1 Timothy 4:3-4: "They forbid people to marry and order them to abstain from certain
foods, which God created to be received with thanksgiving by those who
believe and who know the truth. For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving,"
Everything.
Including all humans.
Everything God created is good. Nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving.
*gong*
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Friday, October 26, 2012
That Time I Broke Up With Someone For Two Weeks
Freshman year of college, I broke up with my boyfriend for two weeks. Both of us pretended it was the right idea; both of us agreed to it; both of us knew it was a stupid plan, done for really stupid reasons. There was a lot of crying, a lot of confusion, and a lot of underlying, "You idiot, just forget all this and go back to being happy" throughout the process. But let's go back in time and be really, really blatant.
It all started with the Baptist Student Fellowship and a woman I'm going to call Susie.
Susie was the most well-intentioned conservative Texan that she could possibly be. She was cheerful, had all that Southern charm, and to boot she exuded competence and kindness. She was enthusiastic and invited me to be with the Baptist folks on campus. I went to a couple of their gatherings, and Susie, being a good group cat-herder, said that as the new person I should go to lunch with her and we should get to know each other. I said sure, that sounded fine. I was at a particularly crappy spot in my life and really needed someone to talk to who knew about spiritual matters, and she was there. So we went to lunch.
Susie and I talked over Thai food, right next to the dorm that I would live in two years later. Most of this encounter is a blur. I don't remember a single word of what she asked me, up until the memory becomes quite clear in a sudden zing.
The waitress sets a plate of mango chicken down on the table. Definitely mango chicken. I remember that clear-as-day. The mangos tastes not all that great, but I'm hungry. Susie has something else, I don't remember what. I start eating; she starts eating. She asks me, somewhere in there, who I'm dating.I tell her, this guy from my hall, he's pretty cool, I like him a lot.
I ask her the question I never should have asked her, ever, but it was niggling in the back of my mind and I wasn't about to leave there without asking. "Is it okay if I'm dating him? He's not Christian."
She said that it was a sin.
That oh, but you're not going to Hell, but...well, it is a sin. You shouldn't be dating him.
And she gave me that look, the look of concern, the patronizing look that says you poor thing, you're falling away, let me bring you back. Let me dictate to you the life you must lead, the one that will bore you out of your skull, the one where you won't be able to find romantic options because MIT doesn't have that many people who are compatible with your interests and geeky in the ways you are and Christian and not in relationships already. Let me take something that is making your sad, depressed life better, and smash it to pieces.
Let me put you back in chains.
I lost ten pounds stewing over this issue. I worried so much I ate one meal a day for a month and came out of it lighter than I had been in years. I talked to my best Christian friend, but I couldn't shake it -- this woman was Authority. Susie wasn't just any person; she Knew Things. She was Right, because she was a pastor, and of course all pastors were right. If I thought I was right, well, then all her spiritual education and connection to God was worthless. She had to be right.
I broke up with my boyfriend because he wasn't a Christian, despite the fact that he was one of the kindest, most open people I knew at the time. He was great for me, at that point in my life, and we were very close friends. But Susie said so, therefore God said so, and so I had to do it. I couldn't live a life where I was sinning.
"Do not be unequally yoked." Or something. That verse would haunt me for years of my MIT life.
And in the end, had I followed her advice, I would be a sad, miserable person right now.
I broke the rules. I broke the rules because I refuse to be a Pharisee. I refuse to believe that anything in the world that makes me happy, has to be evil. I refuse to believe that romance, and caring for another person, and love, can't transcend religious boundaries. I refuse to believe that Jesus wants us to stick in our own little enclaves. I refuse to believe that God Himself, who is my Father and cares so deeply for me that He sent His own son to be tortured and killed so my sins would be absolved, would let Satan just run rings around me, that all the people that appeared in my life and loved and cared for me who weren't Christian, were just there to make me screw up. If I was truly a child of God, then God was not going to let "faux-good" things happen to me just to trip me up. God does not plant poisoned candy there for you, just to punish you for having a good thing in life. God does not set booby traps.
These non-Christians I dated had far more of the virtues that God desires, than many Christians I know. Patience. Perseverence. Kindness. Gentleness. Self-control. You know, all the Fruits. The ones that God wants us to have.
"And you shall know them by their fruit."
What Fruits have the conservative Christians I know offered me? Fearmongering. Inflicting pain. Creating despair and depression. Lack of empathy. Self-righteousness. Careless words. There is a time to hurt and a time to heal, but the people I know, didn't heal at all. They were like surgeons who went in and cut something out, then didn't finish the job and left you there bleeding, told you to stitch yourself up. After all, it was your fault you had the sickness, whatever it was in the end, so you should take care of yourself.
I am not one of them, not anymore. Non-Christians have done more for my faith, than Christians have. I'm tired of dogma. I'm tired of chains. I'm tired of being scared, and I'm tired of seeking refuge in the false sense of security that is, "So long as you don't do anything on this long list, you have no reason to be scared." I want adventure. I want experimentation. I want life to be interesting. I don't want to be constrained to boring old...fear.
I want to live.
We got back together, by the way.
It all started with the Baptist Student Fellowship and a woman I'm going to call Susie.
Susie was the most well-intentioned conservative Texan that she could possibly be. She was cheerful, had all that Southern charm, and to boot she exuded competence and kindness. She was enthusiastic and invited me to be with the Baptist folks on campus. I went to a couple of their gatherings, and Susie, being a good group cat-herder, said that as the new person I should go to lunch with her and we should get to know each other. I said sure, that sounded fine. I was at a particularly crappy spot in my life and really needed someone to talk to who knew about spiritual matters, and she was there. So we went to lunch.
