A Ramble About Weather Patterns

This idea came to me when I was working in the loading dock at Wal-Mart. When you work in the back room you run into all sorts of different people coming from different backgrounds, and having different stories to tell. A big question on a lot of their minds was why their lives seemed so bad, and other people's lives seemed so great. As I was struggling to find an answer this came into my mind. I can't say it's entirely mine, because I think some elements of it came from some of the sources I was reading at the time.

Just as there are weather patterns produced by air currents, temperatures, moisture, etc. So also there are a kind of "weatherpatterns" of Karma. Here I take Karma to mean not only the actions one takes, but also implying the consequences which result from those actions taken. On Earth there exists several different kinds of weather patterns depending on where you live in the world. In some parts of the world it happens to be sunny skies and temperate conditions most of the year, such as Southern California. In other parts of the world it happens to rain most of the year, in such places as Papua New Guinea, or the Amazon. In some places the weather is always hot and dry, in others it is nearly always wet and miserable. All of these things depend on the currents of air pressure, moisture, ocean temperatures, and how they gather and move across the surface of the Earth so that weather in such a far away place as Australia may have a direct impact on farmers in Canada whether that seems possible or not. In some places theweather patterns become so violent that hurricanes, and tornadoes form ripping through anything which stands in their way.

Every action taken by a human being has real effects and consequences not just for that human being, but also for every other human being who may or may not come into contact, direct or indirect, with the one who acted. When you have X number of actions taken by Y number of people not only alive today but also throughout history what you get is a kind of Karmic weather system of chain reactions and "currents" which impact different people in different ways. Around some people these currents coalesce into a stable, pleasant environment where everything seems to just go right for that person. Around others, it creates storm systems and even hurricanes in which the person must hold on for dear life. For some, they receive an even mix of fair and foul weather, for others it's heavily weighted in one direction or the other. Now, the first thing which must be noted is that these currents may be affected by the person's own actions, and most certainly will be, but they are not necessarily caused by that person's own actions. For example, the average Palestinian child had nothing to do with the Nazi Holocaust, but they must live with the direct consequences of that horror, which they did not perpetrate, by either living as refuges in foreign lands, or living in what to them is an occupied homeland beseiged by terrible violence because of the recreation of the State of Israel as a direct response to the Nazi Holocaust.

I think the way I think and live the way I live largely because of the different influences and interactions in my life from my parents, grandparents, teachers, world events, textbooks, friends, enemies, wife, children, and a host of other people whom I have had direct and indirect contact with over the course of my life, and of course last but under no circumstances least God Himself. Who I am is largely made up of the consequences of the actions taken and choices made by other people, including even my physical body which is the direct result of the choices my parents made as to who their sexual partner was to be. This holds true for my grandparents, great-grandparents and every ancestor I know of or don't know of. And not only this, but this holds true for not only myself but all of these people as well, save God alone. The consequences even of the actions of kings or beggars thousands of years ago still continue to swirl around us and impact who we are today.

We have the option to react one way or the other to these karmic weather patterns. And the choices we make will send new currents and chain reactions out to other people as well as ourselves. This is why it is so important to choose compassion and not selfishness. To give and not take. It is not only us who reap what we sow, but everyone else has to harvest it too.

A Ramble About Religious Life

The Christian life is, first and foremost, a religious life. That is, it is a life which is lived by a religious rule.

"No, it's a relationship with God! How can you say that it's a religion? A religion is all about rules, laws, "do"s and "don't"s and the traditions which human beings have made up. That's not my faith. I know God and He knows me. He doesn't make me follow any rules to be saved. How dare you even suggest that!"

The Christian life is the life of a disciple. It is the life of someone who has committed themselves to learning, living, and mastering the Path of Jesus Christ. It is the life of someone who has answered His call to leave everything behind, one way or another, and follow Him. It is the life of rigorous self-discipline as we strive to crucify the self with its passions and desires.

"Wait a second, I professed faith in Jesus, I was even baptized; are you saying that I'm not a Christian because I don't try to follow everything Jesus or the Apostles said? Are you saying I'm not saved?"

Our relationship with God begins the moment Grace breaks through our spiritual disorder, and we profess faith in Christ. It is legitimized and sealed with baptism as we are joined to Christ in His death so that we might be joined to Him in His resurrection. But a relationship with God through Christ does not count as discipleship any more than being born counts as a four year college degree. You must submit to sixteen or seventeen years of schooling, or the equivalent thereof, to obtain the degree. Even so, you must submit to the religious rule of Christian discipleship if you hope to attain the high callng of God in Christ Jesus, which is deification. Typically, parents send their kids to college in the hopes of them attaining that for year degree, and pay large sums of money to see that goal realized. God the Father paid for us to have the privilege of discipleship to attain that high calling with the torture, humiliation, and gruesome murder of God the Son incarnated as a human being by ruthless men.He expects all those born into His family to study hard and achieve the goal, not waste His investment on frat parties, failed classes, and attempts at cheating to just squeak by. No parent expects that.

So, the Christian life is the life of a disciple, and it is a life lived by religious rule.

What is a "religious rule?" Put simply, a religious rule is the set of rules imposed on a religious community by their founder. The most common of such rules are poverty, obedience, and celibacy. Other rules may include the wearing of certain clothes, a prohibition against speaking, required service in the community, or a mandatory mission trip depending on the religious community in question. If someone wants to be a Franciscan, they must follow the religious rule of the Franciscan order. If they want to be a Carmelite, they must follow the religious rule of the Carmelite order. It is their choice if they want to join these orders or not. No one forces them to do it. You cannot join the order and then just do whatever you want. You will be expelled from the order after a short period of time. It is assumed that you know what you are getting into when you join and enter your novitiate.

The Church is, fundamentally, a religious community. This should be an obvious fact, but the trend in churches today is to ridicule or object to anything which uses the word "religious" in it. There were rules laid down for this community to follow as a means to further the single objective of deificiation by both our Founder, and those He chose as His immediate successors. Those rules are not pleasurable. They are not easy. And, ultimately, they will cost you everything you thought you held dear as you pursue the one single goal of the Christian life, union with God.

If you refuse to follow those rules, please don't delude yourself into thinking you are a disciple of Jesus Christ. You may be a baptized member of the Church, but you are not a disciple, and are not living the Christian life. You are a small child who is refusing to go to school and learn anything, and you will do a tremendous amount of damage to yourself and others because of your willful ignorance if someone who is learned and responsible doesn't babysit you and watch you constantly.

You must have someone teach you, and you must be willing to be instructed in order to drive a car. You must be willing to take the time to learn how it works and what the rules of the road are. If you don't, you may only damage your transmission and make the car undriveable at best, at worst you may kill yourself and many other people. The Christian life is the same way. You cannot make up your own rules and expect everyone else on the road to get out of your way and drive by the rules you think are fair.

The religious rule of the Christian life was laid down in the first three centuries by Christ Himself, His Apostles, and their successors. There is only one goal in mind, and that religious rule is geared to help you achieve that goal. The only reason why someone would refuse to follow that religious rule is if they have some other goal or agenda, and not the goal of deification. Union with God through Jesus Christ was the only goal of those who laid down that religious rule. Everything which interfered with that was expected to be stripped away.

Achieving the obedience to these rules perfectly is not the goal. The religious rule is a tool to assist you in your discipleship, but it is the means, not the end. If it becomes the end in and of itself then you are still not a disciple of Jesus Christ, but of your own self-importance and ambition with your own self-esteem as your goal and not the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. It's as though you only care about what your classmates think of you; whether or not you're the most popular, and not whether or not you understand the material your supposed to be studying and move on to graduation.

God loves us deeply ad richly and that will never change. Evey parent that loves their child will want them to have the best chance of success in life possible. God is no different.

You may live in the dorm. You may wear the college sweater. You may ever show up for classes. But if you don't buckle down and apply yourself and really work hard to graduate, you're not really a student are you?

Stop making excuses. Stop expecting to be able to remain an infant for the rest of your life. There are a few people in this world who do stop growing before they reach a year old. These people have a serious growth disorder and will never be able to care for themselves, much less anyone else. This is a person to be pitied, not emulated.

Are you afraid of failing? Why? The only person really afraid of failing is the person who cares more about what other people think of him than about learning and mastering the material. Any sincere student knows that they will fail again and again until they grasp the concept, and once they do, those failures only serve to teach them what not to do. You will fail. You will struggle. But in the process of failing and struggling, you will learn, and you will come to understand what it is you are trying to learn.

Stop being afraid to live up to your commitment to Him which you made when you were baptized. Stop being afraid to really see the darkest part of yourself and learn to accept it for what it is. Stop being afraid to have a real relationship with God, and not the illusion of a relationship that you can control and feel "safe" with. Stop being afraid to face Jesus Christ naked, humiliated, and weak and realize that this is the only way to honestly face Him. The illusion you imagine, the fantasy you control in your head, won't cut it.

Stop being afraid t engage God as He is and realize that this is the best thing you could ever possibly do. Everything else is the illusion, the fantasy. God alone is the Reality and the best thing you can do is to cooperate with Him as He strips away your illusions until only He remains. The religious rule of the Christian life was laid down to foster and encourage this. The only reason why you wouldn't want to follow it is if you want to remain blind, ignorant, and separated from Him. Think about it long and hard and choose very carefully whether or not you want to be "religious."

