lift

torchie sent me an email recently
I’m sitting here, enjoying some good conversation with my youngest son, some internet reading on incarnation, and a glass of Captain Morgan. I had a good day at work and I know that God and my wife still love me.

How can life get any better?

So, I began thinking, “Would we be celebrating Christmas, or, would Jesus have come even if me and humankind would not have sinned?”

Don’t feel obligated to respond, or, if you do to respond at great length, but whattaya’ think?

***

i suppose we're safe in that this has a built-in shock absorber in there:
the question is simply 'whattaya think?'

think? whew- pressure's off.

so many things seem to be separated in the curse of genesis 3. it causes me to wonder whether the word 'curse' simply means separation when used in scripture.

it reads in genesis 3.14-19 as the antithesis of blessing.

here's the thing, though.
there is something sanctificatory about both:
with either blessing or curse, something or someone is set apart.

i would even argue that a case could be made (and has been by a few speakers and writers under whose teaching i've sat) that this setting apart- whether circumstantially delightful or tragic- is in accordance with God's greater purposes for his universal creation; part of God's exaltation of it.

3.14: the serpent is separate from all livestock and animals of the wild. 'above all' it reads. typically when we use a phrase like 'above all', we are not talking about something or someone that we see as the lowest of the low. perhaps this a simple reinforcement of the idea that our perspective is pretty limited and pretty linear.

3.15: there is higher level separation (enmity) between the woman/ the offspring of the woman and the crafty antagonist. the context is set for the messianic promise to be announced for the first time.

3.16: there is greater understanding of this human experience, for we have this whole paradox and sexual conflict that seems to open up for the woman: desire for the man and yet 'increased pain' in childbirth. whatever the case, this life experience just went from black and white to colour for the woman.

3.17-19: for the man, there is work and toil and sweat and ultimately death. however, these things have become the essence of our cultural identity. whether it is in our fallenness or simply as the result of a life steeped in it as we continue to strive here, just east of eden, most conversations with strangers move into the realm of chosen occupation relatively early on. i know that i typically remember this about a person quite easily, but his or her name takes a bit more work. there is something functional here that fits into our understanding of the way things work quite naturally, affording us a relatively uncomplicated, safe causeway to further relationship.

(interesting- i believe in some recent comments on an earlier blogpost here we delved briefly into the whole trouble with equating 'being' with 'doing', yet it seems to be ingrained as part of our perspective.)

one writer observes that
'Meeting the needs of a self in a world of other selves is an anxious enterprise. Even short of death, there is much to be anxious about in life.'
(robert gerzon, in his book Finding Serenity in the Age of Anxiety )

gerzon contends that humankind chose natural anxiety over existential anxiety (he calls it 'sacred anxiety' in his book) because reporting solely to God was a burden too great for mortals to bear. in any event, life seems to take on new meaning and significance now that there is something precious to be lost. it is no longer a given and so an exaltation of sorts- a lifting up 'above all' similar to 3.14- takes place.

so if curse means separation and separation means curse, then is God somehow cursed by the changes that go down in the garden? have we, in our disobedience, cursed God as well as ourselves?

well, there does seem to be a separation of the personalities of God that takes place here- is required as a result of all of this action in the garden. it appears that free will and technicolour living will require even God to undergo a radical change in how the trinity interacts within itself as well as within the world created. somehow the son needs to be torn from that place of perfect relational balance and compliment in order to address the great challenges imposed by God's decision to abide by the free will of everyday people who have no clue who they are or what they're doing most of the time. happens again when the Holy Spirit is given at pentecost. it appears that somehow the triune God is affected by the gift of free will as described in genesis 3.

so would Jesus have had to come?
no. not in my view.

i can't see any need for God the son to have been separated from God the father and God the spirit apart from the need that is ushered in as a direct result of humankind's swiping of the freewill card for the first time.

the question that eats away at me is
would we even be able to notice?
living in the cozy, pre-fall balance, would we value the stasis-
in God or in ourselves?

what if our ultimate failure as the God's very-goods in a world of goods was simply a rite of passage into the coloured and contrasted existence that God actually desired for us? what if this fall of man was actually a lifting up by God to a deeper experience of life and relationship, with each other as well as with God? what might this suggest about God's love for his crowned of creation?

as messy as all of this is most days, i think i love God more when i think of God's activation and honouring of my free will like this- especially considering the cost to God.

the needing God

sometimes relationships and dialogue serve as a catalyst for these great lengthy rants.
other times, they spawn these little platitudes that would probably make great fridge magnets.

synthesizing a few different streams, i was prompted to type this in an email to a friend:


the need that is to be attended to in ministry is what God needs you to do, not simply what you and others are in need of... if we all think this way, the world need not go hungry.

it's a bit quirky to speak of God needing.

(tangent: i sometimes get all caught up in these silly kinds of things and the result of the catching is that i overthink my way out of expressing the idea. i remember a friend once spoke of the danger inherent in editing, as one can unwittingly edit brilliance down to mediocrity. although i recognize the value of choosing words carefully, i sometimes am so careful that i end up saying nothing at all. i have heard people pray this way, flipping and flopping around with verbal shock absorbers and 'not my will but thy will' phrases to the point where you gotta wonder if God isn't just finding those infinite reserves of divine patience and longsuffering being depleted. God sits there, forcing a smile, saying was there something you wanted to talk to me about?)

i wonder if the idea of a God with a need isn't such a bad thing.
what if the idea of need further completes our picture of God, further augment the perfection and the holiness that we ascribe to God?

can one with need be complete? be God?

for me to embrace this notion, i must let go of the projections that i am tempted to slap onto God which are actually human conditions- human conditions that drive me mildly crazy. you know the ones: those aspects of the phrase 'needy' that suck our own reserves dry.

a needing God is not the same as a needy God.

