Oratorio...Youngstown, Ohio...March 28, 2009

Last night was the performance of an Oratorio as created by Darren Thomas. He is worship leader at the church where I was baptized and spent the first four years of a truly committed walk with Christ. It is a Pentecostal church in the heart of the 'hood' on the South Side of Youngstown (a true divergence from my past on so many levels) and preaches the belief in the Oneness doctrine, that Jesus is in fact God and that the name of God is in fact Jesus.

There is a style of preaching and singing that is dear to my heart as it is where I was born, so to speak. I have fond memories of this period of time but have since moved on to a more subdued style of evangelical worship of the "white" variety, the music driven by acoustic guitar rather than the keyboard/organ. It is noticeable and lacks that certain "soul" of the black church. I enjoy both styles and can easily tire of too much one or the other, the variety a welcome balance.

So last night's Oratorio, rooted in the black church, was an attempt at mixing it all up, with a 100 person multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-church choir and musical styles ranging from salsa to reggae to gospel to a more classical feel. It is all the work of one man and seeks to tell the story of Jesus Christ from prophecy through his being raised from the dead, the message being the title of the Oratorio - Forgiven.

The show itself was stellar. Performed in an old venue affiliated with the Warner Brothers in Youngstown, Ohio, the setting was grand, professional, a far cry from the confines of the church walls. And through four acts, the music was tight, with instruments ranging from French horns to xylophones to drums, and the singing was powerful. I sat in awe at the power of the human voice.

And I realized how much I miss this style of worship, how much it stirs my soul. I miss the enthusiasm, the tight sound of the bass, the boldness of the choir. I am grateful for my roots in that church and would not be where I am today (though it is interesting as well how my gravitation towards Oneness doctrine in the beginning rather than Trinity at the time was also the reason that I was drawn to Islam).

The performance itself is a work of art. The man truly has a gift and I pray he is able to break out of the confines of the tradition in which he is so comfortable to fly on his own and share this, with his own style, with the world.

Without going into too much detail, there are some kinks that need to be worked out, and the show, as grand as it was, also reinforced the reasons that when my wife, a PK and herself born into this tradition, and I decided to move on there was no looking back. It is our ability to flow in and out of a variety of settings with a diversity of peoples that makes life so interesting and, like iron sharpens iron, helps us to grow as people, grateful for the diversity in the body of Christ in all its color and splendor.

This diversity, this muttness in my background, is a great thrill for me and has enlarged my worldview, freeing me from the fetters of cultural, racial and ethnic isolationism. I am able to enlarge rather than withdraw my picture of the world and engage, embrace and grow from the diversity. I thank God for difference and distinction and don't want a world where all the cultures blend into one homogeneous stew just as I don't want a religion where everything is blended into one.

If everything was the same, how would we learn? If everything was the same, how dull and uninteresting would life be?

I am reminded, once again, of the following:

"When everyone knows good as good, this is not good." (DDJ, 2, Cleary translation)

My Qur'an...

This is my copy of the Qur'an. It is one of several translations I now own but his was the first. I bought it brand new in 1996. Had the receipt but have since misplaced it. This is well used and well worn, the back held together with a piece of cardboard and some packing tape.

Muslims do not do this with their Arabic versions. The Qur'an is held in such high esteem that it is not marked up, it is well protected and the hands must be clean to even touch the book.

A well worn and well marked Bible is a banner of sorts for the Christian. While the Bible is called and even revered as the word of God, it is not quite the same as the word of God as Muslims see it. The Qur'an is the word of God to a Muslim. It contains God's words as dictated to Muhammad via the angel Gabriel. Verbatim. This doesn't mean that God spoke Arabic, as such, but that in the original Arabic is the language in which God contained His message for mankind. The Qur'an, in its written form, contains these very words.

On the other hand, though there are some Christians who believe the same about the Bible, most Christians understand that though the Bible is referred to as the word of God it is in the sense that it is through the Bible we come to know God. It is through the word of God that we come to know the Word of God, the Logos, incarnate in Jesus Christ.

There is a certain equivalency to comparing the Qur'an and Jesus as the Word of God in each respective faith. Even the Qur'an calls Jesus the Word of God, or a Word from God, but this does not have the same meaning as the Christian understanding of the phrase.

For the Muslim, to say Jesus is a Word from God is to say that he is a Prophet and bears the message; but he himself is not that word. Granted, no other Prophet is called the/a word from God in the Qur'an (most likely due to the influence or awareness of the fact that the Christians with whom Muhammad came in contact referenced Jesus as 'word' in some fashion) but in terms of the overall message of the Qur'an it doesn't change the fact that he is the messenger, not the message. For the Christian, while Jesus may be the messenger, he is in fact the message.

So my Qur'an is beat up. I do have an Arabic version and several English translation/transliterations with the Arabic and English side by side but never got beyond a very basic familiarity with Arabic. Though there are concordances for the Qur'anic Arabic, there is no comparative Strong's or Thayer's concordance/lexicon with such mass appeal.

But I studied and studied and studied my translation as shown in the photo above. Over time, I got better at finding a suitable translation and found this translation to be a bit verbose, almost Old English in its diction. It's a bit stuffy. But it was the one I cut my teeth on and is sentimental for that reason.

I have, over time, read it completely, maybe not cover to cover like a novel (which isn't how it is to be read anyhow) but, though it's faded somewhat, I had a good grasp on its overall worldview as I sought to understand from a Muslim point of view, not from a polemical point of view.

And I have great respect for it. I believe it to be inspired and a viable spiritual path on its own. It will not show the Jesus of the Christian church but it most certainly has a consistent view of Jesus within in its own worldview.

And, as noted before, it does capture a certain "spirit" that I find lacking in Christianity and in this can glean inspiration from it. As Jesus said, the Spirit blows where it will. Who are we to deny the Spirit's presence, no matter how faint it may seem to us, in any other tradition?

