The Dead Tell No Tales

C.S. Lewis once wrote: "Where is God? Go to him when your need is desperate, when all other help is vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double-bolting on the inside. After that, silence."

Last Sunday before church, I was watching one of those magazine shows; they had this guy on that was talking about some of the more soulful or spiritual singers in the past few decades. He spoke of the stylings of people like Tracy Chapman and Sarah McLaughlin and how they seem to put their souls into their songs. Then he made a statement that went something like, “They sing to find spiritual meaning in a world in which God is silent.”

That struck me. I started thinking about the fact that for thousands of years God spoke with His creation in many ways. Walking in the garden, burning bushes, thunder in the sky, even angels. Then Jesus comes, lives among us and is eventually crucified, buried, resurrected and ascending into heaven. Before He leaves, Jesus promises to send the Holy Spirit. He doesn’t leave an intact instruction manual, and since that time God hasn’t been heard from. No more voices in the sky, or from burning bushes, prophets – nothing. Right?

My question is WHY? What’s happened, if anything, that’s caused God to become silent in the everyday lives of His allegedly most prized creation? The answer I have always been taught since childhood is that God is still active in creation; He communicates with us now via the Bible and the Holy Spirit. Of course that answer alone is rife with holes and questions. What of Oral Roberts saying that he saw a 600 foot Jesus who gave him specific instructions about something like building his college? Jim Jones? And the list goes on ad infinitum. Who is to say what is of God and what isn’t?

Then there’s the Bible. So many questions, so many pat answers. I believe the Bible to be authoritative; I believe it to be reliable – but… The problem arises that the “Bible” we hold in our hands today is a collection of works authorized by a board appointed by Constantine. Was something left out? Is there too much in there? If God wanted to communicate with us through such a document, then why didn’t He leave one for us, all neat and tidy? Again, this particular subject is one worth delving into at some length – but another time.

Maybe the problem isn’t the mode of communication. Perhaps it’s the receiver.

Frederich Nietzsche said that God is dead. Could that be why we haven’t heard from Him? I include a quote here at a bit of length, but I think it may help to understand what we are facing. This quote is from, “The Gay Science” or, Happy Wisdom.

“Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market-place, and cried incessantly: "I am looking for God! I am looking for God!" As many of those who did not believe in God were standing together there, he excited considerable laughter. Have you lost him, then? said one. Did he lose his way like a child? said another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? or emigrated? Thus they shouted and laughed. The madman sprang into their midst and pierced them with his glances. "Where has God gone?" he cried. "I shall tell you. We have killed him - you and I. We are his murderers…. Do we not hear anything yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we not smell anything yet of God's decomposition? Gods too decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we, murderers of all murderers, console ourselves? That which was the holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet possessed has bled to death under our knives. Who will wipe this blood off us? …

… It has been further related that on that same day the madman entered divers churches and there sang a requiem. Led out and quietened, he is said to have retorted each time: "what are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchres of God?"

What Nietzsche is concerned with in relating the above is that God is dead in the hearts of modern men - killed by rationalism and science. This same God however, before becoming dead in men's hearts and minds, had communicated with man for thousands of years.

When I think of God being silent, I am reminded of Elijah and his flight from Jezebel. Elijah was a man of God who God used to do some mighty things. However, when word reached him that Jezebel had threatened his life, he ran. Elijah prayed to the Lord and in effect complained about how he was being treated. "And he said, I have been very jealous for the LORD God of hosts: for the children of Israel have forsaken thy covenant, thrown down thine altars, and slain thy prophets with the sword; and I, even I only, am left; and they seek my life, to take it away" (1 Kings 19:10). God's answer to Elijah is thrilling. "And he said, Go forth, and stand upon the mount before the LORD. And, behold, the LORD passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the LORD; but the LORD was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the LORD was not in the earthquake: And after the earthquake a fire; but the LORD was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice" (1 Kings 19:11-12).

What Elijah thought was not true. Elijah thought God was silent and that he was the only one left. God was not only "not silent" but He had an army waiting in the wings so that Elijah was not alone.

I hate to think that those “not in tune” with God are left out, but I suppose in order to hear God, we at the very least have to be listening for Him. If, as Nietzsche has proposed, God is dead in our hearts, then we cannot expect to hear Him – the dead tell no tales. 

Fullers' Soap

But who may abide the day of his coming? and who shall stand when he appeareth? for he is like a refiner's fire, and like fullers' soap: Malachi 3:2 (KJV)

Sometimes Christianity isn’t fun. Not that it’s not good, it’s just that sometimes it isn’t fun. Now is one of those times.

Over the past couple weeks I’ve had a taste of what faith really is, just a taste.  That was good. It was an experience more precious than words could begin to describe. But it came with after-effects.

