The Heart Factory and Poetic Mercy

Hello everyone, it’s time for a theology corner like the Nancy Welch show in the 80s. I think she went to my church. 

This post is about the book of Ezekiel, specifically, the prophecy Ezekiel describes right before the Bible says people will have their hearts of stone “replaced with hearts of flesh.” Well he describes this awesome vision of a sapphire throne, and these carts with wheels, and most interestingly some kind of wall of jealousy near God’s glory. Wow I can’t believe that awesome prophecy. I have had bad jealousy problems, on a supernatural level that is like a 10 hour “pang,” and I am interested in God’s jealousy. Like was he actively jealous for five thousand years before Jesus satisfied his desire for reconciliation with humanity? Or was this wall a shield for God’s peaceful heart that actually always knew who his people were.

In this prophecy there is a man in linen who is told to go slay people and he comes back to God and says he did what he was supposed to. But his weapon is an inkhorn that writers use, like it could be some kind of poetic justice. I personally think that this person is Jesus, as author of life. 

But there is something else. A whole throne made entirely of sapphire? What is that? I believe it is Jesus’s place as savior, and this prophecy is a glimpse of how God creates new hearts for people.  Because maybe each saved sinner has a heart for Jesus to reign in, and the sapphire throne is a gift for each of us. So would it be one throne or a lot of thrones?

It can be confusing and probably has confused some of the people who want to say we are made of God. Because they see the mention of heart of flesh and think Jesus or God himself is the new heart as opposed to the sapphire throne so they tell people they are made of God.

But we aren’t.  There is a heart factory and it is precious stone thrones being delivered on carts with wheels from God’s heart factory, which either is his own heart or near to it. And people miss it because they say, no, the heart of stone was replaced.  But that is not what it is saying.  The stone throne is probably the heart of flesh.

Also this scene is just like revelation.  The crystal throne.  I have another post that is almost just like this, where I speculate if that throne is God’s heart. Why? How did I get to it before? Literally because diamonds are made from carbon, and carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen are an element trinity that is interesting to consider.

Man this is kook territory and an off brand theology from what I normally do. But I have heard theories before, out of bounds theories and here I see where they got those, and why they are probably wrong.

Some say Mary is a throne of Jesus, and it is true, but that does not mean she is the sapphire throne. However it is appropriate to go there with the theology, like other wise men at Christmas.

Sci-Fi Theology and Time Travel Theories

 Well everyone, that other post was a nice post for the day and now I am adding something off the wall.  It is about the mystery of where Jesus was for those three days before he rose from the dead.  Here is a time travel theory that he was making his appearances elsewhere in the bible, which include being in the garden with Adam and Eve, wrestling with Jacob, and being in the firey furnace in the book of Daniel. Then maybe he rolled the stone and came back to eat fish with his disciples and coordinate the ascension. It might also create an interesting hierarchy of problems to overcome: actual death, family trauma, and hell. I would agree with that.

I have wondered before if he was somewhere for millions of years during that time and paid the cruel and unsual punishments we all deserve in some kind of jail program, or even in a more literal storyline justice life to endure the exact punishments we deserved. (Think, Nebuchanezzar, not having to be burned alive) And then came back after three days as a way of showing that rising from the dead is a three phase process or something like that. I think what would refute that is that the cross was “sufficient.” And Jesus said “It is finished” before that mysterious three days.

But really I do not know.  He said to the thief on the cross, “today you will be with me in paradise.” Well I bet the interpretation that no one would ever say is what if he was saying that guy partook of Adam’s sin and Jesus was headed back to that day in the garden and all of humanity was there in some way as part of that disobedience and Jesus told that thief he was onto his little games. Or what if reincarnation is true in some way and Adam and Eve were the other two people on crosses.  And Jesus was between them as the rightful divorce. They were nailed to a tree like they deserved for causing the fall of man.

Wow no one would ever say that but I think at least time travel theories really need to be considered sometimes, as well as reincarnation ideas after Jesus pretty much spelled out that John the Baptist was Elijah.  I mean he basically just stated that and then told Nicodemus that people had to be born again. He was careful with it, though, and kept it simple. It is not coincidence that it was said to a pharisee who probably was a theologian. But anyway two posts ago I said something different and said that reincarnation would really be too tricky and uncharacteristic of God. In fact, family resemblance itself could be an indication of how much people don’t repeat lifespans.  However, I personally don't think the verse, "it is appointed each man to die once," settles it.

