whither will my soul rest, Lord,
if not in You?
whither will my mind lead me,
apart from You?
with you, the nations crumble
as dusty bread not even to Your toes;
yet, somehow, now with You
my heart crumbles equally as them
when i cannot decide a means of life
with knowledge of You.
apart from You was unanswered and unanswerable thoughts
like a constant streaming of urgency
massing as thunderous clouds,
ever-spreading across the landscape of life.
with you, i have rest when i accept it.
i have lied in the greenest of pastures
and i soared on your wings.
what has happened?
what was i doing when i unchained,
once again,
this earth from its sun?
whither am i moving?
do i direct myself away from all suns,
as i did before?
can i direct myself any longer?
am i nearly as free
as i dread myself to be,
or am i bound to you by Your spirit?
whither has it moved?
what was it doing while i sat
empty-handed in the desert
alone and with wet eyes
full of self-pity?
whither will my soul rest but in You?
decide for me rest,
for there is no greater servant
than a servant who cannot think otherwise.
come and settle my doubt.
come and stir my passions.
come and remain faithful.
though i walk through the valley of the shadow of reason,
i will fear no responsibility,
i will fear no logic.
i will fear no emptiness in the world.
and mostly, i will not fear my fullness in you.
i am like a vegetable,
well misted in a grocery store bay window.
my soul tends to unrest
as my body attempts otherwise
and my body is weary for it
and my soul is bound to my being
because my soul is essentail being,
now that my charts of logic had led me to conclude that being and nothingness
are one in the same--
a transprogressional disunity of apperception.
i know not that You had presence--
but i still tend to urgency
though i know otherwise.
settle this urgency for me,
for alone, i am a fly with no place to land,
nothing on which to regurgitate.
nothing to eat.
prove me otherwise
and take my wings from me
and lay me on solid ground
and force my hand on Your shoulder
as i soar on Your wings like those of eagles.
i will tenaciously wait for Your wings to unfold before me
as You invite me on your shoulders
much broader than any man's
and much more stable
than the hardest of rock.
even rocks tumble on other rocks
but Your back i know to be fortified with unbendable muscle like steel
and Your shoulders so wide that i cannot even grasp them
but for a ridge along Your spine.
You have proven yourself to be faithful
Your works are exactly as you said.
i have known the Truth
and it has set me free
and i run back to Your arms
after i return to semantics and pragmatics
to learn once more that only You solve earth's dilemmas,
though i know not by which means always
i know
and i thank You for letting me never forget that You complete me
when i feel so imcomplete.
wither will my soul rest, Lord, if not in You?
Sunday, March 20, 2011
Thursday, February 24, 2011
you don't know hell.
do synthetic arguments exist? i don't know. i used to firmly believe that, if two people had opposing or alternate systems of belief, there was a peaceful common ground, but right now i'm hesitant to assert that. until, of course, God convicts me.
see, i'm not used to being outraged. neither am i wholly used to people exploding for reasons i can't or don't know. i come from a world (the philosophy/intellectual world) where people reason fairly soundly, without skipping argumentative steps and who aren't rash or use coarse language. i come from a world of much war, but little man-on-man combat. i once thought that to be a world of peace, but it is not.
jean-paul sartre once said, 'hell is other people.' i disagree. whoever believes that does not yet know hell. he who believes that has not known a godless life. i was reading this morning a piece from nietzsche's 'Mad man'. it was one of his most epic works as far as i'm concerned...but not epic for how it affected me, but how epically true it is, especially now that i am a christ follower.
here is the parable:
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 seek God! I seek God!" -- As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated? -- Thus they yelled and laughed.
The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him -- you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.
"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us -- for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto."
Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars -- and yet they have done it themselves.
It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?"
what's particularly scary is that, even though i look at the 'mad man' and pity him, i was once the same man. i remember the sheer confusion i had, because truth disappeared somewhere a few years prior...and i related much to the mad man when he said, 'how did we [(lose) God], How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves...?"
i will tell you how i comforted myself: alcoholism and anorexia. alcoholism was my crutch; i drank until i couldn't drink any longer, i would go to bed, and be glad that i didn't have an appetite the next morning. why? i had no reason to eat. my entire work's discipline (scholasticism, philosophy, creating meaning, love) were all dead, because i considered knowledge to be dead, and i realized that the only logical mode of existence of anything would be for God to hold it together. if he existed. but i couldn't reason his existence to myself then, because i was too busy comforting myself, really, comforting myself and trying to tell myself that this is how normal people survived in life, this is how we don't lie to ourselves: to recognize that we need comfort in a cold dark world such as ours.
i remember the sense of power i first felt when i looked in the mirror and saw a change in my body weight. how proud of myself i was! i mean, i worked hard (and by the way: it is hard not eating, but it's empowering when you know why you stopped eating). i worked too hard to get myself where i was to not not have two things in this world i could call my own, like alcohol and anorexia. i could buy alcohol, and i was in total control of what was being put in my body. nobody could force me to eat, and it's not like i had or wanted accountability anyway. and i liked the prospect being sneaky, so when i would eat with someone i would only pretend eat.
i remember thinking once, when i came home from college because my body had been through too much (i was sick all the time, consistently hung over, and malnourished), when i looked in the mirror one evening without a shirt, damn white boy, you've got it going ON! and i recall how good i thought i looked, especially compared to the 'fatty matty' of a year ago. i also remember thinking, 'what one man has built, let no other man destroy'...but soon later i realized that i built nothing. i accomplished nothing in college. i was still just as much without a degree as i was before, and actually slightly worse off for having gone to college in the first place.