Of late I have come face-to-face with who I really am. Some of it isn’t very good. Okay, a lot of it isn’t very good. I won’t go into the boring, self-loathing details here…it’s bad enough that God knows what those pieces are. But I have found myself looking at my life through that sickening glass darkly and seeing things that just don’t belong.

Then on Sunday my pastor spoke about joy. That’s it! That’s what I’ve been missing! Overall I’m a pretty happy fella, but there hasn’t been much joy, especially as of late. I lie awake in bed and think of things in my life that just don’t work with a life of faith. And it’s weird – I’ve always been a bit introspective, but this time it’s different. It’s not intentional…the thoughts just come.

Then I read the first couple verses of Malachi chapter 3 and that part about fullers’ soap got me. Now, what exactly is "fuller's soap"? We don't use such a thing today, so the phrase is rather arcane, and to understand what it means we have to go back to one of God's favorite topics: sheep.

When you shear a sheep, you get fleece -- raw wool. And as you can imagine, it smells and feels like a sheep does -- which, overall, is not how you want to look and smell (no offense to sheep). So to use the raw wool for anything, the fuller would handle the wool.

The fuller is the guy who takes the filthy, dirty wool and washes it so that it gets really white and clean. He uses boiling-hot water, and soap which is extremely caustic. So what he does to the wool is not pleasant for him very much, but it is in fact much worse for the wool.  Often the wool would be beaten with rocks to really get the nasty smell, dirt, piece of farm debris, and non-wool stuff out of the fleece prior to spinning it into thread -- and then often it was done again to the thread when it was woven into fabric to make the cloth as tight and clean and presentable as possible.

So when God says that the Messiah is coming with "fuller's soap", He's not saying, "Jesus will make you wash your hands." he's saying, "you are disgusting and useless unless you are cleaned up by the Messiah."

It’s almost as though I am being scrubbed by this really, really strong cleanser…trying to agitate the dirt in me to what? …Repentance?  In my "prior Christian life", I thought I knew what things I needed to repent of.  They were the obvious things...pride, greed, etc.  But this time it's different.  Like Dante - midway in my life's journey, I had gone astray from the straight road and woke to find myself in a dark wood.  This time it's personal, real personal.  I find myself, maybe for the first time ever, looking at who I really truly am and there's a bunch I don't like.  Which, I suppose, means there's that bunch and maybe even more that God doesn't like.

But there is hope for Paul tells us "...anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!  And all of this is a gift from God, who brought us back to himself through Christ. And God has given us this task of reconciling people to him."  2 Corinthians 5:17-18 (NLT)

Maybe that’s what repentance is: Christ and the Holy Spirit beginning the mysterious cleansing process by agitating those bits of soil deep down in the fabric of my life. That soil exposed and left for me to decide…

Bring Me To Life

I will not judge those who hear me but don’t obey me, for I have come to save the world and not to judge it.  John 12:47 (NLT)

The Gospel of John is killin’ me!  It seems like every single phrase in this book either invokes deep theological thoughts, personal spiritual insights, or just some very interesting thoughts.  So, how can you read a verse like this and not cavitate into a tailspin of all of the above?  Salvation alone is a topic that has filled thousands of volumes, caused divisions in denominations, even spurred new religions.  The very idea of what salvation is and means causes anxiety, yet soothes the soul.  It causes debate and unifies unlikely allies.

As it stands, right now I am stuck in a hotel room, have just read this passage, ruminated and feel compelled to write something.  I get to thinking about what salvation meant to me as a child…Christ saving me from hell.  I get to thinking about the idea of being saved to something.  What?  Heaven?  I suppose.  But I just don’t feel like salvation just for the sake of eternity really gets the job done for me, it seems there has to be more…something about salvation in this life.

I think of my own hours of sheer desperation in my lifetime, and how many times I screamed inside for salvation.  I think of people I see everyday who yearn for salvation.  Salvation from wrecked lives, broken bodies, spoiled marriages, famine and hunger, earthquakes, homelessness, and the list goes on until there are no more pixels.  Sometimes I almost (not literally – fret not) hear those primal screams and feel the yearnings for salvation in all the suffering I see.  In Ashley’s broken body, in the deseration of the homeless guy sleeping on a bench at the Corning Preserve and every night on the seven o’clock news.

One of those creepy moments happened this evening after reading verse 47.  Sitting thinking about what Christ did to effect salvation, the radio playing in the background, Bring Me to Life by Evanescence came on.  So there I am…thinking about what salvation means and I hear these words being sung: 

Man!  I dunno!  Maybe salvation is so many different things.  Perhaps, because of who I am, that inner personal scream in my very core for more to life, that yearning for life to have more meaning requires salvation.  For Ashley, for a moment – a very real, very serious physical salvation.  For thousands of people in Haiti, right this very moment, salvation may be a bottle of water and a plastic-sealed meal. 

