I think Easter is the time of year I feel most left out as a Christian. It's the holiday, in my opinion, that is the most religious- religious in this sense being the ritualistic part that isn't necessarily written in the Bible.
So everybody's all, "Hey! It's Palm Sunday!" and I smile and nod, which doesn't really matter anyway since the "everybody" is on the internet and can't see me anyway.
What's Palm Sunday?
I assume it's the beginning of the week ending in Good Friday. What it has to do with palm trees or hands is beyond me. All the news says about Palm Sunday is it's some sort of day the Christians are celebrating in spite of scandals and questions about the pope. It even made the cover of the Gazette today, which is really unusual. Not unusual is how the first words of the article are negative or how in spite of the article's seemingly positive title, its content actually ends up having nothing positive to say about Christianity.
So that's what Palm Sunday means here?
What I find strange about all this is that in my experience, being a Christian requires a lot of googling. How come? Why isn't the Bible enough?
Granted, I still haven't finished reading it, but still, I've read the Gospels and don't remember reading about Palm Sunday.
Today, I was wondering about Calvinism and God's role in our faith and in our own life. And as everything comes in waves, a pastor I follow tweeted this article three times, so I figured I may as well look at it. If I understand right, Calvinism leans towards God having complete control over everything, no matter what we do and how we choose to orient our lives. And if that's true, I find it odd that there'd be a resurgence of Calvinism in the south. Or maybe not odd, but too easy. Does God really choose people geographically? And if so, why the Bible belt? Why not New York city, or somewhere with a little more influence rather than a place which, let's face it, is the butt of so many IQ-related jokes. If God was about making Himself known why would He pick the Bible belt? Unless it's like how the women were the first witnesses to Jesus' resurrection when they had no credibility as witnesses at the time?
But if Calvinism is true, why is there so much googling required to be a Christian? Why is it that if you don't grow up in church, if you don't accidentally find yourself born into that community, you have to learn the intricacies and rituals of it anyway?
What would Christianity look like if it was just Biblical and completely independent of prior Christian intellect, ritual and historical direction? Is it possible?
And can a Christian exist without the Bible? Can God not choose somebody who has never had access to a Bible at all? Does a person automatically require the possession of a Bible to be saved?
I guess the reply for that would be that without the Bible, they wouldn't know Jesus exists and if they don't know Jesus exists then they can't believe He is the way and the truth and the life and no one comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6).
But what if it really does come down to your heart being opened by God? What if God knows that you'd believe if you had exposure?
I honestly don't see any of my entourage coming to Christ because of anything I say. I don't think there is anything I can possibly say or do that would get them to understand God and Jesus in a way that drastically affects them. The only way I would ever get through is if God cracked open a window for me. That's the only way. And it's the only way God got me here too- a window opened in my hard, angry heart.
I do need to believe that my God controls everything. I need to believe that He is capable of anything at anytime with anybody. But at the same time, I tend to side with Tim Keller's idea that God is 100% in control and we are 100% free to live our lives as we choose and that the 200% concept is far, far beyond our realm of comprehension.
So what does that mean for Palm Sunday and all the rest of the Easter rituals I have no idea about (still)?
It probably means I don't have to google it all to be saved, but choosing a life without wisdom is kind of counterproductive.
Monday, March 29, 2010
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
Fear of Man...
Tonight was for working on the "fear of man". After a highly volatile day ending in my probably having hung up on my dad, I was riled up and upset, so I threw on the sermon JR Vassar gave at the Village Church coincidentally called, "Freedom From the Fear of Man." And I don't have issues with how people feel about me, nor do I embarrass easily, so I never really thought I had a "fear of man" issue. Until today.
A large part of the reason I am the way I am is because of the path I've taken to get to this point. From the very beginning, I haven't had much say in my own life, and I know that sounds victimy, but it's really true. My dad was a single dad with three kids, me being the youngest, and when my mom left, I was only two and my brothers weren't much older than I was. I'm not sure he had a handle on things and so the way he feigned some sort of control was though controlling us in a variety of ways. And as a result, I haven't really felt in control of my person for most of my life. Today, all that kind of came to a head.
Today, I learned that if I start accepting contractual work, I will lose my unemployment benefits. That can't happen. Therefore, I can't take contractual work. No matter what. The only way I can be a contractor is if it ends up paying more than my EI and is stable, which it won't be and therefore, I won't jeopardize the only thing that is paying my bills right now. But since I can remember, I've felt on my own, even when I was living under my dad's roof. We had a roof and food, but nothing else. And I know that that should be enough, but it isn't. We grew up unprotected, unloved and not particularly cared for. His way of loving us was being career-focused, which caused him to be away so much that when he was home, he had a hard time getting us to conform to his dynamic since we had established our own from being alone so much. It was clashy, and in the end, he reigned with terror and verbal abuse, and we never said a word.
When I wanted to pursue snowboarding professionally, I was put down relentlessly. "You're not strong enough. You'll never be an athlete. Get this crap out of your system. It's such a waste of time." Of course, there was no support otherwise either. He came snowboarding with me once, on a day when the halfpipe wasn't cut and was shaped more like a v than a deep u. "You're not very good. I don't know why you think you can make it. Don't waste your time. You're not good enough."
Luckily for him, I smashed my head in and nearly died, which led to me giving up snowboarding, one of the hardest and most regrettable decisions I've ever made.
Not-so-luckily for me, my accident was more fodder for his belittling encouragement. I know that's an oxymoron, but he still says things like, "You've never failed at anything. Well, except going to the Olympics." Like a spear through my heart.
But I never say anything.
Today, when he was putting me down for worrying about losing my EI, I lost it. I'm all I have. I'm all I have. I don't have a job, and if I lose my EI, I'm done. I don't have a safety net. I don't have a support system. I'm all I have. And here he is, telling me what I should and should not worry about and how the reason I'm in this mess in the first place is because I'm lazy and don't care to get a job. I'm in this situation because I don't listen to his "advice".
"Yes, dad. You're the hero and I'm the loser. I know. You make it clear to me every day."
And I hung up, and that sermon made me realize that my fear of man isn't about acceptance or fear of disappointment- I've been a misfit disappointment my whole life- but it's about not being those things. It's about not lifting other people up by throwing myself under them.
After I hung up, I felt terrible. I always feel terrible when I assert myself. I've been around some very, very cruel people in my day, and I just can't be cruel back. People tell me that assertion is not about being cruel but about protecting yourself, but anybody who has felt that awkward post-assertion humiliation from somebody else "protecting" themselves knows that that's not true. There is an element of hurt involved. Nobody likes to be rebuked, even if it's not personal. And I guess, over the years, I've decided not to sweat the small stuff and rebuke when it's important so I'm not painted as the sort of bitchy type who points out everything. There's my fear of man. I'd rather let people hurt me a thousand times than be the bitch about small things. But you know, I'm surrounded in amazingly hurtful people and I always have been. It's at a point where if I stood up for everything that hurt me, I'd never sit. I never could figure out what it was about me that made me such a target. The punching bag.
If a fearful person walks into a dog park, they get swarmed. Dogs jump on them, dominate them, put muddy footprints on their white velour jumpsuit (true story). And with dogs, I'm not that person. If a dog has the balls to jump on me, they quickly learn they will never get away with that again. But I know that dogs take rebuke humbly. If you rebuke a dog, they'll love you more for it. If you rebuke a human, they'll cut you out, or worse, you'll see them get crushed right in front of you. I hate that.
That's my fear of man.
I'll do anything not to hurt a person. And in the process, they'll crush my spirit a hundred ways and I won't say a word. I'll even stay down just so they can feel like they accomplished something.
A friend asked me last week how I find the abusive guys I end up with and how I don't see it coming and I answered, "I don't find them, I create them." And he laughed and said there's nothing in the world that could make him hit a woman. But I do make them hit me. And before you get all, "It's not your fault," or whatever, I know that. But the way I am in a couple is I raise my man up. I give him confidence over time. I make him believe he is far better a man than he actually is. It's a kind of brainwashing, but in a good way. Except for me. Over time, I become a nobody. I pick men who are indifferent to me in the beginning, and gradually, I make them believe they are better men than they actually are, and eventually, they end up believing they are better than me. And that's when my concerns become irritating and tedious. And my requests for respect are met with indifference. If you take a man who is broken, and you make him into a man who believes he isn't, he will feel a sense of power he never had before, and the fact that he was indifferent to begin with makes you, the one he doesn't respect, an easy target. That was the dynamic of my relationships. None had ever hit a girl before me. I made them believe they were bigger than they actually were, except that while they were crushing me, they were too broken and too hard-hearted to realize that if they lost me, they lost everything.
But I knew.
Which is why I stayed.
I knew if I left, the new image they had of themselves would leave with me. Maybe not right away, but eventually. And that's why I have a perfect score for man returns. They always come back somehow.
So the bottom line of this not-so-Biblical post is my fear of man, to which I've been oblivious all this time, this deep fear of hurting people, led to me be controlled my entire life. And not even just metaphorically either. It got me held hostage. It got me assaulted. It got me hit. And the worst, it got me verbally abused over and over and over.
I don't want to hurt people. I want to be lovable. But I'm not Jesus. I can't die for everybody's sins. I'm not some kind of God. If I get crushed, it doesn't help anybody. If I get crushed, I'm letting a child of God get crushed. God delights in me and I let people use me as a punching bag to protect them from their own brokenness. I don't let anybody treat my dogs the way I let people treat me.
I'm not all I have. I have God. God will provide for me. But I really, really have to stop letting people take everything He gives me away from me.
Jesus forgives us, but in no way, as far as I know, did He ever protect anybody from their sin and brokenness. So why, then, would it be my job?
A large part of the reason I am the way I am is because of the path I've taken to get to this point. From the very beginning, I haven't had much say in my own life, and I know that sounds victimy, but it's really true. My dad was a single dad with three kids, me being the youngest, and when my mom left, I was only two and my brothers weren't much older than I was. I'm not sure he had a handle on things and so the way he feigned some sort of control was though controlling us in a variety of ways. And as a result, I haven't really felt in control of my person for most of my life. Today, all that kind of came to a head.
Today, I learned that if I start accepting contractual work, I will lose my unemployment benefits. That can't happen. Therefore, I can't take contractual work. No matter what. The only way I can be a contractor is if it ends up paying more than my EI and is stable, which it won't be and therefore, I won't jeopardize the only thing that is paying my bills right now. But since I can remember, I've felt on my own, even when I was living under my dad's roof. We had a roof and food, but nothing else. And I know that that should be enough, but it isn't. We grew up unprotected, unloved and not particularly cared for. His way of loving us was being career-focused, which caused him to be away so much that when he was home, he had a hard time getting us to conform to his dynamic since we had established our own from being alone so much. It was clashy, and in the end, he reigned with terror and verbal abuse, and we never said a word.
When I wanted to pursue snowboarding professionally, I was put down relentlessly. "You're not strong enough. You'll never be an athlete. Get this crap out of your system. It's such a waste of time." Of course, there was no support otherwise either. He came snowboarding with me once, on a day when the halfpipe wasn't cut and was shaped more like a v than a deep u. "You're not very good. I don't know why you think you can make it. Don't waste your time. You're not good enough."
Luckily for him, I smashed my head in and nearly died, which led to me giving up snowboarding, one of the hardest and most regrettable decisions I've ever made.
Not-so-luckily for me, my accident was more fodder for his belittling encouragement. I know that's an oxymoron, but he still says things like, "You've never failed at anything. Well, except going to the Olympics." Like a spear through my heart.
But I never say anything.
Today, when he was putting me down for worrying about losing my EI, I lost it. I'm all I have. I'm all I have. I don't have a job, and if I lose my EI, I'm done. I don't have a safety net. I don't have a support system. I'm all I have. And here he is, telling me what I should and should not worry about and how the reason I'm in this mess in the first place is because I'm lazy and don't care to get a job. I'm in this situation because I don't listen to his "advice".
"Yes, dad. You're the hero and I'm the loser. I know. You make it clear to me every day."
And I hung up, and that sermon made me realize that my fear of man isn't about acceptance or fear of disappointment- I've been a misfit disappointment my whole life- but it's about not being those things. It's about not lifting other people up by throwing myself under them.
