a momentary reprieve

OK, fine, the Hadron collider over in France didn't pop out a black hole and we didn't get eaten by our own stupidity (yet). That doesn't mean we're not stupid: EIGHT BILLION DOLLARS dished out by the international community to dig a fifteen mile, magnet-lined tunnel so we can smash some particles together and see what happens.

They said they'll be able to get these particles going almost the speed of light and that when they smack into eachother they'll end up producing the heat of a thousand suns in an (enclosed) area smaller than a dust mote. Some (possibly saner?) scientists have been trying for a while to get the whole deal shut down, filing lawsuits and so on, without success.

I read an interview of some dude on CNN online who was saying that it was perfectly safe, detractors were idiots, and cutting edge science has always been subjected to unrealistic doomsayers. He gave the example of the atomic bomb, which during development had to be held up a bit by some morons who wanted to make sure it wouldn't set the atmosphere on fire. Um. Yeah. The atomic bomb, Mr. Scientist Man, is an absolutely prime example of a situation where the scientific community was just waaay too cautious. Well put.

He also argued that the last great advance in particle physics produced electricity, which has done such wonders for the overall happiness of huwomanity, and who knows what wonderful new scientific doodad could pop out of this thing? Which I concede, of course, being a love slave of electricity, but I just have to wonder about the whole EIGHT BILLION DOLLARS thing. I know that there are a lot worse ways to spend money (like killing people for not believing the way we do), but c'mon people... EIGHT BILLION DOLLARS!?!

I happen to side with the faith perspective of the scientists on this one, who think we're not gonna all get roasted or smooshed to the size of a ball bearing, but for different reasons. They worship SCIENCE and believe that it can't go wrong. They sacrifice human decency and human well being to the god of Scientific Progress and are baffled at the consequences.

I, on the same hand, think that they won't destroy us all because I just don't believe it's meant to play out that way. This, too, is a somewhat unsubstantiated faith position. I like it, though, so I'll stick to it.

Nonetheless, I still think that if you're into French wine, you ought to consider stocking up.

teaching moderation

Fact! Says Mr. Shrewt, professor emeritus of "The Office", and so I say to you, Fact! I am now a teacher. I teach (or will, shortly - that is to say, soon). This puts me in a bit of an interesting position, in that I will undoubtedly be giving my students this address, for to look upon (hey, kidderinos).

Not that that is a problem... necessarily... but you all have undoubtedly noticed that from time to time I have been a wee bit immoderate in my views in the past. As Popeye would say, "I yam what I yam", so I retract not the smallest jot nor the weensiest tittle. Nonetheless, I am now in the position of writing not just for friends, my mom, and random strangers who are probably too apathetic and noncommittal to hunt me down and kill me - I now potentially write for the children of the parents who sign off (indirectly) on my paycheck.

Does this mean I'll change my mind? No, no, a thousand times, NO!! My topic... well, perhaps. But I doubt it. I am mostly just writing this so that if you, the faithful few, should notice a certain amount of flim-flammery, you can be the first to pounce upon my pansy-petaca self with extreme prejudice.

Carry on.

for babaw

A few long days ago I stayed up alone with my grandmother as she lay dying in the hospital. She wasn't up for talking, so I spent a lot of time writing. Here is a poem that resulted, which I shared yesterday at her memorial service.








for babaw

My grandmother loved my son,
and I want to show my love for her in some grand act,
like re-naming him Phyllis, or making him recite her life each year
on the anniversary of her death.

But life marches on, forgetting death –
remembering instead to live.

My grandmother loved my mother’s dad
and though I was only eight
I know that when he died that sorrow tried to swallow her alive.

But she chose instead to live, forgetting death –
remembering instead to love.

My grandmother loved me and loving, set me free to live.
She didn’t badger or complain – she marched on
daring me to remain,
loving just the same.

So I want to show my love for her in some grand act,
like a statue or a painting or a poem that will make strangers cry.
I want, perhaps, to die.

But more than that, I want to live –
forgetting death and walking… no… marching on into life.
I want to breathe deep the breath of God –
forget the fraud I have become and Live, like her, and love.

