I remember when this came out. It was one of R.E.M.’s biggest hits. I wasn’t listening to very much R.E.M. at the time, but I’d really liked them at an earlier time in my life. When this song came out, I was firmly entrenched in conservative evangelicalism, and R.E.M. was definitely on the “do not listen to” list. I know I heard the song because I still secretly liked them and couldn’t quite figure out what was wrong with them. I understood the ban on groups like Red Hot Chili Peppers (even though I still liked them too), but R.E.M.? I didn’t get why adults were getting their panties in a wad over this. I got it in terms of that verse about only contemplating things that are holy, good, pure, true, etc. But … still … wtf? I didnt get it.

So I heard the song and loved it … but it scared me. Losing my religion. What would happen to me if I ever lost my religion? Where would my underpinings go? What would it look like to not have religion? It was a frightening thought. I was comfortable with my religion at the time … comfortable enough, that is. Comfortable, if I didn’t think to carefully or deeply.

In 1998, LightHusband had a back injury that threw him into a downward spiral of pain and suffering that would not end. It was a seemingly intractable injury that had no cause and for all intents and purposes, no cure. He ended up leaving the Army because of the injury after three years of doctor’s visits, two years on narcotics to control the pain, and several experimental courses of treatment that further aggravated his injury. At the very end of the journey we finally got a diagnosis … he is hypermobile and his ligaments had not held his sacro-iliac joint stable. The injury he had sustained is normally only seen in pregnant women and people who have been in front-end automobile collisions. In his case, it had been a repetitive use injury from wearing his drum for 18 years.

To say that I prayed during those three years would be an understatement. And yet, it would also be a lie. I prayed at first. I prayed as though my life depended on it … because in some ways it did. But my prayers did no good. They did nothing. They did not change our situation. They did not change me. They did not change God. They did nothing. Except create a very bitter knot in my heart. I finally gave up praying. I told my friends that they could pray if they wanted, but I was done. I left off the last part of that sentence, because it’s heresy in the conservative evangelical church. But I was done. I was too angry to pray. I just wanted to leave town.

I wanted to leave town. Leave the church. Leave this stupid God who does stupid horrid things like this. Or if he doesn’t do them, He allows them and doesn’t give us any answers. He allows huge tsunamis to rise up and kill thousands on a holiday. He allows hurricanes like Katrina. He allows babies to snatch our hearts and then they die without warning in the midst of the night.

John Smulo wrote a post several days ago asking about how do we defend God to our well-meaning friends and relatives who ask about this. Who ask how we can still have faith in a God who either does such things or allows such things and does nothing to repair them? As I tried to answer that question, I found I have none. There is no explaining why I still have faith.

I believe that I have lost my religion. But I still have my faith. Somewhere in the midst of it all … between then and now … I lost my religion. It’s in tatters. That has been a frightening thing. It’s also been sad. But I still have my faith in God, in Jesus, in the Holy Spirit.

Truthfully, what little I know of God does not give me the evidence to defend Him in the face of all the evil in the world. I have no “blessed assurance” that I’m going to some pearly gates when I die. I have none of that anymore. What I do have is this … the knowledge that there is a God and that S/He loves me and desires some sort of communion with me; indeed with all of us. I’m not certain what that communion looks like, but I’m damn sure it’s more than a cracker crumb and a dribble of grape juice. I do know that whatever S/He is, S/He is much, much, much larger than anything anyone of us can imagine. And Her vision of how justice will be played out is likely to be much, much different from mine … which is probably a good thing too.

I don’t defend God anymore. The way I figure it, if God really did create the universe She can defend herself. There’s not much I can say in his defense. Most people have made up their minds and legal arguments aren’t going to change them … hell … legal arguments rarely sway people in a court room, why should they work in a space as delicate as our beliefs about our origins. The thought is sort of silly.

Losing my religion … I’m slowly but surely turning my back on church as I know it. The church as described by Jesus in the Gospels is a beautiful place … a place I’d like to be part of. So is the church that Paul describes in his epistles. But once Constantine got his grubby hands on religion and the state took hold of things … well … I want to say, I never knew you. It’s not a place that has any room left for God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit. It’s a place that tears people apart, chews them up, leaders use their followers and followers use their leaders — all to their own ends.

I read the gut-wrenching article by William Lobdell from the LATimes and thought, “I get it. I understand what he thinks.” I’m not where he is, I don’t think I’d make the decisions he made. But I understand them. I understand that eventually you cannot maintain that level of cognitive dissonance between what Jesus teaches and what the church teaches and call yourself a Christ follower.

I have no idea where my journey will take me next. I am in the waiting place. I am waiting to hear from God about what to do and where to go next.

