I guess the temperature was too hot for some...
Category: Religion and Philosophy

So… today I had the most unexpected email in my MySpace inbox. It is a response to my previous blog, Come On in The Water's Fine. I decided to turn it and my response into another blog, hesitatingly so because I don't want anyone to think that private correspondence regarding one of my blog will make it into public forum, but since this was sent anonymously I figure it might be ok this once….

----------------- Original Message -----------------

From: sara

Date: Jun 11, 2008 8:34 PM

your negative feelings toward church are your own fault (you know).  you know you will have to answer for all of your actions one day.  instead of questioning God, you should be thanking him for even loving you still.  you have treated people as if they are replaceable and you think you are so much better.  you defy God, yet pretend to love him.  you are two faced.  you want to talk bad about him and his church, yet he has saved you and blessed you from so much that you do not even remotely deserve.  you take people forgranted and dispose of them as you wish.  you play with people's minds/emotions for your mere enjoyment.  maybe the reason you should go to church is to open up and grow and to give thanks....you don't deserve a bit of what you have...you should be going daily just to acknowledge his blessing.  you say the b rated sermons...i don't even see a seminary degree on your lists of education. 

comparing the inner workings of church to a soap opera? i would bet that you cause your own drama and then you wallow in it.  it is not the church that is the drama...you do not like their reaction to you when you do something terribly wrong.  you do not like that they disassociate with you when you are clearly putting on the face of evil time and time again.  you need to be more accurate in your writing before you point the finger and stop deciding why you grace the church with your presence.  you don't need to play the game of arguing in the car and putting on the smile when you walk through that door.  you play that game all week long...sin after sin, destruction after destruction....you should be thanking God that he allows you to walk through those doors and to have the very experience of getting to build a relationship with him rather than judging you and pushing you away!

----------------- Replied Message -----------------

From: Bagger

Date: Jun 12, 2008 12:34 AM

Well, well... There's just so much here... I hardly know where to start...

First of all, thank you for reading and taking the time to respond, all responses are good, even critical ones.

Second, do we know each other? You make many assertions as if we know each other but nothing in you profile suggests any kind of recognizable identification.

I ask that because I get the very real sense that your reflection on my blog comes from a much more personal place than from a place of reasoned discussion of the issues that it raises. Who knows, maybe my perception is mistaken and that's just the way you are. If so, that's fine, if I am right, I'd encourage you to actually voice the deeper personal issues that were rubbed coarsely because certainly, those are of a much more important nature than issues of one's experience in the Church. And to that end, I would be happy to talk about those things with you to any extent that you desire.

My first thought after reading your response, was to say you (generically speaking) are the exact reason that I decided to not go into ministry. The kind of person who confuses dissent for disloyalty, the kind of person that speaks as if all that matters in life is that you just Jesus and while you're at it, pour me up one more glass of the cherry Kool-Aid; the kind of person that doesn't recognize that faith is always mixed with doubt, the kind of person that obviously understands the gospel about as good as you do the rest of the scriptures which is about as good as your understanding of life in general, which is also right up there with your understanding of what I expressed and your treatment of the issues I raised. Now again, I will say, speaking of you in general-- typified if you will by the caricature of a person you portrayed in your response.

I do want to make this unmistakably clear. I don't, to my knowledge, actually know you personally, so I don't know that those things are in fact truthful statements about you so it would be wrong of me and poorly pejorative of me to sling about insults like a monkey slings fresh droppings. But I will say that these traits that I have suggested are very much endemic to the kind of person that you have caricatured in your response, and only you know its accuracy. 

A friend of mine has an ongoing inside joke with me where we recount stories like this to each other. And each one of them ends with one of saying "that's it, hand it over. Yes, your Bible-- hand it over. It's being confiscated for neglect, abuse, and down right stupidity." I'm tempted to finish this in the same manner...

But before that, I suppose there are many issues that you raised which deserve proper response.

