Turning Back Around

I apologize for the lack of updates lately. Between enjoying my summer and lack of inspiration to write a post, I haven’t found much time to write.

Another reason is because my faith seems to be lacking. I think it’s a combination of a few things. For one, I’ve been overexerting myself with all this spiritual and theological thinking alongside a rigorous curriculum at school. I just kind of burnt out and I’ve begun to take time for myself lately. Secondly, I’ve become a little disillusioned  with fellow Christians in my community. The reason I have for joining the church I currently attend is because the pastor had fantastic sermons. Maybe I was caught up in a spiritual rush at the time, because all I hear any more is filler. “Have faith in the Lord. The Devil is trying to tempt us.”

I have begun to realize that sermons should not be my first priority when choosing a church. With effort and a Faith-driven will I can find that truth on my own. What I truly need is a community. Somebody I can share my thoughts with.  Even to find one outside a church where people aren’t spouting out verses for vanity, blindly praising Him for brownie points, or looking to recruit. Please show me that you are Christian in way of life and not words!

I’m looking for something simpler in my faith than I have previously sought after: living my life and being thankful to Him for it. To know that He expects nothing in return, but I shall willingly serve in gratitude, regardless. I’m thinking I’ve been caught up too much in technicalities: churches, denominations, interpretations of the Word. Identifying those differentiations help me to grow, but inevitably reap nothing in the end. I don’t think God notices the difference between a Methodist and a Presbyterian.

I still don’t know what I’m going to do. It’s started to feel like a chore again, going to Church, and that should never happen. Granted, I’m not going to church on the premise that it’s fun to go. It’s because I want to go and I’ve committed myself to it. Right now I’m feeling rather depressed because I’m just wandering around aimlessly again, but I’m thrilled that I’ve got way more ahead of me. It’s galvanizing knowing that you have another challenge ahead of you. Please, somebody, tell me you know what I’m feeling…

The God Box

A question I usually confront myself with when assessing my religious views is, “What is my God box?” What is a God box? A God box is an individual’s current image of God and everything that God is.  For instance, a simple example would be a God in a toga, who looks like Zeus and lounges on top of a cloud throwing lightning bolts. This God answers your prayers and controls every facet of the universe. Many of us have shared this God box before.  Another God box would be “God is Love”.  In this image, God is more than just a concrete being. He transcends reality and becomes a concept as well. Depending on how you say “God is Love”, this could be seen as a more mature God box. These two examples are what I meant by  ”God box”.

My God box is constantly under evaluation, constantly evolving. Currently I see God as many things: He is the omnipotent father of all things, He is the historical/spiritual Jesus, and It is a spiritual entity that is nebulous in nature and can only be described by what It is not. This could be referred to as the Trinity. My God box is meshed with the concepts and realities of Allah and Buddha, not because I extract what I like from each religion to make my own “cafeteria-style” religion, but because I see how they are the same.  I say He is Love, but I don’t say it like others usually do. My image of God is One who does not do what you ask of Him. He helps you, but not in the way you often want. His will is beyond our will, implemented on behalf of not only our own sakes but everything else’s.

The best way to describe it is the will of a doctor and the will of a patient. We ask the doctor to cure us of our ailments. He cuts us up, he tears things out, he gives us pills. We go through all this invasive treatment with promise of feeling better… and at the end of the day we still feel nauseous and dizzy. Our sutures burn with pain, our insides are roiling inside of us, and the adverse effects of the medication makes us feel even worse. “How does this make me feel better?” the patient asks. The patient and the doctor shared the same goal in curing an ailment, but there was a difference in wills. The patient’s will was to be comfortable. To FEEL better. The doctor’s was to actually fix the problem. The patient was looking for instant gratification while the doctor was addressing the immediate medical priority AND the long term health of the patient. The doctor’s will may not be immediately inherent, but when you stand back and look at what all is going on and also realize that he is not just diagnosing you but hundreds of others don’t you think that what the doctor provided the patient was ultimately more beneficial than what was asked for? Trying to keep myself from writing a novel of a blog, this is the best I can describe what I see God as right now. There’s so much more to God than what I can describe at any point in time.

