On the Side of the Road

Now that we're done with bumper stickers for a while, how 'bout billboards?

There are some really dumb ones out there lately. McDonald's are just weird. Clearly they're trying to be clever ("Good things come to those who wake"), but . . . I dunno. Something just seems to fall flat. My favourite one is "Our hotcakes are going like . . . " but after that, it's just "If coffee is Joe, ours is Joseph." Huh? What does that even mean?

The most bizarre billboard up on the main highway going through our City right now, though? It depicts three women, each in a different decade of life. They all look like they're laughing hard enough, if they had any sort of bladder control problem, to . . . have a bladder control problem. The caption says, "Not your mother's hysterectomy." Okay. Guess not.

Everything You Think

Here at Jennwith2ns' blog, we're analysing popular cultural catch-phrases. Why are we doing this, you ask? Because they're there, and I, Jennwith2ns, overanalyse everything. (You mean you hadn't noticed this yet?)

Previously on Lost . . . I mean, on this blog, I analysed an email forward, and then right before this here post here, I analysed a couple of bumper-sticker sayings but this afternoon, because I found the previously-mentioned awesomely-hippie site, Soul-Flower, I have a whole lot more bumper-sticker-catch-phrase fodder in which to revel, so here are my bumper-sticker reviews. I'm not going to give the nod to every single sticker on the site, but it turns out I have something to say about quite a few of them, so here I am, going to say it.

Bumper stickers that make me feel very un-hippie (i.e. make me want to punch someone in the face):

1. Coexist - Indeed. Please let us exist together peaceably. But I don't intend to stop talking to people about Jesus and the fact that I believe He has a vested interest in their lives, and also, I don't believe that all religions are on the same level, so seeing all those symbols mashed together on a dark rectangle makes me start having extremist feelings, which I don't really want to have.

2. Treehugging Dirt Worshipper - "So God abandoned them to do whatever shameful things their hearts desired. As a result, they did vile and degrading things with each other’s bodies. They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshiped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen" (Romans 1.24-25, NLT).

3. Karma Happens - I actually kind of agree that it does--I kind of agree that there is something like karma out there. I just feel like Jesus came to free us from it. If it was really for freedom that Christ has set us free, I'd rather not get tied up again in slavery to the law--even by acknowledging it on the back of my car.

Turns out, though, that there are a lot more bumper stickers on here that I actually do like, even though you might not expect all of them to be right up my street.

1. Peace Be With You - Hey guys, they say this in church. 'Cause Jesus said it first. I'm down. (Interestingly, though, He isn't cited. Unlike Bob Marley, Gandhi, and John Lennon on other bumper stickers.)

2. Lord, Help Me to Be the Person My Dog Thinks I Am - This might not be a bad thing to pray, really.

3. Support Organic Farms - 'Cause I do.

4. Support Your Local Revolution - Especially if it's the next Great Awakening or something.

5. Break the Chains! Shop Independent Stores - I like this sentiment. I would never put it on my car, though, because it would make me a card-carrying hypocrite. I shop at Marshalls and Old Navy and I used to work at Starbucks, for crying out loud.

6. Change is Inevitable. Growth is Optional. - Both things are true. As I have observed and personally experienced.

7. Roots Run Deep - I don't know if I even know what the hippie meaning for this is, but they do, and I want to be rooted deeply . . . in the Jesus-life.

8. Compost Happens - Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

9. If We Don't Change Direction, We'll End Up Where We're Going - Do I need to explain this?

Okay. The end. I'm happy to have got this off my chest. What are some of your loved or hated bumper stickers?

Well-Behaved Hippies

So . . . remember how I have this pipe-dream (pun sort of intended) of being a sort of abridged hippie? By this I mean I maintain somewhat old-skool, monogamous, etc, sexual standards, and I have no desire to take up recreational drugs, but I like the clothes and the colours and the wind-chimes and the barefootness, and stuff like that. So today, thanks to a Facebook side-bar ad (because you can't tell me you never click on those), I discovered Soul-Flower.com. How much more hippie can you get? For the record, I would wear almost any of the women's clothes on there, minus the slogan ones, or ones with identifiably Bob Marley and/or Grateful Dead designs. In case anyone wanted to know. You know.

I confess I scoured the site to see if they were secretly selling marijuana on there . . . not 'cause I wanted any (honestly), but because it just seemed like they might try to be subversive in that way. Hippies want to be subversive, right? The closest thing I found was incense and hemp lip balm. But maybe I just don't know how to find out about these things. I could never be a narc.

Anyway, one of the things they did have was plenty of bumper stickers and graphic tees, as any good hippie shop should, really. I have a love/hate relationship with the types of slogans that end up on these sorts of things, for similar reasons to my ambivalence toward emails like the one I analysed last time. For example, I actually love the one that says, "Don't believe everything you think," but it's because in my head, I turn it around toward the idea that things are "true for you" as opposed to there existing an objective Truth "out there," like they told us on X-Files. I'm sure the writers of the sticker want me to stop "thinking" about my faith and just "feel" things, but frankly, although my feelings toward God are often somewhat obstinate or confrontational, I both think and feel that He exists and that the story of Jesus as recorded in the Bible is true, and if I have to submit to some sort of esoteric drug-induced experience to stop thinking and feeling that . . . well, it all seems a little suspect to me.

One of the slogans on Soul-Flower, usually found on bumper stickers but in this case on a woman's t-shirt, was the one mentioned by George Norman Lippert in a comment to my last post. (George and another guy named Darren have been blogging it up on Pastor Marty's blog this week. You might want to check it out.) One of GNL's pet peeves, evidently, is the slogan, "Well-behaved women rarely make history." The first time I, myself, saw said saying, it was paired with another bumper sticker which said, "Eve was framed." I think that's the peeve-making thing about it. In spite of being something of a feminist (maybe an abridged one of those, too) and an attention-seeker, I do believe that Eve (and Adam) actually sinned--hey guys! I believe there's such thing as sin!--and the implication that we should "break rules" for the sole reason of making our presence known to the world sort of drives me crazy. GNL puts it best, I think, when he says, "As with any of us, the breaking of the rules is only meaningful, methinks, when it is done for a powerful reason, and not just to be cool."

I probably hate the "well-behaved women" thing slightly less than GNL does, but only because I choose to look at "well-behaved women" in a different way than probably the authors of the phrase were actually thinking of it. By which I mean I can think of some women who broke rules for powerful reasons and not just to be cool. True it is that there have been mistresses and scandalous queens (Jezebel comes to mind) and Yoko Ono (sort of--though I'm a little skeptical that she and Angelina Jolie will be historically viable in a real sense if human history gets to muddle on for a few more centuries) who have made history because they have not been, in the traditional Western sense, "well-behaved."

