The Ocean of Pain

Mark Rothko, Green and Maroon 1953, detail

I became enlightened for a brief time today and it really, really sucked. So I stopped doing that.

Forgive me Lord, you offered me your cross today and I was unready for it.

A little background: some people drink, other people shoot smack or watch porn, I smoke cigarettes. Just like them, I smoke so that I am not aware of the real world. So that I am insulated from it. So that the pain stops, for a time.

I had started an experiment, based on my last blog post. The experiment was, that once I truly understand the basis of my smoking I would be able to defeat it and the way to uproot the sin of smoking was to truly understand it and understand the illusions upon which that behavior is based. I became aware that I smoked in order to deaden my real feelings, in order to become numb. And so I sought to embrace and understand my true feelings, my real state of awareness.

This, as it turns out, was a little too much and so early in the morning I set out on the mighty BattleSchwinn (my cargo tricycle) to go to the store and get some smokes. Because I was starting to have some real issues coping. I went into my favorite donut store first to pick up a couple eclairs and at this hour it was completely packed full of people seeking oblivion in the form of beautiful sweet donuts. A man was at the counter ordering enough donuts to provide breakfast for a battalion of U.S. Marines. And I thought to myself, all these folks are here for the same thing. Sweet sweet donut oblivion. You eat that fucking eclair or that chocolate glazed, and for that moment (and these folks make great donuts too) there is nothing wrong with the world. Cigarettes, donuts, liquor, smack, lust, greed, it's all the same.

And we all, in our desperation for oblivion, go about madly bumping into each other and causing each other pain as we seek our own particular way to assuage the pain of existence. For some pain is assuaged by power, or violence, or the consumption of luxury items, or by looking down on others - lust greed lying theft murder - any of the varieties of sin in this world. This is the most essential fact in existence, and in this the Buddha was on to something. We all seek to dull the pain of consciousness. And for a time I was really conscious, and it really sucked badly.

I knew that I could judge no one, we were all the same. Give a man enough consciousness, and he would stab his own grandmother with a rusty AIDS needle to make it stop. I bought my cigarettes and biked back, and as I got back in the door it really started flooding in. Congratulations, you are enlightened. You now understand the true state of the world. And all you want to do is make it stop.

This is the cross Jesus was offering me, to know. To feel the cry of every starving baby in the world echo in your soul. To feel the promise of new life get sucked out to a cold death in the abortion clinic. To feel every poor junkie blotting himself out in an alley, their heartbeat still, their breath leave, their bodies grow cold. I felt I could feel all of it, the true condition of humanity in the world. And I couldn't bear it. So I lit up, and for the first time in my life I was truly aware of the numbness spreading within me with every inhale. The blessed, cursed, terrible numbness.

For the first time in my life, I was truly aware of why I smoke.

Now what do I do? I cannot go back nor forward. I can't really embrace that, that awareness, nor can I ever forget it. So as always, I guess I work my way forward as best I can.

Illusion

Image by Rafał Pocztarski

I think that we tend to think of sin, if we think of it at all, as a failure of character and a failure of will. And so we blame the sinner: essentially if this person had a stronger will or a better character, he would not be afflicted so. This has become almost a characteristic Christian thing unfortunately: blame the sin on the sinner's personal weakness. Essentially, on their inferiority as a man or woman.

A man cannot will something different from what the inner man actually thinks, wants or believes. The inner man wins out. It's no different from willing yourself to hold your breath: eventually the real you wants to breathe and will decide the matter. So if someone has a serious porn addiction for instance, he can claim to wish to beat it all he wants (no pun intended,) but this does not defeat the root cause of why he desires it. It's not a matter of strength of will. It is a matter of wanting what you do not really want. Or, you want the benefits of giving up the sin, but you don't want to actually give it up. You want to keep the sin and avoid the negative effects of sinning, both. Which is of course an impossible wish.

So, instead of using the old Christian stand-by of shame and guilt interspersed with prayer, we should consider what actually WOULD work to overcome this behavior. What DOES destroy sinful behavior? What does throw the money-changers out of the Temple of your soul for real?

Every sin is based on an illusion, on a false understanding of life. They can be illusory thoughts, but mostly they are illusory emotional patterns. Emotional reactions that can go very deep, to childhood perhaps, but which are always based on illusory desires and associations. It is of no use to blame the sinner: he must release the false reality he is holding on to and embrace a truer understanding. He must uncloud his own eyes and see the truth.

I'll give you some practical examples. I avoid anything pornographic but once in awhile I will unintentionally run across pictures of naked women on the internet, and I am a heterosexual man. This may have the effect of arousing me, so how do I respond to that? I look at what I am really feeling. Sexual desire of course, but also a desire for a feeling of comfort. And then I think about how what I am seeing is in no way a sensible target for those wants. For starters, it's just a picture. Just photons coming off a screen. There is no true reality there, only a fiction. For second, the women depicted are sinners same as I, they are made of meat and snot and poop same as I, and they are subject to corruption and death same as I. Being human, they probably lie and hate and anger and fool themselves, not unlike myself. What part of that do I really find desirable? And so my illusory feelings are replaced by the truth, and I do not desire anymore. Problem solved.

I think most sins are subject to being treated in the same way, if the person really wants to understand and challenge those illusions. This is not a challenge of will, this is a challenge of seeing, of perception, of understanding the true state of things. The real test for me I guess is if I am able to apply the same thinking to my tobacco smoking, which is my abiding problem. If this method succeeds against that persistent problem where everything else has not, I will  know that this is pretty much the Swiss army knife for dealing with such things because I have literally tried everything.

The method does require someone who really wants to apply it to the problem however, which is not always a given. We shall see how it works for me.

The Shtiebel and the Synagogue

Great Synagogue at Capernaum, which sits on the site of the Synagogue that
Jesus taught at in Capernaum. Image by Eddie Gerald/UNESCO

“Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man

and drink his blood, you have no life in you...."

He said this while teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.

~John 6:53,59

One thing that becomes very clear about the synagogue and also the Temple itself in Jesus' time is, ANYBODY could stand up at the lectern and give his two cents about anything relating to the interpretation of scripture. Or apparently, anything God-related whatsoever. The fact that Jesus could stand up in the synagogue at Capernaum and say an absolutely outrageous thing by First-Century Jewish standards is testimony to that. Now, the Jews of the First Century were in no way more tolerant than people today or less likely to condemn, but it was an established principle that at least any adult Jewish male could stand up before the whole congregation and say what was on their mind, God-wise. The Rabbi lent some order to this chaos, but the Rabbi did not DO or PERFORM synagogue. The members of the synagogue did synagogue. Aside from handling the Torah and doing weddings and assuring that things did not descend to fistfights, the Rabbi mostly got out of their way and let them do their thing.

The synagogue was also a place where Jewish males just gathered to hang out and talk about God or study scripture or disagree about scripture sometimes. And this happened when no "services" were taking place, and technically a prayer service could take place any time 10 or more Jewish males gathered together. You didn't even need the Rabbi there. The synagogue was a meeting house and a house of prayer in the most general sense: as long as people were talking about God or studying scripture or praying, they pretty much could be there. In fact in Israel today there are storefront shtiebels, mini-synagogues hardly more than stalls, open all night even, where any time you get 10 dudes together you have "church." Now the male-centrism isn't so nice, but otherwise what a refreshing difference from a Christian church!

