The New Commandment vs. The Dialog of Hatred

“Most assuredly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master; nor is he who is sent greater than he who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them. A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”
John 13:16-17, 34-35

This was the commandment Jesus gave at the Passover after He washed His disciples’ feet. After giving the Commandment, He was crucified.

A man’s final words are telling. Stephen’s final words, as he was stoned to death, were, “Lord, do not charge them with this sin.” (Acts 7:60)

It’s in a man’s final hours – those he knows to be his final hours – that we get the full measure of a man. In Jesus’ final hours, He told His disciples, “as I have loved you, you also must love one another. By this, all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

These days, it seems we have a lot of people claiming Christ. Claiming to be disciples of Jesus. But by their actions and their speech, how many truly are? Jesus also said that “by their fruits you will know them” and that not everyone who calls Him Lord will enter into heaven, but “He who does the will of the Father.” (Matt 7:19-21) That is a really important distinction to make that gets glossed over nearly everywhere these days.

I think we can all agree on the universal truth that the folks at Westboro, though they call themselves Jesus’ disciples, are acting in a fashion that would indicate they are anything but. By their fruits we know that they do not have love for their brothers, but hatred. I don’t mind saying that I despise their actions on every count and yet, as much as I probably should hate them, as much as what they do makes me incredibly angry, really, I pity them. It makes me sad and angry to see people invoke the name of God in the pursuit of their personal goals and agenda and I hate that action, but I do not hate the people. How can I? When God clearly loves them, how can I say that I am better and know better than He? If I cannot love my brother who I can see, how can I love God who I cannot see (to paraphrase John yet again [1 John 4:20])?

We have, as a society, entered into a dialog of hatred, and this dialog has entered even into the Church. I hear men and women who claim to be disciples of Jesus saying the most hate-filled things about even other Christians. This is in politics, from pulpits, on the street… and this is wrong! Listen, if you claim to follow Jesus, you must first understand that there is no authority on earth but that which is granted by God (Romans 13:1). Whether you agree with the leadership appointed/elected or not is not the issue: disagreeing with policy is perfectly fine, calling for the removal of those people from their positions in a society where the populace has the power by law to remove them is also perfectly legitimate (provided you do so in a legal way), spewing hateful invective and attacking those in authority on a personal level (or their families) is not at all in keeping with the teachings and example of Jesus. Turn off the TV and radio news channels and stop filling your head with hate and be amazed at how easy it is to assess things calmly. (Though I do not at all oppose the actions in Egypt, Tunisia, Libya, and several other countries where the people have risen up and demanded change. I expect more uprisings will take place and I support these peoples wholeheartedly in their struggles.)

As Christians, those who claim to be disciples of Jesus, there is a very real need for us to act like it. Especially now. Everywhere we turn, there is a palpable tension, a dialog of hatred that has made its way into our everyday discourse. We have a responsibility to “do the will of the Father” so that “all will know [we] are [His] disciples.” I don’t recall Jesus ever being deliberately hateful, even to those who truly deserved it. When they brought the adulteress to Him to be judged (assuming Jesus would say “Yes! Stone the whore!” you note that they didn’t also bring the man. Jesus didn’t say, “Hey, where’s the man you caught her with? The law says stone him too! Let’s have a rock throwing party!”), He did not blast her or those wishing to stone her and He could have done both legitimately. No, He settled in and drew a little picture in the dirt and didn’t say a word. Finally, He said, “Ok, go ahead if you want to… but the one among you who has never done anything wrong in his life gets to throw the first rock at her.” Then he went back to doodling. Everyone dropped their rocks and walked away and he told the woman, “Go on then, and don’t put yourself in this situation ever again.”

In fact, the closest Jesus ever came to condemnation was in calling out the religious leaders of the day for leading people astray – leading people away from God. That made Him angry. It should make us angry, too, then. Why are we not calling people out when they claim to follow Christ but take actions that clearly demonstrate that they do not? We demand that others do this – we demand that the Muslims who do not agree with Jihadists take their brothers to task – but why are we unwilling to do the same? That, too, is our responsibility in love. Just as we would not allow our children to cross a busy street against the signal because we love them, we cannot allow our brothers to fall into a trap of hateful behavior because we ought to love them as well. If Paul, being the newest and least trusted of disciples could pull Peter up for his hypocrisy, why are we unwilling to do the same to keep our brothers from stumbling?

Love is not always sunshine, roses, and hugs. Sometimes it is a boot to the butt, a slap on the wrist. If my friends do not correct me when I am doing wrong, they are not truly my friends. I am thankful for my closest friend, whom I love like a sister, who is not afraid to get in my face and tell me to stop being an idiot when I need to hear it. Because she does this for me, I know that she truly loves me – someone who does not love will not give correction when it is needed.

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.  By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”

They’re not just words on a page, folks.

Why Jon Stewart and Shepherd Smith are Heroes

Maybe you’ve heard of the Zadroga Bill or maybe you haven’t.  It is a bill named for a police officer who died as a result of being a first responder on September 11, 2001.  The bill, in a nutshell, guarantees medical care to those first responders suffering illness or injury as a result of their actions at Ground Zero: getting people to safety, treating the wounded, recovering the dead.

