I was recently struck by this idea. It started with a Head song and lingered in the humus of my mind for a long time, several weeks, until it finally sprouted. It is a simple idea, but one that changes perspective on so many things.
As usual, it has a lot to do with the death of the self. Our own pride, self-serving is the biggest problem we face as individuals and in groups, I think. The great I is always vying for control, and it gets it very easily. One of the surest ways to quiet a troubled mind is to get it occupied on someone else...serving someone else. There can be self-centeredness that comes off arrogant and snooty and there can also be self-centeredness that simply focuses on oneself too much. That is, even focusing on changing ourselves is still a form of self-centeredness.
Anyway, when I meditate on the phrase, "His world" it changes so much of my desire and perspective. His sky, His water, His land, His food, His air, His electrons, His life force. What if, just what if, everything was truly and literally God's. He didn't make it and give it to us, or walk away from it. It's all His. I know this sounds like a truism on the surface, but that's the case with most contemplative revelations. But let it sink and and mull it over so that you think it about everything you look at, everything you do. Every breath you take.
I realized, like really felt it become a reality for me, that I am not in the least in control of any moment of my life. My air could stop, my body can break down, illness can overtake me, rocks can fall from the sky, the air I suck in can poison me, my very cells can lose cohesion and my body disintegrate. I no more make the air I suck in replenish the oxygen in my body than I make the sun come up or go down. There is a universe of complex interactions going on around me all the time. I see this as an ecologist. And we humans have nothing to do with it. We take it for granted. There are places that do not even exist for us. Places in this physical world where humans cannot go... yet they exist. For who? Not for us, certainly. For other beings? Perhaps. ('They just do', is not an answer it's a cop out, so quit thinking it. And no good scientist will accept it either. Only the hacks are satisfied with answers like that. A good scientist would answer, "I don't know." There's a big difference.)
As someone who has experienced evidence of the living God, I can say with certainty that they exists ultimately for God. For His pleasure. Sure, He often has other purposes that we can come to know, but that doesn't negate the root reason, even if some secondary reason serves us.
We delude ourselves into thinking we control anything. We plan and when things go our way, we think we've managed risk well. Bull! We didn't control anything. We just pretended to like the kid who thinks that he has special powers when something he desires actually occurs. If things went well it was pure grace, nothing more.
This leads us into a very submissive frame of mind. I control nothing. I am essentially a toy. I feel sophisticated, but that is simply because I couldn't make me. I may very well be more the complexity of a clay figure than an AI robot. How would I know? Yet for all this, I am given special provision. I am touched by the living God. He talks to me. He feeds me. He cares for me better than wildlife, better than livestock, better than a pet. He treats me like a son, and He even sets me over things He's made. He even merged me into Himself, imparted some of His reality, His prime generating powerful self to me.
The Bible clearly confirms this in verses I have read over many times. For His pleasure we were created...fearfully and wonderfully made...we are God's workmanship...in Him we live and move and have our being...through Him all things were made that have been made...yet not even one (sparrow) falls to the ground apart from Him...
It is humbling and liberating. I am not responsible for my own survival, or the survival of others. My family's welfare does not hinge on me. The fate of society and even the world does not hinge on me. I couldn't destroy it if I wanted to. What I do I do not do out of necessity for survival or responsibility, but out of gratitude and service and fun, as the case may be.
Showing posts with label submission. Show all posts
Showing posts with label submission. Show all posts
Friday, July 23, 2010
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Pollen
It's finally warmed up this year. Plants are budding out. Life is returning. It's been an extraordinarily cold year. But now the dry time has hit. We probably won't see much rain until June or July. And right now, the oak trees are blooming. All across this region, the oak trees have gone from dead brown to orange and yellow. Their shaggy flowers dispersing the yellow powder that produces acorns. There's so much of it that cars, houses, sidewalks, are stained yellow. You can actually see it blowing by in the bright light.
For many, this is a minor nuisance, but for increasing numbers this means runny noses, itchy eyes, scratchy throats. It's miserable. I am one of these for whom oak pollen is essentially toxic. I don't know why. Allergies are on the rise. More and more people are affected. I've tried everything, but nothing will really solve the problem.
