I’m moving!
Not the blog, but in real life!
We’re getting a proper house! No more apartment that charges more than a mortgage payment, no more hearing people stomping around above our heads at night (unless the kids get out of bed, of course) no more sharing a yard unless we want to!
Of course, this means the most articulated thoughts I can manage read mostly like “OMG BUNNIES I FORGOT TO SORT THROUGH THE KIDS CLOTHES FOR WHAT WE NEED TO YARD SALE WHERE ARE THOSE BOXES?”
So forgive the lack of blog posting. Just imagine something that basically reads, “compassion = good, judgment = bad, Christianity = conflicted, let’s work this out!” and you’ll have the basic gist of what I’d write anyway.
Wish me luck!
We’ll be all moved in the 25th, so I should be thinking sanely by the second week in May.
My Easter Message.
So… Easter always puts me in an odd mood. Note that it has taken four days for me to talk myself down out of stated mood enough to write a post about it. When I mention this fact to other Christians, I get asked questions like, “What? Don’t you want to celebrate your salvation?” Or possibly just a wide-eyed slightly terrifying victory call of, “HE IS RISEN!” To which I must bite my tongue in order to stop myself from replying, “yes. I’ve known that since before I ever gave my life to him. Getting so fanatically excited about that fact makes about as much sense to me as choosing a single day of the year to celebrate loving your spouse. Do it ALL THE TIME. They are ALWAYS there, you don’t need an EXCUSE to get excited about it. Only having one day of the year that you DO celebrate them makes it seem more like obligation and peer pressure than genuine desire.”
But I hold my tongue, at least for the remainder of the day, because it seems rude to do otherwise.
Then I talk myself down out of my fugue, and I’ve got to ask myself why I got so far up into it in the first place. Here’s the thing: Yes, He is Risen. He is Risen Indeed. But what does that really mean to us? Now, I’m going to sum up years of NT Wright’s finest work in a few short paragraphs. Please note that while NT Wright has explained to me far more about what I’ve always believed than I could have ever understood on my own, this is not solely my scholarly work or opinion. Vast tomes have been written on the subject, and you should buy them. (Link)
In the Beginning, God created the Heavens and the Earth. Creation fell away from it’s original glory. Not just Male and Female, but all creation. There came a separation, a disconnect. All things were bent from their purpose. The ground, the fields, the male and female- they were all cursed. And from that moment, the Biblical narrative tells the story of a God that will stop at nothing to see all things redeemed. Please, note here that I am not saying you and I only- I am emphatically stating that ALL things need redemption. Creation itself is calling out to its creator.
Just look at this:
We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. (Romans 8:22)
There’s a big emotional impact to saying, “Jesus suffered all of this for YOU!” One cannot discount the awe and wonder invoked when a preschool lesson ends with, “and who is the person who God did all of this for? Let’s look!” to the unveiling of a mirror, and the knowledge that we all matter intensely to God. But I think that as powerful (and true) as such dramatic statements are, they discount an aspect of our faith that is accutely necessary.
All of creation has been groaning.
On the first day, God created.
On the sixth day, Jesus died.
The seventh day there is silence…
Then comes a new day, a risen Christ, the redemption of creation.
But what does it mean?
See, this is what I want Easter to be about. Not about me, and my needs, and my salvation, and the sinner’s prayer. I want it to be about the Kingdom of God. About us being the hands and feet of the body. About our work to continue what the early church started. Spreading redemption. Not through pamphlets and the sinner’s prayer and passion plays, but through real, quantifiable actions. Through feeding the hungry, clothing the needy, holding up the heads of the oppressed, fighting injustice, spreading equality.
Salvation is NOT simply about eternity. It is about living out the new creation in our own lives. Being “born again”, being changed beings. And if we do not see the fruits of that change in our lives we judge ourselves lacking. Judge the vine by what it produces. If I am redeemed, I will leave the fingerprints of God’s work in my life on every single thing I do. My art will breathe life. My work will breathe life. My writing will breathe life. If this is not the case for all of us, there are serious questions to ask.
And, in my mind, what better time to ask them than on Easter?
Celebrate your salvation every single day. And when the time comes to build a monument to it, to be reminded of it, what better thing to do than to issue a call to return to our higher purpose? To be the creation that God intended us to be?
Breathe life.
One way to make Easter more entertaining:
When your pastor says “He is Risen!”, instead of replying “He is Risen Indeed!”, you can say, “He is Undead Forevermore!”