Susie and I talked over Thai food, right next to the dorm that I would live in two years later. Most of this encounter is a blur. I don't remember a single word of what she asked me, up until the memory becomes quite clear in a sudden zing.
The waitress sets a plate of mango chicken down on the table. Definitely mango chicken. I remember that clear-as-day. The mangos tastes not all that great, but I'm hungry. Susie has something else, I don't remember what. I start eating; she starts eating. She asks me, somewhere in there, who I'm dating.I tell her, this guy from my hall, he's pretty cool, I like him a lot.
I ask her the question I never should have asked her, ever, but it was niggling in the back of my mind and I wasn't about to leave there without asking. "Is it okay if I'm dating him? He's not Christian."
She said that it was a sin.
That oh, but you're not going to Hell, but...well, it is a sin. You shouldn't be dating him.
And she gave me that look, the look of concern, the patronizing look that says you poor thing, you're falling away, let me bring you back. Let me dictate to you the life you must lead, the one that will bore you out of your skull, the one where you won't be able to find romantic options because MIT doesn't have that many people who are compatible with your interests and geeky in the ways you are and Christian and not in relationships already. Let me take something that is making your sad, depressed life better, and smash it to pieces.
Let me put you back in chains.
I lost ten pounds stewing over this issue. I worried so much I ate one meal a day for a month and came out of it lighter than I had been in years. I talked to my best Christian friend, but I couldn't shake it -- this woman was Authority. Susie wasn't just any person; she Knew Things. She was Right, because she was a pastor, and of course all pastors were right. If I thought I was right, well, then all her spiritual education and connection to God was worthless. She had to be right.
I broke up with my boyfriend because he wasn't a Christian, despite the fact that he was one of the kindest, most open people I knew at the time. He was great for me, at that point in my life, and we were very close friends. But Susie said so, therefore God said so, and so I had to do it. I couldn't live a life where I was sinning.
"Do not be unequally yoked." Or something. That verse would haunt me for years of my MIT life.
And in the end, had I followed her advice, I would be a sad, miserable person right now.
I broke the rules. I broke the rules because I refuse to be a Pharisee. I refuse to believe that anything in the world that makes me happy, has to be evil. I refuse to believe that romance, and caring for another person, and love, can't transcend religious boundaries. I refuse to believe that Jesus wants us to stick in our own little enclaves. I refuse to believe that God Himself, who is my Father and cares so deeply for me that He sent His own son to be tortured and killed so my sins would be absolved, would let Satan just run rings around me, that all the people that appeared in my life and loved and cared for me who weren't Christian, were just there to make me screw up. If I was truly a child of God, then God was not going to let "faux-good" things happen to me just to trip me up. God does not plant poisoned candy there for you, just to punish you for having a good thing in life. God does not set booby traps.
These non-Christians I dated had far more of the virtues that God desires, than many Christians I know. Patience. Perseverence. Kindness. Gentleness. Self-control. You know, all the Fruits. The ones that God wants us to have.
"And you shall know them by their fruit."
What Fruits have the conservative Christians I know offered me? Fearmongering. Inflicting pain. Creating despair and depression. Lack of empathy. Self-righteousness. Careless words. There is a time to hurt and a time to heal, but the people I know, didn't heal at all. They were like surgeons who went in and cut something out, then didn't finish the job and left you there bleeding, told you to stitch yourself up. After all, it was your fault you had the sickness, whatever it was in the end, so you should take care of yourself.
I am not one of them, not anymore. Non-Christians have done more for my faith, than Christians have. I'm tired of dogma. I'm tired of chains. I'm tired of being scared, and I'm tired of seeking refuge in the false sense of security that is, "So long as you don't do anything on this long list, you have no reason to be scared." I want adventure. I want experimentation. I want life to be interesting. I don't want to be constrained to boring old...fear.
I want to live.
We got back together, by the way.
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
There Are Many Sins (Why I Hate Election Years)
I really don't like presidential election years.
My family doesn't really talk that much about Senate or House elections, but when the Presidency comes around, they're on that like white on rice. It gets a bit bothersome, especially since my dad loves to talk and try to convince everyone else that he's right about everything, while my mom stands by and just sort of lets people do whatever they want. I'm guessing they have never really had a political argument, if only because Mom sees it as a waste of time.
Now's the time of year that Dad appends a few political notes to all his phone calls to me, telling me I better not vote for the dirty liberal atheist Democrats, or else I'm going to be screwing over the country and we're all going to Hell or something. This is sort of exaggerated, but not by much, because dear Dad, for all his awesome qualities, believes that if we so much as sniff at compromise on social issues, we're horribly betraying society, God, and everything else. It got me thinking about how weird conservative priorities are.
I never hear evangelical folk talking about poverty in America. I'm sure they do once in a while, but I never hear one word of it. I never hear about the evils of corporate scandal, corrupt politicians, and environmental destruction. No comments about feeding the hungry, helping the disabled, or making medical care more accessible in any possible way.
I hear about the following topics: abortion, gay marriage, and contraception.
What the hell is wrong with evangelical culture these days? It's like they are centering every possible bit of effort they could ever have, on something that Jesus really doesn't seem to consider a priority in all of the Bible's lesson. The fact that my dad says not to vote for Obama because he favors abortion, strikes me as incredibly short-sighted.
I'm not disclosing who I'm voting for. As far as I'm concerned, both candidates suck, and since I'm in a hardcore Blue state and came from a hardcore Red state, my vote for the presidency has never mattered one whit. Still, the point being, you should never vote for a candidate based solely on one issue, no matter how emotional it may be, unless the issue is "should we blow up the Earth" or something. If the issue is at all controversial, in any significant way, it should not be the only reason you're voting against someone.
