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Early Season Christmas Thoughts
While growing up, we have been taught that giving gifts was the central theme of Christmas.
Not quite Jesus, not quite justice, but the simple act of giving.
We’re taught, in order to hold the spirit of Christmas true, we must be happy and give willingly. We seem to have missed the point… or rather; we seem to have failed to complete the thought.
I listened to a children’s play today in which the actors discover the true meaning of Christmas is giving. This revelation happens, of course, after they break down into a fight over who gets to do what and so forth (a representation of our greed during the Christmas Season). This play exemplified the underlying theme that we continue to drive home to each successive generation: The act of giving is simply enough. It also continues the cycle of Bad Theology spreading down to our children.
I remember, during Christmas’s past, being given money so that I could then buy gifts for my family. The idea starts as a gesture of “love” and “appreciation” with the gift exemplifying the heart of the giver, but in the end, the gift given was simply something un-needed by the receiver, and probably cast away in a pile of Junk that grows with each successive season. My wife accurately described Christmas (at least within the circles we run in) as “A season that celebrates the accumulation of (choice word).”
The end result of our current ideal, that we should give, and give freely, has turned into an act in which we continue to attain more Junk. We are simply expected to give gifts; it is no matter what the gifts are, as long as they are given. Any attempt to give meaningful gifts is often met with resistance, and any attempt not to give gifts, as the receiver has no need for a gift within your financial ability, is seen as an act of hostility. These feelings, that we must give gifts, continue to place us in a cycle of debt and cause a continual feeling of dread, when you have very little money to devote to the purchase of Junk.
To what end does the cycle lead us? Our we truly celebrating the birth of Christ, or are we celebrating our ability to purchase (an ability that we are fast losing, yet refuse to give up) We seem to have confused two separate stories into one, the story of the Birth of Christ, and the story of St. Nicholas. In the end this confusion causes considerable hurt towards the heart of both stories.
I’ll not lay out the details of each story right now, for that would be a better post for another day (and has already been done by others), instead I will pass this wish, or perhaps better stated this blessing over the gift giving this Christmas season:
May you bestow gifts with no expectation of return, for that is the true meaning of gift.
May you accept gifts with no guilt towards repayment, for that is the best gift to the giver.
May any gifts you give be meaningful, for the world has enough junk.
May any gifts you receive be put towards good use, for again, we have too much junk.
May you keep at heart both stories we celebrate during this season, for they both have much to speak to our hearts.
Grace and Peace
The unwritten unfinished pt 2
I’ll admit, my last post took a bit of a different direction than I originally intended, I meant to take an overview of the letter and go from there. After reading over it a few times I think I got so incensed that I felt like I wanted to tear it apart.
Bit
by bit
by bit
by
bit.
Alas, as Andrew pointed out, I think I the reaction I had was entirely more than the letter deserved. So for that I will apologize.
I think I’m tired of this election.
Actually… I am tired of this election. I’m tired of the smears (on both sides), I’m tired of the 24 hour news cycle, I’m tired of my beloved John Stewart and Colbert Report (and I would think they’re tired of the election as well). It’s too much.
Thus, I think I am done with politics for now. I’ll say the only thing that will bring me back anytime soon is if the GA senate race goes into a runoff (highly likely) thus placing Georgia center stage in this whole crazy election. I’ll probably speak up then.
For now… look forward to my next far less political post.
Letters from the future (pt-1)
Hey Matt, have you read this new letter from Focus on the Family? It’s a fictionalized letter from a Christian in the year 2012. Normally when one thinks of 2012 they remember all the talk of the end of the world, with the way this letter is written one might think that the world did indeed end, or at least for one portion of the population of the US.
You see, right now there’s a race going on, a race in which many evangelicals are becoming disheartened with the political party that has held their sway for decades. This sway is certainly scaring those in charge of both the party, and those with whom the party has place “in charge” of the evangelicals. With little over a week left until the election, both the party and the evangelical leaders are fearful losing this election.
These evangelical “leaders” decided that the best way to win an election was to continue the fear mongering that the party they are aligned with has begun. This letter is a “fictionalized” account of what may come should the Muslim Obama win the election.
What do you think, Matt?
An Evangelical Mind
Oh and the steeple people
Oh they’re so happy not knowing you.
So boldly do they pervert your truth.Oh did they think we wouldn’t grow up
Did they think we couldn’t throw back up
The sour milk they been pouring down out throats
-Sour Milk by Wild Sweet Orange
If you use Hulu, perhaps you’ve watched the new movie they have up, Crawford. The movie is an interesting look at the effect that W had when he moved into the town. Throughout the movie, there are various interviews with townspeople, one of which is the Pastor of the local Baptist church. In the first interview with the guy, he’s wearing a spongebob squarepants tie which immediately makes you want to give him a hug and smile at him, but, this pastor makes one of the two worst statements in the movie. (I’ll probably delve into the second quote in a later post).
