De Profundis

The darkness feels stifling, consuming the light of my eyes
Choking the frail hope i retain that you will be my deliverance
I am in the midst of great darkness, and no lights present themselves to guide me
I am lost beneath a great cloud of fog, and my direction is uncertain

They said you would be my light,
They said that if I had enough faith you would always make everything work
They said i could trust in you to make me normal.
They spoke of your great glory, but it was only to serve the ends they thought appropriate
They told me not to be sad, to overcome by pretending to be happy
They told me to tell others I was blessed and not cursed
above only
and not beneath
More than a conqueror. They told me to conquer and make violence against the devil and his forces, they told me to be a one man army, to have the faith of a prophet.

I was led into the place where my hands were stained with blood, I tried to fix myself
I was led to the place where malice was my accomplice and a altar was placed before me
I was led upon the dais to behold the altar, and I burned incense to myself.
I was led to the place where my discomfort was my enemy, and i had to atone for myself.
I was led into darkness.

I was told that what matters is me, that who I am, and MY story are way God is going to use me. And now I am in deep darkness.
I was told to seek after the things of the world, just to do it in a way that appeased the mandates of cultural humility.

The darkness swallows everything. There is not one thing that escapes decay, not one thing that escapes corruption, and we are all fallen.

I am in darkness, and I am unhappy. I am in pain, and I am discontent.
I sometimes wish I was not acquainted with You, and Your gospel.
I sometimes wish I was different, another.
I sometimes desire to be forsaken.

But you will not leave me. You have called me to the cross, and it pains me,
you have called me to death and it is not easy.
You have called me to a holy dread, and it will not give me the desires of my wicked heart.
You have spoken to me by speaking to the world, and we tremble at the sign
The cross is our mt. zion, and we have all seen the glory of the lord and been called to respond

You have started a world in which there is no more pain, and that world is already-not yet
where there is joy, you are there
where there is suffering, you are there
where your church suffers, you suffer with us
where your church is crucified, you are too
where your people are beaten and scourged, this is already our glory
where your people are weeping and famished, you are starving among the weakest

You are the human, you are the objective humanity,
you are the one who knows what it means to live before the Father as a man
teach me my beloved and cross shattered Lord, what it means to suffer unto the shedding of blood
and reassure me that these sufferings are well to experience
The suffering of the world is not foreign to you, you are the suffering one
you are the ever suffering one,
we remember the testament of your great sorrow, and we enjoin our suffering to yours
you are dead, but not atheistically, we do not proclaim your death because you have ceased to be
but we proclaim your death, because we know that without it, there could be no life
we proclaim your death because we know we have been found wanting,
we proclaim your death because it shows us we are accepted
we are loveless sinners, beloved children

death is our enemy, and we reject her power, we reject her sting,
yet the suffering is our life, and our sweet promise, the darkness we pass through is for the sake of light
the darkness we endure is exhaustible, and we bear the fury of the world with courage,
not because we are inexhaustible, but because you are, and as we bear the suffering of the whole world enjoined in you, we shall find that your inexhaustible love is what guides us through the night
and gives us assurance in the midst of despair

it is not that we are happy, but that we have courage to endure our fears
it is not that we have power, but that you make possible a community which does not need it
it is not that we have blessings according to the world, but that we have one bread, and one cup which is the sweetest blessing of all
it is not that we are the most miraculous, but that you yourself have given us the greatest miracle of all
It is not that we have the greater works which we we seek, there is truly no greater love, no greater act than to suffer and lay down one’s life
Teach me to suffer by the way of your son, that my life brings to you principalities and powers subjected and laid at your feet Holy King of Israel

From the depths we cry to you oh Lord, your unhappy, and suffering children
From the depths we cry to You, your beloved children

Spirit be my guide in darkness, that where I am in the midst of sheol you are there
Spirit be my purger, and let my purgatory be in this life
Jesus be my teacher, that i may follow even unto death
Father, be that which you are, self-emptying love
Bring that vengeance which we seek, peace that destroys the powers of war
bring the vengeance which makes peace out of chaos, which brings order out of nothing
bring the vengeance and the wrath which dissolves alienation and marginalization
bring the justice which overcomes corruption, and the various injustices of the world
bring about that which you promised, the reconciliation of all things
and most of all, give us the patience to wait, with love and trust that you will not fail us.

Christian Reflection On Labor Day

A Christian Response to Labor Day:

I think we should be grateful for our particuar place, which we should feel is a part of our embodiment, and thus our vocation. But we must also critique our penchant for war as a country and the deification of patriots, labor unions and inalienable rights. We should remember that we are creatures, and that labor day is also a call to remember our labors unto God, to steward creation, and to take care of a world which is very good.

A christian engagement of labor day should i think also remember workers, in all countries and concern itself with remembering the struggles put forth to make the world we live in one that comes at sometimes no cost to us but high costs to them. We should remember that what we call labor here is in many cases built on the intensely difficult struggles of others and that our country has reached success through stepping on other countries along the way.

I think that a Chrisitan engagement of labor day remembers that this country we find ourselves in was built in part by slaves, and by the power of people breaking their backs for the institution called industry, by children in factories, and men starving during the great depression.

Further, it remembers that the place of that memory is not as an idealistic ancestor worship but sees labor as part of embodiment and what it means to be created as a human being. It remembers the Labor of God, both in Creation and the cross as labors of love and generosity.

Labor day for Christians means remembering that while we participate in the American narrative, and we do so as Americans, it is only secondarily to our lives as Christians. We are inescapably American, and while we love this country, it is a penultimate love, it cannot claim our total allegiance, not in its stories or its collective memory. We . I further think that labor day can help us reflect on our labors as a church body, while remembering that our lives as Christians are told by another story.

