cairns

After reading in Chinese thought, I am contemplating the God of the Old Testament who does not freely speak His name.  It even sent me back to review the Jewish myths of Lilith who was able to fly away and become the serpent by knowing and speaking the name of God — definitely not scriptural, but points to a different respect for the holiness of God’s very name beyond our comprehension.  Lao Tzu uses the word “Tao” in place of the unknowable name.  The ancients spoke of Heaven, or the God of Heaven with no specific name and no images.

Of course, Jesus came and declared that by knowing Him, we know the Father.  But, how lightly we take really knowing Him.  I am astounded by how accessible He made God, and how far beyond our full understanding His life, acts, and teaching remain.  Having grown up among people who claimed to be literalists, I still have not met a person who would literally obey all the teachings of Jesus.  Yet, I know many who claim that they know Him well enough to know His will for others, especially others who are different from themselves.

I only know that I “see through a glass darkly” in terms of knowing either myself or Him.  I want to know Him more.  That’s what I really want.  To know Him more and more until the day comes when I can “look into the eyes of Aslan.”

Compared to growing further into Him, all else is loss.  Substituting “The Word” for “this Tao,” number 62 in the translation I have includes this passage:

even though there are great jewels brought in by teams of horses at the coronation of the emporer and the installation of the three princes,

This is not as good as staying where you are and advancing in The Word.

Number 71 says:

There is nothing better than to know that you don’t know.

Not knowing, yet thinking you know –

This is sickness.

Only when you are sick of being sick

Can you be cured.

I am sick of the sickness of thinking we know, only to be confused because the world does not do what we think it should.  Time to contemplate the wonder and goodness of God who is beyond what we know, loves beyond our understanding, and waits for us in silence — talking is an effort to define, sitting in His presence in silence is a different discipline with different outcomes.  On the Wall at night I felt Him, beyond all our works and talk, transcendant.

Time for less “knowing” and more loving and worship.

peace

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If you want to grab the world and run it

I can see that you will not succeed.

The world is a spiritual vessel, which can’t be controlled.

Manipulators mess things up.

Grabbers lose it.  Therefore:

Sometimes you lead

Sometimes you follow

Sometimes you are stifled

Sometimes you breathe easy

Sometimes you are strong

Sometimes you are weak

Sometimes you destroy

Sometimes you are destroyed.

Hence the sage shuns excess

Shuns grandiosity

Shuns arrogance.

Lao Tzu

I like it.

(Before anybody warns me I am headed off into la la land…It is not about the religion of Taoism, with all of its worship of spirits.  It is based on living true to that which already was when the earth was still without form and void and which formed all things.

Confused?  It is confusing.  Even the book I have is translated by a person who believes it is connected to the spirit based eastern religion.  That religion does use it and venerates its author.  Most heresies contain as much truth as possible or nobody would believe them!

For the other view, see the book I wrote about earlier.  One more quick connection to the true “Tao,” the Chinese translation of John says, “In the beginning was the Tao…”)

peace

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Just finished Chan Kei Thong’s book Faith of our fathers: God in ancient China ISBN 7-80186-506-5. I have never read a more compelling explanation of how the authority of the Bible can guide us in exploring the signs and revelations God has so graciously shared among the people of the earth in order to allow a path to Truth.

One of the most intriguing, and sad, chapters details how the greatest and most respected missionaries to China (both Jesuit and protestant) studied the ancient texts concluding that the Chinese did know and worship the Creator, only to face their greatest opposition from their own churches at home. It is a strong call to humility, openness, and scholarship.

The author’s Christian beliefs (leaving out his discussion of the Chinese comparison’s) would be acceptable to my most conservative friends.  But, he is also able to see the revelation of God and the worshipful response of man in the ancient practices of his own people.  Starting out as an atheist, he has come to appreciate both.  The book unfolds as he joyfully discovers more and more truth about both God and his own culture through careful study.

It reminds me of Paul’s use of what people already know and worship in order to open a space for discussion of the Gospel.  I wonder how differently things would have gone in how many places if those who went claiming to “know God” were more open to recognizing the ways in which God had already been revealed to those already there?  If I was writing a beginning course for serious mission study, I would include this text.  Time to reconsider Jesus’ instruction to His disciple’s to enter new places knowing that ‘men of peace’ are already to be found there.

peace

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I used to be a fundamentalist Presbyterian, which was psychotic on the face of it.  Challenging another blogger to define a “better fundamentalist” puts me back to thinking about my own changes over the years.  My fundamentals have changed.  Mostly the list has become far shorter.

1.  I consider it a fundamental truth that the universe was created (how and in what time frame is beyond my limits of sure knowledge) by a loving God who continues to interact and create and to love every person, creature, and form created.

2.  I consider it a fundamental truth that we became separated from fellowship with that God through knowledge and practice of evil.

3.  I consider it a fundamental truth that God pursued reunification with us from the moment of separation, provided it through the redeeming work of Jesus’ life and death, and  continues to pursue it today and will until it is fully restored in practice not just in creeds and beliefs.

