News From the Frontlines

Some news:

• Derek picked me up some SkullCandy earbuds yesterday and I’m excited to use them… wish my iPod battery didn’t stop working… Apple fail.
• My brother is getting confirmed in two hours. I’m his sponsor.
• My mother took me shopping yesterday and spent roughly 83% of my Christmas present money on clothes. I’m not a big fan of receiving clothes, but realistically both my mom and I know that I won’t spend money on clothes unless I absolutely have to, so I suppose it was a good thing in the long run. Plus I do enjoy having some sharp-looking threads. Also, the excuse, erm,  reason for the shopping spree was that my brother is getting confirmed today and I need to not look like a slob.
• Another of my pop cans exploded in our fridge… I don’t know why it’s so damn cold in there even after I turned the fridge temperature up. Anyways, there is frozen Diet Cherry Pepsi all over the second shelf, door, and bottom of the second shelf. The top of the can blew clean off, but the rest of the can wasn’t even perturbed in the least. Strange.
• Yesterday was my brother’s confirmation practice (a confirmation in a Catholic Church is very ceremonial so confirmation practice is comparable to a wedding rehearsal). Anyways, the latest priest at St. A’s spent the first 15ish minutes of the practice bragging-up, erm, talking about the newly remodeled sanctuary including a lengthy schpiel about each of the 15-ish new stained-glass windows and their religious symbolism. By itself, this lecture is unremarkable; however, this is the fifth time I’ve heard it since the church was beginning to be remodeled–one lecture for every time I’ve been home. I’m guessing he visits the topic more frequently than just when I’m there, which makes me feel sorry for the St. Athanasius regulars.
• Friday night, Parker House and Theory played at the Hub. They are truly an amazing band and I was stunned that only 40ish people showed up. I watched them open for O.A.R. at the Dome a couple years ago and, in my opinion, they have better music and put on a much better show than O.A.R. Lindsey Sermons and I talked with the keyboardist and bassist afterwards and apparently the Hub was one of the bigger shows that they’ve headlined. They said they always love coming to Iowa because we appreciate them so much more, but they must have a problem getting the word out in bigger cities, because they are an amazing band for how not-renown they are. Navigate to their website and give their songs a listen if you don’t believe me (their website has a few songs on a loop that you can listen to for free).

Anyways, it’s getting to be that time… I need to make the journey to Jesup so I can sponsor my brother’s confirmation. Hope all is well for you.

- Craig

PS: I want to start adding pictures to the posts. Keep me accountable.

Because Of Me

This is something my friend Seth wrote and published on Facebook. I read through it again today and feel like all of you (okay, more like both of you) deserve to read it:

Because of me.
I want what I cannot have.
I wake when I want to sleep.
I shut up when I want to scream
and inwardly hold my contempt at bay.
I run when I wish to fight.
I cuss when I should pray.
I smile though inside I frown,
and bare my pearly whites like ivory horses parading in duplicity.

In all of my self-induced living, the major cities lose no sleep, nor lose business profit.
The rich live on in luxury. The poor still erode on rusting streets.
And nothing changes in my frustration over trivial selfish pursuits.

I have no real effect on mankind. This is because I am cynical.
And I do not give things away. This is because I am selfish.
And I am wrong, 99.9 percent of the day. This is because I am sinful.
And I quietly judge. I keep secrets from friends. This is because I am insecure.
And I hardly ever love. This is because of me.
But I am loved, still. This is not because of me.

A man is not victorious until he has defeated himself.

- Seth Conover.

PS: I am feeling artistically inclined this afternoon so I might do some actual posting tonight, rather than just mooching off of my talented and insightful friends.

Some Thoughts On Blasphemy Day

So today is September 30–happy Blasphemy Day. If you’ve done any poking around my site, it will be painfully obvious that I’m not an atheist or agnostic, but I do have hope for today. First, some background.

