life

Thoughts on life, in general.
general / life — No Comments
7
Mar 10

war metaphor part ii

The metaphors we use to describe day to day events speak deep truths about the say we approach life in general. Missed to ground work for this discussion? Check it out here: War Metaphor Part I.

We unconsciously use war metaphor to in many different facets of our lives. Already, we’ve said that sports, and science, and conflict are ripe with it. We talk about inner battles, battles of will, waging war against pick-an-injustice. For those of us that are trying to model the way that Jesus lived, is it appropriate to approach the world with this same angst? (I was about to say “spiritual world” here, but I’d rather not divvy it up like that)

“War” and “Battle” are words that are used fairly often throughout scripture. And the old testament is practically crammed with God-ordained conflicts between people that claimed the lives of thousands. But most of these references are literal references – either to actual wars or the prospect of wars if the people don’t respond in a certain way. They’re not figurative – i.e. they’re not metaphor language. The other interesting thing you see in the prophets of the Old Testament are the references to the end of war – to peace. Micah 4:3 as classic example talks about the conversion of weapons of war and destruction into weapons of provision, and that nations “will not train for war anymore.”

The New Testament talks far less frequently about these concepts. Jesus mentions war when outlining the cost of being a disciple as an illustration.

Then there’s the armor of God. Can’t forget this. This is perhaps the most blatant use of war metaphor in the Bible when the author of Ephesians says:

Be strong in the Lord and in this mighty power. Put on the full armor of God so you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.

Perhaps this isn’t as metaphoric as it sounds. I’m not suggesting that there is literal armor – but I am saying that the readers and the author himself were literally being physically attacked and chained for their beliefs. They were, in fact, in a type of war scenario.

One last thing before I attempt to get far more practical with this. In this same passage we read this:

For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rules, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world, and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

Growing up, I was very involved in a church that heavily used war metaphor to describe Christians relationship with sin. It was very much a battle, a near-literal altercation with demons and evil. Shouts of praise were often inter-mingled with battle cries. I understood that I was to be engaged in a spiritual war against an axis of evil (made up of beer, drugs, crossing “the line” with the opposite sex, smoking – up for consideration for the axis were cussing, lusting, and gambling). Looking back, it also took on the scope of “if you’re not for us, you’re against us.”

Given the significance of all things spiritual to many people, it’s not hard to understand why the fight becomes so important. All of this is very much in keeping with the use of war metaphor.

I felt as though that those who took part in any of the activities in the axis of evil were not just casualties, but they were brain-washed prisoners of war, recruited to fight the forces of good. On the one hand, I knew that I was called to “Love my neighbor as myself” but at the same time, these were “enemy forces” that had the potential to attack me. It’s shoot-to-kill time.

My biggest hang up with the use of war metaphor is that it promotes a sense of defensiveness. Even if we constantly on the attack, we feel as though at any moment enemy forces can strike. Defensive people and groups act very differently than the rest of us. There is a primal instinct that begins to emerge in even the most well-intentioned people. If at any point we feel threatened, we are liable to act out of desperation. In our figurative war, this could mean something as a comment/accusation that precipitates the alienation of a person or a group of people.

There is nothing as polarizing as war. Being at war means that opposing forces have become as diametrically opposed to one another as possible. It is the ultimate consequence to unmanaged conflict, or tension.

While it leads to alienation and destructive processes, there is a nobility to it all. In war, finding the power to continue the fight is admired. Officers are commended with medals or other awards for exceptional bravery. Conversely, there is shame is surrender, in humbling yourself to the enemy. It is a display of weakness to bow out of battle.

In the church, we have allowed this paradigm to permeate everything that we do. We have battle hymns and fight songs, chants that reinforce the diametric opposition of the forces of good and the forces of evil. And while there may be theological basis for this concept, that good cannot exist where there is evil, we are practically raining terror down on those that need our love the most. We rationalize by saying that we “love the sinner, and hate the sin” which can lead quickly to justifying our force with statements like “there’s gonna be some collateral damage,” or “it’s for your own good,” as if we have the capacity to decide what that should be. The consequences of our bloody battles are years and years of distrust, malice, alienation, and hatred.