I certainly think that negative feelings toward the church is learned behavior not innate behavior. I think its common that people come into the church with a kind of innocent naivety--with a very bright eyed and bushy tailed kind of optimism. And inevitably one of two things must happen: either the subject concludes his honeymoon with a kind bitter dose of reality, or the subject continues on in his naivety developing a myopic view of reality. But as to whose fault it is, I don't know. Whose fault is it? Was it my youth pastor's fault? 100% Was it my church's fault? You bet. Was it my parent's fault? Absolutely. Was it my fault? Without a doubt.

It's for this reason exactly that I raised so much criticism in my posting.  (Why do I feel like an artist who is forced to explain to his audience why he chose to paint the sky a certain shade of red?) Because churches are what they are. And whose ever fault it is, what is factual is that my experience is not unique. I'm not the only person who spent their lives loving the church for all it was was worth, which turned out not to be that much. Which leads me to think that it is ALL OUR FAULT. Its our fault for contributing our own feces to the cesspool it has become. It is our fault for turning a blind eye to the truth and forcing ourselves to say, "that may be your church, or that may be your experience, but that's not mine." Here's a lucid thought, the Christians in your church are just as depraved as the Christians in mine, so I'd venture to say that its probably just not all that different. I raise the criticism because like it or not, it's true. And until we readily admit what it is we will never be inclined to do anything to fix it. Oh yeah, that's our fault too. Our fault for not demanding better. Is it any surprise that the world continues to view people of faith as such piously minded hypocrites with nothing to offer that really addresses the human need?

And it's the real human need that brings me to address the next point of your response, being that I will have to "answer for all of my actions some day." And I know, that makes for great preaching material in a capitalistic society where we all live with the idea that you will reap what you sow... or you will get what you deserve… or something like that... but you are exactly right, I will have to answer for all of my actions some day, and that's why I am a person of faith. It's because of faith that I don't have to face that day with fear and trepidation. It's because of faith that when that day comes, my answer for all of my actions and for all of the depravity which I continuously wallow in will simply be, Christ. And I will answer by saying that Christ was the propitiation for my all my sins, His gift was not like my trespasses but in fact surpasses them all. I will say that by faith I have identified myself with Christ in his death burial and resurrection so that by no doing or deed of my own what's true of Christ is true of me-- namely that my faith credits me righteousness all the righteousness which I clearly do not have and all the righteousness that I will ever need. On that day of reckoning, I will have no righteousness of my own, it will all be worthless rags, but Christ's righteousness will be my righteousness. He will be my high priest, my advocate, and my friend.

In the interest of selectively full disclosure, when I first read your critiques of my character, I was quick to be defensive. I honestly don't treat people as dispensable I have in fact held onto some people much longer than I should have. I've never dispensed of a friend although I've had many that dispensed of me. I don't think I'm all that great at all, and if you read my other blogs you'd see I have a pretty realistically low view of myself. Maybe I have been the source of some of my own soap operas but are you really gonna suggest that if I stopped going to church, it would make any difference? I mean, even Jonathan Edwards' congregants had huge church fights over seating arrangements. And as to weeks full of sin and destruction, I've never said anything else but that I am completely and totally depraved. I am a sinner, so I sin. I've always readily admitted that so there's really nothing new there, except that the fact that I admit that really proved that I'm not two-faced. Oh, and in the sake of accuracy, you should have checked me out just a bit further, I do have a one Bible degree (which is more than some) and have 122 credits (2 credits lacking) for a graduate Bible degree (which is significantly more than notable others I could cite). And I've got a list of many people of faith who have gone before me with great histories of "questioning God" (although that really wasn't what my blog was about, was it?).

But as I thought about all this I wondered why I was so quick to the defense. The more I thought about it, the more I just thought, "Hell, you're probably just right." And who knows, maybe you really are. What I mean is, I think what you say about me has absolutely nothing to do with the church but it is in fact nevertheless exactly true, despite how I feel about myself and despite how I feel about the critiques. I think that the truth is its all true, every accusation: I do in fact question God, I do actually perceive myself as greater than I really am, I am regularly two faced, I often treat people as replaceable and I almost certainly always wear the face of evil and destruction. It is all true and I shouldn't pretend any it's anything less.

