Missed

I am reading a modern book right now (yeah I do read modern ones sometimes).  It's by Daniel Quinn, whom I've mentioned before.  He wrote Ishmael, which is one of my favorite books.  Then he further developed the ideas in the book I'm reading now called The Story of B, and others to follow.

I read Ishmael back in the 1990's and it opened my eyes to a new way of seeing and thinking.  Then later, I read the sequel, My Ishmael, which is actually third in written order.  I liked this one nearly as much as the first book.  I'd skipped B because the plot sounded questionably interesting and was only tangentially in the storyline of the other two.

I don't agree with everything Quinn says, his history is often in error, and his philosophical/logic skills are often faulty.  But I have practised being able to "eat the meat and spit out the bones" as a friend says, so that doesn't bother me if there's good to be had in it.  But then I decided to pick up B.  It's terrible.

I get the distinct sense that Ishamel may have received such a bad reaction that Quinn went a little "Moses striking the rock".  I've seen that with other storytellers that have a message, but this one is just not good.  It's too full of sour grapes and brow-beating ideas.  As he mentions in the book itself, this time he's taking a different approach.  He shouldn't have.  But as I don't do book reviews, I'm going to leave it at that, and focus on my reactions.  If you want more, read it yourself, then we can talk.

The biggest flaw in Quinn's vision, as portrayed in the book, is that it's a reaction to an entirely phantom image of Christianity.  He seems to have a certain idea of Christianity, which I've seen practised by many self-styled Christians.  But he doesn't recognize that this may or may not be a correct view, nor that there are other interpretations that are almost diametrically opposed to this view within the diversity of Christendom.

If Christianity was what he portrays it: a sort of Dan Brown-esque conspiracy laden jumble of contradictions to dupe simpletons, which any thinking-person ought to be able to see for what it is, I would hate it too.

But here's the kicker: his alternative is very much the Christianity I know and follow!  He just attempts to rebrand it as a universal animism.  Even the strict conservative Christianity I was raised in had many of the elements he seems to be seeking in his reconstructed nature-based religion.

For example, in B he propounds that every place is sacred, every living thing.  That all are interconnected and that in a real sense, they all live out their lives in the hand of the god.  He makes a distinction that he doesn't mean the all-powerful creator God, but the less distinct animus of the single place.

Well, my understanding of the Bible is exactly this, except of course that the deity is the universal Good, the all-powerful God.  Which is very much more to his point, I think.  Coming from the obvious Hippie perspective he originates in, the Universe (which he actually refers to at one point) is by definition ONE thing.  If all life is part of this big ONE thing.  Why divide that into myriad animi of place?  Wouldn't the world itself be one thing as much as all things in it are one?  If there is an animus of each of the small expressions of the one, how much more a single grand Animus in which all the others were collected, reflected, and imagined?

In fact, I know many Christians that actually do operate in a worldview of lesser spiritual beings guarding and shepherding places and activities.  The Romantics, and even CS Lewis routinely referred to these beings as part of their cosmos.

So what is to be gained by stepping so insistently outside of Christianity as Quinn tries?  A sense of place?  Heck, I know more Christians that HEAVILY venerate places, even natural ones, than those that don't.  Even to the point that I think it's silly, since obviously one place is no better than another IN ITSELF.  As Quinn agrees, ALL places are sacred.  To me this is so only because of the presence of God in them, not any aspect of the atoms, as such, in that locale.  So my prayers are no better heard in one spot over another. Like the Centurion praised for his faith that Jesus didn't have to come to his house to heal someone.

I've seen this far too often: someone gets an idea of something locked in their head, especially if it was a bad experience, and they judge all other similar things as that.  This is especially true with Christianity.  This is the very reason I'm so dogged against Christians who knowingly or unknowingly play into these stereotypes.  Because when it comes down to it, the burden of communication is on the communicator.  If someone gets the wrong message from what I say, that's my fault, not theirs.  If for no other reason than I am the one who wants them to hear me.  I can't expect people who aren't asking the question to do the work necessary to get my answer.

But back to the former side, it never pays for us to misjudge, misunderstand.  To understand, we have to listen and explore with openness.  Not to say lack of critical thought, by any means, but with openness.  It also never pays to assume one perspective or case is true for all others.

The ironic thing, is that I learned that in large part FROM Quinn!

How to make a liar

I haven't posted in a while.  I tried but couldn't.  I've been through one of the worst dark periods I've had ever.  I don't want to go into it, but it's been rough.  I'm doing better now.

I don't know what the purpose of it is, but it has revealed my weakness, my baseness, my violence, and my selfishness.  Maybe that is the purpose.  I just know it is not fun and not pretty.  It's also not made up and I can't help it.  If you've never been there, you won't understand and that's ok.  Don't seek it.

I have said it before, but it is clearer to me than ever that whatever is good in me is not from me.  I know you'll deny that and think it's just the darkness talking, and that's fine.  I hope you never see that side of me.

But I'm trying to keep seeing it.  I don't want to live in it, but I don't want to forget it either.  I tend toward hubris and self-confidence without it.  Even the humility you think you know in me is a form of self-pride.  I'm not kidding.