This year, Labor day falls on the monday after the 23rd sunday of ordinary time. And for the church the liturgical color is green, it is a reminder of growth, and for me a reminder of our expectation that a new day is rising and has already risen, and a new world is coming yet is already here. It is a reminder of the coming future and its already present place among us at the Lord’s table where we gather to meet new creation.

It is the feast day of St. Regina who was a martyr, according to what we know of her from some sources. According to these sources

“She was born in the 3rd century in Alise, the ancient Alesia where two hundred years earlier Vercingetorix had fought so valiantly against Caesar. Her mother died at her birth, and her father, a prominent pagan citizen, entrusted the child to a Christian nurse who baptized her…In 251, at the age of fifteen, she attracted the eye of a man called Olybrius, the prefect of Gaul, who determined to have her as his wife. He sent for the girl and discovered that she was of noble race and of the Christian Faith. Chagrined, he attempted to have her deny her faith, but the saintly maiden resolutely refused and also spurned his proposal of marriage. Thereupon, Olybrius had her thrown into prison.”

Her Symbols include: Shepherdesses, Against poverty, impoverishment,torture victims.

What we should do with these things in this particular year is remember where we are at as a country, and what her life can remind us of. While we are in recession, or coming out of one, whatever the case is, we can remember those who are less forutnate than we are. We can remember those who are oppressed, we can remember martyrs who like St. Regina have suffered for the faith. We can remember the internally displaced refugees, and those who are laboring to liberate them, we can remember the labors of those working for peace, and the labors of those who are our neighbors. We can remember the workers without jobs, the people who will not be celebrating today, the people who have no labor to set themselves to, the families concerned about their tomorrow.

We can remember them and pray for them, we can be Christians and offer them a better allegiance, a better society, and a better hope, the Christian hope that What God The Father has done for Jesus, He will do for all of us at the appointed time. That our hope and our labors towards that hope are not in vain but are worth the work which we put into them, because that work will be caught up into God and recreated to justify all things finally at the end of all things.

We can take this time to reflect as well, on the readings for today, and see what they mean, and how they challenge us to encounter Jesus Christ and give up ourselves and embrace Him and only Him.

Reading 1
Col 1:24–2:3

Brothers and sisters:
I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake,
and in my flesh I am filling up
what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ
on behalf of his Body, which is the Church,
of which I am a minister
in accordance with God’s stewardship given to me
to bring to completion for you the word of God,
the mystery hidden from ages and from generations past.
But now it has been manifested to his holy ones,
to whom God chose to make known the riches of the glory
of this mystery among the Gentiles;
it is Christ in you, the hope for glory.
It is he whom we proclaim,
admonishing everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom,
that we may present everyone perfect in Christ.
For this I labor and struggle,
in accord with the exercise of his power working within me.

For I want you to know how great a struggle I am having for you
and for those in Laodicea
and all who have not seen me face to face,
that their hearts may be encouraged
as they are brought together in love,
to have all the richness of assured understanding,
for the knowledge of the mystery of God, Christ,
in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.

Responsorial Psalm
Ps 62:6-7, 9

R. (8) In God is my safety and my glory.
Only in God be at rest, my soul,
for from him comes my hope.
He only is my rock and my salvation,
my stronghold; I shall not be disturbed.
R. In God is my safety and my glory.
Trust in him at all times, O my people!
Pour out your hearts before him;
God is our refuge!
R. In God is my safety and my glory.

Gospel
Lk 6:6-11

On a certain sabbath Jesus went into the synagogue and taught,
and there was a man there whose right hand was withered.
The scribes and the Pharisees watched him closely
to see if he would cure on the sabbath
so that they might discover a reason to accuse him.
But he realized their intentions
and said to the man with the withered hand,
“Come up and stand before us.”
And he rose and stood there.
Then Jesus said to them,
“I ask you, is it lawful to do good on the sabbath
rather than to do evil,
to save life rather than to destroy it?”
Looking around at them all, he then said to him,
“Stretch out your hand.”
He did so and his hand was restored.
But they became enraged
and discussed together what they might do to Jesus.

Today’s Collect is:
Almighty God, every good thing comes from you. Fill our hearts with love for you, increase our faith, and by your constant care protect the good you have given us. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

-Quotes on St. Regina Taken from http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/liturgicalyear/calendar/day.cfm

Body and Character in Luke and Acts

Body and Character in Luke and Acts by Mikeal C. Parsons

Mikeal Parsons has illuminated ancient attitudes about the body and its relation to morality in the ancient world that are fascinating and seem to on the whole make more sense of the biblical texts he has chosen to illuminate than other conjectures such as the immediate presupposition of inauthenticity. Parsons has shown continuity with the texts being examined and Luke’s overall message convincingly, while not completely persuaded, I feel that Parsons has done a great job of bringing an orthodox view of the text as plausible back into the academic arena through a brief and scholarly study which presents alternative views of the text informed by a largely ignored area in terms of biblical scholarship.

For those who are unfamiliar with the term physiognomy, it is an ancient pseudo-science about the relation of the physical body to the perception of character, namely ideal bodies were inclined to ideal morals and disabled or deformed persons were considered to have flawed morality corresponding to their physical appearance. Parsons has shown how this consciousness was permeating the ancient world’s perception of literary characters beginning with Greek poetry, and its use in making moral judgments about literary figures. He parallels this to Luke’s presentation of the four characters he has chosen to examine in his inspection of the use and subversion of .

