So I went to church today and a guest speaker was there, from the IHOP in Kansas (not the pancake place) talking about Jesus. Jesus the man, Jesus the boy, Jesus the child. It's not something one thinks about too often I imagine, God as a child, or a perfect child, or as diminutive as one would care to continue to get, but if one does perchance believe in the divinity of Christ, it's an interesting exercise of faith to envision Christ learning to speak, taking his first step, nursing, learning, being taught by his own creation about his creation. Practicing carpentry and missing a nail, because a sinless life can still include a black and blue thumb or a few scrapes and bruises and sleepless nights. Extending that image of perfection to today I could see Jesus shunned by other children because he had values and standards, being rejected at times by his own family, his brothers and sisters jealous and resentful. The thoughts led to a revelation that there is indeed a path of perfection in every realm of life. It doesn't include hitting every free-throw, I could see Jesus the boy being picked last for the team because he couldn't shoot, it isn't something he had done, and some skills have to be learned through practice before they are developed into percentage points, but all the same, in missing the shot I could see Jesus enjoying the fellowship with friends, or suffering the hurt of being deemed a disappointment to others while struggling to keep things in perspective. That's what it all comes down to: perspective.
How do I see the circumstances of yesterday, today, and tomorrow? I see some as extremely pressing and critical for the course of my life, but those should be resolved by the course of eternity, which I myself have little control over, with the exception of the choices I make day to day, like whether to lie, cheat, or steal, or be honest, upfront, and sacrificial. More often than not it's in line with the former three I'm sure. It's so much easier to have myself the center of my world. Easier in the sense that I have only myself to be accountable to, but such is not the case.
I choose to hold myself accountable to a man who lived, died, and rose again in perfection, because no other standard suffices.
I guess that's it for now...
Saturday, 9 May 2009
On Tense
I've been perusing some blogs the past few days. It shouldn't surprise me what people write about, what people need to get out, what people share, either in trust or vengeance, about people. It's obvious that there's a lot of pain going around. Here I thought I was doing people a favor by keeping my own to myself. There are a lot of blogs about the way guys treat girls (we're all jerks) and how girls would like to be treated (but there are no guys who aren't jerks so it's a moot point), and just general discontent in how people treat people. I've seen a few that were encouraging, a few that were inspiring, but as a whole I'm pretty discouraged. If it were just me, I'd get over it, but it seems too infrequent that one love might make it in a world so stacked against any love's success.
It's far too common to say we have all loved and lost. I feel like I do it every day. If I left it at that, I'd be more of a wreck than I often am. There are a lot of people out there with broken hearts believing in love at first sight. I do. I have to believe that when I open my eyes I will do everything in my power to walk in love, to eat in love, to be in love, reside in love, to live in love until I close my eyes at night. I fail. Every day there is either something I feel I could have should have would have done, or shouldn't have done, but all I can do is pray that I will learn from that mistake so I won't do it again tomorrow.
A lot of people don't know what they believe in when they talk about love. For many, it's subjective, malleable, shifting like tectonic plates, destined for disaster. It helps to have an idea to build on. I've penned embellishments, but my working definition is 1st Corinthians 13. I don't think you'll find a better description. Note that it's written in the present tense, and that "love never fails".
So how did we come up with "loved" anyway? When did this past tense become so pervaisive? Every depiction of love is characterized by a choice. Choices are made every day. Today I chose to love somebody to the best of my ability in spite of the circumstances that restrict those choices. I could keep it at that, and say tomorrow that I loved someone today, or I could do the same thing tomorrow, and the next day, and every day I'm given the grace to live until a choice is made to reciprocate that same love, or the seed falls onto something other than receptive soil. Some would say that such is already the case. Every friend I have, many whose council I trust, have encouraged me to move on. The problem I have with that is this past tense, "loved", that I see as the most painful habit in the world today.
On Unity
So, a friend and I were solving all the world's problems while driving around town trying to find a place to sell us beer when we divined upon one particularly fascinating conundrum about the church. We had already established a particular fallibility within the churches of the world, herein referring to Christian churches, but I'm sure others apply, of dissension on grounds of relatively incomprehensible application. We were in one accord in the revelation that the whole of Christian churches are largely an embarrassment if for no other reason than this: THERE IS ABSOLUTELY NO UNITY AMONG THEM!