A Ramble About Holiday Saints

During the holidays, we often lose sight of where the holiday came from, or why we remember it. St. Valentine's day is a day of giving cards and romantic gifts to people, and is often degraded into little more than an excuse for sex. St. Patrick's day is a day of wearing Green, seeing leprechauns, celebrating everything Irish, and also degrades into little more than an excuse for getting roaring drunk with one's friends.Christmastime is a celebration of Santa Claus, all things warm and fuzzy, and again degrades into a frenzy of "I have to have this!" to the general shouts of glee from store owners looking to making up their losses from the rest of the year.



There are three saints which virtually everyone is familiar with, and no one really seems to understand who they were, who are associated with these holidays. They are St. Valentine, St. Patrick, and St. Nicholas. These men are recognized and venerated by every branch of the Church, east and west, and as such are a part of our collective heritage.



St. Valentine was a priest in Rome in the mid to late third century under the reign of Claudius the second, and at a time when it was illegal to preach Christ or even give aid to Christians. He was caught and arrested while performing a marriage ceremony for a Christian couple and brought before the emperor. The emperor took a liking to him at first. St. Valentine tried to bring the emperor to Christ, and the emperor executed him for it. He died around 275 A.D.



St. Patrick was taken as a slave from the coast of wales to Ireland where he served as a slave until he escaped, by the help of God, and made his way home to Britain. He was called by God to return to Ireland as a missionary and entered the priesthood to study, but was often held back because of the time he lost in his studies as a slave. Eventually he was consecrated as a Bishop with the express purpose of returning to Ireland to preach Christ and establish the Church there. He worked tirelessly at it, and could be seen as one of the first tribal missionaries among a fierce and proud warrior people. Often his greatest enemies were the other clergy back in Britain who were more concerned about tithes and income from the Irish people than the Irish people themselves, and he rejected clergy sent to "help" him in this regard and sent them packing. Through his humility, self-sacrifice, and tireless efforts the Gospel of Jesus Christ was firmly established among the Irish people by the time he passed away around 480 A.D. Because of his work, Ireland became a missionary Church that sent out clergy and missionaries to other parts of Europe as well.



St. Nicholas (Nikolaos) was the Bishop of Myra in what is now Turkey between 270 and 343 A.D. He is remembered for his generosity and anonymous gift giving. In one narrative, a man was so poor he could provide no dowry for his daughters to marry and was considering selling them into prostitution. Secretly, St. Nikolaos snuck up to their window at night and tossed a bag of gold through the window. He did it again for the next two nights. His actions spared the girls their otherwise cruel fate. There is no record of whether or not this man was a Christian or not. Another narrative tells of Nikolaos asking for wheat from sailors during a famine to help feed some people in a village who were starving. The wheat was bound for the emperor in Constantinople and the sailors were charged with making sure every grain was delivered. He assumed responsibility for the wheat and they let him have some. When the sailors reached Constantinople they discovered they had exactly as much wheat as before they met Nikolaos. The villagers found they not only had enough wheat to make bread but also enough to sow, and it lasted them for two years until the famine was over.



These were and are godly brothers in Jesus Christ who lived Jesus Christ for people and gave their lives and everything else they had in His service. They are examples left for us to follow. As we pass their feast days and the holidays associated with them throughout the year, let's remember the men themselves and what they really stood for.

A Ramble about the Poor

I find it funny that one of the recent presidential candidates remarked that the poor in the U.S. aren't really poor, that they have access to cable T.V., air conditioning, and computers. They are exceptionally privileged and have an “entitlement mentality.” The picture painted is someone living off of the state, receiving free housing, food stamps, large welfare checks, not having to do anything for it, and not wanting to do anything to get themselves out of it. At best, this is an ignorant image of poverty in the U.S. At worst, it is a deliberate twisting of the truth to turn public opinion against the poor. I know this because we've had to be on state assistance more often than we wanted.

Truth is, it's hard to get onto social services. Without a consistent paycheck it's nearly impossible to stay on, and it barely covers your basic expenses when you're on it. The largest “check” you can get is about $190 a month. If you're single with no kids and make any kind of a paycheck at all, they won't help you with anything. The rules which regulate the social services system are geared to make it as difficult and as uncomfortable as possible and to make you feel as shameful as possible so that you will either want to leave it as quickly as possible, or be forced off of it. Often, from what I've seen, social workers tend to try and bend those rules or teach people how to go around them so that they can help the people who really need it.

So, who are the poor? Well, if we go by legal definitions, it's anyone who makes below a certain amount of income per year depending on whether or not they're married or single, and depending on how many kids they have. So, if someone is married and has three kids, they're considered below the poverty level if they make something like $30,000/year. This works out to $2500/month for a family. Doesn't sound like poverty does it? If these are the poor that this candidate was talking about, then yes, our nation's poor aren't really all that bad off if they just manage their resources and live within their means (depending on where in the country they live, $2500/month for a family of five in a place like Orange County, CA, for example, is almost impossible).

But the problem is that while these people may be struggling, they're not really the poor which need the help the most, and are the most hurt by these kinds of politics. The example of the poor which I gave above are what would be called in Greek, “tapeinoi”. These are people in humble circumstances. The poor people which are hurt by these kinds of politics are what are called in Greek “ptokhoi”. This word has an interesting etymology. It appears to be related to the word for “spit.”

These are the people who are spit on. These are the ones who cannot defend themselves, and have no resources whatsoever. And these days, their ranks are swelling as more homes are foreclosed on, more savings accounts are wiped out, and more jobs are lost. This is the immigrant, illegal or legal, as he tries to provide for himself or his family. This is the kid who doesn't know where their next meal is coming from because his or her parents are either out of work, or not there. This is the elderly person for whom social security doesn't pay enough to make ends meet for basic necessities. These are the people now forced to live in tents if they're fortunate because, not being able to pay, they were forced from their homes. I read an article recently about a Hollywood director or producer who was forced into the position of staying in homeless shelters with his wife and children. Their “friends” criticize them for taking their children down there at night, but I read nothing about any of them opening up their homes to them. There are millions of people like this in the U.S. right now, and their numbers are growing not shrinking.

What's really disturbing me is the attitudes which are being taken about the poor by professing Christians. The thinking seems to be that, somehow, the poor deserve to be in the state they're in, and nothing should be done to help them. If they can't help themselves, no one else should help them either. Hmm, what does God think on the matter?

The Old Testament, in particular the Law, is a covenant which was superceded by the New Covenant in Jesus Christ. But it is useful at times in seeing where God's mind is on a subject. The passages which deal with the treatment of the poor are most instructive:

Deuteronomy 15:7-11 (WEB)

“If there be with you a poor man, one of your brothers, within any of your gates in your land which Yahweh your God gives you, you shall not harden your heart, nor shut your hand from your poor brother; but you shall surely open your hand to him, and shall surely lend him sufficient for his need in that which he wants. Beware that there not be a base thought in your heart, saying, The seventh year, the year of release, is at hand; and your eye be evil against your poor brother, and you give him nothing; and he cry to Yahweh against you, and it be sin to you. You shall surely give him, and your heart shall not be grieved when you give to him; because that for this thing Yahweh your God will bless you in all your work, and in all that you put your hand to. For the poor will never cease out of the land: therefore I command you, saying, You shall surely open your hand to your brother, to your needy, and to your poor, in your land.”

Deuteronomy 27:19 (WEB)

"Cursed be he who wrests the justice due to the foreigner, fatherless, and widow. All the people shall say, Amen.”

Leviticus 19:9-10 (WEB)

“‘When you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not wholly reap the corners of your field, neither shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. You shall not glean your vineyard, neither shall you gather the fallen grapes of your vineyard; you shall leave them for the poor and for the foreigner. I am Yahweh your God.”

Leviticus 25:35-38 (WEB)

“If your brother has become poor, and his hand can’t support him among you; then you shall uphold him. As a stranger and a sojourner he shall live with you. Take no interest from him or profit, but fear your God; that your brother may live among you. You shall not lend him your money at interest, nor give him your food for profit. I am Yahweh your God, who brought you forth out of the land of Egypt, to give you the land of Canaan, and to be your God.”

Throughout the Scriptures, the mind and heart of God has always that those with resources are to see to the welfare of those who don't have any. Repeatedly, He demands that the poor, the foreigner, the widow, and the orphan be cared for by His people. In the Old Testament, those who were called His people and chose to ignore or abuse these poor and destitute risked, and suffered, the wrath of Almighty God.

