A Ramble About The Last Jedi

I went to see Star Wars: The Last Jedi last night with my family. As I was thinking about it, I realized that it was never a question of "if" we see it, but "when". then I realized that this was true of everybody I knew as well. There were never any conversations I had overheard where there was some question as to whether or not someone would see it. They always go something like, "So, when are you going to see it?" Or "Have you seen it yet?" (often followed by a mild rebuke if they haven't.)

Truth is, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Star Wars as a whole "is" our modern mythology. It's as much a part of our mythos here and now as the Illiad and Odyssey were to the ancient Greeks. It's the sacred text most moderns proverbially sleep with under their pillows to draw inspiration from regardless of their official religious affiliation. I recall seeing a headline from the parody site "Babylon Bee" about a pastor who lost his license to preach because he failed to reference The Last Jedi in his sermon. It was tongue in cheek, but there was an underlying cultural understanding behind it. These are "our" stories.

To use this analogy further, if "The Force Awakens" was akin to the Odyssey, then "The Last Jedi" is the Illiad. It's the tragedy of Troy where gods and men alike wage a war where there are few if any winners. The Illiad is often referred to as the greater, more mature of the two works, and so it is with "The Last Jedi" in my humble opinion.

There are consequences to actions, no matter how noble the intents. This eighth movie displays this truth in multiple ways. Failure is the greatest teacher, says Master Yoda, and this too is a hard lesson learned for the story's heroes. Things don't always go the way you planned them. The wisdom of one's elders should not be ignored in favor of heroic, if rash action. There is divine purpose beyond what mortals are able to understand, and that purpose is often misinterpreted, and twisted for selfish ends until it is fully revealed. There is light and darkness in everyone. Even heroes and demigods (think about who Luke's "grandfather" was) must pass eventually. Death is not the end, but only the beginning. Mortals are indeed saved by their faith. All of these are lessons which "The Last Jedi" has to teach with spectacular battles both physical and spiritual, drama, humor, and sorrow.

There are those who don't like this installment of Star Wars (even trying to have it recalled). There are also those that would like to edit out certain uncomfortable passages in the Holy Scriptures, or at least leave them unspoken and untaught. Things like rape, genocide, incest, murder by proxy by a Biblical hero; these are the passages that are not taught in children's Sunday Schools, or, if they are, are so sugar coated that they are hardly recognizable. People are uncomfortable with their heroes being seen as anything less than perfect or "good". But "heroes" are human beings, and human beings are deeply flawed no matter how much they want to do the right thing. This was part of the lesson from ancient Greek literature as well. Our fatal flaws tend to be our undoing, especially if we don't learn from them.

Luke Skywalker was, above all else, human. He made mistakes. So also is Poe Dameron. So also is Ben Solo. So also is Rey. Human beings are not cut and dried "good" and "evil". Human beings are complicated. The hubris or humility of one human being affects all other human beings around them in both positive and negative ways. This is reality, and in the Star Wars universe, it is the truth of the Force as well which binds and connects everything one to another, and it is the "unseen" hand of the Force, itself neither wholly light nor wholly dark but a balance between the two, which is seen working to effect its will everywhere in this movie to achieve the equilibrium it wants its own "children" to understand.

I am reminded of an illustration from mathematics I learned years ago. The balance point on the number line is "0". There is no actual beginning or end. The starting point is "0". This can be represented by the equator around a spherical shape. As long as a motion remains locationally at "0", that is, running the circumference of the equator back onto its own path, it remains in balance. Any deviation from "0" however, regardless of how slight, results in the path of the motion spiraling off into infinity regardless of whether it is positive or negative, and balance is lost. The same is true if weight is added to only one side of a scale. Regardless of the amount of weight, balance is lost. Nature abhors a vacuum, and vacuum is imbalance. There are two sides to the Force, not one. This is a lesson both the Jedi and the Sith fail to understand. The Force is balance between them, as Master Skywalker says in the film.