What's the problem here? How can we be one if two people, supposedly of one accord, argue, bicker and complain about such insignificant things as time of worship, means of worship, dress codes, seating arrangements, theological divinations of no consequence to the eternal destinies of the countless people suffering and dying without knowing the single most important and relevant truth of this existence, namely that they are loved and there is hope if they will accept and believe in the greatest gift given to humanity? And this is coming from a self-proclaimed and recognizably accomplished argumentative individual.
Anyhow, here's the solution, and it's not really new. That's right, we didn't even make this up. It's been around for a while. You've probably heard it before but, like my friend and I, have never quite understood the importance of it's application. Ready? Here it is. That wasn't it. This is it: Love one another. That means practicing some semblance of selflessness. It means your preferences may have to take a back seat to others' once, twice, or indefinitely in some situations. It means that pre- or post-trib, destined, determined, fated or flustered, holy, humble, or soon-to-be-humbled, bible-thumper or belter, prayer-warrior, Jesus freak, or world-inheriting meek, it's high time to get along. Focus on shared love, of God's for you, and yours for God.
"Christian" was once a term that united those set apart for how they loved one another. When will Christians be Christian again?
- TPK
P.S. - Like everything in this temporal universe, this thought is incomplete, so before you denounce me as a heretic or revere me as your own voice, let's talk about it.
Thursday, 16 April 2009
Honestly Opaque?
I've been wrestling with this particular blog of late. My goal is to express some level of honesty, however, in so doing I wish to remain at least partially anonymous, not for my sake, but for the sake of the lives of others that will invariably weave with my own professions, confessions, and obsessions.
Chances are, if you're one of the few who've stumbled here as of yet, it's because we lie within a few meager degrees of separation socially, relationally, or otherwise. It wouldn't be a stretch to assume that I'll eventually make an ass out of myself, and I'm okay with that. What I admit of myself, I freely admit, but what is revealed of others, by way of my own testimonials, I trust those who know me to exercise adequate discretion; if you know, don't ask, if you don't, don't ask, and either way, please don't post or tell names I'm intentionally changing, or inquire as to circumstances intentionally clouded, for privacy's sake.
I'm only writing this preliminary caution because I spent a good portion of my day reading through some old e-mails (I keep almost anything and everything worth keeping that I write) and thought that posting selections from them here might be a good way to start to open up on the level I hope to achieve. So I'll be posting "Selected Correspondence" in the foreseeable future, only my side of it, of course, but if it sounds familiar, it could very well be because you were the recipient of these very words in the past, and I hope you won't mind my sharing them now for my own growth, and perhaps some manner of relative comfort to someone else who may find worth in such distanced discourse. All such posts will be edited for privacy (and contain commentary, like so); we'll see how it goes.
Chances are, if you're one of the few who've stumbled here as of yet, it's because we lie within a few meager degrees of separation socially, relationally, or otherwise. It wouldn't be a stretch to assume that I'll eventually make an ass out of myself, and I'm okay with that. What I admit of myself, I freely admit, but what is revealed of others, by way of my own testimonials, I trust those who know me to exercise adequate discretion; if you know, don't ask, if you don't, don't ask, and either way, please don't post or tell names I'm intentionally changing, or inquire as to circumstances intentionally clouded, for privacy's sake.
I'm only writing this preliminary caution because I spent a good portion of my day reading through some old e-mails (I keep almost anything and everything worth keeping that I write) and thought that posting selections from them here might be a good way to start to open up on the level I hope to achieve. So I'll be posting "Selected Correspondence" in the foreseeable future, only my side of it, of course, but if it sounds familiar, it could very well be because you were the recipient of these very words in the past, and I hope you won't mind my sharing them now for my own growth, and perhaps some manner of relative comfort to someone else who may find worth in such distanced discourse. All such posts will be edited for privacy (and contain commentary, like so); we'll see how it goes.
Blogging the Bible: Exodus
I'm sure I'll be editing and amending these entries as the go, and by all means, feel free to share and expound on my meager attempts... especially with the Pentateuch...
