ferris

my friend in malaysia recently posed a line of questions in an email.
Did God create everything?
If so then did He create SIN?
If not then can Satan create things?
Or did God just make the possibility of sin?
Is the possibility of something too big a question for the human mind to understand?"

there are some challenges whenever we default to the notion that "God created everything, therefore..."

it's probably just bad logic on my part.

i like to hold to the idea that God created materials and situations, got wheels turning, and BOOM, there we have the earth and all that is within.

i like the idea that the 'big bang' was the voice of God shattering the silence and the darkness simultaneously with the words 'let there be light!'

i like the idea that evolutionary theories do not prove or disprove anything, especially the existence or non-existence of God, and that they do not necessarily contradict our Christian cosmology.

but...

if i am comfortable with this 'wheels turning' thing, then i should also be good with the idea that God indirectly put to death the friends and families of my dear friends in sri lanka with the tsunami. i should be fine with the idea that God 'did' the recent cyclone in burma which took the lives of 100 thousand and has us wondering whatever happened to at least 200 thousand more. wheels are turning and the outcome is attributable to God, right?

well... yes, but... no... but...

hate that. somehow there are things that seem inconsistent with our (my) picture of who God is and what God is about, no matter which position in a logical argument like this i side with. drives me crazy sometimes.

there is comfort for me, however, in remembering that all we know about God has been revealed to us- revealed to us in ways that are recognizable to us even though we are, in our fallenness, only a reasonable hand-drawn facsimile of what created and deemed 'very good.' the things that we do not know we do not know because God has chosen to remain a mystery through them for reasons that are God's- perhaps because the answers to some of our questions may be too big for our minds to embrace. we mustn't ever let logic bind God. this promptly ushers out the possibility of miracle.

a miracle, after all, is a break in the cause/effect nature of our physical world- an intervention- and when God chooses to break these little physical rules that keep our feet on the ground and keep the fires burning and the air circulating on this planet, God does so for good reasons- God's.

and how might we understand the mind of God apart from revelation? we can't. i'm kinda glad that we can't though.

being prone to bad logic, foolish conclusions and abhorable behaviour, for us to be able to completely comprehend the divine at this level would make divinity considerable less divine. in my view, part of God's divinity is God's mystery. in my rather wimpy understanding of things, the possibility of sin is our free will, which is also our greatest endowment from God- free will represents God's greatest trust, greatest risk, greatest hope.

i also think that the most important aspect of one's faith is the question-asking part... even if the answers we are able to arrive at are, at best, inconclusive.

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.

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...

matters of faith, free will and public education

an old friend of mine and i were discussing some observations that she had been making concerning cultural expressions of spirituality all over the world- most notably in her travels through israel, egypt, and russia- and the differences between cultural and personal faith...

as for the christian spirituality thing, it is sometimes hardest for people who have grown up in a household where one or two of the parents practice this faith because of the 'choice' element...

free will is such a huge and important part of our response to God as christians that sometimes it gets confusing. i mean, kid puts up with it until such time as the faith practiced is no longer legislated within the household (often, moving away from home is a catalyst but there are others: puberty, driver's license time, high school graduation. i recently read that the 'age of identity' is between twelve and fourteen years of age*- probably just about anything significant that happens any time after that can be a trigger)... ultimately, the faith of the parents is meaningful tradition, foundational in one's becoming who one is- just as everything in life has been. but eventually it has to be adopted as one's own or rejected as the faith of our fathers and nothing more than that. a choice is a choice.

once faith becomes one's own, it seems more organic and, in many ways, can be far easier to invest in. until then, it is simply wearing someone else's spiritual hand-me-downs. no matter how well-kept and 'like new' they are, they are still used garments of praise.

i think that this whole process of adoption is, for many, a bit like their experience with education. high school is mildly socially and intellectually interesting (we are engaged, but as to whether this is positive or negative, that's a whole nother blog) and so on for most of us, but upon graduation everything seems to change: people who didn't do a thing all through high school start working hard for their grades at university or tech school, while some who worked their butts off through high school don't even bother applying anywhere.

like the journey of faith, this all has something to do with ownership, in that while we are forced to attend to it, we simply deal with the force in the way that makes sense to us or is the least unpleasant... but once we are no longer forced into the discipline of learning, it finally becomes about the schooling-or at least about the goals which can be realized through it- not just about the external forces inflicting the schooling upon the young and impressionable (this last cliche phrase was in here because this old friend is a former student of mine, an adult now living in japan... had to make a noticeably self-deprecating remark there- it's the canadian way!)