I don't care whether you do or don't think abortion is okay; it should not be the reason you're voting for a candidate, as a Christian. If a candidate were to have a proven-to-work, revolutionary program to raise families out of poverty, provide cheap and nutritious food, and promote inexpensive medical care without pissing off hard workers who want to keep their money, but he endorsed legalized abortion, is it really sensible to reject him on those grounds?
In a non-ideal world, we have to work with necessary evils. Even if you think abortion is evil, it is just one more ticker on the scale. Think about it this way: if God says that all sin is sin, and you can't just rank sin and say, "oh, I'll commit some little sins, they don't matter, as long as I'm better than the guy over there cheating on his wife," then we should realize that abortion is no greater a sin than anything else. Sin is sin. If your candidate turns away the poor and sick, isn't that just as great a sin as endorsing gay marriage would be? If your candidate spurns and wastes God's Earth like the Prodigal Son spent all his fortune, isn't that just as great a sin as promoting legal abortion?
Let's not even get into the arguments of how many times various sins are mentioned in the Bible, and if they are even sins at all, and so forth. In the end, just look at the person in question, and ask yourself, how sinful overall is this regime going to be? Stack the good points on one side and the sins on the other. Make sure to count all the sins, not just anything related to people's genitalia. Despite what many evangelicals want you to think, who you sleep with, when, and in what fashion, are not the only topics for sin. Count all of them: greed, lies, cheating, taking bribes, depriving the poor of aid, fearmongering, selfishness...
Now choose, with open eyes. If you still end up choosing the original candidate you were voting for, that's fine. No one cares if you started out hardcore Romney, looked at both sides, and still said Romney was the right answer. Same for Obama. But at least make a real decision, not one based on the idea that sexuality is the only possible metric for sin.
My family doesn't really talk that much about Senate or House elections, but when the Presidency comes around, they're on that like white on rice. It gets a bit bothersome, especially since my dad loves to talk and try to convince everyone else that he's right about everything, while my mom stands by and just sort of lets people do whatever they want. I'm guessing they have never really had a political argument, if only because Mom sees it as a waste of time.
Now's the time of year that Dad appends a few political notes to all his phone calls to me, telling me I better not vote for the dirty liberal atheist Democrats, or else I'm going to be screwing over the country and we're all going to Hell or something. This is sort of exaggerated, but not by much, because dear Dad, for all his awesome qualities, believes that if we so much as sniff at compromise on social issues, we're horribly betraying society, God, and everything else. It got me thinking about how weird conservative priorities are.
I never hear evangelical folk talking about poverty in America. I'm sure they do once in a while, but I never hear one word of it. I never hear about the evils of corporate scandal, corrupt politicians, and environmental destruction. No comments about feeding the hungry, helping the disabled, or making medical care more accessible in any possible way.
I hear about the following topics: abortion, gay marriage, and contraception.
What the hell is wrong with evangelical culture these days? It's like they are centering every possible bit of effort they could ever have, on something that Jesus really doesn't seem to consider a priority in all of the Bible's lesson. The fact that my dad says not to vote for Obama because he favors abortion, strikes me as incredibly short-sighted.
I'm not disclosing who I'm voting for. As far as I'm concerned, both candidates suck, and since I'm in a hardcore Blue state and came from a hardcore Red state, my vote for the presidency has never mattered one whit. Still, the point being, you should never vote for a candidate based solely on one issue, no matter how emotional it may be, unless the issue is "should we blow up the Earth" or something. If the issue is at all controversial, in any significant way, it should not be the only reason you're voting against someone.
I don't care whether you do or don't think abortion is okay; it should not be the reason you're voting for a candidate, as a Christian. If a candidate were to have a proven-to-work, revolutionary program to raise families out of poverty, provide cheap and nutritious food, and promote inexpensive medical care without pissing off hard workers who want to keep their money, but he endorsed legalized abortion, is it really sensible to reject him on those grounds?
In a non-ideal world, we have to work with necessary evils. Even if you think abortion is evil, it is just one more ticker on the scale. Think about it this way: if God says that all sin is sin, and you can't just rank sin and say, "oh, I'll commit some little sins, they don't matter, as long as I'm better than the guy over there cheating on his wife," then we should realize that abortion is no greater a sin than anything else. Sin is sin. If your candidate turns away the poor and sick, isn't that just as great a sin as endorsing gay marriage would be? If your candidate spurns and wastes God's Earth like the Prodigal Son spent all his fortune, isn't that just as great a sin as promoting legal abortion?
Let's not even get into the arguments of how many times various sins are mentioned in the Bible, and if they are even sins at all, and so forth. In the end, just look at the person in question, and ask yourself, how sinful overall is this regime going to be? Stack the good points on one side and the sins on the other. Make sure to count all the sins, not just anything related to people's genitalia. Despite what many evangelicals want you to think, who you sleep with, when, and in what fashion, are not the only topics for sin. Count all of them: greed, lies, cheating, taking bribes, depriving the poor of aid, fearmongering, selfishness...
Now choose, with open eyes. If you still end up choosing the original candidate you were voting for, that's fine. No one cares if you started out hardcore Romney, looked at both sides, and still said Romney was the right answer. Same for Obama. But at least make a real decision, not one based on the idea that sexuality is the only possible metric for sin.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Miracles
My boyfriend and I see God in completely different areas of the world.
He looks at numbers and sees the divine. Nature is full of uncanny mathematical patterns, and the laws of the universe fit together like laser-cut puzzle pieces, perfect in their simplicity and complexity. "I imagine God as having His hands around the world," he said one night. "He's everywhere." He sees miracles as unnecessary, as breaking the beauty of the world; to him, nature and its perfect fit, like gears in a clock, is the real miracle. He claims he doesn't need to believe in the miraculous, because what kind of God would need to go back in and patch up the work He already did? It's like Michelangelo returning to the Sistine Chapel and scratching a doodle in crayon on a corner of the ceiling. The universe is so perfectly designed from the start, from the moment God set "let it be," and the Big Bang went off, that the one miracle God ever truly did is still going, and going, and going. The things we call miraculous, are so miraculous because they are natural phenomena that were decided billions of years ago, a tiny butterfly flap that caused the cancer to be attacked at just the right time by just the right virus to pop the right cell, and so forth.