That’s what determines the scope of my God box: my ability to intuit God. My God box only exists to break God into digestible, bite-size pieces. It’s like a television, which is only capable of showing you what is able to fit onto film. What you see on the screen implies so much more, but you are not able to experience it in its entirety. As time passes, my God box seems to grow bigger and bigger to accomodate for my rapidly expanding image of God, and with each passing evaluation He becomes harder to contain into a box. My God box becomes more strained as I stretch it out. So what is going to happen when it reaches it’s limit? Is it going to halt in it’s tracks? Or is it going to split at the seams and bottom out? Is it going to be too much for me and I’ll just give up on it all? The problem becomes more than just being able to find out what God is. It also becomes an issue of preparing myself to experience more of what He is. It becomes an issue of my integrity as a vessel for God.

And after all that is said and done, after we have established a God box…what does it matter? What was it’s purpose? All we did was construct an image of Him, we never found Him. Wasn’t the God box constructed to help us see God in His entirety? How does it do that by cutting it into pieces? How does it help us see the big picture when all it is capable of doing is showing us a small window into what God is? How can we know who God is by making up our own idea of Him? One thing we must be aware of when constructing this God box is that what we see in it IS NOT GOD. It is our projections that we place onto what we believe God is. What we see in the God box we are more than willing to name God Himself. As DeMello said in Awareness, “people fall into idolatry because they think that where God is concerned, the word is the thing.” We construct a description of who we think God is then we fall into the rut of worshipping that, forgetting that it was only a guess at who He is. DeMello wrote about how he was confronted by a world-renowned scripture scholar. “It never struck me that I had been an idol worshipper all my life! My idol was not made of wood or metal; it was a mental idol.” DeMello reminded his readers that those that had constructed their own mental idol were the more dangerous idol worshippers because “they used a very subtle substance, the mind to produce their God.”

Maybe I was never meant to contain God in a box. Maybe I wasn’t meant to contain Him within me, this body serving as a Temple. How could all of what God is be within me? Maybe I’ve been using the wrong word this whole time. I’m not a vessel, I’m a conduit. I am a channel through which He flows through. Right now, the God box seems irrelevant. My experience and my ideas of God right now have surpassed any words that I am capable of expressing right now.  Right now it doesn’t feel like I could fit what I’m feeling inside a box and I’m all the better for it.

A Collection of Thoughts: Christianity

I’m so tired mentally, it’s been hard keeping up with the regular blog posts lately. I just don’t have the drive to write anything that makes me think. It’s the most inconvenient time to feel that way, as I’m being confronted with several issues that are calling for my attention: Christianity, responsibility, self control with alcohol, my views on sex, and generativity.

Concerning my Christianity, a lot of my concern has been sparked by my recent inconsistency with going to church. I just feel so guilty, whether it’s for rational or irrational reasons. Why am I feeling so guilty? I’ve been putting it off because with nursing school and personal time and my philosophy group and home errands all vying for a slot in my weekend schedule, Church gets put on raincheck. A lot of the guilt comes from my mother telling me how I would go to hell for not attending Church. Attending Church seemed to be the way she gauged how good of a Christian somebody was. Bleh, I hate that feeling, but it’s ingrained in me pretty deep. An extra kick in the balls came when I drove by a mob right off of Dixie St. near South Patio of Tennessee Tech, where I go. Sticking out of the mob was a huge banner saying “Turn to Jesus or Burn in Hell”. A head-turner, but what piqued my interest was the fact that some of my militant atheist friends were in the rabble. I parked nearby and walked over to see what the hell was going on.

