Out of the Funk while being in one

I'm having an inner dialog.  It goes something like this:

"Tim."

"Yes?"

"You need to go out there and DO stuff."

"Yeah, I know."

"Like... go make some friends."

"Uh."

"..And find a hobby that gets you out of the house..."

"Yep."

"...And start working out again!"

"rrrrright..."


Do you ever have conversations like that?  Of course you do.  Unless you are like the men in my family.  They all are self-starters.  Do-it-yourself-ers.  I drag and drag my feet.  It's not that I don't WANT to.  I just feel this huge lack of initial thrust.  Once the wind is at my back-- WHOA!  Look out!!  But before I feel that breeze, I'm pretty nominal.

I auditioned for a band.  They needed a singer and I'm doing NOTHING with my music right now, so I thought, what the hey, I'll ride on their steam.

I haven't gotten a call back.

Whoops.  Guess that's what happens when you don't practice.  You start sucking.

And the thing is, i REALLY WANTED TO JOIN THEIR BAND.

They had this cool modern funk thing going and I had all these visions of me being the front man, working the crowd...

Nope.

Perhaps I should try a new hobby.

I'm ok with ambiguity

You ever have that moment when someone asks you a specific question, asking for a specific answer to which you don't really have that perfect solution?  I had this happen to me, recently.

A newer friend of mine ( who I have no idea where he stands in terms of religion, etc) asked if I was sure I was going to heaven, since he knew I was a Christian.  I had made a comment like, "If there's a heaven and I'm allowed in..." and he was taken aback.

"I thought all Christians had that issue taken care of." He said.

Yeah.

I remember there were a few people Christ said weren't going to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.  And NO, it wasn't Paul's list of "fornicators and homosexuals and anyone who doesn't share my extremely narrow view of salvation through beating myself up".  It was those who were pretty damn sure they were going to heaven.  The Pharisees.  Heck, they were doing everything right!  They were obeying practically every commandment.  They were penitent, pure, and devoted.  They taught the scriptures to the unbelievers and adhered to a "set apart" life style.

And they were most likely all going to hell.  The brood of vipers.

Jesus' words, not mine.

So the whole concept of being "assured" that I am going to heaven has been a lesson in ambiguity to me.  Despite the fact that those who are "confident in their salvation" are, in general, JERKS-- I think they are often the illustrations of Jesus' parables.  And not the good kind of illustration.  They are the 'what not to be.'

Those who "have their act together" in modern Christian circles have put on pressure for others to see if they are worthy of heaven.  "Have you accepted Christ into your heart?  Have you prayed the prayer?  Is your life showing fruit of a life devoted to Jesus?"

These are questions designed to segregate, not to encourage true spiritual growth.

As a lightning storm thunders overhead, I can't help but be reminded of Yahweh's words, "I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion.."

The Lord be with you.

The Disciple Whom Jesus Loved

So, I might get in trouble for this post.

But something's been nagging at me for awhile.  The question is in regards to the awkward topic of Jesus' sexuality.

So, he was fully man, right?  FULLY man?

What man doesn't have, well, urges (to put it gently) for either members of the opposite or same sex??  Eunuchs, I suppose...  But aside from them!!  Isn't this a part of our human experience!?  Why should we expect Jesus to not have this?

And, unless you wanted to argue that all sexual desires for another are evil (you would also have to argue that Adam and Eve never had sex in the garden) and since Jesus is pure he never "sinned"... I think we have to deduce that Jesus DID in fact, desire others in a sexual way.

Is there any evidence in scripture that Jesus favored someone over another??  Well, the fiction writer Dan Brown likes to play off of the whole Mary Magdalene thing... But I don't think there's any evidence to support that- just wishful thinking.  And then I was reading one of Julie's textbooks that pointed out this verse:

John 13:23-

There was at the table reclining in Jesus bosom one of his disciples, whom Jesus loved. (ASV)

Did anyone else rest on Jesus' bosom??  (no)  Did anyone else achieve the status, "The one whom Jesus loved"?  (no)  Later in this same scene, the disciples want to figure out who is going to betray Jesus, but Peter, who is in Christ's inner circle, doesn't have the guts to ask him who it is going to be, so he nudges the one who is resting on Jesus' bosom to ask the hardest question of all, which he does.  I encourage you to reread the whole chapter.

Doesn't that say something?  I don't want to read what's NOT in the text, but I don't want to miss WHAT IS GLARINGLY OBVIOUS, just because it's hard to wrap my mind around the idea...  

Could Christ, in fact, have been sexually oriented towards other men?  

BLASPHEMY!!!

Okay, okay.

But seriously!!  I'm not saying he did or didn't do anything with it, but to me the signs are pointing to the fact that he had special feelings towards one of his disciples and all the other disciples knew it.  Does this in any way destroy his Divinity?  NO.  How about his humanity?  NO.  If anything, it strengthens the notion that he did, in fact, suffer the temptations that all mankind suffers through.  Just think about it... And don't write me off as a heretic just yet.