Codependency is tremendously misunderstood. It's thought of as enabling addiction, but that's only codependency's shirttail. If you dig a little deeper, you find something much more complex and harder to nail down.
Codependency is understanding yourself through the eyes of another. In the classic case, it's a wife measuring her worth through her husband's eyes. When he sees her rescuing him from his drunken blunders he sees her as an angel, and on the strength of his worship she can continue with him for years. Of course, when he sees her as a conniving shrew, she shrivels and dies.
Codependency festers in hundreds of avant-garde hidey-holes, too. It's the man who whithers when his boss misunderstands one of his decisions. It's the child who crumples when she gets a B in advanced calc. It's the alcoholic who swells with hope when his wife reminds him how she still sees him sometimes.
Codependency is the engine of failure. There's no success in codependency because we can't control how other people see us. When they see us better than we are, we're set up for the failure pride brings. When they see us worse than we are, we're bled dry of the hope we need to take the hard steps each day demands.
It amazed me to realize God IS.
God's knowledge of Himself is accurate and complete. If I despair and vent my exasperation on Him, He realizes He is faithful. If I "feel lucky" and swell with assurance He's going to work some miracle for me, He knows He's the God He is, not the One I wish He were.
There's a quiet manipulation we all work on each other. We praise and correct each other to shape the way we're treated. God is not shaped by our praises and corrections. God IS. Amazingly, neither does God manipulate us. He very directly tells us Who He is, and whom He is willing to make us. He tells us what we can do for ourselves and what we can do for Him.
God IS, and that makes relating to Him the simplest thing we'll ever do ... once we figure out how to relate to such confidence.
Showing posts with label Engaging God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Engaging God. Show all posts
09 January, 2010
06 December, 2009
Red Letter Old Testament
If they made a red-letter version of the Old Testament, the book would glow in the dark. God speaks constantly throughout the entire Old Testament, and in a variety of moods. That's been very special to me.
Each month some new aspect of Yahweh unwraps itself before my eyes. Really seeing that Yahweh is Jesus, that He kept every promise He ever made, that His attention was wholly and fixedly and powerfully on His people, that He bled with them long before He ever came to Earth. It's been an amazing journey.
This month's amazement is how very much Jesus revealed of Himself by His words before He ever revealed Himself in flesh.
Frankly, the gospel authors were stingy compared to their Old Testament examples. Mark actually went to the bother of reporting that Jesus was preaching the Word of God, without recording a tittle of what He might have said. Can you imagine having the chance to hear Jesus directly expounding His very own Words?! Mark gives Jesus' sermon a half sentence.
God pours out His heart in every book. He dies a little every time He tells Moses what (H)his people are going to do after they enter Canaan. He soars with love when He describes how He attends their every move. He describes just how each detail of their fellowship should be prepared. He sounds just like a bride's careful mother as she dispassionately enumerates every decoration of her daughter's wedding chapel and reception hall. His meticulous intensity over the dullest detail is fueled by fiery passion, not myopia. He wants everything to be perfect beause of His ardor.
Jesus frankly gave us a lot more words before His birth than after. And in that ocean of words, His character is revealed. The New Testament cannot replace the Old's unveiling of Yahweh's passions. The thought occurs to me that maybe, just maybe, if all His words were red, people could warm up to them just a little bit more.
I'm just a few more months away from Matthew, and I expect to be astounded again. Hebrews tells us Jesus is God's best and final Word to the world. Still, I'm looking forward to seeing Jesus in a wholly new light now that I've heard Him cry His heart out for 1,000 pages.
Each month some new aspect of Yahweh unwraps itself before my eyes. Really seeing that Yahweh is Jesus, that He kept every promise He ever made, that His attention was wholly and fixedly and powerfully on His people, that He bled with them long before He ever came to Earth. It's been an amazing journey.
This month's amazement is how very much Jesus revealed of Himself by His words before He ever revealed Himself in flesh.
Frankly, the gospel authors were stingy compared to their Old Testament examples. Mark actually went to the bother of reporting that Jesus was preaching the Word of God, without recording a tittle of what He might have said. Can you imagine having the chance to hear Jesus directly expounding His very own Words?! Mark gives Jesus' sermon a half sentence.
God pours out His heart in every book. He dies a little every time He tells Moses what (H)his people are going to do after they enter Canaan. He soars with love when He describes how He attends their every move. He describes just how each detail of their fellowship should be prepared. He sounds just like a bride's careful mother as she dispassionately enumerates every decoration of her daughter's wedding chapel and reception hall. His meticulous intensity over the dullest detail is fueled by fiery passion, not myopia. He wants everything to be perfect beause of His ardor.
Jesus frankly gave us a lot more words before His birth than after. And in that ocean of words, His character is revealed. The New Testament cannot replace the Old's unveiling of Yahweh's passions. The thought occurs to me that maybe, just maybe, if all His words were red, people could warm up to them just a little bit more.
I'm just a few more months away from Matthew, and I expect to be astounded again. Hebrews tells us Jesus is God's best and final Word to the world. Still, I'm looking forward to seeing Jesus in a wholly new light now that I've heard Him cry His heart out for 1,000 pages.
03 October, 2009
Scarred for Life
I have no patience these days with the Nietzschean cliché, 'That which does not kill us makes us stronger.' I’ve found that the deepest pain holds no meaning. It is not purifying. It is not ennobling. It does not make you a better human being. It just is.
All the worst pain does is reduce us to our most primal animal. We want it to stop. We want to survive. It short-circuits any sense of self, diminishes us to a bundle of biological reflexes.
NYTimes blog by way of the Fibromyalgia Blog.
I'm ashamed to add words to such a statement, but I've felt pain too. I've felt pain just like that - not recently, but those feelings. Since those days I've said, "That which does not kill us scars us for life."
And I'm scared to say anything about these words because there are those I love who are in that place right now. How dare I speak words into their pain that they cannot feel now? But I do remember. Really, I do. I remember and I think I would have wanted to hear both the words I've quoted above and the words I add below.
You're alive.
Ecclesiastes says a living dog is better than a dead lion, and pain taught me how right Solomon was. I wanted to be a noble lion in noble pain, but I survived because I realized I was a humble little mongrel held in the hands of the Living Lord. He preserved me because He loved me, and I lived because I finally found that grain of trust in His love.
I bear scars I'll nurse until I die, but only that long. There is a glory of life and trust, a love of God and man, my pain taught me and by which I'll be carried through all eternity.
Surviving such pain cripples us. Finding God scarred exactly as we were scarred, exactly because He loves us, metamorphosizes us. Pain cripples, but love transforms. The work love does with pain is divine.
Cry out to God and believe. His love for you is stronger than your agony. It is.
Jesus is.
22 September, 2009
Honesty
I recently read an article commending speaking everything that enters your mind to everyone. The journalist reporting on his experiment told about the thrill of his initial experiments. He explained how it was frightening to tell his boss he didn't like an assignment, his girlfriend what he thought of a story, and his interview subject what he thought of his whole life. He also explained how powerful it felt, too.
That's a power some of us never feel.
Yes, there's a danger in speaking the truth hurtfully and inappropriately, but there's an equal danger in being unable to speak a truth in time of need. Some of us would rather lie to ourselves than tell the truth to anyone who might overwhelm us. That is the message of my movie, Lucie's Prayer. Lucie was lying to herself, telling herself that she was the one who needed to change when she was being abused. The first person with Whom we can begin to build a foundation of truth again is God. At the end of the movie, Lucie finally hears God wants to deal truthfully and He's not afraid of her problems. Lucie began the slow, difficult process of learning to tell the truth. As she's learning to tell the truth to God, she'll also have to learn how to tell the truth to her friend Julie, and some day she'll even be able to tell the truth to Billy. On that day, she'll feel the power of truth.
That's a power God always has.
Yahweh tells the Israelites they're a stiffnecked people, and He casts them into mourning. There is no remorse in His words, because there's no ill-considered rage in His statement. Whenever you read the words of God, you should read them out loud, and you should give thought to the tone you choose. Try reading Ex 33:3 & 4 in some different tones.
Sweet Jesus
Go up to the land I've promised you. I have a wonderful plan for your life there, and I want to be the bridge across the gap between here and there. I will turn a kind eye to your imperfections, and hide myself from your learning experiences.
Suffering Jesus
Go up to the land I worked so hard to prepare for you. I want to take the journey with you, but I can't when you're stiffnecked and stubborn. It kills me to love you so much, and for you to keep hurting yourself by not listening to me. I hope you can enjoy your blessings without Me.
Stern Jesus
Try to get to the land flowing with milk and honey without Me. You will never get there without me, and I won't go with you because you've forgotten holiness.
Scientific Jesus
I wonder how many of these people will go to the land flowing with milk and honey. I've repeatedly set good advice in front of them, and at each proving they've chosen against my recommendation. Let me back off and observe their performance.
I've modified the words to emulate various tones, but we each hear some consistent tone in God's voice when we read His word. An addict, a codependent, a narcissist, and a passive-aggressive will all inflect God's text differently but ascribe their inflection to God without a second thought. Part of the Spirit's work is to inflect the word of God more accurately to us, to let us hear God's words the way He meant them to be heard. That's also a big goal of our work in studying the scripture. We must labor to see how God reacts to real people doing real things right and wrong. Then we can adjust the inflection we impose upon His voice to match the reality we see in His stories.
Inflect Yahweh's pronouncement here as powerful, accurate, and unflinching without adding any inflection of dependency, shame, rage, or worry.
And now that you've heard these words with an accurate tone, do you hear love in them?
No Buddhist koan can top that question for mind-breaking complexity! The sound of one hand clapping? A mere trifle. Trees falling in the forest without anyone to hear them? A child's illusion. Can Yahweh reject Israel lovingly? It's an impossible question. No matter how you define love, the concept of rejection has no part in it. And yet God is love, no?
Maybe this isn't a rejection? But no. It's too hard to defend that thought, when He goes on to ask Moses for permission to destroy these people and start over with a people from Moses.
Maybe this is tough love? Um. Maybe, I guess.
Whatever it might be, it's devoid of any attempt to manipulate. It's a simple declaration of simple truth. Yahweh never threatens to resent His people's acceptance of His gift. He offers no carrot. He doesn't promise them one last chance to do the right thing, and then He'll go with them. There's no sugar-coating and no exaggeration.
I call it honesty.
It's a powerful thing, and it's the only way God knows to deal with us. May we learn to be like Him.
Exd 33:3 & 4 "Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way." When the people heard these distressing words, they began to mourn and no one put on any ornaments.
I recently read an article commending speaking everything that enters your mind to everyone. The journalist reporting on his experiment told about the thrill of his initial experiments. He explained how it was frightening to tell his boss he didn't like an assignment, his girlfriend what he thought of a story, and his interview subject what he thought of his whole life. He also explained how powerful it felt, too.
That's a power some of us never feel.
