What Would Chicken Bob Do?

My favorite Epictetus quotes

2009-06-18T08:43:00.002-06:00

Epictetus had a lot figured out a few thousand years ago... Here are a few of my favorite quotes from his writings...

Make the best use of what is in your power, and take the rest as it happens.

There is only one way to happiness and that is to cease worrying about things which are beyond the power of our will.

It's not what happens to you, but how you react to it that matters.

People are not disturbed by things, but by the view they take of them.

What concerns me is not the way things are, but rather the way people think things are

If you desire to be good, begin by believing that you are wicked.

If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid.

God has entrusted me with myself.

You are a little soul carrying around a corpse.

It is impossible to begin to learn that which one thinks one already knows.

It is not death or pain that is to be dreaded, but the fear of pain or death.

Do not seek to have events happen as you want them to, but instead want them to happen as they do happen, and your life will go well

We have two ears and one mouth so that we can listen twice as much as we speak.

The key is to keep company only with people who uplift you, whose presence calls forth your best.

Wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few wants.

If thy brother wrongs thee, remember not so much his wrong-doing, but more than ever that he is thy brother.

The world turns aside to let any man pass who knows where he is going.

Quantum Sacrifice

2009-05-27T12:38:00.004-06:00

I have a bunch of ideas floating around in my head, so please be patient as I add them all to the big accelerator and then crash them together to see what we discover... ;)

Idea One: My desires need to be transformed - go back and read my post on "me, them, and the Other" for a refresher on our desires, our nature, and our need for transformation.

Idea Two: When Paul talks about being a living sacrifice, my buddy Bruce tells me the original Greek text has this concept of the perpetual present. That sounds like a great description of abiding.

Idea Three: The indeterminate choice is harder that it seems. Take a few minutes to watch this very user friendly video of how thought affects reality. It's about 5 minutes long - but the good stuff is at the end. Worth the watch. Observing collapses the wave form.

So what happens when all three of these ideas collide together?

Abiding is leaving a choice in the indeterminate state of trust. It is to place your hope in God, without expectations of God for any certain outcome. It is the assignment of choice to God, allowing him to observe/realize that choice which will transform my nature.

When I first articulated that thought to myself, my first reaction was "Why does God need my choice? Isn't he omniscient and omnipresent?" But then I realized I was looking at this from a contractual, zero-sum perspective. God has no interest in 50/50 contracts, he is in the business (pun intended) of unilateral, open-ended, mutually convenantal relationships - each giving 100%. By abiding, by allowing God to choose, I am not lessening my sense of choice: I am, perhaps for the first time, entering into community with God. Jesus was the living sacrifice when he said, "not my will, but yours be done".

When I choose to exercise my will, I pre-determine the outcome - and when it comes to the transformation of my nature and my desires, my choices are ineffectual. But the act of my choosing blocks God from having the freedom to make his choices -- I collapse the wave form of trust (to borrow from the world of quantum physics), and thereby remove the potential for God to do greater things than I can ask or image.

Hope vs Expectations

2009-05-17T09:46:00.002-06:00

The other day I had breakfast with a smart person. He talked about the four things I should be able to expect from attending church. The four ideas were that:

I should be able to be in community with those around. That is, if there are any conflicts, you are confident that either party will go and make it right.
I should be lead in worship without being manipulated.
I should hear the Word preached with accuracy and authenticity.
I should be able to participate in the Lord's supper.

I had two responses. First, that sounds a lot like community, not church. I'm not sure if I've written about this before, but my buddy Bruce and I came up with 3 Rules of Life for our kids. Rule 1: Own your life, Rule 2: Don't stick your nose in other people's business, Rule 3: Don't let others stick their nose in your business. Each of our kids independently recognized something was missing. We helped them articulate it as Rule 4: Community is the voluntary suspension of Rules 2 and 3. Community is a collection of individuals who have chosen Rule 4. Often people in churches feel entitled to community. They cross boundaries without consideration because they assume it is their right because they are in church. Church is not an auto-opt-in community. People have to choose to be in community.

The second response was an epiphany. I have never been able to figure out the difference between expectations and hope. If you know me at all, you know my minimalist view of life is that everything comes down to trust vs control, and that in turn, trust is expressed in relationships through covenental, unilateral bestowments of goodness, and that control is expressed in relationship through contractual, 50/50 expectations. My epiphany was that expectations are contractual (I knew that before), but that hope is covenental (that was the light going on for me).

