A Ramble about Being Annoying

Have you ever felt like you annoyed people? More to the point, have you ever kept your distance from people to make sure that you didn't annoy them? Most people can pretty much tell when they've outstayed their welcome, and know instinctively when to back off. It's actually quite the gift, in my opinion, to be able to read people in this way, and it's something which the majority of people in this world unjustifiably take for granted.

Having spent the majority of my life living with Asperger's, I've also spent most of my life not being able to instinctively know when my presence is not wanted. After my treatments, it is a gift that I now never take for granted. But throughout most of my life, I just came to assume that my presence wasn't welcome unless it was directly stated, and even then I felt like I could never be certain, and so even when people would encourage me in this way, because I could not read them, after a little while I would try to politely keep my distance in some way.

This morning, as I drifted on the edge between conscious and unconscious thought, I realized I was doing this same thing with God. I had been so conditioned throughout my life to keep my distance and to not be an unintentional nuisance to people that I have been unconsciously doing the same thing with God. Somewhere on the edge of my conscious thought, the enemy has been whispering something like, “don't get too close. You don't want to annoy Him until He tells you to leave.”

The lie to this is that He won't ever tell me to leave if I continuously call on Him, and bug Him, and talk to Him, and so on. It would run completely contrary to His “treatment plan” for not only myself, but everyone. In order for us to achieve union with Him, we must draw closer to Him and stay close to Him, not politely keep our distance. He knows this, and He wants this for everyone, including me. The explicit command of Jesus Christ was “Remain in Me” and He went on to spell out what happened if a person didn't, and what was possible if a person did. I know all these things, but no one gets over decades of conditioning overnight.

Part of my hesitancy to draw closer to Him is also simple, or not so simple fear of relationship because of my Asperger's past. It's nowhere near as apparent or as strong as it was, but I realized today that it is still there. It is a fear of not knowing what to do or how to act. It is a fear of not understanding how to just be around and enjoy someone else's presence. Relationships are awkward and uncomfortable at best, even if they're what you might want most in the world.

As I look back, it has been almost five years now since my treatments. I had thought I was past all of these things, but the truth is that they are still deeply embedded and ingrained into my psyche even if there are no “physical” reasons for them. They're there because they are the ways I was conditioned to think by my disorder and how the people around me reacted to my disorder, and even if they no longer affect my relationships with other people as much, they do still affect my relationship with God more than I realized.

This isn't something which can be fixed overnight, but must be changed through reconditioning, and this takes time. God knows this, and I know He isn't impatient with my apparent lack of progress. As long as I continue to try and make progress He continues to encourage and push me farther. As long as I continue to move towards Him and not away from Him, He's good with it. He knows me. He created me and has intimate knowledge of every particle, pathway, impulse, and dimension of my existence.

But there is always the voice. Not the still, small voice, but either the unconscious whisper or the alarm bell yelling in my mind that continues to tell me lies that I have been conditioned to drift towards my whole life. I consciously or unconsciously expect a certain reality and the demon reinforces it with its lies. As a result, I begin to warp my own reality by my assent to the belief which the demon is reinforcing with its lie. The Fathers of the Philokalia described this as well. Demons will tell you what you want to hear or what you're afraid to hear and you believe it thus making it the reality you experience regardless of actual reality.

I am reminded, in some ways, of the ways in which the “Mist” is described in the recent Rick Riordan book, “The House of Hades.” The easiest and most effective way, this book reveals, to manipulate the Mist (the unseen field which warps the reality of ordinary mortals, demigods, and sometimes immortals so that they don't see the reality of the supernatural world around them), is to try and make someone believe that what they expect to happen, what they want to happen, or what they are afraid will happen is happening.

Fighting this constant manipulation by the unseen, unbalanced, and malevolent powers is long, tiresome, and never ending work. It requires knowing yourself and not being afraid to really examine what you are actually believing, what your actual desires are, and not being afraid to delve into the dark, sometimes very dark parts of who you are because these are the parts of yourself that contain the things you don't want to think about and don't want to believe about yourself and so you ignore them. Don't delude yourself into thinking that the enemy ignores them too. These are the places demons read like best selling novels, and then repeats back to you as “facts”. This is why those same Fathers of the desert were adamant in their admonitions to guard your heart and mind, and to never let down that guard.

Even knowing this, it's ridiculously easy to do. Distractions from prayer and spiritual devotions, mental and emotional exhaustion, and so on all tend to wear you down until you let down your guard and the enemy takes full advantage with little lies, or big ones dressed up as your fondest wishes or worst nightmares. Giving your assent to them warps your reality further until you can no longer sense His presence because you no longer believe He wants anything to do with you and belief (which produces action) is everything in this very high stakes game. Thus the reason why Jesus gave the command “Remain in Me,” and the reason why demons focus all of their attacks on keeping you from doing it.

