the L word
been thinking a lot about love lately. (that L-word)
i know that this word comes up a lot in the stuff i write and all that, but this past week the whole idea took a bit of a turn in my head.
we were sitting around in the comfy chairs at one of the many coffee bars in this area when someone interrupted what had, up until that time, been a relatively casual conversation, with a heavy: 'what has God been teaching you lately?'
silence- there always is as everybody tries to change gears and get all holy. onto our faces go those renaissance fresco looks of otherworldly preoccupation, while the internal scandisc busily hums away with the prompt 'find:*.*God.spk'
to my surprise and delight, there was something there. lately God has been tugging at my heart concerning the centre of everything i am about.
love is supposedly the source of everything good we do, yet often we fail at the realization of it. why? well for me it crystalized this way over my really amazing cup of 'redeye': if love is only an external expression then its source is merely good intention. to put it another way: if love is a thing i do rather than a thing i am then it will only be as successful as my best human effort to distribute precious cargo. if love is something that only goes outward, then it is too shallow in origin to be of any real import.
the passage of scripture that deals with annoying surface level love being compared musically to the clanging of pots and pans (1cor13.1-3) hints at this, but i don't think that i ever really saw the implications the way they settled in on my heart that day: if i refuse to allow myself any self-love, (deeming it egotistical or vain or whatever) always trying to somehow talk myself out of feelings of personal satisfaction or success in order to strive for 'something higher' then i render myself incapable of experiencing and expressing love to or for anyone or anything that falls in any way short of the ridiculous ideals that i have set for myself. talk about vanity?
no, it seems to me that, in order to completely give love for others i need to first have some within me to give. that which we give we must have first been willing to receive.
we are not love generators. i don't believe anyone but God is capable of that one. the best we can do is accept the love expressed by God through his creation (which includes other people) and then pass it on to others. if a person like me wants to give love away, that person must first learn how to humbly (without all that false humility crap) accept it beforehand.
it occurs to me that perhaps that is true humility: graciously accepting expressions of love from others, being fully commited to giving every last molecule of it away to someone else.
in a cheesey 70's song, the band 'sweet' claimed that 'love is like oxygen' and then went on to fail miserably in making the simile stick. i don't think love is like oxygen- it is more fundamental than that. i think that love is more comparable to energy: it can not be created or destroyed, only transferred. where love has not been received, there there is no love to give.
(note: in the u2 lyric below, the simile is not between love and everything on the list, but between ONE'S NEED for love and everything on the list... to me that is quite an important distinction. by the way, as long as we're talking about need, go to www.live8live.com and add your name to the list if you haven't already. let's urge the G8 leaders to make this a year of jubilee - leviticus 25.10-17)
***
like a desert needs rain
like a town needs a name
I need your love
like a drifter needs a room
hawkmoon
i need your love
like a rhythm unbroken
like drums in the night
like sweet soul music
like sunlight
i need your love
like coming home
and you don’t know where you’ve been
like black coffee
like nicotine
i need your love
when the night has no end
and the day yet to begin
as the room spins around
i need your love
like a phoenix rising needs a holy tree
like the sweet revenge of a bitter enemy
i need your love
like the heat needs the sun
like honey on her tongue
like the muzzle of a gun
like oxygen
i need your love
like thunder needs rain
like the preacher needs pain
like tongues of flame
like a blind man’s cane
like a needle in a vein
like someone to blame
like a thought unchained
like a runaway train
i need your love
like a fighter’s rage
his dreams in a cage
like faith needs a doubt
like a freeway out
i need your love
like powder needs a spark
like lies need the dark
i need your love
(hawkmoon 269, bono, '87)
Labels: love
posted by jollybeggar at
7:55 AM
19 Comments:
Hey! A couple of months ago I had a debate going with some friends about whether our hearts were good or evil (as Christians). Most felt they were evil hearted folks who, by the grace of God, sometimes did good. Anyway... are we evil people who can be conduits for love? Or does there have to be some fundamental change in order for love to flow from our lives? Are we 'good'? Does this love change us? Is it a temporary change that needs to be renewed to be effective? or is there some permanent change on our hearts as we experience this love? thanks for listening, here's me ranting...
