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.