Turned out there was an evangelist by the name of John making some pretty condemning statements and there were people gathering around, some yelling back at him. Initially, I was rather disgusted with what he had to say. He was spouting nothing but hate and damnation in the effort of scaring people into Christianity. Where was that going to get someone? What is the quality of faith of a Christian guided by fear? John was playing on their fear of death, on their fear of hell and damnation. Sometimes, I wish heaven and hell had never been mentioned to humans because I think it skews the true motives of a Christian. The ultimate goal of Christianity shouldn’t be a reward/punishment complex.

So there he was, shouting the Gospel as he saw fit, ignoring “foolish questions” and speaking over them. The opposing side wasn’t squeaky clean either. Students were spitting at his feet, blowing smoke at him, flashing porn, exercising their poor understanding and recognition of logical fallacies (quick note: pointing out a contradiction that has no relevance to the argument has not made anybody look smart since the sixth grade). There was even a point near the end when some of the students came back with posters saying “Honk if you love beer”, “Honk if you love porn”. I didn’t know what to think other than both sides were being idiots. Other than that, I felt pretty conflicted on how respond to it, if at all.

What I saw was a lot of fear and hate. Hate in John’s words, fear in his avoidance from certain confrontations. Hate from the spiteful students, and fear from those who continued to spite him. Fear from the Christian students who had felt that same way I had felt to some degree. They tried to confront him, tried to tell him that there were those who believed, to which he replied “I’m not here for you, I’m here for the unsaved. If you believe, then go and tell them the Truth,” to which they retreated a few feet and prayed. I chose to abstain from the prayer because I wouldn’t have been praying for the right reasons. It wouldn’t have been for John, it wouldn’t have been for the “unsaved”, it wouldn’t have been for God. Rather, it would have been at God asking for him to forgive me, to wash my hands of all that toxic feeling. That wasn’t the time to be thinking about myself, I thought. Instead, I kept on listening to John and to the few sincere questions that were asked and he would respond to amidst all the jeering and honking.

I don’t know about anybody else who was there, but I felt the love that had come from him. Beneath his vanity and his hate and his fear, there was a lot of love in what he had to say. If any of you remember my blog a while back about hypocrisy, this is a shining example of that post. Most of what John said may have been skewed or out of context, but it wasn’t entirely untrue. There was a teaching value to his words. To the best of his abilities and understanding, he was trying to help others, although not entirely for their sakes. In his eyes, by spending his money on a banner, by driving out two whole hours, by standing up to the heathens, the smokers, the prostitutes, the Sodomites he was a warrior on behalf of God. That was how he showed God his love.

And don’t think he wasn’t listening to those jeers. Don’t think he didn’t notice the spit at his feet. He was fighting back the look of defeat near the end and the only way he could hide it was by being more resolute. By making more accusations. He had to keep that warrior spirit in the face of evil. He wasn’t going to concede forfeiture. Down to the minute he left he was preaching, as flawed as everyone thought it was. In some ways it was noble, despite the foolishness of it.

Three days later I’m still trying to figure out what to think about it all. He might not have won over any Christians, but he kept me thinking in a time when I was staggering in my Christianity so I hope he didn’t leave feeling that he had failed in his mission.

On Religious Differences

Why do people who believe they are religiously right hate people of other religions? Shouldn’t that feeling be pity, or sadness instead of hate?

Mmm, I’m not to fond of saying that they should feel pity or sadness, either. To feel those would imply that something is wrong. Is there something wrong for them having different beliefs? Wouldn’t that be the tiniest bit presumptuous of us to think it was pitiable that they didn’t think what we thought? That would suggest we’re right if we pitied them, wouldn’t it? We’d pity them for having misled beliefs.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say it’s laudable, but I think it would be more appropriate to say it is worthy of my appreciation. It’s a new perspective that can teach us about their values or more about our own.

I’m reading a book by Thich Nhat Hanh right now called Living Buddha, Living Christ and in the third chapter he talks about how he was confronted during a meal at a religious conference. A minister asked him “Are you a grateful person?” He said yes. “If you are really grateful, how can you not believe in God? God has created everything we enjoy, including the food we eat. Since you do not believe in God, you are not grateful for anything.”

