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Return to Innocence |
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Alpine Artist
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 Posted Sunday, July 8, 2007 @ 09:01 PM
More on our conversations about being naive: Ron & I just got back from a few days away, and what’s nice about these retreats is the open road and its beckoning to open thought and conversation. Want to eavesdrop? Here it is. Enigma plays on the Jeep’s sound system this lyric: Love - Devotion Feeling - Emotion Don’t be afraid to be weak Don’t be too proud to be strong Just look into your heart my friend That will be the return to yourself The return to innocence If you want, then start to laugh If you must, then start to cry Be yourself don’t hide Just believe in destiny Don’t care what people say Just follow your own way Don’t give up and miss the chance To return to innocence That’s not the beginning of the end That’s the return to yourself The return to innocence The old man in the film slowly becomes a child. Is it really possible to return to innocence? “Let the children come to Me, and do not keep them away, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.” This Kingdom of Heaven, it has subjects-they are childlike. They take themselves as seriously as do children: not much. Instead of being drawn into others’ storms, they are blissfully distracted with the discovery of new things of this new life. The fruit of the tree of right and wrong is unappealing-it weighs too much; it smells of hurt. They instead reach into the tree of life for a delightful, sweet, ripe bite of gratitude and enjoyment in some silly little thing. Their naiveté is showing, and it’s ok. If they are taken advantage of, there will be more joy to replace that which is lost, and sophistication will not harden the wound. In the wonder of release, it will simply go away, with no scars. This Kingdom has a law. Love. In it, fears are cast out, envy and spite are uncovered, and we live in joy of one another not in spite of, but because of our uniqueness and individuality. This Kingdom has a monarch-more than benevolent. In contrast with all other Kingdoms, He would give all for his subject, instead of requiring all from him, in order for the two to commune. He grieves when their friendship is overshadowed by doubt of that desire to give, and that power to care. Like children, they have little to lose, and all to gain. The destroyer has little with which to work in their lives, because they are unafraid to cry; unafraid to be silly; unafraid to let go. They are not easily confused or led into worry. Their King will simply take care of it. There must be some provision made for it; there has always been before. (As a true citizen of a Kingdom, they have the right and even the duty to expect this.) A Kingdom of children. Such is this innocence. -Can you even remember innocence? To choose something because you like it-not because someone you like likes it. To stand holding or wearing or eating that something, enjoying it even when others look at you funny? To offer them some? To laugh just because you feel like it? To be free? Is it possible with all that we’ve learned, been conditioned to, and been conformed to, that we may still go back and be “born again” to this new kind of life? Is it possible that we’ve thought we were born again but we’re really not yet? Can we be born into a Kingdom of belonging that we’ve never dreamt of before? Where our deepest longings are fulfilled as they are aligned with Kingdom aims and truths, and that nagging sense of “destiny” is finally calmed in our realization that in Kingdom economy, helping one soul is as helping ten thousand? This Kingdom has overthrown all others, not with horses and chariots, spears or swords, but with innocence and simple joy. The first miracle made water wine, a pronouncement of the overthrow’s greatest weapon: levity, laughter, rest and trust. Blood = wine. Purity through innocence. Body = bread. Healing through innocence. The power of innocence. Can we return to it? I believe so. |
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Posted Monday, July 9, 2007 @ 10:58 AM
I’ve long been an Enigma fan, and though well acquainted with the song, I had never seen this particular video. Incidentally, if you are a fan of Enigma, have a Yahoo account (they’re free), and enjoy Internet radio, you might be interested in my custom LAUNCHcast station at http://music.yahoo.com/lc/?rt=0&rp1=0NaN1227725416 (it’s free too). I have fine-tuned it for several months now, and it features a fairly wide berth of music, much of it ethnic, world, and new age, and you might even get an occasional White Zombie tune thrown in, a throw-back to the music of my youth. You will either need to use Internet Explorer to access it, or, if you are like me and have a very strong preference for Firefox, you’ll need the IE Tab extension (you need either IE or the IE Tab because LAUNCHcast uses Microsoft’s ActiveX controls in addition to basic JavaScript). Anyway, ever since I heard the “voice of Enigma” return to innocence, I’ve done a lot of thinking about innocence and what a “return to innocence” might involve. This post will effectively be my “thinking out loud” attempt to clear away some of my own lack of clarity. As I consider, I have previously exalted virtue over innocence, though I am reconsidering that position. Specifically, during my short blogging stint, I processed my thoughts, differentiating the two like so: Quote: Though they may have a certain surface similarity, virtue and innocence are completely different creatures. Whereas innocence doesn’t know any better, virtue does. Virtue understands the difference between right and wrong and chooses to do right anyway. Unlike innocence, virtue has been tested and tried: it has assessed reality clearly, weathered the storm, and come out victorious. (Completely Different Creatures) I then asked myself exactly what I meant by “naive faith.” I think the idea I had in mind—whether it was the one communicated or not—was such a level of faith that was capable of believing the impossible and the foolish. A person who was reasoning through the situation would likely say that whatever the issue involved was was very impractical and unwise. The naive faith, however, would confidently say that it was possible and would, at least inwardly, stake its all on the prospect. At times, the naive faith might in fact be misguided, but it is not exactly foolish either, for in complete trust it turns to the one who will not discourage it, as we discussed in Susan’s post where the Sadhu talked about the jeweler and the man who found what turned out to be a worthless stone. What I am now wondering, however, is whether or not virtue and innocence are mutually exclusive. I tend to think that virtue might be of one sort and innocence of another, not like the blog entry above, but as different degrees of reality. I think, in keeping with the naive faith that might be misguided but is not foolish, that I may have overlooked a much deeper side to innocence. Put another way, virtue is something that can be more or less manufactured: it is something that we hone and perfect. But innocence may well be something that we grow into as a direct byproduct of our dependence on God. In other words, virtue is something that we can more or less perfect and thus can feel a sense of pride concerning whereas innocence may be a state of the heart and a gift: an act of grace on the part of God who is transforming us. Or perhaps innocence is more of a state of mind—humility comes to mind—whereas virtue is a perfected habit? The thing is, there are many different ways to look at ideas and part of what makes something true or false depends on the shade of meaning we are assigning the words. My blog post above is not false if we take innocence in that particular sense, but there may be other senses of innocence to which that particularly observation would either not apply or only partially. I’d be curious to hear any thoughts anyone might have on the matter. |
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Alpine Artist
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Posted Monday, July 9, 2007 @ 05:09 PM
Maybe you didn’t overlook a deeper side to innocence at all, Eric. Maybe there exists another type of innocence entirely, if only in the Spirit. Not our original innocence, (the one of which your quote speaks -to not know any better) but one which we choose, once we do know better. Wow, talk about virtue!  A parable: Two in the garden. They’re safe, satisfied, whole. Nature around them is pristine and in perfect rhythm. Their Maker is their friend. But one day someone casts doubt on their Maker’s motives. They trade their innocence for a “wisdom” that He has selfishly witheld from them. A chasm is rent between them, and how can it be bridged? The doubt is now there. Even nature suffers and groans, and now in its fallen state, it too awaits “reconciliation.” But is it too late? One in the garden. He’s emperiled, dissatisfied, broken. His Maker is His enemy, this night. He takes the bitter cup and trades back this vile wisdom for an innocence of pure trust. The doubt is now gone, and the free gift is handed down from the only god who reaches down to man instead of making man reach up to Him (which he cannot.) Reconciliation. Return to innocence. Not our first innocence, but the one we can reclaim. Reconciliation with man, with nature, and with God is in that sweet innocence. Is it just me or…have we stumbled upon something bigger than we thought here? Believe…and thou shalt be saved. Believe what? Be saved from what? Lots more than we thought, I’m guessing. |
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sara
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Posted Monday, July 9, 2007 @ 06:02 PM
I like the Enigma type of innocence, I suppose, as long as you don’t hurt anyone else in the process of regressing to a simpler mode of being. Crying and laughing is good, but yelling when you’re angry? I’m not sure. Greed seems pretty instinctive, too. Survival of the fittest, etc. I’m being my usual contrarian self. I think it’s a disease. I enjoyed what you both wrote and agree especially with AA when she writes about freeing ourselves from conditioning. I think it was Emerson who said that “imitation is suicide” I know many people who don’t really exist. At times, I’m one of them. However, I will never recover my childish innocence. Not since the Holocaust. I know the death camps were a result of men, not God, but still….I’m haunted by the testimonies of the survivors. I believe & trust in God despite my inability to understand His ways, but that trust is not innocent…it is grim-faced & determined. I can’t imagine it being otherwise. |
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Posted Monday, July 9, 2007 @ 06:44 PM