And although it's a list of rather embarrassing things to admit, in my later years in life, I've grown to be comfortable with who I am, even if who I am isn't who I wish I were. I've grown comfortable with it because I no longer desire to turn a blind eye to myself and say that "that may be your experience but it's not mine." Because it's only in the seeing yourself for who you really are that you can ever know what it means to now have no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus for the law of the Spirit has set me free from the law of sin and death.

And it is because I have learned to know what it does mean in my later years that I speak truthfully about the church or at least just express my experience in it. Because it saddens me deeply that the church was a place for years where I sought truth but the truth was not found. It was not the place that taught me to know what it means to be no longer condemned, which still does not teach me this or demonstrate this truth to me or most others in any tangible way. That we have been freed from the judgments of our vices and virtues. That life should always win over death, that love should always triumph over offense, that grace is always greater than sin, and that Christ's righteousness is the only currency that God accepts for a debt that has already been paid and forgiven in full.

Maybe I raised the issues because I'm tired of putting up with all of it myself, maybe just to vent some cowardly emotions-- honestly, I'm really not concerned with anything else other than, is it true? And to that end, I'll let you decide. And while you mull it over, know that I am thanking you for reminding me that it was people like you (generally speaking) that was the exact reason I ever wanted to do ministry to begin with.  

Enjoy the Andrew Peterson

Come Lord Jesus

Tonight in the line of the merchandise store
While they were packing up my bags
I saw the pictures of the prophets of the picket signs
Screaming, "God hates fags"

And it feels like the church isn't anything more
Then the second coming of the Pharisees
Scrubbing each other 'til their tombs are white
They chisel epitaphs of piety

Oh, there's a burning down inside of me
'Cause the battle seems so lost
And it's raging on so silently
We forget it's being fought

So, Amen
Come, Lord Jesus
Amen
Oh, Amen
Come Lord Jesus
Amen

It's taken me years in the race just to get this far
Still there is no end in sight,
There's no end in sight
'Cause I've carried my cross into dens of the wicked
And you know I blended in just fine

Well, I'm weak and I'm weary of breaking His heart
With they cycle of my sin, of my sin
Still He turns His face to me and I kiss it
Just to betray Him once again

Well, I've got oceans down inside of me
I can feel the billows roll
With the mercy that comes thundering
O'er the waters of my soul

So, Amen
Come, Lord Jesus
Amen
Oh, Amen
Come, Lord Jesus
Amen

Tonight in the light of the gathering rain
I could hear creation groan
And a sigh rose up from the streets of the city
To the foot of Heaven's throne

Oh, and the people hear the sound of a sweet refrain
An absolution in the fray, in the fry
It tells of the death of the one for the lives of the many
More than any picket sign could say

So, Amen
Come, Lord Jesus
Amen
Oh, Amen
Come, Lord Jesus
Amen

Currently listening : Carried Along By Andrew Peterson Release date: 2000-03-21

8:49 AM - 5 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Come on in, the water’s fine...
Category: Religion and Philosophy

Is there anyone out there with a particular religious persuasion?

As I sat in my regular place of gathering for Church this morning, I wondered amidst the process of liturgy, why is it that I go to Church?

And so I put the question to you for my own consideration, why is it that you go to Church?

Ironically, I can probably provide you with more reasons why I do not go to Church.

You ever hear that if you visited a hotdog factory you'd never again eat a hotdog? At the end of high school and through a bit of college I cleaned apartment complex swimming pools. Now, because of the squeamish, I won't recount for you in graphic detail all the disgusting things I had to retrieve from the pools and from the skimmer baskets in the pools, but lets just suffice it to say, it would be on par somewhat with visiting a hotdog factory. My point is, I've never looked at apartment complex swimming pools the same way again. Because I've seen what's behind the curtain. I know and no longer enjoy the bliss that accompanies ignorance.