But was Thich Naht Hahn ungrateful? A common Buddhist practice is to be mindful. It is to be in the present moment and appreciate the “suchness” of things. To appreciate the air we breathe, to be mindful of the food we eat, bringing us nourishment with each chew we take. It’s an awareness of what we have rather than what we have lost or what we do not have. I would like to call that gratefulness.

On Religious War

I’d say one cause for religious war is selfishness. The motivation isn’t truly because “God wills it” or “Allah wills it”, but personal gain.

Pope Urban II launched the First Crusade to extend his power to Constantinople and beyond with an added bonus of fighting off the Seljuqs from previously Christian territory. The Crusaders were in it for all kinds of reasons. If you paid attention to Urban II’s speech, he referred to the Crusades as a pilgrimage. Anybody who died in battle would be remitted of their sins, for they were doing their duty to God. That probably had something to do with it. Also the plentiful amount of loot they would have amounted.

Now I’m not too familiar with Muslim beliefs and practices, but I’ve also heard that some modern terrorism is fueled by the belief that it is to glorify Allah and they will be rewarded with a harem of 72 virgins. Terrorists try to push this concept to take advantage of other individuals who either truly want to please Him or are more inclined to the prospect of a harem. One small problem with that is that Islam does not reward suicide. These small group of terrorists twist words and blur the line between martyrdom and suicide to take advantage of the rest of the population, especially the uneducated, for the sake of fighting the opposition.

On both sides, there was also a little bit of fear involved. Each side was afraid for their own sakes, their own fates, their own souls. They wanted to go to Heaven or any similar paradise, and they were told that going to war for the sake of their savior would make them shoe-ins for salvation. Any doubts they might have had about whether what they were doing as wrong would either be vindicated by calling the acts of war “on the behalf of God” or overshadowed by their own fear of damnation. Again, personal gain: getting into heaven. It’s a dangerous incentive that I think we’re all guilty of wanting. It’s not bad to want it, but sometimes it distracts us from the true motives for having faith.

Furthermore, I think religious wars are about spreading the influence of one’s own religion to another territory or purging another influence from your own territory. Isn’t that also personal gain? It’s because it’s YOUR religion and YOUR territory. You have invested some of yourself in these properties, so again it’s about you and what is yours. We want OUR religion to be the one that is right. If we just had religion as is, not place our ownership on it, I don’t think there would be too much call for religious wars.

So whether it be selfishness or even slightly enlightened self interest (“for the glory of God. My God”) a lot of these wars are a result of us wanting to make it about ourselves. We’ve got to take ourselves out of the picture. Let the ways of God, or whoever we choose, be done through us, not by us. Don’t confuse that with blind faith. One you have to work for, one you don’t.

Translations of Pope Urban’s Speech: http://www.cbn.com/spirituallife/ChurchAndMinistry/ChurchHistory/Crusades_PopeUrbanClermontSpeech.aspx
Interesting blog post on the Reward of 72 Virgins: http://theuglytruth.wordpress.com/2007/03/04/debunking-the-suicide-for-72-virgins-myth/

What is Truth and What is Theory?

Ok, I lied. I forgot I had a couple of journals saved as drafts. This one is from about two weeks ago.  ***WARNING: Amber Spyglass Spoiler*** You have been warned.

The funny thing about fact is that it’s only accurate when it comes to wordly things, but how many facts do we know when it comes to spirituality? I can’t think of any off the top of my head. Yes, we share similar experiences, but similar experiences are correlations. They do not prove causation.

The Amber Spyglass by Robert Pullman

I’m writing this because I just finished reading the Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman. There is a part where the ghosts of the dead are all sent to limbo instead of heaven. Heaven exists, but there is a power struggle happening and pretty much nobody is making it past the “pearly gates”. One of teh main characters possesses a knife that can cut into other alternate universes. He cuts into the land of the dead and crosses the river Styx. He then opens up a portal back to the land of the living on the other side. Ghosts that pass back into the land of the living disintegrate into particles and become part of everything else: the trees, the grass, the air, the ocean. They feel everything at once.