Parsons has chosen four pericopes to cover in his short but penetrating study, the story of the bent woman, Zacchaeus, the man lame from birth, and the Ethiopian eunuch. He provides keen insight to each of these stories, and informs us of how these characters might have been received by Luke’s audience before he turns the tables on the audience by overthrowing the general pathos which their stereotypes have taught them to adopt.

It is interesting to see the way that the “physiognomic consciousness” plays into these stories and seems a plausible way that the authorial audience would have seen the text. I don’t know what my ultimate reservation is, but I feel that my suspicion of the work might lie in its lack of theological finale. While touching on various topics I thought he might delve into more, Parsons refrains, perhaps to keep the work objective, perhaps because he works best as an expositor, but I feel that the conclusions that could be drawn from the work were not present sufficiently, and left me curious to see more. Instead I was left with a brief epilogue whose last two sentences were a wonderful conclusion yet, seemingly unfinished. Although Parsons has invited theological inquiry based on his study, which I hope to see some of soon.

The book also has great virtue though, as a work which forces us to reconsider our own biases of morality based on outward appearance, and we are reminded that the early Christian community is radical, because it includes the weak, the frail, the outcast and the judged. In the formation of theology, especially moral theology in the advent of this century, it is an important work in historical ethics of the Christian community.

I feel that what was important to my observation and inquiry in the characters presented in the stories Parsons presented was the way healing played a role in the stories, because it has different effects on the person being healed at each turn. The bent woman is obviously healed of a disease which afflicted her 18 years, and is physically healed from what has made her outcast, and the same goes for the lame man. While the connecting factor between these two is a healing and common theme of weakness and morally dubious character, which is interesting in itself, my initial concern is with Zacchaeus and the Ethiopian Eunuch.

If Parsons is right about Zacchaeus being a dwarf by congenital defect, Jesus does not restore him to the community by their standards of what a moral person looks like, which while seemingly obvious is still significant. This means that Jesus in Luke’s narrative does not see dwarfism as barrier to the kingdom of God, nor does he see it as a lack of wholeness. For someone developing a theology disability or deformity, it is highly significant that this is the case. For Luke’s Jesus is a healing Jesus, and I think it is noteworthy that Luke’s Jesus does not make Zacchaeus taller. If we look at the text with its physiognomic dimensions Jesus challenges Zacchaeus to become magnanimous in character, which would seem difficult to the people who underrated him as a person small of character due to his physical stature. Jesus also calls him a son of Abraham, Jesus sees Zacchaeus as part of the eschatological community by virtue of the choice which he has made to bring restitution to his failures. His salvation is not merely a matter of his being good now, but is a reinterpretation of his social status as well, making him equal in the community of Jesus’ followers despite his physical differences.

While to us this may seem commonplace, or to be assumed, it is highly uncharacteristic of ancient religions at large and specifically uncharacteristic of Judaism. While it is noted that deformed persons had a popular place in the Roman culture it was as objects of ridicule, collected like trophies by the emperors Domitian and Nero, and Augustus even bought a congenitally short small person as a pet for his niece.

While Jesus encounters him, he makes no move to “heal” Zaccheus as in cure him of his congenital defect, even though in other cases he does, such as the man blind from birth. This raises interesting questions.

The Eunuch as well raises some interesting questions, if he is a castrated or sexually mutilated man is not restored sexually by baptism or by extreme unction as he is brought into the community through baptism which is just as important as if he had been. While he is through Parson’s argument given a new place in the community and a new honor in Christ, he is not healed at least in the sense of a physical restoration of function, and though the audience is forced to reconsider his character, his role in the community is reinterpreted by the early Christian community as one who is ritually pure.

The Christian polemic against the temple cult and a new and radical inclusivism are only part of the whole picture of the moral formation which Luke is using through these illustrations.

It seems that in light of physiognomy early Christians reject the assumptions of morality as inherently tied to physical appearance, which was not to remain so historically as some prominent Christian leaders that Parsons notes were persuaded by physiognomic interests. It might even explain what we moderns think absurd theological considerations when we read about some church theologians and the way in which they think Christians should laugh properly in society.

In conclusion, I feel that this book is important, and should be read by anyone with an interest in the Abrahamic community, healing, or outcasts as themes in Lukan literature. I would like to see the implications these texts have for Christian healing and a theology of disability. While books on the subject of disability and theology are coming from every angle and exploding in the contemporary interest, I think it’s of great value to examine why Jesus healed the way he did and what healing might have been in Christ’s idea of His mission. It seems important to me to know whether Jesus had a particular physiognomic concern, or whether he had a moral or ontological concern for the people he healed. While it would be largely speculation, the text might provide some insights, though we must allow that it was not built in such a way as to answer that question directly. I’d like to do some more work reading Luke-Acts and commentators on the text since it is of great interest to me.

What Does the Resurrection of the Son of God Mean Today?

I was thinking about my Christian experience today, and as I was considering the implications of a certain emotional state, I got to thinking about the Victory of God in Jesus, and the idea that despite all things God has won a victory in this world and that ultimately, I am participating in that victory.

 

Sure, today I am not in the best state, but I have hope. Hope reaches into me, to lead me towards the victory of God. I am the essence of all consciousness, being constantly resurrected from a fallen state. I am baptized into the body of the Risen Lord, and united with him by one Spirit, made one flesh with him by that same Spirit. I am not forsaken, but am embraced by this beloved who ushers me into his presence with glee, as I approach with trembling reverence.

 

My tears are merely prayers in a different language. In them is the hope of glory, as true suffering somehow brigs true redemption. Our ideals are not God’s ideals. The Risen Lord shows us that in suffering is the cosmos replaced where the chaos once was. Idealism is ultimately backwards, and in those ideals I am further from the Resurrection of the Son of God than closer.

