Adroneinthelife,

can i love god if there is no heaven // can i fear god if there is no hell (part i)

Sat, 08 Dec 2012 14:39:08 -0500

i would like to propose that there is a lot more going on at the heart of these questions than a tired, gray&meaningless debacle of an argument (that mostly just proves how we project ourselves unto god’s disposition.)

it is an outline. a christian outline. nay, a very christian outline. one that falsely promises satisfaction, simplicity (in the face of complexity that life itself constantly presents us with)& clarity.
it is a binary proposition to history’s million dollar question.

$1,000,000 = what’s there after life?

i’m not interested in contributing to the already plethoric nature of the contemplation on who goes to hell, and who goes to heaven.

in fact i’d like to ask you, if you’d be so gracious, to put aside for a moment the whole notion you carry with you on the subject of heaven or hell and its relationship to humankind.
what i would like to focus on is the dual capacity of the answer (we assume) that the bible has (appears) to offer.

it would seem that there are only two places in which to end up in at the end of our lives.
just two.
heaven or hell.

i used to have a girlfriend. & she’d ask me: “how much do you love me?” i’d say: “a lot.” she’d ask: “give me a physical example of distance.”
being a helpless and tortured romantic i figured the two most extremely opposite places that i could think of on this or any other dimension would be heaven and hell.

“i love you from the depths of hell to the highest mountain in heaven.”

i know. lame&sappy.

but that told me something about myself.. that i think binary. i think in extremes. by two’s.

i’m a bloody ouija board with its alphabet ripped off&all of its numbers except for 1&0.
i’d make a great friend to a computer.

i think in:
yes.no.
hot.cold.
protein.carbohydrate.
bass.treble.
proton.neutron.

center.edge.

black.white.

dead.alive.

left.right.
bach.schoenberg.
north korea.south korea
vegas.vatican
ios.android
e minor.e major
north.south
god.devil
penis.vagina
davinci.rothko
jesus.nietzsche
in.out
a.z

…………………….heaven.hell……………………..

and i think like that because it’s the most comfortable way to think..
two is the safest possible amount of answers.. (well.. actually one answer is the most desirable but we feel more intellectual with two possibilities to consider..)
because once we get to decimals,grays,warms&maybe’s… life suddenly gets too complicated..

in marketing, we are often pitched binary propositions.. pitches that (they hope) will leave no room for doubt.
offering two “inseparable” scenarios.. the one you find yourself in & the one you could be in.. compelling the consumer to cede into it.

“your life is piss; buy this and your life will be glorious”

a brilliant friend that works in marketing explains:
marketing resumed: “NECESSITY - SOLUTION. simple as that, although in between you can obviously find things like an intricacy of persuasion leading to a transaction, we try to make all those things as invisible and unimportant as possible.. if we succeed, in the end, the consumer is left thinking that the product that we’re pitching to them is the only possible antidote to their new-found unhappiness and emptiness..” (**)

their goal is two. trying to condense life into two options…

i would like to say that the church is now a part of this binary worldview.
pitching heaven and hell as the two possible extremes for this life and the next..
pitching jesus as the ultimate answer to satisfy your needs..

so, many people buy into this marketing of jesus..desperate for satisfaction and happiness..

so they stand in line at church waiting to hear a pastor’s liberating prayer while next door people are standing in line to get the new ipad..

we’ve made jesus part of a binary proposition that we propose to the broken..
and what’s worse is that “jesus” becomes another advanced filler next to orgasms, meth, one-hundred dollar bills, pizzas, etc..

it’s so easy to sell jesus because he made promises to humanity..
he promised entrance into heaven.. he promised fulfillment.. he promised a wedding.. a banquet.. a celebration..
he promised love…….

so, with good intention, the church saw these promises and now jesus is a product.

but what happens when you finally “get” jesus, and nothing happens…?
what happens when you genuinely seek jesus, and what you find is a waiting room…?
what happens when you give up everything for jesus, yet you still feel a void…?
what happens when you set aside all questions for jesus to become the only answer, but all you are left with is doubt…?

this is the story of humanity..
the story of humanity is filled with uncertainty and void..

and i’ve got to confess that sometimes i feel like jesus came to give me… dust..

yes i know that in jesus there is life to be found..
but i’d be lying if i told you that my problems vanished upon surrendering to jesus..

the church, is not exempt from this story of humanity..
the body of christ, is not excused from uncertainty and void..

life after jesus, is still hard.. life after being born again, feels like 1,000 years old…

jesus actually reminds us of decimals,grays,warms&maybe’s.
read some of jesus‘ responses to the pharisees..

they are deliciously….. ambiguous..

to be continued… in a matrix reloaded kinda way…
next up: ambiguity, christian art & god stripped of heaven

(**) - thanks @idibuidi

Trayendo Globos al Fondo Oscuro del Oceano

Tue, 09 Oct 2012 15:28:28 -0400

así que, buscamos en lo desconocido… con baterías bajas nos

perseguimos unos a otros a través de la pesada oscuridad…

presentamos nuestra primitiva danza de apareamiento en medio

del azul y negro de cuevas submarinas… nuestras espaldas

arqueadas y nuestros puños listos se vuelven visibles a través de un

haz de luz… la niebla en nuestros ojos hambrienta por ver el

sol tan distante… y la luna…

así es como a veces me siento socialmente…un poco perdido, un

poco primitivo… un tanto difícil… bajo en oxígeno.: ˙˚º˚°˙˚º˚°˙

pero sigo en la búsqueda… sigo deseando ser parte de algo…

porque muy dentro de mi sé que estoy destinado a ser parte y no

solo una pieza…

sin embargo, para ser parte de algo, necesitamos de los demás… y eso

complica las cosas.

complica las cosas porque todos hemos experimentado el

rechazo. y el rechazo nos vuelve lentos… . .

nos.hace.titubear.// ← ← ← ← ←

pero luchamos por ello, y luchamos porque también hemos experimentado el ser aceptados.
y sabemos que se siente divino.

para algunos es fácil sentirse así todo el tiempo,

para otros es un evento fortuito.

una cosa podemos tener por cierta:
vivir en unidad es algo santo.vs.vivir en soledad es algo vil.

es por ello que nuestra unidad es crucial para el ﬁn de los

tiempos… entre mas nos acercamos el uno al otro, mas nos

acercamos al cielo.

hace tiempo escribí que de la misma manera en la que

necesitamos a dios para obtener compasión, perdón y amor,

también lo necesitamos de nuestros amigos. algunos dirán que

esto no es cierto,

otros dirán que lo único que necesitas es a dios… tampoco es

cierto.

