spiritual Theology, my desolation was not the cessation of my spiritual pilgrimage. I experienced God along the way, but never knew it was him. It was a process that led me closer to him, closer to truth, closer to a living faith that transcended dry doctrinal understanding or hyper-conservative emotional reactions. It tested my faith, and I came through not with a perfect score, but with humility that made me dependent on grace. I was an Evangelical of Evangelicals, converted as an infant, of the conservative church an apologist, of the youth group the student leader, as for education a student at Wheaton, as for majors – Christian Education and Bible and Theology, as for zeal, active in every activity of my church, as to righteousness under the Pledge, blameless. But whatever I accomplished through my hard work I consider skubalon, for in it I found no consolation or anything substantive. As Paul writes in parallel to the Philippians, “Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith— that I may know him and the power of his resurrection.”
(5) Traveling Tips – Insights for Those Stepping Onto the Path
As previously stated, my spiritual journey is surrounded by other people. To anyone who is just beginning that pilgrimage, I offer the following advice that might have saved me years of heartache had I been able to hear it. There will be darkness. There will be easier times, but there will be times when God seems absent. And this is normal. Do not be surprised at it. You are told that there will be hard times, but God will get you through. There will be hard times though, when God is nowhere to be found. But do not, do not give up. He is there and continuing to seek him will yield his beautiful presence again. Also know that he will break you and your ideas of reality. He is the truest iconoclast and the most worthy to be such. The little things that seem so important will be taken away. The understanding of how he works will be surprised. It makes the way for something bigger, better, more real. Finally, I urge you brothers and sisters to know that his grace is sufficient for you. You need nothing else that he does not offer freely. Rejoice and be glad in the one who has saved you. I will say it again, rejoice!

On Plots To Kill

2009-01-02T23:00:00.002-05:00

I watched Valkyrie with my family the other night. I sometimes hate watching movies with lots of people because I take a long time to process things. When the movie finished I wanted to sit there and let it soak in. Then, after a bit of just sitting with it and allowing it to "feel" inside of me, I could begin to process it. The movie had a lot of ramifications for me and I was already a bit tired and emotional when I sat to watch it, so it affected me all the more. But instead, the closing song is barely begun, the credits only started and everyone in the theater is out of their seats and sticking to the floor as they loquaciously leave. My family is the last to leave because I refuse to get up for a minute or two and sit with a single tear in each eye. I was not ready to talk to anyone yet. It was intense. People died. A lot of people. Good people. Some bad people. And lots more people died because of the fact that these people failed to kill someone else. I was reeling with duty, loss, questions of morality, responsibility, the weight of suffering. I still don't know what I think.
My question here is "Is it ever appropriate for me to justify the use of violence, especially murder?" I'll wrestle with it some more in my next post. Tonight I am too tired.

On Some News Given To Shepherds

2008-12-27T10:00:00.003-05:00

It has always seemed interesting to me, as a middle class American, that YHWH seems to have such a strong interest in the affairs of the people in the margins of the world, and such a flippant attitude towards many of the nations and empires that are exerting the most influence and/or have the most power. Reading from hindsight, such nations of power are seen as rather fleeting in the grand scheme of things. How many people, though, suffered and died under them, knowing nothing more than the rule of the Egyptian Pharaoh’s rod or the fist of the Babylonian kings? We live in an age where the market is glutted with “Christian” literature, at least in this part of the world. Websites of all Christian dispositions are available the whole world over. However much in decline, however much this is a “post-Christian” era; Christianity still has a pervasive influence on the world. To what degree does that limit our perspective in understanding the gospel and the way it is presented to the shepherds and the way it is manifested throughout both the Old and New Testament in the working of YWHW? Jehovah Jireh, or the Lord as Provider, often means little to those who hold the purse strings. Messiah means little to those who are comfortable. Salvation is only something to rescue a person from the banality of existence or personal psychological problems. When we can only see through the bright eyes of the Caesar, we cannot see the gospel of another kingdom. Perhaps that is why Israel seems to be broken so many times; the good news is not suffered upon the proud or wise. The world of the Romans already has their savior, has already heard the good news he brings, and already lives under his peace. The tongue of the angel thus pronounces hope for those even pushed aside in Jewish society, (the testament of a shepherd was not considered valid in Jewish court), and judgment upon those who have already chosen and continue to choose a different kingdom.

A Prayer I Like From The Daily Office

2008-12-16T09:09:00.000-05:00

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep. Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake. Amen.

Man's Inhumanity To Man

2008-11-29T22:47:00.003-05:00

I watched a movie tonight while back home with my family. Which movie doesn't particularly matter, as it happens periodically to me. I was struck by the horribleness of all the violence. Many people out there will gladly support the cliche phrase "Peace on earth and goodwill to men" as the holidays approach, but I am amazed at how quick the same people are to justify violence in so many situations. What strikes me about it when I see it in movies (perhaps if I led a less blessed life, I would see the same in reality, but for now I am cushioned) is the simple disregard for the humanness of its victims. The Quaker in me cries out at those caught it the crossfire. It cries out for those in the crosshairs. It cries out for those pulling the triggers. It cries out with the agony of our LORD on the cross, bearing the weight of our collective violence in the tearing of His own flesh. To me no end justifies the means, the means are my faith. A sword is so blind, a bullet so much more so, and heaven help those who dare make use of our arsenal of bombs. Have you never screamed in loss? Do you think your enemy has no mother, no child, no brother? Or are you just that much more important?

A View From A Coffee Shop Window

2008-11-09T16:13:00.004-05:00

I am sitting in the window seat of a ubiquitous independent urban coffee shop, looking out over the grey grey day. The snow pixels fall on the people in my plate glass viewing screen as they pass by. About 20 minutes ago, a lady I can only assume to be homeless sat down at the bench that abuts the window. I debated over and over in my head about going out and talking to her, or buying her a coffee or one of the generic coffee shop pastries sitting on the brass railed counter. Frank Sinatra croons from the heavy wooden speakers in the Baroque designed ceiling, while I sip my mug and run over and over in my head if I should do anything. Do people in need always demand a response by each individual that comes upon them? What should I do?
Three bubbly girls come in behind me, nostalgically recalling late eighties movies as our generation loves to do. They, clad in big furry boots and North Face jackets, remark on the lack of seats left in the coffee shop. After running through the list of surrounding destinations they could go instead, they head out. One sits next to the homeless lady and her shopping cart. They chat enthusiastically. Another girl comes in and returns with a steaming coffee cup. The lady gladly sips and the four talk for a minute before the girls run and skip across the street.
My roommate looks up at me with a smile, echoing my thoughts of the cinematic nature of the whole thing with the window as monitor and the overhead music. I feel glad that someone did something, but still quite guilty that I have done nothing. I begin to write this blog about the whole experience, still wondering if I should run back to my house and grab some food or charge a bagel. I cannot help but see every move she makes and soon she stretches to stand up and shuffle off behind her cart. She meets my eye contact as she turns away from the bench and in a mutual acknowledgement of humanity, we both smile broadly. Now she is gone. I feel no better. I am not sure how I feel about this movie.

“I was in prison and you wrote a book for me, I was naked and you complained on your blog about the church’s failure to clothe me, I was sick and you raised money for your salaries using a picture of me,” From the interview with Brian McLaren on Jesus Manifesto

2008-11-08T13:42:00.003-05:00

I frequently hear people in their teens, twenties, and thirties say that they don't want to live till they are ________ (such that ________ equals sixty, seventy, eighty). They usually say this as an excuse for doing something now that may be physically destructive. They just want to live life to the fullest now.

