The Work Of Our Hands

God created.

What God created had particulars. In otherwords, God created trees and God created skunks and God created daisies (to help with the skunks). God created particular things. God also, it seems to me, created the particulars to interrelate - necessarily. So trees need the air that skunks breathe out in order to grow and live just as the skunk needs the tree for oxygen, etc. So in one sense, when we talk about the particulars of creation, we can make distinction, but (probably) not division.

So, God creates with distinction, but not division.

Humans created.

We've created many things, but perhaps the most powerful thing we create is culture. Culture - the great human enterprise. Yet, unlike God, we do not create ex nihilo - out of nothing. We start with God's creation and then arrange it, color it, form it into our own.

And this is good - really good. How wonderful that God created us imago dei - to create as well! I think God gets really geeked over good paintings and flower arrangements and dances and costumes and theater and mocha valenica frappachinos. I think he grooves on our creation - he loves it - is excited about it.

I get really geeked about God getting really geeked!

But at the same time, our brokenness affects our creations. There is such a thing as bad paintings, bad flower arrangements, bad dances, bad theater and bad frappachinos. (What makes a thing good or bad is an interesting topic, but for now let us assume this and keep moving.)

Now, culture is more than the collection of our visible creations. It isn't exactly the sum of what we tangibly make, because to "add up" our visible creations and call it culture would not truly represent what we call culture. The "song and dance" that Brittany Spears creates (or that her handlers do) cannot account for the culture that Brittany Spears creates.

(God knows what does...)

Anyway, culture also includes our thinking and believing. Thus, we tread cautiously onto the ice and say that our beliefs are just that - our beliefs. Our thoughts are just that - our thoughts.

And all the good Christians out there are saying, "think God's thoughts after him."

Ah, yes. Here we have come back to the reality that we do not create ex nihilo - we start necessarily with God's creation. We start thinking with God's thoughts.

We can pervert God's thoughts - thus run counter to God's thoughts - just as we can make bad paintings and bad frappachinos.

But the opposite of the perversion of God's thoughts is not that we would all think the same thoughts. In otherwords, there are good seascapes and good landscapes and good portraits and good abstract art and good impressionistic art...

Thinking God's thoughts is a wide open thing, not a little narrow thing.

And now, after all that, we come back to distinctions versus divisions. And more than that - the rightness or pervertedness of such.

First of all, if it is true that creation is all interrelated, then can we ever divide? A tricky, tricky question indeed. For there is, of course, the issue of sin. Is there an impenetrable wall around ourselves to divide between us and sin? If you are homosexual, you are on the other side of the wall. If you are lame, blind, unclean, a prostitute, a drug dealer...over the wall you go. And there is a long history of this. Of course, the damnable thing is when we find the sin inside our own hearts. And then, the question becomes is there an impenetrable wall between our "true selves" and our "false selves"? Tricky, tricky...

It is quite a disservice to divide between "sinners" and "good people" and likewise to divide between true selves and false selves. I know a man who is terribly afraid and so he prays against the "demons of fear." The fear belongs on the other side of the wall (it is a false self) and if only he could build his wall higher or stronger, pray harder and longer, then the fear wouldn't, couldn't come creeping over anymore.

But what if the fear is him? Then he is a man at war with himself. No matter how much effort he puts into his wall - no matter the force with which he prays - fear will always seep through the cracks, flood under the wall and rain down on him from on high. And on and on the cycle will go: he builds, he fails, he is ashamed, he builds again...

Yet, if the fear is him, but perverted, a whole new course of action lays before him. The question - the beginning place - is an embracing of fear - an embracing of himself. And then once held in the palm of his hands, he must ask and discern what has been perverted - and love that which has been perverted.

In this particular case, perhaps it is humility. Perhaps it is a sincere recognition of his place as a creature, his weaknesses, his frailty. And here we have a powerful aspect of personhood - a place that this man can stand in deep grace. It is a place from which he can reach and heal not only himself but others who are hurting.

