Here's what I've realized about life lately: I'm pleased with the particulars, but not with the whole. I don't mind my work, I like the time that I'm spending with people, the time I have to read, to play music, to ride my bike, but I'm burning out with the weight of it all. This is sobering since tomorrow begins what will probably be the busiest year of my life so far, and I'm feeling exhausted already. The difficult part is that I don't look at my life and see things that I'm wasting my time on, I think what I'm doing is worthwhile, it's just too many worthwhile things. Whatever, this is just repeating what I say all the time.
Without me realizing it, communion has become very important to me over the last two years. I realize this because sometimes I think about joining the Catholic church, but the Catholic restrictions on communion keep me from thinking too seriously about it. And really, I haven't looked into it at all. I just don't associate myself strongly with Protestantism. This is sort of similar to Orthodoxy, where various Orthodox approaches have been very appealing to me, but I just can't handle what I see as arrogant attitudes towards the rest of Christianity. Anyway, communion has become important to me, maybe of itself, but more about how views on communion reflect views on who Jesus is and what his relationship to humanity is. I think I see Jesus as a much more messy figure than many people do, one that is dirty with other people, and asks for that to happen, and isn't nearly as concerned with his own "purity" as many of his followers are. Additionally, views on communion reflect views of humanity itself, or what it means to be human. I don't feel the need to be clean or pure when I take communion, whereas I think a lot of people feel they need to repent of whatever sin is in their life before hand. I feel exactly the opposite, that when I have sin in my life, what I need the most is Jesus, and the eucharist is having Jesus. Similarly, I'm really doubtful that there's ever a point in life when I'm free of sin, whatever sin is, and so it's an always or never type of thing for me. I know there are verses about being careful before taking communion, but from what I've read that was talking about outward actions, and not as much an inward state of being. Also, I think that communion has become more meaningful to me because it's tangible. I honestly don't care about whether it turns into Jesus in my stomach, or any of the views on that part. I don't really need to know how it works, or if it works. I just want it, all the time, and want anyone who wants to take it to take it. That's the offer that I see Jesus extending in the gospels, and I don't think I can be more selfish with Jesus than he was with himself, I think that's disrespectful of Christ, though it's intended for the opposite.
Which brings me to another topic...I was talking with a friend of mine a while ago, and he said "...I mean, Jesus crapped, I don't know if that's sacreligious or not..." and what I wanted to say is that it's the opposite. Talking about Jesus the way he was is much more respectful than trying to pretend that he didn't experience what we see as gross or embarassing or weird human experiences. Speaking of God, or anyone, as they are, is much more respectful.
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Sunday, September 7, 2008
The other evening I was at a dinner party when I mentioned to someone that I was considering going into translation. When she asked me if it was Bible translation, I felt pretty annoyed. It probably isn't fair to her to feel annoyed, it's more my frustration that many of the members of my religion (maybe just my society as a whole?) question the value and importance of literature, or of stories that aren't obviously didactic. I don't want to translate the Bible, I don't want to translate moralizing stories, if I end up translating at all. The brighter language-related side of the dinner party was getting to talk for a bit with a Thai exchange student who was there.
Maybe this is part of a larger issue that I was thinking about tonight at church. I was thinking about how angry it makes me when people try to force me to make most important in my life what is most important in their life, and assume that if I don't then I'm doing something wrong, or missing the mark in some way. Bullshit.
\/\/h@t3\/3r
Maybe this is part of a larger issue that I was thinking about tonight at church. I was thinking about how angry it makes me when people try to force me to make most important in my life what is most important in their life, and assume that if I don't then I'm doing something wrong, or missing the mark in some way. Bullshit.
\/\/h@t3\/3r
Friday, September 5, 2008
apocalypse
I have been thinking about the apocalypse lately, mostly about how I don't believe that God is going to destroy the world. This is, I think, the common belief in Christianity, especially with the idea that there will be a new heaven, a new earth. Even so, I don't think this means the destruction of the world.
To be fair, I haven't come to this conclusion by looking at the Bible, I've come to it by realizing that it doesn't fit with the God I know, and the way that I've seen and experienced redemption in my life, it doesn't fit any sort of model for redemption that's seen in the individual. Here's what I mean: the Bible says a lot about being reborn, about being new creations, about believers dying in/with Christ and being something new. Significantly, this isn't the same as physical death or a change in their physical being. In my understanding, then, a new heaven and a new earth doesn't mean a physically different one that has replaced the old one, just the same one that has been changed to the point that it's new.