When I was at my nephews engagement party later that same day, people were giving marriage advice. I wasn't able to articulate what I really wanted to say until later, but what I should have said was: Live without expectations of your spouse, but live with hopes for your spouse.

Expectations will always try to subtly control the other person. Hope wants the best for another, without desire for reciprocity.

He who has ears

2009-05-09T12:30:00.003-06:00

Self-awareness is perhaps one of the most important traits we can cultivate in our lives.

C.S. Lewis said that Jesus either was God as he said he was, or he was evil, or he was stupid. That may be a bit of a simplification, but it catches the gist of it. I find that when I am dealing with people who are so obviously mis-treating others, that this same set of choices comes in handy. I'm pretty sure they are not God, so that leaves evil or stupid. What is the difference? I think self-awareness is the difference. To be "stupid" is to be unaware or ignorant of how your actions are affecting those around you. But if you are aware of how your actions will impact others, and still do it, I'm not sure there is any option left other than evil.

So how do you foster and encourage self-awareness in yourself and those around so that you make healthy, non-evil, un-stupid choices?

I don't know.

And I think Jesus knew you couldn't force someone to see something they weren't ready to see. When he told parables, he would often say, "He who has ears, let him hear". Maybe he was saying, those of you who are self-aware enough to hear this will get it, for the others, it will just be a confusing story for now.

Perhaps just like the changing of the desires of your nature is the fruit of the Spirit transforming your life, self-awareness is another evidence of transformation and renewal in your life.

As we become more self-aware, I believe we become less certain of most things, and more certain of a few things. My father put it well: "There are very few important things in life, but those few things are very important". We become less inclined to judge and condemn the actions of others. Why? Because we are aware of our own depravity. When we withhold forgiveness, remain bitter, or judge others, we think we are entitled to some "settling of the score" where we are recompensed for the pain someone else has caused us. We think we want justice. But really, if we are self-aware of our own depravity, we fear justice for we know what we deserve ourselves from true justice. What we really crave is mercy, and we are more than willing for that mercy to extend to others.

He who has ears, let him hear.

Trust and Forgiveness

2009-01-25T09:43:00.004-07:00

The other day, someone asked me "how do you restore trust after you've been wronged?" Two ideas came out of our conversation:

1) Forgiveness is something the wronged person does for themselves, not for the offender. While the offender may want forgiveness to assuage their sense of guilt, it is the person wronged who benefits the most from forgiveness. It releases us from bitterness, it releases us from our sense of entitlement to retribution, it releases us from our false sense of superiority that we would not have done the same thing in the others shoes. Forgiveness reminds us that we are all fallen. Perhaps this is why Jesus said that we will not be forgiven if we do not forgive others.

2) Trust is something unilaterally given by the the wronged person, not something earned back by the works of the offender. Trust is granted as an act of grace by the one offended, not something negotiated back as a contractual settlement. God is the greatest example of this - constantly trying to restore trust to us by his acts of grace. If it was something we could earn back, we would still be stuck under the Law. Further, it is the choice of the one offended to grant trust. You choose. You are not a victim when you are wronged again - you make a choice and you own the consequences of choosing to bestow grace, even if you do so seventy seven times.

Forgiveness should never make us feel superior - it should always remind us of our own depravity and dependence on the grace of God.

Both/And not Either/Or

2009-01-10T17:40:00.003-07:00

In my last post, I said that had been confused about the relationship between the flesh and the law. I just realized today that I was also confused about the relationship between the law and the Spirit.

I had always seen it as an Either/Or relationship between the law and the Spirit. You are either under the Law or you are under the Spirit. But I think it is a Both/And. We are freed from the condemnation of the Law, and then we have the opportunity to trust/abide/live by the Spirit.

Imagine you have an enormous debt -- something like a personal mortgage of a trillion trillions - it is inconceivable that you, let alone any country, could ever pay it off. Someone comes and pays the debt. You are debt free. In Paul's words in Romans 8:1, therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. But now that you are free of the debt, you are also free to choose. You can choose to make healthy choices, or you can be an idiot and go to Las Vegas and gamble yourself back into a pit of debt. Just because you are free of condemnation under the law, does not mean you are automatically living in the Spirit.

