I've been doing quite a bit of thinking about religious gear. Think of it like this. If you are an Ohio State football fan - you wear OSU gear. This is almost mandatory if you go to a home game. You will receive strange looks and possibly comments if you show up with some other gear - especially if the gear you are wearing has nothing to do with the two teams on the field.
Religious gear has nothing to do with the substance of a life that is shaped by the teachings of a religion. It is just gear. I can wear a cross around my neck - but it is not necessary for me to do that in order to be a follower of Jesus. In fact, it does no one any good for me to wear it for the whole world to see. And yet, some would say it helps to remind them that they are a Christian - or that they are reminded of the kind of person they are to be if they are a follower of Jesus. Is is necessary? No. A person can be a faithful, living follower of Jesus and you may never see that person wearing any Christian gear.
Religious gear often becomes more of the life of religious folks than the life into which those people have been drawn. Communities of people are known by their look. The religious gear somehow becomes seen as essential. In fact, the gear can even become how one is included or excluded - how one obtains access or is shunned - how you are identified or become the recipient of hospitality. I remember when I was growing up my mother and grandmother always kept an embroidered handkerchief in their purse so they could put it on their head when they went to mass. That's religious gear. Somehow the gear became vital - essential to how one went about the life of the faith. If I would have put on such a piece of gear I would have been asked to take it off when I went to mass. Hmm.
Usually I am told that religious gear is meant to help a person or a people remember the life they are to live. That has never been a good reason to me. I do not think religious folks suffer from amnesia because we do not put on the right gear and wear it in the right places. We suffer from amnesia because we forget the life that is to be at the center of our living. I do not need to wear a Browns ball cap to remind me that I am a Browns fan. In fact, with the way the Browns have been playing - it might be good for me to forget. But I will not. I do not need to wear a cross or eat fish on Fridays - especially in Lent - in order to be reminded that I am to follow the way of Jesus.
Religious gear - I would suggest - nurtures inhospitality and serves to divide people even when the core of the faith talks of peace and the oneness of humankind. The expression putting on your Sunday best was common and the expectation was that you would dress up for worship. In fact, if you did not - if you went to worship in a t-shirt and jeans - you might be asked to leave or there would be made very made obvious that you were in the wrong place - you were not one of the good religious folk. Sunday best is really nothing more than everyday best - it is not a dress - it is a character, a life, a way of being a neighbor to all. It does not matter if your head is not covered or your shoulders are exposed or you wear sandals or your ankles are visible or you are not in a suit or fine dress. All the gear can be shed and it need not be called necessary. It is not.
Religious gear is disrespectful even though I have heard so many times that you should wear this or not wear that out of respect for a person's religion. Really? The faith of a person is not about clothing. We would do much better if we would respect the actual lives of those of various faiths - maybe even listen to what it is they teach. Religious gear becomes a way religious folk attempt to respect their image of God and yet I find that it often creates unnecessary distinctions among people who are looking toward the vision of a peaceable reign for all. I might even go so far as to say that religious gear mocks such a vision. Religious gear may seem to build an identity among people of this or that faith tradition - but how often is that need to identify become a primary component in how we stay separate from others. As at a football game between rivals, our religious gear invites rivalry to intensify. It allows for the creation of an us v them that can lead to violence and simple disrespect. And yet, it doesn't always. Many people are able to see the superficiality of religious gear and respect the lives of those others.
If you noticed, religious gear is not merely that worn by folks who are part of a traditional faith community. Religious gear is also quite secular. It sets limits as to who is welcome. It creates a community for those who abide by the guidelines for appropriate gear. It cares not for the character of the people or their values or how they will act if an emergency situation is created. No, it draws lines and makes for distinctions that often fuel disrespect and even a warring madness.
Maybe I should consider gear that is vital and necessary and critical for a person to be or do that which s/he is expected to do. In the Columbus Dispatch this week there is a series about fire fighters. Now, they wear GEAR. If they did not wear their gear we would have no fire fighters and we would lose many people in and around fire settings. The flame retardant clothing, the masks, the oxygen tanks, the helmets, and the boots make up gear that is necessary for fire fighters to do their work - complete their mission. Religious gear is not like that. A certain hat or head covering is not necessary to live the life of one's faith. A variety of clothing tied to a group of religious folks is not necessary to live the life of one's faith. I can be a faithful follower of my God even as I have no clothes of any type that might associate me with any religious people. That, I would submit, is central to life that seeks to make all of us truly human - in the image of God. Our lives - not that which we wear - becomes the way we identified along the way.
