Motion

One of Sir Isaac Newton's laws, I believe it is his third law of motion, states, "Every object in a state of motion tends to remain in that state of motion unless an external force is applied to it." For example if you roll a ball across a floor it will continue to roll unless somethings stops it. In this case that could be divots in the carpet, or friction with the air but it will continue to move until something makes it stop. (If you're reading this then don't worry, there won't be any more science for the rest of the blog so breathe a sigh of relief unless you like that sort of thing). I have noticed that this principle works not only with the physical sciences but also with a myriad of other things we experience even spilling over into our emotional and spiritual lives.

Since it's a blog, and blogs by their very nature are borderline narcissistic anyways, I'm going to use my own experiences as an example to highlight the point I just made. Many times in our live we have goals, dreams, things we strive to do and be. No matter how high a goal we set for ourselves most of us start off with verve and zest and as time passes the verve and zest turns into apathy. God may give us an idea or we may make decisions about our lives and things we want or need to do but then we lay those decisions down or not take steps to implement them. For myself I was just in PA visiting some friends and had some very intense and intelligent conversation about every aspect of my life which led me to a radical re-assessing. I have some decisions to make about a lot of things and it's been weighing on me since I got back into Florida. The point is I have all this going on inside but already there are external or internal forces trying to get my mind and focus away from what I may need to do and focus it back onto what is. Last year I looked at my life and thought to myself that I should just lie back and accept it and that what was going on was as good as it was going to get. Quite a fatalistic attitude I know but I felt like this is it and I need to get used to it because nothing is going to change, this is how it's been so this is what I have to look forward to in the future. Of course that kind of thinking is wrong and the trip I took knocked me out of that loop but it is crazy how life and the things I've grown used to are trying to work their way back into my head. I find it amazing when decisions or realizations are made how quickly outside forces rise up and try to strangle it.

Luckily though we have the ability to defy the laws of physics. We have an agent that helps us knock those external or internal forces out of the way so we can stay in motion towards where we need to be and what we need to do. (Of course science buffs I'm not speaking of defying the laws of physics in the natural world, I'm referring to the spiritual). This agent of change isn't an Obama speech or half baked change platitudes, we have God himself in us and working through us to bring about the change he desires and in many cases inspired. I've found that this process can be broken down into something like this:

1) We identify a need or are inspired to make some sort of change, so we get excited and talk about it and plan for it and begin to make the necessary steps in a particular direction

2) We lose momentum and we allow cares of this world, worries, situations and complications, and apathy to set in and our motion gets slower and slower due to the forces acting upon it

3) We cease pursuing wondering what happened, why are we still at the same place, and why hasn't anything changed? And here its where motion stops.. The good thing though is that it is at this point where God will nudge us and get us back in motion and have us rolling again to where we need to be or what we need to do. We have to be open to that nudging and when we start moving again to keep it going by not paying attention to what's trying to steal or halt our motion. J.R.R. Tolkien wrote a poem, 3 different versions appear in the the Hobbit and Lord of the Rings, that I think describes this process in a nutshell:

The Road goes ever on and on

Down from the door where it began.

Now far ahead the Road has gone,

And I must follow, if I can,

Pursuing it with weary feet,

Until it joins some larger way

Where many paths and errands meet.

And whither then? I cannot say.

Thirsty

Currently I am in the great state of Pennsylvania. I am fairly mercenary about states though, my favourite one being where I find myself. So right now PA is my fave in spite of the bitter cold. I am here visiting my oldest and closest friend Mike and some other really good friends I've made throughout the years I've been visiting here (One of whom is graciously putting me up for a few days.). Mike's father is a pastor and this morning I went to their service and Mike preached this morning about how God cuts our story out of us and gives us his own story. If you stop and think about it it is really quite profound: God imparts himself to us empowering us to live a life above what we could make for ourselves. The agent of this cutting being the sword of the spirit which the books of Ephesians and Hebrews says is the Word of God, and that Word of God is alive, sharp, and powerful enough to pierce our souls. It is already understood that Jesus is the Word made flesh, incarnated if you prefer, and dwelt among us. There is a lot of teaching on that aspect but not a lot of teaching on the aspect of the Word of God being alive. Today I think that some puzzle pieces clicked together in my mind concerning this and I felt like sharing it.

