ideally?

torchie and i were talking about ideas and actions when he made an interesting statement:

knowing something philosophically and experientially are distinct from each other but not mutually exclusive for both are necessary to knowing something fully. (torchie)

hmm... the fullness of knowledge.

does this soundbyte speak of a difference between intellectual ascent and actually living the dream? i love that they cannot be separated from each other and still be true- excluding one while embracing the other is simply hypocrisy is it not?

okay, here's the kick: is all hypocrisy bad, or is hypocrisy sometimes simply indicative of one's faithlessness? i mean, until someone points it out in me, is the log in my eye a bad thing for which i must take responsibility, or is it just blindness... the presence of which being possibly the responsibility of others to identify in me? this is how people discover that they are colour blind, right? the awareness of this 'blindness' is impossible within a relational vacuum because basically perspective gone unchallenged is personal truth. we have no reason to question something from our own point of view because it's our own point of view and we hold to its accuracy... perhaps this is yet another reason establishing the importance of graciously receiving the investments that others make in us as we labour together.

example? the other day i was meeting for breakfast with this 'bob the builder' guy that i haven't hooked up with in a long time. as we spoke of about many things, i started to notice that he had a particular verbal habit. no workaday vocalized pauses like 'um' or 'er' or 'd'Oh!' in fact, he kept inserting the word ideally into the beginning of sentences. after two or three of these i called him on it...

can an ideal ever be attainable?
or is its unattainability that which makes it an ideal?

in other words, is 'ideally' a verbal shock absorber that allows you to say how you wish things could be, but have no faith in the possibility of the realization of this dream?

see, in bob's case, i think that his use of 'ideally' connoted the 'settling for' something less than the best. it was philosophically there, but experiencially non-existant even in his imagination... he had already signed off on the dream, settling instead for something commonplace and ultimately unsatisfying.

so when we speak of spiritual walks and healing journeys and possible differences between what we are envisioning and what we are experiencing, i say hold on and receive these things as they are offered... remembering that the vision of healing is fuel enough to see the realization of this vision. circumstancial and relational realities cannot withstand the restorative vision that God places in one's heart as hope for the future.

it's not ideal- it is simply yet to come.

big-talking golden rulers

brotherken said:

"Now I know a lot of this doesn't jive with the way many ministries are run today.In most cases we (the church) have given the impression that you must convert, or at least listen to our preaching, to benefit from our charity."

to which hineini responded with a whole nother blog:
I think this is a really interesting idea and one I'd like to speak with you all about a little more. Much has been made in previous posts about how easy it is to criticize the church, maybe more so in terms of its service to those "outside". I have been curious why this is so for quite some time. What I was thinking of offering here was maybe a form of question as to why this is. The simplistic version of the question is "Why doesn't the church do what it says" (as a nod to jollybeggar I will concede that this question already assumes the church guilty as charged) but I want to encourage anyone to pose that question anyway they'd like and offer any thoughts they have.

On my own behalf, I'd like to speak briefly about a distinction that I think offers very hopeful possibilities for a turn around for the church, or, the church's repentance if you will. I want to start by returning to the quote above, specifically the second sentence;

"In most cases we (the church) have given the impression that you must convert, or at least listen to our preaching, to benefit from our charity" (brotherken)

The problem I see here, and of course this problem offers a hopeful possibility, is the concept of charity. Now it may look like I'm playing semantics here, and to be fair I may have asked brotherken to clarify what he means (and I hope he will) but I think many of the difficulties the church faces currently in regards to "the least" is the church's inabilty to transcend charity, to move beyond charity to charity's better, solidarity.

Let me explain. As mentioned above in the conversation regarding the "golden rule" I mentioned that although the golden rule offers a helpful tool for generally peacable and charitable conduct towards those who surround me, it still uses my desires, how I would like to be treated, as a rule in determining how I should treat others. I must first decide what I want before I act and in acting, I in a sense, impose myself on the other, assuming they will want what I want. With charity the giver is never at risk, their position, their beliefs, their life are held in reserve from the other. They are giver, and the other is receiver. A one-way transaction, that in this world's economy cannot but create a debt in the receiver.