 

So it occurred to me that in order to truly experience the meaning of this great and glorious resurrection, it means that I must not shed the ideas that I have thought were ideal, I must also embrace those which are seemingly backwards to me.

 

Suffering is not the emptiness of dejection, though that is experienced, it shall prove to be more integral to the resurrection of my person than should I never have suffered. The world, I can’t speak for, but for me, for Eli, this suffering is my invitation into God’s plan of redemption.

 

So, as I enter into the lower depths, I know that my war with the forces of evil is not in vain, as I leave behind those things which would lead me from the narrow path, I find pleasure in the backwards ideals of God. Sipping a Lady Grey tea blend and wondering about all this gives me pleasure, and as I pursue my future, I realize that in time I will get there, regardless. Today is a day, tomorrow shall be another, and ultimately, it is completed in such a way that my purpose will be accomplished, I have faith and hope that the path set before me is not in vain and that which I feel called to complete will be completed because I have dedicated myself to it and to enjoying today.

 

I am enjoying beauty, the joys of mentoring, and being mentored, the beauty of togetherness, the bliss of separation, the ebb and flow of presence and absence.

 

Beautiful.

 

As you read this, I don’t think you’ll understand half of what was said here this day, and for that I am sorry.

 

I don’t blame anyone or anything for these things which we pass. We are all journeying towards something, and I am whole in the redemption of my body. I am whole in my expectation that this is going to be well. 

 

So, brothers and sisters, my little children, remember that suffering causes the redemption of things outside ourselves, and in the end, it is not about how God is going to save me. It’s about how God is going to save the universe through me.

 

Love one another, as I remember to do the same. Hold fast. Stand strong.

 

The Resurrection shall live through me today, and in this we are well pleased.

the mystery of grace

I just feel so afraid, today I’m so alone. And no, this is not a poem, this is my life. Hopeful and ever looking forward, i still find myself pausing, regretting, wasting away in the torture of my own possibilities, things that make me happy torture me with their enjoyability, and i seem to only find rest in misery.

 

I hate myself today. I want to strangle myself today, for how vain i feel. like a fucking insolent prick bastard, conceited and self indulgent, working my way into everything  only to spoil it by touching it. I feel like those thigns which i would gladly preach against, hate, vanity, greed, lust, envy.

 

I feel unkind, unlovely and dirty. I have crossed boundaries, been unfaithful to God and myself, and forsaken the person i thought i was. I have lived life to the fullest, emptied my heart on street corners and sold my body for love. Nothing ever changes. New humanity…where the hell do we get these things?

 

forgive my bitter pessimism, if it disturbs you, well, i’m just tired, i can’t seem to catch a breath and I fear that animal which seems to have become me. even as i approach that person i want to be, find happiness, fulfillment, inner peace, these things drive me to insanity. I can’t just allow myself to catch a moment of peace and absorb the meaning of life set before me, no….i have to complicate thigns, make them painful, difficult and selfish, i have to make them real, because any shred of frivolous pleasure would be too much for a holier than thou good lutheran like me. fuck it all.

 

fuck

 

it

 

all.

 

to hell with charades and bitter tears. to hell with these feelings, this guilt. this elephant in the room, this dying agony that tears at me everytime i have a minute to think.

 

I am a person, and i am hurting. i am a person, and for the first time in my life, i am treated as such, unconditionally, without regret, without remorse, without second guessing.

 

fuck you.

 

today, i am treated like a someone, beautiful, accepted, discipled, welcomed, lovely, today i am transformed rather than beat down, and in that acceptance i find my biggest threat. The thing i have always longed for, that unconditional love we’re all chasing after, it’s at my doorstep, it’s knocking, it’s here it’s upon me tearing at my chains, loving me without regrets, and today i shut my bible. Today i feel like God spoke to me, and it hurt worse than having a broom broken over my flesh, it hurt worse than the betrayal of infidelity, it jurt worse than the separation of death, and it welcomed me into a holy foresight, a peace that lies beyond the fringes of the mind, that comes to dwell in the center.

 

can you understand that?

 

I can’t comprehend this thing….this unconditional love thing. we all say we believe it, but go out and slap someone in the face, see if they love you then. go out and steal someone’s car and bank account numbers, see if they wake up to go find you and embrace you. go out and show someone your flaws, and see if they can accept you, tell someone you’re in love with them and that the world beats at a more painful pace when they’re not around, see if they feel the same.

 

they don’t.

 

not usually.

 

can you believe it? I can’t. I’m beyond words for this thing, this love that just accepts and never condemns, that’s fucking sacred. beyond words, spaces, times, this is the ineffable made into experience. God truly encounters humanity in time, because moments are sacred, spaces are transitory. moments are forever.

 

and as I go on exploring this journey that leads me down twists and turns tugging between holiness and absolute fear, loathing and loving, I feel angered, loved to anger by too beneficial a love, too forgiving a grace, too compassionate a mercy. I feel too accepted by something i could never accept back the way it deserves.

 

that’s frustrating as shit. how the heck are you supposed to deal with a realization like that and be sane?

 

I can never love and accept the love that God has given. it’s too overwhelming, too sacred, too present a reality, far more substantial and real than I can be.

 

I feel like a ghost next to it, hollow, and in pain due to the reality around, and looking at the beauty everywhere, I feel naked, cheated, bare, exposed, torn to bits and hatred spews out of me like an ocean, pouring out onto sacred ground, frothing at the mouth i’m trying to taint it, make it more bearable, make it more mundane, and it just refuses to change.

