Called to unbelief

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Sometimes God calls a person to unbelief in order that faith may take new forms. 

          Christian Wiman, My Bright Abyss 

 

The truth is we are all on a wilderness journey out of some form of slavery.

          Brian McLaren

 

How will I know when I find what I seek?

          Christine Valters Paintner

_______________________________________

 

Today is a day for wandering and wonder

I am always a little bit homeless

Unsettled

 

I am always a little bit homesick

Looking for that place to settle

For the promised land

Full of milk and honey

 

That place of peace

Of certainty and belonging

 

I am not complaining mind you

Or perhaps maybe I am

 

But I do not want to die

The same creature as the one who started

This journey through the wilderness

This tortured, twisted, thirsty

Exodus

 

Life and faith are all about

Evolving

Changing

Growing

 

It’s a risky process

Fraught with mountains

and rivers

and the occasional abyss

 

those moments of scaling the cliffs

and those terrifying times

when I slip and slide into the primordial ooze

 

sometimes I want to go back

to comfort

to old ways

I want to wander paths well-known

Imprinted on the earth of my soul

So deeply

 

But there is danger there too

In those deeply worn ruts

That keep returning me

To the same place

 

To the slavery of old beliefs

And old ways

And old mistakes

 

Today is a day for wandering and wondering

Learning and growing

For picking up a few shards of wisdom

And for throwing a few away

 

Like dry twigs

Into the fire

 

The ancient lands that stretch out

Behind me

Are not all wilderness

There are places here and there

Where water sprang up

And manna fell

 

But those places are not for sojourning

They are for momentary rests

Along the way

 

Along the road I make by walking

Not very Jesus

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[A] strong Christology begins by redefining strength itself in light of Christ’s strength-through-weakness, gaining-through-losing, rising-through-descending.

          Brian McLaren

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Christianity, as  it has evolved

is not very Jesus

 

We have ended up with a faith

that is about dominating

conquering

controlling

 

We have created a God

who is about dominating

conquering

controlling

 

In the pages of the Bible

we stumble through so many stories

where people

earnest

seeking

sincere

 

understand God in this way

a God who creates not just awe

but fear

 

A God, who, people stray

makes bad things happen

A God who casts people out of Eden

floods the earth

destroys cities

and turns someone into a pillar of salt

 

A God who kills the first born

and drowns the adversary in the sea.

 

And yet

over and over again people got glimpses

of something different

of a God who redeems and restores

who forgives

who brings human kind back to the Garden

 

And then Jesus came

a peasant child

born in a stable

a man who experienced all the miseries of humankind

who took on all the pain. despair and grief

who took on death

 

and somehow

transformed it all

revealing the way of

“…strength-through-weakness, gaining-through-losing,

rising-through-descending.”

 

And then Jesus came and gave us a different understanding of God

which all too quickly forgot

and soon ignored

creating a faith, and then a “culture”

of domination and  exploitation

and even violence

 

a culture of supremacy

 

A faith that is all about power

and control

and yes

plunder

 

In Christ’s name

conquistadors, and pioneers

and missionaries

dominated, exploited and destroyed

 

and now

in Christ’s name

many still embrace the way of domination

exploitation

and destruction of “the other”

 

We have embraced a concept of Christ

that ignores Jesus

 

and so

wars rage, and people starve

and children die

and the planet burns

 

and we who claim Jesus

are all too often complicit

 

and it doesn’t work

it doesn’t make it “on earth as it is in heaven”

the peaceable kingdom has been logged

the animals are threatened with extinction

and hate and strife abound

 

There is a reason Jesus said “the meek shall inherit the earth”

for it is only through meekness, which is not weakness

it is only through humility

and the embracing of that

strength-through-weakness,

gaining-through-losing,

rising-through-descending

way

 

that we will find peace, and hope

and joy and love

 

I suspect we will always get it a little wrong

we have from the start

but if we are humble

and open to God’s love

(and presence and guidance)

perhaps

 

there will be glimpses of glory

and we will continue

to stumble our way

toward a greater understanding

of the fact

that God is love

and that love, ultimately, wins

 

 

