Your Kingdom Come On Earth, As It Is In Heaven

Watched an episode of the show "House" last night. The title character is a real horses-rear end of a doctor, one of those guys who never lets you be right even when you are right.

In the episode, he discussed a near-death experience he had. While he was dead for more than a minute on the surgery table, he saw visions. He chose to interpret those visions, or for what is for others white light or a blue tunnell, as chemical reactions happening in the brain. He said that he saw this as the most hopeful interpretation.

A student asked him, "It's hopeful to believe that there is nothing beyond death?"

He replied, "I find it hopeful to believe that this life is not just a test."

And here I think was a well spoken critique on modern American Christianity. Dr. House has got it right. The God who would turn life on earth into a test for an eternally perfect existence leaves me shuddering. Pass and the reward shall be great. Fail and you will pay forever.

Truthfully, I'm not sure where I stand on the subject of white lights and visions and blue tunnells after death, and personally, I'm not sure a decision one way or another would affect my life much. And I'm not altogether sure what I specifically believe about hell.

But I do know this. The way of Jesus as I see it does not lead to some seperate heavenly experience. It leads to a recovered Eden here on earth. Eden where things were "good" to quote the Big Guy. And to step into this way of Jesus is not to be given a "get out of hell free" card. It is to sign up for God's great restoration project, being mercy, speaking for justice, being a source of compassion and generosity and love. In other words, God wants to make His good desires tangible on the little bit of earth that is my realm of influence - through me.

Is there a "good" existence out there for us after we die? I believe so. But the point is that heaven is not the point. It's not about eternal life; it's about life. It's about becoming a person of goodness now, not so that I can experience some eternal bliss, but because it's just good. And maybe someday, when this life runs it's course, this life of goodness can continue on in it's next reality - what I believe is "the reality".

So, some glad morning when this life is o'er I hope to fly away, but in the meantime, I'll keep on trying to cultivate love into the back forty of my life and praying the prayer and doing my best to live the prayer.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Violence as a way of achieving justice is both impractical and immoral. It is impractical because it is a descending spiral ending in destruction for all. The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everybody blind. It is immoral because it seeks to humiliate the opponent rather than win his understanding; it seeks to annihilate rather than to convert. Violence is immoral because it thrives on hatred rather than love. It destroys community and makes brotherhood impossible. It leaves society in monologue rather than dialogue. Violence ends by defeating itself. It creates bitterness in the survivors and brutality in the destroyers.

How about we let this guy speak for Christians in America today instead of Pat Robertson.

Somebody Hire Me, Please

Now that I have not been a paid, professional Christian for about a month, I've had time to think a little about the church and it's money.

I wonder if the church's goal isn't to collect money to put in to itself, paying for the large comfortable building, all manner of programs to keep the happy church people happy, and pastors to run them.

The only church program that Jesus endorses is death. "If you want to follow me, deny yourself, take up your cross, and follow." Dying to self. Lose yourself. So what if it's the church's job to collect cash in order to give it away. To lose money. Feed the poor, provide for oppressed, improving the lives of their neighbors. The best of possible lives is the one that dies to itself.

And I am still looking for a job... at a church... that will pay me. But I've been thinking about that too. Is it possible to pay someone to make it their job to see to it that the church gives itself away - it' cash, it's time, it's energy? Pay a pastor 40 grand, and he will help you give away 80.

"So, what can you do for us?" My prospective church asks.

"Uh, well, I can help you die."

Pie in the Sky

Long-haired preachers come out every night,
Try to tell you what's wrong and what's right;
But when asked how 'bout something to eat
They will answer with voices so sweet:

You will eat, bye and bye,
In that glorious land above the sky;
Work and pray, live on hay,
You'll get pie in the sky when you die.

Joe Hill

"I was hungry and I starved to death." Jesus

... Help my Unbelief - Pt. 1

For having once had my issues with the I-Pod, in months since the night my comrades gave me one, I have become surprisingly Pod-savvy. I have been tripping the Pod –o-Sphere fantastic.

