Dissociation

I came across Romans 10 today as part of this week's common Lectionary readings.  I read through the whole chapter but verses 9 and 10 really stuck out.  I read it a few times and then it kind went on a bit of a rabbit trail from there.  

Here's the rabbit trail.  What does it mean to "believe something in your heart"?  Are you supposed to have some sort of feeling associated with that particular belief in order to authenticate the belief?  

Here's a for instance.  At Artisan we often use a creed as a confession of what we believe.  I would say that at a very base level, I believe those things that you find in a creed.  But I don't necessarily feel any connection to it (my beliefs) beyond a sort of academic level, or I just notice that I feel kind of dissociated.    

Likewise, I feel sort of dissociated from much of life these days. Almost, but not quite, fully numb.  Not quite because I do still feel anger very well.  But other than feeling anger, I feel separate from everything else.  This is not for lack of things around me that I could feel good about.  It's more that I am kind of an observer to those things rather than a participant in them.

     

  

Hitting the Pool

I decided that I need to get into shape.  I've lost about 15 pounds-back to where I was before I had Emily.  While that's great, I get tired just going upstairs to the girls room.  I googled my old swim team coach which promptly displayed a website with his address and phone number. Hope no one bad is looking for him:)  

Anyway, I called him up and had to leave a message and didn't expect that he'd actually call back, but he did!  He had no idea who I was even though I left my maiden name on his machine. He remembers my brother, though, who may or may not have had him as a math teacher.

Either way, he gave me some pointers and a loose pool workout to get started on and he'll be sending me some dryland workouts, hopefully including the medicine ball regimen we used to do.

Now I'm sure that any people who happen upon this blog, regularly or otherwise, could care less about the fact that I need to get in shape.  I only post this here in hopes that since I wrote about it, I have to do it.  Plus, I just got a card giving me free access to MCC's pool for a year.

So now I have to go whip myself into shape.  Or, as Devo would put it, I must whip it! 

Here's something I've been thinking on for a little.  What does it mean to be a Christian?  I've done an excellent job at naming things that I strongly dislike about Christianity and, therefore, Christians as well. Christianity doesn't necessarily imply Christians, but do you have Christianity without them?  

The term 'Christian' carries both positive and negative connotations.  If I were to tell someone that I am a Christian, it will bring up an image in that person's mind (whether positive, negative or indifferent) about what they think of Christians/Christianity.  That person has little choice but to ascribe those thoughts and feelings to me.  

So is there anything that is completely objective about being a Christian?  

To kind of define the word itself, I take the term to mean that a 'christian' is someone who associates or identifies him/herself with Christ.  Identifies as in to find an identity in Christ. Much like an American lives in America, makes America his/her home, has a citizenship, supports American ideals, and is surrounded by other Americans, a Christian identifies with Christ in this way.  (S)He lives in Christ, boasts a citizenship, supports Christ-like ideals, is surrounded by other Christians, etc...

Can it really be that simple?  What if it were?  What if everything I did was based simply on this definition?  

The image of Christians has become so perverted that it takes some thought to really figure out what, exactly, it means to label oneself as such.  Once you strip away connotations (which may not be entirely possible), you're left with a definition that, I think, begs you to do something with.  If I indeed am those things, then what? I can't ignore it.  I am compelled to move, if only even to simply try to figure out what the definition means in a practical way.

  

Come on, feminists... you have to admit this is kinda funny.   

Granny Call

Harriet Kenyon Call

I was thinking about my grandmother this morning. She was a pretty awesome lady who did some kick ass things in her lifetime, the most notable (from what I know) being that she was a WASP.

My dad has shared some pretty crazy stories about his mom who was an excellent cook, painter and pianist as well as a freaking pilot in World War II. From his stories and from my own memories of her I get an excellent picture of a woman who loved fiercely and who lived life for all it was worth.

Hers is a legacy I hope to live up to.

Stop Consuming

I came across this website because I saw it on a shirt on one of the members at Artisan and briefly overheard that member describing it to someone who had asked about it.

Stopconsuming.org seems, at first glance, to be part of a movement to raise awareness about the growing culture of consumerism in American churches and American Christians.  This idea, of course, is something that has been bugging me lately.   

Anyway, I think that the Shema movement (which is the movement associated with the website) wants to encourage people (Christians) to get out of a consumers mindset and go do something-no matter what that something is-for the sake of Christ.  

I'm not going to jump into any movement for the sake of being in a movement.  I'm not that kind of activist.  I'm not any kind of activist, really.  Rather, I think I am one of those consumers. This could account for my disgruntled-ness as what bothers me about others is the same thing that bothers me about myself.  I'm not doing anything. I sit at church and compare bands and judge sermons and then leave relatively unchanged.  