After reading both or your replies, it seems quite clear that there are at least two types of innocence. The one is given only by grace and is known only in the context of intimate relationship whereas the other can involve anything from the positive aspects of youthful abandon to the negative sides of immaturity. As far as recovering innocence, I think you are on to something, Kay, particularly as concerns Sara’s comments. The Genesis account, whether taken as a saga or otherwise,* portrays how an act of disobedience severed communion with God: we see that in human relationships as well. (* Buber has an interesting thought in another article I read over the vacation that suggests that when the people were in charge of recording history, the subjective saga took precedence in which their wonder and awe overshadowed the historical particulars, to some degree the stuff of overawed legends; when the royal officials were in charge, the objective annals were in force in which the record keeping of numbers and men and bodies were of far greater importance: the latter is rather a dry read by comparison and probably no more factual. Quite an interesting thought on Buber’s part, but I digress.) Believing in sin as such can be difficult for the modern mind, but we have no difficulty believing in evil: the Holocaust, as you mention, Sara, is but one example. The Genesis account would seem to offer an explanation, whether mythical or otherwise. In any case, I think most of the lack of innocence we feel most often has less to do with the catastrophic events of history and more to do with not really perceiving God’s warmth, whether due to sin or some other factor. Certainly our human relationships affect how we view God: as Powell writes: “Our lives are shaped by those who love us—[and] by those who refuse to love us.” His implication is that while we like to believe we are non-conformists, in reality how the people in our lives have responded to us has a tremendous influence on who we are today and how we perceive ourselves. Not feeling loved or lovable can have a huge influence on how we perceive God as well. Powell writes of this factor at the beginning of Why Am I Afraid to Love?, and I am again struck by its poignancy: Quote: Beloved, let us love one another, because love takes its origin in God, and everyone that loves is a child of God and knows God. He who has no love does not know God, because God is love. God’s love was made manifest among us by the fact that God sent his only-begotten Son into the world that we might have life through him. This love consists not in our having loved God but in his having loved us and his having sent his Son as a propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we in turn ought to love one another. 1 John 4:7–11 The word religion is derived from a Latin word religare, which means to bind back. By his practice of religion man binds himself back to God who is his alpha (origin) and omega (destiny). To anyone who is familiar with the New Testament there can be no doubt that the essential act of religion and the essential bond between man and his God is love. When Jesus was asked by the Pharisees: “Which is the greatest commandment?” he answered: ”You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and the first commandment. The second resembles it: You must love your neighbor as yourself.” Matthew 23:35–39 What does it mean to love God with one’s whole heart, soul and mind? I think that St. John would answer this question by telling us that before anyone can really give his heart, soul and mind to God, he must first know how much God has loved him, how God has thought about him from all eternity, and desired to share his life, joy, and love with him. Christian love is a response to God’s infinite love, and there can be no response until one has somehow perceived that God has first loved him, so much so that he sent his only-begotten Son to be our salvation. More than this, God does not simply have love; he is love. If giving and sharing with another is the character and essence of love, then God is love. He can acquire nothing because he is God. He needs nothing because he is God. He has all goodness and all riches within himself. But goodness is self-diffusive; it seeks to share itself. So the infinite goodness which is God seeks to communicate, to diffuse, to share itself … with you … with me … with all of us. We know something of this love in our own instincts to share that which is good and is our possession: good insights, good news, good rumors. Perhaps the best analogy in our human experience is that of the young married couple, very much in love and very much alive because of that love, wishing to share their love and life with new life which it is in their power to beget. But it is even more than this with God who tells man: if the mother should forget the child of her womb I will never forget you! It is precisely this that is the point of most failures to love God truly. Most of us are not deeply aware of his fatherly, even tender, love. It is especially the person who has never experienced a human love, with all of its life-giving effects, who has never been introduced to the God who is love through the sacrament of human love, that stands at a serious disadvantage. The God of love who wishes to share his life and joy will probably seem like the product of an over-heated imagination—unreal. There is no human being who will not eventually respond to love if only he can realize that he is loved. On the other hand, if the life and world of a person is marked by the absence of love, the reality of God’s love will hardly evoke the response of his whole heart, soul and mind. … The God who enters such a life will be a fearsome and frowning idol, demanding only fear of his devotees. The Book of Genesis tells us that God has made us to his image and likeness, but it is the most perduring temptation of man to invert this, to make God to his human image and likeness. Each of us has his own unique and very limited concept of God, and it is very often marked and distorted by human experience. Negative emotions, like fear, tend to wear out. The distorted image of a vengeful God will eventually nauseate and be rejected. Fear is a fragile bond of union, a brittle basis of religion. It may well be that this is why God’s second commandment is that we love one another. Unselfish human love is the sacramental introduction to the God of love. Man must go through the door of human giving to find the God who gives himself. Those who do not reject such a distorted image will limp along in the shadow of a frown, but they certainly will not love with their whole heart, soul and mind. Such a God is not loveable. There will never be any trust and repose in the loving arms of a Father; there will never be any mystique of belonging to God. The person who serves out of fear, without the realization of love, will try to bargain with God. He will do little things for God, make little offerings, say little prayers, etc. to embezzle a place in the heaven of his God. Life and religion will be a chess-game, hardly an affair of love. |
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Alpine Artist
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Posted Monday, July 9, 2007 @ 07:17 PM
Don’t Forget to Slam the Door Behind You was the first piece that I read on this forum. I got there seeking answers as to how much energy we are expected to put into making our giftings “count” for the Kingdom. Eric mentions someone’s question as to how well he markets his webmastry, and his response that God cares for his needs and he eats well at God’s table as his child. Isn’t it true that no matter how wise we become, it still all comes back to very basic principles that nearly anyone can understand: we are children of God, and best live as those children? In our discussions of coming back to the simple realization of the indescribable love of God (and the surrender of ourselves to it), I remember a quote in that newsletter: Quote: The child provides nothing for itself and yet everything is provided. It takes no thought for the morrow and forms no plans, and yet all its life is planned out for it and it finds its paths made ready, opening out as it comes to them day by day and hour by hour. It goes in and out of its father’s house with an unspeakable ease and abandonment, enjoying all the good things therein, without having spent a penny in procuring them. Pestilence may walk through the streets of its city, but the child regards it not. Famine and fire and war may rage around it, but under its father’s tender care the child abides in utter unconcern and perfect rest. It lives in the present moment, and receives its life unquestioningly as it comes to it day by day from its father’s hands. Who is the best cared for in every household? Is it not the little children? And does not the least of all, the helpless baby, receive the largest share? We all know that the baby toils not; neither does it spin; and yet it is fed and clothed and loved and rejoiced in more tenderly than the hardest worker of them all. This life of faith then, about which I am writing, consists in just this—being a child in the Father’s house. And when this is said, enough is said to transform every weary, burdened life into one of blessedness and rest. (The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life) |
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Posted Monday, July 9, 2007 @ 07:34 PM
For most of us though, living as children in the house of God does not come naturally or instinctively. That is why complete trust can be such an extremely difficult factor and the reason I felt compelled to write as I did this week. We really do have to know enough about God’s graciousness and provision to reach a point in which we are even willing to surrender our lives. Yet as you said: it is a basic principle. The first step of AA is the recognition that our lives have become unmanageable and that is the reason we often have to become desperate before we can learn to see God in this light. Almost everything in our culture cries out against seeing God in such a personal and intimate light: at best, God is an impersonal cosmic force. We gradually do come to learn that God is so much more than that and that he cares very deeply for us and that we truly can trust him completely: we truly can live as children in his house. But that is antithetical to our culture and to our deeply ingrained patterns of thinking. It is true that becoming as a little child is the secret to spiritual intimacy, but it is in nowise easy and means, among other things, that we have to come to the often painful truth about ourselves as well. |
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Posted Monday, July 9, 2007 @ 07:43 PM
