Reluctance

One of my favorite poems. I'm in the mood for it tonight. :)

Ah, when to the heart of man.... how true. :)

Reluctance -- Robert Frost

Out through the fields and the woods
And over the walls I have wended;
I have climbed the hills of view
And looked at the world, and descended;
I have come by the highway home,
And lo, it is ended.

The leaves are all dead on the ground,
Save those that the oak is keeping
To ravel them one by one
And let them go scraping and creeping
Out over the crusted snow,
When others are sleeping.

And the dead leaves lie huddled and still,
No longer blown hither and thither;
The last lone aster is gone;
The flowers of the witch-hazel wither;
The heart is still aching to seek,
But the feet question 'Whither?'

Ah, when to the heart of man
Was it ever less than a treason
To go with the drift of things,
To yield with a grace to reason,
And bow and accept the end
Of a love or a season?

Aljazeera.Net - Analyst says bin Laden 'desperate'

Finally, an Aljazeera article I can read w/out seeing red. Too bad we're saddled w/an administration that feels it needs to play to uninformed, selfishly/fearfully conservative middle-class whites in this country, instead of leading, as it should.

And, of course, like all things web and all things media, there's no telling how much we can trust this. :( But it reads good.

Aljazeera.Net - Analyst says bin Laden 'desperate'

Quote:

The American war against al-Qaeda cannot and will not be won on the battlefield. The US is not facing a conventional army. This is an unconventional war and I think in many ways al-Qaeda is totally highly adaptable and dynamic.

The only way for the US and the international community to win this war is by creating coalitions and alliances with Arab and Muslim societies, not just counter-insurgency tactics.

The US must really endeavour to address the legitimate grievances of the floating middle and Arab and Muslim public opinion and create alliances by addressing regional conflicts like the Palestinian predicament.

It does this by keeping a healthy distance from Arab and Muslim dictators and by building bridges with the largest constituency in the Arab Muslim world - Arab and Muslim youth.

(Emphasis mine.)

NYT Story on Evangelicalism / Definition of the "Emerging Church"

Interesting.

Quote:

There is also a growing conflict over theology, or specifically the orthodoxy of the "emerging church" movement.

ALTHOUGH much of the attention on the emerging church movement has been on changes that its leaders have made in worship — bringing back liturgy and ancient practices like meditation and chanting — the movement has also sought to introduce theological innovations.

It emphasizes reading the Bible as a narrative, perfect in its purposes but not necessarily inerrant; de-emphasizing individual salvation in favor of a more holistic mission in serving the world; even making evangelicals less absolutist on whether people from other religions might find their way to heaven.

All of this has made many evangelical leaders nervous. They worry that the "emerging church" will water down the theology.

Eulogy: William Sloane Coffin

A liberal icon, I guess.

Remembering William Sloane Coffin

by Jim Wallis 4-20-2006

Rev. William Sloane Coffin was likely the most influential liberal Protestant clergyman and leader of his generation. One of the first white men to go South and be arrested in the civil rights movement, one of the first church leaders to dissent from the Vietnam War, one of the first moral voices against the nuclear arms race, Bill was a prophetic voice of Christian conscience to both church and state for many decades.

Who Wrote the Bible II

Very nice-looking section of the web, more-or-less official United Methodist Church indoctrination. ;)

Who Wrote the Bible?

I got into a discussion w/some co-workers yesterday that touched on "who wrote the Bible".

I've learned/come to the conclusion that the bible was laid down in multiple layers by various anonymous authors through time. That it was edited by "redactors". That, for example, written prophecy started w/Amos around 800 BCE (BCE: Before Common Era, a less Christian-centric way of dating, in this multicultural world. Then, we have CE: Common Era (what some old-fashioned :-P folks refer to as "AD")).

One of my co-workers (at least one of 'em), a more-or-less traditional conservative-ish Christian, is of the opinion that, for example, Moses wrote the Pentateuch. Except for the part where Moses dies; Joshua wrote that. (That's the party line, by the way.)

Another of my co-workers, an agnostic/atheist, is of the opinion that Christians labor under the assumption that there was one author who wrote it in one pass and it's been unchanging ever since, which he considers unrealistic. When he heard me say "Genesis got re-worked" (which it did, imo, post-Exile), he almost blew a fuse trying to transition from the unrealistic concept of "bible-in-one-pass-unchanging-forevermore" to the unrealistic concept of "bible-edited-over-time-but-always-true-word-of-God".

And then, I found this on a umc.org forum, from a person whose screen name is "Ezekiel 33:6":

I recently reviewed some "Bible Study" material a friend of mine had been furnished by the Conference to study for the ministry. What I saw appalled me. The writer had, not two, but three Isaiahs, had Moses with a hand full of followers wading in ankle deep water across the northern end of the Red Sea, and described the besetting sin of Sodom as "inhospitality." Of course, Moses wrote none of the Old Testament, and neither Daniel nor Revelations are about end time prophecy. Was Jesus born of a virgin, and did he raise bodily from the dead? I saw no positive affirmation of that fundamental truth upon which the fate of the entire universe rrests. Yes, the UMC is a dead body which has been embalmed with a "Form of Godliness."