God needs regular people to show love to each other
God needs regular people to share what they have with each other (you get the idea...)

see, God has created us to engage in meaningful life and experience with one another, and seeks to work miracles of faith and provision through these engagements. i'm fond of saying that

every good thing is of God and
every bad thing is something good that's been compromised

i believe this, but if what i believe is true, then part of God's glory must needs be realized through me. i have a responsibility in this bigger picture- this grand mosaic that presents the face of God to humankind through the faces of each other- to be part of what's going on, lest my lack of stewardship in the area entrusted to me become compromised and no longer bearing the truth of God's invitation.

i am needed to actively share the aspects of God's face that are part of God's revelation through me... failing to meet this need, part of God's expression of love to this world is stifled, suppressed.

in my view, these things don't change who God is. i'm not tossing some home-brewed version of pantheism onto the table and claiming to have discovered something new. creator is still separate from the created.

thing is, aspects of creator go unexpressed in direct relation to the responsiveness, or lack thereof, of the created to divine opportunities for revelation.

God needs people to express things as creator which can only be truly expressed through the created of God. whereas, some aspects of God's character are plainly evident in this world of somethings, the relational aspects must be expressed through the someones.

take, for instance, a song that i was given back in 1999. it was the last song i wrote in the 20th century, written on new year's eve.

(i say 'given' because there are many different processes for or approaches to creating art, whether this art is visual, dramatic, musical or linguistic. modes of inspiration? probably a whole nother blog that someone else has posted already and articulated better)

the way this song was written was unusual for me. it was almost like automatic writing of sorts, in that there were ideas that seemed to synthesize themselves, arriving on the written page already finished and requiring virtually no editing at all. the ideas flowed in an order contrary to the way i usually think, exploring the passion of the Christ, forgoing any discussion of resurrection and moving backwards in time from the burial to the passover meal.

break this thieving heart and place it in the ground
turn and walk away as darkness falls all around
pick up all the pieces of your life
as if we'd never met
and maybe then i'd know how to love

crucify this thieving heart-bind it with thorns
strike it with your fists, subject it to scorn
pledge undying faithfulness
and then betray it with a kiss
and maybe then i'd know how to love

take this thieving heart and do with it what you must
feast upon the flesh, forsake its every trust
drink deeply from the cup
it laboured so earnestly to fill
and maybe then
just maybe then
and maybe then i'd know how to love

i find this all very humbling, because when something like this takes place you are left with a sense of divine visitation of sorts. this is what i mean by revelation.

now whether the revelation of God through a person is as dramatic as this example seems to be for me, or simply a moment when the need of another presented itself and a person responded in love and grace, i must conclude that God needs us in order to express these aspects of God's character that fall silent in our absence. the need of God, then, seems to be both contextual and infinite- well, as infinite as the possibilities and opportunities that exist mathematically if we assign a number to every person who has lived, does live and ever will live, and then multiply those numbers by themselves to the Nth power... that's infinite enough for me to represent a pretty huge divine need.

that you and i are part of the meeting of this need causes me to feel incredibly small, yet somehow integral to the 'self actualization of God.'

blaise pascal spoke of the God-shaped void within every human being. could it be that in the heart of God there is a human-shaped void for each of us?

should i stay or should i go

this one got going on 'northVUs' and it seemed like there might be more to say so i transplanted it here...

"How bout those who reject Jesus, or the church, or faith? It seems to me that as soon as you define the role of something, specifically an institution, then you are necessarily excluding." (hineini)

i agree that those who reject the centre of a faith community- in this case Jesus- will find themselves outside of that faith community... but that is what rejection means, isn't it? the turning from rather than towards something or someone?

does this mean that these individuals fall outside of the love of that community or the love of the God of that community? no, it shouldn't imply this at all. as a matter of fact, it is pretty scriptural that the love of God and his faith community, the Church, is offered inclusively with no expiry date and no umpire keeping track of strikes. if Jesus would implore peter and the boys to forgive seventy-times-seven then i think it would be rather inconsistent for God the Father to say

"well, yeah, that's a rule i made for you. however, with me it's down to your basic three strikes and you're out."

however, some of hineini's comment seems to reflect this understanding or characterization of God. in my view, that god is a construct, created in the image of certain members of fallen humanity who would seek to somehow justify thoughts of condemnation of the people beside them... much like the parable Jesus told in luke 18.9-14 . the reality of who God is is not limited by our sloppy theology. the only thing that is limited by our sloppy theology is our ability to experience a deep relationship with this God person... oh, and the ability to invite others into relationship with God as well, for a relationship based on misconception is going to have some pretty arbitrary limits and some therefore pretty limited appeal.

but back to rejection... it is my belief that when individuals reject that which is being offered (and continues to be offered regardless of their decision to accept or reject it) then they have no place entertaining feelings of embitterment or alienation based on their own decision to reject. they've chosen exclusion of their own design.

remember, i am not talking about somehow barring the doors or shutting the lights out and pretending no one is home when an 'other' (in the biblical sense) comes by. i am simply acknowledging that the burden of one's own redemption lands right back where the burden of damnation began- free will.

