Mood:  happy

There are several ministries at which I volunteer, and sometimes I get a chance to minister myself. 

Today I was talking to a woman and her nine year old daughter. They were planning a party for the girl's birthday, and the woman mentioned that she wasn't going to have cake because her daughter was too fat already. She just said it in a very matter-of-fact way, and the little girl didn't even react. I was a little taken aback. Without accusing her of anything, I just said that the little girl looked fine to me for her age, and that it was probably better at any age to emphasize being healthy over being thin. And then I just said "Don't you agree?" I don't even know if she had realized what she had said, until I threw the ball back in her court like that and she had to either agree or not. She said yes, so at least she understood, but something like that probably goes so deep that she will probably have to be reminded over and over for some time.

I also talked to an older gentleman who told me that he was Pentecostal, and that he and his wife had prayed about his prostate cancer, and rather than proceeding with a planned surgery they were going to give God a chance to heal him. I told him that that must take a great deal of faith. He asked me didn't I believe in healing? I said that I believed God works in many ways, and that most of what we call "miracles" happen as we look back at them. He agreed, and said that he was still going to pray for healing but that he was also going to go back to the doctor for a second round of tests. I told him it was good to have faith, and it was good to pray for healing, but if God wants to heal us, it's probably best to allow Him to pick the means by which we'll receive that healing.

Posted by voodoo_chicken_bones at 9:16 PM EDT

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Mood:  hug me

A lot of religious people think, and are quick to tell you, that God is angry. And not just angry, but super-pissed all the time for all the stupid crap we do every day. Worse, He's pissed at us for all the crap that other people do, and we blame these things on "society". People think that other people are guilty of crap that they're not even guilty of, and then they say it's "society".

Historically, Christians and Muslims want to convert everyone, and failing that, shun or kill them. They talk about the end of the world, judgement and wrath, fire and brimstone. But I don't think that God is pissed. I don't think He's sitting up there waiting to fling lightning and drop rocks on us.

It's easy to imagine someone doing the same thing over and over, saying "sorry" all the time, and then finally reaching the point where you just say "Get lost. You're beyond forgiveness." That's how we are with one another, and it's hard to imagine it being any other way..

But if I forgive someone a wrong that they've done to me, I don't do it because of who they are or what they've done; I do it because of who I choose to be. It hurts me to hold onto anger.

It's in God's nature to forgive, and I think the idea that Hell is a place where people languish in eternal misery, begging for a forgiveness that God withholds, is wrong. I think if Hell is real, then it's full of people who blame everyone else for their situation. I don't think judgement is something that's imposed on us: It's just refusing to recognize anything else.

Posted by voodoo_chicken_bones at 1:48 AM EST

Updated: Tuesday, 9 December 2008 11:42 PM EST

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Mood:  don't ask

I like to consider myself fairly apolitical. When people try to engage me in political debate, I can get pretty passionate about my apathy. And it's not that I don't care about people or issues; it's just that I don't think government is equipped to deal with most of them.

Liberals always seem to say that conservatives don't care about the poor, and a lot of folks would consider me conservative. But I volunteer at shelters and devote my time when I can. I believe in that. What I don't believe is that it's the government's job to take care of it. The government makes laws and then can't afford to pay police officers a decent wage to enforce them. Governements can't afford to pay teachers what they're worth. They can't even issue me a driver's license without a mile of red tape. And they're seven thousand trillion dollars in debt. And this is what we expect to feed and house the poor?

It's hard to get people to volunteer their time for shelters and transitional programs. I know. And yet people expect the government to care.

So I don't get excited about anything political and I don't believe that any politician or leader or personality can change the world. And I think that's a good thing, because almost anyone who ever made any real change in history did so by blowing things up or killing people. That might seem extreme, but really, how is any one person, given our current political system, going to affect any substantial change?

I guess I just don't think it really matters who gets to be President or who hold the majority in Congress. If I could make any real change in the world, it wouldn't be the kind that a politician could make anyway.

Like, my 11 year old son said to me yesterday that commercials always wanted to convince us how unhappy we are, which I thought was pretty insightful for an 11-year old, especially when he went on to say that it's probably really hard to sell things to happy people.

Folks always seem to want more, and want their kids to have the newest things, and so they work more to get more and in the end so much time has gone by that they wind up with nothing.

That's what I would change, if I could.

