uninformed and unaffected

"I can say for a fact 'the truth sets me free' - in the sense that I see clearly my faults and human weaknesses - and I go through the valley of death/pain - just to get to the point where I accept that truth and then deal with it honestly and sincerely" (societyVS)

so here's the thing. i'm out for breakfast with this guy and he's talking to me about this bible study that he is beginning to attend. the group is studying the book of romans and he is just really loving the time that is being spent in the scriptures and how much he's learning from it all.

after listening for a bit, i ask

'what part of romans do you like the most?'

i know, i know... dumb question. it's a totally heavy book which doesn't really fit into 'like/dislike' thinking. it's full of really strong counsel on how to live life as a follower of Christ.

anyway, he begins to quote romans 12 really really fast...

Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.

what makes this all rather tough for me is that there are many aspects of the life being lived that directly contradict this memorized and recited moral soundbyte. we have spoken of so many things, but all i can think of is that once again these scriptural words are being quoted from one whose life continues to exist uninformed and even unaffected by them.

honesty and truth must go together. it's not the loving of truth that bears the fruit of freedom, it's the living of it.

the mask of oz

remembering how at bible school, one prof was notorious for tearing apart the presuppositions that these prairie kids fresh out of youth group and high school ISCF groups brought with them to their study of the scriptures...

by the end of the first term, there were always fewer Christians on campus! ha ha.

although at the time i found this incredibly challenging, i came to understand, over the years that followed, what this guy was doing... he was trying to coax us out of our warm, cozy caccoons where the inside walls were lovingly papered with old sunday-school papers from the 70's and pages from the comic-book version of the bible published by david c. cook in 1973. outside of that happy place was the real world. a place where real people had real questions arising from troubling everyday experiences- a place where a theological bumper-sticker bandaid just wouldn't stop the bleeding.

however, the thing that i still wrestle with today, just like then, is balance. on the one hand, i subscribe to a faith that, because all of the facts are not yet in, does not need to completely reason and qualify all ideas in order to exist; yet on the other hand, i cannot let myself become so accomodating that pretty much anything goes. steve taylor, a singer in the 80's described it well when he said 'you're so open-minded that your brain leaked out.'

i know that i'm not qualified to speak of higher criticism except as an observer. i work hard to qualify the things i teach, sure, but i recognize that this is simply my responsibility as a preacher... it has not been my life'swork. On any theologian's bookshelf there are whole books written by people who can read the ancient languages, who are well-versed in the ancient traditions, and have sat under the teaching of people who have entire wings in seminaries named after them. me? i have books written by people who have read books written by people who attended those seminaries. i understand this.

however, from my acknowledged place as an interactive observer, i have also seen how higher criticism has done much to strip the Bible of its authority among common people and scholars alike... it bothers me that we are so good at talking ourselves out of belief; so ready to be cynical; so eager to take the side of the sceptic rather than the mystic.

why is that? i have an opinion- but it's probably wrong because it oversimplifies things. here goes: i think that most of us are just not interested enough to actively pursue God's truth. it takes too much time and effort. too much reading. too much listening. too much praying. pick any spiritual discipline and you will probably find that it requires too much of us who are kinda comfortable where we are.

so 'when the weight of this world crashes down on you' (mark heard, circa '82) we are ill-equipped to face the barrage- defaulting instead to the sceptic's view, sitting with our face in our drink concluding 'there is no truth.'

actually, there is. the problem is that we are so unfamiliar with his revelation due to our lack of discipline that it is easier to speak of the mask of oz than to seek the face of God.
***

i realize that this post is incomplete-
but that is, after all, the freedom of a whole nother blog...

rabbinical yoke?

recently in another conversation, a friend of mine figuratively mentioned "following the advice of a rabbi..."

which reminded me of an msn convo i had awhile back with societyVS about the people to whose teaching we subscribe and are most likely to readily cite. i know that, apart from musicians and poets who package human interpersonal and intrapersonal insights into soundbites that i can subliminally feed upon while driving in my car, there are a couple of writers whom i regularly go to for a word of truth. i'm sure many of us have these: it is probably telling to simply click on one's online profile for further details there...

anyway, something i read recently in velvet elvis by rob bell...

(discussed briefly and cross-linked in one of my favourite websites:
www.churchmarketingsucks.com/archives/2005/06/churches_are_li.html)

... about the traditional role of the rabbi seems to be relevant:

Now the ancient rabbis understood that the Bible is open-ended and has to be interpreted. And they understood that their role in the community was to study and mediate and discuss and pray and then make those decisions. Rabbis are like interpreters, helping people understand what God is saying to them through the text and what it means to live out the text...

Different rabbis had different sets of rules, which were really different lists of what they forbade and what they permitted. A rabbi's set of rules and lists, which was really that rabbi's interpretation of how to live the Torah, was called that rabbi's yoke. When you followed a certain rabbi, you were following him because you believed that rabbi's set of interpretations were the closest to what God intended through the Scriptures. And when you followed that rabbi, you were taking up that rabbi's yoke.

One rabbi even said his yoke was easy.

The intent then of a rabbi having a yoke wasn't just to interpret the words correctly; it was to live them out. In the jewish context, action was always the goal. It still is.

Rabbis would spend hours discussing with their students what it meant to live out a certain text. If a student made a suggestion about what a certain text meant and the rabbi thought that the student had totally missed the point, the rabbi would say, "You have abolished the Torah," which meant that in the rabbi's opinion, the student wasn't anywhere near what God wanted. But if the student got it right, if the rabbi thought the student had grasped God's intention in the text, the rabbi would say, "You have fulfilled the Torah."

Notice what Jesus says in one of his first messages: "I have not come to abolish [the Torah] but to fulfill [it]. He was essentially saying, "I didn't come to do away with the words of God; I came to show people what it looks like when the Torah is lived out perfectly, right down to the smallest punctuation marks."

"I'm here to put flesh and blood on the words."

Most rabbis taught the yoke of a well respected rabbi who had come before them. So if you visited a synogogue and the local rabbi (Torah teacher) was going to teach, you might hear that this rabbi teaches in the name of Rabbi So-and-So. If you were familiar with the yoke of Rabbi So-and-So, then you would know what to expect from this rabbi.

Every once in a while, a rabbi would come along who was teaching a new yoke, a new way of interpreting the Torah. This was rare and extraordinary.

Bell goes on to point out that, contained in all the talk about binding and loosing and keys to the kingdom, the yoke of Christ is to give his followers permission and the authority to debate and interpret scripture responsibly...