I also think that Presbyterians especially should really make the effort to at least rule out time travel, because they have expressed a belief in God’s total authorship of reality. Like it is a fixed and unalterable play, so if you get to heaven and ask to help out in a war a long time ago, maybe God would send you there and assure you that it is a done deal and already woven into history. One more relevant verse: "the kingdom of heaven is within you." 

This post is too long because it is probably full of stuff that is not true. But if we are going to read sci fi with those ideas then maybe we should apply it to other categories of thought, too. 

Extra credit: read this post and then go back and read those chapters in Genesis. You can see how lovable "the Lord God" is.  And then Deuteronomy, where he lists the things that will happen if we don't obey the law.  Is that not a possible list of punishments? It also could cure some fundamentalist focus on excessive fire torture. I mean you really could consider hell and heaven happening in realms that overlap earth. But you can also see how nice "The Lord your God" is, and how sweet. It is Jesus from the New Testament, who cares about people knowing him.

Wrath yourself before God has to

Hello everyone, I have a theology post for this blog, and it really is theology.  I also think it is cutting edge revolutionary thought that is the best of the best.  I should not say that, but I am because there is a difference in ace pastor bible references at just the right time, which I am really bad at, and theological breakthroughs that change how we understand reality.

So this is in the latter category.  It actually can be applied to life but could be scary, especially if mishandled.

So here it is, I think God both loves and hates us.  Everyone is mad now! That is why it is cutting edge.  Because no one else has figured it out.  The way I figured it out was to feel the holy spirit backing up something true I wanted to say and couldn’t.  There is an abuser who has hurt me on purpose in a job role and I wanted to say to her, “God doesn’t love you and wishes he had never created you.”  And I felt the truth of it but questioned how it could be true, when she is actually a professing Christian.  I do also believe her abuse is severe disobedience that God is not pleased with. She is truly a servant of Satan.

And I think the verses that most back up this theory and can also be understood better in their context is the Jacob and Esau story from the Old Testament.  The bible says that all the Jews with be saved.  Romans 12 is the chapter that most helps with that issue.  But a lot of people use the Jacob and Esau story to explain the difference between heaven and hell.  And they say Esau’s destiny is exactly like the way people choose hell for themselves.  Some people take it all the way to say Esau was in fact one of the first hellbound people.  But I don’t think he was.  I believe God blessed him with a life different than the blessing that Jacob got, which isn't salvation itself, as close as it may be to that. (it actually could be salvation itself in some ways, but would include Esau on that level.)

In that famous story, God says these shocking words, “Jacob have I loved, but Esau I have hated.”  And if you really care about people, you wrestle with that, like Jacob wrestled with God. Because they were brothers. So here is what I think the deal is.  I think God both loved and hated both guys. 

I have never heard anyone say that before, it is original.  God could have said, I love and hate Jacob and Esau, but he didn’t. Because he was giving us a conundrum to think about, as some philosophical food, which includes a literal bowl of soup.

What I am thinking is that we have a shell of death that we will shed in heaven. And God can hate that part of us and still be a loving God. It goes deep into our mind and life and could include part of our soul. This corresponds to new testament teaching about the old man and new man, the flesh and the spirit, and a few other dualistic explanations, which I will also point out are not the only descriptions for how the mind body and soul are constructed. "Who will rescue me from this body of death?" -St. Paul

I also think there could be a death narrative attached to our sinful nature, which gives power to people and principalities who accuse us of things. So it can be seen as attached to all of human history as a web of lies that ruined the world.

But our true saved self will triumph no matter what weird defeats play out.  Some Christians take on new names when they convert, and people could use their new name and say God loves that person and hates their old self.  I do not mean that chronologically of course, I only mean it if you were truly using those names to accurately label the life self and death self.

This is just a theory I have. The regret of God is also questionable but found in the story of Noah’s ark.  And wouldn’t God be allowed to hate what is evil, cling to what is good, like he told us to do?  Well I think so.

There is no need to be scared and look back at your death story like Lot’s wife. Or forward, how awful! I am not naming the name of the bad person whose abuse caused me to reckon with this.  But I believe I am right that God does not love that person and will burn her worthless carcass in hell no matter what she professes or pretends to believe. And as for her risen self, it will probably have a new name and soul that I won’t recognize. God won't be chuckling to himself about it, it is not a funny topic.