Emerson famously speaks of most men’s lives being lives of quiet desperation. I just Googled for the 12 steps and found this link on marijuana truly ironic. It reminds me so much of how our lives so often are, not with marijuana necessarily, but in general and why spiritual surrender is so difficult. A good many of us have several fantasies going on about ourselves at any given time in an effort to fill that which only God can truly fill and to hide from the painful truth that our lives really aren’t that spectacular. We too hide behind fig leaves, just of a different sort. Quote: Step One is about honesty, about giving up our delusions and coming to grips with reality. We had to look honestly at our relationship with marijuana and its effect on our lives. For some of us Step One meant honesty for the very first time in our lives. Many of us spent years trying to control our use of marijuana. We justified our using and rationalized that we could control it. We may have vowed to use only on weekends, or to have only one joint a day. Some of us promised ourselves not to smoke until after school or work, or only when we were alone. Sometimes we tried using only other people’s dope, not buying it for ourselves. We played games with our stash, gave our supply to friends, hid it in nooks and crannies that were hard to reach, or buried it away from home. All these efforts failed us. We learned that we could not control our using. Eventually, we returned to smoking just as much and just as often as ever, if not more. Some of us stopped using for a while, but we always started again. We were living the illusion of control, thinking we could control not only our using, but also other people, places, and things. We spent a great deal of energy blaming others for our problems. We held on to the fallacy of control. Most of us had long insisted that marijuana was not even addictive. After all, it was just a natural herb which grew in many of our gardens. Our lives may have been a little frazzled, a bit out of kilter, but were they really unmanageable? Many of us didn’t lose our jobs; our families hadn’t deserted us; our lives didn’t seem to be total disasters. We were living the fantasy of functionality. |
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sara
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Posted Tuesday, July 10, 2007 @ 06:38 AM
This may sound strange, but I agree….intellectually and emotionally…. with both of you. At the same time, however, I agree….intellectually and emotionally….with Ivan in The Brother’s Karamazov, who wrote about his anger at God….. Ivan for a minute was silent, his face became all at once very sad. ”Listen! I took the case of children only to make my case clearer. Of the other tears of humanity with which the earth is soaked from its crust to its centre, I will say nothing. I have narrowed my subject on purpose. I am a bug, and I recognise in all humility that I cannot understand why the world is arranged as it is. Men are themselves to blame, I suppose; they were given paradise, they wanted freedom, and stole fire from heaven, though they knew they would become unhappy, so there is no need to pity them. With my pitiful, earthly, Euclidian understanding, all I know is that there is suffering and that there are none guilty; that cause follows effect, simply and directly; that everything flows and finds its level — but that’s only Euclidian nonsense, I know that, and I can’t consent to live by it! What comfort is it to me that there are none guilty and that cause follows effect simply and directly, and that I know it? — I must have justice, or I will destroy myself. And not justice in some remote infinite time and space, but here on earth, and that I could see myself. I have believed in it. I want to see it, and if I am dead by then, let me rise again, for if it all happens without me, it will be too unfair. Surely I haven’t suffered simply that I, my crimes and my sufferings, may manure the soil of the future harmony for somebody else. I want to see with my own eyes the hind lie down with the lion and the victim rise up and embrace his murderer. I want to be there when everyone suddenly understands what it has all been for. All the religions of the world are built on this longing, and I am a believer. But then there are the children, and what am I to do about them? That’s a question I can’t answer. For the hundredth time I repeat, there are numbers of questions, but I’ve only taken the children, because in their case what I mean is so unanswerably clear. Listen! If all must suffer to pay for the eternal harmony, what have children to do with it, tell me, please? It’s beyond all comprehension why they should suffer, and why they should pay for the harmony. Why should they, too, furnish material to enrich the soil for the harmony of the future? I understand solidarity in sin among men. I understand solidarity in retribution, too; but there can be no such solidarity with children. And if it is really true that they must share responsibility for all their fathers’ crimes, such a truth is not of this world and is beyond my comprehension. Some jester will say, perhaps, that the child would have grown up and have sinned, but you see he didn’t grow up, he was torn to pieces by the dogs, at eight years old. Oh, Alyosha, I am not blaspheming! I understand, of course, what an upheaval of the universe it will be when everything in heaven and earth blends in one hymn of praise and everything that lives and has lived cries aloud: ‘Thou art just, O Lord, for Thy ways are revealed.’ When the mother embraces the fiend who threw her child to the dogs, and all three cry aloud with tears, ‘Thou art just, O Lord!’ then, of course, the crown of knowledge will be reached and all will be made clear. But what pulls me up here is that I can’t accept that harmony. And while I am on earth, I make haste to take my own measures. You see, Alyosha, perhaps it really may happen that if I live to that moment, or rise again to see it, I, too, perhaps, may cry aloud with the rest, looking at the mother embracing the child’s torturer, ‘Thou art just, O Lord!’ but I don’t want to cry aloud then. While there is still time, I hasten to protect myself, and so I renounce the higher harmony altogether. It’s not worth the tears of that one tortured child who beat itself on the breast with its little fist and prayed in its stinking outhouse, with its unexpiated tears to ‘dear, kind God’! It’s not worth it, because those tears are unatoned for. They must be atoned for, or there can be no harmony. But how? How are you going to atone for them? Is it possible? By their being avenged? But what do I care for avenging them? What do I care for a hell for oppressors? What good can hell do, since those children have already been tortured? And what becomes of harmony, if there is hell? I want to forgive. I want to embrace. I don’t want more suffering. And if the sufferings of children go to swell the sum of sufferings which was necessary to pay for truth, then I protest that the truth is not worth such a price. I trust God, but I don’t know why. Maybe it’s the “Him” aspect I don’t trust…..the “Father” concept of God. As Eric observed, “Almost everything in our culture cries out against seeing God in such a personal and intimate light: at best, God is an impersonal cosmic force.” In my own case, I would change that to a personal(meaning “conscious” cosmic force, but it still a force rather than a person. Then I don’t feel so angry. It’s hard to get mad at a ray of sunshine.) I don’t know. The older I get, the less I’m sure of…and the more I’m sure of. I trust God; I don’t trust God. God is impersonal; God is personal. I know; I don’t know. Hmmm…am I hearing the sound of one hand clapping? PS to Eric. Thanks for introducing me to Buber. I am reading a intellectual bio of him and enjoying it…and him…immensely. I’ve only just started it. By the end, perhaps he’ll help me figure out a way of transcending the paradox nature of my faith/unfaith? |
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Alpine Artist
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Posted Tuesday, July 10, 2007 @ 07:55 PM
I can so relate to your ambivalence, Sara. Just today while with a small group of believers, a question came up for us all to answer and they started with me. It caught me completely off guard, and couldn’t have cut more to the quick of an issue that I thought I had recently settled in my heart. (And God didn’t even give me any warning - I just hate when He does that stuff.) The emotion that it brought (which also caught me completely off guard-I guess that happens sometimes) is what made me question whether the issue indeed had been completely settled. In prayer on the way home, I found that even in my regression, I still have this underlying certainty on the matter which abides (which was quite encouraging) and began to realize that even when something is certain, doubt can still wedge in, and with each new day we take up the fight again, just as in our faith for Bobby. So new revelation came today: I can’t learn real good. (O, wretched [wo]man that I am….) and as Eric says, sometimes it’s just so hard to stand in one place without stepping backward on this journey to peace and to certainty. Our own addictions can be such powerful antagonists. That’s why I appreciate this forum so much. I feel the iron sharpening the iron (gently, which is best for some of us) and in it all, finding nourishing friendship for the fight. |
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sara
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Posted Wednesday, July 11, 2007 @ 07:05 AM
Kay, I’ve made peace with my ambivalence and I am seldom troubled by it anymore. I don’t seek certainty; I seek understanding. When I seek certainty, I become more uncertain. I must close up parts of myself. When I seek understanding, I open myself. By “understanding”, I’m not referring to my intellect. My brain is moderately good at comparing, contrasting, measuring, etc., but those functions are almost useless when applied to God. Besides, (and I’m stealing this joke from Woody Allen) I can’t even figure out how my can opener works, so how can I figure out God? “Understanding” doesn’t reside in my emotions either. They flip flop around like a fish out of water. The only thing left is my will—I have to choose what my attitude my will shall take towards God. I have to decide whether to believe or disbelieve in the testimonies of the mystics and others who claim to love Him. I have to constantly seek the truth, knowing all the time that it is shrouded in mystery and that I can approach it, but never “possess” it. Understanding isn’t “knowledge” (which can be an obstacle to understanding); it’s more like being awake and alive and allowing the world to reveal itself to you. For that to happen, we need to be ready to abandon our views of it. Understanding is awe, gratitude for being, and a realization that life itself is miraculous. Maybe there’s a better word to use than “understanding” (Eric?), but that’s the one I use. It is a creative process involving the whole person. Word are failing me at the moment and I haven’t even mentioned LOVE yet, which is totally unfathomable! BTW, Kay, I’m glad something happened to you that made you feel uncertain to some degree. As Voltaire said, “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.” Is there no end to my quotations? No. Through the years, I’ve created my own “Bible”, which sounds sacrilegious, but isn’t. It just assumes that revelation is a continuing, as well as personal, process. How about if I don’t capitalize it….. “bible” ? (Eric has made me very sensitive to this issue.) Bye, everyone. |
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Alpine Artist
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Posted Wednesday, July 11, 2007 @ 01:56 PM