And not only is he giving them authority, but he is saying that when they do debate and discuss and pray and wrestle and then make decisions about the Bible, somehow God in heaven will be involved...
(rob bell, velvet elvis, exerpted pp 46-48, 2005)

rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty

when does one cross the line that apparently separates valuable discourse from foolishness? like that fine line that exists between the person at the party who is really interesting and funny after a couple of beers and that same person just one beer too many...

so speaking of wry smiles-
i smile wryly when i read pilate's words in john 18:
"What is truth?" (John 18.38)
nietzsche couldn't have said it better!

and the part in colossians 2 about pointless logic and theosophying...
"See to it that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ." (Colossians 2.8)

a couple of days ago, this little devotional by chucky spurgeon on titus 3.9 went out over the free methodist church in canada's listserve... i read it and decided to just copy and paste it, rather than trying to decide if someone else was feeling that things can get pretty maudlin on blogs and listserves, and had posted it as a reminder to keep our feet on the ground.
***

“Avoid foolish questions.” Titus 3:9

Our days are few, and are far better spent in doing good, than in disputing over matters which are, at best, of minor importance.

The old schoolmen did a world of mischief by their incessant discussion of subjects of no practical importance; and our Churches suffer much from petty wars over abstruse points and unimportant questions. After everything has been said that can be said, neither party is any the wiser, and therefore the discussion no more promotes knowledge than love, and it is foolish to sow in so barren a field.

Questions upon points wherein Scripture is silent; upon mysteries which belong to God alone; upon prophecies of doubtful interpretation; and upon mere modes of observing human ceremonials, are all foolish, and wise men avoid them. Our business is neither to ask nor answer foolish questions, but to avoid them altogether; and if we observe the apostle’s precept (Titus 3:8) to be careful to maintain good works, we shall find ourselves far too much occupied with profitable business to take much interest in unworthy, contentious, and needless strivings.

There are, however, some questions which are the reverse of foolish, which we must not avoid, but fairly and honestly meet, such as these: Do I believe in the Lord Jesus Christ? Am I renewed in the spirit of my mind? Am I walking not after the flesh, but after the Spirit? Am I growing in grace? Does my conversation adorn the doctrine of God my Saviour? Am I looking for the coming of the Lord, and watching as a servant should do who expects his master? What more can I do for Jesus?

Such enquiries as these urgently demand our attention; and if we have been at all given to cavilling, let us now turn our critical abilities to a service so much more profitable. Let us be peace-makers, and endeavour to lead others both by our precept and example, to “avoid foolish questions.”
(Charles Spurgeon)

***
honestly, i think that i'm just kinda tired of blogging. i'm glad that so many are keeping the fires burning around here because lately i haven't been interested in typing anything... there's just too much going on around me that i am taking part in which requires the time that it takes for me to write anything even mildly useful. at best, i get thinking in silly circles like dougie adams' majikthise and vroomfondel, knowing full well that there is work to be done that i'm not attending to in the meantime.

so that's it for me for awhile. i'll check back in from time to time to see who's left the porchlight on for some late-night java...

keep the faith
-jollybeggar

***

"O Deep Thought Computer," he said, "the task we have designed you to perform is this. We want you to tell us ..." he paused, "... the Answer!"

"The answer?" said Deep Thought. "The answer to what?"

"Life!" urged Fook.

"The Universe!" said Lunkwill.

"Everything!" they said in chorus.

Deep Thought paused for a moment's reflection.

"Tricky," he said finally.

"But can you do it?"

Again, a significant pause.

"Yes," said Deep Thought, "I can do it."

"There is an answer?" said Fook with breathless excitement."

"A simple answer?" added Lunkwill.

"Yes," said Deep Thought. "Life, the Universe, and Everything. There is an answer. But," he added, "I'll have to think about it."

A sudden commotion destroyed the moment: the door flew open and two angry men wearing the coarse faded-blue robes and belts of the Cruxwan University burst into the room, thrusting aside the ineffectual flunkies who tried to bar their way.

"We demand admission!" shouted the younger of the two men elbowing a pretty young secretary in the throat.

"Come on," shouted the older one, "you can't keep us out!" He pushed a junior programmer back through the door.

"We demand that you can't keep us out!" bawled the younger one, though he was now firmly inside the room and no further attempts were being made to stop him.

"Who are you?" said Lunkwill, rising angrily from his seat. "What do you want?"

"I am Majikthise!" announced the older one.

"And I demand that I am Vroomfondel!" shouted the younger one.

Majikthise turned on Vroomfondel. "It's alright," he explained angrily, "you don't need to demand that."

"Alright!" bawled Vroomfondel banging on an nearby desk. "I am Vroomfondel, and that is not a demand, that is a solid fact! What we demand is solid facts!"

"No we don't!" exclaimed Majikthise in irritation. "That is precisely what we don't demand!"

Scarcely pausing for breath, Vroomfondel shouted, "We don't demand solid facts! What we demand is a total absence of solid facts. I demand that I may or may not be Vroomfondel!"

"But who the devil are you?" exclaimed an outraged Fook.

"We," said Majikthise, "are Philosophers."

"Though we may not be," said Vroomfondel waving a warning finger at the programmers.

"Yes we are," insisted Majikthise. "We are quite definitely here as representatives of the Amalgamated Union of Philosophers, Sages, Luminaries and Other Thinking Persons, and we want this machine off, and we want it off now!"

"What's the problem?" said Lunkwill.

"I'll tell you what the problem is mate," said Majikthise, "demarcation, that's the problem!"

"We demand," yelled Vroomfondel, "that demarcation may or may not be the problem!"

"You just let the machines get on with the adding up," warned Majikthise, "and we'll take care of the eternal verities thank you very much. You want to check your legal position you do mate. Under law the Quest for Ultimate Truth is quite clearly the inalienable prerogative of your working thinkers. Any bloody machine goes and actually finds it and we're straight out of a job aren't we? I mean what's the use of our sitting up half the night arguing that there may or may not be a God if this machine only goes and gives us his bleeding phone number the next morning?"

"That's right!" shouted Vroomfondel,
"we demand rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty!"

(Douglas Adams- Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy;
cited at http://flag.blackened.net/dinsdale/dna/book1.html)

Getting Tough?

hey gang
i'm gonna go out on a limb here and post a note that hineini sent me recently.
it prompted some pretty cool discussion on legalism and what the role of law actually was/is/is to be for the nation of israel- the pharisees in particular- which i might post sometime...

