After developing yet another swollen red throat and blocked sinuses, my support group last night told me that I’m not doing everything I can to be healthy because my house is such a mess.
Its sounds strange, but I hadn’t really thought that a messy house could cause health issues, but apparently breathing in too much dust could be causing my constant sickness.
So today, after teaching scripture, sleeping a lot (to recover from not sleeping last night) & checking the result updates from the US election, I started to clean my house. I started in my bedroom, it is where I spend most of my time when I am at home. There is now nothing on the floor at all, I will wash all of my clothes over the next few days and put them into the wardrobe and develop a system to keep them off the floor.
Tomorrow I’m going to attack the kitchen and the bathroom, both of which have not been cleaned in a while.
I don’t like cleaning, but I really hate being sick. Its worth a try at least – maybe I will even like it 
I have decided that I am leaving Australia for a few years next year. The problem is that I dont really know where I want to go.
I have wanted to go to the UK for some time, I dont remember my old reasons, but the new ones are that I love the idea of being able to move around every 6 months or so and live so many different experiences. That sounds a bit odd, but Im thinking of how great it would be to spend some time at Iona, some in Northern Ireland at Ikon, being able to go to France and the Taize community there etc. I feel like the UK is so far ahead of us with Alt Worship stuff and I am keen to check it all out. See how it goes, experience it, live it.
Taking 2+ years to travel around seems (to me) like a selfish thing to do. I feel like I could contribute more by not traveling, but I really want to. Going to the UK and spending time learning and experiencing some of the faith stuff could be really beneficial, not just for me, but for everyone I come into contact with after that.
Another option is to go to Canada, the only reason for going to Canada is the snow. Some parts have a 5 month snow season. I really love snowboarding, and I would love to work in a ski resort again, but I dont see what I (or anyone else) would get out of it. I would get heaps better at snowboarding, make some new friends, have heaps of fun.
Then there is the least selfish option of all, this is the go on a long term mission type trip. This would probably be to somewhere in Asia, it would be great, I would be helping people, learning a new language and all that. I just dont think I am willing to give up the UK or Canada options to do this. It is selfish, but it is my life.
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.
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)
I am doing this Christology course at the moment. I need to submit journal entries about Who is Jesus for me today?
I am struggling to answer the question. I dont have a clue. I like to think of Jesus as a nice idea. A good way to see something of the nature of God. I still really struggle with the Christian church because I cant get on board with the trinity idea. Without the trinity, Jesus is just a guy. He said some useful things, the people that followed him around have said some useful things, but they have all said some not useful things too.
I have a relationship with God because God doesnt let me get away with not. Does this mean I have ‘faith’?
Faith – the word, is used so differently all the time. I think we are all talking about different things when we say it and I think that makes a big difference to how we talk about God.
I dont need, or want for that matter, Jesus to be God. Why cant we be happy with God is God. No matter how we want to define or shape how we talk about God we are always going to be wrong, or missing a few pieces.
Is it not enough to help bring people into a relationship with God, we also have to tint that relationship so that it is ‘Christian’ enough? If people can have a relationship with God that does not have Jesus in it, what is wrong with that?
For me it comes back to this whole thing of people thinking they are right. Each religion seems to believe that they have got God sorted and everyone else is wrong or misinformed or in need of being told the ‘right way’. To me that is just dumb. Not only does it limit God to only being able to relate to people in one way, it fails to recognise that we are all probably wrong anyway.
Most of my info about God comes out of the Christian faith. I still wouldnt really say that I am Christian (for a number of reasons that I am not going to get into)
As my source of information is the Christian faith I have some general teachings or assumptions that I have made. These are that God loves me and that I need to try to show love and compassion to everyone else. I think I hold onto these because they are what fits in with my experience the best.
I struggle with Jesus being ‘the christ’ and that being central to the church. Why do either of those have to be true? Even if you want to say Jesus is the Christ, how come the Spirit doesnt get an equal amount of air time? I think that if we are going to take on this trinitarian viewpoint, we need to do it properly and not just put Jesus on a pedestal, but put the spirit up there too. Or, and this is my preferred option, we can just simply talk about God and scrap this idea of the trinity.
