Well, I am completely exhausted.
I have been running around a lot trying to make sure that things are all good for me to go away for 4 weeks.
I think that most work stuff is covered. I still need someone to cover scripture on Tuesdays, and someone to hang out with Lauren maybe, apart from that I think it is ok. Its not as good as I had wanted to make it, I had been hoping to modularise everything for kids club to make it easier for everyone, but I didnt get that far. I do have the bible story for each week though.
As for actual holiday plans, They are almost done too. I just need to find a way to get from Århus to Paris. It looks like I will have a weekend in Paris which is a nice suprise. That had not occurred to me until today, I have to arrive at Taize on a Sunday, so it makes sense to spend a couple of days in Paris before going there.
My energy levels aren’t coping with the increased activity. I feel like I haven’t stopped for about a week and its showing. I have forgotten to eat two days in a row. Thats something I need to work on.
Thats probably enough for one post. At some point I am going to have to blog about my run-in with the scripture teachers at the scripture teachers meeting. I have decided that I dont have a problem with conservative christians, I just have a problem with them pushing their view on everyone else. There is no space for differing opinions or beliefs with those people. I find it hard to deal with. I guess what I am saying is believe what you want, but dont expect me to believe it too.
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumored by many.
Do not believe in anything simply because it is found written in your religious books.
Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of your teachers and elders.
Do not believe in traditions because they have been handed down for many generations.
But after observation and analysis, when you find that anything agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all, then accept it and live up to it.
- Buddha.
There has been some interesting conversation on my post about heaven and hell.
One viewpoint is that people reject God and so therefore would go to hell. I have been thinking about this, the reject God part. I actually dont think the majoring of ‘non-christians’ reject God, I think they reject the Church, they reject Church doctrine, they reject the idea that everything is so absolute, they reject christians (as Christians are seen as hypocrites). But I really dont know if they reject God.
Now, of course, some do. Im not saying this applies to everyone. The conversations I have with people about faith generally involve someone disputing doctrine or perceived rules with me. People talking about sex, drug/alcohol use, the anti-divorce thing, or the homophobia thing.
They very rarely involve talking about the question ‘is there a God’ and focus on what the church has said is and isnt Ok to do with your time, your life.
Personally, I think there is great freedom in knowing God and knowing that relationship is secure, regardless of what science discovers, or what the church says and does etc. Im still trying to figure out how to communicate that though.
Why have we made it so that a belief in God comes hand in hand with a belief in heaven and hell?
I generally try to avoid the expression ‘believe in God’ I actually think that is not the issue, the issue is has this person had an experience of God that they can name as God.
But why do we wrap up this idea of Heaven and Hell with having a relationship with God. Why cant we remove that part and go about living our lives with God?
Why do we saddle people up with the who guilt factor and the whole eternity factor before they even acknowledge the presence of God? I dont get it , and I dont want to be that type pf person.
Last night I was at a Seder dinner. Its passover at the moment (one of the strange years where easter and passover are not at the same time).
This Seder was at a Jewish persons house and was attended my Christians, Muslims and Jews. It was fascinating.
We went through the passover story, which is in all 3 bibles (or sacred texts or whatever you want to call them) and ad some amazing conversations. I cant remember enough to be able to go into detail, the problem with really good conversations is that someone says something and you think ‘thats amazing, I hadnt thought of it like that, I need to think about that more” but then 2 mins later the same thing happens with something else and you lose the first one.
The only one that sticks in my head at the moment is that the Torah explains when Moses sees the burning bush and says he had to turn side on to see more clearly. We were talking about how useful that concept could be in life if we look at disputes or something and actually change our position to see more clearly.
I was also amazed at how similar so much stuff is across the three religions. The compassion, the love of God, the view that you have to stand up for what is right in the world. I apologise now if my spelling of these words are wrong, but for food to be kosher it means that it is also halal. So everyoene could eat the food that was served. The ideas presented in the dinner were great, things about removing all ego.
Well, I dont know what else to say really, but it was really cool. Im keen to participate in more of that kind of thing and learn more. Everyone there was so tolerant of each other, there is the basic understanding that our religions have the same roots – they all come from Abraham. There was respect that we are all people of faith and we are all spiritual people, so hurting or insulting someone was just not an option. It was fantastic.
I was at this other thing last week where the guy lecturing said that he didnt care if people ignored the rest of the bile, as long as they read the gospel. I didnt like it then, but I like it less now. If the bible is a way that we can see, learn and experience something of God, then that applies to the whole bible. And if we are going to understand the new testament properly, we need to understand the old testament too, because that is what is referenced and that is the culture and context that the new testament is set. That is (was) Jesus’ religion.
Thanks for the comments.
When I use the term ‘worshipping’ or ‘worship’ I mean that its for God and not for me (or for the other people in the room). I dont have a sense that what we are doing is for God. We sing badly, we pray the same three prayers each week – or at least they do seem to be quite similar – Praise, Confession, Others.
It doesnt feel to me like I am praising God at all during our service. Maybe that is a problem with me, not the service, but I have to do something about it. I think it is important that I feel like I am praising God when I am praising God, otherwise its all too fake.
