amazing...

...how little gets published
once the quest for a new
thought begins...

deja vu and something about the naked God

well, in classic form, the comment left by hineini prompted a whole new post...

These seem to me to be more demanding questions that take both out experiences and our desires for who we are and who God is seriously, without trapping us in the "things we'll never know" wasteland where we end up taking "the leader's" word for how things are. (hineini)

we all seem to play the same scripts again and again don't we?
the more we try to grow, the more we stay the same.

except that, for my part, it demonstrates a fair bit of growth to become a question-asker rather than an answer-giver... something like "i also think that the most important aspect of one's faith is the question-asking part... even if the answers we are able to arrive at are, at best, inconclusive" may very well be a familiar type of statement on this blog over the last year. however, in this case, it is a fair distance from the land of this writer's origins.

(for laughs we can always go looking for evidence of this by reading really early posts on this particular blog, replete with declarative statements and high-sounding direction.)

but to assert that the asking of this or that particular type of question is a bit old hat feels rather one dimensional in and of itself somehow. i mean, the challenge has been there for awhile now to consider possibilities that, for me, can only be articulated in the form of the scandalous question... to explore with trembling hands the face of the maybe God that has been obscured into a formless blur for us due to our years of staring directly into its own light of revelation to the point of relative blindness.

so the challenge is ever to try to take each new experience, each new conversation, each new relationship, and consider that aspects of this God person which are inconsistent between two or more scenarios have to go- to have my own personal picture of God shaped by comparison so that, like the approach to sculpture adopted by michelangelo, large pieces of the slab of theological and doctrinal marble that keep God the person encased in human construction would drop away, revealing the naked God within.

i was talking with a friend the other day about this- in particular about the robes that we place upon God... robes which celebrate (and even exaggerate) certain aspects of God's character while almost completely obscuring others. we like this God to be loving and just, but where love and justice seem to conflict, we default to grace in order to escape wrath or damnation. we like this God to be merciful and miraculous, but where neither mercy nor miracle seems present, we default to existentialist free will doctrines which allow God to escape the bang and blame game.

my friend and i agreed that it seems to be very comfortable for us to clothe God with our own presumptions and prejudices about and against God- to array God in some things rather than ascribe to God all things. it feels somehow safer to selectively highlight the things that we either like or dislike about God, depending upon our orientation towards the divine, rather than to openly admit that the things we feel either unsure or uncomfortable suspecting to be true about God are also divine possibilities...

and in so doing, we dress God up like something God is not.

like a little child who dresses the family dog up in a frilly dress and a silly hat in order to serve the dog some make believe tea, we dress the God up in order to somehow relate to rather than revere the creator of all.

but have you ever looked at the face of that dog? there's this look of weary tolerance, as if the dog knows it looks foolish (almost as if it even feel as foolish as it looks) bound up in something like that. all far-fetched anthropomorphisms aside, in my view, we bind God up in the garments of praise/ robes of expectation rather than subject ourselves to the prospect of the naked God- and God puts up with it.

eventually, i hope that my understanding of God will be free of all of these cultural coats and expectations that i in my myopia have loved to dress God up in.

but back to hineini's post above.
i couldn't help but notice something interesting in there considering familiarity and restlessness.

the questions asked in the bit prior to the above statement that opens this post also have a familiarity to them. we've been down that road before as well- unsatisfactorily or otherwise- in earlier dialogues, and have come back to the same queries.

one might call this consistency.
another might conclude that an impass has been reached... you know, that place in a conversation where everything is on the table and the arguments become circular and rhythmic. that's usually where one or the other loses interest! ha ha.

what i find most intriguing, though, is the idea of the things we'll never know wasteland and how open endedness is a trap that causes people's free minds to run crazily and pointlessly on the wheel in the cage until such time as some leader releases them with an easy answer, telling them emphatically how things are. it seems as though the dissatisfaction with the inconclusive answer to the tiresome question is based on exactly this: wanting some leader to state emphatically how things are.

okay, here's my take on it all:

inconclusive and unexplained,
but being progressively revealed...
God's strip tease.

nope, nothing new there...