I’m ill-educated on the matter, but from what I understand, the purpose of B-day is to strike out against social norms and national laws which prohibit speaking negatively against religions. And to do so, the organizers encourage acts of sacrilege in public arenas.

I can’t help but think they’re trying to make change by offending their opposition. As a matter of fact, I read that that was the goal. I can’t see any other purpose for such acts, nor can I see how this is going to actually make change. I think it’s going to cause a lot of hurt for people on every side of the issue.

As a follower, however, I’m excited because it is an opportunity to choose to Love those who don’t love me back, rather than loving my pride. Pride is among my biggest weaknesses (if there are weaknesses that aren’t rooted in pride).

Frankly, if they want to hate on Christianity (while B-day isn’t explicitly anti-Christian in nature, that’s certainly the flavor it seems to have in many places in the US), I say let them. I’ll support the repeal of those laws (if there are any in the United States).

I read today some commentary about why we shouldn’t be offended. Mostly because Jesus was “despised and rejected among men” and we aren’t called to defend His honor, but to share in His scorn. It’s beautiful because it’s hard and it can’t be done apart from Love. This strategy benefits absolutely everyone and the only reason we seem to suffer is because we are prideful and this is a lesson in humility and Love.

The opportunities for cheek-turning and cloak-giving and two-mile-walks abound. Not to mention the many truly humble prayers and blessings for our “enemies”.

Have a great Blasphemy Day.

Sincerely, Craig

PS: Some other thoughts: this compels me to revisit the notion of laying down our rights because Christ lay down His for us. Central in our acceptance of Christ is the idea (read: fact) that all we have is a gift–we forsook our rights to demand rights at the foot of the cross–something my lovely friend Bethany reminded me of a week ago (in fewer, better words, of course).

I’m right, right?

It’s better to become right than to be right. When you become right, you seek to change your views to accommodate the truth. When you try to BE right, you try to change the truth to accommodate your views. This is one of the differences between humility and pride.

Shut Up

There have to be a hundred other ways to ask for someone to be quiet… Why then, if not to disrespect someone, would we tell them to shut up.

I just perceive that to be SUCH a disrespectful thing to say unless it’s in a joking context or perhaps a moment of severity where immediate quietness is important. Outside of those contexts, it is just disrespectful.

There have to be a hundred other ways to ask for someone to be quiet… Why then, if not to disrespect someone, would we tell them to shut up.

I just perceive that to be SUCH a disrespectful thing to say unless it’s in a joking context or perhaps a moment of severity where immediate quietness is important. Outside of those contexts, it is just disrespectful.

I’m a big proponent for saying what you mean, but make sure it is apparent that you’re disrespecting someone if you intend to. And make sure that you are going to be honest (with yourself and others) about your disrespectful nature if/when you’re called out on it.

Homosexuality

I’m sure I’ve wrote written about this somewhere, albeit probably in brevity (or in full, but only on Facebook?)… at any rate, I couldn’t find anything in detail on this blog (I was so sure I’d written about it that I searched my own small blog for several minutes).

Anyways, in spite of my write-as-I-go style which all-too-often leads me to the furthest tangents possible, I can already all-but-assure you this post won’t stop on homosexuality, but will instead spend a lot of time in the matter of what sin is and how very different it is from our subculture’s conception of it (one could say that Satan has done a good job of disguising his work so that our notion of what sin is looks only subtly different from what God says it is, on first glance at least).

Anyways, onto the subject at hand… From an objective standpoint, a person can make the statement that homosexuality is talked about negatively in most of the Bible (at least so far as we can understand the language and culture can interpret the Bible, which, mind you, isn’t far). This is about all we can say objectively about the Bible (objectively meaning “from what can be understood from the text alone, with no influence from other sources, including the Spirit”).

