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@stillprocessing317
We have not yet mastered continuous flight. Therefore, planes remain grounded. They refuel, recheck their tech, and take on new passengers. By grounding themselves, they gain the potential to take flight. May we ground ourselves in truth to be made ready for action. https://www.instagram.com/p/B1Z1LzKHouG/?igshid=8rh4l6rofebg
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Reflections to a Friend: On Beauty The past several months, Iāve been thinking actively about the conception of beauty, ugliness, and ānon-traditional beautyā as I believe you put it. As part of that endeavor, as Iāve traveled I kept an eye out to see who I would categorize as āuglyā. While different in kind from ānon-traditionally beautifulā the exercise was significant, as I found few people who I would deem such by my own or all others standards. Yet in still, in pondering my categorization, I found beauty as likely masked within the personhood of the individual (perhaps, as a member of the collective and as an individual alike). While physical beauty is inherently tied to the conversation, I am not yet convinced that it is objective. While the problems of the notion are yet being worked through, I have found myself yet captivated by the idea of desiring to be with one who I behold as beautiful. Ugly, perhaps, is in the eye of the beholder...
Do you want to be a hero or do you want to be well?
Reflections on a question asked by a friend.
āDo you want to be a hero or do you want to be well?ā
Bruce Wayne answers the question with integrity, finding continuity in his identity through to his death. Tim Drake, the robin I admire most, answers it insincerely and in most depictions of his future lives to regret his choice. Bruce is unwell by most accounts, at his best finding some semblance of wellness through the strength of his support network in the bat family. Tim is well by most accounts, balancing his decision with a healthy life until it forces him into conflict with his true desires.
Admittedly, these characters are fictitious. And yet, they have been personal models of heroism for nearly 18 years. I have been conditioned to view heroism as synonymous with self sacrifice for the sake of others; putting oneās own life behind the lives of others. āYet I will show you a more excellent way...ā
The life of love led by that archetypical hero of christendom seems to have tension with this question. If there are three levels of transcendence in love (love of self, love of other, and love of God) the Jesus of scripture maintained all three in living. We see our savior pulling away to be alone as needed, being moved by compassion to care for individuals and for crowds, and subjugating himself to the will of the Father. And yet, was Jesus himself well as he faced the road of the cross?
The question ought not exist. In a perfect world, I donāt think it would. Yet it does. Kierkegaard treats it when examining the aesthetic (life for pleasure), moral (life for goodness), and religious (life for God) lives we might live. The question matters. Iām grateful it was asked.
Belief in God is not intellectual suicide. Now hear me out. As a logical person it was a challenge for me to accept as well. After thinking things through, it makes more sense to believe than to not. For one thing, the existence of God cannot be proven nor disproven, and so either way it is faith-based.
For me, it seems that there are 3 potential answers to the meaning of life. The first option is that there is no meaning, and therefore we should commit suicide and get out of the worthless, ongoing stress of each day. This doesnāt seem right or satisfying. Some people sadly choose this answer, but I see too much good in the world that I want to enjoy that I dismissed this option long ago. Even if I never enjoy the good things in life, because they exist I do not believe this is the correct choice.
Option 2 is that there is no greater meaning beyond the material world, and so have as much pleasure before death comes. The thinking is that since we occupy a specific space in the cosmos, then this is the only thing we should care about, as everything else is external. So do whatever that space called āmeā desires and try to be happy. The only problem is that we end up with a Lord of the Flies situation, and nobody finds that inspiring or wants the world to operate that way, even though in some ways it does.
That leaves us with Option 3: Jesus. I find the Way of Jesus to be the only higher meaning on offer that satisfies my skepticism. The main reason is that the gospel texts and the resurrection have more evidence than any other religionās foundation. (I have also seen the weather respond to my prayers in several instances, but if you doubt that, I understand.)
