Welcome to the dark side

Nothing ever appealed to me as much as the dark mystery of things.

A beauty with a slight edge, that dark side of the soul, which everyone of us carries in them.

There can't be light without darkness. All that we have to do is to find ourselves in it and give it a right place.

Don't be afraid, just join the dark side.

I'm not a theologian

I mean, sure, I'll have a master's degree in Theology in about a year and a half, but that doesn't make me a theologian, and I'm fine with that. 

I really appreciate all that I'm learning, and the opportunity to read great thinkers and write about the stuff of God that people have pondered and prayed on for thousands of years, but over and over again I just keep thinking that it's all just trying to nail jello to the wall. 

The Bible isn't clear on many, many things.  If God wanted to spell some things out, he would have done so.  Am I saying that it is of no use at all to wrestle with questions and concepts?  Not at all.  But when complex, multi-layered arguments are constructed with very little biblical basis or evidence, it may be a waste of time.  At least, I feel like it's a waste of time for me to have to read them.  There are few things I hate more than wading through a confusing section of a book, hurting my brain trying to figure out what the author is proposing, finally coming to see their point a little bit, only to get to the end and realize that they were actually illustrating a view with which they disagree or that there is little to no biblical support for the muck and mire I just went through. 

Believe me, I get it.  With the Bible's annoying lack of clarity on so many things, we have to thoughtfully discuss and extrapolate and expand our beliefs into fully-fledged organisms.  The problem is that we then try to hold on to them so tightly and will fight people on them, and we construct miles of scaffolding to support them, when all we're really holding up is our own opinions, or those we've adopted from those who came before us.

Stop trying to nail jello to the wall.  Eat it.  Get it in you.  Digest it and let the sweetness become a part of you.  Put it in your mouth & swish it around and make kool aid out of it.  Just stop holding it and showing it off and getting everyone's hands all sticky. 

God is funny when he gives you the smackdown

Well, I guess I didn't get an actual smackdown today, but more along the lines of God whistling a bit, sidling up and sliding something into my view.

So, I'm minding my own business this morning, fixing to read James (favorite!) both for a paper and to spend some time in The Word™, and I see 2 Thessalonians.  "Hmmmm," I think.  "I need to find a passage for my exegetical paper, and I don't really spend much time in 2 Thess (I can call them that) and don't really know what it's about, so I'll read that today.  Good idea, Robin!"

The title for this blog entry should be a link to 2 Thessalonians online.  Go ahead, read it.  But only if you read my angry, quite sure of itself post on Revelation.  I'll wait.

Didja read it?  Did you laugh? *sigh*  So, I think I'm going to pick something out of there to write my paper on, just so I can try to figure it out.  For those of you who didn't read it and would like me to just go ahead and tell you what I'm talking about: it's all about what we would call the Anti-Christ, End Times freakishness, and Jesus punishing people.

Of course, I didn't read about 1 Thess. for class when I was supposed to because I was being lazy.  You can bet your bottom dollar, though, that I'm going to get my textbook next time I feel like getting out of this chair and I am going to expect Achtemeier, Green, and Thompson to explain the stuffing out of this book.

It really does feel like what I've learned about Apocalyptic literature: Paul says that he's encouraging a church going through trials and tribulations, so it makes sense that the drama would be amped up about God's saving power and how good will triumph.  But being that it doesn't have the imagery and clear craziness of Revelation, it makes it even more confusing when he talks about the man of lawlessness, etc.  Especially since I can't easily read it as referring to a historic situation.

*sigh*  It doesn't really surprise me at all anymore when I think that I finally have something figured out about God and then find out I'm wrong.  It should surprise me even less when things about the Bible confuse me, but I guess that since it is a physical thing that can be studied and examined somewhat, I keep thinking we'll be able to wrestle it down.  Even though I also know that it isn't possible, my insane human brain keeps trying.  Oh well.

I Quit!

I'm done trying to quantify, categorize, and define God. Lately, almost every time I try to make a definitive statement about "God does X" or "God isn't Y" or even "I believe that God..." I realize that I also believe a contradictory statement. And the beauty is that, as a good post-modern, I can live with that. I hate labels and boxes, but they're so hard to resist.

But ever since I watched Rob Bell's Everything Is Spiritual (I highly recommend it), I've been wrestling with the Both/And aspects of God. I've been focusing on balance for a long time now- almost 7 years- and that helps with a lot of things, but that was primarily about personal behavior and what God wants from us. This Both/And thing is about Who God Is.

I often find myself arguing in my head with Christians that I disagree with. I think, "But God is love and you're trying to make him hateful!" Or I get mad at people who focus too much on following rules or acting a specific way to please God. I think that I have it all figured out and that the way that I see God is the better way, the truer way. But maybe God is Both. And. He wants us to love one another silly and be forgiving and trusting and generous, but he also wants us to obey him and stop sinning and focus on fearing him once in a while. Or at the same time.

"I don't believe" that everything that happens is God's will. I believe that we have free will and that Satan is in charge of a lot down here, or we are. "I believe" that God's kingdom breaks in from time to time either through our actions- it's what we're supposed to be doing- or through his deciding to act in a clearly visible way. But I also believe that God is in charge of my life, if I let him do so. I believe that God is bigger than the economy and I don't have to worry because I'll always be taken care of, even if it's not in the way that I expect.

So, am I a hopelessly confused hypocrite? I don't think so. I think that God can be both of these things. I believe more and more in the mysterious nature of God and that he is fully capable of being two apparently (to humans) contradictory things at the same time. I believe that he acts in our lives and cares about everything we do and also that some things just happen because that's the way the world works. Which is which and why? I don't know. Maybe that's a cop-out.

No matter the doubts and questions I have, I do believe that I know God, or a part of him. So my human self has to try to make sense of things, even while attempting to let go of making sense of everything.


From Ch. 5 of Alice in Wonderland

`I ca'n't believe that!' said Alice.

`Ca'n't you?' the Queen said in a pitying tone. `Try again: draw a long breath, and shut your eyes.'

Alice laughed. `There's no use trying,' she said `one ca'n't believe impossible things.'

`I daresay you haven't had much practice,' said the Queen. `When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.