So what? Am I telling you that if you've ever worked at a Church you'd probably think better of eating that footlong? Yeah, I think I am. Once you've seen behind the curtain, you can never go back. The politics, the backbiting, the bickering, could provide Days of Our Lives with fodder for years to come.

And who thought it would be a novel idea to stop during the service for a short period of meet-and-greet? We all do the same thing. Put on our best smile, perhaps ask or answer some very trite and banal question, and extend our hands with warmest greetings like the good "Christian" boys and girls we are. Do you ever look at the person you are greeting and say in your own head, "If only you knew the depravity that resides within me…"

I used to play a game with two of my college friends who would give me rides to church every Sunday. We would argue and fuss about anything and everything in a highly exaggerated, and even comical, manner, in the car, all the way to the church. And immediately upon arriving, we'd step out of the car and dawn on our best Miss America smile and wave as if all is glorious. We played this game because we recalled the Sunday morning drives to church we took with our families when we were kids and how they could ordinarily be described as nothing less than chaotic. But when the engine turned off and the feet hit the macadam, smiles and good behavior masked the strife so that everyone else would think that all is charitable in the household.

Do I even need to comment about the hypocrisy that goes unchecked at best and promoted at worst in nearly every congregation?  

Anyone ever have a pastor that preached against the dangers of sexual immorality (a lust of the flesh) and after the service made his way to the Golden Corral or Cici's to gain another notch in that 40" waist line (gluttony also a lust of the flesh)?

And don't get me started on sermons. Sometimes I wonder if they did anything but read last week's column of "Dear Abby" in preparation. Week after week, sparing me to death with their B-Squad material, which couldn't be anymore watered down if they taught by flannelgraph. And if you think my outrage is unjustified, I would suggest that it is an insult to everyone who continues to just keep lapping up any cool-aid flavor they keep serving.

That's the reason I've spent most of the last several years of my life trying to forget everything I was once taught in church.

How about the fact that churches promote a teaching which states that the first act of salvation is admission of personal sin but has there ever been a congregation anywhere which boldly proclaims that it is ok to be a sinner in all your glorious depravity here?  

How about the fact that in most churches, the members with the most money get promoted to elder boards quickly and are given (implicitly of course) the biggest "say" in church decisions.

I haven't even gotten to the meaningless repetitions of vanity which passes for "praise courses" these days. The fact that pastors ask people to join in with agreeable accompaniment and seem to spend no energy on critically screening out songs with empty content or bad theology is nothing less than deplorable.

Trust me, I could go on….

So why do you go to church? Is it because it's just what you've been doing for the last 20+ years of your life? Maybe you go because you feel guilty about an area of your lifestyle and you want to "get close to God" and you think that that's what "good Christian boys and girls do." Maybe you go because people respect you there and pat you on the head and say, "What a good Christian boy or girl you are!"

Whatever your reason is for going, I'd probably concede that going is better than not going…. Well, most of the time… But just the same, I'd challenge you to explore why it is exactly that you do go, if you do in fact go. It might have some effect on what you get out of the experience.

Now, I don't always go to church, and that is probably no surprise at this point after reading my criticisms thereof. But as I sat in service this morning, I asked myself, why do I still go to church, when I do go.

I can tell you, with out a doubt why I still go to church.

I go to partake in the Eucharist and to sing. There are only two sacraments which Protestants believe in: 1) Baptism and 2) the Eucharist. Why we all seem to treat both of them as optional is beyond me. I partake in the Eucharist because my faith commands me to do so. I partake as an act of obedience to what I believe God has commanded. And right before I partook this morning, I stopped to ask myself, in that moment of solitude and honesty, why do I continue to partake in the Eucharist? Because I believe. Because I still believe and because I believe God's atonement is still greater than all my sin.

I go to sing with the community of faith because one of the most reiterated commands in all of the scriptures is to sing to God. Note, I did not say "worship". That word has lost all significant meaning in the Christian sub-culture. Worship in my estimation is far more than just singing. But I sing as an act of obedience to what I believe God has commanded.

