An Eternity With Morons

Recently, I was asked if I was sure I was even saved. And not in the “I am deeply concerned for your spiritual well being and eternal residence” kind of way. It was more in the “You disrupted my theology, I don’t like the way that feels, so I will attack you personally in a manner that makes me feel superior to you” kind of way.

At the time I laughed it off. I was rather amused, because the only thing in this life that I am certain of is that I have a real relationship with my God. It is everything else that can be kind of shaky.

But later, the question began to bug me. And not the “Oh my God, could she possibly be right?” convicted kind of way. It was more of the “How dare she even insinuate such a thing” kind of way. Conviction followed shortly after some rather uncharitable thoughts about the person, me questioning her salvation, planning on how I was going to be a great tool - first, in her enlightenment and secondly, her repentance for doubting my dazzling theological intellect.

It is amazing how un-Christians can be when we talk about our Christianity. We get all self righteous, and convinced that we are the only ones who truly know who God is and how He does things. We begin to believe that only those who agree with us can possible be saved and everyone else is going to hell. And I am not so sure that that feeling isn’t accompanied by some sense of relief – as in the “Oh good, I didn’t want to spend eternity with that moron anyway” kind of way.

The essence of the conversation that led to this anger provoking question was God had to conform to certain ideology that provided this person with absolute confidence that God would never do something they did not approve of. I countered with God is absolutely capable of doing whatever He pleases and should He choose to upset your paradigm than He will – and it would not be out of his character or not in keeping with His nature. It is one of the perks of being God, you get to have it your way all the time, except when you chose not to – and then it’s called grace.

Somewhere in the midst of the conversation, I got the “shut up” message from God. He sends them more than I receive them, but sometimes, when He shouts, I get a clue. So I tried to extricate myself from the situation with a little grace, end on a note we could all agree on. It went like this (if you know me then you have heard me say it, so no it probably isn’t you I am writing about.)

“Maybe we should leave it at agreeing to disagree. After all there is so much that we do agree on, right?” I say nodding my head until she began to parrot me.

“God loves us and created us to have relationship.” Agreement was given.

“Jesus fully God, fully man, lived, died and rose again for our sins.” Again we had agreement.

“And we can only experience salvation through him.” Once again, agreement.

We parted warily, liked two armed gun men both aware that the other could turn and shoot us in the back while we retreated. There was no sense of community that arose from the conversation, nor do I think that we fostered any type of relationship, but that could just be me and my wounded feelings.

Theological debate and arguments can be good things. They help us clarify what we believe, and make us articulate ideas and concepts that float around in our heads like fog. They help us weed out heresy, and force us keep some sort of coherence in our thoughts about God, but too often our thoughts about God become our image of God.

There was a reason that the second commandment says we should not create a graven image of God, and most of us don’t break this one – at least not literally. But maybe it is time that we extracted the principle for use in our day, because everyone I know, including me, has an image of God. It is my favorite idea of who and what he is. He is the God I like, and his parameters are well defined.

I have come to believe that our walk of faith is less about knowing God, and more about realizing what we don’t know about him. It is about tearing down the image of him I carry around in my mind and can defend so well.

Maybe this is why we get so crazed when we talk about the God we believe in, and someone disagrees. We know they aren’t tearing down God, we know they have walked up to our idol and smacked it with a baseball bat. It tends to set us off, but I have discovered something – only an idol needs our defense, only an image we have made needs us to use dirty tactics to preserve their dignity. God, the real God, is pretty good at taking care of himself. Defense is not our job, loving each other is. And when we get too busy protecting our image of him, it’s the one thing we just can’t do.

And by the way, we should all prepare for an eternity with morons, I am pretty sure I will make it, and I hope you do too.

"Stay Together" - Or Stupid Things Moms Say

Since my children were tiny there has been one event that defined their day – if they could go down to Grandma’s house. My mom and dad live next door and the houses are within shouting distance, but just barely. A wide open pasture stands between us and the greatest risk to my children’s safety are the handful of cows who share more in common with lap dogs than their other bovine relatives, but there is always that chance a something else could be lurking in the grass. When they were smaller I would watch them out the door and call Mom to be expecting them, both of us would stay on the line commenting on their progress from our respective windows. We would only hang up once the gate into Grandma’s yard had been hurdled.