Perhaps it's that more and more people are surviving childhood and that is allowing weaker genes to pass along. Where when infant mortality was higher, the weaker children didn't make it. Or perhaps, as the great Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki suggests, it is a result of our polluting our world. Perhaps the pollen is actually becoming more toxic, or the pollution we breathe and eat and drink is weakening us so that we can't resist these allergens. I have no idea.
I do know that I have been unable to will this away. I have been unable to treat it entirely, though medicines do help. I have prayed for it to be removed from me, but God has not. So I must bear it. I keep praying, of course, for patience, for resistance, for strength, for it to go away, for rain to wash it out of the air...but ultimately, I just have to endure.
In Japan, cedar trees cause similar problems, so the government cuts them down in populated areas...another aspect of the community spirit and care for each other that is prevalent in that culture. But here, there's no chance of that...it might hurt pharmaceutical sales, which would damage our economy!
But maybe, as Miyazaki suggests, it is cleansing our world, and the toxin will cease after the world has been purified. This sort of Gaia response is not so far fetched to an ecologist. It won't be in my lifetime though. Perhaps I should live in the tundra, or the desert, or somewhere without oaks...but then, it would be another plant.
So in the end, as Easter is upon us and we contemplate the death of Jesus, it is perhaps fitting. If this is all I have to bear, I suppose it is negligible to the sufferings he endured. Even to the sufferings of many around the world today. I am weak and soft and self-centered. But I commit this, as I must do all things, to Him. He is my hope, my salvation, my comfort. May I keep perspective and accept what I cannot change. The Unmodify Method I've described in recent posts has been difficult for me in this. But I'm trying to embrace it.
Happy Easter.
For many, this is a minor nuisance, but for increasing numbers this means runny noses, itchy eyes, scratchy throats. It's miserable. I am one of these for whom oak pollen is essentially toxic. I don't know why. Allergies are on the rise. More and more people are affected. I've tried everything, but nothing will really solve the problem.
Perhaps it's that more and more people are surviving childhood and that is allowing weaker genes to pass along. Where when infant mortality was higher, the weaker children didn't make it. Or perhaps, as the great Japanese animator Hayao Miyazaki suggests, it is a result of our polluting our world. Perhaps the pollen is actually becoming more toxic, or the pollution we breathe and eat and drink is weakening us so that we can't resist these allergens. I have no idea.
I do know that I have been unable to will this away. I have been unable to treat it entirely, though medicines do help. I have prayed for it to be removed from me, but God has not. So I must bear it. I keep praying, of course, for patience, for resistance, for strength, for it to go away, for rain to wash it out of the air...but ultimately, I just have to endure.
In Japan, cedar trees cause similar problems, so the government cuts them down in populated areas...another aspect of the community spirit and care for each other that is prevalent in that culture. But here, there's no chance of that...it might hurt pharmaceutical sales, which would damage our economy!
But maybe, as Miyazaki suggests, it is cleansing our world, and the toxin will cease after the world has been purified. This sort of Gaia response is not so far fetched to an ecologist. It won't be in my lifetime though. Perhaps I should live in the tundra, or the desert, or somewhere without oaks...but then, it would be another plant.
So in the end, as Easter is upon us and we contemplate the death of Jesus, it is perhaps fitting. If this is all I have to bear, I suppose it is negligible to the sufferings he endured. Even to the sufferings of many around the world today. I am weak and soft and self-centered. But I commit this, as I must do all things, to Him. He is my hope, my salvation, my comfort. May I keep perspective and accept what I cannot change. The Unmodify Method I've described in recent posts has been difficult for me in this. But I'm trying to embrace it.
Happy Easter.
Monday, August 31, 2009
The Problem of Suffering
I'm back on this again. It's a hard topic for me, and one that I keep running into. Mainly because our modern American popular "Christianity" is so much about what God can do for us. The Bible is clear that Christianity is not about fixing all your problems. Most people acknowledge this. But then they make half-baked statements in the middle of sermons like, "How do you know God's voice from a deception? Well, first of all, God will never tell you to do something that harms your health." This is absolutely false! Was Jesus deceived when God led him to the cross? That certainly harmed his health! What about all the martyrs? Was Paul totally deceived because he kept saying things that got him beaten or imprisoned? Come on!
Now, I understand how easy it is to mis-speak in the midst of a speech. And I am confident that if confronted in a calmer setting this same person would not at all really mean what he said, but the fact remains that he did say it publicly, and that is the burden of any public teacher. People heard what was said and will take it at face value whether he meant it that way or not...a falsehood by accident is still a lie. Ironic that it came in a sermon about deceptions!
