A flesh-made word

 Hi everyone, I just wanted to share a little joke vocabulary word for when people are bad but there's not much of a satanic attack to account for it.  You can say that things were all too human-tanic. Like when the lights come on and there are no demons to be found. Just bad people being bad.  A human-tanic attack. Some of us are a little too familiar with that aren't we. I guess we all are in some way. Well have a great day everyone.

Stages

        I took a theology class a few years ago and there was a question asking what we thought of the concept of phases and stages.  It had to do with whether we believed there were standard or common processes where people went through similar sequences of status and experience during their spiritual development.  And I said something about how concepts of phases were often a good resource of collective wisdom but people need to be able to live their life, too, without having every interaction predicted and seen as generic and labeled.  I didn't say it that well, and I think I missed something more important, which has to do with the progress itself, and the sins along the way that other people try to establish as representative and defining.

     An example that is kind of deep can be seen in the life of Van Gogh, who gave the world an artistic life and works that were accessible to all, enjoyed now by millions, and probably backed supernaturally in a way that people often forget art can be.  People usually look for that kind of supernatural power in religion and ministry, and I think a lot of people trying to do church work feel frustrated if they don't see that kind of spiritual fruit immediately.

   But Van Gogh is a person who had some distinct stages in his life, and there was a time early on that he wanted to be a missionary.  And he did some hard labor and it was said that in that work he earned the nickname "Christ of the Coal mines." Well I don't know exactly what happened, but it just has a certain ring to it like he thought of it himself and was trying to establish a reputation of being some kind of saint. To me, it does come across as a little bit self centered and classically spiritually immature. But even if that is the case, and it might not be, it's still not that bad, and in the long run could serve as a good signature on all his work and proof that there were in fact religious origins for his generous and successful soul. If that hadn't been in his biography as his nickname, some people would be sure to identify him more with things like his suspected case of syphilis.  But anyway, when I hear his story, I am reminded of phases that I have gone through as an evangelical, where I focused too much on other people's salvation at times, or did some of my socializing with ulterior conversion motives, or tried to bring about a forced influence from my life instead of an authentic offering of love and work.  Sometimes people called me on it, but more often, there were mean and false accusations, insults, and rude attempts to make me fail.  Because as much as it was a phase of evangelical Christianity, it was also just a step on a legitimate path to productive spiritual vocation, and I ended up with years of whole-hearted service and good prayer traction with very probable answers from God that have helped millions of people. 

      It's really something to think about, because as much as all humans can be fault-finders sometimes, categories of people do sometimes become known by their mistakes and bad habits, and religious hypocrisy is one of those things that people most don't appreciate.  People like me betray people sometimes, and try to trade in friends for conversion credit.  But by ratio, it is just a phase that we do learn from, and might even help us get to the next level of a more sincere love than would ever happen if we never stumbled in that way.  

    So people can criticize us, and label us with whatever insults they think when they see the pattern of a lot of us making the same mistakes, but the real shame will probably be from the loss of those who never dared to make those mistakes.  I guess they have their own rewards and God's plan for them will be kind as well, with no lapse or shadow of turning, as they say, but it is good to remember that if there are phases on spiritual paths or any path, those awkward stages might pay off with a depth of sainthood that no one would have turned down themselves if they really understood or had the right vision.

mercy, grace, and justice

 hi everyone I have been thinking about justice since I hear it referenced so much in certain contexts, sometimes rightfully and sometimes in offensively wrong fake agenda definitions. But anyway I thought of a way of looking at it that I think would help people who think about it in Christian ways, and that is to think of it as part of a concept trio that includes mercy, grace, and justice. People often describe mercy and grace together and differentiate between the two, or they contrast mercy and justice. But I have idea which is that it might fit better with consistent faith if people think of three types of blessings: justice, where you get what you deserve, mercy, where you get spared what you deserve, and grace, where you get something even though you don’t deserve it. So it is like an idea framework for understanding rightful and life-giving wages. Another concept that would be separate or maybe primary to those things, or motivational behind them could be righteousness or love. That is just a theological way of framing it because I think the concepts have been separated in some understandings and those problems have played out in our society. Some people try to promote some kind of justice without a concept of the mercy and grace that is needed as well, and other people only feel responsible for offering mercy and grace, so they ignore other responsibilities and then try to fake the charity. it is a problem either way and I know some justice people don’t think so but there is a lot of destruction happening in the name of justice where people are pretending they haven’t partaken of some extreme patience and mercy. So anyway, it feels too late for anyone to figure this out but I think it could still help people instead of being viewed as an either/or thing or as pairs that are missing a third concept.