I think that, like every great religious or philosophical text, there are going to be those who don't like what The Last Jedi has to say to them. There are going to be those who prefer the fictitious dichotomy between light and darkness, good and evil, and will militantly protect and advance their points of view, much like the Jedi and the Sith. Such do not understand the great truth which the Force is trying to teach: light and darkness, good and evil, are dependent on each individual's own point of view. Another, similar truth was expressed by Rose in this film, "That's how we are going to win this, not by destroying what we hate, but by saving those we love."

[There are, whether by brilliant deduction on my part, or most likely by sheer coincidence, a couple of things in this movie that share similarities with my own fan fiction stories involving the Jedi. The first is Luke coming to the conclusion that the Jedi must end. This is the same conclusion I had Yoda come to in my story, "Star Trek: Enterprise - The Last Jedi", written prior to the release of "The Force Awakens". The second was the ability of a force ghost to manipulate the physical world in an almost deity like way. Here as in the movie, I had Yoda as an ascended being summon a massive storm to bring lightning to destroy certain targets on a planet's surface. It's Lucasfilm's and Disney's property to begin with so they can do what they want. I was just stoked I wasn't completely off base.]

A Ramble About Being Wicked

A Ramble About Being Wicked

Probably my favorite musical of all I’ve seen is the musical “Wicked”. For those who don’t know, it’s based on Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West by Gregory Maguire, although it is a much more family friendly version of the story than the original novel (which is a well written, extraordinary work of fiction, but is also definitely not for minors). The storyline centers around Elphaba who would later be known as “The Wicked Witch of the West” and it recounts her early life as well as interweaving with events from The Wizard of Oz.

In the musical as in the book, Elphaba is born different from everyone else, and it is revealed in the book that she was assumed to be sinful and somehow worthless by her parents from a young age only because she was green. All affection is withheld from her and given to her sister whom her parents dote on. She is only able to attend university because her father in particular wants her there to look after her sister which is wheelchair bound. Throughout her life, she has demonstrated “unusual” abilities which she has been shamed into hiding but which come out when she is frustrated or upset. In the musical, one of these displays on her first day at college brings her under the wing of Madam Morrible who teaches sorcery and magic. She is given the hope that she could rise within the system and eventually serve under the Wizard of Oz himself, thus getting the approval, recognition, and even affection she had been denied for most of her life.

Sadly, it was not to be. Elphaba is a compassionate, sensitive person with an ethical code. She is horrified when one of her teachers, a talking animal, regresses into a bestial state. It is her hope upon finally meeting the Wizard that something can be done in order to reverse the regression of not only her professor but all the animals who have become mere beasts, and the discrimination rising against them. She comes to learn that the man she had put all her hopes on, the man she idolized, was the one actively responsible for the abuse and caging of the animals, including her dear friend.

In shock and anger, she turns away from the Wizard and when she runs, she is labeled “Wicked” by him and his government as an enemy of the state. In that moment plays the song which has come to represent the play, “Gravity”, where Elphaba declares “If anyone cares to find me, look to the western skies! As someone told me lately, everyone deserves a chance to fly! And nobody in all of Oz, no Wizard that there is or was, is ever going to bring me down!” It is her moment of self realization, and her understanding that in truth, while the Wizard had no magic and no miracles of his own, she had a rare and undeniable power within herself her entire life and now she was going to act on it.

Several weeks ago, I was listening to “Gravity” on the way home from class. The song had always resonated with me, and I was never entirely sure as to why. But as I was listening to it, and dwelling on a conversation my wife and I had earlier in the day, it hit me.

I was Elphaba. And I was still trying to prove to myself and those rejecting and disapproving authorities in my life that I wasn’t “Wicked.”

Like the Wicked Witch of the West, I too was born different. I was born with Autistic Spectrum Disorder. At the time in the late seventies, eighties, and early nineties no one, however, recognized my behavior and presentations as being autistic because the only version of autism which was recognized by the American psychiatric community (until 1994) at the time was classical, hand flapping, non-verbal autism. On top of this, my parents went through a divorce in the early eighties and I grew up without any kind of a stable father figure.

