Religion's Sad Legacy and Ultimate Recovery

The institutionalization of Christianity has brought many positive outcomes. The directive to "not forsake the gathering together" provides opportunity to share experiences and grow in a knowledge of God. The "strength in numbers" has built organizations that can accomplish more for humanity than individuals alone.

But in large part I see organized religion as having failed God's request to be His witnesses - to show what God is really like. Jesus's mission was to do just that and show us the Father so we could do that also.

The Church very early on lost sight of that mission and instead spent their energies establishing their organizations and differentiating themselves from others who did not see things their way. This was seen in the early Christian church with it's searches for heretics, in its interactions (read that "Crusades") with those who did not believe in Yahweh but in some other version such as Islam, and later in their intolerance of dissenting ideas as seen during the reformation (Catholic and Protestant) and continuing until the present. This intolerance has led not only to wars and death but to cruelty all in the name of God. The actions of the past continue the divisions of today. While they may not be as physically barbaric today, they continue the cruelty. Lives and reputations are crushed. The very people who need to come closer to God find themselves marginalized and pushed out of the circle.

I'm having trouble reading Jesus's words into so much of what I see being said and done in the name of religion. Would He speak such hateful things against the disadvantaged and displaced as I hear coming from the mouths of His nominal leaders today?

"Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more" accomplishes both rebuke of the act which was demeaning and affirmation of the individual. Prodigal sons are always welcome and bitter older brothers are allowed their gripes. Lost sheep are sought. The banquets are open to those with no place to go. The only harsh attitude was against those who said they were doing God's will but were not - the hypocrites and doubleminded - those who hid God's character from people.

For my life, I have to find a better guide. The church will support my growth rather than me support it's growth. The need isn't for better defense of the "pillars of truth." It is for those who see God's desire to be understood and accept their responsibility to share His character. People who will be thought of by others as poor in spirit, who mourn, who are meek, who hunger and thirst for righeousness, who are merciful, who are pure in heart, who are peacemakers, and who are perceived as persecuted because they are righteous. Paul shares more fruits of the Spirit that expand on these.

My belief is that Jesus's purpose was to be my example as He showed me God's character. His life lived out these values he shared. I need to 1. understand them right, 2. incorporate them into my life, and 3. make them habits - done without thinking. Will one person make a difference? If nothing else, the meditation on these values will make a difference in this one person.

This will be my journey to spiritual contentment.

CREDO

Not exactly sure this classifies as a CREDO, but it meets my need. I'm working on some introspection --- putting down in writing a path to my future.

Clarification - Clarifying my beliefs and values.

Congruence - Bringing my actions into alignment with my beliefs and values. Executing the actions I determined necessary to be congruent.. Doing what I said I would do.

Consistency - Repeatly. Habitual execution. Routine.

These phases are vertical - sequential. Even the substeps are sequential. One builds on the other. Beliefs spawn values. Values bring expectations of outcomes. These must be clear before one can line up competing events and attitudes into a congruent life. Repetition brings habit. Habit is now who you are.

These phases are also horizonal. New information can be received at any phase requirin change in others. While one would like at least beliefs to remain unchanged, they don't. Or we would still have a flat earth. Changes in one place trickle down to others.

Herein lies contentment.

Suicide is Painless - The Postmodernist Answer

I haven't really understood what the theme from M*A*S*H meant. You know, one of those things people say, you don't know what it really means, but you nod knowingly since everyone else seems to know and it sounds so intellectual.
And you hope someday you will overhear someone explaining it to someone else and you can feel superior to them while learning something at the same time - true multitasking.

Recently I have been around some people who have been depressed and said things like "I just wish I could die and not be here" or something similar. And while I haven't had those kinds of thoughts, I've been depressed enough to know what they mean. Many people carry that thought through to it's conclusion. So what is so "painless" about suicide?

I think it is more about the release from pain. Most of our depressing thoughts bring pain. They are the normal result of the negative things that happen around everybody. They dwell longer and sometimes permanently around some of us, either because we choose to continue along those lines of thought or because of other, perhaps chemical reasons that interrupt normal thinking patterns. We don't recognize positive things around us. Pain, then the normalization of pain - acceptance of it as the status quo - grows. Suicidal thoughts bring the hope of release, much like people often see Christians as dreaming of heaven because it will bring reward, and suicide stops the pain. Maybe that is what is meant by painless.