A Dangerous Game

 Hello everyone, here is a worldly monk post that I just figured out today. The early Old Testament revelation of God is really a gift and I am thankful for it.  I was just thinking about a fly I rescued from my coffee and realized something about God’s important introduction as being a good God.  That is what a lot of the commandments reveal about him, and it is such good news.  The thing I figured out is that reincarnation might be tricky in a way that God has established he isn’t.  God shows himself as the source of all honesty, and having your grandmother come back into your life as a coyote who gets into the chicken house isn’t that straightforward.  It also could drive people crazy to wonder who’s who.  That’s all I will say, this post could be much expanded like a lot of the other posts on this blog.  The fact is that reincarnation creates a certain possibility or probability of disguises.  It would be dangerous on many levels and it would cause people to have to perpetually guess what’s really true. Actual truth would be so far from what is apparent that people could justify all kinds of mistreatement or overvaluing in idolatrous ways.  Maybe this is what has happened in some places where people suspected reincarnation.  The class-based abuse and ideas that an animal might be divine and a person might be a piece of garbage probably have played out in terrible ways, and maybe in patterns that are actually predictably sinful and self serving. In fact, the abuses might be a hint that most people knew better on some levels all along.

too convenient for some to survive on God's love alone

 Hello everyone, time for a worldly monk post which is something I think I have said before in some ways but I am revisiting it.  It is about identity and how people always say your identity is in Christ. I just heard a variation on it from a nice person who I like named Jonathan Merritt.  Hi Jonathan if you are reading this.  Jonathan quoted a famous church person named Henri Nouwen who said there are three lies people tell themselves which is “I am what I do,” “I am what I have,” or “I am what others say I am.”

And I just want to say what I have said before which is this is such a common church teaching that as much as I don’t want to take it for granted, I also see that healthy people do need those other three things.  We do express who we are through our lives, through worthwhile activities, through whatever we spend our time and money on, and through the reputation that accumulates as we make our choices and interact with people.  And a lot of church leaders who are used to having a lot of meaning and purpose don’t realize that that meaning and purpose are missing for some people, especially women and other people who get crowded out of competition and discrimination.  So their message that everyone should just base who they are on God’s love is actually reinforcing the status of people who are missing other totally legitimate “signs of life.”

It's also a tool of people like evangelicals who have to gather their own following.  There is justice in that which hasn’t been acknowledged in our society, how these leaders did acquire their own congregations and didn’t just rely on work from other generations.  However, often people in their early stages of ministry especially want to encourage people to give up their worldly ambitions and invest in the church.  Why? Because they need those people's resources for their own goals. I feel bad for everyone who falls for some of that scheme.  A lot of work gets used and cheapened, and over some years people realize they have wasted their time and lost some opportunities.

I made my choices to be more worldly and I stand by whatever losses happen from it.  But most of all I stand by my opinion that people need to express their identity in meaningful activities and a fruitful life.  And preachers find it all too convenient to make people lose everything instead of increasing what they might have already had to erroneously miss out on.

 Ok everyone, here are some new posts for worldly monk blog.  First one is this, I just saw a lecture title saying “in the beginning was consciousness.”  Well I did not tune in because I don’t believe in replacing a word in the bible like that, especially if the word is God.  Like consciousness is not a synonym and if it was the bible would have told us that.  I did reflect on it and saw some potential for framing the trinity that way, like consciousness, word, spirit, there is some potential.  But mostly I think it is pandering to the easterners who say mantras like “I am God I am God I am God.” I just don’t believe it.  However, it is an interesting topic to think about, and most of all I want to say that doesn’t every selfish person say that in some way through their actions?  Like if we expect people to fetch stuff for us and work on the sabbath for us and be our societal slaves, have we not said to everyone, “I am God.” Well it was part of the temptation in the garden.  So I am sure I missed something interesting in that presentation but sometimes the most interesting idea is “I don’t believe that crap.”

 Ok here is the second blog post.  I hope I remember what I was going to say.  Ok, I remember it.  It is about how a PhD student teacher in a theology course pointed out that an expression of God’s offer of salvation in the way I worded it one time was incomplete.  I think the way I said it was Methodist and not Presbyterian.  I basically said that Jesus died for anyone.  And I have been taught to finish that sentence and say anyone who believes.  But I felt that when you present to an outside audience, you leave no doubt that they can be included.  You don’t say anyone and maybe you.  You say anyone, so they know of course it can mean them if they choose.  But this teacher hinted to me that I left out some information, and I think I see how the offer of what people would want might be more appealing if you include the exclusive nature of it.  In other words, if you describe both the open door to heaven and the closed door once it is “full.”  Like our enemies won’t be there, and isn’t that half of the blessing.  It is.  No matter how much people criticize the frozen chosen, in our hearts, people want both the open and closed door, the welcome and the safety, the membership and not a lost crowd with no boundaries.  Maybe that is part of what God is teaching everyone in the world now, which sadly happens to be the same stuff he already told us.