Yes, there's a danger in speaking the truth hurtfully and inappropriately, but there's an equal danger in being unable to speak a truth in time of need. Some of us would rather lie to ourselves than tell the truth to anyone who might overwhelm us. That is the message of my movie, Lucie's Prayer. Lucie was lying to herself, telling herself that she was the one who needed to change when she was being abused. The first person with Whom we can begin to build a foundation of truth again is God. At the end of the movie, Lucie finally hears God wants to deal truthfully and He's not afraid of her problems. Lucie began the slow, difficult process of learning to tell the truth. As she's learning to tell the truth to God, she'll also have to learn how to tell the truth to her friend Julie, and some day she'll even be able to tell the truth to Billy. On that day, she'll feel the power of truth.
That's a power God always has.
Yahweh tells the Israelites they're a stiffnecked people, and He casts them into mourning. There is no remorse in His words, because there's no ill-considered rage in His statement. Whenever you read the words of God, you should read them out loud, and you should give thought to the tone you choose. Try reading Ex 33:3 & 4 in some different tones.
Sweet Jesus
Go up to the land I've promised you. I have a wonderful plan for your life there, and I want to be the bridge across the gap between here and there. I will turn a kind eye to your imperfections, and hide myself from your learning experiences.
Suffering Jesus
Go up to the land I worked so hard to prepare for you. I want to take the journey with you, but I can't when you're stiffnecked and stubborn. It kills me to love you so much, and for you to keep hurting yourself by not listening to me. I hope you can enjoy your blessings without Me.
Stern Jesus
Try to get to the land flowing with milk and honey without Me. You will never get there without me, and I won't go with you because you've forgotten holiness.
Scientific Jesus
I wonder how many of these people will go to the land flowing with milk and honey. I've repeatedly set good advice in front of them, and at each proving they've chosen against my recommendation. Let me back off and observe their performance.
I've modified the words to emulate various tones, but we each hear some consistent tone in God's voice when we read His word. An addict, a codependent, a narcissist, and a passive-aggressive will all inflect God's text differently but ascribe their inflection to God without a second thought. Part of the Spirit's work is to inflect the word of God more accurately to us, to let us hear God's words the way He meant them to be heard. That's also a big goal of our work in studying the scripture. We must labor to see how God reacts to real people doing real things right and wrong. Then we can adjust the inflection we impose upon His voice to match the reality we see in His stories.
Inflect Yahweh's pronouncement here as powerful, accurate, and unflinching without adding any inflection of dependency, shame, rage, or worry.
Exd 33:3 & 4 "Go up to the land flowing with milk and honey. But I will not go with you, because you are a stiff-necked people and I might destroy you on the way." When the people heard these distressing words, they began to mourn and no one put on any ornaments.
And now that you've heard these words with an accurate tone, do you hear love in them?
No Buddhist koan can top that question for mind-breaking complexity! The sound of one hand clapping? A mere trifle. Trees falling in the forest without anyone to hear them? A child's illusion. Can Yahweh reject Israel lovingly? It's an impossible question. No matter how you define love, the concept of rejection has no part in it. And yet God is love, no?
Maybe this isn't a rejection? But no. It's too hard to defend that thought, when He goes on to ask Moses for permission to destroy these people and start over with a people from Moses.
Maybe this is tough love? Um. Maybe, I guess.
Whatever it might be, it's devoid of any attempt to manipulate. It's a simple declaration of simple truth. Yahweh never threatens to resent His people's acceptance of His gift. He offers no carrot. He doesn't promise them one last chance to do the right thing, and then He'll go with them. There's no sugar-coating and no exaggeration.
I call it honesty.
It's a powerful thing, and it's the only way God knows to deal with us. May we learn to be like Him.
11 September, 2009
Lucie's Prayer
HT: GlenScriv linked to these two hilarious videos
(Interesting. I cannot see the "comments" link on this post. Here's a manual link to comments)
15 March, 2009
The Lord's Floss
I floss every night. There's 30 slots between and around my teeth, and I hit each one every night.
OK. Now that I've confessed it, let me tell the story of that particular descent into properness.
When I was 18, I was properly disdaining of all flossers. When I was 22 and joined the army, I was properly disdaining of all flossers. I ignored all attempts to educate me, and continued along on my merry way. When I was 32 I was a happy computer geek, and ignored the call of the floss propagandists.
And then, long about 35 it happened.
I got a toothache. More properly a gum-ache. My teeth finally dragged me back to the dentist, and I got a cleaning. There was talk of antibiotics and other such vague threats, but the bottom line was that I needed to floss. But this time they explained why I needed to floss. I'm a big, "Why?" kind of guy, so that changed everything for me.
Flossing is about killing little microbes that live beneath your gumline, especially between your teeth. The thing is, those little suckers need a stable home to thrive. You don't have to fish them out to kill them. You just have to disturb their peaceful abodes so they have to start building all over again.
I used to get frustrated, because I felt like I was just pushing muck down under my gumline when I flossed. That seemed ridiculous to me, so I gave up. It turns out, all I really need to do is squish the muck around, and the microbes have to start their whole neighborhood corruption program all over again.
It's pretty easy.
I still failed to pick up the habit. 30-some-odd years of happily brushing and going to bed is pretty easy not to change when all you're missing is the excitement of flossing. Somehow I found it in myself to let the flossing go.
And then I got another gum infection. Age really does play into this. When you're young, you can get away with a lot, but as you age the immune system becomes a little more inviting to pesky buggers of all kinds. Mouth microbes are no exception. I dug out the floss again, and attacked the infection. At first I flossed too hard, but eventually I figured out I was only trying to kill the little buggers, not my gumline. And within 3 days or so, the infection cleared itself up. It didn't inflame and get worse and cause the dentist to tut-tut at me and talk about antibiotics. In fact, I didn't need to darken his door at all, and that's worth a little flossing in itself!
Now, I can tell pretty quickly when something needs a little attention, because the flossing itself is a little painful in just the place a problem is growing.
I've come to see the Lord's Prayer in the same light.
Jesus taught us 7 petitions, and they're just like those 30 gaps between my teeth. I run a little prayer down into each of those petitions, and if one of them feels a little sensitive it's a warning.
If I'm speeding past, "Thy Will be done?" or hesitant to ask for help in avoiding temptation, maybe there's something up in my life.
When I was younger, I focused exclusively on the big stuff, avoiding the wrong music and crowd. That's the "brushing your teeth" stuff. It's a good start. But as I've grown older, it seems like it's the little microbes of sin living just below the gumline that get to me.
I think I've always wanted to pray a little too aggressively. I think I always wanted to see big changes, pray big prayers, feel the passion every time. Really, though, I just need to mess with the cozy little homes of my little sins. I just need to stir them up a bit with a call to my Father. A quick call regarding His name, another of His kingdom, His will, His providence, His forgiveness, my forgiveness, and my weakness before my enemies.
It takes a minute or two, but the infections it can prevent are worth every second.
OK. Now that I've confessed it, let me tell the story of that particular descent into properness.
When I was 18, I was properly disdaining of all flossers. When I was 22 and joined the army, I was properly disdaining of all flossers. I ignored all attempts to educate me, and continued along on my merry way. When I was 32 I was a happy computer geek, and ignored the call of the floss propagandists.
And then, long about 35 it happened.
I got a toothache. More properly a gum-ache. My teeth finally dragged me back to the dentist, and I got a cleaning. There was talk of antibiotics and other such vague threats, but the bottom line was that I needed to floss. But this time they explained why I needed to floss. I'm a big, "Why?" kind of guy, so that changed everything for me.
Flossing is about killing little microbes that live beneath your gumline, especially between your teeth. The thing is, those little suckers need a stable home to thrive. You don't have to fish them out to kill them. You just have to disturb their peaceful abodes so they have to start building all over again.
I used to get frustrated, because I felt like I was just pushing muck down under my gumline when I flossed. That seemed ridiculous to me, so I gave up. It turns out, all I really need to do is squish the muck around, and the microbes have to start their whole neighborhood corruption program all over again.
It's pretty easy.
I still failed to pick up the habit. 30-some-odd years of happily brushing and going to bed is pretty easy not to change when all you're missing is the excitement of flossing. Somehow I found it in myself to let the flossing go.
And then I got another gum infection. Age really does play into this. When you're young, you can get away with a lot, but as you age the immune system becomes a little more inviting to pesky buggers of all kinds. Mouth microbes are no exception. I dug out the floss again, and attacked the infection. At first I flossed too hard, but eventually I figured out I was only trying to kill the little buggers, not my gumline. And within 3 days or so, the infection cleared itself up. It didn't inflame and get worse and cause the dentist to tut-tut at me and talk about antibiotics. In fact, I didn't need to darken his door at all, and that's worth a little flossing in itself!
Now, I can tell pretty quickly when something needs a little attention, because the flossing itself is a little painful in just the place a problem is growing.
I've come to see the Lord's Prayer in the same light.
Jesus taught us 7 petitions, and they're just like those 30 gaps between my teeth. I run a little prayer down into each of those petitions, and if one of them feels a little sensitive it's a warning.
If I'm speeding past, "Thy Will be done?" or hesitant to ask for help in avoiding temptation, maybe there's something up in my life.
When I was younger, I focused exclusively on the big stuff, avoiding the wrong music and crowd. That's the "brushing your teeth" stuff. It's a good start. But as I've grown older, it seems like it's the little microbes of sin living just below the gumline that get to me.
I think I've always wanted to pray a little too aggressively. I think I always wanted to see big changes, pray big prayers, feel the passion every time. Really, though, I just need to mess with the cozy little homes of my little sins. I just need to stir them up a bit with a call to my Father. A quick call regarding His name, another of His kingdom, His will, His providence, His forgiveness, my forgiveness, and my weakness before my enemies.
It takes a minute or two, but the infections it can prevent are worth every second.
24 December, 2008
All Consuming Fire
2 Ch 5:13 & 14
It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers [were] as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the LORD; and when they lifted up [their] voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of musick, and praised the LORD, [saying], For [he is] good; for his mercy [endureth] for ever: that [then] the house was filled with a cloud, [even] the house of the LORD; So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of God.
The Lord appeared as a pillar of fire and a column of smoke to the people of Israel. He covered all Mount Sinai with clouds and thunders and lightnings. He filled the tent of meeting, the tabernacle, with this cloud.
... And not again in the 300 years prior to this event!
300 years ago, in 1708, George Washington had still not been born. America was still a dark continent. Austria had still not annexed Hungary. The Great Alliance bested France in some war I've never heard of. 300 years is a long, long time. Most of us can barely read English written 300 years ago.
Generations had lived, loved the Lord, and walked away from Him repeatedly. Canaan had been occupied. The judges had come, ruled, died, and been replaced with new judges by God because His people could not curb their lusts without a judge over them. They'd grown tired of judges, and begged for and received a king in Saul. Then God provided better in David. Their government had completely changed several times, and been transferred untold times.
