A Real Bishop's Reality

Michael Jackson and the Cult of Celebrity

2009-07-03T10:10:00.004-05:00

As everyone in the world with exposure to the media knows by now, Michael Jackson is dead. You will not find me shedding any tears for a number of reasons. The first is that I did not know him, and I find it curious that so very many people in America do seem to feel that they know celebrities to the point where they grieve their passing as if a close friend or relative had died. I believe that is symptomatic of a host of things, among them our isolation and loneliness, our lack of social skills, and the Cult of Celebrity wherein we worship celebrities as if they were gods. If you doubt that, consider one impudent clergy candidate from a sister denomination who took me to task publicly not once but twice for a tweet I sent upon hearing of his death that said that with his passing little boys everywhere could rest easily. If it were only this particular fool who had reacted I would say it was an anomaly, but one other woman removed me from her contact list - and that woman had seemed to be rational.

I am not saying that to be rational you have to agree with me. I am saying that Michael Jackson was, for me, three things: A brilliant musical talent, a tragic example of what can happen when financial success and fame come upon the chronically unstable, and a pedophile child abuser who should have permanently lost custody of his child when he dangled him outside of a hotel room window for the benefit of the press. He was, in my opinion, both a tragic and a reprehensible human being. Now he has died, and we see what happened in the case of countless celebrities who died at an age the culture considers "too young" happening again - he is being canonized by the masses, and it makes me want to puke.

People die. That is the reality of life, and nobody gets a pass. As a culture we need to consider that, pray about it, meditate on it, and come to accept death as a natural part of life and not some frightening enemy. My wife's best friend, a vital woman who worked as a forensic nurse - caring for those whom the Michael Jacksons of the world caused to need her services - died last January at 51 of a particularly aggressive cancer. Helen will be missed, and has been and continues to be remembered and honored by her community and friends. This is the kind of loving, service filled life that should be honored by all people while the Michael Jacksons of the world are seen for what they were - sick, twisted individuals - and perhaps pitied, but not worshiped and deified.

I will not miss Michael Jackson, nor do I miss Elvis, James Dean, Marilyn Monroe, or any of the scores of others who have been deified solely by virtue of their dying before society has arbitrarily decided it was time. May they rest in peace, and may God have mercy on them. Michael is going to need it.

The Wisconsin Council of Churches - The Finest Hypocrites I Know!

2009-06-30T10:41:00.004-05:00

I was so pleased to get another email from the Wisconsin Council of Churches (WCC) last week. I actually only get their emails so that I can be constantly reminded of what a bunch of elitist, racist, classist bunch of hypocrites they are. Why do I say that? I say that because their conferences are always priced way beyond the means of any but the mid to upper socioeconomic classes. That way they can keep those pesky people of color and those pesky urban ministries from showing up at their events - after all, they are SO untidy. "Those people" might remind the WCC that they are living a delusion when they say they are an interfaith body - because interfaith implies that ALL faith communities and churches are potentially working together. When weekend conferences run in the range of $350-$650 and up, it isn't too hard to figure out whom they are not interested in hearing from. Add to that the reality that they tend to hold their conferences at least an hour away from Milwaukee (the largest urban area in Wisconsin) and the picture gets completed rather quickly.

This time they have outdone themselves. Last week I received an invitation that read, in part"

"You're invited to a very unique conference later this summer: The Earth Speaks: Hunger, Our Spiritual Challenge, to be held at the Conference Point Center August 16th-17th.With the deteriorating economic situation, food pantries throughout Wisconsin and the Midwest are reporting a dramatic growth in need for emergency food, particularly at the end of each month. And this growth is not just due to the dire economic circumstances facing low income families, but also to the rising number in the middle class who are losing their jobs.

"This August the interfaith community will gather at Conference Point Center, on the shores of Lake Geneva, to take a close look at the conditions which are causing hunger, both locally and abroad....

"We'll have workshops looking at the religious community's response to hunger, and we'll have an opportunity to reflect on what needs to be done back home to address the systemic issues which are contributing to food insecurity. "

For those of you who don't know, Lake Geneva is a beautiful lake and resort city located about an hour southwest of Milwaukee and about the same distance northwest of the Chicago metro area. It is where the "beautiful people" go to vacation. I absolutely love to visit Lake Geneva. It is beautiful, it has many charming shops and restaurants, and it is a very nice get away. It is also very expensive. If you are choosing to spend your money there on a vacation I have no problem with that - in fact, I encourage it.

