March 31, 2010

1 John 3

"The reason that the world does not know us is that it did not know him."

I think that's just what we forget when we go off and start politicizing or overlooking. We're not supposed to make sense. We're supposed to sound ridiculous if you're coming at it from a worldly angle (the reference I made yesterday was my favorite of that entire show - the most practical, down-to-earth character you can have on an epic fantasy television show hears a watered-down and mangled version of the Christ story and literally snorts -- we should always sound that ridiculous). Because we weren't equipped to understand divine logic. And the world certainly wasn't equipped to help us try.

"For this is the message you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another."

There's a lot of language that indicates the community's split here, a lot of them and us that rather undermines the above statement (although not completely). That's how you tell the good man from the bad, the good Christian from the bad. They'll know we are Christians by our love.

And to the list of Bible verses that advocate the ability to find God through living a good life over any particular religious doctrine:
"And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us. All who obey his commandments abide in him and he abides in them. And by this we know that he abides in us, by the Spirit that he has given us."

All love, all goodness, all charity comes from God. Who else could it come from? Who else could it draw into your heart? The world is full of terrible things, but it is full of people who bring light to the darkness, and all of those people are full, when they are shining, with God's pure and holy light. Because He is the Light of the World. The light. Everything good and beautiful and loving and wonderful comes from God.

Where do the rest of them get it if not for God? No, He finds them, His people, through whatever means He can. Do we imagine that the God of such infinite love that He came down and took human form did so in order to condemn all those who can't wrap their head around this thoroughly mind-boggling act? We should be trying to hold more of His love for His people in our hearts than that.

And, of course, His divine plan and will make no more sense to me than anyone else, but I try to love, and then I feel Him closer. Because He is. Because that is the only way to abide with Him. That is the only way to reach out - serve God, love all, and mend all the wounds that sin has stabbed in our souls.

March 30, 2010
Holy Week

1 John 2

"My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world."

This letter is about a spiritual community that splintered off. We're not entirely sure about what, and the theory propounded in my study Bible is about Jesus's humanity and its relation to salvation. Also the connection of works to salvation. What is so beautiful about Jesus's humanity, besides the shocking ridiculousness of God coming down and taking human form (there's a show called Legend of the Seeker which is surprisingly ambitious with its second season in tackling issues of feminism and religion's place in the purpose of life that tackled this issue in this week's episode "Creator," that had my favorite character literally snort at a woman's claim (somewhat substantiated, rather undermined) to be the Creator who gave a vision to a woman and told her she would bear the human incarnation of God into the world - and I love it, because it does sound so ridiculous when you say it like that, doesn't it? And that was how the world was saved - and it is that moment that I think is key to understanding just how wonderful God is and how very much He loves us: this plan does not compute if you love less than absolutely in a way we cannot understand), is, if you can remember the first half of the sentence, is how Jesus remembers His humanity now that He has been returned to the Father. He will intercede for us. He will cover our sins with His Blood. He has gone to prepare a room for us. He will save us on the last day. He is our advocate. That word means so much in my family, and I love its use here.

And I love this author for rolling out this concept again, "not for ours [salvation] only but also for the sins of the whole world" to be followed by "but whoever obeys his word, truly in this person the love of God has reached perfection." I encourage you to read the whole verse to decide if I'm taking this out of what you read as the context, but I hear the argument for redemption through the connection to God Almighty, whatever name you give Him. Because I just cannot believe He is limited by what lens you use to find the Divine. I cannot believe He is limited. He chose to be once, and those who can find Him without the aid, without the blessing and welcome of that story, are all the more to be commended for their efforts.

And those of us who have this story should really be something special: "By this we may be sure that we are in him: whoever says, "I abide in him, ought to walk just as he walked." Radical, loving, bold, beautiful, utterly trusting in God Almighty, serving our fellow man, proclaiming the truth with no fear of the consequences, and so many other things that listing here will just start to render meaningless in their multitude.

And for all the hate being flung around, some of it grossly enough in the Lord's name, I say this: "Whoever loves a brother or sisters lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling. But whoever hates another believer is in the darkness, walks in the darkness, and does not know the way to go because the darkness has brought on blindness." That I say to all of those who would lead God's people astray in His own name. All those who would have us understand the Lord Our God as someone we should fear rather than love, and who should make us turn on others or flee from helping others in fear rather than embrace all in love.

"I write to you young people / because you are strong / and the word of God abides in you, / and you have overcome the evil one." He gives a full prayer/salutation mentioning little children, fathers and young people twice each. I think it's time, however, that my generation took up this call. We are strong and we have found our voice. So many are opening their eyes and going, "Why?" to the injustices running rampant in our world. We should all join them. Sudan. Darfur. The Invisible Children. All third world countries. The forgotten.

Immigrants. The unborn. Slaves. Child laborers. Victims of prejudice and racism and oppression. The angry and the weary.

The final parts of the chapter speak of not just one but many antichrists. He doesn't mean the one who will come at the End of Days, I think, but those who would lead God's People - who now include everyone on planet Earth - so far astray from the Path of God, down paths of violence and hate and terror.

Because that it was it literally means to be an antichrist - to lead others to reach for hatred rather than love, to try to build yourself slowly up, in an individual Babel, to the heights of godhood, rather than coming down among the most lowly and truly becoming one of them.

Because, I don't know if you've heard, but God loves us so much He did something that sounds ridiculous in the puny little minds we have - something that our tiny, hardened hearts cannot fully understand. We can only imitate and reach for Him, again and again, and abide in His greater love. And you'll know if we're succeeding, because a lot more voices will spring up offering love to those who least feel the Love of God alive in the world today.

March 29, 2010

1 John 1

"We declare to you what was from the beginning, what we have heard, what we have seen with our eyes, what we have looked at and touched with our hands, concerning the word of life."

Now that's a strong start.

Human eyes looked upon the Lord God and literally followed in his footsteps. And they told their stories over and over again, a canticle against the darkness, burning His light throughout the world. And fire, even and especially holy fire, burns. It hurts. It feels like dying, because it is. Because when the fire of the Holy Spirit touches us, it burns away what doesn't work. Sin and death and selfishness. And what is left, we hope, is grace. The Holy Spirit burns everything else away.

We come to think of humility as what He replaces pride with, or that he switches out sloth for diligence or fortitude for apathy or charity for greed. I had a lesson today on the seven deadly sins and their corresponding seven virtues. The teacher didn't entirely believe that we knew the virtues without looking them up (thank you Confirmation class and "The Seven Deadly Virtues" from the Camelot soundtrack).

We think of lightness coming to replace our darkness, but that's not what He says He'll do: "forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." We have to cultivate the good to replace the bad. If the fire burns away our pride, that doesn't not make us humble until we cultivate that, until we choose it. If we pray to him to take away our envy, it does not give us his wisdom and kindness and love unless we cultivate that. And yes, He helps us acquire these virtues, but I wonder that moral teaching and striving hasn't wandered too far down the "don't do this" side of things. Even once you have stripped away your most common sins, your permanent sins, you will not be walking in the light unless you work at cultivating the seven virtues to replace the seven sins that once made war in your heart.

We cannot hide that we have sinned, we must admit it, we must be truthful. It's not like He doesn't know. We could spend our entire lives trying to purge the sins one by one, and it would leave us scrambling for an answer to what we accomplished with our lives on earth. It would better serve us to turn to the good that we can do, the graces and virtues in our selves that we can cultivate and grow bring forward into prominence. The virtues we lack which we can seek out to acquire. Because we can have all of them - we can be greedy that way. We can be chaste and pure and faithful and kind and charitable and patience and humble and courageous and honest and diligent and everything else that God would have us be. We can be a light shining in the darkness, but it isn't enough to dispel the darkness. We have to open our eyes.

It's a surprisingly tricky step and distinction, but imagine wandering around in the Dark for so long that the blinding light makes you blink so hard your eyes are closed - it's so natural to do. Blink, rapidly and long, let the tears come, but look up and around and into the light.

"If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from sin."

The rest is up to us. He will be there, every step of the way, but how will you make your way in the light? Or will you just stand around blinking and shaking off the shadows?

The veil and the new world

March 28, 2010
Palm Sunday

The Passion of Christ

"It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two."

And the world was made new. The back of the Old World, the Old Law, the Old Testament, broke. The back of the Devil snapped. The stranglehold of death released.

The game changed.

There was an Ark that held the presence of God, the tablets of His law and His physcial presence on earth. It was shrouded in temples and tents and always there was a veil that stood up against it, and always there were a small, select set of people who were allowed to go inside.

Then Jesus died for our sins, and the veil was torn and now the true presence of God is offered daily to the sight of as many witnesses as the church can hold and fallible, sinful men who still live and move and spend most of their lives obsessing over a Fallen World take His true presence physically into their bodies.