With my resulting behaviors, I was quickly labeled “the bad kid” for most of my childhood, and somewhat into my college years. No one knew what to do with me, or how to “control” me. I could not relate normally to virtually anyone, and in my frustrations I would often lash out violently towards either other kids or adults. Thing is, I didn’t want to be that way, especially as I came to understand that I was different as I grew older. I didn’t want to be the bad kid, but everything I did to try and be “normal” and “social” kept backfiring on me. I still remember when one after school daycare worker, after my mother had come to pick me up, responded to her “who would want him?”

This led to a period in late junior high and early high school where I was most at peace when I was at home by myself without having to deal with anyone else. I was absorbed into my own fantasy worlds where I felt “safe” without having to deal with the condemnation and rejection of other people.

But starting in High School, after God and I came to an understanding of our mutual relationship, I began to try to do everything “right.” I went to church every time the doors were opened, I started paying attention to, and passing my classes. I wanted to go into the full time ministry as either a pastor or a missionary.

I realized that night as I was driving home in my van, that a huge, subconscious motivator for most of my adult life had been trying to prove that I wasn’t “the bad kid” anymore. But no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I tried to “toe the line” with my church, and later with the schools I attended, somehow I always ran afoul of those authorities in my life from whom I was seeking approval. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop being “Wicked” in their eyes.

I continued to seek after truth. Perhaps this is what got me into trouble the most. Being autistic, I didn’t want to be wrong or on the wrong side. So I continued to study, and when I was painfully rejected by one group, I subconsciously sought acceptance by another. I kept studying and studying and studying. And with whichever group I fell under, I rigorously sought to defend and uphold their doctrines and policies, even if they caused pain to either myself or someone I loved. I was trying desperately to not be “Wicked.”

But none of it made any difference to whether or not those people I had sought approval from gave it. They did not, but instead kept themselves and their approval apart from me as though I was a project that still needed guidance at best.

I realized in the van that night that this subconscious need to be legitimized by some “gatekeeper”, by some father figure perhaps, was what was keeping me from reaching the “Gravity” moment without guilt. And every time I share my conclusions from my studies and reflections, when they differ from the various “party lines” I had been taught to keep to, somewhere in the back of my mind are the voices of those men whose approval and affection I sought shouting at me, as with Elphaba, “Wicked!”

And I still don’t want to be.

The truth is that I’m not entirely sure where to go from here into the rest of my life. I think it a good thing that I have come to recognize this within myself, but what the fruit of it will be I don’t know. I suppose only time will tell. I only write this now, because I believe that there are others out there like myself who have someone screaming at them “Wicked!” in the backs of their minds. It often demands that we give one of two responses. We either fall in line with the disapproving voices, or we rebel wholeheartedly against them, as Elphaba did. I’m not sure that either is really the appropriate choice.

I think maybe a third option exists. Maybe we reject the “Wicked” label, but instead of being in open rebellion we see the ignorance, arrogance, and pride of the people behind those voices for what it is. To see that, in reality, the hold they still have over us only really exists within our own minds. And like the elephant tied to the stake in the ground by a mere rope, learn that we too can leave our bondage any time we wish.

I am one with the Force...

I recently saw a meme on Facebook which had a picture of a wand from Harry Potter and a lightsaber from Star Wars and asked “Which one would you choose?” This got me thinking, because just a few posts above it had been a picture of a scene from the latest Star Wars movie, Rogue One, involving probably my favorite character from the film.

I saw Star Wars: Rogue One the Monday after it came out. I’ve been a Star Wars fan since the original came out a couple of years after I was born, and my going to see its new, immediate prequel was inevitable. I really enjoyed this one, and the depth it brought to the story and the universe in which it takes place.

In it was a character called Chirrut Imwe, played well by Donnie Yen, a martial arts master and choreographer. We learn that Chirrut is a monk and a former guard of the Jedi temple on the planet Jedha, the source of Khyber crystals which are used to power the lightsaber weapons. He is also blind. It is made clear in the story, that neither Chirrut, nor his friend and constant companion Baze Malbus (who although also a former guard and monk has lost his his faith in the Force), are Jedi themselves. Neither appear to be able to make use of the Force in the supernatural ways that we have become accustomed to seeing in previous Star Wars stories. In spite of this, Chirrut has a deep faith in and understanding of the Force, and is easily the most spiritually attuned character in the entire Star Wars universe that we meet, with the possible exception of Jedi Master Yoda.