We see this over and over. Homosexuals have long been essentially metaphorically labeled as terrorists to modern-day Christianity. We go on the offensive against abortion clinics, perversely assuming that God is smiling as we spew hateful slogans, carry placards plastered with the graphic images of aborted fetuses, or as we literally use lethal force.

Hatred for Christ’s sake is still hatred.

As long as we continue to propagate war metaphor in our churches, we will continue to falsely indoctrinate our people to believe that anyone that is “in” is good and that anyone that is “out” is the enemy.

It continues to be striking to me that Jesus’ harshest words were for the religious. A man marked by unwavering compassion across people groups and ethnicities and situations turned hostile when he looked inward towards those who were thought to be representatives of God on earth.

We could learn a thing or two from this Jesus character.

It’s also striking to me that aside from the disciples, we never hear about what happens with any of the people that Jesus encountered. We know that he was kind and loved regardless of the circumstance and never implied that he was about to bomb the enemy with righteousness and blessed sanctification. It was seldom more than a brief encounter, the beginnings of relationship, filled with understanding, compassion, and grace. If we approach life as though we’re all in this together, that we can learn mutually beneficial things from one another, that we are all part of a well-intended creation perhaps we’ll see the transformation that we’ve been trying to force for so long.

And maybe, the other people will change too.

faith / life — 1 Comment
17
Jan 10

favor

It was disgusting and altogether expected when a visible, if not influential, Christian leader this week connected the events of Haiti with a “pact with the Devil” this the country has supposedly made.  The implication here is that the 7.0 magnitude quake that leveled the city of Port-au-Prince was beckoned from the depths of the earth by the people themselves and their actions.  It further implies that because much of the western world enjoys unprecedented wealth our actions mean we have built up enough credit to receive showers of blessing from the banker in the sky.

(For an interesting take on this, see this link from NPR’s Two-Way Blog. NOTE: I don’t agree with 100% of the contents of the post at this link, but find the concept incredibly relevant.  Donald Miller has also written a response to the aforementioned comments at his blog.)

This concept – that God reinforces good behavior and punishes bad – is deeply damaging to people and to faith.

On the one hand, you have people who begin to subconsciously view themselves on a level akin to rats in a lab.

In college, I had one such rat, named Gilligan.  My goal for him was to increase a behavior (namely, pressing a button in his cage) by using positive reinforcement (i.e. small pellets of food).  The progression was interesting to watch. Once he discovered the button, and began to press it, it was important to reward his behavior every time – this “charged” the button and let little Gilligan know that if He was faithful in pressing, the Button would be faithful and deliver food from the pellet chute in the sky.

If you’ve never read anything on this, you may think that this approach would be the most effective at achieving an increase in a behavior.  Interestingly enough, once the Button was “charged” what really cranked up Gilligan’s Button-zeal was when we switched to an uncertain, variable reward system.  Now instead of getting a ration every time, Gilligan had to wait on the Button’s judgement (aka the software that determined if “now was the time for chow”).  This transformed my little rat from casual worshipper to religious radical.

I imagine him crying out when his prayers did not solicit a reward, “Button, why have you forsaken me, Button?” or “”What have I done to deserve this?  I have no food with which to satisfy my hunger” or “squeaky squeak squeak squeaketh” (untranslated, due to use of explicit language).

When we make God’s providence or punishment contingent on our day to day behaviors, we are engaging a most primitive component of our existence.  We had developed wiring like this to increase our survival skills thousands and thousands of years ago.  And while it’s still useful when studying rats and pigeons, our abilities to reason, decipher, and decide should probably take more of a leading role.