papillon
i think that it would be pretty hard for some(thing or one) to be inherently evil and yet have the capacity for good, being that evil is all-consuming and self-driven by nature. makes way more sense in my mind for people to be inherently good, but with a capacity for evil.
at the risk of being shamelessly self-promoting, i'll just post the shortcut to a blog that i punched out awhile back... perhaps while your and your friends were debating. (i mean, a shortcut has got to be better than quoting oneself, isn't it?)
http://e-pistles.blogspot.com/2005/06/thomas-edison-and-original-sin.html
as to the way love changes us, i think that the change is as permanent as anything can be with this fickle species... probably more accurate to say 'maintained' than renewed, although renewal often needs to happen when we've let the maintenance slip, yeah?
Ever notice that when the topic is love no one pays attention.
Now, mention SEX and you got to sell tickets to handle the crowd.
Must be all that begetting and begotted stuff that makes the Bible so popular.
Oh, yeah, and all that bloodshed in the Bible.
Sex and bloodshed....that's what it takes to put out a best seller. Guess Guttenberg knew what he was doing...wink...wink.....
.......marcythewhore
Sex in a Refrigerator
Marcythewhore says: When having sex in a refrigerator always turn out the light..................
Exploding Dog Versus Tasered Dog Versus Asian Suicide Bomber Versus Releasing the Dove of Peace Versus Hockey Players in Lust Versus Mad Cow Disease Versus The Tuna Wars Versus Westinghouse the War Machine
THE EXPLODING DOG:
http://www.zombi.dk/video/050.php
VERSUS
TASERED DOG
http://crazyshit.com/dc.php?type=5&cid=6148&pg=index
VERSUS
ASIAN SUICIDE BOMBERStupidity comes in all shapes and sizes. This one happens to be a idiot wit...[view now]
VERSUS
RELEASING THE DOVE OF PEACE
http://crazyshit.com/dc.php?type=5&cid=6144&pg=index
VERSUS
HOCKEY PLAYERS IN LUST
http://crazyshit.com/dc.php?type=medias&cid=6114
VERSUS
MAD COW DISEASE
http://crazyshit.com/dc.php?type=medias&cid=6156
VERSUS
THE TUNA WARS
http://crazyshit.com/dc.php?type=medias&cid=6138VERSUS
WESTINGHOUSE THE WAR MACHINE
http://crazyshit.com/dc.php?type=medias&cid=6174
posted by marcythewhore at 9:49 AM 0 comments
Christianity has a built-in defense system: anything that questions a belief, no matter how logical the argument is, is the work of Satan by the very fact that it makes you question a belief. It's a very interesting defense mechanism and the only way to get by it -- and believe me, I was raised Southern Baptist -- is to take massive amounts of mushrooms, sit in a field, and just go, "Show me."
.......Bill Hicks (RIP)
In this bookstore visit, it took only 10 minutes to gather 9 strong examples of mushroom portrayals in Christian art, thus successfully calling into question the familiar assumption that "visionary plants are rare in Christian art". http://www.egodeath.com/christianmushroomtrees.htm
Religion and Psychoactive Sacraments:
An Entheogen Chrestomathy
Thomas B. Roberts, Ph.D. and Paula Jo Hruby, Ed.D.
A Christian View of the Mushroom Myth. Excerpt(s): When I first read Mr. Allegro's book The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross I had never heard of the fly agaric, or amanita muscaria. If I had seen a specimen I should probably have described it as a toadstool — which only serves to show how loosely we handle plant-names, particularly those of us who have difficulty in distinguishing hedge-parsley from hog-weed.
http://www.csp.org/chrestomathy/christian_view.html
MUSHROOMS, CHRISTIANITY, AND SANTA CLAUS?
I once heard a rumor that Santa Claus was really a hallucinogenic amanita mushroom in disguise, and here's a site that does an interesting job of arguing exactly this point, if you can believe it. This site traces the shamanic use of amanita in European tribal societies, its relationship to Christianity, and the deeper spiritual meanings of the amanita-like icon of Santa Claus. The basic argument is that Santa Claus is a representation of the red and white amanita mushroom which, when ingested, produces feelings of ecstatic flight and the ability to "see into the hearts of others" ("he's going to find out who's naughty and nice"). The sacred mushroom is also associated with reindeer and pine trees. So, Santa is really a shamanic icon that has been corrupted by Christianity and/or commercialism? Maybe
Free from idealities and pseudo-goals, man has only function as his guiding force. Shamans call this impeccability. For them, to be impeccable means to do one's utmost best and a bit more. They derived function from seeing energy directly as it flows in the universe. If energy flows in a certain way, to follow the flow of energy is, for them, being functional. Function is, therefore, the common denominator by means of which shamans face energetic facts of their cognitive world.
