Can't

This is one of those words. You hear people say things like, "Can't isn't part of my vocabulary." and other quippy phrases that have been recycled ad nauseum by every dumb jock that ends up in front of a camera. It's popular to think positively, and that is not totally invaluable, as cleche as it has become.

Even Christians have absorbed that mentality. It isn't unfounded. "I can do all things..." and so forth. But we shouldn't ignore the other side of can't. It's an essential side that is so unpopular that Christians very rarely ever bring it up.

The truth is that Christianity starts at can't. It is the genesis of the Christian. Before the power of the saving faith can be realized, we first have to give up. The seed has to fall to the ground and die before the tree grows. To follow Christ is to understand our need for Him; to know that we can't make it on our own. Make it to heaven...sure. But I mean more practically than that. We can't get by well in life without Him.

Recently someone debated against my assertion that every Christian must first be broken. They raised good points and I realize how they got to their conclusions, but I think our disagreement was more semantic. However, I do admit that we can't judge. I am not saying that those who have had a seemingly middle-class Christianity aren't really Christians. How could I know? What I know is what I have experienced...what I have witnessed, to reclaim the term the Evangelicals have destroyed. To wit, that the moment of deepest power comes to me and many others I know and have known at the moment when we give up.

Often, for someone like me, that realization comes far too late or far too early. Far to late because I am apt to drive myself into the ground before letting go of a stubborn idea. And far too early because, in other circumstances, I am apt to not even try. But in that moment when I truly realize my inadequacy and step aside...there is the amazing reality of God.

I have been practising it lately. Radically giving over to God, that is; consciously opening a space to let Him do what He will. The awesome thing is He has not yet even once failed to do something. It's as if He's been standing there listening to me talk about Him and what I would like Him to do, and just waiting on me to finally ask Him directly. I'm not going to build some theorum or process out of it. It's a living relationship that I am grossly undercapable of understanding. But this is what I'm seeing.

Next for me is to learn how to give credit where it's due. Not vague assents, not euphemisms that could imply God without offending those who choose not to see it that way. Not luck. Not "these things happen." Not "clean living", or a "charmed life." If God has done something I should say just that. How did it happen? Because God did it. Not because I'm special, but because I surrendered to Him and let Him work what He said He would work.

I'm going to keep trying this as long as I can hold onto it in my head. God keep me from distractions that squeeze it out.

As a friend and mentor (whom God incidently used in spite of himself...only proving my point even further) once said, "I think I can, I think I can. No! I don't think I can. In fact, I think I probably can't! But God can."

Child

I read a lot of things. I look for Truth in all places. One thing I've learned is that not one prescription fits everyone. There are ultimate Truths, but below that there are so many variations. Ecology teaches us this too. There is not one single path, not ten, but thousands, millions of interactions that make up any system. Grasping this is liberating in one sense, but difficult in another.

It is liberating because of just what I'm saying...people are built differently. It is liberating to me because I find it hard to be certain that one way is right...how do I trust that it is? What if it's false? This is not just a simple question as it might seem to those who think linearly. For example, suppose we trust something because it came from a trusted source, but what if the trusted source learned it wrong and is in himself mistaken or deceived without meaning any harm? What if the source conveyed it right, but I misunderstood, or misheard, or forgot something important...all of which we do as humans every day. We all have. If you trace this out far enough, there is no end, no knowledge, no surety...only doubt and oblivion. It's called nihilism and this is my hell. I lived in it for years.

True to form, I didn't escape it by finding the right path. There are no paths. Just a jungle, living and wild and trackless. I didn't even escape. I was pulled out by a force beyond myself. A force with a face, and a body, and a voice, and a personality. I don't understand how, I barely believe it. But I know someone reached into...no not reached into...exploded like nuclear holocaust...manifested in me. If I did anything, it was nothing more than a whisper, like Harry's soul floating up toward a dementor. It was a primal cry...but even that may have been nothing more than the aura, the pretremor of the blast that was already occurring from this God arriving.

Anyway, I digress. Knowing that things are not so linear means I don't have to find the right way. I just have to be in the right way...if that makes any sense. I don't have to worry that I'm not on the exact path of the millions that intertwine with millions more intersections by which I might accidentally slip off the right path. I know we teach faith that way, but we misuse the narrow way metaphor. So for someone like me, I don't have to fret that at each of those junctures I might go astray because as long as I'm on the course toward the end goal, I'll get there one way or the other; over, under, or around, I'll arrive at the end result. This is liberating if you think like me.