When I was small I did the same thing, my grandma lived next door too. Every day as the door swung closed behind me my mother would call out, “Be careful.” Now if you know me very well at all, you know being careful in no way appeals to me. If I have to be careful, I would just as soon not waste my time. I have raised my children who share this mentality and they are fabulous risk takers, but since a mother has to yell something as her children go out the door, I had to come up with mine.

Now, there was no cognitive thought put in my selection of words, but this morning as I yelled after them I found myself wondering why I hear myself saying, “Stay together.” There is an inherent risk in my children staying together and it can involve bloodshed and bruises on a good day. The truth is they fight. Not your usual “Did not, Did too” fights, it’s more of the apocalyptic nature which I am convinced is simply preparation for Armageddon. So all wisdom would dictate that I encouraged them to stay as far from each other as the forty acres allows. God knows they are safer facing the cows than each other sometimes.

Even they see this and complain about having to tolerate the other. Lydia could make case that would convince a Supreme Court justice, and Lauren has a way of putting her head down so she can figure out a way to circumvent my command (in a completely defendable manner, of course). What they don’t see is that I have a reason for them sticking together and it is more than one of them might need a kidney one day.

I want them to learn to walk together in the midst of conflict. I want them to face challenges and difficulties without turning to attack the other, and sometimes I catch glimmers of hope. Too often we face a hard situation and our answer is to blame someone else, let our tempers flare, and demand to be vindicated or martyred for our stand. Separation is easier than relationship. Peace at all costs demands we sacrifice friends and loved ones because often they seem to be the source of our problems.

Sometimes they are. Lauren would not have anyone to yell at if Lydia picked up her dirty clothes, and Lydia would not have a reason to be inflamed if Lauren did not try to boss her. In their child minds the answer is simple, remove the offending party.

As adults we know this truth far too well, and so often we simply stop inviting people into our lives. We keep them at arm’s length where they have not opportunity to do anything that might hurt or anger us, and therefore, we never have to deal with conflict. The problem with this approach is we never learn how to truly love someone who remains at this distance. Sure we can have nice thoughts, wish them well, or even share pleasant Sunday afternoon meal, but we will never know them well enough to love.

Paul warns us not to forsake the assembling of ourselves together. Many people think that this means go to church on Sundays, but I think there is a bit more to it. Church is a great place to start, but how many times is that where it ends? I love to go to concerts, and sit next people at every one I go to, but I am not there with these people. I know nothing about them, their life and habits in no impacts mine, nor does mine theirs. To say our relationship is shallow would be an understatement, nonexistent comes much closer.

In some respects the relationship among concert goers is far superior to other relationships we may have, if we use peace as the criteria. I believe peace is a good thing, but it can’t be everything. Jesus even fought with his disciples, correcting their misconceptions, going to toe to toe with them when they dared disagree, but he never cut them out of his life. He never washed his hands of them and said he was done trying to get along with quarrelsome men. He understood that when you walk with someone there are going to be difficulties, problems, possibly a shouting match or two, and maybe even some punch thrown somewhere along the way.

The quality of the relationship was not defined by the absence of conflict. It was defined by the ability to resolve conflict and build stronger relationship through confronting conflict honestly. Coming to gather as believers should entails conflict, fights even. It means we are really walking together, and if we can stop seeing conflict as the death knell of friendship, we could begin to appreciate the diversity of thought and method that God has equipped his body to use to reveal his desire for relationship to the world.

The girls are growing up, and after over a decade of duking it out, hours of hysteria, they are learning to appreciate the strengths of the other. Strengths they have tested and found to be worthy of their trust through conflict. I don’t worry about them leaving the safety of our house when they are together, because I know that even as they scream at the other, no outside threat better come near.
My hope is that we all have someone yell at and to yell back at us as we work our way through this thing called faith.