 Well hi everyone this is the third of four worldly monk posts, which precede one of my favorite posts.  In this post I am just reporting a fact of my life to be considered biographically which is that a long time ago I thought about that verse in the bible that says “Guard your heart because it is the well spring of life,” and I decided not to.  I felt it was selfish for people to keep their hearts too safe and I think I even told God that I felt I should instead really put it out there as a sacrifice.  That kind of sounds like reporting a good deed for bragging purposes, but I actually at this moment am really wondering if I did do something kind of stupid and the best we can all hope for is to learn from it.

In a way I think God’s plan happened in my life and he worked with me very faithfully and I should be thankful.  But in another way, you can see how my mind and heart actually were shredded and I have now had over 1400 therapy appointments to repair damage from mistreatment that targeted my soul. And I have been hospitalized ten times for mental illness, I see visions of demons and hell, I have been possessed for a few seconds and felt my tongue snarl at a friend, I watched my family be tortured as my life fell apart for the third time, and I have several lost careers and now disability. Not to mention neurological injury and jealousy spells that hurt an organ and now impair my walking ability because of internal damage to the basal ganglia part of the brain.

So that is neat, I just thought I would report it.  Maybe my “heart” was in the right place, ha ha, or maybe I threw it away.  I do not know, but it is interesting if God took me up on it for any reason, especially if it is to tell a large audience what not to do.

life verses

This post is about my “life verse.” The topic was brought up recently by another writer, Diana Butler Bass, who was questioning the practice of people claiming a bible verse like that.  I used to question it some at church, too, when people would talk about which verse most pertains to them, and they usually cited “For I know the plans I have for you,” as being their life verse.  I think it is Jeremiah 29:11.  In fact, I think that was people’s life verse in every single conversation I have ever had about it. And the other interesting trend is that I always knew that wasn’t my life verse.  It wasn’t that I didn’t think God had a good plan for me, but just that I needed to be up for more suffering than seeking that comfort.  And even now I see some contradiction, like when Jesus says don’t seek the seat of honor at a party.  He said that to the disciples in his teaching.  So why does everyone choose that life verse? 

Over time, I jokingly deducted that my life verse is “He had no beauty or majesty to attract us,” from Isaiah 53.  I just think that is so funny to call yourself ugly.  But the world has called me that. Definitely it stuck.  I have been treated like the elephant man, probably because of my bent gender, but I always knew that I was mostly above average.  My health is declining now, so maybe I actually am headed towards being "marred beyond human likeness," but either way I don’t know of a greater honor than if those verses in Isaiah have anything at all to do with me. God must have known the plans he had for me, plans to prosper me and not harm me, and to give me hope and a future. 

Mediating Mediocrity

Well hello everyone, here is an actual theological post about whether sin, death, and evil are needed for true adventure. I have thought yes and no.

No, in that I have seen how things get more interesting, such as literature, when people are doing their darndest to obey God.  Like when you get in the heights, the more interesting thing is whether to put the hymn in B major or C minor, as opposed to some anti-hero’s struggle of faithfulness about some actually low grit aspect of human life.  I really believe that and think that literature might soon recover from groveling in the pit of wishy washy human ambiguity for I don’t know maybe about a hundred years. Washy would be good, actually.

I did not mean to take a judgemental turn there.  But what I am saying about this now, is that I myself dipped into suspicions about purgatory and a variety of afterlife possibilities based on a view of Jesus’s descent into hell after he died, his subsequent raising people from the dead, and Peter’s direction of his upside down crucifixion, which to me could have signaled his intent to follow Jesus’s example to go to other worlds for people’s salvation.

Plus, my hopes long ago of being in a Lord of the Rings adventure someday after the boredom of earth was behind me influenced a willingness for lesser heavens. I also so desperately wanted the holy spirit’s presence that I thought something like that alone could make me tolerate anything else. 

However, I have to say, that there might be some kind of adventure where choosing a route between greater goods might be just as worthy a destiny as fighting some unknown monsters throughout millions of years of muddy reincarnation and evolution. 