People lead the question all the time.  Christians are the worst about it.  What do you think will happen if you constantly keep telling people how to be?  Anyone with half a brain will quickly learn how to pretend at it.  Put on the actions and even self-deceive that they have achieved it.  I've done it.  I habitually do it.  And you reward the better liars.

I have a ready bunch of scripts to throw up in any given situation.  I watch carefully.  I have fakes backstopping fakes and will say whatever works to get the reaction I need.

And what I really need is a safe place to let those things slowly fall off.  People who are not impressed by it.  People who want me to thoroughly be good rather than merely seem good.  You condemn yourselves in me!  And I condemn myself!

Understand me, I am not saying this from a place of despair.  Quite the opposite.  When I was despairing, I hid from you because then I can't keep up the masks, can't keep the demons in their chains.  But right now I'm in that hazy space between the nightmare and the bright day and soon I'll be fully dressed and presentable again.God forbid!

I need a savior.  I am fully reminded that if there is any hope for me it is in Jesus.  Not knowledge about him, but in the real living him.  I am not claiming to know grand mystical things.  If I did, I doubt them now.  He didn't even show up in some nonmiraculous way to rescue me.  But I don't care.  My heart leaps when I think about him, when I read about him.  I understand the meaning of hoping in him.  I didn't choose this.  If I did it was rigged.  I am not in control.  So if he doesn't have me, if I do not eventually arrive in a place of peace and perfection and learn that he was there when I couldn't see it or know it, then I would rather rush headlong into the void now.  It isn't about this world.  It isn't about the surface things you spend so much time talking about as if we could just decide to be something else.  Even if you can, I CAN'T!  I don't know how.  It doesn't work.  Whether that's brain chemistry, spiritual sense, slavery, karma, grace, whatever you want to call it.  What I can do is lie about it though!

You'd rather me be presentable, disfigure my feelings into acceptable packages, even though you THINK you want me to let it out.  Which is the most insidious part!  Your words say one thing and your actions say another in the same breath.  Your words are a trap.  A demon maw yawns behind your fair and hopeful words, you whitewashed tombs!  Damn you satans in a hollow christ's image!  I've never yet found anyone who really meant it when they say it's safe to let it out and let it go.  Maybe one or two people come closer than others.  But if I have ever let the depth of it peak out, people take pains...no give pains to shut it in again.

So keep teaching behaviors.  Keep focusing on outwards before inwards.  Keep modeling the plastic masks.  Keep grinding out budding faith with your two faces.  Keep making liars.  I don't want to be one anymore.

Assimilation

This blog is about Truth.  With a capital T because I mean it in the big sense, not the baser sense of "true story" or true/false.  Science is also about Truth...at least it is at the heart, before media and corpocracy and fame have tainted it.  The only reason science and religion conflict is because practitioners of one or both confuse the roll of each.  See science can only tell us about observable reproducable things.  As such, it can't talk at all about things that fall outside of the ability to observe and test.  Conversely, religion isn't about empirical, observable, testable reality.  Reality, yes, but not the physical world in the way science is interested.  Anyway, I digress.  My point is that I try to understand my world as a whole.  And science informs things quite well.  So it shouldn't be a surprise that this blog may also cover scientific matters from time to time as they engage in my brain.

So the concept of assimilation.  This is the process of taking something in and making it a part of the entity, whether that is biological, social, spiritual, etc.  Essentially, an assimilated thing ceases to be separate from the thing that assimilates it.  We assimilate nutrients.  Nations assimilate people.  The US is known as the "melting pot", which refers to the quality of assimilating people from many backgrounds.  We are not a nation based on genetic isolation or ancient tribal divides.  Assimilation is a natural process that absolutely pervades every aspect of the function of the world.  But I don't think many people understand it at all.

I was thinking of assimilation around the Christmas season for a couple reasons.  First, because people get wound up about the various elements of the holiday.  Regardless of what angle of that argument you might sit in, I think the concept of assimilation should help unwind that tension some.

No culture exists in a vacuum.  Even the oldest cultures are influenced by those around them and evolve through time.  The culture of a tribe 1000 years ago would not be the same now, even if that tribe were totally untouched by the outside, which none are.  So there are going to be things that move from one to the other in both directions.

When Christianity first began to spread, it was spreading through existing cultures.  Some of those celebrated Saturnalia, some celebrated Yule, and many other winter festivities.  So when a few people began to see that this new faith had Truth, they didn't cease to live in the culture they were in.  Others around them still celebrated the things they always did.  Christianity, being a very assimilative type of faith, does not proscribe or prohibit much outright.  The Apostle Paul (Saint Paul, depending on your tradition) who wrote most of the New Testament says all things are permissible, but not everything is beneficial.  The individual has to determine what is good for themselves and their own.  So many found what was good and true in the culture they occupied and kept those elements.

Where there were conflicts of conscience, people sometimes adapted the holiday to something that fit their new beliefs.  Ok, so we aren't celebrating Thor any more, but as all powers and principalities are subject to the One God, then Father Christmas must also be subject to him...It's not a conscious happening, it's a slow and imperceptible shifting.  Father Christmas, sounds much like the traditions of Saint Nicholas from southern Europe, so those gradually get merged as well.