Reminiscing About The Harley Days - Being Swayed

Originally posted on Exploring The Pagus

There are a few things that make a girl go “That’s MY man!” And Ty does something that never fails to cause that response in me. Now I know for all of you who do ride motorcycles, that it is something that comes second nature, but for us newbies it can be rather impressive.

Ty rides a 1995 Harley Road King. It is a big bike, 900 pounds of steel and chrome, over half a ton when you add our two bodies, and he usually maneuvers it all with the subtlest shift of his hips. A movement that cannot be detected with the naked eye, but has guided us through traffic, curves, and rain without fail.

The other night as we rode, we hit a rough patch of road and I could feel as he efficiently and elegantly responded to the demands of the situation. I could feel how his muscles worked with and against the bike, keeping us upright seemingly without strain or duress. I, on the other hand, fought the overwhelming urge to grip those love handles in white knuckled terror. As I choked back a shriek, he laughed and said “That was fun.” (I hope to God that was sarcasm, because from my seat, it did not remotely resemble anything called fun.)

It was all over in a matter of seconds, and my dear husband never broke a sweat. The only clue I had that he was even aware of the situation was the way his body swayed to the interplay of the road and the bike. A part of me wanted to chastise him for being so calm, so cavalier about his wife’s safety, but the sheer truth of the matter was he got us through it unscathed.

My walk with God is like that. He is up in front and seems completely unruffled by circumstance. He doesn’t make a big commotion about getting things done. Everything is handled in subtleties, efficiently and elegantly. Subtleties I miss if I am not close enough to feel the slight sway of his spirit as he maneuvers me through this life.

And just like with Ty, I find myself wanting to scream out in panic, demand to know why he is so calm when everything is so threatening. I want to see more action. I want to see him be a little more proactive and really show that he is dealing with the problem, but rarely does he do things my way. He calmly sways with and against circumstance, and occasionally laughs over his shoulder, “That was fun.”

It is easy to forget, that he will get me through unscathed if I am able to keep myself in check. If I can resist the urge to reach past him and try to steer myself. I have to trust that even when it doesn’t look like he is doing anything, he really is, and he never fails to respond to the needs of a situation. Riding with Ty has reminded me that I need to stop trying to control and learn to be responsive to how God is leading. And just like my husband, God probably isn’t going to draw much attention to what he is doing, so if I don’t want to miss it I need to be alert to the subtle shifts.

And sometimes, I just need to stop and think about what he is really doing. How all those little motions mean that the world has moved, not just a bike, the world. Lives are changed and destinies determined with a slight sway, and I need to sit back and experience the awe again. The awe that makes a girl go, “That’s MY God.”

Blue Sky Views From The Bottom Of The Well

I have often wondered what did Joseph think when he sat at the bottom of that well, the one his brothers threw him into after he told them his dream. The dream where they would one day bow down before him. What other black thoughts must have followed when he wasted away in the Egyptian prison?

I wonder because I know what it is to think that God has spoken to me, revealed some special thing that was about to happen in my life. The promise of a new tomorrow where for once all things will be as I had hoped that they could be,but always there seems to be dark time where the promise is lost in the reality of miserable moments. Moments where my ability to affect change is swept away from me, where the power is given to another and I must continue to live despite the pain of watching my hopes fade before I ever touched them.

I wonder if Joseph could see the sky in that pit. Did he see the brilliant blue as assurance that God still watched over him or did he feel mockery at its distance? Those years when he was forgotten in a prison did he resent the woman who wrongly accused him or the God who allowed him to be placed there? Were there moments of anger, pain, and confusion? Or was he blissfully faithful that there would be a day when he saw his dream manifest? Did he reason away hope?

Did he think that perhaps he had merely been the victim of misplaced hope? Did he think God a liar? Did he believe that his pride and arrogance caused this catastrophe? Were there days when he regretted placing credence in the images that filled his sleep? Did he weep over the death of dream? Or did he stoically accept his fate, believing that all would be well in the end?

