Penitence

No doubt God finds it a particularly human and annoying trait every time we decide to go ahead and do something we feel is a bad thing, but to feel alright about it anyway, so long as we punish ourselves or in some way minimize the joy we may get out of doing it. Where's the sense in "I'll benefit from doing a bad thing, but not TOO much!" Guilt seldom turns us to God so much as keeps us from Him, or makes us feel we are punishing ourselves so He won't have to. God doesn't want to punish us. He wants us to do good things so punishment isn't relevant.

Prodigals By Choice

...and by "Dogmatic, closed-book religious teaching" I mean to describe that kind of religious approach that says "We've GOT all the answers and now we just have to remember them and believe them. Any answers we don't have ready to mind are known by others in our Christian group, and in books and so on." 

     This approach stresses taking other's word for things, and warns against (and calls unnecessary) that dangerous but indispensable exercise of living our own lives and seeking out our own paths. (by "own" I mean as in "our own things given us by God i.e. my left arm" not "lives and paths that are only what I want and are therefore obviously completely against what God wants." 

     I mean that God made and wants each person to have their own lives and paths. His intentions are different for different people. We need to live our whole lives figuring out what we were made to be. We have to gain the maturity to stop trying to be what we aren't, and to start being what we are and becoming what we can become.) I was always taught that saying "my way, my will, my path, my life" was a sure sign that I wasn't living any way that God or other Christians could approve of. 

     Turns out, the more I have lived as God made me to live, the less others have been able to understand and approve of me. If I took off and moved in with a girl and sold drugs for a couple of years, then came back prodigal son style and repented of it all, I'm sure some church would immediately make me a Youth Pastor somewhere. What I tend to do, however, is to frequently point out hypocrisy and mistreatment of people and pride and assumptions and forms of godliness which deny the power thereof. I do this among religious people, among atheists, among stoners and at work. 

     I truly do believe I was made with an aptitude to see these serious problems (the Outsider's View) and to express them (this action is aided by and perpetuates the Outsider's Position.) I feel no need to be PC, to be tactful or nice or positive, if that's going to soften, blur or hurt my efforts. Sometimes a doctor has to say "You have cancer." Sometimes I have to say "That isn't true." Sometimes I have to say "This religious thing is bad. Harm is occurring." 

     There is a difference between my having gone to England but my mother just believing what I told her I experienced there. There is no substitute for first-hand. One size never fits all without ignoring the best qualities of each. Everyone has a spirit. Everyone has spirituality. Everyone has that faculty called "faith" by the bible. Not everyone has decided what their world-view is. 

     Not everyone has a set of expections so defined that they want it made canon, law, doctrine and the Only Way To See Things. This is very good. We aren't told "just believe the bible when it says that lord is good." We're told "Taste and see that the lord is good." The difference in one's life is amazing. We're told to follow the "faith" of others, not their blind belief, their caution, doctrine, habits, lifestyle, expectations, guesses or tradition. I've heard exhortations about "seeking these things out for myself" all my life. 

     The method of "seeking" that was demonstrated, however, involved listening to others, believing everything they said, doing likewise, reading books and steering clear of most of human experience. It involved a lot of sitting listening to someone else stand up and tell me things he had little idea about, someone who hadn't made a real, unshielded, person-to-person connection with anyone in the world around him for decades. 

     This isn't "tasting," and it doesn't work. It makes you an expert as to what someone else claims, and that's it. You can't seek things out simply by believing what other people say. God is everywhere and in everything. I was taught that a movie theatre, a video arcade, a bar or a party were "no place for a Christian to be." I was taught that the only correct place for alcohol was in communion cups. I grew up without learning about celebration and human fellowship, decency, warmth, courage, honour, decency and the like. I was TOLD that "wine represents joy" and didn't drink it, nor did I have any joy. 

     I've seen many people who aren't looking for God (or joy any any real sense) in the act of drinking. I've seen many use it to let out anger, violence, or tears. I've seen people use it to try to get rid of feelings and thoughts and responsibilities. If I go to the movies, share a drink with friends or jog, I properly do it with a view to laying hold on goodness, all of which comes from God. I don't "steal" the fun from God. I don't "run off and have a blast and then come back and say I'm sorry." 

     If I runnoft for that reason, I WILL have to apologize. But if I go purposely and with awareness and get the good out of a person, place or thing, looking God square in the face and thanking Him for it, then that works better. Do we LIKE being prodigal sons? What if the prodigal had kept in contact by messenger or letter while in the far off country? (he could afford to) What if he'd MADE rather than LOST a fortune? What if he'd had a good time and returned with a wife and treasures and stories; gifts to give everyone? 

     I think the story exists to tell people there is the possibility of "coming back" after one runs off and screws up, not to make people forever associate having fun with running off and going exploring with screwing up and wasting good things. This may be why you won't see me at McChurch McSunday morning. I like people a lot. I don't tend to be able to go along with what they eventually end up doing once they form long-standing groups, however.

seriously...

Dogmatic, closed-book religious teaching is to a person's spirit what a Diet Coke with a bag of Cheetos is to lunch.

Brace Yourself

Brace Yourself Brace yourself for Autumn, Yes, and brace yourself for fall Because there's no one calling No, there's no one here at all Rise and retire while it is dark And silence fills your air Now and again must make a sound To tell that I'm still there.

from Neil Postman's "Teaching As A Subversive Activity"

  "Those who are sensitive to the verbally built-in biases of their natural environment seem "subversive" to those who are not. There is probably nothing more dangerous to the prejudices of the latter than a man in the process of discovering that the language of his group is limited, misleading or one-sided. Such a man is dangerous because he is not easily enlisted on the side of one ideology or another, because he sees beyond the words to the processes which give an ideology its reality."

Roger Waters (originally of Pink Floyd) voices his feelings on religion in his upbringing:

By the cold and religious we were taken in hand
Shown how to feel good and told to feel bad.
Tongue tied and terrified we learned how to pray
Now our feelings run deep and cold as the clay.  
(The last two lines are in the liner notes but aren't heard on the CD of "The Final Cut" by Pink Floyd.)

Comfortably Numb Again

I first saw Comfortably Numb, a local Pink Floyd cover band with elabourate props, prejected images and stageshow, at a small club (The Upstairs Club) a few years ago. It was amazing. I walked in halfway through, not expecting much, only to see what looked like Stevie Nicks, 8 months pregnant, standing dressed all in the black in the middle of the stage lit by an overhead spotlight, doing the vocal part of "Great Gig In The Sky" for all she was worth. This time they were in a larger venue (Barrymore's Music Hall). They didn't fill it as well. It was still good. I think they lost their lead singer, who did odd and interesting things with pig masks and monk robes and so on before. They weren't trying quite as hard to be graphic without him, but their show was now more polished and carefully put together. All performances are like car racing. If the audience has no belief whatsoever that any cars will ever crash (or, that any figure skater will ever fall, at figure skating) then most of the interest is gone. You need to give the impression that you're putting it out there hard enough that you might drop the ball. Still, a good show.