TGWU (baggage handlers' union)

some good questions:
1)why is unencumbered good again? (hineini)

wow- well posed. i think that hineini's question above is really strongly related to societyVS' one below:

2) Outlive a painful experience, interesting. Like as in 'forget about it' or 'deal with it'? (societyVS)

both of these questions have been going round and round in my head the last couple days for reasons that have nothing to do with blogging, and the more i think about them, the more i wonder if, in fact, unencumbered is necessarily a good thing. i mean, it probably depends on what we mean by unencumbered.

here's what set me off. last night a mom showed up at our small wednesday night prayer group and shared some desperate pain with everyone there (it was a small meeting compared to some- only about 10 people) concerning her angry young daughter's journey into extreme sports self destructive decision making.

at this gathering was a guy who had been absent from our fellowship for about 8 months. having been admitted to the hospital for day surgery back in july, he had contracted an infection which had brought about excruciating pain that had to be treated eventually with morphine which triggered his cocaine addiction and caused him to basically fall off the edge of the world, spiralling downward for literally months. he was completely unreachable and, at times, even untraceable until the disease finally remitted and he came to at one of the local rescue missions where he now lives, having sold everything he owned for drugs.

so he didn't know this mom or her daughter at all, having been seriously 'out of the loop' per se. he sat quietly listening, drinking in the whole story. when he spoke, however, it wasn't to recount his own experiences or personal regrets, providing glib testimonial to the fact that hope was not completely out of reach because any one can change blah blah blah. he instead shared his duaghter's story which, for all intents and purposes, was very similar to the story just shared.

suddenly the conversation was between two people who knew what they were talking about. the rest of the group bore witness to it all, but listened in silence. the true healing that took place there (obviously in small measure, considering the tragic tales being exchanged) was in the basic sharing of common pain.

unencumbered? hmm. i'm not sure that one completely unencumbered would have been much use at that meeting. it was an enactment of God's mercy and grace that, on this particular evening and in spite of the bad weather and the multiple bus transfers that were needed to be worked through in order for my friend to come to the prayer group, he was there as the one completely empathically understanding set of ears in the room. reminds me a lot of the kind of environment that societyVS describes in some of his earlier comments. the writer of acts concurs, as does the apostle paul in what he extols the baby church to become in 2 cor 1.1-11 (which had been my chosen devotional text for the evening, having no idea what was about to happen.)

so if living unencumbered means somehow glibly denying that this or that abuse happened again and again and no one seemed to be listening, or winking at the moral failure of one in a position of authority, or otherwise just running from reality because it hurts then what's the point? but if, when we speak of living unencumbered, we mean somehow outliving (surviving) truths that would enslave or negatively redefine us- and using the freedom that follows to inform our journey as we walk alongside of others in community and support, then i'm in.

That there- thats not me
I go where I please
I walk through walls
I float down the liffey
Im not here
This isnt happening
Im not here
Im not here

In a little while Ill be gone
The moments already passed
Yeah its gone
And Im not here
This isnt happening
Im not here
Im not here

Strobe lights and blown speakers
Fireworks and hurricanes
Im not here
This isnt happening
Im not here
Im not here

(thom yorke, circa 2000)

rings and loops

c.s. lewis, one of my heroes, wrote an amazing article long ago entitled 'the inner ring.' in it, he says this:

of all passions, the passion for the Inner Ring is the most skillful at making a man who is not yet a very bad man do very bad things...

as long as you are governed by that desire you will never get what you want. you are trying to peel an onion: if you succeed there will be nothing left. until you conquer your fear of being an outsider, an outsider you will remain...

the quest for the Inner Ring will break your hearts unless you break it. but if you break it, a surprising result will follow. if, in your working hours, you make the work your end, you will presently find yourself all unawares inside the only circle in your profession that really matters. you will be one of the sound craftsmen , and other sound craftsmen will know it. this group of craftsmen will by no means coincide with the Inner Ring or the Important People or the People in the Know. it will not shape that professional policy or work up that professional influence which fights for the professional as a whole against the public, nor will it lead to those periodic scandals and crises which the Inner Ring produces. but it will do those things which the profession exists to do and will in the long run be responsible for all the respect which the profession in fact enjoys and which the speeches and advertisements cannot maintain. and if, in your spare time, you consort only with the people you like, you will again find that you have come unawares to a real inside, that you are indeed snug and safe at the centre of something which, seen from without, would look exactly like an Inner Ring. but the difference is that its secrecy is accidental, its exclusiveness a by-product, and no one was led thither by the lure of the esoteric, for it is only four or five people who like one another meeting to do the things that they like. this is friendship. aristotle placed it among the virtues. it causes perhaps half of the happiness in the world and no Inner Ringer can ever have it.

(c.s.lewis; exerpted from 'the inner ring', taken from 'the weight of glory', circa 1962)
***

if we make loving others our profession, what are the implications of lewis' words here?

i think the implications of this are a feedback loop the builds upon itself with each cycle to a deafening celebration of everything good.

could this, perhaps, be the voice of God himself?

*note: jollybeggar is off to sri lanka until the end of august on a mission. for descriptions and details of what this kind of mission can entail, feel free to read his journals from last year, posted at www.acts1v8.blogspot.com (hyperlinked to your right under the heading 'jollybeggar abroad')

shalom, my friends.

dog face

Dogs of war and men of hate
With no cause, we don't discriminate
Discovery is to be disowned
Our currency is flesh and bone
Hell opened up and put on sale
Gather 'round and haggle
For hard cash, we will lie and deceive
Even our masters don't know the webs we weave

One world, it's a battleground
One world, and we will smash it down
One world ... One world

Invisible transfers, long distance calls,
Hollow laughter in marble halls
Steps have been taken, a silent uproar
Has unleashed the dogs of war
You can't stop what has begun
Signed, sealed, they deliver oblivion
We all have a dark side, to say the least
And dealing in death is the nature of the beast

One world, it's a battleground
One world, and we will smash it down
One world ... One world

The dogs of war don't negotiate
The dogs of war won't capitulate,
They will take and you will give,
And you must die so that they may live
You can knock at any door,
But wherever you go, you know they've been there before
Well winners can lose and things can get strained
But whatever you change, you know the dogs remain.