In the New Testament, St. James links how we treat the poor with whether or not our profession of faith is worth anything:

James 2:1-18 (WEB)

"My brothers, don’t hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ of glory with partiality. For if a man with a gold ring, in fine clothing, comes into your assembly, and a poor man in filthy clothing also comes in; and you pay special attention to him who wears the fine clothing, and say, “Sit here in a good place;” and you tell the poor man, “Stand there,” or “Sit by my footstool;” haven’t you shown partiality among yourselves, and become judges with evil thoughts? Listen, my beloved brothers. Didn’t God choose those who are poor in this world to be rich in faith, and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Don’t the rich oppress you, and personally drag you before the courts? Don’t they blaspheme the honorable name by which you are called? However, if you fulfill the royal law, according to the Scripture, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself,” you do well. But if you show partiality, you commit sin, being convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he has become guilty of all. For he who said, “Do not commit adultery,” said also, “Do not commit murder.” Now if you do not commit adultery, but murder, you have become a transgressor of the law. So speak, and so do, as men who are to be judged by a law of freedom. For judgment is without mercy to him who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment. What good is it, my brothers, if a man says he has faith, but has no works? Can faith save him? And if a brother or sister is naked and in lack of daily food, and one of you tells them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled;' and yet you didn’t give them the things the body needs, what good is it? Even so faith, if it has no works, is dead in itself. Yes, a man will say, 'You have faith, and I have works.' Show me your faith from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.”

If we possess the means to help someone who is in need of food, shelter, water, clothing, or any of the basic necessities of life, then it has always been God's heart that we use what we have to help them as members of our own family. This is especially true of those who are members of the Church. We are just as responsible for them as we are for our own lives because we are all members of the same body. We are answerable to God for each other's welfare.

A Ramble about Interfaith Dialogues

I just read an article about a meeting in Rome at the Vatican of representatives from many different religions and faith traditions. It was compared to a similar meeting held by John Paul II in 1986. Several differences were noted by the author of the article, like that the group this time did not share a common prayer by retired to private rooms to pray, reflect, or meditate. This also reminds me of a section of the news the other night about a Methodist seminary that has begun accepting students from other faiths, and teaching those other faiths such as Islam and Judaism.



I have often written that we as Christians can learn from the perspective of other faith traditions, and use these to understand our own faith better. I have used examples from Buddhism, and have quoted Lao Tzu.



But there is a line which needs to be drawn somewhere. St. Paul told the Athenians that God put up with people's ignorance in times past, but that He now commands everyone everywhere to repent. The line to be drawn is Jesus Christ and whether or not that person believes that He is the Son of God, that He is the Christ, and that He died for our sins according to the Scriptures, was buried, rose from the dead, and ascended.



It is wrong for we who have the Truth of Jesus Christ to then pretend like it's just as valid or invalid as the next person's in any way. He is either Truth, or He is not, and there's really no middle ground. This knife cuts two ways though. We must not only profess this Truth with our mouths, we must also profess it in our actions by doing what He taught and remaining in Him. This is a far more powerful witness to Him than anything we could say. If we preach this Truth to those who don't believe, then we must act like it is the Truth with our lives, or else it will be no different than any other "truth" the hearer might encounter.



There is a difference between the disparate members of the Church coming together to work out their differences, and the Church coming together with different religions to affirm their mutual validity. There is only One Truth, One Way, and One Life. All those baptized into Christ Jesus are a part of Him, whether they like it or not, and as a result we are all a part of each other whether we like it or not. We have to come to terms with that, and we don't always like that fact. But, those who are outside of the Church are a different matter altogether. They are something different. They are not a part of us, nor will they until they choose to become a part of the Church. They are to be cared for, loved, and had compassion on just as Christ has loved us and had compassion on us even while we were yet enemies. But they are not a part of us. We have this fundamental difference and it won't change.



It seems that these days this line is being crossed more and more. From my understanding of Scripture, nothing angers God more than intercourse with foreign gods.

A Ramble about a Whoring Wife

I've been reading through Jeremiah lately. I started reading it for a couple of reasons. The first is that a lot of the readings in the lectionary for the last few weeks have been from Jeremiah, and the second is that the version of Jeremiah that's in my Bible is from the Septuagint, and is a little different from the ones I've read before. There's nothing new in it, it's just arranged differently in the Septuagint than it is in the Hebrew.



There's something that's really been sticking out to me this time around through Jeremiah. God is angry with Judah. I know this should be a "duh," but it really stuck out to me how angry He was. He was flat out pissed off (forgive my crudeness but there really are few good terms in English that express how angry He was). He was so pissed off that He told Jeremiah several times, "don't bother praying for these people. I won't hear any prayers to deliver them." He reinforced it by saying something to the effect of "It wouldn't matter if Moses or Samuel pleaded for them."



What made Him so angry? They kept worshiping idols and then they would turn around and say "what? We didn't do anything wrong. Why are You mad at us?" The illustration He uses is that of a wife who blatantly prostitutes herself with every man who comes her way, and then wonders why her husband is upset. In God's eyes, they broke their marriage contract with Him not just once or even twice, but brazenly like a whore who can't get enough. It was because of this that God "divorced" Israel and Judah and used Assyria and Babylon to cart them off of His land. He still loved them. He had plans to restore them once they had learned their lesson. But for the moment, He was pissed off by them.



The thing which keeps going through my mind is that the New Covenant is also like a marriage contract between God and the Church. It seems like most people believe that there are no terms to this contract. But Jesus actually did give terms to it. He said "remain in Me, and I in you." And He said, "If anyone doesn't remain in Me, he is cast out, withers, and is thrown into a fire." He also said, "A New commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you." And also, "remain in My love." The terms of the New Covenant, the new marriage contract between God and His Church can be summed up in these few statements which He said at the Last Supper.



God doesn't change. This is a fundamental fact of His Existence. He is love, but He is also a jealous husband. He is patient and forgiving. He also doesn't put up with His bride disrespecting and defiling the marriage bed. St. Paul warned about provoking God by drinking the cup of idols as well as drinking the cup of Christ.



The commands to love are all too often ignored in practice by Christians today. All too often we are told that the command to remain in Him is something deep that most Christians won't understand. All too often, the terms of the marriage contract which we made with our Lord are violated with impunity, and like the whoring wife we come home to Him expecting Him to overlook our infidelity and pretend nothing's wrong. We look Him in the eye with a straight face and say "but you still love and forgive me, right?" And then the next day we go out and do it again.



God does love us, passionately. It kills Him every time we go out and it drives a wedge into our marriage between us and Him. Struggling with something He understands and is willing to help us through it. Flaunting our enjoyment of it in front of Him is another matter altogether. It hurts our relationship with Him. It hurts Him. And because of this, it hurts us whether we know it or not.



Knowing that it causes all this damage, do we really expect Him to stand by and do nothing about it? This is the same God that brought the superpowers of the world to nuke (metaphorically speaking) Israel and Judah for their infidelity. Do we really think He'll stand by forever with us?



Another troubling correlation between us and the events in Jeremiah is that there are so-called "prophets" today who have risen up and told us that everything's cool. God wants to make us rich and make us be happy! He wants to give us a whole bunch of "stuff!" Even when Jesus said very clearly that you can't serve both God and wealth (mammon).



God is love. God gets angry because He loves, not because He doesn't. The person who can hurt you the most is the one who is closest to your heart, and we are closest to His. He gets angry to cause positive change, not because He wants to cause harm.



As I've been reading Jeremiah, I often get the sense these days that God is angry with His bride once again. I get the sense too, like in Jeremiah's day, that we may be past the point of no return on this. "Don't even bother praying about it." Truth is, it makes me sick to think about what that means.

A Ramble about the Rapture

Several decades ago, an Evangelical Protestant author by the name of Hal Lindsey wrote several books on the subject of eschatology, or “end times theology”. In these books, he popularized a particular paradigm of the End Times from certain interpretations of Daniel, Ezekiel, and the Revelation of John. Some thirty or more years later, this paradigm tends to be the only accepted paradigm within the Evangelical Protestant churches, and all others are condemned as heresy. This paradigm has been popularized even more by the relatively recent publication of the “Left Behind” series of books by Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, and the subsequent movies which were based on that series.

This paradigm, as simply put as possible goes something like: Rapture of Christians, a seven year Great Tribulation, return of Jesus Christ, a 1,000 year rule of Jesus Christ on Earth, New Heavens and New Earth into Eternity. This is the interpretation of the Scriptures and eschatological paradigm I was taught in Bible School by very sincere and godly professors.

Recently, a pastor from an Evangelical church declared that the Rapture was going to occur on May 21, 2011. When that didn't occur, he revised his estimate for it to have occurred yesterday as of this writing, October 21, 2011. It has been the obsession of many within the Church for a very long time to attempt to decode secret number systems and dates within the Scriptures to give an exact date for the end of this world. It doesn't seem to matter that Jesus Himself said that He didn't know either, only God the Father knew for certain. I think that it should go without saying that if God the Son didn't know after His incarnation, then the odds are beyond astronomical that anyone else outside of God the Father will be clued in.

The biggest problem with all of this is that it's not what the ancient Church taught. In fact, this kind of paradigm was explicitly anathematized by the Ecumenical Church Council which finalized the Nicene Creed. Specifically, the separate 1,000 year reign of Christ on Earth (also known as “Chiliasm”) was anathematized because it was being taught by a heretical group, the Montanists (whose founder, Montanus, believed he was the “paraclete”, the Comforter spoken of by Jesus at the Last Supper). It was also taught by the Ebionites, who saw Jesus, not as God, but only a prophet like Moses and demanded strict adherence to the Mosaic Law. It was condemned outright at the Second Ecumenical Council, and the words “and His kingdom shall have no end” were included in the Nicene Creed to reflect this. The thousand year reign talked about in the Revelation of John has generally been interpreted by the Church metaphorically because of this.

