words made holy unware

empty the words
enter the stomach
exit through by
the internal pathway into
the soul. by the by the
end of beginnings is the
beginning of ends and no
longer do words
said in jest or anger
frighten me. i can sit
under the wrath of people
inhuman and worldly
religious. i can sit and
sympathize with their
meaningful inanities. nice
people scare me more
than cruel decency in
times of trouble. words
mean stuff mean things mean
to mean something mean to
me. though sensitive i
may be i least have
a soul(less) heart.

Sin and Sacrament

It seems odd but I think often times what initially is declared a sin crosses over into sacrament. Sure, we can nitpick but a lot of times the lines become blurred. Lines, which, frankly, are not too easily regained. More to come on sin as sacrament.

Meaningless Triviality

Such is the way of Christendom. Take up our crosses and follow Jesus as we take on ourselves the mental anguish associated with apologetic work or arduous debate with other believers. We've reversed the importance of mental acuity and the importance of obedience. I come from a homeschooling background and within this sphere/sub-culture there exists potential for great feats within the public realm of discourse (namely, the meaningless circus known as politics or media culture) mostly because homeschooled kids have a ton of mental agility and think well. It's drilled into us in some of the more popular curriculum and in our obsession with things like TeenPact and debate clubs. I come from this background and am slowly learning, albeit very slowly, the impotence of these discourses on eschatology and whether or not paedobaptism is biblical or not.

  Now, I admit. I enjoy a good discussion. And the bible is to be dealt with in community and some of these debates and arguments are fun. But where in the bible do we find a debate on the most inane of topics? Nowhere. Yes, St. Paul (primarily), in his letters calls out fools and people who would do damage to the Church but then goes on to teach those churches how to live in this world. Jesus doesn't give two rips if you're a Calvinist, Pelagian or not. In fact, while doctrinal orthodoxy (which is too often a phrase for "fortress theology") is important (doctrine does motivate and move when presented right), the importance of praxis is being undermined. Sure, Reformed folk of the theonomic stripe argue for the "Regulative Principle of Worship" which basically is a how to guide for worship from the bible, but most times the bible doesn't care for specific on how you embody the way of Jesus. In fact, the bible is more concerned that you actually do embody the Way and learn. 

  Look. All this is coming from the mouth of a guy whose probably going to major in philosophy in college. I love arguing, discussing, and debating trivial things. But it's becoming apparent to me that unless those seemingly trivial ideas can become practiced then I am basically blowing steam into an area of nada. If it cannot be practiced it is, almost always, an meaningless waste of time.  

On Faith

Faith, being that which names an Object and thus obliterates it in the name of following, is that thing which no one can seem to speak clearly about. Mostly since faith eludes naming, at least true faith eludes naming. As Critchley argues in Very Little...Almost Nothing (paraphrased), "Adam was the first serial killer." Why? Because he named things. Faith does this all the while being unnameable itself.

I claim faith is unnameable (undefinable) because in any attempt to define it becomes simplified and therefore, most times, meaningless. Faith kills that which it has as an Object since it tries to grasp and name that Object. But at the same time faith is oddly needed.

Maybe the beauty of Christianity is that it requires a faith which, in naming as its Object the person of Jesus, can kill God because God has already died. In so doing, then, we find life.

On Leaving

I'm quitting social media for a time. It may be permanent. It may be temporary. I'm unsure whether or not I will be coming back to it soon or ever. I do know, though, that it's taking away from things I could be doing, things more beneficial and enjoyable in the long run. Primarily I'm finding that I'm not actually savoring life but living solely through a screen. Sure, I go out and walk and wander and go to school but I'm not truly living. As well, separating myself from social media will better allow me to read and write and thus pursue my goals and dreams. My blog (this site) and my email will be the primary means by which you can contact me.

Dirt:Rib

I thought, today, about how the world revolves around beauty and truth.

At least, I want it to revolve around those two spheres. It would be nice if the world revolved around those two and sin and evil and ugliness were not so prevalent. Sadly, or not so sadly in my mind, the picture of truth, beauty, evil, ugliness, is one much more haunted by intimacy than we would like it to be. Like a spiral of color where one ends the other begins and often times one can only guess at the end or beginning. 

If we're honest this picture of reality - a potpourri of conflict - is based in the primordial reality of the bible. In the opening chapters of the creation account we find God molding out of dirt and rib humanity. Dirt and rib which is intimately linked to God by being made in his image. And then a chapter later we find man breaking down, the dirt and rib cracking, and the image of God becoming marred. 

But it is still there, haunting our every move, mixing in the sin and beauty into one rough cut whole. 

And as the story of the bible continues on towards its culmination in the Incarnation of the Word there are numerous stories of this complex interaction between the ugliness of sin and the beauty of God's children. David, the man after God's own heart, commits murder and adultery and causes people of his nation to be killed at God's behest. Rahab, the prostitute, redeemed by faith and action (and oddly seemed to have faith while still a prostitute). Solomon, given wisdom, commits idolatry via marriage. 