They'd been gathering 3 times a year (or failing to do so) for as long as anyone could remember. They'd been watching the annual sacrifices and hearing the readings of the law. They'd been tithing and resting on Saturdays for generations. Their religion was set in concrete.
And then Solomon started his building program. I don't know how long it took, but if you read the previous 5 chapters of 2 Chronicles, you'll see the immense scale of the temple. The "bath" at the front of the temple held 24,000 gallons of water. The Holy of Holies alone was overlaid with 45,000 pounds of pure gold. The place was a monster.
And the response of Israel was equal to the task. They poured out their hearts and pockets into building this place. Everything about Israel was utterly consumed in financing and enabling this house David had envisioned. Again, read the previous chapters to see what it looks like when God's people become excited about building God's house.
When the time came, the priests led the people in united praise. The band struck up a song, and everyone overflowed to the Lord.
And the Lord overflowed back.
The people were stunned.
They'd heard of such things happening, but they'd never remotely even felt a quiver of nervousness by imagining that such a thing might happen to them. God failed to warn them that He might actually dwell visibly in the house Solomon was dedicating.
Their unexpected Guest arrived.
2Ch 7:3 & 4
And when all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the LORD upon the house, they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground upon the pavement, and worshipped, and praised the LORD, [saying], For [he is] good; for his mercy [endureth] for ever. Then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the LORD.
When God breaks in upon His world, everything changes. Problems fade and invisible things grow solid. Daily bread stales to mere distraction. The will of God grows savory. It's God. And He's here. And I'm seeing Him fill His house right in front of my eyes.
If a celebrity even just a cute girl gives me a second glance, I'm flattered. If God comes in response to my work of building and my praise, I'm flummoxed. Israel planted their faces on the pavement because the Spirit was moving in their hearts. They worshipped from love. They siezed the honor the Lord bestowed on them, and returned it with fiery love.
They were stunned.
Stunned the way a humble guy is stunned the first time he realizes "that" girl is looking at him with real love. It feels misplaced. Inappropriate. Impossible. For God to honor their sacrifices and inhabit the dwelling they'd made for Him with their weak hands loosened their knees miraculously.
2Ch 6:18
But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house which I have built!
And Solomon was right. God could not dwell in that tiny little house. It constrained Him.
So He took it upon Himself to be born of a virgin.
God traded in that house on a single, not-so-beautiful, human body.
But the glory that filled the house and brought all Israel to her knees was exactly the glory that filled that Man. It was God Who inhabited the temple, and it was God Who inhabited the temple on Earth.
The people followed Him, even though the veil was firmly closed and the fire of Divinity was hidden deeply within Him. They sensed something, and they were stunned at the wisdom and authority that flowed from His mouth and heart. The dove's descent onto Jesus was about the best clue most of Israel ever had that the Shekinah Glory had filled the temple once again.
That, and Jesus' announcement He would destroy that temple and raise it again from nothing in 3 days.
The Man Jesus contained all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, but God wanted more. It was God who decided to tear down the temple of His own body, leaving not one stone atop another.
And it was God Who raised that temple again, but this time not a single body. The temple had once been a badger skin tent. Then it was gold overlaying cedar and stone. Then it was a single human body. And when Christ rose from the dead, the temple grew larger than David or Solomon might ever have have dreamt. The temple grew into the glorious spiritual gathering of bodies that is the church.
At Pentacost, the Lord descended again to take residence in this new temple. He filled it with the fire of His presence. Moses and Solomon presided when the Lord descended in a cloud of smoke into the first temples. The Spirit presided when He descended like tongues of fire and sat upon each of the people in that upper room, filling them with His life and word.
Strip away the glitter of the Christmas the world tries to sell you.
Strip away the family bonding and sweet traditions.
Strip away even the manger story with its wise men, angels, and Mary.
What remains is the reason God was ever wrapped in swaddling clothes. Before He could be Christ in us, the hope of glory, He needed to be Christ the Seed sown in death for us.
Every single object described in the temple corresponds to an equivalent office in the church, filled by someone who loves Jesus Christ. And when the people give their gold and jewels to the building of the body, and when they give their hearts to praising His glory, the Shekinah Glory fills the temple because the Lord is good, and His mercy extends forever.
May your Christmas be rich in the stunning power of the invisible.
It came even to pass, as the trumpeters and singers [were] as one, to make one sound to be heard in praising and thanking the LORD; and when they lifted up [their] voice with the trumpets and cymbals and instruments of musick, and praised the LORD, [saying], For [he is] good; for his mercy [endureth] for ever: that [then] the house was filled with a cloud, [even] the house of the LORD; So that the priests could not stand to minister by reason of the cloud: for the glory of the LORD had filled the house of God.
The Lord appeared as a pillar of fire and a column of smoke to the people of Israel. He covered all Mount Sinai with clouds and thunders and lightnings. He filled the tent of meeting, the tabernacle, with this cloud.
... And not again in the 300 years prior to this event!
300 years ago, in 1708, George Washington had still not been born. America was still a dark continent. Austria had still not annexed Hungary. The Great Alliance bested France in some war I've never heard of. 300 years is a long, long time. Most of us can barely read English written 300 years ago.
Generations had lived, loved the Lord, and walked away from Him repeatedly. Canaan had been occupied. The judges had come, ruled, died, and been replaced with new judges by God because His people could not curb their lusts without a judge over them. They'd grown tired of judges, and begged for and received a king in Saul. Then God provided better in David. Their government had completely changed several times, and been transferred untold times.
They'd been gathering 3 times a year (or failing to do so) for as long as anyone could remember. They'd been watching the annual sacrifices and hearing the readings of the law. They'd been tithing and resting on Saturdays for generations. Their religion was set in concrete.
And then Solomon started his building program. I don't know how long it took, but if you read the previous 5 chapters of 2 Chronicles, you'll see the immense scale of the temple. The "bath" at the front of the temple held 24,000 gallons of water. The Holy of Holies alone was overlaid with 45,000 pounds of pure gold. The place was a monster.
And the response of Israel was equal to the task. They poured out their hearts and pockets into building this place. Everything about Israel was utterly consumed in financing and enabling this house David had envisioned. Again, read the previous chapters to see what it looks like when God's people become excited about building God's house.
When the time came, the priests led the people in united praise. The band struck up a song, and everyone overflowed to the Lord.
And the Lord overflowed back.
The people were stunned.
They'd heard of such things happening, but they'd never remotely even felt a quiver of nervousness by imagining that such a thing might happen to them. God failed to warn them that He might actually dwell visibly in the house Solomon was dedicating.
Their unexpected Guest arrived.
2Ch 7:3 & 4
And when all the children of Israel saw how the fire came down, and the glory of the LORD upon the house, they bowed themselves with their faces to the ground upon the pavement, and worshipped, and praised the LORD, [saying], For [he is] good; for his mercy [endureth] for ever. Then the king and all the people offered sacrifices before the LORD.
When God breaks in upon His world, everything changes. Problems fade and invisible things grow solid. Daily bread stales to mere distraction. The will of God grows savory. It's God. And He's here. And I'm seeing Him fill His house right in front of my eyes.
If a celebrity even just a cute girl gives me a second glance, I'm flattered. If God comes in response to my work of building and my praise, I'm flummoxed. Israel planted their faces on the pavement because the Spirit was moving in their hearts. They worshipped from love. They siezed the honor the Lord bestowed on them, and returned it with fiery love.
They were stunned.
Stunned the way a humble guy is stunned the first time he realizes "that" girl is looking at him with real love. It feels misplaced. Inappropriate. Impossible. For God to honor their sacrifices and inhabit the dwelling they'd made for Him with their weak hands loosened their knees miraculously.
2Ch 6:18
But will God in very deed dwell with men on the earth? behold, heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee; how much less this house which I have built!
And Solomon was right. God could not dwell in that tiny little house. It constrained Him.
So He took it upon Himself to be born of a virgin.
God traded in that house on a single, not-so-beautiful, human body.
But the glory that filled the house and brought all Israel to her knees was exactly the glory that filled that Man. It was God Who inhabited the temple, and it was God Who inhabited the temple on Earth.
The people followed Him, even though the veil was firmly closed and the fire of Divinity was hidden deeply within Him. They sensed something, and they were stunned at the wisdom and authority that flowed from His mouth and heart. The dove's descent onto Jesus was about the best clue most of Israel ever had that the Shekinah Glory had filled the temple once again.
That, and Jesus' announcement He would destroy that temple and raise it again from nothing in 3 days.
The Man Jesus contained all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, but God wanted more. It was God who decided to tear down the temple of His own body, leaving not one stone atop another.
And it was God Who raised that temple again, but this time not a single body. The temple had once been a badger skin tent. Then it was gold overlaying cedar and stone. Then it was a single human body. And when Christ rose from the dead, the temple grew larger than David or Solomon might ever have have dreamt. The temple grew into the glorious spiritual gathering of bodies that is the church.
At Pentacost, the Lord descended again to take residence in this new temple. He filled it with the fire of His presence. Moses and Solomon presided when the Lord descended in a cloud of smoke into the first temples. The Spirit presided when He descended like tongues of fire and sat upon each of the people in that upper room, filling them with His life and word.
Strip away the glitter of the Christmas the world tries to sell you.
Strip away the family bonding and sweet traditions.
Strip away even the manger story with its wise men, angels, and Mary.
What remains is the reason God was ever wrapped in swaddling clothes. Before He could be Christ in us, the hope of glory, He needed to be Christ the Seed sown in death for us.
Every single object described in the temple corresponds to an equivalent office in the church, filled by someone who loves Jesus Christ. And when the people give their gold and jewels to the building of the body, and when they give their hearts to praising His glory, the Shekinah Glory fills the temple because the Lord is good, and His mercy extends forever.
May your Christmas be rich in the stunning power of the invisible.
19 October, 2008
We Shall See Him As He Is
One day we will see Jesus face to face. All our dreams will come to fruit, and we stand right there in front of Him.
But oddly, it will be a human-sized experience in some way. It will be the opposite of a dream that can keep changing with every new thought. Jesus will be Jesus, and He'll never change. He'll be there in a body, just like our new one, and He'll definitely look like something. It's an odd thing, but He'll no longer be an amazing million possibilities. Jesus will be Jesus, and when we pass Him on the streets of gold, we will recognize Him.
In a sense, that might be a little odd. Imagine meeting the girl of your dreams for the first time. 999,999 possibilities drop away in an instant when you see the real thing. You could almost mourn the 999,999 girls that will never be, but then you can finally begin knowing the girl that's really there.
Getting to know the Jesus that's really there just might be like that. We might first have to mourn the Jesuses we imagined before we can love the Jesus Who's standing there in front of us. I think that will feel good and right.