but, after all, the last post was called 'ferris' and did bear the illustration of the space station from the film 2001 a space odyssey with human beings doing laps on a large revolving wheel set in the stars. metaphors come and metaphors go, but this is more of a visual rhyme.
***
Despite all my rage I'm still just a rat in a cage
Then someone will say what is lost can never be saved
Despite all my rage Im still just a rat in a cage
And I still believe that I cannot be saved
(billy corgan, 1994)

ferris

my friend in malaysia recently posed a line of questions in an email.
Did God create everything?
If so then did He create SIN?
If not then can Satan create things?
Or did God just make the possibility of sin?
Is the possibility of something too big a question for the human mind to understand?"

there are some challenges whenever we default to the notion that "God created everything, therefore..."

it's probably just bad logic on my part.

i like to hold to the idea that God created materials and situations, got wheels turning, and BOOM, there we have the earth and all that is within.

i like the idea that the 'big bang' was the voice of God shattering the silence and the darkness simultaneously with the words 'let there be light!'

i like the idea that evolutionary theories do not prove or disprove anything, especially the existence or non-existence of God, and that they do not necessarily contradict our Christian cosmology.

but...

if i am comfortable with this 'wheels turning' thing, then i should also be good with the idea that God indirectly put to death the friends and families of my dear friends in sri lanka with the tsunami. i should be fine with the idea that God 'did' the recent cyclone in burma which took the lives of 100 thousand and has us wondering whatever happened to at least 200 thousand more. wheels are turning and the outcome is attributable to God, right?

well... yes, but... no... but...

hate that. somehow there are things that seem inconsistent with our (my) picture of who God is and what God is about, no matter which position in a logical argument like this i side with. drives me crazy sometimes.

there is comfort for me, however, in remembering that all we know about God has been revealed to us- revealed to us in ways that are recognizable to us even though we are, in our fallenness, only a reasonable hand-drawn facsimile of what created and deemed 'very good.' the things that we do not know we do not know because God has chosen to remain a mystery through them for reasons that are God's- perhaps because the answers to some of our questions may be too big for our minds to embrace. we mustn't ever let logic bind God. this promptly ushers out the possibility of miracle.

a miracle, after all, is a break in the cause/effect nature of our physical world- an intervention- and when God chooses to break these little physical rules that keep our feet on the ground and keep the fires burning and the air circulating on this planet, God does so for good reasons- God's.

and how might we understand the mind of God apart from revelation? we can't. i'm kinda glad that we can't though.

being prone to bad logic, foolish conclusions and abhorable behaviour, for us to be able to completely comprehend the divine at this level would make divinity considerable less divine. in my view, part of God's divinity is God's mystery. in my rather wimpy understanding of things, the possibility of sin is our free will, which is also our greatest endowment from God- free will represents God's greatest trust, greatest risk, greatest hope.

i also think that the most important aspect of one's faith is the question-asking part... even if the answers we are able to arrive at are, at best, inconclusive.

the needing God

sometimes relationships and dialogue serve as a catalyst for these great lengthy rants.
other times, they spawn these little platitudes that would probably make great fridge magnets.

synthesizing a few different streams, i was prompted to type this in an email to a friend:


the need that is to be attended to in ministry is what God needs you to do, not simply what you and others are in need of... if we all think this way, the world need not go hungry.

it's a bit quirky to speak of God needing.

(tangent: i sometimes get all caught up in these silly kinds of things and the result of the catching is that i overthink my way out of expressing the idea. i remember a friend once spoke of the danger inherent in editing, as one can unwittingly edit brilliance down to mediocrity. although i recognize the value of choosing words carefully, i sometimes am so careful that i end up saying nothing at all. i have heard people pray this way, flipping and flopping around with verbal shock absorbers and 'not my will but thy will' phrases to the point where you gotta wonder if God isn't just finding those infinite reserves of divine patience and longsuffering being depleted. God sits there, forcing a smile, saying was there something you wanted to talk to me about?)

i wonder if the idea of a God with a need isn't such a bad thing.
what if the idea of need further completes our picture of God, further augment the perfection and the holiness that we ascribe to God?

can one with need be complete? be God?

for me to embrace this notion, i must let go of the projections that i am tempted to slap onto God which are actually human conditions- human conditions that drive me mildly crazy. you know the ones: those aspects of the phrase 'needy' that suck our own reserves dry.

a needing God is not the same as a needy God.

