The Sharpened Spoon

I was walking through a local grocery store last week when I heard my name being called. My name is common, and it's never me they are yelling at, so I ignored it and went on. When I finally realized they were calling me I turned to find a woman I hardly recognized. She had been the assistant manager of a small retail store near my home, an older lady in her late fifties. The woman standing before me now looked great, she was dressed nicer than I remembered, had her hair professionally done, was wearing full makeup and looked genuinely happy, and it restored my faith a little.

Two years ago this woman, we'll call her Helen, although that is not her name, had hired on as a part time stocker to make a little money. Within a month they were insisting she take a full time assistant managership, and not the being the type to say no, she did. I watched a vibrant, lovely woman with a quick smile age 10 years in just a few weeks under the heavy, stressful schedule.

About the same time a young man named Robert, again, not his real name, also showed up and began working cash register at this little store that I frequented almost daily since my theater was across the street. He was a college student, very polite, well spoken and everyone mentioned he was a hard worker. That would soon change.

Once Helen accepted the job, the manager of the store began dumping more and more responsibility on her to the point of breaking. She was closing almost every night, did most of the payroll, and in short was, in actuality managing the store because she just couldn't say no. But, still with a ready smile and a kind word, all around one of my favorite people. Until she was gone.

A few weeks before that I had noticed an extreme change in Robert, he began dressing a little more ghetto, not really seeming to care. He stopped taking care of his hair. His attitude became sullen and I heard from Helen that everyone suspected his new girlfriend was a bad influence. Then he dropped out of college and made the job his full time gig, always complaining, never enough money, and so on.

On the day that I asked about Helen, the manager, whose name I won't even substitute since I honestly cannot remember, told me that Helen had been let go due to a $3000 shortage in a bank deposit. This shocked me, what I heard next enraged me. It seemed that Robert suddenly had four months back rent money, a better car and new sneakers, that plus everyone had heard him joking about the heist, but it couldn't be proven. Helen had taken the fall, refusing to file a report of suspicion. Robert kept his job a few more months and the last time I saw him, he was shuffling through the same store, bleary eyed in Sponge Bob pajama pants, a scuzzy white wife beater and a pair of Bunny Slippers.

I wondered what had happened to my friend. I wanted to beat some sense into this stupid young punk for what he had done to himself and her. Wanted to throw his Gangsta rapper wannabe drug skinny sorry ass excuse for a man body up against the building and tell him what I thought. But, not Helen. She thought he deserved a chance and had moved on.

She is now assistant manager of a shiny new pharmacy, making three times as much money, twenty pounds lighter, looking ten years younger and with her mysterious health problems having corrected themselves,and she thanks God for Robert everyday, and prays for him. So, I guess it's true. The universe (AKA God, Jehovah, Elohim) really is paying attention.

So, when was the last time you truly let God fight your battles for you. He says he will you know. I'm looking for an opportunity to try it. An opportunity to be wronged and say nothing, to show love, instead of righteous indignation, and I can't wait to tell you how it turns out.

God, Me and the Universe, Part two

So, you're curious, aren't you? Is he really claiming that he has a perfect life? Does he have it exactly the way he wants it? The answer to the first is no, the second is, I'm working on it, but seriously, no. So, you're probably wondering why I called you all here. (uncovering my white marker board on which there are rows of circles forming a pyramid) This is you, these are your three closest friends that you are going to convince to sell... Just kidding. But seriously, I have been doing a loooottt of thinking lately about how my life could be what I want it to be, perfect. Jesus commands us to do it in Matt 5:48. Be perfect as your Heavenly Father is perfect. So, it must be doable. But how?

Here is what I came up with, and this is just the little thoughts rubbing around in my head until the friction causes smoke, but here it is: 1: I believe there is a God 2: I believe that God is everywhere at once 3:I believe that God is perfect 4:This leads me to the conclude that my life is also perfect! That's right, that's it, your life too. It's perfect, right now, this moment, exactly where you are, no matter how it looks, or feels or smells, perfect and in my thinking, I have proven it, at least to myself, ready?

If God is perfect and everywhere at once (although He is a non-local, extra-temporal entity) but, for arguments sakes, let's just agree with Paul who said: "In Him we live and move and have our being" and "He is One Father, above all, in all and through all" and say that he is everywhere at once. The only way that this is possible is for God to be equal to, or greater in capacity than the universe, and, for him to invest every molecule with his presence, it must exist...inside him. In other words, everything you touch see feel and experience is inside God. If the universe is part of a perfect God, the universe itself must also be perfect? Right?

How is that possible? Disney magic! No, seriously, though, since God is bigger than and, in fact, created what we experience as time, in the reality that God is, the universe is perfect. We all believe that it will be perfected in what we know as the future, right? So from God's perspective, it already is!

Do you agree? Well, before you write it off, as I did at first, consider this: If God is both perfect and omnipresent, the universe must be perfect. If it is not, then either A: God is not perfect, or B: God is not everywhere.

