Tagged: relationships
The Christian’s Home
A couple of years ago, a friend of mine introduced me to the Hero’s Journey. The Hero’s Journey is essentially a formula that stories with classic protagonists and plots which involve good overcoming evil are built upon. Think Batman and Robin Hood. Characters are born, leave home, while away they gain experiences but ultimately they return home and get to work. To be clear, despite the many steps in the Hero’s Journey, it is a three-part saga. Begin at home, leave home, return home.
Obviously, I am in school right now being indoctrinated into the cult known as Christianity. Yes, it is a life-encompassing worldview. One of its most adored parables is the story of the prodigal son. Do you know it? Sure you do. The rich dad has a son who asks to get his inheritance early. The dad acquiesces and the son leaves home with his fortune only to squander it. The now impoverished son remembers his father. He resolves to return home even if only to live as a servant. The way Jesus tells the story, the father, instead of being mad, is joyful upon his son’s return.
My question for you is, “What do you believe the bible is?” You see, if you believe the bible contains new information, or put another way, if you believe that Jesus must be the original author of his parables for Christianity to be sound, then I think we’re at odds. Because I believe the bible is God’s self-revelation to his creation. That means that the bible doesn’t have to contain original concepts, or put another way, if the historical record shows that Jesus didn’t come up with the golden rule (he didn’t), that doesn’t not detract from the bible’s value. The bible is valuable because it is God’s self-revelation. In theology we would call it one of a few methods of God’s particular revelation.
Christians believe God has revealed himself to his creation generally and particularly. General revelation (or universal revelation) includes things like my McDonald’s argument, the digestible version of which goes something like: How many churches, synagogues, mosques, temples etc. are there? And you’re going to tell me there’s no God? Okay. Well, you also have to deny McDonald’s exists.
But general revelation isn’t enough for salvation. So God chose to reveal himself particularly as well. The bible is one of his methods. This means that it doesn’t matter if the parables in the bible are original, what matters is what they teach us about God’s nature. The parable of the prodigal son reveals that God will welcome us poor sinners back into his loving embrace if we just come home. The fact that the story of the prodigal son involves the home-leave-return formula that storytellers use to make their fortunes only adds it to the man-made category of general revelation. It’s as if God is using every method of persuasion available to him to convince us to see the truth of our condition.
I like that God would be relentless.
Sin
A fellow student in my theology class told me that in his 69 years of existence he’d never encountered hamartiology. My own 34 year old pink body hadn’t either until two weeks ago. Hamartiology is the field of Christian theology which studies sin. Fascinating stuff. How many people even believe in sin anymore? Here in Denver the concept has very little support. I have had several older folks tell me bluntly, “Well, I don’t believe in sin.” Like I said, it’s fascinating. Then this past week we read about atonement and all the different reasons Christian thinkers over the years have deduced the reason for Jesus’ death to be.
As I hope the savvy reader can imagine, there are no clear cut answers. Christians have been doing their best and generally fall into only a handful of categories, but there is no universal agreement. (No surprise here). What was intriguing to me, however, was how integral a person’s concept of sin is to their concept of atonement and why Jesus had to die.
Obviously, I have nothing new to add to the study of sin, but I do have one observation that brings me some hope. One of the books mentioned that sin is both our condition and the result of our condition. We sin because we’re sinners and we’re sinners because we sin. That’s easy enough, nothing new. But then it went on to remind readers that we (humanity) commit sins not just because we’re sinners, but because we’re the recipient of others’ sins as well. For example, I have been living a fairly spartan life these last couple weeks. Early to rise, been memorizing scripture, reading voluminously, no movie/TV-watching etc. Yet I have still been sinning in some very easy to acknowledge acts. Before I read the aforementioned section about being on the receiving end of fellow humans’ sin, I was a bit perplexed. But now I feel like I’ve gained some understanding, or perhaps one more example, of the reality that I cannot ever do it on my own. Theoretically, if I could erase my memory and become a hermit on Mars with no more contact from humans, maybe I could avoid sins of commission. But even then sins of omission would be occurring because I’d be avoiding my purpose.
The point of all this is that hamartiology and the Christian doctrine of sin is the most accurate description of reality/evil I have discovered as of today. Consequently, I believe, like most Christians do, that I am a sinner in need of repentance and that God sent Jesus to die to take my place in order to restore the broken relationship that the first man caused by his sin. Those of you who know the story know that the ironic piece, of course, is that the biblical writers suggest that in my act of recognizing both my status and that there has been a substitution of characters; instead of being punished, I am forgiven. That’s a relief, a veritable un-burdening–especially compared to the sensation that accompanied me while I distorted the reality of sin’s effect on my life.