The Zadroga Bill has been passed by the House of Representatives.  Some members of the Senate, however, have filibustered the bill, preventing it from even coming to a vote even though it’s been established that, were the bill to come to an “up or down” vote, there are more than enough votes (only 50 “yea” votes are required) for this piece of legislation to pass.  Granted, the bill does allow for even more money to be paid out to 9-11 victims’ families (unless that provision has been removed), and in some cases, those families have received huge sums of money already (some families have received sums into the millions of dollars, though this is not necessarily true of all surviving families of 9-11 victims), but that is a simple matter that Congress could remove from the final legislation without removing the benefit and larger intent of the bill – to provide necessary medical care to those who did the same on 9-11 and who are now dying at a median age of 46 years old.  Just as we owe our veterans care they (we) are not receiving, we owe these first responders that much.

 

Jon Stewart Blasts Congress Over Zadroga Bill

Jon Stewart Dedicates an Entire Show to 9-11 First Responders and the Senate’s Failure to Act on the Zadroga Bill

 

Shepherd Smith of Fox News (not a channel I really pay attention to for my news, to be honest), has also picked up the torch.  Whether it was Stewart’s challenge or memories of  Hurricane Katrina (be sure to take a few moments to view the footage linked in the article under “Shep doesn’t forget.”) that set Smith off, he is righteously indignant, and he’s tossed cool, calm political correctness out the window on this one:

 

Shep Smith Names Names

 

For those of you who are keeping score, here are the names Shepherd Smith named along with the states they represent:

Lamar Alexander TN

John Barasso WY

John Cornyn TX

Mike Crapo ID

Jim DeMint SC

Mike Enzi WY

Chuck Grassley IA

Jon Kyl AZ

Jeff Sessions AL

Max Baucus MT

Judd Gregg NH

James Inhofe OK

Jim Bunning KY

Tom Coburn OK

John Ensign NV

Lindsey Graham SC

Orrin Hatch UT

John McCain AZ

Mitch McConnell KY (Senate Minority Leader)

 

Don’t get me wrong: I am happy to see the repeal of DADT, but this really should have been a priority over that.

One Little Building…One Big Mess!

So here in America, I am impressed: after nine years, we have not managed to forget September 11, 2001. Since Americans have a collective memory span only slightly longer than the attention span of a rabid squirrel on crack, that’s amazingly impressive. It’s also irritating as all get out when some drama queen decides to get their panties in a bunch over half-truths and outright lies about a possible construction project in Manhattan, so let’s set the record straight:

• 2,851 people died on September 11, 2001 during the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center (that number includes only the World Trade Center and the four planes – for this discussion, the Pentagon is not included).
• Contrary to popular belief, the victims were not all American citizens. The victims were citizens of 55 different nations. Of those 55 nations, 8 have populations whose dominant religion is Islam.
• Approximately 1% of the victims of the 9/11 attack on the WTC were known to have been Muslim (given the number of foreign nationals and the number of potential Americans who may have been Muslim who were killed in the attack, that number could actually be higher, but there is no solid confirmation of that), which, according to traditional, non-extremist, interpretations of the Koran, makes the attacks a crime against Islam.
• The Christian Church that is “tied up in government red tape” is “tied up” because the builders wish to rebuild at the original site: Ground Zero. First, Ground Zero’s ownership is ambiguous. Second, the construction of the new World Trade Center is already underway, with some towers completed and the memorial to the 9/11 victims due to be opened on the tenth anniversary of the attacks. This explains why there is a delay.
• The “mosque” in question is not just a mosque: it is a 13 story mosque and cultural center that will be open to the public (as a general rule, many mosques are not open to the public). It will include include an auditorium, a theater, a performing arts center, a fitness center, a swimming pool, a basketball court, a childcare area, a bookstore, a culinary school, a food court, and an Islamic prayer space. It is to replace a building that was once a Burlington Coat Factory, meaning that it is a commercially-zoned location not located within the Ground Zero area – in point of fact, it is about three blocks from Ground Zero and the building was itself damaged by wreckage from the towers on 9/11. The point of even buying the property and building the facility there, specifically, according to Imam Faisal Abdul Rauf, the man in charge of the project, is because it “sends the opposite statement to what happened on 9/11,” and “…to push back against the extremists.”
• President Obama is not a Muslim, he is a Christian. He also was not born in Africa; he was born in Hawaii. He lived in Indonesia as a child, which is a nation whose population is predominantly Muslim (last I checked, estimates were around 80%, but that may have changed in the last few years since they had a openly Christian Presidential candidate fairly recently), however, he, like many, many other people who have lived/been raised in Indonesia, is Christian.

Before I stated my (incredibly strong) opinion on the matter, I wished to separate fact from fiction. Today’s media is very much into half truths, misstating facts, sensationalizing, and causing unnecessary drama to increase ratings and readership. The petition to deny the basic freedoms this country was founded on and for which I fought that I got in my inbox tonight pissed me off – for a lot of reasons.

