Posted by: Theophilus | May 2, 2013

Friendship

I was musing today about a friend I haven’t spoken to in years. Typically,  I live the innocent hypocrisy of friend-neglect and neediness. If a friend doesn’t contact me for a very long time I begin to wonder if they still think well of me, and yet I will rarely contact an old friend of my own.  It then struck me that I have a possessiveness to friendship that seems so natural as to not even arouse my notice. This is a noteworthy danger, as possessiveness is not a trait of a healthy relationship.

As providence would have it, just then my youtube playlist started playing Peter Hollen’s cover of  Seasons of Love from RENT. This song, in fact the whole show, emphasizes the transitory nature of life. It is difficult to try to grasp people or friendships in a life narrative, or put a hard and fast measure on the depth, endurance  or length of a relationship. All manner of things tug us and push us nearer and farther from all the people we know, and ultimately the grave parts us all; at least for a time. So as I believe the song is trying to say, we ought to measure friendships in their moments. Yes, we should keep in mind the sequence and context or these moments in a meaningful narrative, but it is the moments, emotions, and actions themselves that prove the intangible measure of friendship. What hours, days, or even 525,600 minutes cannot describe is love and the ways it shapes us.

In thinking about this old friend of mine, I balanced the enormity of their influence on me and the silence between us for these past years. There was never a break between us, never a hard word. We parted slowly and our fondness never dimmed, until I realized one day that I hadn’t even thought of them in months and not contacted them in years. Every time I call them to mind the fondness is still there, in full force. There was one chance meeting between the two of us some years ago, which was itself years after our parting, in which I was filled with a desire to have them back. I wanted to keep in regular contact so as to invest in one another across many miles, different occupations, and in totally different circles. This was very impractical  and they told me so. They said something to the effect of, “I don’t know what use I’d be to you. We live in different worlds now, we are both busy, and what you are asking me for is all around you.” I was a little hurt by this, but it was obviously true and I took it as such. I believe the difference between me and my friend is that they had relinquished possessiveness in our relationship and I had not. They were still my friend, available to me if ever I was in need or near by, and fond of me still. Yet they did not need my attention. It came to me that they are my friend, my deeply important friend, and that they are no less so for not being an active part of my life at this time.

In the course of our lives our paths crossed and we influenced each other for the better. We shared great moments, all of which are crystal clear in my memory, and the ways they helped me grow I can clearly articulate and attribute to them. Our paths have parted naturally and we exist in different worlds, each of which is right where we ought to be. This is the way of all things and once I realized that I felt a greater freedom. Not a freedom from long-term commitment, from fulfilling the duties of friendship, or from being very intentional about my ongoing friendships. Rather this was a freedom to enjoy, and indeed be thankful for, the time I have with my friends. We all walk the road of life and at some points we walk it together, at others we part. I do not need to feel bad at losing touch, be that on my end or another’s. I can enjoy and nurture others while I have them near and trust them to God when I do not.

In this era of instantaneous, and often shallow, communication I can fool myself into thinking that I am still connected with everyone I’ve ever known. Yet for me it is better to delve deeply into the friendships I am currently participating in and not for the sake of forging some unbreakable bond. Friendship is about encouraging another to enter more fully into life, and supporting them as they do, even if that means giving them a hearty send off.  Sometimes friends go their way and the role of friendship is to keep an open door and generous spirit for the day they may return. I suppose a big heart isn’t measured by how many people occupy it but by the breadth of its openness to any it finds along life’s way.

I believe friendship measured in its moments affords the freedom to richly bless and be richly blessed by a great multitude of friends or a very few, and either way to have a full heart. A generous spirit does not require proof of enduring faithfulness to justify its generosity, and an open mind permits itself to learn from whomever it encounters. Hopefully by cultivating such an attitude a person may become life giving water to all their fellow travelers on the road of life.  And anyone who offers a cup of cool water in Christ’s name, will not fail to see their reward.

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Posted by: Theophilus | November 18, 2011

Holistic Living Trend Taboo or Transformation

I usually don’t blog two days in a row but a friend passed me a saucy prompt I couldn’t let lie. There was a certain tone of judgment in his phrasing that at once made me feel a titillating combination of indignance and agreement. Nothing gets me going like a passion or interest that is in a time of struggle. Such things may be called my hobby-horse collection. Just let me dust off my soap-box before I get preachy…..

mmm, there we go…

The defendant: “Christians”

The charge: indifference and derision to holistic living.

The judge: Ultimately God, but for now, you.

First let me say that everything I’m about to say springs from my own opinions, theological ideas, and personal experience. So don’t take any of this as ex cathedra and feel free to comment.

Holistic living, as I understand it, is attempting to go about life with an informed mind about the far reaching consequences of your life style and to then moderate your life style to the maximum sustainable benefit of all.  This goes beyond recycling and not pouring chemicals in the storm-drain. Holistic living suggests that when you buy a product, especially clothing, you take the time to see how it was made and by whom. With this knowledge you can choose to support businesses that pay laborers a just wage and don’t exploit the environment to make their products. This extends beyond material products to things like foods and restaurants. Where do they get their produce and is that produce coming from a sustainable industry, as well as, how does this business treat their workers, and what agendas do they support? The philosophy here is that all things are connected and there is no such thing as a simple action, but that all actions cause a chain reaction the end of which it behooves one to know. Of course this whole idea hinges in giving a damn about where the ripple effects wash up. And therein lies the rub.

It is very true that some Christians, in my experience these are mostly hardcore fundamentalists, not only don’t care about holistic living but actually deride it. This all comes from a theologically shallow and wanting concept of stewardship which is a bedrock value in Christianity. The theology gleefully embraced by these folks holds to a strange alien abduction concept of heaven and by extension a certain contempt for the world. Logically speaking, if at your death or the end of time, which ever comes first, you will be taken away from this reality and inserted into a better one, why should you care about this present reality. Add on top of that the theological principle that this reality is damaged, corrupted by evil, and will be utterly destroyed by God in the impending judgment. The end result is not only that this world doesn’t matter but that it deserves as little regard as possible and exists only to be exploited to our immediate benefit and then left to God’s wrath. This is a belief of some Christians, but it is a grievous disservice to a great many people to say that this is a Christian belief. It sure isn’t a biblical one.

