shouting loudest to cover the deafening silence within

for me birthday wishes are much the same as memorial statements and sentiments at funerals

things are said and felt that are socially sanctioned, which seem to be appropriate. …culturalized memes in dealing with life and death

we say things that are acceptable and even respectful but perhaps we say the things that we would like to be heard said about us rather than what we really feel is true or the reality of the situation

birthdays and funerals may well be one of those things, in this case a ritual, that says more about us than the one we are mourning or celebrating?

perhaps we go to be a part of another’s event but in reality we go to our own event… or perhaps at least a projection of our own?

if we could be brutally honest with ourselves we might just be able to admit that we are profoundly confused by death and life… that we understand neither

most of us will declare that we are sure of these things but often those who shout the loudest do so to cover the deafening silence within

we are vexed by it all… yet we cannot acknowledge this publicly, not even privately to ourselves

so we lose ourselves along with everyone else in a socially acceptable ritual much like mist in a valley of confusion

we stand together in a shared hope and make declarative communal statements as if the louder we speak in unison the more we will determine another outcome in reality and in our own understanding … that perhaps we long to be seen to be known as a significant contribution in life and death, a meaningful, constructive and eventful part in it all

we’d love to be wished well at both as if this act might endorse our validity and cover the mist of the obvious illusion…

so in it we say not what is but what we’d like to hear

we act in accordance with the way we’d like things to be rather than the way things really are

maybe to be honest is unbearable for us to say or to hear being said. … so we tacitly agree to agree for our own sakes

and we choose to celebrate the illusion rather than align to the reality

… and if so, what does this say about us?

what would this reveal about our grasp on reality?

what would it say about our desire in the pursuit of truth as best we know it?

do we really seek after truth, or do we seek after an environment that endorses our preconceived belief systems?

what does it say about ourselves and our belief systems in general? … about the way we choose to place our faith in things?

is this act of communal ritualized faith the way we desperately want things to be like rather than what we deeply fear things really are?

… or is it what we have concluded for ourselves in unsubstantiated hope as the best we can wish it to be … as what we have chosen to settle for as the closest possible link to what we can come up with as a desired reality for our perspectives?

perhaps the reality of it all is that not to play this game of illusion is profoundly unbearable?

… and that it is indeed wisdom to be a participant?

… or not?

a someone called God

a dear friend posted on his blog ‘what if God was someone?’

http://sevencitys.wordpress.com/2012/04/07/what-if-god-was-someone/

I replied, ‘and what if God wasn’t someone, … what then?’ …to which he replied,

‘that is a good question, Lloyd. i suppose if God wasn’t someone, he wouldn’t be able to talk or interact or share life. i suppose then there would be many who would freely speak on his behalf, in contradicting voices working towards a similar outcome, control instead of freedom, subjection in stead of relationship, force instead of cooperation.

a world unaffected, since there is no affection?’

… to which my response was,

‘as I read your reply I can’t help but think that is more or less exactly what we have right now…
… maybe we created God in our image? maybe we created God as a ‘someone’ … conveniently, for our sakes … and this has inevitably been hijacked by many who speak on his behalf, … with words of contradiction, … working towards an outcome of control instead of freedom, subjection instead of relationship, force and coercion instead of cooperation…?
did not God have it written in our sacred scriptures that ‘he’ is not a man like us, … does not reason like us, think like us, act like us,…
is this not perhaps why we now have those who stand before us and would have us believe that when they speak, think, feel, decide … it is God Almighty who speaks, thinks, feels, decides for us right before our very eyes?…. seducing us to abdicate our rightful place in the balance of life and eternity and live unaffected lives…?

why would it be so important for us to have such a belief in place …that God is a humanoid type … a personified entity who thinks like us, feels like us, reasons like us, defines concepts like love, like, right, wrong, justice, good, evil, etc. etc.

could it be that this belief system is almost exclusively for our own convenience?
could it also be that our faith is not in a supreme creator, but in ourselves almost exclusively?’