One world, it's a battleground
One world, and we will smash it down
One world ... One world
(david glimour of pink floyd, circa 1985)


i have recently come to the conclusion that i am a dog of war...
and have always been.

if you were to name any context from life, it would only take me a second to name my other self, my known adversary, my goldstein, my snowball, the ying for my yang. in every phase of my life and in every relational context i can identify one- always just one- on whom i blame my pain, for whom i have only disdain, in whom i am perpetually disappointed and against whom i wage an ongoing and unwinnable war.

having one extreme opposition- a bizarro around which all other relationships fall into place as positive- has allowed me, in seeing the worst in the one to see the best in all others. it appears as though, for me, balance and stability have always existed in the stalemate.

the structure holds together well until one of the dogs lets go of his end of the bone. suddenly there is a hole and, in granting forgiveness, i find myself bereft of both convenient villain and comfortable balance.

the challenge is to be on guard, lest i create from my existing relationships a brand new adversary in order to bring my world back into balance and release me from the change that is imminent.

this is why i commit war crimes in perpetuity. it's circle maintenance.

to break the cycle? i must be of greater things, that my actions and relationships would be of positive eternal consequence. if i cannot break my adversarial nature, then i must choose for myself an adversary who is ultimately as stubborn as i am. my chosen villain must be the personification of all negativity. with him and him alone must i contend.

not to presume to be able to wage war against him on any power i might call my own, but to, by God's power, wrestle not against flesh and blood but against principalities, powers, against forces of darkness in this world, against self-serving wickedness in the spiritual realm that is enacted here, using regular people as instruments of torture upon their own countrymen.

after all, every action has an equal and opposite reaction
(sir isaac newton)

*note: the photo above was taken by an american soldier last year in the war against iraq- however, it is important to note that this is NOT an american tactic. in this kind of war, it is typical to wire a dead animal up with explosives that are set off by remote control- the person with the remote just has to push a button. when you have a bomb in your belly, anyone is a potential victim- it just depends on when your buttons get pushed and who is nearby when it happens .

ricochet?

as for name calling…

the thing with titles is that they accomplish two things for better or for worse: they acknowledge accomplishments and they set people apart.

my friend and i were discussing via email the awkwardness that comes over one when he/she finds him/herself with a designation for the first time. for example, being called pastor for the first time can be much like the first time someone calls you sir or ma'am... you look behind you to see who the person with the title is, only to find out that it is you who is being addressed- then you do a quick eye check to see whether the person addressing you is serious or joking.

why does someone observe formalities in our increasingly informal culture?

i mean, i find myself sounding like that sea turtle in finding nemo: "mr turtle is my father, dude..." i cringe when i meet a former student who has been out of school for four or five years already, get the 'hi mr beggar...' thing. for a long time i used to try to reshape these salutations ('it's okay, just call me jolly now, okay?') with little or no success... and then i realized two things simultaneously:

relationships are not defined by titles and titles only identify relationships.

the adults who still insist on calling me mr beggar are friends who have come to know me as that over a lengthy period of time and interaction- and the formality is an extension into their adult life of a respect that they embraced as young people. rather than dodging that one, a person should hear it as an affirmation of the role that he or she played in the life of another. let's face it: there would be no greeting at all if you hadn't mattered.

but now add to that the degree of formalized spiritual authority that is inherent in being called pastor and watch someone as self-conscious as so many people are squirm- especially if it is a newly accepted role/calling for them. it was really hard to get used to the pastor jolly thing...

(all that self-centred i’m not worthy of that title crap- that’s when i started typing in small letters… i think it was originally to be righteously small-case and intentionally- yet pretentiously- selfless. now it is simply a matter of convenience.)

...but God finally asked me why i was being so self-centred.

i said “what?”

he said “well the word pastor says something about me and what i’m doing through you- why does everything have to be about you? the word pastor says you’re about me and i’m about you…”

“oh- uh- okay.”

i know that, since visiting sri lanka last summer, my whole take on the title has changed and deepened further in this reading of it. there i heard old friends who were battling the same religious, political and social forces in the name of God acknowledging the call of God upon each other's lives in the same way that soldiers in the heat of war, fighting to keep each other alive, might still refer to each other by rank. the rank and reference pay tribute to not only the credentials but the affiliation, embracing the fact that these men and women are fighting together on the same side for the same things and all have specific jobs which are more completely defined in combat.

so what about calling someone close to you pastor? this was also part of the discussion with my friend who was sharing an awkwardness on the giving end similar to that which one experiences on the receiving end of such a designation. although we read in ephesians 4.11-12 that there are many callings (there are those who are called to do works of service and those who are called to prepare those who are called to these works, that the kingdom would be built up) we still place them in some sort of order. even though 1 corinthians 12.4-6 states it plainly that

there are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.

we still find ourselves jockeying for position, taking all the figurative language in scripture about jewels in crowns too literally and once again relying on our own resources rather than God's grace to establish our place.

i think that most of it has to do with our hierarchical thinking: we still wrestle with this completely human notion that pastors or leaders must somehow be ahead or above the other servants in the kingdom. in fact, the relationships of the gifts and the gifted appear to be spiritually symbiotic- everyone's role makes everyone else's role in the cosmos both possible and meaningful. just as my father, for example, has been called by God to go 'welding for Jesus' (not the real name for the missionary organization in which he, in the early years of his retirement, has become actively involved), i've been called to 'shepherd the flock'- some of which are or will be welding for Jesus. our roles in the kingdom are as different as we are, but equally as complementary... i think that that's God's point.