Or another word picture: you are born with a terminal medical condition. You are condemned to death by the "Medicine". The doctor's didn't make you sick any more than the Law made you sin. The doctor's simply diagnosed your condition but are unable to do anything to change your condition. Paul says that the law was powerless. As an interesting aside, there are a whole group of people who worship Medicine thinking it will make them live forever - they don't realize that it is powerless to truly heal them. As you deal with the mess and despair of your life you find new ways to self-medicate and try to mask the symptoms and the despair of your condition. Then someone else dies, and you are given a transplant. There is therefor now no diagnosis of death. As you walk out of the hospital, you now have a choice: to live like an idiot and become a heroin addict (or whatever other way you choose to abuse your body - the flesh), or you choose to live with healthy choices. The challenge is, after years of dealing with your diagnosis you have no idea how to live and make healthy choices. Your nature, your flesh, only knows how to meet it's own desires. All the patterns that helped you survive and cope with your diagnosis are no longer applicable. You don't know how to live with your new freedom. Getting a transplant may have freed you from a medical diagnosis, but you are still a jerk. The interesting thing is that the same person who died so that you might live also left instructions for their best friend to offer their services as your life coach. They know you are a mess, but they offer their friendship, their wisdom and their love. This Helper is a gentleman, and will not force his help upon you. In his wisdom, he will not bail you out of the consequences of the dysfunctional choices you make. But he offers to meet with you every day, to help you learn to make healthy choices.

As I write this, I always thought that transformation was radical not incremental, that it was just the death of Christ that was transformative. But reading this again, I see that this is another Both/And. Christ offers radical transformation by freeing us from the condemnation of the law, AND the Spirit offers us incremental transformation through the renewing of our nature. Legalisim gets this backwards - hoping that an incremental approach to the law will result in a radical change of our nature -- but that approach is doomed to failure. Transformation is about radical death, and then incremental resurrection, with the hope some day of radical resurrection.

me, them, and the Other

2009-01-09T10:24:00.006-07:00

Usually when I am confused about something, it is because there are multiple issues blurred together into a single confusing mess. Trying to understand physics without separating out Newtonian physics, Relativity and Quantum mechanics makes the whole thing a contradictory mess. Seeing each one as it's own entity allows me to start to see how they interact, and start to see the whole.

In the same way, I've been reading Romans 6, 7 and 8 recently. Paul talks about the flesh, the Law and the Spirit. I think of them as me, the expectations of others (them), and Him who is Other. But how do they interact?

First, I'm realizing that I have often confused the flesh and the law. I have confused my desire to sin (Romans 7:5) with my failure to meet an unattainable standard. The Law has no redeeming value other than to show me that I sin and that I am unable to change by my own will power (Romans 7:18).

As many of us move into a season of post-moralism (where the behavioral code of conduct from our childhood no longer brings success in adulthood) we find that we are indeed dead to the law (Romans 7:4), but still very much alive to the flesh (Romans 7:21-24). How should we then live?

There is a part of me that lives in this world (the flesh), but there is a part of me that is created in the image of God and exists in the Other. I can try to change my flesh, but I will never directly change that part of me that exists outside of time and space. So how do my desires change, and therefor my behavior as an outflow?

A catalyst is something that changes something else without changing itself.

Trust is a catalyst that allows the Spirit to live in me.

The Spirit is a catalyst that changes my nature.

I can't change my nature directly, but I can choose to trust the Other, allowing the Spirit to live in me, and thereby change my nature:

So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under law.
The acts of the sinful nature are obvious: sexual immorality, impurity and debauchery; idolatry and witchcraft; hatred, discord, jealousy, fits of rage, selfish ambition, dissensions, factions and envy; drunkenness, orgies, and the like. I warn you, as I did before, that those who live like this will not inherit the kingdom of God.
But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law. Those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the sinful nature with its passions and desires. Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.

Galatians 5:16-25

Notice the language of death? This is radical transformation - not compromise and incremental change. So how do we live in the Spirit and not in the flesh? We don't do - we abide.

Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. John 15: 4

Remaining in Christ (or abiding) is a posture of trust. We can't directly change ourselves, we must trust, and then the Spirit bears fruit. Just like seeing a dim star in the corner of your eye, it is fleeting and does not bear direct scrutiny well. Like most of the important lessons in my life, it is subtle and indirect. Perhaps this is why Paul always left the transition from the despair at the end of Romans 7 to the hope of Romans 8 so vague -- there is nothing we can do or control - we must submit and die:

Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:1).