(jump in anytime h to clarify)
***

The Gospel of John 8:1-11 recounts a story most of us are very familiar with. A crowd brings a woman to Jesus telling him “Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery”. The story tells how the teachers of the law remind Jesus of the harsh punishment that the law given to Moses demands in the situation. I can hear the fear in the crowd that approaches Jesus, these are life and death things. Not only is the woman’s life at stake but so is the well being of the community and its members. The law given to Moses is what held the community together for centuries. The story says the people who brought the woman to Jesus were using the situation as a trap for Jesus. Probably, many of them saw Jesus as a threat to how things were, the health and safety of their communities and their faith. Maybe some of them hoped that Jesus wasn’t as radical as they had heard, that he really didn’t want to change things too much and maybe they were offering Jesus an opportunity to ease their fears, an olive branch if you will.

Well, we know how the story ends. Jesus, without denying the importance of the law, instead urges leniency, revealing to everyone there that they were all law breakers; they were all in a position deserving of punishment. In a truly wonderful gesture, Jesus, instead of demanding punishment for all, watches those who would condemn face their own faults until there is no condemnation for anyone, simply forgiveness. “Has no one condemned you?” Jesus asks her and when she replies “No one” he says “Then neither do I condemn you.”.

It was this story that passed through my mind when I received the last mailing from my local Member of Parliament (MP). The mailing entitled “Cracking Down On Crime” described the parties eagerness to “get tough” on “criminals“. I’m not sure why but the image of that woman, cowering at Jesus’ feet, probably pretty certain she was going to die, stayed with me as I read through the mailing. I could hear the crowd demanded Jesus “get tough” with the “criminal” as I read how new laws were being readied that seek to punish people even further. In the end though, as I finished reading the party’s ideas it’s Jesus, and his soft, kind and forgiving words to that very vulnerable woman that gets me thinking that “getting tough” on “criminals” might not be what I’m called to support.

on the tee

it seems like a trend is developing. about this time last year (perhaps a month later or so, but whatever) my friend icarus issued an open letter to christians, challenging them to articulate why they believe what they believe. recently, kinkazzo sent me an email (exerpted below) asking many of the same questions.

now is it the weather or is it me? i don't know. maybe it's simply that these are the questions that inevitably come up once some time has passed and some dialogue on the things of life has tanspired between spiritual beings having a physical experience. perhaps its just that everyone is getting restless, having been golfing at those virtual golf places all winter. enquiring minds want to know...

Why are you a pastor, why are you a "believer"? How can you possibly hold to a "religion" knowing that our concept of God is invalid? Why does a rational being accept by faith some belief like yours? Why do we pray if God cannot intervene?

well, rather than simply copy and paste last year's testimonial (http://e-pistles.blogspot.com/2005/04/reason-and-bubble-boy.html), i decided to try to put this whole faith experience into new words a year later... here's the 'e-pistle' i sent to my friend in response...
***
so i thought about it a bit and i guess that there are two questions that come to mind:

why do i respond? how do i respond?

the first one's easy: because you asked and because i am learning things about myself by talking to you... there is also that amazing growth thing that happens when one is required to somehow articulate the things he or she believes in the face of strong reasons not to...

however, the second one is a little trickier for me. firstly, there's that whole business of trying to sort out where another person is going ie: whether this note is simply a psalm of lament--- a proclamation more than a prayer per se... spoken about God rather than to him, although loudly enough for him to hear--- full of rhetorical questions intended to express ideas rather than gather them, or is this note and the questions contained therein a quest for understanding as experienced between two friends?

Why are you a pastor, why are you a "believer"? How can you possibly hold to a "religion" knowing that our concept of God is invalid? Why does a rational being accept by faith some belief like yours? Why do we pray if God cannot intervene?

i agree. it would be foolish to hold to a religion, knowing that the concept of God is invalid. i'm just not in any way convinced that this is the case with God. my concept of God, (my theos logos, if you will) may be flawed, but these flaws do not do anything except keep me humble- they don't humble God at all, any more than some strange belief on the part of another concerning who i am actually makes me that belief. a misconception is a misconception and, if nothing else, this example underscores for me the importance of ensuring that my talks on sunday mornings are backed up really well by scripture, commentary, exegesis and other Christian teachings so as to not be relegated to simple theological gossip.

in my view, the validity in the 'concept of God' is in the fact that it is life-affecting (i would like to say 'life-changing' but the reality is that i was born and raised as a follower of Jesus Christ and the things that changed the direction of my life forever or just awhile were not so much the holy moments as the unholy ones... but that's a whole nother blog.)

but why pray? c.s. lewis' response has always worked for me:
prayer doesn't change God, it changes me.

the problem with using that soundbyte in this context is that if this were a proper response to your earlier question about prayer then it would also hold that prayer is "a hopeless exercise. Maybe a gestalt? At time replaced by the therapist's couch? A cheaper way of finding mental comfort?" (these are kinkazzo's words from later in the email) nope, there's got to be more to it for me than a pat answer or some church-childhood leftovers or i wouldn't bother.

is it enough to say that i pray because i know i'm not in charge? perhaps prayer is an ongoing exercise in surrendering my existencial stranglehold on things too big for my little hands anyway. i recently wrote a song that headed in this direction. although no music can heal me and no poem can make me whole (kinkazzo's words again), for me poetry and music are means by which i get in conscious touch with that which is taking place in my subconscious mind (the unconscious mind stuff is a little easier for me to lock in on because i remember dreams vividly... occasionally i can even interpret them in terms of the messages that they invite me to answer or respond to in metadialogue.)

i'm the one who walks upon the wire
i'm the one who works without a net
i'm the one who dances through the fire
i'm the one with nothing to forget

i'm the one who keeps the pie-plates spinning
i'm the one who knew it all along
i'm the one who gambles with his winnings
i'm the one who is yet to be proven wrong

the eye in the sky advises you to find another route home
avoid the twisted metal and broken glass
a crowd has gathered
debris is scattered for miles along the way
one by one people, shudder as they pass

i'm the one who insults in order to flatter
i'm the one who knows how to beat the odds
i'm the one who believes in mind over matter
i'm the one who has no time for your little gods

the eye in the sky advises you to find another route home
avoid the twisted metal and broken glass
a crowd has gathered
debris is scattered for miles along the way
one by one people, shudder as they pass

the eye in the sky advises you to find another route home
how long you'll have to wait is hard to say
the crews are working into the night
to clear away the wreckage
of a car that hit itself going the other way

i think that prayer is, for me, more than a mental discipline like meditation or the like. it is one way that i keep balanced- both big enough to do some things and small enough to let go of others. it is an expression of my belief that relational dialogue is possible between creator and created- a belief that is realized in the interaction.