Now if you are seriously conflicted by any pagan elements in your holiday, by all means, do what your conscience demands.  Paul also says to bear with those who have weaker faith, so I for one won't be in your face about what gives you trouble, just like I won't drink alcohol around an alcoholic or a Baptist.  But for your part, recognize the freedom of those of us who do not feel conflicted about it.  We're not apostate because we let our kids enjoy a gift given in the name of a mythical character or a Saint.  WE aren't worshipping a pagan God when we do it, despite the origin.

And if you're on the other side where you feel your holiday was stolen and perverted by us tyrannical Christians, please remember that you are still free to celebrate whatever you like.  As I described above, most of the assimilation was a natural cultural process and not a decision to abolish or persecute your religion.  I don't doubt that there were times where a state religion prohibited practices in an attempt to mandate what it felt was good.  But that's not what's happening in the West right now.  In fact, in today's world, you're more likely to live in a nation that mandates against Christianity, if it speaks to national religion at all.  So it goes both ways.  Individuals are not nations and nations are not individuals.  Celebrate what you like in the way you like and allow others the same respect, even if you disagree.  This is the definition of political and religious freedom.

Now on to the second topic of assimilation.  Food.  When you eat, your body assimilates the chemicals in that food: proteins, lipids, nutrients, synthetics, etc.  Those things become a part of your body.  Your body knows how to use a lot of those things.  A good deal of them, your body can't use.  Some of them actively break down the processes in your body as it tries to figure out what to do with them.  But since assimilation is a great principle of life on Earth, a natural law, your body has an amazing capacity to take damage.  It will assimilate and assimilate until it is overloaded.  Even useful things can become a problem when there are too many of them. 

Unfortunately, our bodies are so good at assimilating stuff we often don't take notice.  The impacts, are virtually undetectable.  But they are occurring.  We only notice it once it's so far damaged that something actually breaks.  It's the same process all over the natural world.  I'm a water scientist and I see people seep junk into lakes and rivers for decades and then get utterly bewildered when the lake turns green and icky "all of a sudden".  Truthfully, there are usually warning signs if you know what to look for, but people don't pay attention to them in their body or the world around them.

Even the government is not good at watching this.  You see, most of the government employees want to do good, that's why we choose a lower paying career that comes with ample abuse from ignorant people.  But a good deal of the job is about keeping the wheels turning.  In the US especially, it's hard to just say, "whoa, change everything because this isn't working."  So we operate by determining exactly how much we can mess something up before the impacts are too noticeable.  I'm dead serious about this.  It's how the laws are written and how the policies are structured.  It's not a mindset of keeping things healthy, solvent, or sustainable.  It's how much abuse can we take from all the pressures and not fall apart.

The same goes with individual health.  Many people try to sneak just under the line where they crash rather than aim for the healthiest they can be.  Fortunately for someone with a condition like me, my body reacts far more instantly to a bad element than most.  So people say it's a problem with my body and those things don't affect them.  But they DO affect you.  They affect everyone.  I'm like the canary in the coal mine.  My reaction is the magnified and instant representation of what it's doing to you over the decades.

So why play with fire?  If you, unlike me, have a good margin of safety, you won't fall out from a little bad stuff, but it's still bad!  Imagine how healthy you could be if you didn't keep taking in that stuff that's pulling you apart at the cellular level.

Anyway, these have been my thoughts through this Christmas season as I've watched and listened to the world around me.  As we start into a new year, I'd encourage you to take advantage of this marker in time to begin consciously assimilating these ideas about assimilation.  Once you understand the concept, it explains so much of the world around you.  You'll be more insightful, happier, and healthier for it.

Power

Power can never be taken.  It can only be given.  This is absolutely true.  To understand it, though, we have to understand power.

Merriam-Webster defines it as 1. ability to act or produce an effect. 2. possession of control, influence, or authority over others. 3. physical might.

I'm obviously talking about definition 2, but in a less direct way, my statement also applies to 1 and 3.

So regarding power over others, this power can only be given with the consent of those over whom it is exercised.  We don't like to think of it that way because too many of us lay down and roll over to let people have power over us.  We want to feel excused, that there was nothing we could do.  But this is false because no one can physically make you do anything you do not choose to do.

Actually, there's two exceptions.  They can make you hurt and they can make you die.  But they still can't make you do anything they want you to do.  What we call oppression is really just strong coercion.  An oppressor finds something we want and attempts to control our receipt of it contingent upon us doing what they want.  This doesn't always have to be negative.  Many rulers know that positive reinforcement is better than negative in many cases.  In this case we don't tend to call it oppression, but the principle is the same.  We want the reward, so we comply.  Parents use this all the time.

Another side of this coercion complex involves vilifying those who don't comply and making negative examples of them.  This plays on the human tendency to conform and really just greases the wheels of the coercive process.