Now, I read in my Oxford Annotated Bible, for example, that there are at least two authors of the book of Isaiah: the real Isaiah, and then one or two others. That modern scholars actually refer to "First Isaiah" (1-44, or thereabouts), "Second Isaiah" (45-57, or thereabouts) and "Third Isaiah" (58-66, or thereabouts). Don't quote me on those chapter divisions, this is off the top of my head. And I believe it. These are smart, conscientious people who have devoted their lives to studying the Bible. Why shouldn't I rely on their efforts?

I've also read (and believe) the other stuff "Ezekiel 33:6" is complaining about: Moses didn't write the Pentateuch, the problem w/Sodom was not homosexuality (nor was it necessarily "inhospitality", but that's a heck of a lot closer to the truth than homosexuality), Daniel and Revelation are messages to a persecuted church/people instead of primarily descriptions of end times.

So, here's my question (and my homework assignment): how did we come to this? We have this split between scholars and academicians who study the bible seriously and reach these conclusions (which I'm inclined to believe), and we have folks who have never taken a critical look at the bible (with the aim of giving it a good, hard shake to see what further knowledge falls out -- not with a destructive aim [I do believe God gave the Bible some wonderful complexity as part of its message]). Instead, these "traditionalists" have simply accepted what they were taught as children in Sunday School and never really examined it.

And, how do we mend this? I'd like to bring people hostile to a scholarly examination of the bible over to the "dark side" [I'm joking, you people who want to quote me out of context!] without bringing their worldview down in shambles. So, we need this gentle introduction to the concept that maybe Moses didn't write the bible. And maybe the serpent in the Garden of Eden isn't actually Satan. And maybe Satan is a post-exilic invention, an inclusion of the Persian (Babylonian) concept of a dualistic universe (as opposed to the original Hebrew concept of a one-god universe).

God is a Comedian

God is a comedian, playing to an audience too afraid to laugh.

-- Voltaire.

Quote courtesy of a friend of mine.

So true. Lighten up, people.

More good quotes here.

Prayer -- What's Up With That?

Well, this is the next of the publishable blog ideas on my stack. Let's see if I can blog while inebriated (yay, Lent is over; guess what I gave up for Lent?).

So, prayer. How do we expect that to work?

Oh, Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?
My friends all drive Porsches, I must make amends.

We offer up our wishlists to Santa Claus God, and He fulfills them?

Sounds outrageous.

However, check this out: Luke 11:1--13. So, there it is: ask, and you shall receive. Outrageous.

(Luke rawks. It's my new favorite, replacing Matthew.)

Gosh, it would be nice to win the lottery.

Heavenly Father, thank you for this day, for my life, for my health, for my children and all the people who support me, even though I don't deserve it.
I confess I am not worthy. I am lazy because I am afraid and I have no faith. I am selfish because I am caught up in the rush of my everyday life, and I too quickly move to escape when I get home from work.
Please, watch over those who are near to me: the people in my bible study group, who share their issues every week; the people they would like me to pray for, whose stories are all so much sadder than my own; my ministers, who carry the burden of the church: congregants in the hospital (dying), homeless people (sinking ever deeper); my various friends who are facing their own crises; the family of that minister who committed suicide last year; and all the people of the world who are facing such crushing pressures, of starvation and oppression.

Please, Father, if you can spare a little energy for me (and I know you can, because you're infinite), watch over me and energize me as I try to get through this divorce. Watch over my children and warm their hearts as they cope with their parents fighting like this. Please take care of us all, near and far, worthy and unworthy.

I ask all this in the name of Jesus Christ, who died for me, even though I don't deserve it, and who I accept as my savior and [eh... doubt... doubt...] Lord.

Amen.

Ok, there it is, my standard daily prayer. Well, it should be my daily prayer, but I'm happy if I remember it twice a week.

So, now what? Do I wait for an answer in the mail?

Once, when I was a child, I ate a whole lot of Quisp. Remember that? In the Cap'n Crunch family. And, you could save up a bunch of boxtops and send them all in for a gun that shot clouds of this neato white power (I think it was cornstarch or flour). So I did.

I ate the requisite amount of Quisp. Several boxes, saving the boxtops.

I put them in a envelope, along w/an order form, and mailed it (physically) to General Foods, or whoever was doing that offer.

And waited.

And waited.

Oh, the anticipation.

After six weeks (an eternity, when you're 10 years old), my cornstarch-shooting gun arrived. It was great! Cheep red plastic, special "white powder" (that when you ran out of, could be replaced with flour). A little "click" sound, and a puff of white powder came out. It totally rocked!

I soon lost it. I wasn't particularly heartbroken, because my mind was on other things.

