Five Things You (Probably) Didn't Know About Me

(Picture from Divine Divorce.)

So Jessica Bowman is inviting bloggers to share five things about themselves that their readers probably don't know. Since I love a good synchroblog, here's my list:

1. My feet point in opposite directions. You've heard of being pigeon toed, right, where your feet point towards each other? Well, I have the exact opposite of that. And it makes walking a little difficult for me, especially when I'm wearing shoes without arch support. I end up zig-zagging when I walk.

2. I interviewed punk singer Henry Rollins a few years ago. It was a short email interview for a website I was writing for at the time. Unfortunately, I tried Googling the article, but it appears to be have fallen off the face of the web. But it did happen!

3. I can snap both my middle and ring fingers. Makes snapping my fingers much more fun.

4. Apple skins gag me. Red potato skins used to do the same, but they don't bother me anymore.

5. When I eat a salad, I always eat the croutons last. Don't ask why, 'cause I don't really know.

The Friday Five: 09/28/12

 1. Over at Faith Forward, Roger Wolsey clarifies that being a progressive Christian doesn't automatically mean you're a Democrat.

2. Bible historian (and fellow Whovian) James F. McGrath briefly ponders the relationship between Doctor Who and religion.

3.  Frank Viola reveals his list of top 10 favorite female bloggers.

4. Jamie the Very Worst Missionary gives a few tips on how to be a pastor's wife.

5. And finally, congratulations to Brian McLaren's son Trevor on his wedding to his partner Owen!

How I Became a Whovian

I first met the Doctor not long after my fiancee Amanda and I broke up. We've been together for six years, and engaged for five of them. I don't want to go into the reasons why we broke up (trust me, there are way too many!) but I will say that after we broke up, I wasn't sure what to do with my life. After six years, now what? Being Amanda's fiance was no longer part of my identity. I had to rediscover and reinvent myself.

That's when I met the Doctor.

A lot of my online friends are obsessed with Doctor Who, so I finally decided to give it a try. Not knowing where exactly to begin, I started with the first season of the new Doctor Who, the one with Christopher Eccleston as the Ninth Doctor.

Most people who are new to Who can't really get into the first few Eccleston episodes. I, on the other hand, was immediately hooked. As soon as the Doctor asked Rose to travel with him in the TARDIS, my heart immediately said, "Yes!"

Since then I've been going back and forth between seasons. I've seen the first two seasons, but after Rose left I took a break from past episodes. I've seen all of season five (the first one with Matt Smith as the Eleventh Doctor), half of season six, and I'm watching the current seventh season now. I haven't seen any of the older Doctor Who episodes yet.

So far my favorite doctor is a tie between the Eleventh Doctor and the Tenth Doctor (David Tennant). Eccleston was great, too, but he was a little too butch as the Doctor. Still did a great job, though.

Now, as far as why I love the Doctor so much, well . . . it's hard to explain, really.

G.K. Chesterton once said fairy tales are true not because they teach us dragons are real, but because they teach us dragons can be defeated. And to me, that pretty much sums up the Doctor. No matter what kind of bind the Doctor finds himself in, there's always a way out. Even if he has to sacrifice himself, all is made right in the end.

Not only that, but the Doctor also teaches me that the universe is full of wonder and adventure. Time is a big ball of wibbly wobbly timey wimey stuff. Naturally, I don't have a time machine that's bigger on the inside, but maybe I don't need to. Maybe I can explore time and space right here, where I am now. Life is happening right now; at this very moment, each new experience is shaping and transforming the future. Of course, there are fixed moments in time that no one can change without changing the fate of the world (here's a hint: it only makes things worse), but in those moments we learn that sometimes we just have to let go and let things happen as they are supposed to happen.

