I Don’t Wanna Talk About it Now*

January 7, 2013 — 8 Comments

Why are the best church sermons often lessons to help us unlearn previous church sermons? Why is the most compelling religious talk usually a refutation of previous religious talk?

Maybe we’ve all said way too much about God.

I’ve found that as I admit my doubts and open up to questions, I’m not as interested in hashing them out as I was interested in hashing out other people’s doubts and questions when I had all the answers.

As a very young child, I learned that God loved me. I was taught to love God and neighbor, and that “neighbor” was everybody everywhere. I learned “God is love” (1 John 4:16) as a Bible memory verse.

As I grew older, I was taught qualifications upon qualifications to help me unlearn this initial lesson. Yes, God loved me, so much so that he sent his son to die for me, and all I needed to do was to accept the free gift of that executed son. (Otherwise, in spite of God’s love, I would burn forever yet never die.)

I should love others, yes, but some people needed tough love – especially anyone different from me and my kind. Tough love doesn’t allow a sinner to wallow in their sin. Tough love is preferable to “sloppy agape” (testify, sisters and brothers, if you grew up with this phrase too!). And although the Bible says that God is love,  songs like “All You Need is Love” or “What the World Needs Now is Love” were clearly examples of the liberal or communist or humanist agenda.

Grown-up theologians know that the simple “God is love, and we should love one another” religious teaching given to three-year-olds is a good way to teach toddlers not to hit one another, but hardly enough to base a religion (or a war, a political agenda, a bestseller, or any other money-making scheme) upon.

So naturally, much religion is about unlearning – or at least qualifying – the simple instruction to love.

Some religious people who have been schooled in unlearning love are then further challenged and moved when they encounter religious think-tanks who skillfully dismantle the love-unlearning paradigms of much religious thought.

In other words, when a religious leader says that it’s okay to love my neighbor as myself (even if my neighbor is gay or a Muslim), and whips out some fancy theological explanation for this countercultural idea, I call his or her ideas “progressive.”

I’m with John Lennon these days. Worn out on God-talk. Imagining a world where we all live in love and peace. I’m with Jesus too, because I think he also imagined and tried to live out the reality of a world like that.

Progressive religious people call this re-imagined world “the kingdom of God” or sometimes less-patriarchal renderings of the same idea. Okay. I just want to submit that God – aka Love – maybe is just as (or more?) interested in our working towards that new world order than in all the words we have to say about it.

 *“I Don’t Wanna Talk About it Now” is a song from Emmylou Harris’s amazing album Red Dirt Girl. The song itself bears no connection to the content of this blog post, but the title is a perfect fit. And you should definitely check out the album.

 

 

Po-E-Mail

January 3, 2013 — 1 Comment

It was waiting for me in my inbox.

 

“Unfortunately, I cannot obtain electronic copies of the Ocean, Warehouse or EPLI policy.

Here is the Package and Umbrella,

and a copy of the most recent schedule.

 

JAYNA Westbrook,”

 

The punctuation, capitalization, and line breaks

Are reproduced exactly as I found them

The italicized words

Were hyperlinks,

Paths I dared not follow,

Gateways to destruction.

 

I know these words are faux corporate-speak

But the random images

Distinguished with capitals

Deserve a moment before my eyes.

(Apparently my spam-assassin concurred.)

 

There truly was a comma after the surname

Leaving me hanging

A Long Walk, A Thousand Miles From Newtown

December 18, 2012 — 2 Comments

On Saturday Silas and I walked downtown to buy a book for his kindergarten class gift exchange.

On Friday our town had been a snow-covered Christmas-fairy-tale village. Then it rained. It rained on Friday night, and all day Saturday. The rain erased the snow and exposed the husks and straw of fall to the numb gray sky.

We bought our book and headed home through the mist. Everything was crying. We moved slowly and silently, my 37-year-old legs newly attuned to his six-year-old pace.

The cheerful Christmas music piped through Central Park’s loudspeakers sounded alien and anachronistic.

We passed the post office and the library, who face one another across Broadway. Their flags waved wearily where they had fallen, halfway to the muddy ground.

We passed my children’s school, whose flag also trailed low, heavy with its load of grief.

We passed three neighbor boys on bicycles. I smiled and said hello. They were painfully beautiful.

That was a very long walk. I am still tired from it.

Happy Birthday Emily Dickinson

December 10, 2012 — 1 Comment

On the occasion of Emily Dickinson’s birthday, let’s have a poem I find fitting for this blog:

This World Is Not Conclusion

by Emily Dickinson

this world is not conclusion
a species stands beyond –
invisible, as music –
but positive as sound –

it beckons, and it baffles
philosophy – don’t know –
and through a riddle, at the last –
sagacity must go –

to guess it, puzzles scholars –
to gain it, men have borne
contempt of generations
and crucifixion, shown –

faith slips – and laughs, and rallies –
blushes, if any see –
plucks at a twig of evidence –
and asks a vane, the way –

much gesture, from the pulpit –
strong hallelujahs roll –
narcotics cannot still the tooth
that nibbles at the soul –

 

Happy Holidays and Merry Xmas

December 4, 2012 — 5 Comments

Every year, some Christian people get all defensive about people saying/writing “Happy holidays” or “Merry Xmas.” And every year I want to say something. Lucky reader, this is the year!

Even back in the days when I was a good little fundamentalist and so were all my friends, “happy holidays” was not unheard of in my circles. Remember, this is the holiday season. Even leaving out the other religious holidays, we still have Thanksgiving (which sort of kicks off the holiday season) and New Year’s Day. Right? So even if I want to be an in-your-face Christian but also red-bloodedly American, I can say “happy holidays” without turning into a wussy compromiser. Or something. (Personally, I prefer “happy holidays” outside of an all-Christian setting just because I try to be considerate and inclusive of others. I know, that’s probably un-Christian of me, but whatever.)

And then there’s “Xmas.” That little word, I grew up thinking, came straight from the pit. Satan had spearheaded the worldly attempt to take Christ out of Christmas, but we truth-bearers would stand for our Savior no matter what.

Here’s the thing, though. Just a little bit of research would uncover the very Christian roots of the “X” in “Xmas.” Wikipedia is a good place to start that research. In brief, “X” is an English transcription of the Greek symbol for the word “Christ.” I learned this when I was in Bible college and it proved to be a very helpful abbreviation for note-taking – for the amount of times I wrote “Xian,” “Xianity,” and even “X” – I saved five letters every time!

So, happy holidays to all my readers, and a big fat Merry Xmas to my Xian friends!