'so what do i do now,' i asked myself, 'now that i have deconstructed deconstructionism?' well, can you deconstruct deconstructionism? is that not what the 'mad man' was asking when he said, 'what was i doing when...But how did i do this? How could i drink up the sea? Who gave me the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What was i doing when i unchained this earth from its sun?' i will tell you what i was doing: i was relying on my own understanding while destroying Jesus' temple with alcohol and not eating, and there is no limit to what that can do to a person's soul.
the mad man recognized that he was not mad but that, in fact, everyone else was mad for being so coy about atheism. the mad man presents himself as ridiculous...until he speaks more truth than i have ever heard: that we are in a constant mirror-play man-as-God theology until we run out of options except that which we are uninclined to be. for me, it stopped being an option to not eat, because i wanted to be bigger again but not fat like i used to be, more muscular. and the i realized this: my standard for myself keeps changing. it tended to not have a choice but to change, because i didn't have a coherent system of belief. plus, i felt like i was dying all the time because of stress and panic attacks, and i knew that food would help that, so i started working out...and getting proud.
and then the sweetest, most memorable thing happened to me: as i was seeking death-bed counseling (in the case that it was not panic attacks that i was experiencing), i was brought to God through logic, in a way. i was told by my counselor that 1.) God disciplines those he loves, 2.) that Nebuchadnezzar was disciplined for his pride, was made to eat grass with the beasts of the field, and was brought to repentance finally when he acknowledged that he could not build anything. that God built it all and that there was no pride to be had in all his glorious kingdoms, 3.) that all people have a natural inclination to lean on our own understanding, and 4.) that i could ease my pride by acknowledging that i am proud through psalm 131 that reads:
Lord, my heart is not proud
My eyes are not haughty,
i do not concern myself with matters too great or awesome for me.
but i have stilled and quiteted myself like a small child.
yes, like a small child is my soul within me...
i wanted that so badly. so i asked for it...and got it. do i still tend to pride? yes, but that will likelier than not ever go away, and i really don't want it to, because God's discipline comforts me. when i am proud, i know it. people around me may not, but i do. it tends to seethe within me how i was right and [enter x-variable person] was completely unjustified in what they said or did. it usually presents itself to me as repeating thoughts that are me ruminating over how i should have retaliated and defending my argument against the argument of the other person. what is that, if it is not pride? nothing. just like the sandcastles of logic i tend to build that get wiped away every so often when i am proud and when i want something more than i want God...or want something more than i want to do God's will, which is essentially to love. unconditionally. without moments of rage.
so, the synthetic argument does exist...and it exists in acknowledging that all people, yourself or otherwise, are inclined to anger, will continue to be inclined to sin, and we will be at least a little bit that way until we die, and that we will consider other people hell as long as we don't remember hell: knowledge of our separation from God.
we should, however, progressively become less messed up as time goes on. luckily, alcoholism and anorexia, through my proud will, were broken before conversion. i often wonder how much harder it would have been to quit drinking and start eating after i had converted...after my will was broken for God's? i don't know, it sounds like it would be easier but i'm not completely sure, although it is pretty hard to quit smoking. that is all i know. perhaps the one with whom i have a disagreement is not so far from where i was a year ago. if they are, i am glad because there is a light in the distance. seemingly very far off, but the light is there and it is the best thing to happen to me. if my atheology can be deconstructed, then, believe me, anyone's can. besides, who can i judge?
consider me convicted. that is all.
see, i'm not used to being outraged. neither am i wholly used to people exploding for reasons i can't or don't know. i come from a world (the philosophy/intellectual world) where people reason fairly soundly, without skipping argumentative steps and who aren't rash or use coarse language. i come from a world of much war, but little man-on-man combat. i once thought that to be a world of peace, but it is not.
jean-paul sartre once said, 'hell is other people.' i disagree. whoever believes that does not yet know hell. he who believes that has not known a godless life. i was reading this morning a piece from nietzsche's 'Mad man'. it was one of his most epic works as far as i'm concerned...but not epic for how it affected me, but how epically true it is, especially now that i am a christ follower.
here is the parable:
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 seek God! I seek God!" -- As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated? -- Thus they yelled and laughed.
The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him -- you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.
"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us -- for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto."
Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. "I have come too early," he said then; "my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars -- and yet they have done it themselves.
It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: "What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?"
what's particularly scary is that, even though i look at the 'mad man' and pity him, i was once the same man. i remember the sheer confusion i had, because truth disappeared somewhere a few years prior...and i related much to the mad man when he said, 'how did we [(lose) God], How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him. How shall we comfort ourselves...?"
i will tell you how i comforted myself: alcoholism and anorexia. alcoholism was my crutch; i drank until i couldn't drink any longer, i would go to bed, and be glad that i didn't have an appetite the next morning. why? i had no reason to eat. my entire work's discipline (scholasticism, philosophy, creating meaning, love) were all dead, because i considered knowledge to be dead, and i realized that the only logical mode of existence of anything would be for God to hold it together. if he existed. but i couldn't reason his existence to myself then, because i was too busy comforting myself, really, comforting myself and trying to tell myself that this is how normal people survived in life, this is how we don't lie to ourselves: to recognize that we need comfort in a cold dark world such as ours.
i remember the sense of power i first felt when i looked in the mirror and saw a change in my body weight. how proud of myself i was! i mean, i worked hard (and by the way: it is hard not eating, but it's empowering when you know why you stopped eating). i worked too hard to get myself where i was to not not have two things in this world i could call my own, like alcohol and anorexia. i could buy alcohol, and i was in total control of what was being put in my body. nobody could force me to eat, and it's not like i had or wanted accountability anyway. and i liked the prospect being sneaky, so when i would eat with someone i would only pretend eat.
i remember thinking once, when i came home from college because my body had been through too much (i was sick all the time, consistently hung over, and malnourished), when i looked in the mirror one evening without a shirt, damn white boy, you've got it going ON! and i recall how good i thought i looked, especially compared to the 'fatty matty' of a year ago. i also remember thinking, 'what one man has built, let no other man destroy'...but soon later i realized that i built nothing. i accomplished nothing in college. i was still just as much without a degree as i was before, and actually slightly worse off for having gone to college in the first place.