Throughout the movie, Chirrut’s constant meditation is, “I am one with the Force, the Force is with me.” We hear him chant it as a prayer over and over again, whether he is sitting at rest, or using his staff against stormtroopers. But what is more than this, in spite of his lack of Force talent, we begin to understand that it is not an empty mantra for him, but the foundation of his thinking and beliefs.

In his final scene in the movie, by his faith in the Force alone, he walks blind through heavy blaster fire towards a communications control panel that he can neither see nor yet feel nor hear, all the while chanting, “I am one with the Force, the Force is with me.” Through his act of absolute trust in the object of his faith, he is able, though physically blind, to locate a switch on the panel and make it possible for his team’s task to be completed.

It is shortly after that he is hit and succumbs to the blaster fire, and his companion Baze, who had lost his faith in the Force, rushes to try and rescue him. And as he lay dying in his arms, we hear him chant again, “I am one with the Force, the Force is with me.” And then he tells his friend, he is returning to the Force, and that just as the Force is everywhere, so he will be everywhere because he is one with the Force. In his final moments, the flame of Chirrut’s unwavering faith burns the brightest, and reignites the extinguished flame of Baze’s own faith, who then begins his own prayer and carries on their task, “The Force is with me, and I am one with the Force.”

The prayer and steadfast faith of Chirrut Imwe in the Force was more powerful than any of the skills or lightsabers of the Jedi in the series, and through it he brought about the redemption of his “lost” friend. I think if I was to choose, it would be neither lightsaber nor wand, but I would choose Chirrut’s faith as the most powerful and effective weapon.

As I have reflected on his mantra more, it keeps leading me back to a fundamental truth of the Christian faith. That through our baptism into His death and resurrection, we are one with Christ and He is always with us. The whole purpose of the Christian faith and practice is union with God through following Jesus Christ and remaining in Him, and yet this really isn’t emphasized or taught in favor of minor points of theology or morality which people shout loudly about but don’t really understand themselves. Like Baze, when things happen that tear down the world around them, they lose their faith because they didn’t understand the foundation of it to begin with.

Chirrut Imwe understood the foundation of his faith. His remaining steadfast in the Force saw him through the loss of all he knew, and gave him the strength and will to continue on because, in spite of his blindness, he saw deeply into the truth of things and knew that no matter what, the Force would always be there, and so would he through his union with it. In the same way for the Christian, we must look deeply into the foundational truth of our practice and come to understand that Christ is always there, and through our union with Him so will we be. When we remain in Him, we see our connection to Him and His life spreads through us like sap through a branch.

In closing, I submit a reworking of Chirrut Imwe’s prayer with a few lines from St. Patrick’s Lorica, something that we too can use to re-center ourselves in the truth of our faith in Jesus Christ:

I am one with Christ,

Christ is with me.

Christ with me,

Christ before me,

Christ behind me,

Christ in me.

I am one with Christ,

Christ is with me.

Amen.

Thoughts from my Abnormal Psychology Class

We had a fascinating lengthy discussion on Dissociative Identity Disorder last night in class. Coming from both a psychological and a theological perspective I've been trying to understand the symptomatic difference between this and classical demonic possession. One thing which stands out is that DID doesn't develop after age nine. Another thing is that, like with the subject last night, the alternate identities may attempt to protect and seek help for the host identity. And in reports of classical DP there are elements of abilities such as superhuman strength or knowledge displayed which the host body could not have been capable of. Further, in DID the average number of alters is 15, whereas in DP the average is one. Furthermore, DP can occur without any prior history of severe, extreme trauma, whereas this is necessary for the formation of DID. And DP can occur without warning. The key difference appears to be the supernatural element however. Also in classical DP as described in the New Testament and Ante-Nicene Fathers the host appears to exert no control over the body's voice and actions, where in DID the host is one of several identities that are displayed.