One of my favorite episodes is the one where the Doctor and Amy Pond meet Vincent Van Gogh. They try to save him from suicide by taking him to the future so he can see how much people in the future will love his paintings. After the drop Van Gogh back off and return to the present, though, Amy and the Doctor learn that Van Gogh still committed suicide. Amy is distressed, but the Doctor offers some words of wisdom:

"The way I see it, life is a pile of good things and bad things. The good things don't always soften the bad things, but, vice versa, the bad things don't necessarily spoil the good things or make them unimportant."

And maybe that's the most important lesson of all.

Monday Morning Musisings: Sacred? Secular? Does It Even Matter?

In an effort to keep my writing structured, I've decided to blog at least three times a week. Mondays will be Monday Morning Musings, Wednesdays will be a part of Life: Unmasked, and Fridays will be The Friday Five. I hope this works.

This may come as a surprise to most of my readers, but I'm actually a huge Johann Sebastian Bach fan. Yes, I still love my hipster indie folk, but there's nothing like relaxing on a crisp autumn day while drinking a pumpkin latte and listening to the Brandenburg Concertos! Plus, as a Lutheran, Bach kinda comes with the territory, along with the Small Catechism and Book of Concord.

The interesting thing about Bach is how prolific he was. Not only did he do string concertos and keyboard pieces, but he also composed some of the best worship music ever written: "Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring," "Sleepers Awake," "St. Matthew Passion," etc. And I can't help but wonder--did anyone criticize Bach for doing both secular and sacred music?

'Cause if Bach were alive today, I'm sure he'd frustrate CCM audiences! I can see it now. The fundamentalists would accuse Bach of selling out, and the hipster evangelicals would write endless articles for Relevant defending Bach's secular pieces.

Me, I honestly don't care. I think all music is spiritual, whether or not it's explicitly about God.

One of the most spiritual records I've ever heard is Bon Iver's For Emma, Forever Ago, and it doesn't mention anything about God. But I don't think it needs to be about religion in order to be spiritual; the spirituality is in the record's emotional vulnerability. You can tell by the way Justin Vernon sings that he's reaching into the deepest part of his heart and confessing whatever pain he can find there. The spirituality comes from the catharsis.

What do you think? When it comes to music, do labels like "sacred" and "secular" mean anything?

The Friday Five: 09/21/12

(Logo courtesy of Jessica Bowman.)

Yes, folks, The Friday Five is back! There is way too much good stuff on the Internet not to pass along. So here they are, my top five favorite links of the week:

1. Sarah Moon writes an eye-opening piece about how the privileged class controls knowledge. Seriously, read it now!

2. Karen Hammons shares a beautiful story about finding the church's beauty in the midst of ugliness:

I believe people are important. I believe people are who Jesus died for – not organizations. I believe self + family shouldn’t be sacrificed for the “cause” called “church”. I believe people should be fully loved. And not just the ones who meet the “requirements” but the ones who fail at any + all of the “requirements”. 

3. Over at A Deeper Story, Tamera Lunardo writes about wanting God to write love on cutters' arms.

4. Pam Hogeweide asks an important question: What if mega churches became extinct? 

5. Dr. James F. McGrath weighs in on the recent papyrus discovery that suggests Jesus had a wife.

When God Causes Anxiety

(Painting by Daniel McKernan.)

I often hear Christians say that Jesus does not offer us a comfortable life, and that God will often taken us out of our comfort zones. 

The problem is, no one has ever explained to me what that means.

Does it mean that Jesus doesn't want us to sit on our butts all day counting our blessings, and that he wants us to go out and love people? Does it mean Jesus wants us to show love and mercy to people we tend to ignore? Or does it mean Jesus will deliberately put me in a situation that will give me an anxiety attack?

I always interpreted it as, "God's gonna deliberately give you an anxiety attack."

For example, back when I was engaged to Amanda, I kept having these intense anxiety spells whenever we talked about marriage. Amanda and her family just thought I was being immature, so they always told me to snap out of it and "man up." And I believed them, too. I thought I was just being overly dramatic again. Finally the anxiety got so bad that I wanted to kill myself. I had to break up with Amanda. I haven't had many anxiety attacks since then.

