How short can a blog be before it becomes a statement? How long can a statement be before it becomes an essay? Often short glimpses, even though the brevity distorts, can be useful to thinking. Here are a some short ideas that one day may make it into essays. 1.The art of giving: it's an art, like a painting or music. You can appreciate it, you can learn to do it, and it takes practice. An amateurs expression is wonderful, but may not have lasting value to others even though it's a necessary stepping stone toward mastering the art. The more you practice the more you know where to place the brush stroke, to play the note, and to create something of beauty that helps others. 2. Love: some like to say love makes the world go around, and all we need is love. Be that as it may, accepting love is hard, and we only accept the love we think we deserve. And so, a low self image is happy to accept abuse. 3. Robin Williams said "Just jump, because a net will appear". Sadly some will take that as an admirable principle without any caveats. How stupid can people be? 4. "Beautiful creatures" ... a movie that some Christians would not watch - not a Christian movie - but a movie with some interesting lines to make us think: - "God created all things didn't he? It's only man that goes along and decides which ones are mistakes." - "I don't want to preach today. Instead, I just want to talk to you. About a word we don't hear much any more - Sacrifice. It's not what I'd call a modern word. People hear the word sacrifice and they become afraid that something will be taken away from them. Or that they'll have to give up something that they can't live without. Sacrifice, to them, means loss ... in a world telling us we can have it all. But I believe true sacrifice is a victory. Because it requires our free will to give up something for someone you love. For something or someone you love more than yourself. I won't lie to you, it's a gamble. Sacrifice won't take away the pain of loss, but it wins the battle against bitterness - the bitterness that dims the light on all that is of true value in our lives." 5. Wisdom. There's wisdom all around, and fake wisdom too. We can resonate with, celebrate and elevate the wisdom that we find. Yet like a tuning fork we resonate to that note to which we are tuned. When we are tuned to the right note, we don't only respond to that note but also to all the harmonics of the one true note of tuning. And when we resonate to that which we're tuned, then all other sounds are as discords, easily recognizable for what they are. The Word tunes us to the root note of the full chord of creation. The world tunes us, to a discord that dampens our sound, leaves us lifeless and without resonance. Tuned correctly, our notes sound out in harmony with all the true notes around us, and lets us live in an orchestra of wisdom. 6. Belief that leads to the judgement of others is a belief rooted in an unrealized fear of being wrong, and the need to find security in being right. So it is with blind faith, religious violence, and militant atheism. Belief that leads to grace is belief that is secure in the knowledge of truth, understood in both mind and the heart, and thus feels no threat from disagreement. Such belief gives freedom of grace to others and the strength of joy. 7. SBNR is so attractive and yet dangerously delusional. Yet, was Jesus not in some measure SBNR? How much of Jesus going to the synagogue was actually Jesus living out 1 Corinthians 9:19-23? (Yes, Jesus was Jewish, and yes there are other many reasons for his going to the synagogue). Can there be a healthy form of SBNR in as much as there is the widespread delusional SBNR - so long as we continue to not forsake gathering together - and what might such Christian SBNR look like?
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I'm feeling suffocated as I find myself increasingly surrounded by SBNRs without being able to grab hold of anything. Their softness, and the almost encompassing accommodation, portrays an escapism from hard truths ... or so it seems to me. I'm tempted to say its a symptom of the implicit philosophy of hedonism that pervades today’s culture.
Some explanation: I was asked about the link between the main text above, and the sidebar on Korach. So to perhaps bring a little clarity:
The reference to Korach is admittedly a bit oblique ... not directly linked. I left it like that because in my twisted mind it is a story that makes me think about the power struggles that go on inside of Israel, whereas from the outside we often perceive Israel as this homogeneous nation. Yet Israel is a democratic nation with secular and various strains of religious factions competing in an internal power struggle under the threat of external aggression, and all the time heavily dependent on foreign support. And so it has been at various times in the biblical history of Israel. Second, the Korach story made sense to me because its a glimpse of how the tribe of Reuben tried to strategically gain hold of something that God was not intending for them, and they ended up being relegated to the lesser of the tribes, ultimately to become one of the 10 lost tribes. It makes me wonder if the factions currently in power within Israel are perhaps being a 'Reuben'? I have no idea if that's the case, but it makes me wonder. Last night I had (yet another) discussion about Calvinism, and how it provides (in my view) no compelling reason against hedonism (yes, there are reasons, but irrationally these depend on a broken selfish nature doing the right thing simply because it's right).