some choose to make a discipline their own while others walk away from it to explore a different future. as with faith, the outcomes have more to do with free will than with anything tidy like the old nature versus nurture thing.
***

that i have been afforded the freedom to, as a teacher of young people, enter into dialogue that deals explicitely with issues deeper than those covered in our secular-humanist curriculum, rather than implicitely is a gift from God for which i am grateful. it has always been my view that the whole battery of curricula is simply a life-support system for mentoring relationships... the curriculum gets the funding but the relationship bears the fruit.

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...

a clear and present danger

i wish that i could think in a straight line.
however, it just doesn't work that way for me. through a series of twists and turns, switchbacks and setbacks i do move forward... although i am sometimes unsure whether it is i who takes a journey or a journey that takes me...

as we drove across a bridge, my attention was drawn to some functional distinctives: many of the bridges here were multi-purpose: a causeway for vehicles, bicycles and trains. lazarus looked up from his near-sleep and said 'like salvation- one bridge.'
***
all along the sides of the road we saw cobra dens... there were apparently a LOT of cobras here.

the cobra does not build its own den. it lets a certain rather tasty, however industrious, type of ant do it... then it eats all the ants and moves in. you can tell the difference between a cobra den and a basic ant hill by the size of the holes...

jey told me that ancient hindus would build little prayer shelters around and over the den of a cobra and then worship it from a spot safely outside. reminiscent of the 'holy of holies.' therein resides the glory of a dangerous God.

(taken from poitu varam -the journals of my first mission trip-
august 20: saturday: day 11:part 2)
***

now there is no longer a holy of holies, and there are no longer hindu prayer huts over cobra dens. what does this say about our relationships with our gods? does this mean that we, as human beings, no longer acknowledge their power? have we grown too big, having reduced those to whom we bow to 'natural forces?'

or is it just that we take the long way home, averting our eyes along the way, lest we make eye contact with the spiritual realm and be obligated to respond in a life-changing way to God's holy gaze?

(i have often toyed with the idea that an entire sermon could be preached using only questions, but eventually rhetoric gets old, n'est-ce pas?)

i can't speak for the hindus- in fact, i find the whole 'prayer hut for the slithering god' a bit spiritually troubling, considering the common colloquialism for 'satan' in sri lanka is the snake.

what i can hang onto is the notion of the 'holy of holies.'

for the ancient jews, the holy of holies was the part of the temple that could only be accessed by the priests on an annual basis in intercession. (that they were only permitted to enter into this special place when going on behalf of others is probably a whole nother blog on the value of intercession in the eyes of God.) when Jesus died, the gospels tell us of the heavy curtain that separated the holy of holies from the rest of the temple being torn by the hand of God himself- not by the hand of man. now whether this is to be taken literally or figuratively is up to your theology.

the thing is, Jesus was the bridge uniting the spiritual and the physical realms... it was he who truly had a foot in both worlds and he became our means of accessing the inaccessible- of gaining audience with the almighty. before Jesus, God was unapproachable- after him, God was close enough to kill.

kill or be killed- that would appear to be the way of the world outside of the garden. all of that darwinian spin comes together nicely when we look around us... and yet sovereign God is patient and loving and actively working out a means by which we can daily be saved.

curious servant recently posted a humble prayer:

My Lord...
Do not listen to my bravado...
Do not let me glory in things that are small...
Like who I am and what I have done.
Do not leave me with myself,

For I am a speck of self-important dust

My Lord...
Hear my prayers begging to serve...
Let me glory in things that are great...
Like who You are and what You have done.
Press me close to You,

For You made Yourself small to tell me I am loved

small enough to tell us of his unfailing love without the message destroying us... taking on a physical body to do so, only to have it destroyed by us.

the classical tragedy becomes comic: 'behold i make all things new...' for our would-be deicide became our only hope of survival beyond these short seventy or eighty years.

now if, in our bravado, we still claim dominion and stubborn self-reliance, then the physical experience, encumbered by things like time, space and circumstance, is all we can hope for... at the end of it all we still face the truth that 'we had a good run, but now it's done.' however, if we cross the bridge- choosing to put our hope of a greater future in the care of a dangerous God- we discover that a holy and eternal creator is dangerous only to that which threatens his investment and restricts our joy to the realm of the physical.

a segment is a direct, measurable distance between two points on a line.
a ray is an immeasurable distance, beginning at a fixed point and extending on to infinity.

so which geometric figure do we choose to best represent 'life?'

the art of miracles?