My grandmother loved you, too: her lover and her joy, her mother and her child,
her friend.
You, too, want to honor her in some grand act of sorrow –
to wail, for the world’s wrong

And do not get me wrong – it is.
For death’s a thief and we are robbed,
and God is not in the clichéd assurances of well-meaning aggressors who think to violate and validate this robbery with lies.

Instead, God is in the silence and the tears.
God is in forgetting death, mourning on, loving forward.

on fracturing ice

Webmaster Jon told me not to post here, on account of we're supposed to be finding a new hosterplacethingy - but I just got to let it out.

I have two (that's TWO) hearty endorsements for you.

First is that you go to reliefjournal.com and look at the artwork on the past two covers (it's mine) and then that you order a copy from them or Amazon.com. First, because it's my artwork. Second, because it is good, literary-type writing. Third, because I say so. And fourth, because it makes Anya and the Moerman boys (who are featured in these paintings) feel good about themselves.

The second endorsement is that you go to joshgarrels.com and click at the top where it says "listen" and then listen to the songs from his new album "jacaranda". Josh is cool and nifty and married to Michelle (formerly Ramsdale) of Peru fame. His music is also quite spabtabulous, and will really get your flupper gronking. Do it.

That's all.
Love. Peas. Carrots.

going granola

My five-month-old son Mateo is still refusing to speak coherently, but when he does at last open his mouth to do something other than blabber about the state of his bajee-boo, I’m pretty sure I’ll be facing a lot of tough questions – to which I will undoubtedly give fairly flippant, “imaginative” answers. ”Why is the sky blue, daddy?” he’ll ask. “ Well, son,” I’ll reply, “ it’s because the photovoltaic cells in your eyeball are receiving the one wavelength of color that hasn’t been absorbed by the billions of semi-translucent fairies that fly around over our heads, composing the atmosphere and protecting us from frying like eggs in the sun – so start clapping.” For some reason, that’s always been how I’ve dealt with children. It is not that I am not a fan of the truth; it’s just that I am more a fan of stories. Besides, children will have more than enough time in their lives to bang their heads against stone-hard facts, and Mateo is at some point going to have to get used to questions without “straight” answers.

When it comes right down to it, I personally have spent more quality time in the last few years asking questions than I have goose-stepping around with answers – life’s just too mind-boggling for little old me to have figured it out. I have, however, picked up four principles that I figure are pretty freaking essential to asking questions wisely.

The first is Love. I reckon every answer to every question has to be weighed against another question: “Is this lovely?” If even asking a question makes me likely to love somebody (even myself) less, I probably ought to just sit on it.

The second is Awe. Not as in, “awwwe, shucks”, but as in “Holy Rusted Metal, Batman! This Universe is Awwweesoome!” If I am not remembering this, then it is going to be pretty easy to forget my place and waste my time trying to fit elephantine ideas into manageable teacups. Elephants don’t fit in teacups.

The third is hope. I do not want to lose hope. I am not willing to ask questions that kill real hope... Fake hope – now that is another story. I will gladly crush someone’s dream if that dream is to stand at an angle on the deck of the Titanic, banging a drum and proclaiming “this ship ain’t sinking… they told us at the dock it was unsinkable!”

The fourth is gratitude. It just seems to me that all this Amazing-Loving-Hopefulness has got to come from somewhere, and I’m glad about it and all full up with a need to say, “Thanks”.

With these principles in mind, I recently talked my way across America. I visited old friends and met new ones, asking them questions and hearing bits of their thoughts as they’ve skated around wondering about the thickness of their mental/philosophical ice. In Wenatchee, Washington, I bit my lip and attended a “worship night” for a college-and-career aged group at a friend’s house. I chafe against what I believe to be the falsely dichotomizing effect of identifying the act of singing “Jesus songs” alone as being worship, but sometimes (always?) it’s more important to be with friends than to be right.