It seems to me that the problem occurs when you diagnose as only DID "or" DP and don't allow for the existence of both. The other problem occurs in that there have been so many misdiagnosed by pastors and priests as DP that were actually DID (or other mental illnesses) that there hasn't been enough viable observation of the differences to truly recognize DP when you see it, except perhaps for the aforementioned obvious supernatural or superhuman symptoms.

We were talking about Conversion Disorder the other night in class. This is where a person may lose the use of their eyes, a limb, or other physical ability for no explainable neural or medical condition. An example might be a woman who walks in on her husband cheating on her with the maid and the next morning wakes up blind. She isn't faking it, she really can't see even though there's nothing physically wrong with her eyes or neural circuitry. While there were a number of students who didn't understand how that was possible, what kept coming to my mind (from my electronics background) was a "driver malfunction". A "device driver" is the piece of software which allows the operating system to communicate with and use "devices" like video cards, printers, mice, network cards, etc. If it malfunctions, even if there's nothing physically wrong with the hardware or the connections, the device will not work. Driver malfunctions happen when either the driver software itself is corrupted, or when another piece of software or coding interferes with its regular function and it can't get past it. Conversion Disorder sounded to me a lot like a driver malfunction in the human brain. This then got me to thinking more about this idea. The traditional model of how the brain works tends to be all "hardware" based, that is, certain parts of the brain control certain functions of the body. But the human nervous system is essentially one enormous organic processor (neurons essentially being advanced organic transistors and functioning roughly the same way with the added chemical component for emotional response). And one thing about coding is that, any function you can achieve with digital hardware you can replicate with lines of code and a processor to run it through. This is the reason why modern computers can function as DVD players, CD players, radios, word processors, gaming machines, etc. All of these functions which would otherwise be achieved through a hard electronic circuit are achieved via lines of code. What if the function of the human body through the nervous system is more "software" controlled than hardware? What if there is organic "coding" controlling the various devices and systems of the body rather than it being all hard controller based? This would explain a great deal as to how psychologically traumatic events could physically affect the function of parts of the body with no medical or neurological reason. The traumatic event acts like new coding that interferes with the drivers and other software responsible for the normal operation of the system. Just some thoughts from Abnormal Psych class.

Continuing my train of thought from my previous post... Computer code breaks down essentially to 1s and 0s. 1 represents a switch turned on and 0 represents a switch turned off. Or another way to say it is 1 represents a single electrical pulse and 0 represents no electrical pulse. When computer code is written, it is written in human readable language and then that language is converted to what is called a binary. That is, it is converted to 1s and 0s that the processor can then use. The sensory inputs of the human body (eyes, ears, nose, taste buds, and of course nerve endings that transmit touch sensations) all feed directly into structures which convert those sensations into the electro-chemical impulses which the brain can then use and apparently stores for future use as memories. In short, from the time those senses are brought online, the brain is being coded on the fly and continues to be coded (programmed) throughout the lifespan of the individual person.

In my abnormal psych class, part of what I've been learning is the multidimensionality of psychopathology. That is, a psychological disorder has more than one cause. There can be several contributing factors including biological, environmental, and psychological. As I was finishing up Romans seven this morning, what stood out to me was Paul's insistence that the fatal flaw clearly has a biological cause and not a psychological one. He repeats it several times and in several different ways that the fatal flaw resides within the biological part of the human psyche (sarx) and not the mental component (noos). In other words, it is genetically inherited and doesn't skip generations.

Continuing my thoughts from earlier, if the fatal flaw is biological in nature, and hereditary, as St. Paul describes it in Romans 7, then it is genetic, passed down from parent to offspring and appears to be unique to the human species as no other animal life appears to display its symptoms. Furthermore, if it is biological and affects human thought, emotions, and behavior, then the fatal flaw is somehow physiologically centered in the human central nervous system and primarily the brain as it is the brain which regulates and directs behavior, thought, and emotions. The question that then comes up is what about the human brain is so very different from other animal species? The natural answer would be the size of the frontal lobes and the cerebral cortex in particular (as opposed to our nearest genetic relatives, the bonobo and chimpanzee). However, dolphins appear to have a larger cerebral cortex than we do and do not apparently share the same fatal flaw or predisposition to psychopathology. Among other regions, one of the more primitive portions of the brain that is important in the role of decision-making, motivations, and emotional control as well as the creation of short term and long term memories is the limbic system. Another thing we covered in abnormal psych was the ability of the environment to change genetics through epigenetics. That the environment of an organism can actually interfere with genetic "switches". Putting all this together, the thought occurs to me that whatever occurred, either the literal story of Adam and Eve's fall regarding eating from the wrong tree, or taking this as a metaphor for something else equally damaging, that it affected the human genetics surrounding the limbic system of the brain which was then passed down to all human descendants thereafter.

