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My heart beats for love. I want to be different. I want to be who I am called to be. WORTHY and LOVED!

Sunday, October 19, 2008

Celebrating Life

Each wedding I've been at gets better and better. A good friend of mine got married last evening to a wonderful woman of God. If that isn't reason enough to celebrate, the wedding was such a reflection of them, a time of laughter and sharing in their joy. The body of Christ needs to learn to celebrate again!

Question

What would post-clonial missions look like?

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Rethinking Politics

Drew is a hotbed of political thought and debate. And while the University and the Theological School creates the idea that all ideas are welcome for discussion, I've been extremely hesitant to share my view, because I know that its going to create debate that is going to be more like a combat instead of thought producing and questioning. But someone asked me a pointed question where it was unavoidable to tell my stance.

And honestly, my political ideas are constantly changing. Or rather being refined. I've been thinking a lot of how Christians' relationship with government is similar to Abraham's relationship to God's promise of land and lineage. Let me explain: While not necessarily preached this way - Abraham literally whored off Sarah not once but twice and once after God promised that lineage would come from Abraham AND Sarah. Every time Abraham lost sight of God's exact promise and tried to achieve it on his own or by this own standards then he failed, horribly. When we as Americans start to look to the government to fulfill and live out the desires and concerns of God, we fail, horribly. We will always be disappointed because we are not looking truly to the ultimate source.

The more the Church becomes with politics the more we fail to live out what we are called to. Andrew made the point in Israel that once the government took up the work of the church especially with tending to the poor. Once welfare is legislated, the church declined in the ways they felt led to serve the poor. Someone else is taking care of "them" let's move on. But the problem is that the government will never really be able to take up all of the concerns of God. Showing mercy, love, and seeking justice. Hitched to big business there is no way to legislate to serve the people who are not the elite.

No, I don't vote. I read a blog lately that stated a person had to vote for the less of the two evils. Why should we have to settle, because when we align ourselves with the Godhead's agenda and see how different it is from the government then we can live it out. I also look to God pointing me, pointing Christians, pointing the Body of Christ to what God wills. And the unnecessity of the government to achieve it. One of my profs a few weeks ago made the statement, which he later apologized for, that Jesus's death on the cross was a double bird, F you to Satan AND to the government. Cesar didn't and couldn't control him. And this whole notion that the government and church should cooperate is strictly 3rd CE, post Constantine view. Hummm... good or bad? I'm all about separation of Christians in values. This is why martyrdom happened and still happens.

Joleen preached last week that when government fails then the church shines through. But when we look to government fails, and we were dependent upon government and look to it for our "salvation" we will never shine. Ever.

Wednesday, October 15, 2008

Trinity

Can you really believe in the Trinity and the subordination and subjugation of the Holy Spirit?
God is funny sometimes. Especially when you're smacked in the face with the utter failure of what your believe and your number one struggle in the same day.

Saturday, October 11, 2008

Genesis 1 -3

This is something that I wrote for seminary recently that I thought turned out well:

While one could deduce that Genesis 1 through 3 is about the introduction of sin into the human life and the implications that follow, this would be a Christian point of view. When the text is read through retrospective Christian lens it is critically limited. Thus, approaching the text one should dispose of the lens of tradition and see what the text has to offer.
Upon re-examining the text my eyes were opened to all of the beauty the text holds. The story told is not chiefly about Adam and Eve’s sin (a term not even used in Hebrew scriptures until Genesis 4 with Cain) and the consequences of human kind.

Instead, it can be seen as a story of “coming of age”. It is unrealistic to say that God placed the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden but did not want the human pair to ever eat its fruit. Instead, it can be seen that the tree was not a temptation alone, but rather something to be invited to in the future. When girls are young they mirror their mother wearing her sparking diamonds by flashing plastic jewelry. For that stage of development the plastic is just as good as diamonds, and not until the girl proves that she can take care of valuables will she be given a real diamond. In other words, all good things are given in due season. Adam and Eve were not meant to live in a fog forever; God just wanted them to wait. Thus they were punished for not trusting God’s timing.