… and what would your response be?

thoughts of love and the love of thoughts

Maybe “God” has been constructed in human likeness because it is the only way we can relate to the mystery of an all powerful presence or intelligence in a way that comforts us in our own understanding?  And maybe our natural ability to think about our thinking provokes us to choose to believe that God does the same?

Maybe “God” is okay with this as it is the best way to convey a system of messages to a world that has seemingly lost contact with itself and the balance of meaning in the cosmos?

And now this God is called love.  It says that God even IS love.

But what is love?  Maybe we have defined love our own way – in a way that makes us feel safe and cared for. In a way that reflects the way we think about ourselves and the way we would like to be comforted by in the midst of a very harsh and tempestuous environment like our universe clearly seems to be.

Perhaps a first step might be to relook at the concept of love.

In terms of God and love is it wise to introduce romance into the equation?

Is it appropriate to introduce emotional feelings into the equation?

And if so, in what proportions?

The question must be equally asked of logic and intellect, also of various forms of linear culture.

It says that God loves and cares for us yet it also says that God cares for and clothes the lilies of the field.

So how are the lilies clothed? Does God come down at night and with his own hands wrap them each individually in their petals or does this mean that the lilies are a natural product of the created order and they resonate with the nature and fulness of meaning of life and the universe around them?

Do the lilies need to feel emotion or a cognitive sense of nurture or belonging, even a special or significant place and purpose in the greater scheme of things? Or is their resonance with the love of God displayed in the way they prosper naturally and proliferate and contribute naturally to the ecology of the planet?

And if this seemingly impersonal link be so, does it mean that God loves them any less?

Maybe for lilies God is a huge, omniscient, all powerful Lily in the Heavens? … and would the lilies be incorrect in believing this? … or would God love them no more and even burn them in eternal hell fire because they approached him in such a lowly manner and described the creator as such a being, placing him in their own lowly context?

Would the lilies be guilty of re-creating God in their own image?

And would it be sinful for us even to think of these things?

… or would God love us all just the same?

banking on faith

Which religious group meeting (‘church’) you attend is much the same as which banking institution you choose.
It depends exclusively on what return on your investment is perceived to be the most beneficial to you.

so how do we live?

so how do we live? …by faith in vain science? … or by the science of vain faith?

I asked this recently and someone said, “I’d rather live to believe that Jesus is real and find out He’s not than to believe He’s ‘not real’ and find out He is.”

I understand that response but is that kind of response reflecting faith or is it reflecting blinding fear?

Is it not also merely suggesting that at the end of the day our belief systems (whether ‘spiritual’ or ‘scientific’) are merely a construct of convenience?  And not really a personal construct either, but a social, cultural one at that?

Wasn’t it Bob Dylan who said, “you have to believe in something”?

Is this the reality of things for us?

Is life like our present democratic system of governance where we are presented by only two (or maybe at best a few) choices that aren’t really choices at all?  A cosmic polling station where we are forced to chose what for the circumspect can only be really a choice between the lesser of two evils… and yet we feel it our duty to put our cross on one of the options and once we do make our vote we set about seeking as many as possible who made the same choice and form communities.

There are many of us who don’t vote or who even ‘spoil’ our vote but even then if we participate as a non-participant our hearts as well as all those around us condemn us?

But then again, maybe like this democratic system we so love and adore, that’s all we have? – we make a reasonable decision (according to ourselves at least – and also those significant others in our lives) based on the best data available to us at the time.  … and so we believe … and do everything possible to sustain that belief system.

However, for me this data set seems to be based essentially on incomplete and mostly intangible options.

Perhaps honesty is all we have? … however, these days I find that there is very little honesty around.  There’s lots of huffing and puffing – marketing of our own views and what we would like others to think we are, or what we believe, or what we would like them to think we can do… excuse my scepticism, but all I see is a very successful “Hollywood” marketing system reigning in our hearts and minds.

Honesty and humility?

Hardly any of us have the ability to clearly see our own flaws and weaknesses.   And if we do manage a glimpse we cover ourselves with fig leaves and hide behind trees… Maybe that’s why we eventually turn to belief, to a system of faith?  Maybe that’s why we align ourselves and commit to a course of … self generated internal or social equilibrium perhaps?