"modern people have an almost aesthetic dislike of miracles. admitting that God can, they doubt if he would..." (c.s. lewis)

recently, a friend asked me about this quote. i had used it to reinforce a talk about miracles and faith. as i read c.s. lewis' words again, it seemed to me that the only word seeming a bit odd in its usage was 'aesthetic.'

typically we use this word to describe that je ne sais quoi of art that causes us to feel something in response to something someone has created. aesthetics is defined by somebody named webster...

(let's face it, all webster dictionaries are not equal; it is a misnomer much like saying you are taking a ride on a ski-doo when you are really riding a 'snowmobile' and then stemming the resulting post-nasal tide with a kleenex when what you are really using is a 'tissue'. apparently anyone can publish a webster's dictionary... at least that's what i was taught during my stint at university- but that's a whole nother blog)

... as 'the philosophy of beauty and the fine arts.'

okay, so what c.s. lewis appears to be saying, then, is that a modern person's emotional response to the idea of miracles is comparable to that person's emotional response to certain arts expressions... particularly (in my view) the ones that they don't understand. their personal philosophy of beauty or art (or, in their personal theology of miracles, possibility or truth) informs this response and the response informs the art/miracle to some degree- rendering the art/miracle as either valid or ridiculous in the world being conceptually framed by the assimilation of these personal experiences.

recently there was a very simple post on icarus' blog... it had three components: a picture, a price and a pronouncement. the picture? an abstract expressionist piece (above) by mark rothko. the price? $22.4 million u.s. the pronouncement? 'disgusting.' (later, another piece and another price was also added. however, the pronouncement remained unchanged...)

when prompted (or provoked- sometimes it's a thin line) further as to what was disgusting about it, a great discussion opened up once again on icarus' blog, this time concerning

'what has the right to be called art anyway?'
(http://icarusgoodman.blogspot.com/2005/11/laughable.html)

totally fun to read. the fact that everyone in the discussion seemed to feel so strongly about something that is often seen as merely ornamental rather than essential underscores the importance of arts expressions in our world- if for no other reason than to unify people in nonsupport of something that is a direct result of something that they are so vehemently in support of... freedom of expression.

about ten years ago when a comparable mark rothko painting was bought by the canadian national gallery for $1.75m (a huge price at the time but about 1/10 of its value now, for the economists in the crowd) much of the canadian public was outraged, yet the story was relegated to two opinion columns and a cartoon on page 16 in our local paper. one of the opinion columns was quite funny as the writer, ron petrie, explored the idea of selling some of his yard sale junk as art nouveau...

"(for sale) one souvenir snow orb, a water-filled bubble that depicts a wintry street scene in banff whenever you shake it up or down. only we don't call it a snow orb. heavens no. for the purpose of government appraisal, it's a kinetic exploration of the interaction between the human spirit and the natural environment, embracing not only the apparent dichotomy between the two essential elements, but also a surreal sense of their inseparability...

(now for the punchline- jb)

the orb is priced at 50 cents. the gobbledegook is an additional $1.9 million."

often the modern art question, and modern artists in general are seen by realists as simply a really good example of the swindling tailors in 'the emperor's new clothes.'

for anyone who likes delving into the dark side of this topic (that is, the alternative to slam-dancing on the work of pollock, kline, rothko, newman and other abstract expressionists) i would recommend reading 'bluebeard' by kurt vonnegut. it's good ironic fun.

but what of miracles?

well, it appears to me that c.s. lewis might be suggesting that people struggle with the same emotionally-loaded resistence to the idea that things happen in our world which they cannot comprehend as they do with the ever-enigmatic, ever-controversial subject of modern art.

perhaps God's greatest miracles have much in common with some of our modern artist's strongest challenges to our perspective. when we are ready to default to dismissal, perhaps that is the moment requiring the greatest faith which will lead to the greatest growth in ourselves as spiritually experienced people. considering possibilities rather than impossibilities requires a commitment to exploring new things rather than simply concluding that the sum total of one's own experience to date is all that there is to existence.

furthermore, it may very well be that our inability to comprehend the truth about miracles has more to do with the willingness of our hearts to consider this possible truth than it does with the actual event in question.

is the painting above simply a bunch of no-talent blobs and smears done on a huge canvas by a lunatic or a charlatan, or is it an open window into another world?

who can say?