“The Author's Commentaries” from the 30th anniversary edition of
The Teachings of Don Juan
http://www.castaneda.com/
shrooms and God? hmmm.
hafta watch 'altered states' again.
ken russell has oft been criticized (and rightly so, i guess, when you check out some of his more garish exploits like 'lisztomania' and 'crimes of passion'...both featuring dramatic, albeit electronically quirky, soundtracks by keyboard virtuoso rick wakeman who eventually converted to christianity in the early 90's- although probably not the twisted peepshow-peering brand of it as portrayed by anthony perkins in 'crimes' and lived out by jimmy swaggart around the same time as the film was being created...) for being 'over the top.'
however, in altered states i think he hits the ball out of the cosmic park in his blue-screened depictions of shroom-enhanced spiritual visions, repleat with more biblical symbolism than any apocalyptic sunday-school paper would ever dare to show.
but accessing the mind of God need not be a chemical experience... there are no guarantees as to whose mind one is actually being tapped when one dabbles in sorcery- early words now translated as such have a lot of drug/chemical overtones.
who is the sorcerer's apprentice but perhaps a flunky left unattended in a meth lab who starts sampling his own home brew?
as for love and sex...
today is an anniversary of sorts. a good friend of mine found himself caught in life's headlights with seemingly nowhere to turn. he played chicken with a semi and lost- whether on purpose or by accident, the result is the same.
'and i'm hovering like a fly, waiting for the windshield on the freeway' (peter gabriel, '75)
as i processed my own grief and frustration, i concluded one simple thing:
the broken open testify
to denial's knowing wink
no tool of hell will oft compel
a man like his own dink
***
some days are heavier than others-
i'd just as soon watch 'dogma.'
well that's really the whole thing with manipulating quanta, isn't it? the best we can predict is the likelihood of a happening...
still, i find that the whole 'if-then' argument here relegates God to created, rather than creator. i mean, yes, a very resourceful and creative created, but a created nonetheless.
problem with our little brains is that we have so much difficulty grasping anything that is not modelled after our own existence. we are created, so we feel all clever when we ask 'who created God?' and so on. in fact, the cleverness begins with being able to approximate the comprehension of a some(one?)(thing?) which needs not to be created in order to exist.
our reasoning structures break down because they are regulated- indeed limited and governed- by the same old problem: our 5 senses are the only means by which we can credibly acknowledge a happening to have in fact taken place.
kinda like those really cool-looking 'formula-1' go-carts... they are built to scale, yet are equipped with a governor which restricts them to only doing 10 miles an hour because the track-owners know that the intended drivers (8-12 year-old kids) wouldn't be able to handle them if they went full-speed for their little briggs-and-stratton engines (45 miles an hour?)... much less the speed of a real formula 1 car.
we amature cosmologists are like the 8-12 year-old drivers who leave the track bragging to their friends that they've actually driven a formula 1 racer, and that driving one was really quite simple once you got the hang of it.
Chris Farley: One of your films was very controversial, it was The Last Temptation of Christ. Based on the book by um... Nicosca... Nicocassacus.
Martin Scorsese: It's a movie about the duel nature of Christ.
Chris Farley: You remember in that one scene when Jesus goes into the temple and the money changers are there. And Jesus starts punching them out, starts dumping them over tables and he just loses it on this one guy?
Martin Scorsese: Yeah, what about it?
Chris Farley: Was that your idea?
Martin Scorsese: No it's from The New Temptation, it's the Bible.
man, i miss chris sometimes.
thanks for this little tidbit concerning one of my favourite films.