But it doesn't always work.  If a person or people lose the fear of the consequences, the power is gone.  Unfortunately in our society, one of the largest coercive factors is the idea that death is the ultimate evil.  If life is to be preserved at all costs, the power is handed over.  It simply becomes a matter of the degree to which it is exercised.  But if death is not feared, the ruler is grasping at straws because even pain is not so effective a coercion simply because no ruler can hurt enough people.  sure it may work one on one, but usually this occurs only after someone has already given over too much power in the first place.

Here's some examples.  Ever wonder why Native Americans were not enslaved by the Europeans?  Why would they go to the trouble and expense to catch and ship over Africans when there was an ample supply of primitive people right in their own backyard?  The answer is that they tried.  The problem was that Native Americans were (and still are) an independent and defiant people who do not hand over their power.  Even if one could be taken alive, he or she would not work.  Give them a tool and they'd put it through your head.  Slack the chain and they'd wrap it around your neck.  Pen them up and try to break them, and they'd simply starve to death or take their own life before giving in.  Where do you think that fierce independent streak of American culture came from?  Indians weren't destroyed.  They were absorbed.  The distinct cultures were largely lost, but I am a living example of the assimilated, but not conquered people who have left an indelible mark on American culture.  Truly, modern American culture IS a hybrid of Native and European and African influences.  But I digress.

Secondly, the Christian martyrs, both ancient and modern.  They came from the dominant cultures in which they were found, but lost their fear of death and even pain because of their faith.  While they didn't often resort to violent resistance, they were never conquered and thousands have refused to submit to countless regimes that violated their beliefs.

Third, Muslim martyrs.  The reason Islamic terrorism is so scary is that it can occur anywhere and from anyone.  A people who are not afraid to die do not need to submit.

But I also mentioned torture as often the result of having given up power and attempting to take it back too late.  The best example I know are the Nazi concentration camp victims.  Countless people sat by and watched as they gave up more and more power to the Nazi regime.  Then even when they were being hauled away, few resisted.  Some did.  But not most.

The Christian martyrs are not exactly in this state because they willingly submitted to the torture because of their beliefs in nonviolence.  Since it was willing, they weren't technically abdicating their power, but choosing not to exercise their power out of deference to God, whom they believed to be in control even in that time.  Some were miraculously rescued, others weren't.  But before you go trying to say this proves God doesn't exist or didn't favor them, remember what I said about death not being the ultimate evil.

I want to be clear, that I'm not downplaying the strength of the coercion.  I'm not judging anyone for acting or not acting in any way.  Until we're there, we can't say how we'd react either.  I'm simply pointing out that these were indeed cases where power was given and not taken.

I'm not even saying it is wrong to always allow someone power over you.  Certainly there are cases where it is wise, prudent, beneficial, and even good to submit.  The difference is the understanding of what we're doing.  It is voluntary submission.  No human has power over another by innate right.  It is ALWAYS by the consent of the governed.

This understanding should color our views of those over us.  It should also color our views of those under us.  Doubtless someone will quote the Bible passage about submitting to those in authority because God placed them there.  Yes.  I agree.  What does this have to do with my point?  I still have the choice to submit or not, for good or ill.  I still can't be compelled to do what a ruler says.  And if you are citing this passage, I'd like to also point out the many others about leaders whom God also took down...many through the violent and bloody hands of His people.  So it cuts both ways, pastor.  Are you so certain of which type of leader you are?

So where does this leave us?  Is there a way to act in society?  Yes, I think a mutual respect among all people, a servant leadership that understands it is just that, paired with a diverse and necessary body of others who are no less necessary and no less favored.  While this is an ideal that may be hard to reach (at least in the US), I suggest we at least reclaim the mannered equipoise of many cultures past and present:  Know you have less power than you think you do, and there's always a chance I could be more coercive than you, or at least willing to put you to the ultimate test of defending your power (i.e. I might kill you.)  So let's just be polite and we'll get along fine.

As for a better way, I think we have that as well.  God, being the prime source and beyond our influence altogether, has established that goodness and love flow from Him to us.  Goodness and love draw the recipient toward the giver.  Thus we comply not from coercion, but as a gift back.  It works in the human realm, we've all seen it.  Betrayal is universally denounced.  Good deserves good.  Love deserves love.  It sidesteps the whole power dynamic altogether.  This is how Jesus operated.  This is how many Christians operate.  It just had to start somewhere, and God took care of that for us.  Or rather, He established the universe that way, so we really have no other choice.  To defy it simply negates our own being.  A self-perpetuating system, no punishment necessary.

So I'll leave you with this.  If you are having to manipulate and strive to get people to do what you think they should, you're doing something wrong.  If you have to beg for money or tell people God won't bless them.  If you have to make lighthearted threats to get them to sign up for your program.  You are slipping into the power dynamic, which means you don't have the power in the first place.  Forcing that will be your undoing.

The only winning move is not to play.

Tribal Christianity

If you read this blog, you'll know that I often refer to the natural grouping of humanity as the tribe.  This is not my idea.  It's documented.  Birds form flocks, wolves form packs, humans form tribes.

