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.
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.
Filed under: reflection
Our theories of the eternal are as valuable as are those which a chick which has not broken its way through its shell might form of the outside world. – Buddha
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)
I had intended to go to my POD blog today and look up my learning goals that I had set and change them to reflect where I am at now.
The goals are all still fairly good. I have actually addressed a whole lot of them.
I have been journaling this whole time, but not online. I am going to go back and pull bits out of the written journals to put up here so that it is an accurate reflection of what has been going on this year.
The main thing that has happened is that I have let go of all the ‘other’ things I wanted for my life. The main ones were my job/corporate career and travelling the world. I have accepted that these are not things that I am living my life for. I might get to travel as time goes on, but im not going to make it a priority for my life. I have left my job with BlueScope. I was finding that very hard to do, but then I got pneumonia and had 6 weeks in bed away from work. It was much easier to leave after that, I was already detached.
I have been in New Zealand on a break from life. I decided that I had to learn to live without having my life full and busy to keep me distracted. This trip has been really good for me as I have learned to just be happy with where I am and who I am. I have had no responsibility and no one to look after but myself, this was a daunting thought to start with as it is situations like this I usually struggle with depression. I feel the best I ever have in my life. I have been deliberately spending more time with God and as I result I feel much more confident that I am heading the right way.
My generally health and fitness is another part of this trip. I am eating better than I ever have before and exercising almost every day. I feel strong enough to face the rest of my life and to do it well.
I have read almost the entire New Testament over the past few weeks. I had not read most of it before and it was quite interesting for me, I am motivated to be part of a bible study group when I get back to Wollongong.
So I feel like I am heading to the same place that I was in February, but now I am more sure of it as the right thing to do and I have accepted that there are things I have to give up, but thats OK.
Filed under: God, POD, call, health, life, reflection, understanding
Since I have been here I have been making a conscious effort to spend more time in prayer /more time with God.
Its working out quite well for me, im starting to feel like there is some direction/point to all this now. Its good.
I have decided that part of my problem is that I was trying to live too many lives at once because I had not made a full decision about the path to take. I was trying to live the corporate live, working full time and travelling for work, looking at buying houses etc. And I was trying to live a full church life too, youth group, church, church council, council of synod, ncyc, etc. And I was trying to fit in some other stuff like going to the gym and the footy and doing oxfam stuff and fair trade stuff.
Its just all too much, especially because I wasnt doing it in a balanced way.
Anyway, the point is that I have been thinking over and over about what to do with my life. I wrote a post about this the other day. I was praying and I came to the conclusion that none of it matters anyway. I want to travel, I want to learn languages, I want to earn money and have cool things, none of that matters. I ended up at a kind of trade off, I decided the things that I actually really want for my life and scrap the rest.
What is comes down to is that I want to be happy, not all the time but at least for parts of my life. I want a real relationship at some point. I want to be healthy, this wasnt a ‘make me healthy’ type of prayer it was more like a ‘im going to keep trying to be healthy anyway because I cant do anything useful while I am sick all the time’.
So now I dont care what God wants me to do, I can do it. I dont have these other ideas of what I should do any more. I was a bit worried that this mindset would last for 24 hours and then id be looking up where else I can go snowboarding, but its been a few days and I still feel really good about it. I have even arranged to go to the National Youth Worker Inservice in a couple of weeks on the Sunshine Coast.
The plan is to just carry on living, doing what I feel God wants me to and assume that along the way I will find happiness and love. I know that this should scare me, but Im just feeling quite relaxed about it all.
I have been stressing about where to stay and how much money I am going to spend. I have to keep reminding myself that it was a deliberate decision to not be here at the start of the season so I would get my bluescope bonus. So if this trip costs a bit more than planned or I cant get a job its really not the end of the world.
Its only money anyway. It comes and goes.
I had been tempted to get a 10 day ski package and then go home, but what would that help? not much. I dont have a home, a job, or anything close to direction. So I may as well stay here and snowboard for the whole season, lose some weight and not stress out.
Im planning to go to a community meal at a church on Friday night. Not sure what to expect, not even sure what to hope for. Everything is just seeming quite pointless at the moment, im not sure if that is a depression thing or what. I have just been thinking that all we do is plan and act out the next few steps in our lives, there is no point or purpose to it. People grow up and worry about their lives then have kids and spend the rest of their lives worrying about their kids. Sure, in the middle of all that there are jobs and friends and mortgages, but when it comes down to it there is no reason.
Well, that was a bit morbid. I think I will feel better when I have some more money to play with.