Oh. What is sin, you ask? What is the root of all sin? It’s the displacement of God from his rightful place.
Conversation Over
Last week wasn’t one of my favorites.
Remember my character formation class that I have been touting? Well, the character trait that I have decided to specifically get working on this semester is humility. That really has nothing to do with this post except to share that one of the spiritual disciplines that a book suggests is journaling. All of us bloggers do this without thinking and so while I have been blogging for a few years now, I am specifically going to dedicate one blog a week to my walk with God, if you will. I share this because sometimes I get the feeling that Christians do read these posts every once in a while and maybe they’d be interested to see just what goes on at a seminary. Anyhow, back to last week.
I had lunch with a friend and there was discussion about the nature of God and scripture etc. A couple years ago when we met, we both were in the agnostic category, but obviously I don’t believe I can ignore what I’ve been feeling and learning, nor do I want to. Suffice it to say that he hasn’t changed. He’s old, so it’s not like I expected him to during the course of one conversation. I even said this in the conversation. But I love the conversation and he’s kind of been a mentor of sorts so I wanted to pick his brain a bit about why he believes what he does. Long story short, I sent him a follow up email (old habits–post-flight debriefs–die hard). At the end of the email he wrote that he does not want to continue talking about the subject.
I don’t know what to do next. “The subject” is kind of my life right now. I wouldn’t know what else to talk about. As I have gotten older I have begun to recognize the subtleties of my body’s physiological reactions to life. The physical reaction happens before the words develop to describe how I feel. In this instance, as I read his “conversation over” assertion, I felt a sadness in my gut that demanded a long nap with the hope that upon waking I would discover that it was just a bad dream. Then I labeled all that rejection.
Am I that unbearable?
Coincidence or Calling?
In an ideal world managing a strip club is unlikely to occur along the path to Glory–the key word being “ideal”.
Here’s something I wrote late December 2014 (certainly just a coincidence–I turned 34 last July): “33 is a big year for me. Laughing, I told George the other day that only after having finished this book did I remember that I predicted back in church camp years ago that 33 was when I’d start my calling. Ha. Everyone else always acted like it was in/around college that they would begin their calling. Well, at 18 I said that I felt mine would begin at 33 because that’s how old Jesus was (give or take) when they killed him. Immature, misguided, morbid, delusional, but true [I said it] nonetheless. And you can bet I never imagined my calling would be a book centered on divorce. Suffice it to say, I can’t wait to hit 34 and laugh at my prophetic abilities. Either way, I’m certain that no matter what it is going to be a helluva lot of fun.”
That was about two months before my first day (on the job) at the club.
Five-ish months later I was sweating whether or not I’d get my application to a master’s program at a seminary in on time. (New passenger? Welcome aboard. Now read this.)
When I visited campus they had a movable-type board with my first and last name on it welcoming me. Imagine me staring in disbelief at the board. It had my name and the name of the woman who I went to church with (after skipping for a decade) and whose pastor introduced me to N.T. Wright’s New Testament and the People of God books back in 2013–the reading of which subsequently led me to return to church Dec. 2014. Naturally, the name on the board wasn’t representative of my friend, it was just that there is more than one woman with that first and last name and apparently one of the other ones was visiting campus that day. Coincidence–that one’s easy.
Hoping to move onto campus asap, and with my current lease running out in October, I discovered there was no room at the inn. At least until December, but even then it would be iffy. May for sure, they said. Setback.
Then in late September as I was trying to make arrangements with my apartment office, I stopped into the campus housing office and they actually had a family moving out mid-semester due to finding a ministry position that wanted him before the semester was up. My lease was up in October and so I moved onto campus in October. Ehhh. That one could go either way, coincidence/calling. Let’s stick with coincidence.
December 11th rolls around; it’s the last day of class. I completed four of five finals on that day alone. And I was alive. Full time work and 15 hours of masters courses passed. My folks were scheduled to visit us over Christmas and then I’d catch up on some Greek before the spring semester started.
December 14th I’m fired from the club. Despite having been promoted to manager in record time and receiving a healthy raise only a month earlier, “Poor performance” and “making employees and entertainers alike uncomfortable” the reasons given. Uncomfortable? God doesn’t exist, right? Masters in theology shouldn’t be any different than a masters in literature. Whatever.
H- and I were therefore able to visit my folks and siblings etc. and when we returned I headed to a pizza place to inquire about a job as a delivery dude. When I was applying (my first time in the store) I saw a familiar face in the back and soon discovered he’s familiar because he’s the vendor that also delivered to the club. His high praise added to the moment and I got the job. I’m sure his being there was a coincidence.
