I ended my last post by wondering whether or not God cares about what we think of God. That question is important for me as I reflect on the theological training I've had and on the experiences my life has given me. It seems that so much unspeakable evil has been done in the service or name of God, both in my presence and in the presence of history, that somehow God must be concerned about how God is being represented.
But I also wonder at what else is transpiring within the self of the people whose unspeakable acts are performed using the attributed authority of "God." What do they think God is? This leads to another question: Who is God?
That question has taunted and tempted thinkers from time immortal, and while I wish to avoid adding my name to the register of the attempted, it is such a crucial question for me as one who wishes to know God.
Before I launch into something of a theological/biblical expose of the question, I want to explore something philosophical that I think informs and underwrites what we think of as theological. I want to say that first and foremost what we think of as "God" is really a construction of our beliefs.
For centuries Christians have been taught to believe. In fact, when I was a younger man, believing was how one became a Christian.
But this reveals a problem, because our beliefs are the limit of what we consider possible, and even moreso are the signposts by which we determine who we are. They are the markers of our identity. I am my beliefs. BUT if I am my beliefs and my beliefs make me a Christian then I make myself a Christian. This progression eliminates any need or opportunity for God to be anything beyond myself, and thus the God I believe in is none other than me. I may call God "God" and mean that I am not God, but within the depths of the human psyche I am really only believing in myself, and I have named that part of myself "God."
So then, back to my original question: Does God care about how God is represented? IThat depends on which "god" we are referencing. The trouble is that we think that in order to have a relationship with god we have to believe in God, that is, we have to have belief in God. But that relationship is only with ourselves.
So what then do we make of passages like Acts 16:31- "believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved?" I will deal with this question in more detail in upcoming posts, but for now I will say that "believe" in Acts does not mean "believe" in English, because believe connects ideologically to belief for us, but it has no such connection in the bible.
Lumps of Clay and the Bottom
The longer I live the more I am amazed at the myriad ways of people finding God, peace, hope, faith. And I am even further amazed at the myriad ways of people losing God, peace, hope, faith. If I'm honest, it all creates a deep sadness that rests in the center of my chest, like a ball of clay finding the lowest point on an uneven table.
That ball rolls around, moving back and forth as my experiences shake my table, and I find myself thinking, nay, hoping that each new unsettling might actually be the lowest point; might actually be the truth. That when the ball rolls to that side higher up might be where life is its most wonderful.
But inevitably the ball returns to the bottom, and I am back to wondering if there is anything at all beyond the perpetual search for that thing. We can't all be right about God, so does that mean we're all wrong?
There are certainly times that I want to squish that clay ball; make it flat so that it rests somewhere other than the bottom. That would be a sense of certainty, and indeed I have flattened it at various times. But I do so with the deep knowing that I am only producing for myself a false bottom. And inevitably I rework the clay so that it gives me a reading of the table that is congruent with reality.
I find myself wishing that damn ball would flatten itself so that I could at least enjoy my illusions.
But it won't.
Because a round ball shows me where the bottom is, and convinces me that being right doesn't matter at all to God.
-
It's been a trying month since Ford was born. I've been utterly amazed at my capacity for selfishness, and have realized just how much sacrifice a baby requires. And if I'm entirely honest I wonder if we did the right thing by deciding to have a baby. It'd be nice to fall back on the adage that "God has a plan," but I don't think that adage applies well to the situation. I know that the trials will make me more "Christlike" but I was happy how I was! Well, happier, anyway.
The truth is that my frustration with caring for a newborn is only the superficial issue; maybe it's even the result of the issue. I've just heard too many people speaking in confidence about God and who God is and what God does, and anytime I hear someone speak about God with that kind of confidence I think they're full of shit. I've very little confidence that I know anything about God, or that the way I read the bible is at all faithful, and when someone speaks as if they have "arrived" in that respect I tune them out. It may be that I am deeply, deeply selfish in thinking that my experience must be that of all others, but I still can't get that clay ball of the bottom. I am who I am, a person in need of daily redemption and renewal. And it has been a long time since I've felt renewed by the god I try to follow.
