A Person Here AND A Person There

I know you all probably think I’m a bit crazy with all this talk that trends along the lines of heaven or hell, in or out, included or excluded. If that is the case, so be it. This is a point that I am stuck on, and I know of no other way to get unstuck than to get it out of me. I think I slowly am feeling the wall crumble beneath me though so I’ll keep yaking away.

I’ve been reading Where Men Win Glory by Jon Krakauer. It’s the story of Pat Tillman. Great book and just the kind of thing Krakauer is best at writing about in my opinion. I like Krakauer, and now I love Pat Tillman. I’ll be at Arizona State University in 3 weeks for my next race, and I’m going to walk around the campus and ponder what I know about Pat Tillman. Think about the man that he was. Think about the sacrifice that he made. And I’m going to buy a Tillman jersey at the bookstore. I find myself significantly impacted by the book and who he was as a person.

I’ve been thinking about two people. One is Pat Tillman. The other is “Joe Christian.” Over here on the right is Tillman. Tough yet sensitive. Strong yet emotional. Confident yet humble. He drank some alcohol on occasion. He used some less than choice words on occasion. He passionately defended the weak and downtrodden. He was passionate about honestly and truthfulness. He was passionate about loyalty. He was well read. He asked questions, lots of questions. He journaled. He was a devoted husband. He met his wife when they were children and stayed loyal to her the entire time. He was a devoted friend. He loved relationships. Pat Tillman was a loving, and largely moral man who defended the weak and less fortunate. He was willing to risk his life and eventually gave it up tragically because of the principles on which he based his life. And he was not religious, at all.

Then over here on the left is “Joe Christian.” Joe Christian is strong and sensitive. He is humble. He’s not afraid of emotion. Christian gives of himself to the weak, the downtrodden. He believes in loyalty and honesty and truthfulness. He reads a great deal too and is not afraid to ask honest questions. Christian is a devoted family man and a solid friend. But Joe doesn’t drink any alcohol, never touched a cigar, can’t remember a time when he used a “cuss word.” Joe also goes to church 3 times a week and teaches Sunday School (man I don’t like that term). Joe has said the “Sinner’s Prayer.”

So here we have two guys, and I mean to present their qualities as just about equal. They both love. They both are moral. They both live a life that is defined by love for humanity. Yet many Christians that I know, including myself a mere 3 years ago, would say that Pat Tillman lost out, that he is going to eternally suffer while “Joe” will be fine with an eternal loving God. And now, at this point, that just seems utterly ridiculous to me. Am I really supposed to believe that Pat Tillman who lived as fine a life as anyone else I can name is damned because he drank a bit, cussed a bit, and never said that he loves Jesus? Really? He lived a life that is the very definition of love, supposedly the most important commandment according to Christ, the very thing that God is about if I am to believe many who surround me these days, and he is going to suffer because he didn’t define himself by the things he didn’t do and failed to say a few critical words? Really? Is that what Christianity wants me to believe? I just don’t think I can buy it any longer. I may be at the cracking point where I throw that piece of me out to the goats. If that’s really what God is about, what I don’t do and a few choice words, do I even want any piece of that God? I’m not sure that I do.

Some of you seem amazed that this is an issue for me. And the reverse is that I’m amazed that it’s not an issue for you. I’m not sure where this came from for me other than to say that is was a part of the culture in which I existed for the first 35 years of my life. That culture defined itself, maybe not in words but certainly in its behavior, but what it didn’t do, and it was those things it didn’t do that supposedly made it pure. And of course you had to say a few little words. And I innocently believed it and did my best to live it. And now it feels in my core somewhere that there is a little voice telling me that I was deceived. Like that was the wrong message. And when I read about Pat Tillman, I think that little voice inside may be right.

Man is this a hard idea to get out of my heart and head.

“Religiously”

Had one of those little light bulb epiphanies today. As I was working with a resident, we were talking about a diabetic woman who is on A LOT of insulin yet her diabetes is not ideally controlled. One of the ways in which that scenario can occur is if something is not taking their insulin as honestly as they tell you they are taking it. So you have to pry a bit deeper and get people to open up a bit. In our discussion, we talked about and used the phrasology, “Is she taking it ‘religiously.’” As soon as I said it my mind saw the irony. I was using and we collectively use that term, “religiously,” to mean that someone is following the rules to the last letter. Wow! That’s a massive Freudian slip on all of us. Religion is the fortress that is supposed to free us and yet it is the veil that binds us to the rules. How warped is that?