God needs regular people to show love to each other
God needs regular people to share what they have with each other (you get the idea...)

see, God has created us to engage in meaningful life and experience with one another, and seeks to work miracles of faith and provision through these engagements. i'm fond of saying that

every good thing is of God and
every bad thing is something good that's been compromised

i believe this, but if what i believe is true, then part of God's glory must needs be realized through me. i have a responsibility in this bigger picture- this grand mosaic that presents the face of God to humankind through the faces of each other- to be part of what's going on, lest my lack of stewardship in the area entrusted to me become compromised and no longer bearing the truth of God's invitation.

i am needed to actively share the aspects of God's face that are part of God's revelation through me... failing to meet this need, part of God's expression of love to this world is stifled, suppressed.

in my view, these things don't change who God is. i'm not tossing some home-brewed version of pantheism onto the table and claiming to have discovered something new. creator is still separate from the created.

thing is, aspects of creator go unexpressed in direct relation to the responsiveness, or lack thereof, of the created to divine opportunities for revelation.

God needs people to express things as creator which can only be truly expressed through the created of God. whereas, some aspects of God's character are plainly evident in this world of somethings, the relational aspects must be expressed through the someones.

take, for instance, a song that i was given back in 1999. it was the last song i wrote in the 20th century, written on new year's eve.

(i say 'given' because there are many different processes for or approaches to creating art, whether this art is visual, dramatic, musical or linguistic. modes of inspiration? probably a whole nother blog that someone else has posted already and articulated better)

the way this song was written was unusual for me. it was almost like automatic writing of sorts, in that there were ideas that seemed to synthesize themselves, arriving on the written page already finished and requiring virtually no editing at all. the ideas flowed in an order contrary to the way i usually think, exploring the passion of the Christ, forgoing any discussion of resurrection and moving backwards in time from the burial to the passover meal.

break this thieving heart and place it in the ground
turn and walk away as darkness falls all around
pick up all the pieces of your life
as if we'd never met
and maybe then i'd know how to love

crucify this thieving heart-bind it with thorns
strike it with your fists, subject it to scorn
pledge undying faithfulness
and then betray it with a kiss
and maybe then i'd know how to love

take this thieving heart and do with it what you must
feast upon the flesh, forsake its every trust
drink deeply from the cup
it laboured so earnestly to fill
and maybe then
just maybe then
and maybe then i'd know how to love

i find this all very humbling, because when something like this takes place you are left with a sense of divine visitation of sorts. this is what i mean by revelation.

now whether the revelation of God through a person is as dramatic as this example seems to be for me, or simply a moment when the need of another presented itself and a person responded in love and grace, i must conclude that God needs us in order to express these aspects of God's character that fall silent in our absence. the need of God, then, seems to be both contextual and infinite- well, as infinite as the possibilities and opportunities that exist mathematically if we assign a number to every person who has lived, does live and ever will live, and then multiply those numbers by themselves to the Nth power... that's infinite enough for me to represent a pretty huge divine need.

that you and i are part of the meeting of this need causes me to feel incredibly small, yet somehow integral to the 'self actualization of God.'

blaise pascal spoke of the God-shaped void within every human being. could it be that in the heart of God there is a human-shaped void for each of us?

the maybe God

"Maybe God does get upset with us for offering all sorts of prayers. Maybe God gets upset some days and not others. Maybe we think God capable of that and maybe not but I guess the point is that if we equate a certain way of thinking with "the accuser" or "Satan" or "the evil one" I'm just not sure how we can avoid calling anyone (at least implicitly) who thinks this way evil." (hineini)

you, know, i am so incredibly comfortable with a 'maybe God' idea that i wonder if it represents some kind of faith shortcoming in my theology or something. what i mean is that a God of possibility makes more sense to my heart than a God of impossibility... this is challenging for me to embrace in light of my sunday school upbringing, but there is a natural invitation to my heart there that i cannot deny.

recently i read a deep, meaningful and frank email from a friend who is fed up with his job- particularly his boss. none of his prayers seem to be answered right now and it is making him crazy. unfortunately, i'm not sure my words were much comfort because i had been asking questions of my own.

but what? God is only interested in our growth when we are theologically orthodox and well-behaved? where is that written down?