On the other hand, there are ways of "misbehaving" against society which are actually Biblically moral and upright and still end up being subversive. GNL points out the Biblical Ruth and Esther (each of whom asserted themselves to men in a culture where that was not usual or even acceptable, but did so for family or the nation, and to uphold the larger law of God). There are also people like Mother Teresa, who subverted a selfish, capitalistic, shallow society where arbitrary value is put on human life. Also, in my church history class this spring I learned about people like Catherine of Siena and . . . some other Catherine--I'd have to look her up . . . who worked to reform aspects of the Roman Catholic Church before the Reformation even happened. I suppose people who slap "well-behaved women" bumper stickers on their cars don't really know about the Catherines. But it doesn't matter. They still, in some way or other, made history. But in all cases, I don't think it was because these women were trying to make history. Or even trying to be subversive. They were just trying to do the right thing.

Does that mean they were well-behaved, or not?

Carpe Diem

Dead Poets' Society came out one summer when I was in high school and captivated the minds of a generation . . . or at least of my compatriots in both youth group and at school. One of my guy friends resonated with one of the characters and one of my girl friends had an aunt or someone who lived in New Jersey or something and somehow vaguely knew some of the actors. My friend and I spent our entire senior year fantasizing about a trip to visit her in which she introduced us to those young gentlemen, but naturally no part of it ever happened. For my own part, I had to give a speech at the beginning of school that year, and I chose as my theme that of the movie: carpe diem--seize the day.

I don't really remember what I said, but I remember feeling very inspired and, as I went to a Christian school and was very intent on its being as Christian a school as possible (as if I had much to do with it), I tied the theme in with our faith. As I say, I really don't remember how I did this. And, as I implied in the last post, I don't know that I lived it out very well, as "spontaneous" and "Jenn" are not usually words that show up in the same sentence. Not this Jenn, anyway.

After my friend's comment the other week, though, I had to reassess whether "carping" the "diem" is truly a "Christian" approach to life. I think I decided I can still at least mostly agree with the sentiments behind the email; on the other hand, the way in which I perceive them is likely different from the way my friend does, and, if I am genuinely trying to walk in the steps of Jesus in some way, it probably should be.

So now I'm going to "explicate" that email I mentioned last time, with the Bible in mind. (The last time I explicated anything, it was for a literature class in college, so whoever wrote this email forward should feel really honoured at all the attention their writing is getting over here.)

Life is short.

Yes. It is. "As for man, his days are like grass, he flourishes like a flower of the field; the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more" (Psalm 103.14-15, NIV).

Break the rules.

I'm gonna go with yes, but probably not in the way the writer of the email meant. There are the 10 Commandments and the perceived traditional morals which are usually implied as being the rules that need to be broken in this sort of thing. But it seems to me that those are just convenient scapegoats for a fairly amoral society which wants an excuse not to take responsibility for decisions. There certainly are and have been societies or pockets of society where oppressive legalism is the, er, "rule" of the day, but I kind of feel like the "rules" in this society are about living completely for oneself and running roughshod over other people, ideals and beliefs that differ. So . . . I'm okay with breaking those rules. Yeah. Let's be counter-cultural. Let's actually think about the results of our actions and make decisions based on true, self-sacrificial love, and not self-love. "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law" (Gal. 5.22-23).

Forgive quickly.

I don't know that that's always realistic--I think true forgiveness is a process, and if what's being forgiven was a true injury, too quick a forgiveness is probably more of a suppression. BUT--the whole point of the Bible is forgiveness, and if someone has wounded us, forgiveness and it's process isn't even really optional. "For if you forgive men when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins" (Matthew 6.14-15).

Kiss slowly.

Um . . . okay, how 'bout we not talk about kissing?

Love truly.

Along with forgiveness (being a specific manifestation and capacity of love), the whole point of the Bible is love. "Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love" (1 John 4.8). The "truly" part is kind of important in this context, though. I think the general understanding within this type of email is "love with feeling." But God's love is beyond emotion and has a lot to do with choice and decision, and less to do with spontaneity. This isn't some "love the one you're with"--although, I suppose you could argue you should love the people you're with. It's just that true love doesn't necessitate the physical, and the danger of emails like this is that if you were so inclined, you could always justify doing something "spontaneous" . . . and not God's idea of the best way to live life and love others . . . by saying you were "loving" in the "truest" way that you could, when really, it was just the most physical, or immediate, or convenient--or self-indulgent.

Laugh uncontrollably.

I'm pretty down with that. It raises your seratonin levels or endorphins or something. You know, "Science has shown . . . " Plus it's fun, and in my own experience, the times when I've laughed the hardest have usually been the times when the humour has been the most innocent. It's a little tough to find a Bible verse about this. But there is always this: "A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit" (Proverbs 15.13). Which I guess kind of implies that true happiness, smiling, and even laughter, overflows from who a person is on the inside to begin with.

And never regret anything that made you smile.

This is probably the bit with which I disagree most. There are plenty of things that can make me smile, I suspect, for which the time or place or means is not actually pleasing to God. I guess that's probably the main difference between the possible different interpretations of the advice in the email. You can interpret it in such a way to provide short-term pleasure for yourself, or in such a way as to provide pleasure to God. The second way sometimes (but not always) limits the responsibility. I tend to think, though, that it also provides a longer-term, deeper, more repeatable pleasure that you end up enjoying yourself, even as God does.

Fwd: March!

I don't like email forwards. I realise this isn't a very original sentiment, but it's a genuine one. I especially dislike the ones that promise some kind of pagan good luck--or bad luck--(conditional on one's forwarding the forward) and tack Jesus or some saint onto it, or the ones that say, "If you love Jesus, you'll send this to 25 of your friends. If you don't send it on, you hate Him." I often feel like the true test of whether or not I love Jesus--and the 25 friends--would be my not passing the forward along. The thing that might be mildly unique about my relationship to email forwards, however, is that in spite of my honest-to-goodness dislike of same, I usually read them.

And every once in a great while, there's one that I pass along. Usually not to 25 people, and usually only if it doesn't have a threat at the end. Like the one I got from Y(outh)G(roup)-Dave (not to be confused with Brother Dave) this week. It had lots of crazy and creative and mildly disturbing photos of food art in it like this:
and this:Interspersed with the photos was the stock email forward text about laughing and loving and dancing, with a few small twists. But the photos were, in my opinion, so great, that I decided to pass them along to a friend.

"Text aside," I emailed, "these photos are awesome."

On receipt of the email, however, he wrote back, "I found nothing wrong with the text."

"Oh, good," I replied. "I thought you might have found it cheesy." The last time I emailed anything with a similar sentiment to this friend, he pointed out how trite and attemptedly guilt-inducing it was, so I was a little skittish I guess.

"I thought," he said, "you were objecting to the 'live for the moment' sentiment . . . "

"Nope," I said. But then I started thinking about it. There's no question that I'm not the most spontaneous puppet in the theatre (I just made that up--not sure it works, but it kind of makes me grin so I'm going with it). And there are plenty of pseudo-Christian email forwards, and genuine Christians who forward them, that espouse "live for the moment sentiments." But now he really had me thinking. Is spontaneity about beliefs more than it is about personality? And were the injunctions in the forward, most of which I kind of enjoyed and agreed with, things that I, as a Christian, should instead be wary of?