Bottoming out again...

How can this be? After such a spiritual rush the past few weeks, it seems odd that I am feeling so low now. Has my perception changed? Am I being an ungrateful brat again? Were the past few weeks an illusion of the ego, a rush of emotion high on intellectual stimuli?

I really don't know.

All I know is that I feel lower now than I have in a long time. I suppose it is a step better than being completely numb, a state I had been in a for a long time previously. Maybe this is a necessary step of the epurging of the ego, a stripping of desire, not just to be free of stuff but to be free of attachment that makes us slave to emotions whether or good or bad. After all, there is a payoff to being in a bad mood, a reason to isolate ourselves, to crave attention and comfort either from others from whom we seek sympathy or solace or channeling these feelings into various forms of distractions.

We could channel the energy into positive things such as washing the dishes or exercise but how often we thrive on the mood itself because it gives us feeling.

Given the choice between being numb or in a bad mood, which would we prefer? Which makes us feel more alive?

Every so often, a single line from a song contains a universe within it, open to many interpretations. One of my favorite song lyrics ever is from the Goo Goo Doll's Iris:

"When everything seems like the movies, you bleed just to know you're alive."

Not sure what it means within the context of the song and am not sure it is about literal bleeding, even going so far as to analyze it in the context of cutting, as such, but it certainly captures the surreality of modern life. It's about numbness, certainly, but it seems to me to be more about the fact that most of us live our lives not here, not now, but in some illusion we buy into that is a work of fiction created from within and without.

Personally I hate being in a bad mood but I suppose I should listen to the energy of the mood and dig more deeply into why it is so. It isn't the event that put me in the bad mood necessarily as there was something already there triggered by the event.

That is the level we must get to in order to really move beyond being slave to the emotions. What lies beneath the veneer? Why am I so agitated, my mood so altered, by something that in the course of things really doesn't matter?

Call to Prayer...

Beginning sometime around 1996, my interest and love affair with Islam began. It was a great time of spiritual growth and my studies in Islam played a powerful role in this. Even today, I still have fond memories and find a certain sense of peace and presence of God when I reflect upon it.

One of my favorite things discovered during this time was hearing the Qur'an recited in its original Arabic. There is no question that English translations pale in comparison. Therefore, the debate over the "literal" meaning of the Qur'an does not take place in studying English translations as often happens in Biblical studies. Even studying the original Greek of the Bible is not the same as there is so much debate over which text is used in this study of the Bible.

While there is some debate over whether or not the Qur'an we have today is the same copy as existed in Muhammad's day, there is little question that whenever a final version was accepted, it has remained the only version to be copied. This version will be the same universally.

To hear it recited is a powerful tonic. I could listen to the call to prayer (adhan/azan) every day and never tire, as with Al-Fatihah, the first surah of the Qur'an.

Perhaps my favorite version I have come across is from the CD contained in Michael Sell's Approaching the Qur'an.

It is "recited" by Musrafa Ozcan Gunesdogdu, the winner of the Qur'an reading competition in Saudi Arabia in 1991. Some of his recitations can be found on YouTube.

Here is what it sounds like:

Is worry just lack of faith?

"For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, {as to} what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, {as to} what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?" (Matthew 6:25, Luke 12:22, cf. Matthew 6:31-34)

The Greek word for 'worried' means anxious, troubled with cares, care or provide for. The term does not render judgment to being anxious or troubled with cares. But caring takes energy. The Greek term for no (me) is used in the sense of "don't even think about it" rather than a negation of the thing itself. In other words, don't dwell on the concern. Concern and care is the human condition. We aren't to deny these things or feel guilt over them but are not to dwell upon them for where we focus, there are our concerns.

This is why Jesus tell us to seek first the kingdom of heaven. In so doing, the cares of this world will not consume us. When focusing on the cares of this world, it is too easy to be consumed and dragged down.

That is the goal.

But how do we do it that when the bills are piling up, when the job security is disappearing, when the bill collectors are daily at your door, when food is scarce and everything seems to be slipping away?

We often feel guilt when worrying, as if in so doing we lack faith. Perhaps in an idealistic sense, we have not yet attained that perfect faith. But it doesn't mean we lack faith. It isn't so black and white; it's more of a continuum.

Perhaps what worried us in the past doesn't worry us today and so our faith is actually stronger than it used to be but it isn't quite strong enough to bypass the worries of today. Perhaps in days to come what worries us today will not worry us tomorrow, even though the circumstances themselves may be no different.

So the kingdom of heaven, whatever that is, should be our focus. That is the goal. Without a goal of some kind we drift and are blown about like the wind, consumed with the things of this world which are never ending and are never resolving, any comfort and solace found only temporary.

The human soul longs for something long lasting, something eternal, absolute. It is what drives us and the reason that "things" never satisfy. In focusing on the kingdom of heaven, we help alleviate the problem of attachment and desire.

It is the desire, the craving, that is the trouble and it is freedom from desire that is one of the true commonalities of all religious traditions.

Too much...

With all this free music available to download and well over 100 GB of music stored on various hard drives, is it any wonder I can't listen to any of it?

There's something Daoist about this notion...

Smokin' weed...

Why did I dream about getting high last night? It's been over ten years. Could be the stress load, the addiction diverted, could be all the talk in the news about legalizing marijuana (a good move, if you ask me...though one has to wonder about the quality of the stuff should it be FDA approved) or the fact I was thinking about plasma donation and the warehouse I used to live in was right next door where I used to get high with the landlord and, late at night, climb up on the roof and sit for hours.

Were pot to be made legal, would my use, or lack thereof, change? Is it ethically, morally or spiritually wrong other than the fact that it's been made illegal?

Christians for Cannibis anyone?

Poems...

Not saying they are good poems or even poems at all but dug them up out of some old writings and found them interesting, even if only as expressions stamping times and places of my life.

Creativity (3/94 Missoula)

No substance
Being
The end.