But every once in a while, I still feel like God's mad at me for breaking up with Amanda.

Maybe my relationship with Amanda was God's way of pulling me out of my comfort zone. If so, why did it have to hurt so much? Why did I feel like suicide was the only other option for me? Surely this can't be God's work!

But what if it is? What if this is part of the whole "self-sacrifice" thing?

If stepping out of my comfort zone includes me getting over my selfish nature in order to love people, then I'm all for it. But if it means God is going to deliberately put me in a situation where anxiety attacks nearly drive me to suicide, then count me out!

Jesus DOES Offer Equality

So I don't really read Nicole Cottrell's blog Modern Reject anymore. Even though she says she doesn't fit into either the Christian Right or the Christian Left, her blog took a hard right turn a few months ago. So I figured if I want to keep my cool, I better go find another blog to read.

But first, I want to point out this one little thing.

A month ago Nicole wrote this on her Facebook page:

*face palm*

Where do I start with this?

I guess the best place to start is at the beginning: Genesis.

As I mentioned about two years ago, if you read the Eden story carefully, you'll see that patriarchy was NEVER God's original intention. It was only after Adam and Eve ate the forbidden fruit that God told them Adam would rule over her (Genesis 3:16). Before that, the text says she was a "suitable helper" to Adam (Gen. 2:20-22). As John R. Coats explains in a Huffington Post article:

In Hebrew, the phrase is "'ezer kenegdo," which, for centuries, has been translated as "helper," or "helpmate" -- the little woman. But biblical scholars Robert Alter and Richard Elliot Friedman, their arguments convincing, translate the phrase, respectively, as "sustainer beside him [the man]," and "a strength corresponding to him." In other words, the woman was created in order to be a partner -- an equal partner. Moreover, given that "adam" is the Hebrew word for "human," not "man," Eve is as much an "adam" as Adam. In fact, regarding the first creation story, scholar Tamara Cohn Eskenazi writes, "By referring to 'adam', the text is not describing an individual but a new class of beings that comprises female and male from the start, both of them in God's image. ... Our humanity comes first; our sexual identity next."

And then there's Galatians 3:38, where Paul says that there is "neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female" in Christ. (Emphasis mine) So therefore, in the kingdom of sin, there is division and separation; but in the Kingdom of God, there is unity and equality.


And the same thing goes for LBGTs.

In another previous blog post, I explain that throughout the New Testament we see how several people on the outside of Judaism are now welcomed into the Kingdom of God. For example, the Ethiopian eunuch in Acts chapter 8. Being both a foreigner and a eunuch, he would not be allowed fully participate in temple worship, according to the Law of Moses. In Isaiah 56:1-7, however, we read that God will eventually open the gates to God's Kingdom to both foreigners and eunuchs. We’re not told what exactly Philip says to the eunuch, but if the eunuch wanted to be baptized immediately I’m pretty sure Philip told him about Isaiah’s prophecy. (Hat tip: A New Kind of Christianity by Brian McLaren)

Another passage I like to point out is Peter's vision in the book of Acts. As Fred Clark of Slactvist explains:

More specifically, I would point to Acts 10:1 – Acts 11:18 as a compelling argument that followers of Christ must not “call anyone profane or unclean.” This story teaches us that appealing to biblical law in order to declare another person or group of people as “profane or unclean” is not legitimate, even if we think we can make a strong case for interpreting the law in this way. The biblical laws regarding circumcision were not ambiguous or optional, yet such clear commandments regarding Other People’s Genitals were not to be allowed to exclude the uncircumcised from being baptized.

Let me be clear on that point: God commanded Peter to disregard those laws, commanded him not to allow those laws to exclude others. Peter wasn’t told that he now had the option of welcoming those who had been excluded. Peter wasn’t told he might maybe kind of sort of “tolerate” these people as second-class members of the community, “as if it was by the indulgence of one class of people that another enjoyed” the gift of the Holy Spirit.

