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Valentine''s Day the Christian Way.. Christ''s Mass - Freedom and Unity.. Gay Christians in a Church that Hates Them.. Thanksgiving, Genocide, and Christian Culpability..
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Valentine's Day the Christian Way
Love Is.... As we enter into yet another Valentine’s Day, I find myself reflecting on love. I suppose that is what men are supposed to do – reflect on love. That and we are supposed to buy chocolates and flowers and thus convey the deep secret thoughts of our hearts via dead plants and calories. However, I can’t help but think about all the people that won’t be getting a Valentine’s Day bouquet or card today. This isn’t some “feel sorry for the singles” thought – I am far too male and insensitive for that. But I am thinking that our society has so wrapped up the idea of “romance” with the word LOVE that our day set aside for love has really served only to be that day when singles feel the full weight of their singlehood. The tragic lie that love is a feeling and that love is passive – and object seeking rather than active and self-sacrificing is propagated by Hollywood and is evident most on this day for “Lovers.”
Today we should reflect on our assumptions about love. Is it simply a matter of finding Mr. or Miss Right? Is love that lasts a lifetime a matter of dumb luck – and couples that stay together just lucky? Is love a feeling that can die away in a relationship? What do we think we must do in the area of love? Do we think of ourselves as objects? Do we think that if we improve on ourselves that we will become more lovable? Perhaps if we work out harder, lose a few extra pounds, change our hairstyle, get nicer clothes, get a promotion, or learn to be a little more charismatic, we will be more lovable? Can you see how these self improvement ideas betray the fact that we even think of ourselves as objects when it comes to love? We think of love as passive – that we just must become lovable. We think that love is a natural feeling and response to an object.
This explains our tragic divorce rate. This explains why so many children end up in single parent households. This explains why so many fathers leave their children and fail to pay to support their children. The person who once was the “object” of their undying love somehow changed and became less lovable.
This view – the object oriented love ideal – is a lie from Satan. It is un-biblical. It is nowhere supported in scripture. It is at no time more evident than it is at the holidays, especially Valentine’s Day, when single people are made to feel like they are less than because they are either not an object of love or have no object on which to let their love grow. The truth is, we are all called to LOVE EVERYONE. It matters little whether you are single or married. We are called to develop the faculty of love within us. Love is an active word – it requires action. Love is no emotion. Love is not a feeling that produces songs and tears and romance. Love is a decision that leads to the self-forgetfulness commonplace in saints and historical icons like Mother Teresa and Martin Luther King Jr. Is it the romantic life of those people we remember? I dare say it is not.
Let us close with a look at the Bible’s teaching on love in 1 Corinthians 13: 4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails.
Today, as we see the world’s version of love celebrated in frivolous spending and shallow gift exchanges, let us be ever mindful of the self-sacraficial requirements of true Christian love. May the God of the universe touch your heart and make you an instrument of love in an ever widening sphere of influence.
In Christ’s Love,
Kyle Roy
Christ's Mass - Freedom and Unity
Midnight Mass
I had the pleasure of being at the Syracuse Cathedral for midnight mass yesterday to celebrate Christmas, and I am very happy to have made it there with my girlfriend. I spend so much time in various protestant church services that the beauty and antiquity of the mass made church at Christmas the special occasion it should be for everyone.
Often times I get very comfortable worshiping in the way I want to worship, and I forget that the worship is unto God, for God, and not for me or my enjoyment. The solemn setting and the deliberate Tradition in the offering of Holy Mass made me slow down and really let the meaning of Christmas sink in. Not that I don't enjoy the solemnity of Mass. On this day, it was just what was needed.
The Bishop spoke about Christmas as not just a celebration of the birth of Christ in history - as a commemoration of an event 2000 years ago. He called us as Christians to remember that Christ is born in our lives and we are called to be Christ to those around us all year long. He touched on the fact that as the Roman Emperor was living in palatial opulence, and the Roman Legions were crossing the Roman Empire enforcing the decrees of the Emperor and Territorial Prelates, a different world order was emerging in a lowly feed-trough in a barn in a backwater province of the empire. When the Christ was born, even as the most powerful men on earth were gaining strength, a new plan emerged. Up from humble birth came a man who would say that the lowly, the meek, the homeless, the poor, the sick, the handicapped, the oppressed were the loved ones of God. He came to proclaim freedom, equality, peace, and love in place of war, oppression, hatred, power-lust, and self-promotion. Just as Christ was born 2000 years ago, he is born each day in our hearts. Just as he worked tirelessly to bring freedom to the oppressed masses, so must we work our entire lives to do the same. Just as the fullness of God came to earth small enough to fit in a lowly cattle trough, the same God comes each mass into our bodies and hearts as we accept the fullness of God into our lives by the participation in Holy Communion.