To the Man on the 9th Floor (4/1/94 Portland)

Seeing
Not hearing
A transparent barrier
Not experiencing.

Listening
Not hearing
A transparent barrier
Not caring.

Two worlds
Lost in between.

Suicide

Why go on?

Exactly.

Four Months Ago (6/12/94 Youngstown)

I’ve gone to hell and back to get where I am right now.
I’m leaving on the first flight back tomorrow.

Serving You Since 1992 (Seattle, Safeway. 1994)

You serve me at the grocery store
But you never acknowledge me
As more than a customer.

Never once gave me a smile
Never once gave me a moment
To know how I feel
About you.

The Elf (1994 Seattle)

She’s tiny
And small
And smells
And crawls around the block
So fragile as to drift with the wind
Purity in another form.

A scavenger
For food to feed the insatiable hunger
That drives her that drove her that consumed her
And left her
Here.
Starving.

She walks below
And she walks
Beneath us
Protecting us from the coming monsoon.

She slides each napkin
Each Twinkie wrapper
Each cigarette butt
With her right foot
The pain causing her to grit her crystal teeth
Her powdery bones brittle
Her left foot providing the force
The trash providing the glide across the pavement
Enabling her to move to the can
(please put litter in its place)
Where no one (...chooses to...) will notice.

"I can’t bend down, my broken hip," she says
To no one in particular
Perhaps to God
Who doesn’t hear her cry
But still she believes.

As I bend effortlessly
To lend a hand
She gives me a look, a wink, a smile
She knows I know
We understand.
And she quietly
So quietly
Cleans up the trash
Left by the tie
The very tie that binds

The fear
Fear that she (we) is (are) one with us (her)
Is all that separates
Desperation from security.

Pushing a Broom (Youngstown, 8/10/05)

My soul fell out
Gone
Nowhere left to fall
Nothing left to fall
Naked as Adam
At the very moment
Where he tasted
For the first time
Felt
Sensed
Awakened
His soul emptied
Overwhelmed
By awareness
I was there
And there was nothing

Tremendous
Horrifying
Rushing
For a moment
Just a moment
Removed
Hovering
Suspended
Raw
With nothing
But a hollowness
My heart
A gaping hole
Never have I felt
So alone
Beyond alone
Only

My cover blown
Floating
I return
And feel the weight
Of the world
Now knowing
Protection
By its absence
So afraid
So alive

All I know
Is
I never
Want to feel
That
Way
Again.

Another weird dream...

I had this really weird dream. I’m not sure how I got there but I was part of a tour group that I didn’t know. I had kinda tagged along. I had no passport even though I was out of the country. I ended up in Dubai. This isn’t totally hard to figure out as I had just seen an image of Dubai’s planned skyscraper. But the weird thing was that it was like a computerized image in my dream. As the image panned all over the prominent photo op of Dubai, everything was computer graphic. It was real but it was computerized, everything precise, perfect, symmetrical. As it panned up the tower, I got dizzy because of the computer trickery. And yet here I was on some cart going up, like a rollercoaster ride. As it went up and up and up it went faster and faster and faster. And as I looked I got dizzy. As it reached the top and began to slow, I saw a square structure on top and it was the headquarter of KFC. The “star” on top was the Golden Arches. And then the descent.

At the bottom we were at the airport. As I went to speak with the woman about not having my passport I noticed these two women talking to one another (and they didn’t seem to acknowledge me) but they struck me as Tibetan, with dark, almost leathery skin, quite lovely. And then there was an English speaking woman and I was able to get through with no passport by signing a credit card slip for 78 cents, autographing in the wrong spot. There was a space for what should have been a “tip” but it said “bet.” Then I signed in the right spot on the bottom and I was home free.

As I walked through the airport, I noticed everyone was of the same skin and realized that they weren’t Arab so they must have been from the surrounding mountain region working at the airport. And it made me sad. I noticed the Coca Cola coolers and all the other trinkets found in American gas stations. And then my alarm went off.

East vs. West (especially the postmodern, neo-Protestant West)

"If one speaks of God it is always, for the Eastern Church, in the concrete...It is always the Trinity: Father, Son and Holy Ghost." (Vladimir Lossky, The Mystical Theology of the Eastern Church, p. 64)

Once again, I gravitate back to Lossky's works. In the church I attend I occasionally hear mention of the Trinity but it is almost a generic address. Father, Son and Holy Spirit are mentioned but there is no context. All focus is on Jesus. Father, Son, God, Lord and such terms are thrown into the mix of preaching, singing and praise and there is no clarity as to the significance of the terms. Maybe such a setting isn't really the place for this, I don't know. But it is one thing that has always troubled me and I struggled for years to make sense of it all, to find a way to filter these terms thrown about so loosely into a framework through which I could place my mind at ease and move beyond intellect into true worship.

I have finally been able to do so but in doing so I find myself at odds with the aversion to theology in neo-Protestant churches with theology and discussion on the Trinity primarily proof-texting, as if the Trinity is nothing short of obvious.

So I am re-reading Lossky's work and find some quotes that fit, though I'm not sure he was addressing this specifically.

"Likewise, the idea of beatitude has acquired in the West a silghtly intellectual emphasis, presenting itself in the guise of a vision of the essence of God. The personal relationship of man to the living God is no longer a relationship to the Trinity, but rather has as its object the person of Christ, who reveals to use the divine nature." (p. 64)

Now on the surface this seems like no big deal. In fact, I agree with this view of Christ. It is through him we come to know God but in so doing I have found the God we know is the Trinity. But Lossky brings up a good point and it is apparent in the recent arguments about Christ found throughout not just the church but the culture at large:

"Christian life and thought become christocentric, relying primarily on the humanity of the incarnate Word; one might almost that it is this which becomes their anchor of salvation." (pp. 64-5, bold mine)

This is exactly the state of the church today, especially the "evanglecical" variety (keeping in mind all churches are really evangelical in nature, it's just that "evangelical" has become something of a franchise or trademark). It is all about Jesus, the Trinity being spoken of "as a memory" (quoting Th. de Regnon in the footnote on p. 64).