I must ask - what in the world is the WCC thinking? What kind of an abject idiot plans a meeting about hunger and poverty in the lap of luxury? I will grant you that this is one of their more affordable conferences at $130 (for Sunday evening through Monday morning), but it is still in a place that is hard for less wealthy pastors and parishes to get to and is about as white as a freshly bleached bed sheet. God forbid the clergy of Wisconsin should get their hands dirty by holding a conference about hunger in an affordable place in an urban area where it might include representatives from food pantries that are struggling in the face of decreased supply and increased demand. No, no, no - they would much rather have talking heads from the national offices of food programs. That's much more edifying than having someone who just might be working with folks in the towns they serve. Oh, I forgot - nobody who goes to these things really works with the hungry in any significant way anyway.

I am so silly. I forgot that the real purpose of this is to comfort the complacent and delude them into thinking that attending a conference makes an impact - silly me! They even invited a Rabbi and a Muslim woman! How broad minded! Now they can feel so very enlightened without ever having to endure any African American, Hispanic, or poor folk. How special!

In truth, this is representative of everything that is wrong with the Institutional Church - and every reason to return to Primitive Christianity. Those who support this kind of out of touch, self deluded, feel good nonsense are an example of the worst in middle class pseudo-Christianity and are largely responsible for the very accurate perception that the Institutional Church is irrelevant and effete. Even worse is that criticisms such as this fall on deaf ears and tend to be written off as the product of a lack of intellectual acumen or ignorance. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

Needless to say, I haven't received a response from the WCC to my email expressing my concern over this conference. I sent it after I received my invitation to Lake Geneva. The WCC needs to take note what when you bury your head in the sand you lose the right to complain when someone kicks you in the behind. I suppose they are safe from that, though, because they are mostly ignored by anyone actually serving the people they cogitate about. They will keep on fiddling while Rome burns and feel very good about themselves, a prime example of mental auto-eroticism.

The Church as Social Service Agency

2009-06-23T13:10:00.003-05:00

There is a popular misconception that the Church is a sort of social service agency. The concept probably started back during the depression, when the Salvation Army would feed people if they first listened to a sermon (that isn't really charity in my mind, but that's another issue for another time). It has been continued unwittingly by the fine tradition of churches offering food pantries, free meals, clothing banks and other similar services. There isn't anything wrong with any of those programs - in fact, they are fine examples of direct social justice work. The problem is that people have generalized from those programs and have decided that the Church is a full time social service agency with unlimited cash at her disposal. Nothing could be farther from the truth.

We've had a gentleman stopping by the church several times over the past week. The details of his story aren't terribly important, except that there were some obvious contradictions in his story that made me suspicious of his sincerity. We have a policy here that we do not offer financial assistance beyond bus fare and/or a McDonald's coupon - and then only once a month to any one individual. In the course of this gentleman visiting us over several days he expressed some notions which I suspect may be fairly prevalent.

He was looking for housing, claiming that his wife had left him a few weeks ago and that he had a friend who would put him up in a few days once he got back to town. He said he couldn't stay in the shelters because he had an assault charge in his past, and so he was looking for money ($50 a night) to stay in a hotel until his friend returned. At first his friend was to return last Thursday, then was delayed until Saturday, and finally when he stopped in yesterday he explained (no surprise here) that his friend was still delayed.

I allowed this gentleman to use our phone on three occasions, the last one being yesterday. As he called around looking for money, he became increasingly annoyed that he wasn't getting the response he sought from churches. Never mind that he had no relationship with these churches, that he is from another town about 30 minutes west of here, that he admitted he hadn't attended his home church for many years and so couldn't avail himself of their assistance, that he was offered food from several churches and refused it - he was absolutely fixated on the notion that churches have money laying around in abundance just waiting for someone to come ask for it and seemed to believe it was the "Christian" thing to do. He also told me he walked the main streets in the area looking for "Christian" bumper stickers or "fish" signs. Upon finding one he would enter the nearest store and seek out the mark...er, Christian...and hit them up for money for his hotel. Finally, yesterday, he became belligerent with a woman on the phone and I asked him to leave.

I don't want to dismiss the problems that folks encounter, nor do I wish to disparage the homeless. I want to say quite clearly that local parishes (for the most part) have programs through which they do outreach. These are vital, important ministries to which these churches devote substantial funds. For security reasons, churches do not leave cash on site. For reasons of doing effective ministry, churches do not distribute cash - it is the least effective way to help people.