But I can't tell the difference between God, other people, and myself. Maybe God is speaking, and it just sounds like arrogant people who don't actually care about other people. But if that's the way God speaks, or if those are God's priorities, then I'm not sure I want to follow that god. And so I determine, faithfully, that voice is not God's. But even in that faithful determination I have made of myself and my own voice a god.
Maybe there is no God. But I doubt it. Then again, doubting might be the right approach to beliefs about God. So does God not care about how God is being represented? Even about how I represent God to myself? Maybe not. Maybe God could care less about what we think of God. I don't really spend a lot of time worrying about what that dog in the next house thinks about me. Maybe God's got other things to worry about. But I hope not.
That ball rolls around, moving back and forth as my experiences shake my table, and I find myself thinking, nay, hoping that each new unsettling might actually be the lowest point; might actually be the truth. That when the ball rolls to that side higher up might be where life is its most wonderful.
But inevitably the ball returns to the bottom, and I am back to wondering if there is anything at all beyond the perpetual search for that thing. We can't all be right about God, so does that mean we're all wrong?
There are certainly times that I want to squish that clay ball; make it flat so that it rests somewhere other than the bottom. That would be a sense of certainty, and indeed I have flattened it at various times. But I do so with the deep knowing that I am only producing for myself a false bottom. And inevitably I rework the clay so that it gives me a reading of the table that is congruent with reality.
I find myself wishing that damn ball would flatten itself so that I could at least enjoy my illusions.
But it won't.
Because a round ball shows me where the bottom is, and convinces me that being right doesn't matter at all to God.
-
It's been a trying month since Ford was born. I've been utterly amazed at my capacity for selfishness, and have realized just how much sacrifice a baby requires. And if I'm entirely honest I wonder if we did the right thing by deciding to have a baby. It'd be nice to fall back on the adage that "God has a plan," but I don't think that adage applies well to the situation. I know that the trials will make me more "Christlike" but I was happy how I was! Well, happier, anyway.
The truth is that my frustration with caring for a newborn is only the superficial issue; maybe it's even the result of the issue. I've just heard too many people speaking in confidence about God and who God is and what God does, and anytime I hear someone speak about God with that kind of confidence I think they're full of shit. I've very little confidence that I know anything about God, or that the way I read the bible is at all faithful, and when someone speaks as if they have "arrived" in that respect I tune them out. It may be that I am deeply, deeply selfish in thinking that my experience must be that of all others, but I still can't get that clay ball of the bottom. I am who I am, a person in need of daily redemption and renewal. And it has been a long time since I've felt renewed by the god I try to follow.
But I can't tell the difference between God, other people, and myself. Maybe God is speaking, and it just sounds like arrogant people who don't actually care about other people. But if that's the way God speaks, or if those are God's priorities, then I'm not sure I want to follow that god. And so I determine, faithfully, that voice is not God's. But even in that faithful determination I have made of myself and my own voice a god.
Maybe there is no God. But I doubt it. Then again, doubting might be the right approach to beliefs about God. So does God not care about how God is being represented? Even about how I represent God to myself? Maybe not. Maybe God could care less about what we think of God. I don't really spend a lot of time worrying about what that dog in the next house thinks about me. Maybe God's got other things to worry about. But I hope not.
The Saturday Evening Post About Beer: Great White
It's been forever since I've done a Saturday Evening Post About Beer, and for that I owe you all a sincere apology. This installation features my most recent go-to on a warm California evening: Lost Coast Brewery's Great White.
While it is true that I cut my teeth on IPAs, I've made a left turn from there and generally headed into Belgian country. And while Great White isn't necessarily a Belgian, its flavor profile appeals to those who are inclined towards them.