"Indeed, in the doctrinal conditions peculiar to the West all properly theocentric speculation runs the risk of considering the nature before the persons and becoming a mysticism of 'the divine abyss'...; of becoming an impersonal apophaticism of the divine nothingness prior to the Trinity."

According to Lossky, there is no place in Eastern Orthodoxy for "a theology, much less a mysticism, of the divine essence" (p. 65).

"The goal of Orthodox spirituality [is] a participation in the divine life of the Holy Trinity..., possessing by grace all that the Holy Trinity possesses by nature." (p. 65)

As he says elsewhere, theology is not thinking about the Trinity but thinking in the Trinity.

So I'm torn. I appreciate the christocentric view as through coming to know Jesus more and more I've seen a change in my life, Jesus as example, imitation of Jesus. In this sense it is a personal relationship with Christ.

But I have also come to agree with the Trinitarian viewpoint over and above the other theologies (e.g. the Oneness Pentecostal background through which I spent my early years as a "new" Christian). In studying these other views it becomes much more clear as to how and why the Trinity developed as it did.

But as I repeat frequently, it is a hedge, a boundary, something we come to through experience; it is not where we begin. Where we begin is coming to know the cross of Christ and, more significantly, the risen Christ for without the risen Christ the cross becomes a theology of divine abuse.

First the high, then the low...

And so it goes that with a great revelation, a great experience in the presence of God that we come back "down" and find ourselves feeling alone. So great an experience comes with the withdrawal.

There is a great desire to share the experience but a sadness that comes in the inability to express it. Living it takes time and we seek the immediacy of talking about it and the disappointment that follows in our inability and lack of response from those to whom we talk about it.

And this is the ego talking. And this is the great trip up. We take pride in our experience and feel privileged, special. This isn't to say that we aren't those things but the trick of the ego is to isolate them and take them and hoard them out o need, desire, lack. We seek to make them "our" experience.

The difficulty comes in remaining humble. Just as we are not to react to negative circumstances or things that happen that make us uncomfortable, so too must we remain the same when we experience great things. This isn't to say we mustn't experience the joy as it is a Biblical injunction that we are to experience the "joy of the Lord" but to say that we must not dwell on it. Whatever we experience, whatever we feel, we must continue to move on.

Remember it, meditate on it, even share the lesson learned, but do not stay there as to stay there is to risk becoming static, allowing pride to puff up our ego, our intellect, the feeling of somehow being above others leads to us separating and isolating us from others.

I have been feeling low. Having had such a great experience over the past few weeks I let my guard down and allowed my ego to get the best of me, allowing myself to be frustrated which is just another way of saying being selfish and spoiled. I'm not getting what I want right now so I'm frustrated.

What is it I felt I wanted? Attention, profound writing, more attention, accomplishment, freedom from seemingly dead end work.

But what I really want is God. And this requires faith. Faith = trust. So my impatience is really a lack of trust.

And that, my friends, is humbling.

Is theology a luxury?

I remember talking to my professor of Islam about theology, though Islam doesn't really have "theology" proper in the way Christianity does which is primarily claming to know about the nature of God. For the most part, perhaps a few mystics or Traditionalists aside, Islam doesn't spend much time positing about the nature of God. God is clear in the Qur'an about Who He is and what is expected. God isn't someone we get to know personally as much as He is someone who is recognized for who He is and, as such, what we need to do to obey His commands. This is present in Christianity but in Christianity "theology" delves into the nature of God due to the fact of the Incarnation and the "who" that is revealed in Jesus.

But I do remember talking to him about the diversity found within the Islamic tradition and how scholars throughout the ages have debated and argued about the very things the Western media portrays stereotypically as a given. I wondered why Muslims weren't fighting to have this information fluorish and why it seems most Muslims are unaware of this, instead taking what the Imam says as the only way (something Christians are obviously guilty of as well).

His response was quite to the point: for many, maybe even most, Muslims, they are busy struggling to live life. Belief tends to be simple in such cases. Theology takes time; time is a luxury.

It's pretty apparent I have plenty of time and, given the number of books and websites and common knowledge of much of Christian theology in America, it appears that many, many Americans have plenty of time as well.

My wife puts it more simply: how does this make you a better person?

I will say, however, that the study of theology, balanced by wife's simple brilliance, has helped me immensely. For primarily financial reasons I was unable to attend grad school for advanced study of religion/theology. Probably a good thing because at the time I was torn between Oneness Pentecostalism and Islam and my personal relationship with God was, well, not a relationship but an intellectual adventure. I was still on the outside looking in.

I now see the truth about theology: it is experiential. If it is not, it is just theory. Revelation must be applied.

A Youth Hostel and the Dao De Jing...

It's the middle of 1993. Working in the cell phone industry which was just becoming huge, I was a top sales rep, making top commission, having just won top prize in a three month sales contest. I was in tight with the Vice President and played the part. All the bills were paid, I traveled on a regular basis, was in great shape and had no problem with the ladies. I had it all.

Yet my soul was restless. I was miserable. Having recently quit drinking, I had taken up smoking weed. Lots of it. Loved it. Calmed the nerves, mellowed me out. It may have had a lot to do with my decision later that year to quit my job cold turkey with no real plan other than to go. I'm not sure it was the factor or if smoking the weed put me in a frame of mind where I was no longer afraid to do what I had already planned on doing. But I announced it in late 1993.

I can almost guarantee that more than a few folks thought I was a bit insane.

In short, I packed up my car full of way too much stuff and hit the road. I had plenty of money saved and enough weed to last me a while.