But more difficult for me than this is how people treat the topic of God's role in suffering. I'm not going into the tired old 'how could a good God..." argument, you can read the thousands of books on that as well as I can. What bothers me more is this. Many people argue that a good God couldn't make people suffer, but He could allow it for a greater purpose. I totally agree with this. It is consistent with the Bible and historic teaching. But some go further and say that an all-knowing God allowing people to suffer means He must have purposed the suffering in some way...and that isn't good, therefore He couldn't even allow it. This creates an impasse, since suffering does exist. Is He just impotent in this way? That doesn't work! So, many modern people explain it by saying that God doesn't purpose the suffering but is big enough in His omniscience to use the sufferings of our fallen world for His purposes. He won't violate our will even enough to stop the suffering.
But is that love? What parent wouldn't violate their child's will to seize their hand going for the hot stove? And if He is big enough in His omniscience to work good from the bad that He has no part in, isn't He big enough to find a way to get around the undeserved suffering without violating our free will? See this just doesn't work in my mind. I would say the people who espouse this are just wrong, if it weren't coming from some very respected sources. I trust these people's judgement far too much to dismiss it. I may very well be missing something.
So, what options might exist? There's the medeival view of a God that has some sort of backward sense of good and finds mortal pain to be pleasure...but this seems to me more fetish or perhaps misinterpretation of words that took on a very jargoned meaning for those groups. (Just like the Romans thought that Christians were orgiasts from the outside observations of their behaviors and from overhearing how they talked to each other.)
But what about the view that God is a parent? This is common in the Bible. Any parent knows that disciplining a child means inflicting some form of suffering. A good parent knows how to do it in a correcting and nurturing way, but it involves scolding, punishing, restricting...depriving of free will. No good parent would even think they could raise a child without proper application of these tools, even if the child feels bad...suffers...temporarily by it. We know it will work good in the end and they will be better off when they come to see it. Does this not much better fit the problem of suffering than all the mental gymnastics it takes to make it work otherwise? In this view, we simply need to acknowledge our own limited perspective (orthodox) and view ourselves as children (biblical) and God as the loving parent (natural). This seems to resolve the whole issue. If we suffer, God isn't limiting Himself out of His love for our free will ("go ahead honey, grab the stove if you must, I'll be able to nurse your wounds after so good will come of it, even if you don't see that I love you now."...how sick!) Rather, He is using the same tools He has modeled for us in our natural lives to train us and work His purposes. Therefore the suffering isn't really bad...but a sign of higher love.
This all breaks down again when we talk about heinous evils that some people suffer. It would be far too severe to say that rape or child abuse are training up by a parental God. So, I'm back where I started. And when logic goes in a circle, it is prudent to simply say, "I don't know." This is beyond me. I can't explain it. But I know from experience, from philosophical proof, and from authority that God is good, must be good. I also know that bad things happen, even to good people. I can only trust that my Daddy is not going to hurt me or those I love one ounce more than is absolutely necessary to work His purposes, which are always good.
There are some things that words cannot embody. Where they fail, sometimes we must look to other means of communication. When I plead this before God asking for clarity, I find only the most loving embrace. And in that, I know there is no malice. In that, I find myself letting go of my will to self and knowing my existence is beyond any mortal suffering.
God, make your presence known to all who are suffering tonight.
Now, I understand how easy it is to mis-speak in the midst of a speech. And I am confident that if confronted in a calmer setting this same person would not at all really mean what he said, but the fact remains that he did say it publicly, and that is the burden of any public teacher. People heard what was said and will take it at face value whether he meant it that way or not...a falsehood by accident is still a lie. Ironic that it came in a sermon about deceptions!
But more difficult for me than this is how people treat the topic of God's role in suffering. I'm not going into the tired old 'how could a good God..." argument, you can read the thousands of books on that as well as I can. What bothers me more is this. Many people argue that a good God couldn't make people suffer, but He could allow it for a greater purpose. I totally agree with this. It is consistent with the Bible and historic teaching. But some go further and say that an all-knowing God allowing people to suffer means He must have purposed the suffering in some way...and that isn't good, therefore He couldn't even allow it. This creates an impasse, since suffering does exist. Is He just impotent in this way? That doesn't work! So, many modern people explain it by saying that God doesn't purpose the suffering but is big enough in His omniscience to use the sufferings of our fallen world for His purposes. He won't violate our will even enough to stop the suffering.