You have just been the beneficiary of my shortest post ever in my history of posting.

The Herd and Failure

I like Colin Cowherd on ESPN radio. Nothing new. I’ve talked about him before here on this blog. My local sports radio station used to carry his entire show from 9 AM to 1 PM, and I almost always at least had it on in the background. Then they recently, for reasons I don’t understand, replaced his show with Dan Patrick. Patrick is good but not nearly as good as Cowherd. Cowherd is more philosophical and ties life lessons to sports almost daily. Patrick is more of a jokester and tries to be too cute. So I downloaded the ESPN radio iPhone app and can listen to The Herd, Colin’s show, in its entirety. I’m sure my local station doesn’t like this, but I don’t want to listen to Dan Patrick. I want Cowherd.

Today was one of those days when Colin said something very valuable to not just sport but life. He talked about failure. His quote: “Everyone who succeeds has failed.” Man is that ever true. He expanded on that to say that if someone is not willing to admit to you that they have succeeded without failure, they are lying. And he’s not talking about little mix ups. He’s talking about near catastrophic failure and listed several individuals to back up what he was saying. Bankruptcies, divorces, prison time, major injury, etc. Devastating failure. If you plan to succeed, you better expect major failure along the way, because if you don’t fail, you also won’t succeed.

So why don’t we see our faith’s this way? Why do we always talk about reaching some level of perfection or “sanctification?” Does that even make any sense with what we know about what it takes to grow and improve? I hesitate to use the word “success” when it comes to faith and belief, partly because I myself am trying to get away from the notion that it’s all about a set of rules. “Success” can very quickly turn into needing to earn something. Probably a better idea of success in faith (and maybe this is only pertinent to the Christian view) is when we realize and are truly comfortable with the idea that we don’t have to do anything to earn anything. Accepting grace is success. And the road to that place involves failure.

And God has to know that. He set the system up for crying out loud. The world works that way. Everything in it works that way. Before there is success there is failure. Always. No way to get around it. And then sometimes there’s even more failure. It just works that way.

What does that say about this fear of hell that is so prevalent in Christianity? I would like to say that I am beyond this fear of hell. But I’m not. I think I’m getting over it bit by bit by bit by tiny little bit. But I’m far from being beyond it. It almost feels like I’ve been traumatized in some way. Not sure where that comes from.

Show Me How To Live

First, an apology. Sorry for not being very active in the blogging world of late. Life is busy right now. Both of my boys are playing football on separate teams. Add to that the final stages of training of for my next triathlon. Then add to that a couple of weeks of being on call. And then add to that keeping the priority of my family in place, and I don’t have much time left. My days are usually get up and train. Work. Support my boys at football practice. Eat dinner. Spend some time with my wife. Get to bed for at least 7 hours of sleep. Not much time for other stuff right now. But, even though it’s busy, it’s a good kind of busy filled with the stuff I love.

I’m still finding some time to read and think though. One of the things I’ve been thinking about is how religion turns God into a formula and teaches us to listen to everybody else’s truth instead of our own inner voice. All you have to do is jump through this hoop of theology and this hoop of behavior and this hoop of how of how to think and this hoop of devotion to the church and this hoop of blah blah and you’re good. God will accept you. But wait. Over there, at that church there is a different set of hoops. Is that the right set? But wait. There is a different set over there. And over there. And over there. We end up looking rather schizophrenic and feeling rather schizophrenic in our minds and souls not knowing who or what to trust. And you know what I’m becoming convinced of?…all that division, all those hoops, teach us to not trust ourselves. It teaches us to be directed by something outside of us, not something from within. And if one believes the Christian story, doesn’t Christ say that a helper will be sent to guide us? That can only come from within.

Audioslave has a song, Show Me How To Live, that in my opinion captures the tension resulting from this schizophrenia. See what you think.

