Good vs Evil

By now you can figure that Tuesday night is the evening I take the Living the Question course. Evil and Suffering was tonight's hot topic. They are not one for tiptoeing through the tulips.

God and Satan. Good and Evil. Black and White. Either/Or. You/me. One side or the other. The premise was put before us. What if good and evil reside in me?

To fan the flames, if I my blessed to have children, is a barren woman cursed. If my prayer is answered but yours is not, am I preferred. What exactly is a blessing? You get the point - more questions than answers. In fact I am beginning to think there are no answers.

I sat with a dear, dear friend during her last hours of life. I picked up her Bible to read her some of the hi-lited scriptures. Passages that were so near and dear to her. Ones we quoted and memorized and recited through chemo and radiation. Her favorite was in Jeremiah.

"For I know the thoughts and plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts and plans for welfare and peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome"

I suddenly realized that the very words we prayed so fervently were answered. That these very words were so true. His plans were for her welfare and peace, not evil, in the eternal and greater sense. He had given her the greatest Hope in the final outcome. I felt more at peace reading them in light of her death than I ever did in her struggle.

I realized there were tears coursing down my face. What was the true blessing? What was the true Hope? But in Him.

It's not Him? Is it?

Is it?

The beginning of the end of what you knew as your staid, tried and true theology. It is like the proverbial crack in your spiritual dyke. You run out of fingers and finally, you sit and just let the water rush in, over your head and through your hair.

You knew it was coming. The more you came to know Him, the less some of it matched. Then the less of what you read or saw made sense with what you knew was the truth. First you were a little stressed and then you thought, OK, it doesn't really matter.....does it?

Then you realized it did matter, because if it is not Him, then it is man describing his experience of Him. Not to be negated, but to pull back a teeny, tiny corner of Who they saw. It is never wrong.....it is their perception in another time, another place.

Same Father, but speaking a slightly different language or version. Because, believe it or not, those folks never heard of our 21st century. It did not exist and in their wildest imagination they could not have perceived it.

So is it wrong that I feel He is speaking to me in an updated version. Is it hypocrisy? Or heresy? Or sacrilegious. He wants to be known, by me. He left His thumbprint on the words of my faithful fathers, for me to find. But He did not do it so I would set up an altar and worship the print. He wants me to search for the Hand that made it. He wants to leave more thumbprints in the lives of me and my peers.

So fellow NCIS & CSI-er's. Get out those magnifying glasses and happy hunting...

Creation?

Taking an abbreviated few sessions on a course of study "Living the Questions". Somewhat radical for my little ole Southern Methodist Church. Many of the sessions can be found on YouTube. Worth looking at.

Tonight we discussed the two accounts of Creation in Genesis. I have not been a literalist when it comes to Creation for a very long time. But in the course of discussion tonight, it was more or less presented that I needed to make a decision. You see, I am not ready to make that. I am perfectly ready to look at the flaws in one, but not ready to swallow the other, hook, line and sinker.

I have had a 360 degree turn around in my views. Kicking and screaming I might add, but nonetheless, I have changed. But you are not going to now tell me what I should think - again. It is as if I have recently been widowed and I am not ready to start dating again. In fact, I am sitting here quite nicely, not having anything figured out. I don't want to go through this grief again, thank you.

I am extremely disillusioned with the evangelical/fundamentalist camp, but I am finding the progressive/emergent church is just as hoity toity. Both find their need to attack the other. Stop that! Go to your respective corners and believe in peace! You will definitely draw more flies to your camp with this type of accepting honey than the vile water you are spewing now.

Not all about me

Duh!!

But let me explain. I visited my parents this weekend with my grandson. They live in a small East Texas town, retired from the big city. This little town was the place of their birth, their childhood, their courtship. They returned to live near my grandparents and do a little ranching/farming. Life is slowing down a bit for them and each time I go, I realize it a bit more and more. When we see someone on a daily basis, it takes a photo from the past to make us realize how they have aged. When our "photos" are taken by our visits from time to time, we seem to notice it a bit more and I feel it saddens us somewhat. Especially when it is our parents.