I see God in the cracks of reality. When something uncanny happens, just in the precise way it shouldn't. When a disease vanishes in a way that is impossible. When nature moves aside a little, so you can see the God behind the curtain, holding the universe in perpetually moving fingers, playing physics like a piano, throwing in a riff now and then that wasn't originally in the piece. "I imagine God peeking in between slips of time," I said. "He's hiding behind the world, always watching, waiting, and acting." All the world's a stage, and God is running the tech crew. I don't think God planned it ahead of time, or at least not to fit seamlessly; I believe that miracles are supposed to happen, that we can't actually exist without breaking reality at some point or another. That natural law is purposely and divinely imperfect and incapable of acting entirely on its own. That without God's direct intervention, humanity wouldn't have evolved; sentience would never have occurred; the nations wouldn't have lined up as they did when Jesus existed; so on and so forth.
In the end, I think we're both a little bit right.
He looks at numbers and sees the divine. Nature is full of uncanny mathematical patterns, and the laws of the universe fit together like laser-cut puzzle pieces, perfect in their simplicity and complexity. "I imagine God as having His hands around the world," he said one night. "He's everywhere." He sees miracles as unnecessary, as breaking the beauty of the world; to him, nature and its perfect fit, like gears in a clock, is the real miracle. He claims he doesn't need to believe in the miraculous, because what kind of God would need to go back in and patch up the work He already did? It's like Michelangelo returning to the Sistine Chapel and scratching a doodle in crayon on a corner of the ceiling. The universe is so perfectly designed from the start, from the moment God set "let it be," and the Big Bang went off, that the one miracle God ever truly did is still going, and going, and going. The things we call miraculous, are so miraculous because they are natural phenomena that were decided billions of years ago, a tiny butterfly flap that caused the cancer to be attacked at just the right time by just the right virus to pop the right cell, and so forth.
I see God in the cracks of reality. When something uncanny happens, just in the precise way it shouldn't. When a disease vanishes in a way that is impossible. When nature moves aside a little, so you can see the God behind the curtain, holding the universe in perpetually moving fingers, playing physics like a piano, throwing in a riff now and then that wasn't originally in the piece. "I imagine God peeking in between slips of time," I said. "He's hiding behind the world, always watching, waiting, and acting." All the world's a stage, and God is running the tech crew. I don't think God planned it ahead of time, or at least not to fit seamlessly; I believe that miracles are supposed to happen, that we can't actually exist without breaking reality at some point or another. That natural law is purposely and divinely imperfect and incapable of acting entirely on its own. That without God's direct intervention, humanity wouldn't have evolved; sentience would never have occurred; the nations wouldn't have lined up as they did when Jesus existed; so on and so forth.
In the end, I think we're both a little bit right.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Guard Your What?
"Above all, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life." - Proverbs 4:23.
This is probably one of the most altered, mistaken, and perverted (in the old sense, not the creeper sense) verses that is talked about in the church.
There are twelve words in that verse. None of these twelve include any of the following: virginity, penis, vagina, body, nakedness, sexuality, marriage. And that's just a partial list of all the words that aren't in this verse.
Proverbs 4:23 is unequivocally not about sex. This is not a pro-abstinence tract, nor is it restricted to women. This verse has been used for restriction, laid down like some kind of law, as if there were a punishment attached to the end. As if there were eighteen words instead of twelve, and the remaining six were, "Or you will go to Hell."
Guard your heart. What is the heart? It's the metaphorical center of love and caring. It's the part of the analogy-body that feels and empathizes. Even if people thought the brain was a giant radiator, the mind was the center of thought, wherever in the body it was thought to lie. The heart is reserved for pure emotions. So in the end, what are you guarding? You're guarding feelings, emotions like trust, love, dedication, kindness, and empathy. You're not expending your every last drop of energy on the pigs, who will not appreciate the pearls you've thrown before them. You're making sure to take care of yourself, not in a self-centered way, but in a way that will protect your stability and energy and enthusiasm for life. You're not letting other people take advantage of you, even though you may care for them and help them. You maintain a center, where you can be strong and capable, despite what the world may throw at you.
Guarding your heart isn't about keeping it in your pants. There's no mention about pants here, or any of the body parts under those pants. What it's about, is keeping your priorities straight, and not throwing yourself away. Wanton promiscuity is a definite danger, don't think I'm saying otherwise. Throwing caution to the wind and ruining your body is not taking care of yourself. Disease and unwanted pregnancy are torments to the mind and heart. But the point is the damage they're doing, not the overgeneralized whole.
Guarding your heart means having respect for yourself. It means choosing good lovers and good friends and good coworkers. It means not letting anyone crap all over you and not being a pushover. It means maintaining your cool and your stability among the hurricane that is humanity. It doesn't mean alienating yourself, or being prissy, and it certainly doesn't mean being abstinent, or not dyeing your hair, or not shaving your head, or not getting a tattoo, or caring about this or that political issue and not the other one, or preaching to every person you see, or...
It means, have respect for yourself. Take care of yourself. Treat your body right, and your mind right, and your heart right. Don't let humanity drown you. Don't let others destroy you. Don't throw yourself into a situation where you know you're just going to come out a ruined shell.
Does that happen to people? Yes. Does it mean they didn't guard their hearts? Not always. But sometimes you can see it coming.