VERSE:

And with the early dawn

Moving right along

Couldn’t buy an eye full of sleep

And in the aching nights under satellites

I was not received

Built with stolen parts

Telephone in my heart

Someone get me a priest

To put my mind to bed

This ringing in my head

Is this a cure or is this a disease?

CHORUS:

Nail in my hand

From my creator

You gave me life

Now show me how to live

Nail in my hand

From my creator

You gave me life

Now show me how to live

VERSE:

And in the afterbirth

On the quiet earth

Let the stains remind you

You thought you made a man

You better think again

Before my role defines you

CHORUS:

Nail in my hand

From my creator

You gave me life

Now show me how to live

Nail in my hand

From my creator

You gave me life

Now show me how to live

BRIDGE:

And in your waiting hands I will land

And roll out of my skin

And in your final hours I will stand

Ready to begin

Ready to begin

Ready to begin

Ready to begin

CHORUS:

Nail in my hand

From my creator

You gave me life

Now show me how to live

Nail in my hand

From my creator

You gave me life

Now show me how to live

Show me how to live

Show me how to live

Show me how to live

Show me how to live.

My take is this: It’s no accident that the DJ at the start of the video talks about freedom of the soul, and it’s also no accident that clips from the 1971 film Vanishing Point, whose main character refuses to give into the establishment, fill the video.V1 jumps right into the tension. All these sources telling him what to do. He doesn’t know which one to trust including whether he can trust his inner voice. He is willing to just talk to a priest to try and get the confusion to stop. In the chorus he cries out directly to God to show him what to do. In V2 he starts to figure it out a bit. He reminds those who think they have it all figured that we are all stained in some way so we better be careful in our claims to each other that we know the truth before we define ourselves by the truth we think we need to impose on each other rather than listening to the truth within us. By the bridge he seems to have found that he in fact does need to trust his inner voice and self more than any other source. This is how his creator speaks to him.

And I believe that, my friends, is how we should be living our lives, listening to our inner voice. God is there. It matters not so much whether you think that God is Christ, Buddha, Karma, Allah, Yahweh, or Nature to understand what I am saying. We should be in control of ourselves from internal sources, not leaving that control to things or people external.

Religion and Mental Illness

I’ve been thinking about it for awhile. Weeks. Months. Off and on. And I think I’ve come to a fairly solid conclusion, at least solid in my own mind. I don’t have any hard research to prove it, but I think religion causes depression….and anxiety. Now don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that belief in God or a god causes mental illness. On the contrary, I think that is very much a reasonable and truthful proposition and belief (but not for the reasons much of Christianity would say that it is). What I am saying is that organized religion, and by that I mean mainstream Christianity because that is what I know but I suspect that other religions may have the same issues for similar reasons that I will discuss below) actually causes mental illness. So now that I may have made you angry stick with me long enough to hear my theory out.

The crux of my theory rests on this: systems of religion impose upon followers a “right” way of thinking and believing and behaving that is unattainable leading to an unsustainable cycle of repeated failure and frustration. Eventually followers come to a point of crisis. They decide that leaving the system of the cycle is too costly, too dangerous, and, therefore, decide to stay. Or, they decide that this is not working for them and never will and take the courageous step into the unknown. The first group, in my opinion, often eventually finds themselves depressed, anxious, defensive, angry, and coping. The second group I’ll bet more often finds themselves living in freedom and in a better spot. I’ll do my best to discuss in more detail, but realize that these things still feel a bit disorganized in my brain and that this is just my own theory that I am presenting here in “thinking out loud” form. The further I go in life and the older I get the more I think I feel that systematic religion does more bad than good for humanity. Again, I am saying nothing against a belief in God, only against forced systems of “right” thinking, belief, and behavior concerning that God.

 Any time someone decides to join a church, denomination, religion, there are two things that come into play. The first is what that group says about itself. What it has written down about what it believes and why. What you have to agree to in some form of proclamation or statement in order to become included in that group. But then there is also the culture of belief that exists within that group, and by that I mean how those beliefs get acted out in every day life. And I know from personal experience that the culture of belief existing within a group is often very much different from the stated beliefs of that group. That culture of belief can also often be much more powerful than the stated beliefs, and it becomes the thing that must be accepted and followed for one to be considered as included in the group. Here’s where it gets a bit dicey.