And when it happens, I suspect an amazing thing will happen. We will be shocked to discover that we already know Him. We'll be shocked at how few surprises there are for us, because have already known each other. Jesus will reach out to us, and we'll know that gesture because Bob and Dan were just like that. And He'll laugh with us, and it'll be just like Charleen and Linda.
I think the biggest surprise of meeting Jesus will be the degree to which we are not surprised by the beauty we see in Him.
It's an exciting hope.
But oddly, it will be a human-sized experience in some way. It will be the opposite of a dream that can keep changing with every new thought. Jesus will be Jesus, and He'll never change. He'll be there in a body, just like our new one, and He'll definitely look like something. It's an odd thing, but He'll no longer be an amazing million possibilities. Jesus will be Jesus, and when we pass Him on the streets of gold, we will recognize Him.
In a sense, that might be a little odd. Imagine meeting the girl of your dreams for the first time. 999,999 possibilities drop away in an instant when you see the real thing. You could almost mourn the 999,999 girls that will never be, but then you can finally begin knowing the girl that's really there.
Getting to know the Jesus that's really there just might be like that. We might first have to mourn the Jesuses we imagined before we can love the Jesus Who's standing there in front of us. I think that will feel good and right.
And when it happens, I suspect an amazing thing will happen. We will be shocked to discover that we already know Him. We'll be shocked at how few surprises there are for us, because have already known each other. Jesus will reach out to us, and we'll know that gesture because Bob and Dan were just like that. And He'll laugh with us, and it'll be just like Charleen and Linda.
I think the biggest surprise of meeting Jesus will be the degree to which we are not surprised by the beauty we see in Him.
It's an exciting hope.
24 September, 2008
Infantilism
A friend of mine is a committed agnostic. He's not the kind that wonders if there's a God when the power goes out for a couple hours, then forgets again when the wide-screen comes back on, either. He's the kind who's argued against Richard Dawkins after reading 3 of his books, against Plato after reading the Republican, and against preachers after hearing them ply their trade.
He commented after reading the book of Matthew that it was like no other philosophy book he'd ever read. He found it amazing in its directness. He put it like this, "No matter how well it might be concealed, every philosopher's book whispers, 'Don't you think I'm smart?' That's nowhere to be found in Matthew. Neither Jesus nor Matthew cares whether you think they're smart. It's just as direct as it can be."
You have to respect that kind of observation and that kind of observer.
He was listening to Christian radio again the other day and noted it depresses and encourages him equally. One of the depressing things, he said, was the Infantilism.
He said the people on that radio wanted Jesus to answer all their listeners' questions. Jesus could tell them what to think and what to believe. The preachers wanted Jesus to clear all the obstacles in their hearers' lives. They wanted Jesus to pave their paths with roses and wipe their butts for them. "If," he said, "you can imagine wanting it, Jesus WANTS to do it for you."
I don't know about you, but I will absolutely vouch for his observation.
I've never thought of calling it infantilism, but the name is dead-on.
I've written on this subject enough times that anything I said now would be repeating myself so I won't bore you with a diatribe against Infantilism. I just wanted to share the term with you and the prayer that we would be delivered into a rich, fully mature experience of God.
He commented after reading the book of Matthew that it was like no other philosophy book he'd ever read. He found it amazing in its directness. He put it like this, "No matter how well it might be concealed, every philosopher's book whispers, 'Don't you think I'm smart?' That's nowhere to be found in Matthew. Neither Jesus nor Matthew cares whether you think they're smart. It's just as direct as it can be."
You have to respect that kind of observation and that kind of observer.
He was listening to Christian radio again the other day and noted it depresses and encourages him equally. One of the depressing things, he said, was the Infantilism.
He said the people on that radio wanted Jesus to answer all their listeners' questions. Jesus could tell them what to think and what to believe. The preachers wanted Jesus to clear all the obstacles in their hearers' lives. They wanted Jesus to pave their paths with roses and wipe their butts for them. "If," he said, "you can imagine wanting it, Jesus WANTS to do it for you."
I don't know about you, but I will absolutely vouch for his observation.
I've never thought of calling it infantilism, but the name is dead-on.
I've written on this subject enough times that anything I said now would be repeating myself so I won't bore you with a diatribe against Infantilism. I just wanted to share the term with you and the prayer that we would be delivered into a rich, fully mature experience of God.
02 August, 2008
Terminator: Spawn of the Machines
In the heat of a fascinating discussion of whether a human can truly believe God, my son said that humans became self-aware at some point in evolution, and that when that happened evil became possible. He was countering my point that evil cannot be explained by evolution. Bad can, but not evil. His argument was that evil is a necessary possibility given self-awareness.
I basically had to concede the point.
Anyway, in a flash of insight, his statement brought back to my mind two things at once.
The first was that Adam and Eve "became self-aware" when they ate of of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In fact, from now on I believe that's the phrase I'm going to use to describe the fall. With the serpent's help, humanity became self-aware. It is out of our self-awareness that all manner of good and evil flow.
The second was the ominous history from the movie Terminator 2, "The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th."
For those of you, my faithful readers (and if you're still reading me at my blistering pace of 2 posts per month, then you are faithful indeed) who know the story of Adam and Eve a little better than that of the Terminator, Skynet was a massive supercomputer that became self-aware and began trying to destroy humanity. That's the premise of the whole Terminator series.
Hal is the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey that becomes self-aware and tries to destroy it's human operators. Wargames is about a computer that becomes self-aware and accidently tries to destroy humanity. I, Robot features a computer protected by the 3 Robotic Laws from ever hurting humanity that attempts to destroy humanity (yes, while obeying all 3 laws - that's the magic of Aasimov's work.)
What we have here, folks, is an archetype!
Of course, the theme is as old as Frankenstein's monster, but the thought was new to me. And I don't know how far Shelley really explored her theme. (Suddenly, I want to read the book. :-) )
On the 7th day of creation (I picture Adam falling on God's Sabbath; I don't know about anyone else) humanity became self-aware - and very scared of the Creator we were trying to supplant.
I basically had to concede the point.
Anyway, in a flash of insight, his statement brought back to my mind two things at once.
The first was that Adam and Eve "became self-aware" when they ate of of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. In fact, from now on I believe that's the phrase I'm going to use to describe the fall. With the serpent's help, humanity became self-aware. It is out of our self-awareness that all manner of good and evil flow.
The second was the ominous history from the movie Terminator 2, "The Skynet Funding Bill is passed. The system goes on-line August 4th, 1997. Human decisions are removed from strategic defense. Skynet begins to learn at a geometric rate. It becomes self-aware at 2:14 a.m. Eastern time, August 29th."
For those of you, my faithful readers (and if you're still reading me at my blistering pace of 2 posts per month, then you are faithful indeed) who know the story of Adam and Eve a little better than that of the Terminator, Skynet was a massive supercomputer that became self-aware and began trying to destroy humanity. That's the premise of the whole Terminator series.
Hal is the computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey that becomes self-aware and tries to destroy it's human operators. Wargames is about a computer that becomes self-aware and accidently tries to destroy humanity. I, Robot features a computer protected by the 3 Robotic Laws from ever hurting humanity that attempts to destroy humanity (yes, while obeying all 3 laws - that's the magic of Aasimov's work.)
What we have here, folks, is an archetype!
Of course, the theme is as old as Frankenstein's monster, but the thought was new to me. And I don't know how far Shelley really explored her theme. (Suddenly, I want to read the book. :-) )
On the 7th day of creation (I picture Adam falling on God's Sabbath; I don't know about anyone else) humanity became self-aware - and very scared of the Creator we were trying to supplant.
17 July, 2008
Idols in our Homes
I've been worried for a while about people calling too many things idols. It's all well and good to be against people watching too much TV, but is it really an idol? Or is it just an inferior amusement, sometimes used badly?
I've been reading in Isaiah, and God is clearly annoyed when His people turn to idols. There's a really great scene in which Isaiah describes a dude who's obviously pretty handy with wood tools. Our new buddy grabs a good-looking hunk of wood, and turns it into a table and chairs, then maybe a plate or two, finally takes the chips and scraps and lights a fire to cook his dinner. That last left-over piece, though, he carves into an idol to whom he can "say grace" for his meal. It's almost funny how God sees no difference between the activity of making dinner and a making convenient god.
That's an idol.
Faith, hope, and love, Paul says, are the three things that matter, and those are the three things the idolator poured into that last piece of wood.
Faith is a logical, conscious decision to live as if a god's promise will be kept based upon prior knowledge of his power.
Hope is the ability to hang on now because you know god will make enduring the present worthwhile.
Love is a commitment to think, feel and act in the best interests of your god.
I see all three of those things in the actions of Isaiah's unhappy wood-worker. He reckons that his god has given him today's food, so he exercises faith that his god will do it again. His hopes for the future are truly based on the way his god will make that future pleasant. And he has invested his time and passion into pleasing that god with his carved image and tiny offerings to it.
I don't see any of that in America's relationship with the television. We don't think the television brought us any good thing, so we don't rely on it to bring us anything in the future. We don't hope for a better future because of the television's oversight in our lives. Maybe we invest in that box, but all our offerings are to ourselves.
And therein lies the key, I believe.
Our idol cannot be seen, because we no longer believe in the invisible. We don't have to incarnate it any more. We look at history, and find we've gotten our own meals for our own selves, so that's where we put our faith. We hope for our future, because we have laid plans for it and because science keeps making it better every day. And we pour our love out to stir up more passion from within.
In other words, we've not moved a lick from Paul's day. We've made a god of our bellies, trusting our lusts to bring us every good thing and our strength to keep us against the day of trouble.
Don't rail against the television. It's just a little offering we make to our lusts. Our cars and our wide screens and our nest eggs, our jobs and our houses and our spouses, our movies and our shows and our nightlife; they are the little offerings we give to appease our god, the little sacrifices we make to ourselves. We sculpt our abs, sleep at our custom sleep number, and dine in every luxury we can afford in order to strengthen and prepare our god to conquer for us. When our body is strong and our minds are tuned and our attitudes are adjusted, we can make the best of all possible worlds for ourselves.
When the Living God sees us in front of a TV, He doesn't trip out. I'm sure He knows a better way for us to spend our time, a way to spend time together, but He's got big shoulders and He can bear for us to overdo some entertainment. Through Isaiah God tells us it's when He finds us wrapped up in the arms of another that He is angered. It's not Ba'al with whom we whore, though, it's our better selves.
We strive to have faith in ourselves. We hope to grow better and wiser. We practice loving ourselves. We've refined idolatry in much the same way we've distilled the cocoa bean into crack. Ba'al was harmless compared to our idolatry.
Do you want to send a message to America?
Trust God.
I've been reading in Isaiah, and God is clearly annoyed when His people turn to idols. There's a really great scene in which Isaiah describes a dude who's obviously pretty handy with wood tools. Our new buddy grabs a good-looking hunk of wood, and turns it into a table and chairs, then maybe a plate or two, finally takes the chips and scraps and lights a fire to cook his dinner. That last left-over piece, though, he carves into an idol to whom he can "say grace" for his meal. It's almost funny how God sees no difference between the activity of making dinner and a making convenient god.