I have never, however met anyone in their fifties who does not want to live till they are sixty or seventy or eighty.

The rain it falleth on the just and the unjust

2008-11-08T12:55:00.001-05:00

There is a world
Where those who know
Are lost amongst all they understand
And those who don’t
Cry out in blind anguish
Seek, then, that you may find
But be warned
No one really knows the way

Except Michael was so sure

Just A Reminder To Me

2008-11-05T23:31:00.001-05:00

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
Has it not been told you from the beginning?
Have you not understood since the earth was founded?

He sits enthroned above the circle of the earth,
and its people are like grasshoppers.
He stretches out the heavens like a canopy,
and spreads them out like a tent to live in.

He brings princes to naught
and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.

No sooner are they planted,
no sooner are they sown,
no sooner do they take root in the ground,
than he blows on them and they wither,
and a whirlwind sweeps them away like chaff.

"To whom will you compare me?
Or who is my equal?" says the Holy One.

Lift your eyes and look to the heavens:
Who created all these?
He who brings out the starry host one by one,
and calls them each by name.
Because of his great power and mighty strength,
not one of them is missing.

Why do you say, O Jacob,
and complain, O Israel,
"My way is hidden from the LORD;
my cause is disregarded by my God"?

Do you not know?
Have you not heard?
The LORD is the everlasting God,
the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He will not grow tired or weary,
and his understanding no one can fathom.

He gives strength to the weary
and increases the power of the weak.

Even youths grow tired and weary,
and young men stumble and fall;

but those who hope in the LORD
will renew their strength.
They will soar on wings like eagles;
they will run and not grow weary,
they will walk and not be faint.

Imago Dei

2008-10-08T21:09:00.002-05:00

An Image of God?

Any image we have of God is necessarily insufficient (see previous post on Footnote To All Prayers by Lewis) and if as Tozer says in the first chapter of The Knowledge Of The Holy, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us,” then we must be ever ready to be iconoclasts of our own imago dei. By image of God, I do not mean studied theological terms and memorized confessions, but rather that picture or understanding that stands at the edge of consciousness when the word “God” is spoken. It is the metaphor, the impression of what God is like and how He interacts with us, that drives how we interact with Him and others and tinges all feelings we have when we say “God”. Even in the absence of any proactive revisions of our images of God, life experiences continue to form our view.

A Child’s Good God

When I was a child, God was a gentle, loving fatherly figure. He was protective in a general sense, in the way that a thick warm blanket is, without any understanding of what He was protecting me from or how. I was quite young when I made my first realizations of faith. A precocious (if I may say so humbly) youngster growing up on a college campus, I was correcting grammar and telling strangers that “My dad’s studying pharmacology!” at age three. That same year I prayed the “sinner’s prayer” with my mother’s guiding on my bed, illuminated by what was left of the evening light stained beige, gold, and burgundy as it fell through my zoo animal curtains. I never wanted to be apart from this Jesus. It was Jesus who was God to me at that point, there was no trinity. He was just a caring, nice, oddly-robed fellow with a beard that looked like my dad’s and warm eyes that said “I love you” as he looked up at me from my illustrated children’s Bible. There was no fear of hellfire or contrition for my sins as I prayed the prayer; I am sure I didn’t even know what sin was. I might have been able to tell someone it meant being naughty, but it never struck me that such a thing had any bearing on my relationship with Jesus. I just knew I wanted to be with him forever. I knew he was supposed to always be there and would hear me when I prayed to him. He was a nice person (try metaphysics with a three year old) and I knew he was good because my mother loved him, so I did too. To that degree, it enabled me to love my mother more and relate to her. Here was another new way I could relate to my family.

Although not the actual physical image from my illustrated Bible, I am sure this Jesus exists. He is the Prince of Peace and the God of all comfort. “Come to me all you who are weary,” he says. “How I long to gather you under my wings like a mother hen her chicks.” I deeply, deeply love this image of God, although there are times in my darker moments when I do not believe in Him. In the shadows of my deepest doubts in the dark night of my soul, I made myself to believe that I did not care if God existed. This image was the last aspect of Him I pushed out. Those were the loneliest nights of my life and I hope to never again come close. My world suddenly felt so so small. I was for the first time I could be aware of it, actually alone in the universe. But it still felt smaller. Perhaps because I had removed anything that extended beyond myself, or perhaps because I had just removed the last piece of such a huge part of the universe. I do believe the God-who-is-love exists and that image is central in my heart. Because of that centrality to heart versus any academic theological knowledge of God, this image took way longer to be thrown out than anything else I thought about Him. The idea of God as love, of God being good and loving me, is certainly biblical. It is one of the frameworks I see Him revealing about Himself throughout the Holy Scriptures. I truly believe that much of any internal comfort, solace, and security I have rest in the roots of this image. Praise be to Him for revealing as much to me at such a tender and formative age. It is certainly not a whole understanding of Him. Being good, loving, and nice and that is all, is sometimes not enough to survive in this ragged and tearing world. This is especially true if the goodness, love, and niceness are distant, that is, aspects of a general God who does not feel personal or close and lacks power to do much about his distant benevolence.

God Comes To Power

The images of God went through several stills, from the transcendent gentle and well-meaning image of my childhood, to a god who was too righteous for the world and yet was close to me (oh how amazing, prideful, and judgmental was I then), to a distant deist god who set in place the systems of the world and his son, Social Justice Jesus, to right all of those systems once they were corrupted by (The) Man. These all were paths to my present image. He is God the Perfect Just Judge. He stands aglow in flowing robes looking on the world and ever interacting with it. He empowers the downtrodden and wearies the wicked that they too might be lifted up and work towards justice. He is the image of perfection whose beauty is seen in the glint of a dewdrop on a leaf and the smile of a child’s eyes. He is raising all humanity and creation up to Him. He is perfection that my post-modern mind has wracked with deconstruction and as I have pulled away the grimy pieces of the thing I worship, pure golden light shines through. He is an inspiration whose perfect beauty and holiness drives me to the greatest humility. His grand magnificence is imbued with his sense of justice making me want to turns others’ eyes to Him, to see that their burden might be lifted. Here the tension is balanced, the incompatible held in perfect harmony, and whose revealed perfection is seen all around me. He is three-in-one, working in timeless unity. The Spirit moves through His Church, pointing back to Him. When the Church does not move with His Spirit, He is loving and faithful, and His Spirit is still with His Church even as it works outside of churches to bring about His Glory. This is a God who is perfect, but yet not so perfect that He will not be with us by making a way for us to be with Him and be become better in the process. He loves us. He loved us first and so made a way for us to be with Him and to give us a way to better the world to Him. He is a God of liberation, who liberates my soul to not have to be perfect but inspires me towards perfection nonetheless. He liberates me to see others as those who are beloved of Him. They are beautiful in His sight and so deserve a way out of the suffering they so often experience in life. My image of God the Perfect Just Judge allows me to revel in all that is beautiful and grants me the means to work to change all that is not. I believe with all I am right now that this God truly exists. I know there is much about Him I do not yet know or experience, but I am still so young, even for what years I do have. This God does truly exist. It is He to whom the psalmist sings and cries out. It is He who brought redemption from oppression for the Israelites and He who brought salvation from bondage for all of creation. He is powerful. He is loving. He is good. The Biblical narrative speaks of Him revealed in all these ways, as do the tongues and pens of those others who are called His Bride, and so now does my own reason and experience. If this is insufficient to show that this God, in whom I believe, actually exists, then I can show no other way. Here celebration must be had, for I was dead, and am alive again; and was lost, and am now found.