It's difficult as well because there is no way to know for sure. It's hard to trust anyone or anything. Do I take action, or wait? Go or stay? Do more, or less, or make no change? I can read all kinds of stuff about how to decide, how to follow God, how to give things to God. But it's all just part of the jungle. Is the confidence of these authors faked, or genuine? Is the source of it real or imagined? Is it God or self-help in a Christian wrapper? It leaves me wanting something sure and unable to find it. I just want a road sign. Something indisputable and direct. But you don't find that in the real world. These are human inventions and humans are fallible.

So in times like these, I find myself sinking into that black mire again as I become more and more paralyzed the more I try to discern. That's when I can only cry out again. I can't figure it out. If you can that's great, and I'm happy for you...really I am. But I am the lost two-year old crying in the aisle. I can only stand there and wail until my Daddy finds me and picks me up.

God of Mosh

I recently went to a place that had a session about spiritual experience in the charismatic sense. While not rising to the point of "charismania" as in people falling over and such, it was something different.

I kept an open mind. But the belief that "speaking in tongues" (meaning jabbering unintelligible and repetitive syllables) is a sure mark of the presence of the Holy Spirit on someone is hard for me to swallow...pun intended. Now I love these people. I know many of them and I have not found a more genuine, giving, loving group anywhere. I'm dead serious about that. But I don't know about this thing.

Sure people will come up when you repeatedly ask them to with music playing and hype to excite them. Who that genuinely wants to know God wouldn't hazard the experience if it truly was real and the excitement makes us feel bold. But people dance on tables at bars and go crazy at concerts too for the same reason...even nondrunk people. I've seen it.

So I was there and part of me wanted to try it too. Just to see if it would occur beyond myself. I'm a skeptic really. But I didn't go because I hate being pulled into something I don't want to do and once up there, sure enough, experienced people came up and were asked to start praying in tongues with each person until the new people started. This is mass hypnosis at it's classic! You get four people who obviously want something to happen and are emboldened by the hype and then have modelers right in their ears encouraging them with things like, "hamshalasonda amelashonda" said over and over again. It just sounds hebraic. Others use different sounds. Of course they'll feel the urge rise up and begin to do it. But if I didn't, then I'm refusing the Spirit or something. I just couldn't do it there.

Now I think there is a possibility that it might be real. If so, it's never happened to me, though I know I've had spiritual experiences which are ranked pretty intense by people who study these things. Even others who are far more active and prominent for God haven't done it. Does that mean they're missing something? Obviously if jabbering like that is a real spiritual experience it isn't one that indicates any kind of status. So what might it be?

I think I know. Whether inspired by God or just part of the human condition, it is a release. It is an unburdening of the spirit simply by letting things go for a time. This I have experienced. But for me it isn't jabbering. It occurs in movement.

I remember the first time I discovered dance. Just free expression through movement. I was hooked. But it wasn't until I entered a mosh pit that I had what I would truly call a spiritual experience. I'm not kidding! If people can jabber (I actually heard someone saying "blah, blah, blah" as their "spiritual language") then I can thrash. You see, it isn't about hurting people or any of the other things you might have heard...though that can occur. At the best moshes, it is simply unbridled physical expression. Bodies moving and giving kinetic voice to the passions inside them. Everyone has a different "language" or style. Some lyrical, some angry, some bouncy, some vertical, some horizontal, some arms, some legs, some heads. Bodies impact because they are sharing the experience. Just like mystic tribal ceremony pain is ignored, not even felt in the euphoria. Truthfully, I can't wait to do it in front of God. To stand in His manifest presence and hear the music of all music and let it all go. Even David moshed wildly in his underwear in shear joy!

I found God in a mosh pit. I have felt the Spirit descend upon me and I have moved uncontrollably, untiring, for sustained periods of time which I am not even aware of.

And it's not just moshing. Later, after that scene had closed down in my area, I orbited into gothic circles and found similar experience there in a more raving and technical style, yet still as free and released and unique.

Now I thank God for this gift, as He is the giver of all good things. I also recognize that most of the people around me were not doing it for Him and may even outwardly reject Him. But that is precisely His mercy in action. He gives His release even to those who do not deserve it. We are all brothers in the pit. One unity.

Of course I've seen it perverted and usurped, but a good pit will even recapture that from those who would destroy the purity of it. And even some bands were good about preserving their pits as places of joy and release rather than perversion and destruction. But isn't this remarkably like "speaking in tongues", down to the guidance from the pastor and the order preserved by the crowd?