Leaving out more than a few details (which will hopefully come back as I continue digging...), in early 1994, I had made my way to a youth hostel in Kellogg, Idaho. Even back then I was exploring abandoned buildings having spent quite a bit of time looking through an abandoned school and abandoned hospital next door to each other. Sadly, I took no pictures. In fact, of my whole year on the road, I have about four rolls of film, very few of them of people. I had some serious, serious issues with relationships.

Anyhow, I spent a night or two at the youth hostel, venturing up to Sun Valley to see about skiing (which I can't remember whether or not I did...).

One of the evenings, I was sitting on rocking chair on the balcony of the second floor reading a copy of Tom Cleary's translation of the Tao Te Ching, looking down a long with a granarie on the left and nothing but empty road beyond it. The sun was setting and it cast a rather peaceful glow on a quiet evening in a small town in Idaho.

I had picked up this book several months prior, prompted by I know nowt what but I was compelled to buy it. Might have been because I had found the Yin Yang symbol to be quite cool and was attracted to the philosophy behind. Might've been because it was exotic, somehow 'other' than what I knew. Could be that the drugs had been expanding my mind in that bent, gravitating toward the 'eastern' worldview, the exotica, the off the wall films and music that permeate drug culture.

I had left the heavy/hair metal music behind me and was drawn to such bands as Mazzy Star and Morphine, branching well beyond the usual fluff that makes its way into small town Midwest America.

So I have this book that I've been reading and it really doesn't make much sense but I try it and keep revisiting it periodically. I'm exhausted, having been on the road non-stop for months at a time, staying with friends, youth hostels, rest areas or camping. And I'm reading, rocking, staring off into the sunset, and all of a sudden I get it. Insight. The book makes complete sense. The entire thing. At once.

It was as if my entire soul just opened up and I stepped outside of myself and could see clearly what the book meant. It was the openness that enable me to grasp it. Once I was back inside myself and sought to understand it, the moment was gone. I was able to make sense of it now, the seed had been planted, but it was not the awe inspiring awareness of the totality of it that had come for those few moments while rocking in the chair in the sunset.

It was a pivotal moment. Something had changed in that instant. Having always been a "deep" thinker, I had never really been spiritual/religious, somewhat repulsed by the whole charade with the hucksters and jokers that inhabited the media landscape. But here I was, drawn to this little book, and my entire world changed.

But, as with many things in the spiritual walk, life did not get better from this point. We are often deluded into believing that somehow when we get 'religion' our lives will suddenly become betters, like waving a magic wand to remove all the troubles.

No, sometimes when we get such insight our troubles really begin because we see clearly. The openness leaves us vulnerable to change. We can no longer hide as we once did; we are no longer so innocent. We are now responsible. And we must face what it is from what we once hid.

But this is hindsight. It would be more than a few years until I would really "get it" and take the necessary steps to begin to change my life. But that moment was one that provided fuel and strength in order to do it. It was something of a "born again" or "new is creation" moment in the sense that I suddenly had a differnt lens through which to filter information and thus see and interpret the world.

At the time, it was sheer joy, total and complete bliss. And I was sober.

In Christ, new is creation...

"Therefore if any man [be] in Christ, [he is] a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new." (2 Cor 5:17, KJV)

"Therefore if anyone is in Christ, {he is} a new creature; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come." (2 Cor 5:17, NASB)

"For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creature." (Galatians 6:15, KJV)

"For neither is circumcision anything, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation." (Galatians 6:15, NASB)

In both cases, the Greek is kainos ktisis. Yet in the NASB one is translated "new creature" and the other as "new creation."

The term ktisis can be used as a general term for creation (cf. Romans 1:20).

I'm no expert in Greek but, if I remember correctly, 2 Corinthians 5:17 can read "new (is) creation." Notice the italics in 2 Corinthians 5:17 meaning that the words are not there but are added/implied in the translation.

This makes sense to me, at least in 2 Corinthians 5:17 even in the larger context of New Testament thought. It isn't that we obtain a new nature (after all, what nature would we receive?) but that our existing nature is infused with the Holy Spirit. This is the "born again" experience. It is the power of resurrection working in us. Our old nature is not tossed out, something disposable. In baptism it dies with Christ; in him the resurrection begins and continues through each of us who accept him.

We are given another set of eyes. We see creation anew. New is creation.

Even in Galatians 6:15 this also makes sense. In Christ, not only is man restored but, through man, in Christ, the entire creation is to be restored. This is consistent with Pauline thought:

"For we know that the whole creation (ktisis) groans and suffers the pains of childbirth together until now." (Romans 8:22)

This simply reveals the challenge of translation. There is always bias (not necessarily a bad or negative word) and a theological position behind any translation and it is thus also interpretation.

Yet there is also freedom in this. "New is creation" or "is a new creation" or "is a new creature" are all possibilities, creating a broad expanse of spiritual implications in each variation. Rather than Biblical literalism, why can we not accept that the Word is so much larger than the box we seek to put it in merely for our own comfort?

Zen Christian connection...

Just musing on this at work today. I have plenty of time. Imagine putting a part on a machine press, pushing a button, taking the part off and putting it in a box and doing it over and over again for eight hours. The mind tends to drift. Fortunately, it drifts toward positive things.

My epiphany at the top of Yosemite Falls was in the context of immersion in the Dao De Jing. Not exactly Zen but I was well on my way.

I have healed in the context of the Christian path and was thinking about the similarity/difference. From my Christian point of view, I think of it as the light shining in darkness and exposing it, a bright light yielding insight and clarity that comes in a flash. Though I can't process the entirety of it, I "see" it.

In the context of the Dao or Zen, it isn't a light, as such, but a moment of insight and clarity that comes "in a flash." No light. It just is.

In Zen we find there is no "thing" there. It is a stripping away of the layers and layers and years and years of accumulation, of attachment and desires.

In Christianity there is some "thing" there and that "thing" is a Person. We might say we find some "one" there.