What's the moral of the story? Church is about community. If you want to avail yourself of the help of a community, be a part of that community before you need the help. If you need a referral to an appropriate social service agency, your local church may well be able to help - but we aren't the social service agency. The work of God should not be confused with an ATM machine.

A Primitive Christian

2009-06-16T20:01:00.005-05:00

I believe that "a primitive Christian" perhaps describes me best. I also very much enjoy that the title allows me to poke a bit of fun at myself as I try to describe to what it is I feel called.

Many Christians get very exercised by things like the Creeds. I think that's fine if you want to get exercised about such things, but I simply cannot. If you can get exercised about the "virgin birth", I think that's wonderful. I cannot, because I recognize that just about every other religion that sprung up around the time that the Bible was written contained a virgin birth myth. It was the authors' way of indicating someone special was being born. I know Christians who would claim that Jesus' birth was, in fact, a virgin birth and all the other claims to virgin births are, in fact, false. I suppose that could be, but I feel compelled to point out that those decisions are made by folks who are rather biased, to say the least! For me, there is nothing about Jesus that changes if his mother wasn't a virgin, because I believe that God can sanctify human beings in any of a number of ways and that the absence of a hymen does not affect
God somewhat the way Kryptonite affects Superman. In fact, I can do without most if not all of the doctrine the Institutional Church has piled on to Jesus.

Primitive Christianity, the first three or four hundred years or so, has a lot to say for itself. Perhaps its biggest appeal is that very little was officially defined or declared back then. People were closer chronologically to the Jesus experience, and diversity was tolerated rather than extinguished. Anyone with even a passing understanding of statistics knows that everything that has been defined as doctrine or declared dogma since that time has at best a 50% chance of being true - even less when there have been more than one alternative to choose from.

I believe the Church of the future may well be found in a return to the past - not the past that the Vatican and others are trying to return to, a past when the Institution had power - but the past of early Christianity when what was central was the experience of Jesus.

There isn't any time to waste!

Apologetics = Trying to Prop Up the Dubious

2009-06-05T14:03:00.002-05:00

It's always struck me as rather odd that there is a field within Christianity called "apologetics." Perhaps the clearest definition of apologetics is, "The branch of theology that is concerned with defending or proving the truth of Christian doctrines." I think of it more as trying to prop up the dubious.

After all, if something is true should that truth be not hard to see? Certainly there are some things where that is not the case. One that springs to mind is scientific truths. There is nothing about truths in physics that is at all self-evident to me. Shouldn't theology be different? Why do we need a whole "department" that spends all its time defending declared truth? May I suggest it's because such "truths" are really little more than WAGs (wild-assed guesses)?

If a truth is a truth it doesn't need anyone to defend it. Gravity is a truth. If you don't believe it, jump off a bridge and I promise you will be convinced. There are certain things in the spiritual arena that are relatively easy to verify and/or experience as well. The truth is that apologetics isn't concerned with truth at all, but rather with propping up arguments and theories. Why do these things need propping up? The need propping up because in what they declare they go too far. They go to far because those who propose them are essentially insecure. In the name of honesty, apologetics should be called "argumentation."

From my point of view, the very need for argumentation is proof positive that people are over stepping their boundaries in what they declare about God. They have this need based primarily in insecurity to define God until they feel God becomes benign, manageable, weak - in short, until God is no longer God. Unwilling to tolerate any dissent or questioning, they establish the science of quarreling to cover up their insecurity - but it is a thin veil at best. Wouldn't truth, and ultimately God, be much better served by learning to live in mystery? Wouldn't an all-knowing, all-loving God want us to be honest? Do you really believe that when we come to stand at the gates of heaven (metaphorically speaking, of course) God is going to give us a special medal for lying (or, if you prefer, stretching the truth) about our understanding of things spiritual? Does that make any sense at all?

Of course it doesn't - but then there have always been a majority of Christians who have found it far more important to be loud than to be sensible.

Alleged Pro-Lifers, You Can't Walk Away From This

2009-06-02T10:40:00.003-05:00

I have debated for several days before writing this, but it has to be said. Those who self-identify as pro-life and engage in the rhetoric of that movement share responsibility for creating a cult in which the murder of a physician who is performing a legal procedure not only occurs but is even thought of, no matter how twisted the killer actually may be.