On the other hand, the churches of Christianity have a terrible leader complex. Attendees to church services are not so much participants in church but spectators in a religious spectator sport: the priest or pastor stands up front and speaks or performs mass or whatever, the choir sings, and the attendees are just standing or sitting or kneeling or sitting or are compelled to recite text of some sort and otherwise are passive spectators to the priest/pastor "doing" church. In most cases, attendees are not invited to get up and speak unless it is to give canned testimonials on how they were "saved" and what wretches they were previously. And however nice a smiley face of tolerance you want to paint on doctrine, most churches are absolutely utterly inflexible as to what is and is not acceptable belief. It is their way or the highway, period. Sure, sometimes they might dress that up a bit, but at core all Christian churches have some dogma on which they are utterly inflexible, and sometimes that dogma is quite extensive. So for instance myself as a non-Trinitarian could never attend any Christian church because they all either recite the Nicene Creed or at least certainly believe it and might recite it, and I don't ascribe to it. This is why every difference of opinion becomes a new schism, with new self-righteous leaders who are just as certain that their way is right and the other way leads to hell, as the church they split from.

Synagogues at least in Jesus' day (I am not familiar with modern ones) were places where any (adult male) could speak and be heard, and differences were clearly accepted to varying degrees as being embraced in the overall umbrella of Judaism. Sadducees and pharisees for instance had strongly divergent beliefs, but they were both Jews and both groups more or less accepted the other as Jews. They didn't attend different synagogues and have different Temples. Jesus' followers were accepted as Jews, at least initially. Zealots may not have been liked by everyone, but they were considered Jews. None of these as far as it is recorded had to attend different synagogues because of it, because synagogues were not thought of in that way. They were a meeting house and house of prayer for Jews, of whatever kind.

I would not be accepted as a Christian in most Christian churches, nor is discussion part of the program. Differences of opinion are not simply disagreed with, they are denounced as heretical. Still, to this day, Christians call other Christians heretics. This is medieval thinking. Used to be, they would burn them.

This intolerance of difference and dissent is a toxic gas choking Christianity. Essentially, not to put too fine a point on it, all the non-Christians who consider Christians and their churches to be intolerant narrow minded self-righteous doctrinaire zealots are in the majority of cases completely correct. That is a fair and largely correct judgment. It is a wonder Christianity has survived this toxic atmosphere this far. Arguably, real Christianity hasn't survived it except for the perseverance of a tiny minority of tolerant Christians. The beginning of this intolerance in the very early centuries A.D. leading up to the ecumenical councils like Nicea were the corruption of true Christianity. Reformers periodically seek to rediscover "primitive Christianity" or the "Christianity of the Book of Acts" but habitually fail because they fail to open up the forum to friendly dissent and they embrace the very causes of Christianity's fall which is the ecumenical councils and the rigid application of dogma.

It is past time to return to the synagogue of the First Century. Now I am not recommending a return to the Law of Moses or anything like that, but to the freedom and openness of a meeting-place dedicated to the worship of God, the study of scripture, and the polite but free and open discussion of ideas on such matters. Where anyone who calls themselves a Christian is welcome and not forced to recite creeds they don't ascribe to. Christianity with a focus on Christians themselves and not their leaders. The practice of Christian churches today practically require passivity and blind obedience. Yes, the Judaism of the First Century had many rabbis and leaders and charismatic figures, but they were merely literate Jews who the people chose to listen to and they could just as easily go listen to someone else or start talking themselves. What did you need to be a rabbi? You needed to be able to read and write and have people start calling you "rabbi." That was about it. That is what strikes one as so different from Christianity: even a child like the 12 year old Jesus could up and go teach in the Temple, and if people listened to him they listened, and if not, well there were other people saying interesting things. That is such a drastic and damning difference from Christianity.

You will never get to First-Century Christianity, original real Christianity, unless you get back to the First-Century synagogue. When Christianity left the synagogue or was forced out, it stopped embracing the right of people to think for themselves. Without that, if Christianity has a future, it is only one of further confusion and apathy. 

A Shtiebel, an informal mini-synagogue or meeting house
for people to meet for prayer.

NOTE: I am definitely no expert on modern Judaism, but I understand that the Christian style of "performance worship" has tended to influence synagogues a great deal in the recent past, particularly I think in the U.S. If so, that would be very unfortunate. I do not know to what extent the relatively freewheeling and member-centric First Century synagogue recorded in the Gospels are typical of Synagogues in all time periods. I would guess though that Christian influences in worship style would be more or less limited to the modern era or at most the last 300 years or so. Also even in previous times, one would think that smaller congregations have the advantage as far as member participation and discussion go. If you have a congregation of 2000 males, obviously opportunities to speak and for individual voices to be heard would be somewhat more limited. 

Loaves and Fishes

Artwork by Robert Dodd

There are a relatively few different possibilities when it comes to the miracles of Jesus and miracles generally. Even people who believe in frequent miracles must know they don't happen a lot, don't usually happen in a public manner, and often don't happen where they would seem to be most needed.

One possibility is, they don't happen and never did. The miracles of Jesus were either metaphors or evidence of the power of positive thinking. According to a strictly rational scientific approach, they are bunk and always were and that's the end of it. Problem is, I don't actually believe that. I have seen some pretty damn weird things happen in this life, and generally they happened without the benefit of intoxicants.

The second possibility is, they used to happen, but not now. This is a viewpoint of some theologians. That during the early evangelic age and presumably earlier, they happened so that God could prove the truthfulness of his approved spokespersons and firmly establish the early Church, but that no longer applies. Because, you know, we're not in trouble in this world anymore and everyone believes and everything is set up peachy keen. This interpretation is silly and I will peremptorily dismiss it now. ;) 

A somewhat more interesting twist on this second possibility is that they COULD happen now, but that there are no approved spokespersons. That the Church turned from God in the Great Apostasy leading up to the ecumenical conventions and now all the priests, pastors and Popes and everyone connected with Christianity (and Judaism too I guess) are now too corrupted, so there does not exist anyone who has God's blessing to feed five thousand people with a tuna sandwich, for example. Which in theory the original disciples could do some of that or at least some of that happened to them, which might be more accurate to say. This possibility is interesting so I will get to it again.  

Will not normally feed 5000.

The third possibility is that miracles do happen, but they do not happen when they are needed the most. Not according to a terrestrial evaluation of need, anyway. I say this because during the Holocaust, millions of Jews and no doubt a lot of Christians too (there were Christians in concentration camps as well) prayed mightily for deliverance from their torment, a deliverance which did not occur unless you consider the Allies winning the war to have been that rather tardy deliverance. The problem with a God that intervenes in the world is, babies still get brain cancer and stuff. And you would think that, along with stopping the Nazis from killing 10 million civilians, this would be kind of high on the priority list. 

