6 posts tagged “god”
Recommended by: a bunch of people. Plus I'd read other books by Bell.
Purchased from: A Borders going-out-of-business sale, at 80% off. Woot.
Rating: 9 out of 10
Synopsis: "Is sex a picture of heaven?" Bell wonders. It's all about God and sex and heaven, he says: "...they're connected. And they can't be separated. Where the one is you will always find the other." It's the story of God becoming human, of humans mirroring God and love made manifest in the chaos of our humanity. Sex God is about relationships revealed in a way that elevates the human condition and offers hope to those whose relationships are wounded. In Bell's spare, somewhat oblique style, he addresses lust, respect, denial, risk, acceptance and more. He does a fine job using the Bible and real life to show that our physical relationships are really about spiritual relationships. This book joyfully ties, and then tightens, the knot between God and humankind.
My Review: I feel like I should have read this a long time ago. I've had it for a while and I read it in less than twenty-four hours. It was a wonderful picture of what God has set out marriage and sex to be. Bell really delves into how the spiritual and the physical come together and how our relationships here are a picture of God's relationship with us. It's fascinating, really. Bell's style takes a little getting used to -- it's sparse and really uses the white space on a page. This book, though, was probably the least-difficult to handle visually (compared to his other books). I wish I had it with me so I could quote from it a bit. Anyway, I highly recommend this book, especially to high schoolers and people who work with them. I could have used some of this information back in my youth-leading days.
So I finally got around to reading That Really Really Popular Christian Book of the Year, William Young's the Shack. I know people who have absolutely loved it, saying it changed the way they viewed God and the Trinity and heaven and forgiveness. And I know people who have absolutely loathed it, saying it was full of blasphemy and false doctrines. I guess I fell somewhere in the middle.
From the publisher's website: Mackenzie Allen Philips’ youngest daughter, Missy, has been abducted during a family vacation and evidence that she may have been brutally murdered is found in an abandoned shack deep in the Oregon wilderness. Four years later in the midst of his Great Sadness, Mack receives a suspicious note, ostensibly from God, inviting him back to that shack for a weekend. Against his better judgment he arrives at the shack on a wintry afternoon and walks back into his darkest nightmare.
Since I'd heard so many positive and negative reviews, I took my reading with a grain of salt. I figured I'd come across things I didn't agree with, but I also wanted to see if I could look at another side of God's character. And I found both. I liked the parts about being in community with Creation and how the rocks and trees and animals cry out that there is a Maker. The way he described relationships using colors was particularly moving. I also liked how Young presented the community of the Trinity as well. The best part of the book was about God and relationships. It really encourages readers to think less legalistically and more relationally, and I think that's it's a message most Christians desparately need to hear.
As a side note, my favorite line from the whole book comes when Mack asks God about why He is portrayed as a father in the Bible when He actually transcends gender. God's response is: "Well," responded Papa, turning away from him and bustling around the kitchen, "there are many reasons for that, and some of them go very deep. Let me say for now that we knew once the Creation was broken, true fathering would be much more lacking than mothering. Don't misunderstand me, both are needed -- but an emphasis on fathering is necessary because of the enormity of its absense." I see the lack of fathering (not in my own life! My dad rocks.) throughout this world and it makes me so very sad.
On the other hand, I didn't agree with some of the ways he portrayed God. Every once in a while God would say things like, "I don't understand why people..." etc. Um, He's God. I'm fairly certian he gets it all. Also, the interaction between God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit got a little weird for my taste. I also didn't think it was particularly well-written (a heavy overdose of adverbs and adjectives!). This is something that always detracts from stories for me, so I tried hard not to think about it. But sometimes it really drove me crazy. I know it was originally self-published, but I think a line editor could have improved the writing by leaps and bounds.
One more thing. Pretty much everyone I've talked to who has read the book is sure it's a true story; that Mack is a real guy and he really had a vision of/visitation with God. The author, however, says it's fiction. Not that there aren't truths in the book, but you can't hunt down Mack and ask him about his story. Just thought I'd clear that up.