“puedes tener a dios y estar solo” - JAR

dios conoce a las almas solitarias

- - escucha “lonely souls” de unkle - - -

datocurioso: puedes conocer a mil personas y aun así estar solo

y la diferencia recae en estas preguntas…

estamos reconociendo la imagen de dios en las personas que

conocemos?

estamos siendo demasiado místicos respecto a lo que

pensamos de jesus que fallamos en verlo en los ojos de nuestros

amigos, las personas que amamos y la familia?

algo muy interesante a cerca de jesús es que el estaba

destinado a ser transmitido..

algunas personas dicen “el vive en mi corazón” o “yo tengo una

relación personal con el”

pero lo que realmente signiﬁca es que crees en su autoridad

divina, y que sigues sus enseñanzas. nunca se trato a cerca de

creer.. creer es facil..

se trata de un efecto domino tipo “el mono ve… el mono hace.”

se trata de la unidad a través de la compasión, amor y perdón.

cuando descartamos a la gente, lo que son y lo que hacen (lo

cual incluye al arte, literatura, trabajo, ciencia, ﬁlosofía, religión,

etc.) que es lo que nos queda?

muy poco…

suena mas espiritual decir: “la respuesta es enfocarse solo en

jesús…”

pero que signiﬁca eso sin los demás?

jesús estaba conectado con los demás… todo se

trataba de la

unidad… de la comunidad…

creo que es una gran desgracia y una gran perdida la de

traicionar la posibilidad de verlo a el a través de los ojos de otros.

porque esa posibilidad fue proveída a nosotros a través de jesús.

algunos dicen que es un error experimentar a dios a través de

otros porque somos seres ﬁnitos y un pobre ejemplo… pero..

que más tenemos?

algunos dicen que amor… pero por quien….?

algunos dicen que la biblia… pero como aplicamos lo que

aprendemos cuando vivimos en un mundo de interacción….?

otros dicen dios… pero que es dios sin amor….? y todo se vuelve

una iteración… es por ello que 1ra de Juan 4:8 es muy

importante…

es tan importante que nos mantengamos juntos..

que peleemos por evitar la soledad..

que nos esforcemos por tener verdaderos amigos…

dios nos hizo con un propósito..

nos hizo para que estuviésemos juntos.. (génesis 2:18)

fuimos hechos en la soledad perfecta de dios.. gene edwards

especula que antes de crearnos, dios era una masa enorme de

soledad inmensa, y que por eso nos creo. en el amanecer de

nuestra creación, porque fuimos creados a su imagen, también

no sentimos… solos.

y por eso tenemos a eva.

por un segundo dejemos que eva represente simplemente a:

otras personas.

eva no es perfecta. y aunque ella también fue creada a la imagen

de dios, no siempre reﬂejara perfectamente a dios… (porque ella

no es dios…) pero fue creada para nosotros… sin ella nos

ahogamos en la soledad.

ahogarse en soledad es, ir en contra de la creación de dios.

ir en contra de su voluntad inicial y su iniciativa de crearnos un

compañero.

pero unirnos a eva… eso es verdaderamente vivir.

la gente dice: debo aprender a cómo amarme para poder amar a

los demás.

yo creo que necesitamos aprender a amar a otros y ser amado

por otros para poder amar completamente a dios.

porque dios se va a casar con la iglesia.. y quien se querrá casar

con una iglesia dividida?

necesitamos ser una unidad.

de otra manera… le estamos causando poligamia a dios…

y no creo que el querrá ceder a esto..

lana del rey canta con todo su corazón, repitiendo este llanto

tormentoso que dice “nacimos para morir” (“we were born to

die”)…

pero para que naciste tu?

para estar solo? entonces canta junto a lana…

o para realmente vivir…? entonces ve mas profundo en las aguas

y busca a eva…

y no olvides tus globos…

eyebeat:

Mon, 01 Oct 2012 18:45:17 -0400

eyebeat:

hahaha

Thu, 27 Sep 2012 03:07:53 -0400

hahaha

Like Superman

Mon, 24 Sep 2012 03:37:42 -0400

here are some of the things that superman’s fathers (both biological&adoptive;) told him during farewells or during dark times. i find them to be very encouraging, very touching and also very akin to jesus’ purpose to the world..

i find it very interesting that like superman, jesus had two fathers.. a supernatural one and a human one.. and i wonder what kind of things they both put in his heart..

i don’t find this resemblance upsetting…
i find it encouraging, revealing and inspiring.

i consider myself to be very fortunate because my father has always given me advice similar to this… i remember him whispering things like this to my ear when i was four in my superman pijamas… i remember him whispering these things when praying for me when i was in my bed and he thought i was asleep… i remember my mom telling me that she and my dad whispered things similar to these when i was in my mom’s stomach and i couldn’t hear any of it… at least not with my ears… and that is one of the reasons why i find these very touching.. it reminds me of him..

these are taken from both the old 1978 movie and the upcoming 2013 movie..

(2013)adoptive father:
you’re not just anyone..
one day you’re going to have to make a choice.
you have to decide what kind of man you’re going to be.. and whoever that man is, of good character or bad, is going to change the world.

(2013)biological father:
you will give the people an ideal to strive towards…
they’ll race behind you… they will stumble… they will fall…
but in time, they will join you in the sun…
in time, you will help them accomplish wonders…

(1978)biological father:
you are the only survivor of the planet krypton.
even though you’ve been raised as a human, you are not one of them. you have great powers, only some of which you have as yet discovered.
live as one of them, to discover where your strength and your powers are needed. always hold in your heart the pride of your special heritage. they can be a great people…
they wish to be…
they only lack the light to show the way…
For this reason above all, their capacity for good, I have sent them you… my only son.

obviously, some of these things only apply to jesus, or to some super idea like superman.. but some of it can and does apply to you and me.. like, we have to choose what kind of men and women we will be… and if you are going to be a light… a light to show the way to people that need it…
if you did not have a biological father that told you these kind of things, there is a universal heavenly father that whispers these kind of things infinitely… you need only to open your heart and let his whispers in..

Hechos a la Soledad y Semejanza de Dios (Parte1)

Mon, 17 Sep 2012 20:40:00 -0400

Siguiendo en la misma línea de la teoría de la progresión humana a través de una perspectiva biblica (el antiguo testamento no cuenta la historia de un dios iracundo, o de un dios cambiante en contraste con el dios que el nuevo testamento presenta. Pero el de un dios que adaptó y corrigió su propósito para nosotros en relación a nuestra capacidad de entendimiento y a nuestro nivel de madurez a través del tiempo), la raza humana puede condensarse a un sólo humano, nuestra inteligencia es gradual, nuestro nivel de madurez esta atada al tiempo, nuestro egocentrismo morirá tarde o temprano.

Existe un concepto llamado proyección. A través del tiempo, es obvio que nos hemos proyectado a nosotros mismos en la religion, la ciencia y la filosofía.