When the singing was over, a girl started sharing how she wondered why she couldn’t be spiritually high all the time. I asked her what she thought that would look like, and wondered aloud if maybe it would be neither possible nor pleasant to be “up” all the time. Then I asked the group this question: “what do you think you have to do to have a good relationship with God?” If you are at all familiar with the contemporary protestant North American protestant evangelical Christian culture, you will know the sort of answers I got: spend more time reading the Bible, praying, meditating, et cetera. One guy who wasn’t so quick with the “Jesus Talk” asked what I was getting at.

“I don’t know”, I replied, “it just seems to me that you don’t have to do anything. That the whole point of Christ, as told in the Bible, is that everything has been done and you can breathe a deep sigh of relief and enjoy the life you have been given. This, to me, is a main difference between the story of Christ and the message of other religions.”

My point was not to argue that an encounter with Truth won’t change a person – I think it will. I was just saying that I think the real point of Christianity is unmerited Grace, and that you can stop worrying that you aren’t spiritually high enough – that while you are unlikely in this life to ever be perfect, your relationship with God already is. When you spend your life chasing a spiritual high you’re running after the wind – life is good enough without an unending spiritual orgasm (which isn’t even possible)! Life is just good, period. Be grateful. Enjoy!

I didn’t really have a chance to get into that, because one guy decided to tear a strip out of me. He wanted to nail me down and get me to admit I didn’t really mean that I thought you didn’t have to do anything to have a good relationship with God. Then he disagreed with my definition of the word “relationship”. Then he informed me that as one of the older leaders in the group, he was just trying to protect the younger members from heretical ideas because he "loved" them. I tried to talk to a place of shared understanding, but it just didn’t seem to work – everything I said got him more riled up. Before I could even get a word out of my mouth he was shaking his head in disbelief.

After our “discussion” was cut short for time and we’d made a mad rush for the snacks, I went over to talk to him more one-on-one, because I didn’t want to leave the air quivering with rage. As we talked he was literally shaking from head to toe, but gradually he calmed down and was able to see my point a bit more. I, too, got the impression that, (intellectually at least) he was not really coming at it from too much of a different place than I.

Emotionally, though, he was chomping at the bit. I found out later that he quit the group a few days later. Our “discussion” was not the only reason, but it was certainly the drop that overflowed the glass. In an email he subsequently wrote to the leaders of the group, he got a bit more vitriolic than he had in our cozy one-on-one.

The following is most of the bulk of what he wrote to my friends as a way of backing out of being a part of their group. I’ve edited it a little bit (as indicated by the ellipses) for length as well as to remove some of the more personal and occasionally "biting" comments.


The Letter

“[referring to]…the recent meeting where Josh and his wife strongly expressed their view that we ‘don't need to do anything to follow Jesus or be a Christian’,

[not really what I said, but a telling interpretation, nonetheless]

and that God loving us alone constitutes a ‘relationship with Him’, regardless of whether we are loving Him back, even if we are ‘spitting in His face’, and the fact that you both agreed with him and were strongly opposed to the Biblical view I was expressing, that relationship is a two-way concept (John Ch. 15, the book of James and most of the Bible), made it very clear just how different our views are. Since two-way relationship with God is the very core of Christianity and without it there is no life or salvation, I see this as an issue that cannot be compromised on…
Though I don't claim to know everything about the Bible (no one can!), I have studied it for around twenty years. So --though I am only human-- when I disagree with something, there is usually a good reason, and I do so as a last resort and only after listening carefully

[oh, is that what happened?]…

In the case of Josh's comments, he was speaking as one who is a teacher of the group and instructing people in doctrine. I listened to him very carefully and waited several minutes to make sure I was hearing him right. I also asked him to clarify, and he and his wife were adamant in their views. He seems like a nice guy, but what he was saying was WAY out of line with the Bible! It would have been good if you both could have… supported me in gently correcting him. As leaders, it is our responsibility to keep a handle on things if someone starts teaching heresy. In any type of spiritual leadership position we are ‘shepherds’. We watch over the flock. I'm not talking about being legalistic or ultra-strict, but simply making sure that someone doesn't go teaching our group things that will lead them away from God.
The ‘do whatever you want, because God still loves you’ heresy is one of the main reasons that the Western Church today is so ineffective and powerless.