Don't you see that when you lose your loaded words and stand with your pornographic posters of aborted fetuses that your words and actions can so easily be misinterpreted by someone who will believe that he (or she) is acting on God's will in committing murder? Are you so blind? Do you not understand your own spin and its effect on people?

Do you not realize that if the money spent on your protests had been spent on birth control and real sex education (the kind that goes way beyond abstinence only) the reality is that the perceived need for abortion would be almost non-existent? Are you so blinded by the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church that you are content to create the environment in which murder can be twisted into "an eye for an eye"? What about you Protestants? Why aren't you promoting birth control and adequate education? Do you really need a place to vent your anger so badly that is doesn't matter to you if people murder in God's Name?

And you hypocrites, chief among them Fr. Frank Pavone, who said: "I join with those voices, as I always have done, that declare that the end never justifies the means, and that violence has no place in the effort to end abortion", allow me to enlighten you. You created the environment in which this is acceptable. You can try to walk away from it now, but it's too late.

The time is long past when we start to hold people accountable for their rhetoric. I am an absolute proponent of free speech, but I also am an absolute proponent of the notion that each of us are responsible for our the impact of our speech. If you are really pro-life (and to be quite honest most folks who identify as pro-life are anything but, they are really only pro-fetus) then you need to reexamine your rhetoric. At the front of it must be firm instructions to your followers - every time you speak - that violence is not acceptable. You must educate your followers, you must stop the spin, you must stop the hatred.

You see, you have become what you claim to abhor: Murderers.

A Reminder

2009-06-02T10:08:00.002-05:00

Just a reminder that I do not publish unsigned comments to any of my blogs. If you have the courage to sign it, I welcome all comments. If you don't, then I must assume what you have to say means very little to you.

Why I Am Not a Christian Anymore

2009-06-01T18:31:00.003-05:00

I realized something today with the help of some folks who were questioning my doctrinal purity around the issue of the Trinity. You know the Trinity, that doctrine that has but a very limited and very questionable basis in Scripture - the one that wasn't defined until a few hundred years after the death of Jesus - the one that Jesus himself flat out said was not the case when he said that he was not God? The doctrine that nobody in liturgical circles wants to preach about on Trinity Sunday? Yes, that one. Apparently, for a bunch of folks, the Trinity is the litmus test for Christianity. I'm not complaining about them in particular because for every so-called Christian it is something or other - the trinity, the virgin birth, keeping women/minorities/homosexuals in their place, this or that nonsensical doctrine - that they use to decide who gets to stay in God's club and who must leave.

Do you really think God needs the help? Can you even fit your ego through a door? What WOULD Jesus do, really? I'll tell you - he would slap the shit out of you.

As I have been reflecting on this, and on the God of my experience, and on my experience within Christianity, and on having the great honor of hearing Sharon Salzberg speak in Madison last week, and having reflected for some time on folks like Wayne Teasdale, Bede Griffiths, Thich Nhat Hanh, Thomas Merton, and a host of others; having found God not only in the so-called Christian writers but also in people like Rumi, Kahlil Gibran, Pema Chodron, Sharon Salzberg, Ghandi, His Holiness the Dalai Lama; having found God in documents such as the Tao, the Dhammapada, the Quran, the Gita, and in Buddhist Sutras; and having failed to find very much of God in the current Pope, the religious right (which is all wrong) in Christianity, or fundamentalism in any religion, I have news for the Christian world...

I QUIT!

From now on, I shall be a follower of Jesus. You've heard of him, but you probably have heard of him from the folks of religion. That means you have heard an awfully twisted view of Jesus. I encourage you to pick yourself up a Bible and read what Jesus actually said. That's what I have done, over and over, and each time I do it I find less and less Christianity there. Since it's Jesus I signed up to follow, from now on it's Jesus I will follow. Jesus was never critical of anyone's attempt to draw closer to God, and neither am I. Jesus never talked of hell, although he did mention a garbage dump outside Jerusalem named gehenna and Christianity has been kind enough to twist his words by translating gehenna as hell. What Jesus did do, and therefore what his followers need to do, is love. He loved radically, he loved wastefully - both God and people. All people, all creatures, all of creation - in short, everything - received his love. As followers of Jesus, we are called to follow suit. Notice that nowhere in doing that is there judgment or criticism or ex-communication. We'll leave that to the Christians - after all, they are so damn good at it. In fact, come to think of it, you might say they spend more time worrying about who they feel is going to hell than they seem to spend doing anything else. Fine with me, because I'm not in that club any more!