The case may be made that there is little extraordinary about Great White; it fulfills all the criteria of a Whitbeir, generally mild mannered-no irrational outbursts of hoppiness, no overly roasted barley sensations. In short, what sets Great White apart is its balance and easy drinkability. And I'm not talking about Budlight drinkability. I'm talking about nicely nuanced flavor that starts off tart and then transitions into a sweet effervescence. In between tart and effervescent is a savory Whitbeir flavor that walks the line between buttery Heffe and bittery Pilsner. The arroma, as other have noted, is mild. Not weak, but mild. A sort of gentlemanly strength that is confident enough to not flex his muscles every time a woman walks by. That kind of mild. The color is nice and yellow without being see through clear.
All in all, I give this one my unreserved stamp of approval. It's not going to get a five star review, but when I'm not looking for champagne beer or feeling curious about something radical, Great White is a perfect every-day beer. And as Lost Coast expands, Great White is increasingly easy to come by!
Rating: ***1/2
While it is true that I cut my teeth on IPAs, I've made a left turn from there and generally headed into Belgian country. And while Great White isn't necessarily a Belgian, its flavor profile appeals to those who are inclined towards them.
The case may be made that there is little extraordinary about Great White; it fulfills all the criteria of a Whitbeir, generally mild mannered-no irrational outbursts of hoppiness, no overly roasted barley sensations. In short, what sets Great White apart is its balance and easy drinkability. And I'm not talking about Budlight drinkability. I'm talking about nicely nuanced flavor that starts off tart and then transitions into a sweet effervescence. In between tart and effervescent is a savory Whitbeir flavor that walks the line between buttery Heffe and bittery Pilsner. The arroma, as other have noted, is mild. Not weak, but mild. A sort of gentlemanly strength that is confident enough to not flex his muscles every time a woman walks by. That kind of mild. The color is nice and yellow without being see through clear.
All in all, I give this one my unreserved stamp of approval. It's not going to get a five star review, but when I'm not looking for champagne beer or feeling curious about something radical, Great White is a perfect every-day beer. And as Lost Coast expands, Great White is increasingly easy to come by!
Rating: ***1/2
The Metaphysical Golden Calf
We all have beliefs. Let me just start out there. Each one of us has something that we consider to be true, and to mark that as true we attach something called a belief as a marker. This is why philosophers consider beliefs to be the markers of what a person or group consider to be real.
Beliefs signify reality to our selves.
This is perhaps no where truer than in regard to identity; what we believe about ourselves signifies who we are to us. In a certain sense our beliefs become us, become the limits of who we can become. In so far as the limits of our visual ability become the limits of our sight, so our beliefs about anything become the limits of what we can consider that thing to be; especially ourselves.
The marker of salvation.
This becomes problematic for Christians, as that identity marker and limit has become conflated in certain linguistic instances with the mechanism for salvation - believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved (Acts. 16:31). This poses an insurmountable conundrum for Christians, as the limits of what we consider to be true become the means of salvation. To say this differently-
Who we consider ourselves to be influences intrinsically our standing with God.
But this approach to salvation necessarily places God within the limits of our beliefs as far as we are concerned. In a sense, what we believe about God becomes God to us, creating out of our conception an idol of our minds; a metaphysical golden calf. What's more, we formulate God into our imagined image, locating our identity in this image that is contained within ourselves.
We become our own gods.
There is an ugly consequence to this understanding of salvation, in that it becomes absolutely necessary for our beliefs - our reality, our very selves - to be right, because if they are not, we are damned. And of course, this leads to constant division in the church and exponential multiplication from this dividing. And because we are fighting over something so vital and central to our self understanding and salvation as beliefs, we become increasingly vicious and condemnatory towards others who do not share our particular beliefs.
I have to be right.
This understanding of what it means to be a Christian has caused unimaginable difficulties for us when we attempt to distinguish what makes Christianity different from all other religions. The best we can come up with is really only foundational; the incarnation, God with us, God coming to get us, Emmanuel. This is, of course, the ultimate center of the Christian gospel, but if it only gets that far before being abducted by our own personal understanding of ourselves then it has no actual currency in distinguishing Christianity from anything else. In this way, the critique of every atheistic philosopher since Nietzsche rings true; God is dead, and we have killed him, because he only exists in our minds.