That there will be a “Great Tribulation” has never been in dispute, although the ancient Church never really attempted to assign a time frame as to how long it would take (if you can correct me with a reference from the Fathers I would appreciate it). There were several times in the centuries following the Apostles when many believed they were in the middle of it during the persecutions, and the Bishops and priests of the Church had to calm them down and direct them otherwise. St. Paul had to even reassure those churches which he founded regarding this in the 1st letter to the Corinthians, and the 1st letter to the Thessalonians.

That Jesus Christ will return bodily has always been believed and professed by the Church in the same way as His Resurrection. This was professed all the way up to the Councils, who then made sure to state it directly in the common profession of faith, the Nicene Creed, so that there would be no misunderstandings, “He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end.”

So then, for the purposes of this Ramble, this leaves the Rapture with which to contend. What did the ancient Church teach about this?

The first reference to it in Scripture is in 1 Thessalonians 4:13-18 (ESV):

"But we do not want you to be uninformed, brothers, about those who are asleep, that you may not grieve as others do who have no hope. For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so, through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep. For this we declare to you by a word from the Lord, that we who are alive, who are left until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. For the Lord himself will descend from heaven with a cry of command, with the voice of an archangel, and with the sound of the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we will always be with the Lord. Therefore encourage one another with these words.”

In the primary passage of the New Testament dealing with this, St. Paul explicitly links the transformation of the living Christians with the Resurrection and transformation of those who have died in Christ. The primary passage dealing with the Resurrection in the New Testament, also written by St. Paul, is in 1 Corinthians 15. Verses 35-55 (WEB) say this:

"But someone will say, 'How are the dead raised?' and, 'With what kind of body do they come?' You foolish one, that which you yourself sow is not made alive unless it dies. That which you sow, you don’t sow the body that will be, but a bare grain, maybe of wheat, or of some other kind. But God gives it a body even as it pleased him, and to each seed a body of its own. All flesh is not the same flesh, but there is one flesh of men, another flesh of animals, another of fish, and another of birds. There are also celestial bodies, and terrestrial bodies; but the glory of the celestial differs from that of the terrestrial. There is one glory of the sun, another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars; for one star differs from another star in glory. So also is the resurrection of the dead. It is sown in corruption; it is raised in incorruption. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. There is a natural body and there is also a spiritual body.

“So also it is written, 'The first man, Adam, became a living soul.' The last Adam became a life-giving spirit. However that which is spiritual isn’t first, but that which is natural, then that which is spiritual. The first man is of the earth, made of dust. The second man is the Lord from heaven. As is the one made of dust, such are those who are also made of dust; and as is the heavenly, such are they also that are heavenly. As we have borne the image of those made of dust, let’s also bear the image of the heavenly. Now I say this, brothers, that flesh and blood can’t inherit the Kingdom of God; neither does corruption inherit incorruption.

“Behold, I tell you a mystery. We will not all sleep, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we will be changed. For this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality. But when this corruptible will have put on incorruption, and this mortal will have put on immortality, then what is written will happen: 'Death is swallowed up in victory.'
'Death, where is your sting? Hades, where is your victory?'”

So then, in St. Paul's mind, and his writings are the primary source material for this subject, the Rapture, the transformation of living Christians, would occur after the Resurrection of those who had died in Christ as a part of the same process of the bodily transformation of all Christians into the same kind of Resurrected and ascended body as our Lord. And he states very clearly that it would happen when Jesus Christ returned.

So, when does Jesus Christ return in relation to the Great Tribulation? All sources from Scripture, including Jesus Himself, and all sources from the Fathers profess that He would return after the Great Tribulation, or at it's apex depending on how you look at it. Thus, the transformation of the bodies of all Christians, either in the body or with the Lord, will occur after the Great Tribulation.

And this is what we find that the ancient Church taught regarding it as St. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons in the second century, writes: “'There will be tribulation such as has not been since the beginning, neither will be.' For this is the last contest of the righteous, in which they are crowned with incorruption—when they overcome.”

So then, if this is the clear teaching of the Church, and always has been, why did this kind of a pre-Tribulation Rapture teaching come about?

The first real mention and teaching of this kind occurred in 1830 with the birth of modern Pentecostalism and the followers of a minister who was dismissed from the Presbyterian Church in Scotland named Edward Irving. One of his followers, Margaret MacDonald, was very ill and apparently receiving “visions” during her illness. During these visions, she believed that she had received a prophecy of a two stage second coming of Christ, with a pre-Tribulation Rapture. Fairly soon after this, the entire group was professing and singing about a deliverance from the coming Great Tribulation through the Rapture. The teaching became more widespread after John Darby visited this group in Scotland, and even Miss MacDonald in her home. Contemporary Bible scholars and teachers took it from there, and soon it spread to nearly every Evangelical Protestant Bible School in the English speaking world.

So, where do we go from here? We need to be careful of any teaching that promises an “easy out” for Christians. Jesus never promised an easy out. All of His Apostles were tortured, and nearly all of them died in horrible ways. The first three hundred years of the Church were written in the blood of those who refused to deny Him. Our faith in Him should not be based on an expectation that we will be spared any suffering. That's not what He taught. To be a follower of Jesus Christ is to suffer with Him, and if you aren't experiencing this then maybe it's time to re-evaluate your personal discipleship. Are you actually doing what He taught.

The Christian path is the hard path. There are no easy outs except for death, and only when He chooses. And when it does come it is not something to be feared, but is our release and rest until that final transformation. It is this transformation which is our hope in Him.

A Ramble About the Death Penalty

After the execution of a certain prisoner back east, and the comments made by Republican presidential candidates, the death penalty has been on my mind. This isn't the easiest subject to write about, especially since so many people have such strong opinions. I suppose that hasn't stopped me before, and it obviously isn't going to stop me now as I sit here with my laptop pounding away at the keyboard. But, the truth is, I'm not entirely sure where I come down on this one.

To say that the death penalty is unbiblical is to betray a total ignorance of Holy Scripture, especially of the Pentateuch. To say that it is entirely consistent with Christian teaching and Sacred Tradition is to betray a total ignorance of the historical teaching of the Church and Sacred Tradition. Like many, many subjects the death penalty is complex, and to be quite honest I don't even know where this Ramble is going to end up.

The Holy Scripture is pretty clear in the Old Testament as far back as God talking to Noah:

“And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.” (Genesis 9:5-6, ESV)

And I would be writing a book on just this subject if I were to repeat every time the death penalty is proscribed for not just murder, but every other horrendous or damaging crime in the Mosaic Law, even for crimes regarding certain forms of idolatry and adultery. It is safe to say that the death penalty is entirely biblical, and even encouraged, where the Old Testament and the Mosaic Covenant are concerned.

The ancient Church however did not see things the same way. For them, the words of Jesus took precedence over the Mosaic Law:

“You have heard that it was said, ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.’ But I say to you, Do not resist the one who is evil. But if anyone slaps you on the right cheek, turn to him the other also.” (Matthew 5:38-39, ESV)

St. Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage in North Africa around 250 AD, writes this:

“Christians do not attack their assailants in return, for it is not lawful for the innocent to kill even the guilty.”

Athenagorus, a Christian apologist around 175 AD, writes this:

“When they know that we cannot endure even to see a man put to death, though justly, who of them can accuse us of murder? … We consider that to see a man put to death is much the same as killing him. Therefore, we have sworn away from such [gladiatorial] spectacles. We do not even look on, lest we might contract guilt and pollution. So how can we put people to death?”

The prohibition against killing anyone, whether they deserved it or not, was so strong that for the first three hundred years of the Church, holding public office (and thus being in the position to have to order an execution or torture) or serving in the military was a serious moral question and was largely discouraged among the members of the Church. Clergy in particular were forbidden from serving in the military for this very reason.

There was a severe disconnect with the commands to execute in the Old Testament, and the practice of the Early Church which they based on the words of Jesus Himself. They chose to take what Jesus taught over and above the Law, and apply it across the board to every area of their lives. They made the distinction between the Old and New Covenants, and recognized that the Old Covenant held no authority over them because of the New Covenant (which, by the way, is the fundamental argument of the letter to the Hebrews).

For them, it seems like the fundamental issue is that the death penalty implies a desire for vengeance. It's the desire to take a life for a life, in contravention to what Jesus taught. Because it was such a temptation for this kind of sentiment,vengeance, and because it could open the door to something even more sinister, bloodthirst, the early Church renounced it altogether. They did not try to prevent the public officials and courts from doing their appointed duties, and neither did they pass judgment on them for doing so. But they refused to be a party to taking a human life, regardless of the circumstances.

So, where does that leave us today, in the modern Church, who profess Jesus Christ and His Covenant by Grace? Should we protest the government when they choose to exercise the death penalty for someone who has been convicted of the crime of murder under the law? No, I don't think so. Do we cheer the execution of said convicted murder? No, absolutely not. Do we support the death penalty? My question in response would be, why would we? What would be our motive in doing so? If our motive would be to see that the duly convicted gets what he deserves, perhaps we should rethink our motive. Consider that if God took that attitude, then He never would have sent His Son to die for us. Instead, we would all be consigned to die in our sin and remain separated from Him forever.