Progression And Reconciliation

I had an image of a benevolent God who cared for me. Here was love. I had an image of a hard harsh god who was with me and I came to have faith. I was disillusioned by him and came to see a Jesus of social justice. Here I finally had something that gave me hope, but I had lost my faith. Love made me feel abandoned when I abandoned it, but I could not resist it when in the company of others, even those I deemed foolish and misguided. Soon the glimpses of love let me see that I had not truly abandoned a God of Love and that He was reaching through to me in so many ways. Now I had love, which was coupled with hope, and in that I could find faith. These three remain faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.

Where To From Here?

I do not know where it is that I am to go as I attempt to get a better image of God. This one is so new to me that the few months of its presence have not yet begun to scrub away all I know it can. I am, however, in much need of letting this image mature me and allowing it to penetrate my cynical disposition and hermeneutic of suspicion. I must put this image and the thoughts, feelings, and inspirations it brings me to work. There is much I must purge if I am to be faithful. I do not yet begin to live out my faith. There is much I must illumine if I am to be truthful. I have not yet reflected the light of this image in many corners of my thoughts. I must learn to be just, to stand up for those without power. I must learn to be pure and to see the beauty in all of my abba’s perfection. I must learn to be righteous and worry as much about my sins of omission as I do those of commission. But even as I consider the image itself as a thing I realize I must keep praying as Meister Eckhart taught, "God rid me of God."

A Prayer For Just Such A Thing

O You Who I only begin to know, grant me that I might know you more. And knowing you more, that I might come to be more like You as You are. And in this to be able to come to know even more of You and in turn again to be made like unto You. Let me never impose who I think You are over You as You are. Let Your Spirit groan in deepest prayer for me as I worship the You who is not quite You and rend from me any images of You that would pull me from Your grasp. O God Who stands so far beyond all I mean when I speak the name God, continue to seek me in my ignorance, that I may be delighted anew each day in coming to truly understand and conform to You. Father, let me know You more fully than all that Father connotes. Jesus, let me know You more than all that is written of Your name. Spirit, let me know more of You than all I can conceive. In the image of God was humanity created, help us O Creator to even begin to give birth to all such a blessing entails. Amen

Phos Hilaron/ Beaming Light

2008-10-06T16:56:00.002-05:00

This is a my translation of the hymn Phos Hilaron, which is probably the oldest surviving hymn we have. A version was in the daily office yesterday, so I decided to dig this out. The word hilaron, which I translated as beaming, is the same root as hilarious, and is elsewhere translated as gladdening, gracious, joyous, radiant, and gladsome in other versions of the hymn. It is often see translated as cheerful in 2 Corinthians (God loves a cheerful giver). It is a song for vespers, for the lighting of candles, and the reflection and worship at the end of the day.

Phos Hilaron/ Beaming Light

Beaming light of purest glory
From the Father,
In Heav’n, eternal.
O Christ Jesus, Holy and Blessed

Now come upon the sleeping sun.
And seeing lights of eve,
We praise our God,
The Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

You are worthy in every age
To be praised with holy tongues.
Son of God, Giver of Life,
All creation lifts Your glory.

A Confession

2008-10-05T21:27:00.003-05:00

Most Holy God,
I confess I have sinned against you,
In ways that do not yet have words,
In vices that have no history or definition,
In sins that have no term that evenly define them.
I have sinned against you, yes, in thought, word, and deed,
What I have done and left undone.
But also in thoughts lingering too long,
In letting myself believe when I should not,
In eyes glazed over, in half a thought.
As ineffable as Thou, Most Holy God,
So too is much the list of my wrongs.
But for the sake of your Son, let your Spirit groan in me,
As You whisper the next right step,
From my own ignorance of love.

Irony and fetishism as strategies for how to avoid change

2008-09-29T00:39:00.002-05:00

This is from Peter Rollins, author of How (Not) to Speak of God, and it speaks for itself

There is a story in which a young minister is sitting in her house one day when she hears a banging on the door. When she opens the door she discovers one of the church members standing before her. It is obvious that he is exhausted from running to her house and is barely holding back some tears.

“What’s wrong” asks the minister, seeing that this man is obviously in distress

“Please can you help”, replied the man, “A kind and considerate family in the area are in great trouble. The husband recently lost his job and the wife cannot work due to health problems. They have three young children to look after and on top of all that the man’s mother lives with them as she is unwell and needs constant care. They have no money at the moment and if they don’t pay the rent by tomorrow morning the landlord is going to kick them all onto the street, even though its winter”.

“That’s terrible”, said the minister, “Of course we will help. Anyway how do you know them”?

“I’m the landlord” replied the man

In this story we see an instantiation of irony. Irony as a political stance can be described as a way in which we intellectually disavow our social activity. For instance, often individuals host 70’s or 80’s parties in which people dress up in the fashion of the time and dance to the most extreme and laughable music of the era. Here people are able to laugh at the music and the outfits while dancing to the music and wearing the clothes. Thus they are able to ridicule the very activity that they are fully engaged in, dancing and singing along to music while intellectually distancing themselves from it.

This draws out the weakness of irony (the ubiquitous stance of the cultured elite) as a political and religious response. For it is this very stance that allows one to disavow the very activity that one engages in. Deriving ones jouissance (excessive pleasure) from an action while simultaneously critiquing it.

In the above story the landlord intellectually cares for the family and wants to help even though his actual activity as the one who is going to kick them out of the house contradicts this.

However, the story does not just expose irony it also helps to introduce us to the idea of fetish. A fetish is an object or activity that one holds onto in order to be able to avoid a confrontation with the reality of ones situation or action. For instance, we can imagine a situation in which a person dies suddenly and yet their lover takes the news with a stoic calm. While missing her deeply he has his lovers dog as a constant reminder of her presence. However, when the dog dies, the man breaks down, unable to cope. Here the dog acted as a fetish, as a lie that helped the man avoid the unbearable truth that his beloved was gone. Something he already knew and yet had not confronted.

In the same way we can say that the act of going round to the ministers house acted as a type of fetish, the action was a type of security blanket that allowed the man to continue to engage in his rather ruthless demands. The fetish does not give us false information, it simply helps us avoid confronting what we already know.

The question, or course, is to what extent do we engage in irony and fetishism as a way of ensuring that we do not really change our life and challenge the system we live in.

For instance, most of us will be concerned about ecological issues. We may even talk a lot about it with our friends in some big coffee chain and think about it as we drive about in our big car on the way to the shops to buy goods we do not need. Thus disavowing the very activity that we are engaged in and that we get our jouissance from (the ironic stance). On top of this we may even attend faith gatherings that explore the issues and go on some protests against the practices of big business while not reconfiguring our social existence (the fetishistic stance).

These ways of changing things without changing anything (rearranging chairs on the Titanic) stem from a distinction between the inner and the outer. The inner (our ideas and ‘desires’) are thought of as who I really am, while what I do is viewed as a false self that I merely act out. I will explore this in more depth some other time.

Footnote to All Prayers

2008-09-28T14:36:00.002-05:00

He whom I bow to only knows to whom I bow
When I attempt the ineffable Name, murmuring Thou,
And dream of Pheidian fancies and embrace in heart
Symbols (I know) which cannot be the thing Thou art.
Thus always, taken at their word, all prayers blaspheme
Worshipping with frail images a folk-lore dream,
And all men in their praying, self-deceived, address
The coinage of their own unquiet thoughts, unless
Thou in magnetic mercy to Thyself divert
Our arrows, aimed unskillfully, beyond desert;
And all men are idolators, crying unheard
To a deaf idol, if Thou take them at their word.