After I hung up, I felt terrible. I always feel terrible when I assert myself. I've been around some very, very cruel people in my day, and I just can't be cruel back. People tell me that assertion is not about being cruel but about protecting yourself, but anybody who has felt that awkward post-assertion humiliation from somebody else "protecting" themselves knows that that's not true. There is an element of hurt involved. Nobody likes to be rebuked, even if it's not personal. And I guess, over the years, I've decided not to sweat the small stuff and rebuke when it's important so I'm not painted as the sort of bitchy type who points out everything. There's my fear of man. I'd rather let people hurt me a thousand times than be the bitch about small things. But you know, I'm surrounded in amazingly hurtful people and I always have been. It's at a point where if I stood up for everything that hurt me, I'd never sit. I never could figure out what it was about me that made me such a target. The punching bag.
If a fearful person walks into a dog park, they get swarmed. Dogs jump on them, dominate them, put muddy footprints on their white velour jumpsuit (true story). And with dogs, I'm not that person. If a dog has the balls to jump on me, they quickly learn they will never get away with that again. But I know that dogs take rebuke humbly. If you rebuke a dog, they'll love you more for it. If you rebuke a human, they'll cut you out, or worse, you'll see them get crushed right in front of you. I hate that.
That's my fear of man.
I'll do anything not to hurt a person. And in the process, they'll crush my spirit a hundred ways and I won't say a word. I'll even stay down just so they can feel like they accomplished something.
A friend asked me last week how I find the abusive guys I end up with and how I don't see it coming and I answered, "I don't find them, I create them." And he laughed and said there's nothing in the world that could make him hit a woman. But I do make them hit me. And before you get all, "It's not your fault," or whatever, I know that. But the way I am in a couple is I raise my man up. I give him confidence over time. I make him believe he is far better a man than he actually is. It's a kind of brainwashing, but in a good way. Except for me. Over time, I become a nobody. I pick men who are indifferent to me in the beginning, and gradually, I make them believe they are better men than they actually are, and eventually, they end up believing they are better than me. And that's when my concerns become irritating and tedious. And my requests for respect are met with indifference. If you take a man who is broken, and you make him into a man who believes he isn't, he will feel a sense of power he never had before, and the fact that he was indifferent to begin with makes you, the one he doesn't respect, an easy target. That was the dynamic of my relationships. None had ever hit a girl before me. I made them believe they were bigger than they actually were, except that while they were crushing me, they were too broken and too hard-hearted to realize that if they lost me, they lost everything.
But I knew.
Which is why I stayed.
I knew if I left, the new image they had of themselves would leave with me. Maybe not right away, but eventually. And that's why I have a perfect score for man returns. They always come back somehow.
So the bottom line of this not-so-Biblical post is my fear of man, to which I've been oblivious all this time, this deep fear of hurting people, led to me be controlled my entire life. And not even just metaphorically either. It got me held hostage. It got me assaulted. It got me hit. And the worst, it got me verbally abused over and over and over.
I don't want to hurt people. I want to be lovable. But I'm not Jesus. I can't die for everybody's sins. I'm not some kind of God. If I get crushed, it doesn't help anybody. If I get crushed, I'm letting a child of God get crushed. God delights in me and I let people use me as a punching bag to protect them from their own brokenness. I don't let anybody treat my dogs the way I let people treat me.
I'm not all I have. I have God. God will provide for me. But I really, really have to stop letting people take everything He gives me away from me.
Jesus forgives us, but in no way, as far as I know, did He ever protect anybody from their sin and brokenness. So why, then, would it be my job?
Monday, March 15, 2010
A sheep's eye view of the shepherd...
Who does God listen to when a multitude prays for one person or one thing but ask for different things in the process? Everybody? Nobody? One special dude He wants to draw closer?
And on a similar yet unrelated note, it kind of bothers me when the "big" pastors lecture their people about how they're not celebrities. They are celebrities. It sucks, but it's true. They're recognizable, draw crowds and you can't get within arms reach of them. Celebrities.
It bugs me particularly because after podcasting numerous preachers for months, I've become attached to a few of them, and a couple of them have been the best teachers to me, which I think says a lot. They're particular people that my brain meshes with and that doesn't happen often. But being that they're celebrities, odds are, I'd never get to thank them for it or talk to them in person aside from screaming fanatical messages ten people deep in a crowd.
I did get to shake one of my favorite pastors' hand though. He was mostly in a rushed haze, whizzing by between sermons, but still...
And I did get to thank (or at least acknowledge) two of them, my two favorites, on twitter at Christmastime- on Christmas morning, no less. And they replied...
That totally made my day. So much so that I print screened like three screens into paint to make that collage of awesome to remember it. (Sorry, it ended up tiny for some reason when I imported it from the other, other blog.)
So yeah, they are celebrities, especially if we get giddy when they pay attention to us for a half a second. The difference is though, even though they're busy and popular and are under tons of pressure, they do it for us, for our salvation and for God's glory, not their own. Well, the good ones anyway. And I don't doubt that from their end too, they feel deprived of knowing me. :D Hehe, ok, that totally came out far more narcissistic than I anticipated. I meant "me" in more general terms. I mean, for God's glory, sure, it's great to reach a massive flock, but on a personal level, it must suck to end up confined to a tiny group because you end up surrounded by church groupies and strangers who claim to know you. It must suck to not be able to care for everybody and to have to delegate that away, when there are people that you would adore if you had simply had the chance to somehow cut through the crowds and accidentally meet them.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has felt slighted by being passed off to sort of "runners up" assistants and such. I mean, after you get to know them, you learn they do an awesome job and the awesome pastors do pick pretty great people to represent them, but still, the initial reaction is the same and it's terrible and full of [undeserved] resentment. It's like the pastor is untouchable, unreachable and you're not important enough to break through that barrier. You're just another of the thousands. A nobody.
But after a while, after dealing with assistants and associates and lesser known pastors, I've come to rely on them a great deal and now I'm always all giddy when I see their reply in my inbox because I know that even if it's not their voice I've been hearing for the past while, they do work effing hard to help us out and in the end, to help us feel less slighted, which is a pretty awesome feat, especially for an all-or-nothing stubborn girl like me. And in the end, the head pastor is actually caring for us by setting us up with awesome people who are accessible.
I remember my first reply from an associate pastor. (Or, really, whatever they're called. I still don't know the titles. I mean, I know his specific title, but is there a general word for "not head pastor, but next best guy"? I figure it's like university. Anyway.) It was well over a year ago, I think. And what I didn't realize is that there was a pastor at one of the churches I listened to who had the same name as the head teaching pastor but with one letter different, and so when I got the email from him, I was all, "Wow. They could have at least spelled the pastor's name right, no?" and I was all offended at the "fake" message, not realizing it was from an entirely different person, rather than a message from an assistant of some kind pretending to be the head pastor. And as horrible as I was in jumping to conclusions, especially about their honesty (how embarrassingly terrible in hindsight), this pastor with the one letter different would end up being such a sweet and caring person to me and was ultimately the one who'd dunk me in August (*blushes* because I know that might add names to this story for those who were there. I'm horrible. I know.). It really was kind of symbolic that it was him, I think.
They do their best, you know? Well, the good ones anyway. (I always feel the need to add that clause.) And so far, even though I'm at least a thousand miles away from my closest favorite one, I have never been forgotten when I really needed guidance.
Like on Christmas day. You can't tell me pastors aren't ridiculously busy on Christmas day. And here I am, in what somebody on mission here in Montreal called "a spiritual desert" earlier today even, and I just wanted to know I wasn't wrong, you know? I needed a little bit of Jesus before heading out for Christmas dinner with my atheist family. And the funny thing was, when they replied, it wasn't actually about them them paying attention to me. It was Jesus I thanked instead for giving me exactly what I needed that day. It wasn't about the pastors acknowledging me, rather a kind of... accidental pre-game dialog? Like, "Ok, it's Christmas. You guys taught me well. Let's do this day, even if I'm alone here," and they answered, "Let's do it!" You know? Deep down, I needed to know that I wasn't alone in this thing and Jesus took the time to make my teachers take the time to answer that one tweet to reassure me in the most personally blatant way possible (i.e. through caring for me) that particular day, even when I really had no expectations from wishing my favorite pastors a Merry Christmas (mostly because of altruism and a tiny bit associated to their celebrity status). Twitter was dead that morning, and I just wanted to thank them on a kind of day when people forget how hard pastors work and how much they sacrifice while trying to guide us. An important day to remember them, I'd say.
But that's the thing we can't forget though- the good ones, the ones diligently working for the kingdom, aren't working independently. If they're really doing God's work, then God will work through them and through their team. And so the things we adore and risk worshiping in our favorite pastors are probably not in them at all, but come through them instead. They might say things differently or contextualize things in a way that we learn quicker, understand more clearly or relate to more, but in the end, the important words are not their words at all, right?
And even if I feel neglected sometimes, an invisible member of a giant flock, I'm still grateful that there is this handful of amazing teachers who have reached me and taught me and guided me in spite of my location, in spite of their schedule and in spite of myself. I'm grateful for their example, striving to be godly men, living their broken lives as best they can for God's glory, suffering well, and just giving us hope that with Jesus we can get to a place of trust, growth and progressive sanctification.
Thank God for pastors. Well, the good ones anyway...
And on a similar yet unrelated note, it kind of bothers me when the "big" pastors lecture their people about how they're not celebrities. They are celebrities. It sucks, but it's true. They're recognizable, draw crowds and you can't get within arms reach of them. Celebrities.
It bugs me particularly because after podcasting numerous preachers for months, I've become attached to a few of them, and a couple of them have been the best teachers to me, which I think says a lot. They're particular people that my brain meshes with and that doesn't happen often. But being that they're celebrities, odds are, I'd never get to thank them for it or talk to them in person aside from screaming fanatical messages ten people deep in a crowd.
I did get to shake one of my favorite pastors' hand though. He was mostly in a rushed haze, whizzing by between sermons, but still...
And I did get to thank (or at least acknowledge) two of them, my two favorites, on twitter at Christmastime- on Christmas morning, no less. And they replied...
That totally made my day. So much so that I print screened like three screens into paint to make that collage of awesome to remember it. (Sorry, it ended up tiny for some reason when I imported it from the other, other blog.)
So yeah, they are celebrities, especially if we get giddy when they pay attention to us for a half a second. The difference is though, even though they're busy and popular and are under tons of pressure, they do it for us, for our salvation and for God's glory, not their own. Well, the good ones anyway. And I don't doubt that from their end too, they feel deprived of knowing me. :D Hehe, ok, that totally came out far more narcissistic than I anticipated. I meant "me" in more general terms. I mean, for God's glory, sure, it's great to reach a massive flock, but on a personal level, it must suck to end up confined to a tiny group because you end up surrounded by church groupies and strangers who claim to know you. It must suck to not be able to care for everybody and to have to delegate that away, when there are people that you would adore if you had simply had the chance to somehow cut through the crowds and accidentally meet them.
I'm sure I'm not the only one who has felt slighted by being passed off to sort of "runners up" assistants and such. I mean, after you get to know them, you learn they do an awesome job and the awesome pastors do pick pretty great people to represent them, but still, the initial reaction is the same and it's terrible and full of [undeserved] resentment. It's like the pastor is untouchable, unreachable and you're not important enough to break through that barrier. You're just another of the thousands. A nobody.
But after a while, after dealing with assistants and associates and lesser known pastors, I've come to rely on them a great deal and now I'm always all giddy when I see their reply in my inbox because I know that even if it's not their voice I've been hearing for the past while, they do work effing hard to help us out and in the end, to help us feel less slighted, which is a pretty awesome feat, especially for an all-or-nothing stubborn girl like me. And in the end, the head pastor is actually caring for us by setting us up with awesome people who are accessible.