Anyway, I just read an article relevant to this discussion, which is Chen Malul’s substack about Dante’s Divine Comedy, and I also now recall Tobias Wolff’s book called “In the Garden of North American Martyrs.”  

Which brings us back to the idea of context and choice, and where is the glory given what location, I mean there are a lot of possibilities, or maybe no possibilities at all, but only reality.

Being Still, Still Being

 Ok everyone, I have been planning to do another post on this blog, but this is a different one than I expected.  One post I want to do is to compare a rumi poem to the blueback cold poem and describe two different kinds of love.  It has to be the right poem though, because I’m not that much of a rumi fan except for the poem I have in mind.

And then this post is to say that a lot of people present the gospel as “you don’t have to be good.”  As in, Jesus’s sacrifice is what redeems us and we don’t have to earn it.  But I think for a lot of people already on track in some way, they would be more interested in being told, “you can still be good.”  In other words, it’s not too late, the lacking is covered for, God puts you over the top.  I know the over the top thing is erroneous on some levels, but I am here to say, not all levels. What happed on the cross puts us back into positive territory with righteousness and it makes people’s actual efforts not be a waste of time.  And that is part of salvation, to be restored to being securely good people.  It’s not just that we are allowed to be bad.  Because at heart, God’s people won’t want to be bad.

That is all, it’s not that big of a deal, people are told this stuff in whatever way and they can work it out themselves with “fear and trembling.” However I will say again, this isn’t a post about “supplementing God’s righteousness,” so don’t let the thought police make it that. What I am saying is that people’s internal drive to do well and be good is also from God, and it becomes less futile from salvation, not more futile.

Weary of the Theory

Well everyone, time for a post on my Worldly Monk Theology Blog. I want to share an article that is the best writing about feminism that I have read. It has to do with Mary, which also is a topic that sometimes is not thought about that well. 

https://comment.org/the-marian-gift-of-dependence/

 

In addition to sharing that article, I will add my own belated and minimal contribution to the whole wave of feminist theory. The thing I suggest is relevant is the church as Jesus’s girlfriend.  Basically, the church’s survival and advancement, success and work over hundreds of years. It is very much a story of a sci-fi heroine who also fights alongside the ultimate Lord of hosts. The captain of all the armies in heaven, plus his beautiful girlfriend who also defeats all the monsters and enemies.  All of them. Not a single lash of Satan triumphs against the church.

 

When I was taught some Presbyterian theology a long time ago, which is the Tulip acronym, there is a mention of “perseverance of the saints.” I think it refers to the fact that the church will be found faithful.  I always doubted it because I was such a failure and being so overwhelmed by other people’s sinful culture at a horrible bookstore retail job. I just knew I would not do well on Judgement day, so I wondered in my mind why they couldn’t get it right and say “preservation of the saints,” at least to emphasize God’s mercy. But it is perseverance.  And I did accept that and not argue. 

 

But now I see it, what a fighter and winner the church is.  How it comes through for people with strength and love.  And how it is opposed so cruelly and captured at times when all seems lost.  Literally, when all seem lost. 

 

But it doesn’t just get saved, it rolls along with its righteousness from God within and is instructed to be “worthy of the calling."

 

So I think that some good feminism might be rooted in not just that truth but the reality itself, the nature of God and his people, and those who find their way with that kind of dedication are doing so as a likely participation in what is the ultimate universal triumph of good over evil.

 

Personally I think that is a very relevant example for someone like me to suddenly mention after years of weak singleness and a lack of engagement in the sometimes “fruitless” discussions about working mothers, or the south’s faulty, shameful, incessant nagging for people to look prettier so they could be righteous through marriage instead of Jesus’s blood.

The Worst Christmas Pageant Ever

 Well everyone, I just wrote the main post but thought of something else to share, which is something I learned the hard way.  And the thing is to figure out and even profess regularly that none of us are Jesus.  People say, well, of course we don’t claim that, but actually it is very common to get so carried away with trying to be like Jesus that people can’t admit the gaping difference that accounts for why our faces get ground in the dirt every day by life’s worldly abusers. Example: When I go to the ER for my gallbladder, I don’t say to the guy in a stretcher, “Arise and walk, your sins are forgiven.”  I don’t say to a neighbor asking for cereal, “Before the rooster crows, you will deny me three times.”  I don’t say to a lady on the bus, “Your daughter is healed at this very moment.” I mean obviously I am joking, but people’s re-enactments of Jesus’s life go that far off track all the time.  Maybe it is a cute blessing for God to see us so weakly imitate our hero like children. But frankly there are many people who get trapped in an acting habit that can only be relieved by secular society. What is a real example, you might ask.  Well for one thing, look at our cultural problems.  Think of the things some people had to do to survive, while the rest of the insulated church seemed to stay righteous. It’s either sin, or not risking sin enough to reach people. Both things are what I am talking about.  And often the exhausted and exasperated people who have to give up on their idealistic Christian ambitions actually are in that moment, more like Christ. 

