The Unwritten Rules

The true culprit for all of the problems in the world isn't religion. Religion is merely one place to express our downfall. You'll find all the same problems in any institution:

Marriages and Partnering. Immediate Families. Extended Families. Schools. Workplaces. Universities. Religious Communities. Scientific Communities. Right or Left Wing Organizations and Communities. Student Organizations. Athletic Organizations. Missionary Organizations. Non-Profit Organizations. Hollywood. Gangs. Law Enforcement. Activist Organizations. Academic Communities. Artistic Communities. Political Organizations. The Corporate World. The Military. Etc.

The moment we try to blame religion for all of the problems in the world, we fail to see one of the main problems in our societies which is the unwritten rules of control which govern our interactions in any institution:

What we can do. What we can't do. When we're allowed to speak. When we're not allowed to speak.

The person who leaves religion most often moves into another community where a new set of unwritten rules is placed upon him or her. They might feel a sense of freedom at first, but soon to follow will come the unwritten rules of control in that community.

The solution to this problem goes much deeper than switching communities. It requires transforming the very nature of these communities from within or finding or creating entire new communities which abide by the rules of love* instead of the rules of control.

Unfortunately, many have tried to create these new communities without understanding the unwritten rules of control they were following in the first place and have simply transferred these rules into the new ones they have created.

The solution has to do with the rules of love which I'll cover in another entry. They aren't restrictive, permissive, or tolerant, although they might involve these qualities. The rules of love have an entirely different nature.

Bearing the Image of God

When we look in the mirror, we must decide to believe something that maybe we've never believed before or maybe something we need to renew in our hearts. We must believe that the person we see has something to give to the world because that person has been created by God. The primary thing we have to give to the world is ourselves.

A Letter from God

Hezekiah was a king of Judah back in the day*. He was in a desperate situation and about to loose his kingdom to the hands of the Assyrians. He sent a message to the prophet Isaiah. It said:

"Isaiah, could you relay the following to God? Tell him, 'We're in a really desperate situation. Would you help us?'" (2 Kings 19:3-4, SDT).

God's response: He sent a message back to Hezekiah through the prophet Isaiah. It said, "This letter to you Hezekiah is the sign that I'm going to save you" (2 Kings 19:29 SDT).

This is extraordinary.

Don't we all want to read our name in a personalized letter from God?

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*700's BC or so.

The Achilles' Heel in Creativity

Music. Writing. Painting. Speach writing. Web design. Film making. Humor.

When I do these things, am I doing them in order to establish who I am, or am I doing them out of who I am? The answer to this question expresses a lot about a person's psychology.

Haiti

I'm in awe over how unemotionally I'm affected when I look at pictures of the recent earthquake in Haiti. Several years ago, I built shelters in Pakistan following an earthquake which killed tens of thousands. I saw the broken buildings. I saw the broken people. I've also been around other horrific situations. In Iraq, I was within earshot of British soldiers using their machine guns to kill radicals who had taken over a local government building. Another time, I felt the walls in my Iraqi home shaken as 80 were killed in car bombs within minutes of each other. Many of you have also witnessed horrific events. For example, a number of you watched TV and saw the Twin Towers fall in New York. A few of you might have even been there. These sorts of events are very non-movie-like in their appearance and do register horrible feelings.

Still, for some reason, Haiti just doesn't register emotionally. I feel like maybe a combination of distance from these attrocities plus the repetitive viewing of fictional destruction in movies has really de-sensitized me. No shame. I'm just acknowleding it. I also don't feel like something is wrong with me because I know that if I were in the middle of a live situation that it would affect me emotionally, despite the fictional destruction I've been inundated with in the movies. I know this because I have been on the edge of horrific events and it has affected me in a horrible way. When it's happening live, there is no background music, there is no slow motion heroics, and often there is no last minute saving or rescuing. There is only an awful combination of silence, crying, and sirens--laced with adrenaline.

Pray for Haiti. As the adrenaline wears off and especially following the initial relief efforts over the next couple months, they move into a multitude of variations involving: shock, denial, acceptance, boredom, sadness, sickness, grief, and misery.

