Unscrambling eggs
Posted: April 11, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »
Insert random shit saying in the vain of ‘it wasting time to regret…’
While struggling to see the meaning/point of life I HATE stupid optimistic people’. Quite frankly how I see the world is out of my control, genetic disposition and experiences that effect me are not within my control. IE Charlie browns and Lucy’s reality off kicking a football are completely different. As such it would be idiotic to tell Charlie ‘If at first you don’t succeed try, try again’. A saying such as this would not only subject Charlie to undue bodily injury it would solidify and confirm all of his worst fears, that he is inadequate and life will always deal him a short hand.
My second case study is that of Donald Duck. Donald is often framed as a lunatic, flying off the handle at the slightest inconvenience. We laugh at his ‘over reaction’ to problematic situations that we all face. The thing that I relate with is that the majority of Donald’s problems start as those such as common to man; getting rained out of an event you love, getting lost, having a camping trip ruined or a sailing mishap. However they are made exponentially worse by either happy go lucky types or the pranks of those close to him.
My point in this seemingly random rant it this: If you are lucky enough to have a life that you find generally good and are optimistic about the future, thank whoever you thank and STFU around people that are in a different reality then you. The worse thing you can do for some in pain or depression is give them some bullshit answer about how ‘all things work together for good’. The second worse is to petrified and back away with nothing to say, confirming their fears of abandonment and isolation.
For some of us depression is the only friend that has been with us through every stage of life. Our addictions even though they hurt us they are they only things that have always been reliable. Those that love us let us down. Those we trust fail us. Those the rely on abandon us. At the end of the day all we have is our self, and every one dies alone.
A friend at samsonsmyopia.comsaid it’s no use trying to unscramble eggs, they are what they are. I like that analogy, accept life as it is, but if you hate scrambled eggs no use pretending you don’t.
Mortifying love
Posted: April 5, 2012 Filed under: Kingdom Life, Service, Uncategorized | Tags: Buddy Christ, Family, hate, King of Kings, love, obey, Zizek Leave a comment »
“Chaplin’s City Lights is one of those masterpieces which are really too sophisticated for the sophisticated. It’s a deceptively simple movie….The tramp is wrongly identified, by a beautiful blind girl who is selling flowers on a street corner,as a millionaire.He accepts the game, helps her,even steals money to pay for her operation to restore her sight,then after he serves the punishment and returns, he tries to find her.And I think that this is the metaphor of our predicament.
All too often, when we love somebody, we don’t accept him or her as what the person effectively is. We accept him or her in so far as this person fits the co-ordinates of our fantasy. We misidentify, wrongly identify him or her, which is why, when we discover that we were wrong, love can quickly turn into violence. There is nothing more dangerous, more lethal for the loved person than to be loved, as it were, for not what he or she is, but for fitting the ideal.
When the two hands meet,the girl finally recognizes him for what he is. This moment is always extremely dangerous, pathetic. The beloved falls out of the frame of the idealized co-ordinates,finally there exposed in his psychological nakedness. Here I am as what I really am. And I don’t think we have to read it as a happy ending. We don’t know what will happen. We have the letters, “the end”, the black screen, but the singing goes on. As if the emotion is now too strong, it spills over the very frame.+
-Slavoj Žižek The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema
I love Žižek’s claims that the “reality of the virtual, is more real then the ‘real“. Echoing Jesus’ “You have heard…” teaching, that is not so much our actions as our heart and thoughts that matter. Our ‘virtual reality’ has more power then the ‘real world’.
As the saying goes a lie believed is more powerful then a truth unbelieved, I have found this to be true in my life. As long a Jesus is the all loving, hippie free-spirit, anti-establishment, self-help motivational speaker and enabling parent, then bring on the life of abundance, power and financial blessing. However as He falls out of the coordinates of ‘Buddy Christ’ and turns into Lord of Lords and King of Kings, the violence of the Kingdom breaks in.
The fear of God lays low all things. I have believed that as God’s child I can come to Him on my terms. But as I raise my children I see it is not so. Sure they will never ‘stop being my kids’ but if they chose to disobey I cannot bless them, and often have to separate them from communion as protection for the rest of the family. I fear as long as I see God’s love as an ‘in or out’, ‘saved or not saved’ way I will miss the calling to purity and obedience, preparing me for unity.