yet in perfect symmetry to the complex structures that characterize virgil's and dante's poetic musings on the notion of hierarchical hells (haven't read pergatory or paradise yet), human beings have also created a hierarchical heaven that begins here on earth with people exploiting other people in order to make a name for themselves in God's book. i don't believe it works that way for real, and in the gaze of the one true God, nothing false will stand.

the rest of the email to my friend is too troublesome to try to reword, so i've just copied and pasted it below:

the point is to just be you and listen to God the Holy Spirit when he prompts you to consider not only what you do or say but why. perhaps you are being challenged to acknowledge the spiritual authority of your pastor(s) in order to hear from God through them. perhaps you are being challenged to let the holy spirit speak through your pastors and God knows what you need to do in order to hear his words. i don’t know… it could simply be that as long as you keep things ‘informal’ between you and God’s shepherd leaders you continue to hear only the men rather than the God of the men. i’m not talking about pedestalizing anyone, just acknowledging that God is using them to do things beyond anything that they could accomplish on their own, and that he intends to use you in the same way, but cannot as long as a heart has its reservations.

in other words, just don’t allow nicknames or titles to deflect away the message of God as it comes through someone whom he has called to deliver it.

it occurs to me that another interesting question might be:
what should people call you?

blue christmas

curious servant said... I always feel a little blue this time of year. I shove it aside and work at being all that is right about Christmas for my children. But I feel a little blue.That is OK.
***

a friend of mine was recently confessing the same 'blueness' around the Christmas season. he has used it to fuel his cynicism, explaining that he sees more sadness amongst the people withwhom he works at this time of year than the rest of the year combined. i guess that, to some degree, i agree with him...

yet the agreement strengthens my faith, not my lack of it. it drives me to seek God's face in this time of well-intentioned emotional static.

in my view, if we place our greatest emotional stock in people and human relationships, then christmas can be pretty heavy. people are so good at letting themselves and everyone else down. family and friendly relationships that are supposed to be so close end up feeling -er- obligatory some years.

any breakdown in relationships seems to bare teeth at christmas because we gauge so many aspects of our life's success upon the expressions of our relationships at this time of year... heck, there are stories of soldiers laying down their guns at wartime to enjoy christmas dinner with the enemy, and we get thinking geez- what's that? i can't even think of what to write in a christmas card for a once-close- now casual- friend.

i won't blame satan. that's too easy. it's our problem. however, it's our problem because we leave our biggest spiritual and social buttons exposed during the christmas season and the minions just work the crowd, pushing them and bolting. we turn around and blame each other for our sense of emptiness, rather than open ourselves to the comfort and joy of God as expressed through others, whether strangers or brothers, who suffer the same calamity.

as we place greater stock in our relationship with almighty God through the expressions of goodwill that characterize people's response to the birth of his son (whether intentionally or simply out of tradition) there is the reminder that, with all of its failings, humankind has not been abandoned. the theology of immanuel: God with us is evidenced by the fact that, amidst all that is wrong, there are still glimmers of what is right in every selfless act.

as long as the glimmer exists, there is immanuel- there is hope.

built for relation, not simply recognition

Icarus created a really interesting post (http://icarusgoodman.blogspot.com/2005/10/got-church.html ) about how church, although in his view flawed foundationally, still provides something legitimately in an area where the rest of our culture falls short: meaningful connectedness- totally worth reading and thinking about. he made a couple of assertions, however, that i did feel prompted to respond to. once again, the basic intellectual physics of one person's wheels turning acts as a magnetic catalyst for those of another.
***

"It's the sitting in church that provides the real lessons though..."

although this is a nice little idea, it is a bit skimpy in the whole experiencial faith and relationship realm. i mean, i should probably be a big proponent of the 'sitting in church' notion, being one of the preachers. however, this idea is no more accurate than saying that the real lessons in school come from sitting in class.

(drat! i've just busted myself again because i am also a school-teacher! no matter- i will stand here anyway. moving right along...)

"Half of what the church does has little if anything to do with God. So why do church going folk do it? Why do they attend just to sing some songs or go on a hay ride?"

healthy relationships are the brainchild of almighty God. he created many things which he called 'good' but only one which he referred to as 'very good'... humankind, of course. this was, in my view, because he had been at work creating many someTHINGs in order to eventually have the stage ready for the creation of someONEs. at last, in us, he had someone he could enjoy a relationship with, could fellowship with, could laugh with. we were created with the capacity to not only recognize but to relate- this may be what the whole 'image of God' phrase implies. the ability to enter into relationships within the context of free-will... relationships with both God and other human beings.

it is for this reason (and probably a million others) that people go to church. it is not about the sitting or the standing or the singing or the sobbing...it is in the coming together of people- an agreed-upon connection that bears not only physical and social but spiritual colour- that people draw great strength and direction from at church.

however, i do agree with icarus that, with regard to our other outstanding outposts of community involvement, education and humanitarian engagement, the functional (as opposed to dysfunctional-that's a whole nother blog) gathered fellowship of believers, whether we come together to celebrate the God who created us all in a corporate worship experience, or play hockey together to celebrate good health and fresh air, is a connection that is strengthened by its spiritual foundation.

all things that are truly good have everything to do with the author of that goodness. they are celebrations of who God is as evidenced in all of creation.

postscript: likewise, i suppose, all things that have fallen from being truly good are indicative of how long satan's leash has been allowed to be... for the timebeing.

stock

i found myself thinking that it would sure be convenient if i didn't have to deal with person X anymore. i was on a morning run when i thought this.

kinda cool that God gets up early and runs with you because he knows that there is a greater chance of getting through to you then.