Nihlism and its successor postmodernism have not given us a reason to live. Nihlism leads one to believe there is no point in being good or bad, doing or not doing. Nothing results from activity. Nothing is worth anything. If that is true, probably not existing is not a bad alternative to existing for no reason.

Postmodernism tries to convince us that we should do good anyway. Just because. If we are going to be here anyway, at least make it feel good to you. That must be worth something. But that still doesn't leave me with a "meaning of life," to use a Monty Python term.

Escaping just should not be the purpose of existence or nonexistence. Religions, Christian and many others, bring us to a purpose or obligation beyond ourselves. I'm here for someone else's purpose. To go with Christianity which I'm most familiar with, we were created (somehow) for His good pleasure, to show others there is purpose, and in the end to be one with Him (heaven or whatever that means.) This creates obligation. Not a negative to me because Christianity gives us the choice of fulfilling the obligation or not. My reading is that you make the choice, you fulfill or not, you are rewarded at some point or not.

The nice thing here is that by fulfilling the obligation - living in harmony with the principles and commands of Jesus, you also gain elements of peace by avoiding things that bring disharmony now. Not everything, but many things. Faithfulness in marriage (on both parts and with other things in play) brings contentment. Care for the body seems keeps you clear of many avoidable dysfunctions. Sharing, respecting others, paying attention to others and helping meet their needs brings purpose, reduces despair, and somehow seems to elevate the mood and bring happiness.

I don't get how that works. It is counterintuitive. If we just happen to be here and have thrived through survival of the fittest, why is there any reason to have happiness when you do something for someone else and there is no gain for you? I have to think there is something "built in" by the Designer to reward us for selflessness and altruistic behavior.

So I guess I don't have much of an answer for someone who is contemplating suicide that doesn't include either something selfish ("please don't, I'd be so sad!") or something dealing with their responsibility to their Creator. Maybe the release of suicide doesn't seem so bad.

Winner!

I was browsing Modern Healthcare just now. There, on the last page, was an advertisement with a familiar face. Harry. Real nice guy.

Many years ago I was a senior in college and waiting in a classroom for a new section of accounting to be opened. There were three of us. The teacher was supposed to show up and let us know if they would actually open that section.

There was me, and Harry, and a girl with sort of long blond hair sitting over there. We both began vying for her attention.

Maybe it was my good looks. Maybe it was my charming personality. Maybe it was because I was a senior and very sure of myself and they were both freshmen. I eventually won. I married her.

I'm not taking the ad home to show her. He looks pretty good. And quite successful. Probably very rich. Much like a winner.

But I was a winner then. I hope, in the mind of that cute blond girl, I still am.

Out of the Box

I was standing in line to check out at Office Depot and a kid in front of me was playing with something that was displayed on the counter. It was shaped a little like a cigar, had a face painted on it, had a fuzzy hairdo on the top, a clip on the side, and I don't know what else. I don't remember what it was even called. The kid asked his mom, "Can I have this?"

Mom started out with "No," then changed to "what is it?" He didn't know either - probably the subject of a future blogthought.

So I piped up with "It is used to clean the keyboard of your computer." Well, there was a thoughtful silence until they both seemed to accept that explanation. So I had to clarify and say "I don't really know. But it seems like it could be used for that."

In a little bit the mom said "I could use it to put in the soil of houseplants to make them more decorative." Kid thought a minute and said, "I think I could make people sneeze by rubbing it under their nose."

Suddenly possibilities opened up. If we knew what it was used for, we never would have explored. We don't think of using a pen for much more than writing. How many other "tools" with which to assult life do we have in our arsenals that we just don't think about because we have already decided what they are used for?

I remember my amazement once when I was young when my father took an empty milk carton, cut part of it off, and declared it a truck. It came in response to my complaint "I'm bored. I don't have anything to play with." Several other vehicles became apparent and I spent the afternoon in the sand making road, building parks, etc.

Creativity is an attitude, not a talent. Maybe we have tied up the attitude because we already "know" how to do things.

Finding Roots

Sometimes the best way to better know myself is to remember who I was. To that end I have made the trek to Hawaii where I grew up and will revisit my past and perhaps lead me to a more productive future. That's my story of why I'm here and I'm sticking to it.

My sister and I arrived a couple of hours apart on Sunday Sept 7. The next item on the agenda is Tuesday Sept 15 around 10P when I get on a plane to return to Iowa. Otherwise, everything else is negotiable.