The first to speak after this happened was one of the men who nailed him to the cross or stood by and ordered his men to. He was a Roman soldier, a centurion from Italy dispatched to one of the furthest flung conquered lands to keep the peace or, less likely given his rank but possible, another conquered people, earning his Roman citizenship. He was hated there, a people thirsting for revolution who had never before been suffered by their God to waste their lives oppressed - or at least, more full of the stories of Moses leading his people to freedom than the length of their slavery in Egypt. He killed three men that day, and God knows how many more he had killed, but then the world changed.

The sky darkened, and the Earth shook, and he was the first to speak, an enemy of the Jews, a Gentile and likely a heathen, "Surely this man was innocent," and sometimes even, "Surely this man was the Son of God."

And the world was new, because it was a Roman centurion who spoke first. Because the presence of God was not tucked behind a curtain through which only a select few, born into the privilege, could pass.

And in this new world, the apostles and disciples would eventually know how to move, but already they knew that they were no longer a part of it. They stood aloof and away as everyone else returned home. Perhaps they could not bear to watch, but in the ending of the Old World, they stood apart already at the moment the New was born.

They knew that the world had changed. They did not understand everything - or even most of it - until it was explained to them after His resurrection, but they went out and tried to make the world anew. Before the veil was torn they were still plotting revolution, arguing about seats on the twelve thrones of the Kingdom of God and their relative greatness. And then that world ended, and in the New World they cast lots to see who would go where across the great wide Earth, and they spent their lives telling the story of how God became a man and died and changed everything. The rules were different. The Chosen People of God was a title that now extended to everyone, and the rules for His people were different as well.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself.

So if you had been born in Mexico and there was a chance for a better life for you and your family across a border, how would you want to be greeted on the other side? Would you want to have to contend with peevish fear of change?

So if you were born with whatever gene flips or chemical appears to influence sexuality away from heteronormativity, would you want to be told that your love could never be sanctioned by God's Church?

You would endure, because that is our call, but loving other people's family as you love your own is what makes you willing to send a son off to fight a just war, is what makes you work a few extra years before retirement because your savings are compromised by the taxes which pay for other people's children to attend college along with yours.

But that's not the only call we have in this new world, it's just the outlook that loves thy neighbor most in current political hot button issues.

Would you stand in the streets and proclaim the Coming of the Lord if you were surrounded by people who did not know the Greatest Story Ever Told? Would you reach out your hand to do His wonders?

I don't even know what I'm talking about anymore or where I'm going with this. I don't really know how the New World operates, even after two thousand years. Because the old rules make more sense. They are quantifiable and concrete and simple - there is a formula we can comprehend and it all requires so much less work than figuring out an entirely new dynamic in the relationship between God and man.

We've made strides in that direction, of course, but we took a long detour in which Christianity was little more than the tool of the powerful to placate and control the masses. And since then we've been running from the laws and rigid regulations of that system which used the threat of damning a man's soul to keep him from rising up against injustice in life. Not realizing that that was exactly what Jesus died to replace with something better.

Every day it seems less conceivable He left this work in the hands of fallible men.

But that's not fair, because, always, this story was there. The story of how God became a man, limited Himself and came down and became like us, and then He died to redeem our sins. God Himself died a terrible, human death, as we must all do, and then He rose from the dead and conquered it and set us free.

And no amount of theocratic tyranny can change that story spreading itself over the wide world, and it is beautiful and it has saved so many souls.

But with it, I believe, was meant to come a radical new system, absolutely radical social change, that leveled the playing field. Blessed are the poor, blessed are the downtrodden, and the meek shall inherit the Earth. The greatest among you has become the least. That wasn't just for after death. The Kingdom of God is now, it is here, that's what we are meant to do.

It's easier to maintain the status quo and wait for the Second Coming. But that is not what we are called to be. We are the beloved children of God, adopted through Jesus Christ's sacrifice, and we are sent to be His emissaries on this Earth.

We are meant to change things. The Kingdom of God is here, it is people striving every day for a better world for their fellow man, to increase love and faith and trust and hope. Now.

The Church cannot forget that the Veil has been torn. Anyone who tries to re-erect a new one now...

His Presence moves among us. He is here. Are we listening? Love one another as I have loved you. To the point of taking apart, at the cost of our own power and eventually of our own life, the system that exploits and kills our fellow man, that keeps us from full communion with the Body of Christ and with God Himself.

And I probably sound crazy, like I've gone too far, but I'm not advocating any kind of revolution on a grand or even personal scale. It's a matter of looking past the ten thousand labels and differences of station and money and race and gender that keep us apart and making our decisions and our judgments and extending our loves from that perspective rather than the world's. Of basing our opinions and our actions on the love we share on equal footing with all of our fellow men, take steps that will lift all men up. At the cost of the comfortableness of the lives we lead.

Because on a Friday long ago darkness fell over the land for three hours and the veil was torn, and we like that centurion must know that the world changed because an innocent man, the Son of God, died at our hands to redeem us of sin. And the world changed.

March 27, 2010

2 Peter 3

It's not an entirely inappropriate day to focus on preparing for the end of the world and the Second Coming, but what I find myself revving up to talk to feels much more like an Old Testament prophet's rhetoric, although I'm going to aim for the gentler and more loving tone of the Epistles - dare I presume to imitate any of it.

"Therefore, beloved, while you are waiting for these things, strive to be found by him at peace, without spot or blemish, and regard the patience of our Lord as salvation. So also our beloved brother Paul wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, speaking of this as he does in all his letters. There are some things in them hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other scriptures."

Brother and sisters, why do we go unchallenged those who would lead others so far astray? Why do we let go unchallenged those who are too ignorant and unstable to understand the truth of grace? Who twist the words of God into pretzels in order to justify their bigoted opinions and paint themselves as the mouthpiece of God? Why do we allow our faith to be painted in this way? Why do we watch as our brothers and sisters turn to the rhetoric of violence over issues upon which they have been tricked to siding against serving their fellow man and helping all to have care?

Why do we let this stand? Why do we allow our precious Scripture to be pillaged for phrases that feed a political agenda? Why do we allow the world to see us so differently than what we could be? Or have we strayed that far from the path? So far from the path of the radicals who endorse a love of all our fellow men and women.

Do we imagine that God is a Capitalist? Perhaps that explains our efforts to accumulate "points" with him. Do we imagine that God cares about money and taxes at all? The only statement He ever made on them was to advise us to pay them freely, without complaint. Give to Caesar what is Caesar's (what was never really ours), and give to God what is God's.

Do we imagine that He wants us to spit upon the Gay Community and bar them from full membership in Society? How many times did He tell us, Judge not lest ye be judged. Do not go to remove the splinter from your neighbor's eye until you have removed the log from your own. Let anyone among you who is without sin be the first to cast a stone at her. And the Good Samaritan is the most appropriate example of all, because the Good Samaritan, like the Samaritan Woman at the Well, was a symbol of all the people against whom we have prejudice over the years: the Jews (a particularly ironic reversal there) and the Muslims in the Middle Ages (and to one degree or another now), African Americans before the days of the Civil War (through to now), women (still going on), "illegal" immigrants (because we're only kidding ourselves pretending that we make the distinction), and the non-heterosexual (who, ironically, we used to tolerate a good deal more - in fact, the fact that Jesus never addressed this issue when it would have been present and possibly even rampant around Him might say something - although that's my own bias going a bit too far more likely than not).

We let the Light of God be twisted about, by those who would lead us astray. And not just Palin and the Tea Party people declaring war on sanity itself suggesting that ordinary citizens take up arms against their representatives who voted for the Health Care Plan (again, Christians are called to oppose a measure that would reach out to the sick and dying?) or Glen Beck tossing hate at anyone who doesn't agree with him and calling for revolution - it's that turn away from the true principles of God. At some point we decided it was easier to be conservative, to stop changing, to take what was radical beyond belief two thousand years ago and stick to that still strict code in our society that has drastically changed rather than applying the spirit of Jesus's message to our ever adapting world. And, yes, that certainly sounds like less work.

There are things in His words that are hard to understand. If we return to those words, we stand a better chance. If we remember how wildly radical He was, how frightening to those who would maintain the status quo, who would have us cling to hate rather than embrace love. Because hate and fear of the unknown feels easier than loving and embracing it as well.

But it is not the Christian way. And that the Christian right would think so for a moment shows how very far it has been led astray. And the saddest thing is - has it even been led astray? Or have the very institutions try to lead that charge simply painted it as such? And no one can contradict, and no one says anything as we are led further down the rabbit hole.

That is not the way of God. You will find that written out for you in His Word.

March 26, 2010

2 Peter 2

There's a lot of condemnation of evil people - especially those who still pretend to righteousness.

The only line that really struck me in the condemnation was "They promise them freedom but they themselves are slaves of corruption; for people are slaves to whatever masters them."