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So here are some of the things that have been going through my head lately:
1. There are two jobs I am applying for in the Uniting Church. I would be happy doing either and I think I am quite capable to do either. I have heaps to learn, no matter which one I end up getting (assuming I get one). Its an exciting time for me, I love this church and I am really looking forward to working for it.
2. I have been thinking about Christian guilt. No, I dont mean Catholic guilt – although it is along the same lines, I do not think it is fair to restrict this guilt to only Catholic people. Why is there a need to demonstrate Gods love through the death of Jesus, cant we find better and more productive ways of explaining, demonstrating and helping people experience Gods love than to simply say “God loves us so much he sent his son to die for us”. Yes, part of this comes out of me starting to teach scripture again, but really, where is the need. Love is central to Christianity, dont we have any better (or at least other) arguments on this topic?
3. Riding a motorbike and having a broken toe at the same time is kind of painful.
4. If you eat too much pineapple, it makes you’re tongue feel funny and tingly.
5. Im not sure I want to candidate any more, there are a number of respected people in the church that are not ordained. Becoming a candidate because it means there is more job security is not a good enough reason for me. I honestly think that I can work for God, do good things in this church without taking 6 years to let people shape my thinking to become too much part of the institution. Not that I have anything specific against the process, just that I dont think I am ‘called’ (yes, I hate that word) to be just another minister telling people the things that are easy for them to hear. I want to be informed, educated and able to make decisions for myself, I want to know enough about what is going on in the church that I can translate it into the way normal people talk. I want to have a foot on either side and still be respected by both groups (in this context I am talking about regular church goers, including the councils, presbyteries and synod vs. the average person who only steps into a church for a wedding or a funeral.)
6. Even though I really hated it when doctors and counsellors told me that the key to depression is eating well and exercising, They are right. I feel much better, think better and act better when I am exercising a lot and eating well.
7. At what point is it OK to cut off your family? The stress of dealing with my Mum and her husband is more than I am willing to take on. I already dont speak with my Father, does it cause massive issues if I avoid my mum too? The sad part is that I dont have a problem with her, its her husband – mainly. When does self-preservation take the priority?
Amongst all the confusion in my head about where I should be, I am quite certain that I need to work for the Church. I just care about it too much. I get so excited about the possibilities for the future of our church that I dont know what to do with it.
My newest thought is that we have to get churches out of ‘church’ – meaning the buildings. Bring our prayer and worship and whatever else into a public space where people can engage with it. Taking the step of going to a ‘church’ is scary and probably too daunting. Why not bring worship to the people?
Anyway, I cant wait to see which path we head down.
I went to Dubbo over the weekend. It was great. I was there for a short course that the ELM centre run, its part of the Lay Preacher training. This one is Christology, looking at the question Who is Jesus Christ for us today?
It was really good. I met some new people and learned heaps of new things, too much new stuff actually, I cant put it all together yet but I am really excited to learn more about this. I have always struggled with this. The standard church lines of Jesus was Gods son or Jesus is our saviour just didnt cut it for me. Now Im thinking that there is actual Theology and Christology out there that suit my understanding of God. Well, its not even suit, its more that I can understand it and relate to it when expressed in the new ways.
I had tended to leave the Jesus stuff to the side because I just didnt get it, and part of that is that the language used around all Jesus related conversations is so loaded that effective communication of thoughts and ideas is almost impossible. I dont want to use that language, I want to be able to have a conversation where the gap between what is meant and what is heard isnt so huge.
Anyway, Im keen to learn more about this stuff. Im keen to see some of these new-ish ideas communicated in Churches and Sunday Schools and Scripture classes. Its a great time to be part of the church, its changing and evolving, I cant wait to see what it becomes.
Yesterday I went to the kids fun day. It was actually heaps of fun. Exhausting, but fun.
I was helping a table if kindy kids with their craft. I felt like I didnt stop talking for the whole time. I was repeating and rephrasing all of the time, constantly checking on them and asking if they knew what they were doing. Constantly answering the same questions over and over.
Im glad that I went, maybe when I do scripture again I will take a class of kindy kids.