That's an idol.
Faith, hope, and love, Paul says, are the three things that matter, and those are the three things the idolator poured into that last piece of wood.
Faith is a logical, conscious decision to live as if a god's promise will be kept based upon prior knowledge of his power.
Hope is the ability to hang on now because you know god will make enduring the present worthwhile.
Love is a commitment to think, feel and act in the best interests of your god.
I see all three of those things in the actions of Isaiah's unhappy wood-worker. He reckons that his god has given him today's food, so he exercises faith that his god will do it again. His hopes for the future are truly based on the way his god will make that future pleasant. And he has invested his time and passion into pleasing that god with his carved image and tiny offerings to it.
I don't see any of that in America's relationship with the television. We don't think the television brought us any good thing, so we don't rely on it to bring us anything in the future. We don't hope for a better future because of the television's oversight in our lives. Maybe we invest in that box, but all our offerings are to ourselves.
And therein lies the key, I believe.
Our idol cannot be seen, because we no longer believe in the invisible. We don't have to incarnate it any more. We look at history, and find we've gotten our own meals for our own selves, so that's where we put our faith. We hope for our future, because we have laid plans for it and because science keeps making it better every day. And we pour our love out to stir up more passion from within.
In other words, we've not moved a lick from Paul's day. We've made a god of our bellies, trusting our lusts to bring us every good thing and our strength to keep us against the day of trouble.
Don't rail against the television. It's just a little offering we make to our lusts. Our cars and our wide screens and our nest eggs, our jobs and our houses and our spouses, our movies and our shows and our nightlife; they are the little offerings we give to appease our god, the little sacrifices we make to ourselves. We sculpt our abs, sleep at our custom sleep number, and dine in every luxury we can afford in order to strengthen and prepare our god to conquer for us. When our body is strong and our minds are tuned and our attitudes are adjusted, we can make the best of all possible worlds for ourselves.
When the Living God sees us in front of a TV, He doesn't trip out. I'm sure He knows a better way for us to spend our time, a way to spend time together, but He's got big shoulders and He can bear for us to overdo some entertainment. Through Isaiah God tells us it's when He finds us wrapped up in the arms of another that He is angered. It's not Ba'al with whom we whore, though, it's our better selves.
We strive to have faith in ourselves. We hope to grow better and wiser. We practice loving ourselves. We've refined idolatry in much the same way we've distilled the cocoa bean into crack. Ba'al was harmless compared to our idolatry.
Do you want to send a message to America?
Trust God.
27 June, 2008
Ishi, not Baali
I was at church, and we had a visiting pastor who quoted Hosea 2:16.
He said, "Ishi," as he read it, and I was all over that. I guessed pretty quickly what I thought it meant, and quickly BlackBerry'd myself an email message so I would remember to dictionary it when I got home. Sure enough. About 1 time in 6, the word means, "husband."
This is such an arresting passage I'm going to go ahead and quote the whole thing. I don't have any big conclusions from it, but that one word was so telling to me. God found Himself betrothed to a lover who whispered Ba'al's name in her sleep. She sought Ba'al out with all her free time. She gave him little presents and the flower of her youth.
And He was God.
He made Ba'al, and could "disappear" not just him, but everything over which he was supposed to be "god." YHWH could have manipulated the wife of His youth, or overpowered her. He could rightfully demand that she call Him, "Lord Omnipotentate, YHWH." She has spent so much time adoring Ba'al, an abusive god if ever there was one, that she has taken to reacting to her Lord as if He needed to awe her with His power. She has taken, not only to worshipping Ba'al, but to calling YHWH Baali as an act of tenderness.
He dreams she will call Him, "Ishi."
He rejoices when we name Him rightly, tenderly.
Hsa 2:14-20
Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt. And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, [that] thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali. For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name. And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and [with] the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely. And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD.
He said, "Ishi," as he read it, and I was all over that. I guessed pretty quickly what I thought it meant, and quickly BlackBerry'd myself an email message so I would remember to dictionary it when I got home. Sure enough. About 1 time in 6, the word means, "husband."
This is such an arresting passage I'm going to go ahead and quote the whole thing. I don't have any big conclusions from it, but that one word was so telling to me. God found Himself betrothed to a lover who whispered Ba'al's name in her sleep. She sought Ba'al out with all her free time. She gave him little presents and the flower of her youth.
And He was God.
He made Ba'al, and could "disappear" not just him, but everything over which he was supposed to be "god." YHWH could have manipulated the wife of His youth, or overpowered her. He could rightfully demand that she call Him, "Lord Omnipotentate, YHWH." She has spent so much time adoring Ba'al, an abusive god if ever there was one, that she has taken to reacting to her Lord as if He needed to awe her with His power. She has taken, not only to worshipping Ba'al, but to calling YHWH Baali as an act of tenderness.
He dreams she will call Him, "Ishi."
He rejoices when we name Him rightly, tenderly.
Hsa 2:14-20
Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak comfortably unto her. And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and the valley of Achor for a door of hope: and she shall sing there, as in the days of her youth, and as in the day when she came up out of the land of Egypt. And it shall be at that day, saith the LORD, [that] thou shalt call me Ishi; and shalt call me no more Baali. For I will take away the names of Baalim out of her mouth, and they shall no more be remembered by their name. And in that day will I make a covenant for them with the beasts of the field, and with the fowls of heaven, and [with] the creeping things of the ground: and I will break the bow and the sword and the battle out of the earth, and will make them to lie down safely. And I will betroth thee unto me for ever; yea, I will betroth thee unto me in righteousness, and in judgment, and in lovingkindness, and in mercies. I will even betroth thee unto me in faithfulness: and thou shalt know the LORD.
19 June, 2008
An Apologetic Moment
I don't care much for apologetics. It seems a silly thing to me to try to prove God exists when the issue is one of judgement and repentance. Preach the word and trust that the spark inside a man will declare God's reality more loudly than any bacterial flagellum.
That said, an apologetic article in Touchstone Magazine caught my eye last week. The author was attempting to prove that it was the atheists who were really stepping out on faith by not believing in God. The absence of proof is not the proof of absence and all that, you know. I don't have the article in front of me, so I cannot quote it. Sorry.
Man, he pointed out, really ought to have a hard time conceiving of God's reasonings. It doesn't make sense for us to grasp God's thoughts. If God were to decide to hide Himself from all but those who truly sought Him, the fact that it made sense to Him would be all the justification He'd require. We would have to adapt to His reasons, and not the other way around.
From there, I got to thinking about how ants and humans interact. They don't. They just interfere with each other. We keep accidently stepping on them, and they keep taking inappropriate notice of our picnics and kitchen counters. And so it's almost hard to prove to an ant that we're even real. They see our acts, the things we create, but they don't really see us. They could even invent a bunch of bizarre rationalizations for why a field became a strip mall, if they cared to put their little hive-minds to it.
But the analogy does not hold, because of scale. We're too close to ants in scale. Ants could interact with us if we only spoke in pheronomes instead of words. And really, they see us just fine when we plop a finger down in their paths.
Which led me to think of microbes. At that difference in scale, I found a much better analogy. Microbes literally don't know we exist. They share the world with us, and we can affect their lives with heat and pharmaceuticals and light, but we cannot step on them and they cannot steal our food. We live in different worlds, even as we share the same world. We can ferment milk to feed the microbes we like, or incinerate our meat to off a bunch of microbes we don't like, but we're never going to amuse ourselves by making a moat around a microbe-hill.
And that seemed a lot more like our relationship to God. The scale of our relationship is just more massively different than any other relationship I can describe.
But why stop imagining just there? :-)
More than merely being generic microbes, we are cells. Each of us is different, and we were meant to colonize with each other. We are meant to come together, with all our uniqueness in full bloom. Then, when we are all assembled, we will be a body - a body capable of interacting with God as peer-to-peer, at His scale.
As long as we live alone, we are nothing. We are not even viable tissue when we are alone. But together, here in this womb we call Earth, we are growing and changing. Little fingers are becoming distinct and a heart is beating. We are confused, because we see only the cells nearest to us (and how oddly misshapen they are!), but God sees things at His scale, even if He entered ours once and now understands it. He sees what we each are becoming, but He also sees what He is making us together, and He is patient in ways we cannot imagine. He'll wait until His perfect goal for us is fully realized.
One day the sons of God will be revealed.
That said, an apologetic article in Touchstone Magazine caught my eye last week. The author was attempting to prove that it was the atheists who were really stepping out on faith by not believing in God. The absence of proof is not the proof of absence and all that, you know. I don't have the article in front of me, so I cannot quote it. Sorry.
Man, he pointed out, really ought to have a hard time conceiving of God's reasonings. It doesn't make sense for us to grasp God's thoughts. If God were to decide to hide Himself from all but those who truly sought Him, the fact that it made sense to Him would be all the justification He'd require. We would have to adapt to His reasons, and not the other way around.
From there, I got to thinking about how ants and humans interact. They don't. They just interfere with each other. We keep accidently stepping on them, and they keep taking inappropriate notice of our picnics and kitchen counters. And so it's almost hard to prove to an ant that we're even real. They see our acts, the things we create, but they don't really see us. They could even invent a bunch of bizarre rationalizations for why a field became a strip mall, if they cared to put their little hive-minds to it.
But the analogy does not hold, because of scale. We're too close to ants in scale. Ants could interact with us if we only spoke in pheronomes instead of words. And really, they see us just fine when we plop a finger down in their paths.
Which led me to think of microbes. At that difference in scale, I found a much better analogy. Microbes literally don't know we exist. They share the world with us, and we can affect their lives with heat and pharmaceuticals and light, but we cannot step on them and they cannot steal our food. We live in different worlds, even as we share the same world. We can ferment milk to feed the microbes we like, or incinerate our meat to off a bunch of microbes we don't like, but we're never going to amuse ourselves by making a moat around a microbe-hill.
And that seemed a lot more like our relationship to God. The scale of our relationship is just more massively different than any other relationship I can describe.
But why stop imagining just there? :-)
More than merely being generic microbes, we are cells. Each of us is different, and we were meant to colonize with each other. We are meant to come together, with all our uniqueness in full bloom. Then, when we are all assembled, we will be a body - a body capable of interacting with God as peer-to-peer, at His scale.
As long as we live alone, we are nothing. We are not even viable tissue when we are alone. But together, here in this womb we call Earth, we are growing and changing. Little fingers are becoming distinct and a heart is beating. We are confused, because we see only the cells nearest to us (and how oddly misshapen they are!), but God sees things at His scale, even if He entered ours once and now understands it. He sees what we each are becoming, but He also sees what He is making us together, and He is patient in ways we cannot imagine. He'll wait until His perfect goal for us is fully realized.