In my earlier life, I felt it was my duty when visiting to "do something" Keep the conversations going, take them somewhere, do something with them, etc. But on this trip it was cold and wet and we pretty much stayed in. We each had a recliner and a flannel throw and we just hibernated and watched the Olympics and chatted. My grandson of course had his needs, but they were things that I knew my parents would enjoy doing with him. He helped my mom make dinnner. He made a flannel throw with her help. He and my dad went riding around in their little green Polaris. And what was I doing while all this was going on? Taking a nap.

I do not have to be the center for the world to revolve on its own. I am not the source, heck, I am not even a close second. Life can be better without my input. That is a scary thing to come to grips with. But how freeing.

Touching the Sides

As I journey, I am finding it difficult. I had a barometer in the past. The feelings of others, the acceptance of friends and familty, the affirmation of my faith community. All more or less formed the "side" of my journey. As a person might walk down a long hall, holding your hands out to feel the walls along your way.

But now, I am really out there. I do not have anyone or anything to bounce this off of. Instead of the freedom I should feel, I am starting to question myself. Who I am now - now that I have disrobed and left the clothing of my old theology along the way. Who now tells me I am on the right path. I don't even know the right path anymore. I am getting more comfortable in this nude body of mine, but it is still so not firm, stable, and concrete.

But I think that is the most amazing thing of all!

Confession - Ugh

I do not like the word confession. It ranks right up there with the word sin. It is so us and so bad and so black and so evil.

Confessions are tear-laden sobs of misdeeds and conduct. Penitent hearts crossed, that ne'er will evil thought or action cross this feeble mind. But are they?

Where is it written confession is always of a negative origin. There are ardent confessions of love. There is confession of a secret, luscious, life-changing secret. These are not bad. Why, on the contrary, they are extremely good.

So if confession is part of my relationship with my Father, and I accept that fact, why do I limit it to this litany of do's and don't's. The monolithic drone of sins of ommission and commission. The hangman's gallows I build stick by stick by my guilt. Or as adding tender to the righteous fire of His anger.

What if confession is none other than the murmuring between best friends. The whisper of hope and anticipation for things too good to be true. The tearful sorrow at a friend lost for a time or forever. The hesitant, heart-felt confession of wrong done and wrong to be forgiven. The things truly soul friends can hear and say without one smidgen of fear that they will not be accepted, even enfolded for their utterance.

I like that better

More of the Same

Had a good discussion with a clergy friend of mine. Discussed my questions about the questions my pastor raised. She too is fearful for the church but not in my spooky "dark will overtake light" scenario. Her fear is that the church will exist but become totally irrelevant. She said her comments do not come from someone on the outside throwing rocks, but from within.

Very interesting, because my fundamental/charismatic/conservative/evangelical journey in life to this point sees relevancy in a totally different way. Irrelevant is not having a contemporary worship service with a band. It is a children's ministry that does not have techno-aided object lessons. Or maybe no flat screen TV screens on the sanctuary walls.

What is relevancy and how can we know if we are, if we never address the tough issues out there? Or if we do, we are like a child with his fingers in his ears, repeating over and over, "I'm not listening" As I sat through that sermon yesterday, I realized I have not come as far as I thought. Some of the questions asked, made me uncomfortable. Subconsciously, because my pastor asked them, I assigned her to a specific side. Good grief - it was just a question. She never committed to either side. She expressed the views of both. What harm comes from just asking why?

When a child asks a question, we don't automatically mark them with a number and assign them to a group. No, we understand that they are inquisitive, seeking to understand. Why as Christians, can we not let each other ask why? How can I say undeniably a theological thought is so, when 5 years ago, I totally disagreed with my present view. Was I wrong 5 years ago? Will what I am saying or standing up for right now, be untrue 5 years hence? Is the problem, not in what I am thinking but in taking the stand. Taking the stand that only I and those I choose to identify with know the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.