 

It’s still sacred, it just absorbs all my evil, it just cleanses all my dirt. it just transforms all my guilt and makes me scream on the inside because I can’t be anything base near it. It ust changes my filth, transforms my anger, redeems my sludge.

 

I hate it. oh….i have really come to hate that love of God which I also praise so highly. it’s too accepting, it’s shockingly overpowering, even when i wish to do evil and taint myself, i can’t. inescapable.

 

inescapable.

 

tragically holy. the grace of God is tragically holy, so sacred that facing it draws tears of blood from the beholder. It wasn’t God’s decision that Jesus faced in the garden, it was the power of his own forgiveness. The power of a grace so otherworldly it hurts to look at.

 

It’s made me cry today, made me angry, happy, frustrated, solemn, bitter and accepted.

 

How do you face a love so solid it makes you feel ashamed?

 

How can you reject a love so powerful it hurts when it acts as a mirror showing you how insubstantial your heart really is?

 

It hurts to behold, oh it hurts worse than any physical pain I’ve ever experienced, and yet it’s necessary, and in staring directly into it, i feel like my flesh could melt off my bones, and I feel like every cell on my body is bursting with new life.

 

this is just so incomprehensible to me.

 

fuck…

 

it’s a mystery.

Sex Changes and The Light of Humanity

Quirky title. thought so. But anyways, don’t let it throw you.

What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
- John 1

In Him was life…and that life was the light of humanity, that light shines on….

I’m not going to go into a super deep reflection or anything, I just, i think that as I go through my day, I’m trying to remind myself of the significance of all of this, and what God means for reality as a unified whole.

In Christ is life, that life is our light, I can’t give a commentary that decrypts the message, other than, He has brought life into being. My own life, redeemed, as I’ve been talking to my friends from years ago this week, I realize that in Him I have found life. That life has brought me out of suffering in the past, has brought me suffering in the present, has changed me, has given me light.

There is darkness. . .screw the darkness. The light for humanity that is found in the life manifested in Christ shines on. There is no reason to allow depression to choke out hope, no reason to let doubt steal my sanity, to let fear steal my humanity.

I’m thinking that while it’s easy to doubt, it’s not mine. It doesn’t belong to me.

It leaves you feeling pretty hollow
It might be nice to look at
Don’t forget you’re stuck with it tomorrow

- Dresden Dolls “Sex Changes”

It’s ok to struggle, St. Peter says that we all shall, and we do. Life is composed of interludes of suffering and rest. But to give up, as they say it leaves you feeling pretty hollow. And there’s everything that comes with that tomorrow.

There is love in this beating heart, there is hope in these tired hands, and they are weary, but determined, to look to Christ for strength.

Thanks For Tuning In,

Thanks to:

- The Dresden Dolls

Resurrection and Beauty

Do you ever just stop and wonder at the beauty of the world? Catching if even for a moment a glimpse of something truly beautiful? Do you ever just get the feeling that somehow things are going to work out alright? This is not to paint a wondrously idealist picture of reality, but sometimes, standing in the light of the sunset, I can look over my shoulder, and feel a sense of comfort, like everything that was created will be put in place. I can hold my girlfriend’s hand and appreciate the heavens, knowing that something beyond her, or me is coming. Standing there in the sunset, I can catch a glimpse of the eschaton, enveloping my heart.

That feeling, that endless comfort tinged with longing, I would argue, is the resurrection. Today, I sit at rest, and know that the world is being set to rights and I am an irreducible part of the reconciliation of all things, because God made it that way. That sense of beauty, of wonder, I feel to be the knowledge within me about the coming goal of the universe. Just like if you’ve lived in the south, or anywhere where it rains a lot, you can feel a shift coming. I think that beauty does the same thing. We can feel the grace of God in His creation, and can feel a need to develop the beauty that we have a sense of.

God created us and began the work of creation in us, and will carry on our createdness, until its completion. There are brief moments, when we stop and pause and think “I think the universe is good.” Or “Is everything really ok underneath it all?” Resurrection says that these glimpses of the beauty and rightness of things is what we’re really really waiting for.

Resurrection is the belief that while we are wanderers in the current age, traveling across endless landscapes of deserts. We are faced with things that are sometimes dark, leaving us weary and hopeless we take step after step in seemingly aimless direction at times. Resurrection answers that wandering with the belief that we are steadily approaching something new on the horizon, a new city, a new mode of bodily existence ,a new beauty which awaits us as we travel. Resurrection answers the desperation of our hope with a solemn assurance about our longing, no we are not yet perfect, no the world is not yet perfect, but it shall be. The God Man sit bodily upon the throne of grace, steering the world from the hearts of his saints, claiming from within creation a place for himself that will spread into all things.

This is the resurrection of our God, this world is loved and has been rescued, and will not be abandoned. I see something so beautiful that I want to approach it steadily. No matter how long the night gets, even if at the end of the journey my faith is fragile and weak, in the light of the resurrection I can find strength, by looking to it, i have hope.

The “progress” I’m talking about is personal, not political. It will not be found in the deification of leaders, or have an answer in politics. It is when the I and thou relationship between human and God adopts a face, the thou becomes the “You” becomes the “Jesus” as a person and not an idea. The approach is not just to declare the Lordship of God, nor merely his love. But when we look to that Great Savior, we see resurrection, beauty, life, and from those flourish all other things, that is when we have a taste of home upon our lips, and a prayer in our hearts.