Always remember what the Apostle John wrote in his first letter. If we make confession, He will forgive. If we turn our movement away from Him around into movement towards Him He will rejoice and run towards us. Be watchful. Be mindful. Stay alert. These are the things the demons don't want you doing.

A Ramble About "I Can't"

Exhausted. That's what I feel right now. That's what we all feel right now. It's been raining on and off for days now, and we've been pretty well confined to the inside of the RV, only running outside when we have to feed the outdoor dogs or check on them. This exhaustion runs deep. It runs down to the very core of my strength, mind, emotions, and spirit.

All of the impossible challenges which have been thrown at us have taken their toll, and my fear reaction is also exhausted to the point where new difficulties and dangers are looked within with a sad calmness because I know deep within myself there's nothing I can do about them.

I am at the point now where “I can't” is becoming ingrained deeply into my psyche. All of my bravado is spent and gone, and any real courage I had before is itself also completely spent. I now understand what Watchman Nee described in The Normal Christian Life with his illustration of the drowning man and the strong swimmer on the shore waiting until he is exhausted from his struggling to save himself before he dives in and pulls him to safety. This is where I'm at right now.

I've known for years, decades, from reading different spiritual and mystic authors that the key to living a “Normal Christian Life” was total surrender and giving up. That is, recognizing that your own strength is totally inadequate and giving up the use of it. But it is one thing to read about it and attempt to put it into practice on your own (which is oxymoronic in and of itself), and quite another for the Lord to drive you there, as He must. I have now learned that you cannot reach this point of exhaustion of your own volition to where you give up on your own. God has to drive you to it. He has to create the conditions of your “drowning” so that you wear yourself out and finally give up. You can't do even this.You can't even come to full surrender on your own no matter how much you think you can or have. All you can do is tell God you're willing, ask Him to do it, and then brace yourself. Don't say I didn't warn you.

I know I've reached the point where I know I can do nothing, absolutely nothing. It's actually kind of funny to see these words as I write them and know that they're true and not just some kind of spiritual hubris. I also know that I can't even keep up in prayer for all the things which need to be done which I can't do. Most days, the prayer which forms in my mind most often is “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” or just, “God have mercy.”

There's a certain resentment that builds with this exhaustion. There's a certain bitterness which creeps in. But I know that this bitterness is a fruit of the false prosperity teaching which had infiltrated the beliefs and practices of the Christianity of my youth. It was never so explicit as such, but there was still the idea that if you had chosen to serve the Lord that somehow you would be well taken care of and lead a somewhat middle-class life with good employment. I know better than that now. I've known better than that for a while. But it has also allowed me to identify this lingering lie which lay buried in the back of my mind. Somehow I had expected things to resolve into “better” circumstances than these. But this is not what Jesus taught, nor told us to expect.

It is a fascinating feeling, this calmness of exhaustion. There is an odd sort of peace about it, like accepting and waiting for death. Which, I know, is the whole point of God driving me to it. Acknowledging and accepting my death with Him. I can do so of my own volition a thousand times over, but it doesn't really happen until I am driven to it.

As a final thought on this subject, this is where we all must be driven if we are to be disciples of Jesus Christ. We must all individually be driven to this exhaustion where we accept our death calmly. It is then, and only then, that we stop fighting for our own selves and with our own selves.It is only then that pride and self-esteem cease; when avarice loses its hold on us; and when our facing Him in judgment never leaves our mind's eye.

This exhaustion is a necessary step in the path of Jesus Christ, but it is one which will leave you permanently scarred, and and a step from which you can never recover.

Another Rant

Today, if you will forgive me, I'm going to just rant in a rambling way. This is just some things which I've already talked about before blurted out in no particular coherent way. I will eventually return to coherent, meaningful rambling.

How do you start a church without setting it up in opposition to other churches around it (sheep stealing), without turning it into just another denomination (which no one needs), or without coming under the authority of an existing denomination (which automatically presumes the first problem)? Not too long ago I posted a kind of statement of faith for the pre-Nicene Church gleaned from the writings of the Ante-Nicene Fathers. This was the Church which was the immediate successor to the Apostolic Church and the one which all other Churches and denominations were ultimately born from. If we were to start a church governed by this same statement of faith as this original church, we would likely be be accused of heresy and of starting a cult (something of which one person has already accused me in a separate matter in private) regardless of its original and ancient legitimacy.