You can only do so much. This verse is asking you to do just that: what you can do. Not what you can't, not what you couldn't account for. But what you can do, right now, to be good to yourself, to protect yourself.
Guard your heart. And go be free.
This is probably one of the most altered, mistaken, and perverted (in the old sense, not the creeper sense) verses that is talked about in the church.
There are twelve words in that verse. None of these twelve include any of the following: virginity, penis, vagina, body, nakedness, sexuality, marriage. And that's just a partial list of all the words that aren't in this verse.
Proverbs 4:23 is unequivocally not about sex. This is not a pro-abstinence tract, nor is it restricted to women. This verse has been used for restriction, laid down like some kind of law, as if there were a punishment attached to the end. As if there were eighteen words instead of twelve, and the remaining six were, "Or you will go to Hell."
Guard your heart. What is the heart? It's the metaphorical center of love and caring. It's the part of the analogy-body that feels and empathizes. Even if people thought the brain was a giant radiator, the mind was the center of thought, wherever in the body it was thought to lie. The heart is reserved for pure emotions. So in the end, what are you guarding? You're guarding feelings, emotions like trust, love, dedication, kindness, and empathy. You're not expending your every last drop of energy on the pigs, who will not appreciate the pearls you've thrown before them. You're making sure to take care of yourself, not in a self-centered way, but in a way that will protect your stability and energy and enthusiasm for life. You're not letting other people take advantage of you, even though you may care for them and help them. You maintain a center, where you can be strong and capable, despite what the world may throw at you.
Guarding your heart isn't about keeping it in your pants. There's no mention about pants here, or any of the body parts under those pants. What it's about, is keeping your priorities straight, and not throwing yourself away. Wanton promiscuity is a definite danger, don't think I'm saying otherwise. Throwing caution to the wind and ruining your body is not taking care of yourself. Disease and unwanted pregnancy are torments to the mind and heart. But the point is the damage they're doing, not the overgeneralized whole.
Guarding your heart means having respect for yourself. It means choosing good lovers and good friends and good coworkers. It means not letting anyone crap all over you and not being a pushover. It means maintaining your cool and your stability among the hurricane that is humanity. It doesn't mean alienating yourself, or being prissy, and it certainly doesn't mean being abstinent, or not dyeing your hair, or not shaving your head, or not getting a tattoo, or caring about this or that political issue and not the other one, or preaching to every person you see, or...
It means, have respect for yourself. Take care of yourself. Treat your body right, and your mind right, and your heart right. Don't let humanity drown you. Don't let others destroy you. Don't throw yourself into a situation where you know you're just going to come out a ruined shell.
Does that happen to people? Yes. Does it mean they didn't guard their hearts? Not always. But sometimes you can see it coming.
You can only do so much. This verse is asking you to do just that: what you can do. Not what you can't, not what you couldn't account for. But what you can do, right now, to be good to yourself, to protect yourself.
Guard your heart. And go be free.
Friday, August 3, 2012
What I Learned from "Dogma" (spoilers)
Since it's a movie I've wanted to see for years now, I finally got around to watching Dogma. For those of you who don't know, it's a Jay and Silent Bob satire film about a couple of angels who, in a fit of drunkenness, lay aside their heavenly duties and get thrown down to Earth for all of eternity as punishment for their flippancy and disobedience. (Also, angels are no longer allowed to drink.) Now one of the half-related descendents of Jesus Christ (through Jesus' brothers' bloodline), a couple of modern prophets, and a reincarnated thirteeth Apostle named Rufus have to go keep the two angels from exploiting a cosmic loophole in their punishment and getting back into Heaven, which would reverse a mandate of God and end the universe. Along the way, the mob encounters the Metatron (angel serving as the Voice of God), demons appear in the form of hockey-stick-wielding teenage thugs led by fallen angel Asrael, and lots of wackiness ensues.
Anyway. On to the things I learned.
The beginning of the movie was the most satirical part, if you ask me, and the biggest punch in the gut came right at the entrance. It's the closest I came to being legitimately offended, and then I realized why.
At the very start of the movie, a cardinal at the local Catholic church has decided that he's going to try to make Catholicism hip and modern now. Being Catholic is antiquated, he says. Nobody finds it relevant anymore, so may as well fix it up so that people feel attracted to it again. It's a two-millennium-old religion, and the reason they're bleeding followers is because they need to shiny it up for the young folk. So, the cardinal decides to "retire" the crucifix as a symbol of Christianity and replace it with the "Buddy Jesus," a statue of a traditionally-attired European-looking Jesus (the one you usually see around America) making a thumbs-up gesture while smiling and winking at the onlookers. Jesus looked too morbid and pained before, says the cardinal. He's not a downer; he's a supporter and a friend, so why not show him as happier and more supportive?
This is...a surprisingly accurate view of two things: what many churches are trying to do to bring in more followers, and what the conservative folk say is screwing over Christianity as a whole. Let's start with Point One.
Lots of churches are trying to be modern and "cool." They have slick 21st-century-style logos, catchy names, and even ad campaigns to try to convince random onlookers to go for a visit. One church in Boston must be paying through the nose to post ads all over subway stops, and these ads even bribe onlookers with the promise of coffee and food after services.
What has the world come to, that we have to offer bribes and rewards and shiny new toys to people who are supposed to be coming to church to seek their spiritual value and fulfillment and all that? If you're going to church because they have free food and it's the most convenient one and you feel guilty not going to church so you may as well, does that mean anything? How does that help build community? Do these people really think that visitors won through shameless marketing are going to be committed or even care?
Back where I come from, you go to a church because your family goes there. The young folk grow up to be adults who have kids or invite their neighbors, and then they become old folk who mentor the new young folk. Alternatively, you get invited or check out a few churches and then stick with one because it particularly speaks to you. No one bribes anyone. There are no ads. You're just there, and you get to know the church and its people.