I was also thinking lately about Jesus' parables, the parables about being ready for the return of the Lord, for the coming of the Lord. I wondered if perhaps we have misinterpreted these, to mean something that is happening at the end of the world, when really they should be understood as something that happens everyday, that we should be watching and waiting for the Lord to come in our lives. Once again, I haven't really gone back to look at a lot of the context of the parables.
But, in some ways the context doesn't determine the meaning. I'm open to the idea that Jesus didn't know what he was talking about, in the sense that he didn't fully comprehend what he was saying, even if it was true, it may not have been true in the way that he thought it was. Actually, I've just been fascinated by some theories that I've heard (hints of) that Jesus didn't really know who he was, that he was the son of God, was God, but wasn't completely aware of this. In the same way, I think that Jesus may not have been fully aware of what he himself meant by the son of man/the Lord/the son of God returning. He said he didn't know when he was coming, and his followers believed that he was returning in their lifetimes, maybe Jesus himself believed that he would return that soon. But anyway, maybe the return that we are waiting for is already taking place, and maybe the "end times" have been taking place ever since he left.
Anyway, despite saying all that, I do believe that there is a time when all things will be made right, fixed, healed, put back together, made new, that there will be heaven of some sort. I just dont believe right now that that means the total destruction and replacement of the world. God is more creative than destruction, I hope.
That is what I've been thinking about for the last week or two.
In other news, I realized today that I'm really skeptical and uncomfortable with theology and pop-psychology that claims to know what makes men happy and what they need, and what makes women happy and what they need. I guess it seems to me about as useless as trying to figure out what makes Brazilians happy, or what makes black people happy, that there's something more offensive about it than anything, something that is disrespectful of individual people. Good thing that the world is about to be destroyed and none of that matters, anyway.
To be fair, I haven't come to this conclusion by looking at the Bible, I've come to it by realizing that it doesn't fit with the God I know, and the way that I've seen and experienced redemption in my life, it doesn't fit any sort of model for redemption that's seen in the individual. Here's what I mean: the Bible says a lot about being reborn, about being new creations, about believers dying in/with Christ and being something new. Significantly, this isn't the same as physical death or a change in their physical being. In my understanding, then, a new heaven and a new earth doesn't mean a physically different one that has replaced the old one, just the same one that has been changed to the point that it's new.
I was also thinking lately about Jesus' parables, the parables about being ready for the return of the Lord, for the coming of the Lord. I wondered if perhaps we have misinterpreted these, to mean something that is happening at the end of the world, when really they should be understood as something that happens everyday, that we should be watching and waiting for the Lord to come in our lives. Once again, I haven't really gone back to look at a lot of the context of the parables.
But, in some ways the context doesn't determine the meaning. I'm open to the idea that Jesus didn't know what he was talking about, in the sense that he didn't fully comprehend what he was saying, even if it was true, it may not have been true in the way that he thought it was. Actually, I've just been fascinated by some theories that I've heard (hints of) that Jesus didn't really know who he was, that he was the son of God, was God, but wasn't completely aware of this. In the same way, I think that Jesus may not have been fully aware of what he himself meant by the son of man/the Lord/the son of God returning. He said he didn't know when he was coming, and his followers believed that he was returning in their lifetimes, maybe Jesus himself believed that he would return that soon. But anyway, maybe the return that we are waiting for is already taking place, and maybe the "end times" have been taking place ever since he left.
Anyway, despite saying all that, I do believe that there is a time when all things will be made right, fixed, healed, put back together, made new, that there will be heaven of some sort. I just dont believe right now that that means the total destruction and replacement of the world. God is more creative than destruction, I hope.
That is what I've been thinking about for the last week or two.
In other news, I realized today that I'm really skeptical and uncomfortable with theology and pop-psychology that claims to know what makes men happy and what they need, and what makes women happy and what they need. I guess it seems to me about as useless as trying to figure out what makes Brazilians happy, or what makes black people happy, that there's something more offensive about it than anything, something that is disrespectful of individual people. Good thing that the world is about to be destroyed and none of that matters, anyway.
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