I have a lot to say about Easter and consumerism and my general dissatisfaction with religion in general. But I’ll let that go for the day, and instead just tell you all to enjoy your friends and family.
Please do.
Total Control.
To get to where I go I need to start somewhere else, so bear with me.
Now. I believe that people have a great deal more control over their lives than they are willing to exercise. Take, as an example, a person who is working in a job where they are forced to carry a far greater load than they can handle over a long period of time. So daily they come home exhausted, with the realization that if this carries on indefinitely they will burn out. They feel trapped, helpless. But are they really trapped? Are they really helpless? They have the option to go to their boss and explain that the workload is unreasonable and that if the situation remains the same they will eventually burn out and have to leave the job. Might this result in them being suddenly fired? Well, sure, but there’s the possibility of a good outcome. Their boss may believe that they are fully capable of handling the workload or it wouldn’t all be getting managed. Their boss may concede. And what if they ARE fired? Is it so much worse to be fired now, while still feeling some modicum of control, than to burn out a year later and have to find a new job while feeling lost, dejected, and incapable?
So control yourself.
But I also have an issue with the idea that we can control EVERYTHING. I have heard people be commanded to control their temptations. Control their sexuality. Control their family. Control everything. As if the moment we become Christians we are not only imbued with the power to achieve that which God has birthed in us, but that we have become little gods ourselves.
This is unfair.
I am married to a man I love entirely. And I want to be with no other man. But that does not mean that the second I married, I ceased any and all attractions to any persons other than my husband. Do I control my response to these attractions? Yes. Absolutely. But I have been attracted, and I have had to exercise control.
Being a Christian doesn’t mean that we are now freed from temptation. The power given to us is power to resist temptation, not to cease it. So how is it reasonable to tell a gay person to just… become straight? I have always struggled with fits of despair and dark depression. Every period of sudden change in my life has also been marked with bloody nightmares, crying jags, and feelings of intense insufficiency. Does the power of God help me to soldier through? Make me capable of pulling myself out? Give me the strength to resist the temptation to be utterly ruled by em0tion? Absolutely. But here’s the thing: I wouldn’t be feeling God’s power in my life if I wasn’t facing temptation.
Think about it.
The most important question isn’t “is being gay a sin?”
Please, dear fellow Christians, stop telling me that homosexual acts are a sin. Please. And when I balk at your reprimand, do NOT tell me I obviously haven’t read the Bible. What you really (very much so) shouldn’t do is tell me that to be a Good Christian means “following the Bible”. I really am never sure what you mean by that. I read my Bible, I find revelation in it, I can demonstrate that who I am and how I behave has changed accordingly. But do I strictly follow every rule and regulation (especially the internally conflicting ones?)? Well…
Is the Bible our best source for truth about Christ? Absolutely. Did Christ strictly follow the religious code of HIS time? Absolutely not. What I have learned by reading that good book is that questions of sin and salvation run far, far, far, far, FAR deeper than following lists of rules. It’s a balance of faith and works that even the most eloquent of passages cannot clearly explain. You could go your entire life trying to understand, trying to achieve, trying to explain… but you’d never get all the way there.
If there were a simple equation, don’t you think Jesus would have told it to us?
But what did he say? Love the LORD your God with all your heart, soul, and mind… And love your neighbor as yourself.
All the Law and the prophets hinge on it.
Hm.
So here’s the point: The most important question will never be what is sin (or what isn’t). The most important question will always be if we are trying. Are we trying to hear God’s voice? Trying to better ourselves? Trying to leave behind what we can demonstrate is a wrong being? Sure, someone may be gay, but if they’ve heard God telling them to be less cruel and more patient and give more and help in their community and they are doing all of those things, doesn’t that mean something? Demonstrate their true heart? Or is the ONLY important measure of our commitment to God found in our sexuality? Because if that’s the case, I know a lot of straight Christians that haven’t got a chance.
So please, let’s have this conversation. I want to.
Just stop insisting that the most important thing is that homosexual acts are sin.
Can a “Good” Christian embrace gay people?
So recently a post of mine made it to StumbleUpon, which is always an interesting experience. One of the reviews of said post both assumed I’m a man (which I always find gunny) and said that a REAL Christian wouldn’t show tolerance to gay people because a REAL Christian believes in the Bible.