I remember my first reply from an associate pastor. (Or, really, whatever they're called. I still don't know the titles. I mean, I know his specific title, but is there a general word for "not head pastor, but next best guy"? I figure it's like university. Anyway.) It was well over a year ago, I think. And what I didn't realize is that there was a pastor at one of the churches I listened to who had the same name as the head teaching pastor but with one letter different, and so when I got the email from him, I was all, "Wow. They could have at least spelled the pastor's name right, no?" and I was all offended at the "fake" message, not realizing it was from an entirely different person, rather than a message from an assistant of some kind pretending to be the head pastor. And as horrible as I was in jumping to conclusions, especially about their honesty (how embarrassingly terrible in hindsight), this pastor with the one letter different would end up being such a sweet and caring person to me and was ultimately the one who'd dunk me in August (*blushes* because I know that might add names to this story for those who were there. I'm horrible. I know.). It really was kind of symbolic that it was him, I think.
They do their best, you know? Well, the good ones anyway. (I always feel the need to add that clause.) And so far, even though I'm at least a thousand miles away from my closest favorite one, I have never been forgotten when I really needed guidance.
Like on Christmas day. You can't tell me pastors aren't ridiculously busy on Christmas day. And here I am, in what somebody on mission here in Montreal called "a spiritual desert" earlier today even, and I just wanted to know I wasn't wrong, you know? I needed a little bit of Jesus before heading out for Christmas dinner with my atheist family. And the funny thing was, when they replied, it wasn't actually about them them paying attention to me. It was Jesus I thanked instead for giving me exactly what I needed that day. It wasn't about the pastors acknowledging me, rather a kind of... accidental pre-game dialog? Like, "Ok, it's Christmas. You guys taught me well. Let's do this day, even if I'm alone here," and they answered, "Let's do it!" You know? Deep down, I needed to know that I wasn't alone in this thing and Jesus took the time to make my teachers take the time to answer that one tweet to reassure me in the most personally blatant way possible (i.e. through caring for me) that particular day, even when I really had no expectations from wishing my favorite pastors a Merry Christmas (mostly because of altruism and a tiny bit associated to their celebrity status). Twitter was dead that morning, and I just wanted to thank them on a kind of day when people forget how hard pastors work and how much they sacrifice while trying to guide us. An important day to remember them, I'd say.
But that's the thing we can't forget though- the good ones, the ones diligently working for the kingdom, aren't working independently. If they're really doing God's work, then God will work through them and through their team. And so the things we adore and risk worshiping in our favorite pastors are probably not in them at all, but come through them instead. They might say things differently or contextualize things in a way that we learn quicker, understand more clearly or relate to more, but in the end, the important words are not their words at all, right?
And even if I feel neglected sometimes, an invisible member of a giant flock, I'm still grateful that there is this handful of amazing teachers who have reached me and taught me and guided me in spite of my location, in spite of their schedule and in spite of myself. I'm grateful for their example, striving to be godly men, living their broken lives as best they can for God's glory, suffering well, and just giving us hope that with Jesus we can get to a place of trust, growth and progressive sanctification.
Thank God for pastors. Well, the good ones anyway...
Thursday, March 11, 2010
Random ponderings and wonderings...
In the car, I keep a tiny green spiral pad of paper with a pen through the spirally thingies and when things occur to me while I'm driving, I grab it and dangerously jot stuff down. Most of the time, it's of a Jesusy nature, so I kind of feel like He'll watch over me and protect me from my own stupidity as I jot. Lately, I've been accumulating random thoughts, none significant enough for an entire post, so I'll just randomly cram them all into this one.
First, things I don't understand that I could probably look up but if I did, the answers wouldn't stick nearly as effectively as they do when I post them here and the universe (namely Eric) explains them to me. :D
1. Song of songs. Pastors say that so often, and I've checked my Bible and it doesn't seem to be there. Ok, that's a lie. I didn't check my Bible. And considering there are still books in there I have no idea exist, I should do that. Ok, like I thought, it's not there. I assume they're referring to Song of Solomon, but... why? Why change the name to confuse innocent, non-churchy girls who don't know these things? And why song of songs? Is it just an error? Or is this a common term for them?
2. "The Saints." From context, it seems to mean people who pray or are faithful or church workers? Or... um... I don't know. But I've never heard it till recently and now, everybody's saying it. Who are these saints?
3. Exegetical. I know what it means, but I don't get why it's used. The term, I mean. Is it to make non-believers feel that the teacher is smart so they won't discount them right away? Do non-believers know what exegetical means? I didn't, before I heard pastors say it repeatedly. Then again, we all know my vocabulary is at a grade seven level, if that...
Second, things that I'm wondering...
a. I'm still having issues with the "many" thing in Mark ch 14. In a sermon I listened to today, the pastor refers to Ephesians 1 as an example or explanation for how we can't lose our salvation. It's a gift from God and He chooses us for it (or doesn't) and once we have it, we can't lose it.
But He said many. Not all. And in Job 38:4, God says,
"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding."
So yes, we can't lose our salvation once we have it, but does saying, "I accept Jesus as my savior," or whatever the mantra is really do it? Or will we only have a glimpse of understanding the implications when we are at the end of our days and can say without a doubt that we didn't lose God? Or can we just not say a word about our salvation at all?
I know that in my lifetime, I will serve some sort of function in God's plan. That is one thing I am certain of. It might be a good function, a function that shows God's mercy or a function that ultimately shows God's justice or wrath, but I have no choice but to serve some function. That is what I'm here for, whether I believe in God or not. Obviously, I want my function to be positive, but even so, Isaiah says my works are filthy rags, so positive or not, in the grand scheme of things, I'm essentially a nobody, easily crushed by the might of God and only not crushed because He is merciful. Right? So who am I to say whether or not I'm saved?
Life isn't fair. I learned that really early on. So why would I count myself in the "many"? Honestly, I don't. I guess that says something about how much mercy I believe God to have versus how much of a nobody I am. But I don't see it that way. I think so many are too quick to bank on God's mercy and forgiveness, when we don't deserve either. God's might and my lack of ability to understand it versus my nothingness results in me not standing a chance.
Is God merciful? Yes. Is God good and just and loving? Yes. Will He choose me? I hope so, but I won't presume to know that it has already happened. The way things happened for me, the way I came to faith so brutally and against my will, makes me feel like I was chosen, and I love that feeling, but I can't know for sure if one day, I will ask God to give me faith and He won't. I do know for sure that if He doesn't it's for good reason, beyond my comprehension, but it could happen that God turn my heart hard before I'm done. It's also possible that God, knowing my heart more than I do, sees something in it that is already hard and closed off, something I deny.
Only God knows if I am saved or not. I don't understand how people spend their lives comfortable in their salvation.
b. Blasphemy of the Spirit. Pastors seem to feel the need to educate Christians that there is a devil and that there are demons. And in contrast, I've noticed that some Bible belt Christians are really quick to pin stuff on Satan. The minute something gets hard, it's Satan.
Mark Ch 3 says this:
28 "Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin"— 30 for they were saying, "He has an unclean spirit."
And the way that was explained to me was that if we claim what is the Holy Spirit (or God or Jesus, I guess) as being of Satan, we've blasphemed the Holy Spirit. So if the Holy Spirit is responsible for some level of suffering that is meant for our good or to draw us closer to God and we blame it on Satan... then...?
So then does it become necessary to acknowledge Satan and evil, but refrain from assuming that Satan is responsible?
In Job, when Satan acted, he asked God for permission first, did he not? And even if he'd acted without it, God would have known. So however Satan acts, it is never independent of God, as nothing in this world is independent of God, so in a way, God allows it, which means... whatever is meant for evil, God means for good (as in Gen 50:20)... so if we blame Satan in any context for the sufferings in our own life, then have we not blasphemed?
c. Similarly, Luke 8:12 says:
The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.
But God chooses who is saved, no?
d. Retroactive prayer. Yesterday, while I was snowboarding, I praised God for the awesomeness that was snowboarding, snow, sunshine, a soft spring breeze, my lack of fear in attempting to jump in spite of my crash way back when, my lack of fear when the chairlift stopped in spite of the crazy bad experience I had last spring where I thought I would surely die on a chairlift, and while I was at it, I prayed that God would take a little girl whose body was riddled with tumors and end her suffering. And when I got home, He had taken her already, earlier in the day, before I prayed. And I praised God for His mercy and realized right then that I believe in retroactive prayer. If God is without time, and He gives us what we ask for, would He not know what we'll pray for long before we pray it? And that being the case, wouldn't retroactive prayer seem logical?
What if my prayers sometime in the mid-afternoon yesterday were answered by the cessation of her suffering earlier in the day? If God is as merciful as we believe He is would He not end the suffering as soon as possible rather than waiting for a prayer He knows is coming?
It got me thinking. If retroactive prayer works, what would I pray for retroactively?
My deceased grandmother's salvation?
My deceased grandfather's salvation? Yes, definitely that. He was a Pharisee to the utmost degree. Not an ounce of forgiveness. Not an ounce of humility. And not once did he share Jesus with me, but excluded me (and my brothers) from learning about the gospel because of his fierce disdain for me (he tolerated my brothers). He did force us to go to church when we were at his cottage, but it was a hellish experience (and he really only brought us because he didn't trust us to stay at his cottage without him around).
Yes, I'd retroactively pray for him. And being that I was the outlet for my grandfather's wrath, I think, coming from me, the prayers now might have changed something a dozen or so years ago when he died and sat before God awaiting judgment.
"This little girl who never stood a chance against you, whom you called 'Erika' out of disrespect, whom you excluded from everything with a bitterness and coldness, whom you destroyed with your words, will grow up and ask me to forgive you and give you eternal life."
Seriously, he called me Erika. I even have a Christmas ornament with my birth year and Erika engraved on it.
I hated how he was so hard to please that aunts, uncles and cousins of mine ripped themselves to shreds trying to measure up. I hated how he spoke to my grandmother. I hated how he wouldn't even let her learn how to drive. I hated how he treated me, but I never expected more from him. His hatred of me was all I knew of him. It was the foundation he'd built our relationship upon and I couldn't change that. But now, after the fact, I think I can change something.
I don't doubt that my grandfather believed he was saved. I don't think he ever missed a Sunday until he was in the hospital. I think he was far too proud to ever humble himself to the thought that he might not be saved. He might have feared hell, but to deem himself unworthy of heaven? Not sure. Like I said, all I knew of him were the worst parts.
God have mercy on those worst parts.
e. And on mine too...
f. They say if you really love Jesus, you'll be ready to give up anything to be a disciple. Jesus asks the rich guy in Matthew 19 (and Mark 10 and Luke 18) to sell all his stuff and follow Him. He asks people to give up what they seem most unwilling to give up, and I think I would give it all up but at the same time, I wonder what it says about who I think God is that I would not only give it up, but that I somehow expect Him to take everything away from me just to prove it. What I mean is if my dogs, for example, are what would be the most difficult for me to give up, I acknowledge that, but then this dark part of my heart somehow waits for them to go. It's like I expect God to end their lives and ask, "Do you love me now?" I guess I don't understand why I have anything at all. I don't understand why I have a roof over my head, why I have my health most of the time, why I have water and sustenance and the fact that I don't deserve any of it creates in me this sort of sorrowful fear that God might take everything away from me to prove a point somehow. And I'd let Him. But do I really have to be reduced to Job's nothingness? Is that what has to be in the cards? Do I really have to end up with nothing at all?
And I know it comes from a sort of self-loathing humility that was burrowed deeply into me through an endless string of circumstances and events, but even if I rationalize it and try to presume God's mercy and that even if I don't deserve anything, God still wants me happy and whatnot, I know that there is no reason for any of that to be true. I know that there is no reason for assuming that having anything is what is best for me (which is a relationship with Him), and ultimately, that is what God wants, rather than happiness, no?
What prevents me losing everything? God's mercy? But if I don't deserve it and if things of this world are meaningless, why would God's mercy come in the form of sparing my dogs?
I can't justify it.
That's the thing, I think. Pastors, teachers, and even Jesus sometimes, cater to the extremes, the sort of sinning majority. Most people I know have something they would rather die for than give up. But I've lost everything already. So many times. It makes me wonder if what I have to give up is not the good stuff, but the bad stuff.
Like my assumption that the only way to truly love somebody is to give up everything for them.
But how is that wrong?