Personally I do have a belief in God but I also have many doubts.

Amongst quite a few other things I doubt my own sincerity towards life and it’s meaning.  I doubt my own ability to really understand enough of what’s actually happening in me and around me.  I doubt my own integrity as a rational being, my own ability to make accurate decisions.  I also doubt my own ability to shrug off my own self-embraced illusions, etc.

As a result these days my efforts are invested far less in trying to support my chosen belief systems than they are focused on trying to remain as open minded as I possibly can…  if that’s really at all possible?

The truth is that it takes so much discipline on my part to confront my own faith and belief systems and to weigh them up against the good and the bad times, against reality as I am exposed to it.

And through it all I am amazed that I still believe in God … but even that sounds so arrogant… It sounds like because I believe God is real and exists… maybe it’s more of a truth that God believes in me and because God believes I exist?  Maybe it’s God who holds tight to me and not the other way round?

And maybe this all is just another illusion of convenience I simply cannot seem to shrug off?

But I really struggle with the God of the majority and cannot embrace that popular social construct – a God who is exclusively focused on me and blessing me, doing things for me, whilst simultaneously pouring out wrath and anger on everyone who doesn’t agree with my beliefs.

Instead I am confronted with what I can only describe as a somewhat confusing source of immense power and peaceful majesty that calls out to me more than I call out.

Instead of this source of power being focused on me, to bless me personally and exclusively, I seem to find that the more I challenge my own abilities and fight my own vanity the more peace I get, the more at rest I become within myself  and with my environment.  It’s in this pain that I find healing.  It is through this pain that I seem to become whole.

For me, both faith and science are profoundly speculative and the most insecure seem to be those who try to shout the loudest, who claim to know beyond a doubt.

do we believe?

Do we believe in a Devil?

Do we believe in a God?

Can we believe in both at the same time?

 

Some would say that they believe in a God who is good and is active in initiating healing and extending grace and forgiveness, love and acceptance.  A good God who is the giver of all good gifts and the creator of all that is good.

Many of those same people will also say that they believe in an evil Devil who is against the good God.  An evil Devil who is active in perpetrating pain, death and destruction, extending hate and trouble, suffering and rejection.  An evil Devil who is the source of all that is bad.

Many believe that God created all things and that nothing that is present in any way was made outside of God.  That God is supreme, sovereign, before and beyond all things.

Yet we believe in a Devil.

So who created the Devil?

Or how did the Devil come to be?

even in bad times

Someone said today, “God is still God, even in bad times.”

I’ve heard it many times before but this time it got me thinking.

Is time ‘bad’ sometimes and ‘good’ other times?

Or is time neutral?

Does time have feelings?  a personal agenda?

Time is not a person, … is it?

Our nursery rhymes speak of “Father Time.”

I may be wrong, but I struggle to personify time.  Do you?

Time can seem ‘bad’ or ‘good’ to us.  We all go through these periods.  I know I do.

But what is the basis for this perception in us?

At times time can seem to cut across what we believe to be actually warranted.

‘Good’ times can come when we are not so ‘good’ ourselves, and ‘bad’ times can come when we really have been ‘good.’

Even after having done all we could do under the circumstances.

I think time is neutral, it will just go on regardless, even if we know and understand it or not.

The statement “God is God” tries to assure us that God is constant, never changing.

We believe this and the scriptural texts declare this.

This is intended to bring us security, but what of the times when we feel that things are not going so well?

What is God then?

Perhaps on another level it comforts us to believe that God is constant.

Perhaps we need to have this as a reality?  Perhaps we need it for our sanity.

If God isn’t constant we’d be in all types of trouble.

Like gravity which can seem to really suck sometimes, but if it changed every so often we’d all be in deep trouble.

So we eagerly tend to believe God is totally constant.  It’s reasonable to think this (perhaps unreasonably so?)

And what of when God appears inconsistent – at least according to us in any given situation?