Like anything, tribal tendencies can be perverted and have been blamed for many of the conflicts in Africa.  So much so that many have called for conscious abandonment of tribalism.  As an aside, I think this is a mistake.  We can't deny what we were made to be.  The conflicts come because the tribal balance was artificially disrupted by the European colonization of these places which drew national lines right through ancient tribal holdings irrespective of their boundaries and told all the people to grow up and be Western.  But that's not my point.

My point is that Christianity is a restoration of things.  As such, it is inherently tribal.  The lifestyle of Jesus and the organization of the early church are very much tribal.  People are given an identity, which is permanent and personal.  They aren't members of...they ARE something.  Membership implies that you join and therefore can unjoin.  It's an affiliation that one chooses.  Tribal belonging is who you are.  You ARE this thing.  It is part of you and you are part of it.  It is less what it is without you, and you are not all you are without it.

It has an identity.  The tribe is about something.  People of that tribe look a certain way, live a certain way, and believe certain things about themselves and the world because they are of that tribe.  Yet the tribe is formed because the people share these things.  The identity is the lifestyle, and the reverse.  (Are you catching the organic bidirectional synergy here?)

They both have the same type of government.  Christianity is organized under leaders who both have a divine appointment, and are confirmed by the community.  This may not be your understanding from your version of Christianity, but research the descriptions of the early church in the Bible and you'll see.  "elders" (your translation may say "Bishops", but that term implies a meaning not in the original) are people God has given an ability to lead, usually experienced and older than the headstrong young.  But they aren't self-appointed.  The tribe selects and confirms them through their natural respect of these people.  Those who are elders will be and those who are not will not be.  No one campaigns for it.  See the synergy again?  A council of elders helps guide the group and everyone participates in the government of the group as they have ability.

Many tribes are run the same way.  Often even calling them elders!  You may have romanticized ideas of tribal kings and chiefs and such, but this is far less the fact than the council of guiders.  Plus in root tribal society, there are usually no laws as we know them.  People are guided by what is "right" and "wrongness" is rejected.  They don't need laws because they all know naturally.  In cases of dispute there are procedures to resolve it, or a split may occur.  Which leads to the next way Christianity is tribal.

Tribes are not always homogeneous.  Within tribes there are bands, within bands, families.  Tribes themselves may sit within nations of related or federated tribes.  Examples include the Iroquois, the Five Civilized Tribes, and the Sioux Nation...to name a few from the US (which I'm most familiar with).  Incidentally, the US governmental system of states and congress was largely patterned after the Iroquois who consulted at the Continental Congress, albeit Westernized with Greek and Roman ideas which the Iroquois were against.  Really...look it up.

So it is no surprise that there might be 41,000 versions of Christianity across the world.  One nation/faith with many tribes/denominations which are full of bands/local churches.  Each may vary in their customs, style, and coping strategies, but they are part of the one nation of God.

I could go on and on about how there is allowance in tribes for geographic and environmental adaptation just as Christianity has diverged and adapted to various cultures and situations, how typical roles in the tribe equate to spiritual gifts described in the Bible, how even the conflicts among Christian groups and other faiths mirror tribal conflicts.  But this is enough to chew on for now.

I encourage you to look it up.  Research the organization of ancient Israel, American tribes, and other tribal societies.  Also check the organization of the early church.  Read the Biblical sources, check the Greek, look at extra-Biblical writings from the same period as the Bible, compare anthropological evidence. Use credible sources and get a diversity of opinions.  I bet you'll come to the same conclusion.

And that makes perfect sense if Christianity is a restoration of the way things were intended to be.  The closer people live to how things were originally intended, the more they should look similar, right?

The next question is of course, what should this understanding mean to us?  But I'll save that for later.

41,000

There are an estimated 41,000 Christian denominations.  This varies depending on how you count, but lower numbers are around 33,000.  Wow.  That's a lot.  And I'm sure this doesn't pick up many 'flavors'  and styles within denominations.

The fact that there are so many doesn't really concern me.  Humans are a persnickity people who love to lump and split and join and faction.  Especially with things so dear to our hearts, like sports teams, and colleges, and fashion styles, landscaping, music, and religion.  I believe this to be a natural, though often perverted and at times over active tendency based in our genetic tribalism.  I've said it before; wolves have packs, birds have flocks, humans have tribes.  Best to simply accept it and move on.

But anyway, the thing that concerns me is what happens amongst Christians...they tend to assume people are on their side.  I can't tell you how many times I've talked to someone who finds out I'm a Christian who then assumes I believe so many things that they associate with it.  When statistically, I'm far less likely to believe what they do.  Of course it would be more prudent to discover a little more about my beliefs before getting into controversial topics, or simply avoid them altogether, but prudence is not a popular quality, nor is logic taught widely enough to achieve the same effect simply from efficiency.

So why do so many people automatically assume I am of their particular bent in what is truthfully quite a diverse pool?  Some of it is probably that people don't really encounter that many of the denominations in their lives.  Many are very small and regionalized, so it's a much smaller set of groups people encounter.  But even if there were only five major groups (I believe most people encounter far more than that) the beliefs could be different enough to teach us we may not be talking to someone who believes like we do.