Otherwise, we begin to develop a deep-seeded sense of entitlement; that we deserve to be rewarded for the good work that we’ve done.  The work itself, the satisfaction of helping others, the benefits inherent in a job well done will not be enough.  We do good, we expect good to be done to us.  We expect blessing. Frankly, we expect money, and vehicles, and houses and trips and health. If all good things come from heaven above then we start to wonder why our good would not be rewarded while others have so much.

This view is unhealthy and yet seems to be rampant in communities of faith.

Often, I hear (more realistically, I read on Facebook) people say things like, “I know that if I do this (e.g. pray faithfully, read the Bible, love people), then God will provide for my needs.” There is an incredibly sarcastic (though incredibly funny) side of me that wants to say in response, “I know that if you don’t, God will still provide for your needs.”

For he gives his sunlight to both the evil and the good, and he sends rain on the just and the unjust alike.
Matthew 5:45

In Button world, church and faith become about a series of behaviors that are reinforced when we, usually mistakenly, connect them with reward-”gifts” from above.  These gifts can be any kind of reinforcement, from money to a “feeling” to a sense of God’s “presence”.  We act to get rewarded.  We act to avoid punishment.  The reasons are steeped in selfishness.  Our attempts to represent selfless love and compassion are voided – they become transactional instead of transformational.  Instead of being an extension of God showing relentless love in all circumstances, we become a relentless prospector showing love to others when our investments show promising returns for ourselves.

Button faith attracts the “worst” of the faithful (those who are “in it for themselves”) and the “best” of the critics (those who say “you don’t do anything without it being selfish”). It introduces handcuffs and restraints to lives intended to be lived free.

One thing is for certain: the people of Haiti did not call destruction on themselves.  We can choose to make this disaster about us, attempting to carve out our own rewared, or about helping people because it’s the right thing to do.  Be the extension of God’s unselfish love.  Make unconditional love truly unconditional.

Pray for the people of Haiti, and those that are there to provide some sort of relief.  The scale of this tragedy is unimaginable.  There are stories that can never be told. Support them by providing relief agencies with the money they need to rebuild Haiti.

life — 2 Comments
6
Jan 10

redemption

Redemption gets me every time.

Behind my obviously gruff exterior is a soft-hearted man who would cry at the drop of a hat and its subsequent return to its rightful owner. There is something about redemption and restoration and encouragement that clutches my heart and simply will not let it go before ensuring that my eyes well up and that I have to sniff back tears.

I don’t mind admitting this. I’m not a proud man.

It speaks to a sense of belonging to an inclusive human family as well as a belief that we can live counter to the entropy of the universe. We tend towards chaos. But we neither belong there nor do we have to remain there.

We’re told that God wants whats best for us and has a plan for us. I believe that there is a ‘right’ way for us to live as individuals and as a collective. While I don’t believe that the Creator has packed our calendars full of events and appointments, tasks that we are to complete save eternity hangs in the balance, I think it’s appropriate to say that God would have us live in such a way that we both actively and passively find opportunities to make life better. Simple things. Ambitious things. Things that are a doomed to fail. Things that are overnight sensations.

These things shift our trajectory away from the chaos. They give us purpose and direction in more than one sense of those words. It was the grand intention of God not that I would give a homeless man a sandwich on Aug 17 at 2:34pm but simply that we would live with kindness, generosity, understanding, integrity, and a designed desire to crave justice for our fellow creatures.

It’s these things that make miniscule corrections to our path – a state of perfect redemption approached by the assimilation of millions and billions of unnoticed acts.

There are aspects of my life that I’m not prepared to share on my blog, and so it makes this next bit much less dramatic. But, for a brief moment in time I was able to zoom out and get a wide-angle shot of my life and realized that there is a redemption that’s been happening all along, a restoration, a return to how things should be and how I want them to be. It’s millions of little things that are coalescing into a beautiful work of redemptive art.