What we can conclude from this is that if overt miracles ever happen at all, they are extremely rare, and that God does not generally interfere in terrestrial matters even under the most apparently worthy of circumstances. When miracles happened in the New Testament, they were generally for evangelic purposes - the reason Jesus was in a position to need to feed 5000 people at all was that his previous miracles had generated huge publicity. If we take those numbers at face value, this represents what would have been a really large crowd anywhere in the ancient world, nevermind in a backwater like Galilee. So clearly that worked. God is perhaps willing to bend the rules to send a message to humanity, but not generally for purposes that we might consider useful unless it serves that other purpose first. This appears to be God's priority in causing miracles: that spreading his message of love and redemption is the most critical thing and any worldly purpose served is very much subordinate to that central intention. 

All this touches on the Problem of Evil, which is that if God is both omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent, he both could and would stop things like baby brain cancer and the Holocaust. The only major weakness with the Problem of Evil though is a world-centered standard of goodness. If this is the only world that matters, then the Problem of Evil is insoluble. If this is the only world and the only life that matters, God could not be omniscient, omnipotent and benevolent all at the same time. So perhaps we should ask first, what is the purpose of the world to begin with?

If the purpose and meaning of the world is contained within the world itself, the Problem of Evil is not resolvable. If the purpose and meaning of the world is in some higher reality and not strictly in itself, then it IS resolvable. This world then, that has implicit in it the possibility of genocide and uncured brain cancer, would be necessary to achieving a transcendent good. Thus the temporary evil of such things, however great that evil, would be transcended in a higher and permanent good which would be the actual purpose of the whole enterprise of this existence.

Is that actually true? If so, what is that higher good?

This is my thinking on the matter. The world is a training ground. For those who aren't allowing themselves to be trained, the world can be viewed as a kind of punishment but not in intention. If you don't learn, perhaps you come back to this world or one similar, and perhaps this is the fate rather than a picturesque flaming hell that Jesus referred to as entailing wailing and gnashing of teeth. Because there is plenty of that in this life, and it would be dreadful to keep going through that all the time rather than completing the course and graduating to better things. Okay, so training for what then? Membership in God's family. This membership probably should not be construed as sitting around in Paradise playing a harp all day. What do we know about the members of God's family, Jesus and perhaps angels? They do stuff. They constantly do stuff, in addition to of course praising God which is not incompatible with doing stuff too. Jesus in fact did everything about this world, according to the Gospels, he actually made it. According to some interpretations, God directly created only Jesus, and Jesus created everything else. So it is not unreasonable that upon graduation, graduates may be called into various roles, possibly an assisting administrative role. Assisting in the administration of existence itself, how do you get a more awesome job title than that?

After all, according to Matthew at least, angels told the shepherds what was going down in the manger. Angels told Mary what was going to happen to her, and told Joseph not to be afraid to take Mary as a wife. Somebody has to do that kind of stuff. ;) How amazing would that be!

Now I mentioned previously the possibility that New Testament-style miracles don't happen a lot or possibly at all now because the original purpose of all such miracles was to spread God's word among humanity, and there now exists no uncorrupted spokespersons to spread that word. The Church was corrupted by the World almost immediately after Jesus left. All we have now is the word that was given then, and the Holy Spirit, to direct us towards God's will. It is also possible that this is regarded as sufficient, and that further miracles would interfere with Humanity's free will. After all, if your local vicar (and everybody else's) went around feeding 5000 on a tuna sandwich, nobody would doubt that he's on to something. ;) Maybe people wouldn't love the message, but they would have to respect the 5000 free tuna sandwiches. ;) And this would change the nature of human choice.

As things stand now, the message is available, but it is an uphill climb to get it. It is truly a matter of your own heart and mind whether you believe or not, and indeed it requires a certain determination of heart and mind to believe and believe with some degree of correct understanding. So that even after you believe, you are able to navigate around the fallen institutional Church to the real message. Some manner of tepid nonbelief is sort of the default state that I think people tend to gravitate towards unless they feel the impetus from within themselves to go elsewhere. Or if they gravitate towards belief in SOME religion somewhere, they don't think about it too much and mostly think about how it benefits them in this world. That's human nature, isn't it? To mostly think about yourself and what is of utility to you in this life?

I don't think any of this closes the door on miracles for good. Maybe the door was always closed on using miracles for worldly objectives, even the healing miracles were not really for medical purposes but evangelical ones, but the door might always be open for the right circumstance with the right servant. It is probably not likely that either arises often, however. 

The Puzzle Palace

Image by Robert Dodd

I am going to talk about something rather unpleasant today. An unpleasant truth, in my opinion. Actually there are a couple of different ways you can take what I am about to say depending on your own personal beliefs, but any of those ways you could reasonably interpret this other than simple denial are unpleasant.

To explain it, I am going to tell you a little fictional tale about a paranoid prince. Once upon a time there was a very paranoid prince who was trying to protect a great treasure. It's not really his treasure to begin with, but lets not get into that part. To keep people from getting to the treasure, he created a vast series of stone walls, a labyrinth. A maze to keep the people away from the treasure. But people built siege engines to try to get over the labyrinth. So the prince built false siege engines all around the labyrinth, siege engines that didn't work right and led nowhere. The prince, being an evil magician, also created many illusions all around the labyrinth. Sometimes the illusion would seem to show the treasure right over the next wall, but in truth it was in the wrong direction and led to nothing.

The prince then recruited people from outside the labyrinth to praise the false siege engines and the false treasures, and these people had the illusion of great power and wisdom. They wore fine clothes and had fine hairdos and nice things, and they led people to false treasure rooms where for a time they might imagine they were swimming in golden coins, but really they were on a dung heap. The evil prince recruited kings from outside the labyrinth to punish those who made actual progress towards the treasure, and reward those who led others astray. This was quite a mess, and the prince thought the treasure quite secure.

Nevertheless, it was always possible to navigate the labyrinth by walking in one end, at a gap at one end, and by making all the correct turns to arrive at the other end where the treasure was. It was difficult, sure, but by remaining undistracted it could be done. And some did this, but few.

In the end, the prince could never own the treasure: the one thing he could and did do is to try his mightiest to keep anyone else from having it. He was never capable of enjoying the treasure, but only enjoyed defeating others.

I believe that you can take this as a parable of a real state of things. The treasure in the center is holiness, or you might say the way of being of true saints living in the world. The wicked prince is of course the evil one. And the path through the labyrinth is the path of mindfulness and attention that escapes the many traps laid by the prince. The true pilgrim seeking the true path through the maze may get waylaid along many false corridors, but because he is a true pilgrim who truly seeks the treasure and not anything else, he goes back to the point where he first started getting lost, and tries again. And the prince is constantly seeking, trying and trying, to achieve the downfall of the pilgrim.

Now, you could say that the prince is simply human failings and vices if you don't want to acknowledge the existence of any real demons, it probably works either way. However, one of the most widely acknowledged events in the 3 Synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) is Jesus casting out devils. In John, while there is no mention of Jesus casting out devils, Jesus mentions Satan directly, as he does in Luke. "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven," Luke 10:18. So if you want direct confirmation of devils in the New Testament, you have a whole lot to choose from.