Sometime this week I'll explicate the email and give you my so-far conclusions. In the meantime, here's what it said. What do you think?

Today is International Disturbed People's Day



Please send an encouraging message to a disturbed friend... just as I've done.



I don't care if you lick windows,

take the special bus

or occasionally pee on yourself..

You hang in there sunshine, you're special


Every sixty seconds you spend angry, upset or mad, is a full minute of happiness you'll never get back.

Today's Message of the Day is:

Life is short, Break the rules, Forgive quickly, Kiss slowly, Love truly, Laugh uncontrollably, And never regret anything that made you smile.

Send to all the people you care for and don't want to lose in 2010 , even me..

If you get 3 back, you are a great friend.

Life may not to be the party we hoped for, but while we're here we should dance.

Is the Hiatus Over?

This year I answered two emails when they were each over a year old. How does this happen? you ask. Well, basically, I waited to answer them because I wanted to take the appropriate amount of time to give the thorough and thought-out response that these emails, and there just never seemed to be the right time, and the longer I lagged in answering, the more embarrassing it seemed to me to be to remind the senders of my existence by answering in such a belated fashion.

I'm pretty sure that's what has happened to this blog, even though the silent time-span was a month instead of a year. In the meantime, I went on vacation during which time I did not have my computer and did a bunch of writing by hand though none of it was very inspired and also during which I discovered I actually remember much more French than I thought I did. I also went with nine teenagers and one adult on a mission trip with a lot of other youth groups in Upstate New York. I have further taken yet another week of vacation--this time not alone, and not very far afield; instead, my parents, Dave, Sister-in-Lu, TWCN and Patrick all descended on my (I mean my parents') house and we had a great time as a family. It has actually seemed like summer around here, and not just because the temperature has been in the 90's and 100's all week.

I'm not sure that any of that makes for a good excuse for my not having written in over a month, but it's the best I've got. I hope you'll come back and visit.

Alone

On Earth Day I took the train into Boston to go to a free Earth Day concert near the New England Aquarium, and this lady on the T (the Boston-area commuter train/subway, to the uninitiated) started talking to me. The bulk of our conversation was about faith and God--turns out she lives in the environs of the City, is Jewish and goes to a Unitarian Universalist church. It was pretty interesting, and I haven't had one of those random chats with someone I didn't already know, in a long time, so I enjoyed it. But that isn't actually the topic of this post. Along with this woman's curiosity about my "religion," she was fascinated and impressed that I would go to a concert by myself. She was middle-middle-aged, had been married before but had been single for quite some time, but she confessed she never went and did anything unless she had a group of friends to go do it with.

It wasn't that I hadn't invited other people to go, of course, but when everyone declined (or just ignored the invite) I still wanted to go to it, so I just went. Sometime around that time I got together one evening with a friend from church and told her that I'm going to Quebec on vacation. I had wanted to visit Dave and Sister-in-Lu and TWCN and Patrick in Jerusalem, but finances and timing and other logistics weren't lining up right, so I googled "pet-friendly hotels," found an adorable-looking and affordable one in Baie St. Paul, Quebec, and booked myself (and Oscar) in for four nights.

"Who are you going with?" my friend asked.

"Oscar," I said.

"You're going by yourself?" she exclaimed. "I don't think I could ever do that!" At present, she is single, too.

I admit, most of the time when I travel, I go where I know someone, stay with them and get to know their area from a local's-eye view. This suits me very well. I get to see people I care about and I get to see a place from a slightly different angle than the normal tourist traps. Hopefully my hosts find this arrangement acceptable, too. If they don't, they're all very good liars.

But there have still been times when I've struck off on my own. It isn't, in any case, something I think twice about anymore. I remember having recently moved to London and first visiting Oxford. I did have a friend there to go see, but she was a student and so she had classes and appointments and things, and I was taking a day off, which meant I had a lot of solo-wandering time. At first I didn't like that; I kept fantasising about a nonexistent "special someone" to wander along Addison's Walk with me . . . or at least my family of origin to enjoy the C.S. Lewis haunts with.

But they weren't there, and the special someone continued not to exist, and eventually, starting that day and spanning across my time of living in the UK, I discovered that there is something truly enjoyable about traveling by myself. I can meander as slowly or march as quickly as I want. There's no one else around to get bored or to tell me I'm walking too fast for them (something I get a lot . . . it's a height thing). I can keep company with my own thoughts . . . and actually do some praying, too. I can go into a shop that "becuriouses" me and not worry about someone else thinking it looks weird or dumb or just hating shopping.

It's not to say I wouldn't enjoy having a travel partner. I had actually invited Dear Friend Paulina on this trip, and would have liked having her company. But I think I'm equally happy having the time and the auberge and the exploring to myself. I guess what I'm saying is that I like that I like going off and doing these things by myself as well as with people. I have spent most of my adult life wishing to be married and actually being single, but there are times, like right now, when I'm really happy that I've been single this long so that I've learned not to be afraid to go off and do what I feel like doing, instead of waiting around and wishing I had someone else around to validate my expeditions and interests.

. . . it Happens

Bryancti told me to post this story. I do have a filter, believe it or not. Possibly not a very fine one, but there are things I will not post. Also, long ago the Milk Guy said in no uncertain terms and with a look on his face that presaged vomiting, "No more poopy stories!" But the Milk Guy no longer reads this blog I think, and anyway, when I was talking to Bryancti about it, I got this deep spiritual insight (for real) and then I felt like I had to post it. Please don't read this if you're faint of stomach and can't handle fairly graphic descriptions of dogs' bodily functions. I would censor it if I could, but then the point will be lost, so . . . just don't say I didn't warn you.

Yesterday during my lunch break at work, I took Oscar for a walk, as is my wont. Oscar, as is his wont, began to relieve himself. Only . . . he got stuck. I'm not entirely sure why he gets constipated when he does, except that he's an intense little guy . . . Anyway, so we're standing out there for quite some time, poor little dog struggling away, and then finally he produces something. Yay for him! Sometimes, after he goes, Oscar does that doggy butt-dragging thing to wipe himself on the pavement, and it's fine, only this time when he did it, there was still a big ol' poop dangling from his rear end. It got all over the sidewalk and all over his hindquarters. Disgusting!

I knew that if I brought him back into the church and he sat down anywhere, soon poop was going to get all over that "anywhere," and so my brain started churning as I tried to figure out how and where I was going to clean him up. I finally settled on the Sunday school bathroom in the basement, which is where we immediately marched as soon as we got back inside. I hoisted him onto the counter with his hindquarters over the sink and turned on the water.

Paper towels only went so far. He's got tons of really curly fur (this was, of course, the day before his annual grooming/shaving), and his waste products had gotten all stuck in this, so eventually I had to use my bare hand. It took about half an hour to forty-five minutes to get him all cleaned up, and then clean the bathroom, and then wash my hands about twelve times, and I really just didn't want to touch anything for a while, let alone my lunch, which was a bagel and really familiar-looking sunflower-seed butter. (Looks like peanut butter, only goopier. You get the idea, I think.)