Can this indirectly point a finger our way suggesting that if God is always constant, always ‘good’ and then at the same time things are not going ‘good’ for us … that maybe it’s us who are going bad?

Now that’s not what we want to hear is it?

We have a belief in God.

Does God have a belief in us?

In our religious culture no one likes to be seen as not having faith.

After all, we call ourselves ‘believers.’

It’s usually most unacceptable to admit that we don’t believe.

It’s almost as if this acknowledgement will send irreparable waves of rippling destruction throughout our universe.

But is it reasonable to think like this?

Jesus was not rejecting of the plea of one person who said to him, “I believe, help me in my unbelief.”

We don’t (even can’t perhaps) know all the details cognitively, but we can still know.

Can we also not believe all things but still believe?  Don’t we do that anyway?

Perhaps, like someone we really love – we can never know everything about them but we can know that we love them.

Perhaps the same can be said about God, our relationship to him and his relationship to us?

So, what about God?

It seems clear from the texts and even a fairly general understanding of things pertaining to God that God has offered us grace, love, acceptance, peace, etc.   But do we really even understand what these are?

Do we have much idea about the ‘seasons’ of God, the ‘timing’ of God?  the ‘workings’ of God?
For many of us God can appear “bad” to us at times.

Could this be seen in the same way as the way time has been described above?

When God seems ‘against’ us, is he?  is he then “bad”?

Or as the statement said, is he simply himself, Mr Consistency – not restricted or trapped into any box.  Not eventhe box of our own personal or collective human understanding of him (our ‘theology’).

God’s clearly not like us.

We seem to change all the time – ‘hot’ one day and ‘cold’ the next? …

Perhaps God is also “neutral” – not unfeeling nor intentionally distant … not intentionally ‘for’ nor ‘against’ anyone?

Even the ancient texts declare that God is spirit, not a man that he should lie, etc.

Maybe God is not even a person at all?

In some ways we are like God but is God at all like we are?

Maybe we find ourselves in ‘bad’ times when we are not ‘flowing’ with time properly?

Maybe things start rubbing the wrong way when we are not seeing or fully understanding what’s really happening?

Maybe we cannot see events from the past converging in on the future and disrupting our present?

Could our feelings and understanding about God be similar?

What do you think?

what if the penny dropped one day?

One of the things that impacts me greatly when I read the gospel accounts is the way Jesus dialogued with those around him.  I use the word dialogue specifically here in contrast to the word monologue which is almost exclusively what we see and hear in our present religious settings.

What I see is that  Jesus asked a lot of questions and engaged intimately and personally with people in many different ways that suggests to me that he was more than just interested in their individual world view but that he even respected it and asked them for clarity on their way of seeing things.

In the gospel of John he goes into quite some detail about the intent of God in his being there and what this was really all about.  In it all there is rich evidence of what I see as God’s desire to engage with us as friends and not as slaves or even servants.  To my mind there is far less emphasis on a heavy, top-down relationship where mankind needs to cower and tip-toe around an angry, hostile, difficult to please master.   Instead I see a completely different picture, that of a great creator of all things, a supreme intelligence, wanting to enter in and explore a mutual relationship that is based on dialogue, friendship, agreement, even open and flexible negotiation.

What also stands out for me is that this was not as a result of any request on our side, prayerful or other.  As far as I can make out there is no record of anyone asking God to make it easier or to relax with all the heavy commandments and tough expectations.  Sure, some prophets lamented quite passionately from time to time but not a lot is recorded as saying, “Hey God, what’s your problem?” “Give us a break will you?”  … “What’s with all these impossible demands?”  “Cut us some slack here – we’re only human after all!”  Instead it appears overwhelmingly so that God’s kindness and open handed acceptance is an entirely unprovoked initiative from God himself.   In fact, even to this day there is more evidence to point to the fact that we still expect a bolt of burning sulphur like anger to descend on our heads at any moment … and this is what we tend to preach.  Yet this kindness, acceptance, unmerited embracing, … it’s all God’s idea.  Even salvation itself is penned as being for God’s sake, not exclusively ours.