It was a lot like my current definition of nirvana. The best way to explain my definition is through analogy. The traditional idea of nirvana is to snuff out the flame of the candle of your soul. My definition is to have the candle consumed in a conflagration of fire. Better put, it’s like saying that your soul was a shot glass full of water. If you dumped that shot glass into a fish tank full of water, the water molecules that you were composed of would still be there, but now they’re a part of the entire fish tank. They are part of everything else now.

I was going “Yes!” the whole time. “Ahh! This is so beautiful! How can something so profound be a work of fiction!?” And then I realize: how can something so profound as what I believe in NOT be a work of fiction? Pullman came to the same conclusion in a young adult book that I’ve been working at in real life. It brought to light the possibility that I can’t really prove that anything I believe is right.It could merely be a work of fiction. There is no incontrovertible evidence for what I believe in, yet there seems to be a right and wrong in religion.

Christianity, for example, has “facts” to prove its own legitimacy. There is an “authority” that we can refer to in Christianity itself: the Bible. There are doctrines, creeds, historical evidence. Using these as sources of reference, we can establish accepted standards in Christianity. But really, what sound basis are these facts built upon? One has to exercise at least a little bit of faith for those facts to be  legitimized. You have to trust that what the Bible tells you is true. I was under the impression that facts should be able to stand on their own.

I’m not trying to attack Christianity, but I’m bringing this up because I find a lot of Christians that are so cocksure of themselves, of how Chrisitanity, how religion is supposed to be. My most recent example of this was the Lutheran Bible Study. They seem to have all the answers. We were given a list of guided questions at the study, but it really irked me that the vicar had a list of answers. “The Bible says so, so it is true”. “The Bible told us to, so we must do it.” That really gets under my skin.

I want to figure things out, I really do, but I don’t really believe that all my searching will actually direct me to a concrete answer. All I can do is better define what it is I’m searching for. All I can really do is refine my results. Right now I don’t think the truth I’m looking for is attainable, but I’m fine with that. I’m fine with having to answer my own questions. I’m fine not knowing whether those answers are right. Continuing the search gives me something to do with my life.

Using His Name in Vain

Most people are aware of the second or third commandment (depending on which translation you use): “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain.” It makes sense, right? Don’t say “OH MY GOD” or “God damn”. You are making a pointless or insincere oath. He wants you to put meaning into His name whenever you say it. Don’t use it so flippantly. At least that’s my take.

However, the word “vain” means more than just useless and ineffectual. Merriam-Webster’s fourth definition of “vain” is: 

4: having or showing undue or excessive pride in one’s appearance or achievements : conceited

That’s the definition I’m going to refer to today. One thing that bothers me is when I hear somebody make a reference to God every other sentence. To hear somebody attribute anything and everything that happens to them as either the work of God or the work of the Devil. To put in the token “First of all, I’d just like to thank Jesus Christ our Savior and God the Father,” in every acceptance speech I hear. I just feel like that’s the person saying “Look at me, guys. I’m a Christian. See how good of a Christian I am? I’ve made a reference to Him three times already in this conversation alone.” I just get the notion that when somebody does that, they are putting up a mask because they want to be seen as virtuous. They throw out all these context clues to imply that they are strong Christians. To me, that just turns His name into a buzz word. That’s the last thing I’d want to do.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I’m not saying that it’s not “cool” to be public with your faith. In fact, I want to promote that. I’m very open with my faith, and I would like others to feel as free as I am in sharing theirs. I just want people to stop and think before they say His name again. I don’t want it to become used so frequently that it becomes part of the background noise.

Think in terms of saying His name like you would say “I love you”. If I were to say “I love you” to my lover several times every time I met her, it would get old. There is almost no chance that I could possibly mean it with all my heart every time I said it if it was used so frequently. It would become more like a ritual to me, and the meaning would become diluted to the ears of my lover. It would be something she’d expect. She wouldn’t notice anymore if I had said it, but she would notice if I HADN’T said it. It would have become part of my identity to say “I love you”.  I don’t want the term “I love you” to be a part of who I am. I want it to be it’s own voice spoken through me. I want it to have a life of its own. I want her to notice every time I say “I love you”. 