So as I was sitting there meditating on this in the midst of the cacaphony, I felt a slight uplift. An urge to release myself. But it was not to speak. The only urge I had was to tear up. I wanted to rip down the stage, knock people over, tear the cords from the horrible singers mic and keyboard. I didn't hate anyone. I wasn't mad. I just wanted to wreck the place. Why is that? It scares me somewhat, though I know it would probably have abated as soon as the pain from the first punch through the drywall set in. I would only have really gone ape if they had tried to restrain me and make me participate...then people would have gotten hurt, but that is for other reasons which I won't digress into now.

I truly don't know why that feeling comes over me. I have had only two reactions in a church setting when I let it go. First is uncontrollable sobbing. I mean deep, nose running eyes wet heaving sobs. The second is the urge to go wild, to take the place apart. Is that an indication of my true self, or a deep seated flaw in my personality? i truly don't know. But I trust my God to handle me. And I feel His pleasure when I can be so free.

As for speaking in tongues in that sense, I'll have to continue being skeptical until someone can help me understand one on one or until God drops me on the floor babbling myself. I ask that He will show me if it is real.

How Could You

I don't usually post this kind of thing, but I think I need to get it off my chest. It hits me time and again and I have never been able to come to terms with it.

I once knew a group of people that changed my life. I learned from them, they helped form me into the adult I am, though they probably didn't realize the impact they were having. Truthfully, it wasn't all the people, but the context of the group. We shared a faith that was a breath of fresh air to me. Having been raised in a much more stifled religious community and questioning it, I met these people who lived what I wanted. Faith was central, but conformance was not. What was sacred was, what wasn't was disregarded. Tradition for its own sake was abandoned. We lived and shared many things together. Over a few years people came and went and the group ran its course as they all tend to do. I was even one of the advocates to let it go once the end was apparent. This is all good and I take no issue with it.

What I do take issue with is something which I have never been able to convey, partly because I am too passionate about it to control my emotions, even more than a decade later, and partly because I don't want to hurt anyone, and partly because I am always afraid I am wrong. This is the fact that so many have forgotten their first love. They have turned away from that free and beautiful faith that defined us into all manner of apostasies and even perversions of varying degrees.

Those about whom I write (should they ever read this [which is highly unlikely]) know that I mean these terms literally and not with the usual religious connotations. So that apostasy is a falling away from what they once believed and perversion is any twisting of truth. I say this because I want to be very clear that the cultural lines this group recognized were not the same as most of popular Christianity, though theologically we were very orthodox.

How could you do this? How could you express so tearfully your pains and your hope? How could you plead so passionately for God's will? How could you speak so boldly about the truth? And then reject it.

We all have doubts. We all have seasons of warm and cold, wet and dry, mountain and valley. But you yourselves claimed and proclaimed this and that God is big enough to handle it.

I would think this a season, but to see such utter rejection is too much! You make light of God's mercy and forbearance. To completely think it false?! To reject even his very existence?

If you are hurt because something went bad for you and you did not receive the help you expected, admit it and we can move on; God's arms and mine are waiting wide for you. If you believed wrongly and think differently because of some reasoning, we can work through it. But don't throw out the baby, the tub, and the bathroom with it! If you believed it once there is something to it still. Perhaps the sticking point you have is valid and your old belief system needed to be razed. But the One that drew you is still there. He is real. Don't you remember? Don't you feel the longing in your soul? Or if life has hardened you so much, do you not at least remember the feeling of longing and the satisfaction of feeling His presence?

Or were you just such a good liar? Did you fool me and others into thinking your words, motives, and actions were real? Perhaps you think that is the truth...but I don't believe it. While you might think you are so good at lying, I know from my own experience that we rarely are as good at it as we think. I saw through you. I knew what was real and what was put on more than you think. Chances are many of us did. And there is something lovely and fragile and light in your heart of hearts. This thing is the spark of the real you.

Don't forget it. I stand here waiting, praying for you. It was real. I was there. Even if you doubt it now, I was there and stand here to confirm that it was not a sham. I was there when God spoke through you all. I saw glimpses of your true self. You are the Forgiven. There is nothing to hide from, nothing rejecting you. I am standing here waiting for you and I'm not alone.

