The sameness of the world and the trappings therein...

Two separate photos, two separate days, two different ends of town.

Sometimes there are moments where the world slows down and true awareness of one's surroundings strikes.

One was taken while waiting for almost ten minutes at an ATM. With the increasing obsolescence of the teller, performing multiple transactions for a carload of people is not an infrequent occurrence.

The other was taken in a moment of pause after having similarly waited, this time for a [insert brand name] cup of coffee.

Minus the sun in one and the rain in the other, there is essentially little difference.

Makes me think (quite cynically): this is the best we can do? This is the product of man's (apparent) brilliance?

Really just pointing out the obvious but sometimes it makes me aware of why it is that we are not to place our hope in the tangible, fleeting world in which we live.

Faith without having all the answers...

I've been heavy into Abraham Heschels' The Prophets lately. I always seem to come back to the Hebrew Prophets. I tend to shun Daniel as the book has been accosted by a type of Christianity that scares me. I lean more toward the late dating of the book and would tend to agree with Jewish tradition that views him as part of the Ketuvim. I suppose it can go either way if a pole must be chosen and it depends whether you give weight to the modern understanding or if you give more weight to the Bible as God's word.

Somewhere in the middle are folks like me. I used to straddle the fence on things. Now it is a conscious and well-informed choice.

I accept the Bible as God's Word revealed to (or through) man but I don't believe that he spoke King James English (or Hebrew or Aramaic for that matter). I believe the 'proof' of the Bible is its affect on those who find their faith in it (which, of course, opens up another can of worms because most certainly there are those who "faith" caused them to use it to justify all kinds of heinous acts).

Yet I also find the historical approach to the Bible to be beneficial in grounding it and, thus, to bringing us closer to a realistic truth rather than one steeped in mythologizing and tradition.

There's a paradox here because for the longest time a verse like this would have reinforced why I was not a Christian and why I did not care to read the Bible. I fought long and hard against it. So when I "gave in" and became a Christian I did so only after realizing I did not have to leave my brain at the door and that (and this one has been more slow and painful to realize) I do not need to have all the answers to have faith.

Faith is not blind stupidity. Accepting what someone tells you without thinking it through yourself or running scared from a challenge to what you hold to be true is blind stupidity. Faith is certitude that comes with time and experience.

The reason I bring this up is that I was reading Ezekiel 20:25:

"I also gave them statutes that were not good and ordinances by which they could not live..." (NASB)

If there was ever a moment in Scripture that gives pause, this is it. In plain English, it sounds as if God set them up to fail. No need to even ponder the glee with which Christians throughout history have used this in light of Jewish law.

But me, being the good skeptic, figured this is a translation thing and does not mean what we think it means in plain English. So the digging began.

This is not a new issue. This has troubled the faithful for as long as the Bible has been around.

Here are some alternatives (I claim no expertise on the subject, I'm only presenting alternatives, the work of which was done by others so proper sourcing is given):

1)

"Ezekiel refers to the Deuteronomic code as “not good laws” and “rules by which they could not live,” because, on the one hand, they degraded the pristine Priestly standards and, on the other, they were interwoven with predictions of human disobedience and inevitable divine judgment."

(Scott Walker Hahn and John Sietze Bergsma as found in JBL 123/2 (2004) 201–218)

In other words, the documentary hypothesis provides a historically grounded alternative.

2) Hyam Maccoby (author of The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity) quotes Meir Loeb Malbim and adds:

"(For they said that)" in front of verse 25.

This is viewed as God being sarcastic. (Source)

By the way, there's nothing wrong with immersing yourself in books written against your faith. It's amazing what you may actually learn about your faith and you may just find it strengthened not in a reactive way but because many times such polemic draws things out of Scripture you might otherwise miss. If you're looking for justification for such an approach, Paul says to investigate everything and hang on to that which is good.

3) An article by Skip Moen, quoting Daniel Block, states that the word use in verse 25 is a masculine variation of the normally used feminine, thus adding a nuance that is lost in translation. The end result is this:

"He uses a verbal strategy to jump from the beneficial intention of Torah to the disastrous consequences of Torah rejection. In other words, as it turns out the huqqot [feminine] God gave have become huqqim [masculine] in the lives of the people. The people have turned what gives life into something that produces death."

4) Another option is that this verse admits to the human element in the Torah. Christians tend to love this one. However, there's a catch. If this is true, this also gives Muslim justification for their beliefs that the Bible is corrupt.

So there are options people and it's a minefield! A Biblical literalist (especially the King James only variety) would roll their eyes on this one (or chuck a big King James bible at your head).

A hardcore hater uses it to justify disregarding the Bible as nothing but a human document filled with inconsistencies and irrelevance (but of course they too tend to rely on a "literal" interpretation and thus share common ground with the King James only Christian).

I tend toward the more "quantum" view of Scripture and hold this in a state between several alternatives. I have no idea which rendering is actually correct but having the options actually leaves me more open-minded, provided I can move foward with the 'trust' element without having the ability to give a logical discourse on the matter. Some day I will understand it or maybe I won't but either way I trust that the lack of understanding is mine.

Personally, I like having options because it leads to dialogue and dialogue leads to interaction and interaction is what leads us toward love.

Dogmatism and debate, without an openness to learning and a willingness to admit we don't know (without losing faith), is what leads to death.

This self-deprecation is actually at the root of all religious traditions and this "quantum" view is actually more Daoist than it is Christian. Christians tend toward absolutes; Daoists tend to realize that our knowledge is limited which, paradoxically, should also be a Christian thing - it's called humility.

Can you be a Christian and still be human?

I struggle with this one. The Christian message continues to burrough deeper into my soul. When balanced but not overridden by the intellect this is a healthy way to live.