Is that what prayer is like? We send the boxtops, we wait for the response, maybe for a long time? We have faith that the mail will eventually deliver?

It somehow feels cheap, and yet.... we're praying for real things. Never mind our own desires. World peace. Warmth for others, who really need it.

. . .

Well. Yeah. That's exactly what prayer is. We ask God for stuff. It is outrageous.

It's an external focus. He may answer our requests. He might not.

Why doesn't he? Because we ask for something that wouldn't be beneficial to us. Or we ask for something that would be detrimental to others. Or, we need to learn to be happy with what we have.

Or... just because! Who are we to guess what's on God's mind?

So, now I find myself in the position of saying "feel free to ask God for anything, just don't expect him to grant it. But ask anyway!" Totally outrageous. How can I expect any sane, rational human to fall for this?

:)

But I do.

Interesting Essay I Received in My Inbox

I thought this was interesting read. I'll paste it in here in its entirety; I'm guessing the Sojourners folks won't mind (dissemination of message, and all).

Bothered by the cross

by Deanna Murshed

As someone who has been a Christian for a while now, I must confess that the idea of redemption through the cross has lost its power to bother or puzzle me as it did in the past.

I remember being jealous of folks who could confess a grand conversion experience that pulled them from lives of sheer drunken hedonistic debauchery - dramatic stories in which they were saved just in the nick of time - into resurrection just by the skin of their teeth. And although getting in by the skin of our teeth is surely true for all of us, it is at least more obvious in those great stories, for whatever reason.

But that is not my story.

Even my earliest memories include my mother sharing Bible stories with me. Though I struggled with the meaning or reality of these accounts to be sure - I can't recall a time when I didn't perceive myself within this grand story of redemption.

My mother showed me a simple faith. My father, on the other hand, questioned just about everything. And I somehow inherited both. God help those who hear me think out loud.

I also remember that as a child, the idea that Christ died on the cross and rose again for me - though it was repeated over and over again and I so desperately wanted to believe it made sense - seemed odd. But I think it was repeated often enough, that eventually, I just came to accept it. After all, the answer to almost any question in Sunday school was easy: "because Jesus died on the cross!"

So, somewhere along the road, I took it for granted that Christ lived, died, and rose again. Somewhere, maybe after I had responded to the sixth altar call - just to make sure God had duly noted my belief - I had heard it enough times to think I had this mystery of mysteries settled.

But every now and then, I come back to that place. Really, what in the world does this mean? Christ died on the cross. It is so easy to hear now that the absolute foolishness of it - and I mean that in the best possible way - simply ceases to amaze me.

But liturgical cycles are good for that - making you not forget any part of the story and asking you to revisit each station, as it were. One passage has been coming to mind (from John's gospel):

"Jesus replied, 'The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life'" (12:23-25).

The version of the Bible called The Message states the last verse this way: "In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you'll have it forever, real and eternal."

The part that really struck me recently (though I've surely heard it read a hundred times) is that the dying of the grain is not for the resurrection of the seed itself - you do not die simply to be resurrected into a better you. You don't give up that bad habit or attitude, greed or grudge, simply to come out on top. (Though I suppose that's not a bad place to begin). No, the grain dies so that it can produce and reproduce life. The passage says, unless a seed falls to the ground and dies it is no more than a single grain.

The answer as to why the grain needs to die is for it not to remain alone. In other words, Christ died so that he could bear more Christs and grow his reign!

Though this way of living for others seems like such a radical (re)orientation, all of creation seems to be screaming this message. Every part of the wheat is living for the spread of life, wants there to be more wheat. The most basic cycle of nature reflects the divine order.

It is simply astounding, when I think about it, that the God of creation does not live for direct self-satisfaction! The God of creation who has all power and all might is in constant submission to another purpose. And God is inviting us to follow.

When one reads the surrounding texts in John where Christ is trying to explain to his disciples who he is and why he must leave them, he is rather indirect. He never says, I do such and such because that is my plan. Rather, he points to the Father and then says that the Father points to the Son and has given Him authority. And then the Spirit testifies of the Son and so on and on. And then the Father lifts up the Son. It is almost comedic how each part of the trinity points the finger at the other - not in blame, as in the human tendency - but because of a perfect harmony, submission, and a trade of trust and authority between each member. This is a wholly different order - a glimpse of what divine community looks like.

I don't know about you, but completely surrendering my will for another goes against every grain of my self-preserving being. And it looks nothing whatsoever like our capitalist culture which encourages us to think the opposite - both economically and morally. The world says that if each individual seeks out his or her own personal fulfillment, we will all ultimately benefit. But the gospel compels us to seek the benefit of others with no guarantee of anything in return.

This is a terrifying invitation that should bother us.

But do our motives have to be absolutely perfect in the sight of God before we can follow? And can we ever reach the point of being perfectly other-oriented? (If so, I'm in trouble).