Okay, now tell me how wrong I am. Please. Because, if my life, as I am living it right now, is perfect then I really need a change of perspective to see it sometimes, and that sounds tiring!

While other political systems may crush, discredit or otherwise make their enemies impotent, only a capitalistic democratic republic has the ability to absorb them. What do I mean by that? Our governmental system has a unique ability to make its detractors a part of itself. Allow me to explain.

The unions were originally formed to work to protect the worker from the greed of the company owners and managers, now they are the engines of greed. They are driving for ever more government and more largesse, which is completely antithetical to what they were about in the first place, honest pay for honest work.

The Church too has become an ally instead of a watchdog. The lure of money is so great that few can withstand it. It seems that nearly everyone who possesses it is in turn consumed and possessed by it. Politicians forget where they came from, ministers forget the warning that you can't serve God and money and the government, the system, the greedy monster that has become America just laughs and looks for the next victim. It will lull them to sleep as well.

Success is the ultimate sedative. Once a person reaches a certain level of success in life anything approaching true moral outrage is all but impossible. We tend only to care for ourselves and the well being of those closest to us. The poor and marginalized tend to fade from memory very quickly. The rich man can ill afford the luxury of outrage and the poorest of the poor don't have time for it, which leaves it to the shrinking middle class to carry the load.

What God needs is people who literally have nothing to lose. It isn't that poverty is righteous, just the opposite, it is that wealth can breed a special kind of evil and its name is complacency.

Here's how it works. Group A opposes the actions of the government, or the “free market”, which by the way are finally being revealed as one and the same, so the government first tries to suppress them. Sometimes this works and the opposition amounts to nothing, other times this makes them even stronger and they continue to fight. At some point someone within government becomes their champion (or they send a man to Washington to fight for them) and convinces his peers to give them part of what they want, under the guise of “doing the right thing”. Soon the group that opposed the government becomes dependent on them for their sustenance. They actually become partners with them.

Another example is the civil rights movement, they fought to change the law, now they use government as a weapon to attain their ends. After partnership is established government becomes their friend, or so they think, and we are programmed to defend our friends.

Once this partnership, or team mentality has been achieved it is easy for government to shape the goals and methodology of that group to suit their purpose. They make them irrelevant by placing them in a long line of “issues” and giving each a small amount of their time and attention so that no meaningful reform can possibly be made without upsetting the whole apple cart and that would stop government and we don't want that.

Capitalism is particularly adept at this game. As long as the ATMs (AKA “citizens” or AUTOMATIC TAX MACHINES)don't revolt and keep paying their ever higher taxes, more and more people can be brought into the government, or supported by it. Therefor, all those who oppose it make up a smaller and smaller minority, and their causes being separate splinter this number even more. They are the fringe groups. It is the ultimate playing out of the saying: Politics makes for strange bedfellows. Completely disparate groups find themselves not on the same side of the issues but on the same side in defending the institution that supplies them with what they see as the only means of making any real change, the Federal Government of the United States.

A Democratic Republic is the only political entity that can sustain social canabalism. Cannibalism is the act of eating one's own kind, “Of the people, by the people and for the people” no other system has this same power because government is separate, it is another species and cannot cannibalize the social structures within it. They can be at odds, but their enemies are always separate. It is the only system that can be constantly at odds with itself and is inherently so.

In the beginning the founders realized this and in their wisdom created a loose confederation of individual states that were each, by and large, self determinate. Through the years, especially the last half of the twentieth century, since the civil war the states power has been eroded by an ever increasing consolidation of money, resources and power at the Federal level. This, in turn, is used to coerce the individual states into toeing the political line in order to receive what they perceive, just like other institutions and groups, to be their lifeline. The funding the provides the only way for them to accomplish what they see as vitally important.

Among groups that cannot be brought directly into the fold oppositional thinking is employed to keep them in competition with themselves. We rank the states in order of successes in: education, cost of living, per cap-pita income and the like. This has the effect of placing them in direct competition for the attention and reward from the Federal Government. The same is true for political parties. They posture as if there are major philosophical differences, but in reality that is, at least in part, a ploy to make the people feel that there is still a system of checks and balances in place.

Most of these differences are not substantive. Take for instance, the current debate over healthcare. Many members of congress are rebelling at the thought of state supported abortion. In substance there is very little difference between state sanctioned abortion (it being legal) and state supported abortion (it being paid for with tax dollars) In a very real way there is no method of compartmentalization that can justify the support of any government that allows this practice to continue through the paying of taxes or the adherence to its laws, except as regards the sanctity of other lives, for a person who believes that the practice of abortion is wrong. We are all guilty by association. The apostle Paul said: For him who knows what to do and does not do it, for him it is sin. Logic dictates that the reverse is also true, If you know what you should not do, then doing it is sin as well. If we believe that we should not allow unborn children to be slaughtered by the thousands then we should be doing what we can to prevent it from continuing.