For the past few months I have been reading more voraciously then normal, and for me normal is quite a lot so for me to say that I'm reading more then my usual is saying something. (You may be wondering what this has to do with my previous paragraph, but if you stick around it will make sense). Needless to say I have been devouring books. While reading I have been feeling sort of like a traveller lost in the Sahara Desert: that almost frantic feeling of fear once the realization hits that I don't know where I am. It’s been like that when I've been reading. Something in me has been yearning for something MORE and none of the books I've been reading have been able to assuage that feeling. True I've read some books and am reading books that are striking emotional resonances within me. I'm currently reading God in Search of Man by Abraham Heschel and it is a profound book of religious Jewish philosophy and his comments on the nature of God are amazing. I'm reading through Encounters with Merton by Henri Nouwen and am gleaning a lot from it and even though it is a slim volume it has a lot of insight. However there is a profound difference between books written about God and the book that contains the Word of God. As I was listening to the sermon this morning I was reading along in my Bible with the scriptural quotations being used and I realized that this was what I was missing and I felt like an idiot because the answer was there in front of my face the whole time. As I was reading it I could feel the disconnect in my soul reconnect with the divine and I realized that I have spent far too little time in the Word and with the Word and spent too much time reading about the Word. As I read scripture the yearning I had inside was satisfied.

One of the Psalms says, "As the deer longs for streams of water, so I long for you Oh God." Thinking about that passage took on deeper significance for me this morning. One thing I love about scripture is that there can be a passage that you've read over and over again, then in one moment it becomes alive in your heart and takes on a meaning it didn't previously have. If Christ is the Word incarnate, made flesh, I do not think it is a stretch to say that as we read the words of God that THE Word of God incarnates in the words we read in scripture piercing our hearts and transforming us more into what we are supposed to be and what it is possible for us to become. Thomas Merton wrote, "By the reading of scripture I am so renewed that all seems to be renewed around me and with me. The sky seems to be a pure, cooler blue, the trees a deeper green, light is sharper on the outlines of the forest and the hills and the whole world is charged with the glory of God and I feel fire and music in the earth under my feet." I really like that but I also like the fact that this not only happens to us without, it also happens to us within: truth is illuminated, will is discerned, paths are made straight, chaos gives way to peace, and emotional tumult gives way to wholeness.

If love was a plane..

This one has been a long time in the making. When I mentioned to a friend the subject of what I'm going to write about, he looked at me and said one word, "Why?" I thought for a minute and replied, "Because I need to."

I let go of Candice last year and am back to my usual chipper self but this has been running around in my head for a while. Possibly my compulsion to write about it, to get it out in the open, which is antithetical to my usual desire for privacy, will serve as a final expulsion of anything left in me that cared for her. At the end the whole episode turned out to be fairly brutal and painful and while going through it I did the opposite of what I normally do, I clammed up. I never wrote about it, I put off talking about it after it happened and when I finally did the first person I told lives a few states away. The first few weeks I was numb and it felt like I was living in a state of perpetual fugue. Hurts like this always take time to heal, and hurts on this scale irrevocably leave scars, but such is the peril of love I suppose. Brad Paisley quips that if love were a plane, no one would get on because statistically the chances of love working out is substantially worse then the statistical probability of a plane crash. But we all line up anyway and board a plane that sometimes only has one engine and half a wing that serves terrible food, and is piloted by drunken chimpanzees. Yet we gleefully and with expectant hope line up anyways, boarding passes clutched tightly in our hands eager to get on board and get flying. As cynical as my previous statements sound though I'd gladly grab my ticket and queue with everyone else because eventually I'll board the right flight and survive the trip even if my previous travels never took me where I wanted to go.