So then there's training.  Most people really only know one or two in any depth.  Even if they've encountered others.  And if we know more, we're usually taught they are wrong.  This isn't usually the actual teaching, nor the reason the denominations split.  As CS Lewis said, those at the center of the wheel are much closer together than those at the end of the spokes.  If you research it, you'll find it is usually a very minor point of order or belief that caused the split.  Then culture and human nature did the rest.

But to return to the point, people may assume I believe like them, because I wouldn't be where they are, and friendly, if I didn't.  Or else, I've just confessed I do (in their mind) by the use of the term Christian, which they take to mean their version of it (which could be the only version they know).

Then some of it may be due to the fact that we don't talk about it in America.  I truthfully talked more publicly about my faith, and to a much more receptive audience, I might add, in Japan.  Coming from a pluralistic background, and in the safety of their decidedly non-Christian culture, my beliefs were no threat to them.  I was in no danger of wrecking their country with my weird ways.  So they could be genuinely curious and respectful.  I don't know about other countries, but I imagine other cultures range up and down the spectrum of tolerance from my two experiences.

Anyway, we don't talk about religion much in America, so it's almost a cagey thing to even bring up...even in a church.  We aren't used to explaining our beliefs or talking openly about them.  So when someone finds a 'clue' that I might share their beliefs, they drop guard and assume without thinking about the reality.

To branch out a bit, I'm convinced that many people abandon the term Christian altogether for more or less the same reasons.  Some don't want to be associated with the notion they have in their head of one denomination or experience when really their beliefs are very close to many other types of Christianity.  Some don't want others to think they're "one of those people" because of the negative connotation they bring to it.

So doesn't one of these denominations have to be right? How can I be so loose about it?  Well, sure, Truth, by definition can't be pluralistic.  But we're talking about human systems here.  At the root of Christianity there are some basic tenets that most groups will align on.  For one, they all center on the man Jesus.  They may differ on exactly who he was or what he did, but those distinctions are for the individual to root out.  We also all pretty much follow the same moral code...which incidentally we share with every other major world religion because (here's a secret), it wasn't created by Jesus.  It's innate to all humans.  The Bible even talks about this.  The rest is mostly just style, culture, and opinion.

Of course, ruling out all the distinctions for a watery ecumenical faith is not good either.  I'm simply suggesting we, first of all, know what we believe and recognize it as part of a wondrous diversity.  The God who could generate such a world of lifeforms could certainly reflect some diversity in music style and opinion.  Secondly, don't be afraid to explain your beliefs...which is tied to my third point: don't assume others believe the same way.  Go ahead and investigate and decide what's right for yourself.  Then stick to it.  But just because I go to certain place or say a certain thing, doesn't mean I'm also number 31,234...I could just as well be 31,235, or even 14,657!  And my version may just have an answer for the burning problem you want to talk about.

Un"traditional"

Christmas is always a very reflective time for me.  I despise the hokey cheer and even more the consumerism packaged as love and friendship.  To me this is not Christmas.  It might be for some people, but I wish they would just call it something else and leave my holy day to me and those who want to keep it.

This is why I don't get bent about people saying Merry Christmas or celebrating other holidays, even the made up ones.  Great.  If you don't believe what I believe then stop getting in the way.

I don't understand how...no I do understand.  I was going to say I don't get how things get passed off as part of Christmas that have nothing to do with it, but I get that and don't want to belabour it.

Instead I want to focus on what it means to me.  I don't pretend that this is some historically accurate date, or even that it wasn't placed on this date that coincided with other cultural holidays.  That doesn't change what I celebrate.

I think of a young tradesman, struggling with the stigma of a used wife, the scandal of someone else's baby.  The young woman thought to be unfaithful.  The oppressive politics of the day.  The long trip.  He couldn't leave her, legally because she was his wife and had to register too, ethically because she might have the baby any time, and morally because people were judging them.  I think of the frustration at finding no place in such need.

I think of the innkeeper who found what space he could for them.

I think of the birth, alone.  No midwife or doctor.  Did they know what to do?  Had someone prepped them before the trip, just in case?  Even knowing who the child was, doesn't wipe out human fears and concerns.  I've been in many cases where I knew God told me to be, but I had no idea how it was going to work out.

I think of the stable, how God would be born amongst livestock.  He a sheep for slaughter, himself.  I know the smells of livestock, and it can be a comforting smell of genuineness and peace...you don't understand until you've been around it for a while.  I can imagine the animals there yielding their worship to him.  Helping in their way.  Of course I don't think they did anything anthropomorphic, but I have watched creation bend and serve God.  How much more in this instance!

I think mostly of shepherds, living apart from the hustle of life and culture.  The abiding goodness that tends to grow in people like this, even as their roughness and uneducation makes them seem backward and undesirable to many.  It is a subculture of its own.  I think of their excitement.  I wonder who stayed behind with the sheep while the others ran to find the child.  I think how they are the most unlikely herald: the least likely to be believed by the educated, yet the least likely of all to lie about it or spin it.

I think of times when God has broken through my reality and blazed in front of me.  How much more in this setting!

I think of the gift that this was.  For the limitless God, the moving creating breath of God Himself to shed it all and be confined to the most helpless state of a helpless creature.  I think of what this means in the fabric of the universe.  I think of what this means to my life.