[Really? Couldn’t it be, rather, because the Western Church is largely comprised of culturally-absorbed consumer-conformists who are ignoring Christ’s call to care for the widows and orphans (read: marginalized, poor and oppressed) in favor of lives of selfish indulgence and smug Phariseeism?]

Thousands are going to hell right at this moment because they believe that they can ‘spit in God's face and still be in relationship with Him’.

[Does he never spit in God’s face? Or maybe he’s saying that he’s not in relationship with God. I’m not sure.]

To tolerate evil in order to bring about more grace from God is a heresy that Paul addresses in Romans 3:7-9… Just to clarify, when we talk about ‘spitting in God's face’ we aren't talking about someone who wants to serve God but is still struggling with sin, we are talking about someone who has no intention of actually following Jesus and thinks they have a ‘get out of hell free card’ to wave in God's face when they die.

[How does he propose to tell the difference? Does anyone even know him or herself that well? How will I know if I’m just fooling myself? How much of my Will has to be on board to qualify as wanting to serve God?]

I have lots of grace for people who struggle, we ALL struggle! No one follows Jesus perfectly, but that doesn't mean we should give up trying--He has provided the strength.

[I don’t get it – is he saying he doesn’t have lots of grace for people who aren’t bothering to struggle? How much does he think we have to struggle to merit his beneficent grace? And who the hejeebee is he to decide who gets grace?]

We should not follow because we are trying to satisfy a religious requirement or are afraid of being ‘smited’ by God, but because we love Him and want to be like our ‘Daddy’. God is always infinately close to us, but we need to be close to Him too (James 4:7-9, Acts 17:26-28)...

God bless you, J***

‘Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.’ James 4:7-10”

---

Now, I could be reading too much into it, but that last quote seemed a bit pointed. I’m the devil (or in league with him, apparently), and a sinner who needs to purify his heart and grieve, morn and wail before God for my obvious wickedness. There, at least, I can agree with the guy. I am in fact the most grievous of sinners that I know – but how did he manage to extrapolate all that from my assertion that you don’t have to do anything to have God love you? And how could I have missed the fact that I was in the presence of such a divinely insightful man, who could see into my heart and identify things that, to my knowledge, were known only to God?

What I really could not understand, though, was why oh why he was so upset by it? It was just a question, right? I know I pointed at an answer, but it is not like I was saying that my answer was the entire story and that the group should don robes, grow beards (as able) and drink Kool-Aid with me. I was just trying to get a discussion going and to ask if perhaps some things they may have been taught were maybe missing the mark a bit. Why was one little question so deeply, personally unsettling? Why was the answer I was pointing at so earth-shattering that the guy developed the shakes?

If you know the story of Socrates, you might have a good idea. Socrates was an early Greek philosopher who made points by asking questions and getting people to think their way to some unsettling conclusions. He was really, really good at it – better than me, if you can believe that. While Plato’s description of Socrates’ teachings paints him as a pretty wise, gentle guy, he managed to get people so riled up that they ended up killing him. Why? Well, the official charge was that he was corrupting the youth and encouraging the worship of new gods. The truth, though, was that he made them realize that they did not know as much as they were letting on they did. The whole basis of their authority over other people was being called into question. The power structure they had so meticulously constructed was crumbling to dust. Who cared if he was right… they were about to lose their jobs! So they killed him.

Fortunately, Americans don’t take their philosophy quite so seriously (or do they? hello, war for oil!) or I could have been in some real trouble. I am starting to realize the real danger inherent in some lines of questioning. The question I have to ask is: what if I’m running along pell-mell off a cliff and like some cartoon character I start to ask where the ground went? I could fall! But is life like a cartoon? If I don’t ever look down, will I be able to run all the way to the other side of the canyon? I honestly do not know. I do know that I personally really, really, really like having dirt under my feet.

Nonetheless, I was once a child like Mateo, getting ready to question everything. The only difference between me and some people is that I never really got to a point where I said, “All right. That’s enough. I know enough, and I’m ready to stop asking”. Two nights ago, for instance, I tossed around in bed a while and then got up, grabbed a pencil and some loose-leaf, lined paper and started writing down the following list of questions. Were they worth the lost hour and a half of sleep? It sure felt better to get them written down (at least then I could sleep) but did I transgress my principles of Love, Awe, Hope and Gratitude?