So this semester I’m paying the bills, and have plenty of time to dedicate to my studies, which may or may not be my calling.
Just Left My First Christian Apologetics Class Session
For those rusty on theological terms, when Christians use the word apologetics, they intend to communicate its root sense which is “to defend”, not in our common sense of admitting fault. Be that as it may, my question to any readers with time and energy is, “What is a Christian?”
In other words, (and I asked this in class just now) “What does conversion look like? How can I measure whether I have defended Christianity? What am I selling? What are people rejecting or ignoring?”
Random Observation Regarding Divorced Men and Conspiracy Theories
Perhaps it’s because I plain and simple talk too much, but ever since my divorce I’ve noticed that divorced men are huge conspiracy theorists. Have you noticed this? Now that I’ve mentioned it, do your observations support my claim? Or no?
Last night at work a gentlemen was trying to explain to me all about the Illuminati and Freemasons and some letter written in 1871 that successfully predicted the first two world wars and also looks to predict a still-to-come third world war. What gives?
All I said to provoke all of it was that I was attending school where I am attending school. I think I was just musing about how awesome it is to work at a pizza place again at night while doing school during the day. Then boom. Can you imagine it? It was three on one. Three fellas citing this, that, and the other about the most outrageous claims about the nature of human life on planet earth, and all the while I just said, “I don’t see any hope in those beliefs, in believing what you believe. All I see is that it takes all responsibility for proper living out of your hands if you believe some secret societies are controlling everything anyhow.”
The point is, this isn’t my first encounter with these type of divorcees. There’s something about the breakup that causes men (I’ve never noticed this in divorced women) to just latch onto conspiracy theories. Maybe it’s because they return to drinking fluoride-laced tap water (you know what that does, right?) out of the sink instead of bottled water. I don’t know. I guess it’s just an observation I wanted to get onto this blog for the record.
Review of Black Swan, by Darren Aronofsky; also Something for Consideration Regarding Public School Teachers
My main man when it comes to movie reviews is Bill Gibron. Back around the time that the internet first came to be there was a website called filmcritic.com. I discovered him there, I think. Anyhow, I have always appreciated his reviews and found them to be helpful in deciding whether or not to shell out the big bucks for a movie ticket. Over time I have noticed that he has had a particular love affair with Darren Aronofsky. Because of my esteem of Mr. Gibron, I have desperately sought the same love affair, but never quite saw the “genius” that Mr. Gibron did. I really enjoyed Mr. Aronofsky’s films, I just didn’t fall in love with the man like Mr. Gibron seemed to. All that has changed.
H- just began to learn Peter Tchaikovsky’s epic Swan Lake theme on the piano. It is a force of nature even when played with just one note at a time. In any case, this event taken together with a real desire to give Mr. Gibron’s passion one more go led to me viewing Black Swan for a second time. This time around I finally see the genius. Black Swan is the story of a ballet dancer who is trying to be the best as would be indicated by her dancing the role of the swan queen in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake in some hot shot’s revision of Swan Lake. So it’s a movie about a revision of a very famous ballet that includes themes of sacrifice and pressure to perform etc. But it’s not! It, Black Swan itself, is the revision of Swan Lake for movie-going audiences! And that’s why Mr. Aronofsky is a genius and deserves our attention. He cuts through all our defenses and serves up Tchaikovsky’s timeless story in a new way that forces us to reckon with all of our notions of love and happiness and truth and sacrifice. It’s an amazing film. Watch it. Watch it again.
****
Perhaps some of you think I am too hard on public school teachers. Here’s something to consider. A public school teacher with an amazing (if any divorce blog can attain such a title) blog mentioned that she finds herself teaching “frustration management” to her students. At this point, I would like to call my roughneck friends to the discussion. You see, when I was working in the oil fields, there was work to be done. Manly work. And yes, I mean that in the gender specific way. Work that men and only men can accomplish. For instance, every time we finished drilling a well, we had to move the rig to a new well. One of the things that this move required was the tightening of nuts onto bolts. The nuts were about the size of a woman’s fist, and the bolts were just over a foot long. The way we tightened these nuts was by swinging a sledge hammer as hard as we possibly could against a hammer wrench which was placed around the nut. Out of a twelve hour shift, how many minutes do you think we were given to not swinging the sledge hammer in favor of discussing how to deal with how frustrating the task was?
Do not hear me say that learning is not frustrating. And remember that I am the one who quit being a “teacher” because I refused to buy into the “be the change” mantra that schools with poor performing students chant. Instead, hear me calling public school teachers to realize that they are making the weather that they are complaining about. No other group–no other group–who controls their destiny does it in such a poor fashion as public school teachers. That’s what frustrates me (and I think most non-public educators).