And that may make me well up, just a little bit.

faith / life — 1 Comment
28
Dec 09

too soon

On Boxing Day, a Saturday this year, Kristy and I headed out to reclaim a long-lost tradition of ours: boxing day skating.  We were unaware of the fact that just 3 miles from our apartment is the Pineville Ice House where they offer public skating year round!  To get there, we had to pass through a major commercial area in South Charlotte – shopping malls, lots of big-box stores, etc.

As we passed through what most uphold as a modern-day, mini Mecca, my heart hurt a little.

I understand that we live in a consumer driven economy and very smart people imply that this is a good thing and that I should be thankful.  I understand that a byproduct of this economy is that we have to put up with long lines at shopping malls and traffic jams entering the parking lot and several lanes of pavement in some parts of town.  And, I understand that having all of these buildings closed for one day (i.e. December 25).

But I couldn’t help but be a little sad that thousands of people were flocking back to Mecca after being banned from there for an entire 24 hours.  These worshippers were unsatisfied with the blessing they’d received just days before and made the pilgrimage back to the holy land in search of something, anything, more.

Are we really so desperate?

It could certainly be that I’m reading far too much into this situation and over-dramatizing a completely benign situation.  I’ve been convicted of similar crimes in the past and have yet to be reformed.  However, the unquenched longing that is represented by these traffic jams and gift receipts and incidents of road rage is altogether depressing to me.  I’m a different person than I used to be, granted, and the prospect of a “cheap” 42″ television would have perhaps called me to a great pilgrimage of my own.

So I am in no position to condemn….

I can simply say this.

This year was the simplest (read: fewest gifts under the tree, fewest days spent on the battlefield of the mall) Christmas that we have ever had. It’s also been THE most rewarding by far.  It’s freeing.  It’s enabled us to be compassionate and generous in other ways – not new ways, simply ways that had been concealed by our own selfishness in the past.

What would it look like for your family to try this?  Plan for Christmas in much the same way – save money, clear the credit card, however you handle Christmas, but instead of trying to outdo the annually-increasing precedents you’ve set for yourself, commit to buying one gift (at the most!) for your immediate family members.  Take the same resources and funnel them towards a family who may have nothing – buy them food, or gas for their car, or presents for their kids, or sheets for their bed.  Try it.  Just once.  See if it’s not the most rewarding Christmas that you’ve ever had.

faith / general / life — 3 Comments
21
Dec 09

gift

For the past several years now, Kristy and I have not actively given each other gifts at Christmastime.  In fact, except for some of the closest children in our lives, we really haven’t given any one gifts at Christmastime.  And we’ve never really taken the time to explain this odd behavior.

It may equate me with the “Grinch” but Christmas does not do much for me.  In past posts, I’ve alluded to my problems with doing for the sake of doing, free from any rationale.  You may recall my thoughts on church, for example.  This is a quite honest representation of who I am as I person: I need to see the rationale before getting behind something.  There has to be a strategy or a purpose.

To be even more specific, it’s not enough to simply have rationale – it’s not an “as long as you can justify it, I’m in” scenario – obviously, the justification and rationale have to align with my beliefs and morals and personality.

It is at this level that Christmas begins to fall apart for me.

Christmas has become the perpetual out-do-myself game.  It’s on a grand scale so we may not even realize it, but for so many of us, this year has to be bigger than last.  Better parties, blingier gifts, nicer decorations, 1000 more bulbs. I wonder if we haven’t made Christmas into a milestone, some point of reference to gauge our progress (read: net worth) year over year.  Last year I was able to spend $X so this year, if I’ve had a successful year, it stands to reason that I should be able to spend $X + $Y.  If not, we’ve obviously not worked hard enough, long enough, made a big enough impression on the men “upstairs” (either literally or figuratively).  Certainly we give gifts away because it’s what culture and baby Jesus would have us to do, but I wonder if we don’t give in a spirit of self-measurement.