"...because the prince of this world now stands condemned." - John 16:11.
Jesus said it, and I believe him. Indeed, I felt "pressure" to not write anything of this, which I won't go into except to say that I prayed to the Lord.

In comparison, there are no, none, zero, quotations about the Trinity in the New Testament but every denomination of the Christian faith believes it (falsely.) So yes, I believe that there are such things as demons and that there is such a thing as a prince of them. Whether you do so is up to you. What you should never do, is underestimate the subtlety of that prince, however you rationalize him.

Getting back to the parable, the part about the false siege engines and the false priests who praised them - well to be honest the evil one got into the Church business very early. You have the 4 Gospels in which Jesus is telling us to love our enemies, and as quickly as Acts (written by a disciple of Paul, probably in the late 1st Century) all of a sudden St. Peter is supposedly damning people to death (Ananias and Sapphira) for telling a lie about how much money they got for their own plot of land! My goodness, don't let that man anywhere near Washington D.C.! ;) If this version of Peter were to clone himself and start running around this world, the world would be depopulated very quickly. Not to mention the many other dubious tales of Acts, including an account of how the disciples first got the Holy Spirit that directly conflicts with John. And in Paul you have a man who I am sure had good intentions, but he couldn't control his own temper! He once wished his enemies would cut their own balls off, this is how poorly controlled he was.

How clearly I remember the words of our Savior: "cut your balls off!" No, that was not what he said. It's what Paul said though. And Paul confessed frequently he had problems controlling his own sin, which many people have, but clearly he had a large enough issue with it that it was worthy of mention.

So this means that false teaching set in virtually from the outset, and many if not most of these early leaders were led astray innocently. They did not know they were distorting the gospel, that is why I think the gospel accounts are mostly portrayed accurately. They did not distort what Jesus actually said, they revered what he said, but they distorted what it meant.

And it only got drastically worse from there. In 325 A.D. they had the Council of Nicea, an ecumenical council, a council of bishops, presided over by a ROMAN EMPEROR, Constantine. If that is not a fox in the chicken house, I am not sure what would be. And their first order of business was to suppress the truth, to suppress challengers to their views on Christ which would eventually evolve into the Trinitarian doctrine of today. There were several more councils along these same lines, suppressing dissent.

A short aside, what is Trinitarianism? It is the belief that 1=3, that 3=1, and that simultaneously that both 3 and 1 are equally and fully the case. Readers of George Orwell may recall a similar episode in the novel 1984 in which the protagonist's torturer held up 4 fingers and said it was 5, and tortured him until the protagonist indeed agreed it was 5 and not 4 fingers he was seeing. If they can get you to say 1=3 they can squelch all dissent, because you have given up thinking for yourself and will accept anything they say. You would be surprised how vociferously clerics defend this doctrine even today. The Gospels are clear: yes, Jesus is pre-existing, yes Jesus is the Son of God, yes Jesus is the living Word of God. They are equally clear that Jesus is not the same as God. The fact that he is called the "begotten" Son of God, and that he is called "Son," and that he could genuinely die at all, should make all that adamantly clear to anyone actually paying any attention. Of course for someone for whom 3=1, anything is true.

Okay, back to the main thrust here. About in the same period, Constantine decreed the death penalty to anyone possessing the writings of Arius (one of their main opponents in the Council of Nicea) and refusing to turn them over. This response to people with dissenting opinions, to burn them alive or otherwise murder them, only became more popular in the following centuries. Because Jesus clearly said to do that... not. No, he said love your enemies, not burn your enemies. But the Church, in full possession by the prince of this world, much preferred to roast them alive. While this no doubt started happening in the 4th Century or earlier, and it is believed that many of the Church's enemies were murdered in various ways long before this, it hit full swing by 1300 A.D.

Lets just let this sink in a minute. The same Church that quoted Matthew 5:44 out of one side of its mouth, gave the order to burn people alive out the other side. Sure, maybe it was the civil authorities who actually lit the match, but with the judgement and approval of the Church. The Church told them to do it.

And of course in the 20th Century we had the lovely phenomenon of the televangelists and the Prosperity Gospel people and so on - may God have mercy on their wretched money-loving souls.

Now though, thankfully, the evil one doesn't need to drag a false image of Jesus around anymore. The Church is passe, it is on its way out. There is a new Gospel much more to Satan's liking: CONSUMERISM. Now, finally, the evil one can express himself frankly. Consume, buy, revel in your wealth, revel in your SELF, because that is all there is. In the 18th Century Enlightenment, Satan said there is no God. Now he doesn't even have to bother, people have found a new and "better" God. All hail your one true god of these latter days - Mammon. See how powerful he is, see how shiny. You know you want him. Golden calf my backside, this is the god that gives you what you really want. Things.

Truly, no deity has ever been so shiny. And what small thing does he ask in return, for all these pretty things?

So, getting back to that labyrinth. First hurdle is even seeking God, the real God, at all. Most don't. It seems apparently contrary to self-interest to do so.

The second hurdle is getting past all the lies, all the wolves in sheep's clothing, that the evil one throws up in front of you. When I first came to Christ a long time ago now, of course I naively assumed that the Church knew how I could get to know God better. I joined a Pentacostal church, people speaking in tongues, the whole bit. When it did not turn out to be true that they helped me know God more, I rejected the God they were supposed to be believing in, thinking that they were accurately representing Him. When I came back to God the second time, I did much the same thing, but I was getting wise. I left to follow another path, a path of my own, one I learned much from. This third time I returned, and I wasn't taking anyone's word for anything but seeking for myself. I might have many illusions to overcome, but at least they will be my own.

The third hurdle is overcoming a limited sense of oneself, as I mentioned in the first part. It seems contrary to self-interest to follow Jesus. Most people think of themselves as like an enclosed box sitting on their shoulders, and everything outside that box is alien and hostile. You have to overcome that false self to find your true self. When I first came to Christ, I looked at what was being called for in the gospels in terms of self-sacrifice and I honestly said to myself, I can't do that. I was being very honest with myself. That is like asking a stone to become a bird. There is no path from the one place, my selfish self, to the other, the child of God and follower of Jesus. They are as alien as alien could be. Like a stone wanting to become a bird.

Well there is a path, but I can't explain what it is. God does it. Just keep pushing towards God.

The fourth hurdle? I guess putting into practice, putting the life of a follower of Jesus into practice, but I am not sure I am at that stage yet. There may be other hurdles I know nothing of.

But the purpose of this post is, you have to take that labyrinth seriously. You have to take the enemy seriously. The latter part of the Gospel of John is full of Jesus describing this world as belonging to the evil one, of the masses of the people belonging to him. Take that seriously.

The Lord bless you and keep you;

the Lord make his face to shine upon you

and be gracious to you;

the Lord turn his countenance upon you

and give you His peace.

No End Times?

"Today, you will be with me in Paradise."

~Luke 23:43

That the world will end someday is not in doubt, either by human hands or when the Sun goes Red Giant. That it will end because of some Biblical apocalypse is what is in question here.