There is a severe misunderstanding in so much of my generation (and those surrounding it) of religion. It's born of cults and terrorists and crazy conservative Christians who have forgotten the way of love. It's born of what happens when evil men use the rhetoric and fire of religion for their own twisted purposes. It's what happens when someone twists something pure and beautiful into ugliness and violence.

And I think it's harder to see coming that we like to recognize. We prefer to think that evil has a devilish glint in its eye at all times and always wants something like money or pleasures of the flesh - Peter is certainly advocating such a feeling - but that's too easy. If that were the case, evil would have to work so much harder to bend people out of their beautiful shapes. Perhaps it's always easier to see from the outside.

The old metaphor of the frog in a pot of water brought to a boil isn't all the off, which is why you can't just "let things slide" until they "go too far." That line "too far" keeps moving, if the slide starts slow enough, if it's gotten enough momentum before you feel the first urge to stop it. Evil is more subtle than it is painted here.

If only it were so easy to tell that those who would lead you astray are X or Y. "For they speak bombastic nonsense and with licentious desires of the flesh they entice people who have just escaped from those who live in error." If that doesn't describe every cult - Scientology popping into mind fastest for me at least - then what does it describe? The poison of religion.

"Bombastic nonsense" - the crap people spew that gets too dangerous to just ignore. The stuff we have to take a moment, step back, and say no. Because group think and a slippery slope are a dangerous combination. Ignoring the problem doesn't make it go away. I can't help thinking of, well, prominent commentators, especially those on Fox. Spewing bombastic nonsense of hate and discrimination, misusing their knowledge and faith, poisoning my religion.

You can tell by the fact that they're full of crap. Until you drink the Cool-Aid. That's why it needs to be said, over and over again - although descending to their level of exaggerated rhetoric doesn't really help. It makes you sound as crazy as them - and then it's just a debate among equals.

Skipping slightly ahead for more comforting words: "remember the words spoken in the past by the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Savior spoken through your apostles," because that is true. And it has been used for terrible things in its turn, false prophets have tried to poison that wellspring of Truth, but turning back to what the words of the prophets and the words of Jesus Christ can help you tell when they are full of "bombastic nonsense" and the very different quality of the Truth of God.

March 25, 2010

2 Peter 1

I like the stepping stone list to goodness here. It's very odd. Faith to goodness I get, otherwise faith isn't real. Goodness to knowledge, that's a matter of doing things for the right reason and not just blindly but because of God, so okay. Knowledge to self-control is going back to the first point of putting it back into action. Self-control with endurance I think is just the natural result of self-control. Then there's endurance to godliness, which is a word I confess: I really don't know what it means. But it goes from that to "mutual affection" to love.

Something went wonky in there, but I'm not sure, because I have no idea what "godliness" means in this context. I feel like it's meant a lot of things over time, and I don't know what they meant here.

But I hate to get caught up in all of that. I'm tired and not feeling very clever or inspired at the moment. And usually a verse "we did not follow cleverly devised myths" would send me rocketing off on a comparative study of our version of the Sacrifice of God to the rituals of other religions, but I feel like I've already done that somewhere on this blog anyway.

But there's something I can't get over, even in my current state, about this, "We ourselves heard this voice come from heaven, while we were with him on the holy mountain." And not just because of its reference to perhaps my favorite Bible story. Imagine hearing that, or talking to someone about what that was like - to hear with your physical ears, to see, to be able to reach out and touch...to stand literally upon that mountain in the presence of...

That's the basis of faith we're asked to have. Believing each other. Trusting in the witness of other fallible mortal men. It's hard. And they tend to talk crazy when they come down from that mountain - suddenly the most ordinary words sound so very different on the lips of a newly Christened prophet. Suddenly the whole world can understand their words at once in all the varied tongues but, when they listen, they can feel the words straining to contain what they really mean.

Faith breeds love, but not a fruity "love everyone" kind of nonsense, it's about knowledge and self-discipline and service and taking care of one another that we come to love. Anything else is as cheap as faith without works. Anything else is cheating. It's a hard thing to understand, especially because the people who say it spout off words that don't say enough - something that either annoys us or inspires us - and we end up feeling confused more than anything else.

But you can tell if you're on the right path, if you're approaching love from the faith angle, if you're going about it the right way, by a simple examination of your motives. Are you trying to be a better person or be perceived as one? Are you trying to grow closer to God or win brownie points with Him? Are you trying to help and serve your fellow men or be thought of well by them?

Faith to goodness to knowledge to self-control to endurance to godliness to mutual affection to love.

Not a bad template really.

March 24, 2010

1 Peter 5

Leading and following are good lessons, but what really strikes me (with the same message really) about this chapter is the sign off at the end.

It's so personal, so domestic and simple. This was just a letter to a person once. A person with a name, Silvanus, who though he has a cool name, is the kind of person you ask to kiss your son Mark on your behalf at the end of a letter.

All these things he's said - all the proscriptions and encouragements and theology: they were for a person. And I'm sure with the idea that that person would share it around, at least within the community he shepherded, but it brings up the issue: do we do that with our friends and those we love most? I'd like to think so. I feel like I've had a serious religious discussion at one point or another with all of the people who have meant the most to me, but would I go up to them an tell them that I don't approve of their choices or their treatment of someone?

Again, I'd like to think I'd intervene if they were about to do themselves or another person harm, but would I have the confidence to write a letter censuring and warning them about the state of their souls?

We don't do that these days. We're all about acceptance - and don't get me wrong, I am an aspiring president of the Accept People and Love Them All Society - but what about when it comes to someone who's about to make a mistake - there are precious few people I would tell, for example, that they are jumping into a serious step in a relationship WAY too early. Precious few I would trust myself to correct. I don't know if I would ever say, aloud in words, to a friend of mine what a mistake they were making to stop attending Mass.

Of course, the first is none of my business and the second worked itself out without me making a fuss to argue with him about it - but if we were far away from someone we loved as they were heading down a path we knew had darkness at the end of it, or even just a path that would take them further from God and thus make their life that much harder - would I be able to say something like this?

Who am I? But since when did that matter? I don't know what to say - but now I'm just quoting Moses, and the Burning Bush had an answer for him just as surely.

We are responsible for each other, and we have to stay on top of that all the more in our integrated but also far-flung community now more than ever. Because it's so easy to drift in and out and never catch a glimpse of the pieces as they're falling apart.

But we are responsible for each other - and we are the shepherds of the flock. We are also the flock, so we can and must let other catch and lead us at times, accept their censure and their advice with their support, and we must also be brave enough, trust enough to say to each other all of the precepts and doctrines this book is made of.

To our friends, and somehow end this letter with a request to kiss our son when they greet each other.

So weird. So lovely.

March 23, 2010

1 Peter 4

"Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins."

It was worth reading the whole book - full of advice and proscriptions and setting up a New Law and a lot of things that play into the now outdated societal structure like slaves and "weaker sex" talk - for that one verse. And heaven knows it's true. Our own and others.

All these rules, all this advice, it boils down to that, and it is, at the same time, an answer for the times that we fail. I can't say it better than that - I can't say anything as good as that.

I feel, sitting here at my laptop, as if I could go on and on talking about that verse, but all the swirling things I think and feel about it refuse to go into words, because those words are not nearly as clear or beautiful or precise as the ones above.

It's the answer to "the road to hell is paved with good intentions." Thinking we know better is different than this, of course, this is about loving our fellow man and our God with all of our hearts, basing our lives on this. That covers a multitude of human flaws, the willing spirit and the weak flesh brought together in love for fellow man. The willing spirit saving the weak flesh by reaching out through love.

And, leaving the focus on saving ourselves, the ways in which our world has been torn wide open can be slowly healed by the love we show each other. That is how we dare to stand before God, together and strong in our love. That is how we bring the Kingdom of God to Earth - going behind the terrible evil that strikes out and sweeping forces of violence and darkness that rampage across our Fallen World, finding the beauty and repairing the damage done to the Chosen of God, on our beautiful Earth.

With our love, we cover a multitude of our terrible sins, as a race, as a people. We take its victims into our hearts, and we slowly redeem our people, our species, our world. Cloaked in our love, we dare to stand before God and claim to be His people.

And the most beautiful iteration of all is the first, our Prime Example. His Love cover all our multitude of sins.

March 22, 2010

1 Peter 3

Not my favorite writer, over all.

All of the sexist stuff at the beginning of this chapter is, in a way, just a way of saying what he says just afterwards, "Do not repay evil for evil or abuse for abuse," which is an actual paraphrase of something Jesus said. Don't hide your light under a bushel, but going all hardcore and violent about asserting our rights is not the Christian way either. Equality and the butt of a gun is no equality at all. That doesn't mean we don't stand up, it means we do it as Christians. It'll hurt more and less this way. It costs more of us, but it takes less from us.

An interesting continuation, "Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you." Now there's my current project in a nutshell. Keep your conscience clear so that they will listen. Be an honorable and respected member of your community, so that when you speak, they will at least listen to you. And when they finally do ask, have your answer ready.