"it's from the New Temptation, it's the Bible." hmmm.
i mean, i realize that it was a play on words by the SNL people, but the idea has me overthinking, nonetheless. i mean, the cast and crew will use anything to twist our perception of who God is in order to rob him of our worship.
even the silliest jokes bear enough truth that we can recognize if we look deeply enough.
concerning paranoia and our strange little world...
my world is about to expand drastically, as i will be travelling to sri lanka to do some missions work there in august. even now my arms hurt from the assorted immunization measures that i have undertaken in preparation.
funny thing, though. a younger friend of mine who recognized his call to world missions earlier and has done this a lot already was telling me that fear would masquerade as reason, and that i would become nervous about various things pertaining to the 'stepping outside of my tidy little canadian box.' as i sat the other day at the travel doctor, watching a video underscoring the health risks and possible maltreatments of them in third world (?) countries, i began to grow fearful, imagining all sorts of elaborate scenarios and asking myself 'is this really gonna be worth it?'
then came clarity: Jesus stepped into and back out of death and the grave for me, yet my greatest fears can be lain to rest by some responsible premedication and some good bug spray.
anyway, i say all this to say that paranoia is not a God thing, although sometimes people misinterpret it as something else attributable to God or whatever. when the bible talks about fear (isaiah 8.11-15, for example) it is in the sense of acknowledging the sovereignty and power of God... not cowering before the 'almighty smiter' (ie 'bruce almighty'- how do you suppose that word is spelt in the script?)
in my case, paranoia was being 'applied' to waylay the spreading of the news that God loves people in the east and wants to express that love (in one sense) through the efforts of people from the west to bring aid and resource, not spread religion.
i guess there is always the gorge of eternal peril that exists between one person's faith and another person's spin on 'religion.'
perhaps the peril lies in the idea that faith and religion are the same thing, for who in their right mind would choose religion the way they picture it before experiencing faith?
Becky Escamilla wrote:
An elderly woman had just returned to her home from an evening of church services when she was startled by an intruder. She caught the man in the
act of robbing her home of its valuables and yelled,
"Stop! Acts 2:38!"
(Repent and be baptized, in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins may be forgiven.)
The burglar stopped in his tracks. The woman calmly called the police and explained what she had done.
As the officer cuffed the man to take him in, he asked the urglar, "Why did you just stand there? All the old lady did was yell a scripture to you."
"Scripture?" replied the burglar? "She said she had an ax and two 38's!"
i began to grow fearful, imagining all sorts of elaborate scenarios and asking myself 'is this really gonna be worth it?'
Welp, it can be a really, really great lifetime experience. Maybe one of a kind.
If you go with an open mind.
A teacher makes for the best pupil.
If you go there like a missionary hell bent with only one viewpoint, you might waste your time.
If you go there with the idea that you might learn something, it could be an experience that will reward you the rest of your natural born killer days.
It's pretty much up to you, amigo nostra...........marcythewhore
A funny true story about the Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City.
I went to the Olympics with Bigbro who was doing reporting while I did street massages (you don't do Happy Endings in Salt Lake City).
While I was there I couldn't get over the numbers of Christians picketing against the Mormons.
Now, not only do the Mormons own Utah and large parts of Wyoming, Idaho, Montana and Nevada (Yes, the Mormons founded Las Vegas and the Mormon Bank has financed the building of Las Vegas into the mega-capital it is in the world today), but the Mormons were amazingly gracious to the various religions that visited their city during the Winter Olympics.
They gave coffee and doughnuts to the hordes of Brown Shirt Christian organizations who claim that the Mormons are the anti-Christ and what not (of course these same Brown Shirts say that the Pope and the Vatican are the anti-Christ....I wish these Brown Shirt Christians would make up their mind who is the real anti-Christ).
The Scientologists opened a museum shop there in Salt Lake. It was a Mormon who was the Scientologist hosting the Scientology museum for that two week span of the Olympics.
I met there a bunch of former Catholic Central and South Americans who were Mormon converts.
You would be amazed how many Asians live in Salt Lake City.
None of it bothers the Mormon elders...........marcythewhore
Becky Escamilla wrote:
Three women die together in an accident
and go to heaven.
When they get there, St. Peter says, "We only have one rule here in heaven:
don't step on the ducks!"
So they enter heaven, and sure enough, there are ducks all over the place.
It is almost impossible not to step on a duck, and although they try their
best to avoid them, the first woman accidentally steps on one.