It is my prayer that we all can slow down to let this sink in. I pray that each of us looks at the obligation that comes with the Christmas holiday. Are we dwelling on a paradigm of success that causes us to look unto the palatial opulence of the Emperors of our times, or are we looking for Christ in the byways and back alleys of our cities - looking always where to give away our money instead of where to make it? May Jesus Christ enter our hearts and bodies and souls this Christmas and revive the true Christianity he always intended. In the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit.
Amen. 
Gay Christians in a Church that Hates Them
Love thy Neighbor
I have been thinking about how much I really love Jesus lately. What I mean is, how much does my relationship cost me. Jesus loved those who the religious community shunned and considered vile and wretched - such as the tax collectors, prostitutes, adulterers, and lepers. I was wondering, who is it that our modern-day Pharisees cast out of the human family as unclean. The answer, unfortunately, is not easy. The modern church simply seems to condemn and exclude (institutionally if not expressly) so many people. The social cost, then, for a Christian, is that it is quite possible that in order to imitate Christ, he may have to be hated by many Christians. If it is possible to think like Christ, though, that would be of little consequence. A physician does not work to heal those who think they are well. Only those who recognize their sickness and seek treatment will benefit. Unfortunately, many of the wounds and illnesses that must be treated are inflicted by those who call themselves Christians.
When I look specifically at the issue of homosexuality and Christian doctrine, I am appalled at how so many churches treat the issue. The strangest thing is that the churches which preach sola fide et sola gratis (salvation by faith only through grace only) are the most frequent to institutionally discriminate and actively condemn homosexuality as a separate or more aggrieveous sin. It would be untrue for me to say that I don't think homosexuality is a sin. That the bible considers it sin is obvious and the condemnation is consistent in the old and new testament. However, sexual sin in general is preached against in the old and new testament - and the standard is so high that nobody - gay or straight - is without sexual sin. It is strange to me that churches will refuse membership to gay monogamous couples, but encourage membership of straight people without a single question as to their sexual behaviour.
Often the anti-gay preaching is based on the theory that being gay is an especially grievous sin - an abomination according to the KJV translation. This argument is theologically weak, as the translation is a poor one, and there are many abominations which the church does not discriminate against. I will give a brief survey of the "abominable" sins in the next post to show that if we are going to exclude homosexuality on the basis of it being especially bad, we'll also have to exclude anyone with an interest-bearing investment account. At any rate, for evangelicals to be consistent, either they must preach that faith is all you need - and include any gay member or couple who professes Christ, or they must abandon their faith only doctrine and replace it with a works-based salvation doctrine and start excluding many, many, many more persons.
Either the church needs to embrace the gay community for what it is - a community of Gods children who are loved as precious members of the human family and who are in need of the loving salvation that Christ offers, or the church needs to be consistent and cast out all sinners. The former is Christ's way and the latter would prevent Christianity from having a single member.
Heavenly father, I ask you to forgive me for my bigotry, intolerance, and ignorance. I ask in the name of your son, Jesus the Christ, that you forgive your failing and hateful church, and move us by the power of the holy spirit to love all our neighbors and to welcome all who seek in to the communion of the saints. In Christ's precious name, AMEN.
Thanksgiving, Genocide, and Christian Culpability
 Happy Thanksgiving!
As this annual celebration arrives this year, I am working at the rehab center, celebrating the holiday with the people who have experienced the true wreckage that is visited upon lives of reckless abundance. I can't help but reflect on what cost has been paid for us Americans to celebrate this joyous occasion. I've included a beautiful black and white painting which commemorates that mythical first thanksgiving shared between the christian pilgrims, and the helpful natives. It is such a beautiful thought, western expansionist colonialism and native people living together peacefully. Unfortunately, this only existed in the mythical memories of white folks and is perpetuated by elementary school teachers all across this nation. In order to feel good about all that God has blessed us with in this nation, it seems that we need to create a Godly and happy mythology about how it all came about. Unfortunately, this myth obscures the fact that only America is better, historically, at genocide than Hitler was. The fact is, we slaughtered native Americans - men, women, and children - and we did this in the name of Christ.
Throughout the history of Christianity and Judaism, the people in power have always used selective texts within the bible in an attempt to justify their own sins. The Jews did it to justify their massacres in Palestine, the Catholics did it to justify the atrocities committed against the Muslims and Sephardic Jews in Spain, and the Protestants have not missed a beat - using Jesus to justify human rights violations almost constantly from the founding of this great nation forward. As we celebrate this holiday, we should perhaps pause to repent for the sins of our fathers. Perhaps we should ask the world to forgive us and beg God to forgive us for associating his name with such a profane, blasphemous, violent, and wilfully ignorant past. Perhaps as we dine on our abundance, we will think of those all around this world who will not eat today. As we crowd the malls tomorrow perhaps we will think of the children that work in slave-wage conditions in sweat shops to make our Christmas presents. Perhaps we can pause long enough to just think a little. Perhaps we will think about what our biblical assumptions are really based on. Do we justify our prejudices with the bible, or allow the bible to erase our prejudices? Do we read our own wants into scripture or transfer our wants with scripture? May the God of the universe, through his son Jesus Christ, forgive Christians of our violence perpetrated in His holy name. May we be washed clean, forgiven, and may a revival in America lead our wayward souls back to a holy and just form of religion and a more global view of justice. Amen. God bless you and may you and your family have a wonderful Thanksgiving.