A Ramble About Museum Fremen

A Ramble About Museum Fremen

In Frank Herbert's Dune series, the Fremen are the semi-native inhabitants of the planet Arrakis, aka "Dune". They descended from escaped "Buddhislamic" slaves that took refuge on the extremely water scarce, harsh world. It was here that they first encountered the awesome and terrible dominance of Shai-Hulud, the great sandworms, and here that they became involuntarily addicted to the “Spice Melange” which was ever present around them in the air, the food, and the sands beneath their feet. It was the residue of Shai-Hulud that would prove to be a powerful, consciousness expanding drug that could grant visions and open possibilities of existence. Those first escaped slaves suffered immensely in their new environment, but that suffering forced them to adapt themselves if they wanted to survive.

Over a period of ten thousand years, the harsh desert environment and its “peculiarities” transformed them into a fanatically religious, incredibly tough, spice addicted, survivalist race of people that learned to treasure water to the point that they would even distil it from their dead so as not to lose one drop from their tribal stash. Led by their messiah, Paul Muad’Dib, they not only took their planet back from those who would exploit it and them, but they conquered the known universe planet by planet, bringing each one into subjection to Muad’Dib’s rule.

Later on, thousands of years later, Dune has been transformed into a paradise world through environmental terraforming. Sandworms are more and more confined to mere pockets of what had been a worldwide desert. Water runs freely on the planet’s surface and rain falls from the sky in a normal water cycle, something that the Fremen could never have imagined. The human-sandworm hybrid God Emperor Leto, the son of Muad’Dib, has maintained communities of what are called "museum Fremen" in tribute to his own ancestry as well as the planet's.

Except, the museum Fremen are barely shadows of what their ancestors were. They are little more than actors in a carefully controlled, barely recognizable recreation. Water pools in muddy puddles in their villages. They talk much of their personal honor, but do nothing about it. Their villages tend to be filthy. Their religious devotion is hollow and rehearsed, and their ancestor' s spice addiction is long a thing of the past. They couldn't conquer anything. When a man with memories of what Muad’Dib’s Fremen were encounters them, he is appalled and their leader appeals to him for help in recovering their true heritage.

To me, this is the best illustration of Christians in the first two or three centuries, and the "museum Christians" of the churches today. The museum Fremen didn't know the first thing about being a Fremen, and quite frankly the museum Christians of today don't know the first thing about being a Christian. The Fremen's eyes glowed a deep solid blue with the ever present spice, whereas the museum Fremen's eyes were the normal white with different colored irises. In the same way, the ancient Christians were so energized by Grace that healings, exorcisms, and miracles were common. Today, museum Christians have to resort to excuses or staged illusions when the charismata are brought up, and any real evidence of these powers being displayed is explained away or vehemently opposed because it is from the “wrong denomination”. We lost the blue from our eyes long ago. We squander the water in a way our spiritual ancestors never did.

Is it really any wonder then people are leaving the churches? We can only BS our way through it for so long before people begin to realize we don't really know what we're talking about. It is so bad that the written accounts of the Christians from the first three centuries (and many of the Saints of the following) are often dismissed as fairy tales because they don’t match with modern experience. When our lives don't match what's written of theirs, people will cry foul and rightly so.

So then, what do we do? How do we return to our roots? By imitating those whose lives do match theirs. By studying those people living and dead. And by going back to what made those ancient Christians Christians. For the Fremen it was water scarcity and spice saturation. For the ancient Christians it was community, voluntary poverty, and Jesus saturation (John 15:4-7). It's when these things are removed from our lives that we exist only as a shadow of what was.