One could even make the argument that Eve, by first tasting the fruit, actually opened up possibilities for humankind. By eating of the tree, her eyes were opened to fully feel emotion, to reason, and to have the ability to glean and retain wisdom. All of these aspects are praised at other parts in the Bible. It would be unfair to deduce that life would be better without these qualities. What done is done, and we cannot return to Eden. We must walk on in this adventure of life, being thankful for what we have been given, even if the timing was wrong.

Of course most Christians are going to disagree with this stance. We go to church to get simple answers to complex questions that, yes, should be asked, but not answered in such tidy ways. The Bible tells the story of life. Genesis 1 through 3 tells the story of life, and life is messy and lacks neat resolutions. Sometimes we need to look at the complex answers. We cannot say that Adam and Eve damned creation, because we do not have the ability to say that life was meant to be lived perpetually in the garden. We need to stop blaming and start living. If we reap the knowledge from the text we must thank God for the wisdom he gave us. Even when labor is hard we can be thankful for the end results, food and life.

As to Magonet’s ( A Rabbi Reads the Bible) claim that reading the scriptures is a life or death experience, I agree, especially is a post-exilic context. If Genesis 1-3 tells the story of creation and re-creation, it is a call to those returning from exile to start over again, specifically to sink in roots and repopulate, or face extinction. Reversely, if the text is approached from the “Christian” stand point that Eve originally sinned, then the text can be (and still is) the emotional death and spiritual exclusion of women’s fellowship with YHWH. We cannot say that Eve damned creation, because we do not have the ability to say that life was meant to be lived perpetually in the garden. We need to stop blaming and start living. No reading of the text is ever neutral, thus there will always be consequences. The consequences of my re-reading of the stories Genesis 1 through 3 is a new appreciation of the story of life, of even hard labor yielding life. I realized that as Adam and Eve left the garden, God went with them, through all of the hard times throughout history, just as God walks with us today.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Stealing



I was in Wally World today, because sadly it is the only store in my town or anywhere near it for that matter, picking up some last minute things for school. And what should I overhear in the checkout line, but one cashier complaining to another about the new "black bags" (ie WalMart's rendition of a green reusable shopping bag.) The cashier was complaining that its going to make shop lifting easier so they should get rid of them. And those of you who know me best should be happy because I bit my tongue.

But I was thinking two things:
First, in Australia we were allowed if not encouraged to not only walk into stores with our green bags, but also our backpacks. In fact, the cashiers just quickly looked in the bags to make sure that we weren't stealing. Gee, isn't that a simple solution to the problem, look in the bag. Or look at the receipt. Sheer genius, I tell you. The same thing was true of most, if not ever, other country I've traveled in including: Israel, Russia, Germany, Austria, Italy, and the Czech. All countries who trump America when it comes to awareness and action when it comes to ecological issues.

Second, (and this was my huge issue) why should WalMart be concerned with stealing when for all intents and purposes WalMart steals from people every day 24/7 through globalization and the true cost of cheap prices. They steal from the people who make their products, paying them less so that they can charge you less. They steal from the enviorment - using shipping and production methods that are wasteful. Really that Smiley Face logo represents very few people who deal with or work for WalMart. 

Picture from 
esmashsite.com/shop/walmart.html

Monday, October 6, 2008

Awkward

       For some reason, humans have  a deep seated fear of awkwardness, but this past weekend I was reminded by two beautiful friends of mine why awkwardness in relationships is to be celebrated. Around a table in Java we were discussing how we fear change, even if the changes would be better for us in the long run. Instead, we stick with what we know, even if it is killing us from the inside out. The problem with this is that as humans, we lack the ability to be stationary people. We are constantly changing, either moving forward of backwards. And if by some matter of luck we manage to stay the same, then we are actually moving backwards, missing the moments to move forward towards what is greatly desired for us by God. 