Unfortunately, our little subculture has a bad habit of making statements that “the Bible says ‘X’…” when the Bible doesn’t say ‘X’ (even though our subculture is oft preceded with the term “Christian” it is still a kind of worldliness, again in a “subtle” way). At best we can say “I believe the Bible says ‘X’…” or “The Bible appears to say ‘X’…”. Moreover, just because Biblical characters say or do something (even if the character isn’t necessarily reprimanded for it) doesn’t mean it is God-approved (for instance, David had multiple wives and God tolerated this, but our “Christian subculture” generally says that polygamy is wrong in God’s eyes–so there’s a logical disconnect somewhere).

Anyways, because the Bible seems to say that homosexuality is wrong, I roll with it, even though I can’t say I’ve been lead by the Spirit to really understand that it is wrong or destructive as I have with other sins. Additionally, I haven’t experienced homosexuality in my immediate life as none of my close friends are homosexual, to my knowledge.

And here is where I zoom out and the topic becomes an example of a larger lesson: because my stance on the issue of homosexuality comes from my human [read "fallible"] understanding of the Bible and not from the Spirit’s [read "perfect"] conviction, I’m not going to tell someone that their lifestyle is wrong in God’s sight, especially if that person has been lead to that conclusion by the Spirit (remember, the Spirit authored the Bible–or at least that’s the accepted belief of our dear subculture and me–and therefore has more authority on the matter than we do).

On that note, me taking that person’s word that homosexuality is right is no better than me taking our subculture’s word that it is wrong. Ultimately, I know nothing until the Spirit shows me. I can be unsure of that person’s ability to recognize the Spirit’s voice as much as I can of our subculture, so I must rest in the scary world of “I don’t know” where I can only trust that God is doing his job by telling people who need to know, what it is that they need to know.

And, to conclude on this larger-lesson, I think it’s worth pointing out that regardless of whether we know or not, the Bible seems to indicate that it is never okay to reject someone based on how well they meet our expectations of what a “good Christ-follower” should look like. Biblically speaking, Jesus never rejected anyone, and everyone fell short of his moral standard. Moreover, he actually knew for sure that people were behaving sinfully and had authority to judge and reject them (and us) if he saw fit. Additionally, Jesus oft reprimanded those who judged and rejected others in God’s name but without God’s authority to do so (they took His name in vain). Matthew 23:13 is one of roughly a bazillion verses in which Jesus deals with the Pharisees on this issue (I might be exaggerating a little).

More Reflecting on Biblical Authority

I don’t believe Bible is the final word of God, in the sense that it carries the most authority–I believe everything God says has authority, regardless of when it was spoken, to whom it was spoken, or how many people believe it was spoken at all. Moreover, I believe there is consistence and continuity throughout all that God speaks.

I do believe that a lot of people discredit God’s Word when it is spoken outside of the Bible, because it may conflict with our own interpretations of scripture–interpretations which we too often tragically refuse to examine. Moreover, we have a discomfort with God communicating spiritually because it is less-concrete (we are unable to examine it for factuality using our non-spiritual faculties) than God communicating through text. Additionally, even when God communicates with us through text, he still communicates to us spiritually–any attempt on our behalf to learn about God through the Bible without being in tune with God’s spirit will result in us misunderstanding who God is and probably spreading that “false-doctrine” to others.

Moral of the story: next time you are tempted to prove something or disprove something using the Bible, stop. Understand that the Bible isn’t a proof text–it doesn’t vidicate people or their doctrine (God’s spirit alone validates people and ideas). It’s not a governing document–it’s a tool (one of many) for God to communicate to His people in conjunction with His Spirit, and it’s a small part of His ongoing story.

Feel free to contribute your own ideas on the subject.