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?

underzeal

after typing out a heartfelt salvation message in Icarus' comment line, ezekiel decided to start a blog of his own. to ezekiel's first post, icarus replied:
I for one hope you do try to convert me and others, as you said, it would really be wrong of you not to.

nice comment. it appears as though there are two things that irk (?) people about believers:
1) those being overzealous and underthinking...
2) those being (you guessed it) underzealous and overthinking...

the message and the mission must travel together as equal partners the way faith and reason must.

those being overzealous and underthinking are often pointed out and pointed at. no point going on about that here- plenty of blogs already chronicle the mistakes made in God's name.

but as to the problem of 'underzeal', i think that it begins to take root when the recipients of grace become so used to that gift of God's mercy that they lose their edge. instead of preaching the gospel (which is supposed to be, by the way, GOOD news but that is also a whole nother blog) of grace to those who have not yet freely received it, Jesus' beloved start preaching a gospel of permission. the fear of disagreement and the resulting apologetics that will ensue is just too great a risk, so the rescue mission that Jesus died to launch never leaves the training compound. it remains simply another good idea which can be taken up in discussion and debate, like a right-thinking foreign policy with no actual action or support.

so we end up with this passive-aggressive gospel that says 'well, i would have preached, but he didn't ask and i didn't want to force my views upon him. he had every opportunity to hear the gospel- i was ready to share, but didn't want to jeopardize the relationship we have by getting into religion stuff too soon...'

yet, when a person like icarus asks a heavy question, believers can find themselves in over their head because comfy sunday-school answers don't deliver the goods to someone who has already heard the rhetoric and is looking for something beyond that. people like icarus can be tough and intimidating, not because of anything malicious on their part, but because they ask questions which challenge the things that believers mightn't have ever questioned.

in my view, walking the faith journey side by side strengthens everyone involved in that journey in some way- if they let it happen.

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.

five plus one

the challenge has been out there in the blogosphere to identify the five things you just don't get. okay, i’ve thought about it and here are five of mine (not in order of importance…)

1) why it is so difficult for people to stop doing things that they know from first-hand experience only lead to personal pain.

2) why people perceive negativity and cynicism as indicators of greater intelligence.

3) why, having been given dominion over all the earth, people still see each other as the final frontier, setting out to conquer their fellows rather than celebrating the diversity of others and reaping the benefits to be gained from valuing one another.

4) why people seem to always put faith and reason on opposite sides of a theosophical continuum. we need to be able to do battle in both arenas and know, in fact, which fights are being held where.

5) why it is so difficult for people to converse with others of differing perspective without trying to either sell them something they don’t want (or see the need for) or convince them to move... in other words, without turning the conversation into one of those battles mentioned above. there would probably be a lot more interesting conversation taking place if people knew that their perspective was going to be respected even by those who held different views. we might all actually become smarter and wiser.

(6) why i am better at writing these words than living them.

pedestal or pendulum

'annie' left this comment on another Jesusblog long ago:

we all know who God is.
you are just like those highway signs with the word JESUS on them.

get a life.

spirit flows naturally. no need to help it along if it's authentic. religious people would more effectively 'get the word out' by living their life as they believe 'He/She' would want them to.

show by example, not by mouth. i believe God (or Jesus) wouldn't have wanted their name splashed onto bill-boards along the highways or bandied about on computers, or even on
television.

how utterly gross.
***
well, i don't know. i mean do we all actually know who God is? i've made it my life's work to try to get to know this God person, but there are days where the best i can manage is a benevolent idea or a being that is at the centre of the 'intelligent design' theory. on those days i'm not sure what kind of an example i am. do people really want the real deal, or is it just going to get awkwardly honest?

it's not that i ever doubt God's existence- i just sometimes fade in and out of the ability to relate to someone who is everywhere and capable of knowing and doing everything, but chooses to remain invisible to my physical eyes and silent to my physical ears. there are days when i have to cling to the promises of God like a drowning man fearful of being swept away by the waves of life that continue to relentlessly cascade, splashing over the blessed assurances again and again, making them too slippery for him to stand upon.