The more my wife and I wrestle with these questions, the more my head begins to hurt. How do you make disciples of Jesus Christ, not just pew warmers and lip-servers, but real disciples of Jesus Christ without running into all of this nonsense? How do you teach the primitive faith and discipline of the Church without someone calling you a heretic because it's not “Scriptural” (which definition varies from church to church anyway). And of course, you can't explain to them that this concept of Scripture Only comes from a teaching which is less than five hundred years old and was unknown to the ancient, pre-Nicene Church. They don't want to hear that, and will refuse to listen (many also don't want to hear that the Scriptures were not written in Elizabethan English, but I digress). They certainly don't want to hear that the Bible of the first century and most of the second was the Greek translation of the Old Testament which included all the “Catholic” books not found in their modern Bibles, and the collected writings of Paul and what copies of the gospels they happened to be able to obtain. Many included extra writings in their canon such as the Shepherd of Hermas and the Epistle of Barnabas. “Scripture Only” under these conditions was neither practical nor possible. I digress further as I rant.

The truth is that we want to practice what Jesus taught, and to teach others to do the same. To be disciples ourselves first, and to disciple others. This is really what He told us, all of us, to do. The more I observe of the Church in the United States, regardless of the denomination, the more I'm coming to believe that it is actually set up in such a way as to try to make this as difficult as possible, if not outright impossible, without causing conflict and damage to people's faith.

Many (if not most) pastors and churches are predominantly concerned with advancing on of three things: their own personal position and power, the amount of money coming into their church, or the position and power of their denomination. Any attempt to bring people together for discipleship automatically draws the suspicion and ire of the existing churches and pastors who believe the person doing so only does so with these motives in mind, and in order to undercut their own positions. The truth is that preachers and pastors can be more ruthless in their pursuit of grandeur than some of the Roman emperors my kids are learning about for their history lessons. It's sick, and it causes all kinds of damage to those who come to them in faith wanting to be discipled and find a real church community. Many leave the churches because of it, disillusioned and more broken than when they came.

Further, starting a single church in a single area doesn't really solve the problem (and in many ways it just contributes to it). The problem itself, among other things, is the sectarianism and denominationalism which divides the Church up into little kingdoms, democracies, or despotisms. It's not about following Jesus Christ as much as it seems to be control and the enforcement of one set of (mostly minor) doctrinal beliefs over another.

Christianity is, must be, more than this. The first priority of a disciple of Jesus Christ is, and must be, following the rule of life which He taught. The truth is that this obedience is the highest form of worship and the only form of worship which really matters in the long view. In many places in the Scriptures, this is what God Himself says, and Jesus says again, “I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings.” In the writings of the Prophets, God says again and again that He can't stand it when people come to Him singing songs and offering sacrifices when they refuse to obey and live the way He told them to. He can't stand it. He can't stand the sight or the smell of it. He actually tells them to stop offering the burnt offerings and sacrifices because of it. Wealthy people flaunting their wealth and oppressing the poor who come to “worship” absolutely revolt and disgust Him (not a good position to be in, by the way). He allows nations to collapse and be destroyed because of it.

What is truly the point of participating in the Sacraments if you yourself are not a disciple, baptized or not? Can your faith save you if you refuse to obey and don't take Jesus Christ seriously? Is it really faith at all or just an act? Can your profession of faith hold any salvific value if you treat His teaching cavalierly? Do you really believe that telling everyone that you're saved means anything if you don't do what He said? In what way have you achieved salvation through Jesus Christ if you flaunt your disobedience and deny Him through your actions?

Christianity is not about going to church on Sundays (or Saturdays, depending on your persuasion or schedule). It has nothing to do with it. It has little to do with sitting and listening to a preacher for an hour (or half an hour if you're lucky). It has absolutely nothing to do with arguing someone else into taking or position on a minor theological point. Christianity is, first and foremost, the worship of God through the obedience of faith to Jesus Christ. It is binding yourself as a committed disciple of the practices taught and demonstrated by Jesus Christ. Those who refuse to do this are not disciples. Those who refuse to love are not disciples. Those who refuse to forgive are not disciples. Those who refuse to renounce everything and follow Him are not disciples. In short, those who do not live like disciples of Jesus Christ, are not disciples of Jesus Christ and are therefore not Christians at all.

So, back to my original question. I suppose my real question is “How do we correct this mess?” It is a question which has lain on my heart for a long time in one form or another. I have learned the hard way that no one denomination or church can or will contribute to it without excluding all others and making the problem worse. Another church or denomination can't be started without becoming part of the problem no matter how well intentioned.