I think that I latch on to women too quickly. I don’t know why I’m wired that way. All it takes is a few good dates, a couple of kisses and I’m sold. Combine that with another person who was also searching for love and romance and you get a potent mélange of neediness and codependency. I have to say though when I finally started talking about it my friends really stepped up to the plate. They constantly called, never judged, were always quick to take me out and not leave me alone if I was especially down. I have to say though Silas called it from the very beginning (his predictions about women in my life are surprisingly prescient). Ah well regardless the whole situation left me well aware of a few things:

1) I am supremely unlucky at love

2) I tend to latch on too quickly rather then let things develop slowly

3) I have no idea how to be in a relationship that lasts longer then 6 months

4) I’m getting too old for this crap

Socrates said, “And in knowing that you know nothing, makes you the smartest of all.” By that rationale I should be a pro at this but I still feel like I’m playing in the Little League. Maybe my stats would improve if I didn’t draft from the injured list, but when injuries are internal it’s more difficult to judge. When you consider that along with my very linear approach to problem solving and desire to help whomever I care about creates a situation that may be detrimental but Ill still try anyway because it’s better then being alone. At least my focus is off myself and on someone else. That may be wrong and I’m pretty sure it is, but at the end of the day maybe the philosophical question I should focus on is “know thyself” rather then “give yourself away.”

Larry, Linda, and Michael Chabon

A lot has been on my mind, but what else is new? I'm usually mulling something over in my head like a cow chewing cud over and over again until whatever I was thinking about takes shape or gets swallowed with everything else. Sometimes I'm able to get it down on paper, sometimes it may just end up as voice memo on my iPhone that I never revisit. I've got a lot going on upstairs today... I've been thinking specifically about my life and my relation from where I am to what I want. But what do I want? Interesting question. A home? A person to share my life, such as it is, with? A job that makes me feel like I am doing something of value and helping not only myself but others? The answer is suppose is yes to all of the above, but on top of that I have been thinking about family. I thought a lot about my brother today. I'm currently reading Michael Chabon's sort of autobiography Manhood for Amateurs. (On a side note if you have never read anything by Michael Chabon do yourself a favour and pick up a copy of the book I just mentioned or The Yiddish Policeman's Union, or Gentlemen of the Road. Chabon is such a good writer, his prose is so evocative, it makes me want to cry or laugh or both. Maybe it's because his characters are mostly Jews and I've always felt since I was small that it was a part of my heritage that I wish I would have learned more about. Apart from my Nana sending me Hanukkah presents every year and a few books about the Maccabees, I never learned anything about my culture. Maybe these books help me reconnect with that part of myself. After all if we don't know where we come from how can we truly know ourselves?) Anyways.. back to my brother and family.

In Manhood for Amateurs, Chabon relates a story of how he and his brother shared a corned beef sandwich and reminisced about times when they were children and how the younger brother would follow him even if he was wrong and would trust him even if they didn't know where they were or what they were doing. It made me think about my little brother, who is now a not so little 26. Like Chabon's brother, my brother looked up to me quite a bit. As a result I felt like I had to be the kind of brother that was worthy of being an example, which of course is ludicrous as I couldn't be an example to a blind squirrel much less a flesh and blood relative. So like Chabon, I faked it. If I told my brother a story he would believe it, if I asked him to do something he would do it no questions asked. If I told him to fill his mouth with strawberry jam and spit it out as I shot him with a toy Beretta, he would do it and enthusiastically show it to my parents just for good measure. "Hey look at what Michael showed me how to do." Then I left for Africa. I don't know what kind of effect that had on him. He wound up coming to South Africa too a few years later but I wondered if it was for the experience or if he just wanted to follow his older brother. I wonder how he was treated at home if he didn't measure up. My parents aren't idiots and they are great parents and would never tell him, "why can't you be like your older brother?" But I always wondered that whenever he got in trouble even if they didn't say it if he could see it behind their eyes? I do not think that was the case because we couldn't ask for better parents but kids see what they want to see sometimes. I have always had this underlying pressure to be a good older brother and this has only increased with age. The older I get the more I want to strive to be a better brother, a better example but this is not healthy I think. Firstly I don't feel like I'm worthy of being emulated. In fact I hope my brother does not make the same mistakes I did, I hope he does the opposite of what I do, I pray sometimes he makes choices completely antithetical to mine. My life isn't a great example and I don't want to be one, but regardless of what I want I always will be because I'm the older brother.

