What If

What if our entire human existence as we know it is a peculiar state encapsulated in matter and time, matrix-like.  What if, in the truest reality, thought and action are so intricately linked that to think is already to do? What if the way to stop us from destroying ourselves was for God to lock us in this sequential bubble called space-time and fill it with thick and slow matter that is always decaying and recycling.

What if the fact that bad things can only happen at points in time and have limited spatial scope and duration is a mercy to limit the destructive capability of beings with the creative mind and will of the All Maker.

What if God determined that he would generate a truly free being that could grow and change on its own as much without his control as possible.  What if he decided to prove that his power was so perfect that even these beings, perfectly capable of unmaking themselves, would come to good and not be lost?

What if this consequence-delaying and scope-mitigating safety net of space-time is the way that could occur? What if humans are grown and not made?  What if space-time is our growth medium, our soil?  Growing us is the only way we could be truly free.  If we were compelled in any way other than guidance, we would not be free to be other than that and could not therefore truly love.

I, for one, would not want someone who only met my needs, even if they were perfectly good at it.  I could never know if they loved me for myself or because I wanted them to.  The only way I could determine that would be if the lover is perfectly free to love or not love, to go or stay, to choose things, people, etc. other than me.  What if that's what we are made for?

What if Jesus expressed this and guided us toward that growth that God knows will lead to our ultimate form?  Our ultimate form would be our ultimate fulfilment.  It couldn't be otherwise, unless our existence truly is a cruel cosmic joke.  But that doesn't even make sense.  Either there is order and it is good, or there is none, in which case we are beautiful but meaningless accidents that have no real value nor can make value judgements...but this is another conversation.

What if, everything Jesus taught was quickly co-opted and filtered through the natural paganism of humanity until he became nothing more than a new god in the pantheon, replacing outworn faces and practices with the same spirit of appeasement and supplication.

What if this is exactly what he meant by "ever looking but not seeing; ever hearing but not understanding".  And "he who has ears let him hear."

If this is the case, perhaps some people are just not developed enough to get it. If this is the case, there is no point in seeking stupid compliance and following rules.  They would only hinder us.

If our conception of God or reality is wrong, then urging people to comply with some system will only cement wrong ideas in them.  Better to let them go and learn and grow.  What if this is the point of the rich young ruler?  What if this is the key to everything Paul said, which otherwise seems so harsh and unJesus-like?

What if we were to try out this understanding and see if it's got any truth?

I have been doing this.  I have not found the bottom of the rabbit hole yet.  My heart swells at each new idea of it.  It's good news that I am bursting to share.  I can't deny it, don't want to.  It fills me with love for the beautiful possibilities I see in people around me in a way that old religion never did.  And it fills me with fire against anything or anyone that tells others lies about what is so good for them.  For the first time, I am beginning to understand how the martyrs could have felt.  I thought I understood before.  But no militant mindset can hold up to what they faced.

So preachers keep preaching your dead theology and keep watching your churches empty.  Ministers keep teaching rules instead of nurturing truth and watch how people fall away as fast as they fall in.  Whitewashed tombs where the dead can bury their own.  Your god is not my God.

My God exists in spirit and truth, light and life and love. And in spite of all the bad, he will make all things good.  And not just good as in lack of bad, but good such that every note of bad that ever existed will be rolled up into a goodness that we can not imagine as we see how it was simply the orchestrating of our own richer blossoming.

I'm not asking you to believe this.  Honestly, I don't care if you do.  It doesn't change anything either way.  I'm just saying, what if...

PokemonGo and perception of reality

Someone I know was recently upset at the treatment he'd received from general public while playing this game.  This aligned with things I've been thinking lately, so I decided to jump off from there.

If you don't know, Pokemon Go is a location-based, augmented reality video game.  Location-based means the players have to go to physical locations where the game will release certain aspects of play.  Augmented reality is where a smartphone, for instance, will lay digital content over the camera image and the real can interact with the digital on the screen.  Think of it like a live green-screen.

So we've got lots of people walking around playing this game and it's caused a lot of sideline problems, like trespassing, property rights, etc.  But that's not my point.  I'm more interested in arbitrating the latent battle that has already begun to break out, as evidenced by my friend's comments and the vitriolic backlash from sympathizers with him against those who offended.  These games aren't going away, so we might as well learn how to live peaceably.

I think the controversy comes down to a fundamental mismatch in views of reality.

But before I get to that, I want to be clear, no one should ever harass another person for any reason.  Regardless of your opinions on the game or the people playing it, or not playing it, respect the other and be decent, if nice is too much to ask.  That said, I'm going to attempt to illustrate what each side of the argument perceives.

The players love the imaginative aspect of the game.  They like the merging of innocent fantasy and reality.  They like the interaction with technology.  They like video games in general, and here is finally one where they can get outside and interact with the real world.  Maybe they even get a little exercise.  When they play, they are looking at the real world through the screen and find it a novel way to enjoy themselves.  Their imagination fills in the gaps of the game and they see the two in a merged fashion.  It's a harmless way to bring a little magic to the mundane.