Maybe it is also salvation from hell to heaven.  But along the way…

We Want to Meet Jesus

Some Greeks who had come to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration paid a visit to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee. They said, “Sir, we want to meet Jesus.”   John 12:20-21 (NLT)

We want to meet Jesus.  I was reading this passage this evening and when I read these words I stopped. I’m not really sure why.  There was something about that thought that made me, well – stop and think. 

This past couple of weeks have been hell for me (not to mention what it’s been like for Ashley, Jon, and so on…).  We have been on an emotional roller coaster and a spiritual journey that is unparalleled in my life.  I have groaned on about how tired I am.  I have related how this experience has exposed me to the base reality of faith.

Now, with the stress suddenly reduced (for me), no family around (I am currently working in the nether-regions of Upstate New York) and sitting in a hotel room, I am lonely.  Then I read those words…”we want to meet Jesus”.  I want to meet Jesus.  I think.  What would that be like?

What if I walked over to that little diner across the street from this hotel, and as I walked toward the back, in a booth – sat Jesus?  There he’d be, wearing his striped button up shirt, boot cut jeans, Sketchers and goatee.  In reality I would probably fall down in worship, after all – isn’t that what we’re supposed to do?  But maybe it wouldn’t be like that at all.  Maybe he’d invite me to sit down across from him.  He’d order me a Diet Pepsi, some meatloaf and fries.  Knowing the Jesus of the Bible, he would probably reach across the table, put his hand on mine and look at me with the same sympathetic, soulful eyes that I imagine he looked at Lazarus’ family before he wept.

Maybe he’d just remind me that he’s always right here with me just like he promised the disciples as he ate his final meal.  Or perhaps he would pray with me, and remind the Father that he had not lost one of his own.  I can imagine the flow of the conversation, from things personal to spiritual.  We’d laugh, cry, I don’t think I’d have the temerity to debate.  I’d probably have a gazillion questions, but I bet he’d continue to bring the conversation back to how much he loves me.

Every now and again I’d get to feeling guilty because I certainly have never loved Jesus nearly as much as he loves me – but he’d probably say something like…”Aww, that’s okay, don’t worry about it.” 

Eventually the time would come when Jesus would have to leave.  The waitress would come over and I’d pull out my wallet and he would stay my hand.  In a soft voice he would say something to the waitress, she’d tell me not to worry about it – it was taken care of, then she’d walk away…her step a little surer…her shoulders a little less stooped.

Jesus and I would stand and hug, he’d say that he loves me more than I’ll ever know and that he’d see me later.  Then he’d walk away.  Back in my hotel room I would sleep the best night’s sleep I have ever had.  I will be rested.

Tired

Do you not know? Have you not heard?
         The Everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth
         Does not become weary or tired
         His understanding is inscrutable.
    He gives strength to the weary,
         And to him who lacks might He increases power.
    Though youths grow weary and tired,
         And vigorous young men stumble badly,
    Yet those who wait for the LORD
         Will gain new strength;
         They will mount up with wings like eagles,
         They will run and not get tired,
         They will walk and not become weary.  Isaiah 40:28-31

I am tired.

I pretty much exist on nervous energy.  Normally, from the time I am done with my morning shower and getting dressed (before that I don’t count as actually being awake) ‘til the time I turn off my light (usually 18 to 20 hours later), I go.   I work, talk, work, read, talk, read yada yada yada.  I do this day in and day out – then I crash.  But now…I am tired.

Ashley lies in a coma.  The fear of her imminent death has somewhat subsided, but there she lies.  I cannot count how many times I have heard that God has allowed this to happen.  How many times I have been told that this is all a part of God’s greater plan.  And I want to believe this.  I want to believe that this is all a part of God’s benevolent design.  I’ve been told ever since  I was a child that God has a plan, and that we may not always understand it, and really – we’re not supposed to ask why.

Well, to be quite frank, I’m not interested in ‘why’.  It doesn’t matter to me – why.  I already know the ‘how’.  So I don’t know what other questions to ask.  I sincerely do NOT believe this has anything to do with testing my faith, or that it was a part of God’s plan to help me grow in faith.  In fact, I don’t think this was about me at all.  I believe Ashley was in an accident and as a result her life is shattered.  I am on the periphery. 