What about the motive of simply removing a threat from the general populace? Well, there is life imprisonment. There is also simply deporting the person to a place on earth which is remote enough from the general population that they couldn't harm anyone. But both of these options have their own sets of problems from a variety of perspectives.

One thing is clear, the desire for vengeance (whether you euphemize it as “justice” or not) is contrary to the teachings of Jesus Christ. Jesus taught to turn the other cheek. Jesus taught to forgive every time someone comes asking for forgiveness. Jesus taught not to judge so that we wouldn't be judged. If we make the judgment that someone deserves to die for what he has done, what then is the judgment that should be leveled against us? If we refuse to forgive those convicted of the most heinous crimes, then why should we be forgiven of our own?

It is also far too easy to make the jump from taking satisfaction in the execution of a murderer, to taking satisfaction in the deaths of others you feel who “deserve it”. And once this jump is made, the list of those who “deserve it” can get very long very quickly. This is the beginning of bloodthirst. And then where does it end?

If we profess to follow Jesus Christ, we must in fact follow what He taught, and not what feels good, or what satisfies our own ideas of right and wrong.

A Ramble about the Games We Play

Whenever my kids aren't doing school, or the chores I give them, or watching a movie with my wife and I, they're playing games of some kind. Either on the computers, or, barring that, with each other somewhere around the house or outside.

They make up a storyline and rules to the game and then start playing. During the process of the game, one of them makes up new rules and expects the other two to play by them. They then argue about the fairness of it, and, depending on how the argument turns out, they either adopt the new rules or break apart, leaving at least one upset that no one wants to play with them.

I have often been called in to adjudicate their games. I still don't understand why, because they never tell me all their rules to begin with. Their “rules” are constantly shifting and never set in stone. The one that makes up the rules first usually does so to gain some kind of an advantage over the other two. The other two usually recognize it and resent it. I began taking the position some time ago that they have to work it out on their own. This works on occasion. Where I do step in is when they start getting so angry with each other that they start slamming doors, and, worst case scenario, they start to become violent with each other. I count myself fortunate that this is rare.

Their games are important to them when they're playing them. They're so important that feelings get hurt, yelling matches occur, and doors get slammed. They can become very upset that one of them might not be friends anymore with the other because of a dispute during a game. They mean so much to my kids because my kids give them meaning. More often then not, everything is resolved at least by the next day as that same game no longer has any meaning for them. What caused arguments, broken relationships, yelling, and door slamming is little more than a memory.

It's the same with my kids' toys. I remember a certain little car which one of them found during a major cleanup of the downstairs. Immediately, another one claimed ownership of that car, stating that it had been a birthday present several years ago. The one who found it also claimed finder's rights. In that moment, that car, which neither had seen nor cared about for a very long time, became somehow the most precious possession either of them could have. They accused each other of lying. Tears flowed. Feelings were hurt. Finally I had to take possession of the little car until I could work out who it really belonged to. I finally granted ownership to one of them. The next day, I found that car lying on the floor somewhere out of the way, barely noticed and forgotten.

Human beings play games that have no more meaning to them than what we give them. We argue, we fight, as adults we even go to war and kill over these games. We hold certain toys as being most precious when someone else wants them, and then forget about them when everyone else does.

Think about it. Corporations, for example, are basically a big game. They have no meaning to them except what meaning we give them. In reality, they are groups of people working together playing a game by rules that are constantly being changed by a very few to give those very few an advantage over the others. Governments, and other organizations are the same way.

Money is another game we play. In reality, most of the world's money has no intrinsic value of it's own. It's basically a bunch of numbers on a ledger, or stored in a computer. It's printed paper, or worthless coins. The only reason why it has any value is because we as a society give it that value and meaning. If we were to stop doing so, then it would be as valueless as the dirt we walk on.

It is the same with things like numbers and mathematics themselves. We all grow up with a base ten number system, and yet this isn't the only way to count or do math. Furthermore, numbers and mathematics are basically a big game. They're a way to see the world around us and quantify it, but are in reality themselves abstract concepts that don't actually exist.

God exists. Human beings exist. Animals exist. The earth underneath us, and the sky above us exist. These will exist even as businesses, corporations, rules, laws, and governments rise and then fall. Such things like laws, rules, corporations, etc. have only as much meaning as we give them. They are games we play for the moment. At first, we all agree on the rules, and then midway through someone tries to change the rules to their favor. Either everyone playing gets upset, or they all work it out. But, in any case, they are no less games than the ones my children play. It is a part of our inherent delusion and disorder that we assign so much meaning to them as to fight so violently over them.

Ownership is a ridiculous concept, as I have written before. It is a product of our own delusional minds to believe we can actually “own” anything. That little toy car will still be there whether or not any of my kids claim ownership. The land under our feet doesn't care who claims ownership over it, it has and will continue to outlast all of them. That we want to “own” anything is a part of the disorder and is born from fear of not having something that we think we need.

It is the lesson of history that all games and all ownerships eventually end. Buildings and land lie disused. Implements of war and peace lie broken and forgotten in fields. Heated arguments which launch thousands of troops become subjects for academics to study. Governments fall. Businesses and corporations eventually come to an end and go out of business. Even languages and mathematical systems change and die out. Much like my children, those who were sworn enemies one generation can be the best of friends the next. The object of a nation's hopes and desires one generation can lay neglected and forgotten the next.

So then, what is important if not the games we play? As I tell my children, the most important thing is in how they treat each other. If you don't want your brother or sister treating you that way, don't do it to them. My kids are slowly but surely getting the point. I have to step in less and less. I wish I could say the same about the rest of us.

The Lesson of the Watermelon Plant

There is, in our garden, a watermelon plant that, by all rights, should be dead. We planted it when we planted the squash and the cantaloupe. At the beginning of the season, the squash and the cantaloupe began to grow slowly, but surely. But no matter what we did with the watemelon, it just kept looking more and more sick and unhealthy. It withered up and kept only a few dry leaves. The stem split in two right down the middle near the base of the plant. It didn't matter how much water I gave it. It didn't matter if I let it go a day or two. It looked so pathetic I seriously considered just pulling it and being done with it. But something inside me just kept saying, “Just give it another day. … Water it today...” I felt so sorry for it that I did just that.

Then, out of the blue, it started growing and producing a few flowers. Then it just kept growing and growing, and now it has a good sized watermelon growing. We tried to bind the stem together, but it's still cracked down the middle. The stem is so hard and woody that you wouldn't believe it was alive at all, much less that it was a part of the same plant. Truth is, I have no idea why this plant is still alive, much less why it's bearing fruit. The only explanation I have for it is that God told it to.

I know there's a lesson in this somewhere. There are probably several lessons to learn from it. Not all of our plants have survived. The garlic we planted, which started out well, has completely died. All of them. The chives are barely holding on for dear life. The pepper seeds we planted in nice neat little rows never came up. Those rows are completely barren, and I have no explanation why they didn't at least germinate. But this watermelon plant which looked like it was dead shortly after we planted it is now growing and bearing fruit.

You never know what seeds will grow when you plant them, no matter how much you take care of them. You never know what plants will live, and which will die, and it won't always make sense when they do. It will frustrate you no end to realize that you really have no control over it at all.

We want the seeds of faith to grow where we plant them. We want the people we spend time and care on to grow and bear fruit in the way we want. We want to be able to spread the Gospel and have whole fields of people respond and grow as we water and weed them. Our watermelon plant and our garlic plants say it doesn't work that way. The Scriptures say that one person plants, another waters, but it is God who makes it grow not the person working the garden (see 1 Corinthians 3:6-9).

God makes all plants grow as it pleases Him. Sometimes He chooses to let the plant grow immediately. Sometimes, He chooses for it to not grow at all. Sometimes, He chooses to take mercy on a plant which is almost dead. Sometimes He lets a plant that looked like it was healthy die on its own. We have no control over this. The only thing we can do is keep planting seed, water it, and weed it carefully where it won't hurt the plant's growth.

A Ramble About Pulling Weeds

I was out watering my gardens this morning, as I do every morning. I skipped over the raspberry bushes because they're past bearing fruit at this point in time, and started on watering the bean plants I have in the back of the house.

These bean plants were experiments of sorts. With our bean plants in the front, I carefully built rows and planted the seeds like I was taught in horticulture class in High School. With the plants in the back, instead of building rows with a hoe, I just scattered them over tilled soil to see if they would grow. When they didn't grow that way in the time it seemed like they should, we decided to cover them over with mulch made from old grass clippings that smelled like horse manure. A few days after, they sprouted aggressively, and they are now two or three times the size of the bean plants in the front.

As I watered, I began pulling some weeds that were obnoxiously big. It's my own fault that they got that way, because I didn't pull them earlier when they were small, and, truth be told, I don't get out and weed as often as I should. So with the hose in one hand, I begin to use the other to get down to the base of the weed and yank it from the ground. The first one popped out without issue. Seeing my success, I go on to another. No problem. I then go one to the culprit that caught my attention to begin with.

I can't see the bottom of the plant because it's buried in among the bean plants. Trying to be as careful as I can I follow the stem of the weed with my hand, feeling it all the way down to the base of it's stem. I then get my hand around it and pull. Up it comes...