Quote: Understanding is awe, gratitude for being, and a realization that life itself is miraculous. Beautiful. Again, iron sparks are flying. Sara, methinks that thou art much more of a believer than thou loudly (at times) protesteth to be.  Speaking of quotes on innocence: Quote: God is the lord of babies. He’s Christ of Jesus. He is so lonely and is in a manger, with God in heaven (The Gospel According to Anna 4:1–3). Oh, and me-always certain? My other friends would lol! |
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sara
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Posted Wednesday, July 11, 2007 @ 02:45 PM
Yes, you are right. I am a believer. There is little question in my mind that there is a transcendent reality (that is immanent), a meaning beyond absurdity; and that we are here to discover the truth we are meant to know. Vague enough? I suppose, but my belief is everything to me. Lukewarm, I’m not. I also have observed (and this is from Simone Weil) that “something mysterious in the Universe is the accomplice of those who love only the good.” (This, however, does not mean we get to evade suffering.) I enjoy the Forum, too, and am pleased you found it. I first fell in love with it when I read a newsletter on ” A Christian Living and Apologetics” website, in which the author not only wrote beautifully, but expressed more skepticism and and confusion than even I had. ON A CHRISTIAN WEBSITE!!!! Is that rare or what? I knew I found a home. |
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Alpine Artist
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Posted Wednesday, July 11, 2007 @ 03:21 PM
It must be challenging to work in academia and keep one’s faith intact to such a degree. I admire Eric for it. Ironically, my daughter’s most difficult time with her faith came her last year of college under the severe scrutiny (and honestly, persecution) of a Lit professor named Eric. But she blesses the experience and the strength it gave, and I digress. Of all the things that man’s hand crafts, God knows the perfect moment for each one. Each musical engagement, each web forum, each tutoring session. A perfect moment in which someone so desperately needs someone, and He finds absolute glory and pleasure in meeting that very need. Even if I live to be 100, I may never learn how much it means to Him to meet just that one man’s need; not 10,000, but just one. One sheep, one coin, one soul. Thanks, Eric. |
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Posted Thursday, July 12, 2007 @ 05:49 PM
Thank you both for your comments: they were encouraging to me. Speaking of Simone Weil, just this morning the “daily quote” that popped up Encarta Dictionary when I opened the program was attributed to her: “Love is not consolation, it is light.” Googling for the same just moments ago shows two contenders for that attribution with Nietzsche in the lead. So, apparently, either Nietzsche or Simone Weil voiced a compelling insight. As far as academia goes, it is hit and miss with me. I grow deeply disillusioned with it sometimes, some of it is over the top enough that I can simply dismiss it, and the rest is wonderfully clarifying to me. I think often what believers perceive to be threats to their faith isn’t so much opposed to God as it is opposed to a lot of the same elements of institutional religion that are rightfully dismissed as erroneous. Of course, it depends on the issue too: biblical inerrantists in particular can find academia taxing when it treats beloved passages with its clinical methodologies. Yet I think that that can be very healthy: the average mainstream protestant believer has no awareness of the bible’s history, of church history, or even of the various perspectives Christians around the world share. One reason why I come down hard sometimes on evangelicals is that they can be very bad about developing tunnel vision to the exclusion of 2,000 years of wisdom in the ancient faith. The vast majority enshrine and deify that which is clearly fallible. Just as humanity was not created for the Sabbath but the Sabbath for humanity, so too humanity was not created for religion and its instruments but religion and its instruments was created for humanity to help it draw closer to God. Academia can be a bitter pill to swallow as it confronts a lot of mainstream Christianity, for at times it treads on what we have been taught to hold dear and sacred, but given that my friend is surely right when he says that the Christianity he has now is not the Christianity he signed up for, I think most of the time academia does more good than harm, helping to cure the myopia from which a lot of believers in America suffer in numerous ways. What is more, I am a firm believer that dialog and conversation are essential for growth and an informed perspective and strongly disagree with a lot of the censorship advocated on Christian radio and other places. It is true that the political ideology of academia tends to be at once progressive and conservative: that is, staunchly conservative in preserving its liberal ideals, but that in and of itself has little to nothing to do with faith: indirectly at times perhaps, but no more so than anything else. In fact, that is one thing that sickens me about a lot of mainstream Christianity is that it is so tied to political ideology. Tell me how you vote on abortion and a handful of other key issues and I’ll tell you whether you are a true believer. Such an approach is simplistic at best, failing to take into consideration the many and varied reasons people have for believing, and by extension voting, as they do. To the degree that academia is blatantly against a lot of the Christian mainstream culture, I tend to agree 100%: it makes me sick too and I cannot blame them for holding their nostrils. So then, I don’t want to pour water on anybody’s fire, but that’s just some more of those opinions that make me me, I suppose, right Kay?
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Alpine Artist
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Posted Thursday, July 12, 2007 @ 07:13 PM
Indeed. And though you downplay it, I still think it’s a rare thing to see someone such as yourself in a position such as yours who exhibits such close, meaningful communion with God. To see and hear so many other different views every day and still to remain steady (not without your questions, of course, but plainly secure in your faith as a whole) -this means more than you may know. There are others out there who are also tired of pharisees and saducees, and just want God, but they don’t know where to stand out of the wind while searching. You give them a place; a solid refuge along the way. |
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sara
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Posted Friday, July 13, 2007 @ 07:28 AM
Has anyone read “Finding God at Harvard” or “Finding God Beyond Harvard” by Kelly Monroe? I haven’t, but either book might be interesting. I read somewhere that Fundamentalism, as we now understand the word, is a relatively new phenomenom. Throughout history, Judaism, Christianity and Islam….and I suppose, Buddhism & Hinduism (although I know less about their history) have all accommodated themselves to changing circumstances. Each was a living, evolving tradition. In contrast, modern Fundamentalists regard their beliefs as absolute and fixed for all time. They have made an idol out of their holy scriptures. The Bible (or Koran) has replaced God. This forces them into the often ridiculous position of having to remain within a world view consistent with their scriptures, which makes them wacky and unreasonable. Did anyone see this when it made the rounds of the Internet a few years ago ? Funny! It was written when a lot of gays were angry at Dr Laura Schlesinger…… Dear Dr Laura, Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from you, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind him that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate. I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how best to follow them. a. When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odour for the Lord (Leviticus 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odour is not pleasing to them. How should I deal with this? b. I would like to sell my daughter into slavery as it suggests in Exodus 2l:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her? c. I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Leviticus 15:19–24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offence. d. Leviticus 25:44 states that I may buy slaves from the nations that are around us. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? e. I have a neighbour who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself? f. A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Leviticus 10:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this? g. Leviticus 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here? I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God’s Word is eternal and unchanging. I personally thought that people were unfair to Dr. Laura (I am a zealous advocate of free speech), but it did make me laugh. And, you know…I wouldn’t care a hoot about what Fundamentalists believed as long as they didn’t harm anyone, but, now that politics and religion have merged together on the national and international scene, I feel obligated to respond. bye sara |
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Posted Friday, July 13, 2007 @ 11:38 AM
First off, there is a really inspiring interview I heard on NPR some time ago I would highly recommend. Rather than retyping, I’ll just post the blog entry I posted at the time on April 14, 2006—his big distinction is authoritarian versus humanitarian Christianity: Quote: Rev. William Sloane Coffin, who served for eighteen years as chaplain at Yale university, died this Wednesday at the age of 81. While at Yale, he became known for his anti-war activism, a minister standing for a social cause much like Martin Luther King Jr. for civil rights. Today (Friday, April 14), NPR’s Fresh Air featured Terry Gross’ 1985 interview with Coffin. Responding to a broad range of questions, of particular interest to me were his views of what authentic Christianity looks like. He conceptualizes religion in general (and in particular Christianity, of course) as consisting of two often opposing camps: on the one hand, we have “law-and-order Christians” who seek stability and definitive answers and are most awed by God’s power, on the other we have those believers who find in God the strength to face a world that remains uncertain, captivated most by the love of God. Coffin resoundingly locates himself in the second camp, believing that the integrity of love is of much greater importance than the purity of dogma. If you have about twenty minutes to listen to a streaming audio broadcast, simply go to The Words of Rev. William Sloane Coffin and click on the “Listen” button above the photograph. If you find time to give Coffin a listen, I would be interested in hearing your reaction to his comments. As to how I caught this broadcast: Needing to pick up a package at the post office today, I happened to have the radio on and tuned to NPR, leaving just