As I think about it, perhaps the real problem is that Christians have stopped taking responsibility for their own progress in salvation. They've stopped taking responsibility for their own discipleship and instead have put their faith, not in Jesus Christ and what He taught, but in these pastors, church leaders, denominations, and so on.

Well, I think I'm done ranting for the moment. It's not much that I haven't said before in some way. Unfortunately, I don't think it leads me to a solution any more than I was at when I started. I do know this, however. If we continue down this path, we will, as a Church, grow farther and farther away from our Lord until He no longer knows who we are. The answers to these questions lie in individual responsibility and the willingness to obey Him. Otherwise, it really doesn't matter which church you attend, because it will be self-deceptive and pointless.

A Ramble about the Contract

A contract is basically an agreement, written or verbal, between two parties. The word “covenant” is another word for contract, and the word “testament” as applied to the Scriptures is another word for “covenant”, which is another word for contract. So when we talk about the two Testaments of Scripture, Old and New, we're talking about the two Contracts of Scripture, Old and New.

The Old Contract is the one which God made with the nation of Israel through Moses on Mount Sinai. It was laid out formally in the form of what was known at the time as a “suzerainty treaty”, an agreement between a ruler and those ruled. In this case the ruler was God Himself, and those ruled were the descendants of Israel. This contract, like every contract, had terms and stipulations. It had expectations laid on both parties. They went something like this, “if the descendants of Israel obey all the laws, rules, and terms laid down in this contract, then God agrees to bless them with abundant food, wealth, prosperity, and peace in their own land in perpetuity. If they choose not to obey the terms, laws, and rules of this contract, then God would curse them with poverty, war, famine, and ultimately enslavement into a foreign land.” The rest of the books of the Old Contract detail the history of the nation of Israel after the contract was agreed to, and the execution of the terms of the contract as the descendants of Israel chose to either follow it, or to disregard it. If they were faithful to their end of the bargain, then God was faith to His end of it. When they chose to disregard it, He was still faithful to the all the terms of the contract and ultimately they ended up enslaved to various foreign nations at various times in history. As St.Paul writes, “when we are faithless, He remains faithful, He cannot deny Himself.”

The New Testament is also called the New Covenant. In other words, it is a New Contract, separate from the Old Contract made through Moses. The author of the letter to the Hebrews is very clear about the relationship of the New Contract to the Old Contract. He writes,

“In speaking of a new covenant, he makes the first one obsolete. And what is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to vanish away.” (Hebrews 8:13, ESV)

In other words, the New Contract supercedes and replaces the Old. The Old Contract is no longer valid or in force in favor of the New Contract. To try and live according to the terms of the Old Contract is pointless because those terms are no longer in effect, and to expect God to keep His end of the terms of the Old Contract with you when He has already put into force a New Contract is complete delusion on your part and a refusal to accept the reality of what He has already said. To expect material blessing from following the terms of the Old Contract, which God agreed to under the Old Contract, is completely pointless in the same way that expecting starvation, poverty, and enslavement from disregarding the terms of the Old Contract is pointless. It simply is no longer in force.

The New Contract is, above all, a Contract. It is an agreement made between God and those people who agree to it. Like the Old Contract which was sealed by the offering of a blood sacrifice, the New Contract was sealed by the offering of the blood sacrifice of Jesus Christ. All those who partake of that one sacrifice through partaking of His Body and Blood in the Holy Eucharist are agreeing to that Contract just as those who partook of the sacrifices and were sprinkled with the blood of the sacrifices on Mount Sinai were agreeing to the Old Contract.

So, now that we have this clarified, what are the terms of the New Contract that we who have been baptized and partaken of His Body and Blood have agreed to? All Contracts have terms and stipulations and this one is no different. More often than not, most pastors will define the only terms of the New Contract from Jeremiah 31:31-34 (ESV):

“Behold, the days are coming, declares the LORD, when I will make new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant that I made with their fathers on the day when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant that they broke, though I was their husband, declares the LORD. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, declares the LORD: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts. And I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And no longer shall each one teach his neighbor and each his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, declares the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.”

But this is not the terms of the New Contract, this is a prophecy of the New Contract. The New Contract was not put into force or even fully explained with the prophet Jeremiah around 600 B.C. It was only put into force and explained through Jesus Christ between 30 and 33 A.D.