Beats me. (pun intended)
First, things I don't understand that I could probably look up but if I did, the answers wouldn't stick nearly as effectively as they do when I post them here and the universe (namely Eric) explains them to me. :D
1. Song of songs. Pastors say that so often, and I've checked my Bible and it doesn't seem to be there. Ok, that's a lie. I didn't check my Bible. And considering there are still books in there I have no idea exist, I should do that. Ok, like I thought, it's not there. I assume they're referring to Song of Solomon, but... why? Why change the name to confuse innocent, non-churchy girls who don't know these things? And why song of songs? Is it just an error? Or is this a common term for them?
2. "The Saints." From context, it seems to mean people who pray or are faithful or church workers? Or... um... I don't know. But I've never heard it till recently and now, everybody's saying it. Who are these saints?
3. Exegetical. I know what it means, but I don't get why it's used. The term, I mean. Is it to make non-believers feel that the teacher is smart so they won't discount them right away? Do non-believers know what exegetical means? I didn't, before I heard pastors say it repeatedly. Then again, we all know my vocabulary is at a grade seven level, if that...
Second, things that I'm wondering...
a. I'm still having issues with the "many" thing in Mark ch 14. In a sermon I listened to today, the pastor refers to Ephesians 1 as an example or explanation for how we can't lose our salvation. It's a gift from God and He chooses us for it (or doesn't) and once we have it, we can't lose it.
But He said many. Not all. And in Job 38:4, God says,
"Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding."
So yes, we can't lose our salvation once we have it, but does saying, "I accept Jesus as my savior," or whatever the mantra is really do it? Or will we only have a glimpse of understanding the implications when we are at the end of our days and can say without a doubt that we didn't lose God? Or can we just not say a word about our salvation at all?
I know that in my lifetime, I will serve some sort of function in God's plan. That is one thing I am certain of. It might be a good function, a function that shows God's mercy or a function that ultimately shows God's justice or wrath, but I have no choice but to serve some function. That is what I'm here for, whether I believe in God or not. Obviously, I want my function to be positive, but even so, Isaiah says my works are filthy rags, so positive or not, in the grand scheme of things, I'm essentially a nobody, easily crushed by the might of God and only not crushed because He is merciful. Right? So who am I to say whether or not I'm saved?
Life isn't fair. I learned that really early on. So why would I count myself in the "many"? Honestly, I don't. I guess that says something about how much mercy I believe God to have versus how much of a nobody I am. But I don't see it that way. I think so many are too quick to bank on God's mercy and forgiveness, when we don't deserve either. God's might and my lack of ability to understand it versus my nothingness results in me not standing a chance.
Is God merciful? Yes. Is God good and just and loving? Yes. Will He choose me? I hope so, but I won't presume to know that it has already happened. The way things happened for me, the way I came to faith so brutally and against my will, makes me feel like I was chosen, and I love that feeling, but I can't know for sure if one day, I will ask God to give me faith and He won't. I do know for sure that if He doesn't it's for good reason, beyond my comprehension, but it could happen that God turn my heart hard before I'm done. It's also possible that God, knowing my heart more than I do, sees something in it that is already hard and closed off, something I deny.
Only God knows if I am saved or not. I don't understand how people spend their lives comfortable in their salvation.
b. Blasphemy of the Spirit. Pastors seem to feel the need to educate Christians that there is a devil and that there are demons. And in contrast, I've noticed that some Bible belt Christians are really quick to pin stuff on Satan. The minute something gets hard, it's Satan.
Mark Ch 3 says this:
28 "Truly, I say to you, all sins will be forgiven the children of man, and whatever blasphemies they utter, 29 but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit never has forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin"— 30 for they were saying, "He has an unclean spirit."
And the way that was explained to me was that if we claim what is the Holy Spirit (or God or Jesus, I guess) as being of Satan, we've blasphemed the Holy Spirit. So if the Holy Spirit is responsible for some level of suffering that is meant for our good or to draw us closer to God and we blame it on Satan... then...?
So then does it become necessary to acknowledge Satan and evil, but refrain from assuming that Satan is responsible?
In Job, when Satan acted, he asked God for permission first, did he not? And even if he'd acted without it, God would have known. So however Satan acts, it is never independent of God, as nothing in this world is independent of God, so in a way, God allows it, which means... whatever is meant for evil, God means for good (as in Gen 50:20)... so if we blame Satan in any context for the sufferings in our own life, then have we not blasphemed?
c. Similarly, Luke 8:12 says:
The ones along the path are those who have heard; then the devil comes and takes away the word from their hearts, so that they may not believe and be saved.
But God chooses who is saved, no?
d. Retroactive prayer. Yesterday, while I was snowboarding, I praised God for the awesomeness that was snowboarding, snow, sunshine, a soft spring breeze, my lack of fear in attempting to jump in spite of my crash way back when, my lack of fear when the chairlift stopped in spite of the crazy bad experience I had last spring where I thought I would surely die on a chairlift, and while I was at it, I prayed that God would take a little girl whose body was riddled with tumors and end her suffering. And when I got home, He had taken her already, earlier in the day, before I prayed. And I praised God for His mercy and realized right then that I believe in retroactive prayer. If God is without time, and He gives us what we ask for, would He not know what we'll pray for long before we pray it? And that being the case, wouldn't retroactive prayer seem logical?
What if my prayers sometime in the mid-afternoon yesterday were answered by the cessation of her suffering earlier in the day? If God is as merciful as we believe He is would He not end the suffering as soon as possible rather than waiting for a prayer He knows is coming?
It got me thinking. If retroactive prayer works, what would I pray for retroactively?
My deceased grandmother's salvation?
My deceased grandfather's salvation? Yes, definitely that. He was a Pharisee to the utmost degree. Not an ounce of forgiveness. Not an ounce of humility. And not once did he share Jesus with me, but excluded me (and my brothers) from learning about the gospel because of his fierce disdain for me (he tolerated my brothers). He did force us to go to church when we were at his cottage, but it was a hellish experience (and he really only brought us because he didn't trust us to stay at his cottage without him around).
Yes, I'd retroactively pray for him. And being that I was the outlet for my grandfather's wrath, I think, coming from me, the prayers now might have changed something a dozen or so years ago when he died and sat before God awaiting judgment.
"This little girl who never stood a chance against you, whom you called 'Erika' out of disrespect, whom you excluded from everything with a bitterness and coldness, whom you destroyed with your words, will grow up and ask me to forgive you and give you eternal life."
Seriously, he called me Erika. I even have a Christmas ornament with my birth year and Erika engraved on it.
I hated how he was so hard to please that aunts, uncles and cousins of mine ripped themselves to shreds trying to measure up. I hated how he spoke to my grandmother. I hated how he wouldn't even let her learn how to drive. I hated how he treated me, but I never expected more from him. His hatred of me was all I knew of him. It was the foundation he'd built our relationship upon and I couldn't change that. But now, after the fact, I think I can change something.
I don't doubt that my grandfather believed he was saved. I don't think he ever missed a Sunday until he was in the hospital. I think he was far too proud to ever humble himself to the thought that he might not be saved. He might have feared hell, but to deem himself unworthy of heaven? Not sure. Like I said, all I knew of him were the worst parts.
God have mercy on those worst parts.
e. And on mine too...
f. They say if you really love Jesus, you'll be ready to give up anything to be a disciple. Jesus asks the rich guy in Matthew 19 (and Mark 10 and Luke 18) to sell all his stuff and follow Him. He asks people to give up what they seem most unwilling to give up, and I think I would give it all up but at the same time, I wonder what it says about who I think God is that I would not only give it up, but that I somehow expect Him to take everything away from me just to prove it. What I mean is if my dogs, for example, are what would be the most difficult for me to give up, I acknowledge that, but then this dark part of my heart somehow waits for them to go. It's like I expect God to end their lives and ask, "Do you love me now?" I guess I don't understand why I have anything at all. I don't understand why I have a roof over my head, why I have my health most of the time, why I have water and sustenance and the fact that I don't deserve any of it creates in me this sort of sorrowful fear that God might take everything away from me to prove a point somehow. And I'd let Him. But do I really have to be reduced to Job's nothingness? Is that what has to be in the cards? Do I really have to end up with nothing at all?
And I know it comes from a sort of self-loathing humility that was burrowed deeply into me through an endless string of circumstances and events, but even if I rationalize it and try to presume God's mercy and that even if I don't deserve anything, God still wants me happy and whatnot, I know that there is no reason for any of that to be true. I know that there is no reason for assuming that having anything is what is best for me (which is a relationship with Him), and ultimately, that is what God wants, rather than happiness, no?
What prevents me losing everything? God's mercy? But if I don't deserve it and if things of this world are meaningless, why would God's mercy come in the form of sparing my dogs?
I can't justify it.
That's the thing, I think. Pastors, teachers, and even Jesus sometimes, cater to the extremes, the sort of sinning majority. Most people I know have something they would rather die for than give up. But I've lost everything already. So many times. It makes me wonder if what I have to give up is not the good stuff, but the bad stuff.
Like my assumption that the only way to truly love somebody is to give up everything for them.
But how is that wrong?
Beats me. (pun intended)
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
On sex and dating...
I stumbled upon a ridiculously good-looking man named Christian, and as Jesus and I discussed life over a cup of tea, I joked about how it'd be a good way to get around the whole "marry a Christian" thing. He thought it was funny, of course, because He knows my intentions. Obviously. Especially since this Christian was already well-taken and we both knew it.
I've been wondering about the dating thing lately, mainly because I'm not allowed to introduce new characters in my life at this current juncture, thereby making it the perfect time to sort some junk out.
I've never dated as a Christian before. As I was describing how I pictured the evening progressing to one of my few Christian friends, it went something like this:
I picture sitting there silently sipping [soy]milk with a straw until it makes those empty bubble noises.
And then I'll say, "So..um..."
And the guy will say, "Yeah."
And we'll nod.
And the silence will be deafening.
Until somebody drops a plate and then we'll laugh at the clapping.
And then the silence will return.
And then he'll say something like, "So, I have to work early in the morning so we should..."
And I'll agree.
And then he'll hug me in a stiff awkward hug and that'll be that.
That to me is what a good Christian date for a good Christian girl looks like. And I don't like it. *crinkles nose and shakes head*
So I asked around. "What does a Christian date look like?" and the majority of the answers I got were of the "I don't know" variety. Do people never wonder? Or do they just play it by ear?
I would imagine that Christians playing things by ear without thinking things through is not the wisest idea. I think that's what they "lovingly" call "hedonism".
Frankly, I've never been on a date before. At least, not to my recollection. Well, at least, not the tv type of date with the dinner, the idle chat, the movie and the awkward quasi-platonic journey home. My Christian friend says it's because I've only ever been with douchebags. *nods in agreement*
But to be honest, when he said that, I wondered what excluded me from being the douchebag. Sex is my thing. And by "my thing" I mean it's the thing that I have the most trouble with since this whole Christianity thing hit. Well, aside from the church thing and the whole trying not to get self-righteous around other self-righteous Christians simply because I feel I understand what "grace" means thing...
Let's get the obvious out of the way, and by obvious, I mean the things that Christians, and in particular, pastors, seem to be most worried about, only I'll throw a star in it so people don't find my blog searching for po*n. There. I said it. Mumbly, with a star. I think that may be the only thing in the world that is taboo to me. Why? Because I hate it. Passionately. I think it's voluntary rape, if that makes any sense. They consent to it, but in my opinion, they don't consent to what they are actually doing. But nobody looks at the eyes, right? Don't want to kill the mood or whatever. I just don't think that people choose to participate in that kind of thing when they have a full deck of cards to play with and I, for one, think it's horrible that they, and especially women, subject themselves to that kind of demeaning, terribleness because they somehow end up in a place where it seems like a viable option. I absolutely despise it.
And just in case somebody thinks I'm vehemently against it because I have some sort of secret issue with it, I'll explain. I have this thing where if you give me a picture of somebody that you believe shows their true self, I'll be able to tell you what their core person is like. I will be able to tell you their motivations. Their insecurities. Their deep-rooted hurt and pain. And so, in consequence, there is no way I can look at that kind of thing, and particularly the women, without seeing all that and at that point, it really becomes watching abuse or even rape on a screen and that bothers me deeply.
