Solo or in combination?
(Thoughts emerging from ideas of knurd, hurting people, and individual'ism) Christians often have a narrow band of gray between two large swathes of opposing black and white. So here's a question: do you think God's band of gray matches yours? Human trafficking, prostitution, thieves, alcoholics, lesbians, artists, accountants, health workers, or parents. An infinite scale, but what lies in the black, what's in the white, and what is gray? Can I be a Christian and a prostitute? Yes. Why? Because no one is perfect. Should I be a Christian and a prostitute? No. Why, because it hurts my relationship with God, and degrades others that God loves. Can I sustain being a Christian and a Prostitute? Unlikely. Why? Because my relationship founders on a lifestyle that offends God. The problem is whether the relationship can survive the combination. Conscious, deliberate patterns of behavior that offend the other party (God) are like a repeated slap in the face saying "I don't care for you enough to try and change". In which case it's unlikely the relationship will thrive, will quite possible will fall apart, and certainly will be unproductive. What about all the other "and" combinations. Can I be a Christian and _____? Fill your own fetish in the blank. Here we get into a problem, because while you and I would agree (probably) on the extremes of what's black and white, there will be some in the middle we don't agree on. We probably agree that there's a problem with being a drug dealer and a Christian. Likewise a pedophile and a Christian. Can I be a accountant and a Christian? Of course. A smoker and a Christian? Yes in my view, but not everyones. A fortune teller and a Christian? Hmm ... doubtful, in my view. If I truly believe God is real, knowable, personal, and desires to be my lover, and that God is also awesome, powerful, mysterious, and that love and justice go together, then my lifestyle exposes just how real these understandings are in my life. And here's the difficulty for Christians: just where does one draw a line? It should not be because of our prejudices (we all have them), not simply because we've been taught something, and not because we have a favorite proof text lifted from the Bible. There are numerous words you can put in for _____ which cause great dissension. Probably the biggest public one at the moment is same sex relationships. Can you be in a same sex relationship and still be a Christian? On one level, of course. I also know that my experience tells me God is pure, and the strength of my relationship with God is directly dependent on how much my behavior offends God. I know there are aspects of myself which do not please, and things which I wrestle with. I know that my responsibility is for my relationship with God, and everyones relationship is personal and unique. I know there are probably many things I am not even aware of in myself which likely offend God. And I know (some of) God. The point is, like everyone I am work in progress, and like a sculpture God is chipping away at all the warts and imperfections that damage our relationship (to the degree I let him). And to that same degree my relationship grows or shrinks. So when someone comes into my circle of relationship with patterns of behavior that don't fit into my band of gray, it is not my responsibility to judge and condemn. That's not even my first thought. It's "Can I be someone who helps, not hinders?" I don't like everyone, I don't have to like everyone, not everyone likes me. But I want to be good to everyone, and some will become friends. When someone comes into my circle, it is my responsibility to be true to what I am: to model, reveal, and share what I find so fantastic about my relationship with God, because if that's good, I want them to know it too. If they have lifestyle practices offensive to God, then so what? That's God's problem! The best thing I can do is encourage them to go deeper in relationship with God. God is the sculptor, not me. God makes us in his image, I don't make others in my image. There is one other responsibility I carry. In my circle of relationships I have the responsibility to safeguard the health of my relationships. That may require some boundaries ... allowing a satanist to take a leadership role is beyond the boundaries. Allowing an ex-convict who wrestles with his God-relationship just like I do, that seems good. Persisting in a relationship where I am denigrated ... I need to leave that. Supporting a "Christian" leader who uses people for financial gain ... that's not ok. And so it goes ... walking a fine line of relational responsibility. And the only way I can keep focus, that I can be knurd, is by concentrating on my rational and intimate relationship with God. For rationally: IF God is pure, perfect, loves me, and seeks the best for me. IF I experience completeness as a human being through relationship with God. Then logically and rationally why would I not pursue that, and why would I not encourage others to find the same? To not do so would be illogical, and make me a liar of me.
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Every now and then irritations accumulate and I react in exasperation. Climate change is one of them. Is this an example of how stupid we are? Its really tempting to say that stupidity is increasing (and maybe it really is - see here). If you're a climate denier you might be thinking now "Yes, how stupid is all this fuss over nothing". And if you're concerned about climate change you might be saying "Yes, how stupid is it that we're so blind to the evidence in front of us". Full disclosure: I'm in the latter camp! If you want to argue with that, provide rational evidence to the contrary please. But as a parent, as a "responsible citizen" (if such a creature even exists), as a religious person, as a moral atheist, or even as the indignant reader of tabloid blogs ... how do you sleep when your children are going to have to live in your excrement? How do you sleep when wasteful consumption in the name of comfort keeps a majority of the world in the cycle of poverty -- for your convenience? Really, how dumb are we that we exploit the planet, steal resources from our kids, and then leave them holding the tub of trash. Quite aside from rich nations abusing the poorer countries, refusing to take responsibility, and profiting off the backs of others as much as they can. There are two explanations: we are stupid, or climate change is really only a magnifying lens for the innate nature of humans, the kind that says "me first and screw the rest". Now, the internet may be making us a little dumber or different (here, here, here, and here). But that's not a strong explanation. But pure greed ... now that certainly has to account for some of it. Climate change is a huge threat to profit taking, and so the longer the people of power deny the reality, the longer they can abuse the rest of us (say hello to the Koch brothers, Monsanto, oil companies making obscene profits, and all the frackers). And of course, where money is involved, the politicians for hire can't be far behind to smooth the legislative path to profit, in return, of course, for some legal and illegal kickbacks. In one study 90% of the US Republican leadership deny climate change, and 77% of the US House Committee on Science, Space and Technology are climate deniers. Why? Are they stupid? (But remember, the politicians are voted in by you and I, so where does the responsibility really lie?) I posit that in reality we're seeing a societal increase in avoiding responsibility, encouraged by the "me first" attitudes from a culture of individualism ("you can be anything you want to be" - what a stupid lie!). So its a case of "as long as my comfort zone is not being disturbed, I won't let climate change do so either". This is nothing new. We are creatures who do not like to be wrong. We hate to say sorry. We will abdicate responsibility on the flimsiest evidence ... in our relationships, in our work, and in our community. And as long as we do not internalize a belief of absolute right and wrong, of God, why should it be any other way? (And I say that because your actions betray what you truly believe, and thus are many of our leaders betrayed).