Our Lord Jesus Christ actually laid down the terms of the New Contract very clearly. He said that those who believed in Him would not be destroyed but would have Eternal Life. He also said that those who followed Him would be persecuted horribly, be beaten, ridiculed, and executed in the same vein that He Himself was. He also said to remain in Him and He in us. He said that anyone who didn't remain in Him would dry up and be burned. He said that those who remain in Him would be able to ask anything in His name and it would be done for them. He said that those who denied Him in front of human beings would be denied by Him in front of the Father. He said that those who did not forgive would not be forgiven. He said to love your enemies. He said to love one another as He loved us. He said in order to be a disciple of His a person had to renounce family, possessions, and even his own psyche and live as though dead to everything but Him. He gave more terms and conditions, but they run along the same lines.

In general, the terms of the contract read that if we do these things (Principally believing in Him, with the assumption made that such a belief will result in doing the rest of what He said, otherwise how could it be said that one believes in Him?) then we will inherit Eternal Life/the Kingdom of Heaven. If we do not do these things, then we will not inherit Eternal Life/the Kingdom of Heaven and will spend eternity burning in Gehenna. These are the things which Jesus Himself said. The rest of the books of the New Contract outside of the Gospels add no new terms to it, but rather are explanatory of the terms which Jesus already laid down prior to His death which sealed the Contract and put it into force. There is mercy and leniency for those who violate the terms of the Contract but turn around and repent of their violations. There is none for those who violate it and do not repent. Again, Jesus Himself is clear on this.

One thing He did not say was that if we believed in Him and followed Him we would receive the material blessings (health, wealth, and prosperity) promised to the descendants of Israel in the Old Contract. Material blessings are not really stipulated in the New Contract while the promise and practice of renunciation and poverty is overtly stated and encouraged. There are those pastors and preachers today who confuse the terms of the Old Contract with the terms of the New, believing that obedience to the terms of the New will reap the benefits of the terms of the Old. They are confused and mistaken. Jesus promised no such thing. According to Jesus, those who are materially wealthy are at a disadvantage and are more likely to end up in torment, not less, because of their wealth. Poverty is the preferred financial state according to our Lord.

There are many Christians who agree to the terms of the New Contract without actually being told what those terms are. This is much like signing your name to a contract without reading all of the fine print. The problem with it is that once the terms kick in, you can be caught off your guard and complain “I didn't sign up for this!” when in fact you did without paying attention. There are many contracts which I have had to sign in my life where it didn't matter, it seemed, if I read the fine print or not because in order to move forward in life I had to put my name on the dotted line. When it comes to the choice between Eternal Life and Gehenna, I can see someone approaching it with this frame of mind, but then they are often caught off guard.

People are often given the narrative that if they believe in Jesus Christ then their lives will suddenly get back on track and they will be blessed materially and spiritually. This is not the Contract Jesus laid out for us. If you find your experience of agreeing to the New Contract not living up to your expectations or what you were told to expect, then it's time to reread the terms of the Contract carefully. Understand what you agreed to. You agreed to give up everything you hold dear to you in order to become like Jesus Himself to gain Eternal Life. You agreed to poverty, humiliation, persecution, and self-renunciation. If you didn't, or you don't think you did, then you didn't agree to the Contract Jesus signed with His own blood.

The next time you get angry with God because your life is being turned upside down and backwards and you find yourself struggling, go back and read the Contract. Struggle, pain, temptation, and humiliation are all there spelled out pretty clearly.

A Ramble about The Hunger Games

I recently re-read the Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins. Even though it is written for teenagers, I am still of the opinion that it's not really fit reading for kids. The scenes of brutality, brutal murder, and the realistic descriptions of severe trauma and post-traumatic stress syndrome, I believe, are really more than kids should have to handle. But that is just my opinion. Aside from this, it is a thought provoking series of books that I would recommend to adults who can handle such graphic scenes.

The Hunger Games trilogy takes place in a dystopian future where all that is left of civilization in North America is a country called Panem (the inhabitants not knowing anything about the rest of the world or that there are or were other land masses), which is separated into thirteen “districts” plus a central capitol district. In order to punish those districts for a failed rebellion against Capitol rule, once a year two “tributes” are selected by lottery from each district in order to compete in a brutal, survivor like reality show called “The Hunger Games.” Each tribute is expected to assassinate the others until there is only one left standing, who is crowned the winner. The truly horrific part of it is that all the tributes are children between the ages of twelve and eighteen.

The story of the trilogy centers around a girl named Katniss Everdeen from district twelve who volunteers to be a tribute in order to spare her sister's life. Already a capable hunter who poaches game to feed her family, she is then dragged into the surreal world of the capitol for a week or two before she is made to fight for her life, and also the life of her fellow tribute from twelve, Peeta. Throughout the books, she has to constantly deal with, not only the arena combat and the horrors within from other tributes and the game masters who throw new and fiendish ways of torture and death at them, but also the nightmares and PTSD which results. In all, throughout the books, she face the arenas three times, twice as a tribute, and once while fighting her way through the streets of the Capitol in another rebellion against the government. She is brutalized, and becomes brutal herself. At times, towards the end she buries herself in morphine addiction. Often she just tries to run and hide, and she can never seem to feel safe, even at the very end when it is all over and she has begun to rebuild her life with Peeta.