as Fresh Air was coming on, pulling into the lot and parking just as the station break was coming on—I climbed back in the car seconds after the broadcast had resumed and arrived home just as the broadcast was ending. None of that was planned. Those two books you mention do look quite interesting, the first one (based only on reviews and subjective first impressions) more so than the second. But it is true: faith is alive and thriving on college campuses all across America and beyond. And that really should not surprise us. Religion and education have been intimately joined together for centuries upon centuries, at least in the Western world and its close neighbors. That is, I am not here speaking of Eastern views (though these too wed together religion, ethics, and advanced learning): I am speaking of what we mean when we speak of classical education and its roots. The Patristic and Conciliar leaders—collectively known as the Church Fathers—saw in the Greek thinkers a source of expansion and explanation for theology, itself already Hellenistic. The Apostle Paul, for example, was obviously steeped in the Hellenist tradition; the Jews who were alive in that day were also Hellenist Jews. Remember the recent newsletter on Buber? According to Josephus, there were four groups of Jews prominent before the fall of Jerusalem in 70 C.E.: the Sadducees, who held the highest political power for their jurisdiction of the Temple (a power obviously wrenched from them when the Temple was destroyed in the siege), the Essenes (who were separatists and thus effected minimal influence), the Fourth Philosophy (those Jews who were against the Greco-Roman overloads and were put down in the resistance), and finally the Pharisees (those Jews who survived and who were responsible for the safekeeping of the law: around 200 C.E. these laws were codified along with subsequent commentary to form the Talmud). So then, that was the Jewish remnant: the Pharisees—they were those who carried on Judaism into the mainstream forms we know today: Orthodox, Conservative, and Reform. For all intents and purposes, the faith that developed around Jesus Christ, and largely filtered through the philosopher—I mean apostle—Paul, was quite thoroughly Hellenistic. It is no wonder, then, that the early councils and patristic leaders saw so much of merit in the Greek thinkers and their philosophies: the New Testament was to large degree tempered and predicated on such thinking, for it was grown upon Hellenistic soil. This factor was particularly true of the Pauline epistles and many of the other non-Gospel texts. For that matter, even the gospel of John blends together elements of both worlds with its mention of both light (Jewish) and logos (Greek). That particular gospel is really quite intriguing on many levels, particularly if one is at all interested in esoterica, but that is a topic of another day. (I would highly recommend Elaine Pagel’s “Gospel of Thomas”—I am putting the MP3 up as a temporary download @ http://www.mybloop.com/-SPACE-/mrrena/Elaine_Pagels.zip: just delete the dark blue -SPACE- when you paste it into your browser. I’ll remove this link in a day or two, so you’ll wanna grab it now while the grabbing is good: beware that it’s a 214 mg download. But I’d recommend listening to Sloan’s broadcast above first: it is more beneficial and practical whereas Pagel’s is more scholarly.) Now that I’ve digressed a mile out of my way, let’s telescope our history. Learning was largely limited to the monasteries and pretty much stagnated during the so-called Dark Ages. Yet during this time, it was the Muslims who kept learning alive, giving to us advanced concepts in geometry and algebra (and our Arabian numerals, a great improvement over their Roman counterparts in terms of mathematical computation), innovations in sailing, and a host of other things that seem to us today thoroughly Western. Why did they make these contributions? Because the earth was Allah’s and everything in it and by studying his wondrous works, they might bring him honor and glory. The Scholastics—obviously steeped in Catholic theology (the only Christian theology available save Orthodox)—picked up where things left off: such was the education that Descartes received. Then we have the Jesuits and virtually all of the Ivy League schools started out as religious centers of learning. At least historically speaking, there has long been an intimate connection between religion and higher learning: it was considered very important to train up not only one’s children but the culture in general in the best of wisdom and learning of generations gone on before. And, as you remind us, fundamentalism—at least the “back-to-the-basics” protestant variety—is really very recent and even more recent still is its less rigid though still uptight child evangelicalism. So then, many would say that these schools have failed their religious roots. Fair enough. But it is a bit like Derrida with his post-structuralism: he does not dismiss the work of Lévi-Strauss and Saussure, for example: rather, it forms the undergirding of his system: one cannot be deconstructing binaries if one does not first share the assumption of binaries. Likewise, within higher education, there has long been a push to “purify” religion: to remove its personal and “fantastical” elements and extract from it a pure moral law. After all, the deity cannot be proven, but morality is something that can perhaps be objectified. (Ironically, fundamentalists attempt to do the same thing, save that they hide behind the name God when they do.) Nevertheless, what comes after always includes to some degree what came before, even if only implicitly. I am reminded of Caputo’s book On Religion, which you may remember was a great inspiration to me during a period in which I was really going through a crises of faith as documented in the March 31, 2006, newsletter Personal Reflections on Faith and Doubt, the only newsletter that also captures the “long-haired beauty” otherwise known as Eric with his hair trashed on graduation day. And speaking of that newsletter, it reminds me that the biggest challenge of academia is burn-out, fatigue, and information overload. |
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Alpine Artist
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Posted Sunday, July 15, 2007 @ 11:02 AM
Eric, I’m glad that you’re founding higher ed easier in these respects than did my brood. But I’m guessing that it’s because you and I stand on such different ground on some matters. For example, I’m not ready to give up my capitalizing divine pronouns, or B.C. & A.D., etc. (though I see these as minor.) And you already know about me and my B.I.B.L.E. If you and your readers can put up with these things (and others to come, I’m sure) along with my endless testimonies and questions, I’d sure love to keep talking about things that we all seem so hungry for right now: rest, innocence, & solid fellowship (even amid respectful debate.) I passed one of your quotes on some time ago to Ryan (my youngest, the webmaster) and just ten minutes ago, he passed it back to me saying how much he agreed. Quote: Labels almost invariably label the labeler and suggest that, at that moment at least, he or she is not focused on matters of most importance. Ryan has an extreme aversion to labels of any sort. He even stopped calling himself a Christian years ago, just because of the opposition that the term provokes these days (sometimes understandably.) His view: “Besides, if your life doesn’t show a change, who cares what you call yourself? They’ve already dismissed you anyway.” I might be an evangelical. I don’t know. If so, you’ve got yourself this perky, optimistic, and as Sara says, homey  evengelical on your hands. Who knows-maybe I’m just what somebody needs? Remember, the finger can’t say to the nostril….btw I wish my hair looked like that when it was trashed. |
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sara
Major
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Posted Monday, July 16, 2007 @ 07:16 AM
Years ago, before they got involved in politics, I developed a pretty good relationship with the Fundamentalists in my life. I mean, who cares if I believe the Garden of Eden is a metaphor and someone else believes it existed literally? The lessons to be learned from the “event” are the same. Whenever I went into a religious group (I’ve been involved with the Quakers, the Catholics, a Pentacostal Bible Study, the Unitarians, Twelve Step Programs, and yes….a Course in Miracles) I would try and see the world through the group’s mindset because I firmly believe that, if our hearts are in the right place and we believe in some form of transcendant reality and love the Good; we are all God’s children and He/She/It will communicate to us in a way we can understand. I mean, would I have told Mother Teresa her understanding of God was rather immature because she believed in the infallibility of the Pope? No! I’d ask her to pray for my soul! Well, I was doing fine until the Religious Right started influencing elections, culminating in George W. Bush, and this awful war WHICH I KNEW WAS A HUGE MISTAKE and UN-CHRISTIAN and BASED ON LIES blah blah blah, so now I have this huge reservoir of hostility which I have trouble controlling because I am sickened by all the death and destruction I see every night on TV. I mean, think of what America COULD mean to the world and then see what it is. It makes you want to cry. And the sad thing is that we ARE good/decent people who seek to do what is right (that’s why we had to be convinced ours was a noble cause) and use our power justly, but we get screwed up by our leaders & the media and are too busy/lazy/preoccupied with personal concerns to educate ourselves about issues. (I’m not excluding myself. I still don’t know why everyone is protesting the policies of the World Bank. I know Palestine is a mess, but I’m not sure of the details. Is that wall working in Israel? Who’s the new Prime Minister in England? France? CHINA!!! I don’t know who is the leader of China! Yikes!) The point I’m trying to make…what is the point I’m trying to make? Oh yes, I do hope that some of the recent views expressed on this Forum….by myself and others….don’t discourage our more conservative friends from participating in discussions. There are difference between us, but there are many more similarities. Not only are we all human beings experiencing the same universal emotions, but we all, if we love God, struggle to be better than we are, pray and commune with Him/Her/It and become wise and useful to others. I know that sometimes on the Forum I’ve been a bit ironic & contradictory and I’m sorry for that. It’s the way my brain works and I often forget what I know and think my brain is me. With sincere good wishes to everyone, sara |
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Posted Monday, July 16, 2007 @ 02:56 PM