My Rating: 6 out of 10 for offering some beautiful insights. I wish the writing hadn't detracted from those moments for me.
I thought that 27 was going to be rough, being the first year of my "late twenties." Who knows, it still might be. But I awoke this morning without the trepidation that I thought I would be feeling. In fact, I'm positively peachy today. There but for the grace of God go I.
I am thankful that I have made it to 27 with relatively no hardship. My life has been easy and I recognize this as an incredible blessing. I don't understand this blessing but every single day I give thanks.
I am thankful for my family, who love and support me so much that when I really sit down and think about it, I want to weep because I am so overwhelmingly blessed. I especially thank my dad, mom, brother, grandma, and Aunt Bonnie.
I am thankful for friends, old and new, who share my joys and my hurts and who always love me no matter what. And who bake me cookies for my birthday.
I am thankful for the opportunity to buy a new home and for those who have helped me make that dream come true.
I am thankful that I have more than enough food on my table every day.
I am thankful that I have a job that I love, especially because I know that most people can't even come close to making that statement.
I am thankful for the opportunities to go to school, so that I could acquire the education I needed to do my job well.
I am thankful for my health and that to date, the worst I've had to deal with is a broken leg and two root canals.
I am thankful for being financially sound and for parents who taught me the value of hard work and saving for the future.
I am thankful for the joy of laughter, of laughing so hard that I'm pretty sure I might stop breathing at any second.
I am thankful that I've been able to travel and see places as far away as India, Taiwan, and Scotland. I pray for more opportunities in the future to travel.
I am thankful to my Vox friends, many of whom I cannot imagine not being in my life. Your support and friendship means the world to me.
I am thankful for my faith, for the One who created me, the One who died for me, and the One who lives in me.
And, I am thankful that although I am not where I thought I might be at this point in my life (namely, a husband, two kids, and a minivan) that I never, ever want to overshadow the other gifts in my life. I am blessed to a degree that I don't understand and the only thing I can think to do is to fall to my knees and thank God for being so incredibly generous and full of mercy and grace.
I hope that this coming year is a time where I can bless others using the blessings that have been so unsparingly given to me.
As a side note, I'm also thankful for this, because it made me almost snort Diet Pepsi out of my nose when I saw it:
Marathon post warning!
We're talking about our passions at church (not those kind of passions, people). A guest speaker a few weeks ago told us that if we're unsure what we're passionate about, we can ask ourselves three questions: What makes you sad? What makes you mad? What makes you glad? Then we can use the answers to find out how we can use our passions to serve others. So...
Mad:
Judgmental Christians make me angrier than anything. Shush Now had a fantastic post about this a few days ago. We are NOT called to judge. We are called to LOVE. That's it. Love the Lord God with all your heart, and love your neighbor as yourself. I have no idea where in the Bible it says to castigate people for their actions, beliefs, or ideas. The closest I can find is that as Christians we are called to speak with other Christians (not those outside the faith) who we see acting in a way contrary to what we believe. And we're supposed to do that IN LOVE. So, Mr. Phelps, let's talk.
The complete lack of charity by people who can afford it (this definitely includes myself at times) makes me mad. It makes me more than mad -- it makes me sick -- to see the distribution of wealth around the world. I'm not saying we should sell everything and give all our money to the poor, but does Paris Hilton's dog really need a freaking diamond collar when thousands of people die daily because they can't afford a meal? Do I really need 30 pairs of shoes when there are millions who have no shoes at all?
People who believe themselves to be entitled to something for reasons A, B, or C make me mad. These are the people who think respect should just be doled out in handfuls instead of earned. People who cheat and think it's okay because other people cheat. People who sponge up welfare without trying to earn their own way. People who refuse to merge properly on the freeway because they drive a nicer, faster car, and they deserve to go first. People who expect others to be at their beck and call. Basically, people who think the rules don't apply to them make me mad.