I got a joke in my inbox today from LightGirl … this is pretty funny.

A friend was in front of me coming out of church one day, and the preacher was standing at the door as he always is to shake hands. He grabbed my friend by the hand and pulled him aside.
Pastor said, “You need to join the Army of the Lord!”
My friend said, “I’m already in the Army of the Lord, Pastor.”
Pastor questioned, “How come I don’t see you except at Christmas and Easter?”
My friend *whispered* back, “I’m in the secret service.”

I laughed out loud when I read this. I can see the scene perfectly in my mind’s eye. Pastor, proud of his church and wanting lots of people to come and receive the benefits of being in relationship with God, and a community of faith. He sees a great opportunity for this man who visits but twice a year and wants good things for him. The man, on the other hand, feels pressure, to behave in certain ways, befriend certain people, belong to a certain club. Two perspectives … same end.

What if God did have a secret service though? How would a run of the mill pastor respond to that? Would we regular humans be able to put enough of our ego aside to allow for people coming and going in our midst, with no apparent loyalty to one church or another? Can a person belong to more than one church? Can a man obey more than one master? Oh … hey … what’s that question doing in there?

I’ve been thinking about the concept of church and community lately. It started with with this quote from Deitrich Bonhoeffer that Hamo posted about a week ago about vision:

God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man [or woman] who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself.” (Life Together)

In turn Hamo found it here.

For the last, I don’t know, 10 years? 15 years? there has been a real focus in western Christianity on “community.” Having community. Live in community. Let’s fellowship. I hate that sentence. First of all “fellowship” is not a verb, it’s a noun. It’s not something you do, it’s something you have, something you gain out of entirely different actions that require a sense of responsibility on your part.

That said, there’s been a focus on community within the western Church. This has probably been a reaction to the increased sense of isolation that people feel living in the suburbs. It has also been in response to the clear calls throughout the Bible that God gives to his people to live together and live in community with Him. I think it’s a good thing. I think that being with people, and living amongst them allows us to see ourselves in a myriad of different ways. We can only see ourselves in clear view when we rub up against different folks.

Can the ideal or vision of community become an idol? Might that be what Bonhoeffer is talking about above? I think it can. I think there are many communities of faith where the community has become an idol and the sanctity and health of that entity must be preserved at the cost of any individuals therein. It’s difficult in this day and age to speak of idols. We think of bronze calves and graven images. Statues, with aboriginal dances going on around them … drums and tribal music. That’s idol worship, right? Not something we sophisticates need to worry about, need we?

Oh, but we must. We have our graven images … our Excel documents and Powerpoint slides. Whole congregations dance to the tunes of financial reports, the beats drummed out low and slow. We must have our building funds, our new programs, new sound board and equipment for the worship band. Those are the obvious idols of the modern, institutional church. What about simpler forms of church or community … are they at risk?

I think Bonhoeffer might say, yes. I think any time an institution or entity or vision is put first before God’s will we have created an idol. I think that an idol might be created in a community of 6 people meeting in a home church … if that home church is based upon one person’s vision at the expense of others and not God’s vision as expressed by all, then it has the potential to become an idol.

So … I’ve been thinking about how do we, simple humans, protect ourselves from ourselves. How do we stop ourselves from begging Aaron to cast a bronze calf for us? That’s the real problem isn’t it? It’s not that the priesthood (senior pastors, leaders, etc.) is calling us to worship these idols … although they sometimes are. It’s that we also ask for them. We beg our leaders for visions. Following the fire just isn’t satisfying enough.

Could it be that we need to change the dance? This isn’t, afterall, a waltz. We’re involved in rhumba. We’ve become too disengaged from one another … leaders and followers. Perhaps we need to be more intimate again. Perhaps we ought to stop making tiny idols of our leaders and allow them to have lives like ours.

What do you think … are we making idols of church and our leaders? How can we stop this silly business?

I’ve read quite a bit over the last week about Pope Benedictine’s latest pronouncement from Vatican City. Mostly I’ve been wondering why everyone seems to need to make a fuss over his pronouncement. PopeB is just doin’ his thing. He’s pretty strict from what I understand and this latest bit seems to be right in line with that. Then I read this article by Roland Martin and everything clicked into place. Here’s a little teaser, but read the whole thing for yourself, it’s worth the effort:

It doesn’t matter what Pope Benedict XVI has to say, or for that matter, any other religious leader. A Christian believes in Jesus Christ and what He had to say, not what a man of God has to say. This is not an attempt to completely dismiss religious leaders, but is further evidence of what happens when ego is more important than the work of Christ.