One day the sons of God will be revealed.
16 June, 2008
That Sinking Feeling
Wow. Unanimity. What's that?!
:-)
I'm actually a little surprised that everyone agrees that "the answers" are not all in scripture. It's as if I'd figured out that the Earth is round ... yesterday. Being me, I'd let everyone know of my discovery by making some bold statement about how I was willing to sail past the sunset, confident that I'd return alive. Everyone else would look up from their newspapers and say, "Yeah. It'd be fun to sail past China and under the two great capes, Horn and Good Hope. Enjoy your trip!"
Fortunately, here in blog land, none of you could see my jaw drop. :-)
Well, and I'm still not used to people agreeing with me about much of anything. :-D
I was raised amongst three groups of Christians, all of whom shared basic doctrines and some theological differences, but all of whom were unanimously committed to scripture as the sole, final, absolute, complete, sufficient source for every question of life. Any question more complex than how to get to Arby's could be answered directly, completely and unambiguously from scripture.
Did I mention that my denominational background is, "Damentalist?"
And did I explain that Damentalism is what's left after you take the fun out of fundamentalism?
My Damentalist elders would have had a scriptural answer to my question, "How could I know not to marry a girl in 10 days." They'd have pulled something out of the scriptures (no, not those other places) about many counselors making for safe plans and the Lord not being the author of confusion and haste making waste (some of them would occasionally confuse Ben Franklin with Solomon), and assure me (and themselves) that had I only been firmly grounded in scripture I'd not have made a Gordian Tangle of my life.
Here's the problem, though. The kid sitting next to me would spend 12 years engaged to some poor woman, marry her, and divorce in two years, and they've have found every bit as strong scriptural arguments against what he did. And some other joker would call responsibly on a young lady, court her for 6 months, be engaged for 12 months and 3 days, and marry her with her father's blessing and muddle his life, and they'd have every bit as strong scriptural arguments against what he did.
The common factor is that their understanding of scripture's perfect guidance is clearest after-the-fact. They're like gypsies gazing into their crystal ball pronouncing the future as dim, until the dust settles and the weeping's begun. And suddenly, their wisdom doesn't taste like honey in my mouth any more. I just wish it were sweet in my belly.
So, as I look at the possibility that wisdom is something we learn, more like riding a bicycle than being born again, it resonates well against my experience. You all obviously agree with that intuition, and I think scripture would support us together.
But...
Have you thought about the tremendous burden and responsibility that puts on us all?
Hey! Being a Damentalist was easy. As long as I could not think of any scripture to stop me, or at least could plausibly explain it away, I could charge forward with my life like a rhonicerous on the scent of tasty daisies. I could examine the scriptures with an open heart, and whatever it they did not proscribe was fair game.
For example.
I could look at David snatching up Abigail and think 10 days was a LONGGGGG courtship. I could even be proud and thankful that I didn't have to collect the foreskins of 200 Cajuns as a dowry for Michal (and I didn't have to worry about the whole dying while trying thing, either. Those Cajuns can be mighty opinionated about their foreskins, I've heard.) I could even look at a handful of brothers maturing beyond the message of John the Baptist the very first time they heard Christ presented by Paul, and figure it was a wise thing to follow a man who brought a higher gospel.
The bible is full of stories of short courtships, immediate changes of doctrine, and droppings of everything to follow the leading of God.
Haste is commended by scripture over and over and over, if you're looking for that sort of thing. And my personality is always looking for a good reason to make haste. Always. Always. I'll even settle for silence on the subject that just lets me make my haste with a low-humming conscience. It doesn't strictly have to "quiet" for me.
But if the scripture is silent on some things, then I need to be cautious. I need to seek wisdom. I need to be sure I'm not being an idiot. Or simple. Or even a fool. If the scripture proscribes only those things that might show me to be evil, but leaves unmentioned some things that might show me to be simple or a fool, then I need to grow up.
It's a shame to have to learn that at 44, but I'm afraid I'll learn it again at 54, and again at 64. If the Lord is kind to burn this lesson into my memory through the fires of self-imposed experience, then maybe I'll only have to learn it this one last (major) time.
And I'll lay one more responsibility at my feet, and this one may fall at yours, too. As the church, as one of the three that agree on Earth (thank you, Missy!), I have a responsibility to those I see being foolish as I was foolish. I have a responsibility to turn my hard-earned wisdom into their narrow escape. And when I say responsibility, I mean that the church needs her holders of wisdom to step forward for those who need them. I mean that the Lord needs those who have received wisdom at His hands to pass it along to His sheep. I mean that He might hold us responsible for hiding our experiences from each other.
Perhaps the only purpose for my life is to serve as an example to others (http://despair.com/mis24x30prin.html) but I think maybe that's a pretty important thing.
:-)
I'm actually a little surprised that everyone agrees that "the answers" are not all in scripture. It's as if I'd figured out that the Earth is round ... yesterday. Being me, I'd let everyone know of my discovery by making some bold statement about how I was willing to sail past the sunset, confident that I'd return alive. Everyone else would look up from their newspapers and say, "Yeah. It'd be fun to sail past China and under the two great capes, Horn and Good Hope. Enjoy your trip!"
Fortunately, here in blog land, none of you could see my jaw drop. :-)
Well, and I'm still not used to people agreeing with me about much of anything. :-D
I was raised amongst three groups of Christians, all of whom shared basic doctrines and some theological differences, but all of whom were unanimously committed to scripture as the sole, final, absolute, complete, sufficient source for every question of life. Any question more complex than how to get to Arby's could be answered directly, completely and unambiguously from scripture.
Did I mention that my denominational background is, "Damentalist?"
And did I explain that Damentalism is what's left after you take the fun out of fundamentalism?
My Damentalist elders would have had a scriptural answer to my question, "How could I know not to marry a girl in 10 days." They'd have pulled something out of the scriptures (no, not those other places) about many counselors making for safe plans and the Lord not being the author of confusion and haste making waste (some of them would occasionally confuse Ben Franklin with Solomon), and assure me (and themselves) that had I only been firmly grounded in scripture I'd not have made a Gordian Tangle of my life.
Here's the problem, though. The kid sitting next to me would spend 12 years engaged to some poor woman, marry her, and divorce in two years, and they've have found every bit as strong scriptural arguments against what he did. And some other joker would call responsibly on a young lady, court her for 6 months, be engaged for 12 months and 3 days, and marry her with her father's blessing and muddle his life, and they'd have every bit as strong scriptural arguments against what he did.
The common factor is that their understanding of scripture's perfect guidance is clearest after-the-fact. They're like gypsies gazing into their crystal ball pronouncing the future as dim, until the dust settles and the weeping's begun. And suddenly, their wisdom doesn't taste like honey in my mouth any more. I just wish it were sweet in my belly.
So, as I look at the possibility that wisdom is something we learn, more like riding a bicycle than being born again, it resonates well against my experience. You all obviously agree with that intuition, and I think scripture would support us together.
But...
Have you thought about the tremendous burden and responsibility that puts on us all?
Hey! Being a Damentalist was easy. As long as I could not think of any scripture to stop me, or at least could plausibly explain it away, I could charge forward with my life like a rhonicerous on the scent of tasty daisies. I could examine the scriptures with an open heart, and whatever it they did not proscribe was fair game.
For example.
I could look at David snatching up Abigail and think 10 days was a LONGGGGG courtship. I could even be proud and thankful that I didn't have to collect the foreskins of 200 Cajuns as a dowry for Michal (and I didn't have to worry about the whole dying while trying thing, either. Those Cajuns can be mighty opinionated about their foreskins, I've heard.) I could even look at a handful of brothers maturing beyond the message of John the Baptist the very first time they heard Christ presented by Paul, and figure it was a wise thing to follow a man who brought a higher gospel.
The bible is full of stories of short courtships, immediate changes of doctrine, and droppings of everything to follow the leading of God.
Haste is commended by scripture over and over and over, if you're looking for that sort of thing. And my personality is always looking for a good reason to make haste. Always. Always. I'll even settle for silence on the subject that just lets me make my haste with a low-humming conscience. It doesn't strictly have to "quiet" for me.
But if the scripture is silent on some things, then I need to be cautious. I need to seek wisdom. I need to be sure I'm not being an idiot. Or simple. Or even a fool. If the scripture proscribes only those things that might show me to be evil, but leaves unmentioned some things that might show me to be simple or a fool, then I need to grow up.
It's a shame to have to learn that at 44, but I'm afraid I'll learn it again at 54, and again at 64. If the Lord is kind to burn this lesson into my memory through the fires of self-imposed experience, then maybe I'll only have to learn it this one last (major) time.
And I'll lay one more responsibility at my feet, and this one may fall at yours, too. As the church, as one of the three that agree on Earth (thank you, Missy!), I have a responsibility to those I see being foolish as I was foolish. I have a responsibility to turn my hard-earned wisdom into their narrow escape. And when I say responsibility, I mean that the church needs her holders of wisdom to step forward for those who need them. I mean that the Lord needs those who have received wisdom at His hands to pass it along to His sheep. I mean that He might hold us responsible for hiding our experiences from each other.
Perhaps the only purpose for my life is to serve as an example to others (http://despair.com/mis24x30prin.html) but I think maybe that's a pretty important thing.
15 June, 2008
Flipping Life
In my previous post, I shared how I learned that one should not take ridiculous risks on a tennis court, if one hopes to win from time to time. Of course, if your hopes are more modest, then anything goes. :-)
It's not a brain-surgery-level leap to apply that to any number of areas of life. If one is not seeing eye-to-eye with a girlfriend, one could try to reverse the whole situation by marrying her. To a person who "flips" many life decisions that might even make sense. Such a man will experience some astounding successes, but "flipping" usually results in yet another defeat. Some of us have been there, or somewhere like it.
I lived the first 40+ years of my life flipping decisions most people could never make at all. Consequently, my life looks a lot like my tennis. People sitting in the grandstands are impressed at how well I'm playing tennis or living day-to-day, then are shocked to find out I lost 0-6, 0-6.
My life is very much like my tennis. I lose way too often to ascribe it all to luck.
The whole idea of playing the percentages, building a tennis point, or building a life one little part on top of another is refreshing and new to me. In a very real way it seems like a defeat to restrain myself from targeting an outright winner, but maybe I've suffered enough at my own hands to begin to do so. I'm afraid I'll end up accomplishing nothing if I don't take scary risks, but I've made a shambles so far by doing things the way that seemed right to me. I always want to be building something, but thus far I fail by building haphazardly, too quickly and with bad materials.
I won't belabor this point, because it's pretty obvious.
Instead, I'd like to ask a really tough question.
In church today, someone was talking about answers for life and said, "They're all in here," while pointing to his bible.
Are they?