so God is running alongside me, and doesn't seem particularly out of breath. he opens his mouth and the same voice that is described by scientists as 'the big bang' whispers an idea to my heart. here's where i paraphrase a personal word from God into manspeak...

removing one person from your life won't make the inconvenience of all humankind go away. there will always be someone else who steps in to take the place of the actor you've just fired. this life-drama is full of countless characters and many of them are stock. removing one face and one name from the playbill does not remove the stock character from the show, it only redirects the script for awhile in order for the new character to show his or her most obvious colours before things continue on again much as before. like some unending daytime drama that cycles again and again through mild variations within the individual episodes from one season to the next, the bigger story drives forward seemingly unaffected by changes in cast and crew and the occasional rewrite. it is more important to the larger story for the principal to develop and grow in response to the stuff thrown his or her way, than it is for the principal to be emotionally sedentary and relationally static.

in other words, you're going to have to love your way through this one in order for any longterm change to take place. the fact that you can even think in terms of 'person X' suggests that the faces and names are not important... what is important is how you grow through this or that in order to prevent a recycling of the same old dialogue and the same old plot. the old definition of insanity fits here: doing the same things in the same way but expecting different results is folly.

now the big question: what kind of stock character are you in the life-dramas of others?

i hate it when God talks to me that way. i would probably run more, but the truth is a heavy burden to carry with you great distances.
***

if i was blessed with words of sublime articulation
but was full of intellect instead of love
what a din with my words would begin
and how lengthy the silence above

if i could fathom even the deepest truths of the heavens
but remained withdrawn and shallow face to face
how pointless the talk that accompanied the walk
and how fruitless these branches of grace

'others'

Same-sex marriage law passes 158-133
CBC News
The Liberals' controversial same-sex marriage legislation has passed final reading in the House of Commons, sailing through in a 158-133 vote...
( http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2005/06/28/samesex050628.html )

obviously, i've been thinking about this for awhile. (bill c-33 passed back in june and here it is the end of july...) there have been so many openly expressed positions already, that posting something seemed a bit pointless until i got into a conversation within a small bible study i lead. it seemed to me that, even with all of the political rhetoric and (self-) righteous posturing by so many, once again the everyday people with whom i try to interact regularly were still feeling a bit lost as to what they were to believe, how they were supposed to express it and why. such is life with almost any political football, i think. there are efforts made to inform 'the masses,' but in most cases this informing takes on the added colour of persuasion... probably because we have a really tough time actually being objective about anything.

(nice thing about a blog is that, for the most part, we all acknowledge that the writing is just a personal point of view, taken or left by the reader- a nice kinda freedom in that to just be- and in so being, being honestly, yeah? of course this doesn't address the whole problem of not being honest with ourselves, but that's probably a whole nother blog!)

so what to say to the 'sheep' on this issue? well, i'm not sure that the role of believers has really changed that much, regardless of the legislation. it is still our job to uphold the traditional (dareisay 'biblical' without the whole notion being confused by all who are eager to point out the many rather odd eastern cultural spins on marriage and concubinery that are also found in the bible?) concept of marriage and the nuclear family in an age where it would appear as though almost anything short of polygamy goes.

recently we (staff at my church) were asked to wear a yellow ribbon to express our position on the recent debate. i found this uncomfortable, not because of what i stand for, but because so often people misinterpret this stand as some form of spiritualized bigotry. without the chance to speak openly and directly to someone who inquires about the significance of the symbol, i was fearful that others would make presumptions about my faith and my God without actually asking. however, when asked, i found that the conversation was quite natural.

(tangent: now that i think of it, wearing crosses and the like is probably the same thing... nobody asks what the cross around my neck means- yet everyone probably makes assumptions about its significance and meaning based on their own experiences with people wearing that symbol too.)

in my view, the key is to share our biblical view face to face with those who inquire, and to use every opportunity to uphold the sanctity of the institution of marriage within the law rather than without it. in order to share the biblical view, or the denomination's company line on it, we need to know what that is. below is an exerpt from an email thread that spun out of the initial conversation at the bible study. my friend was having trouble sorting out the harshly expressed homophobia of his youth with his newly acquired understanding of the grace of God- he had now swung hard the other way to an 'anything goes because God loves us all' theology of grace and morality in attempts to somehow redeem himself from his loveless youth which he recognized as fascist and wrong. when our morality pendulum is permitted to swing back and forth in response to our life experiences, the end result is that we don't really subscribe to anything constant. my friend was frustrated by this, wanting to share Jesus' love for people, but confusing that with permissiveness.
***

i agree strongly with your statement about judgement. there is usually no love in the judgemental pronouncements we make about others- most of the time it is about 'legalism'. one of the things that God has given us as a light to guide us through life's issues is his Word. if we are careful to live life according to it, to 'walk in the light as He is in the light' (1john 1.6-7) then we are free to live according to his original vision for us.

your redemption is free, man. free to you anyway- it cost Jesus everything as we read in phil2. though you still feel the burden of your past, please remember that Jesus died to take that burden off of you. to keep taking it back is to take back that which Jesus has offered to take upon himself on the cross. it's like he bought your spiritual peace with his blood and now you don't even get what he paid for. don't worry about trying to rectify the mistakes of your youth, pal. they're long gone.

we all know that individuals have to make up their own minds on social issues, but part of that mind-making has to do with being informed. it is every believer's responsibility to develop convictions based on a synthesis of scripture and everyday life and relationships. it is only in order to offer some further perspective for you on this matter that i am sending the Bishop's words.

so, as to gay people's 'right' to marry and have the relationship legitimized in the eyes of God and man through a christian ceremony that acknowledges it as in accordance with God's design and plan, i think that taking a close look at the bishop's statement and the scriptures cited will help in clearing up the 'confusion'.

here, for your consideration, is the free methodist church in canada's stand on the matter, as found in the manual. http://www.fmc-canada.org/

(and by the way, for the detectives out there, there are pictures of jollybeggar and mrs jollybeggar in a commissioning service that took place in july... as well as one old guy in the youth band that also looks strangely familiar... thanks for pointing these out, Pensive Johnny !)