Those who live according to the sinful nature have their minds set on what that nature desires; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on what the Spirit desires. (Romans 8:5)

You, however, are controlled not by the sinful nature but by the Spirit, if the Spirit of God lives in you. And if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, he does not belong to Christ. But if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. (Romans 8:9-11)

The Spirit is the one who transforms - not by our will power.

For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. (Romans 8:13)

Notice he says that we must put to death the misdeeds of the body - but most importantly, he says to do so "by the Spirit" - not by the law, not by will power, not by moral behavior modification, but by the Spirit.

For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. (Romans 8:15)

I think the irony is that the call to abide, to trust, to live by the Spirit is far harder than living by an external code of conduct and behavior like the law or moralism. Being a legalist is so much more tangible and appealing to that part of me that craves control like a drug. The posture of trust only lasts for the fleeting moment of the present. You can't pay a trust deficit of trust from the past, and you can't bank up trust for the future. Trust only exists in the now. It is a constant, conscious choice to trust, to abide, to live in the Spirit.

Paradox

2008-10-18T12:17:00.003-06:00

Warning: Insomuch as quantum physics can't explain God, and I can't really explain either quantum physics or God, please take this with a grain of salt.

Much of what I observe to be truth about God is encapsulated in paradox. God is loving and God is just. God is holy and God is merciful. God is sovereign and he gives us free will. The list goes on.

What if all these paradoxes are true? But that it depends on us as the observer to realize which "state" of the paradox is true at that moment?

Looking a the greatest paradox, the problem of evil, how can God be good, yet suffering exist? Perhaps again, the issue comes down to how we as the observer choose to view the paradox. Are we victims entitled to a world without pain that requires a benevolent God to eliminate all suffering from existence? Or do we choose to see God as good, and we, created in his image, must choose to propagate that good to others who are in pain?

Community is Awareness

2008-10-04T13:49:00.002-06:00

Most of us think that we are in community with those we choose. However, if we really are entangled, then whatever you observe, you affect. In this day and age of immediate news, I am in community with the homeless man in Los Angeles, the refugee in Sudan, and the person displaced by the latest typhoon in Bangladesh.

Whether we like it or not, we know who our neighbor is in ways the original Good Samaritan had no inkling.

How do I choose to live differently with this level of awareness? with this global community to which I can not blame my lack of awareness? Ignorance may be bliss, but none of us really have an excuse anymore.

Other

2008-10-03T12:15:00.004-06:00

At a recent session at the man cave with Bruce, he pushed me on why I care about life as simulation - what difference does it actually make to how you live, choose and love. At the time I could only respond that I had to logically recognize that there is something "other". Before our universe existed, whether from divine act of creation or a random big bang, there had to be something "other". Whether we are a simulation in the mind of God, or shadows on the wall of the cave, or nothing more than random matter, there is something "other".

When I mentioned this thread of thought in a phone call with my brother, he mentioned that the Hebrew word for "holy" is "other". When we say that "God is holy", we are really saying that "God is other". Knowing what "other" actually is becomes much more important to me. I believe there is a need to choose trust -- and our ultimate choice of trust is to trust Jesus as the rift or gateway or Way between this reality and "other". If we are called to be holy as God is holy, then we are called to be "other" as God is "other". Knowing what "other" actually is becomes even more important to me.

If we strip away the cultural conditioning of the failed moralistic frameworks of religion, yet still have a craving for something of significance, we are searching for "other". I'm not sure any of us can comprehend "other" on this side of the rift, but I can acknowledge that there is "other", that it is beyond my comprehension, that there is no way for me to control "other", yet I crave to know "other" and must ultimately make a choice to trust "other".

Free Will, Quantum Entanglement and Prayer

2008-08-19T04:35:00.003-06:00

Do subatomic particles have free will?

According to two mathematicians, they do. According to another, everything, including our choices, was predetermined "from the dawn of time".

As a matter of faith, I need to go with the former. If everything, from my choices to the choices of subatomic particles, is predetermined, then we are all automatons reading from a very detailed script with a predetermined outcome. There is no choice. There is no trust, there is only control.

However, if indeed we, and subatomic particles, do have free will, what does that mean to faith?