After the horsemen come, then the real terror shall be unleashed.
“For the great day of his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?” I highly doubt I will be ‘high fiving’ my ‘home boy’.
The Spirituality of Eglon
Posted: March 27, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized Leave a comment »
I hate exercise, if fact I’d rather not eat then have to burn calories. “…take from me the spirit of sloth…” I didn’t really expect to live past 25 years, so for the last few years I have been winging it. Keeping my body in shape was never a priority. In the words of Dusty Bottoms “Well, we really didn’t expect the first part of the plan to work…so we have no further plan. Sometimes you can over plan these things.”
As it appears I’m going to be here for a while I decided to take a proactive approach to health. I was riding my stationary bike for the first time in a long time. 20 minutes / 3.84 miles. (I have no idea if that is bad or good). The result 170 calories burned? WAT!? That’s is one Coke, one beer, one measly snack. If I need to watch what I eat a Coke just isn’t worth it to me.
As I contemplate taking Paul at his word and stop being a ‘believer’ and being to start training my flesh, it is frightening to take Christ at His word. The Idea of laying down my life for Him. Not in some theological sense but in reality as the Apostles, Desert Fathers and Saints did. To obey as Christ modeled, to let go of my apathetically crippling idea of imputed righteousness. Not settling to merely be Holy in name, but rather cooperate with Christ’s redeeming synergy.
I wonder what the impact of sin has upon my spirit man. In short by dancing on ‘the edge’ of whats right even walking in darkness. If sin is to miss the mark, there are things I have believed about God that have stopped me from even aiming at the target any more. If it does matter what I listen to, what I watch ect. and I look to the athlete analogy Paul used. How have my choices that I have regarded as ‘neutral‘ the ‘only 100 calorie’ or venial sins, the luke warm decisions effected my ‘spiritual walk.’ (I’m not really walking I’m waiting for Jesus to start driving) How spiritually fat am I?
Is my lack of growth, lack character change and lack of personal holiness a deficiency in the work of Christ? Or a deficiency in my beliefs. Is it time to get off my duff and hit the Spiritual gym, learning from those that have gone before?
O Lord and Master of my life, take from me the spirit of sloth, despair, lust of power, and idle talk.
But give rather the spirit of chastity, humility, patience, and love to Thy servant.
Yea, O Lord and King, grant me to see my own transgressions, and not to judge my brother, for blessed art Thou, unto ages of ages. Amen.
Love wins…
Posted: March 22, 2012 Filed under: Church, Theology | Tags: Zizek, penal, substitutionary, atonement, Love wins, emerging, Calvinism, Salvation, cosmic child abuse, Faithful 1 Comment »i have always struggled to find the ‘God is Love’ aspect within the doctrine of Substitutionary atonement. As Anberlin puts it “We’re not questioning God. Just those he chose to carry on His cross.”
Questioning the doctrine of penal substitutionary atonement however is likely to get you burned as a heretic within most of the evangelical world. When Steve Chalke released The Lost Message of Jesus stating substitutionary atonement was “a form of cosmic child abuse.”, an utter fire storm was started in the evangelical and reformed churches.
While I understand the statement flies in the face of all of Protestantism, penal substitutionary atonement is what Slavoj Zizeks refers to as “The most disgusting justification for religion, this disgusting metaphor of stain and harmony from a proper distance…”. That is the Calvinistic notion that in Gods sovereignty what we all know to be evil is really, in Gods eyes good. Sorry you were raped but “all things work together for good” Zizek even asks the question if this was indeed a financial (legal) transaction who is God paying by killing His Son? Is the Creator of heaven and earth indebted to some one? The devil? Who? It is never made clear.
In my wandering to find Him it has been a huge comfort to find that the question brought up by Chalke has been answered by the Faithful. God is indeed Love, and the capricious god of Calvin is a lie.
I am my own worst enemy
Posted: March 13, 2012 Filed under: Uncategorized | Tags: enemy, fear, itself, life, overcoming, stepping out, worst Leave a comment »
The people in this video were not mutants or superheros they were humans that pushed themselves, beyond the realms of understanding like the Saints of old. If Jesus spoke the truth then the only thing standing in my way is me. More specifically my lack of faith in Him stands in my way.