another prayer

 Dear God please establish 45 billion new accounts for each person ever to be accumulating rewards and blessings on ticker tapes and digital charts with additional health kits and social assurances available from a basis of merit, mercy, and grace and a flow of unblockable blessings assortments periodically tappable with simile factors and a control panel of four thousand flip switch button panels to confirm more refills that can be transferred to anyone else upon request or upon supervisory oversight provided by tracking committees with love and attention from selected time period and philosophical commonalities plus a wild card panel to visit those groups with a similar benefactor system fundable and sourced by overflowing conjunction stations and gratified workforce honor personel. Please help everyone acquire triple eligibility with scheduled deeds and thought congruences according to multi-layered goal lines emphasizing or defending any acceptable explanation or outcome with perspectives socially, theologically configured and including conversation value with special increases from blessed youth, designated also by relevant key codes that can serve as blessified acknowledgements for thoughtfulness or other related hundred hundreds.  Please create a measured point system across all elements with scattered triggers to activate blessing distribution across space and time with consideration for anyone who does or does not want love and food. Please create both a literal recipe cart with needed service and distribution as well as a figurative all expansive sci-fi instruction base for parallel comfort and opportunity transmissions.  If any subject or object in chain patterns for related life experience or future destinies can be recorded statistically, please run all the numbers through an amped and light form coded peace and grace system unit backed up by other eternal reward triggers and create a new fountain or symbol generation activator to re-target all bless-able contacts and potential thought associative people and animal and plant involvement.  Please allow for a consumption factor and an unconsumed listing correspondence that can be revisited for additional replays and revisits to favorite blessings, flavors, and joy people. Please forgive us for blocking these things from you and each other and thank you for your patience as we seek the hatches for all hidden and obvious key access locations in maps of service and love.

You have heard it said

So a new idea I have is that instead of saying "God loves me," I could think "God has a variety of feelings towards me." I think theologians figured out a long time ago that all those feelings would be some form of love if I am right with him through Christ, but it could be beneficial in some way to entertain a thought that there first of all could be a range in how happy he is with my behavior at any given time, and that he invented time for a reason that involves his participation as well.  So people say God can see everything at one time and forgives me anyway, but if I am supposed to do things like count the clock during history class or grow up or try to do what I am supposed to throughout a day that includes responsibilities involving other days, then I could spend some of that time guessing that God might have a complex emotional reaction perpetually matching my status in creation at any given time so that he is literally not wasting "time." As in, he is not wasting the concept and creation of time that he invented possibly as a facilitation not at all of something linear or one dimensional or even glowing blob-like circular but to cause variety that would then include his own perception of all his people.  And if it takes a lot of people to entertain him in just the right way, maybe it takes a lot of interesting things about each person and their life like maybe even bad and good for all the complete reactions to happen. Like God does not want to be bored, so sometimes he is mad, happy, and sad instead of just doing miracles all the time. To me it would help if there was something in the Bible to back that up like if there were stories of him doing things like being a carpenter or something.  Then we would know not to just tell people God loves them when really we are supposed to say something like "I wonder if the way you just juggled pies and then threw one in someone's face reminds God of the time that he invented dinosaurs."  That is probably how poetry got started unless the Bible says something different like if it said "In the beginning God was speechless." It actually says the opposite which is very interesting because it did seem kind of quiet and dark early on, not in an agnostic or atheistic kind of way but more like a roaring vacuum which is interesting to think about like instead of an explosion moving outward, God calling things from outward towards him and everything appearing from nowhere in the opposite direction.  Think about it and it could correct another idea of it to land in some middle ground that matches the Genesis account that I actually think has more clues about existence than people realize.  But I think the science happens all over the Bible so people can't cheat and zoom in to the part they think has the technology breakthrough they are looking for.  I myself think there is a hidden parenting manual across all the books of the Bible where God is three years old during the time of Noah, twelve years old when David says the battle belongs to the Lord, a teenager in Ezekiel, a young adult getting married in the gospels, a middle aged person in the letters of Paul, and then 70 years old in the book of Revelation which actually descibes him as having white hair and bronze feet.  Like that is kind of weird like a Florida retirement kind of thing, not to criticize anyone but if you see it like that you probably could find some cures for some diseases too, or a good recipe for fish, or the story of western civilization.