I have had real living experience of this person, this God.  And to know that this same person did these things for me is stilling, overwhelming, emotional.

It makes all the traditions of our culture meaningless at this time.  I don't care for trees or decorations or feasts or treats or gifts or family time or warm memories.  I want to slip off into the night and stare at the sky and let the moment of this event flood all over me.  I can't truly help it anyway.  It keeps flooding in even if I don't want it to.

So when you see me at this time of year you'll know why I'm quiet, why my eyes seem wetter than normal, why I keep slipping away to private places, staring out windows.  This is my Christmas.  And you're welcome to share it with me.

You can keep the rest of it.  I have no use for it.

Similarity and Diversity

I am an ecologist by training. I think in systems and relations, and observe to understand. It's an observational science more than experimental. One thing I know is that the world is wondrously complex. There are innumerable interactions in every place we look. Everything is interrelated in a very real physical sense. We can't even explain or understand the greater portion of them. We don't even know what we don't know, but we are constantly learning how processes we thought we understood are not nearly as simple and are sometimes not even valid systems because of it.

At the same time, there are things that always seem to happen the same way. Patterns that repeat. Order in the chaos. Biological structure is similar on large scales. All vertebrates are built very nearly the same. Our organs function very similarly. Plant structure. Biogeochemical processes. And some things are just plain unified. All life on the planet is built of carbon. The major driving energy source is the sun. No vertebrate has more than 4 limbs. The patterns are even more evident on the microscale.

So these two guiding principles rule our world: There is wondrous diversity and complexity within the self-repeating patterns and unifying factors. The diversity is repeated on all levels, as is the sameness.

I realized recently how this applies to Christianity. Even in the Bible itself, we see great diversity among the writers. Even the writers of the New Testament alone. Each Gospel has it's own flavor, it's own focus. It's more than reinterpretations of the same events to different audiences, though this partly explains it. There are real personal differences in what is important to each author. What stood out to them that Jesus did and said is unique. But they all point to certain things in unison.

The other writers also present varying aspects of the faith. John is all about the divinity and the deeper aspects. Luke describes facts in rigid context and detail. Paul sets out grace and rules for living as Christians. Peter charges hard on foundations of the faith. James focuses on the works of the faith. There is so much diversity in their views that it should be no wonder there is so much diversity of denominations today.

But at the same time, one message is imprinted all the way through. The message of Jesus as savior of humanity. And this salvation by grace through faith. To get the fullest expression of the unified message see the creeds. That is what they were for...to distill the rich fertile wealth of the writings of the faith into a few clear and simple sentences.

But within that framework, there is so much room for diversity, for interpretation, for style. It is like ecology. Both of which bear marks of the common origin of both. No one part contains what the whole is. Yet every part is unique and distinct. Just as God himself is one whole in distinct parts. It's amazing how true this holds. Every avenue I explore yields the same principles.

This is the beauty of God's things. The metaphors don't collapse. The symbolics are repeated in fractal patterns over and over and over as you go up or down or sideways through the system.

How sad that we don't recognize this in our own interactions. You can't improve on it.

Space

I had in mind when I created this blog that it would not be a teaching or preaching sort of thing. That it would contain contemplations only, for others to read, evaluate, comment on, and to color their own worlds. To that end I didn't want to post things I had already worked out in my own mind, but only things that were currently passing through.

However, it recently occured to me through a variety of circumstances that if two people start talking about abstractions (like ideas) from vastly different perspectives, they may in fact understand very little of what each other means. So, it would be necessary for them to provide a bit of background to see "where he's coming from". To that end, I may periodically post a few things that most people haven't ever really engaged. These things are pretty much worked out in my own head through long consideration, but so influence my outlook that they may make my often cryptic postings a bit more understandable.

So regarding space...as in the universe...the stuff, or absence thereof, that we live in. Scientists have spent years describing space. Trying to define it, model it, so that we can grasp it. This is useful in many of our technological advancements. And, as with most things on this order of thinking, it blurs into philosophy. It has even crossed into popular culture in many scifi kind of ways, though it usually gets perverted for purposes of the story. A good example is the concept of wormholes. If you read, you might be familiar with a very famous series of books involving tesseracts. These books were also heavily steeped in these 'shape of space' concepts.

So what does space look like? It is considered that space is not actually flat, but wrinkled, like a crumpled ball of paper. If we were a tiny microorganism that could only move across the surface of that paper, in fact so flat that we were effectively 2D, the paper would appear to be exceedingly flat, since our measurements would not be scaled large enough, nor could they pass into the necessary dimensions to picture it as it was. From that perspective, moving from one point to another would require crawling along the surface of the paper. If the paper was 10cm wide, then it would be a 10cm trek to get to the other side. From our perspective out here in 3D, one side of the paper may actually be very close to the other side in 3 dimensional space because it's all crumpled up. If the 2D bug could only jump through the void to the other fold, his trip might be exceedingly shorter.