War and Peace

 Hi everyone, every now and then, I think of a post for this blog, even though I already published it as a book.  And I want to share something helpful as people prepare to probably fight another war.  Here is an interesting verse from when Jesus was about to be crucified: John 17:36: 

³⁶ Jesus said, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

 

So this usually highlights how Jesus was giving up his life and not fighting back.  And it was in fact the most merciful thing ever.  We should try to follow Jesus’s example as much as we can.

 

However this verse says something else that is very interesting to consider, which is that Jesus said his followers would in fact fight if they were defending an earthly kingdom.

 

Well he says would and not should, but I think he still presents this as an additional example of how much to use force to ensure people’s safety and well being as part of nations and communities.  The fact is that we aren’t Jesus, and though we pray and work for God’s will to be on earth as it is in heaven, most of us depend on government, rules, law, and justice of some sort.  A lot of us got used to it early in life and assumed we would always be doing mercy work. 

 

But here, with history’s spotlight on his every word, Jesus points out that it is more than appropriate for good people, and followers of Jesus, to use force against threats to their dearest communities, cities, and nations.  Our lives are very earthly, no matter how much we overlap with eternity and heaven. There is too much ignorance about this, partially because a lot of us started thinking so much about heaven and hell.  But even from that mindset, the teaching is there for people to learn that sometimes force is authorized and consistent with God’s teaching.

 

A lot of people who think they are above things like the death penalty, jail, cops, and armies, are acutally far, far beneath it, unworthy, and part of the reason bad guys get away with too much every day.

Other people’s Utmost for your Highest Greedy Ambition

Ok everyone, this is a topic that could extend into all kinds of societal trends and political ideas, like supremacy, and other church problems.  But I am sticking with the core of the matter which has to do with a challenge of doing everything you can for God and other people while participating in a society that involves interdependence and dependence.  What I am saying is that giving all you can give can sometimes also overlap with greed, of getting all you can get, and to maintain any unselfish goals requires caution about how much other people might be exploited in even the most innocent processes of “doing everything you can.” In other words, whenever we try to max out our own potential with the purest of motives, we still are usually functioning in a multi-resource system that incorporates other people’s efforts.  So as producers it is likely we are also simultaneously consumers in some way.

That is where this can be a whole book but what I am saying is that whole communities and cultures should be coordinating together for highest ends if they really want to please God, and individuals who have that goal on their own must figure out how much they can achieve their own righteous endeavors without crunching those who are leveraged into contributing without their own goals being satisfied.  Well this is where bad people might have an opportunity to see how they can clog the system or create a blackmail effect that slows down well-meaning people. That is definitely a sad thing that many will no doubt get caught for by the auditors of heaven.  Matthew Henry in his commentary on the Gospel of Matthew said the conscience is an auditor, so maybe the people who ruin things for everyone already know that about themselves.  But what I am saying is that when we have a feeling that nothing we do is good enough and we keep trying to please whoever we try to please anyway, there could be other people getting crunched in that machine as well.  

 

The most simple example is giving money to charity.  Well that is so nice, but doesn’t it mean getting a paycheck, and is that maxed out at any cost?  Well if you are doing good things to earn it, then all it does is multiply the goodness.  And yet we know that some people don’t do right. So during the “Get what you can get” phase, which usually does precede the give what you can give phase, is there someone else’s utmost that you are spending, and are they okay with that?  Maybe they should be and deserve some misery if they can’t get with the program.  Or maybe almost everyone has underestimated the power of working together for one good Cause.

What are you spending on your spending?

As I think about this topic, I feel that I have a whole book to say and could someday have the credibility for other people to learn from it.  But for a blog post I am only going to share the exact concept of the title, which is the idea that some success in saving money actually requires extravagant spending of strength and attention.  And the second thing to add is what could bother some people, which is that it might not be worth it.

 

I have said in other posts that I strongly believe a key thing to learn in life is that there are multiple overlapping economies of hundreds of blessings or efforts, and not all value is reflected in any financial economy, which is also likely to have layers and unaccounted resources.  