The Magic Of Prayer
 Some churches, of the "name it claim it" variety, will preach about how we Christians can speak things into existence, just as God did in creation. They base this on a strange exegetical gymnastics dismount off of Romans 4:17. I used to, being the arrogant man I am, make fun of such people. I would (and still do) say that all you need to do to defeat that doctrine is go up to the one preaching it and claim his car, house, or wife, in Jesus name. That would shut him up. He may say those things aren't in God's will so I can't claim them in Jesus name. I would reply, of course. So why are you even preaching the message. Christ said it all when he said "...not My will but Thine be done."
However, you may notice in this post's picture, there are people in it. There's me, and then there's someone else who is much prettier than me. You may notice I have not posted anything in some time. You may also notice that my last 3 posts prior to me going quiet were all about how God calls us Christians to love one another. I had been praying for a good Christian girlfriend for some time. God kept saying wait. Then, after spend a few weeks meditating on how far I fall short of God's standards, and how much I need to learn about love, it wasn't a week until I met a woman that has to this point blown me away. I don't want to be sappy, but God has never created a more perfect woman. We get along famously. Anyway, I just find it very interesting, now that I have a few minutes to consider re-visiting my blog, that I see a pattern. I pray, I meditate on God's word, and then when my heart is ready, God brings an answer to my prayer that is such a perfect answer that, had I been in charge, I couldn't have chosen better. No, we aren't married. No, I am not buying a ring. No, we aren't shacked up. We are just dating and doing our best to do that according to our mutual understanding of what that means for two christian single people. My point is, how perfect a way to close out a little series on love? In the end, God knows us better than we know ourselves. It seems that his answer to our prayers is far better than our own expectations. There are three loves in the bible; Phileo, Eros, and Agape. The first is brotherly love, the final is Godly love, and the middle is, well, that's why boys like girls. This relationship is teaching me what Godly eros love means, and the process is teaching me more about Christ's love for me.
Next series - on getting a million dollars and a book deal. Think it'll work?
What's Love Got to Do With It?
 "A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." Jn 13:34-35
Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for your brothers, love one another deeply, from the heart. 1 Pe 1:22
Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 1Jn 4:7
By this we know love, because he lay down His life for us. And we also ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. 1 Jn 3:16
It could not be clearer, it is our Love that measures whether or not we are truly of God. Jesus says to his disciples that this love for each other would be the distinguishing mark of the Christians that separated them from the world. We are also told that love is of God, and anyone that loves is born of God, and knows God. The opposite can be inferred from the statement. Specifically, anyone who does NOT love, is NOT born of God and does NOT know God. What a very sorry and sobering reality this is! When I see that the ideal of human love is exemplified by Christ laying down his life for me, I immediately become aware that I fall terribly short of God's plan for love in my life! We are told to lay down our lives for the brethren, but more often I am worried about myself.
The Christian obligation to love that I am looking at here is different from the evangelical love that is outward directed - to the "un-converted." This love is inward directed and is supposed to be the unifying thread that unites the earthly church - the body of Christ. In the absence of this love, the ligaments in Christ's body have been made of doctrine, dogma, "Tradition," and other empty and man-made ritual requirements. This, however, has only further fractured our unity and has erected seemingly impenetrable walls of doctrine between the various parts of Christ's body - the universal Christian Church. We hear the pope say that all non Romans are in "wounded" communities, and that nothing but the Roman Church is a church at all. He establishes a non biblical definition of apostolic succession as a requirement for church existence, and then uses this to separate his Church from all others. The reformed movement, similarly, erects the doctrine of sola fide et sole gratis (faith alone by grace alone) and then eliminates the merits of spiritual fruit (works) and condemns any works as un-christian. By this, they exclude Romans from their definition of Christianity. The Pentecostal movement, similarly, erects an un-scriptural view of the effects of baptism in the holy spirit - and then establishes by inference that if you are saved and sealed with the holy spirit then your outward manifestation of the spirit will look like theirs. By doing this, they remove non-charismatics from the body of Christ - or at best, they call them "dead members." Then there's my people - the "Saved and Sanctified" crew. We put sanctification on par with initial salvation, and fear that if works aren't present, the evidence for your salvation is lacking. By this we exclude many Calvinists from full union with the Body of Christ.