First, it goes against the law of the land. Our Constitution gives every citizen the right to practice his or her religion freely. I swore – three times – to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic” and to “bear true faith and allegiance to the same” and if you are trying to tell me that some bloke doesn’t deserve to freely practice his faith in the United States because his faith happens to be the same as 19 mass murderers who committed a heinous crime one day 9 years ago, then you are one of those enemies I swore to support and defend the Constitution against. Further, you are an enemy of the very nation you think you are defending because you don’t respect the very laws that are its foundation, so GET OUT and don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out – and be sure to leave your passport because we don’t want you back. There are plenty of places where the law only applies to the chosen few who believe a certain way: contact the nearest Taliban recruiter to learn more about them.

See these guys if you want to live someplace where the laws only apply to some of the people some of the time.

Second, it goes against my faith. Yep, that’s right. What would Jesus do? Well, He told us very simply and more than once: He would obey the law of the land, whether He agreed with it or not. I’m pretty sure Jesus didn’t agree with paying a Temple tax, but when the time came, he made sure that both His and Simon Peter’s was paid and told Simon Peter to “render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and render unto God what is God’s.”

When they came to have Him answer to the High Priest, Simon Peter went to fight and Jesus rebuked him. Not only that, but Jesus healed the man whom Simon Peter had injured. At any point, Jesus could have busted out of those restraints and rained holy retribution down on that place, but He did not. The laws He submitted Himself to were, largely, the laws of men. He did much the same when He went before Pilate and, of course, when He was crucified – submitted himself to the laws of men when he did not have to. Later, those who would follow the path Christ laid out are instructed to submit also to the laws of the land in which they live.

It also goes against my faith because it is judging an entire 1.7 billion people by the actions of what really amounts to a very tiny minority. If the entire world judges all believers by the actions of people like Fred Phelps, would we believers – rightfully – be outraged enough (finally!) to publicly cast Westboro Baptist, Pat Robertson and others like them out of our midst?

Sadly, this is not considered child abuse.

Edmund Burke said that the only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. I believe, in this case, good men need to stand up and say that the law is blind and applies equally to all citizens of the United States, regardless of religion or race or color. I’m pretty sure that’s exactly what Jesus would do. I’m also pretty sure that’s exactly why Jesus stayed the hell out of politics and why we should too – doing what’s right and doing what’s politically expedient are rarely one and the same.

Drop the Label Gun!

I have been thinking today about age and how we change – or rather, how our understandings of certain things changes – as we age. In Joel 2:28 (which I am taking completely out of context here, by the way), the passage talks about old men dreaming dreams and young men seeing visions and Paul talks about being a child and doing the things children do, but becoming a man and putting away childish things (which I am also taking slightly out of context, but both verses popped into my head as I was considering this thought this morning, so I can’t help but consider the idea that, even out of context as they are, they have some relevance to the topic).

When I was younger, in my 20′s, I was on the go all the time. My house was little more than a “home base” where I slept and occasionally, where I ate. I had a million things to do, places to go, people to see, and I was always out and about doing those things, being in those places, seeing those people. I worked three jobs, and was always busy but still made time to see my friends and family or at least call my mother and father once a week.

Now I am older, in my 30′s, and I find that I feel differently than I did then. Age, marriage, a decade’s worth of experiences have all changed me – in ways good and bad. I am not eager to be on the go from the time I get up in the morning until the time I go to sleep at night anymore. I just don’t want or need to be “out and about” all the time and am perfectly content to stay at home and read a book, watch a movie, or do whatever strikes my fancy. Now, that doesn’t mean that I don’t like to go out every now and again and have dinner or a few drinks with good friends, it just means that I don’t want or need to do it every single day or night. I have outgrown that stage of my life. It also doesn’t mean that I take issue with anyone who does desire to do those things or that I consider them childish. It simply means that I believe that each person is unique and that just as some people’s personalities are such that they will be always on the go well into their 80′s (I know a man like this – 80 years old and the best time to reach him by telephone is at 10:30 PM because it is the only time you know for certain he is home), other people’s personalities are such that we would just as soon be home 80% of the time. The only time I get even a little upset is when someone who knew me previously insists that it is not possible to change over time and that I simply must still enjoy running everywhere all day long because I once did many years ago – I suspect they will understand my frustration in the future when they encounter the same opposition from someone they care about.

But along the same lines of changes in one’s thinking that occur as we grow older, I wanted to talk a little more about labels. Specifically, labels within the church. When I was nineteen and first prayed to give my heart to Christ, these labels didn’t trouble me very much at all. In fact, I thought nothing of them. I’d heard and seen them my whole life and just accepted them. Now, I look at them and they trouble me greatly to the point that they literally hurt my heart…and they make me angry like a Spartan at Thermopylae.

Labels: Monk needs ‘em, the Church does not.

This week I have been poking about on a blog by a preacher and author within the church who does have some good things to say, but, if you’ve been reading my blog at all, you know that labels trouble me. This “new” term troubling me is the “emerging church.”

First, I have trouble with the term because of the definition of the word “emerging.” It means, according to dictionary.com, all of the following:

1. to come forth into view or notice, as from concealment or obscurity: a ghost emerging from the grave; a ship emerging from the fog.
2. to rise or come forth from or as if from water or other liquid.
3. to come up or arise, as a question or difficulty.
4. to come into existence; develop.
5. to rise, as from an inferior or unfortunate state or condition.