In order that this doesn't drag out I will get to what I see as the hopeful possibility. The step beyond charity (which is actually a step back for the "I") is solidarity. Now what do I mean by solidarity. Well, solidarity is the radical humilty of the self that seeks to empty itself (kenosis) of itself and instead privilage the other. The self keeps no interior fortress of unassailable beliefs or doctrines but seeks to move beyond the distinction between I and they. As an important side note, this rejection of the "us" and "them" distinction is not a collaspe into a collective "we" instead its a privilaging of the other. It is the embrace and pursuit of St Paul's words to "count others better than yourself".

Obviously there is much more to say but I'd like to hear what others have to say. (hineini)

...by the way, jollybeggar says 'thanks for the nod!'

sanctimony baloney

JOLLYBEGGAR DISCLAIMER:

okay, i've been thinking about this for awhile...
especially since we hit the 40-somethingth comment on the 'cruel God' post...
this dialogue is just too rich to shut down.

although i was trying to close off this blog, the conversation kept moving forward. it didn't even surrender to redundency and circle logic... it just kept progressing.

what kind of an idiot would pull the plug on that?
not this kind, anyway.

the challenge has been to either come up with something new to post or change the whole blog. the e-pistles idea was certainly dialogue based, but originally it was a place to put long-winded explorations of things that had sprung from other emails, comment boxes etc. after awhile, the phrase 'but that's a whole nother blog' started to appear whenever it felt like a tangent was developing. the idea of starting a blog that entertained only the tangents started around then...

a blog that allowed ideas to flow like sweet wine.
an oasis that might have five or six posts all going simultaneously in different directions... something for those of us with attention deficits... those of us who are currently reading four or five books at a time and seem to never be finishing any of them in chronological order.

lately, this has been that blog in a way. it's been a great place to talk, and has been, in the comment boxes of the last two official 'posts' changed direction and focus numerous times. it's been awesome in that it has both challenged and affirmed.

so here's what we can do...

every (or most) time(s) a comment takes us in a different direction, i will just copy and paste it as a new post so that we can continue the one thread while recognizing and embracing the new 'tangents' along the way too. this way the blog will grow naturally out of ongoing dialogue like the many tributaries of a morris louis painting, except that instead of convergent streams of paint these are divergent streams of ideas.

that's why the new name and that's why the new look. the same idea stream with a key difference: the topical flow is less restricted and less reliant upon whether yours truly has anything on his mind these days.

what follows is what prompted the last post, and probably the reason why this blog has stalled for so long. see it as a confessional.

***

i remember a conversation that i had with a friend of mine long ago. we were going through a rather 'rocky' period in our relationship, and one day he asked me why we were always fighting. i didn't even have to think... it just came out:

"because we both know we're right."

okay, so i think i'm still figuring some things out.

a few weeks back, on the same listserve that brought us that controversial piece of wisdom from charles spurgeon (don't think i've ever heard spurgeon refered to as controversial! ha ha) about what debates to enter into, there was a post by someone else who holds a very critical and exclusive (dareisay exclusionary?) perspective on postmodernity and the emerging church.

the good thing about a list like this is that it is run essentially by the people who read it (as opposed to being an 'official' company line on anything.) the bad thing is that it features mainly the cerebral meanderings of many people who should probably just start their own blogs and send the address out to the crowd one time. you can hardly even read the 'del' on my delete key anymore.

now at the risk of sounding disunitive (and amidst a fair bit of sanctimony baloney of my own) i have found the sanctimonious nature of the posts by this one writer on this one email list a bit annoying. at my darkest, i read them so that i can be annoyed, but at my brightest, i choose to not read them because they annoy me... not much of a gap there. not much grace.

so much for being mr free-exchange-of-ideas.