I'm working on that last part.

So here goes, another attempt to wrap some words around it:

The greatest good that I've done in my life, the most good I've done for people, has been when I wasn't aware of it. At least not fully. At times when I felt low in my faith and my hope, in fact, I often reached out and touched the most profoundly. That wasn't me, that was God working through me without even my will getting all caught up in it. Talk about "my burden is easy," this is Him taking charge when I barely even notice.

If I willed it, if I sought out improvement in my behavior and spirit, then you could say it was something psychological or societal. But it wasn't. It was something far beyond me that reached out to the people I met at times in my life when a display of my own faithfulness was beyond me. In the quiet of my soul, God reached out through me. And I don't know if I will ever affect anyone as much as I did the first person I realized I was able to help touch in this way (in my small way).

How do I know that God is there? Because within a day of asking the question of why I am here in Virginia, what good I am supposed to be doing, what I am doing with Shakespeare, I received two answers. One was the day before, the other the day after.

Because He has answered my questions if I have the wit to see it. Because He loves me so much He never leaves me in doubt. I have been given the Gift of Certainty, and He uses that gift in me even when I do not have the will or the strength to assert it.

My prayers are always answered, that is how I know. Not always yes or even "not now" or even a fully comprehensible reply, but He never leaves me in doubt.

My name is Martha

March 21, 2010

The Raising of Lazarus from the Dead

"Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died."

Lord, if you were still here, we wouldn't be in this mess. Lord, if you had stopped him, he never would have hurt my friend. Lord, if you had listened to our prayers, my father would never have died. Lord, if you had been there, Hitler would never have been born.

Are they valid complaints?

Martha is my confirmation saint. I picked her because of the other story, the story of the woman who worked tirelessly in the kitchen and ended up getting told off for being annoyed with her sister for sitting at His feet. Because Mary is the example we're supposed to follow in that story, but I have more trouble with the Martha part. I'm very good at sitting at His feet, I have trouble working to serve His table and His people. I have trouble getting off my perch to help others. I'm busy and lazy.

I don't think Martha is saying all the questions I have listed in the first paragraph, not the woman who works so hard to solve her own and others' problems on her own. I think she was a woman who controlled her household utterly, who worked hard and did good in her community and loved so many people with the work of her hands and the sweat of her brow coming to the Lord because there are things she could not fix. She sent for Jesus, because she thought she knew how to make the world right again. But He stayed away, and her brother died, and she knew that she could not save the world.

At that moment, she had faith. Faith that there was someone else who could. What a beautiful thing, a strange moment to believe to our eyes, but I think it might make perfect sense. When I have friends in crisis, I jump into "fixer" mode, and it kills me when I can't help. When I can't raise the dead or take away the pain or slap that boy who broke their heart so silly that it makes it all better.

In those moments, I hope that Martha will help me turn to the Lord. If You had been here, this would not have happened. Turning to Someone else to fix the world when you know you can't. "But I know even now He will give you whatever you ask." But what might sound like an accusation was meant to make way for the next part: "I know [my brother] will rise again in the resurrection on the last day."

Faith in something Beyond. That even if He is no longer here with us, if He cannot be in Bethany to save us all our lives, He will catch us when we fall. In death, He will be there. Someday we will rise, with all of our sins fallen away and all of our wounds healed.

Twice Martha professed this faith. And she was rewarded, sooner than she expected. Because Martha was always settling too early.

But it was Martha who told them to roll away the stone, at His orders, was willing to let all the terrible stench and reality of death, willing to risk the horror of death to touch her, to see what a wreck her brother had been reduced to, because Jesus told her to. To risk laying open the dark, terrible things we keep repressed and covered because we believe that God can transform them in us into new light. Terrifying and all the more brave because she had a less simple and pure and spiritual faith than her sister Mary.

Martha is a model of how we should turn to God in grief, not pretending that He couldn't have stopped this, couldn't have reached down from the sky and stopped our pain from ever occurring, but full of faith and joy that He chose instead to take our pain upon Himself. One day He will call our name, stand up now, walk and live, and we will rise to new life free of these burdens. He will hold us and cry with us now, because on our world there are rules and there is free will and this is what we chose to take the snake with the apple, and someday He will roll away the stone that we put up to keep all of our pain hidden and locked away so that we can function - so that the scent of death and decay does not overtake us - all the sooner if we let Him, and He will heal everything that causes us pain.

That's quite a promise to make to a fixer.

"Lazarus come out!"

March 20, 2010

1 Peter 2

For all my babbling about liberality being the most natural Christian political position and going beyond our society's precepts, here we see that Peter does not agree. He follows the more conservative mindset of not going against our society's precepts - keep every Roman law. But he at least tells us why first.

"Conduct yourselves honorably among the Gentiles, so that, though they malign you as evildoers, they may see your honorable deeds and glorify God when he comes to judge."

Like St. Francis said, "Proclaim the gospel constantly. When necessary, use words."

I suppose I've made this case several times, to myself and occasionally to others, but it was first brought to my mind with a satellite friend of mine freshman year of college. I could see that he did more for helping our common group of friends understand the reality of faith, the beauty of Christianity, by being amongst them than by setting himself apart the way many of the CRU (Campus Crusade for Christ) lot did.

If Christians are respectable people, who are good and kind and caring, if they are smart and well-considered and together individuals, our way of life becomes more worth considering - or at least not dismissing outright.

I see it happen here. Because I, and Amanda, and Linden, and Clara, and Jeff and Megan, are religious - and good people, and smart people, and we conduct ourselves well while also being a part of the community, people have given us the opportunity to talk about the beauty of our faith - over and over again in some cases.

The chance to practice and get it right, which reminds me:

The world is so beautiful, and poofing into existence is as ridiculous as the idea that the fantastic chain reaction that formed this world one unimaginably unlikely accident at a time - a billion every second - came out of nothing. In a day like today, washed over with light and loveliness, can we see anything else? Anything besides God in every second in which a thousand negotiations between the sun and the air currents and the tendency of heat to rise and the monstrous blue and green arrows on our television sets moving from one place to the next in the feel of the cool wind on our sun-soaked skin?

Don't you feel Him there?

If you are honorable, if you are the kind of person that others can trust, they listen when you try to articulate such things, and that is where true sharing of faith can happen even with those who do not believe.

And in this program and in general we undermine ourselves with our cruelties and our sins and our dismissals of people, but we make headway where we can.

We are called to act with justice. We are called to love tenderly. We are called to serve one another. To walk humbly with our God.

Because then, and only then, they will know we are Christians by our love. Then the world can change.

March 19, 2010
Happy St. Joseph's Day!

1 Peter 1

That looks weird written like that.

I love the image here of a "living hope," but I admit what has the best chance of sticking with me, especially after yet another Dan Kennedy "why are you religious" conversation (this time initiated by me as a somewhat desperate attempt to avoid doing the work I had brought with me and not conducted drunk), is this image, "so that the genuineness of your faith - being more precious than gold that, though perishable, is tested by fire..."

And, on second read through, it doesn't call faith perishable, but it is a thing that people lose, that people let grow stale and that people let turn sour. Why is it a thing in our world that can go so wrong? It is so beautiful, faith and hope springing eternal? I admit his conversation made me feel judged as falling for some hoax in a way no other person has managed - perhaps because he himself seemed so open minded and non-condescending (saying several times that I and other Christians in the program were smarter than he was) that I couldn't dismiss him. I don't like the feeling. It doesn't shake anything, but it's weird to be in that position.

Because it's something you can't explain, and if you try you end up sounding like Peter in this chapter, a lot of fancy words flung about weaving around very simple truths. And goodness knows I can spin webs of words with the best of them (or, you know, the very good of them), but it's never something you can explain to someone who doesn't feel it, who doesn't know it.

And the funny thing is that I think at one point or another everyone feels something like it. It's the way I've experienced love - as a given, as something that's just understood and omnipresent. I wonder if I should examine it more, how I know, and if I don't because I don't have to or because I'm afraid I won't be able to - won't be able to find a "reason" to believe and will extend this feeling of not being able to say why and wondering if that means anything.

Because it doesn't. These are the inexpressible things. These are the gifts from above, the Gift of Certainty - it's never felt like a cheat or a shortcut before.

Tomorrow it won't feel like that, in all likelihood, but I wonder if my foundation shook for the first time because I couldn't find the words or because I've never tried seriously.

Honestly, I lean toward the latter, because if I haven't even tried to express it, how could I ever share my experience with others? And how can I ever expect to share my faith if I can't express it?

So here's a start:
I've always felt God there in my life. He's taken care of me, He's spoken with me, sometimes with more clarity than others, and there are things I've known all my life, coming from Him. Sometimes when it rains, only a few times a year, I feel it like a call out to me, and I go stand under an overhang and the world is quiet except for the sound of the rain and occasionally my laughter or my voice, but He's there.