I suppose we could even give to Haiti. We can contribute financially even if we are unemotionally affected. There's nothing wrong with that. A dollar-given is a dollar-earned.

Knowing and Being Known (Part Three)

Knowing is hard because it requires I listen. Being known is hard because it requires I speak.

Misinterpretations of John the Baptist

Now I'm not saying that John the Baptist wasn't a little on the unusual side. The guy was pretty radical. However, I do believe there are some severe misinterpretations about his character and about what he was doing out there in the Judean Countryside. A lot of our misinterpretation of John has to do with our legalistic theology.

Here are some questions: Why did he have to come in the first place? Why did Jesus need somebody to "announce" who he was? What was John teaching? What is repentance? What is the Kingdom of God? What does preparing the path and making it straight mean? Why was he wearing the same clothes as the older prophet, Elijah? Talk to any average pastor, or even a glamorous mega-church pastor, and I bet you'll get a high percentage of deers looking into the headlight looks if you ask them what John the Baptist was all about. This doesn't have to do with a lack of intelligence, but it does have to do with a lack of correct theology.

Bear with me as I simply copy and paste part of the book of Mark for you to read. Let's admit it. We're more interested in reading what a commentator has to say than the scripture when it is quoted. Try to take a look, however, at what I'm showing you though, because it's going to look a lot more interesting if you read it and compare my two interpretations. I've changed some of the words or added words, in italics to show two different ways that our brain might interpret what has been written. I'm not proposing to exposit the Greek. I'm trying to show what's going on in our minds.

Mark 1:1-8

1The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

2It is written in Isaiah the prophet:
"I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your way"
3"a voice of one calling in the desert,
'Prepare the way for the Lord,
make people who are right with God.' " 4And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching a baptism of getting more right with God for the forgiveness of sins. 5The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins in shame, they were baptized by him in the Jordan River hoping to stay right with God from then on. 6John wore clothing made of camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He didn't think you were quite as good as him if you weren't roughnecked too. 7And this was his message: "After me will come one more strict than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. Even I'm still trying to stay right with him. 8I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit." So, make sure and get things right.

Holy smokes. As a Christian, I've largely believed all of these misinterpretations I just italicized in the above description of John the Baptist. We mostly believe he was a little crazy, came to blow a trumpet announcing the start of Jesus' ministry, and was teaching people to make sure to get right with God.

I've heard the cultural phrase "get right with God" so many times in my Christian experience and it is so sad. It basically means, "get my act together" or "make myself a little better so God will be a little more pleased with me".

It is the opposite of the Gospel. The Gospel (good news) is that God, through Jesus, has already rescued us from all sin and has already transformed us into new people with his righteousness. It is an action that is already perfected, or already completed.

Therefore, if you really want to "get right with God" or "get righteous with God", then this is more about being open to Him forgiving and transforming you, not about what you need to do go get yourself cleaned up and a little more presentable. The first is a grace based mentality. The second is a shame based mentality.

Most of us grew up or migrated into churches which inadvertently espoused or espouse a shame based mentality. Thus, John the Baptist has been explained mainly as a weird, radical, desert dweller who told people to try to keep up with his pace of holiness and get their act together. "God is coming! You better get your act together! Look a little more sharp than you do. And stop complaining about the cold water I'm baptizing you in. Good Israelites don't complain about such things!" Frankly, my old picture of John the Baptist includes a picture of him with a whip threatening corporeal punishment.

Let's take a different look at Mark 1:1-8.

1The beginning of the gospel about Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

2It is written in Isaiah the prophet:
"I will send my messenger ahead of you,
who will prepare your grace-based way of living"
3"a voice of one calling in the desert,
'Prepare a grace-based community for the Lord,
provide them with a grace-based theology of forgiveness and love.' " 4And so John came, baptizing in the desert region and preaching that men and women who allow him to wash them clean with water will be cleansed of their sin by God if in the same way, they take a chance that God is safe enough that they'll let Him wash them clean of their sins and give up trying to make up for them in various ways. 5The whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him. Confessing their sins, he gladly washed them clean of their sin in the Jordan River. 6John wore clothing made of camel's hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7And this was his message: "After me will come one more powerful than I, the thongs of whose sandals I am not worthy to stoop down and untie. 8I wash you clean from sin with water, but he will wash you clean from sin by turning you into an entirely new person with the Holy Spirit."