Podemos empezar con Aristoteles y su proposición de que la tierra no tenia movimiento y que el sol y los planetas se movían alrededor de ella. Los luceros en el cielo y los meteoritos todos se encontraban dentro de la atmosfera de la tierra y los cielos eran estáticos.

Luego vino Copérnico y propuso la idea de que la tierra no era el centro del universo, sino que se trasladaba alrededor del sol. Esto afectó dramáticamente las raíces de nuesta psique. De la misma manera en la que un adolescente se da cuenta de que el no es el centro del universo. ¿A caso se me olvidó mencionar que era considerado una ofensa hacia la doctrina teologica? Que en ese caso era posible que existieran otros soles? otros planetas? incluso otros planetas tierra?

Desde que hemos ido descubriendo sistemas solares, galaxias, nébulas, super nébulas, super novas, cúmulos estelares, hoyos negros, el concepto de universo, universos bebé, universos paralelos, teoría de cuerdas, la teoría Kaluza-Klein, la teoría de la relatividad, otras dimensiones, etc. intentamos ponernos en el centro de todo.

Los científicos tenían la esperanza de que por lo menos nos encontraramos en el centro de la via láctea, pero no es asi.
Tambien tenían la esperanza de que nuestra galaxia estuviera en el centro de todas las galaxias, pero no es así.
Los científicos tambien tenían la esperanza de que estuvieramos en el centro del univero, pero no fue asi.

Debido a nuestro sentido de privilegio y derecho, no nos gusta que nos degraden.

Pero aprendermos.

Aprendemos que nuestra existencia ha sido solo un abrir y cerrar de ojos en el tiempo de dios. Casi un accidente, pero decido no creer esto.

Pero si comienzo a entender, comienzo a ver que mi existencia no se trata solamente de mi, se trata de todos nosotros…
Unidad.

En el centro del corazón y el deseo de dios, se encuentra la unidad, y a medida que la raza humana lentamente comienza a dejar las cosas de niños, nos acercamos mas el uno al otro…

Creo que lentamente empezamos a no sentirnos inmensamente ofendidos por nuestra falta de atención, y mientras esto sucede, la comunidad se vuelve algo mas importante.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer considero tres títulos para su libro “etica”.

Los cimientos y la estructura en la que el mundo se reconcilia con dios.
Los cimientos y estructura del mundo del futuro.
Los cimientos y estructura del occidente unido.

Inmediatamente pense en la belleza de esto, porque preve de paso nuestro futuro.

Cuenta como la unidad (occidente unido) se encuentra en el deseo mas profundo de dios (reconciliado con dios) y que nuestra unidad pertenece a un futuro inevitable (mundo del futuro).

Es triste, pero me temo que no todos formarán parte de esta unidad. Sin embargo, dios dice que la tierra eventualmente se convertirá en un lugar en la que o eres parte de la comunidad, o vives en las afueras.

Mientras tanto, las filosofias no concuerdan, las doctrinas tampoco, las teologías no estan de acuerdo, el amor no esta de acuerdo, la ciencia tampoco, pero a fin de cuentas, nuestra existencia incidental se tratará de todos nosotros como una comunidad delante de dios.

Podemos ver en una vista paralaje a la historia, que lentamente comenzamos a dejarnos a nosotros mismos atras, nuestra razon, dejamos nuestras necesidades, nuestas ideas, dejamos nuestro “dios” y nos enfocamos en dios, humildemente, caminando hacia lo desconocido.

Continuara…

A Space Tragedy for the 21st Century

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 04:20:00 -0400

***please read this story while listening to this music as background. if it ends before you finish the story, play it again..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UfI6vDZcVH4

Once upon a time, in a house buried in the green trees of an unnamed country lived an old man. He didn’t do much, he sat around in the different chairs in his house. He got up every morning to prepare himself a pipe of tobacco, knowingly hurling towards his own death. He was a sad man. Although no tears rolled down his face. His hands slid slowly through the furniture in his house. There was a pile of about 700 newspapers piled up in his porch from being completely ignored every day. Interestingly enough, but not quite to be the plot, was that the appearance of all those newspapers was mysterious to say the least since no one lived for miles from the house. In other words, you would never see a kid in a bicycle delivering newspapers. Not in this place.

II.

Anyway, this was a sad man. His wife had been torn apart by wolves some years back. The old man accustomed to sit on the porch, next to the mountain of newspapers and watch the sun set. One day, he decided to drive into town to talk to an old friend about his tragedy. He told his old friend “I’m sad, and I miss my wife” and his friend responded “I know what you can do! Get up in the morning and with an axe, cut down as many trees as you possibly can. After that, cut up the wood to put it in the fireplace, and set fire to it. This may bring you peace. Watch it burn.”

III.

The next day the man got up early in the morning and cut down a total of 3 trees. It may seem a little short for someone young like you, but for a man with so many years and so little hair, this was a marvelous achievement. He carried the logs back to his home by nightfall, and decided that he was not going to use the wood for burning but to make a chair. The next morning he forgot all about it and got up to fix himself a pipe. When he looked out the window, he saw the logs and remembered. So he got some nails and a crooked hammer and for the rest of the day he built a chair out of one of the logs. When night came, his chair was finished. He then sat on it and watched as the sun set. The old man was so tired he fell asleep on the chair.

IV.

When the old man woke up, he was flying.

He was so excited! He looked down at all the miniature trees and animals running around the wild. He laughed with joy. The chair continued to rise and rise over the earth. Then there came a point where he could tell his country apart from others. Then he could see the earth from afar, as the moon grew bigger and bigger. He crossed the path of a NASA space station when a spaceman spotted him from a round window. Of course, the man simply shook his head and repeated “Of course , I did not just see a laughing old man gliding through space on a wooden chair” and quickly dismissed it. But he did.

VI.

The chair landed on the moon. Then the man got to his feet and joyfully explored the moon as if looking for something. Then he spotted her. His wife was laying on the floor of the surface of the moon. Watching the earth. Watching the unnamed country. “I found you” said the old man. “I knew you’d come for me” replied the old lady. They embraced each other.

VII.

The old man held her by the hand and took her to where the chair was, and sat on it. He then gestured with his hands for his wife to sit on his lap. “I’m too fat” said the old lady, and without words, only by eye communication the man said “you’re perfect”. So the old lady sat on his lap and put her arms around him. The chair ascended into space.

VIII.

Together they traveled space. Sitting on a hand made wooden chair.