I'm a follower of Jesus.

What is the UAC?

2009-06-01T11:42:00.004-05:00

I wrote this in another context, but thought it might be helpful here as well:

One of the things we have very intentionally done is seek to distance ourselves from the Independent Sacramental Movement, where many (but not all) seem to be much very involved in arguments about who has the prettiest vestments, the best lines, and a host of other things that for us are largely irrelevant. You can say we aren’t Christian for whatever reason you like. In our hearts we know what we are. You can say we are not Anglican because we don’t visit the queen (or any other reason), and that’s fine with us - we know we are. For us, living an authentic life of faith isn’t about getting into arguments about doctrine or other definitions. Living an authentic life of faith is responding to God’s call to care about those whom we here God calling us to care for. If for you God is calling you to police certain doctrine or dogma, we say “God bless you on that journey, but it isn’t ours.”

In the end, we believe that we are called to focus not on our differences but on what we share in common. We take seriously God’s call to love our neighbor, and we believe that all people are our neighbors. If you don’t agree with us, that’s really quite ok. We will be happy to visit with you, chat with you, share our experiences, our joys and concerns, and when you are in our churches you are certainly welcome to receive the sacraments and participate fully in the life of the Church.

In the earliest Church, before Constantine did Christianity the great disservice of making it “official”, there wasn’t much fuss about how to remove those who were not of like thought. In fact, there was great plurality of thought. This can perhaps be seen most clearly today through the non-canonical gospels. Clearly, the people who wrote and read these documents found Christ in them - before, and I would suggest even after - they were declared inadequate by the establishment. As an apophatic theologian, I experience a God who is infinitely vast and who transcends my experience of God (and, in fact, transcends all that is). I don’t find myself called to pass judgment on or invalidate others’ experience of God.

In the end, if you don’t agree with us or find us lacking, we still love you and wish you well - and most importantly you are still welcome here. We believe that perspective allows us a diversity that affords us a richness we could not otherwise achieve. That perspective has also afforded us the opportunity to enjoy rich friendships with folks from the mainline traditions as well.

What’s more, we do not see ourselves in competition with anyone - most especially the Episcopal Church. We in the Universal Anglican Church exist to serve those who have fallen through the cracks of the Institutional Church. We never have, and never will, put our fliers on cars in the parking lot of any other church. To paraphrase Popeye, we are who we are. There are more than enough hurting people in this world to serve, and so we certainly don’t need to compete with one another. Take us or leave us, that’s perfectly fine. In any event, we will continue to have what I dare say is one of the better records in the Independent Movement of actually being Church. Our clergy are required to have active, verifiably ministries - including bishops, who must have ministry outside of their episcopacy. As a result, we have found that our energies are much better directed toward doing ministry than toward excluding others or getting embroiled in arguments.

Racism at Applebees

2009-05-27T11:09:00.003-05:00

I had an awakening last weekend in Cleveland, and it wasn't a good one.

I was in Cleveland for Liberation Conversations 2009, a wonderful annual conference of the Interdenominational Conference of Liberation Congregations and Ministries. To learn more visit http://www.amistaducc.org/ICLCM/ICLCM%20Home.htm. On Sunday evening, after the closing worship, nine of us went looking for a place to eat. We ended up at Applebees on Steeleyard Drive in Cleveland. There were nine of us people at the table and I obviously wasn't thinking about the fact that I am white and the others are people of color. The first time the waitress approached to take our drink orders I noticed that, while she called everyone else either "honey" or "dear", she called me "sir". The first time I thought it was an accident or some sort of coincidence. The second pass through when she delivered our drinks the same thing happened. Might still be a coincidence - unless, the third approach when she took our dinner orders, it happened again.

I like to give everyone the benefit of the doubt, but there is no benefit to be gained here. I was not older than everyone else. I was not dressed better than everyone else. In fact, because I wear my hair longer than most men do you might say that if someone was going to judge my by my appearance they might dismiss me as a hippie. A very handsome hippie, but a hippie nonetheless, and if they did that they would only be half right because I am not a hippie. When the food was delivered, this time by a woman of color, we were all called "dear" or "honey". Generally speaking, I don't like being called by any term of affection in less I have been affectionate with you - but this night I felt great relief for you see these people I was with are in fact my brothers and sisters is a profound sense that transcends biology, family, and most certainly the color of our skin.