Suddenly prayer makes more sense to me. When Jesus said we could move mountains we usually interpret faith as the means to control the mountain. But what if me, you, the mountain, are all entangled at a quantum level? Can I influence the subatomic particles that comprise the mountain? Can my prayers affect the state of a friend on the other side of the planet? Is community not just a social construct but an expression of quantum entanglement?

I confess I haven't been very effective at prayer thus far in my life. In fact I stopped praying because it seemed that prayer relegated God to the role of either vending machine or slot machine. With God as vending machine, we put our prayers in like coins and if we don't get what we want, we get mad and kick the machine looking for the candy we are entitled to. With God as slot machine, we put our prayers in, pull the handle, and take our chances. If I am honest with myself, up until now, I've thought of prayer as a control thing - which is why I just stopped praying. I fear God enough to not consciously attempt to control him to meet my sense of entitlement.

But what about moving mountains? If trust is reality and control is illusion, then perhaps prayer allows us to connect with God and our entangled world. Perhaps our prayers are so ineffective because we view them as a means to control. What would happen if our prayers were not short-circuited by our desire for control, but rather, started from a posture of humble trust. It is liberating to see prayer no longer in the context of causality, but rather in the interconnected context of entanglement.

Faith, Fear and Withdrawal

2008-08-09T11:16:00.002-06:00

According to 8 Simple Phrases, "The reaction to suffering is fear. The response to fear is the choice to either trust or control."

I've been thinking a lot about fear and faith. I even heard a sermon in the past month about fear and faith. Sadly, the pastor's point was that if we have faith, everything will work out. So much for all those people in Hebrews 11 who were tortured, flogged and stoned. Pastors really need to move beyond a morality/causality based theology if they have any hope of being relevant. It is not that life will be free of pain, it is that we will be free of fear regardless of what life brings.

For many of us, fear is the driving force that motivates our behavior each day - how we react to our spouse, how we respond to the evening news, showing up to work on time so we get the paycheck, going to the doctor's office, watching the economy for fear of its impact on my quality of life -- you name it. Yet if we truly trust, we should be the most fearless people around. John says there is no fear in love.

So how can we define faith and fear? Here is my attempt...

Faith is the choice to trust when you realize you are not in control.
Fear is the desire for control when you realize you are not in control.

Fear is like the shakes when withdrawing from drugs (or coffee or cigarettes or sugar or worry or whatever your personal issue is). It is the realization you are not in control anymore, but you crave being in control like a junkie craves their next hit, like a foodie craves their next chocolate, like a worrier looking for the next thing to fret over.

I sometimes wonder what Adam and Eve were like, and what they might have grown into. Were they just automatons without the knowledge of good and evil? Was that all God wanted for all eternity? Or was it that they were children and not yet mature enough to handle that potent knowledge? Did eating of the fruit give us an addictive illusion of control that blinded us? Were we just not ready for that knowledge yet because we had not yet learned to see trust as reality and control as illusion?

Transformation and Death

2008-07-02T23:18:00.002-06:00

I watched a BBC World Debate at the Middle East World Forum on the weekend. If I ever find a video link, I'll update this. It was fascinating -- around a dozen 20-somethings from Israel, Egypt, Jordan, Palestine, Kuwait, Saudi and a few other places on one side, and on the other side was a politician from Egypt, the Palestinian Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister of Israel, and Tony Blair. Really worth the watch if you can find it.

Anyhow, as I was watching this, and hearing both sides, I understood things a little better. Israel can't really negotiate with a fractured Palestine (the "official" government as well as the Hamas "power" structure), while the Palestinians don't really appreciate 40% of their land being taken up by 400,000 Israeli settlers. Fair enough.

It was clear that transformation would require death - but it was starkly clear that the death of transformation is always the death of self, not of others. The Deputy Prime Minister of Israel asked how he could negotiate with the Hamas whose stated purpose is the eradication of the state of Israel and all Jews. Clearly they get the idea that transformation requires death, but they miss the point that the death of transformation is the death of self: the death of my fear, the death of my hatred, the death of my bitterness, the death of my desire for control.

http://www.8simplephrases.com/

2008-06-24T08:51:00.001-06:00

I decided to make a website out of my epiphany in January: check it out:

http://www.8simplephrases.com/

Why Change Fails

2008-06-20T10:11:00.005-06:00

People don't change until the pain of not changing exceeds the pain of changing.