anyway, in his post, this guy was extolling the virtues of a certain book that, in his view, all postmoderns and all emergent pastors should read. in the same post, he shared a few tidbits as anticipatory teasers to ready the soil for the seeds of wisdom that he would be sharing in a forthcoming synopsis and review of the book.

reading the teasers caused me to wonder by whom and for whom such a book is written.

it is the same thing. no big deal, the writer just believes he's right. he's found intellectual acquiesence among many, like the fellow posting the review, who subscribe to the same views. i am reminded of the episode of the simpsons where bart gets kicked out of school and, before finally settling on home-schooling, he is briefly enroled by marge in a school that proudly but falsely promises to put "the fun in fundamentalist dogma."

you see, from within rich personal tradition and its ugly twin, ethnocentricity, people who write often write at everyone else who, in this view, is obviously wrong and misguided... not to them.

from this place, a person often thinks that he/she is helping when he/she presumes to advise others... but in trying to acknowledge societal, philosophical, theological or doctrinal change from an unchanging (although not immutable- simply subjected to and strengthened in its resolve by opposing worldviews and new traditions) vantage point, one risks mispresumption on a number of levels. i wonder how often i wear that hat? i'm pretty sure i'm wearing it now, but i'm going to stand in front of the mirror for a few minutes and just see what i look and feel like with it on.

yep- i look and feel like an ass. call me not-so-jolly-beggar- jollybeggar's ugly twin.

cracking codes?

"Some of these clowns even seem to misrepresent scripture and take it way out of whack..." (societyVs)

yep, one of the main reasons why many people choose to disbelieve is because it's just too hard to buy into what some are selling as a Word from God.

kinda like driving in a blizzard- it's a whiteout and you nearly hit the ditch on your right, so you crank the wheel and head over to the ditch on the left. it's keeping it between the lines that keeps you alive and moving ever closer to the end of the journey, yeah?

recently i was sitting in a bible class being held at our church on correct interpretation of scripture- ie: equipping people to not only NOT misinterpret what scripture is saying in their own personal quiet time with God, but also providing them with some tools to discern just what is scriptural and what is a load of self-driven personal hooey.

our teacher is a seminary professor giving us a heckuva deal on some awesome bible-school teaching just because he wants the church to be able to read the bible 'for all its worth.'

(the name of the textbook for the course http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0310384915/ref=si_1_1/702-6600521-7812852)

so anyway, to illustrate a point about wrongly interpreted conclusions, we turned to the book of nahum and then watched a video clip...

nahum 2.4 says "The chariots storm through the streets, rushing back and forth through the squares. They look like flaming torches; they dart about like lightning."

well, this guy on tv proceeded to enthusiastically explain how the prophet writing this passage is really foretelling fast'n'furious-type streetracing in the final days, rather than the sacking of the city of nineveh some eighty years later...

it appears as though scripture can be much like statistics: you can use it to say just about anything if you have the imagination to do so. the classic approach of proof-texting (coming up with an idea and then finding scriptures to be taken out of context in order to validate the idea, while ignoring others that contradict) is a great example of how scripture gets misused regularly by well-intentioned people. often, like in the passage cited above from nahum, people focus on some connections while completely disregarding other contradictory ones that exist. one thing that scripture doesn't do is contradict itself in the bigger picture. the contradictions we find therein usually have more to do with us than with scripture- with our read on it rather than what we're actually reading in it...

the correct handling of scripture is a sacred task to which we are all called in our discipleship. however, those charged by God with teaching or preaching ministries have even greater responsibility there because they are using scripture to lead others onward. taking this responsibility seriously allows our stories of God to be more than simply theological gossip.

okay, i can't take it anymore- i have to mention da vinci code (don't worry, only briefly, and as an example of what i'm talking about). take the whole grail/chalice theory...

for me, it's important to remember that the grail/chalice theory is a theory... and not a particularly theological one at that. it has more to do with conspiracy, paranoia and politics than with God.

am i saying that this theory is 'a load of self-driven personal hooey'?
nope. not qualified to make that call.