Within such a culture of belief, there is often not much room for honest questioning, honest doubting, honest searching because that sort of activity threatens to undermine the stability of the group, especially when it may be centered around a core stated belief but especially when it is around a core cutural belief. I think that is a fault of the institutional structure on which such groups are built. Here we have a system of belief that is delivered by a top down structure of governance. That governance has power and relies on money coming from the bottom of the pyramid for its existence. The authority figures, the people who hold power some of whom rely on the system for their income and some of whom do not, must buy into the stated beliefs at a minimum but also the cultural beliefs if they hope to retain their income and/or positions. It’s the nature of the institution. It may not be a blatant strategy and most of the time I’ll bet you it’s not. But the bias is there, and it taints the sytem. This system tells its members what the right way to believe and think of God is. Doubts, questions, contrarian ideas hurt that system and in essence are not allowed by the cuture. People with them are told, sometimes blatantly and sometimes subtly, that they are wrong and that they instead ought to believe and do this other thing.

People by nature have doubts and questions. It’s part of who we are. It’s part of being free. It’s part of being a human and not an animal. It’s part of our core. And when that wandering, that freedom, that exercise of who we are at our core is squashed, buried, told that it’s wrong, it is destructive to us. I suspect that everyone within a religious system of thought comes to a point where they have to make a decision. They have to decide that they are going to ignore their questions and doubts. That it’s too costly and too risky. That they risk exclusion. That they risk disfavor with God. And so they put it to bed. They give up discovering. They give up exploring. They quit listening to the voice inside themselves that says something isn’t right and that is screaming for them to choose to be free from someone else’s oppression. Instead they settle for answers like, “You just need more faith,” “You just need to believe more,” “You just need to pray more,” “Are you having enough God time.” Those answers, even though they sound nice and lofty, are not at all helpful. They’re junk. When a person puts part of themselves away like that, it destroys them. It depresses them. It’s unhealthy. It’s spiritual zombi-ism. And I think a ton of people, when they come to that point, decide, largely unconsciously because of the pressure to conform from the culture of belief, to become spiritual zombies. They write their own prescription for mental illness.

Green Day has out a new song which speaks to this crisis point, that point at which you realize you are fighting for the wrong thing. When you are at that point, it’s time to give up and change directions.

21 Guns

Do you know what’s worth fighting for
When it’s not worth dying for?
Does it take your breath away
And you feel yourself suffocating?
Does the pain weight out the pride?
And you look for a place to hide?
Does someone break your heart inside?
You’re in ruins

One, 21 guns
Lay down your arms
Give up the fight
One, 21 guns
Throw up your arms into the sky
You and I

When you’re at the end of the road
And you lost all sense of control
And your thoughts have taken their toll
When your mind breaks the spirit of your soul
Your faith walks on broken glass
And the hangover doesn’t pass
Nothing’s ever built to last
You’re in ruins

One, 21 guns
Lay down your arms
Give up the fight
One, 21 guns
Throw up your arms into the sky
You and I

Did you try to live on your own
When you burned down the house and home?
Did you stand too close to the fire?
Like a liar looking for forgiveness from a stone

When it’s time to live and let die
And you can’t get another try
Something inside this heart has died
You’re in ruins

One, 21 guns
Lay down your arms
Give up the fight
One, 21 guns
Throw up your arms into the sky
You and I.

I expect I’ll get a lot of opposition to my theory. I’m OK with that. It’s just a theory. May have a lot of holes in it. But, maybe not. There sure are a lot of depressed and anxious people at church these days. I can’t think that’s what God intends.

Mutts

I heard someone say awhile back that mutts are the healthiest dogs. It may have been on TV or it may have been a conversation I overheard or it may have been something I was in the middle of, not sure. But it stuck in my brain and then something I heard today brought it back to mind.