The belief which I hold as a devout  Christian, highly invested in the advancement of orthodox theology, is that this world matters deeply as we will not be teleported to heaven but rather heaven is on its way here. My post on heaven is considerably more extensive than I can go here, but I’ll just say this. Refusing to live in accordance with God’s will for how we are to invest in the heavenly world, while we live on this one is essentially opting out of heaven. Heaven is this world transformed and if you hate this world so much you don’t want to contribute to that transformation or live in it once it’s done, you’re basically saying you’d rather live in hell. God is clear to the point of redundancy about how we are to live holistically in this world and how pissed it makes him when we don’t. When most people think of stewardship in the church they think of being asked to donate money. In one sense this is true in that money is the one earthly thing people are most tightfisted with and as such it is one of the most beneficial spiritual exercises to learn to let go of it and trust God’s providence. But I digress. Stewardship in the biblical sense goes way beyond money and mostly concerns how we use the assets we have been given. Most of the stewardship literature in the bible concerns the way we use the land, how we treat the poor, and how we manage debts. If you don’t believe me when I say God beats this subject to death, just read Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. In Genesis God makes it very clear that this world is a blessing and a gift and that our occupation as humans is to be its care-takers. Care-taker, not rapist. In fact God promises Israel several times in the three books mentioned above, that if they don’t do justice to the land, he will visit every curse listed in these books upon them until the land has healed. Then he goes on to establish no less stringent obligations on his people to respect one another and Him. It is an interesting note that Israel was exiled to Babylon for the exact number of years they failed to let the land recover between harvests. During their exile the land was not populated by a new civilization but became wild again. Food for thought.

Anyhow, Fundamentalists aside, and if you want a window into their theological bankruptcy you can watch Jesus Camp, other Christians in my experience across the nation are jumping onto the holistic bandwagon in ever increasing numbers. This is not because their consciences have been pricked by the theological principle, sadly. Holistic living is becoming more and more a cultural trend, value, and social expectation. By and large, most Christians are no different from anybody else and follow the cultural currents. As green teaching, broader teaching on stewardship, and social justice has ramped up in the church it has called many Christian minds back to these parts of the bible so long neglected and after the fact consciences have been pricked. Now Christians are championing holistic living on theological grounds more than social, even if that is how the ball got rolling. I firmly count myself as part of this group. I was raised in an apathetic environment when it came to things like sustainability. But once these issues came to my attention my theology saw the discrepancy and I became real serious about it. In just about every Church I’ve been to, even some in Texas, you can find more than just a recycling center with a earth stewardship poster above it, but also fair-trade coffee and classes about our responsibility as ambassadors of Christ to all of creation. Even in the dirty Jers the only place you’ll find a recycle bin is a church. And of all the organizations I’ve heard of raising awareness about injustice in the textile and garments industry it’s the Christian ones that are most radical about it.  But of course you have to balance this with the thriving of what we in Seattle call the “great satan,” that is Walmart, whose virulent epicenter is the bible belt.

I will say this in summery. Christians are like most people in that they try and do things the easy way which is why our history of exploitation is no different than any other people group’s. But our theology, a reflection of the people we want to be and try to be, is all about the holiness and goodness of God’s creation, which though damaged by sin is bound not for destruction but healing. Scripture says that we will be held to account for every idle word, so how much more so for the implications of our actions. If we are truly to be a people of justice who live as a light to the world we must take seriously pursuing the health of the world and its creatures. The degree to which we actually live this out is dependent on individual motivation and the pressure of culture more than any teaching or preaching, as unfortunate as that is. I think you will find, if you ask around, that Christians are, on a person by person basis, no more or less holistic than anyone else. After all you have people who consider being holistic an act of worship, and others who just want things cheap and easy no matter the consequences for others.

So I’ll give this one last thought. Logic 101. Christ created the world as a recipient of his abundant love and called it good. The definition of a Christian is one believes Christ to be Lord of all creation and who serves Him to the best of their ability. Ergo a Christian ought to love the same things Christ loves to the best of their ability.

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Posted by: Theophilus | November 17, 2011

Elective Need

As phrased by a friend, I “disappeared from the internets.” this is true and the best I can give by way of explanation is that this has been a very busy month of speaking engagements, social commitments, and a pronounced dearth of topics. This is not to say that there is nothing worth talking about, but that nothing seemed interesting enough to me to talk about. Most of my blog fodder comes in the form of good questions posed to me here and there. This last month has yielded very few questions. This week however the good questions have been piling up, though until now that pile has not been sufficient to outweigh my laziness.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, nobody ever has nice questions. Everyone wants to talk about the hard stuff. I’m not afraid to talk about the hard stuff but after a while it gets a little burdensome. All this is to say I have greatly enjoyed my hiatus.

A few great topics have come to my attention which could use some discussing, God commanding the annihilation of the Canaanites, restorative justice with regard to the Church and the homosexual community, and tangentially gay marriage, shifting World-Church demographics, thinking about capitol punishment practically and theologically, and last but certainly not least gainers (obviously a Robot Dinosaur post). The one that finally tipped the scale and prompted me to get back to the keyboard was the topic of capitol punishment with regard to a recent and poorly executed attempt on the President’s life. However I have no desire whatsoever to dig into these topics without first laying some ground work.

At the risk of lowering myself to the feeble tropes of politicians, I will give an answer to the question I wanted you to ask. Why does it even matter for us, and specifically for Christians, to address questions like these? Most of the world seems very happy to function by the principle of, “unless it effects me I don’t care.” I didn’t live 4000 years ago so why do I care about the intricacies of a Loving God commanding exterminations? I’m not a high level Church leader let alone one with any power over policy changes so why should I care about the way the Church treats gays? I’m not gay and I can get married whenever I want so why should I care about those who can’t? Western dominance of world theology still has a few more decades left in it so why should I care that the balance of World Christianity is no longer white? I’ve never known anyone on death-row so why should I care who gets the rope and who doesn’t? Basically why should I invest the effort to step out of my immediate need and into the needs and concerns of others?

I was teaching a class not too long ago and we discussed this question several times in relation to other topics, and one of the ladies told me about her brother who lives by the philosophy of “benign self-interest.” This man refused an invitation to his niece’s wedding, which wasn’t very far away from where he lived, on the grounds that there was nothing in it for him and as such he had no need to go. Logically this is quite true. Nothing about attending his niece’s wedding would provide him with profit, make his life easier, or ensure his physical well-being. And yet any sane person will immediately identify this man as a colossal git, whose concept of living has little life in it. This is an example that clearly illustrates the difference between essential need and elective need.