4.  I consider it a fundamental truth that I am called to love God and to love and accept you as my brother or sister whether you believe any of those or not, and that I am to be prepared to discuss them with you in a truly loving way that listens at least as much as it speaks.

There are more things I believe, at least today, with what light I have.

But, I am not sure there are any more that I would call fundamentals.  There is a far longer list of things that I now believe are Divine mysteries, reflections of God’s nature being so much bigger than our theories and dogmas, paradoxes that frame the space where we live, and beautiful sources for wonder and worship instead of creeds and accusatory deeds.

At least that’s what I think right now, or think I think. Laugh, its OK.

peace

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My students in China did a wonderfully funny song and dance at their senior banquet that started out with lyrics about “I want a prof…”  With many thanks to them, it suggests a format to me for thinking about what I am looking for in a church.  I’ll start it, maybe others will help me clarify.  And, like I tell my students sometimes having  the dream first, makes reality happen.

I want a church with faith strong enough to admit how much we don’t know,

I want a church that worships God because God is too big for us to understand, label, and own.

I want a church that celebrates our diversity, all of it, as evidence of holy creativity beyond our grasp.

I wanna church that expects honesty from hurting, confused, lonely people — us.

I wanna church that recognizes the reality of the ethereal.

I wanna church that doubts the surety of what visibly surrounds us.

I wanna church that hopes (even when we don’t have a vision, mission, goals, and action steps plan).

I wanna church that loves.  period.  But, it can’t be period, it has to be defined.  I wanna church that loves people who do not believe what others believe, do not do what everybody else says they should do, and dare to ask us questions we cannot answer — again us, all of us.

I wanna church that truly believes in the priesthood of all followers of Jesus.

I wanna church that makes (no that’s wrong, that let’s) me think, weep, laugh, dance, pray, grow, go, and stop.

I wanna church that is less like pews of costumed people, and more like a circle of my cousins and friends sitting around a fire in the dark!

Well, that’s a start, … again … later I’ll go back and read and see if its further along than the last time I tried.  All contributions welcome. 8^)

peace

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“It is just the same with the so-called criminals living in our midst.  To bring these people under the sway of Christianity there is only one means, that is, the Christian social ideal, which can only be realized among them by true Christian teaching and supported by a true example of Christian life.  And to preach this Christian truth and to support it by Christian example we set up among them prisons, guillotines, gallows, [electric chairs & IV drugs] preparations for murder; we diffuse among the common herd idolatrous superstitions to stupefy them; we sell them spirits, tobacco and opium [the list has only grown] to brutalize them;…we make a display of senseless luxury in the midst of suffering poverty; we destroy the possibility of anything like a Christian public opinion, and studiously try to suppress what Christian public opinion is existing [and defend it as separation of church and state?].  And then, after having ourselves assiduously corrupted men, we shut them up like wild beasts in places from which they cannot escape, and where they become still more brutalized, or else we kill them.  And these very men whom we have corrupted and brutalized by every means, we bring forward as proof that one cannot deal with criminals except by brute force.” (p. 199)

“All we can know is what we who make up mankind ought to do, and not to do, to bring about the coming of the kingdom of God.  And that we all know.  And we need only each begin to do what we ought to do, we need only each live with all the light that is in us, to bring about at once the promised kingdom of God to which every man’s heart is yearning.” (p. 212)

“All these material reforms may be realized, but the position of humanity will not be improved.  But only let each man, according to his powers, at once realize in his life the truth he knows, or at least cease to support the falsehoods he is supporting in the place of the truth, and at once in the year 1893, we should see such reforms as we do not dare to hope for within a century — the emancipation of men and the reign of truth upon earth.” (p. 261)

Tolstoy, The kingdom of God is within you, (1893)

What if we really did what Jesus told us to do instead of wearing little WWJD bracelets to the mall?  Would we still be building prisons faster than schools?  Would we still be trying to eliminate all “evil doers” with drones and hypodermic needles?  He makes me wonder.

peace

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Tolstoy rejected the miracles as medieval superstition at best, and contrivances of those who came to power to justify their authority at worst.  He rejected the church as having become both intertwined with the state and another institution for the domination of the people.  He rejected all claims that a servant of Christ was called upon to be a loyal servant of any other current state or power other than God’s Kingdom.

Yet, he took the words of Christ seriously.  He considered every call of Christ for men to live in the new Kingdom now as a valid claim upon our lives.  He believed that Christ’s commands to love our enemies and turn the other cheek were real and binding calls upon the believer to stop participating in acts of violence, or supporting  others who carry out those acts in the name of either God or state.  He believed that Jesus meant what he said and that the coming of the Kingdom as a visible force on earth waited only for those who would finally do what Christ called us all to do.

It reminds me of the Screwtape letters of C.S. Lewis.  How much of heaven have we wasted arguing about every part of Christianity other than what it should look like to live out the teachings of Christ?  How easily has the enemy distracted us from considering what a life sold out in love of God and ALL our fellow creatures should look like?  Why do we quibble about the finest distinctions between expressions of the church, and fail to really consider what Christ said and what the life He called us to is?  Could it be that we have been duped?  Could it be that the enemy is laughing as we drive off to church and then out to eat while the world starves and our nations kill each other?

peace

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I’ve been noticing trees a lot lately. Its been happening for a few years now and was increased by the damage of last winter’s ice storm, the labor of cleaning up the mess, and the wonder of watching the local trees recover.