Except it wasn't the weed that I had been trying to pull. It was a bean plant. It was a big, healthy bean plant with many seed pods on it that weren't quite mature, and blossoms which promised to turn into more seed pods. I looked at that weed with disgust, but I had no one else to blame but myself for the death of the bean plant. I was so intent on getting that weed, I had killed the plant I was trying to save instead.

One of the biggest problems with battling false or heretical doctrine is that more often than not, that heretical doctrine is wrapped around, or growing very close to a very real, and healthy faith in Jesus Christ, accompanied with all the actions which underscore that faith. I one Mormon missionary I spoke to some time ago who told me his story. He had a girlfriend who was Baptist, and with whom he was quite serious. She came from a wealthy family, and he got along well with her family. The time came for him to go on his mission, and he was torn. He was told by the girl and her family that if he chose to go on his mission for the LDS Church that it would be over between them. He told me that when it came down to it, He had to choose between Jesus Christ and his girlfriend. He chose Jesus Christ. This was a healthy plant regardless of the weed which was wrapped around it.

Jesus told a parable about wheat and weeds. He said:

“He put another parable before them, saying, 'The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a man who sowed good seed in his field, but while his men were sleeping, his enemy came and sowed weeds among the wheat and went away. So when the plants came up and bore grain, then the weeds appeared also. And the servants of the master of the house came and said to him, “Master, did you not sow good seed in your field? How then does it have weeds?” He said to them, “An enemy has done this.” So the servants said to him, “Then do you want us to go and gather them?” But he said, “No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them. Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”'” (Matthew 13:24-30, ESV)

In context, as He explained it later, He was talking about people, and how the world, His field, would come to have both the sons of the evil one and the sons of the kingdom sown in it. But this passage has often come to my mind when thinking about all those people who believe something that has been regarded as heretical or false doctrine. We all accuse each other of this at some point in time. The Catholic labels the Protestant as heretical, the Protestant labels the Catholic as heretical, they both label the Mormon as heretical, and the Orthodox labels all of them as the much more more polite term “heterodox.” And we all seek to correct each other's dogmatic faults and bring them in line with our own. But in the process of doing so, I have seen people walk away from Christ altogether, not knowing what to believe or why, because their faith was so integrally tied to their Church and its dogmas.

The lesson of the bean plant tells me that sometimes it is better to leave the weed alone and let the plant you want flourish. Water it. Care for it. Isn't it better to tolerate a few weeds, than lose your harvest altogether?

A Letter to a Pastor About the Common Anchors of Our Faith

[As I've been going through collecting my notes for publishing my book, I remembered this email I sent to a pastor friend I met in Tennessee. I had hoped to perhaps start something with the other pastors to draw our combined strengths together. Unfortunately, it never materialized.]

Pastor Steve, I apologize I won't be able to be at the prayer meeting tomorrow. I got work substituting at the High School tomorrow morning.

I've been doing a lot of thinking about how we might all work together towards a common goal without our conflicting theologies muddying the issues at hand.

The first thing is that we all share the same goal. For ourselves and to guide our respective flocks to move from our initial profession of faith or conversion experience, let's call that Point A, to the final point of our salvation, let's call that point B. We call this by different terms depending on which tradition or theology one belongs to. In Evangelical Protestant circles it's called Glorification (one of the three "tenses" of salvation: justification, sanctification, and glorification); in Catholic and Orthodox circles it's called variously "beatification, divinization, deification," and theologically "theosis". As I understand the term, it's where we come into full union with God, both losing and maintaining the distinction between Him and ourselves. Various protestant denominations define it with slight variations or understandings but it basically works out to the same effect. So, our purpose is to move or be moved from point A to point B and to help guide others along that same Path. With that in mind, we have to be especially careful that we ourselves walk the Path, know what it is, what it looks like, and how to get to the destination point.

I noticed a long time ago, when I first became Catholic, that the life of a Christian who is sincere in their faith looks pretty much the same from denomination to denomination. That is, while theologies and interpretations differ, we all tend to be moved either internally or externally towards several guideposts along the way.

The first one the newly converted or professed moves towards is Baptism. I know we all tend to disagree on the nature and necessity of Baptism, but in general we all usually agree that someone who has had a real conversion to Jesus Christ will generally at least want to follow Him in Baptism. Further, He told us to do it. We all accept that there are some circumstances where it simply isn't possible (immediate martyrdom, thief on the cross, etc.), and we have our own theological explanations around it, but in general, it's the normal course of action, and it can be reasonably assumed that there is a spiritual problem with the professed person who refuses to commit to Christ in Baptism.

The next one which the Christian moves towards is Holy Communion, or Holy Eucharist. Again, we all tend to disagree on the meaning and necessity of Holy Eucharist. But again, it is something He told us to do at the very least to remember His death until He comes, and like Baptism has been a part of the tradition and practice of the universal Church, however it's practiced, since the Apostles. Again, we consider something to generally be spiritually wrong with the Christian who either refuses Holy Eucharist, or treats it in a profane or dishonorable way.

Of course when we knowingly sin, or sometimes unknowingly, we are convicted and moved towards repentance and confession, either directly to God, or with a member of the clergy. Often, even in Protestant circles, a person who feels particularly convicted about a sin will seek out a Pastor for counsel and to help guide them back. That is a part of our responsibility as guides and shepherds, assistant or otherwise, whether or not one accepts the Apostolic authority to bind and loose.

In the process of this, we also all generally seek out other Christians to fellowship with. And, depending on the denomination, we can seek official adult church membership, Baptism of the Holy Spirit, or in the Catholic/Orthodox faith Confirmation; especially if the profession of faith was made for us by our parents, or at a very young age.

If we get sick, we tend to go to the leadership of the Church and ask them to pray for our healing. Depending on the denomination, oil tends to be involved. We generally call this the Anointing of the Sick, and whether viewed as a Sacrament or not, I haven't seen a church yet that doesn't practice it in some form.

The call to get married, and the call to Ordination, or both, are also practiced in virtually every Church, although not by everyone because not everyone is called to either or both. Ordination is generally practiced exclusively by the laying on of hands by virtually every denomination, as it has for two thousand years.

So, these are the first guideposts along the way. In the Catholic/Orthodox tradition, they are the seven Sacraments, and they tend to be represented, recognized as such or not, in Christian practice regardless of denomination.

We generally tend to recognize too, that there is something spiritually wrong with the Christian, baptized or otherwise, who after knowingly sinning, refuses to turn away from that sin, or admit any wrongdoing. We have all watched as that professed Christian, if he doesn't repent, goes into a downward spiral and his visible spiritual state gets worse and worse until he descends into a kind of living hell of his own. We all have different explanations theologically as to why and how. But the observable phenomenon is the same, and we instinctively mourn the loss of a brother or sister whether or not we accept that their salvation is still secured.

Further, we can all generally agree, willingly or begrudgingly, that to walk the Path of Jesus Christ as He taught it requires some will and visible effort on our part, and that the visible indication of one who is on that Path is love, compassion, and kindness for the brothers, for the stranger, for those who hate us, and especially for God Himself. The one who follows Jesus Christ offers himself or herself as a living sacrifice just as He did. And the pretender tends to be pretty easy to spot, whether or not he or she realizes it at the moment.

Our observable goal is union with God, if possible, in this life as well as the next and our movement must always be towards this. Another piece which I think we can all generally agree on, if we really think about it, is that this doesn't come without the cross. It doesn't come without accepting that there is a fundamental malfunction in the human psyche (and I would argue the continuous recognition of this by the Christian as well as the convert), and that union with Jesus Christ in His death on the Cross is the only solution, and that as we surrender to that union in His death, so also His resurrection and the life of God will become more apparent in us until nothing else remains of us except the distinction between "He and I" and we realize and experience what is truly the absolute center of His infinite Being which is an all consuming, devastating, and blissful love.

These are just some thoughts on truths I think we can all use as anchors to achieve the same ends and avoid unnecessary and useless bickering which only serves to make us look like morons who don't understand the truth ourselves, and drive people away from Christ. And if we can all build on these anchors to direct and guide the people, in this case especially the youth because they are at a point now when they can absorb truth like a new wineskin absorbing new wine, then we can truly fulfill the command of Christ to go and make disciples.

If you think this is a positive step in the right direction, share these thoughts with the other pastors and see what they think and let me know.
In Christ,
Fr. Allen+

A Ramble About Conditioning

I don't know about anyone else, but I liked the Karate Kid remake with Will Smith's kid in it. I grew up with the original Ralph Machio versions, and even liked "The Next Karate Kid" with Mr. Miyagi teaching Hillary Swank. Yes, this shows my age, but hey, it was cool then, and it's cool now.

In the remake, instead of the "wax on... wax off" routine, a Chinese Miyagi, Mr. Han (played so well by Jackie Chan), has "Dre" (the remake's Daniel) simply pick up his jacket, hang it up, take it off, put it on himself, take it off, drop it on the floor, and repeat. Over, and over, and over again. Now, keep in mind, Mr. Han is supposed to be teaching Dre Kung Fu. This is something Dre reminds him of, many, many times. After the thousandth time or so, Dre gets fed up, and demands to know what it is that he's learning from hanging up his jacket a thousand times. After the outburst, where some choice things were said towards Mr. Han, Mr. Han comes over and proceeds to show him what he has learned, retooling the simple movements of bending down, throwing the jacket over the shoulders, throwing it on the peg into defensive movements that block punches and kicks. He did it a thousand times, and without knowing it, his body memorized those movements so that when they were repurposed for something else, his body responded without thinking. Without him knowing it, Mr. Han had conditioned his body to repond in a certain way. All by repeating the same boring movements over and over again.