I need food, water, and shelter to live. These things are essential to my survival. But there are elective needs I choose to foster that make surviving have a purpose. I  need love, friendship, and a relationship with God to give survival meaning, but I can choose not to foster these needs by focusing only on my essential needs or selfish elective needs. If left to my own devises my instinctive desire to meet these elective needs will prompt me to at least a mediocre nourishment of them. But for me to truly live I must work to launch myself, sometimes at great risk, into the nourishment of these needs.

The early Church fathers were set in a context of dismantling idol worship among the pagans and found a strong argument in exemplifying God’s sufficiency, ie. His need for nothing. Pagan gods were very needy, always requiring placation and sacrifice in return for blessings with which they were always very stingy. This is very different than the atonement system required by worship of Yahweh. The Church fathers wrote extensively on the absolute self-sufficiency of God, who, existing before the universe, requires nothing beyond himself to survive. Without an understanding of essential need versus elective need it becomes impossible to understand God or the purpose of living.

God doesn’t need us or our love to exist or to maintain His full essence. And yet God has chosen to love us to the point of need. His need for relationship with us was sufficient for Him to sacrifice His own son for us. His need for us was sufficient to prompt Him to incarnate into wretched poverty and oppression in order to embrace all the struggle of the human condition. Through this willingness to invest in others completely He also entered into all the joy of this world and brought with Him all the joy of the next.

Thus it falls to us as humans, and most especially to us as Christians, to think not of entering what issues effect or intrigue us, but of entering into issues which most effect or intrigue others. We must not shrink from the questions or concerns of others but, in view of God’s elective need and love for us, we ought to elect to fling ourselves into whatever phenomena are relevant to the lives of others. Especially those different from ourselves. In so doing we expose ourselves to the risk of other people’s problems,struggles, and baggage, but we also open the doors to a flourishing of mutual love.

So, why do I care about discussing the above issues? Because I choose to, and I think God chooses to as well.

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Posted by: Theophilus | October 13, 2011

Hell

So, here we are. As promised in my post on Heaven, I am now giving you the flip side of the coin. I said in the earlier post that you can’t teach satisfactorily about heaven unless you teach about hell and the same is true the other way around. As much as heaven, and you may say more so, hell is burdened with layers of misconception and bad theology so thick it has rendered the actual idea useless to the vast majority of people. Useless at the least if not deeply harmful. Once again, as with heaven, the popular imagery of hell renders it unbelievable to some, while ignorance of its nuances renders it dangerously literal to others. To some there is a horror that cannot exist in a universe bound by the laws of nature they believe fundamental. To others there is a quick and easy answer to the unknown that delivers them from the responsibility of three-dimensional thought. Either mindset is false and, in the end, an instrument of hell itself.

Of the many misconceptions of hell, I will address the largest four which I believe serve as the root of most other misconceptions. Unlike heaven there are two opposing sides of misconceptions with regard to hell that are equally false. One is the typical image of a endless lake of fire filled with screaming souls, plunged to their fate by a strict God whose sense of justice in inexorable. The other image is one of a metaphorical lesson that uses the language of ignorant and superstitious people to communicate a second and inevitable process of redemption. One is an image of terrifying revenge, the other is of a coerced universalism. Neither image is biblical.

Though hell is not a metaphor John's vision of the lake of fire is.

The thing many well meaning Christians forget is that the one person in all of scripture who talks the most about hell is Jesus Himself. Jesus believed very literally in hell, and though He says He came to save all, He also says some will not be saved.

Christ does not agree.

So let’s take a hard look at some of these ideas and bounce them off the orthodox theology of hell. As with the heaven post I’ll include some numbered links to relevant scripture passages. Again this is not an attempt at proof-texting, but rather a guide for your own reflection and study.

What hell is not…

When they think of hell many people envision John’s lake of fire from Revelation.1 This is the iconic lake burning with sulfur into which the beast, false prophet, devil, and reprobate are all cast. The meaning of John’s vision is clear, in that there will be a day of reckoning when all deeds and secrets are laid bare, and God will set all things right, which includes once and for all putting the devil and his servants in their place. This is all very true, but the difficulty with many people, Christian and unbeliever alike, is that they hardly ever read whole passages of the bible let alone entire books. As such people often pluck passages out of their context and half-ass an explanation which turns out to be unhelpful and unfaithful to the text. If you read the whole book of Revelation you will find that John isn’t having a literal vision of future events. Rather he is given a dream in which he is commanded to try and write what he sees. The things he is shown are often beyond the power of human speech to describe and so he often uses this formula which is common to apocalyptic literature, such-and-such a thing “was like” such-and-such another thing.  His vision is about the past, present, and future of God’s church and the imagery he uses is designed to make sense to the people of his time as well as to attempt to describe things which he saw that he doesn’t have vocabulary for. All this is to say that John’s point is very clearly communicated when he speaks of the lake of fire, but the actual lake should be taken no more literally than the scroll with seven seals which no man can open.2

Along with the lake of fire, we need to ditch the idea that God is a super-cosmic force of hate just waiting for the end of time so he can unleash billions of years of sadistic creative thinking on unworthy humans. But in our eagerness to reject this idea many Christians have gone too far. Again and again I hear people saying things like, “a God of love cannot put people in hell or he is not a God of love,” or “God’s love surpasses all understanding, I can understand a heaven with everyone in it, so God must have a heaven at least that nice.” Implicit in these statements is, first, that somehow God is beholden to our fallen conceptions of goodness and justice, and second, that we are willing to immediately replace God with an imaginary god the second we don’t like or understand Him. The God Christian universalists worship does not in fact exist. They have taken the parts of God they like and combined them the traits they associate with goodness to create an idol, upon which they have written “God.” 2 Timothy 4 says all this in a great nutshell, “1 I solemnly charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by His appearing and His kingdom: 2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, exhort, with great patience and instruction. 3 For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires, 4 and will turn away their ears from the truth and will turn aside to myths. 5 But you, be sober in all things, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.”