My sister and I are a different story, we never saw eye to eye on anything. I suppose it is the typical thing for an older child to believe that having a little sister is more of a nuisance than anything. But that's a lie, she wasn't a nuisance and we got on very well until two things happened: My brother got old enough to play with me, and my sister became a teenager. Sometimes I wonder if she resented the fact that I transferred a large part of my brotherly affections to my little brother. My sister had a rough teenage experience. Lets just say it was difficult on my parents but not so much on me because I didn't really care because when she was a teenager I didn't like her at all. I thank God that our relationship is good now and we have a great rapport. She's given me 2 adorable nieces to spoil rotten and I do whenever I see them, but Amanda just a little bit more because she was first. The repair in our relationship began when I went to Africa again, this time for her wedding. We had a great time and I saw for the first time the woman my sister has become because she finally realized her worth and saw the kind of woman she could be and is.

This whole blog has been a massive departure from my usual navel gazing about God and faith and how it all fits in with my life. I've had it on my mind though all day and it feels good to get it out and down. Hopefully if Larry and Linda read it they'll both see something good in it and the love it contains and remember an easier, simpler time when I was still the older brother but we were still just kids playing in my sandbox in the back yard.

Pad Thai faith

Everyone's favourite Thai place makes the best Thai food. Ask any one of your friends and they all will give you a different place to eat. I happen to like Pilin Thai in Altamonte Springs, Florida the best. Their chicken Pad Thai is nothing short then a gastronomic miracle. Add some chilis to the dish and it transcends the material plane and becomes divinity on a plate. High praise indeed. When I bring people to Pilin I tell them to order the Pad Thai, and they normally do, and then after they finish they all say the same thing, "Well i really liked it but the Pad Thai at Sea, or Napasom, or Thai House is better." Now I want my Thai place, Pilin, to have the best Pad Thai so I inevitably go to one of the Thai places my friends prefer. Usually I leave disappointed. I have had some truly disappointing Pad Thai at some of these places. Sometimes the sauce is too sweet, sometimes it is too thick, ands sometimes the flavours don't combine right. This never happens at Pilin. The bean sprouts, egg, chicken, chilis, rice noodles, garlic, and tamarind all combine perfectly into a harmonious whole. Always cooked well, always cooked right and always delicious. Pilin works for me. Sometimes I have Pad Thai, sometimes I have masaman curry, and sometimes I order something else I can't spell. The point is whatever I order there is always good, always satisfies, and always makes me leave with a smile on my face. There may be better Thai place out there some where but I haven't found it yet.

I can't help but compare my Thai food experiences with church and faith because I try and relate everything I come across to faith and church because that's just how my mind works. Sometimes when looking for a body of believers to join with in worship things just seem to fit. The messages seem to always hit home, the music never fails to move the soul, the sense of community the congregation fosters as they break up and begin to leave after the benediction is one of acceptance and love. All these parts combine to form a harmonious whole that doesn't satisfy the needs of the body but rather the needs of the soul. (Now I know a few of you may say now Mike you mean it meets the needs of our spirit, but the New Testament writers use soul and spirit interchangeably so I think I can get away with it.) Some other people's church may be bigger or flashier, it may have resources beyond what other places may have but is it the right place for you?

I think the key to finding a good church is to find a place that not only meets your needs but also prompts you to tell others about it, not out of duty or because the pastor has asked, but rather out of genuine love for the people there and to spread that camaraderie and community to those who need it. Like my Thai place churches come in different sizes and flavours, made with different ingredients, comprised of different peoples with differing levels of theological training and experience, but all united in one common cause: to help carry each others burdens and to take the love of God and the good news of Jesus to people out there who need it and not only to people in need of a message but people looking for a place to belong. So if you are involved at a church that meets your needs and that fosters a deeper faith and love for God and others, tell people about it. Tell your friends, tell your family, tell your co-workers spread it around. After all, churches are there to spread the message of Christ and to foster community, some may do it better then others but find the one that fits you the best, and then tell others.