After telling him this story, Bryancti said, "I hope Oscar appreciates all you do for him." I would hope so, too. But of course he doesn't. He hasn't a clue. He wasn't enjoying the process much either, and when we got back to my office, all cleaned up, he went straight over to the table where I keep his cookies, sat down expectantly and looked at me as if to say, "Sheesh! I need a treat after all that!" I thought to myself, "Dude. I'm the one who needs a treat."

After Bryan said that thing about Oscar's appreciation, though, a lightbulb went on in my head. I thought . . . this must be a little bit like what it's like for God to take care of us. We go along our way, doing our thing, and then suddenly, somehow, we get poop all over ourselves. I really don't think the analogy is going to far. Life's sometimes like that. We might want to blame God for the poop, but it isn't actually His fault. We digest, sometimes better than others, our live experiences and then, uh, poop happens, as the bumper sticker likes to remind us. I suspect most of us are fairly talented in somehow wallowing in it when it does, even if we think we're trying to get out of it.

Then God, because He loves us even when we're poopy, and also possibly because He'd really prefer not to get poop all over the Kingdom of Heaven, mercifully picks us up and begins the process of cleaning us up . . . by hand. The cleansing process is usually less comfortable and less fun than getting poop-covered was in the first place, and we think God is so mean, and after we're through it we think, "Man. God owes me!"

I don't think I ever realised in quite this way how much God Himself goes through to clean me up. I mean, it's the Incarnation, and the Cross, and the Resurrection, but sometimes those words just sound like theology and it just sounds general . . . for all the world (which it is) and for all sin (which it is), and I forget to think how God is personally involved in my personal and individual processes, and that maybe He feels stuff about it, and that maybe we still get Him messy. He's the one, of course, who we owe, but he doesn't ask for us to pay Him back, just like I wouldn't ask Oscar to.

God knows we're never going to fully appreciate what He has done and keeps on doing for us; I suspect He knows we can't fully appreciate it. But when Oscar comes over with his tail wagging and wants to play or licks my face or snuggles up next to my shin on the bed, it's worth it to me, just as God delights in our enjoyment of Him. I'll never realise what God goes through to put me right, I don't think. But having washed Oscar's poopy butt, I think I have a slightly better idea.

My Big Fat Greek Wedding

When I was around 22 and living and working in Nannyfield, my employers (Terry-and-Karin-the-Great--they really were awesome) were kind of concerned about the fact that I had never had a boyfriend. Terry-the-Great knew this guy from work that he wanted to set me up with. Said Guy was somewhat older than I (at that point, such a feat--being older than me--was not difficult to manage), and Terry thought he was a little weird, but that we'd be good together because we were both "religious." The Guy invited me to go with him to a Star Trek convention or something once, but I declined, and never met him in person. Sometimes I wonder what would've happened if we had met. Frankly, I don't think I became proper girlfriend material until I met the Milk Guy, and now I don't care anymore (maybe that's the difference), so probably nothing would've happened, but these are still things you think about sometimes.

Like, when you're studying about the Eastern Orthodox Church.

Long before the Star Trek invite, The Guy invited me to go with him to a celebration of the anniversary of "his church." He sent me, via TtG, a whole lot of literature about it--the Eastern Orthodox church. I'm not sure if this celebration was of the anniversary of the Eastern Orthodox and Roman Catholic split, which I would think would be a little tricky to pin down, since there was tension between them for quite a while before they actually divided, or of his own branch in New York City. The latter is more likely, I think. I just learned that US Eastern Orthodox churches do not have patriarchates in this country, but are linked to other ones in the Old Country. (Which old country? It depends, probably.)

I remember reading everything This Guy sent me, and wondering if it would constitute being unequally yoked if I ended up with an Eastern Orthodox guy. (Everybody that has been reading this blog for the last two years is free to guffaw loudly at this point.)

So, today, going over my notes about Eastern Orthodoxy, I thought about this again, and you know what? There are actually things I like about the Eastern Orthodox church--at least in theory. Apparently during the time of Constantine at least, the Eastern church believed that there should be a sort of seamless union between church and state, and so Constantine was allowed to perform some of the duties at religious functions, and the average Joe was so interested in theology that Constantinople was full of people debating the nature of Christ and stuff. Given what small talk has devolved to, I kind of like that picture. I like the understanding of the Church--that it reflects the Trinity (unity in diversity), is the Body of Christ (an extension of the Incarnation) and is itself the continued Pentecost (implying centrality of the Holy Spirit). I like the concept that the Church exists both visibly and invisibly and is both human and divine. I am definitely a fan of the understanding that doctrinal assertions act as a fence to keep heresy out, but don't (and shouldn't) fully explain or exhaust the mysteries of our faith. I also like that at least ostensibly, the line between clergy and laity is more blurred than in Western churches.

Here's what I think I'd have a hard time with, though. I don't like the concept (found also in the Roman Catholic church and plenty of others) that salvation is impossible outside the church. It kind of reminds me of that baptism scene in My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which is supposed to be funny, but always makes me uncomfortable, because clearly this guy is "converting" for a person and not because he met a Person. But in this tradition, his entering the church and having undergone baptism (which supposedly brings the new birth itself), would be what saves him. I like what it says in the story about his love for the girl. That's all very noble and everything. But I don't like stories of forced or false conversions. Also what is the point of Chrismation (which is kind of a cool word if you think of it like "clay-mation"--does it mean animated by Christ?)? It's confirmation . . . of the children of believing parents. Why would you baptise a baby and then confirm a kid. When does anyone get to decide if they believe or care or not? I guess you don't, because you need to stay in the church, so you can stay saved. I'm a little uneasy about the idea of God the Father as the fountainhead from which the Son and the Spirit proceed, because it makes Him seem superior to them, and I really disagree that sin is a result of death instead of the other way around.

So yeah. While I think it would be fun to stumble across more people debating theology in random conversation (kind of like the third conversation I ever had with the Item, when, over the counter at Starbucks, he told me his background was Catholic but he was first alienated from the church over the doctrine of transubstantiation because it wouldn't allow his non-Catholic father to partake of the Eucharist), and while I like allowing the mysteries to be mysteries, in most other respects, I don't think I'd make a very good Eastern Orthodox. Good thing I never met That Guy.

P.S. I got all that info? from my professor's lecture outline. He is Dr. Garth M. Rosell. I would like to give him the credit, and not be guilty of plagiarism. Thank you.

Communes

Someone, somewhere (like probably Pastor Marty, to whom I just intimated I might not be going to Life Group tonight since I'm studying for my final tomorrow), is going to think I'm slacking off from my studies just to blog. But I'm actually hoping this will be part of the studying process--I'm not even making an excuse.

So here are the first musings of the day. (That you get to know about, anyway!)

Remember that time I said I wanted to be a non-pot-smoking, non-promiscuous hippie? (Remember when I spelled "hippie" with a "y"?) So that little dream was kind of the hermit-hippie version, but for a long time--like, probably since college--I've also had this dream of living in a commune. Which might be why the discussion of monasticism in class kind of draws me.