Doesn’t that surprise you?  It totally caught the religious intelligentsia in Jesus’ day with their pants down and even with our sense of present time revelation and the ‘new testament’ of unmerited grace and forgiveness I think it still catches us as well.  I see this strange initiative of God as pointing quite convincingly to a desired relationship based on mutual respect and trust and as I said, this comes from God and not us.  For me this is amazing.  Talk about signs and wonders … this is BOTH!

And I don’t see God making a brazen demand for total conformity to a stronger, exacting, legalistically demanding, higher conduct but almost directly the opposite.   To me it presents a picture of the almighty creator descending down to what is obviously a lower order of life specifically to engage and not even exclusively on what is a higher demanding standard, but almost a mutual interaction, a dialogue not a monologue.   For me it’s sort of like, “Listen guys,  we got a huge problem here, sure, but I have a solution … and here’s what I have done about it …”   And if any changes are needing to be made it is God himself who makes it happen before we even know we could or should ask for it.

Equally strangely to me is that we seem to demand these ‘changes’ of ourselves and especially of others, it’s not God who makes these demands.  I mean, the offer was made to us before we even knew we were in need and we were accepted while still unimaginably smelly so why after being accepted with such open handed embrace would there need to be changes made in order to be more accepted?  Yet we expect people to conform to this kind of  stuff.  In fact we demand it.  Stuff like – don’t do this, stop doing that, start doing that, start doing the other thing, think this way and not that way, etc.   It looks to me like this solution we’ve been presented with in scripture is clearly a call for intimacy of a kind that is even in this so-called ‘enlightened’ day strikingly unusual.

“Terms and conditions apply!” – I hear this everyday in the media, but I struggle to see it in the sacred texts.  Yet it is heard from the pulpit all the time and is transferred through social censure and religious internal politics.  In fact, the way it reads to me is that if there are any terms and conditions they are met before we even know they are needing to be met.  As a consequence it really impacts me severely just seeing and experiencing the hierarchical and formal nature of even the most so called ‘liberal’ or ‘progressive’ of modern church systems.

The way I understand it the offer is to all, even the most anti-whatever, including the worst of the worst.   People who are so off, and I mean OFF! … WAY off – are freely accepted – totally embraced by this crazy, extravagant, generous, open hearted, open handed God.  But with us, if someone has even a slightly different idea on what or who God is or even a slightly different way they do something, they are cut off and rejected, even publicly insulted and humiliated, muscled out to the peripheral courts of the untouchable heathens – those blemishes in the community, the black sheep of the flock.
I cannot help but conclude for myself that this could very easily suggest that we have possibly not ever really understood anything of the intent and practical outworking of Jesus’ words on the matter even though we brandish about the term “The Father’s Heart” with great abandon.

I wonder what might happen if the penny dropped one day?

unended

some hoped, some expected, some feared, some jeered … but so far it looks like it will all pass over uneventfully … except for the residue of the experience which will very possibly last a lot longer than the memory of the event in our lives – if only subconsciously perhaps.

on sunday morning many who in the secret place of hope and fear in their hearts who believed it would all end, or even hoped it were the truth, will most probably agree with those who scoff saying that they knew all along that it was not true … but inside?

a lot of what we believe is determined not by faith but by the apparent facts that seem to manifest around us and are either ratified or denied by the other mortals we associate with.  perhaps we may choose to deny it but to my mind it’s a very social gospel we live by – one that is rooted so much more in the natural than the spiritual or eternal.

me, i think i’m with those whose hopes were dashed

perhaps a fair amount of those who secretly hoped the world would end are those who really qualify – and perhaps by default – for a true spiritual faith?  perhaps they hoped not because of a theology or intelligence this way or that but because they are suffering in some way or another? – financially, emotionally, physically?  perhaps they are extremely lonely even in the crowd and the laughter?  perhaps just the thought of being taken out of here is such an attraction?  perhaps they truly feel like aliens in this harsh and cruel world?  they might not be able to admit it publicly but they may feel like they are unloved, lonely, desperate with very few to tell about it let alone understand.  perhaps these people long for a reboot of the whole damn thing?  for some a total change, however drastic and costly would be such welcome relief?  my faithful scepticism tends towards their world – especially at times like these.