'so what do i do now,' i asked myself, 'now that i have deconstructed deconstructionism?' well, can you deconstruct deconstructionism? is that not what the 'mad man' was asking when he said, 'what was i doing when...But how did i do this? How could i drink up the sea? Who gave me the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What was i doing when i unchained this earth from its sun?' i will tell you what i was doing: i was relying on my own understanding while destroying Jesus' temple with alcohol and not eating, and there is no limit to what that can do to a person's soul.
the mad man recognized that he was not mad but that, in fact, everyone else was mad for being so coy about atheism. the mad man presents himself as ridiculous...until he speaks more truth than i have ever heard: that we are in a constant mirror-play man-as-God theology until we run out of options except that which we are uninclined to be. for me, it stopped being an option to not eat, because i wanted to be bigger again but not fat like i used to be, more muscular. and the i realized this: my standard for myself keeps changing. it tended to not have a choice but to change, because i didn't have a coherent system of belief. plus, i felt like i was dying all the time because of stress and panic attacks, and i knew that food would help that, so i started working out...and getting proud.
and then the sweetest, most memorable thing happened to me: as i was seeking death-bed counseling (in the case that it was not panic attacks that i was experiencing), i was brought to God through logic, in a way. i was told by my counselor that 1.) God disciplines those he loves, 2.) that Nebuchadnezzar was disciplined for his pride, was made to eat grass with the beasts of the field, and was brought to repentance finally when he acknowledged that he could not build anything. that God built it all and that there was no pride to be had in all his glorious kingdoms, 3.) that all people have a natural inclination to lean on our own understanding, and 4.) that i could ease my pride by acknowledging that i am proud through psalm 131 that reads:
Lord, my heart is not proud
My eyes are not haughty,
i do not concern myself with matters too great or awesome for me.
but i have stilled and quiteted myself like a small child.
yes, like a small child is my soul within me...
i wanted that so badly. so i asked for it...and got it. do i still tend to pride? yes, but that will likelier than not ever go away, and i really don't want it to, because God's discipline comforts me. when i am proud, i know it. people around me may not, but i do. it tends to seethe within me how i was right and [enter x-variable person] was completely unjustified in what they said or did. it usually presents itself to me as repeating thoughts that are me ruminating over how i should have retaliated and defending my argument against the argument of the other person. what is that, if it is not pride? nothing. just like the sandcastles of logic i tend to build that get wiped away every so often when i am proud and when i want something more than i want God...or want something more than i want to do God's will, which is essentially to love. unconditionally. without moments of rage.
so, the synthetic argument does exist...and it exists in acknowledging that all people, yourself or otherwise, are inclined to anger, will continue to be inclined to sin, and we will be at least a little bit that way until we die, and that we will consider other people hell as long as we don't remember hell: knowledge of our separation from God.
we should, however, progressively become less messed up as time goes on. luckily, alcoholism and anorexia, through my proud will, were broken before conversion. i often wonder how much harder it would have been to quit drinking and start eating after i had converted...after my will was broken for God's? i don't know, it sounds like it would be easier but i'm not completely sure, although it is pretty hard to quit smoking. that is all i know. perhaps the one with whom i have a disagreement is not so far from where i was a year ago. if they are, i am glad because there is a light in the distance. seemingly very far off, but the light is there and it is the best thing to happen to me. if my atheology can be deconstructed, then, believe me, anyone's can. besides, who can i judge?
consider me convicted. that is all.
Friday, January 14, 2011
right and left and why
there. i said it: hegel was right. i made an assertive position on what hegel said while making a pun. all at the same time! see how clever i am?
all silliness aside, hegel himself was a right hegelian (christian fundamentalist), not a left hegelian (postmodernist). but he did open the door for left hegelianism. 'but how?' you might ask, 'how could someone with an absolute, solid foundation for morality, truth, ontology, metaphysics, and existence in general have opened the postmodern door?' i will tell you. but first you must know the condition of man, the human condition, which hegel goes at great lengths to explain. but to understand why hegel would describe the human condition is to recognize his audience.
hegel's audience was not all, not everyone who would read his works, and especially not the non-Christian. this said, it explains much of what will happen to follow from his having explained the secret of the universe to all, albeit inadvertantly.
hegel sought to explain, through phenomenology the way by which knowledge is come to. this is called the hegelian dialectic of synthesis. the synthesis is basically what happens when there are two opposing ideas (a thesis and its antithesis) that cannot coexist. an example of synthesis that i personally recognize as a synthesis was my conversion experience. it was not an instantaneous thing at all. it started in october of 2009 and ended with conversion in july of 2010. and it was painful.
the thesis was that i was not God. that was, hitherto october, a presupposition anyway in that i didn't believe that God existed in the first place and never truly had. but the thesis is not at all what converted me. it was not at all what could allow me to be converted to Christianity at all. the only thing that could convert me was the coexistence of two opposite ideas. 1.) i am not God (thesis) and 2.) i didn't know a god (antithesis). when these two realities met, i was left with nothing. that i was not God (which was obvious to me, and its converse had never crossed my mind) meant that i was not an authority on the world. that would be fine, and most people do not claim to be an authority on the world, but what remains detremental is that it was coupled with the idea that i did not believe that there was an authority on the world.