In 1 Peter 4:7, Simon Peter (if he is truly the author of this epistle, which does not seem too far-fetched) states something that is clearly false. He says "the end of all things is near." Meaning the return of Christ, the end of this world and the dawn of the new world. And there is no reasonable doubt that he was dead wrong. Here we are 2000 years later, and the world keeps rolling along.

Peter is by no means alone in this, in fact the overwhelming weight of evidence says that the apostles thought that Jesus would return and end this age and inaugurate a new one within their lifetimes or at least very soon. This is in fact a great witness to the document stability of the Synoptic Gospels after about 200 a.d., because surely if any part of the Gospels were likely to be redacted it would be the embarrassingly wrong part about the imminent return.

The overwhelming weight of evidence in the New Testament is that the apostles all believed, and Jesus possibly taught, that the end of the world as we know it would happen soon. Within one human lifetime from Jesus' ministry.

"I tell you the truth, some who are standing here will not taste death

before they see the Son of Man coming in his kingdom.” ~ Mt. 16:27-28

“Tell us, when will these things be, and what will be the sign of your coming, and of the end of the age? . . . This generation will not pass away until all of these things take place.” 

~ Mt. 24:3,34

“You (Chief Priests and Sanhedrin) shall see the Son of Man

sitting at the right hand of power and coming on the clouds of heaven.”

~ Mt. 26:64

“If I want him (John?) to remain until I come, what is that to you.  You follow me!”
~Jn. 21:21-23
(According to church tradition, all the apostles

except John died before the destruction of

Jerusalem in 70 A.D.)

“All men will hate you because of me, but he who stands firm to the end will be saved.

When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. I tell you the truth, you will not

finish going through the cities of Israel before the Son of Man comes.”
~Mt. 10:22-23

“Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets,

but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son…” ~Hebrews 1:1-2

“Now these things happened to them as an example, but they were written down

for our instruction, on whom the end of the ages has come.” ~1 Corinthians 10:11

“And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not

neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging

one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” ~Hebrews 10:24-25

“Children, it is the last hour, and as you have heard that antichrist is coming,

so now many antichrists have come. Therefore we know that it is the last hour.” 

~1 John 2:18

This is all... rather embarrassing, isn't it? I mean, here are all the leaders of the early Church and seemingly Jesus himself saying that a real physical Kingdom of God right here on this Earth is going to happen really quickly. Not 2000 years later, but within a single lifetime. If that is wrong, what else could be wrong? This potentially throws in doubt the entire teaching of the New Testament.

There are a couple things that must be clearly understood to place this into context. The first and most important thing to understand is that the idea of a non-material heaven, a Kingdom of God in an entirely spiritual realm, was completely alien to Jewish thought at this time. Remember that the Pharisees of the time taught a physical resurrection, and that up until relatively recently (prior to approximately the 2nd or 1st centuries B.C.) most Jews did not believe in any afterlife worthy of the name at all. In fact in Jesus' time the leaders of the Temple, the Sadducees, did not believe in the resurrection either. The Sadducees, and most Jews prior to about 200 b.c., believed in Sheol which is a shadowy half-life not really worthy of being called much of an afterlife, and both the righteous and the evil went there upon death. So the idea of a "spiritual heaven" or a spiritual Kingdom was completely alien to the thought of the first disciples. It was not part of their religious lexicon. They were thoroughgoing materialists in that sense. Any Kingdom of God, any heaven, any afterlife, would have to take place physically here on this Planet Earth.

Secondly, the New Testament is not infallible and there are times, times recorded by the Gospels, when the Twelve clearly didn't understand Jesus' message very well. So even if the Gospel writers desired intently to put down their information accurately (which I think is not unlikely,) they couldn't really put down anything they themselves did not understand, except perhaps sometimes as a terse quote without explanation. The Gospels have clearly also been edited, such as is the case with the end of Mark which the earliest texts did not have. This was added material. The Gospels were composed and edited by people who shared this extremely materialistic view of the Kingdom. Since the material kingdom didn't happen in Jesus' lifetime, he was killed, it must happen soon after.

Thirdly, there is plenty of evidence for those who choose to read it that whatever the disciples thought, Jesus thought differently. Jesus himself said "the kingdom is upon you" meaning that it was happening right then. He also told Pilate,

"My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants

would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders.

But now my kingdom is from another place." 

~John 18:36

This is a clear and unequivocal statement that while the Kingdom of God might have been on the Earth while he himself was on it, it is no longer. In Matthew 22 he gives what may be a veiled denial of the physical resurrection:

“At the resurrection people will neither marry nor be given in marriage;

they will be like the angels in heaven (i.e. not physical but spiritual beings).

But about the resurrection of the dead— have you not read what

God said to you, ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac,

and the God of Jacob?' He is not the God of the dead but of the living.”

~Matthew 22:30-32

In other words, that the Patriarchs were alive now in heaven. Also in Luke 23:43 Jesus says to the thief crucified with him, "Today, you will be with me in Paradise." How can he be with him in Paradise that day if he is supposed to have to wait for the resurrection of the dead at the physical end of the world? He can't.

There are also multiple occasions towards the end of John where Jesus is teaching his disciples prior to his crucifixion, that indicate that Jesus' kingdom is not a physical place in this world but a place in God's spiritual domain.

“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am,

and to see my glory, the glory you have given me

because you loved me before the creation of the world."

~John 17:24

This is clearly something that is to happen in a non-physical reality. "Be with me where I am -" Well Jesus is shortly to leave the world at this point. Could human eyes and minds even perceive a glory of this magnitude? Also note John 14:2-3

My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told

you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and

prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me

that you also may be where I am.

Where is Jesus' Father's house? In Jerusalem? Maybe Miami Beach? No, God's house is in God's realm. And that is where Jesus is referring to when he says "that you also may be where I am."

So the coming "End Times" which so many Christians so eagerly wait for, aren't coming, any more than they were for the first believers. Rather, Jesus' only Earthly kingdom was when he was here on Earth, and afterwards his kingdom is entirely spiritual. There is no physical resurrection of the dead, no physical kingdom on the physical planet Earth. Your devout loved ones don't have to wait 2000 years for Jesus to arrive and reanimate their bones a la Herbert West. They are with Jesus immediately upon death.

My Desert

Image by Edal Anton Lefterov

Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness

to be tempted by the devil.

~Matthew 4:1

I have two different ideas about what I might like my future to look like. One vision of my future, if God wills me to be around then, is a garden. A lovely rural farm with plenty of green growing things. This is the more practical vision: it makes sense. With a lovely small rural farm I might have all that I need: water, shelter, and a variety of foods I could grow. And I love gardens. Surely I should desire this.

The other vision is much more strange, much less practical. There is in fact almost nothing that could appeal in such a vision. A mountain in a desert. A primitive home hewn from the rock. This is not so much a home as a tomb. Who would want this? To quote Prince Feisal in the movie Lawrence of Arabia, "There is nothing in the desert and no man needs nothing."