In this interpretation, John isn't teaching about getting our act together or getting right with God, he's teaching about allowing God to get us right with him. The true nature of repentance is the recognition that I can't get my act together or get right with God in that horrible Christian religious culture we have been bred with over the centuries.

The moment I really believe that God has forgiven me (of my real sin) with the heart of someone who would fight and die for me, is the moment I have come to fully obey Him. This is what it means to "obey the gospel". It means to "believe in him". Think about when you've had someone really believe in you. I mean they believe in you, in the sense that they trust you. Wow. That is an amazing feeling. Now, I'm not saying that God is insecure in the sense that he needs us to believe in him, in order to cover up His shame or anything like that, but when we believe in Him; well, I believe this is the greatest complement we could ever pay to our Creator, more than any other type of good work we could ever perform.

What was John the Baptist doing out there? I think he was providing a safe place (away from orthodox religion and its rules) where people could go and find a safe place where they could be told that God is safe and harbors nothing but forgiveness and it is lived out in a grace-based community of believers who never negate sin, but desire (lots of failures here still) to forgive one another for that real sin. A place where people talk and communicate rather than attack one another or hide from one another due to the harm they cause one another. I think this is what John was doing. He was preparing for Jesus, a bunch of people who were learning about God's loving nature in a safe place, alway from the unwritten rules of family, institutions, and orthodox religion. It was a safe place where they could go, practice new ways of living, get recharged, and then go back to the world with God's love in their hearts.

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You might ask, what about when he was yelling at the Pharasees and the Teachers of the Law? What kind of love was that? In that situation, I believe John the Baptist was actually doing the most loving thing he could do. He was protecting his disciples. The religious teachers (with their unwritten rules) were there to influence his disciples with their unhealthy and legalistic ways of living. The only thing he could do was to yell at them and expose them for who they really were. I'm sure some stayed and truly accepted the forgiveness of God. I'm sure he didn't tell them to leave. But, the primary motivation of John was protection, I believe, in those moments.

Knowing and Being Known (Part Two)

I believe that to know and be known for who we really are is our greatest desire and our greatest fear. To act on our desire feels like heaven. To act on our fear feels like hell.

Seventh Grade Consequences

In the seventh grade my teacher figured out how to get my dad in for a parent-teacher conference to deal with my behavior without establishing a true parent-teacher conference. See, I talked a lot behind his back every day during reading class, but very carefully, so as not to get caught. Mr. Blunt would write my name on the board, but then I'd behave to avoid the checkmark by being quiet the rest of the hour. I thought I was so smart. I thought I could get away with my little infractions forever. One day, I came to school and my name was still on the board from the previous day. I said, "Hey Mr. Blunt, you forgot to take my name off the board." He said, "No, I didn't." See, he'd decided to keep it up there for a while until I got a checkmark for talking again. I was livid. I tried real hard to avoid getting into trouble, but about a week later, he finally caught me talking and up went the checkmark. I was embarrassed and resentful. Now, a check-mark didn't require a parent-teacher conference, but Mr. Blunt knew my dad would have to pick me up from after-school detention since I'd miss the bus I took home every day. Once the check-mark went up, then he'd have a chance to talk to my dad. He wanted to talk to my dad, not to shame me, but to get us into a dialogue that would help me. The ironic thing is I never saw his goodness at the time.

I've spent most of my life trying to get away with as much as possible without getting caught. Isn't this our default? Adam set a trend in the Garden of Eden that we follow quite willingly. After he took the fruit, he tried to hide from God. Then, God set out to find him. Adam hid from God in shame. God sought out Adam in love. The reality is, God is more interested in communicating with us over punishing us, just like my teacher in the seventh grade was more interested in helping me over punishing me. He wanted to communicate. I wanted to hide in shame. The irony of God's pursuit is that we run from a God who loves us.