Take not, oh Lord, our literal sense. Lord, in Thy great,
Unbroken speech our limping metaphor translate.

The words of C.S. Lewis, for whom I have an entire shelf in my bookcase, expressing theopoetically the limits of human language and understanding when approaching something as _________________ as God.

Or as I heard Dr. John Cionca say once, "What is left for the Divine when jeans are called awesome?"

And the view was so breathtaking it gave me breath

2008-09-05T11:20:00.002-05:00

I stood among giants yesterday, in a house filled with simplicity and peace. And I spoke. And my voice was a shrill squeaking of a scratchy tiny half-person grasping for truth and ideas so outside my range. Like the six year old telling his parents about something he just read in a National Geographic and getting half the words wrong. But still they listened, still they accepted, and probed, and they let me feel for that period as if I too could live in their world.
I think I just may.

Publish Post

Ephemorality

2008-07-06T17:19:00.003-05:00

In a previous post, I write (hopefully) somewhat poetically about the idea of our relationship with the other (that is, something outside or beside myself) and the whispers of justice. Justice is a ghost that haunts the human spirit. However right or wrong he may be about the specific situation, I hear it appealed to in my young cousin's cries that "That's not fair!" It is what we appeal to in a court case, not the law itself, as the law only serves to condemn* (how do you like that St. Paul?). And in that court case, it is argued that "This case is different". This case contains specifics that fall outside of the oversight of the law (having been overlooked) as it was written and intended.

The law, a law, law in general, is constructed and thus may, or in many cases, must, be deconstructed (I tip my philosophical hand with that word). And it is constructed on the whisper, the call of justice. Justice is a vocative, that is, it is written as a call, a drawing forth, an "other" so ephemeral that it is outside the bounds of our deconstruction. Derrida, philosophical step-father of deconstruction**, writes in "The Force of Law", "Justice in itself, if such a thing exists, outside or beyond law, is not deconstructable". The law is written in the call of the spectre of Justice, as an offering attempting to cover and impose its direction over the many. It is said that Justice is blind, but I say that Justice is all-seeing. The blindness is supposed to refer to the lack of prejudice or bias with which the law judges an individual. But Justice is not blindfolded, Justice is covered in eyes seeing everything. Every nuance, every distinction, every situation is seen and understood and weighed in the balance of justice. This is what the lawyer refers to when she pleads to the judge or jury that "this case is different." No law is safe when an appeal to this spectre is made, for it is in the image of her that laws are created.

*or an appeal is to mercy, which is so linked with justice that it is unidentifiable without it

** I say step-father because certainly such a thing existed before him and outside of him and he would be the last to say that the words of his writings on the subject impose necessary limits on the process in the minds of others

Second Chronicles

2008-05-20T11:37:00.005-05:00

I believe I wrote something on here when the first Chronicles of Narnia movie came out, so here's one for number two. Lewis was such a significant figure in the development of my childhood, my faith, and my doubt. I found The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe too much a "thinly veiled allegory" as I believe Tolkien put it. I was excited about Prince Caspian as it seemed a bit darker, a strong bit less allegorical, and because it had big minotaurs with giant axes. All good reasons, I think. If you are not familiar with the story, be warned of spoilers ahead, also, shame on you cause the book's been out for half a century. So going in expecting a good story and a little less allegory, I found the tension of waiting for and wondering about Aslan's return much stronger and darker than I remember in the book. I couldn't help but relate. There was no Aslan or he was not showing up, or at least not yet and he hadn't in thousands of years. So people (well, ok, centaurs and minotaurs and talking rodents and people) had to take it upon themselves to fight for their lives and their country and families and future. There seemed to be no choice. They were slaughtered, scores of them. And no Aslan, except a dream, in which he says that things seldom happen the same way twice. Which seems to indicate that he is not going to show up at the end to re-awaken an army, confront the enemy leaders, and lead everyone to victory. And so it goes on. And many more die, and it gets darker and darker, more and more grim. Then, at the last second, Aslan shows up, re-awakens an army, confronts the bad guys and lead everyone to victory. What? What happened to not happening twice? I knew how it ended, but I was pissed. That's not how it works, thats not how my life is. I've waited and waited and begged and prayed and nothing. And for the Church? Its been two thousand years of looking over our shoulder for some immanent return. What's the deal? Is this just the between time, the time when people come and die miserably or die in hope of something better maybe on down the line. Are we living in the prelude. I know he's supposed to be God and all, but I feel like Aslan had some explaining to do. I want to write a story that takes place in Narnia when its been several generations since the Pevensies and Aslan disappeared, and all the Narnians are being slaughtered, and the kingdom is overrun and hundreds die and Aslan never shows up. I know I sound bitter but as amazing as I think Jesus' message for dealing with the suffering and evil in this world is, I still think God himself owes an explanation. Call me Job if you will, but I am kinda ready for an audience.

Its odd how often I do this

2008-04-19T23:21:00.002-05:00

I so often find something I enjoy, then throw myself into it so completely. For a short period I can and will make any number of sacrifices or pay any price to satiate my obsession. Then the fog lifts, I can breathe fully, and I wonder what I was ever doing. I all but loathe the thought of what once brought such enjoyment. I suppose that's part of being human, its certainly part of being me.

Yesterday

2008-04-13T19:13:00.002-05:00

What moment is the best representative of life? Is it the high point, the paragon, the mountain top experience? Or is it the moment of greatest brokenness, when you hit rock bottom and everything falls away? Or are they those average everyday moments that come and go so often with nary a thought and leave only memories of trends rather than actual individual experiences? Or are the the tepid, tired moments when one seems to look at reality from a distance, like a spectator passing outside the window of a glowing diner.

दुःख

2008-03-30T23:51:00.002-05:00

Its funny to me how much baggage there is, with anything really, and especially with anything that matters, any system or group or relationship. And when you get rid of it or start over or create something truly different, you have to lay down so much just to get a base understanding to get to that really deep stuff. It seems that we can't have anything meaningful in our life without parts that we wish weren't there. Things are ragged in ways we don't want, awkward, embarrassing, scary, corny, apathetic or melodramatic when they should have been the opposite. It makes me long for Plato's ideals, the perfect form of what friendship should be, what a church should be like, how a business should run, the ways a society works, or the ways we wished romance could be. Its weird how it never ever ever is though.
*Throws props to Buddha for that whole First Noble Truth thing*

echoes of a whispered dream

2008-03-29T23:29:00.000-05:00

There is a voice, that speaks inside oneself. It is a mere whisper, breathing the word “Justice” in the corner of your ear. Humanity is born naked, in need, caring only for selfish desires, and demanding its needs be met by those who dared to bring it forth. Yet, upon realizing there is a world outside oneself, the new humanity must react to that other. This is our first philosophy, whatever course philosophy or religion may take, this is where it truly begins. Here is the seed of morality, from which all other subjects of relation blossom forth. Morality is never a matter of the individual, it always a matter of right relation to the other. What, though, is the right relation? It is the words of the echoes of the voice inside. Justice is its name and through it, right relation to the other may be understood. What then, is this voice that seems like it comes from a dream beyond oneself? What is this other Other that on occasion makes us look twice or turn back around to help, or pulls downward on our heart when we shove it away? It is the hope of humanity.

Violence begets violence, systems of power oppress, but violence, as they say, is inherent in their system. Even the language we use, the system that gives us the more complex ways to think about the world, does violence to us in limiting what we can see and process and judge, and it casts others in the manacles it creates for them. But the haunting of the voice speaks in unctions and urges and volitions beyond words. It pierces reality when we encounter beauty and when we are rent by suffering. It is conveyed by poets and artists and mystics in realms beyond words and still falls somewhat short in their works. The voice breathes echoes of a different way. It is the heartbeat of the rebel, the disenfranchised, the idealist, the discontent.