It made me think (yet again) about the sad reality that some in Christianity try to isolate themselves from the world (as if Jesus ever did!). These are the puritan recluse who seek to legislate morality in the hope that this will legislate the soul, who shield their children and leave them defenseless for that day when they'll trip and fall into the mire of the world around. God says be IN the world, not OF the world. That means "Hey you, yes YOU! Get a grip, open your eyes, and look at what you and others are doing, and how you're committed to causing untold suffering both now and in the future!" One area (of many) where so many Christians are blind, where to our shame the non-Christians are leading the way, is in how we respond to the global rape of God's gift. Be in the world (so you can help) but be not of the world (in perpetuating inequity). Mansplaining - a variety of arrogance! If you want a great (and funny) take on mansplaining, read Rebecca Solnit's excellent essay on the topic. But that's just an example of a bigger issue. What about climate change, misogyny, and religious relativism? Here's one example of arrogance: Stefan Molyneux - who I would class as a libertarian misogynist - was recently quoted as saying at a men's rights conference (!): “If we could just get people to be nice to their babies for five years straight, that would be it for war, drug abuse, addiction, promiscuity, sexually transmitted diseases,” he said. “Almost all would be completely eliminated, because they all arise from dysfunctional early childhood experiences, which are all run by women.” That's sick! But quite aside from the incredible and despicable narrow minded arrogance of anyone who would say that, and apart from the disturbing fact that some people need to host a conference on men's rights, the real issue is the distorted lens of unthinking self-interest. Here's another example: A climate change blog recently hosted an article on "What really annoys scientists about the state of the climate change debate?" It's a great topic ... I get really peeved with the boorish arrogant comments from the uneducated masses on topics that require expert knowledge (would you ask a plumber how to treat cancer?). But in the article they only asked experts from 1st world developed countries. That's a lens which infers that the greater majority of the world's population is unimportant, with nothing of value to say, second tier citizens in need of charity. Now I'm sure (I hope) that if challenged the authors would acknowledge their article's bias, but it does reveal how we walk around with an unrecognised distortion -- we look through a broken lens. I know we all love to promote our view on life ... in 2011 flickr.com had over 6 billion photos, and in 2014 instagram had over 200 million users, to say nothing of tweets! There's nothing wrong with that in itself (although I suspect many of these serve as therapy for the need for attention). But promote your own view enough times and you'll begin to believe you're always right. This arrogance leads to those all too common situations of self-justification to avoid responsibility - from people who justify sexual harassment (or worse) by saying the woman was asking for it, through to children blaming others for their own errors. How often have you heard people justify unacceptable behaviour with "I was just doing it for you", or "I’m only fighting fire with fire", or "It doesn’t hurt anyone", or "Everyone else does it", or even "I deserve it." At the heart of the problem is, of course, that we allow the brokenness of our human nature to twist our perspective. But we need not be slave to that; "be transformed by the renewing of your mind". That is, to put it in metaphorical terms: Change the lens! For the religious this is especially dangerous, for religious people claim that they're on God's side, and so it becomes all too easy to justify behaviour in the name of God. History is largely made up of despicable events that happened in the name of one or other god ... Christians are no exception. Here's the Christian's additional danger: You can interpret the bible through the lens of your issue, or you can interpret your issue through the lens of the bible. This will usually take you to very different conclusions. A good example (as seen through my distorted lens as I try and find focus) is this debate between two Christians about homosexual practices. Sadly both participants do little to listen to one another, both avoid some of the very real complexities, both ignore the nuances, both are trying to WIN an argument. And this is the fundamental broken lens problem: we want our lens to be THE lens. As Coleridge said "I have seen great intolerance shown in support of tolerance." Jesus' lens was one of relationship. Of course there are many issues (e.g. sexuality) that we need to wrestle with, but their true importance is only visible when seen through the lens of relationship. Relationship does not mean "tolerate everything except intolerance", it's not about that wispy "love is all I need" that some are so fond of (and so poor at doing). The lens of relationship is Jesus saying to the rich young ruler "sell everything and follow me", and to the adulterer "go and sin no more". It's about seeing what is at the heart of an individual, like seeing the heart of the woman at the well (great video!). How distorted is my view here? |
Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
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