This is what martial artists must do from the time they start. They take one movement and practice it over and over and over until their bodies do it without having to think about it, a thousand times, two thousand times. It's boring, it's time consuming, it's hard work, and it doesn't seem to have any short term goal or benefit. But's it's crucial that the body master the movement. This is the essence of what the term "Kung Fu" means, mastery of a skill derived from hard work and study.

We have often asked God, why do we constantly go through the same thing over and over again? Recently, we thought we had learned the lesson we needed to, and expected things to move to the next level, but no, things continue as they were. And here we are again. And we ask, why?

When God teaches us and trains us, it isn't like the classes and tests we take in school. There, we absorb information and are expected to spit it back out on a test. Once we can do this reasonably well, we move on to the next level. God trains us more like a martial arts sensei or sifu. He makes us do the same simple thing over and over again, not just until we get it right, but until we can do it without thinking; until it becomes a part of how we live, move, and breathe. He doesn't just teach us, He conditions us.

This is why it seems like we have to learn the same lesson over and over again. It's not that we don't know it. It's that it hasn't been fully incorporated into our very being yet. Where faith and love are concerned, where prayer and the dependence on God is concerned, where letting go of everything else and forgiving are concerned; these aren't lessons that you can just squeak by with a C- in the class. These are foundational movements which must be practiced over and over and over again.

So, as long as we still have to think about it, God will continue to make us pick up our jackets, hang them up, take them off, put them on, take them off, drop them on the floor, and repeat, until we do it without thinking. This is the path of a disciple, and if we leave off to go do something else for a while thinking that we've learned what we needed to, when we come back we're back to doing the same thing we left off at, over and over, and over again.

A Ramble About Jobs or Not Having One

There is a pervasive, destructive myth among American Christians. It's Americans in general, but when it comes among Christians it takes on a whole new meaning. That myth is that you and you alone are responsible for providing for yourself and your family, and if you don't have a paying job then you're less than and lazy or irresponsible.

This myth is especially destructive with today's economy being what it is. I have friends with sterling resumes who used to be able to snap their fingers twice and have a high paying job lined up in a day (not as much hyperbole as you might think by the way). These same friends have now been out of work for months on end, some up to a year or more. One good friend of mine who used to make nearly a hundred thousand a year is now unable to pay his bills, heavily in debt, and a few months from losing his house. He's put in resumes and applications, he's done the leg work. He's a crack salesman who could sell ice to an Eskimo. But in spite of all of his talent and effort, he's broke, and struggling to survive with his family.

I've struggled most of my adult life with finding and keeping work. I think the longest job I've had lasted for a few years, and those jobs I have had are nearly always on the low end of the pay scale. I have two associate's degrees and a bachelor's degree. I've spent more than five years in college and not because I was a poor student. But there has always been this perfect storm of circumstances every so often that knocks me back down, or keeps me from progressing. It's never been because I don't want to work.

I've learned several things from trying to keep my family together and raise my kids through these storms that I hope will help those who are like my friend, whom I pray for provision and blessing every day.

The first thing I've learned is that the myth I talked about is just that, a myth. Let me ask you this, who sends the rain and the sun for the plants to grow? Who allows them to grow and produce seed for the birds? It is God who does all this and more. A farmer or gardener can work all he wants in the hot sun, day in and day out, and his seed won't sprout or grow unless God wills it to, unless God sends the right amount of rain, and unless God allows the right amount of sun. The droughts in the southern US this year, and around the world the last couple of years, should have been evidence of that. It is God who allows the bugs to come and eat your plants, or sends their predators to keep them away.

It is the same way with us. It is God who provides for us. Yes, He often uses jobs and employment as a means to do so; but ultimately it all comes from Him. You lost your job. Does this mean that He is no longer in control? Does this mean that He no longer loves you? Does this mean that somehow He doesn't care? If any of these thing were possible than He would not be God. Losing our visible means of support is terrifying until we come to grips with this simple fact of God's love for us, and that He won't abandon us.

There are times when He causes us to lose that visible means of support intentionally. It's not punishment, but it is discipline intended to force us to acknowledge that it isn't the work of our hands that puts money in the bank and food on the table. It also forces us to start stripping away all the things which we become attached to instead of Him. We start using our possessions, our employment, the relationships around us for our security blanket instead of Him and this simply can't continue if we intend to pursue the path of Jesus Christ. So, He removes them because He loves us and because like any good parent would flush drugs they find down the toilet, He removes the dangerous things from us. He's more concerned about the health of our union with Him, than He is about our financial health. If we look to Him He will provide regardless of our financial state. Probably not in the way we would like, but what good parent ever gives his child every toy his child begs for?

Second, all too often Christians are beaten over the head with “if he doesn't work, he doesn't eat.” This is from 2nd Thessalonians 3. It was dealing with a situation at the church in Thessalonica where people were just living off of the dispersals at church and not contributing anything, spending their days getting into everyone else's business or doing the functional equivalent of playing video games all day and gossiping. St. Paul's concern wasn't about how much money the person was bringing in, but about whether or not he was being productive and able to contribute to others, since the path of Jesus Christ is about loving the other person and letting go of your self and your own things.

Volunteering at church or a non-profit, picking up the slack at home to help out your wife and kids, helping your neighbor out with work he or she may need done, spending time in prayer with God, these are all constructive, productive uses of time and contribute in a way which is consistent with the teaching of the Church and of Holy Scripture. In fact, these are more productive “spiritually” than trying desperately to make a bigger paycheck. The point isn't necessarily what you do as much as why and how you're doing it.

“But I need to support my family (and you do too)!” If God has prevented you (or me) from being employed in the traditional fashion then it's pointless to fight it for the moment. It's time to take a step back, take a breath, clear your mind, and focus on Him. You're not going to get another paying job unless He decides it's time for you to do so. Until that point in time, do what you can when you can, and instead of wasting all of your energy on panicking about where your next job will come from, spend it wisely on focusing on Him, trusting Him and recognizing that He is the one who provides for you. Yes, you have to swallow your pride and ask Him for help. This is fundamentally important. You can't just do this in secret. You have to be honest with Him, yourself, and others about this.

Third, how much is too much and what are your real priorities in life? Generally, people who seek to acquire large amounts of possessions and money do so because they're insecure about whether or not they'll ever have enough to be comfortable. They use it to shield themselves from facing the reality of life. If you have made the commitment to follow Jesus Christ, you can no longer do this. Wealth in general is dangerous spiritually. Poverty is a better financial state to be in for spiritual growth because it forces you back to reliance on God for your needs, and the less you possess, the less you have to be addicted to or attached to which can and will interfere with your relationship with God. There is a reason why Jesus told the rich young ruler to give up everything He had in order to achieve eternal life, and why it was common in the Apostolic Church for its members to sell everything they had and give the money to the Church for everyone to use.

Think about this very carefully. The Scripture is clear, friendship with the world is enmity with God. Jesus was pretty clear what He thought of the person who stored up possessions for his own retirement. If you choose to truly follow Him, you cannot climb the corporate ladder. There really is no middle ground, as much as many would like to pretend there is.

In the end, for those who follow Him and place knowing Him as a priority above all others it makes little difference whether you have a paying job or not. Every circumstance you are placed in is treated the same way: it is God who provides not you, your focus in life is loving others not securing your financial future. He loves you dearly. He loves your family dearly. If you wouldn't let your kids go hungry, why do you think He would?

A Ramble About Law vs. Grace

Ok, so here's the issue, Law vs. Grace—or is it?

St. Paul says in Galatians that the law was our schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. Literally, our “pedagogue.” And once Christ appeared there was no more need for the Law.

First of all, let's define what was meant by “Law.” The Jewish people of the period would have understood this word a “Torah,” the legal code, or “constitution” if you will, for the people of Israel. It was, principally , a Suzerainty treaty between Israel and her Sovereign King, Yahveh her God. It was a code of conduct which separated Israel from the other nations around her. The terms were pretty easy to understand as much as any constitution or penal code would be. “If you do this (fill in the blank), then this is the consequence.”

Contrary to popular opinion, penal codes in general are amoral, as are constitutions. They are also simply agreements between the government and the people and the terms of that agreement may be either beneficial (hopefully) or harmful to the people who are governed by them. The penal code makes no distinction between good motives or bad motives, it simply says “this is the regulation, and these are the consequences.”

It's important to make this distinction, that the law, the Torah, was and is amoral, neither good nor evil as such (although no one would argue that the legal code described in the Torah is somehow bad or not inherently good or beneficial), in the same way that penal codes and constitutions are neither good nor evil as such. They simply are what they are.