Then there’s this.  I/We are walking with some friends who are preparing to move to another state.  There are some potential pitfalls and ups and downs involved with this move.  They hit a snag, a snafu (that’s Army for Situation Normal, All Fucked Up) as it were, this past week.  Up to now they were very happy with the house they’d found, gleeful in fact.  They felt that it was “in God’s plan,” for them.  This snag, this snafu, caused them to begin to doubt the rightness of the house for them.  Just for a moment.  They have continued ahead with the move because the house really is a good place for them.  It really is a good decision.  But the conversations and prayers have gotten me thinking.  I’ve been thinking about how we perceive and communicate God’s plan in our lives.

It’s quite common in the evangelical/institutional church to discuss “God’s plan” for one’s life as if it’s a blue print that may be discerned by a variety of means.  Some of those means are almost magical and require spiritual gifts and talents that merge with those of a nature that I liken to tarot card reading, looking into a crystal ball, or prophesying/divining (and I don’t mean in God’s name).  People wonder if they’re going to the “right” college (i.e. the one that is in “God’s” plan for their lives), or if they’re marrying the “right” person, or taking the “right” job, or purchasing the “right” house or the “right” car and so they look around for signs and symbols that they are making the “right” decision.  That is, the decision that puts them on the path that is in “God’s Plan” for their lives.

Increasingly, I am having a hard time with that line of thinking.  I used to think like that.  I used to think that there was a “right” decision to make and a “wrong” one about things like jobs and colleges and cars and such.  (I still think there might be a right and wrong mate, but that has nothing to do with God’s plan and everything to do with personalities and character and traits and things).   I’m not sure that God really cares about which college I go to.  Okay, well, I’m not going to college.  I don’t think S/He cares about which car I drive, other than the fact that cars degrade creation.  So in my decision to purchase a car, I ought to take that into account.  I need to take my income into account when I’m purchasing a home so that I can continue to be obedient to God’s call in my life after purchasing a home … but I’m pretty certain that God doesn’t particularly care which house I choose.  It’s just a house.  And any cover over our head is a blessing.

I think that something very uncomfortable has happened in Western evangelicalism.  We’ve taken a verse out of context and made it mean something completely adverse to its original purpose.  Big surprise there.  In these times of decision people often quote Jeremiah 29:11.  Some people have even co-opted it as their “life” verse.  So I went to the chapter and re-read the whole thing this morning.  Here’s the verse all by itself.  Actually, I’m just going to quote the part that people usually say all alone:  “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, … “  Then they put that with a bit about the sparrows and the lillies in the field (parables in Matthew) and come up with an idea that God has put together an individualized blue print for each of our lives.  If we could just divine that blueprint and live accordingly, we’d have a perfect happy life.

I have a lot of problems with the picture that paints of God.  What kind of God is it that has a perfect plan for Her children, but keeps it secret?  Which of us, as parents, has plans for our children, but dangles only enough details for them to get in trouble and then holds them accountable?  Even we humans are not that evil.  That paints a picture of a mean, stingy God who is waiting for His children to get into trouble.  The God I read about in scripture loves us.  Loves us enough to give us free will.  But having a closely held blueprint and a free will I think are somewhat oxymoronish.  If my path to sanctification lies through that blueprint, but I cannot know the details.  And I have a free will to do what I choose.  Then do I have a free will at all?  If my path is already chosen, do I actually have free will?  I know that some would say that free will lies in my choice to be obedient to the path, the blueprint, or not.  But I don’t quite believe that.  Here’s why.

I went to Jeremiah chapter 29 and read the whole thing.  The first verse stunned me.  Chapter 29 of Jeremiah is a letter!  It is a letter from God to the exiled Hebrews in Babylon.  The first four verses are the bona fides.  But verse five gets into the meat of what God wants the Israelites to hear from him.  So read with me now:

5 “Build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce. 6 Marry and have sons and daughters; find wives for your sons and give your daughters in marriage, so that they too may have sons and daughters. Increase in number there; do not decrease. 7 Also, seek the peace and prosperity of the city to which I have carried you into exile. Pray to the LORD for it, because if it prospers, you too will prosper.” 8 Yes, this is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: “Do not let the prophets and diviners among you deceive you. Do not listen to the dreams you encourage them to have. 9 They are prophesying lies to you in my name. I have not sent them,” declares the LORD.