Wake up Applebees - wake up America! The time for this nonsense never was, and the time in which is was tolerated is long gone

The Truth About Aging

2009-05-24T12:30:00.005-05:00

Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk who is one of my primary influences, wrote in his diaries when he was more or less my age that he thought his death was imminent. In truth he lived another ten years and died an accidental death at the age of 58. When I was younger, I used to wonder why he seemed so preoccupied with his death. By the time he was a couple of years older than I am now, he wrote that he had realized that he was not about to die. He wrote that his body was telling him not to die but to slow down. I didn't understand that fully until very recently.

I now know that I can't do what I used to do. For American males that is a hard pill to swallow. We have been conditioned to keep going at any cost. I certainly identified with that in the past. I would drive all night, attend three and four day conferences, and leave late at night on the fourth day to drive all night home. When I encountered an obstacle I ran it over. It was a badge of honor, a proof of my man-ness, and I was as good as anyone at it. Recently I have learned that instead of running through walls I bounce off of them. Even more recently, I have learned that is not a bad thing.

You see, when you aren't operating "full speed ahead, damn the torpedoes" you can actually attend to what you are doing. You can give more of yourself to people by giving less of yourself to proving your toughness. You can actually be centered.

It isn't as easy to accomplish this transition as you might think. The people around you, including many who are past the age where they too should begin to slow down, will not accept the change in you. They will continue to demand more, and be blind to the reality that what you are giving them is better than more. The only way to respond to this appropriately and with dignity is to politely continue to do what is right. The opinions of others never does anything for anyone but the opinion holder.

I now understand why so many cultures value their elders. The American culture has harmed itself greatly by rejecting the elderly and packing them away in warehouses called nursing homes. I don't say that I am an elder yet, but I do say that I see in the elderly great wisdom and great spiritual teaching, if only we will slow down long enough and let them out of their prisons that we might hear from them on a daily basis.

I love my wife Erin more than I ever have (and she hears enough from me at home and so doesn't read my blog, so that statement is not self serving). It is no longer a love based on either of our perfections, because neither of us are. It is a love based in the comfort, energy, and wisdom that grows from time spent together, challenges encountered, and most of all (for me anyway) finding what I have never believed I would - someone who loves me despite all my limitations; old, new, and yet to come.

So if you expect me to be somewhere and I can't get there, that's OK. If you are mad or have any other feelings about that, that's OK too. I am still who I am, and you feelings or lack thereof aren't going to manipulate me any longer, because there are some things I simply can't do anymore. In a strange sort of way, that is a wonderful gift and there is wonderful freedom in that.

There is a spiritual freedom connected to this, and I will write more about that in a later post.

Danny Gokey Day

2009-05-16T12:05:00.002-05:00

I confess, I watch American Idol. Not as religiously as I used to, but I still catch it when I can. And, as everyone in Milwaukee, Little Rock, and San Diego probably knows, the top three finalists were sent home to their respective home towns for a huge publicity thing about two weeks ago. None of that surprises me. What did surprise me was the number of negative reactions I read. Most of them ran along a line that argues since we don't have parades for my favorite thing, or since the economy is in the tank, we shouldn't have a parade/weekend for the hometown boy (and this year they are all boys) made good.

How mean spirited is that? Have we really become so jaded that we would deprive people of their day in the sun? Are we really so focused on the negatives in life that we cannot allow ourselves to have a little go old escapist fun? I read several comments that said we should have parades for returning soldiers. I'm fine with that, but let's remember that when those parades occurred in the past they occurred after the (declared) war was over, not as each soldier returned home.

All of that notwithstanding, I say knock yourself out with parades for everybody. The more important issue to me is the rampant negativity that would deny someone their day in the sun. Perhaps we all need to take a deep breath and reexamine our own lives with an eye toward finding our joy. It is there - and it's there in the simple things, the daily things, the everyday. We all need to take a step back from our own imagined self importance to find the joy again. Take a day off and walk in the park, visit your friends, take in a movie, help an old person across the street. I bet you will find that the company you work for doesn't close because you missed a day.

One thing is certain: If we don't relax a little bit and start enjoying life, life will kill us. What a legacy that would be - to have lived a life without joy, you last breath muttering curses about a Danny Gokey parade.