But I'm comforted that in scripture, I find myself in good company. Christ's disciples followed him for many reasons - not all of which were noble. Ironically, sometimes they were selfish in their pursuit of selflessness. Sometimes they sought to gain something (to meet earthly or eternal needs), other times because they knew there was no other way. Later, they figured a few things out - saw Christ more fully - and their motives changed to those of gratitude, and ultimately, they imitated Christ's example to obey simply because God is worthy.

So, I've come to believe that we hold on to this mysterious truth for different reasons at different times in our lives, though we may never come to fully understand how it is that Christ's death saves us.

That we should follow Jesus in his death so that we might really live is the message of this Easter season.

May God have mercy on us as we follow this call.

Deanna Murshed, integrated marketing manager at Sojourners, is a graduate of Trinity Evangelical Divinity School's faith and culture program.

Good Movie: Narnia (The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe)

I just finished watching Narnia w/my 7-yr-old. GOOD movie! Not big and sweeping, like Fellowship of the Ring, but still plenty riveting for a 7-yr-old. My 6-yr-old got scared.

A co-worker of mine announced that it was boring. Well, yeah, I guess if you're expecting a competitor to Fellowship, it is boring and lightweight fluff. However: the target audience is different. I can't show Fellowship to my 7-yr-old. It's too violent and too involved. However, Narnia kept him stuck in his seat, and he loved the ending.

Sorry for all the italics.

There was a lot more symbolism that I didn't pick up when I read it as a teenager.

The stone table represents the Mosaic Law. The "Deep Magic" is the Mosaic Law, but the "Deeper Magic" is the basic law that the commandments are supposed to be a rough approximation of, and that Jesus shows up with, saying, "there's a more-important principle: love".

And the women at the tomb, seeing Jesus's body gone: Lucy and Susan at the Stone Table, hearing it crack and turning around and finding Aslan gone.

The cracking of the Stone Table: the invalidation of the Mosaic Law. (That's probably a little overdone on the part of Lewis, but maybe it reflects the book of John. I dunno, I haven't really studied John yet. Next year. :) )

Neet!

* * *
(update, Apr 14)
* * *

One more thing. Peter as king after Aslan leaves. :)

Would Jesus Have Time to Have Coffee With Me?

Hmm, I just thought of something.

Would Jesus have time to have a cup of coffee w/me?

He's a busy man. People constantly bringing sick children or sick selves to him, touching the hem of his garment, climbing trees to see him 'cause they're so short they can't see through the crowd.

Plus, I think he might be doing some fundraising, too (seeds in good soil yielding a hundred fold).

I see people (one former college classmate in particular who shall remain nameless 'cause she's almost famous and I don't feel worthy to be dropping her name) who are too busy hanging out with movers and shakers to be hanging out w/the likes of me. (I woke up on the living room couch once to see her talking to Bill Friday on the teevee.)

Sure, Jesus is God and all, but he's in only one human body.

What does that mean, exactly? Jesus is too busy to have coffee w/me.

Ok, so now that I've mentioned it, he'll probably drop by one time to have coffee w/me, but that would only be to show that he can do it. He wouldn't have time to make a regular thing of it, like, say, every Weds. night.

Or... do we have to get all mystical now, and say that he sees every sparrow fall, and wherever two or three are gathered in his name, he's there, too (great quote, btw)? So, he's like the ultimate multi-tasker, like Garry Kasparov playing 32 games of chess simultaneously. Or it's like... he's 100% present at every conversation where he needs to be? Kind of like Schroedinger's cat?

Hmm. Fun idle thoughts. :)

Prayer Labyrinth at Binkley Baptist, Chapel Hill

This morning I got up at 5:45 am (woke up 5:30 yuck) to open the prayer labyrinth at Binkley Baptist Church here in Chapel Hill. This is an ecumenical effort shared by ten churches here in Chapel Hill, if I recall the figure correctly. Lit the candles, cued the music (female voices, Celtic spiritual stuff). It's in a huge area w/polished concrete floor (concrete tinted pinkish brown, not the normal grey) and big wooden arches and wood construction, and a monster skylight way overhead. Wonderful space for this, very quiet. Walking the labyrinth is kind of mystical and new-age-y, you might like it.

The labyrinth at Binkley is a copy of The Chartres labyrinth. One of the ways to walk it is found here: Walking a labyrinth. (Those are two links off the page The Labyrinth: Walking Your Spiritual Journey.)

Labyrinth, the Occult has Gone Mainstream -- conservatives hate it. A lot of energy is spent on this page detailing how evil it is.

How I Got Religion

Well, here's my story.

Possibly excruciatingly boring, possibly close to what you, dear reader, are feeling.

I've put a lot of effort into writing this, which is not to say "go easy on me" (heck, I invite comments), but is in way of an apology for its incoherence. If I had just written it in one fell swoop, sans interruptions and edits, it might have had a more "coherent incoherence" (i.e., still incoherent, but with a different, more unified, flavor).