I say I can't start crying in front of people (not an absolute rule, but I wait until I'm in a room alone and then suddenly I find myself sobbing - sometimes I knew I wanted to and sometimes I don't), but really I think I got spoiled on being held in His arms when I'm mourning.

And that's all personal, and if you say that to someone it risks sounding like He's more active in my life than generally, but I think He's just waiting - waiting to come at you in any angle that you'll accept.

And the greatest story ever told, the sacraments, the gifts and the love - well, could a collection of ragamuffin humans, by committee spanning thousands of years, ever tell a story that beautiful?

We've been telling similar stories since Eve bit the apple - stories of gods coming down to do mischief and wreck havoc and punish those who do not honor them in their guise of normal mortals, stories of gods dying every spring through their representatives the high priest who also gets to get laid first, stories of holy men sacrificing, but only once, only once ever this: God Himself, the Creator of All, came down and limited Himself, made himself a man. And he suffered and died Himself. For us, to save us. Because such is His great love.

This story is different, and it's far more beautiful and shocking and unfathomable than any of the stories we've been telling ourselves.

And every believer is likely to agree, and ever nonbeliever is likely to think I'm full of shit, but it's true, in the way faith is true. Blessed are they who believe and have not seen - not because their virtue in doing so will be rewarded, although I do hope to get to heaven someday, but because we have a piece of heaven here now. The Gift of Certainty is a reward reaped every second on Earth, a blessing for this life. A preview of the next, when all shall know the Name of God.

March 18, 2010
Happy birthday, Erin!

James 5

I thought, when I reread the chapter this evening, I would write about the patience in suffering, but what I want to talk about is actually this:

"Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them with oil in the name of the Lord."

Everything should bring us to God. Suffering is not in the world because it is a way to bring us closer to God. It does that, but so does joy. Suffering is in the world because we fell from paradise, because we live in a Fallen World, a world fallen enough that Hell can reach out and infect it. Because we live a world of choices and harsh truths. But this too can bring us to God.

And the world is sometimes so beautiful, and it can bring out our light to shine like a beacon, and there can be days that make you glow and smile and want to dance around, and this too can bring us to God.

Because everything brings us to God.

It can be surprising, actually, which brings you closer more naturally. Do you turn to God when things get hard or pull away in anger? Do you stand in a small trapezoid of sunlight created by the shadows of the buildings, quiet and just feeling the slight ice of the wind as it wars with the all-over glow of warmth from the sun because you had a terrible day and need a comfort or because the day has been lovely and you saw it there - dancing before you, something you would have overlooked if you weren't so happy?

Questions whose answers are interesting but not important. You should always seek out those glimpses of God, in good times and in bad. That's what it means to be part of the Bride of Christ. Sickness and health, richer or poorer, good times and bad.

When things get bad, what changes, however, is the people who gather around us. When you are sick, of heart and mind or body, the elders of the church, the community, those you love, who have been your connections to Christ when He felt far away or hard to find (because we are the blind creatures of Fallen World who can never fully realize that we are the Children of God until we break free of this earth), then those people gather around you. Because that is what Christians do. They love so much that there is no difference between your pain and mine. They love, which nothing could change, and they try to make it better. And that is what changes when the bad things happen.

And that's not why bad things happen, but that's what makes them more bearable. We live in a Fallen World, but ever since Adam and Eve fell, this has been true: our comfort is each other. God sends the rain, again and again, to renew life on Earth, taking this Fallen World which was barren and without life until Humanity Fell but now thrives as He pours His love continually into it. To make it better, to make it live, to make it grow, to make it beautiful for us. He sends the sun to shine, and though the buildings cast a shadow, His light changes the world. But some days, when things feel so dark, a fellow on our way is the one to point out the patch of sunlight in which we can bask. And that is our job as Christians, in a nutshell, to with our whole lives point out God in the shadows of this dusky wood.

And sometimes we have to go further than comfort and love and support: "My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and is brought back by another, you should know that whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save the sinner's soul from death and cover a multitude of sins." Not their own, the sins of the world which drove its victims so far from the light. We can cover the sins of our world, we can make it better, we can make it rise.

We are forgiven, we are saved. That is done. The Kingdom of God has come. We are responsible for building it, lifting it up, saving each other from the ravages of our Fallen World - the apple, Pandora's box, whatever metaphor fits best when you look all of the things that bring pain up and down. There's no blame attached to bad things, and they don't happen because they are really good things in disguise (sometimes good things DO come in disguise, but there are evils that can never be counterbalanced by the good that they bring about).

We can't stop the world from containing pain, and it doesn't change our relationship with God because He should be part of our sorrow and our joy in equal measure (100%); what does change with joy and trauma is the responsibility of the community to its members. In joy, you are a bringer of light. In trauma, you are a receiver. But you cannot give without receiving or receive without giving. Both roles are the same, the great secret. Both are ways to God.

March 17, 2010
Happy St. Patrick's Day!

James 4

I've noticed that these two main thoughts, which comprise this chapter, are so very often linked in the Bible. We are turning from God when we become too caught up in the affairs of the world - and the "Adulterers!" was actually a really striking and beautiful way of thinking of it - cheating on God.

And then the second half - do not judge. "Do not speak evil against one another, brothers and sisters. Whoever speaks evil against another or judges another speaks evil against the law and judges the law, but if you judge the law you are not a doer of the law but a judge. There is but one lawgiver and judge who is able to save and to destroy. So who, then, are you to judge your neighbor?"

The third idea about not planning on anything in our life is interesting too, but I really find striking the warning implied in linking these themes. The writers of the Bible don't like to go on a tirade of condemnation without warning us against judging our fellow men. These warnings, they say, were written for you to take to heart, not for you to apply to others.

It's an all the more important distinction these days I sometimes think. We're so quick to condemn as a people. And as individual people. We make judgments about people and we have all kinds of rules about what makes you a "good girl" versus a "slut" ("bad boy" and "good boy" have a similar dichotomy but very different connotations) which really just messes us up.

The whole idea about cleaning out the log from your eye before going after the splinter in your neighbor's seems taken even further here - don't go digging around in your neighbor's eyes at all. Then again, we want to help people find their way closer to God, but perhaps that's the difference. We want to show people their way back to God rather than hailing down fire and brimstone against the people we believe are violating the law.

We are not judges of the law. We are not arbiters over it. We are responsible to God for ourselves, and that's quite enough to keep us busy.

Even as I typed it I thought of "Am I my brother's keeper?" which is a good counterpoint to this. But that's different. It's taking care of our neighbors, helping them when they are down, being a good influence to show them that God loves them and that He can be the Light unto their path. Not lecturing at them about their life choices or stumbles.

"As it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil. Anyone then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it commits sin."

As a final thought - just how broadly does that apply? As someone who wonders at the back of her mind every day just what good Shakespeare studies does in the rest of the wide world...yeah, just how broadly does that apply?

March 16, 2010

James 3

As if in answer to my comments about being good at talking the talk, this chapter redefines what that means. It could be an answer in other ways too.

The tongue leads the body. And the way he describes it as only ever barely in our control, like a wild animal we think we've tamed, is so how I've always felt about my tongue. How many times has it run away from me - how many times has it said terrible things before my brain can realize what it's about to do? And if my tongue wants to say something, it almost always wins the battle with my better judgment.

I actually often feel uncomfortable speaking something I've deliberately thought out first. I usually aim for giving my tongue a basic guideline and letting it figure it out from there. This doesn't mean I'm not in love with coming up with a beautiful phrase to deliver intentionally, but I certainly feel this warning about the tongue being a fire and an untamed beast poisoning our souls.

We've all had this experience, but what is the solution?

Another thing to worry over in this chapter is the very first words of it, "Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers and sisters, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness." Goodness knows I'm not qualified to teach about religion or the Bible passages I write about. I construct them that way more often than straight personal reflections though. I suppose it's the rhetoric I picked up from books of people who really are teachers. Don't get me wrong, I hope my readers can get something out of this, but it's really not on for me to be in the teacherly role.

But as a consolation at the end of the chapter comes a clear distinction that is directly useful rather than just warning. The difference between worldly wisdom - being street smart and wise in the ways of the world, despairing and conniving he goes as far to classify it as - to "wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of hypocrisy. And a harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace." I'm not saying that's not a tall order, but that's a gift of God, a fruit of connecting to Him and letting Him come down and take control of your life.

And that's the way to curb the tongue - change the thoughts and assumptions and humor of the mind and the soul so that the tongue cannot go running off with your worst thoughts, your worst self - or if it does, your worst self is still a bascially good person. And perhaps by strengthening the soul and mind, the tongue can be more reined in, especially if that wisdom comes with calm and love of peace and the realization that heavenly things are far more important than anything the tongue would like to dwell on in the world.

Perhaps that was wandering into teaching again, but I guess I've always said things with authority I may or may not have. You two know me well, I know you take things with that grain of salt. Whatever my (metaphorical) tongue blabbers on about, you know my heart, which longs for that kind of wisdom and, I hope, can every so often show it.