There is something in the desert, and it is this nothing. Why did so many of the Old Testament prophets go wandering in the desert? Why did John the Baptist live in the desert when he wasn't baptizing in the Jordan? Why did Jesus go into the desert? This. When you are in the desert, there is nothing and nobody but you, God and the Devil. That's all you get. This would be a truly frightening prospect for most people. People go mad in the desert.

The problem with NOT living in the desert though, is you have so many exciting things to distract yourself with. Maybe this morning you will start your day out with a nice double cappucino, go on to a challenging and interesting day at your workplace, leave and go out for a nice meal at that new restaurant you have been hearing so much about, and then to round out the evening watch the new Avengers movie on DVD or play the latest games. And you are diverted from ever once thinking about yourself or God. Certainly you are diverted from paying attention to any failings or weaknesses you may have as a person. You don't have to improve yourself.

I don't really want to be a part-time child of God. I want to do it full-time, intently, seriously. Do you remember the story of Mary and Martha, sisters of Lazarus in Bethany, and how Martha was so busy with the preparations for the meal and making things ready for her guests and so on? Meanwhile her sister Mary was just sitting at Jesus' feet, listening. Martha was unhappy about this and so asked Jesus to tell Mary to help Martha with the work.

“Martha, Martha,” the Lord answered, “you are worried and upset about many things,

but few things are needed—or indeed only one. Mary has chosen what is better,

and it will not be taken away from her.”

~Luke 10:41-42

God bless the Marthas of this world, but I am not one. I'm like Mary. I'm going straight for the good stuff. That is why I sometimes dream of a cave in the desert. I don't want to read about the god-mad saints and prophets, people like John the Baptist, people like St. Anthony. I don't want to read about the mystics like Meister Eckhart or Marguerite Porete or the Beguines or St. Francis. I want to be like them. That's a steep mountain to climb, I know, but why settle for the washing-up?

However, the problem with somedays is that they don't exist. Someday never comes. If I ever do live in the desert, it won't be someday, it will be that day's now. If I live on a farm, that will be that day's now. You think about someday and in so doing don't focus on where you are here and now, which is the only thing you know you have.

So I have to live in my desert in the here and now, in a suburb of a major city. That is rather difficult. So many distractions are near at hand. But this is the desert I got. I am fortunate in that I don't have to work, or at least not to any significant extent. I don't have a car, I have to bike anywhere I want to go, so that cuts down on recreational activities. So it is not that different from a desert. But I do have distractions far too readily to hand.

One thing I am learning is how little I can live on. Today I had a yogurt and some slices of homemade whole wheat bread and some chocolate. I'm not hungry, I just don't want more than that. I don't have a car, I have my bicycles including a cargo tricycle to carry groceries in. So when I need stuff I can get it but there is some austerity involved. It's not like popping round to the shops in a car. Hauling 60 pounds of grub on a big heavy tricycle that might as well be made of cast iron, it's not hardly convenient. But it's good. Keeps me from doing it casually.

This is not something most people would do, but the consolations I have already received from following this path however imperfectly are such that I cannot imagine not doing it, wherever the future might bring me.

Why go into the desert? Why live like I am in the desert when I am here? Because being in the desert with intention is how you burn away whatever is in you that keeps you from God.

Mango's Father

My cat Mango

"We are all creatures of one family."

~St. Francis of Assisi

I was praying my regular prayer* and I got to the part where I chant "Kyrie Eleison" and "Christe Eleison." I was sitting cross-legged on the bed and my cat Mango was curled up right in front of my legs, happy in my presence and maybe my singing (because I sing silly songs to him from time to time.)

I had actually had a kind of rough prayer session to start out with. When you have obstacles, you know it when you pray, or I do anyway. By the time I started the chanting part, things were much better. And I looked down at Mango who was curled up there so happy, not quite in my lap but right in front of it.

And I thought, "there he is, resting in the love of his adoptive human father. And here I am, resting in the love of my adoptive Father."

Would that everything in life could be as simple, as graceful, as beautiful as this.



*I have a regular prayer that I pray, I pray it on Rosary beads but it is not the Rosary. On the main beads I pray the Jesus Prayer a little more than halfway up, and then on the main beads I alternate between chanting "Kyrie Eleison" and "Christe Eleison," one on each group of beads. So in other words I chant the one on one set of beads, and the other on the next set and so on. For the beads in between, the ones that separate the groups, I pray "Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy." Then when I am finished with praying and chanting the whole of the beads and am back at the cross, I say the Our Father. I pray this way because it is very good at silencing the mind and bringing to the forefront any issues you are having. And the chanting part is very beautiful, or at least it is to me. 

Passers-by

Image by Greg Willis

"Be Passers-By"

~Apocryphal Gospel of Thomas

Many of the things I used to do up until very recently, I don't do very often right now. Computer games, I used to play for hours a day not infrequently. It has been days since I played any. News, I used to be a news junkie, now I avoid it more. I don't turn on the television, though I was an infrequent watcher anyway. I don't watch the people I am subscribed to on Youtube, I used to watch them every day. Yesterday I started to play one of those videos, and I was seized by a very strong and sudden feeling - like God was saying, "don't look away from me." Look at me, always look at me. And so I try.

Strangely, things I tend to think of as very problematic sins of mine, I have not been freed from. I still smoke, not nearly as much as I did before my most recent quitting attempt, but I still smoke. I have received no such conviction on that. Facebook, I spend too much time hunting chit-chat on Facebook, though I have been somewhat convicted on that. On other things, the message is clear: don't be distracted. Don't look away. Look at me.

Since I started praying regularly 3 times a day (though today I wasn't feeling well and only did two) I have started having an experience of very keen awareness of a kind that is hard to describe. Being awake, and having a very accurate appraisal of everything that keeps me asleep, that makes me dull. Everything is pared down, all my usual mental chatter is pared away, and the, I guess luminousness, of the permeation of God in and through the world comes forward. I don't know how to say it better than that. I get pared down. He increases, I decrease. The BS of my thoughts that I have usually not even been aware of, gets pared away. What did Jesus say about the idea that even thinking of murder or adultery or whatever, is itself a sin? It's in Matthew 5. He may have been talking about that, that all the time, unawares, we have this background noise in our minds of thoughts and those thoughts are usually not of God. 

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment."

"You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart."

That quote, that even thinking of sin in your heart is a sin, is something that a lot of people really treat as a throwaway statement of Jesus. They don't spend a lot of time on it. How can you control what you think? By the time you think to control it, you have already thought it! Well you do that by prayer. If God has the upper hand in your heart, the other guy can only nibble around the edges, jabbing at you from the perimeter. He can't plop himself down at the dining room table or in front of the TV and demand you bring him a beer.

But as my distractions begin to get pared away, I start feeling more and more the conflict inherent in my situation. It is like I am on an island and the world is passing around me, oblivious. And meanwhile everyone is buzzing around buying and selling and staring at their phones and watching sitcoms and doing all the things that "normal" humans do, worldly humans do, and I feel more and more alien. Not that I wish to imitate them at all, but I wish to seize someone and tell them about God, or be seized by someone capable of teaching me, and that just won't happen. I become more and more aware of not being part of the world. And there is largely really no point in talking about it to the people I know, because I know they just won't get it and just aren't interested. I am a passer-by in the world.