That’s how I want God’s name to be used. It want it to be a treasure to say. I want it to resonate in the minds of others when I say it. I want His name to be an entity of its own, spoken through me. Don’t try to hide your faith, but don’t dilute it, either.

On God’s Punishment

Lately I’ve been battling with the thought of a wrathful God. I’ve
come to terms with an angry God, but one that punishes with death and
damnation, at times even on a grand scale, rubs me the wrong way. The
concepts of offspring being accountable for ancestors’ sins (Original
Sin) and death of firstborn (in the Exodus) are other things I don’t
like. Why does God hold us accountable for the sins of others? I can
understand being accountable for somebody else if I have the ability
to intervene, but how is it fair to be punished for sins an ancestor
committed before my birth? How is it fair that I be destroyed along
with the rest of the world (Noah’s ark, regardless of my own
beneficence/non-maleficence in it and fruitless attempts to influence
the rest of the world? Guilt by affiliation: how can you unaffiliate
yourself from the rest of the world? Sure, become an anchorite, but
weren’t those people also destroyed in the flood of Noah’s time?

So, all that turmoil is going on in my head. How could God do that?
The only reasonable explanation I can think of is this:I’m only
considering each individual’s well being, not the whole of humanity.
metaphorically speaking, I’ll say that humanity is a tree. The health
of that tree is evaluated through the wellness, the morality of
humankind. If you have virtuous people, the tree if flourishing. If
you have sinful, deprived people, your tree is wilting and decaying.
If you were a gardener and you saw one of your trees with dying
branches, what would you do? You would probably cut off those dead
limbs. You would do that to save the rest of the tree. If you left the
branch on the tree, it would needlessly leech resources that could be
better allocated to LIVING limbs. Or would you rather consider the few
living plant cells that still require nutrients in that dead limb?

Back on track. I’m not too familiar with the story, but I believe the
story of Sodom and Gamorrah was about two cities that were full of
adultery, sodomy, and a bunch of other sinful stuff. They were steeped
in it. So God purged the world of them. He surgically removed them.
They were dead limbs on the tree of humanity.

Now for a more advanced case. The people of Noah’s time were depraved.
They were all sorts of sinful. The depravity had infiltrated all of
humanity to the point of irreversible damage. Humanity, in it’s state,
could not sustain itself and flourish. The tree could not be saved.How
could that human race, that species of tree, be saved without wiping
out humanity entirely? In terms of plant life, you would cut off the
healthy branch and replant it, then uproot the rest. In terms of
humanity, He cut off Noah, the good branch, then uprooted the rest of
humanity with a flood. Noah then started over. Really, i don’t think
these stories literally happened, but the things I learned from the
story are valuable, nonetheless. The lessons can be learned across all
religions, or lack thereof.

All this is just a theory I have, the whole “sacrificing of part for
the sake of the whole” idea. I can’t make it my own at this time. I am
still concerned with each individual’s right as a human. Plus, this
theory doesn’t explain why God killed the firstborn of the Egyptians.

M’kay…that’s what I’ve been thinking about

Lutheran Bible Study

So I went to my first Bible Study I’ve been to in a while.. I went to the Lutheran Church down the road with a friend . I’m glad I went. We were holding a focused discussion onBaptism with references to the Bible that I feel safe to consider as relevant and in context.

Coming to the study was helpful in many ways: learned some new vocabulary, learned more about Lutheran dogma, it provided me with a good community to talk about Christianity with, it helped me to clarify my own stances, and more importantly, I’m progressing in knowing God.I feel that I have to know him a sufficient amount before I can allowmyself to truly love Him.