The word’s origin is Latin from the 1600′s (specifically 1630-1640): ēmergere to arise out of, equiv. to ē- e- + mergere to dive, sink

I strongly dislike labels of any kind. Honestly, I dislike even the labels of Catholic, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Pentecostal, insertyourownlabel. I don’t honestly recall anywhere in the Old or New Testament where Christians are encouraged in this. I don’t recall anywhere in my heart where, in my times of prayer, I’ve felt like I’ve been encouraged in this. I’ve stood in services of all kinds, every denomination and seen things I strongly disliked and strongly liked, but in every service, I have never once been able to say, “well these people are Baptist, Pentecostal, Jewish, Presbyterian, Catholic, so they’re not really my brothers.”

What horsehockey!

And yet that is EXACTLY what we do.

And it needs to freakin’ stop.

RIGHT

THIS

BLOODY

INSTANT!

Why are we labeling what God has not? What gives us the right? What dogma or doctrine is so bloody important to separate us from the love of God in Christ that is found in our brothers and sisters?

There is one Law, that is the law of Love: Love the Lord your God with all your heart all your soul all your mind and all your strength. Love your neighbor as yourself. In this is summed up all the law and the Prophets. If you cannot love your brother who you can see, how can you love God, who you cannot see?

For the church to truly “emerge,” there is but one thing we must do – follow the law of love and be bonded and knit together in that one love, that one hope, that singlemindedness of unity and purpose that is found in Jesus Christ our Lord. Get rid of these man-made labels and take on the one label that matters, the one God gave us: the Bride of Christ, saved by grace.

What’s in a Name?

I dislike labels. But I do admit, they are sometimes necessary.

If you call me something other than ‘Jade,’ (as some here do because they have known me from elsewhere for a long time), does it change who I am? No. Being a private person who guards my identity fiercely and who tends to separate my personal life from my internet life, I feel a tiny bit better having a pseudonym to use as a kind of flimsy security blanket.

But a pseudonym doesn’t change who I am. It simply changes what you label you use to identify me. I have a dear friend who I call by her middle name, but others call by her first name. Does it change who she is, or is her name simply the label by which we identify her in our own minds? It is a label, much the same as a sweet carbonated beverage manufactured by the Coca-Cola corporation is alternately called Coke, soda, or pop, depending what part of the United States you happen to be in – it doesn’t change the fact that it’s a sweet, dark, carbonated beverage that’s great for cleaning corrosion off car battery posts and cleaning stains out of toilets.

You put THIS in your body?

In the same way, the word you use to name God…does it change who God is, or is it simply a name by which you identify God?

I ask this because the conversation has come up often lately, both on the internet and in person. One gentleman argued at length, saying that the translations of the Bible had it all wrong; that Jesus was a blasphemous bastardization and not Christ’s real name and so Christians were all worshipping a false God.

What a steaming pile of bull.

I’d like to say that was my response, but I am not known for being so incredibly and vehemently illogical (usually). I explained to our young and angry friend that Jesus is simply an Anglicanized translation from Greek, which was translated from Aramaic…which sent him on a whole other tangent about how the prophets said it should be Immanuel and not Yeshua anyway. After banging my head on the desk and trying to explain that prophecy is not always meant to be literal (Immanuel meaning “God with us,” and not necessarily meaning that the child was to be named Immanuel) because if it was, I really wasn’t sure I wanted to see the things described in Ezekiel, Daniel, and Revelation, I asked another question, which I will repeat here.

If I go to an Eastern or Middle Eastern country, where God is called Allah (even by many Christians) and I praise God by saying God is great in their language (Allahu [al] Akhbar), have I committed a sin against God or Christ? Is God great or isn’t he? If I say the same thing in Spanish (Dios es grande) or French (Dieu est grand) or German (Gott ist groß) or Chinese (shen shi tai), have I not said the same thing, using a different word or label?

If I go to Israel and I praise God in Hebrew in synagogue or pray at the Wailing Wall in the fashion that the Israelis pray, with my head covered as is Jewish custom and tradition (in some sects, but not all anymore as I am given to understand) in order to not offend, or perhaps I even refuse to call God by name because to the traditions and culture of some sects of Judaism (which I disagree with), to call God by name is to show God great disrespect and dishonor to God, have I done wrongly?

I do not think so at all. In fact, I believe that in so doing, I have honored God by honoring my brother and deliberately choosing not to cause an offense to my brother who I can see. (I believe it is one of John’s epistles that speaks on this topic.) It is not an issue for me to hold back on my freedom should I choose if in so doing, I prevent another from stumbling and perhaps help him to draw closer to God because I have chosen to love him and accept him as he is.

The great paradox of having such freedom in Christ is that I can choose not to walk in the great freedom I have as a demonstration of my love for others.

I have been to many services here in the US with Indonesian Christians. People who love God and Christ with all their hearts and who are more faithful and loving than most American believers I have ever met. They use God, Jehovah, and Allah interchangeably to refer to the God of the Old and New Testaments. They have grown up in a culture that is predominantly Muslim and grew up knowing God under the Arabic name of Allah. Does calling God Allah change who God is? How can it? Does calling God Allah change your heart towards God? If it does, then perhaps it is your heart and not God’s that needs the examination, no?