It’s not hard to imagine.  We get a card from someone that’s not on our list and some primal guilty panic sets in.  What is the drive behind it?  Fear that the we’ll “owe” the sender something that will strike the cosmic balance in their favor?  Do we honestly think that the forgotten ones are sitting with a Santa Claus style checklist, cross-referencing every piece of festive fan mail that arrives at their doorstep?  Just because we do it ourselves, doesn’t mean everyone does :)

My argument is that this is reflective of the yearly benchmark that we’ve set for ourselves.  More cards out mean more friends this year over last.  More gifts out means more expendable income this year over last.  Net growth is what we’re really after when we venture out into the wilds that are our bliss acquisition depots (a.k.a. shopping malls).

It’s important to be self-aware and introspective.  I don’t want to devalue those things.  What is off, however, is our tendency to measure worth in financial or material terms.  Sure, we’re constantly bombarded with financial news.  It’s strange to go through a day without encountering a stock ticker or at least some reference to which direction the DOW has been headed lately.  It’s understandable for us to measure ourselves by the tools that we have around us – in much the same way that I still find temperatures in Fahrenheit or distances in miles to be confusing at times.

In previous posts, I’m clear about my position that Christians have ruined the church.  Something similar is true for Christmas.  I don’t want to put this all on the church – only to say that this season has been ruined for me.

The beauty has been the rediscovery.

We haven’t completely disengaged from the season.  There are things that still have value and purpose.  But becoming indebted to financial institutions is not my idea of a good time.  And Christmas is still a milestone for us.  But instead of measuring the ways that we’ve made more money in the past year, or met new people that need to read the latest installment of the Smith saga and receive a picture of us sitting under our tree, we’re able to figure out ways that we can give.  We know we’re not “wealthy” when you compare our checkbooks to those of our neighbors, but it’s a beautiful thing to not be in want.  It’s an amazing place to be.

It frees you to be able to mobilize resources, no matter how meager, to help somebody that’s in need.  So instead of buying stuff, and wrapping it in stuff and packing that in stuff, we’ve been able to give.  Maybe it’s a house up the street or maybe it’s children in a country halfway around the world.  We’ve participated in programs like World Vision and local programs designed to help children and their families nearby.  The year we’re helping build wells in Malawi (http://www.equitas.cc).

And, if you’re busy buying Christmas gifts this year – don’t worry, I’m not at all saying that you’re efforts are in vain and stupid and a waste of resources that could otherwise be used to feed the poor.  There IS great value in gift giving – that’s the way that many, many people express their love.  I’m simply saying that, for my wife and I, we’ve chosen to reroute the resources we have to other things.

So, you’re not getting anything from us this year…. again.  Honestly, it’s not that we don’t like you :)  We like you very much.

Merry Christmas

faith / general / life — 2 Comments
12
Nov 09

wonder

One of the tragic losses from the modern era has been the loss of unabashed awe.  During this time in history, we see a dramatic surge in knowledge from the various facets of science.  The capabilities that we possess as the human race now to produce, create, repair, heal, and discover are incredible and directly attributable to the precision and determination with which we have been able to work in relatively recent years.

But in the process of building our knowledge and the endless pursuit of the provable we have all but lost one of the most amazing aspects of humanity.  Our self-aggrandizing quest for limitless knowledge has chipped away at our understanding that the “awe of the unknowable” is in itself inspiring.  It is almost no longer “human” to consider a question unanswerable, to remain in the dark about anything that can be considered remotely important.

We have moved into a time where questions have no inherent value unless they are followed with an explanation.  Great thought is now empirical rather than philosophical.  The greater value is now placed on the state of knowing rather than the art of learning.

In fairness, anything finite can be understood.  The workings of the human mind and neurological system are incredibly complex and once thought impossible to fully comprehend.  Very intelligent people are already beginning to model human brain activity in new ways using new technologies developed by the very systems they are studying.  Someday we will have an incredibly accurate visualization of the intricacies of this aspect of life.  Assuming the laws we have in place are true, and our universe turns out to be finite, we will traverse it, and grasp the things that are unknown.