As I was driving home today, I saw the police pulling over a woman for speeding at the same place I got pulled over a few months ago. As I thought about it, I realized I had changed my behavior after my $254's worth of pain. The pain had changed my behavior. But I also realized that the legal systems efforts to condition compliant behavior from me was starting to wear off - that I had started to speed past the same place again. Admittedly, seeing the woman crying in her car as the police officer handed her what I imagine to be the same $254 worth of pain, I had a twinge of fear for the next time I passed by. The police were effectively reminding me of my previous pain -- with fear of future pain. I expect I will drive a little slower past that spot next time.

Fear of future pain may be an effective way to modify someones behavior, but it is not transformative. It requires constant reinforcement. It is a push-pull tug of control to achieve compliance.

Fear based change will never transform me.

I suspect if I had been the driver of a vehicle in an accident caused by excess speed which resulted in someone's death, that I would have a very different perspective on speeding. I suspect that death would wholely transform my perspective where fear of pain can only incrementally change my perspective. I suspect I would no longer want or desire to speed. I would be transformed. Change wears off and requires constant refreshers of pain or the fear of pain. Transformation alters my volitional DNA in a way that pain and fear can not. Transformation alters my very desires.

Followup: I was chatting with Steve about this one, we came up with the idea that even the hypothetical allegorical alcoholic who "hits rock bottom" has a choice - to embrace the pain and allow transformation to occur, or to try to control pain, resulting in short term change (and short term avoidance of pain), but no long term transformation.

Oswald Chambers got this one right...

2008-06-01T20:22:00.000-06:00

Oswald Chambers got this one right...

Sin, Desire and Trust

2008-05-04T12:07:00.004-06:00

Sin is not the failure to behave morally.
Sin is the failure to be like God -- to live with the nature He breathed into Adam.

Your nature drives your desires, and your desires result in your behavior.

James 1:15 says that desire conceives sin, and sin, when it is full grown, leads to death.

If you are just "trying harder" you are lost before you begin. Moralism is like trying to control your behavior after the train has left the station. Desire will lead to sin. Period. If you don't believe me, go read Paul's battle in Romans 7 and tell me you are more righteous than Paul. Trying to change your behavior after desire has conceived is an exercise in futility. You may succeed in briefly changing your behavior (horizontal), but you will never be holy as God is holy (vertical). You will be sinful in God's sight, no matter how righteous you appear to be to the rest of us messed up souls.

Our only hope is for God to give us the desires of our heart -- our desires will drive our behavior, not the other way around. If you think that controlling your behavior long enough will eventually lead to spirituality, then your religion is little more than Pavlovian conditioning with a more pretentious vocabulary.

No wonder Jesus said that it is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. Yes - I know the stuff about the city gate called the needle and the camels getting on their knees and stripping their burden to get through. I think our concept of riches or wealth are almost always achieved through control. I think Jesus was talking about stripping ourselves of control. Of trusting. Of abiding. It is hard. Nope - it is impossible. Which brings us back to the need for transformation. Which brings us back to death. I guess this is why the old-timers talked about death to self. In my vocabulary, this is the death of control -- the willingness to trust God completely - to the point of death. If we could do it on our own, we wouldn't need a Savior. We wouldn't need transformation.

Jesus didn't come to help us behave better. He came to change our very nature. And our part in the process is to do the hardest thing: trust.

Ironic

2008-04-06T12:59:00.003-06:00

Moral behavior that is the result of transformation leads to righteousness.

Moral behavior that is an effort to control or change behavior, leads not to righteousness but to entitlement -- the root of evil.

Ironic isn't it?

Those in Scripture who were transformed, who had a Divine encounter that left them radically altered, didn't try to be righteous, rather righteousness was credited to them because of their faith. They knew they had to trust. Their encounter with God left them with a certainty they could not do it on their own.

When someone says that to overcome an impasse in your spiritual journey, that you just need more discipline -- you know they are at the end of their spiritual rope. The only thing they have is to tell you to try harder.

If trying harder made you righteous, Good Friday could have been accomplished with much less blood.

And even worse, trying harder leads to moralism. And if we have a few successes of will power, we think even better of ourselves. And then it is a small step to think we know how it all works - that we are qualified to tell others how to live -- how to try harder. Next thing you know, we're qualified to judge others. Don't blink -- you just became a Pharisee.

Ironic.

Good Friday

2008-03-21T11:56:00.002-06:00

The ultimate rescuer carries the antimatter of eternity in the crucible of a
human soul - to rip a hole in the fabric of reality - providing a way out
of a sinking universe.