As for the question about if I feel God in my life all the time, No I dont. I do from time to time, depending on a whole bunch of factors. I tent to be much more conscious of Gods presence when I am praying and when I am worshipping. – there are other times too, but those are the main ones, the predictable ones. So its a bit strange for me to be at church, not feeling like anything I (we) are doing is Praise or Worship and not feeling like God is about either.
As for the content thing. I am aware that I need to learn heaps more about God and the bible etc. As my church doesnt have any forum to do that; the only input to faith knowledge stuff comes out of our Sunday Service. While I do not think that worship is the time (necessarily) to get that content, I guess I figure that if I am not praising or worshipping then it would be good to learn something. I know that it would be better for me to be part of a study/discussion group to meet this need, I just have to find a group that I can join. At this point I dont know of any that are available to me.
I have just come back from a weekend away on retreat with UnitingSpiritually. It was a good weekend, relaxed but with some good content. Will write more about that later.
I found out that I am not going to get the other job I had applied for. Its a shame, and I am a little disappointed in the church as there were two of us who are young and in the uniting church who didnt get the job. I was told that the interviewing panel thought both of us would be quite capable to do the job but they decided to go with someone with more experience. I cant help but find that disappointing.
Since I have got back from New Zealand I have struggled with my church. I dont really feel like I am ‘worshipping’ when I am in our service and I dont feel like I get much content. I would be happy with the service meeting either of those two needs but I have the feeling its not. I cant take on changing that too, nor do I think its necessarily a good thing to change it. Some people might be happy how it is. I just think that I need to find more. I have taken on a lot with this church, it motivates me and I feel like I can make a difference in the world, but I need to be able to think and engage in real conversation about life and faith. I need to have a sense that God is present in worship. I dont have that.
In one of my thoughts on this blog recently I wrote something about not needing or wanting Jesus to be God.
One person in particular is having a big problem with that and its all getting ugly. I cant help but respond to personal attacks by finding ways to attack back.
I dont need Jesus to be God because I know God anyway without ‘knowing’ that Jesus is God. Nothing can change that there is a God. So for me it is completely irrelevant how a bunch of people 2000 years ago rationalised or explained their God. Actually, its not completely irrelevant, there are many many parts of the bible that I find useful in understanding God and Gods nature. I think Jesus is a great example of the nature of God and there are things that spark thought or something like that in the new testament.
I dont necessarily want Jesus to be God because of the ‘right-ness’ which that implies. I dont want Jesus to be God because of the apparent limit that places on God. This for me comes back to people of other faiths. Just because I am from a Christian part of the world does not make me any more ‘right’ than anyone else. God called me to church, I dont like the word call, but thats what it was. It was months of God pushing me to go to Church, I went to a Christian one. Mainly because it was what I knew and I already knew some people that went there. If I were in another country I still believe that God would have been calling me into a relationship. I believe that God can communicate and be in relationship with us regardless of all the rest of that stuff. I dont believe that limiting to ‘through Jesus’ is a helpful framework.
My theory is that I am not at a point where I would say Jesus is God. I would never tell someone they are wrong for believing that, and because I am part of the Christian church I would expect people that I speak with and lead and teach etc. to form the view that Jesus is God. I just dont want to use the language that excludes so many people and makes it harder to ‘enter’. I dont find the image of Jesus as God to be helpful, so im not going to use it when talking about God to people. For the most part, it is all the same thing, what I believe and what the church does. I just think that as I have come to this as an adult I dont have to assume that ‘the church’ has all the answers and has it all right.
I think it is important to note at this point that I never think that I will fully understand, I am always changing my thoughts to adjust to new information. I will never consider myself as ‘done’ with theology.
I was teaching scripture to a year 6 class today. It was quite interesting because I decided that the book I am meant to use was not good enough, given that this may be the last time they have ’scripture’. I made up my own thing, asking them to think about a range of things. They had to complete the following sentences.
God is…
Jesus is…
The Holy Spirit is…
Faith is…
Prayer is…
The church is…
Scripture is…
It was a good exercise, now I have a lot of interesting answers to those questions but it gave them the chance to actually think about this rather than have it spoon fed to them. I opened it up for questions. I got some like “Does God really exist?” and “Is the bible real?”
Those are the good conversations. Those are the conversations that might actually lead people to think that God isnt make believe or irrelevant.
Anyway, the point is that I gave them the example of Noah’s Arc. That there is no historical proof that it happened and that many cultures and religions have stories about a flood. I was telling them that its not always the story that matters, but the meaning behind it. I was telling them that by reading the bible we can learn something about God, and that its great to be able to learn more about God.
It only dawned on me a few minutes ago that Noah’s Arc is a story about God not giving up on us, on humanity, on Earth. I never would have thought that before. Even way back in the old testament, God is saying yea, you stuff up. yea, you cause a mess in the world. But I am not going to end you. I still love you. I still want you to be around. There is still hope.
I like that thought. God chooses to keep us. I wish I had have realised that in the class so that I could have told them that the story is about Hope rather than their image of it being about God being pissed off. (which I guess it is that too)