I go to gather and participate in the liturgy of the service because that is what people of my faith have been doing for around 2000 years now. And there is something disarming about being able to leave who you are at the door and there take on a new identity—a corporate identity. There I go and leave who I am at the door. I walk in and am no longer Jeremiah the student, or Jeremiah the neurophysiologist, or the Jeremiah who creates socially awkward moments, or the Jeremiah who can't seem to keep his mouth shut when he should. I leave all that I am, good, bad, or otherwise, at the door and there become simply a member of the kingdom of God.

I go because that's what people of my faith do and because on my best day I want to want to want to want to obey. And because I do, I go. I partake in the Eucharist and I sing. I do so as acts of obedience and as acts of worship. And I figure that something like singing is a lot easier than loving my neighbor as myself so maybe if I just start with the easier things, by the time I'm really old I'll be able to tie the more complicated knot….

Oh… Did I tell you? I still swim in apartment complex pools too…

6:43 AM - 12 Comments - 7 Kudos - Add Comment

Spanglish Quote

"They should name a gender after you. Looking at you doesn't do it, staring is the only way that makes sense. And trying not to blink so you don't miss anything. And all of that and you're you..."

1:51 AM - 2 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

You’re on to me... and all over me...

Sarah Bareilles

Little Voice

Gravity

Something always brings me back to you
It never takes too long
No matter what I say or do

I'll still feel you here 'till the moment I'm gone

You hold me without touch
You keep me without chains
I never wanted anything so much

Than to drown in your love and not feel your rain

Set me free, leave me be

I don't want to fall another moment into your gravity
Here I am and I stand so tall

Just the way I'm supposed to be
But you're on to me

And all over me…

Oh... you loved me 'cause I'm fragile
When I thought that I was strong
But you touch me for a little while

And all my fragile strength is gone

Set me free, leave me be

I don't want to fall another moment into your gravity
Here I am and I stand so tall

Just the way I'm supposed to be
But you're on to me

And all over me...

I live here on my knees as I try to make you see

That you're everything I think I need here on the ground
But you're neither friend nor foe though I can't seem to let you go
The one thing that I still know is that you're keeping me down

Something always brings me back to you
It never takes too long...

11:47 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Just ignore all this present tense

"I tried to tell you before I left

But I was screaming under my breath

You are the only thing that makes sense

Just ignore all this present tense"

Snow Patrol

Eyes Open

It's Beginning to Get to Me

I want something

That's purer than the water

Like we were

It's not there now

Ineloquence and anger

Are all we have

Like Saturn's rings

An icy loop around me

Too hard to hold

Lash out first

At all the things we don't like

Or understand

And it's beginning to get to me

That I know more of the stars and sea

Than I do of what's in your head

Barely touching in our cold bed

Are you beginning to get my point

That all this fighting with aching joints

Is doing nothing but tire us out

No one knows what this fight's about

The answer phone

The lonely sound of your voice

Frozen in time

I only need

The compass that you gave me

To guide me on

And it's beginning to get to me

That I know more of the stars and sea

Than I do of what's in your head

Barely touching in our cold bed

Are you beginning to get my point

That all this fighting with aching joints

Is doing nothing but tire us out

No one knows what this fight's about

It's so thrilling but oh so wrong

Don't have to prove that you are so strong

Cause I can carry you on my back

After our enemies attack

I tried to tell you before I left

But I was screaming under my breath

You are the only thing that makes sense

Just ignore all this present tense

We need to feel breathless with love

And not collapse under its weight

I'm gasping for the air to fill

My lungs with everything I've lost

6:24 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Tied up and Twisted....

I've forgotten how much I like this song….

Specially that line.... Tied up and twisted, the way I like to be....