The sad fact is that if we really wanted a true picture of the current body of Christ, we'd have to picture a bloody body with an axe in each hand, and each hand trying to sever all other parts of the body away from it. From this, I call us back to the statement that the world will know us by the love we have for one another; and also the statement that if we have not love, we know not God. I would say that love - not doctrinal differences - is what the church needs to start preaching. As long as we all believe in the central unalterable truths of Christianity: that our salvation is through Jesus Christ, who was God and Man; that sins are atoned for by His death, and that we are freed from them by his Resurrection; that God accepts us if we believe in Christ; and that our Love of God and others is shown by our absolute obedience and submission to His word, then what church we go to matters not the least. What matters is how that experience affects our life.
May the Lord our God and His Son Jesus Christ have mercy on us and forgive us of our hatred. May He purify our hearts and pour out his Spirit on His Church to revive Godly obedience to his command of Love in all our hearts! Amen.
Evangelical Love
 The teachers of the law and the Pharisees brought in a woman caught in adultery. They made her stand before the group and said to Jesus, "Teacher, this woman was caught in the act of adultery. In the Law Moses commanded us to stone such women. Now what do you say?" They were using this question as a trap, in order to have a basis for accusing him.
But Jesus bent down and started to write on the ground with his finger. When they kept on questioning him, he straightened up and said to them, "If any one of you is without sin, let him be the first to throw a stone at her." Again he stooped down and wrote on the ground.
At this, those who heard began to go away one at a time, the older ones first, until only Jesus was left, with the woman still standing there. Jesus straightened up and asked her, "Woman, where are they? Has no one condemned you?"
"No one, sir," she said. "Then neither do I condemn you," Jesus declared. "Go now and leave your life of sin."
This excerpt from the eighth chapter of John's gospel came to mind when I was trying to figure out how God would have me evangelize. I was thinking about love and how to carry the truth to the world, and the obvious but so often overlooked answer was "do as He did!" It came to mind that Jesus was very constant. He was always compassionate and forgiving to the sinner, and always harsh and brutally honest with the self-righteous. If we look at this context we see before and after the encounter with the prostitute that Jesus has harsh words for the religious community. However, he has love and compassion for the adulteress.
This compassion is not the modern liberal view of Christianity which would have us believe that we should not call anything a sin and that we should endorse everything from abortion to gay marriage as acceptable behavior for professing Christians. It is, however, a humble love "in spite of" the sins of the world. Jesus did NOT excuse her behavior, or say it wasn't sin. He said "go and sin no more." We can not, for the sake of our own social comfort, stop calling sin sin. However, we can not, in a spirit of self-righteousness, publicly demonize certain sinners as though we were above sin.
It would do us well to remember that Jesus was talking to the church crowd harshly, and was talking to the "worldly crowd" lovingly. If God himself does this - and he has no sin - how much more should we, who can not without grace even refrain from sin, forgive and love the adulteress?
This should apply across the board and I am afraid I fail at it. Do I love the sinner as Jesus did? Do I remember that I am a sinner - just as bad as the worse sinner ever to walk the earth? Or, do I get comfortable with the Grace I was given and start to think I earned it by my own good works?
May God lead us into the love that is his - and let us see the unsaved as he does. Amen.
Towards an Inclusive Orthodoxy
 1 Corinthians 13:4-10
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.
This is one of the more famous passages in the new testament. Who among us has not been to a wedding in which this gem of spiritual wisdom has not been read? However, how closely do we really think about it or apply it to our own lives? Could divorce exist if all people held this as the standard of love? Is this what we mean when we say "I love you?" May God, who has loved me enough to give his very life that I may be saved, forgive me of my terrible attempt at love!
What I would like to consider here is whether this passage can be applied to the issue of church unity. By this, I mean unity between denominations and even between the great rift - the protestant/catholic divide. Because the Bible states that the world will know us by the love we have for each other, a definition of love is clearly applicable to Christian relationships.
The definition contains many negative proscriptions. It tells us that love does not envy, is not proud, it does not boast, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs, it does not delight in evil, and it never fails. By the very definition, then, if I think my church is better or more right than yours, I violate love. If I am happy when your church stumbles, I violate love. When I capitalize on the faults of a congregation or issue by targeting it's disheartened members, I violate love. When I get angry at the differences of opinion, I violate love. When I recant the history of Roman abuses, or as a Roman, recant the "heresies" of the protestants, I violate love. When I do any one of these things, I have NO love in me. It appears that I can not have some love, because one of the definitions is that it never fails. If I fail in one of these things, I have not love for my brother! How terrible is this?
The definition also contains positive proscriptions. Love, it says, is patient, kind, always protects, always perseveres, always trusts, and rejoices in truths. How well do we bear patiently with what we see as the weaknesses in others? How well do we trust the intentions and core values of those who observe their faith differently than us? To what extent do we protect the doctrines of those we don't see eye to eye with? Do we uphold all the members of Christ's body - even the ones that we don't understand the function of? Do we keep our membership requirements to those of the bible, that "whosoever confesses with their mouth that Jesus Christ is Lord, and believes in their heart that God rose him from the dead" are saved? I fall short, terribly and damnably short - but for the grace of our Lord and Saviour!