What hell is…

God is absolutely holy, and implicit in that statement is absolute love and absolute justice. God endures our sinfulness while we are separate from Him, but as he draws near to us His holiness drives away anything that is not also holy. To be holy means that unholy things cannot exist in your presence.3 This is why God sent His son Christ to satisfy the requirements of justice and to clothe us in His holiness. As such, if we are willing to put on the holiness of Christ we become just as holy as He is and may be with God.4 & 4b So you see that God is not bent on destroying “wrong-doers” or smashing “sinners.” God sent His son to satisfy justice in our place and to give us a one way ticket into His kingdom of love. If we don’t want the ticket the train leaves without us.

As I said in the post on heaven, heaven works backwards into our lives and our pasts literally transforming past darkness into light. This transformation is not coercive though, and as such hell works backwards too. As heaven moves back, redeeming the past and creating a new reality, it drives out the dark reality. Heaven is not coercive and God will not force your hand. This new reality opens the door for aggressors and persecutors to be redeemed into friends and companions, but if they are unwilling to live in a such a reality the new reality of heaven simply pushes them aside. The “aside” into which they are pushed is one where the bad things of the past not only exist but exist with no hope of being any different than they are. This reality is hell. Hell does not exist to teach you a lesson until at last you break and accept grace. Such a view of hell reduces salvation to a gift one must be tortured into accepting. Anyone humble enough to be willing to give themselves and their pasts to God, that is willing to have any part of them or their identity  be changed into what God sees them as being will be embraced by the advance of heaven. God is not cruel because there will be people in hell. A doctor is not cruel if a patient rejects their cure and dies. God is not cruel for creating a beautiful healing reality that some have no wish to be part of.

But some say, “what if I change my mind and accept the grace I once thought false?” There are two answers to that. First when the reality of heaven finally displaces that of this reality there will be a judgment in which all will be raised to new life, either for heaven or hell.5 Since the two realities of heaven and hell are so utterly distinct there is no communication or communion between the two, that is there is no bridge. You will only continue deeper into the one you’re in. Secondly, once a heart is hardened what exactly do you think it would take to soften it? Christ tells a story of a man who goes to hell and asks Abraham if a good man can visit his living relatives to warn them about his fate which they may share. Abraham responds that they would never believe the message to be real. They didn’t believe Moses or the prophets, so why would they believe a vision?6 The truth is that the gospel exists in all its glory among us and either a heart is open to it or closed. Now that being said no one but God can see and judge the heart. The populations of heaven and hell are a mystery to us until we’re there. We have no use or business knowing and ought to trust God with the souls of others. After all He says, “I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious. And I will show compassion on whom I will show compassion.” Exodus 33:19.

Heaven is an oncoming reality in which you can trust that you will be perfected and live life more fully than you can imagine. It will drive out all the darkness and hurt that surrounds you. But if you cling to any piece of darkness or resist the coming of the Kingdom it will slowly push you aside. At some point, none can yet see, you will have allowed yourself to be pushed so far there is no coming back. That is hell. The good news is this, Christ has already paid your way into the Kingdom. If you are willing to allow His healing to begin you will be holy, absolutely sufficient to live in the company of your maker.

Peace in Christ

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Posted by: Theophilus | October 5, 2011

Heaven

It seems every now and then the providence gives you a nudge that you can still ignore without angering the Almighty, but doing so will rob you of an opportunity, which trying to force later would make awkward. To say that the concepts of heaven and hell are heavily laden with excessive literature, misconceptions, and general abuse is an understatement. This always irks me as a man of theology and an orthodox Christian. It seems the difficulties and baggage surrounding both make some people incapable of taking these concepts seriously, while to others the nuance of these things is too difficult and prompts them to an unhealthy literalism. Either is just as bad, and each is dangerously wrongheaded. These topics have been brought to the surface of my mind as several sermon series’ at church converged along with a random foray into the shady theology of Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort about which I blogged briefly earlier. I thought about writing about hell as the more contentious of the two but decided against it because I just didn’t feel like it. However as I taught a youth-group lesson about the trajectory of salvation history it came to me that teaching satisfactorily about heaven requires teaching about hell and visa versa. As to which to address first heaven was the obvious choice as it is already breaking into our reality, while hell is being prepared now but will only be realized after the resurrection. But more on that in another post.

There are hosts of misconceptions concerning heaven that either make it sound stupid or irrelevant, however I think they fall neatly into three grand categories. The word picture which accompanies these categories best is the iconic image of some chubby cherubic child flying through the infinite plunking the supple strings of an ethereal harp. Sorry Thomas Kinkade fans, but crap like this isn’t heavenly. Thank God!

False!

Many people have been presented with an image of heaven as a really vague reality that is immaterial, lazy, and in some distant future beyond death and time. These three theologically bankrupt errors describe a heaven that is not designed for humans, whose entire concept of satisfactory reality requires tangible interaction, that is boring as hell, and in no way connected to the lives we lead now other than as bait. It doesn’t take a genius to see that this heaven would quickly become hellish to live in. Rather than shred this heinous myth to pieces and stomp on it intellectually, which would be very satisfying, I will save time by making as clear as possible what we do know about heaven.

First, to all the pseudo-Christians who like to be edgy by rejecting major points of theology as superstition or metaphor I will say simply this; Jesus believed very literally in heaven.1

So let’s disarm some of these misconceptions and replace them with proper theology, shall we?

Heaven is physical. Rather than drifting in some luminescent expanse, filled with eerily peaceful synthesizer music, heaven is very concrete and will look a lot like this universe does. God is spirit, but in the incarnation He took on flesh, which is just a fancy way of saying He became as meat-and-bone human as you or I.2 If you stomped on Jesus’ foot He would shout. If He got pushed out an airlock in space He would suffocate and quickly freeze solid. When the Romans nailed Him to a cross His collar-bones suffocated Him under His own weight just the same as every other person crucified. This was not only to share fully in our experience of human life and human suffering, but also to impute, or as I like to think of it inject, his holiness into this physical, mundane, and human reality. Part of being truly holy, is being everlasting. Anything that God has made holy cannot be destroyed. So if heaven was just some super-cosmic cloud of happy gas with souls in it, why would God waste His time making physical reality holy by washing it in the blood of His only son?3 When Jesus rose from the dead He was very clear that He was not a ghost, in fact He made the disciples touch Him and feed Him so they could see He was not an illusion.4 He also said that they would be raised after dying to be like Him, with a real physical heavenly body that cannot be touched by time or harm.5

Why would God not do this? Did he not create an entire physical universe and then command us to explore it and enjoy it? When He created the physical world and the spiritual worlds he called them all good. He made them as He intended them to be, that is as eternal things. He only gave us the gift of death and finitude when we chose to live apart from Him, so that we would not have to live apart from Him forever, for to do so would be to live in hell.6 Why then, when creation is restored to the way it always should have been, would He turn it into some diaphanous hallucination of a reality? God created us to enjoy tangible physical reality and so we will forever in heaven.