Could I look in the bible and know that I should not marry after 10 days of courtship? Could I look at the bible and know that I should not follow a man who comes bringing a message of Christ more excellent than anything I'd ever heard before? Could I look at the bible and know whether I should spend 8 hours a week building the church and 4 hours a week building my children, or the other way around?
I think the answer is, "No." And I think the answer is "no" by the direct intent of God. He simply did not want us to be able to find those answers out of a book. I think He gave us judges and judgement and wise old men and women, and that we are to be very nearly as much to each other as the scripture is to us.
The bible will tell me that I must not start a family without marriage, that I should not follow a man away from God, and that I must work to build church and home, but it doesn't tell me how. I have been told for decades now that the bible tells me how to do each of these things, and I think that lie encouraged me to be more confident in my foolishness. I think that lie is an expensive generalization.
What do you think?
It's not a brain-surgery-level leap to apply that to any number of areas of life. If one is not seeing eye-to-eye with a girlfriend, one could try to reverse the whole situation by marrying her. To a person who "flips" many life decisions that might even make sense. Such a man will experience some astounding successes, but "flipping" usually results in yet another defeat. Some of us have been there, or somewhere like it.
I lived the first 40+ years of my life flipping decisions most people could never make at all. Consequently, my life looks a lot like my tennis. People sitting in the grandstands are impressed at how well I'm playing tennis or living day-to-day, then are shocked to find out I lost 0-6, 0-6.
My life is very much like my tennis. I lose way too often to ascribe it all to luck.
The whole idea of playing the percentages, building a tennis point, or building a life one little part on top of another is refreshing and new to me. In a very real way it seems like a defeat to restrain myself from targeting an outright winner, but maybe I've suffered enough at my own hands to begin to do so. I'm afraid I'll end up accomplishing nothing if I don't take scary risks, but I've made a shambles so far by doing things the way that seemed right to me. I always want to be building something, but thus far I fail by building haphazardly, too quickly and with bad materials.
I won't belabor this point, because it's pretty obvious.
Instead, I'd like to ask a really tough question.
In church today, someone was talking about answers for life and said, "They're all in here," while pointing to his bible.
Are they?
Could I look in the bible and know that I should not marry after 10 days of courtship? Could I look at the bible and know that I should not follow a man who comes bringing a message of Christ more excellent than anything I'd ever heard before? Could I look at the bible and know whether I should spend 8 hours a week building the church and 4 hours a week building my children, or the other way around?
I think the answer is, "No." And I think the answer is "no" by the direct intent of God. He simply did not want us to be able to find those answers out of a book. I think He gave us judges and judgement and wise old men and women, and that we are to be very nearly as much to each other as the scripture is to us.
The bible will tell me that I must not start a family without marriage, that I should not follow a man away from God, and that I must work to build church and home, but it doesn't tell me how. I have been told for decades now that the bible tells me how to do each of these things, and I think that lie encouraged me to be more confident in my foolishness. I think that lie is an expensive generalization.
What do you think?
12 May, 2008
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance
I know, this is a funny topic for me.
I read this book in 1983, and hardly remember anything about it. I liked it at the time, for what it was. And of course, what it was was an anti-Christian bit of cultic and heretical propaganda. :-)
I was studying to be a theoretical physicist (at a local junior college - don't ask), but I about half-wanted to be a mechanic. So this little book offered me a twofer deal I couldn't pass on. It gave me a chance to learn about Zen in a kind of semi-safe way, and a chance to learn about mechanicking from a distance. I would be hard pressed to say of which of them I was most scared. Zen was frightening in an eternal way, but mechanicking was frightening in a very visceral man's-man kind of way that left me feeling quite hopeless. Learning about mechanicking from a Zen mystic seemed about right for a wannabe like me.
I think I remember two things from the book. The first is, "Never by a 2-pound hammer - you might be tempted to use it!" But that phrase may never have appeared in the book, or if it did it might be completely stolen from mechanics all over the world.
The second one I'm absolutely sure of. I won't put quote marks around it, because I am giving you 25 year-old impressions of what it meant to me at the time, and there's no telling exactly what he really said. It went like this.
Turn off your radio. Zen is about being in the now, wholly present in the moment that is. Life is about being in the now. But if the thing that you are doing is fixing a motorcycle, how can the thing you're doing be listening to the radio? And if the thing you're doing is listening to the radio, how can it be fixing the motorcycle? Do what you're doing with all your being.
That hit me hard. I was always trying to do two things at once, and no matter how eternally damning Zen might be, the joker was right. I simply could not do two things at once, and even if I could, I could not do them both with all my heart. I could not do them both to the glory of God.
I never forgot that. For a year or two of my ten under the hood, I listened to the radio while I turned wrenches. I spent months listening to a rotation of a handful of tapes and crying to them as often as not. But for the most part, I found I was happier when the radio was off and I was pleasantly cursing the problem at hand. [Mechanicking really is calculated to drive a man to despair. If it were not for the (even if they're sometimes pyrrhic) victories at the end of every nightmare, I'm sure we'd all quit.]
The other night, I told my small group that I'd turned off the radio in my car 2 years ago. You should have seen the jaws drop. But yes, I sit in traffic in complete silence, just listening to the engines of all the cars around me, and the blowing of the heater fan, and how the sounds play off the brim of my hat. Sometimes I play my harmonica, but not even much of that these days.
And it helps.
It's an odd thing. I committed years ago that once I got on the road, I was done trying not to be late. Once I was on the road, nothing I could do would get me there more than 2 minutes faster, so I'd just be an extra 2 minutes late rather than frazzle myself every morning and evening. Once I'm on the road, I pick the lane that is easiest on my attitude, and drive fast enough to keep the guy behind me from getting mad. If I can't drive that fast, I move over. If 6 people pull in front of me, I might speed up, but not because I'm mad. (Yes, sometimes individual morons irritate me, but usually not more than once a week.)
And since I'm not in a hurry, and not on edge, and not looking for that 3 car-length advantage every 10 seconds, I can let my mind go where it will.
The radio kills that mindset, and yes, I mean Christian radio. It takes my mind where I don't want to go. Once or twice in each trip, I might hear a song that connects with me, but more often than not it's a song that connects with where I was last week. I end up being happy the song meant a lot to me last week, and singing it with joy, but it's last week's joy.
I'm not against the radio itself. 4 years ago, just after the divorce, the radio was a near-constant blessing to me, and I listened to it every minute. Today, though, it isn't. The song, "Be Still My Soul," moved me a couple weeks ago. So, I spent a week memorizing it in the car. (Have you EVER known a song to be so hard to memorize???) I did it at my pace, and with my convictions, so it felt like it was mine. It felt peaceful and comforting. At it's best, the radio seems to dangle the hope of something beautiful much more often than it delivers, so I guess I'm against it a little bit, but I'll probably turn my radio back on some day.
So, I thought about all this.
And I thought, "Why does Zen do this kind of thinking, and Christianity doesn't?"
Why does Zen have so much to say about getting up in the morning and making breakfast and getting ready for bed at night, and Christianity doesn't?
It's just something to ponder.
I read this book in 1983, and hardly remember anything about it. I liked it at the time, for what it was. And of course, what it was was an anti-Christian bit of cultic and heretical propaganda. :-)
I was studying to be a theoretical physicist (at a local junior college - don't ask), but I about half-wanted to be a mechanic. So this little book offered me a twofer deal I couldn't pass on. It gave me a chance to learn about Zen in a kind of semi-safe way, and a chance to learn about mechanicking from a distance. I would be hard pressed to say of which of them I was most scared. Zen was frightening in an eternal way, but mechanicking was frightening in a very visceral man's-man kind of way that left me feeling quite hopeless. Learning about mechanicking from a Zen mystic seemed about right for a wannabe like me.
I think I remember two things from the book. The first is, "Never by a 2-pound hammer - you might be tempted to use it!" But that phrase may never have appeared in the book, or if it did it might be completely stolen from mechanics all over the world.
The second one I'm absolutely sure of. I won't put quote marks around it, because I am giving you 25 year-old impressions of what it meant to me at the time, and there's no telling exactly what he really said. It went like this.
Turn off your radio. Zen is about being in the now, wholly present in the moment that is. Life is about being in the now. But if the thing that you are doing is fixing a motorcycle, how can the thing you're doing be listening to the radio? And if the thing you're doing is listening to the radio, how can it be fixing the motorcycle? Do what you're doing with all your being.
That hit me hard. I was always trying to do two things at once, and no matter how eternally damning Zen might be, the joker was right. I simply could not do two things at once, and even if I could, I could not do them both with all my heart. I could not do them both to the glory of God.
I never forgot that. For a year or two of my ten under the hood, I listened to the radio while I turned wrenches. I spent months listening to a rotation of a handful of tapes and crying to them as often as not. But for the most part, I found I was happier when the radio was off and I was pleasantly cursing the problem at hand. [Mechanicking really is calculated to drive a man to despair. If it were not for the (even if they're sometimes pyrrhic) victories at the end of every nightmare, I'm sure we'd all quit.]
The other night, I told my small group that I'd turned off the radio in my car 2 years ago. You should have seen the jaws drop. But yes, I sit in traffic in complete silence, just listening to the engines of all the cars around me, and the blowing of the heater fan, and how the sounds play off the brim of my hat. Sometimes I play my harmonica, but not even much of that these days.
And it helps.
It's an odd thing. I committed years ago that once I got on the road, I was done trying not to be late. Once I was on the road, nothing I could do would get me there more than 2 minutes faster, so I'd just be an extra 2 minutes late rather than frazzle myself every morning and evening. Once I'm on the road, I pick the lane that is easiest on my attitude, and drive fast enough to keep the guy behind me from getting mad. If I can't drive that fast, I move over. If 6 people pull in front of me, I might speed up, but not because I'm mad. (Yes, sometimes individual morons irritate me, but usually not more than once a week.)
And since I'm not in a hurry, and not on edge, and not looking for that 3 car-length advantage every 10 seconds, I can let my mind go where it will.
The radio kills that mindset, and yes, I mean Christian radio. It takes my mind where I don't want to go. Once or twice in each trip, I might hear a song that connects with me, but more often than not it's a song that connects with where I was last week. I end up being happy the song meant a lot to me last week, and singing it with joy, but it's last week's joy.
I'm not against the radio itself. 4 years ago, just after the divorce, the radio was a near-constant blessing to me, and I listened to it every minute. Today, though, it isn't. The song, "Be Still My Soul," moved me a couple weeks ago. So, I spent a week memorizing it in the car. (Have you EVER known a song to be so hard to memorize???) I did it at my pace, and with my convictions, so it felt like it was mine. It felt peaceful and comforting. At it's best, the radio seems to dangle the hope of something beautiful much more often than it delivers, so I guess I'm against it a little bit, but I'll probably turn my radio back on some day.
So, I thought about all this.
And I thought, "Why does Zen do this kind of thinking, and Christianity doesn't?"