---

As a child, my parents made me go to church. A Presbyterian, solid Republican, suburban church. (This was before the days of Ronald Reagan; the Republican choices were between Goldwater and Ivy League Republicans like Nelson Rockefeller.) If those folks in the church had any inkling of the existence of real evil in the world and what to do about it, they sure didn't tell us kids. There wasn't a whole lot of engagement, I felt. So I lost interest. Which made my parents push harder. Which made me lose interest more.

So, after a while (i.e., when I was about 15), I just stopped going; kinda put my foot down. Not a real long time after that, Joel Steinberg and Hedda Nussbaum beat their illegally-adopted daughter to death. (I just now tried to read that article, but it still upsets me too much, even today.)

That was it, the last straw (more like an eight-pound rock than a straw). My childhood church seemed totally disconnected from evil in this world, and so did God. How could he allow something this horrible to happen?

So began about 25 years of my separation from the church.

Part of that time, I was of the opinion that we were just totally random. The universe was endlessly cycling (oscillating universe theory), and we were just the natural consequence of some constants and behaviors of time, energy, matter and whatever else is in this here universe with us (string theory, anyone?).

I didn't hold on to that theory for more than a few years, if I recall, because that much infinity is hard to grasp. Really? The universe has no beginning (and no end)? Really? All this observable complexity, order from chaos, is just the natural consequence of a handful of random natural laws? We get from there to DNA, paramecium, primates, Charlemagne, Sylvia Plath and suicide borne of despair? Is it really possible to measure human misery? It's just a bunch of electrical signals? The agony we feel is nothing, really?

No, I disbelieve (...I said to myself after a few years of that). There must have been a Prime Mover, an initial impetus. God the Clockmaker. What a marvellous creation he has made. And now it's running on its own, self-winding, self-maintaining, perfectly balanced. He may be off on some other project now, or he may be simply sitting and admiring the beauty of it all, like I do after I write something I'm proud of (code, English text, whatever).

So, I came to believe that there is (or at least was) a God. If "was", where is he now? Did he die? Did he wander off to start a new project? If he died, he wouldn't be the all-powerful, omniscient deity we're thinking of. (Instead, there would be another deity above that one, and that one would be God, knowwhutimean?)

This is not a question one comes to a conclusion about and then stops considering, so my thoughts continued to develop, as time went by. If we accept that God is just watching, then we have to question His benevolence. How can He take a hands-off attitude and be counted benevolent? That would make him a cold God, like the ones the ancient Greeks and Romans seemed to believe in. Mount Olympus, deity politics, Hera, Zeus, eating babies, hey look at all those people down there they look like ants from here let's squash some and watch them run around no don't squash them let's just watch them they look so interesting.

So... why are we so interesting to God? We have free will. We have intelligence (as far as I know). Are we going to make endless interesting patterns for Him?

I've played with a fractal-generating program. Mandelbrot and Julia sets. (Remember those days?) Fascinating. All that chaos and complexity from a simple equation.

After a while, it's excruciatingly boring. Nothing really new comes out. Nothing really engages my mind.

What would engage my mind? Human conversation. An equal intellect.

Does the same thing apply to God? Is he waiting for us to grow up and join him? I honestly thought so, and maybe still do today. (Although, the more I come to understand him and us, the more I realize just how far we have to go to "grow up.")

What does it mean to join God as an equal? We'd have to be rilly powerful. Powerful enough to create a universe and beings w/intelligence and free will. But, we'd have to be Godlike in our personalities and behaviors, too. What does that imply?

What would it be like to join God as an equal? Some happy gathering in which we slap each others' backs (if we're masculine) or exchange hugs (if we're feminine) or both ('cause we'd be both :)? ) Then what? Would we start having arguments, like all independent, free-willed, intelligent beings do? That can't be, because then there'd be more than one God. After the happyfest, would one of us wander off to create a universe of his own? Hmm, my thoughts lead me to strange conclusions.

So, rather than think about that happy day when we "grow up", I just decided that it was good enough to be "spiritual," meaning: I accepted that God exists, is at least mildy interested in us, has some sort of mission for us and I would meet him when I die.

I had, earlier, read some articles about near-death experiences being the same across many different cultures and times. So, I do accept it as a given that we will meet our Maker when we die, and there will be a final judgement as to how worthy our lives were. Even if this is an illusion we experience during our last few seconds of consciousness, God could still be in that illusion. It could seem like an eternity to us, of either regret for a wasted life, or joy and peace. Maybe we'll be a heartless person who feels nothing while they're dying, but... the human subconscious is a powerful thing. Who wants to take the risk of getting a conscience when it's too late to do anything about it?