I wonder if I've become fat with Jesus or overfilled. A glass that has been overfilled with water spills over and creates a mess. Indeed, water is necessary.  But too much water is destructive.  I wonder if this is my problem.  I'm overfilled and instead of doing something with all the excess, it has become destructive.  I am cynical, overly critical, angry, arrogant and lazy.  

So now I just need to figure out what to physically do.  I don't know if being angry at "x-brand Christianity" means I should do something about x-brand Christianity or if I'm mad at x-brand because I am x-brand to some extent.  In that case I should do something about being x-brand. Maybe it is a little of both.  I guess I'll let you know when I find out.

As always, feel free to leave comments, especially if you know a little something more about this Shema thing.         

   

Countertops a Cancer Risk?

Really!  

To be fair, I didn't actually read the article, but the headline from Yahoo! News made me laugh a little.  Plus the headline is enough to spread sensationalist rumors.  Who needs to read the article?!

Next week:  "Licking granite countertops has been shown to cure cancer!"

Turns out you can't breathe near the countertop-that causes cancer.  But licking the countertop while holding your breath will cure that same cancer. 

Now what?

Well, that last post was certainly cathartic.  I had been dwelling on these thoughts for some time but found it helpful to place them on record.  But upon rereading that post again this morning, I came to the conclusion that to dwell any longer here would do a great disservice not only to me but to others as well.  

I was surprised when I used the word hate yesterday.  The sentence "I hate this brand of Christianity" was typed as it had been thought.   I paused afterward to decide whether I really meant that or not.  Of course, the next sentence revealed that I did mean to use that word.  Though today, I question whether or not what I feel toward this group of people is actually hatred.

True hatred is a pretty raw and ugly thing.  It drives men to kill one another, or wish for another man's death in ones heart.  People say love is blind and I think hatred is too.  When you are full of hate you cease to be able to see any other way but hatred.  It's consuming and its effects are devastating not only to the person being hated but the person hating as well.  

So do I truly hate the brand of Christianity I described yesterday?  Maybe not so much.  I do not wish death upon these people.  But anger is not out of the question.  I see an injustice in the way these people treat others and it makes me angry.  In their arrogance people get trampled.  Perhaps a little like I trampled them yesterday in my own arrogance and pride.  

  

Much of the brand of Christianity I wrote about yesterday is based on my old church, which is probably of little surprise.  There are days when I wish I could go back and tell off the preacher and force him to understand that the way he goes about church and pastoring hurt people.  But I know that my words would mean nothing to him.  I can't force him to understand anything.  Nothing would change in his world by anything that I would say.  It would be of little use and probably only make me angrier to do such a thing.  

So what do I do with this anger?  I don't entirely know.  Only that I need to do something with it or I'll just be bitter and angry the rest of my life.  Which isn't really an attractive option...

 

Skubala

I googled 'skubala' to make sure I got the spelling down and the description of the first match simply said "skubala means shit."  Heh.  I hear, though, that Jesus uses it for compost so I'm banking on that, because I have a lot of skubala to wade through.  I realize this post is long, but bear with me here, and please add to the comment box. 

Recently, I wrote a post entitled Jesus in the Amazon.  You can read over it if you want as it is loosely related to what I'm about to write.  The academic dean of the Bible college that I attended *&#$ years ago commented that my "pessimism about the gospel is disturbing, to put it mildly."  I would contend, however, that I'm not pessimistic about the gospel.  I'm pessimistic about Christianity, of which I am a part.  

More specifically, my beef lies with a particular brand of Christianity.  It's not a particular denomination as such.  It's the brand that only shops at Alpha and Omega bookstores, only listens to KLove, sends its men to Promise Keepers, its women to Women of Faith (so they can learn how to be more submissive and therefore a better Christian wife and mom),and its children to CIY conferences.  It teaches that the place of the woman is at home cleaning house and homeschooling the kids.  It won't come right out and say that, though, but by practice you know it's the true Christian way.

It's the brand that boasts megachurches with worship teams that are larger than Artisan.  And don't all 50 vocalists look so sincere with their eyes closed and hands raised to the ceiling?  None of it sounds any good or, for that matter, looks good in a gymno-sanctuary.  The buildings look the way they do to attract wealthy businessmen and their Stepford wives.  All of this done to the glory of Christ?  Really?  

There is little depth here except depth of pockets.  Really, though.  How deep can you go before you upset the business man and his pocketbook?

This is the brand of Christianity that needs to be right.  They educate themselves in colleges so that they can affirm their positions and win any theological debate.  Homosexuals, people who have left abusive and poisonous marriages, Buddhists, Muslims (especially), people baptized as infants or sprinkled as an adult be damned.  They are wrong!  And we are right.  It's the brand that teaches you what to think, not how to think for yourself.  This is because thinking for yourself would cause all kinds of problems once you think of something a little differently than they do.  