so comes the synthesis: absolute agnosticism, rationalistic skepticism, truthlessness, and the lack of ability--since i am not an authority on the world and didn't believe one existed--to know anything at all, extending to the existence of my own being. i literally went around consumed with the thought that i may or may not exist, that those who surrounded me may or may not exist, that what i did may or may not be moral or ethical, that science may or may not be conclusive of anything, that my family may or may not love me if in fact they were existing things (and if they were existing things, were they things that existed as i believed them to exist...or were they merely people who acted out of pity for me? or malice even!?), that i actually might not have a home outside of what i constructed around me and considered a possibly immaterial 'home' to go to when i went to visit my parents on breaks from college. i couldn't know anything at all. ANYTHING.
it was as weird and wrenching as it sounds. it was in october, because of this, that my drinking habit that started a few years before went from only at night, after classes 2 to 4 days a week, to all day. every day. i was spending about $200 a week on beer and taking 'odd jobs' (i.e. exploiting poor and rich minors' alike desire for alcohol by obtaining a gross profit from my purchasing it for them), and i relished that beer, because in a world where not just what i did didn't seem to matter, but whose very existence was indiscernable, i was left with nothing but my senses, and i liked beer, so i clung to the fact that i liked beer and chose to have faith that natty light would be there in the morning when i woke up. it was literally my only comfort in the world, and it was only comforting when i wasn't throwing up, which was about every night after downing a 12 pack in a 3 to 4 hour period of time. what else was there to do? if i possbly had a purpose but had no way of discerning that purpose, there was nothing left to do but sense what i believed i could sense. sensation became God. i also had lots of sex with lots of strangers and abused the mess out of loratab and ritalin. and stopped eating. that was the sythesis.
the outward spiral of the synthesis came when i decided to ascribe to a system in june of 2010. i had tried buddhism when i was 18 and 19 and disliked its refutation of the self and personhood, atheism lost its appeal in the synthesis with the new knowledge that nothing mattered, universalism/new ageism was something that i had dabbled in a little bit when i was in my early 20s but some of the practices were just too ridiculous and honestly looked reprehensible to the rest of america, i associated wicca with the weird people in high school who wore black t-shirts with wolves on them, hinduism was too confusing (plus america lacked the necessary cultural affirmation of the belief system), and so i was left with judaism and christianity. i wouldn't have been able to justify my conversion to judaism to my family, so i decided that christianity would work, but the only problem was this: i was still not a christian even though i chose it.
simultaneously, from october to july i had been having multiple daily panic attacks, which i thought were heart attacks. then cancer. then thyroid issues. then [enter x-variable disease here], and in the period of june (when i decided to ascribe to a belief system) to july (when i stopped ascribing to a belief system) i still had panic attacks that sensualized themselves much like a heart attack: rapid palpitations coupled with shortness of breath and chest pains. this experiencing of panic attacks in this month meant that something was still wrong now that i believed what was happening to me was not heart attacks, and since i had ascribed to follow this God of my parents who promised so much change and health and peace i decided that either 1.) i really am about to die or 2.) i'm not doing the religion thing right, so i sought biblical counseling.
biblical counseling offered me two possible solutions at the time: make me feel better about dying (in the case that death was near) or it would correct some of my theology so that i could stop feeling like i was dying all the time, and it was in july that i realized that what i had believed from june to then was not at all what it was about, that it was less about me and more about God.
to say that to most people would be equivalent to doing something ridiculous, like wear a bird-clown prostitute suit on a street corner while scandalously honking my nose, but to say that to a christian, they would at least say they agree, but they would still have the same problems they had at conversion. but i have found the solution, and it lies in the Bible. it is a throwing off of the sensual and the rational for the actual. the sensual is feelings (thoughts, emotions, senses, ideas) and the rational is knowledge that contradicts the knowledge of the actual (i.e. anything not strictly biblical). what do i know? i am merely human. if it stopped the panic attacks, good for me. if it didn't, at least i had the hope of heaven that would not include panic attacks. i had little to lose.
my two favorite verses are psalm 131 and proverbs 3:5. the former offers a prayer of what i desire (humility) and the latter offers some vague advice on how to do that ('trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding'). would it not make sense that i would not lean on my own understanding, were i following a God who was big enough to create the world around me, no matter how...even without intrinsic design in mind? even if the world was created by evolution, God is still bigger than evolution to have created thermodynamics, matter mass, energy, and entropy. in that light, to lean on my own understanding seemed equally as absurd as the irrational leap of faith it is to trust someone i cannot even see, much less have a corporeal conversation with. but what choice did i have? i didn't have one. it was that or back to beer and anorexia, and i honestly wanted to feel good again, so i chose the leap of faith and asked the Holy Spirit to come into my heart some time in july, and that was the night of my last biologically-manifested panic attack.
i remember it was the night of the college group meeting my church had, i had just gotten fired from my job as a dishwasher, and we watched 'book of eli,' a movie weirdly about the Bible and its power in the right or wrong hands. it was an epic movie, but i knew that i didn't have the faith of denzel washington's character to do that and i knew why by that time: i wasn't truly a convert. i was practically still weirdly agnostic, just with more of a sway to believe in God rather than wholly believing it. so i decided to change that i wasn't truly a convert and decided to see God like denzel washington's character did (he was blind). The only way a human could see God is by the power of the Holy Spirit, which is what i believe to have stopped the bio-panic and start the process of the end of emotional-panic, which i haven't truly had (aside for one time of paxil withdrawal) since october of 2010. no more panic.