By way of example, guess which specialty runs the Air Force? Pilots. Guess what pilots do for each other in the Air Force? Take care of each other. They ensure the flying is safe and smart and everyone is compensated well. Public school teachers, on the other hand, cite chapter and verse about all the limitations and massive time requirements etc. that they have to operate within and never once consider that just like Air Force pilots they are the one’s who write the book. Spending time teaching kids how to deal with the fact that learning takes effort? That cannot but be a disservice to the child–and I think teachers know that. So stop doing it. Kids need to learn to hit the hammer wrench as hard as they can and enjoy the feeling of accomplishment after the task is completed and completed well. And the only way to learn this is for teachers to tell the kids that the nuts must be tightened by a sledge hammer. As it stands, the only thing kids are learning is that the nuts don’t need to be tightened. Maybe teachers agree.
Review of Sicario and The Heart of the Sea
These two movies had piqued my interest when I first heard of them, but the mainstream critical reception was off-putting enough that I hadn’t take the time to view them. Finally I had a minute. The critics are wrong.
If you liked Miami Vice and Zero Dark Thirty, then Sicario is for you. My only real problem with Sicario is that it would be ruined if the cartel horrors it depicts were not based in the historical record, but I am too afraid to confirm that they are to do any fact checking. Depressing stuff.
If you have read Moby Dick, then The Heart of the Sea is for you. This one’s reception is especially baffling. Critics can’t say anything good about it, but as far as ocean voyage movies go it is much better than Master and Commander, which wasn’t bad. I loved Moby Dick and so I can’t say how much of that influences my enjoyment of The Heart of the Sea. What I can say is that if you know that Moby Dick is not about a whale, then you’ll like this movie. Conversely, if you are asking yourself, “Moby Dick isn’t about whale?” right now, skip the movie.
Theological Observations After Midnight In November
Christianity’s greatest asset and greatest hurdle is humanity’s desire for God. For a long time, nearly a decade, I thought I was really something special. I thought I was the result of a long line of human achievement. I was the result of thousands of years of contemplation and experience which resulted in the superior conclusion that God did not exist. For various reasons and with various degrees of arrogance Christians have pointed to Psalm 14:1’s “The fool says in his heart, ‘There is no God,'” as evidence that it is foolish to be an atheist. Condemn me now, but I don’t need bible verses to admit that God exists. How many churches exist? How many temples? How many religious sites? How many places are there on this planet in which people gather to worship or discuss or contemplate God? Denying God’s existence would be like denying McDonalds. And yet many of you are going to tell me that God is a fiction and a human weakness, a figment of our imagination, a fairy tale created by Iraqis and former Egyptians bent on collecting ten percent of your hard-earned income so they don’t have to work. Yeah. Okay. You’re right.
****
“The problem of evil” finds itself among the great controversies of Christian theology. If God is good, how is it possible that evil exists, the question goes. I know I’m only a first semester B-averaging seminary student, but for me the problem of evil is one of the main reasons I find Christianity appealing. God purposefully creates man with free will. Man uses the freedom to disobey. Dunsky. Next, man murders. The rest is history.
Whatdya got as another option? Man just decides to one day kill for pleasure? And did it give him pleasure? Do you actually derive pleasure from hurting people? From lying? From stealing? Is anyone reporting that they are happier because they acted unethically or immorally? Give me a break. Daily I behave in ways which I know aren’t right and I am not happier for it. I am confounded by it. I shared my insistence on not being bullied on the road the other day, and like most of you pointed out, I knew at the time that it was not the right thing to do (hopefully you don’t think I was bragging about my actions.) I know the better option was to not aggravate the asshole. But why was he being an asshole in the first place? Seriously, what am I missing? How do you account for evil or asshole-ery?
****
Here’s a new one. Want to know why you aren’t satisfied with your job? Because as part of God’s redemptive plan after the Fall, He cursed work. He modified existence in a way which directed humans back to Him. All He wants is a relationship with you. Or so the argument goes. What do you think? I say we’re all meant to produce and consume. Name brands. And apps. And pills. And tablets. That’s it. That’s life. Oh. And try to be nice along the way. I almost forgot. We’re here to talk about food ingredients. Yes. If you can explain to me what you’re eating within the time it takes to share a meal with you, then you’ve figured out life. Hooray!
All I’m asking for is a softening. My heart is hard. Feels like it always has been.
I blame my mom. Whoops. Classic Freudian slip–when you say one thing and mean your mother.