As scientific fact continues to be refined (e.g. all the “steps” in our evolution, the quirks with Einstein’s relativity, etc) we will eventually reach true understanding about almost everything.  And we should pursue these things with exactly the same fervor as we currently do.

But there is value in the admission that not all questions are answered with facts.  There is inspiration and new outlooks on life when we admit that there are things we will never be able to answer without bias or opinion masquerading as truth.

We can practice this now.  Some of us will never know the full-details of the intricacies of the way the body does the things that a body needs to do to survive.  Be inspired by this.  Whether you believe it was created by a god or arrived at by the laws of nature, it is amazing to think about what had to have happened to reach this point and what has to happen every second of every day.

Think about the mind.  No one alive today will ever fully understand the way that electricity some how transforms into conscious thought.  There’s value in being filled with awe about this and not just seeing it as an unanswered question.

And yes, then there’s the issue of faith and death and what happens next.  This is perhaps the quintessential “unanswerable” question.  By their very being “questions of faith” at best they can only be answered with thought and persuasion.  The “answers” to these questions can change from hour to hour and from person to person.

With questions of faith there are no “Yes” or “No” answers.  And perhaps that’s why these questions are so appealing to me – because of how much recently I’ve been avoiding black and white as much as possible.

And, yet, somehow we often relegate this realm to that of the fairy tale because we cannot say with certainty what the “answers” are.  That’s the beauty of these questions.  They can answered at best with a “maybe” and more often an “I don’t know.”

Black and white is nice, but it’s also the easy way out.

I want to get lost in the wonder of everything that’s around me.  The subtleties of life.  The interactions between people.  Questions of love and faith and dreams and aspirations and worth and purpose.

I want to be introspective.  I want to question the meaning of life and my value as a human and be better for it.  There is no room for this without awe.  The unknowable, in some mystic way, is the only way to begin to answer these issues.  It is only by venturing out from the black and white domain that we’ve created that living even begins.

And even when we admit that some “answers” are unknowble, no questions are “unanswerable.”

We can claim to know more than any generation before us, to have mapped the heavens and observed the molecular.

So what.  Do you think?

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10
Oct 09

rob

I’m in the middle of collecting my thoughts for a series of “reset” posts – how my understanding of faith and life have been altered over the past couple of years.  Until then, I wanted to share this.

Last night I was able to experience one of Rob Bell’s signature presentations of faith as he stopped in Charlotte for his Drops like Stars.  After weaving each thought into what can only be called a work of art, he gave us this quote, from a novel by Susan Howatch, spoken by a sculptor character named Harriet March.  She said this:

“That’s creation . . . you can’t create without waste and mess and sheer undiluted slog.  You can’t create without pain.  It’s all part of the process.  It’s in the nature of things . . .  So in the end every major disaster, every tiny error, every wrong turning, every fragment of discarded clay, all the blood, sweat, and tears – everything has meaning.  I give it meaning.  I reuse, reshape, recast all that goes wrong so that in the end nothing is wasted and nothing is without significance and nothing ceases to be precious to me.”

For someone who is just now realizing the value of the discarded clay, these are powerful, powerful words.

life — 3 Comments
4
Oct 09

want to want to

Dawn is quickly breaking on a strange, convoluted, and dim-if-not-dark night of my life.  I lovingly refer to this passing phase as “my resetting years” and it all became apparent because of feelings of isolation and entrapment. Had you or I the time to take in all of the details, I am not convinced that they would really benefit the discussion and so I have decided to give you a very quick synopsis: I’d be happy to share the complete collection with you if you’re genuinely interested….

The essential details are:

  • my wife and I have experienced some isolation from almost everything/everyone that we knew and loved within the past few years;
  • along with this isolation came a sense of entrapment – that no matter what we did we could not affect the larger details of our lives;
  • this initiated an extended period of anxiety mixed with questions about life and love and faith.