Know that as an intuitive thinker, I am ambivalent and often talk out of both sides of my mouth in an effort to drill down to the core of an issue, particularly when that issue has an emotional core. Saturday I went hiking in Bennett Spring State Park in Missouri, (which the natives, and myself, usually pronounce incorrectly as the plural Bennett Springs), with the same group of friends who went to Lost Valley, Arkansas. Bennett Spring is very close to the town in which I lived out my high school days and the surrounding area brings back the bittersweetness of nostalgia. Nostalgia and the bittersweetness associated with it is an interesting phenomenon. Memories that have long since been dormant are unexpectedly stirred and the contrast between our present reality and the person we were at one time can be striking. We do grow, we change, we evolve, and we often tend to romanticize the past. I mention the friends who accompanied me: they too represent a season in my past. Newly arrived to Springfield, Missouri, for the second time—this time single and a believer—I wanted to find a good church to attend. In this town, there are churches on every corner and schools on every other corner, and liquor stores on every third corner. I claimed no affiliation, proudly declaring—something like Ryan—that I belonged to Christ and that I would never formally join any church. The church name that jumped out at me from the phone book was called Christ Community Church. I knew from the clue “Community” that this church would be of the “non-denominational denomination” variety with its own distinctive set of characteristics, not least of which a sort of maverick view of any authority other than the supreme authority of the scriptures. Feeling strongly compelled to attend there, I discovered some well educated and literate persons who challenged me to extend my focus into more academic directions and continue to pursue apologetics instead of the more common forms of evangelism and outreach. The pastor presented his messages verse by verse from the bible in a sort of exegetical study that leisurely threaded its way through whatever chapter we happened to be in. Bible study groups and in particular “small groups” as they are dubbed were encouraged and I met a lot of wonderful people—including the two friends who went hiking with me. The first friend I don’t know as well: he’s an architect, was raised “fundi” (his description of what he dubs his “fundamentalist” background, has never married, and is very happy being a bachelor in his fifties: he rightly claims that he is an exception in that God has given him joy in being single. His views are strongly conservative in almost every way imaginable, yet he felt a deep disillusion over several experiences that happened at the church we all attended and now has made a temporary home at Calvary Baptist, another church in which biblical exposition is the standard fair. I do not know if he believes in inerrancy, but if he doesn’t, he comes very close. He has an amazing knack, however, for being able to bicker and argue and question and yet still keep important things important and let all kinds of other things slide. He is everything I am not and yet there is a mutual respect between us and we get along wonderfully. GreatGrandpaDog is the other friend and he is one of the guys that comes over on Wednesday nights. His ex-wife recently remarried after the eight years or so they were separated. He is a computer programmer, not a Web designer like me who dabbles in scripting languages, but the real deal, designing commercial-grade software for banks. He has two sons, one seventeen and the other in his early twenties. At 43, he is ten years my senior. GreatGrandpaDog is a quiet, reflective person. He says of himself that he often feels invisible and its true: he often all but recedes into the background, going unnoticed: it’s just who he is. He has an abiding interest in science and for his own reasons became disillusioned with the church we attended; he also now attends Calvary Baptist and has really struggled to deal with his longtime faith in inerrancy after becoming overwhelmingly convinced by the evidence that the evolutionary theory is not only probable but almost certainly true. What surprised us all, hidden behind that truly unassuming frame, was his gift for both storytelling (a knack developed from fathering his sons) as well as poetry, such as the amazingly complex and deep poem “Another Army” which I’ll excerpt here only in small part: Quote: Ho, heather bell and hyacinth. The little dog Eats bread. The lion and the unicorn eat crumbs. Ho, heather bell and hyacinth. The sound of drums. Two little kittens eat their cake, and from the bog The bogy comes. O what a time to be! I know that I don’t know, And I can run, and I can hide, and I can climb Inside the magic myth of milk and nursery rhymes, And on the infant coos a meaning I bestow Most of the time. In fall the maple rainbows shine then crack and peel. In winter white my mittens stiff the snowballs frame. In spring the woodland walks are never twice the same. In summer Momma makes my very favorite meal Before the game. The crayon box is dumped out on the floor with zeal To trim my bike for speed. We must weave silk from rags. A masterpiece, this crafted scrap of paper bag – I tape it on – a coat of arms, a simple seal, A freedom flag. Another day turns night. Sweet sleep comes floating by With extra fluffy bread and jam. But something’s wrong. The twinkle stars are marching past the moon in song; They carry saws. At dawn I wake with crimson sigh To cry, “It’s gone!” A round old man with two glass eyes the book of strings Unbinds. He saves the first few pages for the zoo, Then leaves the rest on hooks, for manikins to chew. He murmurs to me, “Some day soon you’ll see these things The way I do.”(Another Army) “Another Army” weaves together both personal and literary (and not-so-literary) allusions to describe the bittersweet period of his Christian faith in which he has less certainty and more freedom than ever before. We should introduce one of my closest friends who cares little for hiking: Greg was brought up in the Methodist church and we also met him at CCC. A man in his fifties, twice divorced, the two of us grab dinner several nights a week. Staunchly democratic, his tolerance for anything republican is almost non-existent. Theologically, as an early believer he became a part of “Christ is the Answer,” a group that had high ideals but was, for all intents and purposes and by his own admission, a cult a bit like Jim Jones but not so far overboard. (When we watched a recent documentary on the Jonestown tragedy together recently, it brought back a lot of memories: strong leader with control issues, people giving up ownership and possessions, incredibly strong community spirit, tests of loyalty, constantly on the move, and so on.) Greg keeps up with NPR and is quite well read, though not particularly intellectual: he’s the fairly well-educated middle-class democrat in many ways. Greg and I have our dark sides: that’s part of why we hit it off. GreatGrandpaDog hangs out with us and Greg’s strong democratic roots and my moderate though liberal leaning tendencies have caused GreatGrandpaDog to re-evaluate a lot of things. The four of us share our singleness in common; we share the same meeting place; we share a common pursuit. Greg is the most politically liberal; I am the most theologically liberal; GreatGrandpaDog tries to make lemonade when life serves him lemons; and our hiking companion is an opinionated though remarkably tolerant conservative with what at times is an amusingly bad attitude. We’re misfits, all of us. We have almost nothing in common, really. Well, I guess three of us are into computer stuff and we all like to discuss theology. The big thing that connects us, though, is that we’re on the same road together in life. Now then, Greg has long since given up on church and CCC was sort of a last ditch attempt to find some kind of fellowship, as that is what he longs for more than anything. He has talked about going to Calvary Baptist with the others; he went with me once to Christ Episcopal and was so disoriented and traumatized by the whole ordeal he vowed never to go back. I really did feel bad for him: he wasn’t at all into the flow of the service, kept missing his cues, and was so self-conscious that by the end of the service he was visibly flustered and thought only of beating a hasty retreat. One would think that being raised Methodist might have prepared him better, but it was clear that the liturgy held zero appeal for him. He enjoys listening to me relate how much it means to me and can participate vicariously, but has no interest in any more firsthand encounters. Then there is me. I have never fit in anywhere: I’ve always been too much of this and not enough of that and always in the wrong ways. For a long time my views had been shifting. I was raised in the Armenean side of the evangelical spectrum, so things like the inerrancy of scripture never did settle well with me and of all the great sins, Calvinism was the greatest. Nevertheless, the bible was true from top to bottom, to seriously question if Jonah or Job ever lived would be tantamount to blasphemy, and “getting people saved” is the number-one priority of all born-again and blood-bought believers. Hard to say what went wrong with me. I never did warm up to Christianity and in many ways I still don’t. I would not be a Christian at all, had God not tangibly manifested himself to me, convincing me that as much as I hated the fact, Christianity was, after all, true. Still though: it’s a pretty weird religion and the way I was brought up and all the friends I know, what is most important is that you believe. I mean, not that you believe so much as that you believe exactly this (this being primarily that Jesus is the only begotten Son of God who came down from the Father and whose blood is necessary to wash away the sins of the world and if you don’t believe that then your soul is in danger of eternal damnation so you either believe that or you perish). It all seems so odd sometimes, to really envision in my mind exactly what it is that I am believing, at least as told through the mouth of the gospel authors, filtered through the Church Fathers, and helped along by the hundreds of thousands of evangelical pastors and evangelists I’ve heard since I was a tiny bundle of blubbering flesh. It isn’t that I don’t believe, it’s just, well: I’ve always been too much of this and not enough of that and always in the wrong ways. I mean, my head is wired in a certain way and that wiring just doesn’t quite match the same circuitry that it’s supposed to and that leaves me out in the cold a lot of the time. For my own reasons, the church that I felt compelled/impelled to attend upon moving to Springfield had lost its holding power for me. I had learned and absorbed many things, but it was time to move on. Truth be told, I was dying and my faith barely survived. I was not at all certain I could call myself a Christian any longer, not for the same reason Ryan offered, but because, as with my youth, I could no longer say that I believed. The Episcopal Church was a last ditch effort for me. At least I could have a bit of beauty and inspiration, even if I couldn’t find truth. What was a last ditch effort was also a Godsend and for the first time I found an understanding of Christianity that closely matched what I’d long believed. I don’t