Maybe someday it'll curb the pink beast that resides behind my teeth.

March 15, 2010

James 2

I'm very good at the talk. I can and have spun on this blog words and phrases that wrap themselves lovingly around the verses, their exhortation not to show favoritism, to stop reinforcing the elite and the class system, to stop privileging the rich. And I would love to spin my words around the argument against excusing yourself for committing one kind of sin because you do not commit a "worse" kind. Every sin takes you from God, and the fact that you've never killed anyone does not make that puppy you kicked feel any better.

But faith, which I've always been blessed to have in such spades, the anchor of my soul, is nothing without works. This chapter says it plainly, as if speaking to children or debaters who have wasted his time long enough. "Show me your faith apart from you works, and I by my works will show you my faith." And just before that he makes it look so ridiculous (I love a man who uses sarcasm so unabashedly) "If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, keep warm and eat your fill,' and yet you do not supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that?"

It's brief and brusque because he knows if he lets us hedge around it we will. After all, I'm a nice person. I am good to my friends, take care of them when I can, run out to get my roommate medicine when she's sick. I didn't go to see Invisible Children tonight, I had rehearsal, and since the last time I've seen it, what have I done for them? I finally called CASA, but not to volunteer myself. Just to do a fundraiser for them. It's not nothing, but it hardly feels like clothing the naked and feeding the hungry.

It's something that lives in the back of my mind - why am I studying Shakespeare? I know why I want to - I love it, I'm good at it, it fills my soul with lightness and beauty. But is it that feeling, that empowerment, that I am sharing in a classroom? Perhaps this summer I will find out if that's how it feels, if I'm giving students not just an understanding of Shakespeare in these workshops and rehearsals for the high school Shakespeare camp but a lease on who they are and what they can do that will benefit them throughout their lives.

I believe it can do that, but that means that we are all laboring in a profession so that we might touch the hearts of those who are tangential to it. So it must be about each other - but then could we not be fulfilled in a way that benefited others as well?

I wonder what concrete works I will show God my faith by someday. They will not be enough to counterbalance my sins, and though I shall be forgiven that through Jesus Christ, I wonder how I will be able to stand before my God. Faith without works is dead. My faith does not feel dead, but it is not as strong as it has been.

Is it enough to give to your friends? To comfort them in times of stress and trouble? Surely not, there are Bible verses about even sinners doing such things. Being cordial to the boy here I hate, that's closer. But what about more generally? Where am I going to find all of this time to do anything anyway?

Faith without works is dead, do I not have time to breathe new life into it?

I've always been very good at the talk, even the scolding of myself. I feel intermittent at best about the walk.

[And, my two readers, don't go all "you're great, you do a lot" on me. I don't. I need to work this out.]

Are you presuming to teach us?

March 14, 2010

The Man Born Blind is Healed

There's so much in this story, the gospel today about the man who was born blind and healed only to be cast out of the Temple. What has always struck me is the question to Jesus, was it the blind man or his parents who sinned that he was born blind?

Wow. Blaming the victim used to be our way of life. Tangible signs of God's disfavor were once our answer for why bad things happen to good people. It lets us off the hook for helping him, let him stew in his own punishment, but the really tragic thing about that mindset, to me, is the way it brings reward and punishment down to earth and says that this is all that there is. All that there is to bring you closer to God is earthly achievement, which is a sign of His favor and thus your grace. And it will be continued in the afterlife just as it is here.

That is depressing. And perhaps why Jesus had to explain so very many times: no, it's the MEEK that shall inherit the Earth, blessed are the POOR, the pharisee who flaunts his own piety has his reward already, the servants of God will be cast out of the world for they do not belong to it.

Religion should never be used to reinforce the current system of government, because that system is always, to one degree or another, oppressing some of His people. Whenever religion becomes a tool of those in power, it has lost sight of God. Because He is about setting the captives free, and reinforcing the patriarchy and the class system and the oppression of the downtrodden is the last thing that God would be doing to us. If low social rank is punishment for our sins or the sins of our parents, then it's all right to beat your slaves. They deserve it. If our gender is determined by our relative worth, then telling women to be silent and cover themselves is just prudent policy. If non-heterosexuality is a sign of a deviant soul, then we can relegate them to the fringes of society forever and spit on them to boot.

No one wants to live in that world. Do they?

Over and over people cling to it, the sins of the father and the sins of the self - blaming the victim so that the world doesn't have to change. Why?

And then when they rise to tell us the truth, we have a reason not to answer. You are uneducated, you are a sinner, you dare to talk to us who are blessed by God? An excuse to close our minds to revolutionary ideas, to things that force us to reexamine what we think we know about the Deepest Mysteries - as if we have those all figured out. Shortcuts. Elaborate rules about whom we do and do not listen to.

They didn't just do it then, before Jesus came down and tried to explain. Before he went among the poor and the humble and the blind, healing their wounds and giving them the power to show the world what they have always been able to see. The man born blind spoke beautifully and eloquently, declaring in his own strong voice the truth that he knew, what he had always known but never before been in a position to say.

His parents could not do it. Perhaps they believed the harsh and cruel doctrine of the Pharisees. Perhaps they spent their lives since the birth of their son atoning for sins they didn't fully understand. Perhaps they were as radical in their thoughts but not so alive in their courage. Perhaps they had merely thought all of the things their son was saying, deep down in their bones, but been afraid to let them come even into their thoughts.

I wonder how many times the blind man argued with the Pharisees in his head before he gained the strength to speak. I wonder if he was ready with the arguments or they came to him from the first moment his eyes were opened by God who walked among us. I almost prefer to think, however, that Jesus freed his tongue when He opened his eyes, and now the man who was born blind could speak what no one would listen to before.

And they never listen to what they don't want to hear. We're still doing this same shit now - two thousand years after Jesus explained that it was backwards and wrong and gross - and we don't want to hear it. But there are people who stand and speak up, and they are not called prophets anymore, because they do not rail warnings of punishment down upon us. We are all redeemed, we are all saved, a hail of fire is no longer appropriate.

It's a shame we still don't act like it. If we are all redeemed, and all of these problems people have are just that - problems that good people endure but don't have to - well, then, a lot of things would have to change, wouldn't they?

But who am I to say? Certainly nothing so remarkable as that man who was born blind, born into shame, who spoke so proudly and beautifully, probably not even fully realizing that he always could have. God gives voice to the downtrodden, and He lifts them up. We've seen it happen so many times. You'd think we'd have recognized the sight of it.

I'm just the person who's blind to so much, looking back and weary of how many times we have failed this test as a people.

March 13, 2010

James 1

I think I read these two verses like five times (partially because my brain was distracted by everything that was even slightly shiny today), and it's beautiful.

"Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures." James 1:17-18.

Every generous gift comes from God. We cannot do good, we cannot grant love, without it coming from God and bringing us closer to Him. Everything beautiful comes from God. Everything good and kind we do and have done to us is God reaching down.

That's lovely.

And what follows is the main thrust of the Faith PLUS works argument, which is beautifully appropriate as a set-up for it. "But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror, for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like."

Do we do that? When we leave church, when I put aside the Bible, we just completely forget that we are Christians and that our job is to do the good works that are God reaching down to Earth to touch His people. How many times, growing up, did my sister and I have a vicious fight on the way home from Mass? Just yesterday I forgot to fast from meat. It's so easy to do.

But that's not what true believers should be doing. We should live our whole lives with one goal, to quote my father this time, "The purpose of life on earth is to make ourselves worthy of eternal life in heaven." Doing good works, finding a way to make the lives of others better.

Random acts of kindness, taking care of friends and family, service in our community. It's a pretty basic message, but it's said really beautifully here. Do we do it because we feel guilty if we don't? Or because we think it wins us brownie points?

We should do it because we see Christ in the people around us, and because we love Him, we should do all we can to make Him happy. We should do it because when we do, we feel God reaching down from heaven through us. We should do it because we are, in that moment, the conduit of God's love. We should do it because being close to Him, being one with Him, should be our all, our end goal of every day and every second, and the best way to do that is to reach out to touch our fellow man with love.

We should do it because we love the feel of God acting through us, of being His servant and His vessel. Because we love the smile we share with Him and the love we feel of His.

Anything else is just trying to shut up Jiminy Cricket. We should be trying to speak with God.

March 12, 2010

James 1

[Wow, we dodged a bit of a bullet there - nearly had a Friday 13th, which is the only thing that could have made performing a series of Witches Conjuring Scene presentations in the former headquarters of the Masons on a stormy morning more creepy. Or this day longer. Anyway...]

I'm going to break up these chapters a bit because they're very dense and this is another short book, so here goes the first installment on this chapter.

We've been dealing with Paul a lot, and James is very different. Not as much to be gleaned from his salutation "James, a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ. To the twelve tribes in the Dispersion: Greetings." Although - could someone riddle that out for me? What does the Dispersion mean? Is this after the razing of Jerusalem?