So, no, that is not at all the trouble I have blending sex and Christianity. *shudders*
Anyway, so in the bookstore a couple of weeks ago, I ran across a book that said that the emphasis on virginity was to blame for all of the major issues women face today. And at first, I was shocked that somebody would write a book saying virginity is a bad thing and right away assumed that the author was a (former?) skank who wanted to justify her promiscuity somehow, so she wrote a book. And I was partly right. Well, mostly right. But she did have one point that I wish she'd have elaborated most on- we do put way, way too much emphasis on a woman's sexuality. Whether it be through promoting promiscuity and sexual "freedom" or by pushing purity and telling women to cover themselves up, the message is the same: women are all about sex. And that, to me, is a major hurdle that women face. And me, in particular.
1 Peter 3:3 says this:
Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— 4 but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.
Back in the day, and still in some societies today, the parents picked the spouses or it was arranged based on status or place in society. Now, we choose our mates based on attributes we value, even if those attributes are not what aids in creating an enduring bond and relationship. Add to that the baggage we carry that clouds our perception and the sway it creates towards certain qualities based on past experiences and we could be setting ourselves up for disaster.
Seeing as I'm fairly experimental and ridiculously flexible, I decided that my poor track record of men and the patterns I can't seem to break out of make me unfit to choose my own mate and as such, four of my closest friends, along with my brother and his girlfriend (who is also one of my closest friends) have now acquired veto power over anybody I choose. They are allowed to interrogate any guy of interest if they need to and I am to present the entire story, not a glorified, altered version to make him look good (which is how I managed to stay in abusive relationships in the past), and they will assess his suitability and exert their veto power in consequence.
So far, they've vetoed one guy already. I'll explain.
I'm a wordy kind of girl. I am a challenge. I like a challenge. I need a challenge. And I found myself challenging a guy I had found in blogland. At first, the conversation was simple and trivial, but then something he said about how we should be free to explore love with multiple partners sparked my debatey bits and I got a little confrontational, defending his daughter's right to have a dad who shows her what a good [godly] man should be. What kind of example of a man was he setting for her? What kind of man was she going to end up if this was her example? He brushed me off, and when I happened to be in his town late last summer, I messaged him to ask if he wanted to meet me in person. He said he was busy. And that was that.
Fast forward a few months, and I got a message from him asking me when I was going down there again because he'd like to meet me. Or maybe, he said, he'd even drive all the way up here. Really? Why the sudden change of heart?
After a few back-and-forths, it came out that he had recently learned that I was pretty. How did he put it? Something like, "I was looking through your pictures [on facebook] and you're really beautiful. I was like... hello!" And so, like any good girl without normal compliment processing abilities nor adequate man selection skills, I copied and pasted the message into a chat window of one of my vetoers. "That's kind of a douchey thing to say after all this time," she said. I resisted. I pinged another friend with veto power and did the same. "Wow. That's douchey. Veto." After the fourth veto, I finally got the hint that no arguments in the world about how awesome his arms are (they're dreamy) were going to get them to change their mind.
"The tribe has spoken," and his flame got put out.
It's hard. Part of me wants to grab that flame and run. :D
Logically, I know. I know that nothing productive or constructive will come out of a relationship in which my mind doesn't matter at all. Nor will a healthy relationship stem out of such disrespect and disregard for my person. And I haven't even touched the "is he a Christian?" question yet.
I do want somebody to see me as a soul, rather than as an object.
But like I said a thousand words ago at the top of this post, sex is an issue for me. Sex gives me confidence. Nobody raises a woman up like the man who wants to sleep with her, even if it is all temporary, manipulative and fake.
What my vetoers heard from his message was, "You were an absolute nobody until I saw what you looked like," and what I heard was, "You're beautiful." I hate being an object, yet it is the easiest (temporary) confidence-booster there is. I let myself endure disrespect and abuse because I don't expect more for myself, I don't expect men to see me as a soul. Hence, the need for people to step in and veto my poor choices.
I used to be the girl who loved sex. You know the one I'm talking about? The one who says she doesn't attach love to sex. They're two separate things. And I used to really believe that. You really can have sex without the love, but it's such a low standard both for a person and for sex itself. The best part about one night stand sex is the randomness of it. The sex itself is rarely good because neither of the parties knows the other person well enough. There's no intimacy. There's the bare minimum of trust necessary to get over the fear of something terrible occurring. It's sex without all the best parts. But I used to love it anyway.
And then I fell in love. And sure, people will say, "Of course sex is different with somebody you love," but that's not my point. My point is that I was in love and I had the sex that in love people have and the relationship went on for a year and a halfish, with discussions of marriage and future things and then he (a self-described devout, church-going Christian, no less) called me in the middle of the night one random night and confessed that he wasn't at all the person he claimed to be, that it was all just a game and I was just a toy all along. I was a vacation. A fun ride. That, I think, was the moment in my life when love and sex finally cemented together. Had I known, and had I agreed to that kind of relationship, I would have been ok with it. But all of a sudden, I was in a place where I was told from the very beginning by the man himself that I should expect more (a lie) and so I did and got absolutely destroyed. It was like a rape of the soul. And in the end, it's the same thing, whether I had known or not, right? Either way, it's just sex. But I got to see first hand how powerful it can be when it's in the wrong hands. I got to feel what happens to the soul when we don't take sex seriously and are made blatantly and crushingly aware of the consequences.
So yes, you can have sex and it can be a short-lived physical act that you can trick yourself into believing has no consequence on the soul, or you can expect more for yourself and seek out what God intends for sex- a joining of the souls that brings people closer to knowing God.
And I want that. I want my soul to experience that. But I know my patterns. I know myself. And the only way I'll ever get there is if I trust God and trust the people who love me to show me where my standards need to be to get there.
So what does a Christian date look like? I don't know either. And frankly, I'm not going to find out anytime soon both because of the inevitable constant vetoes and because after a string of terribly abusive situations, I need time alone to rebuild my life and my person such that I won't let it happen again. And if the posse vetoes a guy in a matter of seconds, it's safe to assume I'm not there yet. But that's ok because I'm free to grow and learn and lean into God to help me be a stronger, healthier person and in consequence, one who makes better, more godly decisions.
I'm free.
I've been wondering about the dating thing lately, mainly because I'm not allowed to introduce new characters in my life at this current juncture, thereby making it the perfect time to sort some junk out.
I've never dated as a Christian before. As I was describing how I pictured the evening progressing to one of my few Christian friends, it went something like this:
I picture sitting there silently sipping [soy]milk with a straw until it makes those empty bubble noises.
And then I'll say, "So..um..."
And the guy will say, "Yeah."
And we'll nod.
And the silence will be deafening.
Until somebody drops a plate and then we'll laugh at the clapping.
And then the silence will return.
And then he'll say something like, "So, I have to work early in the morning so we should..."
And I'll agree.
And then he'll hug me in a stiff awkward hug and that'll be that.
That to me is what a good Christian date for a good Christian girl looks like. And I don't like it. *crinkles nose and shakes head*
So I asked around. "What does a Christian date look like?" and the majority of the answers I got were of the "I don't know" variety. Do people never wonder? Or do they just play it by ear?
I would imagine that Christians playing things by ear without thinking things through is not the wisest idea. I think that's what they "lovingly" call "hedonism".
Frankly, I've never been on a date before. At least, not to my recollection. Well, at least, not the tv type of date with the dinner, the idle chat, the movie and the awkward quasi-platonic journey home. My Christian friend says it's because I've only ever been with douchebags. *nods in agreement*
But to be honest, when he said that, I wondered what excluded me from being the douchebag. Sex is my thing. And by "my thing" I mean it's the thing that I have the most trouble with since this whole Christianity thing hit. Well, aside from the church thing and the whole trying not to get self-righteous around other self-righteous Christians simply because I feel I understand what "grace" means thing...
Let's get the obvious out of the way, and by obvious, I mean the things that Christians, and in particular, pastors, seem to be most worried about, only I'll throw a star in it so people don't find my blog searching for po*n. There. I said it. Mumbly, with a star. I think that may be the only thing in the world that is taboo to me. Why? Because I hate it. Passionately. I think it's voluntary rape, if that makes any sense. They consent to it, but in my opinion, they don't consent to what they are actually doing. But nobody looks at the eyes, right? Don't want to kill the mood or whatever. I just don't think that people choose to participate in that kind of thing when they have a full deck of cards to play with and I, for one, think it's horrible that they, and especially women, subject themselves to that kind of demeaning, terribleness because they somehow end up in a place where it seems like a viable option. I absolutely despise it.
And just in case somebody thinks I'm vehemently against it because I have some sort of secret issue with it, I'll explain. I have this thing where if you give me a picture of somebody that you believe shows their true self, I'll be able to tell you what their core person is like. I will be able to tell you their motivations. Their insecurities. Their deep-rooted hurt and pain. And so, in consequence, there is no way I can look at that kind of thing, and particularly the women, without seeing all that and at that point, it really becomes watching abuse or even rape on a screen and that bothers me deeply.
So, no, that is not at all the trouble I have blending sex and Christianity. *shudders*
Anyway, so in the bookstore a couple of weeks ago, I ran across a book that said that the emphasis on virginity was to blame for all of the major issues women face today. And at first, I was shocked that somebody would write a book saying virginity is a bad thing and right away assumed that the author was a (former?) skank who wanted to justify her promiscuity somehow, so she wrote a book. And I was partly right. Well, mostly right. But she did have one point that I wish she'd have elaborated most on- we do put way, way too much emphasis on a woman's sexuality. Whether it be through promoting promiscuity and sexual "freedom" or by pushing purity and telling women to cover themselves up, the message is the same: women are all about sex. And that, to me, is a major hurdle that women face. And me, in particular.
1 Peter 3:3 says this:
Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— 4 but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious.
Back in the day, and still in some societies today, the parents picked the spouses or it was arranged based on status or place in society. Now, we choose our mates based on attributes we value, even if those attributes are not what aids in creating an enduring bond and relationship. Add to that the baggage we carry that clouds our perception and the sway it creates towards certain qualities based on past experiences and we could be setting ourselves up for disaster.
Seeing as I'm fairly experimental and ridiculously flexible, I decided that my poor track record of men and the patterns I can't seem to break out of make me unfit to choose my own mate and as such, four of my closest friends, along with my brother and his girlfriend (who is also one of my closest friends) have now acquired veto power over anybody I choose. They are allowed to interrogate any guy of interest if they need to and I am to present the entire story, not a glorified, altered version to make him look good (which is how I managed to stay in abusive relationships in the past), and they will assess his suitability and exert their veto power in consequence.
So far, they've vetoed one guy already. I'll explain.
I'm a wordy kind of girl. I am a challenge. I like a challenge. I need a challenge. And I found myself challenging a guy I had found in blogland. At first, the conversation was simple and trivial, but then something he said about how we should be free to explore love with multiple partners sparked my debatey bits and I got a little confrontational, defending his daughter's right to have a dad who shows her what a good [godly] man should be. What kind of example of a man was he setting for her? What kind of man was she going to end up if this was her example? He brushed me off, and when I happened to be in his town late last summer, I messaged him to ask if he wanted to meet me in person. He said he was busy. And that was that.
Fast forward a few months, and I got a message from him asking me when I was going down there again because he'd like to meet me. Or maybe, he said, he'd even drive all the way up here. Really? Why the sudden change of heart?
After a few back-and-forths, it came out that he had recently learned that I was pretty. How did he put it? Something like, "I was looking through your pictures [on facebook] and you're really beautiful. I was like... hello!" And so, like any good girl without normal compliment processing abilities nor adequate man selection skills, I copied and pasted the message into a chat window of one of my vetoers. "That's kind of a douchey thing to say after all this time," she said. I resisted. I pinged another friend with veto power and did the same. "Wow. That's douchey. Veto." After the fourth veto, I finally got the hint that no arguments in the world about how awesome his arms are (they're dreamy) were going to get them to change their mind.
"The tribe has spoken," and his flame got put out.
It's hard. Part of me wants to grab that flame and run. :D
Logically, I know. I know that nothing productive or constructive will come out of a relationship in which my mind doesn't matter at all. Nor will a healthy relationship stem out of such disrespect and disregard for my person. And I haven't even touched the "is he a Christian?" question yet.
I do want somebody to see me as a soul, rather than as an object.