You know what, I’m not really sure. I am not sure I should even go ahead and ask you to ask them with me. But, Shucks… caution is for wimps and commies – let’s go for it! Do me a favor, however – promise me you’ll take each question on its own merit. I know my biases are going to inevitably shine through, but please give each question the benefit of the doubt and pretend that when I was asking them I really, truly was not sure what the answer might be (and probably still amn’t). Ready? Here goes…


I. What’s in a question?

A. Are there any questions that should never be asked?
B. If you don’t ask questions, is it inevitable that you will receive answers anyways?
C. If you are always receiving answers to questions you did not ask, will those answers inevitably be brainwashing propaganda?
D. If you feel you know the correct answer to a question (like, say, how to tie a square knot or the right way to get starving people to start eating healthier) is it all right to propagandize someone into doing it your way?
E. Is it possible to know if you really know the right answers to questions?
F. Is brainwashing propaganda an intrinsic part of fundamentalist religious action?
G. If it is, does that necessarily make it wrong?


II. Is questioning everything worth the brain cells?

A. Is questioning some things worthwhile, and how do I know what is worth questioning and what isn’t?
B. If I can’t know what’s worth questioning, should I stop?
C. Is pure “not-knowing” possible, or is some amount of rational and fundamentalist thought inevitable?
D. Is the pluralist’s claim to know the truth about there not being any Truth self-defeating and, let’s face it, silly?
E. What can be Known?
F. What should a person attempt to Know?
G. Does it matter what I know, or just how I act?
H. Can a person act appropriately without (at least at some level) believing that they know something?
I. At what point should a person bother to assert to other people that he or she knows something?
J. How loudly should a person assert it?
K. Is armchair philosophy positive? Useless? Harmful?


III. Does what I believe about God matter?

A. If God is real, but I can never know this with absolute rational certainty (which is probably the starting point of faith and possibly an intellectual necessity), does it matter what I will rationally accede to?
B. Does it matter if I “know” or just how I act?
C. If I admit intellectually the existence of a God of Love, but don’t actively love others, does the intellectual admission matter?
D. Can I believe in God without loving?
E. Can I love without belief in God?
F. Will I want to?


IV. What about the rapists and the gluttons?

A. Does evil exist, or is it just a non-entity, an emptiness in the fabric of Reality that occurs when, through acts of human volition, less than the absolute Good is chosen?
B. Is the absolute Good ever chosen?
C. Is there good and evil in absolutely everything I experience?
D. If a pure and holy God is unapproachable except by Grace (whereby God ignores our evil) and evil (or not-good) is a necessary aspect of the Best Possible Reality (for now) then what happens if in the end (as the Bible asserts) evil is eliminated?
E. Does the Bible say that in the end evil will be eliminated (or just sickness and sorrow)?
F. If evil is necessary now, how can it be that it won’t always be necessary?
G. If evil is not necessary now and God is all-powerful and all-good, then why does evil exist?
H. Am I meant to solve the problem of evil? If I am, then why are people still writing books about it?


V. Why are thinking people turning away in droves from fundamentalist patterns in North America (or why does it seem like they are)?

A. Is it because fundamentalism is completely bogus, and they’re realizing that?
B. Is it because people always turn away from what people before them believed?
C. Is it because evil forces are at work, and the devil is winning?
D. Is it because the globalization or interconnectivity of everything precludes the isolationist conditions necessary for fundamentalism – that is, that regular contact with people who disagree with our worldview humanizes “the other”, making them us?
E. Is it because a steady diet of pluralism in mainstream entertainment is having its inevitable effect on religious thought?
F. Is it the morally neutral result of an inevitable intellectual progression from the conclusions of enlightenment rationalist thinkers?
G. Is it that there is a dialectical progression of human understanding, as the humanists would say? Are we getting smarter?
H. Or rather, is it merely a reversal of some insipid, insidious strains of world-biased idiocy that have infected the church?
I. Is this departure not really happening at all, but we’re being tricked by Ted Turner (who is really just trying to gloss over his guilt over a pornography addiction) into thinking it is?