And yet every attempt to implement it seems to fall short and simply adds more violence, or oppression, or at the very least heartbreak, to the world, unwrapped in the disjointed “dukkha” Buddha saw in his sufferings. This other Other speaks into this world though. If it is another entity, it does not seem particularly active. If it is God or a god, it must not be “all powerful” they say, since the words it whispers are hardly reality and suffering still rends our hearts in twain.

But if it is Justice, it must not come by force. It must not be too powerful, lest it give no quarter. It cannot even present itself too strongly as a thought, lest it subjugate the mind. It will never force itself; it is the antithesis of rape. It may nag, it will certainly tug, and occasionally question, and even be swept perpetually away. It comes uninvited, but when doing so, does not come in unless asked. And when asked, it is still shy, still slightly reluctant to say much about itself, instead directing our attention towards others. But on occasion, drives us to our very knees.

On systemic evil

2007-05-20T13:08:00.000-05:00

This comes from a letter to a friend, and is a continuation of the idea of why I am a Christian, what it has to offer, and what the hell that means to anyone...

"Also regarding the concept of the prophetic as drawing out the injustice of the world and letting everyone see it for what it is as discussed by bruggeman...
I think this is a very critical element of the ministry of jesus, the justice of the kingdom of heaven in carne (un-asada).
Kai ho logos sarks egenetow
And the word became flesh.
And the logos, the divine mind, the perfect, the quintessential, all that should be, the ideal, wrapped itself in dirty meat. (What a low view of physical reality the Greeks had, whatever connotations "flesh" or "fleshly" has to us, sarks was even more base. Just feel its weight. sarks.)
And the word became flesh.
And the thing that the prophets had been speaking and speaking of and speaking for became human itself.
And see how it lives.

The world sits in a cesspool of violence. Violence versus self, other, nature, anything that differs or opposes. And violence begets violence. If anything is predetermined, this is. It is Dom Helder Camara's "spiral of violence", the vicious cycle of all vicious cycles. So systems evolve that are able to maintain, manufacture, and/or enforce violence. Systems that destroy order and systems that enforce order to the destruction of free thought, spontaneity, or even love. Systems that rape the earth, systems that drain the souls of humanity, systems that bastardize any good ideas or movements brought forth by those trying to make a difference. These are the principalities and powers of injustice, no demons even need be invoked (not to deny them, merely that they are unnecessary to even see what evil looks like). Violence against the system of violence does nothing to stop it. How could it?

Into this shines a light. And the light was the light of all people. Word becomes flesh. "Metanoiete", he says, change your mind. Not change opinions on something, but rather change the entire direction of the way that you think and have always thought. This is a paradigm shift, a shove to the world view that looks through new lenses. "The kingdom of God is available to all! It is here! Believe the good news!"
This man speaks of revolution. But revolutions come and go. He speaks of a revolutionary type of revolution.

So as in the days of the prophets before him, he disrupts the status quo. He infuriates those in power in his world, the physical power of Rome claiming to hold the entire world within its gauntlets and the temple complex and conglomerate of spiritual leaders, political princes, and wealthy merchants claiming to rule both the land the people live on and their passage into the next world. He directly assaults, overturning their tables with illicitly earned money in the temple, gleaned from those whose have little to give, or calling them out in front of large groups of people, even violating their taboos and religious ideals, like healing people on religious days set aside for rest. He shows the world that the "gowns and crowns" of jerusalem care more for their religious systems than anything they are actually supposed to represent or lead to.
And so those of the violent systems, sensing violence directed toward them, respond with violence. So with more and more crowds attracted to the spectacle of someone standing against the powers that be (aren't we always attracted to that sort of thing, unless of course it is us being threatened), the word-become-flesh sticks his neck out even further. Let the world see the teeth that will be bared at a bared neck. Rome is in control? really, see how the crowds gather against their will. See the control of tho one against whom the exert their "control" Most civilized indeed. How weak a sword and unfurled eagle banner seems now. And the religious leaders, already having shown what is most important to them, conspire with those they claim to be greatest of enemies with (after all what is a democrat compared with a communist), begging for the power of the sword to be used. And it is. And a broken, bloody, pathetic sarks of a man is lifted up on a big stick for all the world to see.
"THIS IS WHAT WE DO TO ALL WHO OPPOSE US"
And a voice from heaven smiles, "indeed"
"This is what you do"
"Anyone care for something a bit different?" "

Scared to relax in the caribbean...

2007-02-25T22:53:00.000-05:00

I get this nervousness before I travel. Always. It makes me not want to go. I never want to go. I have a lot of momentum. Its hard for me to start something new, to do something new, to leave. Its hard to go back too, to end, to wrap up, to turn around. Thats how I always am. But right now I am supposed to leave for the Dominican Republic in two days. My stomach is churning.

We were supposed to be putting a roof on a house being bought to be used as a school. Turns out they were running crack out of the basement. The people starting the school didnt want to mess with that. Now the trip is just going. We dont know what we are gonna do except help a missionary guy there with some projects around his house. I am one of two people going on the trip now, the other guy pulled out. I decided to go originally because I don't think I can call myself a Christian without continually going out of my way to help those with less. I thought the missionaries we were working with were a little batty. But we were building a school. Helping the wide eyed children who haunt my dreams. Thats what it was for me. Now its helping do work around the house for the missionaries with the pool. Two miles from coconut leaf roofs and cardboard walls and dying children with flies around their faces and that stare. I dont think I can do it. But I worry that all this is just rationalizing my continual fear of not wanting to go or to put myself out there. It will actually cost me more to not go, financially, at this point. I dont care. I dont think I am gonna go anyway. Pulling out sucks though. Its hard to break that momentum. But I dont believe in anything I would be doing anymore down there. My parents just got back from an all-inclusive resort on the opposite side of the country. The pictures nearly made me throw up. Beaches too pretty to describe, better food than I see more than a time or two a year. If I went down it would just be to get away from here. A vacation. I dont need to get away like that. Too self-focused. I am still nauseous. I dont think I am gonna go. I have no idea how I am gonna explain that to the other guy.

Where neither seraphim nor raindrops go/Eyes like champagne: Of God, Iraq, and who knows where I stand

2007-02-15T14:11:00.000-05:00

The following are two songs that really put into words where I am right now. both are by Josh Ritter

Girl in the War

Peter said to Paul you know all those words we wrote Are just the rules of the game and the rules are the first to go But now talking to God is Laurel begging Hardy for a gun I got a girl in the war man I wonder what it is we done

Paul said to Peter you got to rock yourself a little harder Pretend the dove from above is a dragon and your feet are on fire But I got a girl in the war Paul the only thing I know to do Is turn up the music and pray that she makes it through

Because the keys to the Kingdom got lost inside the Kingdom And the angels fly around in there but we can¹t see them I got a girl in the war Paul I know that they can here me yell If they can¹t find a way to help her they can go to Hell If they can¹t find a way to help her they can go to Hell

Paul said to Peter you got to rock yourself a little harder Pretend the dove from above is a dragon and your feet are on fire But I got a girl in the war Paul her eyes are like champagne They sparkle bubble over and in the morning all you got is rain They sparkle bubble over and in the morning all you got is rain They sparkle bubble over and in the morning all you got is rain