What I struggle with is finding a way to live it out. Yet in every church I attend, no matter how much I sense God's presence there, I am still aware of how weird some of this is. Of course to define it as "weird" is to compare it to something so to what am I comparing it?

Probably my desire to still do what I want. Over the years what I want has changed so hopefully this "want" is more aligned to a life where I can live out the Spirit in and through me.

Slasher flicks are of no interest nor are films meant to shock us out of our numbness. Heavy metal music is of no interest anymore and while
classic rock takes me back in time, it has no present reality for me.

This isn't a judgment, I'm simply not there anymore. So my "want" (at least in terms of music and movies) has changed as I've continued the spiritual pursuit. Perhaps it's maturity, perhaps it's just a natural process.

But I am not compelled to like Christian music or Christian movies just because they are tagged Christian. I just don't like a lot of these things. Don't get me wrong, there are many I do. They hit me in a way other forms of entertainment do not.

"Secular" music (personally, music is music, all of it forms of expression of the human experience, corporate drivel notwithstanding) and movies still speak to me about the human experience, even if much of it is propaganda trying to sell me a point of view, though I do realize religion tends to do the same thing. Everything is propaganda, really, all trying to "sell" you something.

So at work I am content to do my work and talk to people about things that in the end don't really matter but to that person may mean a lot. I have many things that mean something to me even if they don't mean a lot in the long run. But it can be a place where I channel my passion and gifts, even if it isn't in some churchified way.

So to be human, to talk to people about things with no intention or judgment other than just trying to love and understand the human experience. Doesn't that make us, and others, more receptive to the move of the Spirit in between us, even if there are no labels that indicate we hold the same beliefs?

God loves us where we are, Christian or not. He doesn't love us any more because we are "Christian" or "born again" or whatever tag we use. No, God loves us just the same. The difference is our perception. These things don't make us any better than anyone else. They simply provide a different worldview.

To put a spin on the traditional saying of Paul, "new is creation." We see the world anew. The old man may be passing away but the old man is still the same old flesh we've always had. This is not what is new; what is new is our perception.

So we remain human with all our quirks and flaws. And we should accept this; after all, isn't this how we were made? Just be sensitive to the leading of the Spirit and be open to changing over time.

If you're a Christian and you still like rock and roll than do so. Like movies? Smoke? Drink liquor? Eat too much? Drink too much coffee? I think it comes down to awareness and discernment and realizing that we are influenced by what we feed our minds with and if we keep feeding our minds with non-beneficial things our 'self' will follow.

I bring this up only because I am listening to dub techno like crazy lately and really enjoy it. Can't say I get any "spiritual" meaning from it but it does provide a level of peace that is quite soothing.

And I am enjoying my work in a factory. I value the labor and the working with the hands. There is no saving grace in making parts that end up on Harley Davidson motorcycles but it is a fascinating process to watch a piece of metal become a chrome fender.

But there is nothing revelatory in all of this. There isn't much excitement at all, no buzz, no excitement, no awe inspiring sense of wonder. And I think it is in this day-to-day stuff, "life" as we think of it, that real meaning is found. It is the consistency, the routine, the "desert" on the way to those highs we all seek that the real spiritual walk is found.

It kind of reflects the way in which we are able to re-create in our own lives. I won't go there but as life goes on, more and more it seems that everything is symbol. At what point does this lead to loss of a grip on reality? I know it's a possibility and it's always right there. At what point have we gone over the edge and how do we really know?

A sad chicken sandwich...

Lately we've been moving more and more toward a "raw" food based diet. This isn't the weird, militant kind of raw food diet. This has just been the inevitable progression of fifteen years or more of paying attention to what we eat and educating ourselves as the nutritional climate evolves.

If you were to do some inverting to the FDA's pyramid (primarily the lower blocks) you'd have the raw food pyramid.

While I tend to shun all hints of conspiracies, it is quite curious when you ponder that the base of the FDA food pyramid coincides with the areas of food production that are most corporatized. After all, the "green" stuff can be grown in your own back yard (until the government and/or corporations figure out a way to make this illegal or tax it).  Look at the bottom of the FDA pyramid.  Can you say sponsorship?

Anyhow, last week I had put in a thirteen hour day and had run out of food (I usually pack enough for a ten hour day). Hungry, I decided to whirl through KFC. It's probably been five years or more since I've even set foot in a KFC. Figured they'd have a grilled chicken sandwich option.

Nope. They had a grilled chicken meal. So I asked about the sandwiches and I was told they have a regular chicken sandwich and the double down. "You mean, the kill you twice as fast sandwich?" I slipped out. The cashier, caught off guard, smiled after he pondered it for a moment.

I wanted some road food so settled for a regular chicken sandwich. Added a medium soda, again something I don't normally do at a fast food restaurant because of the markup. But I was hungry, a bit edgy and wanted to hit the road home.

The cashier informed me that as is the case in America it's more expensive to do it this way and a "meal" would be cheaper. So I threw in green beans, figuring there may be some nutrition buried in there.

Got the food to go and was on the road.

White bread, bacon, thousand island dressing and a smaller-than-advertised slab of fried chicken. I was amazed at how incredibly unappetizing it looked. The green beans were just shy of liquid and the soda provided no joy.

As I ate, I was saddened by the whole experience. Bored employees, the whole assembly line process and food that had no nutritional value made the entire experience just plain sad. Can't say it ever provided joy in the past but I have never eaten food that actually made me sad. Other than some protein and some calories, there was absolutely nothing positive there.

I am grateful for the way we are beginning to eat but it saddens me to think of how our government and our corporations are basically death merchants. Granted, they are feeding the population what they (think they) want but to what extent has the propaganda of our corporatocracy fed us this from birth? You are being lied to.

I wonder: does the upper management of KFC (or any fast food chain) actually eat the food they peddle?