Reflecting on Morality and Religious Pressure

Why do my fellow Christians fight me on the elements of my personality which Christ cultivated? Within me there are countless, large imperfections about which they could warn me, but they concentrate their efforts to destroy those parts in me which express Love to the poor and marginalized; the parts of me which seek to deny myself to lift up the powerless. It seems like they seek to make me the Pharisees against whom Jesus spoke throughout the Gospels–the hypocrites who appear to have cleansed themselves of external sins while taking great care to nurture and grow their internal ones. My soul cries out to my brothers, “get behind me Satan! I’m doing my Father’s work!” and it shouts this not out of anger but out of love. Are we so blind that we’ve tricked ourselves into thinking that our evil desires (though cloaked in religion and twisted to look like truth) are in fact pleasing to God? It didn’t work for the religious elite then, so what makes us think that God will favor the religious elite now?

The Spirit in me and the scriptures both testify that God will always, ALWAYS favor the poor and the broken and the powerless over those who appear to be “correct” and “powerful”. Even if my brain can’t find an adequate answer to their twisted logic, God’s truth appeals to my heart–telling me that I may not understand exactly why, but their ways are dark. So it is and will be: I follow God even when the people who’ve taken claim to his name take a different path. I will follow God into the dark places to rescue his precious people even if it means that many of the Christians call me a glutton and a drunk and kick me out of their churches. After all, Jesus endured that first.

On the subject of morality, it seems that there are people who see two kinds of people in the world: those who seek to uphold morality and those who are trying to “lower the moral bar” so to speak. The problem I see is that people with this viewpoint tend to define moral behavior as behavior exclusive of external sins, but the term doesn’t speak to the presence of internal sins. Internal sins (conditions of the heart: jealousy, self-righteousness, judgmentality, etc) get downplayed for the sake of lifting ourselves over those who suffer from external sins (sins identifiable by actions: sexual sins, drunkeness, etc). In this way, we trick ourselves into thinking that we are justified in denouncing the evils of liberalism and homosexuality and alcohol consumption and partying when we have darker sins clouding our vision. We seek to remove sawdust from our neighbor’s eye without first removing the boards from our own. We take great care to wash the outside of our cups, but the insides are filthy. We love to call people out on their mistakes, because it feeds the lie that we’re better than we are–that we do, in fact, deserve love (which stares right in the face of the Cross and the Gospel of Grace). This self-righteousness seems to plague the church, so if someone is truly concerned about upholding morality in our culture, perhaps we should look first at ourselves and then at everyone else. Furthermore, when we stop viewing the world this way, we realize that if our “morality” is only a product of social pressure, then it is empty and worthless. In this way, we are locked in a pointless battle of who’s definition of morality is correct, ours or theirs? When we are freed from this, we realize the only universal morality isn’t measured by actions, but by the motivations which drive our actions (namely the presence of Love or lackthereof). The issue isn’t where the moral bar should be set or whose moral bar should be used; the issue revolves directly around our own loving and hateful desires. The battle isn’t between us and them, the battle is within each of us, cliché though that may sound. We are our own enemies. We are the primary opposition to the cross–not the muslims or the liberals or the homosexuals. Let’s stop scapegoating and own up to our own failures. Let’s really die to ourselves.

Golden Calves

So before I jet off to work, here is a brief list of things I think we Christians worship above God frequently:

• America
• Money
• Success
• Capitalism
• Status
• The Republican party
• Discipline/Legalism
• Christianity (not to be confused with Christ)
• Correctness, particularly doctrinal correctness
• The Bible (well, our twisted interpretations of the Bible that make the above seem okay)

Again, this is brief and probably incomplete, but what is there is accurate. It seems we’ve got a golden heard. Baha. Sorry, lame joke.

Post-Concert Ramblings…

I wrote this yesterday morning on Facebook. I’m posting it here now. Does anyone know if there’s a simpler way of syndicating Facebook notes and WordPress blogs?

So it’s currently 6:08 AM and I’ve been up for the last forty-five minutes. Last night we went to the Rock and Worship Tour concert at the US Cell Center in CR and now we’re staying at Kristen’s parents’ house in Mount Vernon. And I can’t sleep–I think I’m catching a cold slash my lips are burning. And not burning with the desire to share the Word of God or to sing some incredibly artsy creative song, no, I have two canker sores (sp?) on the inside of my mouth and they feel extra awesome [sarcasm] in the wee hours of the morning.