There's a lot of advice, but I think right off the bat we get some of the best. "whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy, because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance; and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing." Why do good people suffer? So that they can grow. So that they can become more good, more beautiful, more compassionate and caring and loving. If we could see our cross as the chance to grow stronger and closer to God, we could bear them with more grace.

The doubter comments are a fitting pair with this injunction, because we doubt most in hardship in general. That wasn't my experience necessarily, however. When my family bore its heaviest load, I felt closest to God. Of course, in the year following my father's death I had more of a breakdown in my relationship with God. If we let these terrible things which happen burn away all of the things in our life that don't work, that hold us back, then they can make us better rather than weaken us. It's not "why they happen" because that hardly seems worth a great man's life - the fact that his daughter feels closer to God and his children stop fighting as much. But if that was to happen, we should approach it in order to grow to greater understanding and faith through it.

How though? I suggest that it is, in fact, a matter of remembering His love, our faith, and the fact that we are not alone in any of it. If we give in to doubt - He could make this all go away in a flash if He is what we believe - or turn away from that trust in His care of us, then we can turn down a bad path. But God is the anchor of our souls, He can hold us steady through the most terrible of times. It's all He wants to do when they come. He can't force us to take the gifts He gives so freely, we have to reach out to take them.

If we remember how He loved us to His death, if we still celebrate how He is with us here, then we can hold fast to our love and our God in the darkest of times.

Blessed are those who mourn.

March 11, 2010

Hebrews 13

It's the book in brief, which is a lovely way to end. Paul reminds them to do good works always, and the best line is (I think) "Let mutual love continue. Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it." Foster those who increase your love, always let it prosper and put your energy into that, but be sure to offer it to all. You never know what wondrous people will wonder into your life.

Paul reminds them that Jesus is our anchor, "be content with what you have, for he has said, 'I will never leave you or forsake you.' So we can say with confidence, 'The Lord is my helper: I will not be afraid. what can anyone do to me?'" Fear nothing this world brings, and certainly don't worry over it. We have God. Whom should we fear while we stand beside Him? He is the anchor of our souls, we shall not drift from our path. And we should not strain it by trying to adjust to the roaring waves ourselves, as if we were not anchored.

Remember what you have been taught, Paul reminds them, "Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings; for it is well for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by regulations about food which have not benefited those who observe them." Don't turn away from the beautiful new world Jesus came here to create by getting bogged down in proscriptions that did not bring His people closer to God. We are His children. Do not get caught up in craziness and flashy preachers, and do not get caught up in rules that define who is good and who is Christian and who is a sinner. All of my arguments feel vindicated in that one verse. I am currently committing it to memory.

Hebrews 13:9
"Do not be carried away by all kinds of strange teachings, for it is well for the heart to be strengthened by grace, not by regulations about food which have not benefited those who observe them."

I love that Paul, after all the quotes you get from his other books in this debate, really feeds directly into the opposite argument on the current conservative platforms.

Then Paul reminds us of the New Covenant, its parallels and completion of the Old Covenant. Because this was planned from the beginning, and God chose a people to bring Him into the world. He came down in smaller ways, barely touching us, before He became one with us. They are the storm that brought the lightning. He has always loved us so much.

Our focus now is the on the "city that is to come." The Kingdom of God is our home, and it is here. We are waiting to go home. We already are. "Let us continually offer a sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of lips that confess his name. Do not neglect to do good and share what you have, for such sacrifices are pleasing to God."

Remember your leaders and follow them. Always have someone to lead you in faith.

It must be so lonely to be pope, in that way. And in other denominations, the solitary pastors and preachers. Always have someone to whom you can turn, to whom you can go, to whom you can look, in your spiritual life.

I have many, I have been blessed.

Thank you.

March 10, 2010

Hebrews 12

The book is really revving up to the finale - or perhaps this is the finale and chapter 13 is the wind down. But there's a lot to talk about and it's all beautiful. I apologize about the lateness of this entry.

"Therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight and the sin that clings so closely and let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us." That's the first verse of this chapter. There are more allusions to come and more distinctions of the Old Jerusalem to the New and the gifts given the saintly of our ancestors against the gifts promised to us, but that's the message meant to be the takeaway.

Sin clings, surrounds us. We cannot escape it. That's why we cut out everything that causes us to sin that we can and never forget to return to Him immediately. Perhaps there's more that we could do - after all, every individual sin was unnecessary, so why do we say that sin is unavoidable in aggregate? We're letting ourselves off the hook.

But perhaps the next verse is the real message, "looking to Jesus the pioneer and perfecter of our faith, who for the sake of the joy that was set before him endured the cross, disregarding its shame, and has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of God." Because that's different.

Just keeping our head down and not breaking any (big) rules so that we get to go to heaven someday and be happier than any of those paltry things would have made us - well, that's not a good reason to do something really. Because life is happening all around you and it's His gift so why the hell would you waste it? And that just puts you under the control of something - it's voluntarily surrendering your free will and your own responsibility for your conscience. And the knowledge of good and evil can be a heavy burden, so it's almost understandable, but we ate the apple and so gained the responsibility to work out the harsher world's complexities for ourselves. We'll always have help, we should not be afraid.

But bearing our burdens with joy, seeing our fellowship with God Himself in bearing those loads, and bearing, as Jesus did, others' loads for and with them, that is our calling. To bear the weight of not holding on to anger and hate when they are so much easier than forgiveness, to bear the load of knowing our sins have taken us further away from the ones we love, to bear the weight of the pain we cannot fix with those who cry out, to bear the load of our Fallen World and the pain that comes with not being able to fix all of its woes. To bear the weight of trying ceaselessly in any case.

The Kingdom of God is here, the New Jerusalem will be built when Jesus returns, but we are living in the Kingdom of God. It's what I always think about during the middle mystery of the Mysteries of Light. Jesus came down to declare the Kingdom of God had come. God is here, moving ceaselessly among us, shining through where we permit Him. We are full of His love and light and, at our best, sharing it unceasing with others.

That is our delightful burden, our light yoke. Let us bear it well. The world is new, and it is beautiful, and Spring has sprung on a weary, cold world. The rain has fallen at last on the barren world into which Adam and Eve and their children were flung. So let us act like the redeemed children of God that we are.

March 9, 2010

Hebrews 11

In a way, this is almost an answer to my question of if I'm making it too easy on myself. After all, one of my main beliefs and strays from traditional Catholic and Christian doctrine is that you don't have to be Christian to go to heaven. You don't even have to be Christian, I have come to believe, to follow God. He loves us so much, I can't imagine Him loving the atheists and Jews and Hindus of my acquaintance less than I do - or less than He loves me, finding any way He can to speak to them to tell them of His great love.

But oh, what it means to have this tradition of faith. Chapter Eleven is a beautiful and brief recap of the Old Testament, hitting most of the big names and many that have since become rather lost in the shuffled (although with Enoch and Rahab in particular that's a real shame). And just before Noah, just after Enoch who was taken up into heaven like Mary, "And without faith it is impossible to please God, for whoever would approach him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him."

And the most beautiful part of this passage is probably the longest story, Abraham's, and the description of their journey: "They confessed that they were strangers and foreigners on the earth, for people who speak in this way make it clear that they are speaking a homeland. If they had been thinking of the land that they had left behind, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; indeed, he has prepared a city for them."

I mean, wow. That's beautiful. And how many of us have felt that way? We want to go home, when this world is cruel and makes us weary. When those we love hurt us, when we don't feel close to God here, when everything just becomes so very hard. Even when things are wonderful. There are those among us whom the world can never seem to touch, and sometimes at my best I feel like one of them. And even when the briars catch and pull me down, I am always reminded, I am seeking my true home. I am on a path to my true, heavenly home.

Imagine a whole people moving through the desert on such a mission, with such a goal and such full hearts, for forty years. Always for our mistakes we are punished with the scenic route. Always for our love we are shown that we are already in the Kingdom of God.

May God always be proud to be called our God. But then, that was for the descendants of Abraham, the Jewish race and faith. If He was going to come down as a tribal deity, then the people He chose to introduce Him to the rest of the world were truly beautiful people. I love this description of them and how they made Him proud.

But at the end of the long list (including the Gentile believer Rahab notably), Paul sighs that this was not the end point of the story. This was not a history lesson about where the Hebrew people came from or how God is, now, currently, reaching out to His people. It is a reminder that the rules have changed.

"Yet all these, though they were commended for their faith, did not receive what was promised since God had provided something better so that they would not, apart from us, be made perfect." Faith was not enough, in the end. Because we still fell down and wandered in the desert. It took the salvation of Jesus Christ. And that was free to all mankind. Forever.

What a beautiful story was building towards His sacrifice, His humanity, His words spoken in a simple human tongue. What a glorious thing has replaced it.