Our Hope

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Whether or not Christianity, in an alienated, divided, and oppressive society, itself becomes alienated, divided, and an accomplice of oppression is ultimately decided only by whether the crucified Christ is a stranger to it or the Lord who determines the form of its existence

          Jurgen Moltmann

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it is so much more comfortable

to think of Christus Victor

the overcomer

the risen one

 

Christ the King is so much more appealing

to our sensibilities

and our love of domination

 

then Christ the Beaten

Christ the Crucified one

 

we love to jump from Palm Sunday

to Easter

 

ignoring the dark and ignominious journey

in between

through betrayal

and tears an fears

and oppression

and death

 

We see Christ risen, glowing

not Jesus bleeding

Christ on a throne

not Jesus in the tomb

 

Christ becomes the ruler

winning

judging

and worse, becomes “ours”

 

seen and embraced from the swampy ground

of ego-consciousness

where the center of gravity is

the self

me as a separate individual

 

distinct from you

separated and alienated

by fear and need

wanting to win

perhaps to dominate and oppress

 

and recruiting Jesus as our ally

 

Who aligns with a guy on a cross?

that loser

foolish enough to suffer and die

 

The Christ of dominion separates

and feeds the fragmentation

leaving us seeing ourselves as distinct

and in competition

and leaving the world shattered and in pieces

 

“My God is bigger than your God!”

“My faith more sincere than yours..”

“I am taller, handsomer (or hotter)

smarter and richer”

“My crowds are bigger”

“I am loved and blessed by God, you aren’t”

(we are not, some believe, all God’s children)

 

But the crucified Christ

the one who empties himself

and embraces humility

 

that Christ draws us

to the foot of the cross

where the drops of seat and blood

and bitter wine

rain down

 

Baptizing us

in the way of truth and compassion

making us part of a greater whole

 

changing us from those who

alienate, divide, and are accomplices of oppression

to those who reconcile, unite

and strive against oppression

 

But it’s not Christ with a gun

It is not body builder Jesus

Not Christ draped in a flag

who is our hope

 

Its Christ on the cross.

One Wild Hunger

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… it’s not such a wonder that when

we open the gate to all that is fierce

 

and fearful inside us,

when we hold our hands like begging bowls,

our hearts like candles,

 

the wolf within will want

to lay its soft head

upon our laps and we see

there is no more wolf and me

 

just one wild love,

one wild hunger.

          Christine Valter Paintner

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our souls

(our deep inner self)

are full of hungry ghosts

and terrible wolves

and slouching foul beasts

 

and we for our part

shut down

part of who we are

that dreadful fearsome part

we dread

 

suppressing

denying

pretending

 

hoping we can keep the chaos contained

the fierceness tamed

 

and so we are fragmented

partial people

not whole

always a little bit paranoid

looking over our shoulders to make sure

that we have not broken loose

that the gates have not been breached

 

we move furtively through life

dodging, hiding

unsettled

 

But then, perhaps

hopefully

we find ourselves face to face

with ourselves

 

and if we dare welcome

audaciously embrace

those parts of us from which we have been alienated

 

we find ourselves becoming whole

healing

becoming

our created-to-be selves

 

we discover

hallelujah

that we are terrible and beautiful

fierce and soft

hopeful and fearful

good and not-so-good

all at the same time

 

But that this mixed up

confused

self

is one wonderful

slightly weird

wild child

 

but a child of God

and we no longer have to hide

ashamed

Certainty

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“Truth and lies, doubt and certainty. I haven't found them to be what I thought they were. I dislike certainty because it feels like truth, but it isn't. And I think I have had some inkling what it is for a whole people to become certain."

 

"And what's that like, then?"

 

"It's like pretending something, and then forgetting you were pretending. It's falling into a dream. If justice is based on certainty, but certainty is not truth, atrocities become possible.”

          Daniel Abraham

 

The opposite of faith isn’t doubt.  The opposite of faith is certainty.  Once we know everything we stop actively being engaged in questions.