on those days, the 'WWJD' bracelet doesn't quite cut it... everybody can tell when i'm pretending- i'm just not a very good actor and i don't play poker for fear of losing everything with the first attempt at a bluff. however, i believe that Jesus had those days too, and we read that during those times he would withdraw from public view to sweat and to pray. the horror comes when i am discovered by another in my moment of spiritual desolation. i'm not very good company when i'm trying to do some personal open-heart surgery, and the well-meaning words and verses of other saints simply serve to heighten my feelings of growing distance and aloneness. like struggling with some form of stomach 'bug', i find myself unable to remember what being healthy felt like and antagonized by the warm smiles of the unafflicted. the philantherapy of others does little to bring me along on such heavy days.

what does bring me along is permission.

permission to acknowledge that there is a tunnel and it is real and it is all around me and i am allowed to stumble through its darkness in order to step back into the light on the other side. it is immensely liberating to be free to be human, failing to have any answers at all other than 'Jesus saves... i hope.'

people place other people on pedestals sometimes, requiring them to be ridiculously infallible and then withdrawing the faith when the pedestal people turn out to be human too. although i don't believe that annie was implying it in her comment, i know that far too often some confuse authenticity with flawlessness, integrity with perfection. what makes this even more tragic is when the pedestal people allow themselves to aspire to this. instead of authenticity, pedestal people live lives of perpetual, well-maintained denial, rising to greater heights where they are to view and be viewed by those who place them there.

problem is, or course, that the taller the platform, the greater the distance to the ground and hence the greater the possibility of vertigo.

i think that i prefer a swing to a standard.

sure, with a swing there are lows which seperate the highs in the same way that valleys define mountains, but there is no need to be able to balance on a swing... there is always something to hold onto. although the seat of the swing has its own gravity caused by the centrifugal force of its pendulumic semi-orbit around the top bar, this gravity changes depending on the position that i hold on the arc and is therefore one more trippy physical thing to master which is not an issue on a high platform. however, holding onto the ropes ensures that once the instant of weightlessness passes i will remain in the arc, in partial orbit around my life's centre whether i am looking at it or not.

there is also the assurance, when playing on a swing, that even at the lowest low the rider is safe... and is still the same distance from the bar as he or she was in that instant of thrilling weightlessness when it felt as though human flight were actually possible.

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.

travel guide

at the end of a lengthy and heartfelt open letter to christians contesting the integrity of authorship and revealed divine wordship of the bible (which has resulted in an engaging dialogue with well over thirty-five interactive comments at the time of this posting) Icarus said something which triggered an idea for me:

These are just some philosophical problems I have with the idea of revealed religion that I need to have answered adequately before I even begin to examine the actual contents of the Bible. If you can please answer these questions for me, then we can move on to the questions I have about the actual contents and merits of what the book says

here's an idea: what if the Bible could be compared to a map or travel guide that leads us to a relationship with God?

a travel guide is not going to magically take you to another place, nor is reading it the same as travelling abroad. it is a guide which attempts to open up the destination point for the reader. it gives the reader some hints as to how to get the most out of their journey- how to effectively make the journey, through rich memories drawn from experience, part of life from then on. a Bible is not going to magically transport one into the presence of God, and reading it is not a replacement for a relationship with God. reading it is a means by which people can approach God and enter into a relationship with God that affects the rest of their life and beyond.

the thing about the travel guide analogy is that there are many travel guides published for popular areas. cosmic connections are, these days, a popular area and there are many 'holy writings' published.

okay, fine. when someone whom we do not know writes a book about brazil- this is going to be our destination for the purpose of this analogy- we do not (among people i know, anyway) check with interpol or some other international organization to determine whether the profile of the author is truthful- whether the author of the guide has, in fact, been more than a casual observer of the country of brazil. we defer our responsibility in this area to the publishers of the guide, presuming that they have a screening process that ensures the integrity of the books they publish- we even ask people who are familiar with travel in general which resources are the most informative and reliable.

and let's face it: there are some travel guides out there that have a lot of the general milieu summarized, but are replete with inconsistencies, poorly worded directions and badly cartographed maps. they claim to be user-friendly guides, but are, in fact, frustratingly user-hostile.