I have discovered the joy of Podcasts. These are mostly “anti-radio”, radio shows featuring music, art, technology, culture, religion – just about anything really. They are there to download and to listen to whenever you like.

While hunting for something to listen to, I came across this guy named Dave Slusher at http://www.evilgeniuschronicles.org/. He recorded an essay in January called Why I Do Not Believe In God. I downloaded. I listened. I listened again. Every follower of Christ needs to tape their ears open and listen to this guy. It’s not easy stuff. He stomped on my beliefs, tweaked my faith, and gave me a whole new vantage point from which to view Christianity.

Here is one paragraph from him…

“God – omniscient, all-powerful, omnipotent – has hamstrung himself so thoroughly by his own rules that he’s got to launch this crazy plan. ‘O.K. I’m God, but in order to fulfill my own rules, because you know, having made these rules, by God I’ve to stick to them, so there has to be a sacrifice, and if it’s not going to be sheep or goats or cows. What I’m going to have to do is take a little piece of myself and I’ll find a virgin woman and I’ll make her have a baby that is a little piece of myself. She’ll have a little God baby, and I’ll have that little piece of me grow up and then when I get old enough, I’ll have some humans get together and nail the God-baby to a cross. And there you go, at that point we have dotted the i’s and crossed the t’s. And then everything will be fine.’ This is the best that God can do. This plan has always seemed crazy to me. Am I the only person who notices that that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense?”

Smack!

... Help my unbelief - Pt. 2

So, I’ve been chewing on Slusher’s comment, and I have to admit that he has a point. This is one odd story to choose to find yourself in.

But I wonder if it really is so odd. I mean, the heart of the story is really death giving life. Still seems odd, but should it? We are surrounded by this principle.

Watch The Lion King and sing with Elton about “the circle of life”. Death gives life.

Eat at Baja Fresh where they serve only the freshest of foods. What is fresh food? Tomatoes off the vine, apples plucked from the tree, recently slaughter cow. Fresh food is food that has most recently been killed. It is food that is closest to death. And it is the healthiest of food to eat. Food you eat to give you life.

Plant an acorn. Watch the seed die so that the mighty oak can live.

Listen to the tapes of the 9/11 firemen. They gave their lives in order that some others might live. Read Bud Olson’s poem, Kolbe, I posted recently. These people expired (lost life), and we are inspired (given life).

It seems to me this is something that saturates our world, maybe even woven into the deep processes of the world as God made it. Death gives life. Is it so strange to find this at the heart of God’s plan to restore His creation when we willingly accept it as a part of our everyday lives?

And what of the little deaths in my life? The rejection. Pain. Loss. Struggle. Weakness. Is it possible that those little deaths could lead this tired old man to a life far sweeter, richer, more real than ever before?

“Lord, I believe…

The Voice is Mine

I’ve been thinking about how the world works lately. My pursuit of God is taking me there actually. I’m beginning to see my pursuit of Him to be a pursuit of reality, of the way things are truly meant to be. I realize “reality” depends upon a person’s perspective (what is reality to the Alzheimer’s patient is different than what is reality to their nurse), but I do believe that there is a divine intention for life and that there is an “ultimate reality” or a way that things are meant to be, even though I do question anyone’s ability to fully understand it.

It seems to me that was a lot of what Jesus talked about. “You have heard it said… but I’m here to tell you…” We’ve been seeing the world, the universe and all that works and spins within it, upside-down, inside-out, distorted and bent. We’re missing what is real. And Jesus says, “let me tell you… show you what is real, how to live in the universe the way it is meant to be lived in. Follow me and I’ll lead you toward right-side up-ness. I’ll show you reality.” He called it “the Kingdom”, the here-and-now and yet to come reality under the rule of God.

A friend talked with me the other day about his battle with sexual addiction. (I use the word “battle” intentionally. I’ve seen the wounds he carries.) And he thinks of “A Beautiful Mind” and about how John has to decide if a person is real or is a product of his mental illness. My friend sees that as the choice he makes daily. “Am I going to choose what’s real? Is this real?”