10 This is what the LORD says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my gracious promise to bring you back to this place. 11 For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. 12 Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. 14 I will be found by you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back from captivity. ^[b] I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the LORD, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”

15 You may say, “The LORD has raised up prophets for us in Babylon,” 16 but this is what the LORD says about the king who sits on David’s throne and all the people who remain in this city, your countrymen who did not go with you into exile- 17 yes, this is what the LORD Almighty says: “I will send the sword, famine and plague against them and I will make them like poor figs that are so bad they cannot be eaten. 18 I will pursue them with the sword, famine and plague and will make them abhorrent to all the kingdoms of the earth and an object of cursing and horror, of scorn and reproach, among all the nations where I drive them. 19 For they have not listened to my words,” declares the LORD, “words that I sent to them again and again by my servants the prophets. And you exiles have not listened either,” declares the LORD.

20 Therefore, hear the word of the LORD, all you exiles whom I have sent away from Jerusalem to Babylon. 21 This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says about Ahab son of Kolaiah and Zedekiah son of Maaseiah, who are prophesying lies to you in my name: “I will hand them over to Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, and he will put them to death before your very eyes. 22 Because of them, all the exiles from Judah who are in Babylon will use this curse: ‘The LORD treat you like Zedekiah and Ahab, whom the king of Babylon burned in the fire.’ 23 For they have done outrageous things in Israel; they have committed adultery with their neighbors’ wives and in my name have spoken lies, which I did not tell them to do. I know it and am a witness to it,” declares the LORD.

When I read this letter, I hear the words of a parent speaking peace and calm to a troubled child.  I hear myself saying to my children things such as, “Yes, you really screwed up this time.  Here are the consequences of your bad behavior.  But you’re going to live.  You’ll survive and thrive.  I still love you and want what is best for you.  When you calm down, you can join us again at the dinner table.”  Okay … I know that’s the human version and God has much more stringent standards of behavior than I do.  But I think you get the picture.  What this verse does NOT say is that God has a plan for our lives that involves which college to choose, which car, which house, which mate … that’s why S/He gave us free will and good brains.

I believe that generally S/He wishes to bless us, to bring good into our lives (whether or not we can recognize it).  Generally, we ought to (because of our love response) desire to spread that love around to others using our gifts and talents.  In that way, we are living within Her plan for our lives.  But I’m beginning to think that where and how and when we do it, is kind of up to us.  We’re grown ups, after all.  Praying about those decisions, I’m increasingly thinking, is like praying for a good parking space.  It just might be a little trivial.  What do you think?

I’ve been reading a new blog lately. It’s a guy out in California (I think). He’s got a unique perspective on life and Christianity. And definitely a unique presentation. His recent post, titled, “Big-Ass Bibles” was both amusing and thought-provoking. I enjoy his style and his topics.

In any case, in this recent post, he spoke frequently about some dispensationalist bibles he’d had and churches he’d been to. I’ve heard that term a lot during my journey, but I’ve never had a clear understanding of what it meant. So I finally looked it up myself. I’ve often asked others what it meant, but those definitions never stuck in my brain. When I do it myself, I tend to remember a little better. Just a little, mind you.

When I looked up dispensationalism in Wikipedia, I found the following description under history:

Dispensationalism was first introduced to North America by John Inglis (1813–1879), through a monthly magazine called Waymarks in the Wilderness (published intermittently between 1854 and 1872)^{[citation needed]}. In 1866, Inglis organized the Believers’ Meeting for Bible Study, which introduced dispensationalist ideas to a small but influential circle of American evangelicals. After Inglis’ death, James H. Brookes (1830–1898), a pastor in St. Louis, organized the Niagara Bible Conference to continue the dissemination of dispensationalist ideas. Dispensationalism was boosted after Dwight L. Moody (1837–1899) learned of “dispensational truth” from an unidentified member of the Brethren in 1872. Moody became close to Brookes and other dispensationalists, and encouraged the spread of dispensationalism, but apparently never learned the nuances of the dispensationalist system. Dispensationalism began to evolve during this time, most significantly when a significant body of dispensationalists proposed the “post-tribulation” Rapture. Dispensationalist leaders in Moody’s circle include Reuben Archer Torrey (1856–1928), James M. Gray (1851–1925), Cyrus I. Scofield (1843–1921), William J. Erdman (1833–1923), A. C. Dixon (1854–1925), A. J. Gordon (1836–1895) and William Eugene Blackstone, author of the bestseller of the 1800s “Jesus is Coming” (Endorsed by Torrey and Erdman). These men were activist evangelists who promoted a host of Bible conferences and other missionary and evangelistic efforts. They also gave the dispensationalist movement institutional permanence by assuming leadership of the new independent Bible institutes such as the Moody Bible Institute (1886), the Bible Institute of Los Angeles—now Biola University (1907), and the Philadelphia College of the Bible—now Philadelphia Biblical University (1913). The network of related institutes that soon sprang up became the nucleus for the spread of American dispensationalism.