And this is where I draw the line.
The bible calls us to something much more radical than belief. It calls us to faith. Where belief sets the limits of what can be, faith destroys those limits and opens us up to God's actions. Barth was on to something when he championed the freedom of God, but that freedom needed to be connected to humanity because of the God-Man, Jesus. Whereas beliefs need to be right, faith does not. Faith rests in God's righteousness through grace; in our zeal to defend the limits of who is "in" and who is "out" we've lost sight of this.
"Faith is the evidence of things hoped for, the substance of things not seen."
What I fear we miss in our reading of Hebrews 11:1 is the incredible openness it contains. It intrinsically indicates a profound sense of openness to what God can do and is doing. It reveals an almost unbelieving hope in God's actions on our behalf.
These thoughts don't really conclude, because I haven't concluded. I could keep writing on this for years, but need to end a blog post with some semblance of brevity. I'd love to get your thoughts and feedback on where I'm trying to go here, and hopefully I'll have a book out sometime next year that fleshes these ramblings out into something concrete and meaningful.
New Song!
https://soundcloud.com/nathan-myrick/confessions-rough
Here's a little sneak peak at what you will find on my latest album, Believable Lies! If you like what you hear, head on over to http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/631063502/believable-lies-the-album and help fund the mixing and mastering of this album! I'm super excited for you to hear it, and I hope you feel the same way after listening to this sneak peak!
The Poor
I woke up this morning thinking about politics. A heinous admission, I know. I must have been dreaming about the immanent collapse of the "free world" or something like that. Anyway, as I was going about my morning routine, I started thinking about what is, at bottom, wrong with our present political system. A small topic, I know. And one that I am woefully uninformed about. So I cannot argue political theories here, since I do not know or understand them. Instead, I want to look at this from a theological perspective - as a Christian.
Here is my assumption: the health of any society can be determined not by how rich their rich are, but how poor their poor are. It doesn't matter how much money we have, but where that money is spent.
This sounds like the rhetoric of a certain political party, and I do not mean it as such. In fact, I don't think that party cares about the poor at all. They just like to sound like they do. The other side of the aisle, well, they've given up even pretending to care about the poor, even if they, down real deep, believe that their system will actually help the poor.
What is funny is how Christians fall into these categories. I grew up in the latter, which, experience has told me, is predominantly white (as am I) and rural. The former is predominantly non-white and urban. Both have Christians.
I've heard many well meaning Christian leaders and pastors explain how their particular party is the most closely aligned with Christian principles, or with systems that enable Christian values to be lived out, etc. But I don't buy it. And I don't buy it because neither one can ever answer honestly in response to Matthew 25:31-46.
In Matthew 25:31-46 Jesus explains what will happen at the end of the age. He says that he will gather all the people of the world to be judged, and that he will separate them "as one separates sheep from goats" (32). The sheep will be welcomed into the kingdom of heaven. Why? because they cared for the poor, the oppressed and the afflicted. The goats, on the other hand, will be put out of the kingdom on the basis of the exact same criteria that the sheep were let in; they didn't care for the poor, the oppressed and the afflicted.
And in case you were wondering how this has anything to do with politics, if you read the surrounding passages, you will see that it has everything to do with politics. The notion that Jesus was apolitical arose in Enlightenment Germany, around the same time as the idea of private and public sectors. Jesus was killed as an insurrectionist-that's what crucifixion was. His teachings and method of living into the Kingdom were counter to the way of Rome that the leaders of his people had adopted. His call to obedience was holistic-including political. But the foundation of his politics was care for the poor and needy. And not just sentimental emoting on their behalf, but actual care- "go, sell all you have and give to the poor, and come, follow me" (Mt. 19:21).