But is that love? What parent wouldn't violate their child's will to seize their hand going for the hot stove? And if He is big enough in His omniscience to work good from the bad that He has no part in, isn't He big enough to find a way to get around the undeserved suffering without violating our free will? See this just doesn't work in my mind. I would say the people who espouse this are just wrong, if it weren't coming from some very respected sources. I trust these people's judgement far too much to dismiss it. I may very well be missing something.
So, what options might exist? There's the medeival view of a God that has some sort of backward sense of good and finds mortal pain to be pleasure...but this seems to me more fetish or perhaps misinterpretation of words that took on a very jargoned meaning for those groups. (Just like the Romans thought that Christians were orgiasts from the outside observations of their behaviors and from overhearing how they talked to each other.)
But what about the view that God is a parent? This is common in the Bible. Any parent knows that disciplining a child means inflicting some form of suffering. A good parent knows how to do it in a correcting and nurturing way, but it involves scolding, punishing, restricting...depriving of free will. No good parent would even think they could raise a child without proper application of these tools, even if the child feels bad...suffers...temporarily by it. We know it will work good in the end and they will be better off when they come to see it. Does this not much better fit the problem of suffering than all the mental gymnastics it takes to make it work otherwise? In this view, we simply need to acknowledge our own limited perspective (orthodox) and view ourselves as children (biblical) and God as the loving parent (natural). This seems to resolve the whole issue. If we suffer, God isn't limiting Himself out of His love for our free will ("go ahead honey, grab the stove if you must, I'll be able to nurse your wounds after so good will come of it, even if you don't see that I love you now."...how sick!) Rather, He is using the same tools He has modeled for us in our natural lives to train us and work His purposes. Therefore the suffering isn't really bad...but a sign of higher love.
This all breaks down again when we talk about heinous evils that some people suffer. It would be far too severe to say that rape or child abuse are training up by a parental God. So, I'm back where I started. And when logic goes in a circle, it is prudent to simply say, "I don't know." This is beyond me. I can't explain it. But I know from experience, from philosophical proof, and from authority that God is good, must be good. I also know that bad things happen, even to good people. I can only trust that my Daddy is not going to hurt me or those I love one ounce more than is absolutely necessary to work His purposes, which are always good.
There are some things that words cannot embody. Where they fail, sometimes we must look to other means of communication. When I plead this before God asking for clarity, I find only the most loving embrace. And in that, I know there is no malice. In that, I find myself letting go of my will to self and knowing my existence is beyond any mortal suffering.
God, make your presence known to all who are suffering tonight.
Wednesday, August 5, 2009
Authority and Submission
Wow, this could be a big topic. But I'll try to keep to the point. I have a huge problem with authority. I much more naturally go for the DIY. The thing is, I'm not afraid to do the work myself so that I don't have to rely on the authority alone. Call it a Berean thing. I'm just not going to take your word for it.
But there are some things we can't work out on our own. Some things we just can't know...at least not now, given the knowledge and experience we have at the moment. And there are some things that we have to take on authority. The key to authority though, is trust. That's why I have a problem with human authority. People are fallible. Sometimes we are forced to accept human authority, and I can do this. I don't like beating my head against the wall.
But then there's God's authority and that is a whole different animal. Today, I heard someone talking on the radio about this very thing. In this case there is no fallibility. His authority is not conferred, and therefore can't be questioned. It is what it is. A good deal of being a Christian is coming to understand just how true this is. As the teacher was saying on the radio, how many of us only want to recognize the nice Jesus. Few of us ever want to think about the Lord of lords Jesus. The Captain of the Host. The Master of the elements. The one before whom even rebellious demons bow and obey. Even if we acknowledge this God, we don't often think of what that means for us. This same fierce magnanimous absolute Ruler is our very Ruler. Our Master. This is what being a Christian means. We have enlisted. Accepted that role. Taken our place under His authority. Submitted. So when He tells us to go, we should go. When He tells us to wait, we should wait. And when He tells us to trust, or change, or endure so we should. Regardless of feeling, regardless of ability. When that very same power and authority that spun the universe into motion and knows the path of every quark and particle, the one that routs armies and defeats death, turns His eye on us, how much more should we comply like plastic putty to His will! Especially when that same mouth that erupts flaming power and thunder bends low to kiss us gently and those blazing hands stroke our head lovingly.