(note: http://www.amazon.ca/exec/obidos/ASIN/0310273722/qid=1148496606/sr=2-2/ref=sr_2_3_2/701-7380559-6041950
lee strobel and gary poole have written a book called exploring the da vinci code... i'm not saying this is the only book to read on the theories put forth in the recent novel and even more recent film- i haven't read it... i'm just saying that, among the plethora of reactive books having been written on this topic, the strobel/poole book promises to be responsive by virtue of its authors. strobel has brought us strong and balanced reads like a case for Christ; a case for the creator and a case for faith)

i'm saying that we need to be regularly studying and sorting through God's word so that we know what is actually in scripture and what these scriptures tell us about God himself.

in attempting to develop one's own personal theology, it's important to be active without necessarily being activistic- to remember that personal theology is personal... there's a good one to shoot for. we don't need to march around with placards proclaiming for all and sundry that we are militant, underthinking, over-reacting ethnocentrics with an agenda of conquest. we have to come to a decision for ourselves, sorting out what is figurative and what is literal and how these passages studied are set against the larger whole of scripture and history.

let's dig into the theories about God that are all around us and use scripture in order to seek the truth about God in this or that context. let's identify what about any theory impacts our faith, and be willing to thoughtfully consider the ideas of others in the light of scripture. in doing so, let's be both willing to consider scripture in such a way that it can still be the revealed word of God (even if this means changing one's traditional and time-honoured interpretation of a passage) and also intentional about discerning from the original context, genre and apparent intent of the scriptures being set forth as evidence, whether a theory is biblical or merely fanciful.

here's an example. i know i've told this story before- perhaps you've even read it on this blog- i don't remember... all apologies. anyway, during my educational internship, we decided to hold a creation/evolution debate with eighth grade students. notes went home to be signed and off we went. sadly, the creationists used only the bible in their research, while the evolutionists used the whole library. at the end of the debate, we had an anthropologist and a lutheran minister come in on two separate days to share their perspectives with the kids.

the minister began his comments by saying 'i think you've been reading this book (bible) wrong- remember, it was never written to be treated like a science textbook. it was not written to tell us what happened, but who did it." yada yada yada

the anthropologist came the next day (it was early december- blizzard season) and said 'i think you need to rethink the role of science. if you are driving a car in a blizzard and it breaks down, you can pray if you like, but it probably won't make the car start- use science for that. however, if you are looking for the meaning of life in that moment, science has no wisdom to offer.' yada yada yada

making sense of this physical experience called life on fallen planet earth has largely to do with viewing things through the right lenses. once we've figured out what we believe then we can shine that light into the everyday context of our relationships because there are probably people all around us who are seeking the truth and hoping that we'll help them find it.

i'm to be a candle shining in their darkest night
not a blinding flash of light

i see dead people

ethnocentricity... the self-medicated attitude or philosophical position of being members of the only party that knows the way everything is supposed to be done. group arrogance.

well we certainly get tagged with this one from time to time... especially we pastor types!

in the 70's and into the 80's there was a christian band called daniel amos that epitomized the phrase mainstream alternative for a bunch of us christian kids who were looking for something artistic and Christ honouring (at the time it was basically an either-or scenario... if you wanted to be 'spiritual' then you pretty much had to check your aesthetics at the door). originating at calvary chapel under the spiritual toutelage of rev. chuck smith- but don't hold that against them- this band started as an eagles-esque cowboy band, moving through three or four creative stages in as many albums, hitting some really satisfying homages to their influences (beatles, bowie, electric light orchestra,b52's and talking heads a'la eno) along the way. (http://www.danielamos.com/main.html)

there was a song on volume 1 of the alarma chronicles that addressed the whole worship ethos and its inherent ethnocentricity from a satirical, new wave point of view
(note: i've focused on the content aspects of the lyrics, and have cut out the stuff that only works on record...)

you might not recognize, the truth gets colored by
wrong things, bad things do disguise
afraid you might despise the real thing
the real thing...