Heaven is not for slackers. The idea that heaven is a surreal timeless experience of simply dwelling is not only un-biblical, but even human logic can know that such an existence would become a trap. Anyone who has ever been on a vacation that went too long and had too little to do knows this. God created humanity with the gifts to work and be caretakers of the physical world.7 He had made the world in such a way that we would shape it and create in it. After all, the desire to create is part of His image in us. Humanity is designed to work forever. Now the only things that make us groan when we think of that are human flaws we have put into the idea of work. Work is good. Work tainted by injustice is bad. In heaven work will be unhindered by rivals, it will be free of the coercion of oppressors, and each laborer will live to see the fruits of their labors and share in a just and ample reward.  We will work as long as is healthy and rest as long as we need, without the unhealthy imbalance of over-work or laziness. We will forever be occupied mastering our gifts and attaining new ones, and we will do so in seamless and joyful concert with each-other.8 Why would God grant us the instinct to create and the satisfaction to contribute to something larger than ourselves just to park us on the heavenly bench and call it bliss? We will have rest from our earthly labors, and rather than sapping our strength and will to live our just and fulfilling heavenly work will enliven us.

Heaven is not bait to keep us in line. The idea that all heaven is for is to be a future incentive for us to not screw around is the opposite of what heaven truly is. Two things, heaven is more about now than the future, and heaven is not only a future reality. People don’t often know, even in Christian circles, that heaven started breaking into reality two thousand years ago when the first of it’s eternal citizens rose from the dead.9 Now that guy also happens to be heaven’s Lord and master and the architect of the universe, but even so in his resurrection Christ became the first being to possess a heavenly body.10 Since that time the values of the Kingdom of Heaven have been trickling into our reality. The truth that very few know is that we won’t go to heaven, heaven is coming to us. It is slowly over-taking all of our reality, material, spiritual, and institutional until the time is right for Christ to return and bring the fullness of heaven with Him. When this world is utterly destroyed and the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand (a good old fire & brimstone saying I just love) that doesn’t mean that all the things we hold dear and have invested in are gone. The old world will be destroyed, in that when it is fully transformed it will be a fully new world in place of the old.  The transition from a fallen reality of sin and darkness to one of holiness and light is simply a remaking of things. Christ will make all things new. This is transformation rather than annihilation.11 C.S. Lewis, in his great work The Great Divorce, makes the point that heaven, and hell as we’ll discuss later, work backwards into not only this reality but our past. Christ has made us a promise that He will make all things new and perfect the past, present, and future. That means that as heaven advances, even now, into our lives we will be transformed. Christ will even transform our worst wounds and afflictions into blessings. He won’t just heal the disease or remove the wounding object. He will go further and totally transform these things into light. Even though we were sinners Christ did not destroy us but is making us holy, the same is becoming true of our reality and our past.12 So heaven is much more real, immediate, and functional today than it is some amorphous future ideal. God isn’t dangling heaven in front of us and telling us not to blow it, he’s massaging heaven into the wounds of our past and saying “don’t try to stop it, let it work on you.”13

So when you really know what heaven is and how it works, it becomes a lot less mysterious and much more tangible. Sure the knit-picky details are mysterious, even Jesus doesn’t know when the whole process is going to wrap up.14 But do we really need to know every exact detail about it? What point would there be if God gave you a vision and said, “dude, the world as it is will end and my Kingdom will be fully realized in exactly 6,007,821 years, how legit is that!” Sorry friend, you will be dust long before then and just have to wait with the rest of us. But just the same, what if He said the world was going to end tomorrow, or in a year,  or what if He told you exactly which occupation you would be best known for in heaven or which ancient historical figure you’d hit it of best with? Other than the novelty, shortly followed by the sad loss of the sense of mysterious expectation, what help would this be? How would this information impact the way you live your life now? I for one am far more grateful that when I look through the lens of heaven and the resurrection, the most damaging moments of my past are not only healed, but many have become blessings, all in the here and now.15

If you are willing to participate in it, heaven is a process of transformation that begins now and its roots creep back into your past. But if you are unwilling to participate in it, you will find it is an unstoppable force, as I’ll discuss in a coming post.

Peace to you all.

 

Also, as per the request below I’m adding some scripture references to guide your thinking on some of these points. This is not an academic work so rather than giving full citations I’ll just make little numbered links which will take you to the verses on bible gateway. These references are not meant as proof-texting, but as a guide for your thoughts. There are dozens of passages relevant to every point above, these few can serve as a starting point for you.

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Posted in Theology | Tags: , , ,

Posted by: Theophilus | September 19, 2011

Real False Fears

It struck me last night, when I was trying to put in a fifteen-second or less nutshell the concept of assumed negativity in the depressed mind, that the answer to the question of “why does J’s life suck?” has been sitting right in front of my face the whole time and even living a little in my own mind. This is the classic situation where you ask a question with a very real answer in a rhetorical way because you don’t want to deal with the answer because the answer is a little too close to home. With a sigh and 1000 yard philosophical gaze I have asked my co-worker many times why one of our regulars can’t stop getting screwed by the universe. The answer we always come up with is a dyad of, part a: J is a lazy son of a bitch and expects everyone to stuff money and opportunities right into his pockets, and part b: J is a slave to his issues which is not his fault, though refusing the help that is daily offered to him is.

The above is true but the complexities of the issue force me in front of a eerie sort of mirror and as such I have avoided going deeper both with J and my co-worker. More importantly I have avoided going deeper with myself in understanding what exactly keeps J in the gutter, and why his reality should be personally unsettling to me.

Something that can keep people from offering grace, or the right kinds of grace, to folks like J is an inability to recognize the fluidity of reality. To the vast majority of people, who by their ubiquity setthe standard interpretation of what reality is, J looks like a lazy unmotivated creeper who is a parasite in society and gives literally nothing of worth back. He expects others to meet all of his needs and whines endlessly about the unfairness of a universe that doesn’t revolve around him.