But as I end, I would urge all of us to respect the religious gear worn by people of various faith communities. Maybe the respect comes by asking, 'Why is that necessary? Why do you wear this or that?' Then, also sharing what religious gear you wear or do not wear and why you wear it or why you have put it to the side. But most of all, I find that it is not necessary to wear the gear of others even if we say it is out of respect. Maybe we would all move around with each other a bit more easily if we left the religious gear to our home or places of worship while simultaneously making damn sure we do not let the visitor/stranger to our communities of faith think they are not one of us - not one of the good ones - not welcome. But I rant.
TRRR
Wednesday, October 25, 2017
Tuesday, October 17, 2017
Nothingness - living as though it is real
Beyond what is - is nothing. This was an odd experience. I had just gone to bed. This is a time of the day - even though it is usually quite short - that my imagination soars. I don't always like that experience and it is quite hard to turn it off once it starts turning out ideas and images. Often, this is a time in which I figure out a problem or have an idea that seems to bring a potential resolution to the direction of a storyline. At other times, I come to some kind of decision of what I must do. I have even resolved an issue within a sermon on which I have been working. Unfortunately, there are those nights when I think I am going to remember what came to mind - but alas, by morning, there is quite nothing. At other times, I wake in the morning and go directly to some paper and write myself a note. If I am really struck by my pre-sleep thoughts, I may even leave bed quickly and write something down. I should keep a bedside journal but I wonder if I would cut short my flow of thought if I was to get up and write down and idea that was not yet complete.
I say all this because while I was on vacation I considered nothingness. Yes, right there in bed after a full day that should have put me right to sleep. I realized that there was nothing to consider - how can one consider something that is not and will not be!? It all started with the internal question: what if I did not wake up - what if I died during the night? My first thought was - well, nothing. I simply would not be anymore - I would be an inanimate object. To my wife and to my friends and enemies I would be a collection of memories. Yet, their memories would mean nothing to me as I would be nothing - gone - dead. In these bits of pre-dream ramblings, I let go of an after life - no heaven and no hell. No rewards - No punishments. No cosmic party. Just nothingness - the end.
I suppose I was set off in this direction because of a book I have written just recently. It is fiction. It is in a diary format that records my first year after I came to the realization that I - at age 64 - can fly. I use the expression go up. The connection to my bedtime mental wanderings has to do with one of the abilities that goes along with being able to go up. I have no super powers - but I am able to lift people and take them with me. As long as someone is holding on to me or I am embracing someone who is within reach of me - I can take them all up without it being a burden at all. I test that ability regularly in an attempt to find a limit. None so far. But, if I try to lift an inanimate object - a stone, a bike, a basket - I can only lift something that my normal everyday - bad-back body - can handle. The people around me - folks that are alive - shit, we're flying baby.
Nothingness comes into play as I toyed with the notion of something being inanimate. In the book I don't try to lift any animals because I don't need to be coated in animal poop nor do I want to frighten a dog or a cow to death. But there is an incident when I attempt to rescue two homeless people who have jumped into a rain swollen creek near our home. I was able to latch onto the woman, pull her out of the water, and take her back up to the bridge and her friends. But then, I go back to find the man. I see him caught up on a thick branch near the shore - his face in the water. I attempt to move him - he is too heavy. I try to take him up - no way. I look more closely at him - he is dead. He has become an inanimate object that is beyond the weight I can lift - or even pull. Nothing at all.