Those who oppose it see people, many of whom self-identify as geeks (i.e. people overly enthusiastic, often in an off-putting way, about  a topic, many of which are not physical or sports-related) walking around, sometimes absently, staring at blinking lights on a plastic box.  What's so fun about that?!  It's just one more way to disengage from reality and pretend to do something real.  They don't perceive the merged reality, or the fantasy.  They view the world in a more concrete fashion.  Players aren't catching anything.  They aren't seeing anything.  It's all fake!  Hopefully, if you're from the other camp, you can see how this would appear.  The players appear to have almost lost their minds!  Take the screen away and you've got the exact image of the homeless dude who babbles to invisible people as he walks around...though perhaps players are cleaner.

Again, I'm not justifying rude remarks in any way.  Just trying to help one side see the other's perspective.

I recently had a similar discussion with my son when he was saving replays of video game exploits to share with friends.  He kept wanting to show me his accomplishments and I was decidedly uninterested.  He couldn't understand until I told him to cover the screen and pretend to do whatever he had done to get that accomplishment.  Then I copied him with the screen covered.  He was shocked at how stupid it looked.  Essentially all he did was touch buttons in a sequence, and I was supposed to be impressed by that. 

But to him, it was a much greater experience.  The thing I tried to get him to see was that the experience only existed in his imagination, aided by complex coding of pixels and key sequences.  When talking to people on the same plane of imagination, it was great.  From outside that, it was worse than mundane.

So I'm stopping there.  No judgement on either side, except to say that you must first understand your adversary before you can defeat them.  And in so doing, you'll find that most of the time, you really have no adversary at all...it's just in your imagination.

Poured

"Christians devour each other."  This is a quote I once read in an article by a Christian who was quoting his athiest friend who was observing why he isn't a Christian.  It's very true.

I feel poured out.  Stretched at every point.  People want things and they want more and more and more.  Like my cup is draining faster than filling.  And then some people ask for things they don't really want you to give them.

I do public work.  So what I do isn't just inconsequential money-making tasks.  It's things that enable most of you do your inconsequential money-making tasks, and I do them at a level that is involved in the decisions and planning.  So it is not boasting to say that what I do affects all of you who live in the same area and has lasting impacts into the future.  It's just so invisible to your daily lives that you don't even know it's going on.  But I digress.

My point is that even in this, a coworker was saying today, "It's as if they ask us to make something better because they have to, but they really just want to keep doing the same old thing, so they make it something super difficult to actually accomplish with little resources, and when we figure out a way to do it anyway, they say, 'oh s***!, we never thought they'd actually do it!' So they have to make it artificially difficult."

So I get it from all sides.  And in the place I should find rest and comfort, I find people saying, "well if your joy isn't complete you just have to..."  It's all on my effort.  Even if that effort is simply believing something, or thinking something, or seeing something differently.  I don't know if these people are well-meaning candy-eyed types who have never really known darkness, or if they're just clones spitting whatever script they can access from a motivational poster, or if they are just as screwed up and think they need to mask it by saying the 'right' thing.

Well, I'm stepping out and saying that for some of us, it isn't that easy.  If I were to hound you about running and tell you that you just need to run faster.  You just need stronger muscles, a better heart, more endurance!  You'd look at me and say, "easy for you to say."  Well why is it any different with a mental or emotional condition.  I can't help it!  I know all the stuff you're saying.  I just can't make it any different!  Don't you think I've tried?  I promise you I'm not one of those people who just want to play the victim.  and even if I was, maybe I couldn't help that either!

Why are you so quick to explain and categorize and answer?  You obviously don't get it, or you're a liar.  Either way, you make it abundantly clear that I can't reveal this part of me to you.  So you rob from me a place to find rest.  You force a tired soul out into the night again because there's obviously no room in your inn for the likes of me.

Even still, for your sake, I hope God doesn't lay my blood on your hands because I don't think you know what you do.  And I've been to hell, just went back for a visit actually.  Trust me, you don't want to go.

Behind

We often react to situations based on our emotion or perception.  Is it possible to step back and withhold reaction until we know more?  Can we take the time to step inside someone's head and see what motivates them?  Perhaps it would enlighten us greatly.  Perhaps we wouldn't be so quick to take offence or to come to our own defence.

Maybe we would see what makes another person take the shape and tone they do.  Maybe then we could regulate our reaction to be appropriate.  If we could see inside people we could perhaps bypass the outward and seemingly magically speak to the real issues.

