Theology, food, and knots.

I am in the process of doing research for a theology paper that's due shortly. I haven't decided exactly on the thesis (hopefully that will flow naturally from my research), but I'm working toward formulating what I believe to be true about the nature of sin, the purpose of redemption, and the possibilities (or impossibilities) within sanctification. The broadness of these three ideas combined is somewhat overwhelming to me, but I'm finding it difficult to separate them. So, for now, it is what it is.

Ah, how I wish I could detach myself from this; that I could have chosen the topic of "infant baptism" and simply regurgitated some micro-wave easy, pre-formulated view that I purchased at Wal-Mart for $.89.

Directions :
1. Babies should be baptized.
2. This is why.
3. Add nip/tuck sources.

Let cool and serve.

But no. Instead, I thought it would be a good idea to pile up 6 large plates at the All-You-Can-Eat Theology Buffet so that I could get my money's worth, regardless of the consequences which, by the way, happen to involve me hugging a toilet at 2AM due to overeating and food poisoning...

...metaphorically speaking, of course.
(I'm not crazy, I've just been contemplating the meaning of life for 4 hours.)

Still, I prefer it this way. It's just that time constraints are... well... constraining. And for whatever reason, I've become so emotionally enthralled with my research topic that my spirit has reasoned and impassioned my stomach into a thousand tiny gut-wrenching knots; forcing me to quit for the evening.

I'm trying hard to stay open-minded and sensitive. I have become progressively aware that truth is not determined by what I feel about it (though the soul's responses can certainly be indicators in sniffing it out). If something is, in fact, truth, I must follow it, regardless of how nicely it sits with me. But because that is the case, I am determined to be all too particular concerning what I choose to believe, if I am to be devoted to it.

I digress. Good night, dear bloggers (whoever you are).
I leave you with a few fine knots to untangle yourselves :

"And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments."
1 John 2:3

"For if the inheritance is based on the law, it is no longer based on a promise."
Galatians 3:19

God is in my coffee.

Lately, I've been attempting to form a spiritual perspective with what I accept rather than with what I reject. I realize what I hypocrite I am to say that my connection with God through admiring nature is sufficient divine conversation, while some one else's Sunday morning service is not. Yeah, it's not really my cup of coffee, but we all have different palates.

It's like a painter at the easel, or a baker and her cupcakes; like the writer of a novel, or even the three-year-old and her play-dough village. In all these "products" there are signs and reflections of the producer and their personality. The artists style, the baker's taste, the author's vocabulary, the three-year-olds imagination. You see where I'm going with this... If God is the creator of all things, then why do we dismiss the possibility of understanding Him more through, well... all things? And if each of us possess different passions, different perspectives, different interests, then how can we misunderstand how the musician is more inclined to hear Him in music, the church-goer more apt to witness Him in a sanctuary, or the doctor more prone to find Him in the intricacies of the human body?

So, let's be real here. No, seriously. Let's shed all of our labels, reputations, prejudices, yada yada, and let's be real people. Bona fide, snot-nosed, everybody-poops, hurting, lying, crying, we're-all-dying type of REAL people...

The manifestation of God IS in all things. All things. I don't mean the interpretation of truth, but rather the realization of it. Not "what's right for me is right for me, and what's right for you is right for you," regardless of contradiction. No. I mean truth and God are revealed in all things, good, bad, beautiful, and ugly, and the places that I find Him are no better than the places that you find Him. So, why not be excited to share with one another the ways that we've come to know Him, and eager to learn from others without bias?

All to say, though we should always approach ideas and theories with discernment and precaution of delusions, let's be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater :)

"Two of a trade never agree."

"Pride is a spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense...

The more pride one has, the more one dislikes pride in others... The point is that each person's pride is in competition with ever one else's pride... Two of a trade never agree... It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest... A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you...

We must not think pride is something God forbids because He is offended at it, or that Humility is something He demands as due to His own dignity - as if God Himself was proud. He is not in the least worried about His dignity. The point is, He wants you to know Him: wants to give you Himself. And He and you are two things of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Him, you will, in fact be humble - delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all your life."

-C.S. Lewis - Mere Christianity

I am a tree cricket.

"Chase after truth like all hell and you'll free yourself,

even though you never touch its coat-tails."

I was raised in a Christian home. Though 'Christian' ideals and theologies have not been my cup of tea lately, I do have to say, I'm very blessed to have had parents who instructed me, yet never force fed me. If only by example, I have always been taught to think for myself and to come to conclusions based on conviction rather than the convenience of cookie-cutter beliefs.

As a result, my spiritual journey has been somewhat of a rollercoaster, as I'm sure isn't an uncommon story for most. In junior high, I wasn't super enthusiastic about God or religion. In high school, I might have been a little too enthusiastic, pushing my beliefs on others without consideration for the individual. Now, in my college years... well, it's hard to discern what my faith looks like now. The best description I have might consists of the words 'distracted,' 'unsatisfied,' 'confused,' 'lethargic,' and 'constricting.'

When I was about 5 years old, I used to collect cicada sheddings. Gross, I know, but for some reason I was fascinated by these transparent, empty, bug-shaped cases. I remember having my sisters hoist me up into that big maple tree in our back yard, toy treasure chest in hand, so I could gather what was left of my noisey little summer friends.