The final part of this passage establishes the primacy of love over scripture and other spiritual gifts. Don't misunderstand me here, though. Scripture is the primary authority here on earth. This passage is speaking of a future event - when we know in full what now we know in part. It establishes the fact that prophecy will cease, knowledge will pass away, the need for tongues will cease - but LOVE WILL REMAIN. It stands to reason then, that the exact place where we actually partake in the divine essence - where we are one with God is solely and uniquely when we LOVE ONE ANOTHER.
This love must be done in spite of our differences, or more correctly because of our differences. The idea that we can force everyone to see the world our way and then we can love them is the height of spiritual arrogance and is closer to evil than love. In this, the truth that the greatest commandment is established. Love triumphs over ALL.
So how, then, do we treat Truth? Stay tuned... May God enable our spirits to Love as he Loves us. May the Spirit of the Almighty dwell in our hearts and quicken our feet to love unconditionally by meeting the needs of those around us! Amen.
Unity Through Love
"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. 35By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." - John 13:34-35 NIV.
Today I have been thinking about Love. Specifically, how terribly short I fall of the scriptural requirement to love others as Christ has loved us. It is so very easy to get caught up in our doctrinal differences that we miss the larger picture. In doing this, we fall so very short of God's true calling in our lives! May he grant us mercy and heal our churches!
We live in a society where divorce is the norm, violence is the highest among developed nations, and family issues are politically viewed as passe, it is a sad fact that the Christian Church, in general, offers nothing but more of the same. I am not saying that we don't preach love. Most do. However, it seems that by preaching love, most of us mean two things. First, we mean love for the un-saved. This love compels us to preach the gospel and lead them to Christ. The second is love for our fellow church members. We do all we can (hopefully) to integrate all visitors into the church body as a whole. Most churches go out of their way to develop a ministry for every member. What we are missing - and this many times ruins our wittness to the unsaved who really in the end are the most important people on earth - is the love for all the Christians OUTSIDE our particular faith community. I fall into this error. I am guilty of that sin as much, or more, than most.
In reviewing the bible (NKJV), I found that the word doctrine only occurs 19 times. In over 30% of the references, this is associated with a warning against false doctrine. By contrast, love is mentioned 117 times. The only rival to love is Salvation - at 111 times. I believe that the key to uniting the body of christ is love - not doctrine. In doctrine, our pride gets puffed up. In doctrine, we rely on our own wisdom to interpret the unsearchable knowledge of God. In doctrine, we build walls. Love, however, thinks more of the other than of the self. Love is patient. Love is kind. Love keeps no record of wrongs. Importantly, love is a committment - not an emotion.
I will be posting a series of considerations on Love and doctrine over the next few weeks - they will all be under the tag "Love." I hope that through this, I learn finally how to love as Christ loves me. If I get any closer, it will be worthwhile.
May God bless and keep you and your loved ones close! Amen. 
The Importance of God in Recovery
 So, why is AA so ate up on this whole God concept anyway? Isn't it strange that in our advanced society, when it seems that more and more people are coming to see organized religion as passe, that God is the primary treatment modality for those of us that are suffering from addictions? The fact is plain. God remains the treatment modality because He works.
In fact, Bill Wilson, in the Alcoholics Anonymous book, says that the whole purpose of his book - and the program, is to enable Alcoholics to have spiritual experiences. AA was not designed to be a religion or spiritual path on it's own. It is a program to move an alcoholic into a manner of living in which a spiritual experience is possible. It is obvious from my life that God will not work with an unwilling individual. When I was beat up enough, and willing to learn, Alcoholics Anonymous prescribed a few steps that would bring me into a state in which I could become willing to accept God's help. I had such a problem with the whole "God thing" in AA for so long. In fact, I hated it. Then I just avoided it by inventing my own idea of God and yielding my will to that. In the end though, I was just yielding my will to myself (in that MY concept was an extension of my own will). It wasn't until I was so beat - so helpless - that I even gave up on the 12 steps that I actually could surrender my will to God. For many people, this isn't necessary. For me, it was. Until I lost faith in ALL of my own works - including any expectation of recovery through my ability to work steps, I could not recover.
This, I think, is the "jumping off point" that the big book talks about. This is that point where the alcoholic can "neither picture life with a drink or without it." This is "misery that few people ever will know." But, what a sweet misery it is, when it yields such a miraculous outcome! It is only when we let go of our own works that we really can grab a hold of the hand of the almighty God. My biggest problem was my own ego - I thought I had to understand God in order to surrender to him. This can not be - I can know things about God - specifically, those things he reveals - but I can not know God as though he was a subject of mine. This is the great paradox - we do not understand much at all of God until we surrender. It was the absolute anxiety and fear produced by my miserable existence that yielded my submission to God. It was that submission in which I was given the strength to live a new life. It appears to be true that "The fear of the Lord is the beginning of all knowledge" after all.