At this point in my walk my biggest fear is the realization I may not have what it takes to be a Christian. Standing on the abyss of the unknown. Overwhelmed by theFear and trembling that comes with the realization that the western church has lied to me. Christianity is not some smorgasbord for me to pick and choose from. A little bit of this, a little bit of that. No it is a call to a life of individuality, what do I chose to do with God’s commands?
Rather then preaching to the masses to convert, I’m inclined to agree that should be keeping the gate narrow.
If I fail it is truly my own doing.
Do or do not there is no try.
…have mercy on me, the sinner.
Posted: March 12, 2012 Filed under: Church, Kingdom Life, Uncategorized | Tags: Religion, sects of protestantism, spirituality, theology 2 Comments »The new year has not brought a clean start, new hope or renewal. It has been a bitter time of assessment. Seeing things not as they could be or should be, but seeing them in the cold light of truth.
The things I have left undone, dreams that only wasted time, ‘friends’ that are no where to be seen in the depths. Anger, disgust, sorrow, apathy and suicide have not been far from me. Suicide not in the ‘woe is me I need a cheap out’ sense but a realization that wisest man to ever live spoke truth when he penned “Meaningless! Meaningless!” “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.“
Attempting to follow Christ in His passion this Great Lent has served as an very helpful spiritual assessment. Over the past few years my spiritual journey has taken me places I would never imagined I’d ever go. From the cold calculating systematic theology of the reformed view to the anarchistic hippie ‘love wins’ charismatic movement far beyond the realms of historical Christianity.
I would not trade the journey for anything, for though I wander I am not lost. And yet I want to go home I am over the novel things of life. I don’t want the next slap-chop of Christianity. A novel idea, a new denomination, new age spirituality dressed as faith. I want to go back even if it was to hear the stinging words of Paul casting me out for the ‘grace’ that covered my sins.
I am done picking and choosing my own Christianity, a life of purpose, a life of freedon,a life of abundance, a life where ‘love wins‘, a life of financial breakthrough, a life of anarchy, a life of intellect.
Sweet sweet Jesus won’t you be all mine.
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord But you’re gonna have to serve somebody
And yet through the confusion, quietly whispering is the church. Calling those who will hear to a life of self denial, a life of humility, a life of reverence, a life in subjection to a King. A far cry from the division, personal choice, and ‘grace’ from the me centered sects of protestantism.
I wish I could call him Lord, but my roots recoil at the thought of a master. Submitting blindly to something I can not understand is beyond my comprehension. And yet I want to find a man that will boldly say ‘Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ.’
I want to submit to my husband as a eastern wife submits to her husband. I want nothing to do with the feminism of modern Christianity, seeking my will and asserting my person as synonymic with man, not a complement or helper to him.
As Chesterton observed What’s wrong with the world is what’s wrong the protestant movement. Anarchy masked as ‘equality of believers’. Licentiousness renamed grace. Absolute rebellion, the fruit of Luther’s stance is hailed as the high point of Christendom.
‘Grace’ is a release valve that keeps us from pushing towards God in the face of our weakness, accepting our ‘sinful condition’ as just a part of life. Theosis is dismissed as fantasy, not only are we missing the mark we have stopped aiming at the target.
“In everything on this earth that is worth doing, there is a stage when no one would do it, except for necessity or honor. It is then that the Institution upholds a man and helps him on to the firmer ground ahead. Whether this solid fact of human nature is sufficient to justify the sublime dedication of Christian marriage is quite an other matter, it is amply sufficient to justify the general human feeling of marriage as a fixed thing, dissolution of which is a fault or, at least, an ignominy. The essential element is not so much duration as security. Two people must be tied together in order to do themselves justice; for twenty minutes at a dance, or for twenty years in a marriage In both cases the point is, that if a man is bored in the first five minutes he must go on and force himself to be happy. Coercion is a kind of encouragement; and anarchy (or what some call liberty) is essentially oppressive, because it is essentially discouraging.“
If Christopher, then, though he denies religion, knows how to take care of his wife, how much more will my Father lead and provide for me if only I will take on his yoke of obedience.
Crackers Food Bank
Posted: November 9, 2011 Filed under: Kingdom Life, Service | Tags: Food Bank, Jesus, Need, Service, Special, Students, Thanksgiving Leave a comment »
Cut to the quick. I’d like to ask for some help this holiday season. Now I understand everyone has a underprivileged so-and-so or some sob story to pitch you this time of year. So I will save you the grief and keep my pitch simple, one for the angels.