Noble savages

In environmental activist circles, and others, there is a belief that all pre-industrial primitive peoples lived within a state of complete harmony with the Earth. Many believe that pre-industrial man used every single piece of every animal they killed for food, knew how to farm without damaging the environment, lived in a complex balance with the ecosystem knowing how much to take and when to stop, were not warlike and did not kill or war unless it was to defend themselves, and had a mystic spirituality that reinforced those behaviors. These views are widespread and many believe them without bothering to test their veracity. In movies you'll see the noble savages teaching the ignorant Europeans how to live in harmony with nature until the villains come and destroy it all. This sort of romanticized image of primitive man sounds too good to be true and as it turns out, it is completely incorrect. This myth started in Europe and the idealized version of the savage became romanticized until it stuck in the general consciousness and has been there ever since. Research though has shown us the absurdities of these ideas and has highlighted information such as that murder rates in the Middle Ages were higher then they are now, 100 for every 100,000 people as opposed to 1 in every 100,000. It has also shown that primitive peoples were not as peaceful as we assume, aggressively and preemptively attacking and massacring enemies even selling other tribes of peoples as slaves to the Europeans. The point is people idealize the past and make assumptions about how things were and apply those assumptions to how they want things to be. Funnily enough this trend is not limited to the studies of history and the environment but also is widespread in Christendom.

Every new Christian movement attempts to gain legitimacy by claiming an affinity to the early church, the church that existed right after the ascension of Christ. In many people's minds the early church made no mistakes: they operated perfectly free from the strictures of dogma, open to the leading of the Holy Spirit, unbound by years of tradition flowed with supernatural displays of divine power daily, unburdened by structure able to flow organically and meet whatever needs they saw, and able to communicate the truth of the Gospel pure and undiluted. The problem is this is just as much of a myth as the noble savage. Both may have some grains of truth to them but both are patently untrue. I am always coming across sayings like, "More Jesus less Christians" or "No churchianity just Christ." or "No religion, only Jesus." or "More people would be Christians if it wasn't for the Christians." These sort of sayings sound good and sound well thought out, well one is because Ghandi said it, but they aren't. They are pop sound-bites that have little merit. I am getting sick and tired of Christians being the greatest disparagers of Christianity. I am tired of Christians being the most vociferous detractors of their own faith. The early church was constantly fraught with financial difficulties because everyone sold everything to live in a community. Sure everything was shared equally among all but if everyone is sharing equally but no one is making any money to keep everyone fed and clothed then what good is living in community? The Apostle Paul in his surviving Epistles is always mentioning that the church in Jerusalem needed financial support. The Bible records the beginnings of the church and the powerful displays of miracles wrought through the apostles but it is far from a day to day account. Acts is an overview, a brief history of a movement that spread like a wildfire. Just because people were healed and miracles took place does not mean that people were seeing miracles every single day. We cannot assume just because there were mighty displays of God's power that this was something that they continually experienced 24/7. Day to day life goes on. Somehow we have in our minds this notion about how pure and how perfect everything was in ancient times. Why do you think the church has evolved the way it has in terms of structure and organization? The early church had no structure or organization so they had to create those structures and organize things so they could continue to be effective. Why do you think doctrine had to be codified? In oder to combat the rise of sects and heresies that arose because the people didn't know the teaching of the apostles.