However, as someone who lives with bipolar disorder, if I am willing to face the fact that J and I aren’t that different in some ways, I can begin to see his reality and know him far better. This is the eerie mirror, and in the end I have a clearer understanding of myself.

Like Morpheus says in the Matrix, the first one which didn’t suck, if what you see and taste and touch is reality than reality is nothing more than electric signals interpreted by your mind. For most people these signals are balanced and consistent, and the culturally acceptable coping mechanisms we call social skills allow a person to navigate their emotional life in concert with others.

This is not so for J and I, though to deeply varying degrees. A co-worker at my church once said to me, when I was urging him not to be nervous before his first big public speaking engagement, that it was easy for me to say that because I “practically piss confidence.” This is true in that at one pole of my reality I am too strong, too magnetic, and have way too many charisma points to be stopped by anything. It’s me versus the world and the world doesn’t stand a chance. This end of the spectrum has its benefits, especially if it happens to be the functioning reality in place during a job interview, or major public engagement. But this pole of my reality is not in sync with the world. Its usefulness is transitory, and ultimately it shows itself not to be real at all. At the other end of the spectrum is the opposite pole, which very few people ever see which is why my friend made the comment he did. With bipolar disorder there is a balance to everything, an equal and inevitable pendulum swing. Instead of an iron will and the confidence to back it, there can be a crippling blend of self-doubt and self-loathing nestled beneath an omnipresent shadow if impending doom. Once again it’s me versus the world, but in this reality God is functionally absent. Just as with the mania this depression isn’t real. The fearful shadows prove to be nothing and the insurmountable obstacles are revealed to be the regular challenges of life which are no match for hard work and good friends. Thankfully, and this is the starkest difference between J and I, I live the vast majority of my life in between these two poles. The power of an informed mind, reinforced by reason and self-awareness can overcome much of the pendulum’s illusory power. Additionally, medication helps to restrict the extremes of the pendulum swing bringing the breadth of emotional variation closer to the center. As such I can see the reality I’m experiencing in light of what I rationally know to be true and dispel both  arrogance and fear to a large degree. This does nothing whatsoever to change what I’m feeling, but it does give me enough perspective to endure it.

These tools are the gift of God’s grace, and with them my “condition” has become a powerful asset. Much of the time I can actually harness the force of the pendulum to my advantage. And even at the very least I am left with a strong mind and capacity for empathy, when I choose to use it.

These advantages are not available for J. He does not gain from the benefits of euphoria or mania. He has depression, which rather than being a pendulum is more like a thermometer. His reality is always colored by self-doubt and despair to one degree or another. This doesn’t mean he is trapped though. If J took his medication, got therapy and built the tools to see through his depression he could have a good life. But what seems so close and attainable to us, is not to J. J has been offered a job program, housing, a free cell phone, and already gets social security and food stamps. This makes it real easy for folks to say, as I do from time to time, that he should get off his ass and stop feeling sorry for himself. But in his reality, that is to say the natural laws that bind his universe together and which he has absolute faith in, there is an overwhelming probability that every hand that holds out an opportunity will be cruelly pulled back at the last moment. Every land-lord that doesn’t return his phone message immediately must hate him. Every busy civil servant who sounds tired over the phone must have a personal grudge against him. There is no use getting a cell phone because he’s too stupid to learn how to use technology and he’d only lose it anyway. He’s been out of work for so many years he would never be able to meet the challenges of a job training program. He’ll never find love or companionship because he will never have money or a job, and the list goes on endlessly. J can’t see past his self-loathing because it is so real to him he can’t question it, break it down rationally and push through it.

I know what this is like to some degree. Whenever I leave a message that doesn’t get returned, or have an awkward interaction my immediate assumption can often be that I have caused some offense. I regularly double or triple read e-mails, and texts after I’ve sent them. The assumption is that, if there is any ambiguity, my communications will be taken negatively. This is not true at all. I’m an excellent communicator, in part because of this mindset. But sometimes I can find myself slipping into these negative assumptions and I need to recite a litany to myself of all the rational reasons why a person may be tardy in responding and all the arguments in favor of my communication being accurately interpreted. This doesn’t change the self-doubt, but it does allow me to accept that it isn’t real.

J is the same in that any uncertainty to him is automatically negative, but worse in that he thinks most positive things are just negatives in disguise. This mindset has been in place for decades and he just can’t shake it. The layers of illusion around his mind are just too thick. Thus, even though medication and groups could help him strip back these illusory layers, he will never trust them enough to let them do so. This is why J’s life sucks. In a bizarre reversal that is why my life is awesome. For me God intervened and, in a moment I can only describe as infused with the Holy Spirit, I was given the trust necessary to allow people to strip away the illusion. The best I can do is pray that God will do the same for J.

So in order to love J, which I’ll be honest is a huge pain in my ass, I need to have the courage to accept that he and I have some things in common. Through the lens of these commonalities I can understand his reality and how frightening it can be and speak to him accordingly. I hate doing this because it forces me to admit my own weakness, it forces me to accept that I’m sick on more than a theoretical level. When I look at J I have to face one of the possible futures that may lie ahead of me. But if I have the balls to do so I will also be able to see how powerfully God has been faithful to me, what healing he has given me, and how much I can trust him with my future.

This is scary as hell and it’s  a lot easier to just hide from it. This reminds me of all the war movies where all the healthy fresh soldiers are marching into battle as war-torn veterans are being carried in pieces back to the hospital ships. On the one hand a soldier can say, foolishly, that all these other guys didn’t remember their training and that somehow he’s better than them and won’t get hurt. Or he can say, wisely, that he’s headed into battle and one way or another God will take him home. So the best thing he can do is fight as hard and intelligently as possible.

And that’s just about all I have to say about that for now.

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Posted in Depression, Mental Illness | Tags: ,

Posted by: Theophilus | September 16, 2011

Ten Commandments and Ten Beers

I was watching you tubes of Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort evangelizing on the street. I will not speak ill of my Christian brothers but I’ll say that we have differences in how we share the good news. One of the things they do is ask people how many of the ten commandments they can list off the top of their heads and then how many beers they can list as a way of showing misplaced priorities. Here is a link to Kirk and Ray’s video sermon on the subject. I would argue that asking this question of your average unbeliever is less an indication of misplaced priorities and more an indication of the reality in which they live. As I was watching I thought about what would happen if they asked me the same question.