But is this 'person' merely a projection of our deepest needs and desires collectively? Is it personalizing the impersonal? Or is there a real person there to whom we conform?

Is this what makes people uncomfortable (or comfortable)?

In Christ, our nature is replaced, admittedly broken.

In Zen, there is no new nature, merely dusting off the original one. There is no admittance of broken. There is nothing to be separated from. There is no relationship.

So there is a point in which experience, at the depths of two traditions, seem to bare similarities. And yet there are differences. The two opposing poles of similarity and difference swirling around the strange attractor beyond which can only be experienced.

There is hope...

In looking back at the distorted filter through which I perceived my life, I realize that there was a moment where hope burst through. It had always been there; I couldn't see it. I was not abused at home. I came from a very loving home, well protected, solid roots. But I was unable to receive nor give love except out of lack. I created a persona that was real on some level but there was a soul sucking force beneath me that bled this persona, a constant battle waging in my soul, depression, sarcasm, cynicism all protective barriers, ammunition against anyone seeking to get in.

Yet there is hope. I entered the stream, to use Buddhist parlance, in early 1994 at a Youth Hostel in Kellogg, Idaho, light bursting through my soul at the top of Yosemite Falls in Yosemite National Park. It fell upon deep, dark soil. However, the thorns and the weeds surrounding this seed was choking the life out of me, trying to prevent the seed from growing.

But it took root. I now had a new frame of reference, an experience to which I could refer that was positive, uplifting, ultimate, blissful even. It was a pivotal moment.

To Do List...

We live in an age where there is so much information that we’ve actually run out of things to say. To do lists become best sellers. Interesting, sure. But we’re still talking about to do lists, analyzing every trivial detail of our existence, those things once considered mundane now considered of serious discussion. Information overload, reductionism taken to its logical end.

Those significant things, things costing lives, things causing pain and suffering in others, are sometimes too much to handle so we focus on the trivial. War in Iraq? We’ll complain and moan but it’s way too much to deal with so we immerse ourselves in to do lists which, by the way, never contain such things as "Protest war at local court house" or "Travel to Washington to protest" but contain such things as upgrade cell phone or pick up dog food. How many of our to do lists contain things such as "Help at local soup kitchen" or "travel to India" not to see the Taj Mahal but to work with the poor in the slums? How many of our to do lists are "other" oriented?

I do it. We all do it. That's why it's interesting.

But it's often easier to argue about theology, or to do lists, than deal with the real world stuff, the messy, tangible, dingy, nasty, filthy shit that is in the world. Although maybe the to do list is the real world.

Seattle...1994...

I can't believe that 15 years have passed. In February of 1994 I left the comfort and familiarity of home for the open road. Having always done what (I thought) was expected of me, I had done just enough to get by, always longing for some form of escape (usually chemical in nature).

Somehow I had managed to graduate from college with decent, certainly not stellar, grades and had landed a sales job in the burgeoning cellular telephone industry. Somehow I managed to do quite well for a twentysomething and made quite a bit of money. In hindsight, it wasn't a lot of money but considering material things never mattered much I stockpiled money.

It was during this time that my issues began to blossom. I reached full blown alchoholic status during this time. It seemed the more successful I became the further away my sense of self appeared from "above" and thus the farther to fall. I ran headlong into the insanities of the bottle. To make matters worse I lived about a block away from my local bar where I hung with my drinking buddy and I was, uh, close to the bartender and drank for free. Cliff and Norm were we. We'd give a $10 bill to pay for the liquor and get a $5 and 5 $1 bills in return. At the end of the night it was nothing to leave a pile of money on the counter for a tip. Jack Daniel shots were lined up and I'd knock 'em down one after the other.

It was during this time that the blackouts began, waking up in the morning and not remembering getting home, ending up in strange apartments, finding strange people in my apartment, doing really strange things. I began sleeping in 'til late morning, showing up at work to make an appearance and going back home to bed to do it all again. It wasn't until I almost lost my job that I quit drinking. I quit cold turkey. But not really.

It was also at this time that the shift from alcohol to drugs began. I don't remember exactly how but I soon learned of other employees who smoked weed on a regular basis. Looking for another distraction and really not caring I decided to give it a whirl. A new love affair had begun.

Stages of cool...

A question had popped up in my Facebook asking for 15 albums that changed my life and to list them within 15 minutes. I made the list and revisited one of the albums today. Peter Gabriel's Security (the U.S. title; everywhere else it was simply Peter Gabriel or Peter Gabriel 4).

Jon Wolf, older brother of Mike Wolf, whose house I spent the night at, who was my first (and only) fight because I called his girlfriend a scum in 7th grade, recommended this to me. He mentioned that Peter Gabriel was an expert at synthesizers and that sounded really cool even though I had no clue what he was talking about. So I went out and bought the cassette. I had the 45 single of "Shock the Monkey" and loved the B-side track.

Up until this point, the general interest was KISS Alive II, Van Halen's Diver Down, AC/DC's Back and Black and Top 40 radio. Lightweight, trapped in the insulated bubble of suburbia.

However, having been raised on a healthy of mix of outlaw country music, Gordon Lightfoot and early Jimmy Buffett (all on 8 track tapes, mind you) my little world began to expand. Perhaps the earliest album that infiltrated my naivete was Pink Floyd's The Wall . I remember playing "Another Brick in the Wall" and having my dad comment what a stupid song it was.

I have happy reminisces about listening to WDMT, an urban radio station out of Cleveland, in the early 1980s on my little clock radio, recording rap songs with an old tape recorder. Long before Run DMC hit the big time and brought rap music to the mainstream en masse, Grandmaster Flash's "The Message" freaked me out when I heard lyrics such as "junkies in the alley with baseball bat" and had horrific images of what this meant (most likely formed by stereotypes reinforced either by television or through attrition in the fears of suburbia). Morris Day and The Time's "The Walk" introduced me to funky, the lyrics which caused endless hours of laughter and curiosity. I still had a tape up of a bunch of these songs until a few years ago where it has since disappeared.