Why does Zen have so much to say about getting up in the morning and making breakfast and getting ready for bed at night, and Christianity doesn't?
It's just something to ponder.
20 April, 2008
Yahweh's Love Interest
The Biblical Archaeology Review has an article in this issue regarding "A Temple Built for Two." The inspiration is a little house shrine evidently showing a 2-seated throne. One of the seats they suppose to be for Yahweh, and the other for His consort, the local fertility goddess, Asherah.
The article does a fine job evaluating the possible meanings of the idol, and makes a good argument that, yes, in the local popular religion (as opposed to the intellectual religion of the priesthood) Yahweh did not abide alone. One of the chief points the article makes is that the prophets all spent reams of parchment decrying Asherah. The prophets' complaint that sanctuaries to "The Queen of Heaven" were "on every hill and under every green tree," is about as good a proof as one needs that Asherah was big medicine. The little house shrine portrayed in BAR merely gives an indication that the Israelites came up with the usual way of reconciling their conflicting deities.
The point that occurs to me while reading this article is that Yahweh is the only God I can remember who has no mate, except His people, and them as a whole. I can think of many examples of gods who are mated to other gods. I can think of gods who have been taken with individual humans. I can think of gods who have every human romantic problem. I cannot think of a single other god who mates himself to all willing humans as a single entity.
Yahweh calls Israel His wife, and mourns her departures. He brings Israel gifts, protects her from enemies, nurtures her, and makes life promises to her that are unique in all religious history so far as my memory recalls. Ours is a God Who loves inhumanly. He loves a being no human has ever imagined as an individual before, the church, with a pure grace no human has ever conjured up in any religious fiction.
As the heavens are above the earth, so His love is above our love, His intent above our intentions.
We are so much more than lucky to be so loved. Praise the Lord our King.
The article does a fine job evaluating the possible meanings of the idol, and makes a good argument that, yes, in the local popular religion (as opposed to the intellectual religion of the priesthood) Yahweh did not abide alone. One of the chief points the article makes is that the prophets all spent reams of parchment decrying Asherah. The prophets' complaint that sanctuaries to "The Queen of Heaven" were "on every hill and under every green tree," is about as good a proof as one needs that Asherah was big medicine. The little house shrine portrayed in BAR merely gives an indication that the Israelites came up with the usual way of reconciling their conflicting deities.
The point that occurs to me while reading this article is that Yahweh is the only God I can remember who has no mate, except His people, and them as a whole. I can think of many examples of gods who are mated to other gods. I can think of gods who have been taken with individual humans. I can think of gods who have every human romantic problem. I cannot think of a single other god who mates himself to all willing humans as a single entity.
Yahweh calls Israel His wife, and mourns her departures. He brings Israel gifts, protects her from enemies, nurtures her, and makes life promises to her that are unique in all religious history so far as my memory recalls. Ours is a God Who loves inhumanly. He loves a being no human has ever imagined as an individual before, the church, with a pure grace no human has ever conjured up in any religious fiction.
As the heavens are above the earth, so His love is above our love, His intent above our intentions.
We are so much more than lucky to be so loved. Praise the Lord our King.
14 April, 2008
Revelation
Rom 1:17
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
It's just that one little phrase that arrested me.
... the righteousness of God revealed ...
Can you picture it?
If you can, you can picture lightning being hidden.
I was once close enough to lightning to hear it sizzling for hours before the thunder finally like'd to broke my eardrums. It seemed to be days later when I finally jumped for the ground and hugged it like never before. It had to have been 20 feet away from me, at most. I never saw it, and I've never done anything so fast in my life as dive for mama earth just then. The bolt sealed herself up again and went home to papa before my first flinch, though. The power, the speed, the brightness, the overkill in that split second of power revealed from heaven never left me.
Lightning cannot be hidden.
The righteousness of God is more powerful, and yet it cannot be found.
We cannot know this holiness. There is nothing in our experience to indicate perfect righteousness exists. They say that if you can imagine a thing, it proves that it exists - that we cannot imagine anything that cannot be. But here is an example of a thing that does exist, and that we cannot imagine. We can try to picture white, if we set our minds to it, but we cannot conceive of an unmixed motive. Everything to us is yin and yang. The seeds of righteousness exist in every evil, and the seeds of evil exist in every righteous deed.
In God, though, only righteousness is revealed because that is all there is. The I AM never changes, and from the moment the first atom blinked into existence until the last atom flashes back into the void, God never flirted with sin. God's care IS always pure, His eye IS always single, His love IS always sacrificial.
This is revealed to us by faith, and from faith to faith. This blinding, thundering, deadly, life-giving righteousness is seen only by the eye of belief. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the word of God, but the righteousness of God is revealed in and by faith.
I don't have a point. It was only an impression, and I hope I expressed a little bit of it. It really needs to be a poem, but I don't know that I could deliver on it so I had to write it this way.
For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, The just shall live by faith.
It's just that one little phrase that arrested me.
... the righteousness of God revealed ...
Can you picture it?
If you can, you can picture lightning being hidden.
I was once close enough to lightning to hear it sizzling for hours before the thunder finally like'd to broke my eardrums. It seemed to be days later when I finally jumped for the ground and hugged it like never before. It had to have been 20 feet away from me, at most. I never saw it, and I've never done anything so fast in my life as dive for mama earth just then. The bolt sealed herself up again and went home to papa before my first flinch, though. The power, the speed, the brightness, the overkill in that split second of power revealed from heaven never left me.
Lightning cannot be hidden.
The righteousness of God is more powerful, and yet it cannot be found.
We cannot know this holiness. There is nothing in our experience to indicate perfect righteousness exists. They say that if you can imagine a thing, it proves that it exists - that we cannot imagine anything that cannot be. But here is an example of a thing that does exist, and that we cannot imagine. We can try to picture white, if we set our minds to it, but we cannot conceive of an unmixed motive. Everything to us is yin and yang. The seeds of righteousness exist in every evil, and the seeds of evil exist in every righteous deed.
In God, though, only righteousness is revealed because that is all there is. The I AM never changes, and from the moment the first atom blinked into existence until the last atom flashes back into the void, God never flirted with sin. God's care IS always pure, His eye IS always single, His love IS always sacrificial.
This is revealed to us by faith, and from faith to faith. This blinding, thundering, deadly, life-giving righteousness is seen only by the eye of belief. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing comes by the word of God, but the righteousness of God is revealed in and by faith.
I don't have a point. It was only an impression, and I hope I expressed a little bit of it. It really needs to be a poem, but I don't know that I could deliver on it so I had to write it this way.
13 April, 2008
Psalm 119:25-32
DALETH.
My soul cleaveth unto the dust: quicken thou me according to thy word.
I have declared my ways, and thou heardest me: teach me thy statutes.
Make me to understand the way of thy precepts: so shall I talk of thy wondrous works.
My soul melteth for heaviness: strengthen thou me according unto thy word.
Remove from me the way of lying: and grant me thy law graciously.
I have chosen the way of truth: thy judgments have I laid [before me].
I have stuck unto thy testimonies: O LORD, put me not to shame.
I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart.
We studied this in Sunday School this morning, and it was right where I was. It was a delight to give it a good, hard look.
I like that the passage starts with the singer prostrate in the dust, melted under the weight of his loads, and afraid he might try to deliver himself by lying. I get that.
He answers his own situation with the word, the statutes, the precepts. And what else? If you take away from me my scriptures, where could I go to learn that Jesus suffered here along with me? That he watches my every tear and marks the enemies that caused them? That has delivered me from the sin that kept me from appearing before God my Hope?
Where else would I learn how to behave myself in the courtyards of His home - and now mine? Where else would I learn to tell the truth to those who are hurting? Where else would I learn to praise my Deliverer even before I see His deliverance?
But when I have those things, when I know those truths, I can stand up from the dust. When I know where to go, I can begin walking. And when I see what there is to gain, I can begin to run, because the Lord has enlarged my heart.
For a few more decades, there will be dust on my feet, but the invisible truth of God's love and actions keeps me upright in more ways than one.
DALETH.
My soul cleaveth unto the dust: quicken thou me according to thy word.
I have declared my ways, and thou heardest me: teach me thy statutes.
Make me to understand the way of thy precepts: so shall I talk of thy wondrous works.
My soul melteth for heaviness: strengthen thou me according unto thy word.
Remove from me the way of lying: and grant me thy law graciously.
I have chosen the way of truth: thy judgments have I laid [before me].
I have stuck unto thy testimonies: O LORD, put me not to shame.
I will run the way of thy commandments, when thou shalt enlarge my heart.
We studied this in Sunday School this morning, and it was right where I was. It was a delight to give it a good, hard look.
I like that the passage starts with the singer prostrate in the dust, melted under the weight of his loads, and afraid he might try to deliver himself by lying. I get that.
He answers his own situation with the word, the statutes, the precepts. And what else? If you take away from me my scriptures, where could I go to learn that Jesus suffered here along with me? That he watches my every tear and marks the enemies that caused them? That has delivered me from the sin that kept me from appearing before God my Hope?
Where else would I learn how to behave myself in the courtyards of His home - and now mine? Where else would I learn to tell the truth to those who are hurting? Where else would I learn to praise my Deliverer even before I see His deliverance?
But when I have those things, when I know those truths, I can stand up from the dust. When I know where to go, I can begin walking. And when I see what there is to gain, I can begin to run, because the Lord has enlarged my heart.
For a few more decades, there will be dust on my feet, but the invisible truth of God's love and actions keeps me upright in more ways than one.
04 April, 2008
How Shall a Young Man Clean His Way?
Psa 119:9
Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed [thereto] according to thy word.
I really enjoyed this verse when we talked about it last Sunday. I meant to post about this a little earlier, but such is life.
So, a young man definitely needs to clean his way up. That's believable. So how does the great 119th Psalm recommend he do it? 119 is the Psalm most completely dedicated to the law of God, to His statutes, so what does it recommend.
It recommends that young man take heed to "his way."
I don't know why, but I loved that. It doesn't recommend that he pour over the law every waking second. It recommends he love and learn that law, but take heed to his own way.
I know I'm fighting a rare enemy here, but some of us spent too much time on theology and not enough figuring out our way through life. It's cool when God's inspired word does not make the mistakes of young men.
Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed [thereto] according to thy word.
I really enjoyed this verse when we talked about it last Sunday. I meant to post about this a little earlier, but such is life.
So, a young man definitely needs to clean his way up. That's believable. So how does the great 119th Psalm recommend he do it? 119 is the Psalm most completely dedicated to the law of God, to His statutes, so what does it recommend.
It recommends that young man take heed to "his way."
I don't know why, but I loved that. It doesn't recommend that he pour over the law every waking second. It recommends he love and learn that law, but take heed to his own way.
I know I'm fighting a rare enemy here, but some of us spent too much time on theology and not enough figuring out our way through life. It's cool when God's inspired word does not make the mistakes of young men.
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