This is why, in a strange sense, it is such a blessing to be an addict or alcoholic. We fail so thoroughly at self-sufficiency that God's strength is obvious and real to us - which makes our lives so much richer when we finally surrender. This is the mystery - this is where "God's strength is made perfect in our weakness."
"Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven!"
May God bring us the peace and serenity that we've always longed for!
Perhaps I should have called it One Man's Party
 I am thinking that perhaps I should have named this blog "One Man's Party." By that, I mean, perhaps if I'd have named it that, I would be more happy. The verse (Prov 32:7) "As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he..." comes to mind. I wonder if, perhaps, my recent struggles are of my own making. It is hard to tell, and obviously this verse can't be taken to stand alone, apart from the entire bible. Life experiences and Biblical revelation warn us that tough times occur. The Bible tells us that often (probably USUALLY) our times of trouble are related to sin in us. When God feels distant, we often have put something or someone between ourselves and God. However, there are also plenty of examples where God seems distant for no reason. This "dry time" often is explained as a time of maturing in faith. God seems to withdraw His perceptible presence to see that we will "do what's right because it's right, not because it feels good" (to quote my 4th grade Sunday school teacher.) Regardless, it appears to be the case that dry times are guaranteed in life. I am finding this true. The important thing is not how we feel (because reacting to feelings got us in all the trouble we have in life) but how we act.
I have had insomnia for the last month and am just fairly worn down. My mind was overactive because of this money that was coming my way. Now that I have it and no catastrophe has occurred, I feel better, but I still couldn't sleep last night.
I think that the best thing I can do is inventory the situation, to use an "AA ism." I need to look at my part. Where am I sinning, where am I afraid, what am I doing wrong. I have done that and it appears that I am slipping a little in the area of "acceptance." I have expectations about life - what I should have, what life should look like - that I should have a wife - etc. Money is no different. It seems that the unreal expectation was that money would remove my problems. Because I've found that it only removes temporal circumstances, but not the underlying problems - and because it actually brings it's own problems, I am troubled. Aside from that, I am on track. I am praying and living right. Essentially, I need to suck it up and live life on life's terms - I need to praise God in the dry seasons as well as the wet ones, and thank God for the blessings that come - in spite of the problems that come with them. That is all for today - God Bless.
The Problem of Evil
For most of my adult life I have had this philosophical dilemma. How is it that an all loving, all powerful, and all present God can exist when there is so much evil in the world? It would seem, I thought, that either God is not all loving, all powerful, or all present. I think that this problem was useful to me because it enabled me to discount the possibility of the existence of the biblical God, which in turn allowed me to behave however I deemed appropriate. After all, I thought, if this God can't possibly exist, then his commands are not obligatory. I think that the Apostle Paul would have described me one who "...walk, in the futility of their mind, having their understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, because of the ignorance that is in them, because of the blindness of their heart; who, being past feeling, have given themselves over to lewdness, to work all uncleanness with greediness" (Eph 4:17b-19 NKJV). I would like to reconsider my position.
First of all, we must determine what this "good" is and what the subsequent "evil" is. Often times we confuse the tragic or the natural as evil, because we don't want it to happen. For example, try to remember the terrible Tsunami that killed so many in Asia. I remember so many people questioning "Why did God allow this." Consider also the issues that arise out of the sickness or death of a loved one. Who among us has not questioned God in times like these. However, we must make an important distinction here. These examples would not properly be considered evil. They may be unfortunate, perhaps tragic, based on perspective, but they can not be called tragic. In the big picture, a person dying is no different than a tree's leaf falling in autumn, and a tsunami no different than a forrest fire. What I mean is that both are natural occurrences. Life requires the certainty of death. In fact, that is the only certainty one inherits at the moment birth. We may know nothing else, but we do know the baby will die some day. We must, then, find out what evil is - distinctive and separate from subjective interpretation of natural events - in order to determine if the biblical God can co-exist with it.
Secondly, when considering the question, we must rid ourselves of the typical unequal attribution of culpability that we all practice when thinking of good and evil. What I mean is that we tend to say that the individual acting agent is responsible for good - but attribute the culpability for evil to God. Sure, we hold individuals responsible for evil, but we also ask why God permitted it. This tendency yields a skewed worldview. We tend to think of the world as being filled with evil (it certainly is) more than it is filled with good. We have no purely evil or purely good world to compare ours to, so this worldview is illogical and can't be used in the determination. We must find out in our world, not as compared to a non-existent and arbitrarily created fictitious world, if God and evil can co-exist.