Posted by voodoo_chicken_bones at 12:01 AM EDT

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Mood:  hug me

Sam died on Monday.

He was 45. Most folks with Cystic Fibrosis don't live past their 30's, so at least in that respect I consider him pretty fortunate.

Sam didn't always see things that way. I guess it's because, while we might compare Sam's life to that of the vast majority of CF patients and count him as blessed, we could just as easily compare him to the rest of the North American population, who live on average into their 70's, and say he was just screwed.

He was burdened by his past. He never went into specifics, but I couldn't imagine that he'd done anything worse than I ever did. Sam had a lot of anxiety about the future. He knew he would never get any better, never marry, never have kids.

I tried to encourage him. I told him that God didn't require the past of us; He only requires the present, this day, this hour. And He doesn't promise us the future, but He does promise us His grace. I know those seem like small things, but they're not. It's everything we are, and everything He has.

I don't know if I did any good, or if Sam ever heard me, but I know I wasn't the best friend I could have been. At least I wasn't the friend he needed me to be.

Sam's friends got together to eulogize him on Saturday, and a lot of them talked about his bravery and how they never heard him complain. I don't think it insults his memory, or lessens the impact of his death, to say that that wasn't the Sam I knew, and acknowledge that he was flawed. In the end, I was happy to know that he had so much love and support from so many who were better than I was.

Posted by voodoo_chicken_bones at 12:01 AM EDT

Updated: Sunday, 21 September 2008 7:58 PM EDT

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Mood:  a-ok

Traffic gets pretty bad where I live, and it's always my instinct to look ahead. I always want to see what the problem is, when it's going to break up so that I can start moving again. It's a natural instinct but one I have to be careful to guard against. Because when I'm looking ahead, I can't see where I am and will most likely slam into the car that's directly ahead of me.

My life is kind of like this. When money is tight or I have a bad day at work, it's easy to imagine a time when things will be easier, a future where I have a better job or the kids are grown, or maybe even just a vacation when I can relax and not have to deal with traffic or screaming kids or dirty dishes.

The problem is, of course, that the future isn't real. It doesn't exist and, no matter how meticulous and far-reaching my plans are, it's never what we imagine it to be. There's too much you can't plan for, too much that can go wrong, and usually does.

A friend of mine once asked me, when we were talking about all the stupid crap that we did as kids, if I ever felt guilty. There was a lot of opportunities that we missed and people that may have been hurt, after all. I considered it for a minute.

Feel guilty?

About something that happened in the past, that I can't do anything about?

Guilt and regret look backwards, the same way that fear and anxiety look forward. All of these feelings shift our focus away from where we are, and what we're doing, to things that don't exist or can't be changed. And if living in the past is a waste of time and living in the future is just plain stupid, at the end of the day I think either of these tendencies indicate a lack of contentment and even a lack of faith. They all say that our happiness lies elsewhere, in other times and places.

The Buddhists call this attachment. It's one of the Three Causes of Suffering. Likewise, C.S. Lewis once said that the Present is the only time that touches eternity, and he described Heaven as a boundless, eternal Now. To me these are all fancy ways of teaching us to focus on where we are.

Posted by voodoo_chicken_bones at 3:41 PM EDT

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Mood:  not sure

Traditionally we all have these ideas of right and wrong, of morality and standards of behavior.

We say killing is wrong, except in times of war, or legal executions. There's all kinds of rules about sex, adultery and homosexuality. And there are always going to be people who want to look to other places for guidance, laws and codes of conduct. The Quaran, the Old Testament, and on and on. And it would be nice, I think, if all these things were spelled out for us as to what exactly was right and what was wrong, under any condition or circumstance.

Except I don't think there is, and it's where I get into a lot of disagreements with some of my more traditional and conservative friends.

I know what's right for me. I know gay marriage is wrong for me personally, because I'm not gay. Faced with a situation, I like to think I would always encourage a woman to seek an alternative to abortion. I think divorces are horrible and painful and destructive and I hate to think that sometimes they're prefereable to  other options. These are all pretty cut-and-dried for me in my own personal life. I've learned through a long process of trial and error how to make wise choices, and what works for me, and what doesn't.

Socrates said that the unexamined life was not worth living, and I believe self-examination begins with some basic questions: More than what's expedient or convenient, but more basically what's right and what's wrong, and what do those things mean? A theist would have to say that God is the ultimate expression of good, and therefore any thought or behavior that brings one closer to God is good. It's not an arbitrary set of moral laws; it's a spiritual dynamic that works the same way as any physical law, that light usually accompanies heat, that the weight of an object is proportional to it's density and mass.