Made in the Perfect Loneliness of God Pt.2

Mon, 10 Sep 2012 02:57:00 -0400

so, into the unknown we search.. with low life batteries we chase each other right through heavy darkness..
we present our primitive mating dance in between the inky black blue of underwater caves…
arched backs and clenched fists visible through the eye of a beam of light… the fog of our eyes starving to look up at a distant sun… and moon… .

that’s how i feel socially sometimes..
a little lost, a little primitive..
a little difficult.. low on oxygen.:˙˚º˚°˙˚º˚°˙

although i keep on searching.. keep on desiring to be a part of something..
because somewhere inside of me i know i was meant to be a part&not just a piece..

yet, in order to be a part of something, we need people…&that complicates things.

it complicates things because we’ve all experienced rejection. and rejection makes us slooowwww. . . . .
it.makes.us.hesitate.// ← ← ← ← ←

but we fight back. and we fight back because we also know what it’s like to be accepted.
and we also know it feels like heaven.

for some people it’s easy to feel like heaven all the time,

for some people it’s a miscellaneous happening.

one thing is for sure though.to live in unity is holy.vs.to live alone is vile.

that is why our unity is so crucial to the end of times.. the closer we get to each other, the closer we get to heaven.

some time ago i wrote that just as we need god for compassion, forgiveness and love, we also need it from our friends.
some people would say that isn’t true,

some people would say all you need is god…
not true.
“you can have god and be lonely” - JAR

god knows lonely souls . .

- - for depiction listen to unkle’s “lonely souls” - - -

funfact: you can know a thousand people and still be lonely

and the difference lies in these…

are we recognizing god’s image in the people we know?

are we being too mystical about how we think of jesus that we fail to see him in the eyes of our friends, lovers&family?

something very interesting about jesus is that he was meant to be passed down..

some people see it as “he lives in my heart” or “i have a personal relationship with him”

but what it really means is that you believe in his divine authority, and follow his teachings. it was never just about belief..

it is about monkey see monkey do domino effect.

it is about unity through compassion, love&forgiveness.

when we discard people and what they are and do (which includes art, literature, hard work, science, philosophy, religion, etc.) what are we left with?

very little…

it sounds more spiritual to say “to focus only on jesus is the answer..”
but what exactly does that mean without people?
jesus was in large about others.. about unity.. about community..

i believe it to be a large misfortune and loss to betray the possibility of seeing him through the eyes of another. because that possibility has been provided to us by jesus.

some people say it is a mistake to experience god through others because we are finite and a poor example.. but what else do we have??

some say love… but for who….?
some say the bible… but then how do we apply what we learn when living in a world of interaction….?
some say god… but what is god without love….? then it loops….
that is why 1 john 4.8 is so important…

it is so important that we stick together..
that we fight to avoid loneliness..
that we strive to have real friends..

god made us for a reason..
he made us to be together.. (genesis 2.18)

we are made in the perfect loneliness of god..
gene edwards speculated that before creating us, god was a massive mass of massive loneliness.. hence our creation.
at the dawn of our creation, because we were made to his image, we also felt.. lonely.
now we have eve.

let’s for a second let eve represent simply: other people.

eve isn’t perfect. and even though she is also made in the image of god, she will not always clearly reflect god…(because she isn’t god..)..but she was made for us.. without her we drown in loneliness.

to drown in loneliness is, in concept, to reverse god’s creation.
to go against his beginning will and initiative to create a partner.

but to unite with eve.. that is to truly live.

you know how people say: i must learn to love myself in order to love another?
i think we need to learn how to love others and be loved by others in order to fully love god.

because god will marry the church.. and who would want to marry a divided church?
we need to be a whole.

otherwise… we are causing polygamy for god….

and i don’t think he’ll budge..

lana del rey sings her heart out repeating in her atramentous cry “we were born to die”…

what were you born to do?
to be alone? then sing along with lana…
or to truly live…? then delve into the waters and search for eve…

and bring balloons..

Made in the Perfect Loneliness of God Pt.1

Tue, 04 Sep 2012 13:36:00 -0400

following through the same vein as the theory of human progression through a biblical perspective (as in: the old testament does not tell the story of an angry god, or of a changing god in contrast with the doings of the god in the new testament, but god adapted his correction and application of purpose to our capacity to understand and to our escalating level of maturity through time.) the human race may be conceptualized to a single human being… our intelligence is gradual… our level of maturity is tied up to time… our self-centeredness progressively will die.

there’s a thing called projection. throughout our history, it is obvious that we have projected ourselves into religion, science and philosophy even though it was aware of it.

we can begin with aristotle and his proposition that the earth was motionless and the sun and planets moved around it. the lights in the sky and meteors were all within the earth’s atmosphere and the heavens were static.

then copernicus proposed the idea that the earth was not the center of the universe, and that we rotated around the sun, and this very deeply affected the roots of our psy. like a teenager realizing he himself is not the center of the universe.
oh, and did I forget to mention that it was considered an offense against theological doctrine? that it meant that there were other suns? and other planets? and other earths?

since then we have discovered solar systems, planetary systems, whole galaxies, nebulas, super nebulas, supernovas, star clusters, black holes, the concept of the universe, baby universes, parallel universes, superstring theory, the kaluza-klein theory, the theory of relativity, higher dimensions, yet……
we kept trying to put ourselves at the center..

scientists hoped we were at least at the center of the milky way, but we weren’t…

scientists hoped that at least our galaxy was at the center of all other galaxies, but we weren’t…

scientists hoped that at the very least we were at the center of the universe… but…. we weren’t…

it is because of our sense of privilege and entitlement that we don’t like being demoted..

but we learn.

we learn that our existence has been a blink in god’s time.
almost an accident.
but i choose not to believe so…

but i do begin to see.. i begin to see that my existence is about more than just me.. it is about us.. it is about together…

unity.

at the very center of god’s heart and desire, is unity…
&as the human race slowly begins to leave behind childish things,
we come closer together…

i believe we are slowly learning not to be immensely offended by our lack of centrality..
and as we do so, community becomes more important.

there are three titles which dietrich bonhoeffer considered for his book “ethics”.

the foundations and structure of a world which is reconciled with god.
the foundations and structure of a future world.
the foundations and structure of a united west.

and i thought it was really beautiful because it incidentally envisions our future.

it tells of how unity (united west) is at god’s deepest desire (reconciled with god) and that our unity belongs to an unavoidable future (future world).

sadly, i’m afraid, not everyone will become a part of this brewing union…
nonetheless, god says the earth will eventually become a place where you either are a part of the community, or you live in the hellish outskirts.

for now philosophies disagree, doctrines disagree, theologies disagree, loves disagree, sciences disagree, but ultimately, our “incidental” existence will be all about community with each other for god.

we can see in a parallax view of history, that we slowly begin to leave ourselves behind, we leave our reason, we leave our need, our ideas.. we leave our god… and focus on.. god… humbly… into the unknown…

to be continued…….

t0rpe: the empyrean of eidolon by THE PULP GIRLS

Fri, 10 Aug 2012 14:13:25 -0400

t0rpe:

the empyrean of eidolon by THE PULP GIRLS

God is not here.. Unless there's beers & cigarettes

Wed, 08 Aug 2012 02:43:16 -0400

God Is Not Here Unless There’s Beers & Cigarettes

We sink so low…///

Swimming/Droning in a sea of monsters…
Our leg attached to a corpulent metal ball…

Descending at great speeds to the bottom of the sea…»>

“Once more you will show us compassion and wash away our guilt, casting all our sins into the depths of the sea.”