A Ramble About Humiliation

"You learn humility only by accepting humiliations. And you will meet humiliation all through your life. The greatest humiliation is to know that you are nothing. This you come to know when you face God in prayer. Often a deep and fervent look at Christ is the best prayer: I look at Him and He looks at me. When you come face to face with God, you cannot but know that you are nothing, that you have nothing." - Mother St. Theresa of Calcutta

Mother St. Theresa is someone I deeply, deeply admire and respect. Every day she proved what she said she believed through her actions and her life, and she proved the truth of what she believed in them as well. After her death, it was revealed that she had deeply dark moments in her own faith as well where she felt that God might have abandoned her, and yet in spite of this she persisted and finally finished the race so well, God moved the nation of India, mostly polytheistic, to throw her a State funeral. So, when she says something about Christian practice and faith I tend to pay attention.

I don't like being or feeling humiliated. When I am, either intentionally or unintentionally, it hurts and it hurts deeply. Part of this is due to my own childhood woes and insecurities, and part of it is due to the insecure and positive attention loving ego which developed out of them. I wish this wasn't true about myself, but it is and it is something with which I struggle.

I find myself consistently feeling humiliated in one way or another, and have throughout my life. I am sure that part of this is my own fault for asking God to humble me earlier in my life (knowing my own ego and pride), but that does not make it any easier. To feel less than, to feel cast aside, to watch while all of your friends and acquaintances move on successfully in life while it seems like everything you try your hand at somehow gets stopped or malfunctions in some way, all of these things are humiliating.

It makes you want to run. It makes you want to escape or bury yourself in order to numb the pain. It makes you just want to quit trying and walk away from all of it, though you aren't allowed to. And no matter what happens, in the blink of an eye, and just for an instant you are called back to service in some small capacity, and then it fades again.

Jesus Christ was humiliated as well all through his life. He was accused of being an illegitimate child. He became, by his own account, homeless. During his ministry, he lived off the means of three women. This is not to mention his constant belittlement by the religious gatekeepers and his abhorrent execution. The Apostles as well suffered humiliation after humiliation as they attempted to serve and walk their own journey of faith.

I think that somehow we romanticize these humiliations and hardships. We take them and hold them up as shining examples of the faith without going into the dirty details of what it actually felt like. We tend to put rose colored glasses over the fact that the reality was vicious, hurtful, and extremely painful.

It is hard to find peace in being humiliated, especially when you can't see the outcome of it all. And it gets harder to trust that outcome when it continues to seem so far off in the distance. A shield of faith which is continuously bombarded with flaming arrows can eventually show the scars and splinters of intense bombardment in combat. This is also not something Sunday School teachers, caught up in the imagery of Ephesians 6, will tell you about. Though any soldier who has seen combat will tell you of the damage projectiles can do to armor. And I think there must be a kind of fatigue which comes with intense and unrelenting spiritual combat.

To be nothing, the goal of humiliation, there is both an attraction and a repulsion to it. It is something for which to strive, and yet it is also something which the ego desperately wishes to escape from. On the one hand, it means union with God through Christ, but on the other hand it means more painful humiliations and suffering. That suffering, ultimately is caused by attachments to things, people, ideas, etc. All of which are stripped away in humiliation. It is easy to say "Yes, Lord! Bring it on!" (as I did in my youth), but it is a far different thing to experience it. Eventually, you find yourself saying, "Please! No more! I can't take any more!" Even as you know that more humiliations are what is needed to finally destroy the ego which is pleading for the very idea of its existence.

I know I must trust God's process with me. No one needs to explain this or make it any more clear to me than it already is. Everything He does, including when He humiliates me, is because He loves me, not because He doesn't, and because He knows what will best achieve that goal He has for me. But it will never be without costing everything.

Yet Another Ramble About Discipleship...

Not long ago, I purchased a new original language Bible. Since then, I have been reading back through different New Testament books, transferring notes from my old Greek New Testament. The book I have been going through most recently is Matthew. Several weeks ago, I went through Matthew 10, and after making some notes and a Facebook comment, I moved on, but I find myself continuing to come back to it in my mind.