Uncle Phil was an actual hippie who did live in a commune once, and it was a "Christian" one supposedly, but it got very controlling and very dysfunctional and he has nothing good to say about it. I was a little kid living in Honduras at the time, so I don't know much about it other than dark looks and oblique intimations that it wasn't a good experience. And an LP that came out of it, which I actually liked a lot growing up. But--maybe because I was a little kid and don't know much about it--I still find the idea of communal, sort of monastic living appealing. Jesus and his disciples didn't live in a monastery or anything, and it was a mixed group--men and women--and some of them were married and some of them were single, but they lived together. Some monastic orders, though not "co-educational," really weren't separatists from the world, but actually reached directly into their surrounding culture or sent monks off in groups to travel about and evangelise and care for people's needs. I like that. I think there's something fortifying about belonging to a group like that, working through all the personality differences and stuff, and reaching out together for the common cause of Christ. I don't really think there's another common cause that would make working through the personality differences worth it, frankly--it's too much hard work to just do it for the heck of it, but it's a great exercise in becoming a stronger disciple of Jesus if He's the reason for it. (And help in it!) I like the idea of people belonging to each other because of Jesus, and each being able fully to exercise their gifts for the community--because they're together in life, and not just for Sunday mornings and specific churchy stuff during the week. I like that ancient and medieval monasteries set a rhythm of work and worship, and that their adherents were constantly being reminded to worship God in their work, and also to take time to pause to be with Him together. I think I would learn to pray better if someone told me that at such and such time a day, we were praying, and not doing anything else.

A few years ago the nearby Yankee Drummer Inn went out of business. For the last seven years I've had this back-of-the-mind idea that a group of Christians should buy it. We could all have lived in the rooms, and cooked in the kitchen, and worshiped together in the events hall. I thought we could all keep going to our regular jobs so that we could keep making inroads into the wider community, and maybe people would be drawn to our smaller community and we could disciple them there and stuff.

Sometime this year they tore the whole thing down. Now there's just a chain-link fence and a bunch of weeds. There isn't even a hole in the ground. So much for that idea.

But there still is that controlling thing. St. Benedict, who established that rule of monastic life that so many other monastic communities since then have either ascribed to or adapted, said that the most important thing in communal life was obedience. You had to have an abbot, and the brothers (because of course these were celibate communities) had to have the humility to obey the abbot without question. I kind of wonder if he's right. I wonder if, in order for a group of people to live together effectively, you have to have a sort of authoritarian organisation. I wonder if "controlling" is the nature of monasticism or communism. In that case, Uncle Phil's experience is probably less than unique and maybe there is nothing good to be said about monasticism. The best that could happen in this scenario would be for the person in charge to actually not be a control-freak, and be trustworthy, and for the people not-in-charge to be committed enough to the endeavour and humble enough to not assert their own opinions all the time.

Something in me recoils at that idea. I guess if you enter a monastery you take certain vows which aren't necessary for being a Christian, but are necessary for being in the kind of community you're joining. You voluntarily decide to set your individualism aside, at least in some respects, for the sake of the community. Is that what we're supposed to be doing as followers of Jesus, or isn't it? He came to bring us into unique community and reconciliation with Himself and others. He told us the best we could do was to love God with our entire being and to love our neighbours as ourselves. That doesn't leave much room for selfishness, and it's pretty clear that God doesn't want to leave us any room for selfishness. That's why He came down here in the first place. I think there's probably something bracing and freeing about living in community if it's done well, and something that forces us to die to ourselves in ways that we can't when we're living out "this American life" or whatever.

I don't live in community right now, though (unless you count Oscar). I've looked for roommates on and off since Roommate-Sarah, and I had the Sixes here for a while (they're coming back this summer!), but it seems like intermittent hermit-dom is my lot for now. So I'm glad Jesus came for individuals, too. I suppose the main thing is to be His disciple in whatever state He calls you. It says that in the Bible somewhere, I think . . .

Scary, Isn't It?

My friend the Item said that this might be the blogpost to get people commenting on my blog (actually on my blog and not on facebook) again. And he only heard the first part of it.

For the last five to seven years, my recurring dreams (when not about math or Starbucks) have involved one or some combination of the following themes:

1. being back in London or India (although the dream versions are usually fairly unrecognizable)
2. riding public transportation somewhere and missing the connexion and either having to get on another conveyance than the intended one, being stuck where I didn't want to be, or having to walk
3. hanging out with a big group of people, only one of whom I ever actually know (and that only in the dream, usually), at some sort of potentially sketchy meeting or event, and wanting desperately to leave early.

I suppose it wouldn't take a moderately creative person very long to come up with some hypotheses as to what my subconscious is saying through these themes. Besides that, I can usually figure out pretty readily where certain specific elements in my dreams (even the non-recurring ones) have come from in my day to day existence. But about two or three weeks ago, I had a dream which combined all three of the above themes and yet I'm still clueless as to where it came from.

This, roughly, is what happened in it:

I was back in London, with a friend of mine, and we were going to go out with a big group of other people for some other friend's birthday. I didn't know the Other Friend very well, but this Friend of Mine said I was more than welcome to come along, and it would be fun . . . and I'm pretty sure she was wanting to try to set me up with somebody. (I don't think I ever found out who, though.)

So we got on the Tube and went to this bar where everyone was meeting first to have a drink. And then we were apparently going to get on the Tube again to go to some other restaurant in a completely different part of the city for dinner, but we missed the train. Turns out, in this particular dream, there were these independent train drivers who could somehow just drive trains whenever and wherever, kind of like taxis, so we found this guy and paid him and got on his train. Just as we were approaching our destination, I happened to notice a severed human head--maybe two--on the railroad tracks. I kind of thought I must have imagined it, or maybe it was some kind of really realistic and creepy Hallowe'en decoration . . . so I didn't say anything.

We went to the restaurant and then got back on the train and started heading back. But as we were going, I began seeing more and more severed heads. It was frightening--even moreso when somehow one of us divined that it was our train driver who had severed them, and he was waiting to cut off our heads, too. In fact, there he was--coming at us with an enormous hatchet. (Can hatchets be enormous? Are they by definition small? I don't know. Hatchet sounds better to me right now.)

Somehow we managed to get off the train and get to the rest of the birthday party which had now converged on someone's house, but those of us who had been on that particular train knew according to the unspoken rules of the dream that our demon train-driver was going to hunt us down for our heads, so we spent the rest of the evening . . . and the dream . . . looking for weapons with which to pummel him to death. Someone told me to go find a baseball bat, and someone else would lure him and lull him into a false sense of security at which point it would be my job to bludgeon him. "I don't know," I said. "I don't think I can bludgeon anybody. Can I lull him instead?" At that point, or some other point shortly thereafter, I woke up. You can imagine both my amusement and consternation at having discovered such disturbing contents of my subconscious.