Micah 7:19 (REB)

God casts our sins into the deep of the ocean…
Yet most nights, most of us put on our scooba diving suits and go swimming/diving for our sins.. Stubborn and fighting to abide by what kills us slowly.

Guilt… Shame…

Horrible, addictive feelings.

Have you ever been invited to a party?

Some people can’t imagine having fun at a party unless there’s beers and cigarettes..
They’ve come to closure with themselves that without getting intoxicated and reflecting a stereotypical image through a cigarette staked between the fingers at get togethers, it isn’t a party..

Nicotine, alcohol, drugs, orgasms, guilt, grotesque love, sick success, violence, criminal adrenaline, antic attention, pride, sight-seeing, — //////////

All these things take us “somewhere else”..

And we like going “somewhere else”…^^^

Sometimes, we live to escape… We are escapists..

For such a long time, christianity was about: “hang in there, you will be rewarded in heaven..(somewhere else,)”

Throughout the years we’ve learned to live in the moment, but we still have a problem with silence..
Silence at church events..@Conferences..@YouthCamps..@Prayer..@Worship..

We don’t like it when nothing happens..

We don’t like it when we don’t fall..

We don’t like it when we don’t cry..

We don’t like it when we don’t scream, laugh, hurt, jump, twirl//

We don’t like it because when they don’t happen, things get too real.
Things get too earthy.

God becomes a drug.. A cigarette.. A beer.. A guilt..

Some have even called the church a “crack-house”.

I remember in the movie Fight Club when Edward Norton is looking for something to animate his nervy existence, to allay his phobias… So he begins to go to anonymous meetings.. Cancer victims, sex addicts, alcoholics, anger management, etc.
And even though there’s something positive about people getting together and embracing their brokenness, it is depicted in a very real grotesque&morbid fashion in the movie.
Their get togethers become some sort of a depraved addiction to a never-ending healing process..

We had a youth camp a few weeks ago.
To be honest, most of the staff was panicking on figuring out how we were going to defeat the expectations that last year’s camp left us with.
Because last year, everyone cried, almost everyone fell, mostly everyone broke..
And we were addicted to it..
And it was up to us(we thought)to surpass last year’s mysticism.

God had something different for us.

Utter peace.

It was so unsettling.
It was so strange coming to the realization that the most simple things like sitting together as a group to listening to friends sing romantic songs late at night or telling scary stories at the gym, or playing children’s games in the dark of the woods, reflected god in an almost unbearable way.
Simply walking into the main room where main meetings were taking place, even when there was nothing going on, brought such a simple peace.. so ever-enough..

There I was, expecting to fall and cry and all sorts of liquids to come out of me during worship.. But it didn’t happen//

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

It was like being set free from my cliché’d expectations..

i realized that god doesn’t repeat himself… that he is creative…

i wondered if perhaps falling&crying had become my god..

i was wrong.

And from that moment, god became expanded.

when i was a little boy, i had a crush on my teacher. i remember one day she called me into her office to talk to me about my studying skills. i was so nervous. she came over to me and showed me an “accordion”… a tiny, multi-folded piece of paper which contained tons of notes to study from. she explained how to make it..how through the creases and folds you could fit and organize a lot more than in a regular index card..&then she said: “take it everywhere with you…open it and explore it”

If god is in any way like this accordion, that day, he was unfolded and expanded..

i hadn’t opened him. i was only reading the front. over and over again, expecting the same experience.

& like Noomi Rapace says at the end of Prometheus: “I’m still searching.”

I’m willing to go to a party without beer&cigarettes.
See where i can find him.

"“I stood at the edge of the roof of a building, Watching as the purple sunset crashed its way..."

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 19:49:14 -0500

“

“I stood at the edge of the roof of a building,
Watching as the purple sunset crashed its way to the ground.
When suddenly, my surroundings became consumed by an absolute silence. I stood at the center of a muted soundscape, at the eye of a voiceless hurricane as i sensually caressed the skin of a green apple with my digits.
Then a wicked smirk smeared across my face. I came to the realization that for that moment I had power over the silence of nature. Oh! Mother nature! I have you now! And you’re not going anywhere! Nothing has ever been mine but now you belong to me! I will do with you as I like!
Silent leaves fled away from where i stood as I raised my apple to my lips. And with a loud bang, like the sound of a sawed off shotgun, I bit into the apple.. Breaking the virgin silence.
And that is the poem of how I assaulted the momentary peace of sound in nature, as it was absolutely mine for a single moment.”

By Adrian Romero

”

The Importance of Art

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 19:03:00 -0500

Some years ago, I’d been talking to a friend quite often, as we had been traveling together. We’d sit and talk about the most idiotic, most meaningless and unusually funny things you could possibly imagine, I would laugh so hard I thought I would die, but sometimes we also talked about serious things like faith, music, women, etc.
A conversation took place that I will now provide for you in screenplay format as best as I can remember it.

Adrian and friend are in the backseat of a van. Adrian removes earphones to speak:

-Adrian: I love this piece so much, I’d love to incorporate something like this to the music that I make.
-Friend: Yea it is very nice.
-Adrian: Music is so important you know? It’s a miracle really…
-Friend: I know what you mean, but there is something else more important.
-Adrian: What’s that?
-Friend: Lyrics. Lyrics are the most important part of music.
-Adrian: I don’t know about that.
-Friend: I think once you grow up you will understand.

It’s been about 4-5 years since that conversation, and either I have not grown at all, or there’s more to music than what most people think.

It’s funny how sometimes you find scraps of the most meaningful things in life in the most unexpected of places. Many miracles lie hidden in the yet unseen corners of life.

Original Music from Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince by Nicholas Hooper.
Track 17: Farewell Aragog.

After listening to this, the track reproduced itself over and over for days inside of me. And it changed everything.
Let me explain:

Sometimes a certain melody takes a hold of me. It plays in the back of my mind all day. A melody that plays with the majestic reality of life. It changes absolutely everything. It flirts with you. It dances with you.
People and places hold within them the beauty of space and time, the marvelous evidence of the hand of God in the spirit of the earth.
Everyone has a suffering melody inside of them, not always of pain or grief but of a yearning for hope and joy. Not everyone is capable of reproducing these inner melodies, though I do know some people that are very much like living instruments, reproducing beautiful and nostalgic melodies by simply living.. No singing.. No notes..
And when you find this miraculous melody, it is so similar to the one in your heart that it resonates to the deepest core of your soul. A duo, perfect in harmony. It is a tremendous weight off of you. Someone feels like you. What your soul so desperately needs to sing is sung back to you.