“Thy Kingdom Come, Thy Will be Done, On Earth as it is in Heaven” is the cry of this beating heart, and as I pause today to think, I remember the way in which that kingdom first reached me. In the arms of my mother, tenderly holding me and overflowing with divine love, she embraced me, and in those arms was a sacrament, a symbol of the love of God, conveying grace to the little child, who would grow up and turn away, only to be forgiven time and again. Parenting is a sacrament. As I close this thought, I would like to reiterate that God loves this world, and refuses to leave it, as we can see in the love we share, in the people we love, in the less fortunate we care for.

Resurrection, is about surprises, and I know that what awaits at the end of those glimpses is more surprising, more shocking and more beautiful than even I can imagine.

Thanks for Tuning in,

To My Mother

In honor of the up and coming Mother’s Day 2008, I would like to write a special thank you to my own mother, a woman of faith whose life illuminates my own. I am grateful for the love evidenced in her life, and the beauty of her person, and since I am far, I keep you near in my heart. I feel as if your love and dedication to being a good mother has helped form me into the man I continue developing into. I dedicate this page to you, and honor you.

In honor of a wonderful woman, within whose love everything has place to become itself, as in CS Lewis’ The Great Divorce, mother, you cultivate and nurture into life even those things which are dead. Your love gives place for all things to flourish, may you continue to live such a wonderful expression of the sacred heart of Our Lord.

Blessed are you mother, from whom love flows in abundance,

Blessed are you woman, giver of life, expression of Our Lady unto Christ,

Blessed are you mother, from which I drew my life,

I honor the life I have been given as a sacrifice unto Our Lord,

May you live Forever in His Presence

May you be honored greatly for your unseen, unknown works,

Blessed are you, Woman of God, for your heart is bountiful in mercy

Thank you for your forgiveness,

Thank you for your endless love

Such as only a mother can give

May you be Blessed, not only today, but forever

Such as is the will of the Triune Lord

In the Name of The Father, The Son, and The Holy Spirit

Amen.

Evangelicalism and Politics: Beginning of the End?

Many people that I have been around recently say that politics is too closely tied to Christianity to the detriment of both, because the Church becomes a political institution and politics becomes muddled in religious wars and cultural wars. A ray of hope may be breaking forth on the horizon.

First of All, I’d like to thank my lovely girlfriend for drawing my attention to the article in the first place. Seen here:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080503/ap_on_re/evangelical_manifesto;_ylt=At4QSytfrvEuUD7Ujn10xIE7Xs8F

I think that the downfall of Evangelicalism has been to conserve enlightenment ideals alongside traditionally Christian ethical practices. This marriage between Christianity and politics has proved to be detrimental to Evangelical culture, since the faith was watered down to primarily political collectivism rather than a dynamic faith community. Christianity is not about becoming a collective body of angry people united as a massive superorganism of political activism without being informed by faith. The downfall of the evangelical model of Western Christian Culture has been in being politically active at the expense of dialogue with faith.

The Christian conception of culture needs to be informed by faith, and what today are labeled “liberal”
concerns as far as social issues go. The Christian faith should not have a single political party, that’s absurd, what we need is careful evaluation of the direction of culture as issues arise. It seems ridiculous to me that the “Christian” political party is more concerned with keeping people out of America than with helping devise a new method of economic wealth for the planet, than with espousing a positive view that would empower minorities and women to run for president, that would be concerned with protecting and cultivating the environment.

It’s sad that the conservation is not of the teachings of Jesus but Enlightenment superiority of the white race, conservation of capitalist economics without social concern, conservation of oppression rather than liberation, biblicism rather than biblically informed dynamic life within scripture. It strikes me as odd that Christians are largely the beneficial idiots to either party rather than being actively engaged in culture.

We are an eschatological faith that looks to the end of time when all things will be reconciled to God, and in that faith we seek out the end, but it should not cost us our awareness of the present reality as unimportant. We need to look to the end as the source of the final hope, but that should nto remove us from culture or politics today. Republicans pander to Christians telling them what they wish to hear in order to easily win votes, and the recent trend to incorporate faith into Democratic politics is no better. Both sides are pandering to a culture that is dry, dominated by old money, and seeks to retain that money. We should be actively concerned with human rights, not torture, and taxes.

As a Christianity, we need to be Christianity, not a political body, but a faith community first. Everything else is secondary. It’s sad that Christianity is not known for its spirituality or personal connection to faith, but to politics. On the popular level, we are a civic religion, conceived of as a political party with a tax exemption.

Faith is always independent of culture, and it should be. This does NOT mean cut off from. They need interrelation, dialogue, and dynamic life as expressed in the idea of perichoresis, or interpenetration that is dynamic and alive. Culture and Christianity are not to be opposed to each other or removed form each other, but as Christians in culture, we have to meet the judgments of both God and culture in out advance forward.

The way to do this is not to retreat as is the case of many fundamentalists, or to accept cultural virtue as the highest virtue as is the case with theologically liberal people. We need an Evangelicalism that supports itself by being a faith community first, then engages in politics, perhaps as a whole, but still actively and dynamically weighs the issues, not with cursory glances and ignorance, pandering to the soundbyte culture that is so prevalent, but really researches the country we should be.

I find that my professor was right in saying, “If you salute the American flag in your church, I doubt your salvation.” We are not the state, the state is not the church, it was exactly that mentality that led to Hitler’s Germany. If we follow down the path that Evangelicalism has seemed to be on, I doubt we can live actively without becoming another military state in the long line of civic religion nation states that have manifested themselves since the Enlightenment.

As a country, our greatest weakness is our belief in our own innocence, someone once said. If we are to advance in cultural engagement, it is not as Americans, but as Christians first.

I am in full favor of the idea of the manifesto. It’s high time we got ourselves out of our mess and back to being a religion. I will hope to read the document and publish a review once it is signed and published.