Yet as long as it is on the other side of the wall - attributed to demons - separated from self - he is unable to move or live full inwardly and outwardly.

And so divisions seem to be a perversion of God's thoughts...

Distinctions.

Distinctions seem to aid us at times - they aid us in creation. I want a flower arrangement that is "cheerful" versus a flower arrangement that is "romantic" or "artistic" or whatever. Of course it can be very romantic to be cheerful or artistic - but as a description of a flower arrangement, the distinctions help us create.

Distinctions between male and female also help us create.

Children.

Distinctions also help us talk about things. They help us communicate. This is a daisy. This a skunk. Smell the daisy, not the skunk.

So when we think God's thoughts (distinctions) after her, we create and act more free and more true (and less painfully) than if we ignore these distinctions.

However, let's not let distinctions off the hook that easy. Sometimes, distinctions may be harmful. Here are some "distinctions" that I have heard used in the last couple of weeks.

Theological as distinct from spiritual.
Ideologically centered churches as distinct from relationally centered churches.
Mind as distinct from heart.
Thoughts as distinct from emotions.

Do these distinction help us live more free and less painfully? Or are the injurious?

Each of these distinctions, of course, should be considered on their own merits and not lumped together as I did when I listed them. For the sake of time, though, I want to look at just one of them.

Ideologically centered church and relationally centered churches.

This distinction was used in a conversation concerning local churches. Some churches are ideologically driven while others are relationally driven. This, it seems to me, is a perversion of God's thoughts.

Is it a reality? Sure. There are churches who are ideologically driven, so that if you disagree ideologically, you no longer have relationship - thus, church divides. There also are churches that are relationally driven, so they have "community" but no one knows why.

Is this distinction in the flow of God's thoughts? Is it right to be an ideological church? A relational church? Does it help us live more free and less painfully?

Of course not.

This distinction causes us to act as if we must choose between our ideas and our relationships. Either you agree with the church ideologically or you leave the church. "If you are not with us, you're against us."

Relational churches do the same thing in reverse - they choose relationships over ideas. "We will have no conflict, we just agree to disagree." And their ideas are meaningless.

We must redeem this.

Relationships are born from ideology. Ideas spring from relationships.

In fact, I have no ideas apart from relationship and I have no relationship apart from ideas.

And even more than that...

My relationships are ideas. My ideas are relationships. They invade each other's space and cut against the grain when mismatched.

To say that ideologically driven churches have poor relationships is obvious. What is less obvious, but just as true, is that ideologically driven churches also have poor ideas. And vice versa - relational churches tend to have very bad ideas but they also - and necessarily so - have very bad relationships - they are nothing more than sentimintality. They do not enlarge or grow. They are merely entertainment.

This distinction of "ideologically driven churches" and "relationally driven church" is a perversion. Though it is real (it really exist) it is not true.

And this...the work of our hands.

Let us not bow down to the work of our hands.

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 5/28/2005 09:49:00 AM | (0) comments

My Hero...

Afleet Alex

And if you want to read his journal (yes he writes too!), here it is.

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 5/22/2005 09:04:00 PM | (0) comments

Public Service Announcement

The Human Puzzler is writing again...

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 5/17/2005 08:51:00 AM | (5) comments

Ears To Hear...

Dorothy Sayers was once confronted by this atheist-style statement: If a clam were to conceive of God, it would conceive of God as the Great Clam in the Sky.

Her response?

"Naturally."

The argument of the atheist (or whomever is making this statement) is that God must be the creation of the human mind because all indications are that God is simply an "archetype" or a larger-than-life human in the sky.

But when Sayers responds, she is not confirming the position of the atheist, but countering the position. Briefly, her argument is as follows.

God as Creator - and thus creative - is always true to the nature of his creation, just as all good artist are true the material they are working with. In other words, a sculptor would ask from his material only what is true of that material. So that, what our artist asks of granite may be quite different than what what she would ask of plaster or marble or metal.