          Nadia Bolz-Weber

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I am sure he is a nice guy

an Irish rancher type from behind the Sagebrush curtain

deeply embedded in the alkali dust, rimrock,

and endless juniper

of Eastern Oregon

 

and he is certain!

so very certain, I am sure, of God

certain that America is Great

or that someone he follows can make it Great Again

and certain that those who are more liberal

are the victims of “heavy propaganda”

 

I am not certain

not about much

I am certain that a certain politician lies

(some things can be proved)

 

But I am not certain that those I support

are always truthful

in fact, if I am certain of anything

it is that they sometimes twist the truth

 

Sometimes I am not certain that God is

or that I understand who God is, or what God is like.

I am not certain, exactly, of what God wants me to do

I am not certain that my beliefs are “right”

Not certain why some things happen

Or how Sacred is involved, or uninvolved

 

I am somewhat certain that God is loving, and kind

forgiving and generous

(thank you Jesus)

 

But I have my doubts about so much

Which is OK!

 

I would rather have doubt than certainty

because doubt is not the opposite of faith

certainty is

 

Certainty makes us blind

The truth may be right in front of us

but we can’t see it because we are certain of something different

 

Certainty twists reality

When see the world, and others, through the lens of certainty

we may well see

wrongly

and we may commit great injustices

 

Certainty stops us from questioning

We don’t question what we believe, what God wants, or doesn’t want

We don’t question whether we are right

 

Thus we get stuck, closed, and hard

And we stop learning, and we stop growing.

 

Which means certainty divides

Yes, a whole people can be united in certainty

but when that happens it gets ugly

there is cruelty

there are atrocities

 

Inquisitions happen, Reichs are created

people get hurt

countries die

 

I hope that I always have doubts about what I believe

That I doubt my version of the truth

my perception that am on the “right” side

am headed the right direction

that I am who I am supposed to be, doing the things I am supposed to do

 

Frederick Buechner once said that doubt is the ants-in-the-pants of faith

 

God, keep me uncertain

keep me questioning

keep me open

keep me humble

keep me accepting of others

 

for I might be wrong

of that I am certain

 

 

Holiness is Wholeness

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...holiness as wholeness, the opposite of fragmentation… the underlying Reality is a continuous Wholeness, a Unity beyond any possibility of division…

 

Both the East and the West have expressed this Wholeness, and the transcendence of time which is one aspect of Wholeness by speaking of the Ultimate as unchangeable…

God’s will does not change.  Once having lighted his troth, God is steadfast in love  God’s love, God’s will, God’s personal selfhood is one Wholeness, unfragmented.

          Beatrice Bruteau

 

Those of steadfast mind you keep in peace, in peace because they trust in you.

          Isaiah 26:3

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God is one

and not one

there is this thing we call the Trinity

 

we don’t understand it

we can’t totally understand

 

but we can know it

this unity in diversity

 

it’s important

that we can be many

we can be diverse

we can be black, white, tall, short

Greek, Jew, American, Iranian, Venezuelan

Republican, Democrat

 

and still,

participate in a profound unity.

 

Thus we are called

we human creatures who lean toward fragmentation

to practice Wholeness

to take time to stop, and breathe,

to worship and pray, and connect with the One

with Eternity

with the Really Real

 

What is “sin”

what does it look like when we stumble and fall

and fail to realize ourselves as Children of God.

 

It looks like fragmentation

like fragmented souls

fragmented communities

fragmented nations

as scattered and shattered world

 

it looks like hate

and bias

like inequality and inequity

 

it looks like the bonds of love

shredded

 

by words that incite and demean

by anger and violence

by those who will sacrifice everything

for money and power

 

we cannot embrace fragmentation

we cannot follow those

who would divide

 

we must reflect the unity of

the One

 

we need to be Holy

 

_______________________________________

 

We are stardust

We are golden

And we've got to get ourselves

Back to the Garden (Joni Mitchell)

Prayer, the cry of the heart

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“Prayer holds together the shattered fragments of creation.

          Jaques Ellul

 

Christians were never meant to be normal. We’ve always been holy troublemakers, we’ve always been creators of uncertainty, agents of dimension that’s incompatible with the status quo; we do not accept the world as it is, but we insist on the world becoming the way that God wants it to be. And the Kingdom of God is different from the patterns of this world.