So I will now list, without cheating, the ten commandments. I hope I get them right but I doubt I’ll get them in order.

Thou Shalt have no other God’s before me. ( this is cheating a little since it was mentioned in the video.)

Though shalt not make any graven image. (no idols)

Though shalt not take the Lord’s name in Vain. (no making promises in the name if God you have no intention of keeping.)

Though shalt honor the sabbath day and keep it holy.

Though shalt not murder.

Though shalt not steal.

Though shalt not commit adultery.

Though shalt not bear false witness.

Though shalt honor thy father and mother.

Though shalt not covet.

I feel pretty good about that, but i guarantee their out of order, but who cares about the order so long as you do them.

But now for beer. As a connoisseur of beer I will only list good beers, for beers of the people are beneath my mention, sniff. I guarantee I’ll beat the snot out of a mere ten.

Spaten Optimator is my all time fave!

A little lighter than Optimator and a little more zip.

A summer lunch beer.

Second favorite beer.

For when I'm feelin' sexy.

Doppel-Bock is also good.

This one gives you man-points.

Paulaner makes many beers, and all of them are counted worthy.

The Viking in Spokane has a stout so dark and bitter it's like drinking delicious wood mulch. This is not for the ladies as it will put hair on your chest.

As good as it sounds.

As good as breakfast.

Never a bad standard

Dark, rich, verile...

Funny name too.

I'll tip one of these back durring the tribulation.

Light-weights beware these sneak up on ya.

You have to talk about heavy stuff while you drink this one, but the sweet cherry after taste helps the conversation go down smooth.

Pat opened my eyes to sophisticated beers with these belgian classics. My eyes were opened and with them I first saw the world as God intended.

Anyhow, there are countless others, I’m just getting warmed up. But I tire of this excersize as it just makes me progressively more thirsty. I guess Kirk and Ray may have some hard words for me, but frankly I’ll have the last laugh when I sit in glory drinking triumphant beers with Christ.

Peace and good drinking to you all! In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Ghost, AMEN!


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Posted in Humor, Life | Tags: , , , ,

Posted by: Theophilus | September 15, 2011

Monk Me

Well, sorry for dropping off the face of the earth for about a week. I was busy wooing, and to spectacular effect I might add. It’s always good, by my way of thinking at least, to find a woman who shares your foundational interests and is otherwise very different from you. As is true with life, variety is the spice of relationships as well. I’m a rambler, she is thoughtful. I strive with the world, she is a peaceful soul. I fidget, she sits still. Etc, etc. But we are of one accord on matters of the divine which is super clutch. Don’t get me wrong I strive to love all people, but when it comes to romance, you better love Jesus more than me or you’re shit out of luck. That issue has been confirmed to my satisfaction. In the midst of our initial exploration into our mutual spiritual interests it came about that we attended a Taize service on Capitol Hill, after which she gave me an illegal copy of a Taize album. She’s also super gangster, by the way. And listening to this album reminded me that I want to be a monk.

In this fact lies the balancing act, or as nomenclature has it, ‘the rub.’ I have made quite the study of monasticism and mendicant orders over the years and am profoundly attracted to the life of a monk. I am also attracted to women, especially beautiful ones, the chiefest of whom is obviously my GF. The difficult thing is that I can’t have it all. I’m not going to lie, I’d like to have my cake and eat it too. It would be great to don my habit and go to morning prayer, chant for an hour or so, then frolic in a field of daisies with my similarly attired girlfriend. The problem is I’m a Presbyterian and as a denomination we don’t take monastic life seriously, in fact most reformed theologians denigrate it. I could always compromise my theology heavily and go catholic, but then the GF would have to take a hike. That is not a sacrifice I am willing to make, and so we have a conundrum.

A few months ago, in the throws of an existential crisis, I thought very seriously, and not for the first time, about going off to Taize in France and becoming a monk. Taize is cool because they’ll take anyone whose orthodox, catholic or not. I have to give some props here to my friend Katelyn, who knowing me well, simply said, “Mark, don’t become a monk.” I knew she was right of course, but I REALLY wanted to be a monk. But I really like Seattle, and women; damn I was in a crux. And so I returned over the last few months, wherein I recanted swearing off women, to the meditative state of trying to evaluate the monastic life and the common life to find the stuff that makes me whole.

The truth is, that barring serious accident or self mutilation, I’m just not cut out for celibacy. I’m also committed in a very real way to Seattle, which I often refer to as Zion, the land of my ethnos, or the best city ever. (Jerusalem step aside). So unless Taize packs up shop and relocates to the North West there is scant chance of me actually carrying through with any plans to become a brother there. Additionally there are sacrifices that I respect but don’t consider to be central to loving Jesus. I like watching Buffy, a lot, and I’ll give props to anyone who ditches their TV for the Lord, but I don’t feel him calling me to do the same. So what is it about being a monk I find so appealing?

First, monastic life is structured in a way that creates balance and eliminates chaos. The daily schedule of prayers and meals and work is not designed to restrict but simply to bring order. There is no stress about what comes next or how to manage your time, or whether or not you’ll be able to fit it all in. Today will be the same as this day was last week, as will it be next week and the one after.

Second, the elements of the day are things which God made humanity to enjoy. Monks do a lot of hard work in every field imaginable except advanced weapons tech. They have all the satisfaction of accomplishment and contribution to something larger than themselves. But their ordered life keeps work from consuming them and all their time. Monks also get to spend a significant portion of the day in prayer and meditation which calms and cultivates the mind in harmony with God. For all you atheist readers, God is a real person and building a relationship with him through prayer is even more important than eating, and it feels great! Monks also spend a good part of their day in fellowship with each other over food and have some of the tightest communities and friendships out there. In fact many monks argue that the level of friendship and love they experience exceeds the level of satisfaction available in marriage. You don’t have to agree with this, but it says something that so many of them fervently believe this.

Third, by putting off a lot of the things of this world some monks can actually dive way deeper into it. When you don’t have a mortgage to worry about, a ton of belongings to distract you, and a boggling social calender, you can get deep into service to the world and regular people. A random guy on the street, or a homeless person at a shelter can become the center of your complete attention for as long as necessary to have a meaningful connection. You can take the work that needs to be done the most and pays the least because you don’t have any money anyhow. The truth is that all the monks I’ve known or read about get far more back than they sacrifice. Just as Jesus says, anyone who gives up land or family, or riches for his sake will get a ten times as much and inherit eternal life. You have to admit, that’s a good deal.