Even in the midst of all the sites of China there were several times when trees got my attention.  One was somehow special to local people who were choosing to have their pictures made by it in a whole park that looked the same to me.  Others just appeared along the way, through windows, over rooftops, or beside the wall.  I have written before about how they compare with volcanoes in my mind — a cool calm version of the volcano’s hot rapid leaping of the stuff of earth back toward the universe.  Lately it is something else.

(With full credit and thanks to Macrina W.), it is partially that virtually every tree has become to me like a temple.  And, it has gotten wrapped up with my musings on the Genesis account.  Every tree seems to contain an echo of the garden.  I see each tree as the tree of life.  For one simplistic thing, they usually outlive us.  The seasonal ones remind us that what appears to die lives on, and the evergreens remind us of hope in winter.  Even when they finally fall, they sprout fungus and support a wide variety of insect, reptile, and mammal forms on the road to becoming the root food of seedlings of their own and other kinds.

I see in each tree something of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.  They are shelter, shade, food source, and providers of man’s favorite fuel to keep the cold away.  And they can fall and kill, burn out of control, or be made into spears and arrows.  There is so much there that can be sustaining or destructive, beautiful and dangerous, life bearing or coffin material.

I guess I see us in the tree as well.  There they stand day after day reenacting the story of creation.  Pulling dirt from the earth below and combining it with the elements of the sky and energy from the universe beyond to produce life and growth.  Without even turning to the “Tree” of torture worn and worshiped by most of Christendom, they are holy participants in the continuing act of creation.

They pull my mind upward to heaven, out of myself and into the grace and grandeur of their varied forms, and downward to fertile earth resting between their roots.  Somehow they have become far more than wood and fuel to me.  How often I am startled by the appearance of a single tree which stands out unique in a forest or landscape.

It happened sitting in a restaurant in Beijing and suddenly noticing a stately sweeping trunk through the window.  And it happened standing alone on the wall at night, feeling man’s great achievement of antiquity beneath my feet, but seeing around me bathed in moonlight mountain forests in every direction proclaiming truth and life in abundance far beyond anything man has yet to do.  And a night time adventure with friends became a moment of deep worship.  I was drawn to contemplate the wonder of a God who so freely supplies us with the very garden we claim to have lost.  I am surrounded by the original acts of creation still occurring, by the same choices still presented, and by the presence of life that is holy beyond my imagination.  I am awed.

peace

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For me there is a growing — not yet owned, but growing — sense of both mortality and immortality that makes it all make sense.

I am mortal.  No matter how tight my physical grasp, the day will come when it will fail.  Nothing I grasp now will travel with me when I finally go home.

But, I am also immortal.  And on the day that Jesus Christ issued the Divine fiat in the garden, and turned loose of everything including life itself and the very presence of the Father, I inherited it ALL.  I own nothing than will not be taken, and there is nothing I am not heir to as well.  I’m learning to live in the midst of that, in joy.

peace

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There is church down the street which my wife and I have been talking about visiting.  But, when I got home from China I found out they have posted a sign that says “If 10% is good enough for God, it should be good enough for the IRS.”

Now I could so easily go on a side track of how political church signs should be under US law, and whether current interpretations of US law are correct or incorrect anyway.  But, those are trivialities compared to the incorrect teaching of Jesus’ call.

Jesus never said 10% was enough for God or Caesar!  All of our money is issued by and returns to the government.  Jesus looked at the coin with Caesar’s face on it and said, ‘If its his, give it back!”  We are not supposed to be clinging to the government or its money for hope.

Jesus never said send me a check for 10% and keep living how ever you please.  Jesus said, “leave it all behind and follow me…gouge out your eye if it causes you to sin (great blog Sully)…take up your cross and follow me…hate your family for my sake…give both cheeks…I am giving my body to be broken for you, do likewise…”  Jesus calls for us to surrender ALL.  (Another side note: maybe we need to still sing some of those old Biblical hymns instead of syrupy seeker love songs!)  Ten percent is an Old Testament reference to the amount of grain and farm products given over for the feasts and care of the people (not the treasuries of the church).  Jesus never said it was the standard of living in the Kingdom.  Jesus told His followers it was time to give 100 percent and place their lives, cares, hopes, and futures totally in Him.

The Good News is that giving it all to Jesus will leave you standing resurrected in the Kingdom that begins now and extends through eternity.  Depending on the government (no matter which party wins), science, your job, ‘the pursuit of happiness’, food, drink or warehouses will leave you poor and dead.

We were made By Him, we live Through Him, we are to live 100 percent For Him, giving all glory To Him, because only God is worthy.  In return we are 100% heirs and children of God.  Ten percent!?  Give me a break, and give God and the IRS whatever they ask of you.  Our hope is based “on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness.”  Or does anybody still come close to believing that anymore?  Have we all become the dwarfs of Narnia?  Or do we still have the guts to walk through that stable door?

peace,

Greg

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