          Jacques Ellul

____________________________________

 

Prayer

is

it is the cry of the heart for connection

it is reaching out

in a world of uncertainty

 

in the midst of division and strife

as the bond of affection are torn

to the One who draws all together

in a peaceable kin_dom

 

it is a longing for communion

put into wordless pleas

tendrils of connection

binding us in Love

 

to a God who is relationship personified

unity in diversity

three so united as to be one

division blurred, diminished

destroyed

 

it is the energy of the Sacred

the power of love

being sent to others

 

who ill, or distraught

angry, fearful, alienated, divided

need

love, hope, joy, and peace

 

it is sent out to friends

to strangers

to enemies

 

focused love

drawing together that which has been torn

and shattered

drawing together the scattered

 

it is not command or insistence

it is plea

it is the Spirit speaking for us the words we cannot find

 

it is we frail creatures

joining together to send compassion, concern,

caring and love

to other frail creatures

 

us making waves

us disturbing the certainty of a stolid world

breaking things open

becoming free

creating newness

 

prayer

is

 

 

Look in the eyes

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Do not work for the food that perishes but for the food that endures for eternal life,

          Jesus

 

But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles.

          Jesus

 

The soul, fortunately, has an interpreter - often an unconscious but still a faithful interpreter - in the eye.

          Charlotte Brontë, Jane Eyre

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We are what we consume

if that were true, perhaps I would be a potato

 

But there is deep truth here

beyond carrots and legumes

and the stuff of life

 

Those who follow Christ understand this

darkly perhaps

or not at all

 

eat this bread, drink the cup

feed on Sacred

that you might live

 

what we take in shapes us

if we live in the shallows of empty entertainment

we will be shallow people

 

if we consume hate, or fear, or anger

we will be hateful, fearful, and angry

 

If we are open to love

and allow sacred, and others to love us

we become

loving

 

and what comes in, and what metabolizes in our soul

(our inner self)

eventually comes out

 

we process and then eliminate

what we consume

 

whether it be a burrito or fries

love or grace

 

hate metabolizes into hate and violence

love metabolizes into kindness, compassion, and generosity

 

what is in our hearts

is revealed in our words

in our behaviors

in our eyes

 

We project our inner self

 

And we project our inner self on others.

That’s right.

There’s no objective world “out there.”

Take two people with two different “selves”

shaped by their histories and chosen consumption

and they will see two different worlds

 

the eyes are a window to the soul in more ways than one

It’s like we’re looking out through a window.

What is going on inside us shapes what we see

 

If we are looking for kindness you will find it

everywhere

We are looking for affront, for injury

we will find it, everywhere

 

and you will project your inner self onto those around you

 

I want to have smiling eyes

I want my inner world to be shaped by compassion and love

hope and grace

 

I don’t like to want to be a person

who squints and scowls

who spews hate

and projects on to others

their own thoughts, attitudes, and behaviors

 

and I don’t want my soul to be drawn

in an unholy alliance

with those who do

 

claim my heart oh God

clean my heart oh God

clean the windows of my soul

 

set my soul on fire

with your love

and let the light of that fire

shine

a light in the darkness

The Altar of the GNP

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We are sacrificial lambs offering ourselves to a false god

                                                   Hafiz

 

______________________________

 

The voices are out there

those that reduce our planet to

something to be used, and abused

 

Some see a forest and think of board feet

some look at water and imagine it bottled and sold

some look at the forested shore of a lake

and see a condo

 

whatever they see, they see money

everything is transformed

“Midas-like, into profit”

and in their eyes

“profit means progress, and progress means leisure,

pleasure, power, safety and fun” (Brian McLaren, Life after Doom p.91)

 

The Gross National Product has become

our standard for measuring what is good

and what is bad

who has value, and who does not

whether we are succeeding, or failing

 

politicians promise not that our nation will be kinder

but more powerful

not that it will be more just

but richer

 

and so the planet, and the people on it

are sacrificed

the planet may burn

the poor may find themselves homeless

but the Dow is up

and all is right with the world

 

The God of Economy

is placated by sacrifice

 

The air, the land the ocean

those vulnerable souls who are too old

too ill

too poor

 

all are sacrificed

on the altar of the GNP

 

Jesus talked about sacrifice.