so what do we do when we want to go to brazil? first, we ask everyone we know if they've been there. if we find someone who has, we ask them about brazil and about their personal experiences with brazil, recognizing that talking about or reading about brazil is very different from actually going there. we watch t.v. shows. we go do websites (speaking of credibility issues... woah- don't get me started) and with our friend's help (or the help of a good travel agent- one who makes it their business to know how to get someone to brazil)we set up our connections... or we think about the conversation for days and end up setting up the connection all by ourselves via the net. then, having decided upon the direction and timeframe of our trek, we start reading the guides in preparation for the trip.

but the real lifechange comes when we actually arrive there, having done everything we could to prepare ourselves, only to discover that no amount of preparation could approximate what it actually feels like to be there.i think that experiencing God is like this.the trick(?) is to find someone who is experiencing God (in the analogy-the friend who has been to brazil) and open the dialogue face to face.

***
so then icarus made this comment, knowing full well that i wouldn't be able to just sit there are read it without continuing on deeper into the foul nether regions of analogyland... (darn guy!) and from this point i began speaking more directly to icarus (hence all the 'you' stuff) in second person. however, i'm just too lazy to change all of that stuff here... sorry.
***

Interesting analogy with the Brazil trip. But the problem comes in when you go through all those motions, hop on the plane and then after a 10 hour flight you realize "Hey, there is no Brazil."

being that the blog is called 'the flights of icarus goodman' i find the whole idea of a ten hour (or nineteen year) flight only to discover there is, in fact, no brazil a tragedy of classical proportion.

but it's a little off.

you never got there, man. you never actually set foot in brazil. if i recall correctly something you wrote awhile back, you went 'through all those motions' and even hopped on the plane- but then during the ten-hour flight you grew restless and started to read other travel guides.

these new guides were ones that you hadn't read before leaving- ones that pushed hard to convince you that there was no brazil, illustrated with charicatures of buffoons who are such bad travellers that it wouldn't really matter where they were going for readers young and old to be resolute in their desire to avoid at all costs any destination these travellers might promote. problem was, these travellers looked familiar and at times you had even felt like one of them (which didn't sit so well, even at the time) and so the doubts and the restlessness grew.

eventually, you had had enough and, having fashioned wings of wax during the flight, stepped out of the plane somewhere over the ocean. with the wind in your ears and a plane moving off in the distance, your focus- upon being free of the plane and its destination- was now upon the wonder and joy of flight, recognizing that to fly too close to the sun might melt your wings and to fly too close to the water might restrict both your vision and your freedom to experiment with flight itself. (ie jonathan livingstone seagull by richard bach)

at least, that's how it sounded to me
***

while at university i lived next door to a 'new-age' bookstore, from which i procured a bunch of fun books: lao tzu's "tao of life"; swami prabhavananda's "bhagavad-gita"; "the gospel according to zen- beyond the death of God"; baigent, leigh and lincoln's "the holy blood and the holy grail" (a resource for don brown's davinci thing) and others. add to these the stuff i've read since (figured i'd quit with the cheesey name-dropping) and you have many voices carrying on a dialogue which shapes and reshapes your perspective, sometimes daily.

there was a passage of scripture that resonated within the caverns of my mind that i was so eager to fill up, and essentially bathed the place with light enabling me to see the faces that were engaged in the dialogue even now:

'see to it that no one holds you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy, which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world rather than on Christ.'
(col 2.8)

the word 'hollow' is probably the most important word in that verse other than the name of Christ. what it says to me is that pure intellectual reasoning will inspire and develop the mind, but might be comparable to misering (?) in that eventually mortal life in the physical realm is done and everyone is once again leveled.

the whole 'you can't take it with you' thing.

now that's fine because life was full of ideas and experiences that make us undeniably rich in many ways, and if this is the proverbial 'it' and all that we've experienced is reduced to what we had the chance to pass on to others- if that is our immortality- then great. but if there is, in fact, something more than spiritual sea below us to which we eventually come to land, then we have spent the whole of our physical existence on the hollow- chasing, as solomon said, after wind.
***
check out the complete dialogue and the original post at http://icarusgoodman.blogspot.com/2005/04/letter-to-christians.html

reissues

matthew said
For me, my faith in large part comes from using reason - if that makes sense. I look around and see autonomous, conscious beings. I then ponder the fact that random processes lead to disorder not order, and I think there had to have been supernatural intervention. I am an engineer, so maybe it's not a big surprise I think about the mechanics of things, but hey whatever floats my faith-boat right?