The Pope's recent leadership

Ok, everyone, the pope just said some crazy stuff about not blessing gay marriage and I don't want to ruin anything but I will say that I think he has sufficiently cracked the code that gay marriages can in fact be blessed by God and not just that but caused by God, and the pope is doing something from Jesus's teaching where you hide your righteousness so as not to be praised by humans.  I almost can't stand the intensity of that kind of sacrifice knowing the popularity and media celebration he could have had, but I will go ahead and mess up his plan a little by saying that I think a lot of people have figured out that there could be more variety to marriage that everyone realized for a while. And the gender variants that forced us to discover this don't have to be celebrated or despised or denied.  I personally believe that marriage is usually designed as a gendered thing as opposed to friendship, and that is the very reason that gay marriage has to happen for some people, because their gender really is bent so to have a gendered relationship means being in something that seems like a "same sex" union to other people.  But that is how they attained the gendered union because they really did feel more like the opposite gender.  Is that really so complicated?  For me it is, and becomes a constant source of torment when a whole society weighs in on it all.  But some of the people who opted to give up religion due to societal foibles ended up truthful and free and won't lose that reward from God.  And I think the pope knows it and supports people in a good way and I think his little reputation sacrifice is a bit much when he and Pope Benedict to me are already the best popes ever!! Way to go fellas! A faithful pope for the Catholics and a secret nonpope for the Protestants! It's genius!  So who does that leave for the Orthodox? I would say Oprah but it's not my choice. Well that is all everyone, have a great day!

Hugging Feet

Ok, this blog post is more simple than some of the other posts and it has to do with the tradition of "footwashing" in the bible, usually associated with serving others because of the scene where Jesus washes his disciples feet and tells them that to be great you must be a servant.  But I just want to share a little theory which is that I think there is something else about it that could really help people if they saw it, and I think it has to do with a love so great that people felt like kneeling at each other's feet, like bowing almost in a way that you can't do because it is so near to worship.  And washing feet was the way to do that without crossing that line.  I say that not based on biblical scholarship and anyone who has a problem with that can wash their own feet in the bathtub.  But I say it from feeling a few times with just a number of people that if I saw them I would hug their feet because of what they did for me.  It is often people like teachers, but not always, and ironically it is a love so great that I am mostly safe from turning it into some kind of idolatry. It is really something to think about not just in terms of when and why to do things like feet washing ceremonies, but to think of how to facilitate or promote that kind of love in your life or other people's lives.  I think in our culture sometimes it has happened outside the church in workplaces or other social experiences where people can know each other that well and do something for each other that causes that kind of adoration. Anyway it is just something to keep in mind and I think it is a rare thing that shouldn't turn into a paranoia of suspecting there is not enough love to go around.  The fact is that Jesus's life was a miracle so he had that kind of love almost all the time. Do you make that the goal or does it come from working with others for more specific goals? I do not know. I think God tells us to feed the poor and do justice for people not just for their sake but for us to have meaning and purpose that causes love. That is all I will say about it except that contrary to some feelings, it could be that more groveling is needed and not less for many people.

Whose photo is on your driver's license?

Well everyone, how are you doing. This is a normal worldly monk post like most of my old ones.  And it is about the common teaching for people that their identity is "in Christ."  And I just want to say that I think that as people try to use their gifts and help others, then some of their identity actually might be found in a more multi-faceted quality of who they are as they participate in life. So while it is good to not base things too much on other people's perceptions or success that can be taken away, if people keep seeking some undefinable thing called "identity" in God or "Christ," who in the end, is really his own self, then they might miss out on some ways of being that could have ironically been more beneficial in the long run. In fact, the more I have done the best I could in any way, the more I find that idea to be a cheap religious teaching that doesn't make that much sense, when so many people could be happier and fulfilled by investing in things that really bring them to life in a good way and cause a great harvest of almost anything. Are people saying that quote as a response to identity politics and racism? I think that a more actualizing achievement-based strategy could help with that too.  People say, this is why you have lost everything in your life and God knows you held secret selfish ambitions.  But I know that is not true and that most people have no idea what they mean when they tell everyone their identity is "in Christ" except to say please stop doing things well because at church our veiled message every time is that we are better than you.

video of practice talk for a youth group

 Hey everyone here is a link to a practice talk I gave for a church youth group about poetry and mental illness/depression:

https://www.facebook.com/Refriedbeanpoet/videos/459686251897589

Questionable Theology

Ok everyone.  I just talked to a pastor at my church and I asked her one of my recent theological questions which is basically how much righteousness do we get from Christ.  Like do we get our own righteousness restored and just get to be ourself as a good person after all, or do we get something infinite in some way, or do we actually get credit for saving people from their sins.  That is where I would say probably not but that was what Christ's righteousness accomplished.  I think this has to do with a concept called limited atonement which is a commonly un-agreed upon thing.  And my pastor is a Baptist but she said that she thinks it might not be about credit. And I think she might be right and I might have been plotting to just get a paycheck from what happened at the cross. Well that is very rude and yet kind of a good idea and I already did apply to be a chaplain at a hospital so I could pray for miracles and then sell some kind of miracle tonic like the risperdal and trileptal that I was supposed to take to prevent these blog posts. 