The point is, the stories we tell often do not fit the stories of the bible. The language we use does not fit the language we find in scripture. 

Point is, horrible sinners can be decent people. Saints, good people we admire, screw up horribly, commit atrocities and horrors unspeakable. We are grace filled creatures with sin leaking in the cracks, made by dirt but breaking, created via life yet death creeps ever closer at every step. We are not only walking contradictions, we are walking dead. 

We are not sinner or saint. We are decent killers and indecent saints. 

Untitled

Here, now, sit I forever 

and ever. Amen. World without 

end nor beginning. As I eat

I eat with trembling hands-

lack of food or liquids or something

other and distant and something?- either

or I eat a new life. Life without end

it speaks as I chew. 

Being God Equals Loneliness

How horrid it must be to be God, to be alone, to be utterly alone. God, who is the ultimate "something" there is (admittedly, that idea might be a linguistic creation) is in a state of ultimate loneliness. There are no others like God. 

(Yes, I know, we have the Trinity in Christianity. Yes, it is three persons in one (which, is again, important but often practically meaningless language) and all three are equally God and individual, yeah, I'm not going into the discussion of Trinity, suffice it to say: useful but at time impractical because of the language used.) 

But God, as unified whole, the most complete whole, is alone. God is the only one like, similar to, in any way comparable to, God. It seems God needed a mission - unless of course the idea that God has himself to entertain and find joy in is true then I am wrong - to provide himself something to do, to be less lonely. Maybe that's why humanity exists. 

We exist to glorify God and our glorification of him lets him know he is wanted (because everyone wants to be wanted). God created us to teach himself he is wanted. Maybe the courage of Nietzsche is letting God know he is unwanted. Maybe the courage of Christians is recognizing in Jesus that God doesn't want himself but rather wants us. 

Grace

I read in the bible of a being that, with “truth and grace”, came into our world. What exactly does it mean that Jesus came in “truth and grace”? What exactly is grace? The sphere of Christendom I have grown up in has defined grace as “unmerited favor” or another odd, but no less abstract definition. But Jesus came in “truth and grace” or, rather, “truth and grace came through Jesus.” Either way, somehow I think I’ve missed the point. Grace is not some abstract concept. It might explain why the other more liturgical denominations speak of “means of grace.” 

Means of grace: word and sacrament: visible, tangible. 

Jesus brought grace into this world via Incarnation. Incarnation: real, visible, malleable, tangible, felt, and not off in the world of concepts alone. A conceptual understanding of grace demands nothing of us, has no long lasting effect. Grace is not for one time, one conversion. 

Rather, it is for all time, always reforming, always converting, and always being felt. And if it is not tangible and real it seems meaningless and lacking. 

Grace is...real and maybe it’s too real for our own comfort and maybe that’s why we put grace in the world of ideas because if it’s a reality found in the physical world, then it demands something of us. In fact, it is all around us. 

Flesh: Introduction

I am nothing more than skin and bones, flesh on muscle on whitened bone.

I am from earth and to earth I will one day return.

My body, our bodies, are brittle, and subject to breaking.

"The flesh is weak," spoke the wandering teacher. If only he had known how very true those words are and continue to become. Little things, like the cutting of skin, the purging of the food from one's body, loathing oneself (a spiritual reality in a fleshy manifestation), the bodies we posses and find ourselves in are weak indeed. What significance does the flesh have? In light of the earthiness by which we are bound and developed what purpose does flesh have? To what end?

Christianity has often felt the lack of flesh in its theology. Flesh is important to the biblical narrative, in fact, I would argue, more important than the soul. Or, rather, souls are so tightly woven to flesh that separation is nigh impossible. The series here, hopefully, will be able to show how flesh refers not only to my body and its parts but to a different reality beyond that which we can see and touch and smell and feel and ultimately quantify. As well, I hope to show the the bible as a whole is a fleshy book, concerned primarily with things of the earth rather than mysticism or some sort of spiritualism.

The general outline will look like this:

1) Preliminary Thoughts on Flesh
Attempt to explain what I am referring to when I refer to flesh as well as teasing out what I see as the differences between "body" and "flesh".
2) Word about Flesh
What scripture has to say about flesh.
3) Word as Flesh
Scripture as flesh in Jesus.
4) Flesh Redeemed
Flesh saved from its abuse

(Very) Brief Thoughts on Privilege and the Oppressed

1. Privilege does exist but what constitutes an inappropriate use of privilege or speaking from a point of privilege is often ambiguous and poorly defined. 

2. Privilege is not the end all be all. In fact, too often it is used in such a manner so as to shut down any further dialogue. Acknowledge that one is speaking from a privileged perspective and move on. 

3. God is not preferential to the poor/oppressed. Yes, his/her's heart is for the poor but the precedent is clearly one of grace to all, privileged and oppressor, broken and oppressed alike. 