I can't think of anyone else in the world who would enjoy being with us and understand what is going on. We are spending time seeing the most mundane things, talking about the most boring subjects, and being excited about what we see for all the wrong reasons. No one else would what we are doing and seeing.

I have been back several times since going away to college. She hasn't been. But it is interesting to see her look at something and remember it though she hasn't thought about it for almost 40 years. For instance, on the way from the airport we drove by the old Love's bakery where we both remembered a field trip and getting little loves of bread. After this amount of time, we don't remember if it was for Pathfinders or school. And there is probably no one in the world now who can fill us in.

Mom and Dad are already prominent in our conversations. Neither of us has much reason to think about them in our real lives now after 30 years. But now that we're together and in this place of common experience they come up. And in a different light than when we were kids. Somehow more human, actually bigger.

Our relationships to childhood friends will be reinterpreted. Dr. Charles Yamashiro had always been somewhat of a background thought since it was his kids I was friends with and his wife was the active parent who was always inviting us over, leading out in church youth activities, and generally the visible, very strong influence in our and many others' lives. But I called last night to see if they would be able to go out with us to eat while we are here. He referred me to Mrs. Yamashiro as she would have their activity schedule. But somehow I got to talking with him about his experience during the war. He and several of his friends, including our family dentist Dr. Joseph Yamamoto, were rounded up in 1942 while they were studying at PUC and taken to an internment camp at Merced, CA. In camp he was made the Sanitary Officer, paid $16/mo. He referred to others who were teachers and pastors who were paid $19/mo. The SDA Church became involved and got the guys out to continue their studies - he first at Union College in Nebraska, then applying at the University of Saint Louis for medical school where he was not accomodated for Sabbath observance, then University of Minnesota before being able to go to Loma Linda Unversity where he finished up. After all these years, I did not know that.

What else might I find here.

Jesus Thoughts: Take No Thought

We think we are the first generation that really worries. Things are so tenuous, so much could happen so quickly that would forever change my life, if I have a flat and am late to work my life as I know it will be over. Am I in the right career? What am I going to do if I can't pay back that credit card soon?

True, there are things we need to be concerned about. But anxiety and depression seems to be growing. We seem more and more out of control. With so many inputs - computer, internet, phone, blackberry, television - we are taking in so much we can't process it all. We don't have time to resolve things so they build into open loops.

But think back to a time when a farmer would go out to his field, knowing that storm he saw on the horizon was going to flatten his crop. That crop was food for the next year and the surplus was where he would get money to buy the staples like sugar, salt, clothes, and even seed for next year. Or when the father who cleans the streets is run over and killed by a carriage leaving a wife and children in a tenement with no means of support. Or when a poor carpenter in an occupied land sees a downturn in business leaving in question where next week's food, much less next month's or next year's, is coming from.

Stresses vary from one era to the next. Yet the condition is the same. Things we can't control are building all around us.

Enter Jesus and His blueprint for life, His vision of the future. Matthew 6: 25-34. Ending his description of anxiety-ridden conditions he says "Don't worry about tomorrow. Tomorrow brings it's own worries. But seek first the Kingdom and His righteousness..."

The Kingdom He speaks about is often described as heaven. If I accept that, He is saying "don't worry about things here on earth. Someday you will die and go to heaven then everything will be alright. So just make sure you get there."

But in looking at His whole message and His actions I don't think that is where He is going with this. I don't see an instruction to not think about tomorrow or your problems. His response is more one of priorities: Think of this first. Then the other will come. There's a time and a place.

Stress helps motivate us to move from one point to another. That is not bad. I appreciate the teaching that reminds me to place it all in context.

Why Pain

God may see different priorities for us. Pain/stress/tension are seen by us as evil and as something to be avoided. But we seem to require stress and pain to move us to solve problems, change direction, Otherwise the body/mind tends to stay at rest. Perhaps pain/stress/sorrow/sadness is the force that comes between me at rest and the spiritual experience He provides as the superior position so as to avoid atrophy and inaction.

Probably among other things, i see Jesus suffering and death as a affirmation that death will not be the worst thing to happen. In His case, bowing down to Satan and being done with the pain would have been the worst. I just wonder how long thousands of children will have to starve for His point to be made obvious enough to produce the action in me to do HIS work.

Nonsense That Could Make Sense

Would it increase survival rates in airline crashes if the seats faced backwards? They seldom back into things at a high rate of speed. A sudden slowdown would be much more comfortable pressed against the seat rather than being pulled out of straining seatbelts. Remember, it was my idea.