down in southern cal we don't wear shoes
we lay it way back
when someone with charisma tells me "don't wear shoes"
i tell them "go back- where did you get that?"

down in africa they beat the drum
they like the big beat
white man through the p.a. says "don't beat that drum"
they tell him "go back- where does it say that?"
the real thing...

down at the little church they all wear hats
they feel they're doing right
over at the big church they hate those hats
it get's them uptight- now is that right?

you might not recognize, the truth gets colored by
wrong things, bad things do disguise
afraid you might despise the real thing
the real thing...
-terry taylor

the whole worship style discussion is so totally old that, about halfway through its history, even Jesus got into it. remember the whole whip-wielding 'house of prayer/ den of thieves' (citing isa56.7/jer7.11 in matt21.13) thing? what was it really about- making money off of the poor or turning tennets of worship into something to be done for fun and profit? i think that it was the latter.

the poor were being exploited by everyone before, during, and after Jesus walked the earth. Jesus even spoke to the disciples about it at bethany (in matt26.11 and mark14.7) it's not that he didn't have a heart for the poor- his acts of mercy (healings, feedings, fellowship and the like) are examples of this heart for social justice. however, Jesus also didn't go through the temple with a bullwhip on behalf of the poor who could not afford the extortionate prices of sacrificial animals or the over-the-top exchange rates... he tore the place apart on behalf of Holiness because the temple was meant to be a place of worship and communion with almighty God according to scripture, and the temple officials who had seen an opportunity to turn something that was to be about God into something that directly benefitted them had carpe diemed their way to the bank. Jesus' anger burned because they were stealing from God, not from each other.

scripture records some pretty powerful examples of similar attitudes and actions in the name of piety... it's usually messy. (1sam2-4; acts5) it seems that embezzling from God is a pretty serious deal. why? because in this thievery we see satan's agenda clearly. anytime someone slips some of God's glory into his or her own back pocket, satan's lurking around there somewhere.

okay, so here's where i'm going: is our self-centred flippancy towards the things of God within our contemporary worship experience so great that we die over it? perhaps not to the point that we are actually aware of it, but is awareness definitive? do we have conditions placed upon us that exist before we are aware of them? think of the incubation period of a disease or virus, dormant or remissed cancer cells, arterial blockages not yet diagnosed.

remember the bruce willis film 6th sense, or a close celluloid relative called the others starring nicole kiddman? in both films, people are carrying on life as usual and we only discover through a couple of fun little twists that actually they've been dead the whole time and didn't know it. there is a form of reverse dramatic irony here, which my son and i refer to as a shyamalon twist (after the acclaimed young director of 6th sense, unbreakable, signs and the village) where the audience joins the principal characters in not knowing the crucial piece of truth around which the whole story is wound until a revelation in the final reel.

well what if we are all struck spiritually dead the moment we embezzle from God and, because we don't experience a lightning bolt from on high or something, we think that we're fine?

it is conceivable. in genesis 3 (yep, i'm back there again) the snake whispers that eve won't die if she samples some rebellion. whatever her inference or understanding of death (after all, literal interpretation of the scriptures holds that nothing had died yet) she tastes, looks around to see if anything has changed and then, seeing that she is fine, kills her life's partner too. no worries- he doesn't know it either.

but in that instant the physical and the metaphysical are rent apart. physical bodies begin to die and perspectives begin to cloud. it is now only a matter of time until the body catches up to what the soul is already experiencing and dies too. from that moment on, death becomes part of worship and sacrifices are offered, that the purity of the perfect animal can be exchanged before God for the sin of the one offering the animal- bringing new spiritual life and a fresh new day for the sinner.