Last week I posted on the religious right using fear and shame as motivational tools. This is about my proposed solution; showing people love through action.
Here is the background; a close friend of mine is APE specialist and she noticed that the special needs students families had been hit especially hard by the recession. Her students would come to school in tattered clothes, holes in their shoes and would talk about how they had nothing to eat at home.
She has a huge heart and this has lead her to buy shoes for students out of her pocket book. She also started sending kids home with food for their families for the weekend. Her generosity has grown into her own privately run food bank for her students. ‘Feed the kids that fall through the cracks’ is the motto for Crackers Food Bank (CFB).
This Thanksgiving CFB is providing dinners for five of her special needs students families. This will be a traditional turkey dinner with all the trimmings. In addition CFB will be sending a twenty five dollar gift card to Stater Bros markets to allow each family to add their own personal touch to the holiday meal.
So here is the pitch, send Tracy Burwell a check at
‘Crackers Food Bank’
C/O Tracy Burwell
Po Box 6843
Crestline, CA 92325
Let’s help her feed Jesus a proper Thanksgiving dinner. It’s going to happen if we help or not because Tracy is awesome and makes sure the hungry always get fed. Check out the Facebook page for more updates
99% problems
Posted: November 3, 2011 Filed under: Kingdom Life | Tags: #occupyeverywhere, 99 problems, equality, Father, fear, Jesus, love, OWS, red cross, salvation army, Service, Stand, Wyatt Earp 4 Comments »
The religious right somehow believes rather then supporting the fight for financial equality in the US they should try and shame people into feeling bad for poverty in Africa.
If I may pause to quote the great Wyatt Earp “Go to fighting or get away!”
If you want to fight poverty or whatever around the globe go to it But whatever you do stand FOR something not against something!!! This tactic of using fear and shame to motivate people, by the church has to go. Those tactics are from Hell.
How many times have you heard the Red Cross announce they hate something so they are going to serve? It sound ridiculous just reading it and yet that is where the church serves from. A place of shame and fear, not out of love for the Father. So get to loving, get to serving and for goodness sake let’s get over these fear mongering tendencies.
I want a third pill…
Posted: November 2, 2011 Filed under: Church | Tags: Chesterton, Christianity, idol, illusion, lies, Marx, reality, Slavoj, Zizek Leave a comment »
“So what is the third pill? Definitely not some kind of transcendental pill which enables a fake, fast-food religious experience, but a pill that would enable me to perceive not the reality behind the illusion but the reality in illusion itself.” – Slavoj Zizek – The Pervert’s Guide to Cinema
I recently watched the perverts guide to cinema with my brother and was blow away. It is defiantly something I will watch again in a few months after I have let it digest for a while.
One of the concepts I liked very much was the idea quoted above, there is something very real, even more real in our imagination/fantasy space then in ‘reality’. The reality of the illusion itself. That is my ideas about the unseen, for myself God, are more real then reality of Him at times.
What do I mean by this? I once heard a pastor say, ‘a lie believed is more powerful then a truth unbelieved’. In a sense I think this is true of our relation to God. Denominations are split along ideas about God, He is kind, judgmental, loving, hating, tolerating, intolerant, judge, attorney and this list goes on. What attribute of God we elevate above others (a lie) becomes our idol (truth). I would say in the vast majority of people and projects this idol is unintentional and unsuspected. But to say that we do not have an idol would be a gross understatement.
Zizek even touches on this concept in his lecture ‘Why only an atheist can be a true Christian‘ That even the ‘unbelieving’ masses believe far more today then at any other time.
In that vein I would like to share this video with you, the worlds reality of god within the churches impotent illusion.
It would appear that the world sees God and an impartial observer. He may or may not be there, as it said there are no atheists in a fox hole, but at any rate he cannot help. 
The indictment of an impotent god may very well be true, if only misguided. If God has been maligned it source can not be traced to atheism but the church. It is as G.K. Chesterton pointed out “Christianity has not been tried and found wanting; it has been found difficult and not tried.”
What lies are you believing about God that perpetuating an impotent Christianity? An impotent Christianity is not only a lie, but it is an impossibility. If it is impotent, it is not Christianity. Indeed Marx may have spoken prophetically of the western church when he said “They don’t know it, but they are doing it”.