I know that if I show kindness to others, then kindness is usually shown back to me - and even when it's not, I know that I would rather be the type of person who demonstrates kindness and compassion. I know about charity and self-sacrifice and these are things I choose for myself.

What I can't do is choose these things for others. I can't choose another person's sexuality or reproductive choices for them. And I don't believe that there is, anywhere, a guidebook or set of laws that spells out for all of us what these preferences and choices should be. We have to decide these things for ourselves, to seek God and, by experience, either grow closer to Him or not.

In other words, I guess, I know what's right for me, personally. At least most of the time. And I think things are not spelled out for us for one simple reason, and that is that, with God, there's room for everyone. All opinions, all choices, even wrong ones that draw us away from Him, because sometimes that's what it takes to draw us back.

Posted by voodoo_chicken_bones at 11:29 PM EDT

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Mood:  chillin'

Here is a really cool article about scientists debating God with theologians.

Science, by definition, is systematic knowledge of the physical or material world gained through observation and experimentation: What you can see, measure and repeat.

Faith is "the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1)

Science is what we see and what we can prove. Faith is what we choose to believe beyond what we can see or prove. A lot of people of faith will disagree with me, but I not only believe you can't prove that God exists, but that you shouldn't even try. I think God wants us to choose our faith, and that He purposely doesn't reveal Himself for just that reason. If God was a thing or an object or a person, something we could physically demonstrate, then there wouldn't be any debate. There wouldn't be any choice.

On My Name Is Earl, Earl has a very simple system of belief, and it follows that if you do good things, then good things happen, and if you do bad things then they come back to haunt you. You reap what you sow. And it's not that he just believes it intellectually, or does things to earn points, it's how he chooses to live, to be a better person. Because of his faith, Earl sees causes and effects that others don't recognize; he doesn't need to prove anything to anyone, nor is he swayed by the skepticism of others. Faith is something he chooses, it's the meaning behind what he experiences.

I don't think science and faith are at odds with each other. I think they're two different things.

Posted by voodoo_chicken_bones at 11:38 PM EDT

Updated: Friday, 16 May 2008 11:44 PM EDT

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From Beth (Re: Heroes & Villians, May 11, 2008): I think I agree with this entry...but are you telling me you don't believe there's an absolute truth. It's funny that you wrote this because a christian friend and I were talking about this and she believes (along with me) that there are absolute truths and that when people don't believe in absolute truth that it's so much easier to get all confused.

It's not that I don't believe that there is an "absolute truth," I suppose, as I just believe that we always know what the absolute truth is, nor that there is one absolute truth for all people all the time.

For instance, I made up my mind a long time ago that I would never counsel anyone to get an abortion. I just think that there are better options. But I would never condemn or judge someone who chooses to go that route.

What about things like murder, or rape? Aren't those always 100% wrong at all times? Of course they are. But to my knowledge, no one is arguing otherwise. There's no controversy on violent acts like that.

All of these things are hypotheticals anyway, and pointless to debate. We're always faced with decisions and conflicts that involve choices every day, and most of the time we don't stop to consider what the right thing to do is; we just consider what's easiest or more convenient. No one, in their daily life, has to routinely ask themselves should they murder someone or get a divorce or abortion. The choices I make every day are rather along the lines of, should I hold that door open, should I cut that guy off in traffic? Should I be positive and optimistic, or should I complain about what I don't have? Should I try to better myself and improve my own situation, or complain about what I don't have? Should I accept responsibility for my own actions and work to better myself, or should I place blame on other people and get bitter? It's not that hard to understand: These are the choices we make every day that affect our relationships with others and with God. To have a grateful heart. To serve others. Not to always look for blessings for ourselves, but to look to be a blessing to others.

You might think that this is a much different topic than the one I started with, but you'd be wrong. Debating about who is right and who's wrong, heroes and villians, absolutes and hypotheticals...what it all really comes down to is, how we deal with others and what kind of person we choose to be.