AND...

AND - here's the kicker - if the artist were to make a self representation in marble, the true artist would never ask the marble to be an exact replica - not flesh and blood and softness and...hairy. A true artist who loves her substance (marble) and herself will be true to the material and limit her self representation to the fullness of the material - nothing less but neither nothing beyond the capability of the material.

So if God were to reveal himself to a clam, he would reveal himself in his creation (clams) to the fullness of that particular creation. In other words, he would be the clammiest clam he could be, and nothing more.

The reason for this is that the clam's experience of God is limited by the clam. To say "God is a Warrior" to a clam would be paramount to telling humans that God is a baglachi-catini-lehu.

So how do you feel about that?

Unless I am very much mistaken, you don't feel anything at all - except perhaps confusion. Why? Because (unless I'm mistaken) you've had no experience whatsoever with a baglachi-catini-lehu. So, it's absolutely useless for God to reveal herself as a baglachi-catini-lehu to you. Meaningless. Whatever the word means to God is lost on you, and that's no knock on God or you. It just means you are human and, limited by your humanness, you cannot relate to the God as baglachi.

Neither can a clam relate to God as Warrior.

So when those biblical characters such as David, Isaiah, Malachi, John and even Jesus refer to God as "Father" or "King" - we start with the assumption that God is revealing God's Self to them in the best possible way. The obvious thing with Jesus is that he is God so the perspective shifts a bit (slight understatement) but the principle holds true. Jesus as God, as well as God who spoke to the Prophets, is continually revealing within the experience of the creature.

So, if God reveals himself to his creation living in a patriarchal social construct, and these people are in near constant oppression and/or captivity, then it has a powerful meaning to say that God is King - the true ruler of all the nations. God as Father - the provider and guider of his children. God as Warrior - the rescuer and defender of his people.

The question is, do these words mean the same to us now?

I would suggest that they do not. That doesn't mean that they should not be used, but if we are to respect the Scripture, we must stand in the shoes (sandals) of those who penned it.

The word "King" means something quite different to us, living in The United States than it would to a people living in captivity in Babylon 3000 years ago.

The same is true for Warrior and Father.

The bottom line is this, though. We are right to stand in the shoes of the Ancients and receive God's revelation, but we are also right to stand in our own shoes and receive God's revelation. In fact, the reality is that we must and cannot help but to stand in our own shoes.

And so when children of a culture of single parent homes suggest that God is Mother and that "Father" is meaningless, they are justified and right to use the metaphor Mother. Mother is the Provider, the Disciplinarian, the Comforter.

This we can understand.

But what of a culture (ours) that creates a strong divide between male and female (there is a masculine soul and a feminine soul)?

Would we be surprised that a God who cares deeply for all of her children would groan to express herself as female as well?

How else can female ever be imago Dei in this culture?

God, my Mother...
God, Madam President of the Universe...
God, the Great Female Physician...
God, my Mother Theresa...

Revelation is about intimacy (popular among my circle of friends) but it is also about redemption.

Feminine metaphors of God reveal and redeem the imago Dei of females.

(And just for the record, I don't believe in male souls and female souls and think there is little divide at all between female and male. But that's another post...)

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 5/16/2005 09:24:00 AM | (3) comments

Lewis Reincarnated...

I am C.S. Lewis reincarnated.

I know you may be shocked by the claim I am making. It is shocking, after all, being good Christian people and having rejected claims of such fallacies by those Eastern religions (where did Christianity originate again?). However, it is true. I must maintain that I am, in fact, C.S. Lewis reincarnated.

You may wonder how I happened upon this startling revelation. Naturally. Any truly inquisitive mind would ask. I came to realize this during my early years at Baylor University.

See, though my parents and my childhood had no knowledge of the existence of CS Lewis or any of his works (being isolated in the backwoods of Northeast Texas), when I arrived at Baylor, I found that CS Lewis agreed with me. That's right. I didn't agree with him as I read his works. Instead, I felt as though he (me) were plagiarizing my thoughts - STOP THAT! (I hate it when I have conversations with myself...and get confused...)