Truth is like the light, there is a kind of light, a light that fills even the darkest of places. This has to be, for if this meta-light does not exist, how can the darkness be seen? [Terry Pratchett, "SMALL GODS"]
It's a powerful thought: I Know by contrast. I know about care because of neglect, pain because of pleasure, dark because of light, worry because of peace, I know loneliness because of love. In each case take away the latter and the awareness of the depth and intensity of what remains is lost. Its a popular fact that 90% of the brain is not used and, like most popular facts, it is wrong. Not even the most stupid Creator would go to the trouble of making the human head carry around several pounds of unnecessary grey goo if its only real purpose was, e.g., to serve as a delicacy for certain remote tribesmen in unexplored valleys. One of its functions is to make the miraculous seem ordinary, and turn the unusual into the usual. Otherwise, human beings, forced with the daily wondrousness of everything, would go around wearing a stupid grin, saying "WOW" a lot. Part of the brain exists to stop this happening. It is very efficient, and can make people experience boredom in the middle of marvels. [Terry Pratchett, "SMALL GODS"] But despite Pratchett's delightful wit, we hunger for this contrast; we try to fill our lives with contrast. From reading sensationalist tabloid news to fiddling with instagram filters, we explore contrast through experimental sex, drugs, slander, self exposure on Facebook ... an ever intensifying search to find the contrast to my pit of bad experience. My sense of self lies in elevating "me" over "we". It's an inward spiral of hedonism. Two dangers loom large; first is that we see life through the lens of duality, and the second is that we miss the biggest gap of all. Let's take duality first. Duality says there are two sides ... we have hot and cold, light and dark, pain and pleasure. Yet cold is only the absence of hot - you can't measure cold. Dark is the absence of light - you can't measure dark. But what about pain and pleasure? Well, pain is damaged wholeness, without something to damage you can't know pain. Pleasure is being whole. Duality tries to make two equal opposites ... but in reality there is only one side, anything else is only a progressive degree of damage. Like a Möbius strip, there is only ever one side, there is no other side, and the only way to make it different is to damage it. The second danger arises from the first. If I buy into duality, then evil is the opposite equal of good, and hate the opposite equal of love. Then I am only a pawn caught between opposing sides in a galactic power struggle. The focus is all on the two sides, and I never consider whether the biggest gap, the greatest contrast, is found between me and something else. I once flirted with atheism, and found it lacked depth because, by definition, there was no way to explain contrast. That in itself does says nothing about whether atheism is true ... but if it were, then atheism says I can truly know nothing, because there is no real contrast. I am merely one more smear in the mud of the universe. But my story, my life, my experience, says there is contrast. Bucket loads of it. A universe of contrast that is all too real. And the contrast is not because of what I have, but what I don't have. I am short on love, compassion, kindness, patience, self control. I am a shadow defined by light. This is why I can never be an atheist, because I see the stark shadow only too clearly, and I see only because of a light. If I could deny this shadow I would, but I can't. And so the second danger of duality is that it blinds me to seeing the shadow I am, it twists my perception to see dark as something real, when it is really only a consequence of what's missing. I do not deny that in the shadows there is real damage, real hurt, real abuse. But these happen because the light is missing. It gets cold when we remove the heat, and that can kill. We get lost in the darkness when the light is hidden. And all because of a fear of Knurdness. "Knurdness is ... the opposite of being drunk, its as sober as you can ever be. It strips away all the illusion, all the comforting pink fog in which people normally spend their lives, and lets them see and think clearly for the first time ever. Then, after they've screamed a bit, they make sure they never get knurd again." [Terry Pratchett, "THE LIGHT FANTASTIC"] Light burns ... but it only burns that which is flammable. What remains is hedonism made concrete. I'm in conversations with atheists, agnostics, postmodern relativists, and I'm-no-more-than-my-atoms'ists! So my mind is feeling a little twisted and tortured! I wonder, how would they who have no absolute reference of wrong, whose values are self determined, sing a song like this? (Some barbed phrases in the lyrics) |
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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