Thanks For Reading,

Eli

The Anointing and The Other: Reflections and Confessions on Solidarity

Lately, I’ve just been exhausted. Tired beyond belief, the semester is almost over, but i feel as if I’ve come out with more scars and bruises than ever before. It’s almost over, but at what cost? I know that God is faithful, and that we need to have faith in his goodness. But it’s a little bit of a catch 22 that the things you need to be faithful are the very things challenged by the problems you face day to day. The things you need to be strong are the very things made difficult by the problems you face.

Time and again, we are strapped to some irreconcilable grief or evil that afflicts us, and we are sometimes ignored, told to have faith, stop sinning, press through, or just keep on keeping on. These remarks are empty, and filled with vanity, the vanity of self righteousness. What about compassion, what abut binding up the broken hearted? I feel that too many times I have fallen short in realizing that the Spirit of the Lord comes upon me to bind up the broken hearted, to preach liberty to the captives, to preach good news to the poor, and declare the good and acceptable year of The LORD and the day of the vengeance of our God.

The Spirit of The LORD is upon us so that like Jesus we may care for others. When I go through hard times, how often have i sought God’s counsel through his Spirit to come upon me and draw me into serving others and binding up their hearts and in the process my own? I sometimes forget that the Spirit of God comes upon me to help me help myself through helping others.

I have often heard about how the anointing is for personal benefit, which by all means is true. How can anyone who has felt the blessedness of actual grace conveyed either through the Eucharist or in prayer deny the self development and personal benefit of actual grace? However, such grace is not meant to be used only for self, but through self, in relation to others. Grace should inspire me to be aware of theirs and to bind up broken hearts, to reach out to heal, to stand with others and comfort them by the grace that is within my life. The grace conveyed from myself to the other, that is where we connect with each other and relate to each other in Christ by the Spirit.

I confess that I have fallen short in proclaiming liberty to the captives in my own life. I have fallen short and allowed myself to become a captive as well. I have failed to be the voice of liberation and comfort to those who need solidarity and guidance, I have failed to love those near me in the ways they need it most, and failed at being the strong one. I have not lived up to expectations and have not strengthened myself in The LORD, nor have I looked to the presence of God for my guidance and support. I have not led people out of captivity, but have entered into captivity with them and at times found myself trapped in the very darkness that i was trying to bring the light of Christ to.

I have not preached good news to the poor, or at least not often enough. I often find myself isolated, contaminated by my own busy mind and packed schedules. My calendar is often overloaded with time to spare and at the same time packed to the brim with things to do. I have often found myself too preoccupied to live out the solidarity that I preach, too focused on my grades and my classes, or just myself to remember the poor. Sometimes, I myself am one of the poor, forgotten and untouched, isolated and alone, but this should not be impeding me from reaching out to others. The problem is that it is the very issues of life that tend to isolate me from others, I keep myself aloof in order to solve something on my own because there are days I have no one I can trust.

I need to remember the good news myself, keep it in my mind when I am poor, that there is a God in Heaven Who has done the unthinkable. While I was estranged and in pure enmity towards Him, a self declared enemy of God, He chose to adopt me into His family. The good news is that this family will reign over all the earth through the firstborn of many brethren, through the God Man who has been appointed to steer the world towards the recapitulation that God has ordained to be His will from the beginning. The good news is that Jesus Christ is already The LORD of this world, and that His kingdom is spreading through the work of his followers, those being conformed to his image and spreading the light of his image throughout the world by resembling him. The good news is that time is being redeemed by the work of God in time, and that all things are being reconciled to God by Christ and the Spirit.

The good and acceptable year of The LORD is now, it is when we choose to do right in the eyes of God. It is when we are the ones who bring the light of Christ into the darkness in the world. Martin Luther King once said that the good and acceptable year of the Lord is when [people] decide to do right. It is when we decide to bless others, to love our enemies, when we bind up the broken-hearted. These all foreshadow the final acceptable time wherein all things will be reconciled to the triune God in blessed assurance of continued purpose in being created by a loving Creator.

Our Father in Heaven has called us to be His agents, and by His Spirit to have compassion, by His Spirit, to give peace, by the same Holy Spirit to deal justly and establish righteousness. We are fallible and will never simply progress towards this goal in time without God. Creation necessarily depends on its Creator.

Any progress that is to be had will be in individuals dedicating themselves to causes and committed to those causes, forming deep bonds of unity with people and the world around them to accomplish those goals which the Kingdom of God has called us to. More important than anything else is to remember that the Holy Spirit, teaches us to bless others, and to help them, by bringing light into their darkness, but it’s not a quick fix process. I need to remind myself to look to God for strength for the long haul, this is not an easy bake oven or a microwavable situation. I need to inspire those around me, through real commitment to them, not shadows of real compassion.

This is the vengeance of our God, peace that burns chaos, love that dissolves alienation and marginalization, justice that overcomes failure and defeat injustice and scandal, righteousness that reestablishes order, and sets about the restoration of everything.

On the Church, The Individual, and Free Will in Fresh Perspective

On the Church, The Individual, and Free Will in Fresh Perspective

The Will of God: Organic Questions to Static Answers

What is the will of God for my life? Am I following God’s plan for me?

These questions are often the way we think about the will of God in our own lives. We stop to think of a static previously written book, even some Arminians may feel as tough the Lord has called them to a slightly pre-chosen destination for their own lives, that God has written the book or is in the process of writing and needs them to cooperate to the statically set will. We should be conformed to the image of Christ, and we should seek to honor God with our members, but this does not mean that we must have been set on a static one way track that requires of us absolute conformity.

