I started THE GREATER TRUMPS yesterday. A Charles Williams book. Williams was one of the inklings, along with Tolkien and Uncle Clive and Dorothy Sayers. I had the hardest time getting myself to put the book down so I could go to sleep. It's about the original Tarot cards. Weird as Wonderland. Okay, maybe not that weird.
(I watched the Disney Alice and Wonderland with the girls I babysit today and it was WEIRD. I'd forgotten. And there's a hookah in a Disney movie! A symbol of Carroll's drug induced derraged mind while writing the book. Well, we didn't watch the whole thing. The girls --Olivia age 3 and Hannah age 6--got bored after the Cheshire Cat made his first appearance. Did I ever mention on here that I picked up a bi-weekly nannying job?)
Friday, August 26, 2005
Thursday, August 25, 2005
Started a Writers Group
In Ann Arbor with Bethany Goad, Meg Leduc, and a girl named Becky Adams. We're going to try to meet every week. Looks like next time will be Saturday the 3rd at 1pm. We did a writing exercise and hopefully we'll be exchanging drafts, eventually. Anyone is welcome to join. :)
The Gospel According To Dale
On Tuesday I had a discussion with Dale about National Identity--does God promote it? I told Him that I had trouble with the OT stuff about God making an exclusive race to represent Him. He asked me why Jesus overturned the tables in the Temple Courts. I don't remember what I replied with. Something about marketing. His answer was that it was because that was the part of the Temple that was supposed to be dedicated to the Gentiles--where they could come in and learn about God and then, after conversion, be allowed into the more inner-parts of the temple. And the Jews were wasting this important part of the temple to sell things. In that way, they were being exclusive.
I've heard Dale speak of this before, but it reminded me that, from the beginning, God has never been exclusive. He separates us by letting us enter into His kindgom, but He has never closed the door. Jesus actually made that door wider in the way that He is even more accessable to gentiles. They don't have to trek all the way to Jerusalem to know about God anymore. Through Jesus, we are the temple and are brought to people face to face.
As a believer, I am separate but never exclusive.
Another cool point he made (and has made before) was with the question, "What was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah?" He said almost everyone believes that God destroyed them because of homosexuality, but later on in the OT, God explains that they weren't taking care of their poor, their orphans, and their widows. It had nothing to do with sexual sin--at least, the sexual sin wasn't mentioned as a direct cause. Along the line with national identity, Dale reiterated the point that Israel came to ruin again and again when they forgot about their poor.
I've heard Dale speak of this before, but it reminded me that, from the beginning, God has never been exclusive. He separates us by letting us enter into His kindgom, but He has never closed the door. Jesus actually made that door wider in the way that He is even more accessable to gentiles. They don't have to trek all the way to Jerusalem to know about God anymore. Through Jesus, we are the temple and are brought to people face to face.
As a believer, I am separate but never exclusive.
Another cool point he made (and has made before) was with the question, "What was the sin of Sodom and Gomorrah?" He said almost everyone believes that God destroyed them because of homosexuality, but later on in the OT, God explains that they weren't taking care of their poor, their orphans, and their widows. It had nothing to do with sexual sin--at least, the sexual sin wasn't mentioned as a direct cause. Along the line with national identity, Dale reiterated the point that Israel came to ruin again and again when they forgot about their poor.
Mulling it over
I have had some interesting thoughts running through my head. Two phrases were pitched at me that I've been thinking about.
The first was an idea that Freedom is a man-made institution. That's how it was said to me but I interpret it as "freedom is a man-made idea." I replied that Freedom could not be man-made because it relies on a security that comes from an outside source that is not from men. Let me explain. Why is it that we are supposed to recieve freedom from salvation in Jesus? Why do we Jesus-heads walk around proclaiming that we know freedom (more than anyone else...)? I think it has to do with Jesus conquering death. If death isn't conquered we're a slave to it. We might have our lives under control (paid our insurance on this and that), found a way to be happy (creating and vacationing), and a way to have perfect relationships with people (loving them, finding a way to have humility in the presence of others, mastering forgiveness and refusing to judge), but even if we've done all that, there's still the bondage to death: we could die at any second from any number of causes (I'm not in a morbid enough mood to go through them but cars come to mind.) As long as death is at our door, we are not free. But in Jesus there's the idea of resurrection, that life will come through death and that, to me, is pure freedom. If death is taken care of, we are free to live. That is the security I'm talking about.
I am not talking about the security of tightening borders and building defense armies for national freedom. I see that as a kind of slavery. But I think that the same principle motivates those who move in that direction.
When we say, we as in believers, that we are free from this world, I think we are really saying that we are free from the death of this world.