The energetic efforts of C. I. Scofield and his associates introduced dispensationalism to a wider audience in America and bestowed a measure of respectability through his Scofield Reference Bible. The publication of the Scofield Reference Bible in 1909 by the Oxford University Press was something of an innovative literary coup for the movement, since for the first time, overtly dispensationalist notes were added to the pages of the biblical text. The Scofield Reference Bible became the leading bible used by independent Evangelicals and Fundamentalists in the U.S. for the next sixty years. Evangelist and bible teacher Lewis Sperry Chafer (1871–1952), who was strongly influenced by C. I. Scofield, founded Dallas Theological Seminary in 1924, which has become the flagship of dispensationalism in America. The so-called “Grace Movement”, which began in the 1930s with the teaching ministries of J.C. O’Hair, Cornelius R. Stam, Henry Hudson and Charles Baker has been mischaracterized as “ultra” or “hyper” dispensationalism (an actual misnomer according to the etymology of the Greek word base for “dispensation”). The contrasts between law and grace, prophecy and mystery, Israel and the church, the body of Christ were energized by Scofield, Barnhouse and Ironside in the hearts of these men and studied and proclaimed by O’Hair, Stam and a host of other “grace” teachers. Dispensationalism has come to dominate the American Evangelical scene, especially among nondenominational Bible churches, many Baptists, Armstrongists, and most Pentecostal and Charismatic groups.

Soooo …. read that little list of bona fides. Whew. It makes me tired. But here’s the thing. When I look at the time line and put it next to the time line of what was happening in U.S. secular culture at the time, I see that these men were doing the same thing in church/theology that the industrial barons were doing in industry … that is they were streamlining, standardizing, typing, instituting. They were making theology efficient. It happened throughout western Christendom … oh, excuse me, Protestant Christendom.

Please don’t think I’m picking on the dispensationalists.  They weren’t the only show in town to do this.  I think the millenialists did it too.  Or maybe they didn’t.  My point is this, it was culturally relevant during the latter part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th to codify and systematize everything.  Everything included Christianity.  It’s how Darwin proved his theory of evolution.  It’s how Dewey created his decimal system for cataloging library books.  It’s how Piaget based his educational theory and Freud his psychiatric theory.  It’s how we manage our understanding of the life, the universe and everything today.

What we are discovering in many of these disciplines is that while systemization may work well in the hard sciences (i.e. the periodic table of elements for chemistry), the soft sciences must be more pliable and flexible.  The systems that people create look more like a dance than a chart.  Push button Y and reaction Z will not necessarily always happen.  We are finding that is particularly true in our public education system these days.  People are individuals and they learn in different manners.  Trying to force them to learn in lock step with thousands of others is creating a disaster on a large scale.

This is also particularly true in church and with God.  We are finding that there is a great deal more mystery  to God than was previously understood.  S/He cannot be reduced to a few propositional truths that are easily found in scripture.  While the Bible is God -breathed, we must never make the mistake of thinking that that is all there is to God.   We might have a few difficulties with our picture of God, because we don’t have all the clues.  In fact, I believe that the Apostle Paul said it best in I Corinthians, “Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face” … we don’t have it all yet, we just know a little.  There is more to come, a great deal more.  Relax, be still and know that S/He is God.  Everything else is just chafe.

I read somewhere, recently and I can’t remember where, that we exist mostly in the borderlands between chaos and order. We live in that tension between the two. If our world were to slip into complete chaos, well, everything would fall out of place and fly around. But, alternatively, if we lived in a perfectly ordered world where nothing ever went wrong that, too would have it’s own set of problems. The writer used the allegory of a waterfall with the smooth pool at the top to symbolize order and jumbled mess at the bottom to symbolize chaos, but it’s that rhythmic pulse of water falling in the middle that we live in … those borderlands. Where things are always just barely in order and always almost slipping out of our hands.

I loved that analogy. It really helped me to think through my life and see my house more clearly. I’ve been working my way through The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. I’m doing it for a number of reasons. I started because my psychiatrist recommended it. But he recommended it because I found a website of an old friend and the website made me jealous. Well, jealous is not quite the right word for it. It wakened old dreams and sent them surging up to the top of the pool again. I told my psychiatrist about this website and my friend and how focussed my friend seemed and how scattered I seem. That was the moment when I got a doctor’s note to quit my day job (such as it is) and begin quilting. To focus on that as who I am. He also recommended this book. It’s the first self-help book which has made sense to me. I have many of them. Too many, perhaps. But this one — this one fits me.