But like I said a thousand words ago at the top of this post, sex is an issue for me. Sex gives me confidence. Nobody raises a woman up like the man who wants to sleep with her, even if it is all temporary, manipulative and fake.
What my vetoers heard from his message was, "You were an absolute nobody until I saw what you looked like," and what I heard was, "You're beautiful." I hate being an object, yet it is the easiest (temporary) confidence-booster there is. I let myself endure disrespect and abuse because I don't expect more for myself, I don't expect men to see me as a soul. Hence, the need for people to step in and veto my poor choices.
I used to be the girl who loved sex. You know the one I'm talking about? The one who says she doesn't attach love to sex. They're two separate things. And I used to really believe that. You really can have sex without the love, but it's such a low standard both for a person and for sex itself. The best part about one night stand sex is the randomness of it. The sex itself is rarely good because neither of the parties knows the other person well enough. There's no intimacy. There's the bare minimum of trust necessary to get over the fear of something terrible occurring. It's sex without all the best parts. But I used to love it anyway.
And then I fell in love. And sure, people will say, "Of course sex is different with somebody you love," but that's not my point. My point is that I was in love and I had the sex that in love people have and the relationship went on for a year and a halfish, with discussions of marriage and future things and then he (a self-described devout, church-going Christian, no less) called me in the middle of the night one random night and confessed that he wasn't at all the person he claimed to be, that it was all just a game and I was just a toy all along. I was a vacation. A fun ride. That, I think, was the moment in my life when love and sex finally cemented together. Had I known, and had I agreed to that kind of relationship, I would have been ok with it. But all of a sudden, I was in a place where I was told from the very beginning by the man himself that I should expect more (a lie) and so I did and got absolutely destroyed. It was like a rape of the soul. And in the end, it's the same thing, whether I had known or not, right? Either way, it's just sex. But I got to see first hand how powerful it can be when it's in the wrong hands. I got to feel what happens to the soul when we don't take sex seriously and are made blatantly and crushingly aware of the consequences.
So yes, you can have sex and it can be a short-lived physical act that you can trick yourself into believing has no consequence on the soul, or you can expect more for yourself and seek out what God intends for sex- a joining of the souls that brings people closer to knowing God.
And I want that. I want my soul to experience that. But I know my patterns. I know myself. And the only way I'll ever get there is if I trust God and trust the people who love me to show me where my standards need to be to get there.
So what does a Christian date look like? I don't know either. And frankly, I'm not going to find out anytime soon both because of the inevitable constant vetoes and because after a string of terribly abusive situations, I need time alone to rebuild my life and my person such that I won't let it happen again. And if the posse vetoes a guy in a matter of seconds, it's safe to assume I'm not there yet. But that's ok because I'm free to grow and learn and lean into God to help me be a stronger, healthier person and in consequence, one who makes better, more godly decisions.
I'm free.
Tuesday, March 2, 2010
On atheism, believing and intelligence...
There are the so-called secular cities, like Seattle where Driscoll preaches or more evidently, Manhattan where Tim Keller preaches. And then there are the cities like Dallas, as described by Matt Chandler, where people think they know Christianity when they really don't. They're the dechurched or the hyper-religious. And then you have Quebec.
Quebec, I think, is a little different. It's not secular and it's not dechurched Christians. It's some sort of angry hybrid of the two. People here don't just think church is old-fashioned and behind the times. People here actually hate it and everything it represents. Whether it's because of all of the sexual abuse at the hands of priests and preachers that makes headlines, or it's because each successive generation was taught less about the gospel and more about religion all while getting more and more educated (and hardened) - either way, it doesn't bode well for Christianity in Quebec.
Some dude, self-described as "a married atheist libertarian with a strong distaste for liberals" (from this article), from London School of Economics and Political Science published a study in which he determined that in accordance with evolutionary expectations, "people with high IQs are deemed more likely to be liberal, monogamous non-believers than those who are less intelligent."
He seems to be arguing that being liberal, monogamous and a non-believer is more evolutionarily forward because:
a) Being liberal implies you help provide resources to those in need, to no benefit of your own;
b) monogamous people have evolved further than the hunter-gatherer-polyamorous genre;
and
c) those hunter-gatherers were also more likely to try to find meaning or spirituality in their surroundings in an effort to understand or explain the goings on in nature.
Of course, those points are me paraphrasing so again, here's the link to the article I read.
Ok.
So they think some conservative, religious.. uh.. polygamists? will be offended by these findings.
First, just because a study says believers are dumber doesn't mean we all suddenly caught a case of the dumb just because "science" says so. ("Science" being in quotes because I haven't read the original article and if it's just one dude's opinion, that's not exactly science.)
I don't remember ever taking an official IQ test in my youth, but every time I do one for fun, I score somewhere between 135 and 145 (although I always feel they inflate the numbers to make people feel good about themselves). Frankly, I think those numbers (even when accurate) are absolutely meaningless, but that's my personal opinion. You know why I feel that way? Because who writes those tests? Is that person, like, a 200 scorer? Are they the ultimate genius in the universe? How can somebody with, say, an average IQ write a test that will stump somebody smarter than them? Unless God writes the test Himself, I'm not sure that it means anything except that the taker of the test thinks in a similar way to the writer(s) of the test.
Just to cement my point, if I know you well enough and you write me a multiple choice exam on any subject, even a subject I know nothing about, I could probably ace that test. Not because I know what the hell the answers are, but because I know you and how your mind works and what tactics you would likely use to throw me off. Honestly, it's how I passed some of my physics classes. And if you really wanted to make it easy on me, all you have to do is read me the questions. I will fairly confidently pick out the right answer just by the subtle changes in your voice. It has nothing to do with intelligence, rather a disproportionate level of manipulative skill that comes from being messed with enough over the course of my short lifetime to always judge situations and read people in order to protect myself. It's not about knowing the answers but knowing what they are looking for, and that is driven by the fundamental motivations of their person, which is exactly what the least trusting of us is consistently aware of.
But I digress.
George Stroumboulopoulos, aka "Canada's boyfriend", the host of The Hour on CBC was the one who highlighted this study and poked my debatey bits about it. Right away, I knew the answer. But first, at the end of his show, he ran the usual mock headline, and today's was: "God on smart atheists: I made them that way". (Which, by the way, had an extra dimension of funny to it seeing as Strombo's show, I would have thought, is really left, liberal and far from religious supporting, although his mom is very religious and he did have Billy Graham's daughter on tonight...)
The answer as to why atheists are statistically smarter is because it is exactly that that drives them away from God. If we look at the story of Adam and Eve in the garden, the most important part (to me anyway) is that Adam and Eve chose independence over God (and consequently, messed up the world because no matter how good we think we are, we're all broken and irreparable without God's mercy). So here's the cycle:
Man doesn't understand something as pertains to his soul and/or the universe -> there must be a God who created all this -> something bad happens, some sort of suffering occurs, something just doesn't make sense at all, we are faced with a choice in which leaving God seems favorable -> there is no God, God was just an illusion created as a buffer for our fears, God isn't important.
At this point, there can be two directions:
1) If God chooses this person to have faith (as Ephesians 2:8 says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God..."), and the person decides to either pray for his faith to be restored and begin the seeking process or God simply restores it somehow;
or
2) If this person is either not chosen to have faith or not chosen yet or has an alternate path to God's glory (I won't presume to know how God chooses or works), then they tend to set out to prove that there is no God, or no need for God, through scientific reasoning.
Of course, they never successfully prove that there is no God, rather prove the aspects of creation that we don't understand fully, and that understanding or awareness is what inevitably comes with intelligence, and especially with a healthy curiosity.
I don't doubt that if you are a person of faith, the more curious you are, the more intelligent you are and the more open you are, the more likely you will encounter periods in your life where you absolutely lack faith, where you wonder if there is a God or if you just believe to appease some sort of inner fear or temporary need. But the line between a smart atheist and a smart Christian is drawn at independence and pride.
When I first realized I fell for Jesus, I could have shut that down. I could have repressed it, thrown it into some far off dark corner of my brain and chalked it up to being accidentally manipulated or momentarily brainwashed. I could have taken my life back and not upset nearly everybody I knew. I would have been the life of the party had I decided to present facts debunking the Bible, God and Jesus to my atheist and agnostic posse who knew very little about Christianity but presumed to know it all anyway. It would have been easy to fall back into the old habits that have been burned into me my entire life.
But what if it's true? What if? What if the indescribable feeling of contentment when my soul feels connected to God is actually because it's connected to God? What if God chose me? What if?
And what if Jesus was real? And what about all the atheists who decide to research Him to prove He's a fake and end up screwed like me and have to shamefully switch teams?
What kind of intelligent scientist am I if I say something I have never researched is not true or deny the information that is readily available and say it's impossible to know whether it's true or not? It's kind of like the "scientists" who say there is no problem with corn syrup or trans fats. They just haven't done their homework. They haven't approached the subject with an unbiased, real determination to get at the truth, even if it's unfavorable to their profits, their social status or their own beliefs.
In theory, it is impossible to prove there is no God. No matter how far you go back in the Earth's history, and how much you explain, there will always be another question. How many questions do intelligent atheists have to ask before they're satisfied that there is no satisfaction in their answers?
Intelligence is an idol. It's something that gives us value. And I know that when I thought I was better than the believers, my intelligence gave me pride. I know that I felt I had more value because I was able to think for myself and think logically and strive for awareness rather than shielding myself under a shroud of religion.
But I'm still me. I'm still the girl who questions absolutely everything, and I still live in this place where Christians are morons who just don't know better (yet), and I still have faith. And life was easier without it- just like how the gay people I know say, "Do you really think we'd choose a life with more obstacles and challenges?" would I really choose Christianity? Was it my choice? If the God I believe in, the God of the Bible, is real, then I didn't choose it at all. And frankly, I believe I didn't choose it. I know the disdain I had for religion. I know the hate I felt. I know how deep-seeded my cringe mechanisms were and still are in the face of Christianity, or any other faith really.
When somebody with no missional experience and no concept of altering the message appropriately for the audience blurts out something about Jesus in a room full of bitter, intelligent atheists, I cringe. Visibly. It almost hurts. :D It's an innate reaction at this point. And I tend to be the witty one in the room, so you can imagine the product of my (former?) disdain mixing with my wit in the face of blatant Bible-thumping.
No, I didn't choose Christianity. I did try to choose to be gay for a while after the endless string of abusive men, but that wasn't mine to choose either. *shrugs*
My point being I'm a smart girl (I think) and as a result of my intelligence and curiosity, I worked hard at learning about Christianity and no matter how scientific the approach was, God is about the heart and that's where He got in.
A lot of people who don't believe say they've already read the Bible, several times even. Most had to read it in school or something. But it's not just a book, you know? You can't just read it. You have to pray on it, feel it, open yourself up to the idea that maybe the words are alive, that maybe it's an entire spiritual experience rather than just words on the page. Because without that openness, it is just a book, and you'll be able to read it over and over and over again and never see the point.
Keeping faith in a place where faith is frowned upon is difficult, and sometimes, I lose it. Sometimes, it occurs to me that I don't feel God, that whatever it was I might have felt before was just a craving to be loved or a deep loneliness or a denial of some sort or maybe indigestion (hehe). Sometimes, usually when I'm driving, I get this, "Crap, what if I have to tell all the atheists they were right and this was just a phase?" idea wave through my brain, and really, I'm not the type of person to shy away from that kind of admission. If it happens, I'm ready to come out with it. They're likely going to throw a party or something. Maybe dunk me in mud to get the baptism cooties off me. :D But then I remember what got me into this mess in the first place- I asked. With an open heart and an open mind, I asked God to get in. And He did. And so that's how I keep my faith here: I ask.
A lot of it is dealing with the Holy Spirit too, even if I have no idea what that's all about yet.
John 14:26 says this:
But the a Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
I'm still not clear on the whole Holy Spirit thing, but I know that there are times when things just sort of stand out and if I follow those things that stand out, I find God again. For example, the other day, I was reading Counterfeit Gods, and it occurred to me strongly that haven't read my Bible in ages. I signed up for the "Bible in a year" thing, but my reading is weak and slow (I never read jack when I was a kid), and now, *checks email inbox*, being the first of March, I am already at least 49 days behind. I say "at least" because I know I clicked some accidentally and marked them "read" when they so weren't. Has there even been forty-nine days in 2010? Seriously. :D Anyway, so I'm reading the book and this, from page 17, stands out:
And so I did. Just in case.