And there's no point in going to church. The church is not the church. It's a church of the world. And I, according to the doctrine of every single Christian denomination on Earth, am a heretic. So that's that. :) The further I go in seeking to keep looking towards God, the more a stranger on Earth I become.

Cracked Cross

Image by Romary

I initiated this blog in a somewhat arrogant way - saying that the church of the present day is essentially pharisiacal and not true to what the Gospels said. I was speaking honestly, but I was also speaking from my own blind spots as I was speaking to the blind spots of others. I was doing both. Pointing an accusing finger is rarely that helpful, is I guess what I am saying. I have a lot of pride and arrogance. I am quite ready to find the faults (of which there are many) with others who call themselves Christian, but pointing that same analysis towards my own faults is not as easy.

It is one thing to point out the failures and inconsistencies of those who call themselves Christian when you are not one - I was in that position much in my life. It is much more troubling to do it when you ARE one, or at least you claim the same Christ. It raises the question: why is "Christianity" so very broken? And it is, it is very broken. When you have the leader of a local church standing up at a football game suggesting people should be lined up and shot for refusing to stand during the national anthem - he claims the very same Christ I do. And we can't both be right. Of course we can both be wrong, as I am sure we both are in various ways.

One issue is, Christians on the authority of the Gospels say that Jesus is the only way to God. And the gospels DO say that. And so that tends to lead to a "my way or the highway" approach that says that everyone else is WRONG, and so Christians dig themselves into ever deeper and more walled trenches to defend themselves against the horde of the "other" and become more and more inbred in their error. Which it is impossible to ever imagine Jesus doing that. It is impossible to ever imagine Jesus doing many of the things that are claimed in his name right now, never mind throughout history.

And so you have Jesus, and then you have WE sorry lot, we who call ourselves by his name. And as a whole, and to a degree I include myself, we aren't like him. To quote Gandhi, "you Christians are not like your Christ." The totality of people who call themselves Christian, and especially in this country - we're a damn mess. We've got gun-toting Christians, anti-immigrant Christians, God Hates Fags Christians, Line Em Up And Shoot Em Christians, Starve The Poor Christians - I won't go on. Why is a religion based on peace and brotherhood so seriously fucked up?

And while nobody has really commented negatively on my re-conversion to Christianity, they could be excused for wondering "why in the hell is he going back to that screwed up religion of haters, gun-toters, immigrant-haters and nuts?" Well it certainly isn't their religion, and sometimes it isn't my religion. It's Christ's religion.

Getting back to what I said before, yes the Gospels quote Jesus as saying, "I am the Way. Nobody gets to the Father except through me." It doesn't say anywhere that people have to KNOW that Jesus saved them, or what form Jesus will appear to them. You can't put a limit on how God helps people. I have been down too many different roads, good roads, to think that no other way of seeking God has merit.

I also have been down the Christian road too many times to think that just saying you follow Jesus or are a Christian or are saved by his blood is of any worth in itself. You think you are saved by the cross? You're not. You're saved by doing what he says to do. By obedience.

In times past I have been a BAD Christian. I have been the same kind of guy I criticize so piously today. If I have any hope at all, it is not because I was that kind of Christian but DESPITE having been that kind of Christian. The judgmental kind. The "my way or the highway" kind.

Why are we who (maybe mistakenly) call ourselves by his name so really very screwed up? Well I suppose you could say that human wickedness or Satan or whatever you want to call it, is very subtle. He loves to yank the robes off of would-be prophets, and to help them be their own worst enemies. Help them dig their own graves. You don't underestimate that, you don't underestimate him. You don't know how deep the rabbit hole goes. Most people really have no idea how screwed up they are. I am, the God Hates Fags guys are. All of us, in our own different ways. It's like you go to scoop up some dog poop on a mountain, and once you scoop up some you see some more, and then you realize the mountain is MADE of dog poop.

Maybe that's why Jesus attracts such severely broken defective people to him, because they are the ones who need him the most. As always, hanging out with the tax collectors and the sinners. ;) Hanging with the low-lifes. And sometimes with the bigots and the haters. Because they need him the worst, because they are the most desperately lost. Because he came to help the sinners, and there are few sinners worse than they. The bigots and the haters are a shame to we who say we really do follow Christ, but to him they are just other sinners. No different really from us.

And that is why although my first posts in this blog were truthful as far as that goes, they were not wise. Wise would be, there goes more sinners and hypocrites and whitewashed tombs, just like I have been in my life. There is a point where the harsh edges of those posts has a purpose, because these people who lead "Churchianity" claim to be leaders when they are just blind guides and pharisees. But their sin is not really my business, is it? My sin is.

Why despite the brokenness of everything that is called "Christianity" do I follow Jesus? Not because of "Christianity" which is a catalog of broken toys. Because of Christ. Where else do I go? In the end, it is always about him.

Pacifism

"The Deserter" by Boardman Robinson.
First published in "The Masses" by John Simkin

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor

and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray

for those who persecute you, that you may be

children of your Father in heaven."

~Matthew 5:43-45

I was inclined to believe two seemingly related things. One, that we should never repay violence with violence. We should not commit violence at all. And two, that God would never command a person to commit violence.

Now the first I think is very solidly founded on the Gospel. It may seem stupid to have to say this, but you can't LOVE YOUR ENEMY while trying to hurt or kill them! Turning the other cheek and sticking a bayonet in someone's eye are not compatible ideas. I believe that the Gospels state that, at least short of a direct command from God otherwise, one should never commit violence for any reason. Not for war, not for self-defense, not for any reason.

This is a very hard pill to swallow. This is a significant stumbling block. That's probably why almost every branch of the Christian church has chosen to ignore it, and to give its blessing to violence both for self-defense and for war. From a worldly point of view at least, it's really hard to fault them for that. But then that's the problem with the church, it is very accommodating to a worldly point of view. Jesus didn't teach a worldly point of view or else he would have said to love your neighbors and fight your enemies. He said "my Kingdom is not of this world." I take it as given that Jesus never gave people leave to commit violence for their own reasons, however legitimate they may seem. You should count the holiness of your soul as a higher priority than the integrity of your body.

However this post is not about that, actually. It's about the second of the two things I mentioned. Can or would God ever command you to commit violence? Of course if you take the Old Testament seriously, He did so all the time. The Old Testament is full of holy ass-kicking. I don't take the Old Testament nearly as seriously as most Christians: it is a limited and faulty word of God, as versus the perfect word of Jesus. Or at least it was the word of God through a glass and very darkly. As the Gospel of John states, "The Law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ" (so the Law was neither fully graceful nor truthful.) So I assumed that the answer is no, that God would neither command you to do violence nor condone it.