I wish I knew. Maybe if we heard the fights, the inner battles he waged with himself, there would be a clue for those of us who wait for God to move on our behalf. Some instruction of how to handle those times when we sit in a pit listening to our brothers squabble as to whether to kill us or not.

I don't know why dreams often have to die before they can be realized. Sometimes I think it is so that we never mistake this thing that God wants to give us is something we conjured up. Maybe it is so that others will see it truly is God who brought it into being and not the work of human hands.

There is some comfort in that thought, but my faith isn't always that big. If it was, would I mourn the dream? And yet even as I type that last line, I hear the words, "Jesus wept". He wept at the news that his friend had died.

It is a baffling thought really. Jesus wept. I mean, wrap your head around the whole scenario for a moment. God incarnate the one who breathed life into the original man, the God who spoke the universe into existence, the God who knows all things - weeps over the death of a friend, the death of his dream.

And we are God's dream. Each of us is a reflection and product of his desire. His dream of relationship, his dream of passion and revelation. We are his dream.

As Jesus moved towards the grave of a man who was his friend, as you and I hope to one day know him, he saw his dream die. With one amazingly distinct difference, he knew that with a few simple words his friend would walk at his side once more.

His tears never made sense to me, but tonight I think I get it.

As we strive to attain a level of communion with God that allows us to walk in faith, even in the most extreme situations, we are not to be callous to the death of a dream. Grieving over the loss of something we hold dear is not a sign of weakness or even a sign of a lack of faith. It is being human. Indeed, if I may be so bold - it is being God like.

God never asked us to be without emotion. He never demanded that we deny pain. He only asked that we seek him, become conformed to his image as presented through the humanity of Jesus.

There is some debate on how much Jesus realized about his deity while he lived on earth. Some claim that he knew he was God from the moment he was born, others say it was not until he sat in the temple questioning the rabbis. Still others point to his baptism as the moment of revelation. And even if a time can be determined there is still the question of how much did Jesus know? How much of his God consciousness was he able to access in his human form?

I tend to believe it was limited in many ways. That he knew what he needed to know for the moment. To me it makes his time here more - well, human. It makes his knowledge of our experience more intimate, and his tears at Lazarus death less hypocritical. It makes his grief real, and not merely a display. And I have to ask, what did he think as he made his way to the grave of his dream?

At what point, did he know that his words held the power to call a rotting body from the ground? At what point, did Joseph realize it was his God inspired words that pulled him from his captivity? Will I know that moment in my life? Will you know yours?

I really don't know, but I do know that in the mean time it is okay to weep. It is okay to mourn. I am not relinquishing my faith by acknowledging my grief, and should this be a dream that finds resurrection - it will be beyond what I had ever dreamt it could be.

Fishnet and Dress Codes

Once upon a time – you know it is going to be a great story when you read those words – I was part of an organization that had a dress code. The dress code was put in place by people who wanted to insure that all of us involved were decent and modest in our apparel. An admirable goal, but difficult to define.

I have always tried to play by the rules. Not because I always agree with the rules but because I believe that God places people in authority for a reason and we should respect God’s decisions – that and I really don’t like getting in trouble. So one day I thought I was operating in accordance to the rules and wore a long dress and sandals to our gathering. As I sat sipping my coffee, I was corrected.

Of all the scandalous things I could do, I was showing about three inches of bare leg. Horrors!!!

I was politely but firmly, informed that this was immodest and I need to wear hosiery to avoid such impropriety. So of course the next day, I complied. Sorta.

I wore a slightly shorter skirt (it barely covered my knees), tall boots (they almost came to my knees), and the two inch gap (slightly under and over my knees) I covered with the prescribed hosiery. Imagine my shock when once again, I was corrected and admonished not to be so lewd, but a decision had been reached, I had pushed them over the edge and they did not want to turn it into an issue, bare legs were fine.

I don’t know, but it might have been the fishnet that did it.

So why am I telling you this story?