I'm learning to celebrate relationships in my life that are awkward, not what I remember them being. Because it's only through the awkwardness, like growing pains, that two people can continue to grow and not regress and rest on the past. Isn't that the great tango of marriage and why so many people fail? A fear of the awkward instead of celebrating it. A desire to be each other's unchangeable rock. That is not, my friends, an ability that humans have. Unchangeable-ness lies in the Holy One alone. Yet, we strive for it, cry over it, and freak out when it isn't being achieved. We aren't called to be stable together in relationships, we are called to GROW together. 

Dominion Revisited

If you follow the news, you may have noticed that over the last few days there have been several articles about dominion over animals (although it wasn't phrased that way). People's dominion over animals and the enviorment is one of the issues I struggle with the most. Mostly because our use of dominion articulates how little we really trust God or understand nature.

For example, meet Tama, a stray cat in Japan who was made "station master" of a train station in Japan and has brought over 10 million extra dollars worth of patronage to the station just to take pictures of him. First, I'm not happy with the fact that a humans job was replaced by a cat, who is a "for profit" venture. No monetary gain must be given to the cat, so everything made is profit. But at what cost to human life? But more importantly, I take serious issue with people who dress up animals like humans. God created animals to be able to stand heat and cold by the shedding and growing of hair. Since humans don't have this benefit we assume that animals are cold, and therefore dress them in cute human clothes. No. Let animals be as God intended them to be.

Another article was the release of scientific information on the rate of diseases contracted by kids who have exotic pets. In other words, pets they shouldn't have in the first place. Animals that should be allowed to live in the wild such as turtle, lizards, baby chickens, and hedgehogs. Does anyone else see the problem here? Animals who are fully sufficient are made docile and will eventually lose their ability to properly function, as they were created to. Does that bother anyone else? That we are creating dependence upon animals that eventually we won't want to tend to anymore?

Sunday, October 5, 2008

Fitting into an Image

My OT class at seminary has been rough on some (if not most) of my classmates for various reasons, chiefly that we are told to re-examine the stories we think we know well. The end results aren't always pretty. Starting with the fact that the stories weren't written as history, they were written as post-exilic commentaries trying to teach Israeli something or to speak of their views of various characters, including God. If thinking of God as a character in a story isn't hard enough, reading full accounts of the biblical stories we only know snippets or overviews of shows that God doesn't neatly fit into our image of the Divine. God's mind and emotions change. God has to "remember". These are just a few examples that sort of throgh our 2nd CE onward philosophical definitions of God (which we of course think are Biblical) for a loop. So we try to rewrite the stories in our mind to justify what we are reading. We feel that we have to protect God's portrayal and image.

This past weekend, I realized that I do the same thing with people. People can make poor choices or do something others disapprove of and I'll be loyal enough to re-write the prospective of the situation to defend them. To make them look good. And to protect my image of them in my mind.

But what are we missing my trying to justify people (and God)? Is image protection really necessary? And will it help or hinder our relationships in the long run?

Friday, October 3, 2008

Hospitality and Abundance

Where is our sense of hospitality? Our desire to take care of the stranger?

Yesterday was a long day with an even longer car ride in an attempt to make it to Houghton. I failed. Along the way I had to go to the bathroom (shocker) and ended up on this country back road in the middle of no where. I was driving and driving with no sign of civilazation in sight, when afar I spotted a parking lot. I went and turned around in it, and as I was completing my turn a man exited the building and made me roll down my window. I thought he was going to give me directions. No such luck. He yelled at me that this was American Legion property and that I couldn't turn around here.

Reflecting on this experience as I drove (and found a bathroom!) I realized that America is a country that has become void of hospitality. Which is sad because it is truly the land of abundance. The text preached on in chapel that morning was the feeding of the 5,000. But it was preached in a whole new way for my listening heart and ears. Jesus sat down. He was ready to teach, but the disciples couldn't complete the task so Christ decided to feed the people. He took little and made it into abundance. The preacher went on to say that in early Johnine communities two holy means were celebrated, communion (the meal of scarcity) and the fish and loaves (the meal of abundance). Over time the meal of scarcity became the only sacred meal.

But we need to remember that we live in abundance and just sit and listen to Christ. In the midst of the US's finicial woes we need to sit. As we fret over life, we need to sit. Because God has graiously given us his abundance. An abundance for us to share with others as well.