(I think I know why there are so many churches in America. The whole one-on-every-corner thing seems silly and hackneyed to a lot of people, but I think it's the nature of humans to want small tight-knit communities. When churches get too big, someone will inevitably start a new one, and a few people will gravitate there. Eventually, you get the little churches full of old people, that little pack of followers who really love the place, and someday they'll probably all die and someone will buy the building, but in the end, they like their twelve people. Not all pastors want hundreds of followers. In fact, I'm guessing the reason we have so many churches is because of this exact reason: people naturally group off into little packs when they want to be close to others. Sorry, off topic.)
What is going on now, smacks of materialism and modern advertising shenanigans. And I don't like it. I'd rather look in the Yellow Pages and find churches, or on the internet, and then try them out on their own. I don't want them to throw cool-looking logos in my face and go on and on about how modern and cool they are. This isn't a competition, guys. Communities are supposed to be small and tight-knit here, not to mention, if people don't come to church because they want to be at church, what are you really accomplishing? (Seriously, be honest, how many converts happen because some poor person wanted free food, or something like that?)
What is the solution here? Go old-school. Ditch the modern shenanigans and go back to the reason we really went to church. Cut the silly socialization games and the bribes and the advertising. Stop trying to hold a carrot over our heads and get us to jump. Focus more on community prayer, perhaps, or study classes, or maybe just days where people can come and spend time in silence in the sanctuary. Make church feel really holy and special again, rather than just a social playdate with a sermon once a week. Stop holding church in crappy old buildings and bring back the beauty and iconography when you can. Put down an atmosphere where people leave their lives behind and really talk to God. I'd also like to see "office hours" of sorts where authority figures in the church just talk to members and try to help them on their spiritual paths. Make this really be mentor-mentee style relationships. Go back to when church really felt like it was about something.
Second, a completely unrelated point: the conservative church basically sees the liberal church as the cardinal in Dogma. Liberals are, as they say, trying to put a pretty face on what should be a scary, intense, exclusive sort of religion that is supposed to really get all up in your grill and show you the Dark Frightening Things about reality that you should really care about. All the hellfire-brimstone gets swept under the rug in favor of this "Buddy Jesus" kind of figure, who is really there just to make you feel good. This follows pretty quickly to "churches that don't tell you about Sin and Punishment are evil" and so forth.
Some of this, I'd say is true. The modern church kind of does like to cut corners and talk more about what God likes than what God doesn't like. The concepts of sin and punishment get swept under the rug, and people really don't like discussing Hell and what it means. Oddly enough, televangelists (who are often very conservative) tend to push these points more, because they get more views if they spread around feel-good messages rather than moral lessons. I can't say I've particularly encountered How To Be Moral sermons up in Boston, and I expect this is because the churches up here try to focus way more on "how God is nice" rather than "how God is a Father who expects you to obey His rules regardless of how much you think it'd be fun not to." Both of these points, when taken to an extreme, are both misguided. God is nice. God is also serious business. Both of these must be acknowledged.
There you go, things I learned from satire. Most of the rest of the movie is just fun plot shenanigans, and watching the two angels evolve as characters as well as the Last Scion (the descendent of Jesus' family) accept her mission and really go for it. Good movie, watch it.
Anyway. On to the things I learned.
The beginning of the movie was the most satirical part, if you ask me, and the biggest punch in the gut came right at the entrance. It's the closest I came to being legitimately offended, and then I realized why.
At the very start of the movie, a cardinal at the local Catholic church has decided that he's going to try to make Catholicism hip and modern now. Being Catholic is antiquated, he says. Nobody finds it relevant anymore, so may as well fix it up so that people feel attracted to it again. It's a two-millennium-old religion, and the reason they're bleeding followers is because they need to shiny it up for the young folk. So, the cardinal decides to "retire" the crucifix as a symbol of Christianity and replace it with the "Buddy Jesus," a statue of a traditionally-attired European-looking Jesus (the one you usually see around America) making a thumbs-up gesture while smiling and winking at the onlookers. Jesus looked too morbid and pained before, says the cardinal. He's not a downer; he's a supporter and a friend, so why not show him as happier and more supportive?
This is...a surprisingly accurate view of two things: what many churches are trying to do to bring in more followers, and what the conservative folk say is screwing over Christianity as a whole. Let's start with Point One.
Lots of churches are trying to be modern and "cool." They have slick 21st-century-style logos, catchy names, and even ad campaigns to try to convince random onlookers to go for a visit. One church in Boston must be paying through the nose to post ads all over subway stops, and these ads even bribe onlookers with the promise of coffee and food after services.
What has the world come to, that we have to offer bribes and rewards and shiny new toys to people who are supposed to be coming to church to seek their spiritual value and fulfillment and all that? If you're going to church because they have free food and it's the most convenient one and you feel guilty not going to church so you may as well, does that mean anything? How does that help build community? Do these people really think that visitors won through shameless marketing are going to be committed or even care?
Back where I come from, you go to a church because your family goes there. The young folk grow up to be adults who have kids or invite their neighbors, and then they become old folk who mentor the new young folk. Alternatively, you get invited or check out a few churches and then stick with one because it particularly speaks to you. No one bribes anyone. There are no ads. You're just there, and you get to know the church and its people.
(I think I know why there are so many churches in America. The whole one-on-every-corner thing seems silly and hackneyed to a lot of people, but I think it's the nature of humans to want small tight-knit communities. When churches get too big, someone will inevitably start a new one, and a few people will gravitate there. Eventually, you get the little churches full of old people, that little pack of followers who really love the place, and someday they'll probably all die and someone will buy the building, but in the end, they like their twelve people. Not all pastors want hundreds of followers. In fact, I'm guessing the reason we have so many churches is because of this exact reason: people naturally group off into little packs when they want to be close to others. Sorry, off topic.)