Another idea that was put in my head is the phrase "Being Christ-like without Christ." At first when I heard this phrase, "Christ Like," I thought of the qualities of Jesus that the utterer of the words encompassed: forgiveness, humility, love for neighbors and friends, kindness, patience, openess. And in those things, I'd say they're doing a great job at being Christ-like. But then I had to ask myself for a definition of Christ-like, and that made me realize how, in my thinking, impossible it is to be Christ-like without Christ.
Christ, I'm pretty sure, is the same as Messiah. Messiah means from God, or annointed by Him. Sent from God. Maybe there is another way to define christ, if there is a christ with a lower-case "c," but I can't imagine it for my own life. Really, there is nothing more to being Christlike than being annointed by God. The rest, kindess, Patience, Corinthians 13, comes out of this annointance. Is that a word? Annointance? It is now. We can't be of God, from God, without God. That just doesn't make any sense.
I desire to be Christ-like. I think this is because I've seen something about Jesus that makes me want to emulate Him. I've "tasted" His Freedom, I've had my mind open up, if just a crack, to higher things that have convinced me that, as Bjork sings, "There's more to life than this." These are notions that are a bit separate to my desires to be "Good" in the Corinthians 13 sort of way. I DO think it's possible do be those things without Christ (Checking above my head for lightening...), but there is life beyond those things. Even with those things there is death. I mean, Ghandi was amazing and fantastic and inspirational, but Ghandi died. (Whether or not Ghandi will be resurrected, I have no capacity to know.) The life beyond good comes by revelation. I believe revelation comes by seeking it, and I think Jesus believes that, too.
*I must note that I live in admiration of the Ghandi-esque. I admire effort. I can't imagine that God doesn't admire this as well. I'd much rather surround myself by people who desire Good and don't know Jesus (yet) than people who believe and don't think about love much. I don't know many who follow under the latter, but hopefully you get what I'm saying.
The first was an idea that Freedom is a man-made institution. That's how it was said to me but I interpret it as "freedom is a man-made idea." I replied that Freedom could not be man-made because it relies on a security that comes from an outside source that is not from men. Let me explain. Why is it that we are supposed to recieve freedom from salvation in Jesus? Why do we Jesus-heads walk around proclaiming that we know freedom (more than anyone else...)? I think it has to do with Jesus conquering death. If death isn't conquered we're a slave to it. We might have our lives under control (paid our insurance on this and that), found a way to be happy (creating and vacationing), and a way to have perfect relationships with people (loving them, finding a way to have humility in the presence of others, mastering forgiveness and refusing to judge), but even if we've done all that, there's still the bondage to death: we could die at any second from any number of causes (I'm not in a morbid enough mood to go through them but cars come to mind.) As long as death is at our door, we are not free. But in Jesus there's the idea of resurrection, that life will come through death and that, to me, is pure freedom. If death is taken care of, we are free to live. That is the security I'm talking about.
I am not talking about the security of tightening borders and building defense armies for national freedom. I see that as a kind of slavery. But I think that the same principle motivates those who move in that direction.
When we say, we as in believers, that we are free from this world, I think we are really saying that we are free from the death of this world.
Another idea that was put in my head is the phrase "Being Christ-like without Christ." At first when I heard this phrase, "Christ Like," I thought of the qualities of Jesus that the utterer of the words encompassed: forgiveness, humility, love for neighbors and friends, kindness, patience, openess. And in those things, I'd say they're doing a great job at being Christ-like. But then I had to ask myself for a definition of Christ-like, and that made me realize how, in my thinking, impossible it is to be Christ-like without Christ.
Christ, I'm pretty sure, is the same as Messiah. Messiah means from God, or annointed by Him. Sent from God. Maybe there is another way to define christ, if there is a christ with a lower-case "c," but I can't imagine it for my own life. Really, there is nothing more to being Christlike than being annointed by God. The rest, kindess, Patience, Corinthians 13, comes out of this annointance. Is that a word? Annointance? It is now. We can't be of God, from God, without God. That just doesn't make any sense.
I desire to be Christ-like. I think this is because I've seen something about Jesus that makes me want to emulate Him. I've "tasted" His Freedom, I've had my mind open up, if just a crack, to higher things that have convinced me that, as Bjork sings, "There's more to life than this." These are notions that are a bit separate to my desires to be "Good" in the Corinthians 13 sort of way. I DO think it's possible do be those things without Christ (Checking above my head for lightening...), but there is life beyond those things. Even with those things there is death. I mean, Ghandi was amazing and fantastic and inspirational, but Ghandi died. (Whether or not Ghandi will be resurrected, I have no capacity to know.) The life beyond good comes by revelation. I believe revelation comes by seeking it, and I think Jesus believes that, too.
*I must note that I live in admiration of the Ghandi-esque. I admire effort. I can't imagine that God doesn't admire this as well. I'd much rather surround myself by people who desire Good and don't know Jesus (yet) than people who believe and don't think about love much. I don't know many who follow under the latter, but hopefully you get what I'm saying.