i do not believe that it is impossible for God to intervene in circumstances, although there are times when i sure wish that i could somehow see the redemptive element of something painful or tragic. however, rather than abandon faith in looking for reasons (or perhaps looking for reasons to abandon faith), i am slowly learning that there are things towhich i am not entitled to understanding, no matter how important i think i am. prayer is the cord i use to lash myself to the mast of faith amidst the worst of storms- it supercedes my sloppy logic and my ever-humbled intellect by providing understanding and peace when there wouldn't be any without it.

however, what God does with things like the crusades and the holocaust (Kinkazzo had been to germany recently and had been profoundly moved by visits to the 'camps') i have no idea... they tell me who or what humankind is at its worst, when humankind is furthest from the heart of God, who seems to be about the weak and the weary rather than the privileged. that people use God's name to increase their privilege or work out their own power and dominance issues on others just reminds me of how small we are. this doesn't change who God is.

but why does God not intervene? is it because he can't or won't?

good questions, but when i ask them, the asking is usually coming from the place that shouts 'foul' rather than that which seeks relationship (and maybe rightly so- for questions such as this question God's justice and who seeks relationship with cosmic injustice? what would be the point of that beyond some good ol-fashioned codependency?). perhaps one needs to be in a certain place to even be permitted to ask such questions- the psalmist speaks of a contrite heart being the thing that God will not deny. when i ask them, questions like these presume to somehow have an understanding of justice that is greater than that of the author of justice. how could that be? is that contrition or pride? subjected to time and space, can i truly comprehend being outside of them, or must i, at best, only imagine them? upon what do i build my imaginings of the unknown but upon the fabric of the known? being spiritually blind, the best i can do is imagine spiritual sight in physical terms- how is this anything but metaphor and how does metaphor work its way into reason?

and then i wonder why God doesn't email his reply immediately.

perhaps God waits patiently while i sort through all the attitude and the intellectual clutter in order to get to the only question that ultimately matters to every soul in the end: how do i recognize and realize my role in all things? insofar as i am involved in this life, what is the chief end of this man? i don't need to be wealthy or experienced or anything else if i can just be real and know that who i am becoming is progressively closer to who i am meant to be.

sure- my road to this realization involves the answering of these questions... or even my place is to question. that's pretty comfortable. i have a friend who prides himself on asking questions that nobody (not even he) can satisfactorily answer. it allows him to remain in charge doesn't it? a constant to which everything else is to relate. as long as i keep bringing up the holocaust or the crusades or tsunami producing plate-tectonics as evidence of God's injustice or questionable nature, i don't have to actually take responsibility for anything because it is clear to me that God does not take responsibility for the things that are, by his silence or lack of intervention, his sins of omission. easy to blame God in order to sleep at night.

so many of our questions can be procrastinations- like checking the direction of the wind, considering various drivers, waiting expectantly for the crowd gathered to be silenced and so on rather than actually approaching the golfball on the tee.
***
Then he said to Thomas, "Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe."
Thomas said to him, "My Lord and my God!"
Then Jesus told him, "Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."
(john 20.27-29)

starting point?

a friend of mine who used to play in our band is a new-age pantheist. i don't think he'd mind being categorized, as in his view we are all God and simply struggling through varying stages of self-realization and memory. it shouldn't matter to a real part of god if other parts of god have the wrong picture of what it is... it is not the worship of the other parts of itself that a god desires.

so he was talking to me one time about zen moments where one is simultaneously enlightened and confused, and it put me in mind of the richard bach novel illusions. the book relates the adventures of a reluctant messiah. in the story, the main character (richard) is a travelling barnstormer who meets another (albeit suspiciously perfect) barnstormer named don. don never has to change his oil or polish his engine- he's got it all together. richard decides to disciple under don, a new guru.

as will happen within a fallen world of action, reaction and causality, richard's plane needs some repairs one day, and the two find themselves in a hardware store for parts. richard is moving down an aisle when he hears the most beautiful soulspoken music of his life coming from another part of the store. he follows the sonic fragrance to its source, finding don playing a toy guitar in a makeshift toy aisle (how many really good toys are there going to be in a hardware store?).

'i didn't know you could play guitar...'
'what kind of messiah would i be if i couldn't do something simple like play guitar? the only difference between you and me is that my belief in my ability to play guitar is greater than your belief in yours. some people have to practice for ten years before they actually believe that they can play...' (okay, really sloppy paraphrase, but that's the gist of it)

and so on. well, if godhood and guitar prowess are related in any way, then i think that the realization of my friend's own personal godhood is still a long way off. he recently moved to korea and doesn't have to practice as hard or even change his strings. he sends us photographs from time to time, but never song ideas.
***

my friend kinkazzo spoke recently in an email of his restlessness and a desire to unite with the universal mind. he outlined a story of how he had once launched an online cosmic consciousness group that caught on and grew so quickly that they were even to the point of discussing the prospect of holding a convention. yet amidst all of this excitement, and the realization of a lifelong dream, my friend found himself in a funk and told the whole lot of them to piss off so he could shrink back once again into relative obscurity.

i think that it must be really hard to be a god.

it's frustrating to author something that ultimately means nothing. chasing after the wind or whatever. certainly in kinkatso's case, the experience is heavily reminiscent in its conclusions of the teacher in ecclesiastes: it still speaks of an unfulfilled desire to be a necessary part of something bigger than big, realer than real, and above all, satisfying. although he had created something 'ex nehilo', it was not from love but from restlessness that the new incarnation arose. the thrill was all in the chase.