Some things have changed my mind, however. While I do believe that the Gospels tell us to never commit violence against another person on our own initiative, even for self-defense, I think God has told people to violate that rule. The thing that changed my mind was the life of Joan of Arc. Now with Joan, we must either believe that God never commanded Joan to do anything, or else He did command Joan in fact to lead up the armies of France and go kick some Burgundian butts. And I find it very hard to believe that Joan was hallucinating. This was an illiterate farm girl, who wound up commanding the armies of France and leading them to victory, and who besides showed on many occasions that God was with her. And if God was with her, then He told her to lead men into violence. I believe her, I think she is very credible.

And this is actually a much bigger barrel of fish to open than simply whether on our own initiative we should commit violence or fight back or participate in a war. Jesus' words of nonviolence are in a way much simpler than this if more unworldly. If you believe the condition of your soul is much more important than the condition of your body or whether you continue to live, then Jesus' words are very understandable if contrary to natural human instincts. To then say on top of that, "Well, but God could tell you otherwise under certain circumstances" is much more problematic in a way. This has been my problem from the earliest versions of my Christian faith many years ago: Moses and Joshua did really horrible horrible things to people, really nasty things that they said were at the command of God. Could the God of love, mercy and forgiveness have really commanded them to do that, or were they just going out on their own limb?

For Moses and Joshua, I do not know if God commanded them to do those horrible things. With Joan I feel pretty certain God did tell her to command armies that would rend and tear and murder and slaughter and all the rest. How does that make any sense?

Lets say you were living in 1915, and one fine day God commanded you to go kill a person you didn't even know. The acts which this man had committed were no different from the usual acts a person would commit in World War I, he was not particularly set apart in his evil acts. He was a nobody. He did not seem particularly important enough for God to tell you to go get a gun and go blow his brains out in cold blood. Not to mention that this would likely mean you would go to prison and maybe be executed. You might well go, "God, wtf??" You would have no way of knowing that this man, Adolf Hitler, would go on to create new forms of mass murder unimagined in your world. Forms of horror your time had never yet imagined. Knowing what we know now, we would think that this murder was not only justified, it was pretty much obligatory.

But this is not in fact what happened, which is even stranger. What happened was that Hitler went on to kill 10 million people in concentration camps in addition to millions on the battlefield, and 6 million of those who died in the concentration camps would be God's own nation, the Hebrews. Now what the hell is going on with that? Would the Jews not be right in thinking God had either abandoned them, or didn't exist at all?

I can only assume that the alternative to 6 million dead Jews would have been a hundred million dead somewhere else. That the pointless slaughter at the very dawn of the human capacity for mechanized mass destruction happened to teach us something, to keep us from doing far worse things. Why did America only finally perfect the atom bomb at the very end of the war? To keep us from thinking that we needed to go dropping the things willy-nilly? Two bombs, at the very end of a war which inaugurated mass extermination: a permanent lesson and monument to the horror Man can achieve. I can only speculate. I can only speculate that 6 million Jews died because the alternative would be a hundred million people dying. But that is just a speculation.

I can also only assume that God continually tries to make us all see reason. And that the inauguration of World War Three and the murder of most or all of the world's population would interfere with that mission. And so 10 million died plus the millions who died in the war plus the people who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, all so that we would not finally destroy ourselves. So that we would have a clear signpost in history: this way leads to the total death of everyone and everything.

Everything had to happen just as it did, and not one iota different, or nobody would be here now, and I would not be typing this. I would never have been born.

So I can judge that God did talk to Joan, but I can't judge what He told her to do, because I don't have that perfect insight into what it takes to save the world from itself. What if Joan had not been told to lead the armies of France? Decades, maybe centuries, of continued war? To save many lives at the cost of some, that is a judgment God can make. It is not a judgment we can make unless like Joan we talk to angels, so unless told differently, a true Christian must not kill. Not for defense, not for war, not for any reason.

If like St. Joan angels tell us differently, then we must do what we must.

The Beauty of the Truth

Image by Tom Adams

For the law was given through Moses;
grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

~John 1:17

I originally posted this in a closed Facebook group created by a good online friend, a man I have never met in person but through a decade and more of wrestling with each other over ideas I think I can truly call a friend. Anyway his original question in the thread in which I eventually posted this was why people immediately dig in their heels to new ideas or to change of any kind, as a kind of default response.

"Faith in the beauty of the truth... the belief that somehow the real truth

is not only as good as (the opinions) you have left behind,

it must be much better, even if you don't understand what it is.

This is the real dividing line in humanity, far more so than

ascribing to any particular version of the truth. There are some

who believe that the truth must be beautiful and that the world,

however flawed and ugly, is meaningful. And you don't start out knowing

what that beauty of truth and meaning in existence is,

you must continually push into it.

And there are some who don't believe this, and this is the real divide in the human race.

If you think it is all meaningless, then the point is to avoid the pain

that you know is out there waiting for you. If you believe it is meaningful,

however limited your understanding of that meaning may be, you will

embrace pain for that meaning, for the beauty of truth, which you believe ultimately to

really be beautiful and not pointless and ugly.

And to approach what can be a very painful and ugly world with that attitude

is not a matter of anything that can be decided logically.

It really is a matter of faith."

People who truly have faith in the beauty of the truth, who continually correct themselves in pursuit of the truth, and who have faith that existence is not pointless are probably closer to God than a lot of Christians. Saying that you believe in God and his Son Jesus Christ is alone of little value. Many grievous sinners have also said that they believe, people who defend their sin while they claim to belong to God. Some have been murderers, rapists, and molesters. According to some, how recklessly you sin and how brazenly you defend your sin doesn't matter - as long as you say you believe Jesus died for your sins, you are somehow covered.

I do not believe that. If you say you are God's and say you preach God's word, and yet you brazenly and unapologetically sin, you are just an evil hypocrite. There may be some unfortunate condition in life that excuses such behavior, but certainly such people should close their mouths and not claim to follow Christ, much less teach about God. It is better to be honestly and unrepentantly evil than to be evil while wrapping yourself in the cross.

The Children of God are continually corrected and chastened by God, and humbled by God. May all His Children express their undying gratitude for that blessing. And the Children of God continually push into the beauty and truth of God and into his righteousness and into the glory of obedience to Christ. Not thinking they already possess knowledge and virtue in fullness, but constantly seeking God and seeking to know His glory more and to be obedient more and to understand the Gospels more clearly.

The other side of this is that if you do not listen to this correction and chastening, He will remove his Spirit from you. 

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener.

He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit,

while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes

so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word

I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you.

No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine.

Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you,

you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away

and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned."

~John 15:1-6

I fall short in many ways. But I do not say that I don't, I know I DO. I know what I ought to do, too, but laziness and apathy kicks in. I don't say these are virtues, they are weaknesses and I know they are. I probably fall short in ways that I don't even know about yet, I am guessing I will learn what these are when I have cleared my plate of the things I do know. But how you overcome these weaknesses, is to continually push towards the beauty of the Truth. Slowly, gradually, this glory of God becomes so important in your life that you hate anything that diminishes your unity with that glory. This is how it is with me, I am weak and continue to not do the things I should and to do the things I should not, but my strength to conform myself to God's will grows as my love for the glory of God grows. Love for and faith in the beauty of the Truth.