Now translate this to our world. Measured in three dimensions, space appears immense. But if it is actually folded up in other dimensions, then things that can move through those other dimensions might appear to disappear and reappear in another location, maybe vastly far from the origin. Scientists report seeing quantum particles do this!

Of course this leads to all kinds of Trekkie, Star Gatey notions about space and time travel, but stay with me. (Carl Sagan did an excellent bit on this next portion, which I highly recommend watching online, since it has visuals that I am asking you to imagine in this format.) So let's think about one more dimension above ours...the 4th. Contrary to popular belief, this is not time. Dimensions are squares of the next previous...think back to geometry. A point has no dimensions, but if we string them together we get a line. Now if we square length and graph it, we get width...now we have 2 dimensions (a box). Square that and graph, and we get 3 (a cube). Square 3 and graph and we get 4. But here's the difficulty. We exist in three dimensions, so we can't show a fourth dimension...where would we put it? But for purposes of thinking about it, we can project a 4D object into 3D, like we can draw a cube (3D) on paper (2D). When we do that, we get what is called a tesseract. It's like a picture of a 4D object drawn in 3D. It looks like a cube inside a cube, and if you rotate it across the 4th axis, it passes through itself...Of course it doesn't actually, it just appears to do so in our 3D picture, just like a 2D drawing of a cube appears to have edges passing through other edges, though in reality they don't.

If you're lost at this point, go to Youtube and look up Carl Sagan's thing on 4D and come back. It's short. Ok, done that?...Let's move on.

So, just as Sagan said, a 2D creature, our little bug, would not be able to conceive of a 3D world. If we tried to communicate with it, all it would see of us is a series of flat shapes, like the apple print. Similarly, if the 2D critter were swept up into 3D it would be incomprehensible to him and he might decribe it in a variety of odd ways that would sound more or less insane. Translate that to 3D, and you might imagine some people who have tried to explain wierd phenomena and end up sounding insane. Think of Ezekiel and the whirring wheels. What is that about!? But he isn't alone. There are countless accounts of these sort of ecstatic (ex-stasis, out of the normal state[of existence]) experiences and all are very similar.

So are these things just trips of human psychology? Manifestations of chemical phenomena upon our brains? Materialists think so. But if we believe (as I argue must be the case) that there is an existence greater than what we see in the everyday world, then these accounts would certainly seem to fit the bill. Am I saying that God is really a multidimensional alien? No, far from it. But if He is truly God, He must be multidimensional, and that stands to reason that there may be created beings that exist in more dimensions than we. These beings, if operating in our world, may appear or disappear suddenly as they intersect our dimension, or project something from beyond our dimension...like emmanating light. Could it be that what we call Angels (which really just means 'messenger') are beings existing in dimensions beyond our 3?

Could it further stand to reason that if we were taken up into these other dimensions they may appear to us as incomprehensible and we might babble a bit trying to equate what we have experienced into words that only work in lesser dimensions?

I'm not trying to make theological statements here. I'm simply describing a way to think about these things that lets me make as much sense of it as my brain can handle. This model seems to work pretty well. Of course, I would caution everyone not to stop at this point. By orthodox definition, God is so far above our understanding that anything we can concieve to model Him is necessarily less than He is. So, don't fall off into wierd New Agey stuff. Stick to orthodox understandings. They have the weight of history and the large community of consent to back them up. Without that anchor, you are adrift in treacherous seas. These ideas have been treated numerous times in history, you just have to get past the latest fads and dig into the older stuff...most of which was written in the middle ages...hardly "Dark", any experienced scholar can tell you that was a time of fabulous philosophical and natural learning.

So if this stuff is real, ancient philosophy and modern science confirm it, but can't be described coherantly, then how can we know what is valid from lunacy, fantasy, or lies? That too has been addressed! There are whole treatises on assessing and confirming true "religious experience" (to use the church language) on various levels. Just look it up and you'll see. The internet is a wonderful resource for this kind of stuff as long as you use authoritative sources and resist the urge to self-diagnose. In addition, many modern sources have adapted the older concepts up into our langauge, making it far easier to understand. The first step is understanding the terminology used. Contemplation, Mysticism, Ecstacy, etc. Get a good dictionary (again, online)and look at the old meanings too.

I'm certainly not the only one who thinks these things. Obviously Sagan does. CS Lewis certainly does. These are just two sources of many. As you begin to investigate this as I have, and still do, you will also begin to see that science and religion blur into each other. In fact the conflict is mostly perceived rather than actual. Faith, correctly understood, is perfectly rational. Science, if true, will point to reality, which is God. But this is a whole other discussion that I do not have time for on this blog.

One last point on the subject. Many will inevitably say that other traditions outside Christianity also demonstrate similar experiences. How can one claim supremacy? I can't tell you which is superior. I could give you all my reasons and you would still have to come to that decision on your own. Seek and you will find. But I can at least save you some time and elliminate the common mistake of using similar experience to justify universalism (all ways lead to God) by drawing on one of my greatest teachers, CS Lewis. There are only so many ways that a ship can depart a port. Though the departures may all look alike, the seas they sail and their destinations may be quite different. Take it from this ancient mariner; there truly are far fouler things than orcs in the deep places of the world.