perhaps we go through famine in order to discover aspects of the spiritual walk that elude us all these years of plenty. perhaps pain and calamity are necessary parts of our invitation into dialogue with the maybe God. perhaps we cannot grasp the concept of the maybe God in times of affluence and charm.

the God of faith and UNcertainty- can we deal with a God like this?
all over the world, others do.

it's like we have been using theological hand sanitizer for so long that the smallest doubt bug will wipe us out as an entire people because we have no faculty for dealing with the God who doesn't get right back to us on this one

the God of the wait
the God of the silence
the God of the apparent absense... the maybe God.

maybe God is focusing on global injustice and disparity
maybe God is wanting me to sort this one out myself
maybe God is more like the sovereign king that the weeping lover
maybe God is angry
maybe God is hardline
maybe God punishes
maybe God isn't interested in the win-win
maybe God isn't going to ever give me a sign

not even the slightest movement of the curtain as i throw rocks at the window in the sky (rev david whitticomb, 2001)

what do we do with the maybe God, who can therefore be the undoing of everything we always thought about God?
the things that we found so endearing about God?
the things we've based our entire faith upon?

what if the maybe God is a truer picture of God than the one we've held onto our entire life? what then?

Jesus said

"Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed."

i think that Jesus was talking about the maybe God.

what if my issues with my boss are actually my issues with my God?
is there enough faith left to still hold on? if not, what do i need to do in order to get a better grip on this God-person?

i mean, letting go is not an option- but what if the most important learnings of our lives take place in the time of punishment? what if the most important work we do for God is still before us and is contingent upon our embracing of these new revelations of God- these divine possibilities?

these are the questions that i ask the silence

to be systematic and carve very rigid lines between who God is and who God isn't presumes a lot, i think. there is no awe for me in an understandable diety. this doesn't mean that i like the glib, nonspecific, acknowledgement of a someone or something that is beyond or at best removed and therefore irrelevent- i just find comfort in the knowledge that the more i discover within the character of God as revealed in scripture and demonstrated in people, the more aware i am of how much more there probably is to discover.

geometrically, a ray is a line that extends from a starting point on to forever, whereas a segment is the portion of a line that connects one point to another. i think that it might be more comfortable for many to see theology as a segment and their own personal growth as a ray. for me, however, there is great joy in considering both my personal growth and my theology to find their beginning at a point on a pre-existing line and travelling on that line to eternity at the same speed.

i don't think that the pre-existing line is God or 'the pathway of God' or anything... it's probably just a linear model of time. however, the idea that life and love can move along this together at the same speed appeals to me, in that it is my desire to be somehow growing and deepening in my capacity to love with each passing day.

to increase one's capacity to love and express this love is, in my view, the point of a personal theology.

and this is for the questions that don't have any answers
(kid rock)

prayer and the lying bastard

i was just digging back through some old emails when i stumbled upon this note that someone sent me once:

"Given my neurotic tendencies, my natural proclivity is to think God is upset with me for offering up such prayers."

i wonder if God, in divine grace, could ever actually be upset with us for praying. no matter how egocentric, experiencially narrow and theologically "off" our prayers might be, to what degree does God judge them versus simply considering their source?

i think that the accusor would have us subjected daily to the judgements of a harsh and perfectionistic divine parent, the approval of whom we fail to receive ad infinitum.

if i was a lying bastard, that's who I'D say God is...

100th episode

okay, so here we are with the 100th post on this blog.

amazing.

after all these months, to reopen this all but abandoned webspace. why?

i don't know.

perhaps there are still conversations to be had. more idea-pong to be played.

i thought that i'd start this 100th post where we left off. i was in the middle of writing something and then just abruptly stopped. it was, for some reason, important enough to me to start and yet not important enough to finish. how many things about my life and yours are that way?

well, whatever the case,
welcome back, my friends, to the show that never ends...

***

faith often unwittingly discounts reason as being ungodly and calculating… which essentially imprisons the reasonable, relegating them to mere subjects rather than citizens of the kingdom of God. this exclusionary thinking is responsible for literally chasing people whose hard-wired sacred pathway is their intellect from our fellowship as believers. It’s Spiritual Bullying.

***

that's it. that's as far as i got. but at least we're back at the table.