The good thing about being a newbie who reads excessively slowly is that most of the Scriptures are new to me. It wasn't as though I read the Romans 8 reference and was all, "Oh, yes. Romans 8. Classic." No, I turned to Romans 8 without a clue as to what it was. Honestly, even though I've read Matthew and John a bunch of times, if you whipped out a chapter number, it's likely it'd all be new to me anyway.
So this is what I found in Romans 8 on a night I was questioning my faith and asked:
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
[...]
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Of course, being that I'm a smart girl, my second reaction is that it's just a fierce coincidence, a lucky draw. My first reaction, the one I quickly brush away just instinctively, is that God answered. And the difference between being an atheist/agnostic and a person of faith is after my second reaction, I go back to the first and let it make me smile.
And then I do that kiss two fingers, touch my heart, hold 'em up to the sky thing and laugh at myself. :D
Quebec, I think, is a little different. It's not secular and it's not dechurched Christians. It's some sort of angry hybrid of the two. People here don't just think church is old-fashioned and behind the times. People here actually hate it and everything it represents. Whether it's because of all of the sexual abuse at the hands of priests and preachers that makes headlines, or it's because each successive generation was taught less about the gospel and more about religion all while getting more and more educated (and hardened) - either way, it doesn't bode well for Christianity in Quebec.
Some dude, self-described as "a married atheist libertarian with a strong distaste for liberals" (from this article), from London School of Economics and Political Science published a study in which he determined that in accordance with evolutionary expectations, "people with high IQs are deemed more likely to be liberal, monogamous non-believers than those who are less intelligent."
He seems to be arguing that being liberal, monogamous and a non-believer is more evolutionarily forward because:
a) Being liberal implies you help provide resources to those in need, to no benefit of your own;
b) monogamous people have evolved further than the hunter-gatherer-polyamorous genre;
and
c) those hunter-gatherers were also more likely to try to find meaning or spirituality in their surroundings in an effort to understand or explain the goings on in nature.
Of course, those points are me paraphrasing so again, here's the link to the article I read.
Ok.
So they think some conservative, religious.. uh.. polygamists? will be offended by these findings.
First, just because a study says believers are dumber doesn't mean we all suddenly caught a case of the dumb just because "science" says so. ("Science" being in quotes because I haven't read the original article and if it's just one dude's opinion, that's not exactly science.)
I don't remember ever taking an official IQ test in my youth, but every time I do one for fun, I score somewhere between 135 and 145 (although I always feel they inflate the numbers to make people feel good about themselves). Frankly, I think those numbers (even when accurate) are absolutely meaningless, but that's my personal opinion. You know why I feel that way? Because who writes those tests? Is that person, like, a 200 scorer? Are they the ultimate genius in the universe? How can somebody with, say, an average IQ write a test that will stump somebody smarter than them? Unless God writes the test Himself, I'm not sure that it means anything except that the taker of the test thinks in a similar way to the writer(s) of the test.
Just to cement my point, if I know you well enough and you write me a multiple choice exam on any subject, even a subject I know nothing about, I could probably ace that test. Not because I know what the hell the answers are, but because I know you and how your mind works and what tactics you would likely use to throw me off. Honestly, it's how I passed some of my physics classes. And if you really wanted to make it easy on me, all you have to do is read me the questions. I will fairly confidently pick out the right answer just by the subtle changes in your voice. It has nothing to do with intelligence, rather a disproportionate level of manipulative skill that comes from being messed with enough over the course of my short lifetime to always judge situations and read people in order to protect myself. It's not about knowing the answers but knowing what they are looking for, and that is driven by the fundamental motivations of their person, which is exactly what the least trusting of us is consistently aware of.
But I digress.
George Stroumboulopoulos, aka "Canada's boyfriend", the host of The Hour on CBC was the one who highlighted this study and poked my debatey bits about it. Right away, I knew the answer. But first, at the end of his show, he ran the usual mock headline, and today's was: "God on smart atheists: I made them that way". (Which, by the way, had an extra dimension of funny to it seeing as Strombo's show, I would have thought, is really left, liberal and far from religious supporting, although his mom is very religious and he did have Billy Graham's daughter on tonight...)
The answer as to why atheists are statistically smarter is because it is exactly that that drives them away from God. If we look at the story of Adam and Eve in the garden, the most important part (to me anyway) is that Adam and Eve chose independence over God (and consequently, messed up the world because no matter how good we think we are, we're all broken and irreparable without God's mercy). So here's the cycle:
Man doesn't understand something as pertains to his soul and/or the universe -> there must be a God who created all this -> something bad happens, some sort of suffering occurs, something just doesn't make sense at all, we are faced with a choice in which leaving God seems favorable -> there is no God, God was just an illusion created as a buffer for our fears, God isn't important.
At this point, there can be two directions:
1) If God chooses this person to have faith (as Ephesians 2:8 says, "For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God..."), and the person decides to either pray for his faith to be restored and begin the seeking process or God simply restores it somehow;
or
2) If this person is either not chosen to have faith or not chosen yet or has an alternate path to God's glory (I won't presume to know how God chooses or works), then they tend to set out to prove that there is no God, or no need for God, through scientific reasoning.
Of course, they never successfully prove that there is no God, rather prove the aspects of creation that we don't understand fully, and that understanding or awareness is what inevitably comes with intelligence, and especially with a healthy curiosity.
I don't doubt that if you are a person of faith, the more curious you are, the more intelligent you are and the more open you are, the more likely you will encounter periods in your life where you absolutely lack faith, where you wonder if there is a God or if you just believe to appease some sort of inner fear or temporary need. But the line between a smart atheist and a smart Christian is drawn at independence and pride.
When I first realized I fell for Jesus, I could have shut that down. I could have repressed it, thrown it into some far off dark corner of my brain and chalked it up to being accidentally manipulated or momentarily brainwashed. I could have taken my life back and not upset nearly everybody I knew. I would have been the life of the party had I decided to present facts debunking the Bible, God and Jesus to my atheist and agnostic posse who knew very little about Christianity but presumed to know it all anyway. It would have been easy to fall back into the old habits that have been burned into me my entire life.
But what if it's true? What if? What if the indescribable feeling of contentment when my soul feels connected to God is actually because it's connected to God? What if God chose me? What if?
And what if Jesus was real? And what about all the atheists who decide to research Him to prove He's a fake and end up screwed like me and have to shamefully switch teams?
What kind of intelligent scientist am I if I say something I have never researched is not true or deny the information that is readily available and say it's impossible to know whether it's true or not? It's kind of like the "scientists" who say there is no problem with corn syrup or trans fats. They just haven't done their homework. They haven't approached the subject with an unbiased, real determination to get at the truth, even if it's unfavorable to their profits, their social status or their own beliefs.
In theory, it is impossible to prove there is no God. No matter how far you go back in the Earth's history, and how much you explain, there will always be another question. How many questions do intelligent atheists have to ask before they're satisfied that there is no satisfaction in their answers?
Intelligence is an idol. It's something that gives us value. And I know that when I thought I was better than the believers, my intelligence gave me pride. I know that I felt I had more value because I was able to think for myself and think logically and strive for awareness rather than shielding myself under a shroud of religion.
But I'm still me. I'm still the girl who questions absolutely everything, and I still live in this place where Christians are morons who just don't know better (yet), and I still have faith. And life was easier without it- just like how the gay people I know say, "Do you really think we'd choose a life with more obstacles and challenges?" would I really choose Christianity? Was it my choice? If the God I believe in, the God of the Bible, is real, then I didn't choose it at all. And frankly, I believe I didn't choose it. I know the disdain I had for religion. I know the hate I felt. I know how deep-seeded my cringe mechanisms were and still are in the face of Christianity, or any other faith really.
When somebody with no missional experience and no concept of altering the message appropriately for the audience blurts out something about Jesus in a room full of bitter, intelligent atheists, I cringe. Visibly. It almost hurts. :D It's an innate reaction at this point. And I tend to be the witty one in the room, so you can imagine the product of my (former?) disdain mixing with my wit in the face of blatant Bible-thumping.
No, I didn't choose Christianity. I did try to choose to be gay for a while after the endless string of abusive men, but that wasn't mine to choose either. *shrugs*
My point being I'm a smart girl (I think) and as a result of my intelligence and curiosity, I worked hard at learning about Christianity and no matter how scientific the approach was, God is about the heart and that's where He got in.
A lot of people who don't believe say they've already read the Bible, several times even. Most had to read it in school or something. But it's not just a book, you know? You can't just read it. You have to pray on it, feel it, open yourself up to the idea that maybe the words are alive, that maybe it's an entire spiritual experience rather than just words on the page. Because without that openness, it is just a book, and you'll be able to read it over and over and over again and never see the point.
Keeping faith in a place where faith is frowned upon is difficult, and sometimes, I lose it. Sometimes, it occurs to me that I don't feel God, that whatever it was I might have felt before was just a craving to be loved or a deep loneliness or a denial of some sort or maybe indigestion (hehe). Sometimes, usually when I'm driving, I get this, "Crap, what if I have to tell all the atheists they were right and this was just a phase?" idea wave through my brain, and really, I'm not the type of person to shy away from that kind of admission. If it happens, I'm ready to come out with it. They're likely going to throw a party or something. Maybe dunk me in mud to get the baptism cooties off me. :D But then I remember what got me into this mess in the first place- I asked. With an open heart and an open mind, I asked God to get in. And He did. And so that's how I keep my faith here: I ask.
A lot of it is dealing with the Holy Spirit too, even if I have no idea what that's all about yet.
John 14:26 says this:
But the a Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.
I'm still not clear on the whole Holy Spirit thing, but I know that there are times when things just sort of stand out and if I follow those things that stand out, I find God again. For example, the other day, I was reading Counterfeit Gods, and it occurred to me strongly that haven't read my Bible in ages. I signed up for the "Bible in a year" thing, but my reading is weak and slow (I never read jack when I was a kid), and now, *checks email inbox*, being the first of March, I am already at least 49 days behind. I say "at least" because I know I clicked some accidentally and marked them "read" when they so weren't. Has there even been forty-nine days in 2010? Seriously. :D Anyway, so I'm reading the book and this, from page 17, stands out:
Paul understood the true meaning of Isaac's story when he deliberately applied its language to Jesus: "He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all- how will he not also, along with him, freely give us all things? (Romans 8:32)
- Tim Keller's Counterfeit GodsI kept reading to page 18, and ended up stopping to write the blog post a couple down from this one on having cake and eating it too and after writing that, which was at all hours of the night, I picked up my giant ESV study Bible and meandered over to Romans 8. That quote from page 17 doesn't stand out. It doesn't really hit hard or tug at the heartstrings or provoke some sort of emotional reaction, does it? It's just... *shrug* I mean, yes, it's great that God would give us all things freely and that He gave us His Son, sure. But that specific bit of text isn't all that impressive, and yet, it stood out that night. It's one of those things you can ignore as a fleeting thought of no consequence, or you can follow it and see where it goes. And it's also one of those things where when you ask God to get back in and He tries to, you really want to be listening.
And so I did. Just in case.
The good thing about being a newbie who reads excessively slowly is that most of the Scriptures are new to me. It wasn't as though I read the Romans 8 reference and was all, "Oh, yes. Romans 8. Classic." No, I turned to Romans 8 without a clue as to what it was. Honestly, even though I've read Matthew and John a bunch of times, if you whipped out a chapter number, it's likely it'd all be new to me anyway.
So this is what I found in Romans 8 on a night I was questioning my faith and asked:
35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?
[...]
37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38 For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Of course, being that I'm a smart girl, my second reaction is that it's just a fierce coincidence, a lucky draw. My first reaction, the one I quickly brush away just instinctively, is that God answered. And the difference between being an atheist/agnostic and a person of faith is after my second reaction, I go back to the first and let it make me smile.
And then I do that kiss two fingers, touch my heart, hold 'em up to the sky thing and laugh at myself. :D
Monday, March 1, 2010
On atheistic strength and endurance versus God...