I also found that his arguing methods were exact replicas of mine. He (and/or I) like to argue in circles. NOT that we like to argue in useless circles, but that we like to start at the farthest point out and make wide, sweeping circles - engaging all possible objections along the way - moving inwards toward the center of "obvious truth."

All of this was disconcerting for awhile until I realized the actuality of the truth - that I was CS Lewis in another life.

Yes it's true. No autographs, please.

(to be continued...)

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 5/15/2005 08:30:00 AM | (0) comments

I'm Special!!!!!!!

Hey look! I'm special! I always knew it but this confirms it!

Yay!

You love me! (George Bush does too!)

I am: 41% Republican.

"Congratulations, you're a swing voter. When they say 'Soccer Mom', they mean you. Every Democratic ad on the TV set was made just for your viewing enjoyment. Don't you feel special?"

Are You A Republican?

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 5/13/2005 12:26:00 PM | (0) comments

This Episcopalian Camera Man Walks Into A Bar...

Let me tell you about the place I drink my coffee...

The Human Puzzler is always there. He is the community builder. It was him that began it all.

First there were Julie and Sue. They work here. Julie is almost always on task, but you can distract her by talking about knitting...or dieting. She arranges the flowers on each of the tables and never gets mad.

Sue is a flighty bird. She's a good worker of course, but spends most of the time somewhere between Disney Land and the Outer Reaches of the Galaxy. Her favorite phrase is, "Can you believe it?! Oh my gosh!!"

Then there are the Railway guys. At first it was just Charlie. I think the combination of good coffee, a free newspaper and the Human Puzzler's endless chatter gave Charlie just what he was looking for. Charlie is here every morning too - except when he's in Florida for the winter.

When Charlie's here now, he brings his friend who worked the railroads with him, and together the two of them spend all morning talking about railroads and trains and the people who worked them...it is very serious business, except when they're laughing.

Next there was Dennis - the cutting edge Episcopalian technology guy/camara man/artist incognito who knew what "WiFi" was before I knew how to spell it. He also figured out that the coffee shop had WiFi and was in here using it. The Human Puzzler would NOT leave him alone because the Human Puzzler loves "big boy toys" like...wireless cards and Palm Pilots with wireless capabilities. So, I really didn't like Dennis at first, because he always took the Human Puzzlers' attention off the deep theological point I was making and turned it toward a new AdAware Program or laser scinking or RAM or whatever. Agh!

Now, however, I'm in love with Dennis. I mean, come on! An Episcopalian artist incognito who knows how to set the clock on my VCR?

Will you marry me?

Then came the Recovering Alcoholic. He still is on the outside a bit, never sitting with us, but always saying hello. He sits and reads the paper and drinks his coffee. There is a brokenness and a softness to him - a wound that still runs. He doesn't blame his parents - he's not of my generation. He blames himself. I want to protect him.

Jill and her David are next. A single mom raising her son and working - I don't know what happened to dad. What I do know is that David carries his skateboard with him at all times, and though they park within 25 feet of the door, Dave always travels car to door and back via skateboard. I've seen him fall off on the pavement. They were leaving, going to the car, so Jill had her back to me. I didn't see her face - I just know that he got up laughing and she let out a big laugh too.

She's going to Guatemala in a month on a mission trip - go single mom go!

Dick was next. He taught at a Christian college for ever and ever. In fact, I think he's retired, but still teaching, if you know what I mean. Dick loves to debate and loves to catalog everything you say like "that's some very 60's theology you've got there" or "radical calvinism!" or "you're boardering on Arianism there!" But the best thing about Dick is that he has always had a secret love for trains. And so when he comes - which is almost every morning - he inevitably wanders over to Charlie and his friend and before long is wide eyed and excited...this professor sitting at the feet of the railway hands...I love it.