It’s encouraging me to do some other things. Things like haul out my books and begin to design a Native American quilt that I’ve wanted to do for several years. Begin to write some longer pieces of more fictional writing. Begin to take Arabic. Begin to do some biblical research on some questions I have about some women in ministry issues. In other words, begin to live my life again. Pick up where I left off before the conservative church got ahold of me 17 years ago and tried to fit my round peg into their square hole … for no other reason than that the conservative church is afraid of chaos.

What I learned there is that the conservative church lives not in the borderlands, but in fear. The conservative church seems to believe that in order to be in “God’s will” they must swim to the pool at the top of the waterfall. Or manipulate conditions such that they manage to live in that pool. But reality in this life and this world dictates that we live inside the waterfall itself. If you have ever sat near a waterfall and watched it for any length of time, you will begin to notice that there is a rhythm and rhyme to the falling water. There is beauty there. The falling water can be predicted and controlled to a certain extent.

So, for me … I am learning how to love God and my neighbor from within the waterfall. What will that look like? What is my waterfall going to be? Where are my borderlands? Have I told you that I love a good swim …

I’ve been reading a book on parenting called Parenting Teens with Love and Logic. Actually, I’m pretty much finished with it now. It’s quite good. It’s really a guide to help parents understand how they can gradually put more and more responsibility for a teen’s behavior onto that teen. It’s a delicate balance and more difficult to achieve than you might think. It is difficult to love someone and yet allow them to accept painful consequences for bad decisions. This is difficult to even think about. But it’s been on my mind lately as I’ve had some conversations with LightGirl about issues like drinking and sex outside of marriage. These are issues that I have choices to make as I talk to her about them. I can make rules and forbid her from doing them. Of course, drinking alcohol is also illegal until she is a certain age. The problem is that when I make those rules, I put both of us in a really bad place. I put her in a place where she feels as though she must test the water and the boundaries I have set. I put myself in a place where I must eternally police those boundaries and that water. It’s bad for both of us. And it does nothing to nurture or grow our relationship.

In the last day or so, John Smulo posted about a recent Resolution passed by the Southern Baptist Convention concerning the use of alcohol by their members. I got to thinking about the resolution in light of the book I’ve just read on parenting. There are many styles of parenting. And there are many styles of living in community together. And there are many styles of relating to God. But somehow I think these are all intertwined with one another. I am coming to believe that the way we parent and look to parents is a reflection of how we interact with God and how we look to God.

For me, I believe that whether or not one drinks alcohol is a matter of personal preference. The consequences will be born by that person. God is going to love me no matter what, but it’s going to be painful for him to watch me go through that hangover. In the same way, if LightGirl chooses to drink when it’s not in her best interests, it’s going to make me very sad. It will be painful for me to watch her bear whatever the consequences are of that choice, but I will still love her. I’m going to give her lots of information, tools, and support to make good decisions. But they are ultimately her decisions … because it is ultimately her life, not mine. But she and I are in loving community with one another. We talk, we wrestle with these decisions. She knows I love her and have her best interests at heart and she has mine.

So, I wonder sometimes, about institutions and entities who feel that more rules will help these sorts of issues. I’ve come to believe that rules are put in place when community is lacking. Rules must be established when people feel they can no longer speak to one another face to face. Regulations and resolutions must be passed because it is no longer individuals who count but standards which must be upheld. Where there are laws, there does not need to be community, there only needs to be a police force … and life becomes more and more stark.

A very long time ago, in what seems as though it must have been another lifetime, I taught a womans Adult Christian Education Class at our CLB1. I taught on the books of Ruth and Esther. I began my planning with a reading of the stories in the Bible, but quickly knew that I needed some supporting material. I got some light reading (Lucado, Wiersbe, etc.) on my own, but asked our youth pastor/friend/mentor for some recommendations. He gave me the hard stuff. The Word Biblical Commentary, volume 9 by Frederic W. Bush. Whew … that’ll make your hair curl.

Thus began my first encounter with Biblical Hebrew. I skipped over a lot of it. At first. But then I began stumbling through the parts that dealt with the verbs and the tenses … and it seemed unintelligible. And I hated it. It was a discipline. But slowly it began to make a certain amount of sense to me. And I began to understand the book of Ruth at a whole other level that had never been available to me before. This was a story that I have always loved. It is a beautiful romance tucked in the midst of ashes and but now it has been cut and polished for me like a raw jewel.

As I fought my way through studying and presenting this material to my class, I grew to love Ruth even more. I also learned quite a bit about some of the traditions that have grown up around the story in the intervening several thousand years since it happened. I learned that the megillah (or scroll) of Ruth is read during the Feast of Pentecost or First Fruits. This is the Feast which celebrates the harvest and which celebrates the giving of the Ten Commandments on Mount Sinai to the Hebrews. It is the feast which commemorates God making a commitment to live in community with His people forever.