The same can be said of the word Jesus. It is a name by which we recognize the man born into the world of Mary. Since I wasn’t actually there 2000-ish years ago, I can’t say what his mother named him and to be perfectly honest with you, I don’t care if she named him “spot.” I know what the texts that have been translated into my language say, and I know that the label doesn’t change my heart or beliefs any more than the label one puts on me – be it the label on this blog, the label on my online game avatars, my real name, or my nickname – changes who I am, my nature, or how people feel and believe about me.

Shakespeare once asked the same question. In Act 2, Scene 2 of Romeo and Juliet, Juliet points out to Romeo that a name does not define a person; it is simply an artificial label slapped on by which we identify others and ourselves:

It’s only your name that is my enemy;
You are yourself, not even a Montague.
What’s “Montague?” It is not a hand, or a foot,
Or an arm, or a face, or any other part
Belonging to a man. O, be some other name!
What’s in a name? that which we call a rose
Would smell as sweet if it had any other name.
So Romeo, if he wasn’t called “Romeo,” would
Retain that dear perfection which he has
Without that title. Romeo, throw your name away;
And for that name, which isn’t part of you,
Take all of me.

I love Shakespeare and have since I was a teenager. Even now, it never ceases to amaze me how a man from 400 years or so ago had figured out what many of us have not yet seemed to wrap our heads around.

Proof We Understand

Recently, on a forum, a poster challenged believers of any faith to prove that their God exists in reasoned, balanced arguments, not mindless and repetive spoon-fed drivel. My response to that was that to do so over an internet message board is impossible for me because proof of such a thing, for me, is borne out in my actions and I do not live on an internet message board – and I hoped that the person who issued the challenge did not, either.

But the point is a valid one. Belief should be reasoned and measured, not blind adherence to a system of words one is trained in from birth to accept as true, but has never examined or questioned – never investigated or tried to deliberately poke holes in or challenge for veracity. God gave us minds with the intent that we should use them.

In Mr. Goodkind’s tenth book of the Sword of Truth series, Phantom, one of the supporting characters makes a point that struck me: “I need to see proof I understand.”

No man comes to God without some form of proof. No one. That proof may take any form – boldly public or deeply personal, because God reaches people in any number of ways, but faith is not and never has been blind. Even Abraham didn’t just randomly trust some unknown entity he conjured up in a dream some night after some bad lamb – Abraham trusted in a God who had consistently and repeatedly proven Himself to Abraham and Sarah over many years’ time, even though both Abraham and Sarah made some really bad choices along the way which proved that they did not take it on blind faith that this God guy was going to do what He said He was.

So what is proof we understand? In Abraham’s case, it was a ram. Then, it was a son. There were other things along the line, certainly, but those were the big ones.

If you attempt to prove the existence of God to a man who cannot read and who has no means with which to support his family using particle physics, do you think that man will care about you or your God?

If you attempt to prove the existence of your God to a man of science using crackpot science that says the earth is a mere ten thousand years old, do you think that man will come to believe in your God? Before or after he laughs you out of his office?

In I Corinthians 9, Paul says that he has become all things to all men that he might save some. This is not saying that Paul has become a hypocrite or put on a mask depending on who he is with. It is saying that he relates to people according to what their needs are, that he gives them proof that they can understand. To the scientist, he gives science; to the farmer, he gives proof in how crops grow; to the scholar, he gives knowledge. All are equally valid and all have one thing in common: all require both faith and the active use of man’s reason, working together, to draw a conclusion.

God did not give us minds so that we could blindly adhere to insane notions of tradition and morality foisted upon us by others. God did not give us free will so that we could be stripped of it by well-meaning (and not so well-meaning) individuals who believe they hear God better than others or that God hears them more clearly than He hears others by virtue of their “position” or their calling. God is not like human parents – He does not play favorites and He loves all of His kids equally and He hears all of His kids with equal clarity and concern.

We are given free will so that we may make choices – for good or for bad – and even God will not override that.

We are given minds with which to reason, to think. And I believe in all earnestness that God gave them to so that we would use them for that purpose – so we would question, doubt, test, challenge and debate what we are taught so that we would truly know Him and what is His will…not mindlessly believe the words of others as truth without testing them.

If we are to credibly witness for God in the world, we need to show the world proof they can understand – we need to use the gifts God gave us: our minds, our free wills and our hearts, not some fervently zealous blind devotion that does little except to make us look like raving idiots. Jesus was not an idiot and I am pretty sure He’d appreciate it if we didn’t run around making Him look like one.

We Are Worthy!

Back to Mr. Goodkind’s book series. I’m currently reading book 8, I believe. The series makes a brilliant case for many things, among them freedom, free will, the indomitability of the human spirit, and, my personal favorite (and the topic of today’s post), the indisputability of the worthiness of every person born on this earth to be.