I’m ecstatic with my growing familiarity of the Bible. Six months ago, I couldn’t tell you where any of the books were located in relation to each other, with the exception of Genesis. I couldn’t even tell you what each of the books were about except for Genesis, again, and Exodus. Last night proved to me that I’m getting better. I still had trouble locating a handful of the books, but if I didn’t know a good portion of the Bible, then I wouldn’t have been able to keep up.

I did have a few problems with the meeting, though. A few of the beliefs concerning, but no exclusive to, Baptism, Holy Supper, and the Second Coming were incongruent with mine. Since we were talking about baptism that night, I’ll start with that. Lutherans believe in infant baptism. Being raised with a Lutheran father and a Catholic mother, and even being baptized in infancy myself, I’d pretty much have every reason to believe the same thing…but I don’t.

The thing with infant baptism is that they are not conscious of what the baptism is, nor are they doing it of their own free will. I think, although I have no real evidence of it, that the concept of infant baptism evolved from technicalities in their doctrine. Let’s see if I can stipulate a theoretical chain of logic for it: It starts with the concept of Original Sin. All people are born with a huge sin on their shoulders already, due to accountability for the fall of Adam and Eve, our ancestors. We are not born saved. Therefore, we must find salvation. One of the requirements for salvation is baptism. We are ALL born unsaved, therefore we must ALL be baptized, but baptism isn’t what saves you, it’s the faith behind the baptism.

Does that all make sense so far? Now it gets a little trickier. The following responses in quotations are something I documented the vicar saying, so hopefully I’m as accurate as possible. I didn’t document
him to make him sound ridiculous. I did it so I wouldn’t put words in his mouth.The question is raised: what about babies? Do they need to be baptized, too? Everybody needs to be saved so babies must also be baptized. If baptism is worthless without faith, then how are babies saved?   The vicar said “faith can come before baptism, even at infancy.” So how could an infant reasonably acquire faith? “The Word of God gives them faith. Just hearing the Word of God [can enable them to have faith and be truly baptized].” So what happens if the baby is not baptized before it dies? Doctrine indicates that the baby will not go to heaven. To me, that sounds far-fetched. It sounds like an answer somebody makes up when they are put on the spot. Their doctrine has talked them into a corner and now they can’t reason their way out. The have to say unbaptized babies go to hell because the will not consider that maybe their doctrine might require re-evaluation. Remember, this is only a theory.

Two other things I don’t agree with are the literal interpretation of the Second Coming of Christ and the literal interpretation of Christ’s flesh and blood being the bread and wine. Those I disagree with for
obvious reasons.

Pointing out my disagreements, I would now like to say that just because i disagree with something doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Also, just because I believe something doesn’t mean that it IS true. My opinion is not what confirms validity.

There were a lot of things I wanted to talk about at the study, but I decided not to. Although the vicar did welcome other opinions
different from Lutheran beliefs, I was under the impression that he meant “as long as they are still Christian”. A lot of times, I was wanting to point out correlations with other religions to strengthen
the Christian perspective. When they were asking whether being Baptized was a singular event or whether it is a lifelong event, I wanted to say that Baptism was similar to stream entry enlightenment
found in Buddhism. The actual event of Baptism represents a starting point….or at least it did to me. It is a landmark, but it brings with it an initial experience of grace, and it is almost impossible to
regress from. It changes your mind. Characterized by visions and charismatic energy, it usually follows “the dark night”. Don’t confuse stream entry with Enlightenment. This kind will not bring Nirvana.
Anywho, I didn’t feel it was my place yet, since it was my first time at the meeting. Actually, I don’t think it would ever be appropriate to bring it up there because I felt they might be offended regardless
of my best intentions. I was also wanting to bring up correlations with other denominations with in Christianity, but a more illogical side of me thought I should hold off because even though the vicar said it was fine to mention non-Lutheran interpretations, it was just a formality.

I’m choosing to go back to the bible study not only because it was enriching, but because I disagree with some of the doctrine. Although I disagree with some aspects, it comes from a denomination that I
respect. It will help me to see things from other perspectives other than my own, and it keeps challenging my beliefs in a healthy way.