March 8, 2010

Hebrews 10

[Sorry this is late, my internet went down last night.]

These Hebrews chapters are really requiring a lot of work. Unfortunately, today was not a great day for my advanced mental processing, so I hope that I can do some kind of justice to this chapter and its complex arguments about the old law and the new.

Luckily my parents were lawyers.

I sometimes feel like I'm just seeing what I want to see in these passages, generally a bit but more on the ones where I read it as an endorsement of my feelings on, for example, gay marriage. Because, to use a tactic from yesterday, isn't the New Covenant about doing away with all those restrictions that kept people from God? Because we have something so beautiful now, and our job has gone from keeping a thousand archane laws to: "Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who has promised is faithful. And let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day approaching." Fellowship in faith and hope, encouraging each other and working together to make the world a better place. It's more worthwhile for us and the world, and it's a more beautiful belief system and life style.

Do we really want to go back to: "Anyone who has violated the law of Moses dies without mercy on the testimony of two or three witnesses" and "a fearful prospect of judgment"?

Christians should always be liberals. Not democrats - we should be far too radical for any political party. We should be the ones who are always blazing the trail for full equality and peace and loving everyone in our society - finding a place for everyone who comes to our shores as our brothers and sisters in Christ, standing up to fight desperately for every human life without violence, accepting and loving anyone marginalized without qualification. Isn't that what Christians do?

"But we are not among those who shrink back and so are lost, but among those who have faith and so are saved."

All those rules and barriers being put up - the "Christian right" should have nothing to do with that. That is precisely the stuff that Jesus came down to Earth to get rid of. I suppose I'm a member of the "Christian left" so I can't entirely say that and have it mean anything to anyone who identifies with the Christian right, but Christians and especially Catholics should know so much better than to weave rings around groups of people to keep them from acceptance in the community and the love of God through fellowship with the Church. Instead "let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together."

The thing of it is, of the people I know, even the most conservative Christian is ready and willing to accept someone different when actually confronted with one in the flesh. A transsexual sounds scarier to our way of life than the girl down the block whom we now need to remember to refer to as "he." And I don’t think any of them have ever met an illegal immigrant they’d force back across the border – or one they wouldn’t, in the end, have helped to cross it. You'd think it would be the other way around, and I think sometimes it is for liberals who don't actually grow up around non-W.A.S.P.s (poor or otherwise). But Christians, even those who lean to the far right, can be wonderful about accepting people on an individual basis. That's how I know they are true Christians, by their love.

It's the opposite problem that politicians have, I think. They "love the gays" but don't want them to have the things that straight people do. The marriage rites, the blessing of state and church coming together. Just a Civil Union (here not being the place for my "separate but equal" argument).

It's better than most people, in honesty, do: to look at the person and the soul of a sister or brother in Christ, to see Jesus in the body of someone whose actions or origins you do not understand - who seems frightening and foreign. If only our politics reflected it. If only we could apply the things true Christians do so beautifully on an individual basis to the aggregate.

Then again, maybe they do and will, one member of the Church who dares to be who she or he truly is at a time.

Don't you think?

March 7, 2010

The Samaritan Woman at the Well

Could this not be the Christ? A question.

I love this story, and Fulton J. Sheen's chapter on it in The Life of Christ is pretty much unbeatable, but since it is the lovely gospel story this week, here's my attempt to add something. His illustration of her progression from "jew" to "sir" to "a prophet" to the Christ is wonderful to realize and such a beautiful miniature portrait of a journey to faith.

But the next step is just as common and just as interesting. When she goes to tell the people in her town - who have every reason not to really believe her - what she says is a question. Even though she knows the answer perfectly well. It's easier. "Don't you think it's odd that we care more for a parent's convenience than the life of a child - just because we can't see the child yet?"

A leading question, but I can just see her running in: full of questions and curiosity and excitement but afraid to show certainty. Afraid to proclaim yet. Giving testimony, witnessing, but not proselytizing.

The result seems almost better. They come to her later and tell her that now they believe because they have seen for themselves rather than what she has told them. They are not dependent on her for their faith. But then, if they had believed it from her, believed it without needing to see, they would have been doubly blessed. Did she rob them of that by fearing to use her certainty? To speak of it as knowledge? Or was it better to let them come to Jesus on their own, open their mind to God in pieces?

These days such certainty is more likely to scare your hearers off - our world is so complicated and our feelings so complex that plain and simple truths are just a guise for easy lies. Everything sounds truer as a question, because a question can still be played with. It doesn't have the burden of Truth. We don't like absolutes in our world. But come to us with a question, and we're likely to take it up. And then, perhaps, as is our way with the knowledge of so many horrors that happen to take place across the globe, to put it down again when the discussion grows weary.

I don't know if it's cheating or if it's better. It feels less courageous, but perhaps it's a better way to communicate. Trust in the Holy Spirit to guide you is all that I can say. And with all the people who throw down absolutes willy-nilly in this world, be wary of simple truths. The most clear cut are the hardest won.

Perhaps that was it - she felt it, she knew it, she was touched by the hand of the Son of Man and God Almighty - but she shared that with her people. They figured it out together. They took what she felt and they made it into something that could be proclaimed from the (sacred) mountaintops as real together. We all talk so much about politics and philosophy and religion now - often screaming and biting but - this is our gift, if we take it. The chance to put together the difficult puzzles of our world in community. To rely on not only our own minds to find all the beauty in the truths of the universe and the promises of our God but to share them together.

Don't you think?

March 6, 2010

Hebrews 9

What is with all the blood? That's not precisely what Paul's asking or explaining here, but it's a repeating theme of this chapter. There was blood sacrifice in the first covenant, and now there is a permanent blood sacrifice to replace it in the new.

Why the blood? Is it because we are a barbaric race, deep at our roots and down in our hearts we respond best and know violence so we must see sacrifice and even purification in such terms? Is it because we die, and that thought obsesses us, so God made us free of it with blood? Or is it a show of how even something so dark and human can become sacred? Or is it about giving our lifeblood, our very health and strength, when we speak of sacrifice?

Is it about what we know in the modern world - waiting to make full sense to us until now. Rushing through our veins, continually giving us life, putting in the good, taking away the bad, pumping through our very hearts over and over again, unceasing and involuntary, spilling out into the world if we are brave enough to expose ourselves, giving from one to another in Blood Drives, a necessary part of any surgery or healing.

Or is it all of them?

They're all plausible answers, in their way, so they're all probably to one degree or another true. But why do we need it? The blood. Is it the only sacrifice we would understand for what it is? Is it the best way of illustrating what it is we must give to be free?

We give at Blood Drives almost casually now, we trade blood in and out of sick bodies and healthy ones. But we can feel it then, can't we? Sicker, weaker, colder, as if we've just given away a part of our life - our vitality. Reminded that we are mortal and someday the blood will no longer flow.

If we give that, of our very lives, for God, it can be terrifying. Shocking. Cold and sickening and weakening. But we do not die. That's faith.

Our blood grows again, strong as before in almost no time at all.

Some of us are asked to give all, as Jesus did. We are all asked to give.

March 5, 2010

Hebrews 8

For two reasons, I am going to focus on a verse early in the chapter. The first: I have gotten into a habit of choosing a verse from the end of a chapter which, in the Teen Study Bible I'm reading from, is divided into a separate, smaller section presumably not as important as the bulk. The second: I really can't do any more justice to the "new covenant" stuff than verbatim (from what I can remember) of the stuff I've heard all of my life.

I got to admit, it grabbed me. "They offer worship in a sanctuary that is a sketch and shadow of hte heavenly one: for Moses, when he was about to make erect the tent, was warned, 'See that you make everything according to the pattern that was shown you on the mountain.'" Hebrews 8:5. Imagine, a diagram of heaven.

The Middle Ages had all kinds of them within the Order of Creation, and I'm sure they're everywhere. What I immediately thought of, of course, was the stuff I'm studying as research for the Witches Scene I'm about to do for a class project. There are all these drawings you do on the floor for a conjuring spell (of good or bad spirits apparently) that reminded me of a miniature layout of the order of the world as that religion sees it.

Under that theory, the Ark of God had its proper place within a diarama of the creation with its very specific tent.

Cool.

We've got something better.

People who believe in other faiths don't have the gifts we do. The parallels just aren't there - a God who died for us, who limited Himself and became human, who became the Son of Man, a him. A singular man. Even within the Christian faith - the chance to become one with God Himself every day if we so choose, to see Him descend and transform again into as humble a substance as a piece of bread. To go to heaven and back again fifteen minutes later - all while still on Earth.

And all of it free. No elaborate rituals or years of fasting and solitude or even great works to occur afterwards required. Show up at Church and see God work His wonders. Right there, in the true sanctuary, Heaven on Earth. Not a simulacrum, not a symbol or even a mini-cosmos drawn on the floor.

Heaven is here. Waiting. No questions asked. Come as you are.

Wow.