So, why, might you ask, is this book about a foreign girl coming to Israel read during this feast? Well … the answer lies in many places. The first lies in Ruth’s declaration to Naomi early on in the story, “Where ever you go, I will go. Your people will be my people. Your God will be my God Your land will be my land.” She gives up everything about herself, to become a nobody in a strange land and take care of her mother-in-law. It is a gorgeous picture of love in the face of adversity. It is also a foreshadowing of who Jesus is and who He calls us to be and it sets up the story to present to us the concept of chesed.

Chesed is a Hebrew word for which there is no precise English translation. The best we can come up with is covenental loyalty in the context of merciful lovingkindness … which is, to say … a mouthful! It is an aspect of God for which we do not have a very good lens. But we do have the book of Ruth, which is replete with pictures of what chesed looks and acts like. Chesed is found in Ruth’s declaration to Naomi in Ruth 1:15-16; then when Ruth follows through on that declaration we see chesed in action. Chesed is found in Boaz’s loving care and commitment to Ruth and Naomi throughout the harvest season and in the fact that he would chose Ruth (a Moabite) and work to marry her, when he might have passed her off on to another relative or ignored her altogether.

So, indeed this is a fitting story to tell on the anniversary each year that we celebrate the giving of the Ten Commandments. It is about more than the Commandments. It’s about God and His desire to live in community with us. He limited himself, and gave of himself in order to hang with us.

Here is the cool thing about Shavuot. The Jewish community celebrates this as a commemoration of the giving of the covenant; the beginning of their relationship with God. The Christian community also celebrates Pentecost and we both use the same name. We celebrate this day as a commemoration of the giving of the new covenant; the Holy Spirit. On Sinai we were given the Law, but after the crucifixion and resurrection, on the same day we were given the Holy Spirit to continue our redemptive, covenental, merciful relationship with God.

The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost

1When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

5Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. 6When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard them speaking in his own language. 7Utterly amazed, they asked: “Are not all these men who are speaking Galileans? 8Then how is it that each of us hears them in his own native language? 9Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome 11 (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs-we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” 12Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

Shavuot begins this evening at sunset. It is these moments which cause me to reflect that our separate religions might just be a human construct and not divine. It brings to mind the Eastern Orthodox tenet that I can only know where I might find God, I do not know where S/He is not. So, whether you are Jewish or Christian, I pray you spend the next day or so reveling in a God who ripped the seams of time to be with us. Here are some thoughts that are pertinent to Pentecost from other bloggers.

First … read about moving from desolation to consolation at emerging sideways. It is a wonderful picture of redemption and provision like the story of Ruth, or the Hebrews. Desolation and consolation.

Second … read the story of Ruth again here at Velveteen Rabbi with a little bit of commentary. Beautiful.

Last … here is a poem from Rachel Barenblatt at Velveteen Rabbi to prepare you for Shavuot … it’s really quite lovely:

LONGING

I’m thirsty for davening
in this gritty desert
of car wrecks and cell phones.
Every person killed
anywhere
keeps the promised land
blocked to our passage.

Who knows the path
to short-circuit
this wandering?
Some days manna falls
but others we’re back
to toil, scratching
like chickens in the dirt.

If I was there at Sinai
to sign the ketubah
God offered, black fire
on white, most days
I don’t remember.
Everyone forgets the unity
we started with.

This year
when our anniversary comes,
God, I want to stay up
all night
to feel the letters
traveling up my hands
into my heart.

I want to sing holy at dawn
with the birds
in the willow behind shul
who open and close each day
with praise.

We’ve been without service for three days now.  Since LightHusband works from home, we pay for a business account at $150 per month.  Supposedly this ensures rapid response when we go down.  Not so.  It simply means we pay more money per month to hope for rapid response when our service goes down.  Oh.  And we get to speak to someone who speaks English as a native language when we call for service.  That’s not particularly appealing to me since I have no problems listening to a heavy accent.

My biggest pet peeve is not being what one appears to be.  Or pretending to be something that one is not.  Essentially lying about one’s being.  So … Comcast stinks.  They are liars and cheats.  We’ve been waiting all day long while one customer service rep after another has lied and bs’ed to us.  We’ll be without the internet all weekend now.

In other news, I’ve been getting a lot of reading and quilting done.  I’m reading four books right now.  On the way out to Colorado, I picked up The Places In Between (you may recall that LightHusband read this awhile ago and I quoted from it).  I’m enjoying it too.  I came across this description of the British soldiers stationed at a crossroads town and thought it quite telling.  The Afghani men were describing the soldiers to Rory.  They thought very highly of the Brits, but were curious about some of their habits which did not make any sense at all to the wiry, desert-wise Afghani mountain men:

“British soldiers have chests as broad as horses.  We wish there were more of them to keep the peace.  Every morning they hook their feet over the bumper of their jeep, put their hands on the ground and push themselves up and down on their hands two hundred times without stopping.  I don’t know why.”