2007-02-15T14:08:00.000-05:00

Thin Blue Flame by Josh Ritter

I became a thin blue flame Polished on a mountain range And over hills and fields I flew Wrapped up in a royal blue I flew over Royal City last night A bullfighter on the horns of a new moon¹s light Caesar¹s ghost I saw the war-time tides The prince of Denmark¹s father still and quiet And the whole world was looking to get drowned Trees were a fist shaking themselves at the clouds I looked over curtains and it was then that I knew Only a full house gonna make it through

I became a thin blue wire That held the world above the fire And so it was I saw behind Heaven¹s just a thin blue line If God¹s up there he¹s in a cold dark room The heavenly host are just the cold dark moons He bent down and made the world in seven days And ever since he¹s been a¹walking away Mixing with nitrogen in lonely holes Where neither seraphim or raindrops go I see an old man wandering the halls alone Only a full house gonna make a home

I became a thin blue stream The smoke between asleep and dreams And in that clear blue undertow I saw Royal City far below Borders soft with refugees Streets a¹swimming with amputees It¹s a Bible or a bullet they put over your heart It¹s getting harder and harder to tell them apart Days are nights and the nights are long Beating hearts blossom into walking bombs And those still looking in the clear blue sky for a sign Get missiles from so high they might as well be divine Now the wolves are howling at our door Singing bout vengeance like it¹s the joy of the Lord Bringing justice to the enemies not the other way round They¹re guilty when killed and they¹re killed where they¹re found If what¹s loosed on earth will be loosed up on high It¹s a Hell of a Heaven we must go to when we die Where even Laurel begs Hardy for vengeance please The fat man is crying on his hands and his knees Back in the peacetime he caught roses on the stage Now he twists indecision takes bourbon for rage Lead pellets peppering aluminum Halcyon, laudanum and Opium Sings kiss thee hardy this poisoned cup His winding sheet is busy winding up In darkness he looks for the light that has died But you need faith for the same reasons that it¹s so hard to find And this whole thing is headed for a terrible wreck And like good tragedy that¹s what we expect

At night I make plans for a city laid down Like the hips of a girl on the spring covered ground Spirals and capitals like the twist of a script Streets named for heroes that could almost exist The fruit trees of Eden and the gardens that seem To float like the smoke from a lithium dream Cedar trees growing in the cool of the squares The young women walking in the portals of prayer And the future glass buildings and the past an address And the weddings in pollen and the wine bottomless And all wrongs forgotten and all vengeance made right The suffering verbs put to sleep in the night The future descending like a bright chandelier And the world just beginning and the guests in good cheer In Royal City I fell into a trance Oh it¹s hell to believe there ain¹t a hell of a chance

I woke beneath a clear blue sky The sun a shout the breeze a sigh My old hometown and the streets I knew Were wrapped up in a royal blue I heard my friends laughing out across the fields The girls in the gloaming and the birds on the wheel The raw smell of horses and the warm smell of hay Cicadas electric in the heat of the day A run of Three Sisters and the flush of the land And the lake was a diamond in the valley¹s hand The straight of the highway and the scattered out hearts They were coming together they pulling apart And angels everywhere were in my midst In the ones that I loved in the ones that I kissed I wondered what it was I¹d been looking for up above Heaven is so big there ain¹t no need to look up So I stopped looking for royal cities in the air Only a full house gonna have a prayer

Isnt It nice or Good Is Better Than Perfect

2006-08-13T20:56:00.000-05:00

And you’ll never see the prayers rise, smiles like voices in a whirlwind
But the burn is deep, the burning deepens,
purple pills popped a thousand times still dont diffuse
No exact prescription, no way to medicate
And the sea on my face says nothing of order

You have three points, four laws, five steps, seven deadly sins

The ants still roam your cupboards, set all at perfect square
Its hip if you will but I wont
Cause that’s not how the grass grows or the rain falls
No human tear ever falls quite the same
What you see on my face says nothing of order

You have three points, four laws, five steps, seven deadly sins

Your fears betray the truth about the lies of peace within
And you count one rosary bead for every sheep
And the jar for your face by the door is not as lonely
If you don’t know its just a mask after all
And what I see on your face shows all of its order

You have three points, four laws, five steps, seven deadly sins

When God is a box then its six six six sides all feel secure
If answers were so easy I just wouldn’t question
But false is never true on an essay test
Black and white must be great crayons, but what color is
The sea on my face that wants nothing of your order

Economics

2006-06-16T10:35:00.000-05:00

At approximately 8.27AM Monday morning (October 21, 2002) on the steps in front of the statue of our first president taking his oath of office, a man dressed in black, holding a megaphone, stepped out. He proclaimed news of another way of doing life, in stark contrast to the example shown on Wall St. As he proclaimed, “Let the Celebration begin!”, a Shofar, or ram’s horn, was blown, ushering in the ancient Torah tradition of Jubilee. Seemingly out of nowhere, bills began to fall and three banners were unfurled reading: “Love.” “Stop Terrorism… Share” and quoting the forefather of the nonviolence and alternative economics movements, Gandhi, “There is enough for everyone’s NEED, but not enough for everyone’s GREED”. At the same time, about two-dozen pedestrians emptied their pockets and bags of thousands of dollars of coins. Both homeless and professionals alike scrambled for nickels, dimes and quarters while others stood back and watched astonished that thousands of dollars were littering the corners of Broad and Wall Streets.

Soon songs broke out amongst shouts of celebration and posters began to appear, echoing the statements of the banners. The source of the money was hard to pin down, from the briefcases of business folks to the handbags of older women to the thermoses of sporty tourists and the shoulder bags of bike messengers, all types of people from different walks of life joined in the redistribution. The entire street between corners was filled with coins and bills. As one area would clear up, another load was dropped somewhere else. People walked away with bulging pockets, listening to the intermittent jingle of change.

Even before the event, homeless individuals began exercising their first amendment right to assemble. This increased presence of the homeless garnered the attention of security and police officers. The police approached the homeless and ordered them to move on, stating the event was, “a hoax” and “probably illegal”. Many homeless had flyers that they showed the police. The yellow flyers stated that there was a court victory over the unlawful arrests of homeless people in New York City during then-mayor Giuliani’s crackdown on the homeless population. Ten thousand was won in that settlement and the flyers contained a dollar from that lawsuit. The police held another flyer, leaked before the event, that said the currency to be redistributed was donated money that had been invested in the Stock Exchange. Early Monday morning teams carrying hundreds in two-dollar bills stashed them in the area around lower Manhattan. This redistribution was meant for everyone.

After the initial money drop, the police called for backup and formed a line that confronted the merry-makers, pushing them east down Wall St., away from the Stock Exchange. One organizer was arrested and taken to the 1st police precinct. He was not charged and released in a matter of minutes. Songs and chants, bubbles and flyers filled the air as a curious Wall St looked on. With increasing pressure from the police, organizers decided to stage the second wave of redistribution of change at a different entrance of the Stock Exchange. With a cry of, “Let the celebration continue!” hundreds more in change stopped traders from entering the building until after they picked up a pocketful. The beauty was in the secrecy. No one could distinguish who was dropping the money, or who was in charge. As the money was dropped, all participated in gathering up the change. One man remarked to passer’s by that he could now “get his prescription filled.”

With the message of sharing and liberation on their lips, organizers decided to declare a victory of Jubilee and leave the area. Many people voiced their support as people entered the subway and side streets. One woman was so overcome, that she bought a bag of bagels and started handing them out to whoever was hungry.

In all, the organizers were happy with the outcome. “The thought of ten thousand dollars with ‘LOVE.’ written on them circulating throughout New York City is exciting to me,” one organizer claimed. Many people were overcome by the amount of sharing and the proclamation of a different way of life. It truly was a contrast to the way in which those on Wall St. act and behave. "Building a new society in the shell of the old."

