Holy Crap!! (aka Prayer???)

What the????

Okay - I'm trying to be "interest catching" and controversial with that title...  I don't necessarily find the idea of prayer completely synonymous with "Holy Crap" - but often I think it is.  And, a bit of honesty (that may prompt knowing grins from my atheist friends, and exclamations along the lines of "aha!  I KNEW it!!" from some of my Christian friends...  )  At this point in my spiritual journey - I kinda...don't... pray.  I just don't.

If God isn't love...

I've been wondering whether to continue with the blog, however there's a thought rolling around in my

head that won't let me go, so here I am again!

I've realised something.  There are lots of ideas out there about what "God" is like.  They can't all be right - in fact, (& I guess this ought to be obvious) if we are talking about something as infinite as "God" - none of them can be, really.  I mean - nobody can possibly fit something that large into any kind of human explanation - not in its entirety, anyway.  But that isn't my realisation.

WHAT IF the notion that I hold dearly, that God is Love - and vice versa - is complete nonsense?  (I don't think it is but let's stay with that, for a moment, for argument's sake)   What if God REALLY is a demanding, legalistic, (dare I say, small minded, petty) tyrant, who insists on rigid rules and judges minor details of our lives, with eternal consequences....  (right now I'm looking at that description and wondering how something so petty and narrow could even be called God, but anyway...)

Crime and Punishment

I read this clever take on the old story about the woman caught in adultery, on Shane Clifton's Blog, this morning.

It really IS clever... but somehow, I can't quite agree with it.

Orson Scott Card frames the tension in this story as a tug-of-war between legalism and corruption.  Somehow, "Rabbi Jesus" comes out as having the perfect balance, able to both "preserve the law and forgive the deviation".

Now I might be on shaky theological ground, here... so I'm chucking it out there to see what others have to say... but I don't think Jesus was on the Law/Lenience paradigm at all, at all, at all.  Hear me out... then tell me what you think...

Why is it a big deal?

I glanced over a post in Sojourners this morning, about Christians disagreeing about stuff.  Not exactly new news.  The article made the point that as a community of people, it would be more surprising if we didn't disagree (which I think is true) but the author was concerned that the way we go about it is really the problem.  I guess I agree with that too - at least, that the unloving, point scoring, superior way Christians often go about disagreeing on everything from doctrine to politics to clothing, is problematic.  To put it mildly.  Actually, if you take the words of Jesus seriously, it's a sign that those who behave like this are not actually Christians.  (I'm not kidding - if "they will know them by their love" is true - there are a LOT of very churchy types who are in deep, spiritual trouble!)

But I digress.

Love and Freedom in the blogosphere...

Everyone seems to be posting about Love and Freedom today!!  Well, perhaps not everybody, but definitely Alise and Jeff.   It's in the air - so I thought I'd share!

Alise Wright has written about love and freedom in the context of friendships here.

My good mate, Jeff Elkins, is all about Love and Freedom in the Christian faith here.

(& in case you missed it, we recently had some lively discussions on that same topic here, and HERE!)  (the second post probably relates more to what Alise and Jeff are saying)

Letting go...

This post is probably going to be more questions and ruminations than answers or great wisdom...  but some thoughts on love and friendship have been rolling around in my head, and I thought I'd let them out for some air!

I truly believe that love is everything.  Relationships are what matters.  The rest is secondary.  But every human relationship is an interactive dance...  finding that beautiful and delicate balance between you and I, between desiring and controlling, between freedom and obligation...

Our relationships with one another can be the most sustaining, or the most damaging forces in our lives.  We are designed to relate to one another.  We are each of us part of a family, a community, and a society.  Beyond that, we belong to the complex interweaving of life that is our world.  We are not simply individuals.  Our relationships are part of us - and when they are broken, part of us is broken too.

So.

How do we dance that delicate dance, without treading on toes or forcing others in directions only we want to go?  How do we sustain healthy relationships without being pushed, coerced, or shackled into heavy and unsustainable obligations? 

The "M" Word.