In the love and devotion that we feel for our Lover let us never forget that this same is Brighter than any star, hotter than any flame, sharper than any sword, fiercer than any warrior, and is capable of obliterating us as if we never were with the merest inkling. Thank God, His love is as deep as His power is absolute. Fear it, embrace it, tremble in it, and submit to it. In this undoing of the self before such devastating power we are remade in the form that He wishes us to take. Abandon to it and find all that was missing! When He commands my soul, even I can't stand in my way.
But there are some things we can't work out on our own. Some things we just can't know...at least not now, given the knowledge and experience we have at the moment. And there are some things that we have to take on authority. The key to authority though, is trust. That's why I have a problem with human authority. People are fallible. Sometimes we are forced to accept human authority, and I can do this. I don't like beating my head against the wall.
But then there's God's authority and that is a whole different animal. Today, I heard someone talking on the radio about this very thing. In this case there is no fallibility. His authority is not conferred, and therefore can't be questioned. It is what it is. A good deal of being a Christian is coming to understand just how true this is. As the teacher was saying on the radio, how many of us only want to recognize the nice Jesus. Few of us ever want to think about the Lord of lords Jesus. The Captain of the Host. The Master of the elements. The one before whom even rebellious demons bow and obey. Even if we acknowledge this God, we don't often think of what that means for us. This same fierce magnanimous absolute Ruler is our very Ruler. Our Master. This is what being a Christian means. We have enlisted. Accepted that role. Taken our place under His authority. Submitted. So when He tells us to go, we should go. When He tells us to wait, we should wait. And when He tells us to trust, or change, or endure so we should. Regardless of feeling, regardless of ability. When that very same power and authority that spun the universe into motion and knows the path of every quark and particle, the one that routs armies and defeats death, turns His eye on us, how much more should we comply like plastic putty to His will! Especially when that same mouth that erupts flaming power and thunder bends low to kiss us gently and those blazing hands stroke our head lovingly.
In the love and devotion that we feel for our Lover let us never forget that this same is Brighter than any star, hotter than any flame, sharper than any sword, fiercer than any warrior, and is capable of obliterating us as if we never were with the merest inkling. Thank God, His love is as deep as His power is absolute. Fear it, embrace it, tremble in it, and submit to it. In this undoing of the self before such devastating power we are remade in the form that He wishes us to take. Abandon to it and find all that was missing! When He commands my soul, even I can't stand in my way.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Suffering
Suffering is a difficult concept. We all know that it does not feel good to suffer. Bad things are part of life, but who wants them? Various traditions deal with it in different ways. In my tradition, it is taught that since God is in total control and is totally good, suffering of those who love God is a matter of growth. In this light it can even be a blessing to suffer. The martyrs and ascetics positively gloried in it. I can understand this, but I must qualify that it is only so in the context of those who love God. How deeply this holds true, I can't say. While in my naivety I once thought that ultimate suffering was good and that I could handle it, I have long since left the plain of the hard-minded. There is definitely a suffering that is just evil. Suffering that I would not wish on anyone, no matter what. Rape and beating of children are easy examples. But there are many other sufferings that we would not wish on people.
So I find myself in a tension...strung between two wires. The one understanding that God can allow suffering to purify and to draw us to his love. The other hating the suffering caused by evil and wanting to alleviate it at all costs.
But I guess it is in that tension that there is the most truth. To suffer in peace and understand that God will work His good in spite of and through it while seeking to lighten the load and resolve suffering and injustice. How we talk about it should depend on the understanding of who we are talking to. I see this in Jesus' life and words. Tender to the hurting, angry toward those who inflict it, and humbly submissive toward God who led Him through it.
So I find myself in a tension...strung between two wires. The one understanding that God can allow suffering to purify and to draw us to his love. The other hating the suffering caused by evil and wanting to alleviate it at all costs.
But I guess it is in that tension that there is the most truth. To suffer in peace and understand that God will work His good in spite of and through it while seeking to lighten the load and resolve suffering and injustice. How we talk about it should depend on the understanding of who we are talking to. I see this in Jesus' life and words. Tender to the hurting, angry toward those who inflict it, and humbly submissive toward God who led Him through it.
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