Well, once again, I am having to deal with some issues of modesty and appropriate covering for women. And I find myself asking, what constitutes modest dress for a woman of our time? I know Christian women who feel like the only truly modest attire is one that subverts all hints of our sexuality. Shapeless shirts that cover that provocative collar bone, skirts that conceal that alluring ankle, and good sturdy shoes built for comfort, lest we indulge in the vanity of heels.

I know some Christian women who are so unaware of their bodies that their dress is completely immodest, not out of a desire to arouse but simply because they fail to recognize they are being immodest. Many of us were taught that any attempt at dressing ourselves in an attractive manner is immoral and un-Biblical. Some of us were even threatened with the idea that to dress in a way that betrayed our sex was inviting rape. A few of us were told it was our moral duty to hide our femininity to preserve the morals of the men in our lives, that we are responsible for their purity. I even know a few Christian women who do not believe for one second that they have any obligation to be modest, and dress however they please.

As usual, I can’t just fall neatly into one camp. I have to agree with them all, in part, and then I have to figure out how to live (and dress) in accordance to what I believe is right. And as you may have gathered from my story, that means I have to curb a teensy little rebellious streak that runs through me.

As women we have been a great and wonderful gift, our bodies. Think about it for a minute. Too often we tend to focus on the hormone swings, periods, and the agony of childbirth, but really, how awesome to know that our bodies were designed to give and sustain life. And how great is that all our plumbing is indoors? (Okay, except when you’re camping.)

There is something amazingly freeing when we recognize the value of that gift. What’s more we should conduct ourselves in such a way that others recognize its value, and I don’t think that we do that when we dress like we are ashamed of our bodies. We aren’t asexual. We are women. Designed with care and intent, God didn’t make a mistake and its time we stop acting like it.
Does this mean that we go around displaying our wares? Of course not! That also shows a lack of value for this gift, and there is a huge difference between dressing in an attractive manner and dressing like a . . .well, you know. (And if you don’t ask a good friend, or your kids, they will tell you.)

Look, we don’t put Tiffany crystal in a Wal-Mart bag and we don't set our treasures out on the street corner. It’s all in the balance, somewhere between vanity and denial. It is time that Christian women be beautiful women and we stop believing that our bodies are the source of all evil. It was woman who ate the fruit, but it was a woman who first proclaimed the coming the Messiah and woman who gave birth to our Lord. Those are some pretty great things to be proud of for our sex.

It is time that each time we dress, we dress in a celebration of who we are, who we are created to be. If we dress with remembrance that God decided that we were to be beautiful and our beauty is to serve a purpose we have a pretty good guide as to what to wear.

Photo via PhotoPin

Faith and Denial - The Difference

Denial has no room for your emotions - pain, frustration, disappointment, and anger must be suppressed at all costs.

Faith allows us to embrace our emotions, to experience them, and own them as part of our journey. Only then can that part of us be offered up as part of our sacrifice to Father and a declaration He is bigger than what we feel.

Broken Friends and Broken Faith

He was sitting at the corner table where I tended bar. His bowed head and the rosary laced through whitened knuckles were both new to me. The familiar ringing (and slightly derogatory) greeting was absent, lost somewhere in the heaving shoulders and silent sobs.

The story that unfolded was not shocking. He and his boyfriend had been having problems for weeks, and now Bill* said they were through. I have to admit that every bit of my fundamentalist upbringing was cheering, celebrating the possibility that may be now…

But my jubilation was short lived, and compassion took over. No matter how much I may have disagreed with my friend’s lifestyle - he was, and is, my friend, and friends do not celebrate another’s pain.

He held out the rosary, odd ends and disjointed beads dripping from between his fingers. “Even my faith is broke,” he choked out. I pried the chains out his hand and set to work, bending and twisting the links back into their proper order as I listened to the events that had left my friend an emotional wreck.

He finished his tale and I returned his rosary. “It’s fixed. You fixed my faith,” he gasped.

“That’s what friends do,” I quipped. In the space of heartbeat, the truth of my thoughtless words exploded through me and washed over him. For  a moment, having a friend was more than enough reason to push aside his need for tears and my need to fix him.

*Not his real name.