But as John Donne said, “No man is an island entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main;” therefore I too am effected.  I don’t believe God did this to Ashley.  I don’t believe God did this to try or build my faith, but now…I have nothing left.  You see up ‘til now I prayed that God would deliver Ashley but trusted that science would do the job.  Maybe I trusted too much in science because science has grown tired.  So now…

So now I have nothing left to turn to but God.  There is nothing more that science can do.  Perhaps my philosophical, theological whinings about faith have been exposed as the frauds that they were…simply the snivelings of a man who wished to belong to God through some esoteric desire.  Now – I lay prostrate and wrecked and experience what it truly means to desire faith.  I have no other choice.

I am tired.  And now we wait.  We wait for Ashley to wake up.  And if the Bible is true, and God does not become weary and tired, then I must, I have to, wait for the Lord. So this is what faith is.  For me, right now, faith is realizing that science cannot help my little girl.  I cannot help my little girl.  Faith – right now – is “Lord I am waiting on you, please help my little girl.”

How then shall we live?

You, son of man (human one), I have made a watchman for the house of Israel, writes the prophet Ezekiel.  Whenever you hear a word from my mouth you shall give them warning.  You have said, “our transgressions and our sins are upon us, and we waste away because of them, how then shall we live?”   Ezekiel 33

The people’s lament comes after the destruction of Jerusalem in 587 B.C. Ezekiel has been appointed a watchman, a prophet among exiles in Babylonia. His personal sorrow included the death of his wife, the “delight of his eyes.”  When the temple was destroyed, and Jerusalem brought to rubble, the foundation of the faith of Israel was dealt a death-blow.

I realize that to some of you reading this, this is going to be a bit of a shock, but my daughter is not feeling well.  No.  Ashley has been in a horrible accident and is not well.  I'm sitting in her room right now seeing the delight of my eyes clinging to the thinnest filament of life.  If that filament were visible it would be as one of those spider webs that you walk through when passing through the garden gate.  You know, the kind you feel on your face and wipe quickly cause there might be a spider there.  It was so thin - you didn't even see it.  That's what I feel like Ash is clinging to as I sit here and watch the numbers bounce around, and listen to the long slow hiss of the ventilator as it delivers another breath.  I won't go into the gory details here, but Ashley has been destroyed.

How then shall Ashley live?  I don't know.  I know machines are doing most of the physical living for her.  And, right now, that is how Ashley will live.  When she is better...how shall she then live?  Again, I don't know.  I imagine that she will live a life so incredibly deeply rooted in her faith and really true, genuine love of God - just as she always has.

How shall I then live?  I don't know.  I know this though - my own spider-web-like faith remains.  Not because it's an unshakeable faith, - just the opposite.  My faith remains because it is so thin and fragile and surface deep that I have had to lean on others.  The faith of others, Uncle Harold, Mom, Pastor Abby, T, my brother, my sister, and on-and-on!  My faith has been thus far sustained because I cling to the faith of those who truly have faith.  I dunno.  Maybe that's really what faith is.  Maybe it's a huge part of faith, that when we don't have much of it, or don't know how to have it, those around us help bolster our little smidgen of faith.

The whole thing reminds me of Aaron and Hur holding up Moses' arms so that Israel might defeat Amelek (sorry, I can't think of where that story is in the Bible, but I promise - it's there!).

So I will sit here with Ashley and rest my arms on those of you who hold me up by praying earnestly for Ashley.  And one more thing - if you don't mind - please pray that Ashley will live!  Not that "Lord's will" stuff.  I'm being selfish here but please - just ask God to let her live!

The Problem of Evil: or - Holy Crap!

I suppose it comes as no surprise to those who read this blog that I am not only attempting to work out my faith, but I am also reexamining my views of theology.  In the past my metanarrative has been almost completely shaped by my childhood teachings.  I'm not saying that I am summarily casting off everything I have ever known (insert here my little play on Descartes: cogito cogito ergo cogito sum - LOL).  Rather I am systematically (I know, I know - to some of you out there that is such a dirty word) considering my beliefs and how much of those beliefs are based on American theology vs a more global theology.  That being said...

I am not yet sure what to think of the problem of evil, and quite frankly I am not prepared to get into it in any depth at this time.  I am beginning simply with the premise that if there is good there must also be evil, and that got me to thinking about a movie I saw this fall. The other day Paranormal Activity came out on DVD and of course I had to watch it again. This is one of the best films I've seen lately. Its cinema verite style makes is both believable and extremely personal. The characters are natural, funny and identifiable. If anything, they are too human in that they make all of the mistakes young people make in not reaching out for help. The guy has a macho attitude about the nature of evil, and thinks crosses are silly symbols. If you haven't seen the film, I won't spoil it, but it's like a ghost story on film. If you don't pray now, you may after watching it. (Cue scary music.) It will haunt you for life!

And so now, in my sleepless hours, I consider evil…