The will of God is not a predetermined essence that requires of us absolute adherence to a book that has been prewritten, but rather, it can be thought of as organic and fluid. How often do we forget that among spiritual gifts are listed, helps and service as well as love. These things are not necessarily predetermined or prewritten essences of us, especially in context of our using such things for the benefit of the church. I think that what the New Testament apostles were doing was not to establish the spiritual gifts for all time in writing, even the ones charismatics tend to forget, such as giving, helps, service, teaching and several others. I think that what was going on is that the New Testament writers saw that people’s natural predispositions were being given over to the spirit for cultivation and this was producing incredible acts of charity, of teaching, of giving, evangelism, compassion and love.

The will of God was and is that the kingdom should come to the earth as it is in heaven, and this is met by us as we become the new humanity in our ability to embrace our dispositions to different things that we enjoy as we turn them over to God.

What I think was going on was the new testament writers observed people being empowered and energized by the spirit to do things that were amazing, but inexplicably natural, such as just giving, may be seen as a natural act of kindness, but they discerned a spiritual power in that giving. They saw in the people a spiritual empowerment unnatural to things as they previously were.

Ultimately the will of God is this, offer your member, faculties, intentions, disciplines, purposes, talents, abilities personality quirks and even tastes to God. By offer, I do not mean sacrifice, but rather, allow them to develop by the spirit into an expression that serves the living God.

There are times when things are necessary and we must necessarily surrender something good for a time so that we can live unto God. But these things are exceptions, not necessarily the rule. We cannot be deceived into thinking that it is more spiritual or more holy to stop doing those things which we love in order to serve God. The will of God is not a book, He is open and willing, and if he has truly given us free will then it is evident in that we can choose to offer up our members to him and they will be empowered by the spirit for the good of all people.

Our lives are commonly preached by our elders and more conservative generations as inconsistent, or incomplete, without stability, to and fro, double minded, sometimes inadequate. I do not believe this to be the case, not at all. I think that rather, we are seeing people become more aware of their loves and trying to empower those loves in service to God. God’s plan for our lives is the eventual conformity of us into the image of his son, but if humans were originally created in the image of God, then why the diversity of races, ideas, passions and intellects?

I find that I myself don’t often take this into account when thinking about the will of God. Rather than thinking of the conformity to the image of Christ as a cumulative loss of identity, we should think of the trinity, and realize that God is diverse in action but unified in purpose, revealed as the community of three in one.

Cannot the living God do the same in those whom He loves? Cannot then this God diversify our actions but unite us in the spirit. The New Testament gives us glimpses into early church life, and i think what we see is variegated and wholly differing churches and gifts, and services and evangelisms, and ideas, yet all are united by one faith, one hope, one baptism, one Lord, one body, one spirit.

Paul goes on to say that there is one God that unites everything, and is through everything, the everything in everything. This does not preach the gospel of modernism, the contentment with the herd mentality, it does not ask for conformity in our idea of the word, it does not ask us to be another brick in the wall, but another conduit for intuitive and organic work of the spirit to flourish individually, for each according to their members.

We are they who are one in many, many in one, and everything everywhere, we are in the air, we are in the sea, you can feel us in the wind, hear us in the trees, we are the one and the many, we are united in diversity and by our difference we expand through awakening others to their own potential, we are the manifold chorus of symphonic voices reverberating, resonating, everything, everywhere, different, unique, unrepeatable, ineffable, we are the sacred, the holy, the united, we are the arts themselves, creating arts and spreading light, igniting in all a passion for individual expressions of light for unity amidst the diversity of the many, you can feel us in a raindrop and hear us in the roar of the oceans.

Free will serves to allow us to diversify our gifts to God by choice, the more we acquire, the more it is that we can offer, and again not in giving them up, but by inviting them to be empowered by the spirit. So to offer a corrective to myself, the more we acquire and engage in, the more dwellings we can invite the spirit to fill, empower, and enlarge.

Destiny is simply this, that we would invite the spirit of Christ to inhabit our dwellings, our members, our faculties, our intentions passions, habits, creative expressions, careers and concepts. Their being flooded with light is what is truly predestined, for it is the will of God to fill and empower those diverse expressions which are found in ourselves.

This is not to say that everything is up to choice as “the spirit” (we don’t always know which spirit it is in some cases) leads.There are necessary events, necessary things that take place as well.

To use a rather limited metaphor, think of the will of god and us in it as the water in a stream or a river. There are stones we will come up against that will alter our paths, and necessarily shift our directions. There are times when God will ask us to surrender that which is good, so that which he desires may be done. There are times when we surrender the good, when God calls us to sacrifice, but there are times when we are free to explore, to develop and to cultivate.

This is the true investment of the talents, to explore and cultivate a variety of interests and use them for the kingdom. The one servant who was given one talent necessarily rejected the need to interact with the world, forgot to take into account a risk of being in the world, but being able to cultivate something out of it.

The parable of the talents to me asks us to cultivate something out of our experiences in the world and to bring back with us, more than we left with. What I mean in short, is that the parable teaches us to want to acquire more, but not at the risk of empty colonization, but rather, through interaction with risk and the possibility of failure, we see that we are empowered to take chances, to explore different avenues of bringing back more to ourselves and to our God than we left with.

Thus free will empowers us to choose our interactions and what we wish to bring back to ourselves, but as we bring things back to ourselves, we invite the spirit to help us choose, or to help us by inhabiting what we have already acquired.

This by no means is an end all, say all, but can be a good starting point for fresh discussions. I hope that this begins to open new doors for fresh insights, in my own life personally, as well as those who would read this.