Today I watched this happen.  I saw someone melt down over a very frustrating issue.  We had both been tense over these things beyond our control, but not with each other.  I had been reacting in my usual way...perhaps a little more loosely since I consider this person a friend.  But in this moment, the frustration turned on me.  I was not sure where it was coming from but I could see several things.  My friend's facial muscles were giving away the depth of his emotion as he tried to assert control over me.  I realized it as an attempt to grab control over something in a situation that had overwhelmed him.

I thought of reacting in defence, but forestalled it miraculously.  Instead we retreated to a private place and talked.  Apparently, he had been taking my verbal expression of frustration as personal attack.  This surprised me since it had never even crossed my mind that these things were his fault.  I had never even directed comments at him.  in fact they had all been calm and rational comments to the effect of, "I wish we had a different way to do this.  I hate being locked into a single path and dependent on ___ conditions."

So again, I could react with anger, point out his wrongs, or I could dissuade his frustration.  To my surprise I found myself doing the latter.  He calmed and we worked it out.  He even seeing that he had taken things too personally.

But then I began thinking of how he had arrived at that moment in the first place.  I tried to further understand his perspective, using the facts I knew.  Gradually a picture is forming.  I'm beginning to see how to communicate with him.  How to shape my flow to his in an edifying way.  To come alongside and build up as we move forward.

But this requires that I step outside myself and find the truth behind this facade.  In how many other ways can I do this?  What will be the effect?  Can I become as collected and cool as Card's Speaker for the Dead?  Knowing how to speak truth into any situation and gently manipulate myself for the betterment of the people I interact with?  To shape people and situations by reshaping myself?

I think this is possible.  In yielding there is strength.  In gentleness there is power.  It's not the same as slimy kowtowing or political manipulation.  It's a fresh wind, a folding brook.  It's the essence of the Spirit Lord.

Woof

My new life is amazing.  I mean that literally.  I am so often amazed now.  But I have also never been more aware of my gross inadequacy to comprehend.  The metaphor of sheepdog has never felt more apt.

In this new life I am more keenly aware of joys and pains, but I am powerless to understand them.  In the joys I wag uncontrollably so that every fiber trembles with it.  In the pains, I want to help but am not capable.  These paws just won't grasp and I can't understand all the words.  And so I slink down and lay at your feet, unable to do more, but waiting for any sign that I can understand.  At one of those words I will jump to action.  I start at every sound, rife with anticipation.  If a bite would help I would bite.  If my head on your knee would help, I would place it.

I am sitting.  Waiting for the command. For the opening.  I will spring to whatever action is required.  In the meantime, I can't even determine if you can understand me.  Do you know what I am saying to you?  Do you know that my greatest joy is to be a part of yours?

The hardest thing for me is the waiting.  I am doing my best.  I must sit.  Stay.  Hold.  The Master knows what he's doing.  I am just the sheepdog.

Chronology

I have blogged on time before, but this is not so much on the nature of time as on the timing of events. Somethings precede other things. Layers below other layers were laid down first. It's a foundational principle of geology. The beginning of a story comes before the end. I learned something before I knew how to do it. Everything happens in sequences.

But in my life, in my perception, things seem to happen out of joint sometimes. An event can come before it's cause. A explanation may come before the question. It's really bizarre when it happens.

Sometimes it isn't so much out of sequence as just vastly distanced. For example, yesterday I was talking with my boss at work about an idea to resolve a particular situation. I would need to revise a document and possibly build a program out of it. He said to take my time because there was no rush. So today, I remembered that I had already written something related in the past. I couldn't remember why, other than at the time I thought it might be useful someday. So I found the document and it was exactly what I had been asked to write the day before. It perfectly addressed the very situation that I was facing, that didn't arise until the past month or so. And I wrote it in 2007!

I wrote the answer before I even perceived the question! Before I even foresaw that the question would come! Now of course, maybe I did simply know my job well enough to think through possibilities and it was all just good planning. But come on...I didn't change anything in it. It was exactly what I needed to write. And at the time there was no impetus to write it. I just thought it might be a good idea someday and then filed it away. Even the fact that I remembered it is amazing to me. Just last weekend I completely forgot that I had written something that I wrote only a week or two before. Someone showed it to me and I didn't recognize that I had written it. They told me I had...after which time I did finally remember.

I would just think this is one of those weird coincidences and explain it away if it weren't for the comments of my spiritual director a while ago. He said to me while we were talking that I had been seeing things happen out of time sequence. I hadn't told him I was having that happen. He just knew it because that's what happens with spiritual directors. It's a relationship arranged by God. But I hadn't thought about it before. He told me that this was common among contemplatives because reality is beyond time and when we start to move in that world, this one becomes far less stable...or rather we begin to see how unstable this world really is.

It's really true. From time to time, I'll have a moment click and it feels like tumblers fall into place, unlocking a bit more of the door. In that click, I can see how all the other dials and plates had been turning to align across time so that at this one moment the tumbler would fall into place. Some of those plates are nearer, others are behind, and they don't necessarily align in sequence.

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.