Jesus railed in the temple because these religious capitalists were dead people making the very house of God an abomination in the eyes of both God and man. they were taking something that God had set up to ford the gap between the holy and the common and were turning it into something that would repel anyone who had not been raised in that tradition. it's like everyone knew they were dead except them- everyone knew that this place was no more the house of God than the public baths were a place to get cleaned up.
the romans knew it.
the greeks knew it.
the homosexuals knew it.
the prostitutes knew it.
the addicts knew it.
the lepers knew it.
even the blind who begged at the city gates could see with their sightless eyes what the ethnocentrically religious could not... that their so-called worship was an embarrassment to everyone and everything holy because it was all about themselves.

the same is often said of the church today. the hypocrisy evident in the body of Christ is still the most cited reason for achristians to remain that way. in a recent study published over easter in our local paper, i read how only 17% of canadians interviewed in the week prior to holy week admitted to regularly attending church, but that 62% agreed with the statement "through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, God provided a way for the forgiveness of sins." why the numerical discrepency? it appears as though the majority of canadian people still believe in the God, but have trouble believing in the value of a corporate worship experience. are we a nation of beer-drinking mystics, or do we just tend to mistrust other people... particularly when they are part of something institutional? whatever the reason for it, the discrepency between those believing and those joining with others who believe is one with powerful implications upon both the unity of the body of Christ and the potential impact of this body upon the darkened world to which it has been trusted to bring the light of the gospel.

however, this is nothing new. we all know this.

as part of the comment box that spawned this post, curious servant made a typically poignant and poetic observation:

Today, on this spinning ball of dirt, there are a lot of folks who worship our Lord, pray to our Lord, tell stories of our faith, in many different ways. We have Korean churches, and Catholics, and messianic Jews, and the 1,001 other approaches... In the past there was the early church, the medieval churches, the Renaissance, the modern age, the post modern era... and someday we will all share a single reality together. Heaven will be diverse.

So, if we are uncomfortable with some folks speaking in tongues, and others singing very serious, dirge-like hymns, what will happen in our hearts and minds when we are mixed together in one huge congregation?

Are we ready for it?

good question. i think that it is one that believers in Christ need to sort out for themselves. for me the answer has been found in a prayer and personal worship discipline. you see, when i wasn't listening to daniel amos, i was learning how to worship with the recordings of john michael talbot. (http://e-pistles.blogspot.com/2006/01/simplicity-and-four-dollar-perspective.html)

a song that i use regularly as a prayer a quarter-century later, particularly in times when i am tempted to ethnocentrically judge and therefore embezzle, is one of his:

create in me a clean heart o God
let me be like you in all my ways
give me your strength
teach me your song
shelter me in the shadow of your wings
for we are your righteousness
if we've died to ourselves and live through your death
then we shall be born again to be blessed in your love

ethnocentric rut

in poitu varam, marcy said:
Jolly (you) have been hanging around in Sr Lanka and those other godforsaken Buddhist counturies and Bigbro tells me Jolly (you) came back not so Jolly (was you at one time) because you are disillusioned that a bunch of godless Buddhists who managed not to die in the tsunami and get reincarnated are not embracing Jesus the way Jolly (You) envisioned they'd embrace Jesus when you brought them THE WORD from the land of Wal-Mart and the New York Yankees.

to which jollybeggar replied:
lack of 'jollyness'? only when it comes to westerners who seem to think that whatever they think is the way it is because they think it. far too much presumption here
***
at my school it is one-act play season. i hate the majority of the plays people choose: forty minutes to an hour of adolescent anxst being enacted on a local stage is more than i can handle in one sitting- and usually there are two to three plays in production that make it to the stage for the big playdown. i mean, there are only so many ways that you can say it's tough to be a teenager these days before we all start nodding our heads out of both nauseated overfamiliarity and general drowsiness going 'uh huh- listen more- got it.'

so whenever i choose a show, i try to find something bizarre or otherwise 'alternative.' (my absolute favourite show to do has been "The Handicapper General" based on the classic short story "Harrison Bergeron" by kurt vonnegut- but that's a whole nother blog)

this year, melodrama is my chosen vehicle of creative expression. there's something really madcap and exhilerating about double entendres, over-acting and badly choreographed violence. imagine how surprised and delighted i was when i read this scathing social commentary wedged in between a pratfall and some under-the-radar innuendo:

aunt absinthe: never fear, our old friend henry homeward the banker will never evict us from our humble hovel! ten times already, he has stumbled in vain up the steep and winding mountain path! today will be the eleventh, and surely he will once again give us a break!