At any rate, I stole one of Kristen’s guitars and snuck away to their computer room for a little late night acousticness (I’m in denial that it is, in fact early morning. Side note: I’m looking out the window and it’s getting light outside… eew). I kind of feel bad about using their computer without asking. :S

Anyways, the concert was amazing… I tend to go into Christian events with thick skepticism, because I know a lot of people put on Christian events because it’s “what good Christians do” or because “kids who are involved in Christian activities don’t sin” etc.; however, I was comforted by the brief ‘tween-acts blurbs by the lead singers of Tenth Ave North, Mercy Me, and Sanctus Real. I don’t worship well if I don’t believe that those who are leading worship have their hearts in a good place. I don’t want to feel like I’m being conned into some manufactured emotion. If my faith is fake, I’ll happily be an honest Atheist rather than a lying Christian.

The first thing the T.A.N. guy said was how he was still working through the complications of growing up in a “Christian” community and attending a “Christian” school (by the way, I use quotes around that word, because it means a lot of different things to different people and the way I’m using it isn’t really how I think it should be used), and he touched on how we “Christians” approach our relationships with people and with God with a lot more arrogance and false-humility than we should… He said the hardest three words for Christians to say are “I don’t know”, which was said in jest but bears a lot of truth. Anyways, the overall theme of the evening was that we’re all broken people desperately in need of a God who loves us. None of us are better than anyone else. Basically, as Bethany and Derek and I phrase it, we’re all epic failures and the only way we succeed is because Jesus loves us enough to succeed for us. And that to me, far more than trendy “Christian” music and Alt-Christian clothes and even being in the presence of “Christian” music superstars, was cool.

So with that I sit here with a lot of thoughts swirling around in my tiny human brain… First of all, I wish that more Christians really believed that we [read "all humanity"] are all the same in terms of worthiness of Grace (in that we are all equally unworthy of His Grace).

Secondly, I wish people who don’t know Jesus wouldn’t associate Him with us Christians. I’ll elaborate on that one a little: Christians can be prideful and arrogant and falsely-humble and hurtful and a variety of other negatively-inclined adjectives that are in no way characteristics of Jesus nor are representative of his feelings towards humanity in general. We’ve taken His name in vain and dragged it through the mud with us and the result is that the people who are aware of their need for a savior won’t know that that person is Jesus because we’ve made Jesus look like the Devil.

Finally, and this is one that I (as an insecure person) struggle with the most; I wish that we who call ourselves followers of Christ would truly meet people where they’re at rather than lead them to believe that they need to be “good enough” to earn our and/or God’s Love. Especially God’s Love. I think we non-verbally tell people that they need to fit in and look the part before we will accept them. They need to cover up their tattoos, change the way they dress, and stop associating with their non Christian friends unless they are getting [read "pressuring"] them to come to Church.

Just so we’re all clear on this, I believe this next statement so strongly that if this isn’t true, I’m converting to Atheism straight up: God’s love for us is not affected by our performance, and if it were, we’d all be effed. There is no reason for God to Love us–we can’t earn it, it’s freely given. We can’t trick God into Loving us, he already does–we just need to accept it. God’s people aren’t shiny and plastic; God chose a people who are real and broken and scandalous and perfect only in our inability to earn His love. He knows this about each of us and this fact is deeply rooted in His passionate, reckless, scandalous, foolish, intoxicated Love for each of us.

Anyways, it’s 6:53 now and the sun is coming up and that’s an event I haven’t witnessed in roughly a decade so I don’t want to ruin such a good track record. I’m going back to bed. Good night. Or good morning. Whatever.