Along comes St. Peter with the ugliest man she ever saw.
St. Peter chains them together and says, "Your punishment for stepping on a
duck is to spend eternity chained to this ugly man!"
The next day, the second woman steps accidentally on a duck and along comes
St. Peter, who doesn't miss a thing. With him is another extremely ugly man.
He chains them together with the same admonishment as for the first woman.
The third woman has observed all this and, not wanting to be chained for all
eternity to an ugly man, is very, VERY careful where she steps.
She manages to go months without stepping on any ducks, but one day St.
Peter comes up to her with the most handsome man she has ever laid eyes on
... very tall, long eyelashes, muscular, and thin
St. Peter chains them together without saying a word.
The happy woman says, "I wonder what I did to deserve being chained to you
for all of eternity?"
The guy says, "I don't know
So sorry, the punchline got left out of the first post....marcythewhore
Becky Escamilla wrote:
Three women die together in an accident
and go to heaven.
When they get there, St. Peter says, "We only have one rule here in heaven:
don't step on the ducks!"
So they enter heaven, and sure enough, there are ducks all over the place.
It is almost impossible not to step on a duck, and although they try their
best to avoid them, the first woman accidentally steps on one.
Along comes St. Peter with the ugliest man she ever saw.
St. Peter chains them together and says, "Your punishment for stepping on a
duck is to spend eternity chained to this ugly man!"
The next day, the second woman steps accidentally on a duck and along comes
St. Peter, who doesn't miss a thing. With him is another extremely ugly man.
He chains them together with the same admonishment as for the first woman.
The third woman has observed all this and, not wanting to be chained for all
eternity to an ugly man, is very, VERY careful where she steps.
She manages to go months without stepping on any ducks, but one day St.
Peter comes up to her with the most handsome man she has ever laid eyes on
... very tall, long eyelashes, muscular, and thin
St. Peter chains them together without saying a word.
The happy woman says, "I wonder what I did to deserve being chained to you
for all of eternity?"
The guy says, "I don't know about you, but I stepped on a duck!"
"missionary hell bent"
very interesting phrase. we've all had too much of that, yeah? i mean, hell bends everything so it comes off all wrong.
i agree that the greatest pupils become the best teachers (although that might be some spin on what you actually said, i realize). a love of learning and a desire to keep that love alive makes for a pliable heart, and most people's bottom line has something to do with receptivity. the perspective of the trip is that we are going, not so much with that pompous arrogance that says 'we've got something those poor people need' as 'in what way can we live amongst you, that Christ would be more real to you?'
i've been asked to speak through an interpreter (saw the film- hmmm) on discipleship. well what the heck am i supposed to say to a group of pastors who serve God in the tsunami-torn home of the tamil tigers?
"well, uh, i have these blogs and we talk about God and stuff and i pray for my blogfriends... um- any questions? no? okay, well- er- this elderly woman had just returned home from an evening of church services..."
***
on canada-day (july 1) i decided to take in some of the 'festivities' in the park before going to do sound check with the band that i was playing with that evening. came to a spot where the mormons were wearing their white shirts and ties, handing out canadian flags. i said thank you.
i know that there are some pretty troublesome non-scriptural doctrinal indeosyncracies about the mormon faith, but what are you gonna do? there are some pretty troublesome non-scriptural practices common among a lot of christians, regardless of what colour shirt they wear. i won't convert to joseph smith's tradition, but i won't be trying to exorcise the friendly mormons that come by offering to rake my lawn either.
judgement is God's job. loving in obedience is mine.
hey, whatever- nice to hear that you two get to actually see each other from time to time, even if it is on the campus of brigham young university. which flight takes longer- florida to utah or illinois to utah?
***
just got my itinerary: i leave at 8 a.m. and fly to toronto. i leave toronto at 8 p.m. and fly 7 hours to london- where i arrive at 8 a.m. i leave heathrow 6 hours later and fly 10 hours to colombo... but by then i have no idea what time it is or what day it is or whether i should have taken my malaria pills 12 hours ago or what. all i can say is, upon returning to saskatchewan 12 days later, to step back into my classroom the following morning my brain will be like soup and most likely so will my stools!
ew- too much information.
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