A Word from Bristol Palin

2009-05-06T10:17:00.003-05:00

Like, wow! Mr. Rove and my mom told me that I need to get out there and start, like, campaigning for her next run for President. So I got a job with Candies (they gave me some really cute shoes that make my legs look really sexy). I do some commercials, and I go around talking about something called abstinence education. Somebody asked me something about living in a glass house, but our house isn't made of glass. I guess if it was I wouldn't have to go outside to see Russia.

I just know that all my friends are going to stop sleeping with their boyfriends because they will see the common sense in this. I'm going to stop having sex too, because...er...wait a minute.....

MOM! MR. ROVE!!!!

Toward A Non-Theistic Understanding of God

2009-05-04T13:58:00.004-05:00

Note: This post assumes that the reader has read the preceding post entitled, "Who is God, anyway?"

A non-theistic understanding of God is one that assumes that God is spirit (John 4:24 "God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth."). There is no super-human God hovering just about the clouds. Rather, God is infinitely vast and transcends all that we know. God is without beginning and without end, because God transcends time (and everything else). God was present at the creation (however that happened) and will be present beyond the end of life as we know it on this planet.

Religions, every last one of them, are limited as opposed to transcendent. They cannot possibly capture God, who is infinite. The best they can hope to do is to capture some part of God, to come to an imperfect understanding of God. To remain vital, they must remain open to input. The notion that God, who is infinite, ever stops speaking is absurd because even if God spoke only once it would take us forever to hear it because, unlike God, we are bound and limited by time.

Since every religion falls short, it is absolutely absurd for us to engage in wars over religion. It is also absolutely absurd for us to hate, exclude, ostracize, ex-communicate, or seek to punish those who do not agree with our religious viewpoint because we have this great religious truth in common - we only see part of God. If we are going to kill someone because we believe they are wrong about God, we may as well start with ourselves because we, too, see only in part (1 Cor 13:12 "For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.").

It follows from this that every religion has something to offer of God, quite possibly something we have missed. If God is infinite, God contains all things, and so all things show us something of God. All religions may not work for me, but most certainly I can learn something from other religions. None of us has a corner on God, for infinity has no corners. Understand Jesus how you will, understand Mohammad how you will, understand Buddha how you will, understand Krishna how you will, understand all systems how you will, but above all understand that they all contain something of God. They may not all speak to me, but they most definitely all speak of God.

Of course, there will be those who are critical of this thought and get their hackles raised - but their interest is not in seeking God, it is in defending their own particular view of God or their churches' view of God. Churches, however, are not infinite and God is infinite. God is bigger than any church and bigger than all of them put together. What you really are defending is your need to feel superior, your need to reassure yourself that you are going to be with God and those who disagree with you most definitely will not get to be with God.

God then is not a guy (or a girl), who lives some physical place or destination (heaven) to where we travel when we die. It would be much more accurate to say that when we die we hope to achieve union with God. We might even say that we hope to achieve union with infinity, or all that is, or the universe...

You don't have to agree with me, you can believe whatever you like. The truth is that most human beings at this moment in history have a rather tribal understanding of religion, even if they no longer have a tribal lifestyle. For some reason most people seem to need to be primitive when it comes to God - and that is very ironic when you consider that God is so infinite, so transcendent, that the last thing God would ever want is tribalism and hatred, especially in the name of God.

This view opens up for us the truth that there is something to be learned from all religious systems, because they all contain something of God. I suspect that most of us will find a system in which we feel most comfortable, and that is a good thing. At the same time, however, there is no need for any of us to feel uncomfortable about inquiry, because all inquiry (religious or not) leads us to learn more about God. Ind the end, that's what we all want, and that's what we all need.

Who Is God, Anyway?

2009-04-28T17:38:00.003-05:00

Who is God? In your heart of hearts, I want you to think about who God is. Is God a person. Forgetting for a moment about all this contemporary talk about a "personal God", is God a person in the way that you and I are people? Does God have a physical form, and if so where is it located? Is God just beyond the skies with a white beard and sitting on a throne? If so, why haven't we found him yet with satellites and moon shots and space shuttles?

Is God definable? I suppose we all make attempts to define God, and we all believe we can at least define God in part, but by definable I mean completely definable - can we describe, define, or doctrine God into neatly defined categories?