What is going on now, smacks of materialism and modern advertising shenanigans. And I don't like it. I'd rather look in the Yellow Pages and find churches, or on the internet, and then try them out on their own. I don't want them to throw cool-looking logos in my face and go on and on about how modern and cool they are. This isn't a competition, guys. Communities are supposed to be small and tight-knit here, not to mention, if people don't come to church because they want to be at church, what are you really accomplishing? (Seriously, be honest, how many converts happen because some poor person wanted free food, or something like that?)
What is the solution here? Go old-school. Ditch the modern shenanigans and go back to the reason we really went to church. Cut the silly socialization games and the bribes and the advertising. Stop trying to hold a carrot over our heads and get us to jump. Focus more on community prayer, perhaps, or study classes, or maybe just days where people can come and spend time in silence in the sanctuary. Make church feel really holy and special again, rather than just a social playdate with a sermon once a week. Stop holding church in crappy old buildings and bring back the beauty and iconography when you can. Put down an atmosphere where people leave their lives behind and really talk to God. I'd also like to see "office hours" of sorts where authority figures in the church just talk to members and try to help them on their spiritual paths. Make this really be mentor-mentee style relationships. Go back to when church really felt like it was about something.
Second, a completely unrelated point: the conservative church basically sees the liberal church as the cardinal in Dogma. Liberals are, as they say, trying to put a pretty face on what should be a scary, intense, exclusive sort of religion that is supposed to really get all up in your grill and show you the Dark Frightening Things about reality that you should really care about. All the hellfire-brimstone gets swept under the rug in favor of this "Buddy Jesus" kind of figure, who is really there just to make you feel good. This follows pretty quickly to "churches that don't tell you about Sin and Punishment are evil" and so forth.
Some of this, I'd say is true. The modern church kind of does like to cut corners and talk more about what God likes than what God doesn't like. The concepts of sin and punishment get swept under the rug, and people really don't like discussing Hell and what it means. Oddly enough, televangelists (who are often very conservative) tend to push these points more, because they get more views if they spread around feel-good messages rather than moral lessons. I can't say I've particularly encountered How To Be Moral sermons up in Boston, and I expect this is because the churches up here try to focus way more on "how God is nice" rather than "how God is a Father who expects you to obey His rules regardless of how much you think it'd be fun not to." Both of these points, when taken to an extreme, are both misguided. God is nice. God is also serious business. Both of these must be acknowledged.
There you go, things I learned from satire. Most of the rest of the movie is just fun plot shenanigans, and watching the two angels evolve as characters as well as the Last Scion (the descendent of Jesus' family) accept her mission and really go for it. Good movie, watch it.
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Holier Than Thou
Christian Evangelicals have this complex surrounding miracles.
Now, first off, I'd like to say that I absolutely do believe in miracles. I am entirely certain that people have been healed of diseases, made to walk again, or see again, or what have you. Planes have been strategically delayed, and cars have been made to start again. Poisons have been purified and bullets steered off course. I firmly believe that these things can and do happen.
However, I don't believe that they come on command. Certainly it seems that despite God's myriad opportunities to wow us, He seems perfectly content to let the world do its thing most of the time. I can't explain it, but needless to say, God is not a lab rat or a dog. He can't be trained, and He doesn't bark on command. You can't wave your hands like a magic wand and expect God to do something flashy for you. (For those of you who still believe that televangelists like Benny Hinn work miracles on camera, just Google "leg lengthening." The people these guys call up for demonstrations, are total plants. People have seen the wheelchairs waiting for the plants that "stand up and walk.") Anyway, despite "God is not a trained dog," the Evangelical church is rooted in physical display. Funny, for a denomination that so vehemently protests science and other such "visible" things, they sure do rely a lot on what they can see and feel. Speaking in tongues is one such phenomenon, as is "being slain in the Spirit," which looks a lot like a pastor touching someone on the head and said person fainting. Every so often, you'll get the claim that someone has cast out a demon, but I can't comment on what that looks like because I've never seen an exorcism. Either way, there are a nontrivial number of church members, usually well-known pastors or ex-pastors who now function as "prophets" or "healers" or what have you, who go around claiming that God has endowed them with a very Elijah-esque ability to call down miracles at will.
That's at the high level. Go one step down, and go back to speaking in tongues and being slain in the Spirit and what have you. When I was a kid, I always wanted to know what those were like. Did you just start doing something against your will, as if your body was suddenly being moved by invisible strings? Did you just have an overwhelming desire to do the action? Did you blank out and wake up five minutes later with everyone gawking at your words of Godly wisdom? What happened? Needless to say, I always went to the altar when we had special guests, or when it looked like the pastor was going to walk around doing that funny thing where he touched people's foreheads and they fell over.
It took me years to finally get someone to tap me on the head, and let me tell you, it was really underwhelming. Despite my praying, and wishing, and getting into the zone and all that...nothing really happened.
I was disappointed. I expected something transcendental. But I was young, and my legs were tired from standing up...so I figured, okay, maybe that means something. So I let myself sink to the ground. I got a vague curiosity about talking. So I started saying something, and I wasn't sure what it was. I don't think it was much of anything, even for an attempt at the neat babbling thing that the old ladies in church did.
I got up off the ground at the end of the service, and I didn't mention much about it. I went on with my life, wondering if anything had really happened. In the end, I figure it didn't, and I was just hoping really hard and doing what I saw everyone else doing in hopes that it was something it wasn't.
I'm sure that God does sent messages through unknown languages. I'm also fairly sure that they don't happen in 95% of cases. I'm guessing most of the people who fall over in church, do it because they're so psyched up that it seems like a good idea at the time.