I made it

I have recently been struck over and over again with how many of our problems are of our own making. We contrive some system or institution, which becomes so ingrained that we don't want to change from it and many can't imagine anything else. Then we see problems in it and begin to solve them by more contrivances. It's like putting sugar in tea and then inventing a machine to make the tea unsweet.

In another example, I have been wrestling for the past 6 months with a 96 page permit from one government agency to the agency I work for. The permit is to operate a storm sewer system. The permit stipulates 90 pages of things we have to do to ensure that the system doesn't pollute surface waters. We have to report back to the agency that issued it all the ways we are complying. So I have been going around to various departments in the agency I work for who don't in the least think about stormwater and trying to tell them they have to comply...which of course they ignore, so I have to figure out how the stuff they are already doing fits the very specific things the permit tells us to do. All the while not actually doing anything to prevent pollution from really getting in the water.

Why do we need the permit? Because the way we build storm sewers lets pollution get into waterways? Why do we need storm sewers? Because our cities and vehicles aren't built around the natural drainage. So where does the pollution come from? From the way we build the cities via the way we build the storm sewers. This problem was realized in the 1970's and many things have been cleaned up, so it isn't hopeless. But in this case we don't want to do anything different because it is hard to change the laws and rules about building which we created for ourselves. So instead we create permits that don't do anything but create paperwork and massive programs that pretend to comply with it. And when a rational group of people found out and recently sued the government for not actually cleaning up the pollution and won, the result was an even more complex permit requiring things that look like we're doing something without really having to which results in even more complex compliance programs to look like we are complying with the permit that wouldn't result in fixes even if we really did everything it asks for.

The crazy thing is we could sum up the entire body of law in one sentence: Keep the water clean. But enter the lawyers and they say how clean, what does clean mean, what does keep mean, endlessly trying to avoid simply doing what common sense tells us to do.

I recognize this is an over-simplification...but at the root, the problem is that the system is an over-complication. Be polite, share, keep things clean, don't hurt people even accidentally. Endlessly chasing pillow and plate is the way of the sinful world and that's bad enough. But we go so far beyond even just chasing those things.

So how do I get off this train? I think I have to own the problem first of all. Getting off is not so hard if I were not constantly over-complicating. Even the very device I'm using to type this
is part of that over-complication...and I have a free OS on a rock-bottom no-contract service. All I have to do is walk away like Francis. But I keep cutting away small things without just biting the bullet and letting it all go. Trying to find ways of edging toward the thing without actually having to go there. Fears, paradigms, lies, and temptations.

Who cares?

I am SO not the mainstream. That would sound like a cheesy poser line if I was spouting it in public. But in this case, I mean it as a not so surprising self-discovery. I could go off on that tangent, but I'm going to try to make a point.

I recently heard and read about this debate over high heels. Good/bad, subjugation/liberation, etc. I won't repeat the argument; look it up yourself. I felt like I ought to have an opinion here. Everyone else seems to. Instinctively I fell toward the side that they are subjugation and bad since I'm told they hurt and they prevent the wearer from being able to do anything remotely physical...which could actually be dangerous in a life-threatening context and contribute nothing to survival value. But that tipped me off to my opening statement. Who else even thinks like that? I'm sure some people do, but not the bulk.

So then I heard a statement that the type of beauty most appreciated in a woman is not what comes from the artificial posture induced by heels or from the sex-is-power persona that many women try to adopt. I agree with this too in very strident ways. But then I read some of the counters to that argument...one, not ironically, from someone who uses a pinup as the logo for her female-centered blog. (Proving the previous point, yeah?) Anyway, in those arguments for heels I can see how it might not be totally evil and certainly wasn't developed as a hobbling tool. So this side portrays the arguments against heels as bra-burning tactics.

That's when I reached my final conclusion...Incidentally this whole scene took about 10 minutes start to finish...I don't really care. Wear them, don't wear them...I just don't care. If you do, know they don't make you any more or less impressive to anyone who matters. You can be equally impressive and independent and confident without uncomfortable shoes. If you don't wear them because of some agenda, you're probably being silly; there are bigger fish to fry.