Posted by voodoo_chicken_bones at 10:24 AM EDT

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Mood:  don't ask

Fantasy stories and old-timey superheroes and a lot of bad science fiction all have one thing in common, and that is the Hero and Villain conflict, man versus man, good versus bad. Someone is right and someone is wrong. And while the characters in these stories may choose their own roles, or even struggle with them, too often it seems like a hero is just a hero because heroism is inherent in his character or his genetics. Superman is Superman and he represents good and justice and there is just never much possibility that he would ever be anything else other than the hero of the universe. Darth Vader is bad and evil and until the last few seconds of the final movie there isn't even any indication that he ever even considered playing any other role.

I don't think real life is that way and I think we do ourselves, and our children, a disservice when we present things in these terms. No one does good just because they have good in them, or does wrong because they're evil.

It's why I liked that last Fantastic Four movie, the one with the Silver Surfer. Dude goes around blowing up planets, and when he's confronted by the Invisible Girl he's like "I don't have a choice" and she's all, "Dude, you always have a choice." It's also why I liked Spider-Man 3, how Peter Parker struggled against his own evil nature, and Harry Osbourne and the Sandman both redeemed themselves.

A lot of folks preach about the evils of Moral Relativism, and how confusing it can be and how it goes against the traditional notions of right and wrong. It's what's led to the decline of our society, the rise in divorce rates, teenage pregnancies, violent crimes, and Rosie O'Donnell's talk show.

Let's say divorce is wrong and bad, and according to Mal 2:16, God hates it. You don't need the Bible to tell you that. It tears lives apart, it scars children, it's just painful and horrible. But is it better to stay in an abusive situation and expose yourself and your kids to that level of destruction? I don't think so. But then, every situation is different and unique, and every person has to make their own decisions and then live with those decisions. There's no right and wrong to it, most times there's just bad and worse. You just have to do the best you can and make your own choices.

Christians talk about assurance, about knowing that you're ok and that God is smiling at you, and you just have to decide one time to devote yourself to God, and that's it. You're saved. Like Heaven is a cool club and you got the stamp on your hand to get past the velvet rope. And what I'm talking about might seem to fly in the face of that: That you still have to decide every day, every hour, what you're going to do and how you're going to live.

But that's exactly what I'm talking about. There's no us and them. There's no believers and unbelievers. We're all in this together, we're all just as lost, and we're all faced with the same decisions every day. If you can truly say that there is some Universal Good, some Truth that overrides all other Truths, then the way we live our lives either bring us closer to that Truth or not. And on the one hand, that might make it seem much tougher without that glorious Assurance that we're "right with God" no matter what we do, but on the other hand it also means that there's hope. It means the only damnation, the only Hell, is the Hell that we choose for ourselves. The only true sin is in our refusal to see the Universal Truth that is God.

Posted by voodoo_chicken_bones at 12:01 AM EDT

Updated: Monday, 12 May 2008 12:13 PM EDT

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Mood:  a-ok

At the end of the 19th Century, an Italian dude named Marconi invented radio. About the same time, a guy named Tesla also invented radio. So did some guy in France. They all used the same principles to do the same things in pretty much the same way, and even though it's a monumental coincidence that they would all do it at the same time, it really shouldn't surprise anyone that what worked for one of them also worked for the other ones. Electricity, radio frequencies, and sound waves all work the same for everyone and it doesn't matter who you are or where you live.

Science and math and gravity all work that way, but for some reason religion doesn't. It's been my experience that religious people focus on their differences, and not their similarities. To be right, they have to make others wrong. It's kind of the same way that commercials for one brand name can't just say they're the best, but that everyone else sucks.

Some religions say you have to believe certain things, mostly having to do with events that happened thousands of years ago. Some religions say you have to wear certain clothes, or grow beards or get weird haircuts, or pray in certain positions at certain times. And it's not that I'm against anyone doing or thinking or believing or wearing whatever they want, it's just that I don't see how any of that has anything to do with what's in your heart or how you treat others or how you live your life.

I know a woman who gave up her career to become a paramedic so that she could serve others. I know a guy who spends all his free time volunteering with the homeless. I know another dude who recently ran into someone who'd done his family a serious wrong, and rather than confronting or avoiding him, he walked up to him and shook his hand and smiled. Forgiveness and kindness and mercy and charity are all universal, no matter what else you believe. Just the same way that electricity and gravity are all the same. I just don't understand why that doesn't matter.

Posted by voodoo_chicken_bones at 4:50 PM EDT

Updated: Thursday, 8 May 2008 4:55 PM EDT

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