This article taken from http://www.thesimpleway.org/love_dollars/index.html Good stuff here from The Simple Way, check it out.

The Kingdom is at hand.

I know its been too long

2006-06-12T21:07:00.000-05:00

I know its been too long since i posted anything worth while, but there is a certain "fire in the belly" necessary for me to write a blog. I have been rather numb as of late, but its building. Something will come soon. Repent! for the blogdom is at hand.

Not what I normally post but too good to pass up

2006-02-16T19:30:00.000-05:00

Ok so I have shared the lines I hear while in classrooms in another blog but this warrents posting. Today's might just be my favorite. From a fifth grade girl to the mildly autistic boy in class. And his priceless response.

"The truth hurts."
"I know. I was hit with justice last night and I lost a molar."

Jesus and America?

2006-02-15T13:19:00.000-05:00

From USA Today. What do you think?

I remember when Jesus Christ was about religion.

That goes back to when he was caring and compassionate all the time, not just during the political campaign season.

He used to bring people together and give them hope. He wouldn't have his people get in your face and tell you to fight gay rights or you'll burn in hell. That's not what he was about. That's not the Jesus who made folks such as Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson rich and famous. He was a different guy from the 21st-century American Jesus Christ.

When I recently visited Sicily, Italy, the old Jesus was all over the place. His statue was on the counter at the restaurant and the coffee house. His image was on the wall at the clothing store and in the hotel lobby. And there was a huge painting of him on the side of an apartment building.

Sometimes he was with his mom and dad, and sometimes he was sitting with his pals - the apostles. Mostly he was hanging from the cross. Whatever he was up to, it was all about religion.

It was interesting because I didn't go to Sicily looking for a religious experience. I went looking for what's left of my family. My grandfather and his brother came to the United States in 1904 and left behind their parents and two sisters. The sisters had kids, grandkids, great grandkids.

I never met any of those people, and I knew nothing about Sicily except the obvious - pizza and the Mafia. My wife thought it was time to connect. She made some calls and let the family know we were coming.

We landed in Palermo, got our bags and were met by my cousin Peppino Rizzuti, who was holding a handwritten sign with my name on it.

He was there with three other cousins. They hooked us up with more family and spent the next seven days driving us all over the island and stuffing us with mozzarella, prosciutto, olives and about 50 kinds of pasta.

My cousin Maria made the sign of the cross before she ate. My cousin Antonio's car had a figurine of a saint on the dashboard. My cousin Gian Marco had a beautiful cross hanging from his neck.

But nobody was going on about God, Jesus and religion. It didn't come up. I saw all that and was reminded that you can be a decent person - a good son, husband and father - and still oppose the war in Iraq. You can be a caring, thoughtful member of your community and still question whether Justice Samuel Alito should have been confirmed. Jesus won't get mad at you.

Several times during the week, I thought about telling my family what's happened to Jesus in the United States - how he's been kidnapped by politicians and preachers who decide what he does and doesn't think. They speak for him, and it doesn't always make sense.

They say Jesus is "pro life," but he doesn't seem to have a problem with the death penalty. And he thinks stem cell research - something that would save lives - is no different from murdering babies. They say he's the embodiment of kindness, love, decency and compassion. But he hates gays, lesbians and Muslims. And he's not too crazy about Buddhists, Hindus and the rest. Jews? He can put up with them if he has to.

The Rev. Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka claims to speak for Jesus and goes around the country talking about how "AIDS cures fags." Pat Robertson says it would be a good idea if the United States killed the president of Venezuela. It would be a lot cheaper than starting another war.

All week I went over that stuff in my head and decided not to mention any of it to the family.

It would make America look ridiculous.

Rob Borsellino is a columnist for The Des Moines Register and author of So I'm talkin' to this guy ..."

What role does/should religion play in a society? What role does/should Jesus play in the Christian religion? What role(s) does/should religion (specifically Christianity in this case) and Jesus play in the life of an individual? To what degree should Christianity be confrontive?

Catches my eye...

2006-02-08T22:07:00.000-05:00

These are the things that pique my interest, the things I care about, the things I live for and make my life worth living to whatever degree: use of the word pique, fair trade, smoothies, the Cubs, AIDS awareness/prevention, coffee, folk music, coffee, the water, the emerging church, poverty, any music that carries me away with it (an album is worth buying if it has only two songs like this on it, but not for just one), how people grow spiritually, anything that even looks homemade, anything someone poured themself into, humble people, the wind, puns, sunny days, simplicity, foggy days, the guy who would give you the shirt off his back, liturgy, atmosphere, big smiles, the One Campaign, senses of humor, sarcasm, authenticity, anyone who falls between the two sides of a coin, new/interesting/out of the ordinary words, someone who actually loves their neighbor more than themself, dynamic tension, beauty, affliction, hard work, skipping work, poetic phrases, wood, pewter, wicker, and bronze.

Sounds way too familiar

2006-01-31T13:58:00.000-05:00

"But the more significant problem, from the point of view of our present discussion, is that middle-class evangelicals (and they are not alone in this) create what Walter refers to as ‘culture religion’, that is, they identify Christianity with the standards, values and attitudes of their own culture: in this case, middle-class culture:

'Christians may not be aware of the extent to which they have conformed to a middle-class lifestyle. So many of the public values of society are middle-class that these values, which are far from inevitable or God-given, are taken for granted. Some Christians, because they have one or two taboos such as not drinking or swearing which set them apart from other people, are able to convince themselves that they are not conforming to society. By focussing their attention on gambling or drink, they ignore the way in which they have unconsciously absorbed their neighbour’s views on virtually everything else. They strain at a gnat and swallow a mule.'

The consequence of confusing Christianity with middle-class values is that people who do not identify with that culture reject the church and, in many cases, the gospel too. And this does not simply affect people who would call themselves ‘working class’; it also affects a whole stratum of people — especially younger people — who just do not identify with the status quo of the establishment at all. One such person told me: ‘To be quite honest, there isn’t much apart from faith in Jesus that I share in common with these people; but the frightening thing is that they seem to feel sure I will “improve” and become like them, given a bit of time and some working on by the Holy Spirit. I doubt if I will stay around that long.’"

From Dave Tomlinson's "The Post-Evangelical"

The thoughts of the friend at the end may have even escaped my mouth before. Yes thank you for praying for my "problems" sir, I'll um, pray for you too.

Senility and Hostility

2006-01-22T20:58:00.000-05:00

My grandomother told me how she had gone to see Narnia. I asked her what she thought of it (after having been a bit disappointed myself as compared to the books but still a good movie). She had never read any of the books. She just looked at me puzzled for a time as if trying to figure out how to best say no diplomatically.
"I didn't understand a lot of it, I guess," she sighed
"Oh(?)" I exclaimed, partially as a question to urge her on.
"What did the fawns represent?"

So there it was. She didnt get it at all. She was right in that at least. Her religious radio shows had hyped it as an allegory for "The Gospel". So she went to see it as though one could play it side by side with "The Passion of The Christ". Aslan was the Christ figure, this much was clear, but it was all rather confusing with so many characters and how come Peter never denied him? Fricking James Dobson. So used to "the story" that its not a story anymore and any time story is paraded before their eyes it gets dissected into how much swearing it contains and how you can use it to "bring your unsaved neighbor to Christ". I really want to swear right now. I abuse the word damn, although mostly I feel justified when I do. I just feel bad for my grandmother.

Hidden Gem from Jurassic Park, who knew?

2006-01-16T23:11:00.000-05:00

"You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish something as fast as you could and before you even knew what you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a plastic lunchbox, and now you're selling it, you want to sell it!"