I was listening to Colin Cowherd on ESPN radio. Yes, it’s one of my favorite (maybe my top favorite) radio shows, and I especially love to have it on in the background when I find myself doing paperwork (detest it) or reading (love it) at my desk on some mornings I am fortunate to not have other duties (today is one of those mornings). No, sorry to disappoint, I don’t listen to NPR (don’t even know where to find it), can’t stand Sean Hannity (voice is too whiny), quit listening to Christian talk radio 3 or so years ago (don’t want the fundamentalist indoctrination any longer), and haven’t really gotten into podcasts yet. I get plenty of news from the reports at the top and bottom of the hour and would do fine if the only station available to me forever was ESPN radio and TV. Maybe that makes me shallow, but I just don’t get much from the talking heads on either side of the fence.

Colin Cowherd brings a bit of a different style to the typical sports talk show. He has a good radio voice that is pleasant to hear, but the thing I like most about his show is the fact that he has a ton of common sense that applies to various sports stories and extends that out to life application much of the time. He has some very good insight.

Today he was discussing where good NFL quarterbacks come from. And you know what, they don’t come from Texas, Oklahoma, USC, Florida, the perrenial powerhouses. I was very curious about this so I actually did a bit of research. Take a look at the following list. Every one of these 40 quarterbacks can be found on most “Top 100″ lists. Most of the top 25 are included in this 40 with a few others who I like or are notable names thrown in for good measure:

1. Troy Aikmen – UCLA
2. Ken Anderson – Augustana College
3. Sammy Baugh – TCU
4. George Blanda – Kentucky
5. Tom Brady – Michigan
6. Terry Bradshaw – Louisiana Tech
7. Daunte Culpepper – Central Florida
8. Len Dawson – Purdue
9. Lynn Dickey – Kansas State
10. John Elway – Stanford
11. Boomer Esiason – Maryland
12. Brett Favre – Southern Mississippi
13. Dan Fouts – Oregon
14. Bob Griese – Purdue
15. Otto Graham – Northwestern
16. Doug Flutie – Boston College
17. Jeff Hostetler – West Virginia
18. Sonny Jurgensen – Duke
19. Jim Kelly – Miami
20. Bobby Layne – Texas
21. Donovan McNabb – Syracuse
22. Steve McNair – Mississippi
23. Jim McMahon – BYU
24. Peyton Manning – Tennessee
25. Dan Marino – Pittsburgh
26. Joe Montana – Notre Dame
27. Warren Moon – Washington
28. Joe Namath – Alabama
29. Jim Plunkett – Stanford
30. Phil Simms – Morehead State
31. Ken Stabler – Alabama
32. Bart Starr – Alabama
33. Roger Staubach – Navy
34. Fran Tarkenton – Georgia
35. Joe Theisman – Notre Dame
36. Y.A. Tittle -  Louisiana State
37. Johnny Unitas – Louisville  
38. Michael Vick – Virginia Tech
39. Kurt Warner – Northern Iowa
40. Steve Young – BYU

Even if you add to the list of Texas, Oklahoma, USC, and Florida a few other traditionally “powerhouse” football schools such as Alabama, Notre Dame, and Michigan, this still means that 34 of these 40 great NFL quaterbacks went to underdog football schools. The point Cowherd was making is that these guys, most of the greats, went to schools where they were in the trenches, where they had to suffer, where they had to work for greatness, where they had to grind through the muck to come out on top. They didn’t go to schools with five star recruits at wide receiver and running back and offensive lineman like the quarterbacks from the big schools usually have. His feeling was that life as a quarterback at those powerhouse schools was a softer life. From Cowherd, “Kurt Warner was bagging groceries while Matt Lienhert was bagging Co-eds.” The mutts who have to fight through the toughest challenges are the strongest in the end.

I have had a theory about sickness. It’s just an observation of mine, not proven scientific fact although I have read some medical literature which supports my theory. The theory is this: the more obssessed an individual is with killing germs in their environment, the sicker they are. It is with regular frequency that I see germ obssessed individuals frequently harboring infectious illness of all sorts. I know people who carry hand sanitzer with them everywhere and use it frequently, flush their sinuses with water nightly, only use “antibacterial soap,” get their kids on antibiotics at the first sign of a sniffle. And they are just more sick more often. I think that being too clean puts you at a disadvantage. Our immune systems are evolved to be tested and through the testing gain strength to protect us down the road. If your immune system goes untested it ends up just like a muscle that goes unused, weak and with little endurance. The mutts who are out in the wildnerness tromping through the dirt and scaveging for food at times are the strongest.