This is the brand that sends missions teams to the 10-40 window of the world to feel better about themselves and to spread not the gospel but to spread American ideals, American democracy, American culture under the guise of capturing the world for Christ.  If you scroll down far enough in the link, there is a picture of the 10-40 window and a list of all the "unreached" populations.  You'll find, though, that they aren't really unreached, they just aren't Christian.  They are Muslims and Buddhists and Hindus and Jews.  At that point it seems less like missions and more like the Crusades.

I hate this brand of Christianity.  While hate is a strong word, it is exactly the word I intend.  I hate that I have been a part of this brand.  I want to completely dissociate myself from it because I hate the arrogance it produces.  Because it has produced that kind of arrogance in me.

So, part of my spiritual formation plan is to avoid throwing the baby Jesus out with the bathwater.  I know that not all of Christianity is as I have described.  So I'm wading through the skubala in hopes that Jesus will in fact take it and turn it into something useful, and that in wading through it I can, myself, find something wonderful about Christianity that I can agree with.  

  

 

Here Goes...

Recently, I signed a membership covenant with Artisan Church.  Part of this covenant is a commitment on my part to ongoing spiritual formation.  I was asked to make a loose plan of how I would see out my formation over the next month, 6 months and year.  I wrote down some things and then ultimately decided that this was something that I needed to give more thought to at a later time.  Now that I have finally graduated, taken my last exam and have nothing else to do until I get my scores, a later time has come.  

In filling out that formation plan, I realized that I have some serious church baggage to work through.  In some ways I neglected to work through it because I was using it to fuel my drive to get through school.  Which I did, quite successfully.  So...suck it, people who thought I'd fail!  

In other ways I neglected to work through it because it's just plain easier to be angry than to forgive and move on.  Also, I wasn't sure at the time what I'd be moving on to or if there was anything, spiritually, for me to move on to.  So i just stayed where I was because I knew it and it served a purpose.

But the "I got baggage" excuse has outlived its usefulness and it's time to let go of things that happened years ago.  I've no idea what that looks like.  

I decided that I would make some sort of consistent effort to work through some of this spiritual crap that has been bogging me down.  I'm not setting lofty goals, here, like "I'm going to read a book of the Bible every day starting with Genesis until I hit Revelation" (or most likely until I get bored in Numbers).  That plan never works for me.  In fact, I think the only goal that I am setting is to start and then continue.  

I'll probably write about some of my attempts here for the same reason I posted about the Amazon tribe.  Engaging in dialogue about some of my grievances may provide viewpoints I had not considered or had considered but rejected in my mind.  A benefit of community, hey?

So with feelings of reverence, awe, fear and uncertainty, here goes!

I want that...

This, friends, is a Wurlitzer 200.  As much as I love my keyboard and all the great sounds it produces, I will eventually spend money on one of these here electric pianos.  Violet Mary will sell more albums if I walk onto stage and play one of those, guaranteed.  

 

Weatherman

I really enjoy watching someone who is really good at their job doing their job.  I should add that I like it, mostly, when the person who is good at their job enjoys their job.  Which is why I will never watch any other news station but WROC here in the Roc because of Scott Hetsko, the chief meteorologist.  His enthusiasm about weather is so attractive.  I want to watch the weather report because Scott Hetsko freakin loves the weather.  

Plus, he's awkward.  It's endearing.  And he has a clip of himself making a cloud on the WROC/Fox website.   

   

Music Times is Happy Times

Time for my susquecentennial musical update.

New purchases this weekend include the soundtracks for Pulp Fiction and Singles. Vinyl purchases of the weekend include: Songs from the Big Chair by Tears for Fears, Synchronicity by The Police, So by Peter Gabriel and Siamese Dream by the Smashing Pumpkins.

I also managed to find a Round About Midnight demo in the dollar bin at the Record Archive along with a kick ass polyester shirt with purple stags on it.

Albums that I am currently playing ad infinitum are The Bends by Radiohead, Everybody Loves a Happy Ending by Tears for Fears and Achtung Baby by U2. Continuum by John Mayer has also been getting some significant play time.

And there you have it. I really enjoy good musical art. It is so satisfying to listen to a great album.

What?

I've been enjoying the past few weeks getting to know some of the deaf members of the community at Artisan. I'm getting a little faster at fingerspelling and more confident with my vocabulary. However, when I'm learning a new sign I noticed that I will verbally ask for clarification in a very loud voice...

Off Guard

Sometimes a word spoken or a lyric sung will catch me off guard
and I'll think of you
For days I'll see your face, hear your distant voice,
even catch a glimpse of your old car around town
I'll wish that you were here
and I imagine if you could you'd wish the same
These days I imagine more than I remember
And hope that we will one day meet face to face
so I won't have to rely on shady memories
and thin images that I conjured up while you were far away.