VI. If the Bible was written two thousand years ago in an archaic language by Jews for people in a culture and time extremely different than this one, how come my pastor talks like he knows exactly what it means all the time?

A. If Jesus didn’t come to abolish the law or the prophets and the law and prophets mean “just what they say they mean”, then am I allowed to own a Canadian, as sanctioned by Leviticus 25:44?
B. If they are only to be read literally some of the time, who will tell me when to read them that way? What about Paul’s letters in the “New Testament”, to which Jesus was not referring?
C. What if Paul was a good guy and a great preacher/speaker/spreader of Truth, but that he was also wrong about some stuff (like women needing to cover their heads in church)?
D. If we in our infinite wisdom can discriminate between what Paul wrote that does and doesn’t apply to us (or what in the Torah we can ignore as “merely cultural”), should these writings be included in a canon that purportedly emanates directly from the mouth of God?
E. If, on the other hand, being both True and applicable at all times and for all people is not a prerequisite for inclusion in the canon – if the point of the canon is rather to tell an overarching, very human story – then what (if any) of the canonical writings can I take as True in a modern, rationalist sense (as in: it is what it is, it means what it says, shut up and eat your crackers and drink your grape juice)?
F. Do we read our own post-Enlightenment quasi-rationalist thinking back into the Bible?
G. If we must read the Bible in a rigid, unquestioning manner, would it be wiser to condense the canon to the direct and seemingly literal statements of God in, for example, the Ten Commandments and Christ’s words at the sermon on the mount?
H. Is that a treasonous statement? Does the canon have to be what some dead dudes in England or wherever said it should be?
I. If one church says the Bible says something is wrong and another church in the same denomination says it is right, why should I believe either of them?
J. What if the reason churches tend to judge and claim they have a monopoly on the Truth is that they don’t have faith in God to be all-sufficiently True?
K. If churches are places for being right all the time, instead of places for having faith, why should someone trying to be a person of faith go to church?
L. What if Churches, as inevitably-dogma-creating institutions, always end up focusing on the wrong things?
M. For instance, what if having homosexual tenancies is no more unhealthy/wrong/corrupt than treating people of the opposite gender as objects to be used for the stimulation of our genitals?
N. What if judging and being unkind to homosexually-inclined people is far worse than being homosexually inclined?
O. Is Christian culture out of touch with contemporary culture, or too in touch to know the difference?
P. Is a Christian culture and language divorced from the culture around it going to be very effective at saying anything Truthful to anyone but those already enveloped and submerged in it?
Q. If that culture and language are only something Christians experience in Christian gatherings a few times a week, is it likely that it will mean anything even to them?


VII. What about Hellfire and Damnation?

A. Is the Hell that I have been taught about in Sunday school really the Hell described in the Bible?
B. If it isn’t, why would people misrepresent the Truth?
C. Are they trying to use fear to motivate good behavior?
D. Is it because they don’t know it – are not good enough scholars of the original text?
E. Is it because this failed understanding is the inevitable result of any attempt to explain in purely rational terms what is in essence a mystery and an inextricable part of a greater narrative?
F. Are they not misrepresenting Hell at all, and even asking these questions has me teeter-tottering on the brink of the Abyss.