So all this kind of came together this morning while listening to ESPN (and I love that fact by itself, that things came together while filling my brain with more sports). It’s not a brand new epiphany but kind of a repeat epiphany. We only get stronger when we are challenged, when we grind through the muck, when we rise above the suffering, when we find ourselves outside of our comfort zone, when we stretch. The thing that is a bit new about this though for me is that I think this can be expanded to include faith and spirituality too. It’s true for everywhere else in life. It’s true for faith too. If your faith is never challenged, if you never find yourself in the middle of the muck, if you never get outside of institutional and denominational culture and doctrine, if you never find yourself with doubt, your faith will be weak. It will not grow with you. It will be stunted. If you never challenge it, even if you don’t feel you need to challenge it, it will not get stronger. I seriously doubt that faith gets stronger by praying more, by reading the bible more, by trusting more, by singing more songs, by memorizing more verses, by doing more work at church, by following more rules better. It only gets stronger when you or someone else takes out a hammer and starts beating away at it. It only gets stronger when you really challenge it, really doubt it, really wrestle with God like Jacob. And I think that’s what versus like “Work out your own salvation” (Phil 2:12 (one of my personal favorites)), or “Run the race as if to gain the prize” (1 Cor 9:24), or “Don’t build your house on the sand” (Matt 7:26) at least partly are meant to convey. Get out the hammer, get out of the comfort zone, get out a good dose of  doubt, and then go at it. Because in the end, the mutts are the ones who come out stronger and healthier. I want to be a mutt. And sometimes that’s a scary place because it’s dangerous and sometimes the mutts die. But so do the thoroughbreds, and sometimes all it takes for them to die is to step on their foot wrong. I’ll bet in the end that the mutts do better.

Is It Real?

As I was tucking my son, Jack, in bed last night we were talking about growing up and being responsible, being a good big brother, being tough on the football field (that is the consuming thing right now as he is in the heat of 5th grade football), learning about yourself, learning about God. While we were talking, he asked if all the stories in the bible were true, the old stories from people that lived 5,000-6,000 years ago like Adam and Eve and Noah.

All of a sudden I had an epiphany: It doesn’t really matter if they are true or not because that is not the point. The point is that these stories are telling us something about God. Whomever wrote those stories, whether is was Moses or some other dude, had an experience of/with God that they were trying to convey in a certain way. Whether they are real is not the point. The meaning of the experience is the point. What that experience says about God is the point. What that story/experience says about God is where the realness really exists. Why have I gotten so caught up in the historical realness and missed the meaning? Probably because we live in a post-Enlightenment non-mystical world where everything must be proven logically in order to be of value. We have forgotten as a culture that there are other avenues to knowing.

My friend Luke recently reminded me from one of our mutual favorites, The Matrix, how the “desert of the real” may not be what we all along thought it was. Sometimes what is real is something completely else.

Fear-Based Faith…

I’ve been reading The Unlikely Disciple, a book by Kevin Roose who was a student at Brown University but switched to Liberty University for a semester to experience it and then write a book about it. It’s a fascinating book, and thus far I think nails the Christian Evangelical culture down pretty solid, not in an abusive or destructive sense, but in a sense of having a very accurate assessment of what I, someone who has grown up in the thick of it, know it’s problems to be. I will probably post some more on it as I get through it.

This topic of fear of God has been prevalent in my last two posts as a motivator of my faith for much of my life. There is a quote from The Unlikely Disciple that does a very good job of exposing that culture of fear-based faith the dominates the Christian landscape. Roose quotes Jerry Falwell on page 48. This is a statement that Falwell made on September 13, 2001 while appearing on The 700 Club:

“The abortionists have got to bear some burden for [the attacks], because God will not be mocked…And when we destroy forty million little innocent babies, we make God mad. I really believe that the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way–all of themwho have tried to secularize America–I point the finger in their face and say ‘you helped this happen.’”

How’s that for evangelism and faith based on fear? It is no wonder to me why I got this message and now am having to fight it back when so-called Christian leaders make these kind of statements. No wonder at all.