And you feel peace.

God is singing to you.

God singing to you through the melodies of his creation. Us. Nicholas Hooper.

And that ladies and gentlemen is the miracle of music.
The marriage of lyric and melody cannot be divorced. What a tragedy it is when it occurs. Like separating a couple that is deeply in love with each other.
Don’t disturb the adventurous and passionate love affair of lyric and melody.

Love affairs. Speaking of love affairs, it reminds me of last night when I spoke to my friend again and told him about my new found perspective on music.. He said:
”That is true, and you know what? That is very much like when you meet your soulmate.. She comes to you, singing the melody of your own soul.”

Wow.
That is beautiful isn’t it?

My friend also recently had a baby, so I asked him:
“What kind of melody does Zoe sing to you??”
He said: “She sings a melody that reminds me that I can fall in love every day.”

And it got me thinking… No wonder Jesus was so emphatic about loving everyone everyday at all times.. Hopelessly.. Because it is a true tragedy when people forget to love. Lack of love leads to loneliness.. And like one of my favorite authors puts it:

“If loving people is a bit of heaven then certainly isolation is a bit of hell..”

That goes for music.
Now for the miracle of cinema.

Like every happy&healthy family, my family has gone through some rough patches. There were moments when the sadness of a situation would attempt to pull us apart, to build barriers between us. Aside from God’s deliverance, film always took on a big role when it came to bringing the family together during dark times.

During dark times one becomes very fond of sleeping. You sleep during the day. You find yourself waking up sometimes at 7 PM from the nap you started at 5.
I’d lie in my bed, waking up to the taste of hopelessness. I’d wake hoping that my misfortunes would simply be a big joke that my own dreams pulled on me. But it wasn’t so. I’d look around my room, everything lost color, my pillow was wet from tears, my bible was set next to me, open from when i raked it for an answer, for a beam of light to shine upon the darkness of my time. I’d blink to the rhythm of a requiem. The requiem of hope. There would be a pain in my chest from the sad melody that my soul reproduced.

Then dad would knock on my door.
An invitation to come downstairs to… watch a movie.
My house then came alive like the tuning of an orchestra right before the symphony as my dad walked to each of our doors to wake us and invite us to watch a movie with him. As a family.
We’d gather pillows and blankets and set them on the floor of our living room. Then the movie began. My dad would always pick the greatest movies.

Movies are great because they bring people together. The very essence of a movie is unity. From the content of a movie which is interaction between people to the people that make the movie. You ever sit through the end credits? That big list of people that offered their services to help create the movie?
Take one person away from that list, and there will be chaos.
Don’t believe me?
Try making a fairly good quality movie by yourself.
With good lighting, good sound, good camera movement, good focus, good script, good catering, good actors, good directing…. I could go on and on.
ANYWAY.
Movies bring people together. At home and at the theater. It truly is a beautiful thing.

Movies always played a big part in my life as I was growing up.
I remember my dad taking me to the movies every other week.. It truly was like magic the way that the curtains opened, the lights dimmed down in a sexy sort of way that I cannot explain, the sound of a projector began as a beam of light stretched across the theater to display a moving image on the giant white screen, excpet at that very moment, it was not white anymore, but it filled with the images that together made up a visual story that resonated with my heart exactly like a melody. Like Magic.

Film is one of the ultimate forms of escapism.
Just try it. Whenever you feel sad, or lonely, whenever there are problems in your home, knock on everyone’s door and watch a movie together.
It will change everything.

Photo

Thu, 01 Mar 2012 17:53:02 -0500

Christianity is Not a Religion??

Wed, 08 Feb 2012 15:32:00 -0500

Re·li·gion

: (1) : the service and worship of God or the supernatural(2) : commitment or devotion to religious faith or observance

: a personal set or institutionalized system of religious attitudes, beliefs, and practices

: a cause, principle, or system of beliefs held to with ardor and faith

Lately, I’ve been(very)exposed (as I’m sure many more of you have been as well,) to several videos and writings that promote hatred towards religion. Most interesting of all, many of these videos are made by christians. I cannot help to think that it has become a sort of trend to say that christianity is not a religion. Many have become fond of using that phrase every chance they get.. “Christianity is not a religion.”

This is not an appraisal of everything that religion has caused, but it is a defense of what religion was supposed to be in the first place. I’d like you to take for example Fatherhood. The word “father” may bring you admirable memories of your own father, a father that has set a great example for you, that has set a good pace for life. A father that loves you and forgives you and tucks you into bed and plays with you on the autumns leaves, a father that showered you in the kitchen sink when you were a baby, a father that annoys you with his love and attention, a father that cares more about you than he does about himself. Hero fathers. Hello Dad. Then, somewhere around the corner is a person that winces at the word “father.” A coward, a thief, a menace, a monster, a curse, a drunkard, an abuser, a violent whirlwind, a chilled phantom figure, an irresponsible caitiff, a father that never picked up a bed time story book, never remembered your birthday, never said “iloveyou,” never took you fishing and maybe never even knew your name.
…
There’s good fathers…. But there’s also terrible fathers..

But would it make sense to say that fatherhood is a bad thing because there are bad fathers out there? That fatherhood kills? That fatherhood is evil? Would it make sense to hate fatherhood?

I was talking to a friend a couple of days ago, and he was telling me how 10-15 years ago, whenever he saw the American flag, it used to induce good consideration about what America stands for. But then he began to explain to me how nowadays, while driving through certain neighborhoods, he may spot an American Flag staked on someone’s lawn or posted close to the front door, and how that only brings thoughts of racism, twisted patriotism and American superiority. True.

But is the flag bad? Would it make sense for him to start a flag-burning campaign and hand out anti-American pamphlets? Probably not.. That would be ridiculous..

Yes, religion has been caught many times at the scene of the crime. Shameful things have happened, horrible things.. But that’s not religion’s fault. That is people’s fault.. Because resentful things occurred when religion was placed in the hands of depraved and corrupted leaders.

Religion got a bad rap because of the negative history that surrounds it, and now it is not being protected by the people that currently practice it and are supposed to be protecting it. Instead, most of us try to run away and ignore religion’s faulty past. Not wanting to take any responsibility for it. Religion works around communities, and as a community, we all take the blame. The church takes the blame. My church, your church, their church. Almost sounds like a Beatles song.

Jesus didn’t come to abolish religion. Jesus came to support Religion(1). A good religion. A healthy religion. A religion that we are yet working on. Religion is good. When you say you hate religion, you’re hating on the wrong target.