During this time (very approximately), I went to college and took a class in Quantum Mechanics. In that class, I ran across the mind-opening concept of non-Newtonian physics. At the quantum level, reality doesn't consist of little billiard balls bouncing around off each other. Electrons, neutrons, protons and photons are little packets of probability. The electron is probably right here [points to a nearby spot], but it could be over here [points to a different nearby spot], or even w-a-a-a-y-y over there [points down the street]. The milk stays in the glass because the particles of milk are moving in random directions, but, on average, downward, under the gentle influence of gravity. However, there is no fundamental reason why the milk shouldn't jump out of the glass in a graceful arc and land on my shoes, or tunnel through the glass about eight inches to the right, and then act under the "gentle influence of gravity" again. ("Tunnelling", incidentally, is another interesting concept, in which a particle is first here, then there, but without actually travelling through the intervening space.) All of which is a way of saying that there is no "must" in reality. If you drop an egg, it doesn't "must" break. If God acts to perform a miracle, it is not a violation of any scientific principle. Holy shit. A little knowledge is dangerous, I guess, especially if you're a sophomore. Quantum mechanics is the first (and only, in my experience) branch of science that allows God. So, now the possibility of miracles begins to stew in my mind, in the background, while the rest of my life is going on.

I also decided, around that time, or maybe a little later, that even if Jesus isn't divine, he was still a very wise person and what he said is worth studying. Even if he never lived, what he is said to have said is worth studying. I existed in that happy "spiritual but not church-going" state for quite a while, but one's mind never stops turning over, and more things occurred to me:

First, one of the easiest places to get involved in good works (conscience into action) is in a church. Churches frequently seem to be interested in getting "boots on the ground". So, if you're spiritual but not church-going, you still might want to be involved in a church just to get involved w/community service. One might consider that (empty) worship is actually less important than action.

Second, the measure of one's commitment to spiritual things is one's willingness to show that commitment in public or otherwise turn that commitment into action. Sure, one can read religious works in the home on a Sunday morning, while others go to church. One can take walks in the woods and commune w/God, expressing appreciation for his work in creating nature and human senses to enjoy it, and admission of one's own imperfection. But, it's kind of all for naught if you're too embarrassed to show it in public.

Third, one could mix and match elements of different religious systems, but I think there's a problem with that: given freedom, we might choose only the parts we're comfortable with and ignore the parts we're not comfortable with, so we'd wind up with this sort of self-validating religion. Even if one accepts that various advanced world religions (e.g., Hinduism, Shinto, Confucianism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Islam [as opposed to animism and shamanism, which seem to be more concerned with power than with ethics]) are artifices created by very wise humans, it's still reasonable, I think, to assume that they're self-consistent and well-thought-out, at least to a large degree. So, one could just pick one, and go with it, taking it seriously. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, actually preached a sermon (and thank you, Justin, for showing me this sermon) in which he said, basically, that it's not so important which particular flavor of Christianity we pick, but that we stick with what we picked while warmly embracing others who have chosen differently. In other words: no browsing. Pick one and stick with it, but recognize the validity of others' different choices. Wesley was speaking of different flavors of Christianity (and he was certainly aware of Judaism and Islam), but I'm willing to extend that to many of the world's other major religions (at least, until I get to know them better :) ).

I actually, some years ago, read a book on Buddhism by William Theodore de Bary while I was thru-hiking the Appalachian Trail, and I toyed with the idea of becoming Buddhist. In the end, though, I didn't make the leap because it felt like too much of a gimmicky move to me. I felt I should go back and face the demons of Christianity, as it were.

(Another incidental note: de Bary delivered a two-day lecture on Confucianism that looks interesting me, but I have yet to read it.)

In my experience in life, I had noticed that there were people who had a serene, quiet assurance about these sorts of matters. I always wished I could do that: be assured, and not be persecuted by doubts. I eventually came to the conclusion that it's useless to wait for proof, or for someone to reason it all out for you. The definition of "faith" is that we believe without evidence. I took that to mean that there's nothing wrong with simply believing, and since I had chosen Christianity, I only had to make two leaps of faith: (1) God exists and cares about us. Easy, already done. (2) Jesus was divine, both God's only son and God himself. That wasn't so hard, either. All of us, at some point, have had some transporting experience, something really blissful, a sense of being in the groove, in tune with the universe. Suppose you could feel that permanently? I wonder if maybe Jesus was like that: totally in tune, all the time. That would pretty much be divine, so, sure, I could accept point (2). The rest is just icing on the cake.

(Is this just some sort of group psychosis, a mass self-delusion? Hmm. How can I support the "no" position? Maybe life itself supports the position that there must be Something More.)

However, I still didn't actually do anything until an external trigger occurred: my wife decided her son (my stepson) should achieve the rank of Eagle Scout, in order to make his college applications look good. In order to do so, he needed the recommendation of a religious figure, so she ordered me to pick a church and she would join me in it (and he would, too, obviously). (We had previously discussed starting to go to church, but had never done anything about it.)