I consider my ability to lift people to be organic. It is as though we are connected - we are able to interact - we are alive and part of something more than simply being individual people. I suppose I see that ability as being a part of being truly human - alive (though I haven't tested animals yet). This is not great notion. Rather, my book of fiction has created a living conundrum for me. There is nothing to come beyond who I am and the life that is available to me everyday. Plans for tomorrow are great and they are fun to anticipate - but right now, how am I alive - how am I alive with others. While I was in my pre-sleep mental wanderings, I found myself to be placed into moments of deep peacefulness. It was - I thought - the way I need to be even during the day. The last time I thought about such stuff was prior to my heart surgery. I am the only family member - among those who have looked into it - who inherited the heart of my gramps - a bicuspid aortic valve. It did him in during the 1960's and near the age I was approaching. Though the surgeon told me it is a good surgery to have and I was in really good health, I had the feeling I was at the end - there would be no other side of surgery. Back then, I first thought of nothingness and realizing that I would not know the outcome if I did not make it to recovery. I thought I was about to enter nothingness - though I did not tell that to my wife or daughter at that time - that would turn the waiting room into a real sea of mourning or a grand celebration - who knows.
So, nothingness. Can you live with that? I am finding that I buy it more and more. I am finding that it is making the stories of the Scriptures come eternally alive for me. Resurrection is endlessly present. God's Reign is utterly available. The Spirit of God pulls at my life like the wind blowing at pentecost and the bringing of creation. Grace a way of life. Hell very present as part of the day. I know, this is no great insight - no profound new thought. But is has made me think of so many people - so many relationships - so many life concerns - so many ways to expand the life at hand - so many ways to actualize a life that considers the welfare of all. So rather than attempt to flee the notion of nothingness, I'm finding myself caught up in more and more moments of liveliness. The stories of Scripture now inform the quality of what it is to be human - humanity when its potential shows forth the wonder of what we are able to be together.
TRRR
anyone know a publisher who is interested in fiction - book two is already underway. :)
I say all this because while I was on vacation I considered nothingness. Yes, right there in bed after a full day that should have put me right to sleep. I realized that there was nothing to consider - how can one consider something that is not and will not be!? It all started with the internal question: what if I did not wake up - what if I died during the night? My first thought was - well, nothing. I simply would not be anymore - I would be an inanimate object. To my wife and to my friends and enemies I would be a collection of memories. Yet, their memories would mean nothing to me as I would be nothing - gone - dead. In these bits of pre-dream ramblings, I let go of an after life - no heaven and no hell. No rewards - No punishments. No cosmic party. Just nothingness - the end.
I suppose I was set off in this direction because of a book I have written just recently. It is fiction. It is in a diary format that records my first year after I came to the realization that I - at age 64 - can fly. I use the expression go up. The connection to my bedtime mental wanderings has to do with one of the abilities that goes along with being able to go up. I have no super powers - but I am able to lift people and take them with me. As long as someone is holding on to me or I am embracing someone who is within reach of me - I can take them all up without it being a burden at all. I test that ability regularly in an attempt to find a limit. None so far. But, if I try to lift an inanimate object - a stone, a bike, a basket - I can only lift something that my normal everyday - bad-back body - can handle. The people around me - folks that are alive - shit, we're flying baby.
Nothingness comes into play as I toyed with the notion of something being inanimate. In the book I don't try to lift any animals because I don't need to be coated in animal poop nor do I want to frighten a dog or a cow to death. But there is an incident when I attempt to rescue two homeless people who have jumped into a rain swollen creek near our home. I was able to latch onto the woman, pull her out of the water, and take her back up to the bridge and her friends. But then, I go back to find the man. I see him caught up on a thick branch near the shore - his face in the water. I attempt to move him - he is too heavy. I try to take him up - no way. I look more closely at him - he is dead. He has become an inanimate object that is beyond the weight I can lift - or even pull. Nothing at all.
I consider my ability to lift people to be organic. It is as though we are connected - we are able to interact - we are alive and part of something more than simply being individual people. I suppose I see that ability as being a part of being truly human - alive (though I haven't tested animals yet). This is not great notion. Rather, my book of fiction has created a living conundrum for me. There is nothing to come beyond who I am and the life that is available to me everyday. Plans for tomorrow are great and they are fun to anticipate - but right now, how am I alive - how am I alive with others. While I was in my pre-sleep mental wanderings, I found myself to be placed into moments of deep peacefulness. It was - I thought - the way I need to be even during the day. The last time I thought about such stuff was prior to my heart surgery. I am the only family member - among those who have looked into it - who inherited the heart of my gramps - a bicuspid aortic valve. It did him in during the 1960's and near the age I was approaching. Though the surgeon told me it is a good surgery to have and I was in really good health, I had the feeling I was at the end - there would be no other side of surgery. Back then, I first thought of nothingness and realizing that I would not know the outcome if I did not make it to recovery. I thought I was about to enter nothingness - though I did not tell that to my wife or daughter at that time - that would turn the waiting room into a real sea of mourning or a grand celebration - who knows.