While discussing the end times, the pastor makes the following statement:
There is gonna continue to be wars and rumors of wars, and at some point, I believe, there will be an Armageddon that be will kind of the end, the end to end all ends. So that’s the bad news, the good news is um, most people believe that the second coming of Christ will precede that, and so, scripture says “Those dead in Christ will meet him in the air,” and uh I can’t envision that. Um, I’ve seen artists work where you see all these cars careen off the road because the drivers are now gone because he’s come a second time. You see all of this catalytic stuff going on, cataclysmic, that’s going on and on. There will be a final conflict, but I won’t see it.
Did you catch it? He mentioned the good news. Well… sort of. The good news to him was “Stuff’s gonna happen, real bad stuff, but guess what… it won’t happen to me.” It’s this subtle sense of “I’m going to be vindicated, and boy you’ll be sorry you didn’t listen to me when that happens.”
This travesty goes on in evangelical circles all the time, the idea that, “In the end, we’ll be proven right and others will suffer for not believing so, we’re better than they are,” is possibly one of the most damaging things that goes on in modern Christianity. How can anyone see this sort of elitism (maybe it’s not elitism, elitists normally earn their status, evangelicals simply assume that they have that status) and not be turned off by the ideals behind it? I’m fairly certain that Christ didn’t laugh on the cross and say “Ha- I’m going to be living in glory and paradise in eternity while you are suffering through eternal torment and suffering.” There was not this idea of gloating involved.
I’m not saying that all evangelicals are like this. I can look back on my evangelical days and remember I was never quite thrilled with the idea that anyone would go to hell, nor with the idea of a Pre-Millenial Dispensationalist eschatological world view. These things never quite did it for me, but I can also remember times when I did, in fact, think to myself “I’ll be right in the end, you’ll see,” just not quite with the malice that I feel is evident when someone says “The good news is, there will be suffering but I won’t be part of it.”
Perhaps your worldview involves the idea of a premillenial dispensation, where there will be a literal 7 year torment of all survivors (I would suggest you study Darby and where exactly the idea of PMD came from, maybe you’ll change your mind), I would implore you too look at your approach to how you look at others, and realize that when things are said like “The good news is….” when in fact the news you’re delivering is quite shitty for the rest of the world, you should probably chose a better phrase. Good news should be just that, the idea of reconcilliation, forgiveness, and the like, not eternal suffering, damnation, and anything else that angry fundamentalists tend to get off on.
The Saga of My Foot
I stepped on a thorn last friday (Sept. 26th).
I was cutting someones hair on our back “porch” and the rosh clippings from like 6 months ago appeared right where the ball of my foot was landing (the guy whose hair I was cutting laughed at me by the way, what a jerk).
Little did I know that this little thorn would cause me to nearly lose my stinkin’ foot. But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Wednesday (Four days after the “incident”) my foot started to hurt and a small growth appeared. I thought nothing of it during the day, but the pain kept increasing, so I grabbed a needle and a lighter and went to town. Well, I was able to clean it out (or so I thought) and I hoped it would get better, but later that night the pain came back, so Becky and I went to the store to get a planters wart kit (thats what we thought it was at first).
The next day, at work, my co-workers told me that it probably wasn’t a wart and I likely had an infection. One of the (old) ladies told me of some OTC stuff that I could get that would help pull out the infection and make me all better. I purchased said goodies after work that day and dutifully applied them to my foot as soon as I got home. Still no improvement.
Friday (the 3rd), I could barely pick up my foot. It was fine when there was a small amount of pressure applied to the spot (which was, again, on the ball of my foot), but, when pressure was alleviated and blood returned to the spot, it hurt like hell. The pain got so bad I asked if I could go home early and went to a minute clinic. By the way, if you’re underinusured (like myself) or uninsured, minute clinics are possibly the greatest inventions ever, it’s medical treatment on the cheap. Anyways, the “doctor” looks at my foot and tells me that she can’t do anything about it becuse they can’t cut the bottom of peoples feet there, and I needed to go see my family doctor. She did stress to me several things however, first that if I waited till Monday I would have a decent chance of losing my foot, and second, if I had any sort of circulation problem (diabetes) I would certainly lose my foot. Always something that you love hearing from a doctor.
So, from the minute clinic, I called up my family doctor and schedualed a visit, he checks me out and gives me some antibiotics, and we’re all good to go.
Except the pain doesn’t go away at first, and the “bump” that was the start of the infection began to grow outward (till this point the infection had just spread across my foot and turned it red, now it was growing into a larger bump).