Where I’m At…

I thought after my last post, I ought to follow it up so that the people who commented and follow along a bit will know where I have landed. July seemed a bit like hell on earth for my little family. I described it to a friend as something akin being thrown into a wood chipper. Didn’t see it coming. Didn’t expect it. But it happened. And now I’m here on the other side feeling like some of the baggage I was dragging around wouldn’t fit through the chipper so I find myself rid of it and feeling like I have a bit of a solid footing from which to catch the next wave (man do I love being out in the waves of the ocean with a surfboard).

So I’ll try to be brief. First off, I think I have gotten past the God question. It really comes down to a basic question that is more philosophical in nature than it is scientific. How did this world get here? There are only two real possibilities. It’s either by chance or it’s not. If it is by chance, then there is no reason to believe in a God. If it is not by chance, and by extension therefore purposeful, then there is great reason to believe in a God/Creator/Format/Etc. Some may inject a third possiblity here, that we were placed here by aliens of some sort, but that really just moves the location of the question because then one asks how the aliens came about. So without laying out a buch of detail as to why right now (I’ll do a bit of that further down), suffice it to say that it seems much more likely that we were created. And that is the point of faith. We all have to choose one direction on this question, and it takes faith to believe in your choice. There is not sufficient proof on either side to rule out the possibility of the other. And that is faith no matter how you look at it. I feel very comfortable with that.

I feel more comfortable believing in our purposeful existence for a handful of reasons, but soon after I came to a comfortable place at this point, I began reading a book called Chi Running in order to work on my running efficiency for my triathlon obsession/passion/dysfunction. Of course, there are introductory words about Tai Chi as a practice, what’s behind it, the history, the theories, the philosophies, and I find it fascinating, so much so that I believe this book will be significantly helpful to me across the breadth of my life actually, not just in running. Principles like centering one’s self really speak to me, especially after coming through the chipper, as I feel like prior to this experience, I was lost with all sorts of centers, none of which were receiving adequate attention. This side of it, I feel lean, and centered.

One of the principles I read about is that involving fundamental truths, universal laws, those things which have universal application at a deep, deep level across the board for the world and humanity. Call it a “format.” My friend John (TitForTat) bases his belief in a God on this format idea, and I think I am not far behind. There are things of this nature all over the place. The Chinese study of movement in Tai Chi. Newton and Einstein’s study of physics. Simple observations in nature such as palm trees not growing well in Kansas and polar bears not doing well in Arizona. When we go along with the order of nature and the universe, when we understand what these deep truths are and move with them instead of against them, we are centered and life goes much better for us as individuals and as a community. All of this order is unlikely to have come about by itself, and to me strongly points to the divine.

But I want to take it a bit of a step further. Danny Dreyer, the author of Chi Running, quotes Cecil B. DeMille on page 31:

“It is impossible for us to break the law ourselves. We can only break ourselves against the law.”

I’m not exactly certain what the circumstances of that statement were. And I think I may have even heard it or read it prior to this book. But I am understanding it in a different way today. Dreyer is using it, of course, to say that when we go against these fundamental truths, we are setting ourselves up against the way that it is best to live. Disharmony. We are making it difficult for ourselves and setting ourselves up for pain and injury and distress.

So the thought came to me that what if we looked at the bible this way in a certain sense. I have always looked at it as a book of rules, hoops to jump through, mistakes not to make. And that has had me looking at God as a cosmic law enforcer practically looking for reasons to strike me down. No wonder I have found myself trying to get out from under that sort of pressure by doubting God’s existence. But what if we look at the bible as the creator of the universe, the dude who knows all the fundamental truths, telling us the way it works best? What if it is God saying, “Hey, I made all this. I know how it works best. I know how to best be in harmony with it. And here it is.” I think maybe this is a much healthier and more centering way to view scripture.

The Cycle Goes Round Again…

I’ve written before, a couple times actually I think if you look all the way back, about the same thing that haunts me now. God. Is he real? Does he exist? Does it matter if he does or doesn’t? Does it matter what I think of it all? Why do I repeatedly find myself here? I’m going to again lay out my honest thoughts. Thoughts that feel close to as deep as I can go within myself. Why do I doubt?