Sad:
The situation in Africa (and anywhere else this might happen) where children are kidnapped in the middle of the night and are forced into being soldiers. Just thinking of being ripped out of my home and being forced to kill the people for reasons I can't understand because I'm ten years old makes me tear up. I don't understand how the world can allow this to happen. Why is this okay? Isn't there something we can do?
The rate of illiteracy around the world, especially here in the US. My parents read to me from the day I was born until the day I grabbed the book out of their hands and read it for myself. I've been a reader ever since. I love books because they give me insight, they take me on adventures, and I learn incredible things from them. The thought of not being able to read and experience books (not to mention all the other things we read on a daily basis -- signs, applications, etc.) makes my heart ache.
It makes me mad when women think of themselves as worth nothing. This includes women who have been battered and abused, girls who find their worth only in how they look and what guys think about them, women who have been told lies about who they are, and pretty much any girl at the wrong end of the foster system. I want to take all of these women and teach them that they are worth everything to God. And that there are people out there who find them worthwhile, too.
Glad:
People doing noble things make me glad. Anyone who runs a good charity falls in this category. Seeing people who find all the satisfaction in the world from seeing a kid with cancer smile, or spending some quality time with an elderly person, or seeing the look on a mom's face when she's finally free from an abusive relationship. These people tend to sacrifice a lot of things that the rest of us take for granted. These people make me glad.
Being outside in God's creation makes me glad. I've never considered myself an environmentalist by any stretch (I recycle. I use CFLs. That's about it.). But I'm coming to the realization that God entrusted us with this world, and it's a good thing to be good to the earth. So maybe that's a passion that's slowly developing, although not in this alternative-to-religion way that environmentalism seems to be lately. I just want it to be beautiful when I go to the beach, or for a hike, or even just for a walk in my own neighborhood.
Being in communion with people makes me glad. Just being around people and loving them and having a good time makes me very happy. Learning new things about people I've known for years makes me glad. Meeting new people and expanding the circle of people I know brings me joy. I used to be a total homebody, never getting out and meeting new people. But it's becoming a lot easier these days (thank you WGA strike), and I find that I like having people around; people to talk to, to discuss issues with, to enjoy activies with. These things are making me happy these days.
My thoughts about what makes me mad, sad, and glad:
I think that I'm scratching the surface of my passions. Financially, I try and give as much as possible because I've been blessed with a lot, and I'm giving to charities that align with what make me mad, sad, and glad. I'm taking time to enjoy the things that make me glad, and to try and become like the people who make me glad. I'd like to start doing a little volunteer work outside the church. I'm still working with the youth group girls to try and instill in them a sense of worth and respect. I'm not afraid to (in love) knock some of my youth group kids down off their little entitlement pedestals. Mostly I'm trying my best to love everyone around me, especially the people who aren't as easy to love. Like that guy on the freeway who can't merge.
I'm back! My weekend away was fantastic, just like I knew it would be. Jessy, my brother, Ben, Jeremy, and Robert are in a band called Cornerstone (well, they were until Jessy moved to Iowa). I joined them and Jessy's wife Robyn and Ben's wife Carrie for the weekend. The band was leading worship at a men's conference at Hume Lake Christian Camp, so basically it was 500 men and me, Robyn, and Carrie. Let me tell you, I've never felt so female in my life!
On the one serious note for this blog, I must say that I think I experienced something this weekend that very few women get to experience: 500 men singing Amazing Grace. We sat up in the balcony with the staff so we didn't intrude with our girl-ness, but we could still see and hear everything. And it was such a blessing to hear all those men lifting their voices to God, and I'm really thankful that I was able to experience it.
The Drive There
I am also very thankful that I had the GPS. Hume, CA is in The Middle Of Nowhere. I left at 4:00 from work (woo!), and it took me almost five hours to get up there. From the bottom of the mountain to the top of the mountain, I didn't see any other cars. Not one. As I was driving, I knew that there were sharp drop-offs into a canyon, but luckily I couldn't see them. The mountain was dark and there were no signs of civilization. I kept thinking, "this is how stupid girls in movies die." But then I finally reached Hume -- the lake and camp are in the middle of this beautiful valley. After a few minutes of "where the heck are my friends?" Jessy came out and found me.