When you say you hate religion, if you get to the bottom of it, you are really saying you hate the church. And when you say you hate the church, you are hating yourself and the people around you. Hating the body of Christ.

So… I hate people but I love Jesus? Doesn’t sound right..

I think it is important to remember Religion for what it really is supposed to be, for what it really stands for. The worship of God. A set of beliefs and standards.

Religion is the wrong target.

So instead of Jesus > Religion, why not Jesus > Me ..??

Jesus is great because he is so much better than us. Not just bigger than something else that we’ve managed to corrupt..

** (1) = James 1:26-27

"Once more into the fold; Into the last good fight I’ll ever know. To live and die on this..."

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 16:11:26 -0500

“Once more into the fold;
Into the last good fight I’ll ever know.
To live and die on this day;
Live and die on this day.”

made me laugh.. like them hahaha

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 20:32:00 -0500

made me laugh.. like them hahaha

The Importance of Reason

Sat, 28 Jan 2012 19:42:00 -0500

Having it known that all of us are comprised of mind and soul (amongst other things), how are we to balance the use of both? I would only like to address the spiritual side of this, as it is what’s been on my mind lately.

There are two types of churches. There are the real passionate ones. You enter: Women are immediately and illogically overly fragrant, men are inexplicably over dressed, there’s justifiable uncoordinated dancing and shiny expensive kleptomania-inducing pamphlets, charismatic leaders (overly perhaps in some cases), passion, bagels, expensive cameras, exorcisms, joy, Gibson guitars, screaming, you know the one. I can’t help to think while I’m standing in the midst of all this happening around me, swimming in the somewhat necessary sea of peer pressure, that in this type of setting there’s an over indulgence of soul & passion. A shower of joy, you don’t have to think about it, just jump. With a message that can be as short as 15-20 minutes, it’s mostly comfort food for the soul.

Then there is the other type of church. You enter: Still over dressed… (What’s up with churches and people over dressing? I mean I’m not asking for cargo shorts and sandals, but common! Ever heard of jeans and a shirt? ANYWAY…), old yellowy paged hymnals that smell like nostalgia extract, ascetic and audible prayers in unison, an unhealthy infatuation with doctrine and theology, a sense of heavy and an almost visible toxic gas of intimidation and ultimate arrogance, strict and staunch worship, a constant criticism of other’s beliefs and methods.

Of course, these churches are extreme opposites, and if you are currently going to church, hopefully it is because you have found one that is active in the healthy balance of passion and intellect. Now that all that’s been said (with the purpose of eccentrically dividing the two) I’ll explain why I think reason is important.

To me, prayer has always been the epitome of passion. The headquarters of your soul in search of God. Sitting in the middle of your room, isolated, your heart sweating and weary, needy as ever, invisible light strings of desperation and aggressive violence, elegantly scurrying away from you to the darkest, outmost corners of the earth, winged figures dancing outside your door, ready and able to XXeither.save.you.or.kill.you.XX Spiritual poetry written down somewhere, nowhere, a concerto in b minor, feverish and repeated, your hands out of focus somewhere, slowly and sensuously rubbing against each other or the corners of an old tired page of some holy book, a lamp somewhere in the distance that you never want to look at, afraid it’ll send your guardian off, your hero.. Because then your prayers won’t fully develop.. Your prayer: A forming and bloody fetus, pulsating in the center of your room. Teardrops falling on holy ground all around you, and third grade bean plants growing right there next to you.

It’s all very emotive and touching and nostalgic and gorgeous and I want to do it more. Prayer: constituted of passion, ache, hope, the romance and marriage of your feelings to the king of King’s compassion and to his giant ear… Much like a reversed megaphone.

Now, reason is the pursuit of God through intellect. Not that intellect is a stranger to prayer, but sometimes it helps to look at them separately.

BECAUSE reason is the pursuit of God through intellect, in the case of spiritual passion I’m forced to believe in love at first sight, like people being swept off their feet (literally) at some scheduled revival at some church by the power of God-ah! and his grace-ah! you are now free-ah! of sin-ah! I believe in it. It’s like falling in love at first sight. Unexpectedly bumping into the person you’ve always needed but never knew it blah, blah, blah (Insert romantic comedy climax jargon here —————————————————————————) I believe in it.

The reason why I point this out is because a lot of people fall in love with God like that, and even though they fall in love, in days to come, it doesn’t really get any deeper than that. They get hung up on revival. They expect it every Sunday, they want that mystic supernatural moment of power, they want that magical moment to return, and if it doesn’t, then feel like something is wrong. I call these hyper-spirituals, and being a hyper-spiritual isn’t that great because even though revival does occur, it is rare and seldom. And if you only base your spiritual life on the rare and seldom, if that’s the only thing that feeds your spirit, then you’re going to be very hungry for very long periods of time.

So falling in love at first sight with God? Possible…but what happens after? You have to get to know whom you fall in love with. Not just obsessively think of that first perfect date at the Melting Pot restaurant and hope for it to repeat itself. There’s so much more to discover about significant others, and that process is the beauty of it all.

Good for those that think “I really like this guy, but there must be more to all this than the Melting Pot experience. When I go home, I’m going to do a Google background check on him. I’ll get close to his friends and family, see what he’s all about.” Or how about: “I had an amazing, out of the ordinary encounter with God. How can I carry this with me at all times? I’m going to ecstatically flip over the pages of my untouched bible. How could I have missed this God, for all these years?”

Christopher Hitchens: An intellectual brute. Here is a man that was famous for his excoriating criticism of religion and other things that I consider good. Yet I somehow find myself instinctively admiring his fighting spirit. Admiring his escapist intellect and erudite essence. He fears no one and nothing.  Somehow in his own rebellious manner, he stalks the earth to find his version of ultimate truth.

In comparison to some of us Christians, including myself sometimes, living in a spiritual bunker, unwilling to dissect my beliefs, unable to open my mind to the outside world, intimidated and taken captive by dogmas.

Unable to ask Questions… My curiosity’s lips sewn shut.

Questions originate from a person with an insatiable intellect, an unsatisfied state of mind, wanting to know more, admitting a lack of knowledge. And what better subject matter to pursue in our intellect than God? A God that cannot be pinned down and fully understood. An enigma. It makes sense to say that our intellect is practically tailored for the pursuit of God. And the best part is that God intended for us to ask questions. He expects our questions. Again we see in God the perfect balance of knowing everything ahead of time, yet having expectations. But that’s a whole other blog entry.

Worry if you don’t have questions. You’re too comfortable knowing nothing.

Don’t be a bobble head when it comes to knowing God, as Christians, we look back at people like Martin Luther who revolutionized the way we saw our faith and our God, but something that all revolutionaries have in common is that they all were unsatisfied at some moment. They embraced a contrarian attitude in order to find more truth or at least more truth.   Yet somehow we lost this tradition? It was ok back when Luther did it but not anymore? It is hard for me to believe that Luther completely finalized the search for who God is.  Have we pinned God down on a sweaty high school gym mat? I think not.