Now monasticism isn’t the only way to give things up for the sake of Christ, but it’s one that has been refined over eighteen hundred years and they have it pretty well down. But as Paul says, not everyone is called to have a life like his, that is a life of singleness and high mobility. Some of us are meant to throw down some roots and populate the world. Family after all is one of the most sacred and important ministries. Even relationships themselves, regardless of how far they go, are means of building other Christians up in their faith. All this is to say, that, not for the first time as I have had this loop of existential crisis several times, there must be a way to extract what I can from the monastic life and use it to enrich my life as a pretty regular dude who has no intention whatsoever swearing off ladies. Especially now, which would be an outstandingly poor choice of timing.

Many Christians throughout the years have tried to strike this balance and many have done very well. The great Catholic example are the Benedictine Oblates, which are basically regular folks in the community who share prayers and meals with the brothers and then go about their secular jobs as anyone else would. But as a presby it takes a little more legwork to get these elements together. At least until we pull our heads out of our asses as a denomination and realize that the monastic life is a damn spiritual gold mine. Volunteering a is a great way to sacrifice part of a busy schedule to get down and dirty with a world that needs better love than just monetary donations. Going to, and even initiating, prayer services each week and reserving a portion of each day for scripture and meditation is hard work and a hell of a discipline to keep, but the rewards are profound. Hospitality can become a major part of your life and all the comforts and blessings of your home can become blessings to the community. As far as the ordering of the day, this is the hardest part. In my experience, mostly as someone who fails at achieving this, it simply means saying no to a lot of things. The ability to learn to fill your day with only as much as it can healthily hold has been very hard for me to attain. I certainly don’t have it down yet but I’m getting better. Setting priorities and then maintaining them can keep chaos out of your life and make the time you spend with people more meaningful. Some of my friends only see me rarely, but when they do we don’t dick around. And the people I see every day know for sure that they matter most.

So here’s to trying to get the best of both worlds. If you know how to do it please let me know. I’ve got a good start but this is the kind of challenge that never gets a complete answer, and I’m kind of glad about that. Growing this balance is like maturing, you never want it to end.

As an aside, I actually never had this conversation with the GF as it occurred to me yesterday. Perhaps I should get on that.

 

Peace to you all.

College was a time of grand experimentation

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Posted in Humor, Life, Theology | Tags: , , ,

Posted by: Theophilus | September 8, 2011

A little follow-up

Well, thank you all for participating in my little study. It is indeed a fact that the previous post, which was not actually about homosexuality in any way, but only mentioned words associated with homosexuality, drew double the traffic the day of and the day after the post. Advertisers and marketeers take note, “Gay” is the next great innovation in internet visibility!

 

 

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Posted in Life | Tags: , , ,

Posted by: Theophilus | September 7, 2011

Gay, the Magic Word

It has been my growing observation throughout this blog and many of the blogs I’ve read that there is a sure fire formula for getting increased traffic. You don’t need to post pics or tweet your latest entry. You don’t need to have your own domain or use searchable tags. All you need to do is talk about anything related to homosexuality or gays. I write primarily on theological issues and these days sexual ethics is a big conversation for the church. So a few of my posts have been heavily, if not exclusively, concerning homosexuality; other posts only tangentially so. Thus the trend became immediately apparent to me when I’d check my stats. As a rule any post with reference, no matter how brief, to homosexuality gets twice the hits. My friend Truckin pointed this out to me in a different way. He wasn’t talking about site hits but about the publicity of the issue itself. He asked why, when there is so much going on in the world in urgent need of discussion, gay issues take immediate precedence. His question got me back to thinking about the popularity of gay posts.

There are two reasons I can think of immediately, though I’m interested to hear of any more you can think of. First, as mentioned above, homosexuality is pretty big in the church right now and I can count on views from my conservative and liberal readers. Posts of this kind will draw readers who are infrequent to the blog but invested in this church issue. Second, unlike starving children in Somalia or revolutions in Libya, homosexuality is a very personal and functional reality for a whole lot of people and even a few of my readers. As important as world crisis are, there is something a little more tangibly proximate about actually being gay.

I’m a man of two minds about many things and my reaction to this phenomenon is indicative of that. On the one hand I legitimately want to know what about gay posts draws readers who aren’t gay. I already accept that any commentary on being gay is pretty noteworthy to gays, but unless there are thirty extra gay readers who only check in on gay posts then there must be others who are drawn pretty strongly too. On the other hand this phenomenon entices me to sarcasm. This sarcasm is not about homosexuality as much as it is about the phenomenon itself. If the same phenomenon was true of pudding my gut reaction would be the same. And it is thus; I’m tempted to start a great experiment of embedding watchwords in my posts, whether they are relevant or not, and seeing if there is a correlation between the number of watchwords and the number of hits.

Fore example… In a daring move towards a game gay changing Major Military Innovation, Iran has contracted with a domestic weapons development bisexuality firm for a squadron homosexuality of Stealth System flying boats. These prop-driven light aircraft can skim above the water avoiding higher radar coverage and are said to be for trans-gender survalence in the Gulf of Oman and the Persian Gulf. What the Defense Minister has called a strengthening of military presence gays, has been commented on by Americans as a bare improvement on technology the French developed prior to World lesbians War One.

I’m not kidding about the flying boats, BBC did a short about them a while ago and my military buddies and I got a laugh out of it. Seriously Iran, surveillance sea planes are almost a hundred years old and flying twenty feet above the water doesn’t constitute stealth. But I digress.

But snarkiness aside, there are families dying in Somalia, a rebellion struggling to create a government in Libya, the PRC is displacing millions to build the world’s largest and most environmentally devastating dam, and Seattleites are breathing radioactive particles from Japan’s fractured reactors. But who give a shit about any of that. I suppose that’s not a fare question as I have not blogged about these things. But it does concern me that posts about mental health and the well being of the homeless, or about fostering a more holistic sense of self in the church draw only a handful of views, while posts that, even tangentially, mention homosexuality draw a crowd. Don’t get me wrong, I love it when people read my blog and especially when they challenge me on stuff, but it’s a little damn discouraging to write a thoughtful post on the human condition down here in the U-district and have it practically ignored.

Thoughts?

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