I had something going there, just as I always wanted. But I couldn't follow through, I lost my appetite: that's the way I am. I lose interest quickly, and my dynamism disappears... This is surely due to my disquieting mind, my irregular personality and my pressive character. Right.
But why?
What am I looking for?
Why couldn't I keep it going and create a REAL movement? It would have been sooooo good: just the way I liked -- people talking in-depth; people looking at important issues; people being spiritual and superconscious.
Damn it: I really wanted to CREATE A STAR!
A "conveyor" for my Fire.
A channelling for my Inspiration, my Creativeness -- (all capitalised!)
Egocentric? Sure, but what a goal!
And I ruined everything with my instability...

you can't create something real from something unstable. you can't create something that is perfect, balanced and needing nothing to survive from a personal need to create something that is blah blah blah. it's strength is tied inextricably to its author but realized in the quality of the materials used. it's like trying to create free energy with a mechano set and a bunsen burner... some things cannot be created, only discovered.

a laugh for the man in the eyes of the world trying to make things work
tried to create a new jerusalem and ended up with new york...
(bruce cockburn)

look at humankind. our greatest strengths seem to reflect that perfect ideal personified that we have named God. (i love how God dodged that one from the beginning, knowing that if we were to be given a specific name to address him as, we would just use it wrongly anyway... so he let us identify him in the most meaningful way we could) our greatest weaknesses, by choice, seem to be in direct contrast to those strengths.

however, i just can't subscribe to nietzsche's 'beyond good and evil' thing- that subscribing to a morality which jives with universal law on things like 'goodness' and 'justice' is somehow subjecting oneself to being repressed; and that God's choice to permit free will is evidence of his weakness as a deity: a flaw indicative of the fallacy of God- i choose to push against that one. free will is our greatest gift- superceding even Jesus in God's grace. i mean, Jesus was the remedy for the bad stewardship of our free will which resulted in a severed relationship between love personified and goodness actualized: between the creator of all things and his crowned of creation. the ability to choose came first.

but as long as we choose to be gods we will be frustrated.
we create, but it's never out of the raw material of love alone.

do you think that all creation came from nothing but the word of the intelligent designer in need of an outlet one day? although the creation story begins with the spirit of God hovering over the face of the deep, as it were, how figuratively or literally are we to take this? i love the idea that everything good (including time) was concentrated to a specific location having no dimensions and a specific moment having no duration- a starting point only- and that the voice of God is what the ancients a thousand years from now, schooled in antiquities and curios, will call 'the big bang.'

over the next few days, kinkazzo and i continued the dialogue further. originally i was going to just copy and paste the whole thing in the comment box of this blog, but then i thought 'gee, maybe that's rude...' so instead i've just linked his blog on the side.

(tangentary questions: in this information-processing epoch, to what degree is any dialogue between two consenting adults a private matter? especially among bloggers where so much intellectual property is released into the public domain? i don't know the answers to these questions, except that i believe the more we can interact with each other's ideas, either directly or indirectly, the more opportunity we have to grow as people. i still struggle with what that means pertaining to 'obscenity,' censorship, and ideas that contribute to the moral and spiritual unravelling of our planet, however. my parenthetical point is that, like effects without cause or yang without ying, i can't seem to isolate and articulate ideas from the dialogue without at least partially citing the ideas in italics which led to them... hope that's cool, k-man!)

anyway, he cited eregina:

God is eternally partially self-ignorant. If he knew all of himself, he could define himself. If he could define himself, he would be finite.

but is the lack of definition an inability or a refusal?

i mean, i recognize the logic that binds the infinity of God to the unknown and incalculable, but what if God exists beyond logic as he exists beyond time and beyond evil? what if that which God does further affirms his capacity to be all things and do all things, whereas what he does not do just continues to be that which he has simply not done, neither defining nor deifying him?

"I AM who I AM"- nothing logically comparable- no appropriate simile or metaphor when it comes to his power or his holiness. then the questions return to that old human stomping ground: what does God do? what has he done? what is he responsible for? or, my personal favourite: what is he NOT responsible for?

But all he knows of himself is what he has created. What is created is his knowledge or represents the expressed, revealed and therefore finite aspects of his actions and his knowledge

what is potential is his mystery: mysterious in him and to him. i don't think that God is a mystery to himself. it is like that guitar story- until don had played guitar, all that richard could possibly say was that don had never played guitar- no, not even that... all he could say was that, to his knowledge, don had never played guitar. were don to share, would it be necessary for him to qualify his ability by saying 'yes, of course i knew how to play before playing' of might it be enough for the playing of guitar to be within the realm of don's capability, but not, as yet, something that he had done? does 'if can do' logically imply 'then has done' or are there in fact things that God can do that he hasn't done and, seated outside of time, will never do? there must be. i mean, there are things that i am capable of doing that i've never done- how much moreso God?

i agree that our causative, hierarchical thinking is problematic at best, mainly due to its subjectivity. through this lens we quantify, qualify and classify, attempting to catch a glimpse of some meaning. that's probably the problem. we attempt to examine and explain the rest of the world (let's not even bother with theology, let's just scientifically and experiencially comment on our existence alone, like descartes) from this tiny and subjective point of context rather than to seek to comment on this piece of turf upon which stand against the backdrop of everything around us.

God is caused by what it causes; is made necessary by what it necessitates; we cannot comprehend. I cannot comprehend, and I can't accept it.

i cannot comprehend but i am okay with accepting it. i find the whole fallacy of entitlement to be a bit of a red herring anyway- to conclude that we are entitled to answers that allign with our reason is a bit presumptuous, i think. if i as a man believe that i can somehow comprehend the mind of God without being God, then surely it must follow (although probably not very logically, as my brain doesn't work that way most days...) that i would be able to comprehend the mind of a woman without being one? i mean, there is probably much less difference between the thinking and purposes of a man and a woman than there is between a man and a relationally able, conscious creator of all good things both seen and unseen. yet what an incredible mystery my wife can be somedays...

dare we presume to be capable of drawing finite parameters around one who is, by virtue of basic doctrines like omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence, perfection and holiness, absolute and without parameters apart from those which attempt to address his very nature? that might be a bit much for a creation to accomplish, using only created materials and means to measure and summarize the immeasurable. might that be like trying to use a ruler to measure the mass of a beam of light- the tool selected to do the job being not only insufficient, but in fact irrelevent? rather than a box to keep him in, perhaps our understanding of God would be better served by trying to sort out the things that are at the centre of who God is: the things that characterize that location having no dimensions, that instant having no duration. it is from there and then that love and life did begin.

so play the game of existence to the end of the beginning
(lennon/mccartney)

time to go practice...

culturally sanctified (set apart)

in an interesting post about diabolical lies and passive spiritual agreement, ezekiel said...
"Be advised: I may sound arrogant in my comments. I am not trying to talk down to anyone, I am only saying the truth that I have learned from the Bible..."

here's something that i think about a fair bit: we 'christians' come from a culture that is different from that of those whom we seek to reach with the gospel. gospel truth as found in the bible makes perfect sense to those of us who have grown up with it as the central part of our world view. it makes as much sense to our hearts as basic english does to our minds- we don't have to translate anything because we literally think in this language already.