We were both raised in good homes in a good church – our foundation was solid.  We were involved, and respected, and happy.  With the onset of this isolation, however, a number of questions also made their way into our consciousness.  It was around this time that we began reading authors like Rob Bell who started to make us think that maybe there was a lot more “stuff” just beneath the surface that we never considered (I’m sure I’ll post soon on exactly what some of these things are).  There was an obviously but seemingly uncorrectable sense of unhappiness with our professions and circumstances.

These issues coalesced and manifested as physical symptoms of anxiety in late December 2006/January 2007. Several months of introspection and other therapeutic mechanisms ensued.  These were eye-opening and enriching, and while many questions were still unanswered and even remained occluded in the depths of my soul, a long, meandering, often hazy and difficult journey began.

From then until now it has been just over two years.  There have been a number of difficult questions involving faith and self-worth and priorities and tradition and God and friendship and love.

I have only recently (read: in the last few weeks) realized how long and far and trying and draining and rewarding this reset has been.  For the first time in a long time I have a real sense of self-confidence.  I want to be around people and more often than not I believe that they want to be around me – some of them have even SAID SO in one way or another.  Inside of me now is a burgeoning faith that is my own – not founded on, or a dependent of tradition or others.  After years of lamenting the loss of who I used to be, I’ve discovered who I am supposed to be.

I know that questions are OK.

The practical implications of this are astounding and immediate.  Others have recognized a change in literally the past few days.  My wife has said “I feel like we’re friends again!” – which is not to say that we weren’t – I was just a lousy friend.  Suddenly I feel like I can approach people free of my longstanding fear of rejection.  I’m writing again. I’m reflecting again.

I am happy.

Brennan Manning, in Ragamuffin Gospel describes a similar scenario which I will paraphrase here, as it seems to really capture my experience at that time…

God, I don’t know if I love you.  I don’t know if I want to love you.  But I want to want to love you.

Though at the time I couldn’t or wouldn’t put this into words, I did know that I wanted to want to be at a place of peace, I wanted to want to be compassionate, I wanted to want to keep going.  In my time of reset I didn’t know what would work or what was right. Unknowingly that last statement framed the posture of my life on this most recent leg of my journey.

Even as an often embittered and indifferent wanderer, I knew that I wanted to want not any old ways but truth and grace and peace.

And slowly, but safely and securely that prayer was answered abundantly and fully.  And the God that I had always heard of as faithful at every step, and loving beyond comprehension, and accepting without precondition, I now know for certain to be faithful. And loving. And accepting.

I want to keep going.

general / life — Comments Off
20
Sep 09

passive

During lunch today, I spoke about how my experiences in life have given me “permission” to be passive.  I’ve written about this before (read my entry from a couple of years ago), however it’s always interesting to revisit these thoughts to see how things may have changed, how I may have changed.

Since first having these insights, I’ve realized that this tension exists in so many parts of our lives and I’ve been trying to actively live my life by learning about myself, making decisions that reflect the person that I am, the values that have been developing in me, etc.

This has been most evident recently in my interactions with others.  Whereas before my self-analysis has revolved around decisions directly related to my own person (jobs, marriage, etc) I’m now beginning to see how I’m continuing in my passive ways at it relates to building relationships.

It has far more often than not been the case for me that because I’ve looked “the part” relationships have “just happened.”  In many cases, these relationships were often shallow but were convenient.  This is not to say that these relationships were of lesser value, just built on a passive foundation and were not long-lasting.  As time, distance, or difference began to separate these relationships, they were not actively preserved because they were not actively pursued in the beginning.

Unfortunately (or fortunately), it is very much the case that many of my experiences now require the opposite to be true.  In other words, to begin relationships, I have to begin to make decisions about which type of relationships (and perhaps people) I want to pursue.  Who are the people and what are the characteristics that I want to introduce to or reinforce in my life?  Even further, I need to “make the first move” in building these relationships – I need to strike up conversation.