Friday Night
After the evening session, we all went back to the Hospitality House (basically the nicest digs at the camp) and sat around laughing. And laughing. I'm going to take a risk and retell one conversation, although it will most likely fail spectacularly in you-had-to-be-there style. We had a huge bag of Jelly Bellies and my brother pulled out one, and fearfully asked, "what flavor is gray?" The answers were as follows: Cobwebs. Floor. Fog. Grandma. The Eighteenth Century. Okay, maybe it was funnier if you were there. But I'm laughing right now and that's all that matters.
Saturday
Some stuff happened in the morning, including an insane foosball tournament during which I suffered a foosing injury, and after that, we all hopped in Ben's Band Van and drove to see General Sherman. It's a tree. The biggest tree. In the world. It's actually the largest living thing in the world. The biggest, must underwhelming tree in the world. There are taller trees. And trees with a larger diameter. But, General Sherman has the most volume. It's the densest tree. We saw the densest tree. I have photos, but they are on other people's cameras because somehow the memory card in my camera wasn't there. Sad. Saturday also involved some card games, and a lot more laughing. (True.)
Rescue
There was another music group called Rescue who appeared at the conference. These four guys are uh-may-zing. They sing a'capella and absolutely blew us all away. One of the guys can beat-box with the best of them, and their bass can hit the E below the lowest note on the piano. When he sang, the floor vibrated. They were phenomenal on stage, and really great in person. They threw an Office party when season 4 premiered, and dressed as the characters, for goodness' sake. We saw photos. They need to be our friends. Too bad they hail from Portland.
The Drive Home
The only reason I'm talking about the drive home is because my brother and I had something crazy happen to us on the freeway. We were driving down the highway, and Robyn and Jessy (who were in the car in front of us) ran over something in the road. That big, flat, scary something flew up and headed straight for the windshield. It looked like a piece of sheet metal, so Chris cussed and I ducked so hard that I strained my neck. The object smacked off the windshield, banged its way over the top of the car, and then who knows where it went. A few seconds later, we saw a truck off to the side of the road hauling an enormous old TV -- missing its screen. We hit a TV screen! Or, more accurately, the screen hit us. Scary!!
All in all, GREAT WEEKEND. Pictures to come when someone emails them to me!
I know I have both Christians and scientists who read my blog (as well as people who would not attribute either label to themselves). I hope this post inspires some (friendly) discussion about science and faith (and not necessarily the Christian faith, at least in this post, but the faith of a higher, all-powerful Being). I am very interested in hearing what you all have to say! This is most likely going to be a long post, but I encourage you to read and respond to it, because I think it's an important issue that deserves discussion.
As someone who's gone to a Christian church for years, I've sort of always pushed the questions and theories of science to the wayside to make room for my faith. The church believes one thing; science believes another, and they definitely don't agree and they can't seem to get along, so I'm just going to ignore it. But darn it, I'm the inquisitive type. So I've undertaken a journey to learn more about science and faith, and to see if the two are reconcilable. Surely if God is the God of the universe, He can hardly be threatened by my lowly efforts to find out the workings of His natural world, right? Galileo, who found himself lodged squarely between science and the church when he posited that the earth went around the sun and not vice versa, said, "I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use." And so it is with this mentality I begin.
Please note that I am NOT a scientist. I was an English major, and now I'm an editor by trade and I remember only odds and ends from biology and chemistry and other science classes in college and high school. My personal knowledge is extremely limited in this area and that's why I'm undertaking this search. I am also not a theologian, although I would say I know more about theology than I do about science.
My search has stared with the Language of God, by Francis Collins. Collins is a nationally recognized scientist, one who was instrumental in the mapping of the human genome, which is apparently really important to medical advances, as well as other areas of science (I think Steve Betz has mentioned it on occasion). He is also a Christian. The Language of God was his attempt to explain to the general public how he has reconciled what he believes about science -- including the ever-so-debatable theory of evolution -- with what he believes in his heart to be true about God. I'm not sure if I agree with everything said in this book, and I'm still trying to discover how his theories might mesh with my own, but I think he has a lot of good things to think about.