 

But what I am saying now is that when people try to be good with their money, there are a lot of options.  In a way I could say, what is needed is a whole life offering to God, so really you have to spend everything you have.  And I do believe that, but in terms of day-to-day budgeting, I actually have the opposite thing to say, which is that people might do well to not obsess about it and instead try to have just a few good habits. 

 

For me, in my successful years of financial faithfulness, it was a matter of not spending more than I had, and making sure I was generous.  I also tried to give ten percent to anything Christian, which usually wasn’t my church.  This is where my post becomes more like book material, and I will say I really think that during a certain 12 years, I was probably in a 99^th percentile of financial faithfulness.  I heartily prescribe that to other people, though everyone has different lives and a lot of people really suffer and have kids to take care of, etc.

 

People could get mad even at my little headline, but I know it is a good concept to think of.  There are two other phases of my life that are different, where I lived rather haphazardly on loan money from my parents, based on my probable and to me, due success as an author, and now, after some unexplained farce of rejection, a time of suffering when I am totally dependent on other people because of disability.  The people I am dependent on, which is taxpayers and my mom, are actually people who I think have “spent a lot on their spending.”  In other words, severe frugality and life cost to make sure money is not wasted.  And because of the limited resources that actually might not be a coincidence from that, I am both abpruptly and gradually reverting back to my old habits of general faithfulness on a small “salary.”

 

That is more personal info than I usually include in these worldly monk posts, but I think it is a good topic to think about, because there are many approaches to managing money, and to me, even some of the most popular books about it are misoriented.  What I am suggesting is not a joke, and the fact that my success and reward is currently obscured by abuse, loss and horrifically, financial dependence, will never reverse or undo the truth of how blessed my life was for many years as I survived as a humble and generous person with the budget that was granted to me by God, already minimized by greedy people who will never be satisfied by their unfair gain.

 

What are you spending on your spending?  Are you a coupon person? It could be a good idea. But leaving big tips and forgetting about money altogether also has its reward. That is all I will say. People can get mad and probably will. That is another economy of emotions that can also function with choices of investment in feeling better or living life with other goals.  

 

My book about this will probably only be available or accepted when I am dead, partially because this life-giving truth is the exact reason why people would want to kill me.

“Why do evangelicals talk to us like we’re stupid?”

I felt it almost every Sunday at the church I went to.  Songs that translated ideas from the bible in such a way that there almost wasn’t any meaning left.  People assuming you were an idiot because you were depressed.  Leaders who almost had to literally move your arms and legs for you as part of their act to use you in their conversion scenes. It was from some kind of ignorance, some kind of neglect to love as Christ loved, and some kind of motivation that caused people to be directors for a babyish play while we suffered in an agonizing moral crisis everywhere else we went.   

But I am going to have to defend people a little bit and say that there is a legitimate mistake in the mix, which is that it actually is pretty stupid not to follow Jesus Christ, and especially not to care.  God gave humanity and most individuals a lot of information about what really matters, and more than information, the actual blessings of common grace. And as evangelicals have watched people all around us choose a worthless life of abuse and waste, forfeiting the eternal rewards of basic church service, they can’t help but condescend with their own matching ignorance.
 
It's kind of comical to be a Christian for thirty years and have people assume you don’t know how to pray, all because you are sitting in the “audience” at church instead of standing up front, which is the one thing they would never let you do.  But at the same time, you have to kind of see it how they see it sometimes, like “why aren’t you one of us?” Gosh, I still have to say, you said it, not me, but I also have to say that the comedy is in their favor.  That their inferior culture expressions become almost like a God-inspired mockery of the true retardation in question, which is people’s stubborn, foolish persecution that we will never understand and never will have to.

A Bad Climate Indeed

When I was in seventh grade, I read a book about the creation and evolution debate, called “Inherit the Wind.” It is actually a play, and I think I went and saw it performed with a friend of mine from church. We had a nice discussion about how evolution and genesis were probably both true.  I was twelve years old.  

Later, in high school, I made a poster for my biology class about evolution, where I made the word “evolution,” evolve across the cardboard, and I tore a page of Genesis from an old bible and glued it next to some kind of science diagram that represented natural selection.  
 
I mention those two examples to say that I have a history of being a nice reasonable person who should not be portrayed as some kind of “William Jennings Bryant” religious freak who doesn’t believe in chemical reactions and photosynthesis.
 