Anyhow, while these seeds of eclecticism were still budding, Peter Gabriel's music took what I was hearing one step deeper and one step beyond. The year is 1982.

The Security album set me free. The first track, with its thundering drums and exotic sounds, were unlike anything I had ever heard. I played it and played it and played it. My world changed. Lyrics included such words as "mitigating circumstances", "cynical bite" and "Hippocratic oath" that expanded my awareness of what music could do and say.

Though I would still surf the pop music wave for quite some time, it was this album that seeded my interest in world music and music outside of the mainstream.

I really didn't get into "alternative" music until my freshman year in college when I would encounter the Violent Femmes, the Smiths, early hardcore punk, the Beastie Boys and early college rock. It was then that I was on my way and I would eventually leave Top 40 pop music in the dust. I had found music that spoke to me; I had voices speaking for me.

I saw him in concert twice, once in the second row of the Pittsburgh Civic Arena with Youssou N'Dour opening on his So tour. I absolutely loved Youssou. I will never forget the freshness of these artists from South Africa, dressed in their bright, colorful clothing and dancing so freely. I didn't understand a word they said but loved it. We fed off of them and they fed off of us, a bunch of goofy suburban white kids dancing to this "exotic" music.

The show itself was one of the best concerts I had ever seen. The songs didn't sound like the versions on the album. They were fresh. Peter Gabriel performed as an artist, a far cry from the rock n roll shows I had seen previously where the songs sounded like the albums, or worse. No, Peter Gabriel was, and still is, an artist, the standard by which I would measure other concerts. No longer would I throw money away at glorified bar bands. I suppose I developed musical "taste" (or snobbery, not sure which).

I have a piece of his shirt from this show. What the hell was I thinking? During this song he stage dives (long before stage diving became popular...) into the audience and the hands carry him around the arena. Not this time. I don't know if it was just me but I grabbed his shirt and wouldn't let go. It ripped. I still have it, like a vampire, like a groupie. When he got back on stage, shirt torn, he stared right at me and smiled. Or smirked a knowing smile. What an embarrassment. Rather than surf the crowd he got to the second row.

Loved the show; this moment is what I remember. My filter is whack. I hold onto those things that carry pangs of regret, shame, guilt, embarrassment. Yet these too are my ego holding on to some notion of who I am that is false. This is becoming ever so clear. At some point I hope to laugh at them, not out of spite, not out of shame or embarrassment, but of genuine laughter at the clarify of seeing the illusion in them, a true sign of being healed.

I remember a classmate's obsession with Rush, a group I had never heard of before his mention of them, and another classmate's infatuation with Bono from U2 in 1983 (same year as the book jacket in my other post), another group I had never heard of until that moment.

I was never cool. Still not. Which is cool.

Let the healing process unfold...

I am an...

The photo shows the inside of my high school notebook. Actual beer cans, cut in half and inserted. Actual Jack Daniel label. This whole shining a light into my past thing is a bit freaky because I'm beginning to really see it from the inside out.

The title of this post refers to one of my book jackets that I transferred from book to book. Remember when you had to buy (or were they given?) the slipcovers to protect the books? The photo below is mine from my sophomore year. Yes, I still have it. Even in the midst of the madness there was creative outlet.

Here are some of the sayings:

"Blow your mind. Play Russian rhoulette."

"Sit on it and rotate" (with a drawing of a hand flipping the bird)

"Life is massive confusion."

"Kiss my ass."

You get the picture.

Somewhere on there I had written "I am an asshole." I remember showing this to a girl in trig class. She looked at me as if I was insane. What would possess me to do that? Attention? Certainly. A frightened child crying out? Certainly. These are the things that preoccupied my mind.

The other things that preoccupied my mind were music, stories and my addictions.

I do know one thing. I was well aware of the smallness of my white bread, suburban existence. Though I am now grateful for it and realize the insulation provided me the luxury of wallowing in self-imposed despair and provided me a foundation to function in the world, at the time I knew something was wrong. Didn't know what, but knew there was a smallness that was too confining.

I took the time to cut this comic strip of Bloom County (one of the best comic strips ever, retired way too early...) and paste it in my notebook:

Milo Bloom: You know. I can't seem to shake the feeling that Charles and Di are too...something.

The way they walk, talk...dress...sit...laugh delicately...it's vague...abstract...I can't put my finger on it -

They're just too...too something. Just too...too...

Oliver Wendell Jones: ...white.

Milo Bloom (slapping knee): That's it!

A great cleansing is occurring. I am relaying my foundation. Shining the light on all of these things and what they represent helps me to let them go. No longer does my past have this hold on me, this black hole filled with infinite darkness, the cancer sucking the life blood out of my soul. Healing is taking place.

I see why people write memoirs, why people join AA, why people feel the call to preach. I go back to move forward. This healing is an amazing process.

Being born again is much more than just a metaphor, more than just symbolic.

Faith, hope and charity are so much more than just wedding vows.

Is Jesus God?

I've come to the conclusion that statement doesn't mean anything. Why? People, all people, have some notion of 'God'. However, the word 'God' is generic. It basically means deity or a 'higher power' or 'the big guy in the sky' or 'the Other'. So we all have some notion of God. It is formed in many ways, whether a childhood steeped in religion or learning about God from The Simpsons (a spot on caricature of all the stereotypes we tend to hold about God).

So we hear "Jesus is God" or ask whether or not Jesus is God. And we come to this statement/question with all of our beliefs about who or what God is and we say 'No.' We reject the notion. And, in my opinion, rightfully so. Though not as you may think.

Is he divine?

Again, what do we mean by divine? What exactly do we come with to the word 'divine'?