So, I scouted around a bit for a church to join. I wanted a traditional sort of church, sort of picking up where I left off (unresolved issues and all). I had a bad taste in my mouth from my childhood church (predestination, "Jesus is Lord", a smidgeon of racism [which certainly isn't restricted to Presbyterians, but which I was disappointed to find in my church]), so I was a little biased against Presbyterianism. I was definitely biased against Baptists because of all the shenanigans of the Southern Baptist Convention. I had always been sort of favorably impressed by Methodism, for one, because they sort of had a systematic, "methodical" air about them, and also because of their "Open Hearts, Open Minds, Open Doors" slogan (it's right on their website, umc.org). It turns out that Methodism is actually pretty similar to Presbyterianism in the standard worship practices ("liturgy"), which I liked. (I actually like it more than I did when I was a child, including all the standing up and sitting down and standing up to sing a hymn and sitting down again).

There was this one church where the minister (Bill Gattis) preached these really impassioned, thought-provoking sermons with little razor blades of blackness in them. Definitely not the normal saccharine sermon, but neither was it all hellfire and brimstone and "sinners in the hands of an angry God" type stuff, either. It was stuff that made you think and appreciate. I was hooked. (The other Methodist church I looked at also had a good, thought-provoking minister, but the physical building was't austere enough for me. I like that hardwood floor, hardwood pew kind of traditional sanctuary.)

Side note: the minister that "hooked" me got promoted out of the church a year later. But one shouldn't really commit to church life solely on the basis of a charismatic minister, right? Pick a place and dig in. So, I actually officially joined the church immediately after he announced his departure, because I wanted him to be the one who "inducted" me (basically, it involved me standing in front of the congregation along w/some other folks, promising to be a good Christian in this call-and-response sort of deal).

That's when I started going to church, about four years ago (2001?). It was only the most trivial, mundane of external triggers, but sometimes, we all need some external "push" to do something, even if we're already ready to do it. My stepson and wife have long since stopped going to that church with me (they only lasted about six months, and he did get the Eagle), but I regarded that "push" as having come from God, and I'm grateful for it. (Remember that "possibility of miracles" thing I discovered in my Quantum Mechanics class?)

When I spoke to our minister about officially joining the church, he asked me a bit about my background and what I was interested in, and I said I went to Davidson College and was interested in learning more about the Bible, as I had in classes at Davidson. (They have some relatively serious Bible-as-literature classes.) His response was that I might be interested in a Bible study class called Disciple. (It's kind of a high-commitment class, right up the alley of a bookworm like me.)

So, I took it (am taking it, still). I'm in my third year, almost done with the year. (There's one more year to go.) The first year was really interesting, and it has changed me. Well, maybe I was ready to change, but it was certainly influential. I can't recommend this class enough, to all people.

While taking this class, I made the discovery that the Bible is not at all about narrow-mindedness or hellfire and brimstone (hmm, I've used that phrase three times now). It is a pretty clear call to compassion for all while following a not-entirely-unreasonable code for behavior. (Um... about that stoning adulterers thing... we can talk about that later.)

I have gained a deeper appreciation (deeper than what I had before) of... the messages in the Bible, in their various nuanced presentations. There's a fair degree of subtlety and sophistication in some of that stuff. Some of the text is cryptic enough to require study; it's pretty easy (in my opinion) to walk away with the wrong message.

And, somewhere along the line, between the examples of good folk in church and over the years, good sermons and bible reading, I have come to Believe. No dramatic born-again moment required (although there have been some little flickers). Exactly what I Believe is always up for debate, but I believe there is Something More, that we have a Calling, and it's detailed in the Bible (and maybe some other places, too, but I have chosen to study the Bible) and in communion with God (you could call that "prayer" or "meditation" or "thought" or something along those lines).

I would say, "wow, look at all those capital letters," but you know what? That would be just too self-deprecating, and not the right thing to do with the Message.

:)

* * *

By the way, Joel Steinberg was released from prison a few years ago (2004), about the same time I was getting back into religion, but after I was fairly well on the way. Is this a message from God to me? Is it a kind of test of my faith? Of course not, that would be way too solipsistic. But, how is it that we become aware of some things but not of others? Or we become aware of things a long time after they occurred? Is that just random?

National Geographic Article on Evolution

A friend just sent me this. It' s a good article, a nice overview of Darwin and evolutionary theory and the mindset of the scientist.

It's not a polemic, but here's a quote to get your blood flowing:

According to a Gallup poll drawn from more than a thousand telephone interviews conducted in February 2001, no less than 45 percent of responding U.S. adults agreed that "God created human beings pretty much in their present form at one time within the last 10,000 years or so."

That's so sad. I thought we were smarter than that.

Conversation vs. Mutual Monologues (Edited)

A friend sent me this quote today:

"There is no such thing as conversation. It is an illusion. There are intersecting monologues, that's all." --Rebecca West

And I replied:

Hmm. How is she defining "conversation"?

I have noticed that frequently, people (including myself, sometimes) are just waiting for a pause in the wordstream so they can get their own piece said.

Then there's the other kind of conversation (in which I hope I engage more frequently than not), in which the parties not talking actually listen.