But I am.  Everyone from my faith background is treated like garbage in the news and everywhere else, and the new context used against us is climate change.  It is the same political problem as usual, but I have to say that the pattern is as recognizable as the usual snake patterns found in the other worst parts of nature.  It is a complete media assault, also prevelant in schools that people pay to attend, and it will forever be seen for what it is.
 
Do you want to know my theory? I think some animals across time prayed to God in their distress, similar to us now, asked for help to survive, and received merciful mutations that gloriously lasted for hundreds of millions of years: generations of animal descendants who will be found faithful in God’s sight.  
 
Meanwhile, some species didn’t do so well, and have found their dodo birds of a feather with aggressive greedy liberals who only know how to prey on mistreated religious people or other swindled students who chose to obey God anyway with supernatural patience during another thirty-year attempt to warp religious life into a feeding trough of humiliation for devolved demons, many of which were probably the evolution champions of the 50s.
 
If you want to make climate change the new religion, you can, but I think the embarrassment will be yours if you can’t bring yourself to also acknowledge the realities of heaven and hell, or even earth, for that matter.

Sacred, Secular, Sacred Secular

 Ok everyone, here is an interesting idea.  It has to do with divisions of things that are sacred vs secular, which many times is a false division and some things are supposed to just be "good." That has been discussed many times in many contexts.  But I want to add an idea which is another possible category of "sacred secular," which would refer to things that are supposed to be secular and are sacred because of their secularity.  Like a movie that is not supposed to be religious and isn't.  Or just a fruit stand with fruit.  Or a coke machine.  Okay so that is the idea, it is kind of simple, but think also how it could get ruined, or "profaned." Such as when people mix sacred with secular in a bad way.  I don't mean to judge but one example is a particular yucky feeling from the unitarian mistakes, like that certain sense that all the religions got mixed together in a bad way.  Or when you go get a barbecue sandwich at a restaurant and they are playing really extreme christian music and it is like, okay, I am just getting a sandwich.   I think some people really are "good unitarians," and there is also such thing as a good evangelical witness in a more secular environment.  But I just wanted to suggest that there could be some nice worldliness that has its place, and to point out that secular isn't the same word meaning as "profane." Would I go so far as to say there is such thing as "sacred profane?" Actually, probably yes. Like that really well timed curse word or something like that. One more example that I think people can relate to is when a lot of people used to skip church on Sunday and read the New York Times.  It could be a happy thing sitting in the sunlight with coffee and reading the news during free time on the weekend.  That is what I mean by sacred secular. However, now the New York Times more actively and overtly persecutes evangelicals, so it is an example of how the sacred secular has been ruined and defaced into an ugly horror reminiscent of that bad feeling you get when a doctor molests you.

Offense and Defense

 

Ok everyone, here is another actual question I have on my theology blog instead of just an opinion or something I have learned.  It has to do with “isms,” and when legitimate religion turns into a problem “ism,” and a sort of idolatry problem.  That was what happened with Catholicism on such a mass scale that the Reformation happened and some Christians started a new branch of Christianity without ever looking back.  The religion had folded in on itself and people were no longer freely worshipping God but entangled by idolatry and self-justification of all sorts. Much later on, in our country, some geniuses eventually coined the term “fundamentalism,” and suggested that the same thing was happening with Protestantism, only it was the skeletal basics of Christianity that had become the new distraction from God himself.  

 

I personally, in both cases, think that the fact that actual Jesus is involved and is prayed to in each belief system, offers supernatural protection from total loss, and that it is most likely that the religion itself and especially God’s goodness will still win out and benefit individuals and society. However, it is a very interesting topic, and bad stuff does happen in God’s name all the time from all of it.  It is a very common type of “taking God’s name in vain,” though most people associate that with more instant sins of saying G- dm and OMG.  

 

So anyway, this brings me to my theological question, which is whether than can be something like “Jesus-ism” or God-ism, as well, where an actual truth-based relationship with God can also become some kind of barrier to health and life.  And I think maybe the answer is possibly, in some ways, but mostly that is the point of why you worship God with no other Gods before him, is because he has the infinitude to absorb worship without anything bouncing back to harm people.  So that if you can weave through those other corruptible mazes, you do hit something that delivers and by nature and definition protects you from the Ism Idolatries.

 

This is also why I don’t support witch hunts against fundamentalists.  It is just too likely that despite any amount of intellectual or cultural poverty, some of those prayers will be real and answered in ways that tap into all the resources and truth that exist.