I’m tired of being scared of hell. I’m tired of feeling like God, if there is one, is pissed off because I am some ugly sinful worm. I’m tired of feeling like this pissed off God is going to send me to hell if I don’t jump through a series of hoops (some sort of ”sinner’s prayer,” baptism, communion, some “second work of grace,” tithing, some sort of ministry, some special amount of prayer/reading/devotional time) to prove my devotion to him. Does God really need that? An all powerful God demanding that I do all of these things that seem like trinkets? Really? If God really is about love, why would he need that? If he is all powerful, why does he need that?

But then I wonder, is God really about love? I find that probably mostly, I am not sure. We have this human convention of the trinity as a description of how we look at God. How God is. Three in one. All equally God yet separate. That word, ”trinity,” is not in the bible, but we sure hang a great deal of our theologies on it. Well, God the Father part of that looks a lot like an angry bully who would be fine with sending my butt to hell. Sure he has a softer side that is kind and loving. But that just makes him seem bipolar. I don’t know that it is helpful, to be honest, to see that he has a softer side. Because then you don’t know which side you’re gonna get, that is, I guess, unless you jump through the proper hoops.

On the counter side of this God the Father image we have a different image of Christ, the second part of this trinity. He is loving. He is sacrificial. He exudes grace. He accepts. A much better side of God I think we would all say. And I see and hear a great deal of thoughts and words that say in essence that Jesus is the lens with which we are supposed to view God. Well, who says? It is a nice idea to be sure. But is it correct? Where does it say in scripture that humanity is supposed to do this? And is that just sticking our heads in the sand? I mean, if God is there, he is who he is no matter what lens we decide to use. Using a lens to see God differently, to ignore the angry part,  just distorts the truth? If there is an angry, jealous, vengeful side of God that will send me to hell, what good is it to blind myself to that by looking at Jesus? God is still who he is. If he is there.

Another sticking point for me is the fact that this all could be just humanity fooling itself. Our phyche’s, our emotion, our minds, can do some crazy and amazing things. It is certainly reasonably possible that it is all in our heads. That God is all in our heads. That Jesus is no different than Zeus. That the bible is no different than any other scriptural book. That the “warmth” of which Wesley spoke is nothing more than psychology. Emotion. Neurons doing what they do. I don’t see that it can be proven that it is not this. So what does one believe? How do you know? I’m just not sure right now.

A final sticking point is how screwed up we are as humans. The culture of the church teaches Christian perfection. I’ve been on call this week, and I again realize, as I do over and over again, how we are all screwed up in our own way, so much so that the idea that there even is anything called perfection seems ridiculous. We all hurt in ways of which we are not even aware. We all have protection mechanisms of which we are not even aware. We all have systems of thought that influence everything we do, think, and say, and we are not even aware of them. With that in mind, the idea that there could even be a series of hoops that we could all jump through properly in order to be acceptable to God is just ridiculous. And if that’s true, then it seems to me, if the story of Jesus is true, that God either set out to save everybody, regardless of the hoops, or we are all going to hell. Considering the state of humanity, it seems that it has to be an all or none proposition. The way I have been taught to read scripture and the doctrines of the church and the cultures of the church though go against that. That confuses me. What seems most correct to me is that we are fooling ourselves if we think that some of us are doing good enough and some of us aren’t. We are all screwed up.

I don’t know why I find myself here over and over again. If I am deeply honest with myself, it feels like I have been carrying around this God thing, hoping that it is true, really trying to believe that it is true, trying to find a way for it to be true, but if I am honest, that seems like all it is. Hope that it is true. And I am not certain that any of my hoping and searching and thinking and wondering and praying has really gotten me anywhere different. How can I know? Why are some people so sure?

But why do I hope? And what does it mean that I hope? I’m pretty sure that I am stuck here, at this point, without an understanding of how to get past it. I know this probabaly comes across as angry and cynical, but I don’t mean it that way. It’s honest. It’s what is deep inside, at my core. I apologize to anyone who reads this and finds their faith shaken. That is not my intent. These are honest questions for which I am in search of honest answers. That’s all.

If it is the case that I am saying things you find to be heretical, destructive, unhelpful, please ignore me and forget the address to this blog. I don’t want to do any damage.