Exodus
Exodus tells the story of the Israelites first liberation after their gradual enslavement at the hands of the Egyptians after Joseph’s sojourn. God’s tool of freedom is Moses, a Jewish-born, Egyptian-raised, murdering castaway shepherd with a speech impediment of sorts. He and Aaron confront the Pharaoh with signs and wonders culminating in the ten plagues of Egypt. This book introduces the Passover covenant and the subsequent salvation of the Israelites forty year trek through the wilderness and all of the provisions of God they receive, from Manna to water to guidance, both day and night, and of course, the laws given Moses atop Mt. Sinai. Exodus concludes with the building of the Ark of the Covenant and the erecting of the Tabernacle. The specificity of the requisite workmanship is a characteristic example of the Holy nature of God.
I like the manifestations of God in Exodus, from the burning bush to the pillars of cloud and fire. I like the God's choice of heroes too: feuding brothers, one with a speech impediment and the other eventually succumbing to peer pressure at the foot of Mt. Sinai; such an unlikely pairing leading the Exodus of thousands from captivity almost convinces me that I too am not beyond the use of God. Almost. Luckily there's a lot left to persuade me the rest of the way.
Sunday, 5 April 2009
On Passion
It's Passion week. As part of my own personal ritual, though I hate to call it that lest it actually become so, and not remain more the exercise I believe it to be, strengthening my faith and empowering my understanding, rather than deadening it through the accommodation of a practiced routine, nevertheless, I'm gearing up to watch "The Passion of the Christ" on Friday.
I went through it a week or two ago, sort of haphazardly looking for a spark of emotion, just because, and I managed to find one, though I may yet regret it. I thought about it a few days later, my seeming lack of emotion, when a co-worker came into the office complaining that she was sick.
I've had little-to-no interaction with my co-workers. I'm on an off-synced schedule with the majority, working afternoons to nights, whereas it's mostly a morning job. At any rate, this sick young woman comes into the office nigh breaking into tears and I sat staring at a computer screen, listening to my i-pod, thinking what a crock it was that she wanted to go to the hospital for the symptoms she was describing.
I didn't care.
How horrible is that?
I thought about it while she was there, scrounging to go to a doctor, literally analyzing my utter lack of care, not worry, but total indifference, not knowing this person from any stranger I'd pass in the street, or perhaps knowing more, and thereby caring less due to biases and prejudices I've built from insignificant interactions that I found mildly grating.
Am I so petty?
She was back to work and smiling the next day which led me to reinforce my disinterest.
But I was thinking about the Passion: the suffering, the pain, the agony, the torture, and regardless of how you feel about the movie, the cast, Mel Gibson, or any other controversy surrounding that particular depiction, regarding it's veracity, or theological insertions or interpretations, it's one barometer by which to viscerally measure the true meaning of Easter.
It begs another question though: when did the word "passion", regarding the suffering and all the rest listed above, come to mean primarily sexual desire as it is most often used today? For my part, I get it. My own experiences in love have culminated in a lot of pain. Whether or not my "passion" was understood throughout my private ordeal as pain, or love, or forever interchangeable, is something I hope to one day figure out. In the context of the greater human experience does the connection hold? It's seems to me of late, more and more, that it does indeed.
There is no greater love than this.
Christ endured his passion for us, and I include my co-worker, those I hurt, those who've hurt me, my family, my friends, and even yourself. However the story doesn't end there. We are called to do likewise, to take up our cross, follow, lay down our lives, our wealth, our perceived tangible economic security, all things here and now, for the promise of the eternal. And I don't know how to do that steeped in indifference. I can't. In difference is an antonym for the word that encompasses this very idea: compassion. To suffer with, to take the pain of, to desire the alleviation of others' troubles.
The Passion of the Christ can not be separated from Christ's compassion completed, for it was our suffering he took freely upon his undeserving self, and not by sitting with his arm around us, not by offering anonymous thoughts into a void, but by actually doing what had to be done once and for all, declaring as the Word of God incarnate that "It is finished" and breathing the last breath of suffering on behalf of sin any need ever breathe. All we have left to do is declare to those in need what has been done, reconcile circumstances to reality, and not continue to fail miserably as seems to be my practice.