know how it is different, exactly, nor do I say it is for everybody. I just know that different groups of believers often use the same terms but they mean subtly different things by them. Outreach and ministry now mean to me what I believe they ought to mean for everyone, though I couldn’t explain myself any further than that. Here is what I know. CCC was a melting pot in which I met a lot of wonderful people. It helped me and it helped them and now we have all moved on into different directions. The seasons have changed, the landscape no longer looks the same, and yet, like the nostalgia of Bennett Spring, some of their better elements are still at play. Perhaps the reason why evangelicalism means to me what it does is because of such factors. The adolescent youth wants to move out and make it on his own; in the process, he often shuns the very things of his youth that were indispensable in shaping him. I’d like to believe I’ve grown up and no longer need to distance myself from such things. I’d like to believe it doesn’t matter. But then I regress, going through periods of time in which it seems that for all the wisdom I’d like to believe I’ve acquired and for all the education as well (two different things in many instances), I still sometimes go through a regression and the old immaturity comes back and rather than the wise, sensible, loving, patient, tolerant adult instead there is a rebellious adolescent shaking his fist because he is not free. He is like the satanist who must first believe in God and the biblical narratives in order to follow satan: what he denounces still shapes him. I guess I love the religion of my youth at arm’s length. I am the most loving and patient and tolerant person alive as long as we stay away from each other. I do not like to be reminded of it, for to be reminded of it reminds me of who and what I am, not of all of which I would like to be. I want to be sagacious and wise and never let my guard down or admit stupid, embarrassing things about myself like this entire post. At times, I feel a bit insecure and those are the times I am also most clingy and immature, slapping labels on everything that breathes wrong mainly to clarify for myself which circuit blew the fuse. Ambivalence, as an feminist I once read wrote, is a way of life and I do not understand the things I do, for the things I do not want to do I do and the things I want to do I do not. That to some degree is the lot of us all, but as the informal Q & A I read late last night from Fredrica Matthews-Green who champions Orthodoxy suggests in a few choice excerpts (though the whole thing is thought-provoking and if you prefer, I’d recommend skipping the “plot-spoilers” below and just read all of The Emerging Church and Orthodoxy—I was also say in parting that while I could never picture myself being Orthodox—and by the way, I broke my word to myself and was officially confirmed an Episcopalian—I do have a tremendous amount of respect for the Orthodox Church, first turn to them for answers and trust their views above almost all others, and secretly believe they are correct on most things: maybe I am just the adolescent shaking his fist at the disciplined parental guidance he unconsciously covets): Quote: 6.) Can you explain why a postmodern generation might be attracted to Orthodoxy in ways that their parents and grand-parents might not have been? Something generational is happening with Evangelicalism, and I suppose we don’t yet know quite what it is. There is persistent restlessness—I keep getting books from writers who are trying to define the problem and solve it, and everyone has a different theory. So I think one of the reasons postmodern folks are more open, to Orthodoxy as well as other alternatives, is that current Protestantism is less satisfactory than it used to be. Orthodoxy itself is appealing, I think, initially because it is visibly beautiful, and because it is rooted in something other than a Baby Boomer’s bright idea. As an explorer draws nearer, he finds that it is more guileless and unstudied, less “organizational”, than Roman Catholicism (Orthodox projects can be *very* disorganized, compared with Western standards. There’s a saying, “I don’t believe in organized religion, I’m Orthodox.”) Eventually he sees that the center holding it together is a way of life in Christ, a “Way” to nourish the presence of Christ inside as it grows and overflows. At that point of exploration, everything reverses — the icons, chant, prayers and so forth are no longer seen as appealing accessories, but as elements, outgrowths, of an organic life, the life of Christ’s people continuing without interruption from the earliest days. The problem is that the person, a pastor or worship leader, who gathers some of these elements and places them in their own Protestant context, discovers that they immediately begin to fade. The reasons these worship elements have power in the first place is because they are rooted in an organic, continuing life. They have authority because they are part of that larger, communal, life. But when a person chooses and removes them, like cutting roses in a garden, they begin to die. The authority is no longer the living community, but the “chooser”, the expert or worship leader who made the selection. He can’t help but interpose himself, standing between the ancient community and the attendees at the worship he designs. I hasten to say that of course not everyone is going to pack their bags and become Orthodox. Nor do Orthodox believe that you have to do that in order to be saved, not at all. I’m just recognizing an inevitability. You can’t choose some elements of Orthodoxy without being a chooser. It’s like recognizing that you can buy spices on your trip to Nepal, and try to cook the same dish when you get home, but it’s not going to be the same. We are so plagued with the life-style, thought-style of being consumers. The expert chooses and removes worship elements, and each worshipper who comes in the door browses through what he offers and does the same thing. Profound community doesn’t quite gel, not the way it does when you immerse in a continuous timeless faith. It remains a gathering of separate people who have chosen to be there, and who choose what they like and dislike. No wonder there is such loneliness. When I give speeches, I see the most audience reaction (chiefly, a kind of freezing-up and going silent) when I say the word “loneliness.” But on the other hand, overcoming that by plunging into an ancient community will necessarily mean surrendering a lot of freedom, and surrendering your right to chart your own course, accountable to no one. I don’t want to trivialize the difficulty of that choice, and again I’m not saying it’s necessary to salvation. But it has been a blessing to me. I increasingly think that no one *can* chart their own spiritual course. You will inevitably go in circles, guided solely by the things you *already* think, the myriad unseen prejudices you already hold. I have become convinced that Orthodoxy continues the consensus of the original church, so it feels like a safe place to me. …. 8.) What do you personally find the most challenging about Orthodoxy? I keep finding that I have so much further to go. Well, to step back, the most challenging thing about Orthodoxy is that it dumps you right out at the place where it’s you and Jesus and nowhere to hide. You have to deal with him. No excuses, no lies — lies come from the evil one. As I continue to use the “workout routine” of the spiritual disciplines, I continue to discover that I am still lying to myself about so many things, I am still afraid, I am still lonely, and stubbornly choosing lonely freedom over loved humility. It’s an endless struggle. I have been practicing the Jesus Prayer for 12 years, and I am still so far from “pray constantly.” It’s not a matter of feeling guilty, but more like recognizing that you are still flabby and out of shape and not ready to run the race. Orthodoxy keeps emphasizing God’s compassion—taht’s another thing I noticed early on, that it keeps stressing that God forgives us freely and welcomes us like the father of the Prodigal Son. But I keep holding back. That’s the most challenging thing. 9.) Do you feel the freedom to disagree (agreeably) with certain issues of doctrine within the Orthodox Church? How might you handle this differently now, compared with when you moved in Protestant circles? I guess as a Protestant, and a graduate of Episcopal seminary, I felt an “appropriate” (ha) pride in my own intellectual vigor. There is a vibrant tradition in Western theology, perhaps from the time of St. Thomas Aquinas, of theological debate. The problem, as one seminary prof explained to me, is that eventually all the possible new ideas have been thought of, so a person who wants to make his name has to advance a theory that is outlandish if not impossible. Anyway, as a Protestant, I not only felt free to disagree, I felt invited to disagree, and taht not disagreeing would be intellectually lazy. It’s a funny thing, hard to express. In Orthodoxy there’s a different history. It’s more collaborative. It’s as if the expectation is, we all want to grow in Christ—that’s the only goal, there’s no goal of theological exploration for its own sake. So anything anyone expresses is intended to be a contribution to that goal. At its best, when Orthodoxy is functioning well, the good stuff gets picked up and included, and the not-so-good (it’s all well-intentioned; there is no intention of “making a name for myself”) might percolate a while before being discarded. Someone told me early on that, no matter where you dip into Orthodox history, no matter what nation or century, the writings sound teh same; the writing style is the same. Strange but true. So there is this impulse to collaborate, pull together, to work on this one thing that unites us—rather than an impulse to pull away from the herd and be original and independently brilliant. …. (The Emerging Church and Orthodoxy) |
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Alpine Artist
Sergeant First Class
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: May 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 86 |
Posted Tuesday, July 17, 2007 @ 06:01 PM