This week, I had a frightening dream of a totally different kind, although I have very little idea what it was about. I was driving home from work (that really should be all I need to say, but I'll keep going) and I was really really sleepy. I really didn't want to pull over, and the roads were busy so I wasn't really sure where I could have pulled over, and so I just concentrated on keeping my eyelids open and persevered. (Don't yell at me.) I was almost home, and suddenly I said to Oscar, "Well, I'm glad I ended up with the doggie."

At that moment, I mentally snapped to attention. I had had my eyes open the whole time. I had been very aware that I was driving and should not allow myself to drift off. It wasn't one of those scenarios where you drive the whole commute without really paying attention to it and you wonder how you got from point A to point B, really. I was very aware of where I was the entire time. However, some part of my brain had evidently sneaked off to have a dream anyway, and there was some sort of bargain at the end, during which I ended up with "the doggie."

So I'm asking you. Which of those two dreams was more scary? Hmmmm?

What's in a Name?

I should be researching for a term paper. Or if I'm not researching, I should be sleeping. But I haven't blogged much, and I haven't read anyone's blog lately, either, and . . . this is clearly important. Watch.

There's a house around the corner on my way to work where they sell vegetables and rabbits all summer. Yesterday, while driving by, the rabbit hutches caught my eye and I thought, "I wonder if I should get a rabbit and housetrain it sometime." Dear Friend Paulina has a rabbit named Tivoli. I have not met her (the rabbit), but she sounds adorable.

When I got to work there was an email from Miss Annie, asking if anyone wanted an abandoned domesticated rabbit which had been found in the woods and is evidently litter trained. Weird.

I didn't answer the email, because hopefully someone else will. I'm not sure how Oscar would deal with a rival animal that wasn't a dog, and besides, on the rare occasion I can't take him with me somewhere, it's sometimes tough to find dogsitters. How would I find a dog-and-rabbit sitter? Besides, when I actually can take Oscar with me, what would I do? Bring the rabbit along, too? I don't think they make car harnesses for rabbits. (It would be kind of fun to say I'm taking my dog and bunny show on the road, though.)

Anyway, this morning I was thinking about this and about my looming term paper while I was drying my hair, and I decided that if I were to lose my senses completely and get a rabbit, and I was still taking grad classes, I would have to name the rabbit Turabian. Then I started thinking of all the other names I would like to give to animals for fun.

Like, I have this penchant for ancient Assyrian names. I think they mostly sound like cats. Tiglath-Pileser, for example. Also, last week I went and heard They Might Be Giants on Earth Day and they sang, "The Mesopotamians," and for almost a week now, the soundtrack in my head has been singing, "We're the Mesopotameeeans--Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashubanipal and Gilgamehhhsh . . . " I think you could name cats those names, too. If I ever got a hamster (which I don't think I ever would), I might like to name him Sennacherib, for a joke. 'Cause it kind of sounds like you're talking about snacks--and hamsters are snack-size.

Did I mention I should be in bed right now?

Acts of God

The last time just my mom was here without my dad, there were "acts of God," too. You know. Those things that insurance companies like to hide behind so they don't have to fork out any money.

None of you work for insurance companies, do you?

The last time, I was getting ready to start radiation therapy, and my mother came out earlier than my dad for Christmas, to provide some moral support. This turned out to be a good thing, because worse than the radiation was the Ice Storm that happened while she was here, and the 6 days without electricity. Given everything else that was going on at the time, I probably would've curled up into the fetal position and become incoherent if she hadn't been here.

This time she came here because her mother just had cataract surgery. Her mother only has one eye to begin with (you really can poke someone's eye out, you know), so it was kind of a big deal. The plan was that my mother would stay with Grandma Madeira for a week or so, drive back up and stay with me for the weekend, and fly back to my father and Ireland yesterday. Then that unspellable Icelandic volcano erupted. So . . . she's stuck here indefinitely, and it's starting to stress her out. Fortunately we have electricity over here this time, but all the same, she's here and my dad's not, and she has responsibilities on the other side of the Pond that she can't take care of, and . . . I'm pretty sure she's sick of wearing the same three or four outfits over and over again.

If the Milk Guy and I were interacting regularly anymore (which I wish we were, but we can't be), he would say, "Well, Jenn, Who controls the volcanos?"

My mother says she's been having similar thoughts lately, and I don't blame her. I have similar thoughts pretty often about lesser things. But we both agreed there's something about the Christian perspective that makes things bearable (or get-through-able) no matter how bad they get. First of all, there's the whole world God's taking care of--not just us; in the end it's kind of a relief almost to know that the universe does not revolve around me and my perceived needs. But more than that, it's also a relief to know God does care about us as individuals, and He knows what we need and what we can take and whether He causes the perceived "bad thing" or not, He's in it, to redeem it and us and make us whole.

I still don't think there's a way to talk about this stuff without sounding hopelessly trite, and when I used to talk like this to the Milk Guy, he always thought I was trying to convince myself that there was a bright side to situations where there isn't one. Sometimes I probably do that. But I do think it's true all the same. Maybe God did and maybe God didn't set off that volcano Himself. Either way, though, He is in control of the volcanoes, and He knows our times and our seasons and what we (and those around us) really need. I think it's Him, actually . . .

Swords into Ploughshares

Clearly when God inspired Isaiah to write the fourth verse of his second chapter (in whatever way He did it), the image was meant to be one of reconciliation and peace. Leave it to me to turn gardening into a contact sport.

So we've had a lot of rain lately, but also a lot of sun, and last week it even got kind of warm for a while, so I've been trying my hand at the gardening thing. On Wednesday I decided to go into the bracken at the side of the house and see if I could dig up some ancient compost from when my parents used to live here and tried composting, before the composter self-destructed.

What I should have done:

Gone into the garage, retrieved some shears, hacked myself a path. But no. That would have been both too easy and too much work. Instead, even though I was wearing shorts (on account of not being able to find the jeans I dedicated to gardening last year) and even though most of the previously-mentioned bracken is actually brambles, I decided to forge ahead, pathless.

Keep in mind that not only was the brambly bracken pretty dense, but also, my destination was on a slope, and I had, somehow, to wrest the remainder of composter off the remainder of compost. This was a little tricky, but I managed, and then I came up with the bright idea that the composter lid could be placed on top of the bracken so as to protect my exposed legs and make walking easier.

This might have been a good idea in theory. It was a terrible one in practice. The lid was smooth and therefore slippery, and my sneakers are about six years old and have been walked in pretty consistently, therefore lacking anything resembling traction. I stepped on this lid, set to the compost with my shovel, and suddenly went flying. If I remember correctly, both feet shot into the air (though that might be a later addition in my head). In any case, a nice long blackberry shoot slashed the back of my leg, and the ribs on my right side smashed, as I pitched down the slope, into the side of a tree at the bottom of it.

I didn't bother to get them checked out. They don't do anything for ribs anyway. I did disinfect the scratch. A few days later I was at Camp Selah helping with a clean-up day. Raking is tough on bruised ribs. But at least I managed to stay upright on all those pine needles.