i have been reading a really neat book called 'the dancing wu li masters' by gary zukav. it is a slow read for somebody like me because, apart from my basic struggles with speedy reading in general, it is a self-proclaimed 'overview of the new physics' (which, as expressed in my lengthy blog the other day, is gonna be a challenge for me on many levels!)

yeah, well anyway, he puts this thing in there that i have had bouncing around in my head since i read it yesterday:

quantum mechanics is a branch of physics. there are several branches of physics. most physicists believe that sooner or later they will construct an overview large enough to incorporate them all.

according to this point of view, we eventually will develop a principle, a theory which is capable of explaining everything so well that there will be nothing left to explain... every occurance in the real world will be accounted for by a corresponding element in our final supertheory. we will have, at last, a theory which is consistent within itself and which explains all observable phenomena. einstein called this state the 'ideal limit of knowledge.'

i think that mr zukav and mr einstein are sitting at the local pub speculating upon how to address omniscience without the troublesome spiritual rhetoric that goes with the word.

zukav goes on to quote einstein a few lines later:

creating a new theory is not like destroying an old barn and then erecting a new skyscraper in its place. it is rather like climbing a mountain, gaining new and wider views, discovering unexpected connections between our starting point and its rich environment. but the point from which we started out still exists and can be seen, although it appears smaller and forms a tiny part of our broad view gained by the mastery of the obstacles on our adventurous way up.

i love this. i'm going to have it etched on a plaque and mounted on the wall of my office right next to the green pyramid poster from pink floyd's dark side of the moon. all of life seems to be about creating new theories as to what's really going on. we long to know who God is (let's not even try to speculate WHAT God is right now...) and yet we still haven't figured out who we are yet. so we exist- einstein's proverbial starting point personified- unable to get beyond ourselves long enough or far enough to actually see things around us because our vision is both eclipsed and limited by who what where when and how we are today... and from this point in time space and spirit we devise theories, speculating about how to somehow calculate the will of God.

i believe these things to the core of who i am:

• anything good is God's first
• everything bad is good perversed

what i find intriguing is how ready we can be to pursue the creation of a theory which explains everything, but how eager we are to speak in completely generic, nonpersonal terms about the coming to be of all that which defies our current explanations.

i went out to the church house where the citizens like to sit
they say they want the kingdom but they don't want God in it
(bono, 'the wanderer' collaborating with johnny cash on u2's 'zooropa' album)

i guess i'm not the only guy who thinks in rhyming couplets... at least we're not down at the pub trying to express our beliefs and observations in limmericks!

is it that solomon has once again been proven right concerning the newness of our experiences and their interpretations?

reason and the bubble boy

tell your story? that's tough if you're afraid that people will miss what you're really trying to say.

being that i kind of grew up in the church bubble, i have always tried to avoid the testimonial approach to discussing spirituality... it is too easy for people to default to the 'well, that's easy for you to say- you've never lived' setting. this is arguably the main reason why the life of Christ was one frought with pain and poverty as well as purpose... that no one would be able to default easily to the 'well that's easy to say if you're God' setting.

i've always been more interested in talking about Jesus because, quite frankly, he's more interesting- at least that has been my official line. playing an introspective game of twenty questions in the last little while, however, has brought to light something surprising to me... and although i would passionately argue to the contrary, i think that a simple truth about me is that i really hate surprises. you see, when icarus posted an invitation for any and all to share their personal journey towards God, i had already been stalled for awhile on this one.

i mean, it's all different when somebody asks isn't it? it presumably means that they actually want to know because they feel that it will somehow benefit their own journey. well then i am at a bit of a loss because a lot of my own defaults in this regard are probably faulty. to get past the insecurity and the control issues that are tightly held at bay and just trust another person to handle with respect that which is vulnerable and personal is a real challenge for me. although i have known this about myself for most of my life, i don't think that i truly realized what a stranglehold it all has had on my 'personal witness' until icarus asked me a month or so ago how i came to faith. i wanted to answer; i just wanted to do so with more than a personal chronology and a flimsy attempt at tracing some cause and effect.