Raca, Fool, Nietzche

Ok so they are saying that the Enoch story could mean justice already happens 

but to me it could still be the tip of the iceberg for Enoch

and I would say an interesting case to look at alongside that would be

Nebudchadnezzer who eventually did come around, didn't he?  

So does he not get the whole works and if so are we going to say

the justice was in his cow days

or are we going to say

the justice is in the recording of his cow days

and does the recording ever go away, and if so,

then wouldn't the word be the will and the will

include a recording and an unrecording?

That is probably why letters are not the same

as ink splotches although they can be

in the computer world

that might fade

if other machines take over,

like squirrels and rabbits.

But anyway I genuinely don't know

but think people need to figure it out real quick

because that is why a lot of people think

that meditation is the same as prayer

which I kind of say in the next post

but of course don't really believe.

An Off the Wall Devotional for Young People

Well everyone, some people lately have been sharing the lepsog with me.  What is the lepsog, you ask?  Well I will tell you. L-E-P-S-O-G. It is the opposite of the gospel. Basically it is when people say you can't be blessed because you did some kind of defining thing wrong or your particular combination of mistakes happens to be the exact code that unleashed all the evil into the world.  And that seems to be what has happened with some of my lifelong efforts to be productive. What else could account for this ongoing instablity and disability and threats to lose everything even before it is gained, always paying everyone a life savings to participate at all, with bad things magnified and good things completely ignored if not destroyed on purpose? Well some of us who have been patient with lepsog tactics like that have found that we can defeat that kind of evil by doing the unexpected, which is staying alive. So our lives are full of secret messages that can be read backwards for some good news. And some day, when people finally fight all the medusas who have ruined this world, it will just take some mirrors to set things right and access a great story to read about good people who did what they were supposed to.

cartoon from Rhymes With Orange

Trilogistic Chart of Innocence

 

books available on smashwords:

 

Prize Package 63 Link

prize package 63 

e-books on smashwords by Refried Bean

That We Would Be Called Children of God

Something on Judgement Day that I am not looking forward to is seeing snakes crawl out of my mom's soul in front of everyone, and seeing my dad's grief as he is confronted about his own role in her unrelented abuse of me and psychological dependence that she convinced herself was okay. All of us there at the dreaded day of reckoning will feel the same as we do now, totally unsurprised yet horrified as we sort through the video footage and narrative documentations of the life scenes that turn out to have black bats and rabid pterodactyls flying through each infested backdrop once the spiritual-filter is applied and the whole reality is apparent.  It will be literally dangerous to view the footage of my early years working at barnes and noble, with actual pythons and vipers emerging from the screens and snapping and lashing at all of us conferencing there at whatever Judgement Day location somehow exposes what people refused to deal with on earth. We will go through each segment of recorded evidence, dodging snakes with slitted eyes and giant fangs dripping with actual still-potent venom, probably re-biting and killing some of the friends and neighbors there with us who I thought were safe from additional Satanic attack. I will say, God, my sister already got stung by a jellyfish at the beach one time. I could hardly bear to see it. Can't that be enough?  But it wasn't enough on earth, so why would I expect it to ever be final later on. That is why as part of whatever group of Presbyterians I am assembled with in the horrifying haunted-wilderness-nightscape-welcome-center to eternity, I already know that I will have to rely on my prepared consolation of saying, "I knew we were wrong all along." My preserved doubt will be like the lemon jolly rancher I found in my pocket on the hike back down from Mt. Mitchell as a kid, which was too long of a hike anyway, just like our other trips through the mountains erroneously claimed by the Scotch-Irish, who found their way to South Carolina after becoming too proud that there were no more snakes in Ireland.