The New Moralism

2008-02-15T19:38:00.003-07:00

Environmentalism is the new moralism. Since secular humanism rejects the idea of any accountability to a supreme being, but craves the comforting control of hierarchical moralism, they needed to find something! Enter environmentalism -- the ability to judge others without having to be accountable to God yourself.

Think I'm just being politically incorrect? Here are a few links for your consideration:

So, am I anti-environment? Not at all. I'm just not willing to drink Al Gore's koolaid and swallow the hype from the Politico-Litigation-Media Complex? (Read Michael Crichton's 2004 book "State of Fear" for an accurate prediction of the politicization of the science of climate change).

With Religion (with a capital R) losing its hold over the masses, the control structure of society needed to find a new control mechanism. No I'm not a conspiracy theorist thinking the Illuminati met in secret to choose their next control technique. There is enough depravity and desire for an ounce of control in each human being that I'm sure this evolved organically.

So how does a Chicken Bob live in the moment of environmentalism?

Own your life - make healthy choices in your context
Identify and reject fear-based manipulation
Resist the temptation to judge the behavior of others according to an arbitrary hierarchical control structure

Trust in the Workplace

2008-02-03T11:04:00.000-07:00

Jon and Steve flew up for a week of meetings in the Man Cave. We talked about lots of good work related goals, directions, evaluations, etc. But I think the best take-away for me was that "hierarchy is only needed in the absence of trust".

When we think of the Trinity, we are conditioned to put a hierarchy on it: Father is the grouchy boss, Son is the nice second in command, and Spirit does everything else. Top down. However, if there is complete trust, there is no need for hierarchy. The theological term is Functional Subordination. Which means that if you trust someone, you are willing to submit to them -- effectively chopping the legs out from so many debates about authority, marriage, rights, etc. The question is not do you have the God-given right to tell someone what to do, the question is do you trust them enough to submit to them?

I'm still trying to figure out how to foster a culture of trust. I suppose God has been working on it for millenia so I shouldn't be surprised if it takes me a while.

The Shack

2008-01-27T11:48:00.001-07:00

I have to confess to not reading a lot of Christian books, but I think I actually liked this one. While there were a few awkward literary moments that felt forced, 80% of the content of the book resonated with my journey. And 90% of the last few chapters.

Confusion is often the result of multiple overlapping issues. As a result, I tend to approach things from a deconstruction / minimalist approach -- trying to identify each of the separate issues and resolve them one by one. One of the casualties of this approach is texture, nuance and subtlety. I am an effective coroner performing an autopsy on my beliefs -- I can figure out how it works, but I can't bring it back to life any more than Dr. Frankenstein could. But The Shack actually does a great job of bringing to life the same core lessons I have been learning. The same skeletal structure is there, but the author has done a good job of put relational and emotional muscle and skin on top.

Living in the Moment

2008-01-26T00:54:00.001-07:00

If "abiding" is the way we exhibit trust, then it, rather than morality, is the behavior we should be trying to "do" the most. The irony is that abiding is not something you can "do".

Perhaps abiding is living in the moment - being fully present in the present.

Think about it. If God created time, then he exists outside of time, knows all time, and is present in all time concurrently. (I've been working on my Theology of Time for a few years now, I think many of our misunderstandings about God are from a poor theology of time).

So God exists throughout time - but we don't. We, as human beings, exist only in the moment.

When we live in the past through guilt and regret, we fail to live in the one point in time where we have a chance of meeting God.

When we live in the future with fear and worry, we fail to be present in the one moment where we actually exist and are real to God.

So that is my hope this year - to live in the moment.

Change vs Transformation

2008-01-25T08:37:00.000-07:00

Change is incremental. Transformation is complete.

Change lets us keep some sense of control. Transformation is disruptive - we lose control and have to trust.

The difference between Change and Transformation is not how long they take, but whether we are controlling or trusting.

Change almost always fails to achieve its goals. Transformation can't help but succeed.

Epiphany

2008-01-20T19:53:00.000-07:00

The reality of life is suffering.
The reaction to suffering is fear.
The response to fear is either trust or control.
The effect of control is to propagate suffering.
The result of trust is transformation.
The mechanism of transformation is death.
The opportunity of death is resurrection.
The outcome of resurrection is true life.