Now, there is a very good and honest push back to this suggestion that you are surely thinking of- Matthew 26:6-13. This is the story of Jesus' anointing, where a woman comes into the room where he and the disciples are eating and pours a years wages worth of oil onto him anointing him as king/for burial.The disciples, of course having just heard chapter 25, are indignant-"this could have been sold and the money given to the poor" (9). Jesus' response completely cuts through any chance I had at moralizing the issue with easy, universal slogans: "You will always have the poor with you, but you will not always have me with you" (11).
I have heard this passage used to refute the sort of platform chapter 25 affords me, and I think the refutation is valid. But only from a distance. When we actually look at what Jesus says in 26 and what the bible itself is saying in this passage following closely (ish) on the heels of 25 we see that Jesus has cut out our many easy approaches to caring for the poor. First, he has not dismissed giving to the poor as less than giving to him; he has affirmed giving to the poor (you will always have the poor with you), but has shown that this is not encompassed by giving them money. Second, he has affirmed that "the earth and its abundance are the Lord's!" (1 Cor. 10:26), and within that reality there is space for "waste," especially for wasting on God (I mean waste here to mean giving something that is valuable in another capacity for the enjoyment of others). Third, He makes the point that this is a limited opportunity to honor him, as he is leaving soon, making this a singular and particular act. Finally, when taken as a whole these two stories demonstrate what is at stake in caring for the poor. It is not enough to give them money, although we should do that. Instead, Jesus is saying that our entire political system should be built on the value of the least: the poor, the orphans, the widows. This system cannot come at the expense of the Gospel (see what Jesus says the woman had done in 26:13) but is instead an inextricable part of it.
What it all comes down to for me is this, as a Christian, a disciple of Jesus (or whatever other cute term you prefer), I cannot support a political system that does not make care for the poor the primary priority. If I were ever going to run for public office, I would do so on a platform of caring for the poor (combination private/public sectors creating opportunities for jobs, housing, mental health and counseling for homeless and impoverished) not by giving handouts but by enacting laws and policies that enable them to be cared for holistically, and by encouraging programs and people that come alongside those who are marginalized and care for them. This is, at base, why I am not a Republican or Democrat: because neither makes the least their priority. And this is what Jesus says his kingdom is; making the least the first.
Beliefs and Art: Kickstarters and Startkickers.
A personal theme permeates the album - the notion of wandering off into ourselves. Sometimes I feel that the most hopelessly lost a person can become is when they turn inward and focus only on themselves and the depth of their own need and desire. We seem to do this all too often. In fact, it seems like an entire generation and society have done this.
There is a certain association for me between the words "loss" and "lost," as so often the one leads to the other. The loss of friends, family, occupation, or even your grip on reality seem to cause a soul to become hopelessly lost. This lostness seems to be located inside, and so I call it being lost in yourself.
I think we expect to find truth in there. We imagine a world tucked deep beneath our skin that is the "true" one, that in there we will find ourselves. And we continually look for ideas and movements beyond us that reinforce this sense of internal reality. If those external forces resonate with our internal world then we go along with them. I call this the system of belief. I've written some academic stuff on the subject; in fact, it was my master's thesis.
But my imagination does not end with what is. Instead, I dream of a world where we are not lost in ourselves but present and aware of the world around us; of the colors, the smells, the feeling of being alive. I imagine a world where it is not my ideas and beliefs at the expense of all others but instead in conversation with others. Where being right individually or otherwise does not equal righteousness. Where instead of my beliefs about God in need of defense we can rest in the assurance that God defends us from our own beliefs.
I hope to one day turn these thoughts into a book on the subject, but for now, I am staying with my primary medium: rock music. I would desperately love to have the chance to share these ideas with a much larger audience, because I think these ideas need to be heard. And so I have decided to do a Kickstarter campaign to raise money for this album's release. My goal is to have $2500 raised by November 7th, and I would love it if you would consider backing this project. $10 gets you a digital download of the album, and while it seems like not much money, it helps me immensely! Will you support me and my art in exchange for this work that I am passionate about? Will you come along with me on this adventure and see if we can live more connected to God and each other?
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/631063502/believable-lies-the-album
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