So it’s currently 6:08 AM and I’ve been up for the last forty-five minutes. Last night we went to the Rock and Worship Tour concert at the US Cell Center in CR [Cedar Rapids] and now we’re staying at Kristen’s parents’ house in Mount Vernon. And I can’t sleep–I think I’m catching a cold slash my lips are burning. And not burning with the desire to share the Word of God or to sing some incredibly artsy creative song, no, I have two canker sores (sp?) on the inside of my mouth and they feel extra awesome [sarcasm] in the wee hours of the morning.

At any rate, I stole one of Kristen’s guitars and snuck away to their computer room for a little late night acousticness (I’m in denial that it is, in fact early morning. Side note: I’m looking out the window and it’s getting light outside… eew). I kind of feel bad about using their computer without asking. :S

Anyways, the concert was amazing… I tend to go into Christian events with thick skepticism, because I know a lot of people put on Christian events because it’s “what good Christians do” or because “kids who are involved in Christian activities don’t sin” etc.; however, I was comforted by the brief ‘tween-acts blurbs by the lead singers of Tenth Ave North, Mercy Me, and Sanctus Real. I don’t worship well if I don’t believe that those who are leading worship have their hearts in a good place. I don’t want to feel like I’m being conned into some manufactured emotion. If my faith is fake, I’ll happily be an honest Atheist rather than a lying Christian.

The first thing the T.A.N. guy said was how he was still working through the complications of growing up in a “Christian” community and attending a “Christian” school (by the way, I use quotes around that word, because it means a lot of different things to different people and the way I’m using it isn’t really how I think it should be used), and he touched on how we “Christians” approach our relationships with people and with God with a lot more arrogance and false-humility than we should… He said the hardest three words for Christians to say are “I don’t know”, which was said in jest but bears a lot of truth. Anyways, the overall theme of the evening was that we’re all broken people desperately in need of a God who loves us. None of us are better than anyone else. Basically, as Bethany and Derek and I phrase it, we’re all epic failures and the only way we succeed is because Jesus loves us enough to succeed for us. And that to me, far more than trendy “Christian” music and Alt-Christian clothes and even being in the presence of “Christian” music superstars, was cool.

So with that I sit here with a lot of thoughts swirling around in my tiny human brain… First of all, I wish that more Christians really believed that we [read "all humanity"] are all the same in terms of worthiness of Grace (in that we are all equally unworthy of His Grace).

Secondly, I wish people who don’t know Jesus wouldn’t associate Him with us Christians. I’ll elaborate on that one a little: Christians can be prideful and arrogant and falsely-humble and hurtful and a variety of other negatively-inclined adjectives that are in no way characteristics of Jesus nor are representative of his feelings towards humanity in general. We’ve taken His name in vain and dragged it through the mud with us and the result is that the people who are aware of their need for a savior won’t know that that person is Jesus because we’ve made Jesus look like the Devil.

Finally, and this is one that I (as an insecure person) struggle with the most; I wish that we who call ourselves followers of Christ would truly meet people where they’re at rather than lead them to believe that they need to be “good enough” to earn our and/or God’s Love. Especially God’s Love. I think we non-verbally tell people that they need to fit in and look the part before we will accept them. They need to cover up their tattoos, change the way they dress, and stop associating with their non Christian friends unless they are getting [read "pressuring"] them to come to Church.

Just so we’re all clear on this, I believe this next statement so strongly that if this isn’t true, I’m converting to Atheism straight up: God’s love for us is not affected by our performance, and if it were, we’d all be effed. There is no reason for God to Love us–we can’t earn it, it’s freely given. We can’t trick God into Loving us, he already does–we just need to accept it. God’s people aren’t shiny and plastic; God chose a people who are real and broken and scandalous and perfect only in our inability to earn His love. He knows this about each of us and this fact is deeply rooted in His passionate, reckless, scandalous, foolish, intoxicated Love for each of us.

Anyways, it’s 6:53 now and the sun is coming up and that’s an event I haven’t witnessed in roughly a decade so I don’t want to ruin such a good track record. I’m going back to bed. Good night. Or good morning. Whatever.