Sunday, March 30, 2008

A Prescription to the Christian World

...Read this. Responses are more than welcome, especially if you decide to try it.
I am sick of feeling my acute lack of compassion for people.
I am sick of serving God.
I am sick of having faith so deeply ingrained in me.
I am sick of feeling like I ought to work.
I am tired of being myself.
I am tired of caring about details of theology.

I'm going to keep trying to be compassionate anyway.
I'm going to keep serving God anyway.
I'm going to thank God for my faith anyway.
I'm going to try and work anyway.
I'm going to try and find who I am in God anyway.
I'm going to keep caring anyway.
I've been working with a lot of stuff lately. So have many others, including a good number of my friends and relatives. I'm going to suggest a Prescription to the Christian World right now (this is not to suggest all of my friends and relatives are Christians so much as to suggest that the aforementioned Christian world will probably find this prescription most helpful.) This is based on the notion that despite our belief in an all-powerful God, we also maintain belief that the same God is all-knowing and all-loving. It's a jumbled prescription. It's probably not perfect in dosage or content. This prescription is really a prayer. It is a not a full prayer; I would recommend you find sometime in the same day, same hour, even the same prayer to work in whatever else in your belief system ought to be included in a proper prayer. But at any rate I recommend that you do this:
Take a walk. Slowly. In private if you can, and outside if possible. Admire God's creation. Tell God how wonderful Creation is. Tell God how much you found yourself annoyed by Creation, especially those crows. Tell God how much you love being a servant. Praise God for the opportunity to serve in this world and in the world to come. Then keep serving. Tell God how much you love/hate being a servant. Shout at God. Tell God how much you wish you could stop serving. Then keep serving anyway. The emotion doesn't matter. What matters here is that you're telling God. God is there. God will listen.

Thursday, March 13, 2008

D.Lo Posts Old Writing

Some old writing. Edited for personal stuff, but I felt it was good spiritual reflection, and now is as good a time as any to post it.
I’m not sure a person is always meant to take complete responsibility for their own actions, and for the results of those actions, because I think I get that much more insane when I try to do so... It helps a little to not just be angry with myself.

I feel sort of like a jerk right now for lots and lots of reasons, including the elevation of my petty thoughts and feelings in my mind over all the much more serious problems in my head…THERE I GO AGAIN…in their [my friends'] lives. This is not Christian.

And yeah, I know, children in Africa, children in Africa—there’s always something I can feel bad for not feeling bad about. I know. I don’t care. Other people have problems too; my problems aren’t the only freaking problems that matter. And that’s the issue, is that I’m not caring enough about stuff that I really ought to care about.

Saturday, March 01, 2008

Hey Guys I Took A Quiz

I took the hermeneutics quiz that's been going around some of the Christian blogosphere. I scored 66, which puts me just barely, barely in the progressive camp. So I guess take the quiz and post your scores. I doubt any of the people reading this will manage a 20 (lowest end of "conservative" but I'd like to see where you place.

I can't find the thing right now and I'm not going to try, but Henry Neufeld who does the Participatory Bible Study Blog took the quiz, got "progressive" but noted he had some issues with some of the questions. He didn't say what issues.