Canine Revenge

This is probably not an appropriate topic for Waiting Saturday, but it's too funny, and when else am I going to tell you about it?

I just love my dog.

Yesterday I began a two-thirds-hearted attempt at planting a garden in the big patch of weeds where my dad used to have an actual garden. It was a beautiful day. I made Oscar come outside with me. He usually spends the first half hour of any extended time outside trying to get back in the house, because he doesn't seem to know what to do with himself instead. I suggested to him he could just sprawl out on the grass like he does on the carpet, but he didn't really take me up on this.

After the first half hour, he lay down in the pile of woodstove ashes I had chucked outside a few days ago. Then he went for a wander in the undergrowth between my house and Neighbour-Justin's. By the time I was done in the garden, the knees of my blue jeans were not blue anymore, and Oscar was covered in burrs and other unidentifiable forest-detritus.

"Sorry, buddy," I said. "You need a bath."

I don't think he's entirely latched onto the word bath yet, but he might be getting there, because he's had about three within the last month or so. And he pretty much hates them, in a miserably-resigned kind of way. After his bath, I towel-dried him, but his fur is so thick that the towel got drenched and he still was. He doesn't like the hair-dryer much more than the bath, and it was a warm day, so I decided to let him air-dry a little. Plus, now I needed a bath. I don't normally take baths--preferring showers--the reasons for which could make a blogpost in themselves, but I was pretty grubby and Folk-Musician-Gale gave me this really fantastic bath oil once and I felt like using it. So I started running the water. Then I decided to go downstairs and make a cup of tea.

As I entered the living room, I noticed my soggy doggy lying on the couch. This is pretty normal for him--I think the couch wicks the water away or something, and it's kind of an old couch, so I don't really mind. Only . . . he was lying at my end of the couch. He never lies there. He started to get up with a look on his face that said he was anticipating my yelling at him, but I just burst out laughing instead. It was too perfect. There it was, a nice, already very damp spot on the cushion where he knew I was likely to sit all evening.

"That's okay," I muttered under my breath as I went to make the tea. "I'll just sit on the other end of the couch tonight."

He looked pretty well ensconced as I went up the stairs with my tea for my bath. Some time later, I came back downstairs. There was Oscar, still on the couch. On the other end. There was the big dark bath-water spot on my end. He may not have figured out that the point of Good Friday is forgiveness, but the outworking of his vindictiveness was pretty hysterical.

A Rock So Big He Can't Lift It?

I have a feeling this question that crossed my mind this morning is kind of like the "rock" question in that it's missing some pieces in the logic department, but I kind of got on the merry-go-round of circular thinking while I was praying this morning. I'm sure glad my salvation is dependent on what Jesus did and not on my figuring out all the crazy things that go on in my head.

All the same, it was kind of an intriguing question. It started like this: I was thinking about the crucifixion. And I was thinking about some stupid, faithless, waste-of-time stuff I allowed myself to sink into this week, and so I kind of asked God to make me worthy of His sacrifice.

Then I thought, "Not that that's actually possible."

Then I thought, "There are a whole lot of verses that say all things are possible with God."

Then I thought, "But nothing can ever compare to or measure up to what Jesus did for me on the cross all those years ago."

That was when I thought about the "Can God make a rock so big He can't lift it?" question.

Now I'm thinking that God has answered the unanswerable question after all. Because of course, the point is that it is impossible for me to be worthy of Jesus' sacrifice. If I could pay it back, I wouldn't have needed it in the first place. I couldn't make myself worthy, and God "couldn't" either because to do so would be to undermine His design of our free will. But He Himself is worthy, so, as Isaiah 59 says, "His own arm worked salvation for Him, and His own righteousness sustained Him." His own sacrifice makes me worthy. He has changed my nature. I am a new creation. He has made me worthy. I just didn't have anything to do with it myself.

Weird.

Cool.

I hope the worthiness starts becoming more and more evident, is the thing. Because He is worthy.

LOST Gets in on the Act

So I just watched last night's episode of LOST. Evidently Jacob is a Pelagian and the Man in Black is an Augustinian? But Jacob is the good guy (with his heresy) and the Man in Black is the villain. Oh how very trendy of them.

Just think. If I weren't taking a church history class, I might have been able to enjoy that last episode . . .

Getting It Right

I'm sort of studying for my church history mid-term, only I think I've kind of forgotten how, and also? I'm not anywhere near as Type-A as I was in high school and college. (Maybe I was never really Type-A, but I was definitely very driven by grades.)

I'm hoping writing this post will help me get my head around some things and will, in a sense, be a way of studying. (At least, it makes a good excuse, doesn't it?) I feel like I'm still stuck on heresies.

I don't really have a problem with the idea that there is orthodox belief and heterodox belief. Unlike most postmoderns, I do believe that there is a Truth, that ultimately that Truth is Jesus Christ and effects the whole universe. I believe that you can be walking more in line with the Truth, or less in line with it. But, like any good postmodern, I guess I'm not always sure I understand how we know it. I guess what I'm struggling with is not so much that the church leadership in the third and fourth centuries needed to create creeds and formulas by which to evaluate faith and life. I agree that they needed to decide on a Biblical canon, and I feel that their choices of books to go into the New Testament were right, and the things that were left out were left out for good reason.

I'm just kind of wrestling with the whole process of how they got there. My professor says (in his CD lectures--I've never actually met the guy) that, for example, in the case of the Biblical canon, the Holy Spirit, having inspired the canonical books, infused them with a certain authority, and that "canonisation is a recognition of what has already taken place." I think this is true, but how did they know it had already taken place? How did they know that Athanasius' list of 27 New Testament books was correct, and Marcion's edited Matthew, Luke and 10 letters of Paul were not? (The fact that he edited them himself might have been an indicator, I suppose, but still--I'm just saying.)

Or how about this? Arius, a presbyter in Alexandria, started teaching that "there was a time when the Son was not"--that is, that the "Son" part of the Godhead had had a beginning, and that Jesus was this dude that God put His Spirit on and basically adopted into the Godhead, but who had not existed eternally like the Father. Athanasius said this was bunk, and that the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit were co-eternal. Over the course of the Council of Nicea and the Council of Constantinople (dudes--I can even tell you the years of those!), Athanasius' view was vindicated and Arius' was defeated, but what the lectures didn't tell me and the textbook did was that they went back and forth on these issues a few times, with both Arius and Athanasius being condemned and exiled multiple times (although I think Arius died first and got condemned posthumously a couple of times, too).

Or what about the Council of Ephesus? I'm not even talking about the Robber Synod that came on its heels. I'm talking about how the Antiochene bishops got to the council late and the Alexandrian bishops (and presumably any others--if there were any others) met already and decided that they (the Alexandrians) were in the right in their views on the dual nature of Christ and the title of Mary. The Antiochene bishops were understandably upset, so they came up with this compromise called the "Symbol of Union" which sort of agreed more with the Antiochenes about Christ's dual nature, and sort of agreed with the Alexandrians about Mary's title. You can decide these things via a compromise? What if they compromised on the wrong parts? When told of the issues before being told of the results of the council, I frankly thought the Alexandrians were more correct about the nature of Christ and the Antiochenes were more correct about the title of Mary. What if I'm right and Pope Leo or whomever, was wrong?