So, nothingness. Can you live with that? I am finding that I buy it more and more. I am finding that it is making the stories of the Scriptures come eternally alive for me. Resurrection is endlessly present. God's Reign is utterly available. The Spirit of God pulls at my life like the wind blowing at pentecost and the bringing of creation. Grace a way of life. Hell very present as part of the day. I know, this is no great insight - no profound new thought. But is has made me think of so many people - so many relationships - so many life concerns - so many ways to expand the life at hand - so many ways to actualize a life that considers the welfare of all. So rather than attempt to flee the notion of nothingness, I'm finding myself caught up in more and more moments of liveliness. The stories of Scripture now inform the quality of what it is to be human - humanity when its potential shows forth the wonder of what we are able to be together.
TRRR
anyone know a publisher who is interested in fiction - book two is already underway. :)
Friday, October 13, 2017
Under God - is a lie
Fear of the other - the ones not like us - rules the land of the free and the home of the brave. I think it is good to note that fear does not make one free and fear often turns the frightened into a mob ruled by fear - not bravery.
In the 1950s, the prepositional phrase under God was added to the Pledge of Allegiance by a fear-filled people. It was as though a person or a people - if they mentioned the word God or declared that God was on their side - would then be safe from that which they feared. Those folk back then claimed ownership of God - as we still do. Well, I would prefer to say they created a god. Even today, those who claim to be close to God are really close only to the god they imagine will protect them against other gods - other powers - other demons. Demons become those who do not follow the god of our making.
To make the claim that we are under God is to say we are willing to be a part of the character of the God who shows no partiality and finds rest in God's ceaseless affirmation of all people. This would be a wonder-filled reality. Unfortunately, I think it is not the reality visible among us. When we use the expression under God in the Pledge, I think we are simply lying. Though we are not lying if we mean: the god of our liking - the god who we can control - the god who acts the way we act - the god who draws lines in our favor - the god who we use as an excuse to do as we please - the god who is ruled by fear just as we are. But we should then write it as under god.
In some way, when I hear people talk about being God-fearing people - I now take them at their word. They are afraid of the God who welcomes all - abides with all - rescues all - loves all - sees to the well-being of all - graciously respects the diversity of thought and actions we each bring to the table within a peaceable Reign. God-fearing people only want their god to reign even if it is at the expense of other people. And yet, their god fears any attempt to display the character of the God who risks everything and anything for those too often labeled as other - outsider - a threat. At great expense, God unites and heals and is creatively shaping our character and therefore, we are always changing - even evolving (ahh). So, fear not.
I get a real kick out of seeing and hearing God-fearing people trying to protect God. In reality they are working like hell to protect their image of god. I used the word hell intentionally here. God-fearing people attempt to paint the world as going to hell whenever it is not going as they want it to go. So we have had to put up with God-fearing people who want to go back to a day when people of color and other faiths and other cultures were not among us - or at least could be contained to places away from us. That attempt to protect their image of their god creates a piece of hell on earth. It is manifest as the power of division - fear - hatred - and a dis-ease of the heart that turns compassion and hospitality from gifts we offer to others to gifts we withhold for a few.
I see God as the creative force that opens our heart and minds and lives so that we are able to experience the expansiveness of a love that lets no one go. But God-fearing folks want their god as they have created their god. As that is the case, we have to put up with fear-filled people who think they are being victimized when the world of their own making is not the world others want and seek. When folks who fear the God-of-all it is easy to play the card of a victim and demand religious freedom - but that is a lie also. They don't want religious freedom - they want their way of seeing the world to be held in greater regard than all others. They want us to dwell in their place under god - a place in which the God-of-all is dismissed because that God cannot be controlled by them. The hell that they fear is coming into the world - is the hell that is whipped up by their fears. There are too many lessons throughout history that have shown us again and again that when self-proclaimed God-fearing folk take hold of the steering wheel of the day, they are the masters of creating hell on earth for everyone.