While it is an extreme example, abortion provides one of the clearest pictures of societal cannibalism. It starts as a measure to protect women who feel they need the ability to avail themselves legally of what they perceive as a necessary “medical” procedure. Without capitalism, this reaches its zenith with only a small percentage of women willing to make this decision, with capitalism, the debate is redefined. Someone, somewhere began to see the potential for money to be made. I know, crass but the numbers don't lie. Average number of abortions per year = 854,000, cost per abortion $350-$550 each= a 38 million dollar per year idustry. In comparison, this is more than total annual sales for one of the current most popular tech gadgets, the Ipad.

So, what do we do about it? We can no longer continue to allow things to happen around us that we know are wrong with no response. We must personally take a stand and be willing to to the right thing, even when it costs us. We must think of others more highly than ourselves, realizing that there is a very real connection between us and others and that what effects one negatively effects us all. We must first “be the change we want to see” in the words of Ghandi.

We must continually express God's thoughts on the matter in a loving, kind, embracing way, with the view in mind, not of changing others into what we want them to be, but with the revelation of God in mind. In other words, we are not working to expose the others, but to expose the heart of God, to aid in his goal of reconciling creation to himself. We must refuse to engage in capitalist cannibalism by conducting our own lives and businesses by first “doing no harm”. This means being aware of who we are conducting business with and what the outcome of our work, purchases and investments ultimately are and find ways around supporting the cannibals.

While boycotts and other “negative” actions can have some effect, I think we are better served by promoting partnerships with those that are working toward the same aim, rather than engaging in their battle of oppositional thinking by spending our time and energy opposing what we disagree with. One positive action is so much more powerful than a campaign of negative responses.
 
Lastly, we should have this attitude that was also in Christ Jesus, who being found in form like God, did not think equality with God a thing to be grasped, but humbled himself, taking on the form of a servant. He submitted himself to his creation, even allowing them to crucify him on a cross to serve the Father's purpose. We must die to ourselves both emotionally and in ownership, holding the things that God lends us lightly, so that as they have served their purpose in our lives, we allow them to flow from us to meet the needs of others. It is hard to cannibalize the capital of a people who own nothing.

Since becoming an ex-church member through the modern wonder of email excommunication I have had time to catch up on some reading. One of the books that has caught my attention is a little gem entitled Pagan Christianity. In their book George Barna, Christian culture researcher extraordinaire and Frank Viola, house church guru, have undertaken the task of unmasking some of the modern churches most closely held practices and revealing their true origins. While many of these are based in Biblical texts, the modern versions often vary widely from the original.

They tackle ten of the most essential facets of modern church life
The Church Building
The Order of Worship
The Sermon
Professional Pastors
Sunday Morning Dress Codes
Professional Music Ministers
Tithing and Clergy Salaries
Baptism
The Lord's Supper
Christian Education

While many Christians are already confident that the fellowship they attend is doing things “by the book” some of us are curious trouble makers who like to ask questions such as, “What does scripture have to say about this.”

If you are one of “those” people who stir up trouble wherever you go and are never happy unless you are tearing something down, or blowing things up like me. (dripping with sarcasm, but these are the things I have recently been accused of, without any specific accusations of course) then I highly recommend this book. If you are not, avoid it like the plague, because the copiously researched footnotes may upset your apple cart and start you down the road to questioning the teachings and practices of your own congregation.

Over the next little while I am going to delve into these areas a little more in my personal thinking and, being the firebrand that I am I will be sharing my conclusions here for anyone who cares to read them. This is, of course, my blog, and as such my personal platform to say anything I like. But, I love dialogue and will post any comment that is not obscene, so joint in the conversation, or read the book, write your own blog and leave a link to it here.

Here is why I think this is important. We are moving into an interesting time, whether we like it or not. Our planet is becoming smaller, relationship wise, and we are headed toward a more global community. It is obvious that our government understands the strength of group thinking and influencing large numbers of people through their relationships. One of the largest groups in the US is the evangelical church. When totalitarianism comes, it has a tendency to masquerade as a return to law and order, which the church is, understandably, in favor of, but it quickly moves beyond that into control.

In our current institutional mode of operation, the church will be a much easier target than the organic church that survived three centuries of Roman Empire, before succumbing to major institutionalization. It is time for us to begin to reimagine the church as the underground movement Christ intended her to be. The church where community was so strong a value that outsiders called the believers Christian for their strong likeness to Christ.

So, if my thoughts interest you, or piss you off, subscribe to my blog for more as I share with you what I have been imagining for the better part of two decades and am just now finding the words to describe.

PS, please don't send me emails worried that I have lost my faith. Just the opposite, I firmly believe that what happened to me and my family, while painful, was a necessary part of what God is doing in my life. If anything, I am more in tune with what God is saying to me now, than I perhaps have ever been and am excited to see what will come out of this exploration of what Church could be.