¶630.2.8 Homosexual Behaviour

Homosexual behaviour is condemned by the Scriptures as immoral because it is a distortion of God’s created order, a practice contrary to nature (Romans 1:26,27; I Corinthians 6:9,10; I Timothy 1:8-10). The sanctity of marriage and the family is to be protected against all manner of conduct that moves away from the Creator’s design.

This behaviour is contrary to God’s intention for humans and therefore harmful to those who participate in and form habits toward such behaviour.

Homosexual behaviour is different from homosexual inclination; and persons with homosexual inclinations are accountable to God for their behaviour (Romans 14:12). Because Christians are part of fallen humanity we must deal with many inclinations to sin, but we trust that the grace of God is available and completely adequate to forgive and heal us (I John 1:9; Hebrews 7:25; Luke 4:18; I Corinthians 6:9-11).

While some Christians, regrettably, violate the church’s historic commitment to the deep worth of all persons, The Free Methodist Church in Canada affirms it (See ¶630.2.1). Therefore, Free Methodists have a responsibility to be God’s agents of healing, ministering in love to those involved in homosexual behaviour and giving them support as they learn to live a Christian life that is wholesome and pure.
***

personally, i feel that this statement is a balanced one in that it denotes a crucial difference between inclination and behaviour. people become slaves to their drives: nietzsche said that. however, it doesn't have to be that way, for the grace of God is free to all.

i realize, as i've participated in conversations that go this direction, that transgendered people and people with same-sex inclination can be hurt by well-meaning moralists who draw easy lines between behaviours that feel so natural and things like theft or murder. truth is, there are no easy lines. scripture does not support sexual lifestyle decisions that go in same-sex directions... however, scripture also fails to support the presumption that anyone with same-sex inclinations is somehow outside of the invitation that God made through Jesus to cast aside the earmarks of our old life in order to enjoy freedom within his grace to be all that we were intended to be when God dreamed us up in the first place. Jesus was always there in the middle of the crowd, showing love to the marginalized, the lost and the confused. he was enjoying supper with 'sinners and others' (people whose lives went in directions that were even too much for the new testament writers to describe in their gospels) much to the disgust of the religious right, and only preached against those who walked around lording their legalism over people.

i have gay friends and they know how i feel on this issue. they also know that i love them dearly. until we can be loving revolutionaries, do we subscribe to anything higher than the pharisees standing outside of matthew's party in matt9.10-13?

again and again i find myself marvelling at how Jesus dealt with people- somehow able to be openly loving and righteous at the same time.

thomas edison and original sin

icarus reflects upon the philosophical meanderings that are part of his higher education from time to time:
While sitting in my leftist infested American Foreign Policy class, my professor, also a jaded communist, keeps pronouncing that human nature is evil. He says it so much that the rest of the class has now begun the practice of finishing his sentence for him. "Things are bad because human nature is...class? 'Evil!' That's right, evil, very good."

so why is it that we always get this one wrong? i think it's because we need to place the blame for all manner of calamity resulting from the poor stewardship of our free will on somebody or something other than ourselves. it must be in our nature to be evil- this absolves us of both guilt and responsibility.

however, when i dig back into the creation story told in the first couple chapters of the first book of the bible, i find some wording that is troublesome if i am to subscribe to this doctrine of inherent evil. quite frankly, i can't get past it:

sorry for the lengthy quote that ensues. i just don't want to break up the context too much...
then God said, 'let us make man in our own image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over livestock, over all the earth and over all the creatures that move along the ground.

so God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.

so God blessed them and said to them, 'be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves along the ground.'

then God said 'i give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. they will be yours for food.

and to all the beasts of the earth and the birds of the air and all the creatures that move on the ground- everything that has the breath of life in it- i give every green plant for food.' and it was so.

and God saw all that he had made and it was very good.
(genesis 2.26-31)

okay, here's my little point- the main reason why i just can't buy the 'evil human nature' deal: the bible holds that God, upon looking at all he had made (which incidently culminated with the creation of beings capable of relationship with him) did not say that it was 'fine', or 'acceptable' or 'sufficient for the timebeing,' he said that it was 'very good'- that what he had just finished working on was, in his view, superior to everything he had already created so far and called simply 'good.' if we look at the bit where he envisions humankind for the first time, we see that people were planned to be and realized in the image or likeness of God. i guess this and the 'it is very good' remark tell us more about God than about man.

if evil were natural, then God would have looked at something inherently evil and, upon declaring it 'very good' would have been declaring himself inherently evil as well, as man is said to be in the image of God.

although a lot of people like to see God as a cosmic spoilsport (all the fun stuff is seen as illegal- whole nother blog there), or a cranky king (bringing down harsh retribution upon any who fall short of being perfect in thought or deed) or a vain and needy emotional and spiritual being (creating beings for the sole purpose of worshiping himself), all of these are better examples of man creating God in his own image, than the other way round.

no, i believe that what is natural has been replaced by that which is flawed and unnatural: a soul corruption that has spread through our species through both nature and nurture, along with that pesky thing called 'free will.'

so we went from 'very good' to 'worth dying for' with one bad decision.

either way, i can't swallow the idea that we are naturally evil... if we were we'd hardly be worth all the fuss. it would make more sense for God to act in the manner of thomas edison upon inventing yet another lightbulb that failed to work... just put humankind in a box, log it away as yet another way to NOT create a recipient of his greatest love and attention, and start all over again.