So, then, what is evil. I have said what it is not. For example, when a lion attacks a hunter and kills him, or a bear attacks a fish and eats it, nobody would call that evil. Why? Simple, the animals are simply doing what they can not avoid doing - acting according to their nature. Secondly, nobody would (logically) call any existent object evil. For example, a baseball is not evil. It is simply a hard round object. If I throw it at your head hard enough, it will kill you, but that does not make the ball evil. The same logic applies even in extreme cases. Radioactive material is not evil. It can cure cancer or kill people, depending on it's use. As we see, items or existent things can not be evil. I must carry this a step further. People are extant (existing) things. Therefore, people can not (of their mere existence as people) be evil. There are no evil people. This seems wrong. Why? Surely the extreme cases arise strong objections. Was not Hitler evil? How about Mao? Was Judas evil? Stalin? George W. Bush Jr.? (sorry, had to!). My answer is no, they were not. When each made love to his wife, or kissed his child, or cried at the passing of his loved relative, was that an act of evil? No! Love, nurturing, kindness, compassion, these are not - nobody would say they were evil!
So then, what is evil? We must transcend the realm of existence to find it. It seems that nothing that exists is in itself evil. Lets go back to the baseball. If I throw it at your head and kill you with it, was that ACTION evil? Well, perhaps. Then, the rare cases where major league pitchers have accidentally crippled people with pitches, or batters have shattered fielder's bones with line drives, those were evil actions? We wouldn't think so - or we would think we needed more info. Did the pitcher intend to hurt the batter, or did the ball accidentally slip? Was the batter aiming at the pitchers face? Here is the crux then. Intentionality predicates evil. In other words, evil arises out of actions which spring forth from an individual will. It isn't the broken face or the pitch or the ball that is evil. It is the throwing of the ball into the face because of the desire to injure that is evil. On this, it seems, all reasonable people should agree. This is why the lion and the bear is not evil, but the pitcher's pitch may be.
It seems then that we have pinned down the nature of evil. I must thank St. Augustine for his assist here (I am not smart enough to figure all that out on my own). It seems obvious, upon inspection that evil arises in the will of man. So, then evil does not exist (if by exist we mean have its own individual created entity). Evil is more in the pursuit of existent things. Nothing that exists can be called evil. Evil is in the corrupt pursuit of / or desire of an existent thing. Evil, then, can be defined as a willful corrupt pursuit of the good. Eating is good - food is good - but me clubbing you over the head to take your food for myself would be evil. It is the corruption of the good only that can be defined as evil. Evil, then is not existence, it is the negation (or more properly CORRUPTION) of the Good.
With this understanding, we can then answer the question. Can an all good, powerful, and present God co-exist with evil? Certainly! We see that every thing that God created was good (because evil does not exist per se). We also see that evil only occurs as an operation of the will of man. Because the will of man also can choose good (which all people agree - otherwise there would be no concept of justice) or evil, then even the existence of the will can not be called evil. So, in agreement with the biblical account, God is Goodness itself, and everything he created is good. Man, one of his creations, he endowed with free will. If he created man without free will, God would not be able to be all loving to man. It was God's pleasure to create in man the ability to freely love and serve God or to reject God. In this relationship, God is shown to be all loving, in that in his majesty and omnipotence he condescended to give up some of his authority to the whims and wills of his created beings. He did this out of choice - not necessity - because he desired to do so. In doing this, man was free to choose to follow Gods will, or to rebel against it.
If, then, God intervened and prohibited man from reacting against God's will, there would be no will at all - because man would not be free if he was free only to choose to obey God. He would be free in no real sense of the word freedom. It would be so devoid of freedom as to render the word empty of meaning. Thus, God leaves man to follow man's will. To prohibit this would be to violate the structure of the God-man relationship. God could intervene, but to do so he would have to recreate man.
To say that God created evil by creating free will while his all knowing nature knew that man would commit evil acts using the free will is a simple fallacy of attribution. God did not cause evil. God caused the possibility of evil, in the same way that the Bayer aspirin caused the possibility of suicide by aspirin overdose. The aspirin itself is good - when used correctly. To attribute evil to God is logically inconsistent, theologically blasphemous, and in the end, is itself revealed to be motivated by an evil desire to promote self over God.
The end (for now)....
The Curse of Blessings
I noticed over the last week, since I found out about an unexpected source of income, that I have been having serious issues (using nightmares, anxiety, fears about security of the income, etc) related to my serenity. These make me wonder...
I have been praying and praying for some way to become financially secure. By that, I don't mean that I want nice things, I just wanted to be back at $0 debt and have a very basic car, and have some money saved for seminary. The job I have pays next to nothing, but I took it because I know this is where God wants me. So, then, when out of the sky, enough money falls to meet every prayer listed above, you'd think I'd jump with joy. But no, I have more anxiety than before.