Boy, I’m drained now.

God is Crying

I’ve been thinking about God being portrayed as all powerful and all knowing. I’ve  been wondering if he knows past, present, and future; if he’s perfect like that. When you think of God as perfect, how do you picture Him? Right now in my life, I don’t think that God is perfect, using the definition for that word that is most widely accepted. It’s not a problem with Him being perfect, it’s a problem with the word “perfect” itself. When labeling him as “perfect”, in the sense that most people would say perfect, I think of him as devoid of excess emotion. Maybe a response here and there when appropriate, but never anger or sadness. However, I’ve observed His emotions quite often throughout Biblical history. Just last Sunday my pastor was talking about God crying over the loss of his “only son” (I’ll talk about why I put that in quotations later) and it got me thinking: Does God do that? Does God cry? There’s also God’s anger, which makes me question his disposition. If he’s the highest of the high, why does he lose his temper like that? Why can’t he contain his anger: the flood/Noah’s ark, banishing Adam and Eve, the whole Sodom and Gamorrah fiasco. Moses had to calm down God a couple of times when he was upset with the Hebrews, who constantly disobeyed him. I thought he’d be capable of grace right there. To admonish them firmly, but ultimately overlook it.  Even some of us here on Earth are capable of that type of grace, of understanding and forgiveness. But God was wanting to abandon them, to destroy them completely. Use the rod, but only to discipline, not punish indefinitely. 

I think this concept of omnipotence has been blown out of proportion. I believe to some extent that God is capable of that, but I think some part of him is essentially human. I’m not trying to knock him down a peg. I mean that in the sincerest way possible. Would it be better to say “ideal human” here? Using the Bible as a reference, I think, is only a reliable source up to a point. You have this pure, unadulterated truth that God is trying to convey, but He has to tarnish it by putting it into words. And then He has to rely on man to compile it into a book. Don’t you think the men that wrote it would put in their own spin on God’s word? It’s been done before, the whole “editing” of the Bible…*coughcoughKingJamescough*. Think of it as the Biblical equivalent to playing Telephone. Words get distorted the more you pass it from medium to medium. From ear to ear.

I’m thinking somewhere along the way, there’s a possiblity that God has been labeled by man as the “perfect” entity, beyond man and not man. He is caucasian, wears a white toga and a white beard and lives in the clouds. He smites with his lightning bolts. Or maybe he’s not so angry. Maybe he is benevolent. He has a glowing aura around him. His hands display peace. You feel unconditionally loved in the presence of Him, this white robed man. Is that your picture of God when I speak of Him? Be truthful with yourself. I admit that I’m still guilty of it. Back to the point. I think he is not “perfect”, according to the universally accepted criteria for that word, but He is perfect in my eyes. I want a God that feels. I want a God that emphathizes. If He is sad, I want him to feel free to cry. I want Him to express how he feels.  And then I want to see how he overcomes that sadness. How He looks through the sadness, learns from it and moves on. If He is angry, I want Him to express that in a healthy way. To vent, to release that feeling of agitation. 

So right now, I’m sure several of you reading this are angry with me. You’re probably thinking I’m trying to belittle God. You’re probably thinking I’m trying to break the icon of God. But please understand, I’m talking about God this way because this is the sincerest way I know of respecting Him, of accepting Him, of Loving Him. Who are you more capable of loving: a fellow human or a being above and beyond you? Like a child offering her parent a poor tattered doll, her favorite thing in the whole world, I am trying to offer God the gifts of what my life has to offer. I am wishing upon him the freedom to feel like I do. The freedom to express himself like I do. How horrible it would be to have no peer, to not be able to sit shoulder to shoulder with those that you love and are loved by, to not be accepted fully as one of their own. That is what I want for God, the gifts of this imperfect life. Maybe I am wanting to be on his level or have him come down to mine. Even better: to find a middle ground. But only so that I could be more capable of showing Him my love.