When I'm old and gray, I want to be that excited about something too.

And then we met Dennis' father-in-law, Don. (Yes, alas, Dennis is already married.) Don was born into the Roman Catholic church, but has since left and become a unitarian. His reasons primarily are based on bad theology - our bad theology. He cannot abide the idea that a good God sends people to hell because they live in a remote jungle and never hear the story of a man who lived 2000 years ago. It isn't fair and it isn't good.

I say he knows God just fine.

He's still got some messed up ideas, but who doesn't? He always gives Dennis and I hugs before he goes - back to the retirement village across the street. Dennis gets one for being the son-in-law. I get one, because I'm the only other one who will hug him. All these other old men slap him on the back and shake his hand. It's probably all the same...

On Thursdays, Mike O, Mike M and the two Daves (they have the same last names too!) join us for a bookclub on CS Lewis' Mere Christianity.

It sounds like the beginning of a bad joke...

A Unitarian, Episcopalian and four Christian Reformed guys walk into a (coffee) bar where they meet a former Baptist, non-denom chick who goes to a Vineyard church...

...and the sky goes dark...

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 5/13/2005 08:56:00 AM | (0) comments

Many Benny Hinn-ees

I had a conversation a while ago with a friend whom I consider to be extraordinarily intelligent and sensitive. He also is a pastor. As an off-handed comment, I said something about addressing God as Mother.

He was flabbergasting.

I was so shocked by his shock that I considered for a moment that maybe, just maybe, I had unknowingly punched my ticket for a train ride to Hades or agreed to be the wife of Satan or something.

See, I'm used to having religion professors call me a heretic - and even that with a twinkle in their eye. I've had religion professors suggest taking a collection from the class in order to purchase a lighting rod to attach to my desk. And I've stood up in an upper level theology class at the world's largest Baptist university and said, "Maybe, the good and worthy Apostle Paul was WRONG!"

But I've never offended a pastor before. (They do seem a little closer to God than religion professors, you know?)

So, at the moment I found myself more inclined to apologize than actually think it through and argue it out with him. The best I could do was to say something like, "Well, Father is a metaphor..." To which he replied (after a round of ritual cleaning and bout of scourging and confession and such) that JESUS referred to God as Father and not as Mother.

"So?"

As the clock continued to tick off the seconds, I began coming out of my state of shock enough to formulating a case for Jesus as a man engaging real live people in a real live culture and that OF COURSE that affected his language - in fact he didn't even say "Father" - he said whatever the Aramaic word for Father was - abba - if you will.

But I was too chicken to say that...

HARK! What have we here??!?

Did I say I was chicken?

Did I call myself a chicken?

I did. And I know someone else who did the same thing.

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather you together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing." Matthew 23:36-38.

So Jesus - God - compared himself not only to a female - but a female chicken.

Woman of the World - UNITE! For you are worth more than many hens!

(And many, many more Benny Hinns!)

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 5/10/2005 08:23:00 AM | (0) comments

Giacamo???

WHO'S THAT?!!

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 5/07/2005 07:07:00 PM | (0) comments

Gag

My story went astray - or awry - or awol or something. It's because there was a piece I didn't write.

I knew that was the problem, but I wasn't sure what I didn't write.

At first I thought I wasn't being honest about my own dark side, but then I realized I was wrong. It's just that I was looking backwards at it. I hope you noticed that too. There was plenty of darkness. It just gets swept away in light of the way the Good redeemed it.

So, that wasn't it.

Then I thought that maybe I should have been labeling God more often. Maybe I should have been saying, "And then God brought light out of the darkness." But then I realized that I actually really just like nuance. And I like for people to see God on their own, without my flashing neon signs.

"Here's God!" "See God Here!" "Come See God!" "Exit Now!"

So, that wasn't it.