I have several problems with that statement. The first is that suddenly Christian seems to be redefined as Person Who Believes As I Do For The Right Reasons. I think it’s wholly possible for someone to be a Christian and not share my doctrine. For example, I don’t think my harshest critics aren’t Christian. In fact, I believe that I am in no place to cast judgment on their faith. A greater issue, though, is the fact that I feel as if the critics weren’t able to get past their fervent opposition to the idea of homosexuality long enough to fully digest my post.
Why do I say that?
Because I never said being gay was awesome. I tried to outline the reasons most Christians use to affirm their rejection of gay people whole cloth, and then to point out that those excuses end up being counterproductive, and if they were applied to ALL sins, the pews would be empty. How is that saying, “really, being gay is a-okay.” I never even questioned the belief that homosexual behavior was condemned in the Bible. (Although I did poke at the common interpretation of Romans One, which could raise some serious hackles.)
I feel as if my posts aren’t truly being read.
So, I will once again try to explain my beliefs. But, instead of using homosexuality as an example, I’ll use something a bit less controversial. (And all apologies to any gay readers that may find this an unfair comparison: I know, it really is.)
Imagine a drunk comes to your church.
What do you do?
You may well be afraid that he will tempt other members to drunkeness. You may worry that your children may think his drinking is “cool.” You may have many valid worries about what sort of an example he is setting, or if Satan sent him to your church to be disruptive.
But what does God call you to do? Does he call you to send the guy back out into the streets, only to come back when he no longer drinks? Isn’t that tantamount to cursing him to a life of sin? Isn’t the power that he needs to overcome found in God, and thus necessarily needing to be demonstrated through YOU?
Obviously if the man is throwing chairs and puking in the aisles, you don’t want that on Sunday mornings- but if he isn’t openly and belligerently disruptive, isn’t the best move to walk beside him in grace and compassion and pray that God (not you) brings him to a revelation of his weakness?
Or imagine a less obvious sin. Imagine a husband comes to your church, and over the course of a few months it becomes obvious that he speaks to his wife in a snide and combative way, and it is emotionally abusive to her? Do you then cast him out and tell him to only come back when he’s ready to overcome his pride and cruelty?
Obviously there comes a time, in any situation where sin is “obvious”, where you tell the sinner that they need to make a commitment to change. My issue is that I feel that most churches handle this issue badly now- and not just with homosexuality- with ALL sin. We feel that WE must cast conviction, that WE must pass judgment, that WE know man’s heart. And guess what? We don’t.
We need to learn to trust God to do His own job. If someone is seeking God, and God is seeking them, God will speak to their heart and call them to change.
And for the time being, let’s trust each other. Show each other love and compassion, understanding and true friendship. Let’s not allow our house to become divided.
See your circumstances as malleable
Oh, it’s April Fool’s day. I’m supposed to do something shocking and humorous. Uh… I’m totally writing this post in my underwear. No, really, I am!
Back to our regularly scheduled programming. So far, in my “path to overcoming” we’ve covered believing in our own sufficiency, being willing to be vulnerable, recognizing God’s timing, and that I often have conversations in my head. Oh, wait, that last one was just a bonus. Today we’re going to talk about seeing our circumstances as malleable.
I remember one conversation with a friend who was threatening suicide. She kept saying, “I just can’t live like this anymore, I can’t, I can’t.” And I kept reminding her that being dead wasn’t the only way out. “But what else can change?” she responded.
The answer? Nearly everything. Some things never seem to change. You may look at your family dynamic and think that everyone is still the same as they were twenty years ago- and that may be true. But just because some things stay the same doesn’t mean that everything always MUST.
Allow me to try to explain this a different way. Look at nature. The snowmelt runs down the mountain because it must, it’s a natural directive, there is no other way. But plumbing shows that we can sometimes tweak things to our advantage, we don’t change natural law but we change natural circumstances. Water flows up in our pipes because we’ve found another way, to take that momentum of the snow melt and force it to our advantage.
Whatever your situation is: you have the power to change it. If you can’t pay your bills, you can either find a way to make more money or find a way to live off less. If you are frustrated in your relationships with your family, you can find a way to change your own patterns or a way to break them out of theirs. If work is exhausting you and making you feel trapped: simply DO NOT ACCEPT THIS AS THE WAY THINGS HAVE TO BE.
The second you accept the fact that your situation does not have to be permanent is the second you can start plotting change.
The first step to victory is accepting it as possible.