But, hmm, what is conversation other than intersecting (and interesting, I hope) monologue? You have something to say, and I'm interested in hearing it. Or are we just being polite? I think that if the monologue changes direction based on conversational input, then conversation is more than just intersecting monologue. [Darn, I hate it when I leave out words that fundamentally change the meanings of sentences.]

Maybe debate counts as conversation, which is a tad more combative but which also has the possibility of changing thoughts. Maybe "conversational debate" or "debating conversation" is the optimum, in which people are mutually respectful, both of each other and each others' theses, but we stake out opinions for the purposes of chewing on them and possibly changing our positions.

Hmm. Blog topic, methinks. :)

Blogging could be conversation, I think, if I could figure out how to get dialog going. I really wish I could restrict my blog searching to local folk, I think there's something to be said for physical proximity (the possibility of meeting, for one).

That is a challenging quote. Maybe it's not the put-down it sounds like (I frequently say things that aren't put-downs but sound like put-downs).

Went to a Passover Seder Today

I went to the Passover Seder our Jewish bible study leader put on tonight. Lots of fun. Yeah, it had that connection-to-Jesus thing, but not quite like the Jews for Jesus lecture I commented on earlier. The seder tonight was more of a personal thing for Christians than a "come get converted" thing aimed at Jews.

The lamb bone is a reminder of the sacrificed, roasted lamb the Hebrews ate just before the passover.

The egg is both a symbol of life and of sacrifice (the cheapest sanctioned sacrifice is two birds, doves, I think).

Bill, our leader, read from the haggadah (sort of a program guide) and gave us the rundown on what we were doing. We all had fun exploring and playing w/our food. (We dip our fingers in the "wine" (grape juice) and flick the liquid on our plates, once for each of the ten plagues God inflicted on Egypt, as we recite the plagues.)

There wasn't enough horseradish, though. I didn't cry.

Then, after we ate the traditional food, between the 2nd and 3rd cups of "wine", we had a real potluck supper. Matzoh-ball soup. Turkey. Various kinds of vegetables. Gefilte fish cakes. Figs. Olives. (I made marinated celery, Hellenist style, but I think I forgot salt.) There was a huge amount of food. (There were about 60 people there, and everybody brought something, I think.)

Then we had two more glasses of "wine" and sang two songs (one of had a single-word chorus: "dayenu" ("it would have been enough")).

Then we cleaned up. :)

Great fun.

Church Opening Prayer, 2 Apr 2006

Well, I don't think I'll be typing in prayers every week, but I kinda liked this one we prayed in church today, at the beginning of the worship service.

Almighty God, by whose will we were created and sent to live in this time and place,
we pray for a deeper insight into the meaning of our lives and a greater trust in the ways of Jesus.
Bless all who have come here this day looking for some light, some encouragement, and some love.
May the acts of worship that we perform together and privately open our eyes to new visions of personal holiness and communal justice.
We offer this prayer in gratitude for Jesus, our savior. Amen

* * *

(Pause for reflection)

* * *

* * *

* * *

Ok, on with my profane life!

[Hmm, well, I was striving for a vertical ellipsis. The fact that it looks like a cross is an accident.]

How to Read Slashdot Comments

Threaded.
In descending score order.

There's a huge amount of crap in Slashdot comments, let the Slashdot community do your filtering. They do a more-or-less ok job.

Find the following section on the page for a single slashdot article and set it as shown. (Click on the image to zoom in.)



Beware of any links you click, they could go anywhere. (The site they go to is indicated after the link, but unless it's something like cnn.com or bbc.co.uk, you still can't be sure what you'll find.)

Slashdot on MySpace

Well, I was going to write this long, pointless opinion on myspace and yahoo 360 and why I'm on blogspot, but I think the denizens of Slashdot said it about 800,000 times better than I could.

Blogging honestly is fundamentally hard/weird

Who do we blog to? family? friends? total strangers? Is our objective hook-ups? essays? both?

Paul (that apostle guy) tried to be all things to all people, which I think would be impossible on a blog, unless you have multiple blogs w/different identities.

Eventually, though, I bet the multiple blogs would all get linked. Google is scary, sometimes. And, once you write something, there is no plausible deniability. (On the other hand, maybe Google isn't as all-powerful as I think.)

How would Paul blog today?

Or would he?

What would he do in this era of modern communication, aggregation, many distractions?

I just learned of dittytalk, what looks at first glance to be a monitored blogspace for young folk (myspace alternative). Hmm. If they're going to attract young folk, they have to be cool. Monitoring, unless done in the very lightest possible manner, is not cool. Young people want to be edgy, not protected. What's going on here? What sort of things will they monitor for? Obscenity, no doubt. Would I be able to use "wtf" on such a blog? What about cruelty or lack of compassion? In my experience (heh), youth are all about social hierarchy: who's in, who's out, who do we kick for laughs today? How do you monitor that?

Ok, posting in a rush. Dangerous, but I'll try it.