And then I thought maybe I wasn't writing anymore because that's were my story ends. At least for now. How do you talk about now? Now I am experiencing the need to tell you what I' m experiencing now and now I wished I'd quit typing mistaeeee and that this keyboard wasn't so weird andsticky and i've now decided to make a runon sentence witht ypose so you can see how ard it is to writeo about he moment.

Damn. IO suck at tying.

HA!

IO suck at tying??? Typing.

Yes. Maybe that's why I stopped writing that story of mine. All the typos.

Anyway, it wasn't really the typos and as far as writing about the moment - yes it's hard, but not impossible. It's not impossible to reflect on the moment at least pretty close to when the moment exist.

So, that wasn't it either.

I know why. I know why I stopped. Because I wasn't sure how to remain honest while also remaining classy. (If you don't think I'm classy, well...screw you! Just kidding!) What I mean is that writing your story is something only idiots do, unless you're one of those few people in the world who can be humble and honest and classy while avoiding a sense of voyarism.

But alas, I belong to the former.

However, I suppose I am called to work out my salvation, and so I have come back around to the story.

Before this day. Before this time. Before I realized that life was like a slinky...there was my darkness.

To some extend it would be correct to view me as a girl in a bubble. For most of my days I was. A girl inside the pristine bubble they made for me. My darkness lurked there as well, have no doubt. But they took the shape of most people who do it all right. Pride and fear.

It's funny how pride and fear go together. At first glance, it shouldn't be that way, but only a little bit more inspection and you can hardly find one without the other.

But I digress.

I have friend who has says, "living inside the boxes they give you denies you the priviledge of knowing your own evil." I agree. They told me I was good if I stayed inside the boxes, so I did. Results? Pride and fear. But I never knew how dark pride and fear made my pristine bubble because all the other good people looked just the same. And I never knew how evil I could be until the walls came tumbling down.

I got booted out of the box.

Remember? Mr. Big Hormone walked right into the open door of my naivete and kicked my butt right out of the box.

Let's hear it for Mr. Big Hormone...

He wasn't all that bad, really. He just wanted to make out, it's just that I didn't know what that was. And so I thought for the longest time that I had sex. Mr. Big Hormone and Miss Primandproperidiot don't mix all that well.

So good-bye, Mr. Big Hormone.

But my world was spinning and I didn't think I could belong in the box anymore. You can't package tainted, fallen women in the "Good Girl Box." Oh, sure. I was forgiven. But I still was less than I was before. (Come See! Sin Incognito! Exit Now!)

And then horror of horrors...I discovered that I really wanted to have sex. I truly had been tainted. Now certainly, no man would ever want me - a wanton, fallen woman who wanted to have sex? (Stop and Browse! Framework of Lies! Exit 1/4 Mile!)

So. I almost did.

I know, that sucks right? I still can't just be bad. Wake up, Neo. The Matrix has you. Whatever, the point that I need to make, in order to go on and finish the frickin' story, is simply this. A formative part of my life and a pivotal point in the story is that I am a girl who was willing to have sex - screw the rules. If it hadn't been for the good sense of the guy I was with, I would have had sex.

The thing is, though, that without this experience I never would have realized these things.

1) The church allows for no sexual expression in single adults.
2) I like sex.
3) My culture told me that I was less of a woman if I was sexual outside of marriage.
4) Freud was talking about my culture.
5) My ultimate value was based on how good a man I eventually got to marry me.
6) Women are just as sexual as men - on any given day a woman may be more sexual than a man.
7) I don't need sex.

There are many other things I learned along the way, but for now I'm just glad to have this missing part of my story told.

I hope I have handled this with class and humility and honesty. I hope I have caused no injuries.

Somehow, someway - the church has got to start dealing with single adults and sexuality. Single adults are everywhere. And so is sex. We are to be pitied if the only "Good News" we have for singles is that "we have singles group...with some nice looking young men in it...*smile*blink*blink*smile."

Gag.

posted by Headless-in-GR @ 5/03/2005 03:52:00 PM | (2) comments