In ways I think I'd prefer to take the sickness; let me vomit on your behalf if it spares me having to talk to you. God help me. This isn't finished.
I went through it a week or two ago, sort of haphazardly looking for a spark of emotion, just because, and I managed to find one, though I may yet regret it. I thought about it a few days later, my seeming lack of emotion, when a co-worker came into the office complaining that she was sick.
I've had little-to-no interaction with my co-workers. I'm on an off-synced schedule with the majority, working afternoons to nights, whereas it's mostly a morning job. At any rate, this sick young woman comes into the office nigh breaking into tears and I sat staring at a computer screen, listening to my i-pod, thinking what a crock it was that she wanted to go to the hospital for the symptoms she was describing.
I didn't care.
How horrible is that?
I thought about it while she was there, scrounging to go to a doctor, literally analyzing my utter lack of care, not worry, but total indifference, not knowing this person from any stranger I'd pass in the street, or perhaps knowing more, and thereby caring less due to biases and prejudices I've built from insignificant interactions that I found mildly grating.
Am I so petty?
She was back to work and smiling the next day which led me to reinforce my disinterest.
But I was thinking about the Passion: the suffering, the pain, the agony, the torture, and regardless of how you feel about the movie, the cast, Mel Gibson, or any other controversy surrounding that particular depiction, regarding it's veracity, or theological insertions or interpretations, it's one barometer by which to viscerally measure the true meaning of Easter.
It begs another question though: when did the word "passion", regarding the suffering and all the rest listed above, come to mean primarily sexual desire as it is most often used today? For my part, I get it. My own experiences in love have culminated in a lot of pain. Whether or not my "passion" was understood throughout my private ordeal as pain, or love, or forever interchangeable, is something I hope to one day figure out. In the context of the greater human experience does the connection hold? It's seems to me of late, more and more, that it does indeed.
There is no greater love than this.
Christ endured his passion for us, and I include my co-worker, those I hurt, those who've hurt me, my family, my friends, and even yourself. However the story doesn't end there. We are called to do likewise, to take up our cross, follow, lay down our lives, our wealth, our perceived tangible economic security, all things here and now, for the promise of the eternal. And I don't know how to do that steeped in indifference. I can't. In difference is an antonym for the word that encompasses this very idea: compassion. To suffer with, to take the pain of, to desire the alleviation of others' troubles.
The Passion of the Christ can not be separated from Christ's compassion completed, for it was our suffering he took freely upon his undeserving self, and not by sitting with his arm around us, not by offering anonymous thoughts into a void, but by actually doing what had to be done once and for all, declaring as the Word of God incarnate that "It is finished" and breathing the last breath of suffering on behalf of sin any need ever breathe. All we have left to do is declare to those in need what has been done, reconcile circumstances to reality, and not continue to fail miserably as seems to be my practice.
In ways I think I'd prefer to take the sickness; let me vomit on your behalf if it spares me having to talk to you. God help me. This isn't finished.
Friday, 20 March 2009
The Good News.
I've been in communication with a friend of mine who, having described to me the frustration lately of not going to church in a number of months, and being faced with the prospect of returning, has been plagued with the foreknowledge of the impending guilt shame and judgment that awaits her should she return.
This is what I wrote to her:
I can't tell you how much or how often I've had similar thoughts, feelings and fears as those you describe above.
There is one great freeing thing I learned from Africa, and I've been trying to share it with people in some capacity since; it's the piece of the puzzle that we, those who have grown up in the church, struggling all of our lives to meet some standard of behavior, ever-cognizant of the unspoken judgments that abound in the hearts of people, especially in the church, are the first to miss, or overlook, in the constant barrage of sin-conscious theology that we're inundated with for years: I know its something we hear, but it's so little in comparison to everything else that it takes a quietness of the other things, which you can find in bars and clubs when you realize that they satisfy nothing of your needs and you retreat into what you know to find the still small voice that says you are loved, Jesus loves you, you learned to love him, and none of the thoughts or judgments of man mean anything in that perfect truth that is the most clear depiction of grace you will ever know because its easy to see in our darkest hour that we don't deserve the love we were given, but there it is.