In the books, there were many other “tributes” who had “won” the Hunger Games from years previous, and also suffered through both the emotional scars of the arena, and the ongoing torment from Panem's dictator who coerced them to do what he wanted through threats to their loved ones. One prominent character, Katniss's mentor, tried escaping the torment through moonshine after the Capitol murdered his family. Another, a tribute from a seaside district, was forced to prostitute himself for the dictator who held the life of his only love over his head. The only former tribute who seemed even remotely free was one who had no one left and had detached herself from everything and everyone.

After I finished reading them, I picked up my copy of volume one of The Philokalia (Faber and Faber, 1979) and began to read from St. Isaiah the Solitary, who was a monk at Sketis in Egypt in the late fourth century. Among other authors, he also describes the spiritual life of the practicing Christian as a constant battle against demons, and gives practical advice on dealing with it. He writes:

“If you find yourself hating your fellow men and resist this hatred, and you see that it grows weak and withdraws, do not rejoice in your heart; for this withdrawal is a trick of the evil spirits. They are preparing a second attack worse than the first; they have left their troops behind the city and ordered them to remain there. If you go out to attack them, they will flee before you in weakness. But if your heart is then elated because you have driven them away, and you leave the city, some of them will attack you from the rear while the rest will stand their ground in front of you; and your wretched soul will be caught between them with no means of escape. The city is prayer. Resistance is rebuttal through Christ Jesus. The foundation is incensive power.” (p. 22)

He also writes:

“I entreat you not to leave your heart unguarded, so long as you are in the body. Just as a farmer cannot feel confident about the crop growing in his fields, because he does not know what will happen to it before it is stored away in his granary, so a man should not leave his heart unguarded so long as he still has breath in his nostrils. Up to his last breath he cannot know what passion will attack him; so long as he breathes, therefore, he must not leave his heart unguarded, but should at every moment pray to God for His help and mercy.” (p. 25)

As I was reading from the Saint, I realized that life in this body for the practicing Christian is akin to the Hunger Games. Those living in Panem, whether they realize it or not are slaves of the dictator. Some are willingly complicit and even profit from it. Most don't want to be, but suffer under it and obey for fear of losing what little they do have. The only way out is through death. From the time Katniss volunteered to be a tribute, she went into it believing that she wouldn't make it back out. Her main attachment to that world was her little sister, and the reason she volunteered to begin with. Because of her attachment to her sister, she never ceased to come under attack from some direction as people used her and abused her for their own agendas and selfish ends. She could never let her guard down, or could ever feel safe about letting her guard down.

Our spiritual enemies are even more insidious than the ones she faced, and they do not stop. Ever. Not while we're in the body. If they do retreat, it is often just to get us to drop our guard long enough for them to attack in force and wedge their way in. The practice of His Truth requires constant vigilance, and the truth is that, even if we are successful in most of them, the assaults can leave a person dazed, confused, and off balance. They can cause depression as well. Our enemies want us as far from Jesus Christ as possible. They want us acting according to our passions and desires, and not according to Christ at all. They are immortal, and don't get tired or take breaks. The only thing which restrains them from a completely devastating assault is the hand of God, who only permits them to attack enough to keep us from dropping our guard and to harden us in this kind of warfare.

Like Katniss, when we really begin to renounce our selves, pick up our cross, and follow Jesus Christ, we then enter a brutal arena where it almost seems like everything is trying to scare us or destroy us in one way or the other. Staying alive in this case means staying focused on Christ, and remaining in Him, and in our renunciation of our selves, desires, possessions, and everything else which has to do with us. And the longer we go, the more of a target we become, and the more we must practice to remain in Him. As long as any part of us holds on to those things which we have renounced we are plunged back into the arena and are made to struggle.

St. Isaiah also says:

“So long as the contest continues, a man is full of fear and trembling, wondering whether he will win today or be defeated, whether he will win tomorrow or be defeated: the struggle and stress constrict his heart. But when he has attained dispassion, the contest comes to an end; … Do not think then, then, that you have died to sin so long as you suffer violence, whether waking or sleeping, at the hands of your opponents. For while a man is still competing in the arena, he cannot be sure of victory.” (p. 26)

Katniss was eventually freed from the Hunger Games, but she still had to deal with the emotional and psychological scars for the rest of her life. It was only after the murder of her sister, when she had finally lost what she cared about most, that she was able to begin rebuilding her life, and do what needed to be done, though not without tremendous pain.