4. Privilege is too often spoken from those who are, shocker, privileged. 

Ergo, privilege is ambiguously/poorly defined by the privileged and hoisted onto the unprivileged/oppressed in a manner which may or may not be appropriate. 

Disbelief is Fidelity

It is not so much that I disbelieve all that is put under the banner of Christianity, my particular opiate of choice, but rather that I do not believe it enough. I have friends who believe more consistently than I and in some sense the easiest answer to why I don't believe as they do is: they are wrong. Or, more bluntly, their version of God is wrong. But that isn't right either. I refuse to believe consistently in some regards if only because I like to think I'm caring for others. My love for the Other demands I disbelieve that which my religion demands I believe.

Quotes

“They all think any minute I'm going to commit suicide. What a joke. The truth of course is the exact opposite: suicide is the only thing that keeps me alive. Whenever everything else fails, all I have to do is consider suicide and in two seconds I'm as cheerful as a nitwit. But if I could not kill myself -- ah then, I would. I can do without nembutal or murder mysteries but not without suicide. ” The Moviegoer, Walker Percy 

Part One of a Series on Death of God Theology: Eucharist as God's Perpetual Death

"You are sacrificing Christ all over again," or so the objection to real-presence in the Eucharist goes.

  The objection states that we continue to re-sacrifice Christ on the cross. Guess what? It's true, we do. In fact, we do so in many ways. But the taking of the Eucharist is an important, institutional, global and very visceral way in which we declare God is dead. God is no longer out there. God's death, if it means anything, means that God is no longer Other. God is not the Object but the Subject. As Heidegger states:

“If I take death into my life, acknowledge it, and face it squarely, I will free myself from the anxiety of death and the pettiness of life - and only then will I be free to become myself. ” 

By the eating of God, if you will, we face God's death and free ourselves. We take his death into ourselves in a very real sense. By re-sacrificing Christ we continually destroy the Other. We continually embrace the world we have all around us (yes, that is a reference to The Orphans) and live in a Spirit inhabited world. Thus, the common evangelical complaint gets turned on its head and can be embraced.

This is part one of an ongoing series as I read more about death of God theology/radical theology.
 

Glory, Abused

The glory of God is the new Law. No longer are we enslaved to the Law of death. At the present we are enslaved to the Law of glory. Whatever one does is to be done to and for God's glory and instead it turns into a vicious cycle of guilt and demand. The death of Jesus speaks to us now, forming us, with the realization that on the cross God has already been glorified. In partaking of the cross (through Eucharist and Baptism and faith) we find ourselves partaking in the once and final act of glorifying God, the last need to do so has been placated and filled full. We are free to live in grace and folly.

Quote

“In the Christian context, we do not mean by a "mystery" merely that which is baffling and mysterious, an enigma or insoluble problem. A mystery is, on the contrary, something that is revealed for our understanding, but which we never understand exhaustively because it leads into the depth or the darkness of God. The eyes are closed—but they are also opened.”

Kallistos Ware 

Oddity

Christianity is not lived on Good Friday and Easter but rather is more often lived on Holy Saturday, the in between. In fact to state the following is not an extreme: life generally is lived on Saturday. The oddity of the death of Jesus is the sorrow and the abandonment that comes because there is now nothing. Nothing to do but weep with God. No one to follow but the emotions that come with the death of a loved one. There is absolutely nothing because Jesus is in the tomb.
   But there is something rather curious about this death, this nothingness, because of it we now see a God who wants us to live on and follow him despite the absence. In the nothingness of death there is a call.

Ode to the Dead

Here's to the dead. Not those who've gone before
only. But to those who stand at the door of their
own end. Here's to the endless line that stands
forever at death's door. Some knock, and some,

the tragic few, kick the door in, rushing through.
This is a toast to those who have crossed the
divide and torn the curtain in two. This is for
those who await the crashing. And this is for
those who were shoved through too soon.
Be at peace.

The Filling Full

Incarnation affirms humanity and redeems the material world and our bodies. And deems them sacred.
The cross sets the pendulum back in place between man and his God. No longer do we idolize man nor can we idolize God.
Resurrection defeats death by affirming life. And by affirmation negates any claim that has us floating off into the stratosphere.
Ascension drags the material world into the presence of the God who is spirit. This fills all the previous events full, affirming the immanence of God because the material is now before and embraced by him.

On Fundamentalism

There are fundamentalists [connotation] and then there are fundamentalists [denotation]. The fear of being labeled a fundamentalist [connotation] only perpetuates the illusion that some people are not bigoted or fundamentalist. When, in fact, all are fundamentalists because all have specific fundamentals to which they think we should return. Thus, to label someone a fundamentalist [connotation] is to accept that you implicitly have fundamentals to which you would like to return but cannot because that fundamentalist [connotation] is stopping you. It's all a vicious cycle. Thus, the only difference between the connotation and the denotation is that of method and approach.