now, you see the difference between what hegel said and how he was interpreted. the others had no choice but to interpret him secularly, for their minds were secular. one cannot interpret divine thought without divine revelation. if what God said isn't already true in someone's mind before they hear it, it won't resound. it will merely be words on a page with little practical meaning and remain just as untrue as it was before it was heard or read. the same is true with hegel. since hegel was a theologian above all else, his audience was more for theological studies rather than philosophical studies. in the hands of theology, God is the measure of all things. in the hands of philosophy without theological backing, truth is completely irrelevant because the synthesis requires the existence of absolutes to be functional, and if a true thinker reads hegel, he has two things he can do: 1.) if he has the holy spirit, recognize that what hegel says is a testament to the existence of absolutes, or 2.) if he doesn't have the holy spirit, read hegel and see that hegel speaks of absolutes as sharply as he does and not be able to recognize absolutes that absolutes are real to the reader because his mind is closed to absolutes, because behind the sensual and the rational there is no actual (postmodernity).
the bible clearly speaks of this idea in 2 corinthains 4:4 where it says: 'the god of this age [contextually, postmodernity] has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of christ, who is the image of God.' contextually, Paul is writing to a church about the sneakiness of the thought patterns behind the philosophies of the world and cultures around them and how they can often corrupt how the Gospel is interpreted, and therefore presented. he also says in Galations 1:9: 'if anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted...[it is no gospel at all].' that idea is very similar to the idea of how one can be in a poorly lit room but not know it until he is presented with a brighter light.
every now and again, i get asked by a non-believing friend, 'but how do you know you are right, when you think you are right? does that not mean that you could be just as ingrained in thinking you're right as anyone else and it make sense to you, whether you are or aren't correct in your beliefs?' my reply is simple.
"it did what it said it would do. 'you will know the truth and the truth has set you free, and i didn't have to commit intellectual suicide for it to do so." there is no faith i have encountered thus far that doesn't suppress intellect to make room for faith, and in fact christianity actually promotes my intellect (even outside of defending the faith *!*) to further my walk with God and to display His handiwork in my life. i went from being a guy with an alcohol problem, a developing drug problem, and anorexia because of his intellect to a guy who recognizes God in everything he does. that is a testament to 'be[ing] transformed by the renewing of your mind,' not the death of it.
all silliness aside, hegel himself was a right hegelian (christian fundamentalist), not a left hegelian (postmodernist). but he did open the door for left hegelianism. 'but how?' you might ask, 'how could someone with an absolute, solid foundation for morality, truth, ontology, metaphysics, and existence in general have opened the postmodern door?' i will tell you. but first you must know the condition of man, the human condition, which hegel goes at great lengths to explain. but to understand why hegel would describe the human condition is to recognize his audience.
hegel's audience was not all, not everyone who would read his works, and especially not the non-Christian. this said, it explains much of what will happen to follow from his having explained the secret of the universe to all, albeit inadvertantly.
hegel sought to explain, through phenomenology the way by which knowledge is come to. this is called the hegelian dialectic of synthesis. the synthesis is basically what happens when there are two opposing ideas (a thesis and its antithesis) that cannot coexist. an example of synthesis that i personally recognize as a synthesis was my conversion experience. it was not an instantaneous thing at all. it started in october of 2009 and ended with conversion in july of 2010. and it was painful.
the thesis was that i was not God. that was, hitherto october, a presupposition anyway in that i didn't believe that God existed in the first place and never truly had. but the thesis is not at all what converted me. it was not at all what could allow me to be converted to Christianity at all. the only thing that could convert me was the coexistence of two opposite ideas. 1.) i am not God (thesis) and 2.) i didn't know a god (antithesis). when these two realities met, i was left with nothing. that i was not God (which was obvious to me, and its converse had never crossed my mind) meant that i was not an authority on the world. that would be fine, and most people do not claim to be an authority on the world, but what remains detremental is that it was coupled with the idea that i did not believe that there was an authority on the world.
so comes the synthesis: absolute agnosticism, rationalistic skepticism, truthlessness, and the lack of ability--since i am not an authority on the world and didn't believe one existed--to know anything at all, extending to the existence of my own being. i literally went around consumed with the thought that i may or may not exist, that those who surrounded me may or may not exist, that what i did may or may not be moral or ethical, that science may or may not be conclusive of anything, that my family may or may not love me if in fact they were existing things (and if they were existing things, were they things that existed as i believed them to exist...or were they merely people who acted out of pity for me? or malice even!?), that i actually might not have a home outside of what i constructed around me and considered a possibly immaterial 'home' to go to when i went to visit my parents on breaks from college. i couldn't know anything at all. ANYTHING.
it was as weird and wrenching as it sounds. it was in october, because of this, that my drinking habit that started a few years before went from only at night, after classes 2 to 4 days a week, to all day. every day. i was spending about $200 a week on beer and taking 'odd jobs' (i.e. exploiting poor and rich minors' alike desire for alcohol by obtaining a gross profit from my purchasing it for them), and i relished that beer, because in a world where not just what i did didn't seem to matter, but whose very existence was indiscernable, i was left with nothing but my senses, and i liked beer, so i clung to the fact that i liked beer and chose to have faith that natty light would be there in the morning when i woke up. it was literally my only comfort in the world, and it was only comforting when i wasn't throwing up, which was about every night after downing a 12 pack in a 3 to 4 hour period of time. what else was there to do? if i possbly had a purpose but had no way of discerning that purpose, there was nothing left to do but sense what i believed i could sense. sensation became God. i also had lots of sex with lots of strangers and abused the mess out of loratab and ritalin. and stopped eating. that was the sythesis.
