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.

rigidly defined areas of doubt and uncertainty

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

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

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

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

“Avoid foolish questions.” Titus 3:9

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

keep the faith
-jollybeggar

***

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

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

"Life!" urged Fook.

"The Universe!" said Lunkwill.

"Everything!" they said in chorus.

Deep Thought paused for a moment's reflection.

"Tricky," he said finally.

"But can you do it?"

Again, a significant pause.

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

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

"A simple answer?" added Lunkwill.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"I am Majikthise!" announced the older one.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

"What's the problem?" said Lunkwill.

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

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

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

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

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

left, left, left right left

we were talking about this whole holy-militia approach to social issues. a good question came up:

are believers supposed to march or simply stand?

i mean, you can have your own stand on a social issue without marching around trying to spiritually bully people.

next up for incineration- the harry potter series... but narnia is fine.
and we can only drink milk from a christian cow.

onward christian soldiers
marching as to war
with the cross of Jesus
going on before...

i know that the brown shirt variety of believers make it very hard to even briefly consider that the God they serve may be valid, however they are hard right minority and like their islamic counterparts the al qaeda network, they don't speak for us all... they just think they do.

matt7.21-23 comes to mind... it's better to let God do the judging.

but everywhere we look, it becomes apparent that people are getting really tired of a bad-news gospel. take my friend fredcall... please! (jokes)

if i remember correctly, the conversational thread that led to fred's story about his younger brother began when he sent me a note that had been written proudly by a mother whose elementary school-age child had torn nearly the entire book of leviticus out of a bible because of basic justice issues arising from a literal misinterpretation of the scriptures.

i made a remark about this jefferson bible maneouver being simply an anti-religious expression of the same mindset that has books like catcher in the rye and huckleberry finn removed from schools and burned.

and, well, off we went, exploring together the differences between theology and ideology.

Ideology and spirituality are not one and the same. Unfortunately what is passing for fundamentalism (Christian, Judaic, Islamic, Scientologists and Moonies for example) are basing their beliefs on ideology, not spirituality...

Theosophically (or philosophically or politically or scientifically or whaterver) understanding what you are talking about goes a long way toward something along the spiritual line of tackling life's situations. Manchurian Candidate ideology is far short of anything I look upon as spirituality. If you (figuratively you) are marching to war, do you understand why you are marching to war, or are you wound up by an invisible hand- turned key. -fredcall

if i read his attitude towards most things correctly, he is interested in people's ability to sort things out for themselves rather than the simple adoption of a company line with regard to topics of ultimate importance. although fred's approach is confrontational and mildly unorthodox, his quest is the pursuit of enlightenment- not only for himself but for others- and it is fueled by, among other things, love and frustration.

love for his younger brother (which could be pretty much anyone who has been drawn into a faith that has robbed him or her of the capacity for reason amidst the faith) and frustration with empty words and pat answers in an increasingly complicated world.

One time I playfully asked my kid brother what he thought about Free Will versus Determinism (as bandied about by Dante and Milton and lots of others). My kid brother got this far away look in his eyes before saying, "Let me think about this before I answer." To which I said, "Sure, take your time." He went back to his (church) Elders with my question and they told him point blank rote what to say to me. He came back with some kind of response that were not his words. He didn't even understand what he was saying. He had memorized what he was told to reply without the foggiest clue what it all theosophically meant.

I had to bite my tongue cause he's my little brother and it's not my place to embarrass him in front of his fundamentalist friends. I just nodded and left the discussion at that having learned a lesson that I can't engage this (church) ideological bunch in a theosophical discussion.

well, now that is one heckuva playful discussion topic.
yeah, let's keep it nice and light and then we'll go wrestle in the backyard!

yet so much of our take on what's happening with regard to the big questions (and, might i also say, others' big answers) has to do with how we've managed to sort through this one in order to sleep at night.

in the last month, not prompted by anything circumstancial or situational or relational, I have been reading job. interesting book- especially as we read behind the dialogue that takes place between job and his friends. I really believe that these friends love him and that they are sincere, but their theology continues to take them around the horn to one particular notion: job has done evil and is refusing to acknowledge it.

we, the readers, have a pretty nice little role in the story: do nothing and learn all there is to learn vicariously. we read job's words to his friends and feel his frustration. we read his friends' words and hear the conventional, cause-and-effect wisdom. yet we have the luxury of knowing before the whole thing starts that God is in charge and job is, in fact, righteous. the discrepancies and the real spiritual danger for job lie in the fact that these dear friends are being used to cause job to doubt himself, his heart and his life, considering the possible integrity questions that are inherent in the statements that these guys make in order to defend himself against them. when they could be bringing strength, they are instead bringing doubt.

the book of job is a pretty good example that this kind of discussion has been going on for as long as people have been trying to sort out why so many bad things happen to good people in a world created and overseen/manipulated (big fork in the road right here) by a God who is supposed to be sovereign.

but will one man's answer ever really satisfy the longings of another man's soul? hmm.

i was thinking about an interesting quote by brian d mclaren from his book finding faith and decided to try to google it in order to cite his words correctly. i ended up at the site of a blogger whose online handle is based upon the same quote by cs lewis as my own... (http://jollyblogger.typepad.com/jollyblogger/2006/04/tim_challies_on.html)
well anyway, whether by free will, determinism or just a goofy coincidence, this guy has a post dealing with the emergent church... citing and acquiescing with, in particular, one guy's (a certain tim challies) misgivings with mclaren's take on the emergent church in the postmodern world:

The faith McLaren commends is a faith that always questions, always doubts. It seems that the only faith McLaren hates is the faith of a person who knows what he believes and is convicted by Scripture and by plain reason that what God has revealed is truth--true truth. As others have observed, the real enemy of the Emerging Church is conservative, biblical Protestantism.

well, regardless of challies' feelings about brother brian, the description cited is exactly what makes the work of mclaren resonnate with me. since when is questioning wrong? although Jesus likened people to sheep, i don't think that he intended for us to adopt the orwellian animal farm sheep's characteristic blind, unthinking ascent. Jesus also said that we are to have the faith of a child and, as you know, little children ask a million questions a day because it is in seeking answers to questions that people grow. if there's any point at all to this, it is that our asking of questions is as crucial to our brother's journey as it is to our own.

a friend of mine is a successful financial planner who was once a seminarian and decided that he just had too many questions of God to continue. well, whether he missed some sort of calling or not is between him and God, as he seems to be doing quite well managing other people's fortunes for fun and profit. i like going out for a guinness with him because the conversation is always engaging and always challenging.

i once said to him that if he were to ever meet someone who could ask him questions that stretched him and ripped conversational remote control from his hands long enough for him to begin searching for the answers, his faith journey might resume. you see, he knows that no one can respond to his questions with answers that satisfy his reason, so he does not have to change or grow.

i think that the primary factor at work in the heart and life of the 'questioning faithful' is that person's desire to actually discover the answers to the questions posed. sometimes we just ask questions to make points. who has time for all that rhetoric?

as for all this marching, standing, and burning things, there is nothing wrong with being activistic. however, sometimes we can be so convinced that we are the only ones who are right that everyone left is a liberal or heretic. the important spiritual, not ideological, discernment helps us to determine whether to march or to stand still to listen to the message on the wind. (yep, that's a fredcall soundbyte)

how much love is there in calling anyone an anything?