chastity: surely, because we are pure, humble, and innocent-- not to mention white, anglo-saxon, and protestant-- the powers above will bless us all our lives! this morning, for instance, the powers above have furnished both sunshine and birdies! (etc etc etc)

did the western arrogance of that cynical statement hit you the way it did me? the powers above apparantly smile down upon the WASPs in the crowd, completely tonedeaf to the sound of texas radio and the big beat in all that effort to make the hills alive with the sound of music...

at least, you would think that to hear some of us talk.

i've been thinking a lot over the last couple of days about the descriptive compound word using by marcy in her post-holiday greeting: Godforsaken

now, i know that marcy was probably being sarcastic because she sometimes writes that way, but the wordchoice carries with it a pile of that western presumption- and is probably dead in line with how many of us view life in our circumstancially spiritual walk on the tame side. we presume that God has turned his back on those who do not somehow line up with our money-laced belief systems. we believe this because we are in charge. it does not matter to us what Jesus said to pilate about all authority and dominion being granted by God in the first place, except that we can bolster our ethnocentrically inflated picture of our own importance using this as a prooftext.

whatever- i sound more cynical than i actually feel today. sometimes the words just write themeselves... you buy that?

anyway, here's what i've been thinking: it is we who are godforsaken, for it is we who are God-forsaking, shutting ourselves out of his promises of life in abundance in favour of a bit of controlfreakishly self-satisfying (but spiritually counterfeit) powertripping.

we turn our backs on faith and a closer walk with the creator of all, choosing instead the cushion of control and commerce. we climb up onto a homemade throne and sit on high, making judgements upon all the unwitting subjects below, like the little child wearing the paper crown sitting atop a tall ladder in his parents' backyard. failing to recognize that all any of the other kids have to do, due to a ridiculously high centre of gravity and some really poor perspective, is hit the ladder and watch the man who would be king become humpty dumpty in one transformative application of basic physics, we base our claim to dominion and God's favour not upon the blood of Jesus shed for all but upon the stuff we can pile up underneath us.

what do we read about pride in proverbs 16.18?
what do we read about the end of things in matthew 24?
it's all there at www.biblegateway.com

marcy is mistaken. i'm not disillusioned with the sri lankan buddhists, nor with the hindus, nor with the muslims. there is a thrilling movement taking place in sri lanka right now that i desperately want to be part of... but i want it to happen here too.

if there's disillusionment anywhere in me, it's with how cold, graceless and ungrateful people can be in our part of the world- especially those who should know better because they have God's word easily accessable at work, rest or play- even online- and yet they continue to choose not to read it... and it bothers me that part of our milieu involves marginalizing others whom he loves.

we are the God forsaking- we have turned away from both accepting and expressing his true love. interesting how God often gets blamed for our rebellions.
***
don't stray from the rhythm
don't fall out of tune
the good book says that dead flies taint the richest perfume

i saw the men of vision
hiding their poor decisions
under plastic smiling faces and in forgotten places
someone cried 'over here'
and where the mud had cleared
were names and dates all written- drowned like unwanted kittens

i saw the corporate powers
in padded leather towers
cultivating a warm environement for an early beach retirement
but for the common labour
mourning their union saviours
punching the final timecard and living off of weeds in the backyard

i saw some good intentions
at leadership conventions
but intrinsic motivation leads egocentric nations
creator sent his son
a legacy to spawn
but rather than explore it man chooses to ignore it
***

i wrote and recorded these lyrics circa 1986-8... it is not the consistency of the east that's got me going here- it's the changelessness of the west. the bit about dead flies comes from the book of ecclesiastes... the same book that claimed about twenty-five hundred years ago that there was nothing new under the sun.