Matt Chandler jokes that there are two tenets to atheism: "There is no God and I hate Him." And last week, or maybe the week before, he discussed it a little in a sermon and pointed out that when bad stuff happens, it's God's fault and when good stuff happens, we own it. If people suffer, then obviously, our God is a cruel God. But that we have life at all? That's science. That's procreation. That's because we do pilates and eat multi-grain bread.
I bring it up today because it was evident with the whole tsunami warning thing. Yesterday, people were so terrified at the threat that prayer requests became trending topics on Twitter. When does that happen? When does something serious about God become a trending topic? When we're helpless and don't know what to do. But then the waves were much smaller than expected and there was no trending topic to reflect what God had done, if it was indeed Him who answered the prayers. There was no "#ThankGod" hashtag trending. No "GodisGood". And definitely no "God answers prayers".
We overreacted, that's all.
Science will prove later why the giant earthquake didn't create the tsunami we all expected.
But when something like this happens in this new world we live in where everything that happens is suddenly received by a massive collective and redistributed by that same collective, it gives us a clearer picture of our attitude towards God. Had that tsunami devastated us, who would we blame?
And when a two year old is dying of cancer and her parents are confident that God will save her simply because of all of the people who have been drawn closer to Him in her suffering, the atheist I used to sometimes be would ask, "What kind of god allows a little girl to suffer her entire life just so other people would ask about him? What kind of god makes a martyr of a sweet, innocent baby? What kind of god strips away her life and crams her body with tumors just to make himself look good?"
If there is no sacred-secular divide and everything is meant to glorify God, then that doesn't just mean the suffering. It means God gave you life. God gave you love. God gave you everything in this short little life that makes you happy. It means all of it, the joy, the pain, the good times and bad, is a gift and to acknowledge that is to glorify God with that gift. (Kind of like how you used the glitter you got from your parents on your sixth birthday to make them the most gaudy card ever to express your excitement about it.)
People think a good God would just give us happiness. But what if experience is more important than happiness? Without a doubt, the more aware we are of the nature of this world, the more we experience. Isn't that what life is about?
I realized this past week that I might have totally misunderstood one of the tenets of Buddhism. Somebody I know claims to be Buddhist (it's really more of a pick-and-choose Buddhism than a profound one..) said to me several times, "Happiness is a life without suffering," and to be honest, that did not appeal to me at all. If that's what happiness was, I didn't want it. While suffering is terrible, the rate of growth we experience from it can't be matched by anything else that might replace it. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right? So it made no sense to me that an entire faith would be based on an idea that is so counterproductive, and not only that, but also is absolutely impossible in the world we live in. We can't go a day without feeling some sort of suffering. And to pretend we are at that place where we're happy and there is no suffering at all is to have our head jammed so far in the sand that we don't know which way is up anymore.
But this week, I read it differently. "Happiness is the end of suffering." It sounds almost the same, but it hit me in a different way. It didn't say, "Happiness is a lack of suffering." What if it means that happiness is simply the perception of our suffering?
In Christianity, if suffering brings us closer to God, closer to a more complete trust in God, then it becomes a good thing in the end- depending on how much you trust God.
John 12:25 says this:
Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
If God is God, and God is our Creator, and suffering draws us closer to Him, then we should want nothing more. If God is not God, then we should love this life and cling to it and to its events, circumstances and relationships to provide us with fulfillment, happiness and love. If God is not God, then there is no reason at all to endure suffering. I mean, there is rapid growth, but why is rapid growth something we should desire if our goal is to be happy and without suffering? Growth and awareness lead to more suffering which leads to more growth and more awareness. Seems to me, we should be avoiding those at all costs if this life was merely about this life.
When I was younger and a mess, I remember telling somebody that I'd be more proud of getting over something like depression or suicidal tendencies on my own rather than leaning on some god to get me through it. I'd rather build my strength to overcome it at the risk of failure than succeed despite being weak enough to need a god to rely on. I didn't want a crutch. I wanted to conquer on my own merit.
But for what?
To be stronger going into the next struggle for survival? And then the next? And so on and so on until my finite life ended and I was coffin-bound? What for? Why endure everything for nothing? Because life is a gift? What kind of gift is it if it doesn't come from somebody? Life is precious? Why, if it's meaningless?
One of the things I always wondered, long before I became a Christian was, "Why me?" and not "Why did these things happen to me?" but "Of all the people in this world, why was I given the strength to survive these things? Why me?" Things would happen, bad things, one after the other after the other and sometimes, I would feel utterly overwhelmed by how terrible life was. Life was bad at some points. I mean, really bad with no hope of getting better. But I didn't die. I didn't give up living even if I gave up on life. My heart kept beating. I kept going. And then there were the physical injuries and illnesses and I nearly died more times than a lot of people I know. But my heart kept beating. I kept going. And all the while, I was ready to die. I really was. Death never scared me and still doesn't. Deep down, I have always felt temporary and I've always been ok with that. But of all the people, why me? So many people cling to this life, cling to their loved ones' lives and I don't, and for some reason, I've been allowed to keep mine.
Why me?
Why hasn't my time come yet?
Why is my heart still beating?
Why am I still breathing?
Why, after all I've been through, am I able to love?
Is it really because all those years, I stood up on my own and got stronger each time?
Or is it because God is merciful and even when I hated Him without even knowing Him, He showed compassion and became my heartbeat?
Why me? They say if God stops thinking about you, or I guess being aware of you, then you cease to exist. So here I am, invisible girl living a meaningless, invisible life, wondering why the hell I haven't died yet, when the reason is exactly the opposite of everything I know- I'm meaningful, important and visible to the only "person" that matters, even if I didn't believe in Him at all. The fact that I haven't ceased to exist, the fact that my heart kept beating when I didn't want it to, is hindsight proof to me that I am loved. That's not to say people who die are unloved, but just that the way things happened for me, again in hindsight, seems a little more hands-on.
I look back at those things that happened, and if I got through them because I'm strong and I got stronger each time, then theoretically, I could do anything now. I could endure anything. I'd be invincible. But I look back at some of the things, and if they happened again tomorrow, I'm not sure I could handle it. I'm not sure I have the strength to get through those same things now that I endured back then. I'm not sure I'm as strong as my self back then would take credit for.
But it doesn't matter anymore anyway.
There is a God and I love Him. And how weak that makes me is absolutely irrelevant.
I bring it up today because it was evident with the whole tsunami warning thing. Yesterday, people were so terrified at the threat that prayer requests became trending topics on Twitter. When does that happen? When does something serious about God become a trending topic? When we're helpless and don't know what to do. But then the waves were much smaller than expected and there was no trending topic to reflect what God had done, if it was indeed Him who answered the prayers. There was no "#ThankGod" hashtag trending. No "GodisGood". And definitely no "God answers prayers".
We overreacted, that's all.
Science will prove later why the giant earthquake didn't create the tsunami we all expected.
But when something like this happens in this new world we live in where everything that happens is suddenly received by a massive collective and redistributed by that same collective, it gives us a clearer picture of our attitude towards God. Had that tsunami devastated us, who would we blame?
And when a two year old is dying of cancer and her parents are confident that God will save her simply because of all of the people who have been drawn closer to Him in her suffering, the atheist I used to sometimes be would ask, "What kind of god allows a little girl to suffer her entire life just so other people would ask about him? What kind of god makes a martyr of a sweet, innocent baby? What kind of god strips away her life and crams her body with tumors just to make himself look good?"
If there is no sacred-secular divide and everything is meant to glorify God, then that doesn't just mean the suffering. It means God gave you life. God gave you love. God gave you everything in this short little life that makes you happy. It means all of it, the joy, the pain, the good times and bad, is a gift and to acknowledge that is to glorify God with that gift. (Kind of like how you used the glitter you got from your parents on your sixth birthday to make them the most gaudy card ever to express your excitement about it.)
People think a good God would just give us happiness. But what if experience is more important than happiness? Without a doubt, the more aware we are of the nature of this world, the more we experience. Isn't that what life is about?
I realized this past week that I might have totally misunderstood one of the tenets of Buddhism. Somebody I know claims to be Buddhist (it's really more of a pick-and-choose Buddhism than a profound one..) said to me several times, "Happiness is a life without suffering," and to be honest, that did not appeal to me at all. If that's what happiness was, I didn't want it. While suffering is terrible, the rate of growth we experience from it can't be matched by anything else that might replace it. What doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right? So it made no sense to me that an entire faith would be based on an idea that is so counterproductive, and not only that, but also is absolutely impossible in the world we live in. We can't go a day without feeling some sort of suffering. And to pretend we are at that place where we're happy and there is no suffering at all is to have our head jammed so far in the sand that we don't know which way is up anymore.
But this week, I read it differently. "Happiness is the end of suffering." It sounds almost the same, but it hit me in a different way. It didn't say, "Happiness is a lack of suffering." What if it means that happiness is simply the perception of our suffering?
In Christianity, if suffering brings us closer to God, closer to a more complete trust in God, then it becomes a good thing in the end- depending on how much you trust God.
John 12:25 says this:
Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
If God is God, and God is our Creator, and suffering draws us closer to Him, then we should want nothing more. If God is not God, then we should love this life and cling to it and to its events, circumstances and relationships to provide us with fulfillment, happiness and love. If God is not God, then there is no reason at all to endure suffering. I mean, there is rapid growth, but why is rapid growth something we should desire if our goal is to be happy and without suffering? Growth and awareness lead to more suffering which leads to more growth and more awareness. Seems to me, we should be avoiding those at all costs if this life was merely about this life.
When I was younger and a mess, I remember telling somebody that I'd be more proud of getting over something like depression or suicidal tendencies on my own rather than leaning on some god to get me through it. I'd rather build my strength to overcome it at the risk of failure than succeed despite being weak enough to need a god to rely on. I didn't want a crutch. I wanted to conquer on my own merit.
But for what?
To be stronger going into the next struggle for survival? And then the next? And so on and so on until my finite life ended and I was coffin-bound? What for? Why endure everything for nothing? Because life is a gift? What kind of gift is it if it doesn't come from somebody? Life is precious? Why, if it's meaningless?
One of the things I always wondered, long before I became a Christian was, "Why me?" and not "Why did these things happen to me?" but "Of all the people in this world, why was I given the strength to survive these things? Why me?" Things would happen, bad things, one after the other after the other and sometimes, I would feel utterly overwhelmed by how terrible life was. Life was bad at some points. I mean, really bad with no hope of getting better. But I didn't die. I didn't give up living even if I gave up on life. My heart kept beating. I kept going. And then there were the physical injuries and illnesses and I nearly died more times than a lot of people I know. But my heart kept beating. I kept going. And all the while, I was ready to die. I really was. Death never scared me and still doesn't. Deep down, I have always felt temporary and I've always been ok with that. But of all the people, why me? So many people cling to this life, cling to their loved ones' lives and I don't, and for some reason, I've been allowed to keep mine.
Why me?
Why hasn't my time come yet?
Why is my heart still beating?
Why am I still breathing?
Why, after all I've been through, am I able to love?
Is it really because all those years, I stood up on my own and got stronger each time?
Or is it because God is merciful and even when I hated Him without even knowing Him, He showed compassion and became my heartbeat?
Why me? They say if God stops thinking about you, or I guess being aware of you, then you cease to exist. So here I am, invisible girl living a meaningless, invisible life, wondering why the hell I haven't died yet, when the reason is exactly the opposite of everything I know- I'm meaningful, important and visible to the only "person" that matters, even if I didn't believe in Him at all. The fact that I haven't ceased to exist, the fact that my heart kept beating when I didn't want it to, is hindsight proof to me that I am loved. That's not to say people who die are unloved, but just that the way things happened for me, again in hindsight, seems a little more hands-on.
I look back at those things that happened, and if I got through them because I'm strong and I got stronger each time, then theoretically, I could do anything now. I could endure anything. I'd be invincible. But I look back at some of the things, and if they happened again tomorrow, I'm not sure I could handle it. I'm not sure I have the strength to get through those same things now that I endured back then. I'm not sure I'm as strong as my self back then would take credit for.
But it doesn't matter anymore anyway.
There is a God and I love Him. And how weak that makes me is absolutely irrelevant.
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