The weekend comes and goes, and by Monday the pain is lessening but the bump is still growing. I figure that I’m in some deep trouble, so I take off work Tuesday (Monday I was already off, its my normal day off) and figure I’ll head to the doc, but, when I woke up I did some research and figured the new big bump was just a blood blister. My research, however, was not quite appreciated by the maternal side of my family, and I was bombarded with calls, texts messages, and emails, all requesting that I PLEASE go back to the doctor (they were scared it was gangrene). It was craziness.
The good news is I was right, my foot is fine now, and I think I’ll survive. Now, if you prepared here is a lovely picture of my foot (taken on Monday):
Gross, isn’t it?
—————————————-
The Parable of the Fish and the Fishermen
Disclaimer: I am neither a writer, nor Jesus, thus the following parable is of shoddy craftsmanship, and barely sufficient to convey my point.
There was a rich man who had three sons. He decided that it was time his sons left his household to make their way into the world. Growing up rich, these sons never learned to provide for themselves, but still, their father told them it was time to make it on their own.
The three sons decided to move to a town known for its fisheries, under the impression that this was the best course of action to provide for both their stomachs and wallets. When they arrived at the town, the three sons went their own ways.
The first son was met by a local fisherman, who taught the son how to fish, thinking that he would then be able to provide for himself. But this son would run into days where he couldn’t catch sufficient fish to both feed himself and sell to make a living, so days went when the son starved.
The second son met a fisherman who agreed to provide enough fish for him to both eat and sell at market. On some days, however, this fisherman could not provide enough fish to support both the son and himself, so days went when the son starved.
The third son met a fisherman who taught him how to fish, and also offered to provide him fish on the days when the son was not able to bring in enough to get by. This son worked hard and was never forced to starve.
In these months when the donkey fights the elephant on the workings of the economy, it’s important for us to remember that neither teaching a man to fish nor giving a man a fish is enough to help that man out. We need to be able to do both.
The Wall
Sometimes, it’s just so big. You look up, and it never seems to end in that direction, you look to your right, and see it fade in the distance, to your left the same depressing scene plays out. That wall, however, is stopping you from reaching your goal. That wall must come down.
And with a nod to the great poet Lewis Carroll, how do you eat a whale?
I was at work today and made an offhand joke about saving the environment to a co-worker of mine that is a prodigious right wing christian. Were she to read this blog I wouldn’t doubt her thinking I was the anti-christ himself, but that would be giving me too much credit, not enough people like me for that. (On a similar vein, if I hear one more reference that Barack Obama is the antichrist, I might snap). Back on track now, she had the retort “Only one person can fix the environment, and your not him.”
After my brief “What the f…” moment I lost my opportunity for any sort of retort, so I just let it ride. But let’s upack that statement, and it’s implications if we can.
The most obvious implication is that we fixing our world on our own, becuase it’s the destiny of the world to die. While I’m not denying the evidence of a New Earth written in the New Testament, I am questioning the veracity of this opinion that we should be doing nothing about it now, becuase it’s all going away later. To simplify my response to this as much as humanly possible lets throw this out…
You’re going to die. That is an optimal truth, an inescapable fact. You’re body has come down with a sickness, do you seek to cure it, or do you continue on your merry way knowning full well that you’re going to die eventually?
The next implication is that we are not capable of fixing what we’ve destroyed. While this may be true on more ethereal ideas such as sin, the state of the physical world, while no doubt stemming from a “sinful society,” is something that we can attempt to fix. Maybe the idea is that God wants us to stubbornly continue in the path we’re currently taking and wait for God to fix things, I’m not quite sure there is any Biblical support of this idea it does seem to be quite popular. While, undoubtedly, we are called to wait upon the Lord. Numerous Biblical references can be applied here) we are also called to action (as far as the earth goes the most poignant is in Leviticus 18:
24 ” ‘Do not defile yourselves in any of these ways, because this is how the nations that I am going to drive out before you became defiled. 25 Even the land was defiled; so I punished it for its sin, and the land vomited out its inhabitants. 26 But you must keep my decrees and my laws. The native-born and the aliens living among you must not do any of these detestable things, 27 for all these things were done by the people who lived in the land before you, and the land became defiled. 28 And if you defile the land, it will vomit you out as it vomited out the nations that were before you.
If anything we’re called to protect the Earth, and as Christians we should be at the forefront of Creation Care, instead of being swept up in the coat-tails.
Worldliness
I’ve been called worldly and looked down upon because I believe that it’s ok to drink, and do so, it’s ok to curse, and do so, and it’s ok to not fit the mold, and (most of the time) do so.
Then I read a handout from a church in which 3/4 of what’s written talks up the numbers for the church, those numbers being mainly attendance based.
Oh, not to mention the 2-Disc CD that the Student Worship Band put out this year.
And I’m wordly?
Give me a break.
Renewal
If you’re like me your a prophet with a belly full of fire who can’t be stoped by anything.
Except time.