Lots has been coming my way, about the institution of marriage.  I was recently sent an email, with links to pro-marriage information.  This was a response to current legislative changes being debated, regarding the legal definition of marriage.  Another friend had a bit of a vent on facebook this morning, about married men she had heard speaking incredibly disrespectfully of their wives...  and of course, for me, the subject is very personal - as my marriage is ending.

The Last Post

HA!  You thought I was going to get all military or memorial, didn't you??

Actually, this really IS a continuation of my last post!

Truth is I was just going to add a comment - but the comment grew so I'm posting it separately.


Okay -  I've been mulling over examples of powerful, triumphant love that I've seen.

First to come to mind (and I didn't "see" this one - but it has gone down in history!) Is the example of Martin Luther King Jr, and those incredibly brave souls who stood with him and faced violence and hatred - took it on themselves without retaliating, and defeated it with love.  Their sacrifice is still reverberating throughout history. I think both he and Ghandi spring immediately to mind whenever there's talk of "nonviolent resistance" - but reflecting on the courage and sacrifice of individuals who stood up for love and freedom - and the incredible power of their actions - fills me with awe and reverence still.

A more prosaic example;  When I was growing up, a hyperactive, tearaway wild thing wreaking

Unpacking the Story 1 - Judgement vs. Love

 A while back, I had a go at summarising the narrative of the Bible.  (See Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 if you missed it and are interested)  I talked a little bit about my reasons for doing it... partly because I think we have unwittingly twisted it into something else.  But also, (in fact, mainly) because I wanted to look at it again, if possible, with new eyes.  There has been a paradigm shift, a BIG one, going on inside me - & I wanted to check it out against the WHOLE story, and see if it really fit.

As it turned out, I really got a lot out of doing it.  I approached the Jesus bit with fear and trepidation, to be honest - I have NEVER really understood what the cross was all about.  Something about it just never made sense.  Reading Derek Flood's work (Penal Substitution vs. Christus Victor, in particular) was a great help.  It put into words a lot of the questions I'd had.  The picture of a bloodthirsty God requiring a life as payment for the smallest infringement... just didn't read like justice to me. 

So What was the cross all about?

I'd seen the garden, and a lot of the old Testament stuff, as the story of two competing worldviews.  The one most of us have (well, all of us, if we're honest) that judges other people, compares them to

Tasty words... I hope!

Here's a little offering, from 4am wakefulness... Hope you like it!

My Garden

Welcome to my garden of words;

Heart-grown and tender.

Full of youth and sap

and vigour

Or ready to seed

And fly on the wind

Reproducing

who knows where...

Nundu

This is Nundu.  

He's the newest addition to the Whalen family.  We think he's about 10 weeks old (though his size is more like 6).  He was rescued from the local dump, and ended up coming to live with us.  Specifically, he was adopted by my 12 year old daughter, Hannah.  "Nundu" is a Harry Potter name (Hannah is a mad-keen Harry Potter nut!! Apparently a Nundu is some kind of scary, leopard-like magical creature with very bad breath!).  The name is a kind of Hannah irony.  She doesn't see him that way at all!

When we first met Nundu, he was pitifully thin, had runny eyes, worms, and fleas.  Oh, and there was poo stuck in his fur.  We took him for a vet check (a bit worried that the eyes might be infectious as we have another older kitten at home) and the vet thought he was suffering from the tail-end of

Love and... Divorce

 I'm still planning to continue the "retelling the story" series...  wrestling with part 3.  However in the meantime, I jumped into a discussion on The Pangea Blog about divorce.  I've had some thoughts re divorce (funny that!!) & was mulling whether to share them here.  I ended up articulating them in response to a comment on Pangea, so am sharing my "comment" as a post here too.

Samuel Warren made the comment "Christianity is about love...divorce is not love, and quite frankly the bible does say that God hates it."  I gotta say, that's pretty much the comment I would have made myself, up to a year or so ago.  Here's my response: 


I'm a Christian, and have made the decision to divorce after 18 years of marriage.  ... my husband suffers with Aspergers syndrome - a kind of high functioning Autism.