the fact in all this murky emotional disclosure is that i think i might have made the gospel about me somehow. i am afraid of somebody dismissing Jesus because of my failure to articulate, in terms of my own life, how he has made a difference. i am afraid that an attempt at sharing a spiritual testimonial will come off like a sloppy endorsement- like that lame commercial about some headache remedy that i recall from my childhood: "i'm not a doctor, but i play one on t.v...."

i think i am also afraid of being personally evaluated on the basis of my life's story because it's not really flashy. if i'm going to be a t.v. commercial, i'd much rather be the "i liked it so much that i bought the company" guy. well, eventually you have to just say 'get over yourself' and take a shot at conquering your own stuff, because ultimately the gospel will move forward through the world with or without your help and endorsement... it comes down to whether you want to be part of that movement.

so my faith journey? growing up as a christian kid, attending youth group, going to bible college, getting married to a girl i met at bible college, gaining a degree in education, being redirected in my calling after a few years to begin pursuing ministry as a pastor, blogging about God incessantly... yada yada yada- who cares?

however, God has spoken truth into my life a number of times using numerous languages and voices. whether it has been through a book that i've been reading or a film that has crashed in unexpectedly or a dream at night or a conversation with a friend or somebody's sermon or somebody else's blog, i find my journey redirected as regularly as i have my antennae up high enough to pick up the signal. i guess that i would be categorized as experiencial in my faith journey because i draw a lot of guidance from as many of life's experiences as i can keep track of, always going back to the bible and those with whom i walk closest for the ongoing affirmation or clarification that i need in order to somehow survive the decisions i've made claiming to have been by the inspiration of this God to whom i have dedicated my life's breath

an example is as recent as yesterday when i read something in a blogger profile that bumped me over to a spot where i decided to try to tackle this whole testimonial thing again.

• Q: Your people want to make a statue in your honor. What will it be made out of and what victory will it commemorate?
  
• A: It will be a generic man, portrayed realistically and ideally, commemorating the victory of reason over faith.

'the victory of reason over faith'?

later on that evening, i had a conversation with a friend of mine who is a computer engineer guy that plays a mean bass guitar. we were discussing modern man's propensity to explain things, to identify things, to define things, to categorize things and ultimately to assess value to things so that they may be clearly priorized on some continuum... like that radiohead song: everything in its right place.

everything in its right place?

this approach to life is hard for me to lock into because on most days my world feels like a pandimensional ven diagram of perpetually changing, formless, shapeless, brilliantly coloured smells which momentarily share time and space with an infinite number of other like, yet distinctively unlike ones before everything changes again a nanosecond later, never to be repeated exactly, although similarities may exist between this instant and that one ten millenia and several light years away. because of random precision and irrational numbers, the odds of repitition are undefinable... and i'm okay with that- it just makes communicating with my friends the logicians really difficult. i wish i could think in a straight line, but the reality is that i can only approximate it for a very short time before getting a headache. i have one now.

but could i claim the same thing for my statue: the victory of reason over faith? i wish i could delineate some hierarchical difference between the two in order to determine which one would win over the other in a footrace, but i can't and i think that the ability to do or not do that comes down to our hardwiring. the best i can do is try to have the two walk side by side on the same road, letting each other converse together without finishing each other's sentences. i have no reason to not have faith. my faith is strengthened by all of the things that i cannot explain, in that in the unexplainable is my wonder, my fuel and my joy and my worship- is raison d'etre the same as reason?

this life is a rich one and i probably shouldn't be so eager to apologize for that- as if roadwear brings credibility or something. pain builds character, sure, but my faith has hardly been an opiate to buffer me against prejudice, family tragedy, mortality, betrayal, broken dreams, financial stress or anything else. what faith does is give me reason to carry on, defaulting control of the things that are so outside of my scope to a personal deity who desires a relationship with me in spite of all the stuff of pretension and pride that i carry around with me wherever i go, so that i am free to attend to the smaller details of one life and how it can be lived in spirit and in truth.

well there's a treasure at the end of this narrow road I'm traveling
and it gives me a purpose for my life
Jesus is my treasure- he's the reason that I am living
and he's gonna be my reason when I die
(Gary Chapman: Treasure, 1994)
***
there are three amazing books that explore these themes far more articulately than i can:
Finding Faith by Brian D McLaren
A Reasonable Faith by Tony Campolo
A Case For Christ by Lee Strobel