I didn't learn this through a lot of prayer, fasting, worship, or any of the other regulatory church activities. I learned this because I was in the midst of running away from everything, at the end of my rope, quite ready to give up, and then this hope was manifest, not through people, and still I often wish I could find that person to help me understand the deeper elements I've yet to delve, but through the simple revelation that this is true; I finally learned the thing I'd heard countless times before, and better yet, I understood: It is finished.
There in no work yet required for our salvation. Sin does not matter. The failings and judgments of other people does not matter. There is nothing in life worthy of our fears except God, and God doesn't deserve it, outside of the awe our love merits. Nothing we do, say or become can separate us from the love of God because Jesus made a bridge, and if you accepted Jesus into your life, you have a way back to the love you need at any time, even in the darkest place, when it seems too late, you can turn around to see the outstretched arms of that loving grace welcoming you back to life.
There's a whole community of professing Christians who are trying their best to live outside of the institutional churches, in hopes of finding the true fellowship of like-minded believers, to live according to the simplicity of the good news that God loves us, Christ died for us, Christ lives in us, so how can we better serve Christ, who accomplishes all that we cannot in our strength do, who has done all that needs to be done to reconcile ourselves to our Creator, loving God, loving one another?
Just be willing to listen and serve. That is all we need to do. Listen. Serve. Love.
PS: Sorry if its not what you expected or wanted in reply... it just sort of came out in typing. It's as much for me as you because I'm still alone and apt to wander in my desire not to be so, but grace has kept me where I am. I'm just trying my best to do the few little things I'm in place to do in service... and in love. So far, my peace is undisturbed.
- TPS
This is what I wrote to her:
I can't tell you how much or how often I've had similar thoughts, feelings and fears as those you describe above.
There is one great freeing thing I learned from Africa, and I've been trying to share it with people in some capacity since; it's the piece of the puzzle that we, those who have grown up in the church, struggling all of our lives to meet some standard of behavior, ever-cognizant of the unspoken judgments that abound in the hearts of people, especially in the church, are the first to miss, or overlook, in the constant barrage of sin-conscious theology that we're inundated with for years: I know its something we hear, but it's so little in comparison to everything else that it takes a quietness of the other things, which you can find in bars and clubs when you realize that they satisfy nothing of your needs and you retreat into what you know to find the still small voice that says you are loved, Jesus loves you, you learned to love him, and none of the thoughts or judgments of man mean anything in that perfect truth that is the most clear depiction of grace you will ever know because its easy to see in our darkest hour that we don't deserve the love we were given, but there it is.
I didn't learn this through a lot of prayer, fasting, worship, or any of the other regulatory church activities. I learned this because I was in the midst of running away from everything, at the end of my rope, quite ready to give up, and then this hope was manifest, not through people, and still I often wish I could find that person to help me understand the deeper elements I've yet to delve, but through the simple revelation that this is true; I finally learned the thing I'd heard countless times before, and better yet, I understood: It is finished.
There in no work yet required for our salvation. Sin does not matter. The failings and judgments of other people does not matter. There is nothing in life worthy of our fears except God, and God doesn't deserve it, outside of the awe our love merits. Nothing we do, say or become can separate us from the love of God because Jesus made a bridge, and if you accepted Jesus into your life, you have a way back to the love you need at any time, even in the darkest place, when it seems too late, you can turn around to see the outstretched arms of that loving grace welcoming you back to life.
There's a whole community of professing Christians who are trying their best to live outside of the institutional churches, in hopes of finding the true fellowship of like-minded believers, to live according to the simplicity of the good news that God loves us, Christ died for us, Christ lives in us, so how can we better serve Christ, who accomplishes all that we cannot in our strength do, who has done all that needs to be done to reconcile ourselves to our Creator, loving God, loving one another?
Just be willing to listen and serve. That is all we need to do. Listen. Serve. Love.
PS: Sorry if its not what you expected or wanted in reply... it just sort of came out in typing. It's as much for me as you because I'm still alone and apt to wander in my desire not to be so, but grace has kept me where I am. I'm just trying my best to do the few little things I'm in place to do in service... and in love. So far, my peace is undisturbed.
- TPS
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