Goodkind makes some observations that cause any thinking man to, well, think. His observations of the religious branch – the “true” leaders of the Imperial Order – give one pause. The Imperial Order kills in the name of their beliefs. “Kills” is really the wrong word. They slaughter mercilessly. They destroy everything in their path. They leave nothing alive. They murder, rape, steal, kill, and utterly destroy…in the name of the greater good. In the name of true faith. It is in the name of true faith, in the name of the cause of the greater good, that the Imperial Order declares that no one life has value; that life only has as much value as it is capable of contributing to the greater good and that, when life no longer contributes to the cause of the greater good of all, that life no longer has value at all. There is no individuality, no worth. There is no free will. There is no faith: dissenters are tortured, imprisoned, enslaved, and murdered…for the greater good, of course, because the Creator cannot tolerate dissent, argument, or, Creator forbid, questioning of any kind among His people.

The Imperial Order of Goodkind’s story teaches that all men are inherently evil. There are, of course, varying degrees of evil among men, but there is no man who can rise above the taint of evil that courses through poisoned humanity. All men are born evil and therefore, all unworthy of the goodness of the Creator. Men can only hope that through their charitable goodness toward their fellow man, that through their devotion to the cause of spreading the goodness of the Creator, that through the recognition of the fact that they are inherently evil and their willingness to give all that they are and all that they have to benefit others – only by the purest virtue of total sacrifice from cradle to grave – can any man ever hope to undo some of the blackness that has stained their entire existence by the very sin of having been born human, move the Creator’s heart to pity, and hope that He may keep them from a torturous eternity at the not so tender mercies of the Keeper of the Underworld.

Sounds appallingly ridiculous, doesn’t it? Wouldn’t you laugh in the face of anyone who tried to speak such absurdities to you?

So, tell me…when was the last time you laughed on a Sunday morning in a Church service? Because this is astonishingly similar to what is taught from pulpits around the world even today. In point of fact, I have heard it taught with alarming frequency – and yes, the last time I stood face to face with a man who taught it, not only did I laugh in his face, but I made sure the pastor knew exactly why I was laughing and leaving his church.

Simply put, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,” but “while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” because “God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son.”

Where does it say, at any point in there that “well, you’re evil unworthy little bastards, but I’ve got nothing better to do but throw my kid’s life away for you, so meh, I suppose that if I want you to give up ten percent of your income, I better hang the kid on a tree and make an example for you?”

Seriously? What kind of God is that ridiculously insane? If God wanted your money, He’d have made an example by raining denarii out of heaven onto Caesar’s head, not nailing His boy to a tree. If He wanted you to scrape and serve and bow down to everyone who asked you to, then Moses would not have walked up to Ramses II (his relative, technically speaking – Moses was adopted into Ramses I’s household if one takes the Biblical account as an historical record) and said “I’m taking my people and we’re leaving. Do yourself a favor and don’t try and stop us,” and He certainly wouldn’t have had His own kid look at Pilate and say “my kingdom is not of this world” and refuse to do parlor tricks for Herod.

If God was some kind of crazy psychopath sitting in the clouds with nothing better to do than make you sit around and wait for Him to decide you were good enough for Him, why would Jesus have bothered healing anyone or casting out any demons? All humans are evil, right? Tainted with the sin of having been born under a curse of ‘original sin’ of some dude who ate an apple in a garden so that none of the rest of us ever born could possibly ever be good enough to make God happy…so what was the point?

Well, the point was (because half of organized religion seems to have missed it and the other half seems to not care) that God doesn’t reckon us responsible for what our parents did (yep, there’s scripture on that), so why on earth would He hold us responsible for an apple in a garden that Adam ate? The point is that even a good man will die for his friends and a great man will be hero enough to die for a complete stranger because he values human life, so doesn’t it make a little bit of sense that someone you’re calling God values it even more than that great man who just took a bullet for a stranger?

I mean, really…come on…if you’re calling Him God, you’re saying He’s a Creator and all-powerful, all-loving, all-everything, does it even make a lick of sense that He’s a brainwashed deluded moron who places so little value on individual life – not to mention the life of His own Son – that He just woke up one day and said, “Hey Son, I’m gonna hang you on a tree today because, well, it sounds like a good idea and I just want to watch you die for a bunch of ungrateful jerks who aren’t really worth it, but, well, we just have nothing better to do from nine to three tomorrow, so, whaddya say? You game?”

Yeah…that makes about as much sense as saying you saw Elvis and Michael Jackson at Kmart this afternoon, now doesn’t it?

Doesn’t it make a lot more sense to say that because we are worthy, because God places value on each and every human life on this planet, He sacrificed His only begotten Son? Doesn’t it make more sense to say that God places so much value on each individual life and that he places so much value on independent thought and action and free will that we might want to consider placing that same value on individual life, independent thought, free will, and independent action? Doesn’t it make more sense to embrace the idea that each and every person is significant for the different ideas that they bring to the equation, that, if you embrace the idea of God as a Creator, then it also makes sense to embrace the idea that each person was created differently for a reason and we would do well to embrace those differences and value each life, each person and each different idea and method of thinking and acting, regardless of whether or not we agree with it?

Just something to think about…

And Now For Something Different

I am angry. Really angry.