VIII. Is Christianity just a really complicated “get out of jail free” card?

A. If I have to do or believe things to be saved from Hellfire and Damnation, what if I am unable to do/believe them because I am ignorant of them or mentally incapable of understanding them?
B. Would a good God who created and/or allowed these conditions (my ignorance or low intelligence) hold me culpable for them?
C. If the Bible says that nature proclaims the Truth so clearly that people have no excuse for rejecting it, does it follow that people can be saved in a Christian sense without ever hearing the explicit Christian message (like, say, the thousands of people who live and die even today without ever hearing)?
D. If they can be saved, does it follow that someone who has in fact heard an explicit Christian message, but one so distorted by a corrupt church person as to be incomprehensible as the Truth (like, say, a muslim-born person who only hears, “Praise Jesus or Die, you Flea-Bitten Camel-Jockey!”), could reject that lie but still somehow accept the Truth and be saved?
E. If they can't be saved without it, whose version of how it all works is the one that has to be believed in for salvation to happen? History records around 34,000 different Christian denominations and sects (and counting) – am I to believe that only one of them (the one your church is a part of) got it right?
F. Can someone say different words, but mean the same thing?
G. Can someone say the same words, but mean something entirely different?
H. What does it mean to love God?
I. Is it a feeling?
J. Does God still love me if I don’t believe in God?
K. What if I do believe in God, but I don’t love God?
L. What if I do love God, but for whatever reason can’t seem to believe in the form of Christianity taught in the area in which I live?
M. If God still loves me if I don’t believe in or love God, why would God ordain that I be thereby tortured forever for it?
N. I know that punishment is sometimes the most loving thing you can do for someone when you want to teach them a lesson, but what lesson do you learn from an ETERNITY of punishment?
O. Is the lesson just for the other people, the ones who said the right things and managed to get away with it?
P. If punishment is necessary for God to maintain God’s Purity and Justice, then where does Grace fit in? Just every once in a while? When God feels like it? How is that Just? How do grace and justice co-exist?
Q. If intellectual accession to a few theological points is the prerequisite to the reception of Grace, is it still Grace?
R. If the first part of that question is true, how many points must be acceded for it to “stick”?
S. At what point are the intellectual accessions I am willing to make not enough?
T. Do I just need to believe the whole kit-and-kaboodle; and if that is the case, from whom do I get my kit-and-kaboodle?
U. Who decides what it takes for Grace to “stick”? God? Pastors of Dutch Reformed Churches? Seminarians with long beards?
V. If it is God, how will I know the difference between Truths I receive from God, and truths I or other people are inventing for whatever reason (like, say, a desire to control the truth, or a desire to have a convenient or comfortable lie be True)?


IX. Is Jesus a noun (person, place, thing or sometimes idea)?

A. If Jesus always existed (John 1:1 & so on), did “salvation” pop into existence at the cross?
B. If it did, does that mean the application of Grace before the cross was arbitrary and we should shut up about it and stop questioning the Deity; or does it mean that there was no salvation before Christ, and we should be glad we were lucky enough to be born now in Protestant North America when/where at least God might decide to save us?
C. If that is the case, can we really call God good and loving (in the sense we normally mean) without performing some serious mental gymnastics?
D. If it isn’t the case and salvation was universally available before the cross, is our current (modern/protestant/North American/) understanding of salvation really grounded in Truth?
E. If our current understanding of salvation isn’t based on the Truth, what is it based on and what does that mean for how we share our understanding of salvation with others?
F. What if the substitutionary atonement of Christ is not a precise “blood-for-redemption” formula, but rather more “just” a Love Story?
G. What if the whole “God is Three” thing that “Christians” have been killing “Muslims” over (and vice-versa) for millennia is really not intended to be rationally broken down – what if it’s supposed to be experienced as a mystery and left at that?
H. What did Jesus say people had to do to be “saved”?
I. What if trusting in Jesus is not about following four steps in a pamphlet, but rather is about putting your faith in who Jesus is and what that says about the character of God?
J. If God loves absolutely everyone and is not willing that even one should perish and yet some people go to hell, does that mean God’s will can be thwarted?
K. If God’s will can be thwarted does it mean that God is not omnipotent, or just that God’s will includes the possibility of its own thwarting?


X. To bring this line (or meandering multi-dimensional walkabout) full circle (or burgeoning ellipsis), do our answers to any of these questions matter?

A. If people wallow in these questions their whole lives, are they just a troop of monkeys banging sticks on trees (and each other)?
B. Is it worthwhile to ask these questions?
C. If we don’t ask these questions, do we get the answers we deserve?
D. Are we only asking these questions because as the wealthiest, most leisure-rich people in history, we have far too much time on our hands?
E. Are we dithering around with these questions because we don’t want to do the hard work required to really live and love?
F. Can we do the hard work and ask these sorts of questions at the same time?
G. Is it worth living and loving without asking questions?