Our Hunger Games as practicing Christians don't ever end. And if it feels like they have, and you've been left alone, be on your guard because the enemy has just maneuvered themselves to bring you down from both sides. When you feel the most safe and secure is when you're in the most trouble. Ultimately, the only characters ever truly freed from the Games were those who died, or those who had nothing left to lose. This is what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ and to attain freedom in Him, when we are dead to everything else.

A Ramble about Being a Reverend

Within the last several years, the couple that owns and runs the Trinity Broadcasting Network ran afoul of the IRS. As it turned out, in order to avoid paying the taxes on their wealth that they were supposed to, among their other infractions they ordained every employee of their “ministry” as clergy. In other words, everyone from the janitor to the cameraman to the cooks could claim the title of “Reverend.” Within the US, and as far as the US was concerned, they all had the legal right to marry, bury, baptize, preach and all the other functions which clergy serve regardless of their education, training, discipleship, or spiritual maturity.

When I left the bishop with whom I served in California, I went to work for a local Walmart. While I was there, I met a couple and we became friends. As they were planning on getting married, I then began to take them through some discipleship and pre-marital counseling. By that point, under the aforementioned bishop I had already been trained for weddings, and had done a decent number of them. At the time, we had planned on me doing the wedding, but having left my bishop, and thus the organization which ordained me, I wasn't legally able to do it. Lo, and behold, I found that there were a number of organizations out there over the internet willing to oblige me and license me as a minister under their organization enabling me to legally perform a wedding. Oddly enough, when I received my certificate, there was that title again, “Reverend,” though technically all I did was agree to their particularly loose statement of faith. No education check. No interview to determine if I was even qualified. Nothing. And so I received the piece of paper allowing me, or anyone else who signed up, to legally join two people for the rest of their lives.

The term “Reverend” originated somewhere in the middle ages, and originally referred to the long tunics or cassocks worn by the clergy of the Catholic Church. When was took the habit of the clergy one became “reverend.” In modern usage, it means a person who is respected or honored for their devotion to their religious profession. As a result, it came to be a priest's or minister's title in the same way that “Doctor” is the title of a medical physician, even though “doctor” actually refers to someone who has spent eight years in school mastering their chosen specialty to the highest level regardless of the nature of that specialty. Thus the reason why medical doctors are chagrined these days because of nurses now able to earn their doctorate, and the title “doctor”, in nursing without being medical doctors.

In the Roman Catholic Church, traditionally, candidates for the priesthood would have to spend eight to ten years in Seminary for their formation and training, studying and dedicating themselves to fulfilling the work of Christ in the role of a priest. In mainline Protestant denominations, typically ministers must achieve at least a Master's degree in theology or divinity for their denomination to ordain them. Part of these studies are purely academic. Part of them, ideally, are meant to foster their own personal discipleship and devotion to Christ in practical ways. Part of them again are the various trainings for the Sacraments (or ordinances, as the case may be) and all the preparation and choreography which goes with them. But they are all meant to prepare the person, as much as possible, to be a guide and a shepherd for those seeking Christ, and those seeking to be disciples of Christ.

For myself, I spent two years in one Bible School, two years in a second, twelve months in vocational training for secular work, more than a dozen Master's level correspondence courses, one on one altar training with the aforementioned bishop in California, as well as my own studies in theology, history, and the Scriptures which have encompassed the last twenty years. Whether this is enough for that bishop to have placed his hands on me to ordain me, or for me to hold the title of “Reverend” is perhaps a matter of opinion. I am sure there are many who disagreed.

There are also those for whom God has given those specific gifts and wisdom where the title “Reverend”, though not earned in a school or through the dispensation of an organization or denomination, is entirely appropriate. From my own experience, there aren't nearly as many of these folks as many would like one to believe, but there are more than many who are formally ordained would like to admit. These are often the quiet masters and guides who may only disciple one or two people, but the impact they have through those few they disciple is enormous.

The truth is that being a “Reverend” has more to do with one's own personal discipleship and commitment to Jesus Christ than it does with a piece of paper or a ceremony held by a licensing organization. I have met several and have been told of many more supposed “Reverends” who have gone through all the schooling and training only to be totally devoted to their own financial well-being; perhaps like the owners of TBN. History is filled with them. While the current bishop of Rome has all the earmarks of a true “Reverend”, and I would not balk at the traditional address of “your holiness” with him, there have been many, many who were more interested in their own stomachs, bank accounts, and sex lives. Far from being “Reverends”, they were not even practicing Christians.