not so for the 'non-believer' (i kinda have a tough time with that label... actually with most labels- but that's probably a whole nother blog) in most cases, our achristian friends have really strongly held reasons for their non-belief. sometimes these are based on bad personal examples of christianity, other times they are based on heart-breaking experiences while still other times they are simply the tragic result of that time of spiritual tension when one's faith ceases to be the faith of his or her parents and becomes his or her own.

whatever the case, we must be culturally sensitive, and recognize that our defaults are not necessarily held by others. to tell someone who has abandoned faith in God that God reportedly says something in the bible (a book that those who believe in him have written together about him over thousands of years) and that's why this person should believe it and change his or her entire world view is probably not going to get very far in the realization of the evangelist's goal.

the reality is that human beings are more likely to listen to other human beings, provided they have the opportunity to get to know these others well enough to listen to them. yep, it's a circle. and it can happen. acts2 tells of the day when everyone heard in 'his own language.' because language is so cultural, i find this passage full of hopeful challenge.

the discourse that takes place between us and those with whom we desire to share a life-changing message of God's love and grace is how God speaks. he intends to use the words and the lives of everyone who believes in the gospel of Jesus Christ because there is probably MORE of a chance of folks believing it if the message comes face to face through someone they know than from someone in whom they do not believe.

"...I don't intend for anyone to believe anything because I say it, but believe it because God says it."

in a lot of cases, people will ONLY believe things because we say them- not because the God they have already turned from or perhaps have never acknowledged as being real in the first place does. our life testifies to the truth of which we speak, as does our love.

could the fatal flaw for believers be that we are too sanctified culturally to be of any real spiritual use?

finding neo

Bigbro said:
Fundamentalism is about 'not needing an explanation.'

Oh, sure, there are those weekly explanations of a particular scripture that is pretty much explained the same way it was explained the last time the subject came up, but that's merely repetitiveness. Rote helps one not forget a lesson so as that lesson never changes regardless of the century in progress.

It all comes down to not needing an explanation. Not having to muddle about with explanations makes it all that much easier for everyone involved. Kind of like going to a Halloween party where no one wears masks

well, i'm afraid that i have to beg to differ with a couple different things here. i don't think that fundamentalism is as much about not needing an explanation as it is about presuming that a literal interpretation of scripture is the only explanation worth considering. this is probably why there is this whole problem with the weekly 'explanations' being all the same. it would be hard to take anything non-literal to fundamentalist masses without someone crying 'foul!'

i also disagree with the idea that not having to muddle about with explanations makes it all that much easier for everyone involved. it is the ethnocentric presumption that no one has to explain anything or be somehow intellectually and spiritually accountable to anyone or anything else that results in so much really bad theology. people make wild logical leaps from idea to idea, like neo in the matrix- as if denying the fact that there is gravity and believing that it has no hold upon him will, in fact, release him from its causal grip. arguing that spirituality need not be in any way connected to the physical world causes me to ask 'why do we have to bother with physical existence then?'

the 'merrily merrily merrily, life is but a dream' approach to the interrelation of our spiritual and physical existences is probably only easy on those who subscribe to it. it drives a lot of other people crazy on both sides of the line drawn by Jesus in the sand. it is as much a source of frustration to those who, although holding to a faith in the same means of approaching God, differ from its spin on conclusive evidence, as it is to those who do not hold to this faith at all.

nobody likes being judged, or having their faith relationship (or non-relationship for that matter) with God through Christ presumed about, and a hardline of faith against a really fuzzy line of logic or reason can blur many things that are worth talking about in favour of details that become huge arguments for general disbelief. since we discovered in the garden, figuratively or literally, that to truly understand the difference between good and evil we simply needed to experience a little bit of evil first hand (and thus seperate ourselves from the holy realm, driving a necessary chasm between the temporal physical and the eternal spiritual forever) and then deal with the consequences of our decision-making, we've wrestled with the apparent disparity between our intellectual capacity for reason and the whole of existence which appears to be not only very very big but, at times, very unreasonable as well.

where it goes all wrong for me is when there are rectifiable differences that are stubbornly ignored. you find a neo in the most surprising places, often wearing some very familiar faces.

a bunch of us were all grappling with an entirely different issue the other day when a dear friend of mine surprised me by launching some SCUD missile logic into an otherwise really engaging round-the-table discussion. he said 'i have trouble with people who say that they believe the bible as long as it agrees with science... i believe science as long as it agrees with the bible, no further.' from here he shared his belief that the whole carbon-dating process is an atheist conspirator's distraction and that the earth is only six thousand years old and so on.

now, this guy is awesome and i love him dearly, but because i knew that we'd just get into an argument that would go round and round and take over the meeting from there on, i left it alone in spite of the fact that i vehemently disagreed with his position. what made me uncomfortable was the feeling in me that, because i was silent, those around the table would think i agreed. easier for everyone else? maybe, but that collective ease came at the price of my own personal peace.

you see, recently i posted a bit on 'five things i don't get.' this was one that almost made my top 5 list:
why people see creation theories and evolution theories as diametrically opposed and in all ways contradictory. a theory can't prove or disprove God. it can only strengthen your faith in its hypothesis.

but here's where the "darwin/TRUTH" picture above comes in. i very strongly agree with this image, but not in the way my friend thinks, judging from my silence that day. you see, i think truth is a way bigger fish than any one theory, and that, if we are to cut open the TRUTH fish, we'll probably find the partially digested remains of the darwin fish inside its entrails. some of the theory will have made truth stronger, and some of it will have already become deep-sea excrement.

once again, the challenge for me is to be able to tell the difference, being careful to clean the fish thoroughly before i throw it onto my barBQ wrapped in foil to be cooked and served to my friends as a the maincourse of a well-balanced meal.
***

disclaimer: i know that it sounds like i'm doing a lot of judging of my own here... please forgive me for this. i have not yet found a way to articulate objections objectively.