Ah America...sigh

Cause I suck at the orthodox way

2006-01-10T22:29:00.000-05:00

There are thoughts which are prayers.
There are moments when,
whatever the posture of the body,
the soul is on its knees.

-- Victor Hugo

"we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words." Paul to the Romans

On contentment

2006-01-04T16:35:00.001-05:00

It is not that my contentment is based on present company or circumstance, merely that a virtue fulfilled in heaven is sometimes stirred within the human heart when the reality around that human dimly reflects aspects of heaven, its true home. In the same way peace does not require circumstances devoid of conflict, but one may certainly say that one situation is more peaceful than another and enjoy it for such.

on contentment, perhaps its winter now.

Prayers I love

2005-12-29T15:42:00.000-05:00

A prayer of St Anselm

Lord Jesus Christ
by the Father's plan and by the working of the Holy Ghost
of your own free will you died
and mercifully redeemed the world
from sin and everlasting death.

I adore and venerate you
as much as ever I can
though my love is so cold, my devotion so poor.

Thank you for the good gift
of your holy body and blood
which I desire to recieve, as cleansing from sin
and for a defence against it.

Medieval Irish prayer

Sweet name of Jesus, so loved, so full of grace,
life of the angels, brightness of the sun,
putting in fetter every evil one,
God one of us, redeemer of our race.

All-shining brightness, loveliest face we know,
gold candle-holder, wisdom's treasury,
fount of precious blood poured out to set us free,
hand of God's giving, never let me go.

Honey-shower of graces, gifts that never cease,
free me from my sins, dear face as bright as stars,
else I'm in prison, full of wounds and scars
sweet name of Jesus, come and give me release.

It really is my favorite

2005-12-16T13:28:00.000-05:00

HOLY SONNET XIV, John Donne:

Batter my heart, three-person'd God ; for you
As yet but knock ; breathe, shine, and seek to mend ;
That I may rise, and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force, to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town, to another due,
Labour to admit you, but O, to no end.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy ;
Divorce me, untie, or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

I love the word fain...

2005-12-15T12:08:00.000-05:00

“I would fain improve every opportunity to wonder and worship, as a sunflower welcomes the light” Henry David Thoreau

On the eve of the 14th

2005-12-14T23:34:00.000-05:00

No man hath affliction enough that is not matured and ripened by it, and made fit for God by that affliction.
If a man carry treasure in bullion, or in a wedge of gold, and have none coined into current moneys, his treasure will not defray him as he travels.
Tribulation is treasure in the nature of it, but it is not current money in the use of it, except we get nearer and nearer our home, heaven, by it.
Another man may be sick too, and sick to death, and this affliction may lie in his bowels as gold in a mine and be of no use to him; but this bell that tells me of his affliction digs out and applies that gold to me, if by this consideration of another's dangers I take mine own into contemplation and so secure myself by making my recourse to my God, who is our only security.
Donne 17th Meditation

Theology without theosis (moving closer to God) is heresy at worst and a meaningless work of philosophy at best. It must produce change.

A Poem

2005-12-13T17:47:00.001-05:00

How can a callused heart hide behind sparkling eyes
A love so long end so short
Irony of contradictions
Walls rise faster than Berlin fell
Warmth vanishing from years of flame
Cold passerby known so deeply
Smooth stone impasse on well worn path
Any light only makes more shadows larger
Complacency strikes with unfeeling
Iciest dagger of all

Thoughts

2005-12-10T19:03:00.000-05:00

Isn't it possible that "to live by the sword is to die by the sword" was intended as a warning and not as instruction???
Karina Sprinkle

Sure, we all sang “red and yellow, black and white” in Vacation Bible School, but not many of us invited the red, yellow, black and white kids to our birthday parties.

Ronnie Fauss

I say Nemo, you think...

2005-12-07T11:24:00.000-05:00

I struggle with this world that so desires to be filled with post-modern ironic symbolism. I struggle because I find it within myself. But that is not the issue. The issue that frustrates me is the frequent overshadowing of the original. An object is imbued with meaning that is has drawn from the original it references. Yet, in our culture of pop gluttony and orgies of consumption, the en vogue new object is exalted and the original, from whence it drew at the very least some meaning, is relegated to the dust heaps of antiquity. Every grade-schooler I have talked to can tell me about Martin Luther King, but when I mention the reformation, their eyes glaze over because I apparently just forgot the word "King". Not that King should be diminished, merely that Wittenberg should not be forgotten. These are perhaps the closest to equal, in terms of weight. Usually the icon is kissed and the saint forgotten or the eucharist partaken of and only flour is tasted. Even classical literature gets it all the time. I mention Plato, you think clay. I say Nemo, you think fish.

I heard from Her.

2005-12-01T19:30:00.000-05:00

I received back an email from Her today. A good one too, and it was long. Full of real highs and lows and not the how-are-you-I'm-doing-fine bull crap. Mmmm, just when I thought a girl could not faze me, the only one who stood a chance in the past year makes my night. Its amazing how that makes the world that much lighter. Dang, the past two posts have been on relationships, or something along that line. Maybe I am not as hardened as I thought...

It all seemed realer then.

2005-11-22T22:12:00.001-05:00

If youre gonna bring me this far, at least give a happy ending.
Does every once upon a time have to be so long ago.
And maybe it wasnt even you, but we were happy.
But ever after its been so much faker in reality.
So let me back through the looking glass, Ill pretend it wasnt shattered.
And the dragons wont ever seem so big after living in a world with no dragons at all.
And what is it that I do that my fairy godmother damns me to this.
So much for happy endings.

stagnation

2005-11-22T14:32:00.000-05:00

“Watch the things you shrug your shoulders over, and you will know why you do not go on spiritually.” Oswald Chambers in My Utmost

slow down, you move too fast...

2005-11-17T16:18:00.000-05:00

I feel a tension within me. I have only a limited number of years left for active ministry. Why not use them well? Yet one word spoken with a pure heart is worth thousands spoken in a state of spiritual turmoil. Time given to inner renewal is never wasted. God is not in a hurry. -Nouwen in The Road to Daybreak

If you wish the world the same...

2005-11-16T19:27:00.000-05:00

Let beliefs fade fast and frequently, if you wish institutions to remain the same. The more the life of the mind is unhinged, the more the machinery of matter will be left to itself. -Chesterton

Children of That Age

2005-11-15T22:10:00.000-05:00

Modernity has twice borne children. The eldest was born a warrior, rumbling at those who had gone before and dashing their worlds with a formula and a formed fist. She is a world of concrete. She is gray with girders for bones. Efficiency is her god and the industrial revolution her commencement address. She smells of smoke and coal and oil. She is hard and uncaring, the wind rushes past her and she is unmoving, unflinching in her goals. She has no dreams, only goals, objectives, results. She is ever in control and her gray thick hands are dry and cool and hard in all their cemented strength. She is the city, the urban sidewalk, the factory with smokestacks sending out her messages to the world.
Her younger sister cares little for the rigid oldest child rules. Her sisters thick and blocky grayness replaced with colors that run neon through her veins. She is the world of plastic. She shouts to the world that she is here with every shiny step she takes upon its runway. The cold unknowing of her sister's world is gone, even if she doesnt know you, you always feel she does. She knows you intimately, looking down from scarlet billboards with sultry eyes and glossy lips inviting you in. She calls concrete a prude and is called in turn a whore. But she doesn't care cause everyone loves her and the way she makes them feel. Efficiency gives way to experience as she lays her head on yours. She is yellow red white and black and the only time she does not glisten is when she begs for more.