the outward spiral of the synthesis came when i decided to ascribe to a system in june of 2010. i had tried buddhism when i was 18 and 19 and disliked its refutation of the self and personhood, atheism lost its appeal in the synthesis with the new knowledge that nothing mattered, universalism/new ageism was something that i had dabbled in a little bit when i was in my early 20s but some of the practices were just too ridiculous and honestly looked reprehensible to the rest of america, i associated wicca with the weird people in high school who wore black t-shirts with wolves on them, hinduism was too confusing (plus america lacked the necessary cultural affirmation of the belief system), and so i was left with judaism and christianity. i wouldn't have been able to justify my conversion to judaism to my family, so i decided that christianity would work, but the only problem was this: i was still not a christian even though i chose it.
simultaneously, from october to july i had been having multiple daily panic attacks, which i thought were heart attacks. then cancer. then thyroid issues. then [enter x-variable disease here], and in the period of june (when i decided to ascribe to a belief system) to july (when i stopped ascribing to a belief system) i still had panic attacks that sensualized themselves much like a heart attack: rapid palpitations coupled with shortness of breath and chest pains. this experiencing of panic attacks in this month meant that something was still wrong now that i believed what was happening to me was not heart attacks, and since i had ascribed to follow this God of my parents who promised so much change and health and peace i decided that either 1.) i really am about to die or 2.) i'm not doing the religion thing right, so i sought biblical counseling.
biblical counseling offered me two possible solutions at the time: make me feel better about dying (in the case that death was near) or it would correct some of my theology so that i could stop feeling like i was dying all the time, and it was in july that i realized that what i had believed from june to then was not at all what it was about, that it was less about me and more about God.
to say that to most people would be equivalent to doing something ridiculous, like wear a bird-clown prostitute suit on a street corner while scandalously honking my nose, but to say that to a christian, they would at least say they agree, but they would still have the same problems they had at conversion. but i have found the solution, and it lies in the Bible. it is a throwing off of the sensual and the rational for the actual. the sensual is feelings (thoughts, emotions, senses, ideas) and the rational is knowledge that contradicts the knowledge of the actual (i.e. anything not strictly biblical). what do i know? i am merely human. if it stopped the panic attacks, good for me. if it didn't, at least i had the hope of heaven that would not include panic attacks. i had little to lose.
my two favorite verses are psalm 131 and proverbs 3:5. the former offers a prayer of what i desire (humility) and the latter offers some vague advice on how to do that ('trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding'). would it not make sense that i would not lean on my own understanding, were i following a God who was big enough to create the world around me, no matter how...even without intrinsic design in mind? even if the world was created by evolution, God is still bigger than evolution to have created thermodynamics, matter mass, energy, and entropy. in that light, to lean on my own understanding seemed equally as absurd as the irrational leap of faith it is to trust someone i cannot even see, much less have a corporeal conversation with. but what choice did i have? i didn't have one. it was that or back to beer and anorexia, and i honestly wanted to feel good again, so i chose the leap of faith and asked the Holy Spirit to come into my heart some time in july, and that was the night of my last biologically-manifested panic attack.
i remember it was the night of the college group meeting my church had, i had just gotten fired from my job as a dishwasher, and we watched 'book of eli,' a movie weirdly about the Bible and its power in the right or wrong hands. it was an epic movie, but i knew that i didn't have the faith of denzel washington's character to do that and i knew why by that time: i wasn't truly a convert. i was practically still weirdly agnostic, just with more of a sway to believe in God rather than wholly believing it. so i decided to change that i wasn't truly a convert and decided to see God like denzel washington's character did (he was blind). The only way a human could see God is by the power of the Holy Spirit, which is what i believe to have stopped the bio-panic and start the process of the end of emotional-panic, which i haven't truly had (aside for one time of paxil withdrawal) since october of 2010. no more panic.
now, you see the difference between what hegel said and how he was interpreted. the others had no choice but to interpret him secularly, for their minds were secular. one cannot interpret divine thought without divine revelation. if what God said isn't already true in someone's mind before they hear it, it won't resound. it will merely be words on a page with little practical meaning and remain just as untrue as it was before it was heard or read. the same is true with hegel. since hegel was a theologian above all else, his audience was more for theological studies rather than philosophical studies. in the hands of theology, God is the measure of all things. in the hands of philosophy without theological backing, truth is completely irrelevant because the synthesis requires the existence of absolutes to be functional, and if a true thinker reads hegel, he has two things he can do: 1.) if he has the holy spirit, recognize that what hegel says is a testament to the existence of absolutes, or 2.) if he doesn't have the holy spirit, read hegel and see that hegel speaks of absolutes as sharply as he does and not be able to recognize absolutes that absolutes are real to the reader because his mind is closed to absolutes, because behind the sensual and the rational there is no actual (postmodernity).
the bible clearly speaks of this idea in 2 corinthains 4:4 where it says: 'the god of this age [contextually, postmodernity] has blinded the minds of unbelievers, so that they cannot see the light of the gospel that displays the glory of christ, who is the image of God.' contextually, Paul is writing to a church about the sneakiness of the thought patterns behind the philosophies of the world and cultures around them and how they can often corrupt how the Gospel is interpreted, and therefore presented. he also says in Galations 1:9: 'if anybody is preaching to you a gospel other than what you accepted...[it is no gospel at all].' that idea is very similar to the idea of how one can be in a poorly lit room but not know it until he is presented with a brighter light.
every now and again, i get asked by a non-believing friend, 'but how do you know you are right, when you think you are right? does that not mean that you could be just as ingrained in thinking you're right as anyone else and it make sense to you, whether you are or aren't correct in your beliefs?' my reply is simple.