But in the US we've become all about what I have and what is Mine, not Yours. Like the man in the parking lot, we mark our property (like an animal peeing on it) and say to everyone else keep out. I need to keep my abundance to myself and pretend that it is a scarcity. How tragic! We need to regain the Holy Attitude of Hospitality. I'm not sure if many of you know, but I'm excited to have a parsonage and I have plans for the house I'm given. First, all are going to be welcome. There are going to be too many bedrooms just for me, so all are welcome, stranger and friend alike, for food and a warm place to stay. And second, I'm going to have foster kids. Lots of them :) But even with this far off plan for hospitality, I can still practice hospitality now. Can you? Will you?

Intellectually Starved

While I was waiting to talk to one of my professors after class yesterday, I overheard her say something in response to another students question that impacted me. The student asked how she was to preach what we were currently learning in Old Testament Studies without getting fired. Essentially we are learning that what we've been preached to and taught about the OT for our lives is not what the text says or means. The student was at heart asking how do I preach something true and different without being fired?

The prof went on to say that she preached the exact lecture she gave us today on Exodus 1 and 2 as a sermon last year and that it, in all of its radicalness, was received well. She asked the student, then, where outside of the walls of a school you find real intellectually stimulating coversations. Nowhere. People are starved to be fed through intellectual stimulation, but the church time and time again starves them in order to keep up with the status quo.

What would happen if we started teaching something radical in our churches that really made us appreciate faith in life a different way?

Who Am I?

Stick with me, friends, for I have a series of posts about from the last week at Drew.

This first post is about self-definition and how we see ourselves as special. For those of you who don't know, I'm currently volunteering a few hours a week for SCEEP, which essentially is a tutoring program that works simiarly to Fresh Air Kids. Kids from the inner city are brought to various suburbs one day a week, after school, to be tutored and mentored. The group at Madison UMC is a beautiful bunch of 7th and 8th grade girls, who are struggling a bit academically.

The tutors are also a beautiful bunch of people from all stages of lifespan development. There are high school students, Drew undergrads, Drew PhD-ers and MDiv students, and career people from Madison and surrounding towns. Last week, we were sitting around about to do a poetry jam session when I overheard one of the SCEEP girls (an 8th grader I believe) talking to one of the High School tutors about clothing. They were both identifying themselves by where they shopped. Hollister versus Aeropostale. I had to giggle at first, because once you are a masters student, it just matters that you have clothes to wear that somewhat fit you and keep you warm. But then I grew saddened by the coversation. Both girls didn't see themselves as the BELOVED of God but rather as important by the clothes they wear. Is this just a stage of adolsence, to be cut off from what's truly important to who we are, or is it something that is going to continue through out their lives?

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Experiment of Sorts

I had to giggle the other day in Pastoral Formation when the comment was made that we cannot change others by being kind to them. This comment was in response to the simple rule "do no harm". If we changed the negation to a positive statement, I believe it would read something like "be life affirming". In other words do and say only things that bring (and better) life to another. Psychology has had some really simple but impactful experiments over the years. One was based on an individual similing direcly at another person. In most cases, the person being smiled at, smiled back. This wasn't just a mirror of action either, it brought about an elevated mood in the person being smiled at.

Since coming to Drew I have been very inentional about two things: not saying anything in private about a person I wouldn't say to their face (ie not gossiping) and giving people compliments. All too often I found myself praising someone outside of their presence, but these words of encouragment needed to be spoken directly to people. And something started to happen, when I would genuinely praise people for well thought out ideas, stepping up to a role of leadership, for an ability, or even a comment made in class, they praised me back. Even if it was contrary to their nature. This isn't an experiment to manipulate people, it is more of an observation of how we impact each other, or a reflection on something that I was doing.

Now here is why I had to giggle, the people raising the objection that people cannot be impacted or changed by sincere kindness, are the same people who have increased heart felt and well thought out compliments to myself, as well as other people, after I spoke words of life to them. God's grace and love, exits us, and changes people. A lot more then we give the Holy Godhead credit for...