The other reason is by process of elimination:
Judaism: fulfilled in Jesus Islam: Began in a cave inhabited by one person and spread through violence (not sure this is all that different than the space-based option 2) Hinduism: how many gods are there? Which one do I care about? I also just donāt think a fixed hierarchy on earth qualifies as a higher meaning that explains the existence of the universe. Buddhism: how can I find meaning when the point is to empty myself? I am a firm believer in the usefulness of stoicism, but this religion takes lowering expectations too far. There cannot be meaning when the meaningful is reduced to 0. (I even tried meditation for a month, and very calmly realized I ended up with nothing. Thatās the point, and I was left wanting.) Humanism/Naturalism?Atheism: I will still die, so who cares? It cannot be proven and so is not naturally superior. Traditional/Animism: these are just too far-fetched, and largely disproven by science Relativism: might as well go back to option 1 at this pointā¦
And that is how I arrived at following Jesus despite being a logical person. Now you know why an intellectual blog deals with spiritual things.
Thereās something to the story of Christ thatās particularly satisfying to our meaning-hungry lives. At some point, Iād love to study narrative psychology a bit more for greater insight into how that something may function.Ā Thank you for sharing.
Changing the World
Some of us talk about changing the world; about making it a better place. They say thatās what something our generation is known for. Weāre operating in an age of information where the problems of this world are readily apparent. A few taps on a backlit screen and weāre instantly connected to the challenges of those both thousands of miles away and in our own backyards. There is knowledge at our fingertips and in our hands power has been granted to affect positive change. Some of us use it.
Some of us look at the world and realize that it needs to be changed. We donāt know much about whatās going on. We listen passively to stories of travesties, shake our heads in pity and go back to drinking lattes while bemoaning the state of things. We donāt know much about the issues but we feel better about ourselves for feeling bad about them. Others of us feel little about such matters and go on with our lives.
Still others of us see problems as opportunities to be taken advantage of. We actively promote our own gain with little regard for the wellbeing of those who are harmed in the process. We look at the rules that are in place and determine that if what we were doing was wrong, we would have been prevented from doing it. Some of us recognize our power and simply enjoy its use.
This is the state of things. There are heroes, bystanders - of both the ignorant and apathetic variety - and villains. Each of us defined by the choices we choose to make. The manner in which we choose to live. The identities that we accept as our own.
Who will you choose to become?
I know the answer for myself. I know the manner in which I desire to live. And I recognize that Iām not capable of doing so on my own. Thereās a burden that requires denying myself, carrying it, and following; and this task is more difficult than I imagined.
We arenāt always defined by our passionate action. But we are defined by the actions we choose to take in times of excitement and in times of drudgery alike. Itās by our words and deeds that we come to know who we are.
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Specificity
I must start by admitting that this is speculation, as is anything that tries to explain the mind of God. However, I believe this is a useful exercise in imagination that may teach us a bit about the world we live in, what it is good for, and how the Church should think about reality and our relationship with its Creator, who is Triune, independent, omniscient, omnipotent, and omnipresent. (Many other resources deal with defending those attributes, if you wish to read defenses of them.) That being said, letās delve into reimagining how it all started.
Before time and space were brought into being, God existed. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit live in perfect love, outside of time, and unbound by space. (The miracles of the incarnation and the cross are the only departures from this, and are not particularly relevant for this essay.)Ā They are all that existed in that frame of reference, which I must refer to as before creation though it is timeless, as I am human and have no other way to fathom or communicate it. Complete happiness and full actualization of all that is good is contained and manifested in the Triune God. So the question is, why create the world? Why allow suffering? I will answer these shortly, by following what I believe to be the commentary God thinks about the world through Biblical history. Although all the contemplation has always existed in Godās mind, I will present it linearly so we humans can ponder it and I can coherently express it on paper.
First God considered his glory, possibly by each Person being in awe of the other two. All good things are fully there, unchanging, and countless angels understand and worship God continually. Then God considered beings that did not know everything and learned by experience and unique relationships, humans. He decided it would be good to create beings that would know Him within a context of particular time and place. Thus they would have to appreciate different aspects of Him in different magnitudes. In this way, by creating different places and beings, he created an ever-increasing diversity of ways to worship and understand God, the sum of which is the total Goodness that exists in eternity.