us and them

from where i sit it's all the same
why can't i just be free?
because no matter what you say
you'll never make me see
as you speak your voice rises
so great is your commitment to rescue me from the 'other side'
sure my eyes are open
so to your reason they are blind

but let me try
try to make you understand
it's nothing personal- it's just the way i am
i've seen too much consistent inconsistency
too many things are said by those lacking credibility

a surrogate shepherd performs a three-point scream
mopping sweat from his brow he tells of a dream
how darkness and terror invaded his head causing some thrashing about on the bed
apparitions wielding financial prophecy tormented his temples chanting 'bankruptcy'
and so to the faithful he beckons today
that if they truly would follow they must join him in his crusade

nothing is heard
nothing is felt
only thoughts of the lunch buffet
and of loosening the bible belt

please- don't get on the defensive
i didn't mean to wound your pride
i just wanted you to see my side
there there sit back and take it easy
if it will make you feel better you can say a little prayer for me

so now we're in it, one on one
and it's your turn once again
('the other side' written in mr jazwal's math class)

***
then agrippa said to paul,
'do you think that in such a short time you can persuade me to be a christian?'
paul replied,
'short time or long- i pray God that not only you but all who are listening to me today may become what i am, except for these chains...'
(acts 26.28-9)

***
Icarus said:
"I always hold that the only way to make progress on a certain topic is to pull away any BS and start from the very foundation. I don't know how successful my post was, as everyone seems to be firmly planted in their respective corners, but at least it generated some interesting dialogue."

it went down this way: an open-ended dialogue began with a letter questioning christians' adherence to the bible's claims of spiritual authority and divine authorship which generated a fair bit of interest (comparatively speaking) in the blogosphere. it resulted in some good discussion and debate which was facilitated responsibly by its insightful author/devil's advocate, depending on your position on the issue. at the end of its run, its author made the comment cited above concerning the fruitfulness of the post.

the fact that icarus questioned the success of his 'a letter to christians' post surprised me. i guess your view of a successful dialogue depends on your reason for initiating the discussion in the first place. you see, debates usually prove little apart from who the least incapabable candidate for election might be. debates polarize the mob and serve to strengthen the already held positions of the constituents, but do little to convince. if the post was intended to draw people from one side of the spiritual issue on the cyber-roundtable to the other, then its authorship was misguided.

as misguided, i might add, as two thousand years worth of passionate evangelical monologues intended to fetch the fallen from the flame. in the constituency of the soul, the life-changing dialogue takes place between creator and created, not between the created quibblers. although reason is one of the empowering faculties of humankind, it is not the only one and it certainly struggles in realms where the facts just aren't all there to be examined through scientific, logical or otherwise empirical methods. yet apologists work very diligently at convincing atheists and agnostics that the espoused doctrines are true when, in some cases, these are too mystical to be 'proven' apart from the personal proof that is established through the experiencial living of a life according to said doctrines.

i think that this is similar to trying to explain how thinking in one language works to someone who thinks in a different one. thought patterns and structures that seem natural (but are, in fact, learned from a time prior to earliest memory) for an anglophone are foreign to the francophone who is attempting to learn english as an addition to their existing means of relating to the world. at first it requires a lot of discipline and interpretation, but it eventually becomes something that people refer to as 'second nature.' however, it takes an incredible amount of time, practice and often immersion to cause one to move beyond their 'mother tongue' and truly embrace a new language and the effect it has on how that person thinks and processes information.

yet, the atheist tries to convince the christian that the language of 'simple faith' is shallow and intellectually inferior, while the christian tries to convince the atheist that the language of 'pure reason' is limited to the physical realm in its scope and experience. can anyone ever be bilingual, speaking both languages fluently? i believe so, but it takes more than one lengthy blog or one passionate late-night conversation at tim horton's to get there.

(note: this doesn't mean that i am against sharing diagrams depicting large chasms which are bridged by crosses, or setting up s.b.a.'s or 'praying the prayer' or whatever... although i DO draw the line at leaving bogus tracts that look like money on the table as a tip for the server upon leaving a restaurant- that's just wrong. i'm just saying that, in my life's experience, the people that i know are most impacted when i put my gospel gun in the rifle rack and just hang out with the understanding that if they ever want to go there i'm game. i won't dodge the opportunity to share Jesus' love with somebody, i just don't think anybody really likes being considered a project by someone who has the audacity to label them as 'lost.')

i think that the 'progress' in this case was to have so many different voices present in a dialogue that should matter to all of us, but sadly doesn't take place nearly often enough because people have trouble with basic ethnocentricity issues. we see those who hold differing views on things that are important to us as somehow on 'the other side' when, in fact, we are all on the same side... we're on the 'mortal life on fallen planet earth' side.

poetic license

john (http://penseethoughts.blogspot.com/) said:
"The relationship between poetry and truth is key but it seems power resides with poetry when, as Christ puts it 'the people are hungry' whereas power resides with truth when people are being fed meat and potatoes."

i like the notion that poetry is sometimes the only means by which the truth can get in.

language is like digital sampling. the greater the bitrate, the truer the sample is to the sonic essence of the original sound. poetic language contains not only the factual information, but the emotive colour of the factual information as well- in many ways it is a more complete 'sample' of an idea. not only this but metaphors are so much more participative, inviting thoughtful interpretation which takes so much more involvement than simply accepting or rejecting an idea does.

Jesus' use of metaphor seems to go intentionally in one of two directions: obscuring truth to invite greater hunger for it and greater satisfaction upon its discovery; and fleshing truth out in order to make it palpable for willy lowman.

i debated this idea at length with a friend of mine once. he was a seminarian, and was in love with his books (as can happen when you spend so much quality time with them!) the idea that we were attempting to find middle ground on was this: the bible is written in ancient aramaic (old testament) and greek (new testament) with odds and sods of linguistic hybrids thrown in here and there... therefore one needs to have experience with the ancient languages in order to properly handle scripture- in order to divine truth from the words.

obviously, not knowing a stitch of any of the languages in question, i disagreed on the grounds that God's word is truth and truth is timeless and unchanging. the trick for us today is to be able to discern the difference between timeless truth and culturally specific traditions. truth or tradition: how can we tell the difference if we don't know squat about ancient peoples? well that's probably a whole nother blog, but the way i tried to make my point was using poetry...

i asked a bunch of questions which basically underscored the richness of our shared cultural experiences:
both born in the same country in the same basic time period
both speaking the same mother tongue
both raised in traditional nuclear families
both schooled in the same language
both religiously raised and trained in the same denomination
both pursued secular employment before heading into ministry

alright enough already... so the point?
easy. i asked him what i meant when i wrote these lyrics:

circumstances change but the needs are still the same
people still need love and people still love to complain
everybody dances but no one wants to stay behind to pay the band
at the foot of the cross we gape at our loss
holding bloody hammers in our hands
its the moment of choosing between life and simply living alone

well that's hardly fair. i held all the cards. no matter what he said i could have said he was wrong... but i didn't because that would have nullified anything of value that i was trying to say. he gave the perfect answer anyway...