As a small handful of you who occasionally read this know, I have been dealing with some medical issues. No big deal; everyone has shit to deal with. But my frustration level is really quite high (because VA medicine is kind of a pain in the ass) and so I have turned to the internet to get some coping strategies.

But therein lies the problem.

As of yesterday, I finally have enough information to actually get some concrete coping strategies, since as of yesterday, I have a tentative diagnosis to go on (which I pretty much already knew, but it was nice to hear a doctor actually say the words). And therein lies the problem: I am not unique and my diagnosis – tentative though it is – is becoming fairly common, especially since the beginning of the situation which our servicemen and women are currently engaged in in Iraq and Afghanistan. The problem is that, because I am not a veteran of this particular war – because I have not set boots on the ground in Iraq or Afghanistan since September 11, 2001, none of the myriad superior resources that are available to the brave young men and women who have been involved in this particular war are available to me.

Understand that I respect these young men and women immensely. I salute them. And I mourn the losses and sympathize with the sacrifices that many of them have made that if you have not served, you can not understand.

Still, I AM A FUCKING VETERAN, GOD DAMMT!!! How is it that my service is diminished? How is it that my sacrifice means nothing? How is it that I am not entitled to access to the same standard of care that these brave people are receiving when the same people – the US taxpayers – are paying for that care? Why do I not have access to identical resources when those resources are provided by the same institution – the Veteran’s Administration – paid for by the same people – the taxpayers – and designed to treat the EXACT SAME PROBLEM?!?!?

What is the disconnect? I’m a decorated Army veteran. I have the same diagnosis as many of the people who have access to these treatment options and these resources…but because my service dates do not cover October 2002 through the present, I am “less than” and thus, entitled to substandard care? Hell, some of the veterans who, by virtue of their dates of service do not even have the diagnosis that I do, yet they receive these benefits just by virtue of having served during these years – something which I would have been doing if the Army hadn’t decided that I was too broken to fix and sent me on my way with an honorable discharge and a severance package.

Life is not fair, nor do I expect it to be. But the military has a bad habit of priding itself on not making distinctions between male and female (you are a soldier), when you served, or what you’ve done in the past…so why in the hell are they doing it with my healthcare and the resources that are available to me? And why in the holy hell is it that almost every outside enterprise that “supports soldiers” is doing the same fucking thing? You either support servicemen and women/veterans or you don’t – but you don’t fucking pick and choose which ones you support based on what years they happened to wear that uniform and protect your right to be a bunch of fucking idiots.

Pearls…or Swine?

I’ve a friend who is particularly negative. I don’t mean Eeyore negative, which is cute for about thirty seconds. I mean makes me wonder if God facepalms as much as I do whenever this person starts to speak.

And so I got to wondering: how do we manage to talk about how cool God is out one side of our mouths and be so freakin’ negative, complaining, and dramatic out the other? Now I’m not talking about when the feces has really hit the ventilator and everything is completely haywire in life – that does happen from time to time and pretty much the only human ever to live and never complain was Jesus. But everyone else, from Abraham to Paul and beyond, bitched at least once. David, that “man after God’s own heart,” recorded some of his gripes. We call them the Psalms. But generally, David was a happy bloke and not prone to complain about his lot in life. Figure the guy was around a hundred-ish (estimating because I didn’t bother looking it up) when he died, so if you average it out using the Psalms, he complained about once a year or so.

Not so with us, is it? Guys like David and Abraham would be literally astounded at the myriad blessings even the very poorest among us has today and we bitch because…uh…we can?

The Haitian people (who are not cursed and who have never made a pact with the devil – to anyone who believes otherwise, I hope that you will also consider the words of a man much wiser than the idiot spreading such bull: “Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”) have suffered terrible devastation and we are complaining about God’s not having provided for us. Never mind the fact that we are not starving, we have a roof over our head, we’re not nekkid – we want more.

Don’t get me wrong, I am just as guilty as anyone else in some respects. See, when things go wrong, it becomes very easy to see the wrong – the bad – and forget about all the good, all the blessings we have. In my own life right now, there is much that I can (and sometimes do) complain about. There are many things that are “going wrong” and cause for concern for me, and to be perfectly honest, some of those things are perfectly valid reasons to be really pissed off at God – especially when things seem to pile on one thing after another. You know how it goes: get through one mini-crisis in life and another pops right up.

Well, first off…how many of those mini-crises are self-inflicted? That is to say, how many of those situations arise because we didn’t listen to the warnings God gave us in our hearts? Had we listened in the first place, we probably could have avoided many of the bad situations to begin with. Since we didn’t listen, we now have to rely on God to help us through them and mitigate the damage…which He always does, but we don’t want to see that until ten years down the road, when we find out how bad it could have been and go “whoa…man, God really saved my skin there!”