It’s always nice to get to know one another better, and with your being so open with your stories, both Eric & Sara, I’ve been inspired to share some of mine. Raised Methodist, I never paid much attention in Sunday School or in the services, (my mom was the church housekeeper and my sisters, brother and I were from the “other side of the tracks” from the rest of the kids, and honestly, part of why we didn’t really fit in was because we were also troublemakers.) But somehow I still received a basic knowledge of God and His love early on. Growing up where I did, it was hard for anyone to stay out of trouble, and I got into my share, which brought a casual interest in the God of my youth back to mind. The interest grew stronger until 17, when an older cousin visited. She had been quite a hellion herself, and was now seeking God. Over marijuana, she, my younger sister and I talked of things supernatural and holy until the morning, and then ate Doritos till we burst. I thank her for her influence as the months went by, allowing me to accompany her to Orthodox, Episcopal, and Drive-In get-togethers, in what had become a quest for truth that was sincere and uncompromising. She and I lived in Montana that summer and while she worked on a Dept of Transportation crew, I stayed in her airstream trailer and soaked up Tolkien, Lewis, and Hesse. We swam in the rivers under the nearby bridge, drank wine and ate eggs benedict, and I taught myself guitar with which we entertained the neighbors. A trip to Canada, going God-knows-where and meeting God-knows-who, glorying to the jagged peaks of Waterton Park standing guard over gorgeous lakes and fields, brought to me a sense of creation that drew me to His feet as I believe nothing else could. At this time, Ron (a friend since tenth grade) and I corresponded quite a bit. When I returned we became closer, praying often together and going to various study and prayer groups. Having survived two very painful relationships, it was very hard letting go once more, but gradually my trust in him grew. A dream had already revealed to Ron some of the darkest reasons for my fears, and it gave him patience to back off and wait. I moved ahead slowly in cautious trust. As high school graduation neared, Ron & I were busy planning our wedding and family. Others begged for us to wait at least a year to see if this was really what we wanted, but we wouldn’t be deterred. (Part of Ron’s hurry was to get me out of my neighborhood.) We were married in August and our first child, Arianne, was born in May. Ryan came two Augusts later. Being 21 with a family of 4 grew us up fast, but we leaned on one another and stayed the closest of friends through constant prayer and leaning on God’s help and leading. Off and on, we’d frequented different evangelical churches, and they offered fellowship and fun. But there were times when we felt we just didn’t belong. The kids especially. In one church when the kids were 4 and 5, the kids were very “clique-y” and that signaled a need for us to look around for alternatives for them. Finding nothing at the time, home groups and chocolate cake would have to suffice -the sweetest times of our lives, in so many ways. Most of our Bible study with the kids came in bedtime stories and campfire tales in our many trips to alpine settings. So, for many years there, we didn’t really go to church. But they never lacked for spiritual instruction as Ron’s whole extended family were tightly-knit, fervent God-seekers. Both of the kids showed such hunger for the things of God, and we had many family times deep into the night, singing, praying, talking… Enter the teen years. (Am I boring you? Oh, well, might as well go on.) A fellow cross-country runner recommended a youth group at a local Assembly of God church, so we visited. The kids liked it and began getting involved. She sang on the worship team and he helped with graphics & web design, even preached a message here & there, as some were encouraged to do. They did a lot in high school together, being so close in age, including serving on a “Teen Advisors” panel that visited local schools and offered counsel and advice to kids struggling with addictions and other problems. Not long ago, they graduated, left home and started lives of their own. “Annie” now has a two year old son, Jojo and a 8-month old daughter, Elle. Ryan’s son Uriah should show his little face in about 4 weeks. Both families live nearby and we’ve remained close. I thank God for all these things, and know without a doubt that righteous living had nothing to do with the blessings we enjoy today. Prayer and grace alone brought us through many so scary things, and has seen us doing fine. We still go to this church, but much has changed. I guess that’s a good thing sometimes. When I go to describe our faith, I notice that I can scarcely do so without connecting it to how we’ve taught these two people. Probably because we didn’t really have time to develop a theology and then pass it along; it had to be done concurrently. You can ask either of them to tell you for themselves, but I like to think that they’ve (we’ve) learned: that the Bible may be imperfect in the letter of the writings (and in the way it has come to us down through history) but is perfect in the Spirit of them, and thus is truly a light unto our path and a lamp unto our feet that we can trust fully and rest in. that yes, God wants others to come to Him, but you might not be as close to Him as you think, so just seek together. that going to an altar and saying some prayer can mean everything, or nothing, based on your heart. that a one-hour quiet time each morning is to God as a one hour quiet time would be to your spouse: an insult. He’s a 24–7 God who we can enjoy 24–7. that attending church a prescribed amount of time is a yoke; let God lead. that giving a certain amount is a yoke; let God lead. that wearing a certain thing, acting a certain way, fitting a certain mold, or caring all that much is a trap; let God lead. that with organized religion, we’ve forgotten how to simply let God lead. and, lately, most of all, that rest is everything. Childlike faith really is the key to His Kingdom (Rightness, peace and joy in His Holy Spirit.) There’s so much more. But we’ll get there. Some believe we have little time. I don’t care, frankly. I’m 45. I have little time. We get one chance. I want to live this life right, and leave knowing that, at least on the curve, I found a good measure of real truth and savored the joy that came with it. Be yourself don’t hide Just believe in destiny Don’t care what people say Just follow your own way Don’t give up and miss the chance To return to innocence |
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Admin
General
Gender: Male
Location: USA Registered: Jan 2006 Status: Offline Posts: 810 |
Posted Thursday, July 19, 2007 @ 02:29 PM
I did certainly enjoy your story, and while it is not normally my way to “correct” what another says, there is one thing you wrote that bothered me when I read it and was heavy on my mind this morning. I plan on writing along these lines for this week’s newsletter—this also ties in with Sara’s comments about petitionary prayer which I will answer in a moment—but it deals with one of the things learned: namely that an hour of quiet time with God is an insult. I understand what you mean and will start from the point on which we definitely agree: God is a 24–7 God. Yet I think that to call such an act an insult misses the nature of reality on both ends: the person offering that time up to God is not intending any insult and the gracious God with whom he or she communes is not given to insult. I don’t want to make too much of things, but my thoughts have been in a whirl on this subject of prayer and perhaps I can say a few things more before I leave off. Prayer is ultimately for our own sakes, not God’s. He needs nothing from us and prayer is really a gift he gives to us. Like all gracious fathers, he rewards even the slightest efforts. Speaking in terms of ideals, it is a wonderful idea to think of speaking to God 24–7. But in practical terms, an hour a day of concentrated prayer is for many persons a real investment of time. What is more, not all time is equal. Returning to the idea of spouses, there are different degrees of the quality of time. Further, of the eighteen or so hours that we are awake, we do not commune with our spouses unceasingly. For many marriages, an hour of quiet time every morning would probably be more quality time a day than they typically experience with the busyness of our hectic schedules and whatever else. Then there are the legitimate needs for privacy and alone time, along with a host of other issues that make prioritizing time even for intimate human relationships a necessity at times. Granted, marriages in which both partners are first and foremost friends and have that to fall back on goes a long way and such marriages are truly blessed. But all marriages, even the best ones, can become strained and they involve a certain amount of cultivation and work. Setting aside time for God—quality time for God in which we both petition and listen—is a discipline that is not to be slighted nor measured in actual minutes or hours. To use your terminology, saying this much time with God is good or that much time is bad becomes “a yoke”: the deeper principle at play is that we are the children, God the perfect Father who needs nothing from us, and everything—including prayer—is a gift to us. We cannot really say that an hour of prayer time (or any other x amount of time) is an insult: it is never an insult to spend any time with God and the increase is itself exponential: one hour given to God is usually in turn given back again a hundred or thousand times over. In a perfect world, we would commune with God constantly, but even then, it would not necessarily involve constant conversation as much as simply carrying him with us in our thoughts or being near him as the two of us go about our other duties. So then, I could say more (and I hope I had not said too much); also I think I know what you really meant. But I do not think I could ever agree that any effort we make, however slight, is ever an insult, either in our intentionality or in God’s receptivity. Lovers naturally long to be in one another’s presence and delight in even the smallest tokens of affection: a perfect lover so much more. An insulted lover is not a perfect lover: in the very fact of insult, he is communicating a focus not on the beloved but on himself. A perfect lover (I speak in ideals) cares nothing for himself (and in God’s case needs nothing) and gives everything, delighting in any act, any step, any kindness, any grace. Everything of God’s is a gift: everything. |
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Alpine Artist
Sergeant First Class
Gender: Unspecified
Location: Registered: May 2007 Status: Offline Posts: 86 |
Posted Thursday, July 19, 2007 @ 04:11 PM
You’re right, Eric. In the sense that you understood me, especially. But I did leave something out, which may change things somewhat. (One of the best things about this forum is that I’ve really been challenged to clarity of expression, something that I’ve struggled with.) It’s true that any time (or anything else) that we offer God is appreciated greatly, however little or much we can offer. The thing I had a problem with, though, was in more of an attitude than an application, and I missed the mark in expressing that. The attitude being this: seeing prayer as a chore or prescription to be taken and then done with for the day. I’ve known persons who come across this way, and they could be missing out on God’s constant company and the joy that it brings. But your words convict me: 1. That may just be their way of communing with God, and it may be just as powerful to them as my own ways are to me. How do I know? 2. That even if they do miss out, God could not be insulted. How could that be? He needs nothing, and gives all no matter what. Harsh words, and I stand corrected. (On the road to dropping yokes, it’s good to not set new ones up in their places, yes? ) |
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