"i don't know- i can tell you what it says to me, though."

bingo. now obviously my stuff is pretty skimpy on truth, and helplessly incompatible with scripture, but the idea that, with poetry, many lessons can be learned from the same passage is a good one. every time i pick up my bible i try to discover something new in it that i've never seen before. the search for a new idea amidst ancient words is staggeringly humbling, because of all the defaults that we have to undo, but it is also incredibly rewarding because we grow in the process.

(note- VERY important: upon arriving at a 'new spin,' the next task is, of course, to run it through the gauntlet: there are things that are very hard to prove, but very easy to disprove. what can you find that disagrees? on what grounds do the disagreements stand? is this consistent with the deep water issues of scripture? all that. otherwise, a creative person can arrive at some pretty weird conclusions if studying the bible in a vacuum! i love the ongoing theological dialogue between frankie dunn and his priest in 'million dollar baby'... take your local preacher or scriptural authority out and bounce ideas around- benefit from HIS/HER years of study to further enrich your relationship with the God of the scriptures.)

however, i'm not getting the 'power of meat and potatoes' bit of john's post. what i take from it is that when people are accustomed to logical and factual discourse, there's not a lot of power in linguistic colourature. i certainly have friends that would agree with a memo more readily than they would agree with a sonnet.

me? i believe that while some books pontificate, other books sing-
yet both can contain truth.

“Wisdom sets bounds even to knowledge… there is a great deal I do NOT want to know… even the bravest of us rarely has the courage for what he really knows…”
(Nietzsche- Twilight of the Idols)

"What is truth?" Pilate asked. (John 18.38)

planet of the zen apes

an old debate heated up again in a recent mbleslie blog
(www.mbleslie.com/blog/2005/03/evolution-debate-rolls-on.php)

matthew blogged:
But even if we knew for 100% fact - which is never the case or there wouldn't be a need for faith - that God did make the universe, the 'separation of church and state' would prevent it being taught in school! How can the truth ever be pursued when one possibility is shunned and rejected automatically based on some deep-seated resentment for anything supernatural?

Another interesting case. Say Joe Christian believes that God somehow acted along with evolution to bring everything to the way it is today. When pressed, Joe admits that he doesn't want God taught alongside evolution in schools. What we can conclude is that Joe either doesn't really believe in the God of Christianity, or that he doesn't mind children being taught what he believes to be a lie - which in turn casts serious doubt on his beliefs. Moreover, Joe appears as a man with no conviction.

and davekugler said:
...Not teaching religion in public settings is of respect for those whose religious backgrounds differ from our own – it protects diversity of thought and belief, while placing responsibility on the teaching of religion on the family. Private schools have offered an alternative for decades for people who don’t want to face the responsibility on their own.

so Icarus said:
Davekugler's comment reminds me of certain Christians I have seen on campus who were shocked and appalled when a travelling minister said that anyone who doesn't believe in Christ is going to Hell. They were so indoctrinated with "tolerance" and "diverstiy" that they didn't even believe what they believed! In the world of gray and relativism, no one is wrong and everyone gets to be right, in their own way, of course.

and finally jollybeggar said:
wow.

although i've never actually given myself that name, i'll step out here and say that you can call me joe. at least, one version of joe. i'm in a quirky spot on this one because i am a 'bi-vocational pastor' (which basically means that i do the church thing and when i'm not doing that i am doing my other job) who teaches public school. not average joe, but an interested joe nonetheless.

however, when i'm pressed, i can't say that i don't want God taught alongside evolution in school- i really do because they address different aspects of who we are and what we need in this place and time.

belief in God and acceptance of the evolution theory are not necessarily contradictory ideas. the notion that they are is old scripting- it is a modern matrix being applied to something holistic. the thing that both of them have in common is that they are both really critically difficult to nail down...(i like what matthew said about faith- in a sort of douglas adams' "hitch-hiker's guide to the galaxy" kinda way) ie: you can't put God in a box for examination and you can't really prove evolution- you can only disprove it.

a few years ago while i was learning through an internship how to be a teacher, we had the big creation-evolution debate in an eighth grade public school class. parents were sent notes to sign saying that they were fine with this and yada yada yada. one side debated evolution from an anthropological standpoint, the other debated creationism from a christian standpoint.

the christians learned a lot that day about what lions will eat and what they will spit out.

although the 'scientists' had charts and diagrams and quotes from everyone from darwin to vonnegut, the christians had only the bible. their logic was flawed in that they used the one source, upon which their theory is based, to prove that their theoretical interpretation of that source was correct and therefore everyone else is wrong. sound familiar?

when was the last time you won a bet that way?

well, we had two authorities come to speak to the kids following the dramatic student debate. on two successive days, a minister from a local church and an anthropologist from the university were slated to speak to the students- sadly, we still felt the need to keep science and spirituality apart in a public school setting.

the first day the minister came. “i understand that you are engaged in a debate for science class over theories of our origin, and are discussing God and creation. firstly, you need to know that this book (the bible) is not a textbook. it wasn’t written that way and it wasn’t meant to be read that way. the bible doesn’t tell you what happened, the bible tells you about who did it…” and so on.

well, i thought ‘great, sounds nice, but the anthropologist from the university is gonna wipe him out tomorrow…’

the next day we waited patiently for our friendly neighbourhood anthropologist, who eventually arrived, albeit late, ready to speak. “i understand that you are engaged in a debate for science class over cosmology theories and are seeking the best explanation of how everything began: creation versus evolution. firstly, let me say that science and the bible speak to different things: if your car happens to break down on a day like today in frigid, sub-zero temperatures, no amount of praying will probably get the thing going again. (here he was being autobiographical, i found out later) however, if you are looking for the meaning of life on a day like today, science has nothing to say.”

the kids were confused and, in a zen sense, that’s when their enlightenment began, I think.

well, except that i think that science does in fact qualify the meanings we take from life by allowing us to more carefully consider the observables, i agree with both men... not in spite of the fact that they seemed to meet right in the middle of the controversy, offering no tidy conclusions, but probably because of it.

i believe what i believe (although i often have a terrible time articulating it) but i don't feel that it is relativist to choose to breathe the free air instead of suffocating with one's head buried so deeply in theological sand that choking, oxygen-starved hallucinations form his spin on 'life, the universe and everything.'

(and, by the way, i too concur with arzhang that evolution is really about continuations, not beginnings...)