No, Peter was told that he must welcome them, fully and openly as equals. “What God has made clean, you must not call profane.” Anything short of full acceptance would itself constitute disobeying a command from God.

If you, like Nicole, read Scripture from the typical conservative American evangelical hermeneutic perspective, then  yes, Jesus only offers us forgiveness and truth. But if you take a closer look, you will find that Jesus offers something else, too: equality.

Matter Into Energy

My friend's beautiful daughter passed away last night.

I don't know what I could say that would bring any sort of peace for her family.

But maybe Dick Solomon can help:



Rest in peace, dearest Cora. May your energy be all around us.

I Choose To Believe

(Image found at Kind of Red.)

My coworker's daughter isn't doing so well. In fact, she's taken a turn for the worst.

I still don't know what I could say or do to support my coworker and her husband during this horrible time.

But I do know one thing.

Today on the ride home from my boyfriend Sean's house (it's about an hour and a half away), I got to thinking about everything, and I realized something. No one can ever know for certain who or what God is, or even if God exists. You have to decide for yourself whether or not you believe. And it is for this reason that I choose to believe.

I choose to believe that God does NOT preordain everything that happens here on Earth.

I choose to believe that God gently guides us to the possibility of something beautiful coming from tragedy.

I choose to believe in the words of Alfred North Whitehead:

 What is done in the world is transformed into a reality in heaven, and the reality in heaven passes back into the world. By reason of this reciprocal relation, the love in the world passes into the love in heaven, and floods back again into the world. In this sense, God is the great companion--the fellow-sufferer who understands. (p. 351, emphasis mine)

I choose to believe that one day God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. (Revelation 21:4)

I choose to believe that Resurrection Sunday will always come after Good Friday and Holy Saturday.

I choose to believe that God is with the orphans, the widows, and the bereaved parents.

I choose to believe in all these things because I choose to have hope in the midst of despair.

The Dark Night (Of The Soul) Rises

I have to be honest.

The real reason why I didn't write a real blog post last week wasn't because of college (even though it did start back up for me a few weeks ago).

It was because I was going through another dark night of the soul.

It started with the usual intellectual questions that would lead anyone to an existentialist crisis. "How can we know for sure that God exists?" "Why is God so silent?" "Can a person be compassionate without religion? And if so, what use is religion, anyway?" After re-reading Peter Rollins and Kierkegaard, I regained some sense of faith. It wasn't much, but if Jesus said only a mustard seed of faith is enough, then I guess my little scrap of faith was good enough as well.

And then on Friday, we got the call nobody wants to get.

One of my coworkers called us at the library to say that her two-year-old daughter had to be rushed to John Hopkins in Baltimore for emergency surgery. Out of respect for the family, I won't go into the details. But I will say this: it's bad! Every time we think she's getting better, things only get worse.

It's moments like these when doubt becomes more than just fodder for armchair philosophy. This is REAL FUCKING LIFE!

How can I comfort my coworker and friend when I don't even know why this is happening to her daughter? How can I sing "It is Well with My Soul" when I don't feel like it is? How can I say "God is good" with my lips while my heart says, "Or is He?"

Maybe this is one of those Job moments where there just is no answer in the end. It's all just an ambiguous ending where God reminds us that God created the natural world, and that's it. In my more spiritually confident days, I'd gladly accept this ambiguity. But in times like these, I honestly feel like it's just a cop-out.

I recently read a book by Peter Rollins called How (Not) to Speak of God. One passage in particular comes to mind:

Instead the believer ought to acknowledge and even celebrate this dark night of the soul, understanding that this is not a threatening darkness which conceals an enemy but rather is the intimate darkness within which we embrace our faith. For when we can say that we will follow God regardless of the uncertainty involved in such a decision, then real faith is born--for love acts not whenever a certain set of criteria has been met, but rather because it is in the nature of love to act. (p. 34)

I hope he's right.