Wax Museum

"Armpit, you remember razor don't you?"

"..."

"NO! You can't ever be friends with wax again!"

Saturday Morning

My lazy Saturday morning thoughts (because you asked....or didn't):

-It's lazy because I should be studying and I'm not. My motivation is dwindling. Suck it, delayed gratification!

-Still having a love affair with Tears for Fears album "Everyone Loves a Happy Ending".

-Why do I keep choosing books that offer a promising synopsis on the back cover but don't deliver?

-I need to go get my keyboard from the church building right now but am unmoved to do so.

-I'm grateful to be on the other side of a crazy few days.

-I'm surprised at how pessimistic and negative I have become about Christianity and the Christian experience. I think this is idea will show itself in a more thought out post at a later time.

-What should I eat for breakfast or, because it is 10.55, should I just wait for lunch?

-I never learned the correct way to type so anytime I type the word 'just' it comes out jsut and I have to go back and correct it.

That's it. Aren't you glad you asked....or didn't?

Suck It, Borders

Now I know I should have known better, but I couldn't help myself. I was drawn into an ad for a $500 gift card to Borders. If you have had any contact with me in the past 6 months or so, you would think that I might want to get in on this deal. You would be right.

I figured I'd have to fill out some survey and participate in some offer and I'd be good to go. I took their dumb survey and was shuffled to the page where I pick an offer. I already had it in mind to do a Blockbuster deal since they always have one of those (which they did). I chose Netflix instead and then was shuffled to another choose an offer page.

Turns out you have to do 4 offers!!! As much as I will probably enjoy Netflix for the 2 weeks that I have the free trial, I don't want any Raw Minerals that promise to even out my complexion or to lose 25 pounds in 25 minutes on the Oprah Winfrey diet. Sheesh!

At least I didn't do something totally impulsive and buy a Shark vacuum cleaner from an infomercial....oh wait.....

Knuckles!!

A shot of Barack Obama doing knuckles. Pretty hip for a politician. Maybe it's the extra push off the cliff he needs to clinch the Presidency. Doubtful that McCain (who's he?) will look cool doing knuckles. He'd have to come up with a gesture of his own but it'd still be kinda lame because he didn't think of it first. Plus everyone knows that knuckles beats chest bump in a game of knuckles, chest bump and not yet invented gesture. Kudos, Obama...you're the bomb.

Jesus in the Amazon

Every once in a while a headline from Yahoo! News actually piques my interest. Today they posted aerial pictures accompanying a brief article about an "uncontacted indiginous tribe in the Amazon." The article notes that there are some 100 uncontacted tribes like the ones pictured throughout the world. Only 100? Have we really explored every place there is to explore on this earth and deduced that there are only about 100 tribes that have been untouched by civility?

Second, and more the focus of this post, now that we are more aware of at least this one particular tribe and its whereabouts, do you suppose that some missionary is going to go evangelize to these people? All sarcasm aside, should they be evangelized to? I don't think it's necessarily arrogant to say no, but I'm not sure I wouldn't say yes.

The word evangelism itself brings up an image that makes me uneasy. In my mind I see evangelism as brow beating and evangelists the brow beaters, wielding the Bible like a weapon. It reminds me of my Intro to Evangelism class at Cincinnati Bible College where we were to "evangelize" to 2 people during the semester and write up a report about it for a grade. One of the criteria of the report was to note whether or not I thought my evangelism worked. Did the person I evangelized to "come to Christ" as a result of my evangelism technique? I fear that this is the mindset that will bring a missionary or even a whole group (oh, I mean team) of missionaries to "bring Jesus to the ends of the earth." In this case I am comfortable in thinking that this tribe is fine just as it is and is, in fact, better off without the missionary team.

On the other hand, what do we do with verses like Acts 1:8 and Acts 13:47 and any number of other passages that speak to taking the message of Jesus to the ends of the earth. I guess it depends on your view of salvation. If this tribe never knows about Jesus how can they be held accountable for it? No doubt this tribe worships something, and something that makes perfect sense to them. Does God accept their genuine worship even though it may not be specifically directed toward him because this tribe does not specifically know his name?

Should a missionary go in and teach them about Jesus? How would that change that tribes way of life? Does it matter that their way of life was changed if they now know about Jesus? What if that knowledge changes the tribe for the worse because it could confuse what they've always known or cause divisions in the tribe between those who may have accepted the knowledge and those who may have rejected it. Then there's a whole new cycle of the acceptors thinking they are better than the rejectors, and oh the rabbit trails this takes you down.

I didn't even address the bit in the article about how the tribe and others like it are in danger of losing their land because civilized people are knocking down all the trees. At that point there's more of a justice aspect that enters the picture rather than a salvific aspect.

Ultimately my question is simple though the answer, if there is one, is not so much. How does God/Jesus apply to this tribe of people?