And I hear a voice, strange but recognizable, asking me, “Is this real? Are you living according to how the world works? Does your life reflect what is woven into the fabric of the universe?" And now, at least for the moment, my feet are where I think my head should be and the view couldn't be better.

T. S. Elliot on Life and Pain and Journey

We shall not cease from exploration
And the end of all out exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time.
Through the unknown, remembered gate
When the last of earth left to discover
Is that which was the beginning;
At the source of the longest river
The voice of the hidden waterfall
And the children in the apple-tree
Not known, because not looked for
But heard, half heard, in the stillness
Between the two waves of the sea.
Quick now, here, now, always--
A condition of complete simplicity
(Costing not less than everything)
And all shall be well and
All manner of things shall be well
When the tongues of flame are in-folded
Into the crowned knot of fire
And the fire and the rose are one.

Words from my Favorite Irish Saint

Now, for all its failings and its perversions over the last 2,000 years—and as much as every exponent of this faith has attempted to dodge this idea—it is unarguably the central tenet of Christianity: that everybody is equal in God's eyes. So you cannot, as a Christian, walk away from Africa. America will be judged by God if, in its plenty, it crosses the road from 23 million people suffering from HIV, the leprosy of the day.

What's up on trial here is Christianity itself. You cannot walk away from this and call yourself a Christian and sit in power. Distance does not decide who is your brother and who is not. The church is going to have to become the conscience of the free market if it's to have any meaning in this world—and stop being its apologist.

Bono

Another One from Jacks 

the truth of community

all day long
the horrible august sunset them on fire
and maching guns
and attack dogs
and barbed-wire fences wired with elecricity
where teenaged boys threw themselves
to escape
from auschwitz

a prisoner fled the camp
or so the nazis said
and lined 600 men of barrack 14 into rows

the men were forbidden to speak
sit down
or take one step out of line
under penalty of immediate execution

all day long

until camp commandant fritsch arrived
and announced that since
the escaped prisoner had not been found
10 of the men standing there would die

and fritsch began to walk the rows
examing the prisoners
selecting which of them would be
stripped naked
locked in a cellar half-buried in the earth
and kept there
until they starved to death

one of the condemned men
a young polish soldier
francis gajownicekf
ell to his knees and cried out
that he had a wife
and small children
and wanted to live

fritsch ordered the man to the starvation cell

but then
something extraordinary occured
something unheard of in auschwitz
a man stepped forward out of the rows
and began to speak

fritsch commanded the man to get back into line
"have you gone mad?" fritsch shouted at him

but the prisoner calmly replied
that he wished to take f
rancis gajownicek's place

the man explained that since he himself
was old and ill
the nazis could get more work
from a younger man

and assistant camp commandant fritsch
according to witnesses
fell silent
and appeared stunned

the august sun burned the air
and auschwitz fell silent

fritsch pondered
thenastonishingly
rescinded his own order
and granted the prisoner's request

and so maximillian kolbe joined the other 9 men
stripped of their clothes
and interred in ther tomb

kolbe's own hard-won community of franciscans
who has housed refugees
fed the poor
repaired the machinery of peasant farmers
and dispensed medicine to any who were in need
had been destroyed
his brothers murdered or sent to exile
and kolbe incarcerated in auschwitz

first the brain dehydrates
and hallucinates
but kolbe remained lucid
and comforted the others
they sang canticles of love
in a death cell
in auschwitz

and on the 14th day
when nazis entered the cell
to remove the bodies
maximillian kolbe

still alive

had to be killed
with an injection of phenic acid

kolbe
who lived community while naked and starving to death

kolbe
who sang community into a situation without hope

kolbe
who demonstrated that community cannot be destroyed
though buildings are demolished
though people are scattered and lives shattered

kolbe
who taught that community cannot be extinguished
as long as a single human being
steps forward
out of line
and speaks out
for the sake of another's life

kolbe

Bud Osborn