This is why the first command was be fruitful and multiply. Be fruitful and find, discover, or imagine ways to understand and enjoy God. Multiply and propagate more sources of learning to be in relationship with and to create endless combinations of these ways of understanding God. These specific ways of understanding and worshipping God are what we would call our unique experiences. So creation came to be. And it was good. And then it wasnāt. But God did not destroy the failure and start over, as an omnipotent God would not allow something to exist if it did not further his purposes. And so it must not have been a failure. Indeed, sin is evil, but Godās purpose of having a plethora of ways us human beings can find and appreciate him is still happening.
The Fall did make it much more of a challenge for humans to find and worship God, as he deserves. Eventually, God saw that it was difficult (if not impossible) for everyone to find him in their own unique way and humanity began to give up all together, save for a few who clung to serving the Creator God. So God decided to align himself with a single people and single context as an example of how we should find God and worship him. I am of course referring to Israel. This was never meant to be exclusive, as God regularly disciplined them and allowed other nations to prosper, and several Gentiles were allowed to relate to God. In fact, Abraham was told that his descendants (Israel) will be blessed, and through them the whole world would be blessed. First humanity must be shown how to relate to God from a specific context, and then we could know how to find God from other contexts.
Then Jesus came along, Praise God! He died, and then rose from the dead, and ascended into Heaven. He sent the Spirit to the disciples who formed the Church, which came to be known as the Body. This metaphor is the crux of my argument. All have their specific context, set of abilities, and combination of relationships, and so each personās role in the Church will be different. Everyone has their own opinion about which characteristics of God are important, and through our diversity (not just racial diversity, but class, education, personality traits, and other kinds), we see a more complete picture of who the God we worship is. This is why Christ told his disciples to go to all nations, for now that Godās alignment with humanity shifted from the people who worship God (Israel) to the people who follow Jesus (the Church), a greater diversity has come into play, shifting from a whole nation to the whole world.Ā
In conclusion, Godās purpose in creating the world was to share his love through specific relationships that will glorify him. This is reflected in the original command to sinless people. Since the world still exists that purpose must still be possible and we should pursue it. I believe that purpose is to celebrate diversity and work together in the Church to build as complete a picture possible of who God is through our unique experiences and viewpoints, in order to better share that picture with others and enjoy this fellowship that we enter into. This is done through validating the specificity of each person while also seeking and appreciating the whole. Both of these must be accepted in the time of tension we followers of Jesus live, already redeemed but not yet perfected. This is my specific take on the hope that we pursue with all that we are.
Summary: We all have the opportunity to experience God in different ways, with different magnitudes, from different perspectives, at different points in time as humans. Taken together, our specific experiences of God allow us to uniquely experience Godās glory. And the good and glory that comes from this may be why God created us in the first place.Ā
Side Note: This is a great case for why diversity within the body of Christ glorifies God. Rev 7.9.Ā
Still Processing
Welcome to 2018.
The past two weeks, Iāve had a difficult time answering the question of how Iām doing. Iām a fairly open person when it comes to the things Iāve thought through, but ā unfortunately ā I donāt always have that luxury. Caught off guard by the question, I generally pause before providing a response that normally includes the phrase āIām still processingā. Some of that is tied to a recent break-up that Iām not too keen to process with people. But thereās another component thatās tied to it as well.
Iām 23 years old and Iām still thinking through life. There are questions of faith, vocation, and relationships that I havenāt quite figured out yet. Thatās likely going to be the case throughout my life, but even if a question or answer is temporary ā there are some things that I would like to come to rest for a time. This blog will hopefully provide a venue for such thoughts.
Iām not expecting this doesnāt to be a medium for dialogue, and Iām not sure how well suited Tumblr is for that to begin with. And, while I am putting my face and name behind this, its not necessarily for any of you who read this either (though Iām grateful that you are). This is an opportunity for me to own up to the fact that I havenāt figured life out yet and to begin processing some of my thoughts publically and sharing those thoughts with some of my friends. (Thank you Samuel, for holding me accountable on that front.)
Weāll see how well I maintain this blog over time. My last attempts at blogging didnāt fare so well. Regardless, I intend to use this platform to begin working through some things that I hope to have a better handle on later in life. Forgive me for my errors, and please show grace where youāre able. Iām painfully aware that Iām still processing.