What did he have in mind?

 

He talked about

being willing to be last (rather than first)

about leaving one’s family behind

and selling all that we have so we can give to the poor

he talked about dying

 

And he talked about the cost

of offering ourselves to false gods

 

“For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their soul?

Or what will they give in return for their soul?”

 

The message is consistent

What is important is people

Not the stock market

Not the corporations (although we insist they are “people” too)

Not a political party

Not power

Not wealth

 

But people

All people

Even the old

Even those we deem “unproductive”

Even that person sleeping on the street

or struggling with addiction

 

What good is it if the stock market rises,

and the people die?

 

What good is it if we have “the best economy”,

if love and compassion die?

 

What good is holding tenuously on to ego and power,

if justice dies?

 

Following the way of Jesus

the way of love

does indeed call for sacrifice

 

we may be called to let go of some of our wealth

some of our comforts

some of our control

 

But destroying the planet for profit?

Sacrificing people for the economy?

Handing over the vulnerable for the sake of our 401k

or our stock portfolio?

 

Just NO!

 

"The test of our progress is not whether we add more

  to the abundance of those who have much;

   it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little."

(FDR, Inaugural Address, January 20, 1937)

 

The criteria Sacred is looking at, when our success

as human creatures, as children of God is measured

have nothing to do with riches

but with our ability to see, and love

the “other”

 

“I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’

 

It is as easy

and as difficult

as that

 

 

Hope

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…if hope can lead to complacency and even paralysis, so can despair. First, both relieve us from the uncertainty of an unknown future.  For one, a happy ending is assumed; for the other a tragic ending is inescapable.  Second both promise us a future that asks nothing of us.  Because things are going to turn out fine you don’t have to change anything.  Because there is nothing you can do to avert doom, you don’t have to do or change anything.

          Brian McLaren, Life After Doom

 

Our great mistake is that we tie hope to our outcome.”

          Cynthia Bourgeault

 

When our prime motive is love, a different logic comes into play.  we find courage and confidence, not in the likelihood of a good outcome, but in our commitment to love.  Love may or may not provide a way through to a solution to our predicament, but it will provide a way forward in our predicament…we will live as beautiful bravely, and kindly as we can as long as we can, no matter how ugly, scary, and mean the world becomes, even if failure and death seem inevitable.

          Brian McLaren

 

“One of the ways we turn this tide and keep the avalanche going is with the joy… because authoritarianism cannot live in a country that is full of joy. It feeds on darkness and hatred and it cannot survive with its opposite. It’s really important going forward to remember to bring joy to this game… Do the things you love… Authoritarianism cannot survive amongst a happy people.” –

Heather Cox Richardson (live stream, 7.30.24)

__________________________________________________

 

the day is brown

the smoke of a hundred fires

denying the sun

killing its brightness

 

everything is muted

even the cats seem lethargic, listless

 

the world is an inferno

it is darkness and destruction

and hope

has turned to despair

 

and despair?

has it made us lethargic and listless?

 

perhaps it is time to “hope against hope”

to find that “mystical hope” (Bourgeault)

that leads to fierce love, desperate love

 

Ah, desperate love

that love that is irresistible

that will not let us go

and thing, as it springs up inside us

spills forth

 

a light in the darkness

a touch of transforming yeast

in the foul dough of desolation

 

I dare not hold to illusions or delusions

and yet I cannot sit idly by

and hope that “God has this”

 

Instead, I am to love fiercely

holding fast to the truth

that evil and good, rage and calm

sorrow and joy, love and hate

can exist at the same time

 

and chose kindness, beauty, and generosity

even in a world that is ugly and mean

knowing that even if I do not change the world

it might change me

and, perhaps

change the lives I touch

 

but whatever the outcome might be

 

Even if MAGA wins, even if racism flourishes

and AR-15s proliferate

and the planet burns

 

I will resist hate and violence

resist retribution

and domination

 

Because I love

God

and you, and you, and you

and love CAN live in the furnace of hate