Shame and Feelings

There's all sorts of feelings I've tried to hide or suppress over the years, as if they were ethically wrong or something. Anger. Jealousy. Loneliness. Embarrassment. Fear. Even Happiness and Sadness have been too on the edge for me.

Feelings are scary because we have no control over them. They come and go like wind on the beach. Too wild. Too unpredictable. Unable to be controlled. Ultimately, some of us develop the following axiom: Uncontrollable = Something to be ashamed of.

I might as well be ashamed of how sand feels against my skin or how a hot flame feels when I touch it. I can't control how sand or a hot flame feels just like I can't control how I feel when someone relates to me in a way that makes me feel happy, sad, hurt, angry, enthralled, or jealous. Feelings are simply how we experience those things or people we relate to. There is nothing right, wrong, shameful, or unshameful about our feelings. They simply happen.

Let me give you an example of something that happened to me today. A very small situation, but a good example: At church, I was sitting behind our teaching pastor. He's a high profile guy, not just at my church but even around the country. A friend goes right up to him as he's sitting in the front row and gives him a hug. A long guy-hug. Pats on the back. Words exchanged. Smiles. Etc.--right in front of the whole stinking congregation. I started to have this weird sensation. I knew it was a feeling. What was it? Good old jealousy. My first instinct was to try to suppress the feeling, because of course we "shouldn't feel jealous over such things." Very often when I experience jealousy in a situation like this one, my thoughts following the feeling goes like this: "Well that guy's got a lot of ego problems. I see he likes to hug high-profile guys in public so people will think he's important too. I'd never do anything like that of course." Do you see how that thought is a cover-up? That's me trying to cover up my shame over feeling jealous in the first place. Because, again, I'm not supposed to "feel that way".

This time, instead of suppressing such a "crude" and "shameful" feeling, I decided to own it. I decided to let it just be there and accept it for what it was. No need to run away from it. In my mind, I talked with God for a few moments and said, "God, I'm jealous. I'm jealous of that man and I feel kind of stupid or immature for having this feeling, but it's there and I'm not going to try to run away from it any longer."

Guess what happened next. God came down from heaven and squashed me like a bug. Okay. Just kidding. What do you think really happened in the heavens? I think God was pleased. I think he probably grabbed a few angels, replayed the whole thing in 4D for them, and said, "Isn't this awesome? He's starting to realize his feelings aren't something to be ashamed of anymore!" The angels probably thought it was great too and were smiling.

For those of you who don't struggle with shame surrounding your feelings, this blog entry probably doesn't make any sense to you. Many people however, have grown up learning to feel ashamed of their feelings, or at least certain feelings. Many aren't even in touch with their feelings because they've kept them hidden for years.

Don't get me wrong. There were three other times today I can specifically recollect that I was ashamed of my feelings. Now I just understand that I don't need to be ashamed of my feelings. That's a start.

Do you struggle with shame surrounding your feelings? If so, I recommend finding a safe group or couple of people you can connect with. Start sharing your feelings with them so they can affirm you in that process.

The Value of Good Works

Trusting that God is pleased with my actions is more important than the actions themselves.* Once I start doubting myself and asking if I could have done something better, then I've already missed the primary good work, which is to believe He is already pleased.**
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*Steven D
**Martin Luther in his Treatise on Good Works.

The Key to Our Souls

Feelings are the key to our souls. To not feel or maybe more accurately to lack being in touch with our feelings is to live without a connection to our souls or the souls of others. To acknowledge our disconnect and to be known for this disconnect by a safe person who carries a safe God inside of them is a foundation for the restoration or reintegration of our soul, emotions, body, and mind. The result is that these emotions carry us into the actions of real life. We become powerful and dangerous in a good way.

Addendum to Descartes

I think, therfore I am. ~Descartes

I feel, therefore I can act. ~Steven D

Being Known vs. Being Fixed

At the core, I'd rather be known and accepted than be fixed. I'd rather know and accept another person than try to fix them. At their core, they probably want the same. Earned trust and permission is the key, on both sides. All healing stems from this type of protection.
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Of course, the old-self is used to trying to fix self and others. But, that isn't what I and others primarily want at the core, in my opinion. We want to know and be known, primarily.