Don't mistake me, I also have an amazing debt of gratitude, and am amazed at how God cares for his children, but I am also very disturbed. I believe that this has to do with the difference between forgiveness and removal. Often, when we pray, we ask God (knowingly or subconsciously) to remove the CONSEQUENCES of our sin, when he only promises to remove the CULPABILITY of them. When we ask forgiveness, he is "faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." However, I fear that I am often guilty of the blasphemous desire that I'd rather him remove the consequences than the guilt. Guilt is so abstract, but the consequences affect the here and now.
At issue is the fact that, as a consequence of my fall (into addiction) I behaved in ways that created a seemingly un-removable association between money and sinful pleasure. So, when I get money, I feel out of sorts. This is important to realize because I can develop unreasonable expectations for myself and pre-plan a relapse. In the past I have taken the total absence of urges or feelings related to drug use to be the definition of sobriety. If this expectation was not met, I believed I was in a bad spot and would use if nothing changed. Today I realize that these feelings are my consequence for my actions. I do not have to act on them, because I know that God has absolved me of the sins of my past and now dwells in me and gives me the strength to stay sober today.
Relying on this fact - that there is NO temptation that is not common to man, and that there is always a way out - is the ONLY way I see to realistically stay sober. Feelings are fleeting and will trick you. Facts are never changing.
That's it...
Narcissism and Blogging or Higher power vs. God
So...my first blog entry. This brings me to the obvious question. Why blog anyway. Isn't it somewhat narcissistic to have an entire website dedicated to yourself and what you have to say? Probably. I suppose then, I, along with all the other web boogers are narcissistic. Ayn Rand would be SO very proud.
At any rate, feeling the guilt of taking up some precious hard drive space on some server, I feel I should justify myself. There is a significant possibility that nobody ever will really read this - which is fine. I suppose the primary reason is therapeutic. I view it a bit like a journal, only without the implication of privacy. If nobody ever reads this, I got it out, and I have the feeling of connection to the world at large. Interestingly, that's what the Internet does, I think. It gives the illusion of community to isolated people everywhere.
Anyway, I am a recovering alcoholic and addict, if you want me to use the "politically correct" therapeutic jargon. I suppose that I should also say that I suffer from a disease. I assume I should make some bland meaningless reference to an abstract higher power that I chose - as if a person could freely make their God or chose their own God. I suppose that I should "change the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like corruptible man." I will not, however. It, being my first entry, would probably be a good time to come out and say it...at the risk of being labeled an outright heretic and being burned at the stake. The idea that a person who is as morally corrupt as I was (and moral corruption is a PREREQUISITE to active addiction) should be expected to come up with his or her own concept of God is asinine. To say that an addicts life depends on finding God - and allowing God to save them while telling them that they must find God themselves is the height of cowardice. If God is the cure, then the treatment providers have a moral responsibility to introduce the patient to God. The alternative is tantamount to an oncologist telling a cancer patient to develop their own chemotherapy. The only excuse is a cowardly secularism that springs forth from self-centered fear of being labeled a bigot or "closed minded."
The logical breakdown is apparent. Point 1: The alcoholic/addict in his active state is in a state beyond human aid (including helping himself most of all). Point 2: Only God can relieve him of his alcoholism. Point 3: The alcoholic (already determined in point 1 to be morally bankrupt) is expected to come up with his own conception of God to affect cure given in Point 2.
Only a drunk could like that reasoning! I am morally incompetent - so much so they call it a disease. In this state of moral degenerate ruin, I somehow will enable myself to make the most important moral choice in the universe - unaided - namely finding the true God. This is the answer to my sobriety. Well, if this was the case, I have within myself the power to cure myself. No further step work needed. I am my own recovery.
Enough ranting. I am not an alcoholic. I am a reborn Christian who has struggled with Alcohol and Drugs. I can no more drink safely than a fish can ride a bicycle. However, my recovery is based wholly on the power of Jesus Christ to regenerate a truly repentant sinner into a new man. I did not discover God by grasping at straws or coming up with him on my own. It would be the height of ignorance and arrogance to say that a man as depraved as me could even comprehend what God is. What does dark and light have in common? Were not my eyes blind to morality and virtue? My recovery was affected by the prevenient grace provided by the atonement offered by Jesus Christ and offered to my soul by the preaching of the Gospel. All I can claim is that when I had failed at finding God myself and was sufficiently broken, I (out of no virtue - only desperation) stopped resisting that grace and said YES to the call.
So - that's it. Recovery comes through God - the question is - how do you find him? You can trust your own discernment if that has worked well for you this far in your life, or perhaps you could rely on 4,000 years of human tradition and divine revelation with a track record of changing lives. I just would say in closing that if we used the logic in the rest of our lives that many of us use about God (that I must figure it out myself) then we would be in the stone age. How much of your daily life is based on you using technology based on knowledge gathered by others. Why not be consistent. You shouldn't trust it. You must figure it out by yourself. I guess you'd better turn off this computer then, and shut off your electricity, and give up the car, and stop taking the Prozac and antibiotics, and throw away all the food preserved by the refrigerator...etc...
Peace out.
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