Secondly…how easily do we forget all the things that God has done for us? There’s a Scripture somewhere that says “put Me in remembrance…” This is not because God’s memory is faulty, like He has some kind of deity dementia and needs to be told about the time when I was twelve and should have died but miraculously didn’t. This is because I need to be reminded of the time when I was twelve and should have died but didn’t. Or the time I was 16 and should have died but didn’t. Or when I was 21 and should have died but didn’t. Or the time two and a half years ago when I should have died but didn’t (and here I thought only cats had 9 lives…). And in my life, those are just the major ones. …Or did you think God really needed to be reminded for a few thousand years about the time He parted a freakin’ sea and an entire nation walked right on through the middle of it with a wall of water on either side of them? You know, because I’m sure that if I was God, it would totally have slipped my mind! “Moses? Moses who? Oh! That guy with the rocks and the shiny face on the mountaintop! Riiight!”

I had a friend once who always used to quote Phillippians 4 to me: “Finally, brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything praiseworthy—meditate on these things.”

Some days, I admit, it is really, really hard to think about things that are noble and lovely – especially when it seems like everything in your life is just a madhouse and everything’s going more and more apeshit every day. When Murphy’s Law (One day, I am going to find that bloody Irishman and beat the crap out of him) is in full swing, finding anything praiseworthy can feel like a full time job. I know it does for me right now. But what’s even harder – and what makes it even harder – is being around people whose negativity drags you so far down into their pit that you can’t even summon the energy to look for a anything noble, lovely, or praiseworthy to think about. Putting a cheerful tone to your complaints isn’t being positive; it’s being happy about wallowing in your muck. Last I looked, swine were designed to wallow in mud and muck…humans were not.

So I guess the big question is this: are we going to look for pearls, or hang out in the muck with the swine?

More thoughts inspired by Mr. Goodkind’s Sword of Truth series, this time from the 6th book in the series, Faith of the Fallen (it’s worth noting that, while I believe it’s far better and easier to understand the books if you read the whole series, each book is written in such a way as to be easily understood as a standalone novel and I am of the opinion that, as an American, if you read no other work of fiction this year, you should consider reading Faith of the Fallen).

On finishing this book, I considered the overall message as I lay down to sleep. When I awoke, Proverbs 29:18 was the very first thing that came to mind:

Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

Vision here means “divine revelation.” Law means “custom, what is taught” and refers to either the manner and customs of men or to the Torah. The same Hebrew word, towrah, is used by David in a prayer of thanksgiving and worship after Nathan proclaims the word of God to him that the house and throne of David will forever be established in the sight of God – and in that prayer, David uses the word to refer to the manner and customs of man. When we refer to the Law, the Torah, Divine Law, under the New Covenant, we do not refer to the Ten Commandments written on two stone tablets, nor do we refer to endless regulations governing everything from what we wear to what we eat to when we pray. We refer simply to what Jesus commanded: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself – because in keeping these two simple commands, we cannot possibly break the endless list of the others.

But I wondered why I woke up with that verse on my tongue and my mind yesterday after reading that book. And then, suddenly, I saw the verse in a new and different light that simultaneously made no sense and perfect sense.

Where there is no vision, the people perish: but he that keepeth the law, happy is he.

When we become slaves to our brothers, to their needs, their wants, their desires and do not consider our own because to consider our needs and wants and desires is somehow “sinful,” we lose vision. Show me an oppressed people who have lived multiple decades under the lash of their oppressors who have vision; whose eyes are not dull and lifeless. Where there is no vision, the people perish. This perishing does not need to be physical. The breaking of a man’s spirit, of his will, is far effective than physical death.

There is a vision, a “divine” revelation that is inherent in every man from the day he is born. It is that vision, that hope, that “divine” revelation, that is an intrinsic part of the nature of every human being born on this earth since the dawn of time. That vision is called freedom. It is why we chafe under our parents as young people, it is why we rebel against society as young adults, it is why we are unhappy with our bosses or companies as adults. We see their rules, regulations, restrictions in the same way that a horse sees the bit we put in its mouth to control it.

I do not say all this to advocate irresponsibility. I believe strongly that each should carry his own weight. But what I see currently offends me deeply on a level that I’m not sure I can even adequately express. We have spent decades breaking the spirit and will of man to the point where vision has decreased and the people are perishing. No one keeps the law – the custom of man, which is the inherent, intrinsic need of every man to be free – and so, no one is happy. We have taught, and are teaching, our children that happiness comes not from being free to choose to help those less fortunate, but from forcing anyone with a penny to give that penny to tyrannical people who will decide who is worthy to receive it. We are teaching our people that happiness comes not from a job well done and the effort put into a hard day’s work, but from the knowledge that hard work and effort is unfair because it prevents others from sharing equally in the rewards of that work, regardless of whether or not they took part in the work to receive the rewards. We are teaching that all are equally incapable, equally unworthy, and thus, have equal right to benefit. We are teaching that there is no value in effort, in work, in personal pride or self-respect, but that the work of all must benefit all if we are to succeed and become great. We are teaching that only small minds, limited intellect and refusal to think or feel for ourselves is the path to the future. We are teaching our people to fail spectacularly.

We are teaching humanity to die.

Jesus taught us to live.

“See, I have set before you today life and good, death and evil…that you may live and multiply…But if your heart turns away so that you do not hear, and are drawn away…I announce to you today that you shall surely perish; you shall not prolong your days in the land…I call heaven and earth as witnesses today against you, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing; therefore choose life, that both you and your descendants may live…”