"it did what it said it would do. 'you will know the truth and the truth has set you free, and i didn't have to commit intellectual suicide for it to do so." there is no faith i have encountered thus far that doesn't suppress intellect to make room for faith, and in fact christianity actually promotes my intellect (even outside of defending the faith *!*) to further my walk with God and to display His handiwork in my life. i went from being a guy with an alcohol problem, a developing drug problem, and anorexia because of his intellect to a guy who recognizes God in everything he does. that is a testament to 'be[ing] transformed by the renewing of your mind,' not the death of it.
Thursday, January 6, 2011
decontextualization is key.
have you ever wondered why some people seem to be really offended by, like, everything? why they can't just sit back and enjoy everything that comes there way? me too. but my wondering made me question a lot of things: do i have bad theology? do they have bad theology? am i more clever than those people? are they wiser than me to avoid movies with graphic content? am i the one with the problem?
these are serious questions that, if the answer is not to your liking, mean that you have a wrong idea of God. is He a to-not-do list or is He a b.f.f.? who would you rather go to see the new cohen brothers' film: God or your b.f.f.? i would choose God. maybe this is where we differ. possibly not. i will explain why God should be the one you experience the new (suppositional) cohen brothers' film, and it is as simple as this: He is supposed to be your b.f.f..
now, a lot of people have no problem with this idea, but i don't think they truly know what it means to have God as your b.f.f. if they can't experience life with Him. if they did, i think things would change. if God is your b.f.f. and you don't want to experience life with Him, that means one of two things: God is not actually your b.f.f. and is more of a disciplinarian than a b.f.f. or you have too much more on your mind than to consider God in a movie...or maybe you try to separate your public and private spheres. see, the thing about God is this: He is not our b.f.f. because we tell dirty jokes with Him or get sauced up every weekend with him or share women with Him.
God's our b.f.f. because he is the most faithful person to us: when our biological fathers can't always give us everything we want, God gives us all we need. He may do this by waning the need for knowledge of non-necessity for a little bit, by giving us eternal gifts like faith, hope, joy, love, and peace; or He takes away our agressors. if these things haven't happened for you yet, i'd say that God isn't quite your b.f.f. and is more like a boss. you wouldn't go see a 'reprehensible' movie with your boss...unless you liked your boss...or felt compelled because He wanted to (in which case, you would be uncomfortable laughing at a dirty joke and would not experience the movie quite the way it was intended out of uneasiness of being with your boss who is not your friend)
see, the thing about God is that, once you can come to a point of faith in His existence and accept that He is all He says He is through what the Bible says and how He has changed you, He is actually the person you take with you everywhere. i mean everywhere. because when you recognize His goodness, the ugliness in the world becomes a testament to a loss of good rather than the presence of bad. i can enjoy bright eyes again. i will admit that there was a part of me that really missed them when i gave them up (they are a depresso-indie-western band), and i thought--at the beginning of my journey--that i would never be able to listen to them again, that i was gonna have to give up bright eyes forever. it was a horrible prospect.
but then IT happened: God became all He claimed to be. not over night, mind you...but He did. and when He did, all things good were much more good and all things less-than-savory became a volume on the difference between my God and what other people invested in. the movie Chicago. it's about these fame-hungry chicago-urbanite floozies who want nothing more than to be famous. it's a really good movie. really sad that these two women's lives were consumed by the idea of being someone great, but really stylistically good and had a whole mess of good lines and scores. so the beauty of the scores is a note to self on how even though i no longer identify with what these people are singing about, i enjoy the music because i recognize that humanity wants beauty and we stop at nothing to get it, i enjoy the imagery because it's beautiful and it's just another sign that even when i am not like a single character in this movie i still seek beauty, and i even enjoyed the plot *GASP*...not that it's as reprehensible a plot as, say, 'hot lesbian sex on mutilating ice'...i enjoyed the plot because everything--even our culture's obsessions with fame and dignity and willingness to risk all that we have to get them (including our health and the health of our loved ones)--points to God in some way.
so, if a movie points to God, your b.f.f., i think that's a good thing. i think you should, too, because that would mean you could get up off your couch and be like Jesus. Jesus didn't chill in the church all day, people. it says in Matthew and in Luke that he hung out with extortionists (zacheas), prostitutes (mary magdalene)...and he literally hung out with at least one criminal that we know of for a short time before his death. did they talk about the latests episode of 'the biggest Jew-ser'? likely not, because they were kind of dying, but i guarantee you that Jesus did like to have a good time. with wine, no less. true story. and prostitutes. but in a strictly platonic way. and tax collectors. and everyone. i think Jesus was a lot more like you and me than we give him credit for. i mean, would you have given up all your posessions for a guy who was more like a monotone, creepily-cryptic, crazy eyed weirdo?! i wouldn't have. followings usually start because people are liked rather than coerced. and if they were more coerced than liked, it doesn't end well. look what happened to hitler. and all the other infamous dictators who were murdered. they happened to not have been liked enough that they could get away with what they did.