Tough fact: Some of us will never know God the way Luther did. And that is because we don’t embrace our intellectual pursuit of God. Too busy being hyper-spirituals.  

Even for those of us who know a little more about what we believe. Those of us that have studied theology, what we believe must be constantly examined and re-established and re-introduced, not left alone to dust up in a top spidery shelf, or be intimidated by doctrine, thinking that it must be left alone, thinking that the last word has already been spoken. Doctrine isn’t scary, in fact, the very roots of doctrine go back to the people that interpreted the bible because they had questions. And these doctrines expect to be picked up and wrestled with.

If we are expected to pursue God and question our beliefs, to learn and get closer to him, and it is established that doctrine is simply a means and not an end, then the means to God should be renovated constantly, to have a better way to him. Better doctrine means better means to God.

I humbly extend all of this to you if you think that your belief system is too political and unquestioned.   This is not a call to disrespect the previously established, for it is essential to know the rules you want to question and re-interpret them, but to enrich it with your intellectual passion.

One last thing: Study.

I think it was Stravinky who said that some rules were made to be creatively broken, but that before doing so, one first had to master the very same rules.

We Are Losing (Vol. I)

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 12:05:45 -0500

As many of you know, in the christian community, there have always existed recurrent modern theological/doctrinal issues. Conversations take place, debates are recorded, arguments make it to the news and fights become the epitome & laughingstock of our variating views. Lately there have been a couple of opposing arguments that have surfaced out of the sea of mystery and difficulty that is the christian faith. Like two claws from the same animal fighting each other, the question on whether we as christians are to err on God’s judgement or grace is prodigiously sought-after at the moment, if not ever-popular. The other being the reconstruction of our conception of hell. Who goes there, why beings end up there, and how they get there. Now, knowing these are raw-skinned subjects, I will write this as neutrally as I can. Not that I don’t have my own, personal say on these matters, but it’s just simply not the main theme of my written whatever-this-is.

Earlier this year, I engaged in several conversations with one of my true friends. To compose a better panorama for you of our relationship, I’ll go into micro-depth of our semi-opposing views. We come from the same place. We were raised in the same church, had the same teachers, she’s about the same age as me, our parents emphatic points rely on the same foundations, and all that should be enough to understand why we get along so well. We have very similar upbringings. We both grew up listening to the same preachings, having the same leaders and same values. Up until I was about sixteen years old when I moved away from our conjoining city. Exactly the age in which I started to discover my own faith, my very intimate person with God. And I don’t mean intimate as in candles, I mean intimate in the sense that every little piece of my belief system was taken apart and made very personalized. It was only then when my relationship with God started to make sense. My role with God swelled, I understood why I rejected and accepted certain commodities. I captured my pinpoint, emotional, spiritual, intellectual & even physical right on God’s heart. Now, I know that this as well happened to my friend around the same time. She made her faith independent. Ripping apart from home’s cradle, a painful skin rip, ejecting blood, sweat and fear because growing hurts and that is when the doubts start to settle in. But once you’re all over that, you’re enjoyably your own spirit. With a little help from your spiritual leaders, you learn to stand on your own feet. Your tongue no longer fattens when you are questioned at lunch time.

Needless to say, at around that age, many of our beliefs parted. Our faith became very different and we didn’t realize it until deep in our friendship. I remember having arguments with her at dawn and dusk, each of us racing through bible pages, defending what was rightfully ours (?), what we believed constructed who God was at heart, what had drawn us nearer to God.

She sided with judgement, I erred on grace, she hated Joel Osteen, I liked Rob Bell, she was a conservative, I was a liberal, she was scared of the emergent church, I thought the church was losing, she disliked many of my songs for not being spiritually explicit, I thought that christian songs should reflect the enigma that is God, she liked hillsong, I liked portishead, she liked puppies, I liked cats, she believed that God could be won over, I believed that there was nothing you can do to win God over.
Even though much of this has to do with doctrine and theology and the modern application of something that is timeless, and even though my major is theology and I’m bombarded with all sorts of ideals and perspectives, I don’t want to be perceived as that guy that is all hopped up on sounding, acting & wanting to appear intellectual and overly spiritual. I want to be perceived as a person that is deeply in love with God. That is on a constant and restless pursuit of God. Forget the word perceived. I want to BE that person. I’m not that person yet but I am trying to be, I am not in love enough with God. I’m not doing enough. None of us are. I am not winning. We are not winning. The church is not winning. Here it goes, we are losing.

Yes there has been a recent uprise of the church because of these new arguments, but I cannot help to think that the uprise is confused.

Here is what I think. During the days of our heated arguments, she one day called me with a pale and shivering voice as she asked “please tell me you are not part of the emergent church..) This really got me thinking. I think many christians are scared of change. With every raging argument, with every “heretic” newcomer, with every Martin Luther has come change. And we don’t like change. My friend, like so many other christians was scared of the emergent church. I looked up what the emergent church really was, and found out that I actually do go to one. My faith is emergent. This may make some of you cringe, but let me explain what the emergent church is.
The emergent church is a conversation. A conversation in which the “last” word is yet to be spoken (though the idea is not for a “last” word to be spoken. That is out of our role). Emerging church is simply a new name for what the protestant church was at first. A breakaway from the mainstream church. A disillusionment with the organization of the institutional church. A vote for a de-and-re construction of the modern church. The planning of the conception of a new and relevant church. All this within the confines of the word of God. Does it make you cringe? Probably. Probably because we are all too comfortable. Change seems like a break-away from God. Something could go wrong. Yes it could. But isn’t a constantly awakening faith better than an undisturbed and static faith?
The whole theme of the bible is about grace and second opportunities. We are allowed to make mistakes as long as we correct them.

The emergent church became infamous just because of that. Some people made some mistakes. Yet it does not cease to be what it is meant to be. A search for an alternative.

No one wants to listen to us anymore. The church has a mute voice to the outside world. An alternative must come into action.

I do not want to be left behind. I want to be a part of the alternative.

When you read something that makes you cringe or plain mad, don’t dismiss it. Martin Luther made everyone rage. And look what happened. Jesus did too,

Don’t be the typical close-minded, angry, uninviting, static, lethargic, boring, un-adventurous, settling christian. Well, Jesus wasn’t like that.

How did you get such profound vocabulary?

Tue, 13 Dec 2011 11:57:03 -0500

By reading Russian novels upside down in a cold, bat-infested cave. well.. maybe not those last parts, but reading for sure.. and a lot of use of the dictionary, a word-of-the-day calendar and alternative word searches through an online synonym guide. and the profound part.. you really just have to mean what you say..