But that's not all. I have also been recently bombarded by political ads and commentary. OK, you know what, I don't care about that either. It is wrong to have to play games and deal around the politics to get something done for society. Government should do it because it's good and right. Debate should simply center on whether that is the case or not. So I refuse to play the game of lobbying and vote haggling. And for those of you who aren't invovled in government and therefore never really experience that, you aren't getting it right. I don't care which side of the mystical two party fence you fall on. You are two aspects of the same thing. To paraphrase what someone recently wrote, regardless of which side you're on, that means the other half has it all wrong. What kind of system can work when half the players are pulling the wrong levers? Which is even more clever a statement than the author intended because it proves the point that the two parties are not really as opposed as they hype. That's why the system can function at all. If one of the two sides was really that bad (whichever it side might be) the system must needs fail. Since it doesn't collapse so easily, they must not really be so different on the issues which keep the system running...for one they agree that the system should function as it does: votes, two parties, campaigning, etc.

But I'm getting off my point. The point is, everyone has an opinion, everyone wants to make it heard. Everyone needs to get their words in on the hot topics. I don't care!

What do I care about? Having food in my belly and a safe place to sleep. Enjoying my family and my life. Doing things that better the world around me in some fashion. Helping those who are placed within my reach to help. Being whole and at peace. These are the things I care about. I'm sick of listening to that other crap.

Good News

The word Gospel means good news. It is derived through a long series of languages and changes. It has become so accepted that many Bible translations use it as the translation (i.e. they don't use the modern English equivalent for the original word, they simply say "Gospel"). But what is it?

The New Testament is pretty clear about it. In 1 Corinthians 15:1 and on it says,
Now I would remind you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the Scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.

OK. Great. But why is that good news? I'm convinced it has to do with that little word, which has also been so Christianized that we don't even like to talk about it: sin. the idea of doing something wrong. Without that conception, we can go no further. I could apologize the concept, but that's another topic entirely. So assuming that we recognize our failure, it says that Christ died for our sins. Now this letter goes on to talk about resurrection, so this statement was not meant to treat the "Gospel", but to argue against those who denied resurrection...again, another topic.

My point is that this good news is essentially a pardon. God in't mad at us any more. We've been freed from that guilt. The sin problem is gone. The price has been paid. This really is good news if you understand that you are guilty to begin with!

So why does modern Christianity spend so much time trying to convince us how to be better? How to do better? We focus so much on the problems that we ignore or render ineffective the solution. This is essentially to take the good out of the news!

It isn't that Jesus died to make a way, though he certainly did that. The good part is that we no longer have to live under that curse. This is big news to me and extremely good! Let's face it, in reality, the world is pretty screwed up. We candy coat it, insulate against it, and look for the "points of light" in it. But the truth is there's a lot of crap that goes on out there. We can't escape it. Even if you are one of those who believe we could "if only"... I'd reply, then show me one verifiable case where someone did completely overcome it because just today I passed a bunch of people who sure looked like they didn't get the news!

But ok, so if God isn't mad, why all the bad stuff? Well obviously we self-inflict it as a species. Certainly not every person deserves what happens to them, but as a species, we are the ones screwing up things such that unjust systems persist. So someone does evil and evil has a price. That price is exacted on them or on someone else, but it is exacted. This very much colors "the wages of sin" bit from Romans 6:23. Sure the wages are death. But think about that. I always interpreted that to mean we would be punished by death for our sins. But it doesn't say penalty. It says wages. We get wages from an employer for doing work. So you work evil, you get death from evil. These are the natural results. It's not a punishment, it's simple consequence! This is HUGE!

It fits so well with my understanding of God's nature. He is good. Not merely that goodness is an attribute; He is it. So bad, by definition, is something not from God. But nothing can be 'not from God', because He makes everything. Existence is within Him. So bad can not be a thing because a thing would exist and therefore would proceed from God, which would make it good. So if bad-ness is not a thing, yet it is the opposite of good, it can only be a negation of something that exists. So bad things are not bad in themselves. They are good things that have been negated...perverted, if you will. So every action has a reaction, right? Well you negate something, pervert it, and you receive that thing perverted plus the absence of what it was. So if we negate our very existence, the absence of our life is what? Death! Ergo the wages of sin is death. But the gift of God is eternal life...read that all again and let it sink in. We negate our own existence and are unable to do otherwise. Hell is truly locked form the inside! So God decided to break into our existence and fix it by restoring what we negated. And by fusing that lesser human stuff with his immutable and good nature, it becomes incorruptible. To take it back to more basic terms, "God in't mad at us anymore." He does not punish us because the punishment has been meted out and absorbed. The justice has been restored. Every human past, present, and future, is no longer under the curse of sin. We are free and that has nothing to do with anything we did or do. The only way to miss it is to refuse to believe it...to continue negating what is.

This is good news!