for many of the brazen and outspoken, those who verbosely quote chapter and verse and pontificate on what the latest apostle/prophet/preacher/author last published … well, they too have fears and doubts – only their inner fears won’t allow them to acknowledge it.  but they feel safe inside their own minds because in this modern era volume is believed to be the all powerful answer

what is it about us that so easily wishes on things? why is it so easy for us to be effected by this kind of stuff?

as my blogname suggests, i am a faithful skeptic.  My views are not at all acceptable by the mainstream out there yet i too have a belief system and an extremely strong one at that.  this is what impacts me so greatly.  for me, having an extremely strong faith is not an achievement at all – as much as romantic love for another is not an achievement.  it just happens and we are swept along by it.  it tends to consume us.  and it leaks out for all except usually ourselves to see.  me, i am mostly shocked by my beliefs.  i have grown comfortable with them not because they are correct necessarily but because they are mine and they are all I have.  i doubt a lot and never stop questioning, but i cannot shake off my beliefs.  they sort of consume me

so, it looks like the world may not end today and for some this may very well be the end of their world

there is a song penned by phil keaggy long ago that has made an indelible impact on my thinking ever since i first heard it sung. the opening lyrics go something like this,

“who will speak up for the little ones?

hopeless and half abandoned

they’ve got a right to choose

life they don’t want to lose

i’ve got to speak up, won’t you?”

he was writing on the abortion issue as far as i can recall but it is nevertheless equally true for the lonely, the suffering, the desperate, those in despair and hopelessness, those whose personal reality clashes so dramatically with the theology and meme-artistry around them.

who will speak up for such as these?

me, i tend towards being brazen and self-possessed … but i’ve got quieten down a whole lot and speak up – won’t you?

maybe the combination is locked up in how safe we feel?

maybe it’s us making things happen?

maybe it’s God?

maybe it’s imagination?

maybe it’s a combination?

maybe it’s us in God, or even God in us?

maybe the ‘consciously creating circumstances’ pundits were on the right track all the time?

could the creative investment that is evidently in us be the ability to, like God, create a new world, a new reality, a new dimension to what we see before us?

but is it a lie if it was not really there … and then suddenly was … simply because we believed it?

or was the previous state a lie … until we believed?

often we chose to believe even in the face of the absence of evidence or even in the face of conflicting evidence … isn’t this the same as lying?

often we do this when we find ourselves in a state of desperation

those who have what they need have no need of faith, those who have not do

in our desperation do we shift the reality or do we shift how we see reality?

“only believe” was what he said, “only believe” …

this is indeed an explosive thought …. is this the explosive creative power that got everything we can see around us to be what it is?  is this what banged a big spark and even possibly sparked a big bang?

could this be the language, the power, the currency, the substance of God almighty himself? … or is it just a language of hope that we have generated for our own convenience?

so what is this thing we call “belief?” and how powerful is it? .. or how powerful are we?

this ability we seem to have to believe … this belief that seems to give us ability?

and how much is God?

how much is us?

how much is a combination?

how much is real?

or how much is imaginary?

how do we define the meaning of believe?  Maybe we can start by seeing if we can agree on this for a start?

the dictionary says: 1. To accept as true or real. 2. To credit with veracity. 3. To expect or suppose; think. … also : to have firm faith, confidence, or trust (in the value or truth of something), to have an opinion; to think: … etc.

there’s not much mention of fact in any of that, is there? … instead a lot of suggestion around acceptance of an idea and a shifting of opinion

perhaps we all believe, the scientist, the agnostic, the atheist, the religious, the skeptic… all different perhaps, but all perhaps alike?

so, what picture does each of us see?

each of us reading this right now … how did we see it?

we all have a view, an opinion, a belief

where did this picture come from?

what do we believe in?

was it culturally handed down or an original idea?   either or, what sparked it at first?

so, … what do you believe?

can you say?

or do you believe you would rather not?