I have a tendancy to run hot and cold, normally my hots run quite hots whereas my colds are actually lukewarms, but the point stands that I tend to live a life in which I get passionate about something and lose that passion somewhere down the road. Over the (brief) course of my life I’ve probably run the cycle of passion and calm dozens of times over dozens of topics, never quite learning from my previous cycles. It’s really the story of our lives often times, I guess most people play it out over longer periods than I do, but still this cycle seems to repeat itself in most of the lives I see.
Sometimes, we just need a little renewal, a second wind, all this time I never found a way to grab that second wind (let alone the needed third wind to make a passion into a lifestyle) and instead found myself moving on to the next passion. All these years, I never really thought about going back to the source that started the passion.
Maybe you’re in the same spot as I am. Maybe passion’s run out for you, maybe the belly full of fire that you once had is cooling down, you see it, you don’t like it, but complacency feels so good to us. The status qou that we held before we began is so much easier to keep up than the activity that passion requires. Sometimes you see how high the wall that your passion wants you to tear up really is. You realize how difficult it will be to take down that wall is. You see how much you will have to sacrifice if that passion is to be sustained.
I started my slide toward complacency in earnest just a few week ago. No longer were books being devoured, no longer were thoughts churning in my mind, no longer was imagination flowing freely, its a sad time in life when that happens, but then I was jarred out of it when I caught a glimpse of how high and powerful one of the walls I want(ed) to take down is, and how deeply rooted the wall is in my life.
We (being Becky and I) talk(ed) all the time of non-violence, of the imaginative third way, we debated others about it, and we’ve taken the so called high ground on the subject of violence in our lives. Now, for two people who claim such ideals, my actions Saturday night certainly show how far I have to go.
To make a long story short, we were victims of some drunken road rage Saturday night after leaving my parents dinner. The driver of the vehicle got out of his car and threatened to rip up my ass and such, to which I would have hoped an imaginative third way would have came in (third way being not violent nor passive), maybe several months ago I would have reacted in such a way to diffuse the situation in such a way that was on par with my ideals. My response however was to give the guy the finger and stare straight ahead.
Pathetic.
Anyways, this night kind of jarred me into looking at how poor my response was, and how far away I am from where I want to be. I realized that for me to waste all I have learned and strived for over the past year would be pathetic. I realized it was time for renewal, time to return to square one and relook at the things that first brought me to my passions.
I realize how close this is to sounding like an old school revival service, where the travelling pastor encourages the flock on the last night to resubmit their lives to Jesus, and every impulse I have urges me away from the route, so I leave it at that. It’s time to return to the source.
pluralism
For starters, I should lay out my beliefs on heaven/hell. I’m not a literal interpretation guy, I don’t think that there is actually a lake of fire that souls will burn in eternal conscious torment. I believe there is such thing as separation from God, but don’t necessarily think that the choice has to be made here. I think I’ll be spending quite a bit of time with some Hindus, Muslims, Jehovah’s Witnesses, members of many other religious in the life after death, and as Wright terms it “The life after life after death.”
Now that that’s out of the way… I’m not a pluralist either, at least not a religious pluralist. In fact, I’m downright against religious pluralism, at least in the sense that there are many ways to heaven. Let’s face it, the notion that any way is OK is a complete crock of contrived bull manure. I think there is only one way to heaven, or the New Earth after heaven (again if your an N.T. Wright fan), I think the whole “Way, Truth, and Life, No one comes to the Father but by Me” thing is true.
So to recap- I think that pretty much everyone gets to be in “Heaven” but I think the only way to “Heaven” is Jesus. (Please forgive my use of the quotes around Heaven, that whole issue is murky) So to repeat myself, I am not a religious pluralist.
Now, in case you missed it, a recent Pew Study shows that 70% of Americans (please note it says Americans here, not Evangelicals) believe that there are many paths to heaven (Religious Pluralism), and “57% of Evangelical Christians were willing to accept that theirs might not be the only path to salvation.”
This is actually bad news to me. In my opinion, we need to understand other religions, work with other religions, learn from other religions, but fully understand that Jesus is the only way to into “Heaven.” Some may say this is a good thing, and I hope they are saying it because it shows that Evangelicals and Americans in general are more accepting of other religions, but we need to understand that deeper than that acceptance is what appears to me as a weakening of our religious understandings.
I don’t want to come across as Fundamentalist or even Evangelical here, but I do what to emphatically state that we need to understand that if we believe the narrative of the Bible to be true, than Jesus is the only way of restoration, and that way is not narrow in the sense that not many people will be allowed through (as some Bible thumpers beleive) but is narrow in the sense that it is the only way.
Forgive me for the repetition, but I take this issue quite seriously, and I feel like it just shows another way that the church as we know it is failing to provide any sort of solid theology for the laeity to understand the gravity of “salvation theology.”
(HT: Blake Huggins)