The human psyche since the fall latches on to ideas, concepts, and actions as either good or evil, right or wrong. It is important to understand that this is a malfunction of the psyche due to ingesting the fruit and the inherent disobedience when this happened. This is not, and never has been, a normal or natural function of the human psyche. We weren't created with it, and the “penal code” set down was specifically meant to keep it from happening. “Don't eat the fruit... if you do, you will die.” The assumption of knowing good from evil by a human being is a direct byproduct and consequence of that action. It is a part of that death which was warned about.

As a result, every human being since is born with this innate psychological need to label thoughts, ideas, concepts, and actions as either good or evil depending on whether the human being in question agrees with the thought, idea, concept, or action.

The Law, the Torah, was given to regulate this. It was a concession of mercy, as God so often does, taking human beings where they are at, recognizing their weaknesses and saying, “ok, I'll work with you on this. I know this is all you can handle and how you think at the moment.” So the Torah was given to train human beings who cannot and have not experienced God from birth towards compassion, mercy, justice, love, and most importantly knowing Him. But because the Torah itself is amoral, the malfunction in the human psyche latches on to it and says “Ok, now I know this is good and that is evil,” and it does so without mercy, because mercy is a foreign concept to the malfunction if not to the psyche as a whole. And this works in conjunction with the malfunction to train a people as a long as they adhere to it surrendering their perception of “good” and “evil” to the tenets of the Torah. But it doesn't work if they don't relinquish this, accepting the better judgment of God who wrote it. And, while it can train a people towards compassion, mercy, and knowing Him, it cannot naturally repair the malfunction which prevents this understanding in the first place.

The issue is not law vs. grace. Because even if you remove the “law” or any legal code as a factor, you will still have that malfunctioning psyche which says “this is right and that is wrong,” arbitrarily assigning those values to whatever it does or does not agree with. The repair only comes through union with God through Jesus Christ. But even after the union with Christ through baptism, and the repair is begun, the psyche must still be retrained from its old habit of “good vs. evil,” and relating to the world in that way. The scriptures use the analogy of a “new man” and an “old man,” literally a “new human being” and an “old human being,” and these two “human beings” are opposed to one another.

Because while God has now grafted or “glued” Himself to you through Christ, the psyche doesn't just automatically understand how to make use of this new state of being; this new input, if you will, and it will attempt to force the new input through the old method of processing. The new capability must be integrated into the psyche's way of doing things independently from the “good vs. evil” malfunction. It must relearn how to interpret the world and relationships around it through the experience of God, and union with Him, which is consummated or experienced through the active choice to love the other person, to forgo yourself and focus on the other person.

As I wrote before:

“The only way to experience God in practice is by choosing to care about someone else, and forgetting about yourself or your own wants, needs, and desires in that moment. If you don't forget about these things, they will form a barrier between you and Him.

“Love, caring, compassion; the choice to put someone else's interests above your own is the catalyst. It allows Grace to flow through you like power through circuits. It allows you to step back and become oned with God in such a way that you become almost an observer in your own body as you see what He does through you. And when He does this, your concern for the other person intensifies and they become the most important thing to you in that moment, whether it's your dearest friend, or the person who just broke your nose, or gave you a black eye. And it has nothing to do with your feelings. It is the simple yet powerful choice to set anything about you aside, and focus on the other person.

“Jesus commanded us to love. There's a reason for it. He commanded us to make the choice to care, because this through Him is our salvation. It allows the union with Him to take place in practice. It doesn't matter who the object of that concern is. It can be the bum on the street, the cashier at the supermarket, your family, your friends, the person who hates you and despises you, God Himself, and it must be each one of these people in turn. The power to do so is there by Grace and by love Grace itself is made active and perfected.” (Grace being the uncreated energy of God, His presence outside of His Persons).

So, the discussion is really about judgment vs. love, not law vs. grace, because law, a code of conduct designed to regulate human behavior and prevent harm in conjunction with the malfunctioning psyche, is irrelevant when love, the choice to care about the other and let yourself go which realizes the union with God independent of the malfunction, is practiced and active. But judgment, the need to designate this as good and that as evil and enforce it on others, is a malfunction and a result of the greater psychological malfunction of not being able to experience God from birth, and the absolute security that brings, as human were made to.

A Ramble About Ownership

If you really think about it, human ownership is a ridiculous concept. Nothing we call ours truly can truly ever belong to us or originated from us. Neither our thoughts, nor our ideas, nor our bodies, nor the myriad of toys, trinkets, houses, cars, clothes, ad infinitum.

For example, who can truly own a piece of land? The land was there long before me, and it will be there long after. It neither knows, nor cares to know, that I hold a piece of paper that says I own it. And it will be rid of me in, what is for it, a relatively tiny amount of time.

The clothing I have in my closet. Someone else made it. Chances are that someone else wore it before me. When I die, it will not come with me, and few will uphold my rights to it after that point.

The thoughts which I think someone else thought before me. The ideas which rattle around in my mind originated with someone or something else and recombined within my own mind. I can no more lay claim to them than I can lay claim to having written “Romeo and Juliet” (of course, really William Shakespeare couldn't lay claim to that idea either as it in turn was based on an older work, as has been demonstrated). So those ideas flow from others, and as I talk about them and relay them they flow to others also. Do I then become upset because someone else has “stolen” “my” ideas?

The truth is that the idea of ownership is really just another means of us trying to make ourselves feel more secure. Or, to put it another way, the concept of ownership arises from our inherent insecurity. We are afraid of our needs not being met, and so we gather things around ourselves selfishly and tell others “no, you can't make use of these, they're mine!” I'm afraid that if I allow someone else use of them, then I will no longer be able to use them.

This inherent insecurity of course arises from our inability to experience God from birth, which I have previously discussed. It is a concession of mercy that God does not contest it. In fact, the only person who can truly claim to “own” anything is God Himself. He created it, and He is in constant contact with it. He moves it, shapes it, and dissolves it at will.

Consider that if you were in constant experience of God as He is, ownership would be a non issue because the issue of your own security would be a non issue. These would be non issues because you would experientially know, and doubt would be absurd, His love for you. And this love presupposes that He too cares about your needs and would move to fulfill them. But because of our spiritual autism we cannot see it, we are blind to it.

The Scripture says “perfect love casts out all fear.” This verse continuously goes through my mind lately. Just consider that He is perfect love, and that fear is insecurity and that the genuine experience of Him removes all insecurity. All other concerns are thrown aside as you bask in His love for you, and through you to all others. And then you come to realize that you need “own” or claim “ownership” of nothing at all because of His love for you.

In the end, my point is entirely proven by human death, as everything you claimed ownership over is left for someone else to clean up or make use of, even your physical remains. You no longer have control over any of it. So in the end, all of your efforts to retain control over things, ideas, and people are utterly defeated and you still lose everything. All of your efforts to acquire and hold wealth are wasted and pointless.

For this reason, the only effort with any meaning in this life is to acquire and hold the experience of God, and union with Him through Jesus Christ. To know Him through mutual love as He loves you, and you respond with love in return as His love begins to flow through you and back to Himself, radiating to others also. Cultivating and developing this love, powered by His Grace, is the only worthwhile effort because it is the only effort which is not only sustainable but will continue with you after you lose your physical remains. This is truly the only real security in life.

A Short Ramble about My Self-Esteem

I just realized that I already secretly think of everyone else as better than me, and this causes me a great deal of insecurity. This is why I become defensive and try to prove that I am somehow at least equal to everyone else. This is why I struggle with self-esteem and fantasizing in my mind great things I could do "if only". I find it ironic that self-esteem uses either thinking too much or too little of oneself in order to creep in and open the gates for other "demons" to pour in, this being why it is so dangerous and must be guarded against constantly.

St. Paul teaches us in the Scriptures to think of others as better than ourselves, so where the Path of Jesus Christ is concerned, this is not a weakness but a great strength of humility. But the human psyche, because of its inherent disorder, panics and seeks to reassure itself of its own worth.

The more I think about it, the more sense it makes that the sin disorder is basically an inherent psychological insecurity based on the inherited inability to naturally sense and experience God from birth. It causes an insecurity chain reaction that moves up Maslow's pyramid of needs.

Just realizing this is progress, but now I must act on it. I must remember that it is ok to think of everyone else as better than me and not be afraid of it.

Concerning the Trinity

I've had this concept in my head for a while now and I just thought I'd share it.

God is to His creation as the water is to the ripple, or the air to the soundwave. But He is also Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Three distinct persons, or hypostases, in one Being, or ousia.

So, my thought is this, God the Father is the Person of God who is "physically" static in relationship to time and space as time and space pass through Him. Spacetime is in motion while God the Father is at rest as it passes through Him. God the Son is the Person of God with whom it is possible to interact and know in a physical, tangible way. Unlike God the Father, God the Son operates within Spacetime and follows its motion. So God the Holy Spirit is the Person of God who also operates within spacetime and yet is otherwise unknowable. Nor is He intended to be knowable by the creation. The Person whom we know God through and can know Him through is the Son.

When we are united with the Son we become one with Him and others are able to know God by interacting with us because they are not interacting with us they are interacting with Him. Our union with Him is realized when we choose to have compassion and love the other person. Thus as we love the other so the other comes to know God through us and we also become God incarnate through our union with God incarnate, Jesus Christ as He is incarnated within us through our choice to let go of our fears and insecurities and embrace His all consuming love for us and for the other person. Love is God in motion in time and space.