This is a foreign concept for me.  I enjoy being around people, but as with the employment opportunities and other issues referenced in my 2007 post, my relationships have almost exclusively been built passively – out of convenience, or proximity.  Again, this is not to say that I do not value these relationships.  Rather, this highlights the fear and ignorance with which I am approaching new relationships.

Perhaps there is a lack of confidence, a fear of rejection.  I can’t rule them out.

Most likely though, I simply don’t know how to make friends.

But I’m learning.  I know it’s a problem and I know what to do to rectify the problem.

Now, it’s a matter of finding the motivation.

general / life — 2 Comments
19
Sep 09

value

It may be self-evident that all men are created equal.  Unfortunately, this belief leaves a lot to ambiguity. There are a few posts on this blog that have been written to try to encourage people to think about human-ness, human rights, and humanity in general.  I believe, as the late Senator Kennedy did that the health care issue, and many others, are primarily a question of morality.  There are, however, a lot of social, economical, and moral overtones sounding just about the tonic of “equality.”

As with my ignorance towards the many interpretations of the “We” in “We the people…” I have always assumed that if all men are created equal then that means that all men ARE equal – and that’s clearly a misinterpretation or a miscommunication.  It may be that the founding fathers meant the latter and did a poor job of writing it.  Or, it may be that I’ve done a poor job of comprehending it.

A third option, of course, is that we’re thinking about this far too hard…

But, the questions remain:

  • Are all men and women created equal?
  • Do all men and women retain the same intrinsic value throughout their life?

There are so many perspectives from which to view this.  However, I continue to contend that human’s have an innate moral tracking that gives some basis for morality, for some definition (however loose) of right and wrong, of good and better and best, and that we have some hunger and thirst for social interaction and, perhaps, even society.

That’s the perspective I’ll use.

First, let’s look at this matter of equality: on what grounds are humans equal?

Saying that all men are created equal is essentially an expanding of John Locke’s Tabula Rasa (blank slate) theory.  Not only are all people equal in that there is a blank (or at least equally written on) mental slate that experience will write on, but we can expand this to include physical, social, and all of the -als that humans experience.

But our first problem is already self-evident.  All people are not equally able.  Some newborns have issues that may be major or minor; that could cause life-long inequality or could be just a temporary stumbling block.  So then is equality instantly fleeting?

And another.  One of the adjacent beliefs with Tabula Rasa is that nurture plays a major role.  Given differences in parenting styles, circumstances, experiences, and happenstances, there are no two people that have equal opportunity and preparation for life.

Perhaps there is another way to approach this question: does equality speak instead to a person’s worth or value?  Is each child assigned arbitrarily and unconsciously some monetary value that can accrue interest or lose value as they grow, experience life, make choices, etc?

The key here is to note that this value is completely subjective.  To illustrate – if you could “pay” to be saved from a burning building, would you pay more for a skydiver, an IT professional, or a fire-fighter? How would that change if you fell out of a plane?

I believe this is how our free-market society operates – this, too, is self-evident.  Whether it’s insurance companies that look for which risky or money-losing plans to drop for their portfolio or advertising companies targeting some demographic (superbowl commercials anyone?)  As long as you’re worth something to someone.

What is painfully obvious here is the greed and selfishness that bubbles at the surface of all of these discussions – from health care reform to missile defense shields to entitlement to talk radio.  Because of the way with which profit and value are intertwined with our lives, it is so easy to mask human life with an identification number and relegate that number to the “worthless” pile.

You know, we have built into our social fabric means for dealing with individuals that harm other individuals by  damaging them emotionally, or by taking their things or their life; by devaluing other’s lives. But on a corporate level we assess values with the intestinal fortitude of an insurance adjuster.

When there is profit to be had, beware of falling prices.

What does that say about the character of a country?

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