I like to think I've got something in common with the cicada. Forming into something a bit too big for my skin, my body is stretching and twisting into something new. Something similar, but new. I believe that growing up in a Christian-based atmosphere (church every Sunday, Christian high school, Christian college, etc.) has somewhat desensitized me to the concept of depth. (I'm sure this can happen in any religion). My entire life I've heard 'saved by grace,' or 'born again,' 'faith,' 'Messiah,' 'heaven,' 'hell,' 'redemption,' 'Jesus.' Honestly speaking, most of these things have begun to loose all meaning to me. Like repeating the same word over and over again until all you have is a mumbled mesh of nonsense syllables. And these concepts have become so flawed and tight and twisted in my mind, so unlike what they once were, that I've found the most natural (yet difficult) approach is to slowly shed each dead cell and start fresh. Like the cicada.

I am a fool if I believe that I will ever hear or hold an unbiased interpretation of the Truth on this side of life. But I am content simply to seek It. And regardless of my distaste for all this 'evangelical' bullshit, I cannot help but be compelled by this Man named Jesus. I cannot help but be drawn to Him. Even if I never understand quite so much as the scholar claims to understand, it is enough for me, for now, to question, to observe, to seek Truth, in whatever form it presents Itself.

Where else can I go? 

C.S. Lewis can only be read in a British accent.

"People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, 'If you keep a lot of rules I'll reward you, and if you don't I'll do the other thing.' I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what is was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or else into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other."

-C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity

Humbug

"The Spirit of God unearths the spirit of self-vindication; He makes us sensitive to things we never thought of before."

-Oswald Chambers

All's well that ends well.

I'll start this conversation off in a fashion that I'm sure You've heard a billion times before from so many others: I know we haven't really spoken much lately, but...

And then I'll tell You how I've been feeling, as if You didn't know: I can't seem to shake this emotional chaos, this down trodden, disappointing, heartbreaking emptiness.

I'll touch on my confusion: I'm never sure how to talk with You. But, honestly I suppose I wouldn't really wouldn't want to converse with anyone else. Not tonight anyway. But then again, maybe I'm just talking to myself. I mean, even if You are there, which I believe You are, I could still just be verbalizing my thoughts as a sort of unintentional therapy, not really consider You much at all. Just talking to release, not caring who it's toward.

I'll tell You things You've already known: I can't collect myself, my life. I had it all running smoothly, positively, gracefully, never once claiming it was on my own strength, but it was running smoothly, just the same. And at some point, I don't know when, it all starts tumbling down, down, down, down; emotionally, mentally. Whatever. And I'm on hard, cold concrete, under a pile of... stuff (though I'll really be thinking "shit"), wondering where You are, where my poise and motivation have gone, knowing how simple it is to just get up off my butt (but I'll really be thinking "ass") and seize the moment, but still feeling so held down by something only as difficult as I allow it to be; myself.

Then I'll connect with You through my dreams: You know that dream I always have? The one where I'm trying to move or speak or act, but I'm frozen and can do nothing? Completely frozen, like there's a force in every direction around me, pressing itself upon every physical fiber of my being. My thoughts are moving, moving, moving, but I'm stuck. Still. Immobile. I can do nothing. Nothing. 

As I'm speaking, my thoughts will loosen up and I'll then come to a conclusion about the situation: I need to get up, don't I? I need to start moving forward. Life has been nothing but good to me... YOU have been good to me. Why would I ever act as though I'm trapped? This cluttered mess I see before me, I can clean it. Broken promises, I can still fulfill them. Friendships I've neglected, I can mend them. Phone calls I've avoided, I can make them. Projects that need to be started, continued, finished, I can get up off my lazy ass (this time I'll really say it, because I'm feeling comfortable) and do them.

I'll draw a conclusion about You: You've made my hands and feet; my mouth, and eyes, and spirit. You've created me to keep walking, breathing, moving, working.

I'll draw a conclusion about myself: And I'm the only one stopping myself from moving.

I'll become thankful: You've made me to move, move, move if I want to. 

And I'll fall asleep etching the thought in my mind: I want to feel free. So I'm going to move.

And I'll wake up tomorrow, feeling...

Goodnight.

An ongoing thought...

It all proves difficult to conclude. I rearview past chapters of my life, and I'm convinced that my spirit well is drying up. Once, I had travelled through tides of creativity and conviction, vision and purpose, on what I thought was a progressive journey. Yet every stage is a simple remnant of the last, and now, at the age of nearly twenty-three, I find myself almost completely regressed. Or worse, maybe I've just been standing still. I cannot decide which is more terrifying.

Uncertainty is alway reliable. Ironic and cliche, yes, yet true. I cannot tell you my perspectives on God, because my conclusions concerning Him are hard to come by. And I certainly do no know what I believe about myself. What inkling I may have of the truth of my own existence is merely this damned inability to produce life. This fruitlessness; this drab, colorless dress, too large and awkward for my body, with crooked stitching and a wrinkled collar. Loveless, selfish, broken, obstinate, ignorant, etc. Dissatisfied and dissatisfying. And so, I leave myself with a suffocating unwillingness to dismiss the imperfections I display. There is no release. There is no relief.

I know this: I need to breathe in icy cold. I need to drain this puss from my thoughts, this muck and blood and poison, and fill my soul with fresh, cool summer rain.

Please, let it rain.