so anyway, decontextualization is key when hanging out with God. He even tells us to in the Bible: in all that you do, whether you eat or drink, do it for the glory of God' and 'whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is good, if there is anything praiseworthy virtuous--think about these things.' we can't think about things we don't experience. if there is nothing for there to contain praiseworthiness or virtue that we experience, we aren't really thinking about these things...we are blindly thinking about ideas that have no physical foundation. it would be like me thinking about the texture of african pluff mud when i have never seen it. i cannot sense it's smoothness if i do not experience it. and if it's smooth and fun to play in, i will praise God for having made something on the two continents that i had been on that i go out of my way to enjoy. if it was not smooth, i could use it to remember the pluff mud in charleston that i love and not be able to wait till summer to go sliding around on it again or i could know that it is functional in housing baby octopi between lunar tides.
that's all you need to know.
these are serious questions that, if the answer is not to your liking, mean that you have a wrong idea of God. is He a to-not-do list or is He a b.f.f.? who would you rather go to see the new cohen brothers' film: God or your b.f.f.? i would choose God. maybe this is where we differ. possibly not. i will explain why God should be the one you experience the new (suppositional) cohen brothers' film, and it is as simple as this: He is supposed to be your b.f.f..
now, a lot of people have no problem with this idea, but i don't think they truly know what it means to have God as your b.f.f. if they can't experience life with Him. if they did, i think things would change. if God is your b.f.f. and you don't want to experience life with Him, that means one of two things: God is not actually your b.f.f. and is more of a disciplinarian than a b.f.f. or you have too much more on your mind than to consider God in a movie...or maybe you try to separate your public and private spheres. see, the thing about God is this: He is not our b.f.f. because we tell dirty jokes with Him or get sauced up every weekend with him or share women with Him.
God's our b.f.f. because he is the most faithful person to us: when our biological fathers can't always give us everything we want, God gives us all we need. He may do this by waning the need for knowledge of non-necessity for a little bit, by giving us eternal gifts like faith, hope, joy, love, and peace; or He takes away our agressors. if these things haven't happened for you yet, i'd say that God isn't quite your b.f.f. and is more like a boss. you wouldn't go see a 'reprehensible' movie with your boss...unless you liked your boss...or felt compelled because He wanted to (in which case, you would be uncomfortable laughing at a dirty joke and would not experience the movie quite the way it was intended out of uneasiness of being with your boss who is not your friend)
see, the thing about God is that, once you can come to a point of faith in His existence and accept that He is all He says He is through what the Bible says and how He has changed you, He is actually the person you take with you everywhere. i mean everywhere. because when you recognize His goodness, the ugliness in the world becomes a testament to a loss of good rather than the presence of bad. i can enjoy bright eyes again. i will admit that there was a part of me that really missed them when i gave them up (they are a depresso-indie-western band), and i thought--at the beginning of my journey--that i would never be able to listen to them again, that i was gonna have to give up bright eyes forever. it was a horrible prospect.
but then IT happened: God became all He claimed to be. not over night, mind you...but He did. and when He did, all things good were much more good and all things less-than-savory became a volume on the difference between my God and what other people invested in. the movie Chicago. it's about these fame-hungry chicago-urbanite floozies who want nothing more than to be famous. it's a really good movie. really sad that these two women's lives were consumed by the idea of being someone great, but really stylistically good and had a whole mess of good lines and scores. so the beauty of the scores is a note to self on how even though i no longer identify with what these people are singing about, i enjoy the music because i recognize that humanity wants beauty and we stop at nothing to get it, i enjoy the imagery because it's beautiful and it's just another sign that even when i am not like a single character in this movie i still seek beauty, and i even enjoyed the plot *GASP*...not that it's as reprehensible a plot as, say, 'hot lesbian sex on mutilating ice'...i enjoyed the plot because everything--even our culture's obsessions with fame and dignity and willingness to risk all that we have to get them (including our health and the health of our loved ones)--points to God in some way.
so, if a movie points to God, your b.f.f., i think that's a good thing. i think you should, too, because that would mean you could get up off your couch and be like Jesus. Jesus didn't chill in the church all day, people. it says in Matthew and in Luke that he hung out with extortionists (zacheas), prostitutes (mary magdalene)...and he literally hung out with at least one criminal that we know of for a short time before his death. did they talk about the latests episode of 'the biggest Jew-ser'? likely not, because they were kind of dying, but i guarantee you that Jesus did like to have a good time. with wine, no less. true story. and prostitutes. but in a strictly platonic way. and tax collectors. and everyone. i think Jesus was a lot more like you and me than we give him credit for. i mean, would you have given up all your posessions for a guy who was more like a monotone, creepily-cryptic, crazy eyed weirdo?! i wouldn't have. followings usually start because people are liked rather than coerced. and if they were more coerced than liked, it doesn't end well. look what happened to hitler. and all the other infamous dictators who were murdered. they happened to not have been liked enough that they could get away with what they did.
so anyway, decontextualization is key when hanging out with God. He even tells us to in the Bible: in all that you do, whether you eat or drink, do it for the glory of God' and 'whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is good, if there is anything praiseworthy virtuous--think about these things.' we can't think about things we don't experience. if there is nothing for there to contain praiseworthiness or virtue that we experience, we aren't really thinking about these things...we are blindly thinking about ideas that have no physical foundation. it would be like me thinking about the texture of african pluff mud when i have never seen it. i cannot sense it's smoothness if i do not experience it. and if it's smooth and fun to play in, i will praise God for having made something on the two continents that i had been on that i go out of my way to enjoy. if it was not smooth, i could use it to remember the pluff mud in charleston that i love and not be able to wait till summer to go sliding around on it again or i could know that it is functional in housing baby octopi between lunar tides.
that's all you need to know.
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