This all culminated in the biggest letdown I've had: my friend Amy (not her real name), who I decided I would get healed of a bone issue she had in her hands. Her fingers were stiff and couldn't bend more than maybe an inch in arc, and she couldn't make a fist or even start one. So I was super enthusiastic and prayed as only an innocent believing little kid can, and I brought Amy to the altar at a healing service at church. We cried and prayed and talked with the guest speaker/healer guy and we begged and we tried really hard to be Good Christian People, and I secretly hoped to myself and God that her hands would be healed so that she would get off the fence about whether she was Christian or not, because look! There would be proof.
Nothing happened. Nothing at all. Zip, zero, nada. Her fingers were as straight and stiff as the moment she walked into the building.
Looking back on all this, two things have occurred to me. First off, 99.N% of people who claim they can zap miracles out their fingers, are clearly smoking something. Second, the Evangelical church teaches you to join the "holier than thou" contest of who can do or see miracles, and who can't. It seems like to them, the more faithful you are, the more crazy supernatural things will happen to you. If you can't even faint in church, seriously, how faithful can you be? As a kid, I felt deficient somehow, as if I just didn't believe hard enough. Maybe if I prayed more, or read the Bible more, then next time I brought an Amy to the altar, something would happen.
In the end, I have settled on the idea that Christianity isn't a contest to see who can rack up the most cool showoffy miracles. But in the end, it sure sets up the idea.
Now, first off, I'd like to say that I absolutely do believe in miracles. I am entirely certain that people have been healed of diseases, made to walk again, or see again, or what have you. Planes have been strategically delayed, and cars have been made to start again. Poisons have been purified and bullets steered off course. I firmly believe that these things can and do happen.
However, I don't believe that they come on command. Certainly it seems that despite God's myriad opportunities to wow us, He seems perfectly content to let the world do its thing most of the time. I can't explain it, but needless to say, God is not a lab rat or a dog. He can't be trained, and He doesn't bark on command. You can't wave your hands like a magic wand and expect God to do something flashy for you. (For those of you who still believe that televangelists like Benny Hinn work miracles on camera, just Google "leg lengthening." The people these guys call up for demonstrations, are total plants. People have seen the wheelchairs waiting for the plants that "stand up and walk.") Anyway, despite "God is not a trained dog," the Evangelical church is rooted in physical display. Funny, for a denomination that so vehemently protests science and other such "visible" things, they sure do rely a lot on what they can see and feel. Speaking in tongues is one such phenomenon, as is "being slain in the Spirit," which looks a lot like a pastor touching someone on the head and said person fainting. Every so often, you'll get the claim that someone has cast out a demon, but I can't comment on what that looks like because I've never seen an exorcism. Either way, there are a nontrivial number of church members, usually well-known pastors or ex-pastors who now function as "prophets" or "healers" or what have you, who go around claiming that God has endowed them with a very Elijah-esque ability to call down miracles at will.
That's at the high level. Go one step down, and go back to speaking in tongues and being slain in the Spirit and what have you. When I was a kid, I always wanted to know what those were like. Did you just start doing something against your will, as if your body was suddenly being moved by invisible strings? Did you just have an overwhelming desire to do the action? Did you blank out and wake up five minutes later with everyone gawking at your words of Godly wisdom? What happened? Needless to say, I always went to the altar when we had special guests, or when it looked like the pastor was going to walk around doing that funny thing where he touched people's foreheads and they fell over.
It took me years to finally get someone to tap me on the head, and let me tell you, it was really underwhelming. Despite my praying, and wishing, and getting into the zone and all that...nothing really happened.
I was disappointed. I expected something transcendental. But I was young, and my legs were tired from standing up...so I figured, okay, maybe that means something. So I let myself sink to the ground. I got a vague curiosity about talking. So I started saying something, and I wasn't sure what it was. I don't think it was much of anything, even for an attempt at the neat babbling thing that the old ladies in church did.
I got up off the ground at the end of the service, and I didn't mention much about it. I went on with my life, wondering if anything had really happened. In the end, I figure it didn't, and I was just hoping really hard and doing what I saw everyone else doing in hopes that it was something it wasn't.
I'm sure that God does sent messages through unknown languages. I'm also fairly sure that they don't happen in 95% of cases. I'm guessing most of the people who fall over in church, do it because they're so psyched up that it seems like a good idea at the time.
This all culminated in the biggest letdown I've had: my friend Amy (not her real name), who I decided I would get healed of a bone issue she had in her hands. Her fingers were stiff and couldn't bend more than maybe an inch in arc, and she couldn't make a fist or even start one. So I was super enthusiastic and prayed as only an innocent believing little kid can, and I brought Amy to the altar at a healing service at church. We cried and prayed and talked with the guest speaker/healer guy and we begged and we tried really hard to be Good Christian People, and I secretly hoped to myself and God that her hands would be healed so that she would get off the fence about whether she was Christian or not, because look! There would be proof.
Nothing happened. Nothing at all. Zip, zero, nada. Her fingers were as straight and stiff as the moment she walked into the building.
Looking back on all this, two things have occurred to me. First off, 99.N% of people who claim they can zap miracles out their fingers, are clearly smoking something. Second, the Evangelical church teaches you to join the "holier than thou" contest of who can do or see miracles, and who can't. It seems like to them, the more faithful you are, the more crazy supernatural things will happen to you. If you can't even faint in church, seriously, how faithful can you be? As a kid, I felt deficient somehow, as if I just didn't believe hard enough. Maybe if I prayed more, or read the Bible more, then next time I brought an Amy to the altar, something would happen.
In the end, I have settled on the idea that Christianity isn't a contest to see who can rack up the most cool showoffy miracles. But in the end, it sure sets up the idea.
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