For that night, at least, I was all questioned out. They really never end, though – each question leads to six more, on and on into forever – so it is legitimate to question whether or not it’s worth my time to bother asking any.
Believe me, I am no different from anyone else in that a big part of me wants there to be easy answers. Part of me would love to stack the Universe and beyond into neatly labeled boxes, sit back in my plush italian leather sofa and eat a Popsicle. Another part of me, though (a more annoying, persistent part), doesn’t want to let me be. It says, “Revel in the mystery! Stand in awe at the brink of the unknowing abyss, tossing rocks and hollering for an echo!” In this, it seems to suggest, I might just find the humility that is the prerequisite for giving and receiving Real love.

Questions are not the enemy. Questions imply ignorance and a desire to know. They imply humility, awe, love of Truth and hope that Truth is in some way perceivable.
I am not trying to destroy anything here. I don’t want to blindly accept anything I am told, but neither do I want to waste the work of wiser men, to stand on the shoulders of giants believing I owe them nothing for this fabulous view – doubting that they even exist. I have read and studied the words of many wiser men and will continue on in their debt. But knowledge puffs up, and one thing I know about puffed cereal is that it is full of air. I don’t want to be empty, nutritionless cereal – I’m going for granola.

questions

I don't know if it's just me, but having a baby makes me feel empty all the time - drained so far as to be bereft of MEness. There is just always so much to do these days, with work at the Olive Garden, shoveling horse turds for the landlords, fixing up vehicles to sell, and doing the multifarious deeds that need to get did before we can do the departure deed. All of this has left me with very little spare time, and lacking in the ability to gather the critical mass of energy necessary to do anything really creative. I haven't written, drawn, or painted in four months. I am, as they say, pooched.

This sensation is undoubtedly more pronounced for Anya, who does not have the benefit of experiencing the small day-to-day accomplishments that indicate we are getting closer to our goal, in two weeks, of leaving behind this province and this country to join once again our warmongering paisanos to the south.

Today and yesterday we have been visiting with family in Oregon, a trip made possible by the generosity of Anya's biological father, who has returned to his hometown for his first visit in eighteen years. This stopgap in this month of hectomania has been a pleasant succession of family chucklefests and facefeasts, but has also given my body the chance to clue into the fact that it has been overworked and underpaid for around four months. Exhaustion sets in, combines with other stuff, and makes me wonder how I'm going to make it across America in a Vanagon with a wife, son, cat, dog and stuff without making this fatigue even worse.

Through it all, I have tended to choose to rejoice, to be grateful for all the goodness in my life. I have been blessed up, brimmed over, and cetera. Still, I think I really ought to pay a little more attention to my body, to the "DETOUR" signposts that in retrospect I can see it has been erecting in the middle of my path.

The other day I was talking to one of my old art teachers about life after I moved, and I caught myself saying, "well, if I ever paint again..." This is a bit perturbing, and has me revisiting the same old "am I really an artist?" ground, wondering if I was really meant to do this, if I'd give it up so lightly. I told a friend recently that having a son has made me feel OK about not making art - about possibly not making art ever again. Is this OK? Is my overinflated ego shriveling, leaving a better, healthier, humbler me? Have I somehow lost my unhealthy identification of action, creation and production with self-worth? Am I now more able to just BE?

I wonder. As in, I WONDER. Because underneath it all, I have this nagging question plucking away at the too-taught strings of my psyche: "is this gonna help me make better art?" and even further down, "will that help me break out into the big-time?" I don't know. Maybe not having time to think is good for me - keeps me away from existential ponderation and onto the practice of participating with the hoi polloi.

Lots of questions.

a new thing

If you've been a longtime aficionado of this site, you know I've occasionally afflicionadoed you with endorsements of various artists - this post is no exception. I absolutely flagellate you towards this link: http://www.indystar.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?category=videonetwork&videoID=690558582
where you will hear and see josh garrels performing some new music. Great guy, great friend.