Or what if I'm wrong? How wrong do I have to be before I am considered a heretic? If I love Jesus and trust Him to get me to the Father and to have died for my sins and forgiven me and to be gradually transforming me more into His likeness, do I still have to fully understand how He is both fully divine and fully human, or how God is a Unity and a Trinity, or whether the Spirit proceeds from just the Father or both the Father and the Son? What does that even mean?

I feel like there's heresy all over the place, still, today, and often I recognise it when I see it, but I don't always. I don't think anybody does always. How much of our salvation depends on our recognising it? Especially if our salvation is dependent on grace and not works? I think it all does come back to the work of the Holy Spirit. I think He does confirm what He has already accomplished or established. But so many people claim to be speaking for the Holy Spirit. How do you really know the difference?

Auntie Times 2

Now that all his grandparents know, I feel like perhaps I can tell you that I have a new nephew! As of sometime today. His name is Patrick David, but not because of the holiday we just had. His big sister, TWCN, was babysat in part by esteemed blog-friend, K., whom I have never met in person, but with whom Dave and Sister-in-Lu have become quite good friends. Crazy connexions develop over the internet. Pretty cool sometimes, too, though, huh?

Congrats, Dave, Sister-in-Lu and TWCN! And Patrick, for that matter.

Thanks, K.!

Speaking of Heresy

My "new" car is fantastic. I am so happy with it. The only things wrong with it are that I have no (working) way to plug my ipod into the sound system, and . . . it has a tiny, well-nigh tasteful, American flag sticker in the lower left hand corner of the rear window.

That's the heretical part of course--that having an American flag sticker stuck on my car would be "wrong." I don't know. I guess I just spent too long in the down-and-out East End of London to be comfortable with iconography that identifies me with one specific ethnic group or nation. Ever since my uncle came out with the album and song "Citizen of Heaven" (what? you've never heard of it? yeah . . . it was kind of like my book: worth it, but obscure) and I realised that was an actual Bible verse, I have had a little trouble being patriotic. (Either that or it gave me an excuse not to be.) Yes, I am an American, and I appreciate the freedoms that I have, and I daresay I take many of them for granted. I just have a little trouble wanting that to be my identity--the thing I'm known for.

When I was a little kid, living in Honduras, I thought the USA was Heaven. After all, we had to fly to get there. Through clouds and everything! Plus, everyone spoke English (i.e., I could understand them) and we could drink water directly from the taps instead of having to boil it first. After we moved back here, however, my attitude started slowly but surely to shift. I guess that happens when you've been exposed to another culture at an early age--even if you spend that early age trying to resist it (stupidly, I refused to learn Spanish). You just realise that there are other people out there and other ways of doing things, and while you may still prefer your way, the lines dividing cultures and nationalities get to feeling really arbitrary and frustrating. At least they did to me.

I've been reading Jeremiah lately. That book is fascinating to me, in part because Jeremiah was so faithful to God, and God was so faithful to him, but he ended up feeling disappointed with how God was demonstrating His faithfulness a lot of the time. Sometimes he just wished God would leave him alone--that he didn't have these words burning a hole in his heart and his tongue that he just had to speak but which got him in heaps (or cisterns) of trouble every time he opened his mouth. I haven't hung out in a cistern lately, and hope not to . . . ever, but there are still some things about this guy that I resonate with, I guess.

The other thing I find fascinating, though, is his message. Here he is, going to the priests and prophets and leaders of a country whose claim to identity was having been hand-chosen by God. They are telling the people, "God's not going to abandon us. Look--His Temple's here. That's His house. He won't let anything happen to that--or to us, either. We are the people of God." And Jeremiah's saying back, "Um, guys? Stop hiding behind this Temple and these religious practices, okay? God knows you haven't really been worshiping Him in a while now--all these idols and stuff instead--and He's getting ready to send in the Babylonians to take you all away for a good long time."

("No He isn't"--"Yes He is"--"No He isn't" . . . )

"So here's what you have to do. You've got to cooperate with the foreign army. Let them in, abide by their laws, go where they tell you, and seek their good, and you'll be spared. If you resist? It's not going to turn out so great for you."

Somehow, the people didn't like this message all that much. And I think I understand why not. For one thing, it sounds heretical. Here they are, the people of God, being told to capitulate to a bunch of heathens. (Never mind that they've been worshiping idols in tandem with God for a long time now.) To make matters worse, the guy that's telling them this is saying that God is telling them to do this. It's another one of those, "God wouldn't say that," moments, like "Go marry a prostitute" (Hosea) and "I'm going to form a child in your womb so it looks like you got pregnant out of wedlock in a culture where that's not okay--okay?" (Mary). Sometimes God asks us to do stuff which is according to His plan, His wisdom, His goodness . . . but it doesn't sound Biblical, if you will.

This message of Jeremiah sounded treasonous--well it was treasonous--and the assumption was that treason against the nation was treason against God, but the fact was, it wasn't. The nation had run away from God a long time ago, and the only way to get any of them back was to send them away for a while and stoke up the fires of repentance and true faith and God-seeking and character-building that God wanted.

I got to thinking about this. I got to imagining modern-day equivalents. I thought about how there are plenty of people in this country who don't believe in God, or believe in different gods, or are open about not caring less whether there is a God or not. But there are also a lot of people in this country who do believe in God and for better or worse are convinced this country once was a Christian nation and that it needs to become so again. I started imagining what would happen if some Christian somewhere began telling everyone that, say, extremist Muslims were going to take over the USA, and that we should let them. It doesn't just sound like we're giving up our national freedoms (which some people seem to equate with, like, the fruits of the Spirit or something anyway). It sounds like we're capitulating to the spiritual enemy. It sounds like by that very action we'd be denying our faith in Christ. Doesn't it?

I'm not saying that's what's going to happen. I'm not Jeremiah. As far as I know, God did not wake me up this morning to tell my occasional blog-readers to get ready for a terrorist influx by giving into it. (And I should probably also say, for any Muslim friends of mine who might be reading this, I am not tarring all Muslims with the same brush, but I think we both know there are people of that faith who want to take over the world by shari'a law, and that such a law does not exactly grant equal treatment to people of other faiths. Certainly such impulses exist within aspects of "Christianity" and Buddhism and Hinduism, too, but extremist Muslims seem to me a little more global with theirs at the moment.)

What I think I am saying is, I think it's easy to mix up nationality and national rights and privileges with Christianity, and I don't think they're the same thing. And while fighting for universal rights and freedoms is likely a good thing, I don't think they, as political constructs and national benefits, are as important to God as they are to us or as we think they are to Him. And sometimes I wonder, if there were to come another Jeremiah, whether we'd think he wasn't the anti-Christ and throw him in a well or something.