Although this statement didn't appear until well into the book, I thought it was a good observation to start out with: "Science alone is not enough to answer all the important questions... The meaning of human existence, the reality of God, the posibility of an afterlife, and many other spiritual questions lay outside of the reach of the scientific method. While an athiest may claim that those questions are therefore unanswerable and irrelevant, that does not resonate with most individual's human experience." This is why searching is worth it at all, I think. Later he says, "Science is not the only way of knowing. The spiritual worldview provides another way of finding truth."
This book probably could have been a thousand pages long, but Collins decides to focus on what he calls BioLogos (from the Greek word for life bios and the Greek word for word -- or Word, in a higher sense -- logos), which has the more widespread (but still relatively unknown) title of "theistic evolution." He sees the scientific evidence for evolution (especially in reference to DNA) as compelling, yet he also sees evidence for God -- namely in what CS Lewis dubbed Moral Law. Collins believes that because we, as humans, have this innate sense of right and wrong that doesn't seem to fit with evolution. Atheists would say that there is evidence for how this sense would have evolved, Christians say that God wrote it on our hearts. Moral Law is one of my own personal evidences for the existence of God as well.
BioLogos looks like this (to Collins -- there are other variations):
- The universe came into being out of nothingness approximately 14 billion years ago.
- Despite massive improbabilities, the properties of the universe appear to have been precisely tuned for life.
- While the precise mechanism of the origin of life on earth remains unknown, once life arose, the process of evolution and natural selection permitted the development of biological diversity and complexity over very long periods of time.
- Once evolution got underway, no special supernatural intervention was required.
- Humans are a part of this process, sharing a common ancestor with the great apes.
- But humans are also unique in ways that defy evolutionary explanation and point to our spiritual nature. This includes the existence of Moral Law (the knowledge of right and wrong) and the search for God that characterizes all human cultures throughout history.
Wow. That's not something that you'll hear at most churches on a Sunday morning. The American Association of Lutheran Church, the group to which my church belongs, professes a literal six-day Creationist view. Collins deems this as incompatible with modern science, but is held onto by "sincere, well-meaning, God-fearing Christians who are driven by deep concerns that naturalism is threatening to drive God out of the human experience." This makes sense -- most believe that if there's evolution, there's no need for God. Instead, Collins posits that the creation account in Genesis is not a literal translation, but does have a more lyrical and allegorical flavor, like the Song of Solomon or the Psalms. Collins believes that "the intention of the Bible was (and is) to reveal the true nature of God to humankind. Would it have served God's puposes thirty-four hundred years ago to lecture to His people about radioactive decay, geological strata, and DNA?" Of course, there is always a concern with liberal translations of the Bible -- people can read into anything. But Collins feels there is a difference between these more allegorical books and books with eyewitness testimony and historical accounts, such as the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament. Collins finds that BioLogos to be both scientifically consistent and spiritually satisfying.
I think my biggest concern with all of this is how many times in history things have been attributed to God when, in fact, they have had a very logical scientific reasons -- solar eclipses, the movement of the planets, etc. If evolution is true (I'm not saying that it is, but go with me on this), then sticking by our standard Creation story is actually doing a disservice to faith. For when a person who has grown up in the church goes out into the world and finds a lot of contradictory information, there's a good chance that the person will walk away from the faith completely. It's like the God of the Gaps theory. God fills in where science has no explanation. Problem is, if science does find a solution, God is squeezed out. Instead, perhaps we should, as people of faith, be looking to God as the Author and Perfector of all things, even if all things were done a little bit differently than we have been taught to believe.
I know this is a basic basic basic overview of what this books is about, and it doesn't really cover the few reasons Collins gives about why he chose Christianity over other faiths, but this post was getting long enough that I thought most people might start skipping over this post if I kept going. I'm interested in knowing what you all think. I'm still not sure what I think about it all!