Dave Matthews Band

Live at Luther College

Crash

You've got your ball
You've got your chain
Tied to me tight, tie me up again
Who's got their claws in you my friend
Into your heart I'll beat again

Sweet like candy to my soul
Sweet you rock and sweet you roll
Lost for you, I'm so lost for you
And you come crash into me...
And I come into you,
I come into you...
In a boys dream
In a boys dream

I kiss you just so I know
In your eyes, love, it glows so
I'm bare-boned and crazy for you...
When you come crash into me, baby
Please come crash into me...
In a boys dream
In a boys dream

If I've gone overboard
Then I'm begging you to forgive me
Oh, in my haste
When I'm holding you so girl...
Close... to me...
Oh and you come crash into me, baby
And I come into you...

Hike up your skirt a little more
and show the world to me
Hike up your skirt a little more
and show your world to me
In a boys dream

In a boys dream

Oh I watch you there, by the window
And I stare at you wear nothing, but you wear it so well
Tied up and twisted, the way I like to be
For you, for me, come crash into me…..

3:20 AM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

Sports Fan
Current mood: ecstatic

Yesterday I was reborn as a sports fan.

Anyone ever been to an FC Dallas game? Anyone know how many people attend MLS games? Something like 800 or so... Which means that when you have season tickets and you’re sitting three rows off the pitch the players can actually hear you. Which means when the right outside midfielder has 4 turnovers and whiffs on a wide open shot, all in the first 20 min of the game, I’m all up in his head with heckling. Yes, IN HIS HEAD.

The dude, even turned to the stands twice to give me a disgusted look. To which I responded, "I’M HERE ALL SEASON, 19!" 

Ironically, after that, he actually started to get interested in the game and started preforming.

Yes, once again, I win.

12:28 AM - 1 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment

Andrew Peterson’s Book - On The Edge of the Sea of Darkness

Ok, so this book On The Edge of the Sea of Darkness is written by one of my favorite musicians Andrew Peterson. I signed up to review this book on my blog by the 21st but have only made it through half the book at this time (big suprise, huh). I’ll post a genuine review before the end of the weekend but even at only half-way through the book, I HIGHLY recommend it!

Amazon link to the book

Currently reading : On the Edge of the Dark Sea of Darkness: Adventure. Peril. Lost Jewels. And the Fearsome Toothy Cows of Skree. (The Wingfeather Saga) By Andrew Peterson Release date: 18 March, 2008

9:08 PM - 0 Comments - 0 Kudos - Add Comment

St. Patty’s Day

"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy."
~ Ben Franklin ~

Here’s to the founding fathers!

11:53 AM - 2 Comments - 4 Kudos - Add Comment

Stranger...

Heh… Hello Stranger…

Secondhand Serenade

Twist in My Story

Stranger

Turn Around
Turn Around and fix your eye in my direction
So there is a connection
I can't speak
I can't make a sound to somehow capture your attention
I'm staring at perfection
Take a look at me so you can see
How beautiful you are

You call me a stranger
You say I'm a danger
But all these thoughts are leaving you tonight
I'm broke and abandoned
You are an angel
Making all my dreams come true tonight

I'm confident
But I can't pretend I wasn't terrified to meet you
I knew you could see right through me
I saw my life flash right before my very eyes
And I knew just what we'd turn into
I was hopeing that you could see
Take a look at me so you can see

You call me a stranger
You say I'm a danger
But all these thoughts are leaving you tonight
I'm broke and abandoned
You are an angel
Making all my dreams come true tonight

You are an angel
Making all my dreams come true tonight

Take a look at me so you can see
How beautiful you are...

Your beauty seems so far away
I'd have to write a thousand songs to make you comprehend how beautiful you are

I know that I can't make you stay
But I would give my final breath to make you understand how beautiful you are
Understand how beautiful you are

You call me a stranger
You say I'm a danger
But all these thoughts are leaving you tonight
I'm broke and abandoned
You are an angel
Making all my dreams come true tonight

You call me a stranger
You say I'm a danger
You call me a stranger

Currently listening : A Twist In My Story By Secondhand Serenade Release date: 19 February, 2008

11:07 AM - 2 Comments - 2 Kudos - Add Comment