So back to the Pledge of Allegiance for a moment. When God-fearing people fear the world around them they will never be able to offer shelter to the stranger - lift up the downtrodden - welcome the alien - abide with the left out - sacrifice life for the for those labeled unworthy. Unfortunately, if all we can do is claim to be God-fearing people we will never live in the land of the free and the home of the brave. We will live only within a lie that attempts to fabricate a holy place and holy people that is nothing more than sheer blasphemy. So fear not - live by grace - live into the image of God - be ready to be surprised by a new life.
TRRR
In the 1950s, the prepositional phrase under God was added to the Pledge of Allegiance by a fear-filled people. It was as though a person or a people - if they mentioned the word God or declared that God was on their side - would then be safe from that which they feared. Those folk back then claimed ownership of God - as we still do. Well, I would prefer to say they created a god. Even today, those who claim to be close to God are really close only to the god they imagine will protect them against other gods - other powers - other demons. Demons become those who do not follow the god of our making.
To make the claim that we are under God is to say we are willing to be a part of the character of the God who shows no partiality and finds rest in God's ceaseless affirmation of all people. This would be a wonder-filled reality. Unfortunately, I think it is not the reality visible among us. When we use the expression under God in the Pledge, I think we are simply lying. Though we are not lying if we mean: the god of our liking - the god who we can control - the god who acts the way we act - the god who draws lines in our favor - the god who we use as an excuse to do as we please - the god who is ruled by fear just as we are. But we should then write it as under god.
In some way, when I hear people talk about being God-fearing people - I now take them at their word. They are afraid of the God who welcomes all - abides with all - rescues all - loves all - sees to the well-being of all - graciously respects the diversity of thought and actions we each bring to the table within a peaceable Reign. God-fearing people only want their god to reign even if it is at the expense of other people. And yet, their god fears any attempt to display the character of the God who risks everything and anything for those too often labeled as other - outsider - a threat. At great expense, God unites and heals and is creatively shaping our character and therefore, we are always changing - even evolving (ahh). So, fear not.
I get a real kick out of seeing and hearing God-fearing people trying to protect God. In reality they are working like hell to protect their image of god. I used the word hell intentionally here. God-fearing people attempt to paint the world as going to hell whenever it is not going as they want it to go. So we have had to put up with God-fearing people who want to go back to a day when people of color and other faiths and other cultures were not among us - or at least could be contained to places away from us. That attempt to protect their image of their god creates a piece of hell on earth. It is manifest as the power of division - fear - hatred - and a dis-ease of the heart that turns compassion and hospitality from gifts we offer to others to gifts we withhold for a few.
I see God as the creative force that opens our heart and minds and lives so that we are able to experience the expansiveness of a love that lets no one go. But God-fearing folks want their god as they have created their god. As that is the case, we have to put up with fear-filled people who think they are being victimized when the world of their own making is not the world others want and seek. When folks who fear the God-of-all it is easy to play the card of a victim and demand religious freedom - but that is a lie also. They don't want religious freedom - they want their way of seeing the world to be held in greater regard than all others. They want us to dwell in their place under god - a place in which the God-of-all is dismissed because that God cannot be controlled by them. The hell that they fear is coming into the world - is the hell that is whipped up by their fears. There are too many lessons throughout history that have shown us again and again that when self-proclaimed God-fearing folk take hold of the steering wheel of the day, they are the masters of creating hell on earth for everyone.
So back to the Pledge of Allegiance for a moment. When God-fearing people fear the world around them they will never be able to offer shelter to the stranger - lift up the downtrodden - welcome the alien - abide with the left out - sacrifice life for the for those labeled unworthy. Unfortunately, if all we can do is claim to be God-fearing people we will never live in the land of the free and the home of the brave. We will live only within a lie that attempts to fabricate a holy place and holy people that is nothing more than sheer blasphemy. So fear not - live by grace - live into the image of God - be ready to be surprised by a new life.
TRRR
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