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

hemispheres

*note: this is all i could salvage from a blog response that crashed during publishing... hope it makes a little bit of sense

in 'taken hostage' we were talking about being social thongs…
well, we weren't actually talking about that, but our conversation took my imagination there...being stuck between two virtually identical, yet perfectly symmetrical and therefore completely opposite hemispheres. the thong does not divide nor bind together, it simply fits best in the middle because of its design.

well, there are parables and then there are just really bad analogies.

anyway, i left off with “if synergy is spiritual and God is receiving less worship from human beings who know him and each other personally, then it is as though hell holds our relationships hostage. all this with the a powerfully imminent and evident change in the holy weather on the horizon… sounds exactly like what i would do if i wanted to be God and had to settle for eternal damnation instead- nowattamean?”

and Sushi said
I've been thinking about this for a while now, thanks for putting it into words. Now how do we avoid it happening in our fellowship with others and in our relationship with God?

it’s not that, for awhile now, sushi has been thinking of buying some racy underwear (or avoiding buying it, for that matter- who’s to say?) it is that she has found herself, once or twice, in between two halves of the same bum. we’ve all experienced this and it drives many of us crazy.

relational triads exist as yet another example of the wisdom contained in solomon's reflection found in ecclesiastes: ‘nothing new to see here… move along.’ however, we can’t just indiscriminately apply solomon’s sword solution to any dispute in question, giving each plaintiff half of the conflict situation as their settlement any more than solomon could.
(I kings 3.16-28)

i guess what i mean here is that we can’t avoid this stuff- it is part of our free will complex- and so God equips us with what we need to acknowledge it and then address it accordingly. for me it all breaks down when i start attending to the wrong voices.

i’m sitting with two people who don’t want to be there. i’m thongboy- the ‘mutual friend.’ as much as i want to be a neutral party that facilitates a healthy resolution to the conflict, i have brought something of my own to the table that can blow the whole process to bits: i’m not actually neutral.

i try to be. i love both of my friends as equally as i can, and recognize that both own parts of this conflict that they need to sign off on. that’s fine. the problem is that i value the relationships i have with both friends respectively and so i am in danger of compromising in favour of my own self interest. fear and insecurity start to sneak in and i start wondering which person is going to leave mad at me or who is going to leave the church or whatever.

solomon’s sword starts looking really appealing.

but i’m attending to the wrong dialogue- allowing the inner one that no one but i can hear to shape the outer one to which i’ve been called as a friend and fellow. the relationships that have been entrusted to me which involve these other two friends are now being held hostage by my own interpersonal issues. the circle grows bigger... pretty soon we’ll have our own twisted anti-support group where we all bring our stuff and start working it out on each other.

a lot of churches unwittingly operate in this manner, i imagine.

so what are we to do? invite someone else in now to mediate this relational tree?

yep.

God is eager to step into that role. sure it's a problem that he chooses to use regular people as his instruments, but there is hope in the fact that the intrapersonal (self-concept, insecurity, fear) issues of regular people are internal and between us and he who created us. the Holy Spirit mediates here, clearing our heads enough, silencing our own internal dialogue enough that we can hear others speak and can focus on what he wants to do with all of the interpersonal relationships in the room.

is it insightful or prophetic to be able to step outside of oneself long enough to see things as they are, rather than as they appear to an emotionally volatile creature?

i don't know. i mean, somedays, worship leaps from us, other days it seeps from us. the song of a soul set free is the song of God, but there are many different types of freedom and life is, among a million other things, a process of self-discovery. the way we see things is based on who what where when and how we are today.

i think a really good way to avoid relational hijackings is to recognize how vulnerable we are to them. oswald chambers speaks of unguarded strengths, and how the great heroes of faith often fell in the area of their prowess. a person in ministry is already about people, which means that people are probably going to be the greatest manipulatives used by hell to thwart anything God wants to do through them.

it's amazing that hell does the same things the same ways and we still fail to recognize them when we are stuck in the middle.
***
"if i were a good man i'd understand the spaces between friends"
(roger waters, from the 1970 pink floyd album 'atom heart mother')

taken hostage

so we were talking about being stuck in the middle of two people that just basically don't get along-
which would be no big deal, really, except that all of our relationships, even these 'menages des trois,' impact eternity...

here’s what I feel: relationships cannot be imprisoned by this person’s or that person's personal dysfunctions... i mean, we all have our issues which leap out from behind the smallest of happenings at the most inopportune times. most of us are even aware of them... emotional blindspots are a whole nother blog. however, when these smaller (because they are just one person's problem) things begin to interfere with interpersonal freedoms...living, loving, serving and being socially and spiritually happy with others... it is only because interpersonal and emotional balances have been upset. one thing appears to happen wherever you look in nature: balance is maintained. anything less is war against how God intended to see things go down.

ministry is always interpersonal, and if the collective spiritual force of our gifts, as realized in relationship with others, is being hobbled by hell’s diligence at pushing the buttons of our hearts, then God fails to be glorified the way he intended to be when he first considered the idea of having people around to celebrate his love with him. in the process of causing us to feel awkward and causing us to second-guess serving together, the diabolical minions assigned to our respective cases have succeeded in robbing Almighty God of worship that is rightfully his.

if synergy is spiritual and God is receiving less worship from human beings who know him and each other personally, then it is as though hell holds our relationships hostage. all this with the a powerfully imminent and evident change in the holy weather on the horizon… sounds exactly like what I would do if I wanted to be God and had to settle for eternal damnation instead- nowattamean?