I thought about how strength has different requirements for different circumstances and different environments.  The wiry, small Afghani men are perfectly built for their environment.  They are strong and built for endurance in the arid, high altitude and high temperatures of the high desert.  The British soldiers, on the other hand, were building solid muscle mass which requires a lot of protein intake and water to maintain.  This is not easily accomplished in the terrain they were protecting.  So while they are large and strong by Western standards, they might not last so long in the wilds of Afghanistan.

I’ve also picked up Exiles:  Living Missionally in a Post-Christian Culture by Michael Frost.  I’m only one chapter into it yet, but it’s an excellent companion to Colossians Remixed.  I’d almost say it’s part 2, even though it’s written by a whole other person.

Then there is Parenting Teens with Love and Logic, by Foster Cline and Jim Fay.  Just opening this book in front of LightGirl is guaranteed to raise her hair and howls of rage.  She is determined to infer that this is about “bad” teens not all teens.  The authors have also written a general parenting book.  If it’s as good as this one, I’d highly recommend it.  They say there are several parenting methods. There’s the “helicopter” approach … where the parents hover and protect the children from everything bad, the children are never allowed to grow or own their own victories or defeats.  There’s the drill-sergeant approach where the parents bark out orders and the children are expected to obey them without question … again, children don’t learn how to listen to their own voice, they end up listening to an external voice.  There are laissez-faire parents who just let whatever happen and this also has fairly disastrous results.  Then there is the method which they recommend, the consultant approach.  In this approach, the parents ask questions about how the child will handle given situations and let them own their own victories and distasters (within reason).  It’s very good and has given me a lot of language to use that takes the heat out of aruguments and bickering with the LightChildren.

Last is a re-read of a book I read almost 20 years ago.  The Crone:  Woman of Age, Wisdom and Power, by Barbara G. Walker.  It’s fairly over the top feminist reading about Goddess worship.  But it is interesting from an anthropological and theological perspective to read about how the Trinity has been reflected in many different traditions from way before Christ (for example).  It’s also sad to read about how abuse of power and the patriarchal misuse of Church traditions took women out of their place of wisdom and healing in European villages and towns during the onslaught of the Roman Empire.  The unification of church and state under Constantine was more damaging than we can ever imagine.

So not having internet access is frustrating, but I’m getting alot of reading done!

Today is (quite literally) the 33rd day of Omer. Aren’t you glad you know that now?

It might be helpful if you knew what the heck an Omer is. If you were Jewish you’d know. Those from the Jewish tradition count the days from the second day of Pesach (Passover) to Shavuot (Feast of First Fruits). There are 49 of them. These are steps to purity wherein one becomes pure enough to participate in the Feast of First Fruits. So, essentially the Omer is counted as a series of days that are noted as belonging to weeks. Each week focuses on an different aspect of God (as found in Wikipedia):

1. Chesed – Mercy/Grace/Love of (intention to emulate) God (Power of Vision)
2. Gevurah – Judgment/strength/determination (Power of Intention)
3. Tipheret – Symmetry/balance/compassion (Creative Power)
4. Netzach – Contemplation/Initiative/persistence (Power of the Eternal Now)
5. Hod – Surrender/sincerity/steadfastness (Intellectual/Observational Power)
6. Yesod – Foundation/wholly remembering/coherent knowledge (Power of Manifesting)
7. Malkuth/Lower Crown – Kingdom/physical presence/vision and illusion (Power of Healing/Accomplishment/Level of Realization of Divine Plan)

each of the seven weeks of the Omer-counting is associated with one of the seven lower sefirot (#4-10): Chesed, Gevurah, Tipheret, Netzach, Hod, Yesod, and Malchut. Each day of each week is also associated with one of these same seven sefirot, creating forty-nine permutations. (Deeper symbolism)

I look at this and begin to wonder. I did a search on “seven” in the Bible and came up 524 hits. Some of them were of no consequence. But seven seems to be a number that has deeper meaning. Then I remember Jesus’ command to forgive seventy times seven and see the echos of counting omer. I wonder if we take Jesus’ words too literally. What if Jesus is telling us here that forgiveness is a process that we must step through. That we must count our steps … seventy times seven. Ten steps for chesed, ten for gevurah and so on. We must study these perspectives and allow ourself to steep in them as we walk towards purity and the feast of first fruits. I wonder …