Now do structures and organizations need to be reformed from time to time? Yes. Have Christians at many times throughout history lost their focus and needed to be brought back into order? Yes. But how? Through structure. Through doctrine. Through right dogma. Through evolving methodology to reflect cultural shifts. Organization and structure can be a curse but they are also a great blessing when used correctly. Our methodology and liturgical forms have changed not because they've lost potency, but because they've had to change. So what if people meet in churches instead of homes? So what if one Pastor has oversight of one flock? So what if people baptize by immersion or by sprinkling water on your forehead? Many of these things have come about because of profound changes in societal structure and the way we live and how we live. So what if people started gathering in synagogues and the synagogues became churches? All the first Christians were Jews so now they should have stopped going to synagogue and started going to home churches? So what if people choose to worship at a church with 40 or 40,000? As long as their spiritual needs are being met and as long as they feel like a part of a community, who cares if they're not meeting at a home church? Who cares if their structure is different. One thing we all should keep in mind about structure and organization is that nowhere does Jesus or the Apostles lay out any sort of outline as how they thought things should be run. The only thing they do highlight though is correct doctrine, but that's something for another time and a clarion call to return to an imagined past is just as stupid as refusing to adapt to the future.

Less is more

Why are we always unsatisfied? We, well maybe just me, are always unhappy with our lives. We want a better girlfriend/boyfriend, we want better pay, a better car, a better relationship with God, a better house, and the list goes on. I blame this on our culture. Our culture, and this is the understatement of the century, is quite materialistic. When did the American dream turn from work hard and you can have a good life to make as much money as possible so you can buy everything you want thus ensuring happiness? This attitude has spread into religion as well. People say things like, " I want to have a deeper relationship with God. I want more out of my spiritual life. I want more of Jesus and less of me." Now these statements sound awesome, very spiritual, but are actually as vapid and superficial as a Rob Schneider movie. It sounds good to say I want more of God, but is it even possible? How much of God is enough? How can you tell if you need more God? I heard some one say the other day that a relationship should come to an end if the relationship doesn’t have the relationship with God as the primary focus. These sort of statements are thrown around all the time and sounds Christiany but are devoid of serious meaning. It’s a Christian catch phrase that you'd expect to hear at youth group when they’re talking about the "dangers" of premarital sex.

We are supposed to strive after God, to pursue God, but shouldn't contentment with where we are in our relationship with God also be a good thing? Isn’t there such thing as contentment with godliness? I understand we need to pursue God, but we should also be happy where we are with him. I'm not talking about complacency in our spiritual journey, but when we are constantly talking about pursuing God and wanting more it creates in us a profound dissatisfaction. This dissatisfaction is dangerous because we may never get to the levels of spirituality that we struggle to attain, and if we do not arrive at the destination we pursued disappointment can set in. Being disappointed is equally dangerous because disappointment comes from unmet expectations, and if that disappointment becomes rooted in our hearts it can grow into a cancerous bitterness and cynicism which, like cancer, is difficult and painful to treat and remove. We hear stories of saints and giants of our faith who met with God in powerful ways and we aspire to that. The problem is that’s the reason why they are saints or giants of our faith because they met with God in powerful way that most of us will never experience. Most of those people gave up everything and devoted their lives completely to God. For example St. Francis gave up wealth and comfort to embrace a life of poverty and ministry to the sick and the poor. Because of that complete devotion he had powerful experiences with God. Most of us will never get to that place because most of us cannot give up our lives to that degree. Many of us are too selfish to take an extra step that may remove us from where we are comfortable even though taking that step may mean we might have powerful life changing encounters with God.

Unmet expectations is also a major reason why many Christians are dissatisfied with their spiritual journey. Many have heard all their lives to pursue God, to want more of God, to keep pushing in their spiritual walk, but they are rarely taught to enjoy where they are at the moment. People may hear wonderful stories or powerful testimonies of God coming through in the clutch with blessings or healings or encounters. Some of us yearn and hope and expect these things to happen, and if they don’t happen we begin to wonder if there was something wrong with us and may even get to the place where we question God’s love for us. I'm not saying that we should be devoid of spiritual passion or desire-less, we should yearn for more because like Ecclesiaties says God has placed eternity on our hearts. What I'm trying to get across is that we need to stop sometimes, look around, smell the flowers, and be content where we are because God may hold us at certain places in our lives so he can develop something in us, and if we are always trying to keep pushing we may miss good opportunities that are divinely appointed.