But as I’m grown now, it feels like way too much energy is expended to keep it hard. Maybe you know what I’m talking about. Or not. I’ll say this. I am not yet convinced that urgency does Christianity any good. But I am convinced that Christianity is worth exploring at your own pace.
Quickly Then
I should be reading, but the content of what I have been reading compels me to write.
****
First, in a class session discussion on the intricacies of Bible interpretation, we were presented with the idea that the goal of interpretation is discovering the author’s intended meaning. Seems fair enough. Within this there is something called the Speech-Act theory, which carries the assumption “that authors or speakers write or speak with a purpose; words have a performative function.” (Class notes…not my idea). Thus, I learned three new words: locution, illocution, and perlocution.
Locution: the words employed on the page.
Illocution: the author’s intended impact on the readers.
Perlocution: the thing/response the author intends for his reader.
So, if I write, “Jesus loves you,” my locution is, “Jesus loves you.” My illocution (impact) on you is, “There is hope.” And my perlocution (response I intend to incite in you) is, “live life in a spirit of Christian brotherhood.” Now you know.
****
In a book called The Next Christendom, the author writes the following,
“Middle Eastern Christian communities flourished until they were devastated by a series of wars, expulsions, and population exchanges between 1915 and 1925, during and immediately following World War I. … Iraq, too, had a venerable Christian community that in the 1980s might have accounted for some 4 percent of the population. Since that point, though, it has been gravely reduced by the combined effects of war, sanctions, and persecution, and many Christian leaders have been murdered. Quite conceivably, Christian life in Iraq might entirely disappear within a few decades (33).”*
The book overall is startling in its announcement that Christianity is more widespread in the Global South than the stereotypical White Western World, but (perhaps because two of my three deployments to Iraq had me rooming and flying with uber-Christians who believed their service to the country via the military was tied to their Christianity at the least, and at the most a bizarre self-manifestation of biblical prophecy) on the whole as I read about Iraq’s demographics I felt an acute sadness.
****
Lest any of you think my schooling is having the intended effect of opening the pearly gates for little ol’ me, I also wanted to share that I recently have come to hate suburban Coloradans in large pick-up trucks. That I harbored this attitude came to my attention a month or so ago when I was being tailgated by one such devil and was having nearly physiological manifestations of anger that I could not explain. As I attempted to process them through venting to my brother, I realized that my anger was justified by the reality that my Elantra, and its passengers, would suffer great damage if contact was made with such a tailgater.
Well, on Friday, after picking up H-, out of the corner of my eye I saw one of these trucks essentially run a stop sign on a side street and end up behind me. His errand was clearly more important than mine and so he attempted to let his truck inform me of this fact. In a classic case of developing road rage, when he saw I wasn’t going to accelerate beyond the speed limit for his pleasure, he thought he perceived an opening in the right-hand lane and aggressively changed lanes in order to take it. Calling upon my inner-asshole, I mildly accelerated to ensure that there was no room between me and the car in front of him. He then got behind me and quickly closed in again. I depressed the brake pedal enough to illuminate the lights, but not give rise to contact between us.
I think he honked next, as he waited for the car in the right lane to move relatively forward enough for that to be his better option. I lowered my window and using sign language told him that he could go fuck himself. As he pulled up alongside me, I looked over and saw his window lowering, so I lowered my passenger window. I wonder if I, with my gorgeously Jason Statham-themed hair/gruff, rimless glasses, and Kansas City Royal’s World Series royal blue hoodie, in my compact car appeared as cliche as he and his white, bald, bearded head, in his monster truck appeared. He shouts, “What the fuck is your problem?” I answer, “What’s your problem?” (Admit nothing, deny everything, make immediate counter-accusation. Works every time. Ha.) He informs me that I am his problem, then he rapidly moves to my mom being his problem (?). Then, with exponential speed (I can’t make this up) my mom becomes a “black bitch” and the conversation concludes with his confused facial expression as I dispassionately yell, “I like your truck!” before we each go our own ways.
H- was confused by the situation and wondered aloud why he called me a girl, when I clearly wasn’t one, and so yeah, I guess there must have been another round of banter before my idea of Christian brotherhood manifested as a compliment regarding his vehicle choice.
On the whole, the entire event has me contemplating becoming a hermit. What do you think?
****
This post’s locution–read it again. Illocution: “arouse empathetic feelings that despite my espousing lofty ideals, I am living in the same world as you, in the same condition.” Perlocution: “Don’t placate to monster truck driving imbeciles, really give some thought to how effectively fighting spreads the Gospel, and pray for me.”
*Jenkins, Philip. The Next Christendom: The Coming of Global Christianity. New York: Oxford UP, 2011.
Captain’s Log 