But this is the wrong approach, just as it is the wrong approach to indoctrinate people in the Christian tradition into the Trinity. We have no framework within which to comprehend these doctrines. No, the reality is that to come to terms with what these doctrines mean we must learn them, over time, walking in them, experiencing life through the Christian tradition, following the traditions of the Church, the teachings of the Bible and, yes, doctrine.

But the Trinity is a hedge, the end of the dialectic if you wish, the final say on all the other varieties of Christian response throughout the ages that seek to answer the question: who was Jesus?

Got an answer? There's a doctrine for you somewhere in Christian history. Oneness Pentecostals? Try Modalism. Jesus is not God but is the highest among God's creation? Try Arianism. Take your pick.

The Trinity is, by and large, the end result of all of this. Is this the 'core' of the Christian message? Is this what Jesus came to teach? Of course not. It is a framework through which to understand what he did teach.

Without a framework, what is the standard by which we measure our comprehension of his message? Are we, i.e. Man, the measure? Do we alone determine the validity of his message? If not us, who?

So is Jesus God? I would say we come to know who God is by coming to know who Jesus is. If we go through, say, Islam, we come to understand God in a different way. If we come to know God through our own interpretation, we see God differently. This may be obvious. But it is a critical point. The way we come to understand God is a determining factor of not only how we understand God but how we behave in the world.

And this means everything.

Dealing with the past...

When a wound from the past takes you back thirty years and when that wound is exposed, opened wide to the bright light of day, and then healed, there is a long process that comes because there are thirty years of scars that have had the band aids, those former identities, removed.

It is incredible to look and see exactly how that impacted every decision I have ever made, perhaps not directly to each situation but, due to the frame of mind and state of my soul, decisions were made through a distorted filter, stemming from a bottomless darkness.

Hurt people hurt people.

But once light enters and exposes the depths of that darkness, displacing it, suddenly everything becomes clear. No longer does the mystery have a hold on you, no longer are decisions made unaware. Decisions can be made from a positive place, rather than a no place.

Rather than consumers, takers, users, we are able to give, to share, to love.

Strange dream...

I'm cruising on the East Side of Youngstown which, when you get out far enough, is basically country, and I come to what looks a like a track and I notice cars lining up and parking and I have this strange feeling that something is strange. I pull over and get out and a guy comes up to me offering me bagged Starbucks. I say no and he mumbles and keeps on walking. So I start walking around the track and hear some commotion on one end of the track so I walk toward it. I notice that there are dark SUVs pulling up and I know it's the Feds.

As I move toward the end where the commotion is, I hear gun shots. So I duck against a wall (we are now in a gymnasium...) where I bump a shopping car filled with pennies that rolls away and falls down to the next level. More gunshots and I see the Feds moving in to arrest someone. As I look more closely, trying to see who it is, I notice it is the Brown M&M in handcuffs.

And I wake up...

Strange.

Debt to income ratio...

Debt:

Four times my income. Whatever your income is, multiply it by four.

And this does not include the mortgage (with taxes and insurance) nor the daily living expenses (auto insurance, utilities, food, fuel, etc.).

Think about that.

Wow.

Worst (or perhaps best) case scenario, assuming nothing changes:

As it currently stands, debt one will be paid off in the year 2015.

As it currently stands, debt two will be paid off in the year 2024.

And we live simply. Modest house. Modest car (one of which is paid for...). Simple clothes. Simple diet. Rarely eat out. Pizza is a luxury.

How does it get to this? And how, at 40, does one not look back and think, what is the point?

And a Springsteen song pops into my head...

"Now judge I had debts no honest man could pay..."

From the song "Johnny 99", a song about Johnny...

"...wavin’ his gun around and threatenin’ to blow his top."

For some, fairly obvious reason, there is resonance there at an uncomfortable level.

But hope it not gone.

It's just that faith is messy.

And I have this illusion entrenched, indoctrinated even, that some day life will be comfortable, kicking back on easy street, living off the interest of my ever ascending IRA.

But life is never easy. And this illusion of kicking back is a destructive one. It's a myth. It's a lie.

The reality is that we all struggle. Some more than others. The reality is that the figures above are probably representative of many, the silent majority. The deeper reality is that we are well off. Very well off. What we often see as complaints are in fact the luxuries of many.

Our debt (personally and collectively) is symbolic of a deeper problem - selfishness. I want what I want and I want it now, consequences be damned.

The way out is not to make more money (even though it will certainly pay down debt). The way out is to give out of what we have. Not sure how that works but I can see it, though dimly, blurry, vaguely, ok, darkly.

So has my faith really gotten stronger? If so, it it simply out of desperation? Or has my faith gotten stronger in spite of my circumstances?

Better yet, am I finding true faith, faith that comes in the midst of the circumstances, the source of strength and not a default?

So I remain grateful, trying to see the debt thing not as the end of the line but as a puzzle, a mystery, a challenge to overcome, to rise above, to conquer.

And the key is to find joy in the midst of the storm. If in fact happiness hinges upon the 'comfortable' life, upon things external, then we will never be happy. Ever. But to find joy, not happiness, in the midst, therein lies the key.

"For where two or three have gathered together in My name, I am there in their midst." (Matthew 18:20)

Faith may be messy, it may often be mysterious, but one thing is for certain - it is relevant.

Life, faith, love, health, sanity. Blessed are we.

Addiction...

10 years old.

Friend's basement. Older brother. Abusive home.

Flashlight. Laughter. Humiliation.

Penthouse. Playboy. Innocence lost.

Introversion. Anger. Rage.

14 years old.

Confusion. Identity. Self-hatred.

Video games. Dr. Pepper.

Vivarin. Unisom. Neo Synephrine.

Pornography. Alcohol.

20 years old.

Drugs. Eye drops.

Numbness. Darkness. Despair.

30 years old.

Struggle.

Internet. Image. Seared.

Pain. Scarred. Scared.

One moment. Thirty years.

40 years old. Light. New life...




© 2009 Art Ort Ink