"All the Jews Will Be Saved"

Well, already another blog post after quite a doozie about purgatory. But I want to mention a Bible verse that I find very assuring and that is a verse that says "All the Jews will be saved." I forgot where it is in the Bible and I do not care about the context. I don't. I just simply believe it and have hope. But I also know that Jesus Christ is the only savior and the only authority who has essentially made it allowable for anyone to be considered Jewish if they want to. That is why the Old Testament is part of the Bible.  I also simultaneously believe that no one will be saved without faith in Christ.  Well that is where it gets confusing, because one of the great gifts from Judaism is the fact that the Jewish people kept their faith as it is for thousands of years and many have maintained loyalty to that without converting to Christianity. I think some of the answers to the apparent conundrums can be found in the way Jesus died with a sign over him that said King of the Jews.  His power to save his people no matter what they believe may have to do with that identity held on to until the end. The other thing I have to wonder is if some people will lose their Jewishness if they refuse to recognize their king.  Well I don't know, and presbyterian predestination theology might line up with the idea that they don't have to because he recognized them first, and catholic purgatory theology might suggest that of course they eventually will, and waiting until they actually see it is what keeps it real. Well way to go everyone, I might be Jewish myself but probably only got included in Israel as an after thought trailing from God's eternal being.

This is why I am a Catholic

Ok everyone, it seems that it is time to discuss the concept of Purgatory. Why do I sometimes believe in and make plans for purgatory? Presbyterians generally believe there is heaven, hell, and earth, which includes a strict and ordained time limit to experience saving faith in Jesus Christ, without whom no one will be saved from a just and thorough punishment for sin, possibly in a way that lasts for eternity.  I veer from some of these perspectives sometimes by suspecting either that a more final death as a punishment is possible, which would be like a type of annihilation, or that redemption is still possible beyond the grave. I have had to make room for those possibilities in my mind because of caring about hundreds of millions of other sinners who do not believe the same things that I do, and who often don't seem as bad as I am! How can I account for continuing problems in my own life after a definite faith in God, confirmed by now in many ways from the Holy Spirit, and especially how can I tolerate seeing millions of people I care about permanently, horrifically, and irrevocably choose what amounts to perpetual agony forever, all the while being told to alleviate suffering on earth as much as possible. What I most can't get around has to do with believing that death itself is probably not likely to be the automatic or even most common gateway to final righteousness for anyone. People do become clean and righteous in this world, which continues to be imperfect while we live out our lives, so how could anyone assume that what is right after death is automatically perfect, even if people immediately see Christ and are cleansed because of it?  Most people know they face a reckoning for sins in some way after dying, so who is to say that it will be a totally happy experience? The Bible actually says there will be tears, and maybe the fact that they call it Judgement Day instead of something like a Year of Jubilee means something in terms of the process and timing.  But God says a day is like a thousand years to him and a thousand years like a day. So I do not mean to make anyone lose their hope of immediate relief in any way, because the Bible does promise total eternal joy for all believers in Christ and not necessarily for anyone else at all.  However, as an evangelical with a severe scrupulosity OCD, I have found that occasionally embracing almost any belief from Catholicism, including the possibility of millions of years of purgatory, puts me in theology territory where I see a whole new world of justice and opportunity that makes me pray with hope and love for anyone. I am still a fundamentalist of many sorts, but I want to present this purgatory idea to help other people who are in constant torment caused by not really knowing what will actually happen to people in God's presence, which might be part of life now more than we realize. I do not suggest it as an alternative to trusting Christ alone, but while we experience earth and suffering for whatever reason, the concept of purgatory can be a useful mental health strategy to find middle ground that could very well turn out to be a true and obvious reality dearly bought for us by the greatest mediator ever, Jesus Christ, who died and rose again to welcome any friend needing salvation.

eternal york t shirt

 Ok everyone here is the t shirt I made. Do you guys think I crossed any lines with it? I think it is a cool shirt and I am excited about wearing it sometimes. It is true I might start a club and then pass out tracts and communion sometimes in various locations. People might assume that would be unauthorized but I am not sure it would be. After this post I will probably go back to my normal worldly monk posts, though I might add in some bible opinions sometimes like commentary that is different from theology ideas or christian life strategies. if you have not read the bible much before I will tell you my favorite book which never gets old and that is the book of matthew. Most people say to read the book of John first but I like the sermon on the mount which is Matthew 5-7. Genesis is also awesome and Revelation which is freakishly similar to the point where I have wondered if the beginning of the world and even the big bang is in the future and it creates a time loop where everything starts over. People in Genesis live for about 700 years and what if that was from health advances in the year 3000. Isaac Asimov suggests a similar idea in his story called The Last Question but it was presented for fun as a story so he might not get in as much trouble as me. But I am not going to get in trouble at all because of Jesus Christ and that is why I go ahead and do some crazy stuff like make t shirts that possibly only I understand.