Is God bigger than our religion, or does religion completely circumscribe God? If we can define God, wouldn't that make our intellect bigger than God's? Is the God who is beyond all, who is behind everything from the creation of all that is to the cry of a newborn child easily described in words - or is there a mystery to God and is there truth in the apophatic notion that the more I learn about God the more I realize just how little I know about God?

When Jesus said that the Father is spirit, and the time is coming when those who worship God will worship in spirit and truth, what did he mean?

Ponder these things, because in a few days I will propose an answer.

2009-04-25T20:49:00.001-05:00

Well as wedding receptions go I would say that was slightly more awkward as your mother walking in on you losing your virginity to the varsity basketball team

2009-04-25T13:38:00.001-05:00

At home getting ready for tonight's wedding reception

2009-04-25T07:58:00.001-05:00

Apologetics: The theoplogical equivalent of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic (lol!)

2009-04-24T13:26:00.001-05:00

Here's a little tip from me to you: If you can't control your child in public, you need a parenting class.

Need A Lifeboat?

2009-04-23T16:08:00.003-05:00

Pope Benedryl XVI is following through on his promise to make the Roman Catholic Church smaller and more theologically "pure". He seems to envision a Church that dwells somewhere in the early 19th century - although that may be a bit to progressive for him. Perhaps the counter-reformation and the Council of Trent would suit him better. Now, of course, I want to begin by saying there is nothing wrong with being a spiritual neanderthal if that is what you feel called to be. There is a whole lot wrong with being forced to become a spiritual neanderthal if you don't feel called to be one, however.

Spiritual neanderthals, in both their Catholic and Protestant incarnations, care very little about anything other than apologetics and doctrine. Don't talk to them about Jesus, they have no time for him. I had an electronic conversation yesterday in which I asked a neanderthal of the Catholic variety to show me where Jesus ever said anything that could be considered even remotely in favor of excommunication. He quoted Paul to me - and wasn't even savvy enough to know that the letter attributed to Paul from which he quoted is regarded by biblical scholars to not be original to Paul at all, but rather to be written by the early Church to tame Paul. When I reminded him that Paul wasn't Jesus and repeated my request for a word from Jesus he couldn't come up with anything (because it doesn't exist) and so he took to attacking my person in an attempt to defend his indefensible position by disqualifying me as an inquirer. In debate circles that is called an ad hominem fallacy. This little neanderthal Catholic is just what Pope Benedryl is looking for - someone who will toe the line and not let the truth get in the way.

I believe that Rat-boy will get what he wants - reiki will be out, habits on nuns will be back in, women will be back in the kitchen where he prefers them, homosexuals (except, of course, for his brother) will be out of the Catholic Church, and a new phase of the Spanish Inquisition will begin. Why do I care? Frankly, I couldn't care less about what happens to the Church. I do care about the people that will be hurt in the process.

There will be calls to remain within the Church and attempt to fight - but you can't fight an autocratic system of governance and win. In this case, nothing will work. The Roman Catholic Church as we know it will fade over the next fifty years into a small cloister of irrelevance. Even after Benny and the Jets have passed on, their successors will be no different because they were chosen from sheep of the same stripe. In their wake will lie the very many people they have destroyed along the way.

What's the alternative? Well, Roman Catholics can remain aboard rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic and hoping the ship won't really sink. A much healthier place would be to get out now. Go to the UAC, to the Anglo-Catholics, to the Episcopalians, to the Lutherans, to the Methodists, go anywhere - but please, get out now before they destroy your spirit. Move your selves, you family, your religious orders, your priests; move everyone who values freedom of thought and conscience. Move everyone who values Jesus more than apologetics. Move everyone whose Lord is Christ and leave all those who worship the catechism and the Pope behind. They are too far gone, locked in their mode of self destruction, to save anyway.

Here - take this life boat. You are going to need it.

2009-04-22T09:45:00.001-05:00

Leaving the dentist wondering why MY hygenist is such a hag

2009-04-13T15:13:00.001-05:00

At Body Ritual, it's tat time!

2009-04-12T19:41:00.001-05:00

After church this morning spent the afternoon and early evening moving everything from the old church to the new - and my ass is kicked

2009-04-06T16:31:00.001-05:00

leaving work and headed to Stein Optical to either get my glasses or leave the place in ruins

2009-04-04T14:04:00.001-05:00

Stein Optical has screwed up my glasses not once but twice and the really irritating thing is the manager is a good guy so I can't bring myself to be shitty