There were two things which stood out most to me then. The first was that this was more than just Jesus prepping his twelve disciples for a missionary road trip. This was their formal consecration as Apostles. The rules they were given by Jesus here weren't just for the immediate journey, but they were a rule of religious life which the Apostles were to continue following for the rest of their lives. Virtually the same rules were laid down for the seventy disciples who were sent out as well in Luke 10:1-11.

The second observation flows from the first, and this is that voluntary poverty was a part of their religious practice from this point in time onward(vs. 9-10), and appears to have been a mandated requirement to be one of Jesus's disciples. Jesus Himself lays this requirement on the rich young ruler, the only thing he lacked was to sell everything he had, give the proceeds to the destitute, then come and follow him in Matthew 19:21. Jesus was also clear that He Himself was homeless, and becoming His disciple meant following Him into homelessness in Matthew 8:20 (compare with the instructions to the Apostles in v. 11-14). His Apostles in the gospels also reiterated that they had given up everything to follow Him (Luke 18:28, Matthew 19:27). Jesus's admonishment towards voluntary, absolute poverty, homelessness, and detachment from earthly relationships for His disciples was strong, repeated, and consistent throughout the gospels (Luke 14:26-33, Matthew 10:37-39; 16:24-26). And it appears to have carried over into the practice of the Apostolic Church immediately before and after Pentecost in Acts 1-2.

Finally, He was also clear that those who didn't follow these conditions couldn't be His disciples. He said this over and over again. This is what keeps running through my mind. How can we reconcile the modern, western, materialistic life with being a disciple of Jesus Christ? And yet those most guilty of this at times are those professing to be “Christians”. About the only Christian populations today that continue to maintain these conditions of discipleship are some, though not all, religious and monastic orders.

One of the things that strikes me most about the conditions of discipleship is how similar this life was to the practice of the Buddha and his bhikkus (bhikku is “disciple” in Pali) as described in the Gospel of Buddha. They too were expected to renounce, or at least detach from all earthly relationships. They were expected to renounce or detach from all material possessions and enter a state of voluntary, near absolute poverty. And they too were expected to enter into homelessness. They were also expected to remain chaste and/or celibate.

Where this last part is concerned, the Jewish law already expected this in that only heterosexual marriage was permitted, and celibacy was expected otherwise on pain of death or forced marriage according to the Mosaic Law. And it is clear from, not only what Jesus taught, but also the letters of the Apostles in the rest of the New Testament that chastity was expected of Jesus's disciples both before and after Pentecost with the only exception being a monogamous, heterosexual marriage. Otherwise, the disciple was expected to remain celibate.

Another example I keep coming back to is that of several of the recognized Saints. One such example is that of Saint Theresa of Calcutta (she'll be fully canonized this year). I recently watched the movie, "The Letters" again, which is about her life and work. As a nun, she assumed voluntary poverty and chastity to begin with. But in going out from her security in her convent to live and work with Calcutta's poorest of the poor, she also, in a way, went forward into homelessness as well. Other examples may be St. Francis of Assisi, or St. Ignatius of Loyola. It occurs to me that, according to the writings and biographies of the Saints for the last two thousand years, the power and presence of Christ is most apparent and most active in those who adhere to the conditions of discipleship that He Himself laid out.

What does that look like with a spouse? With a family? What does that look like with responsibilities within society? And yet weren’t these questions that the Apostles and the seventy also had to wrestle with? St. Paul mentions that St. Peter had a wife that went with him, and the gospel writers also allude to his wife when they mention his mother-in-law with a fever.

I think there is a great deal of soul searching that needs to be done by those today that profess themselves to be His disciples. Do we despise the homeless, or do we join them as He did? Do we look down on those in poverty, or do we sell everything we have and give the proceeds to them as He taught? Do we indulge our sensual desires, or do we remain chaste as He did? And what would, and what did Jesus do and teach? What did He say we must do in order to truly be His disciples? If we don’t ask these questions and be honest with ourselves about the answers, how can we seriously even begin to call ourselves by His name?