Owning the title of “Reverend” carries with it the responsibility to not only know what it is you believe and being able to disciple others, but it also carries with it the responsibility to practice and be an example of your faith in Jesus Christ. You yourself are to be a disciple just as much as you are to pass on the discipline which you profess. Without this, you may be able to legally perform weddings and funerals, but you have no right to the title.

A Ramble about Asceticism

Several weeks ago, we visited and were welcomed by a Pentecostal church in Missouri for a few days. Given the number of churches I have been exposed to over the course of my journey, you'd think that it would be nothing new. I was expecting something similar to charismatic churches that I had visited or attended in California where I grew up. Instead it was something still new again altogether. To me, it was a paradox of charismatic practice and conservativism in dress and relationships.

When we talked with the pastor about other things, I remember he told us about other Pentecostal churches in the area, and even within his own association that went even further in their conservative dress and relationships. He called them “holiness” churches, and now that I think about it, I remember hearing something about it when I was in Bible School in Wisconsin. Being from California, I think it must be a southern States thing, because Californians, and folks from the west coast in general, just aren't as uptight about these kinds of things as people in the South seem to be.

The holiness churches forbid their women from cutting their hair, forbid them from wearing pants instead of skirts, maintain a clear separation between the sexes in terms of who ministers or prays for whom, and has a whole host of rules that both men and women must follow. What really kind of caught my attention is that they believe that if you don't follow these rules of conduct, you can't be saved.

I can think of a hundred and one things wrong with that statement, not the least of which is that salvation is a continuous relationship with God through Jesus Christ. But the thing I want to address here is that it is a complete and total misunderstanding of asceticism (among other things) and its appropriate place.

Asceticism is, put simply, the rules and hardships you place yourself under in order to assist with your practice of discipleship. In particular, it is meant to help maintain and cultivate the total renunciation which is part and parcel of being a disciple of Jesus Christ:

“If someone comes to me and doesn't hate his own father and mother and woman and children and brothers and sisters still even also his own psyche, he is not capable of being my disciple. The one who doesn't carry his own cross and come behind me isn't capable of being my disciple. … So then every person of you who doesn't renounce all the things of his own existence is not capable of being my disciple.” (Luke 14:26-27, 33; translation mine)

For example, it is easier to deal with the renunciation of one's possessions if you keep no possessions. Thus the reason for Jesus saying that it was easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a sewing needle than for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. It is easier to deal with the renunciation of having more affection for spouse or children than for Christ if you have no spouse or children. Thus Paul's recommendation to the Corinthians that those who were unmarried should remain so. It is easier to renounce the pleasures of the body if you continuously afflict the body with punishments such as only getting four hours of sleep a night, continuous regular fasting, and so on. Thus the roots of classical monastic practices. Even the black clerical clothes which priests wear was meant to be a kind of asceticism because it was meant to remind the priest that he was to die to himself daily. Asceticism is meant to be a useful tool for these ends. But it is only a tool, and it is certainly not a requirement.

Even the Fathers of the Philokalia, as much as they encourage and explain the use and practice of asceticism make it clear that it is not a necessity for salvation, and asceticism practiced for its own sake is worthless. They also explain that it can itself be a snare or a trap because it can and often does lead to dangerous self-esteem and pride, when the practice of discipleship is to renounce one's self. This is the reason for the self-deprecating meditations which seem so extreme and self-judgmental. They wanted to ground themselves as far into humility as they could by reminding themselves of their own deaths, their own sinfulness, and the impending judgment by Christ at the resurrection. They didn't want to take a chance on allowing pride to take root and flourish. It was that dangerous to their own practice of discipleship. Asceticism was a tool to subjugate the body and mind, but for these Fathers, prayer and contemplation of Christ was far more valuable and necessary in drawing closer to Him and engaging in the process of salvation.

While asceticism may assist in this total renunciation which Jesus taught, it is not required. And it may not even be indicative that the person has in fact renounced all things to follow Christ. This kind of a renunciation is in the heart. It's when all of the things of your own existence no longer have any effect on you. It's when you are neither attached to or averse to anything; possessions, people, ideas, your own reputation, or your own psyche regardless of what you are surrounded by. Many monastics of various religions have written that one can be a monk in one's heart even though surrounded by riches, and one can be a worldling in one's heart even when fasting and wearing a monk's habit. While asceticism may make it somewhat easier, it is certainly not the defining characteristic.

The truth is that such churches which teach that some kind of outward bodily discipline is necessary for salvation totally misunderstand the teaching of Christ and the entire purpose for outward bodily discipline.