Little by little

Julie and I have chickens.  They hang out in the backyard, clucking and scratching and pooping and laying eggs much as you may have heard chickens do.  Julie actually has them trained to come running out to her every time she sees them and eat out of her hand.

One of the side effects of owning these chickens is that they scratch the ground all day long.  And we have this thick, nasty ivy that takes up most of our backyard.  Slowly, scratch by scratch, these chickens have begun eradicating the ivy.  We didn't really notice a change at first, but now, 3 months later, half of our ivy is gone!

Change can happen suddenly, of course, but in this case, change happens

S

   L
     
      O

         W
 
            L

               Y.

I hope this is an encouragement to you.  If you feel like you are not where you want to be or who you want to be, remind yourself to just scratch enough ivy out for today and when you look back in 6 months, you're going to be amazed at how far you've come.

Newtown, Old Story, and an Ungrateful Heart

I can’t stand the news right now.  All of the talk about the Newtown Massacre has got me pissed at humanity.  I mean, right down to the corest of cores of humanity.  Here’s what I hate:

I hate that the media jumps on events like these, giggling like school children because their ratings go up.

I hate that Americans devour everything that the media says, like an obese child at the dinner table- not even pausing to think about what we are cramming into our mouths.

I hate that minutes after a tragedy like this, “experts” are called in to the scene to offer their objective opinions on what caused this and who is at fault and to tell us how we should feel about it.

I hate that every time there’s a massacre like this the issue of gun control comes up and people on both sides of the issue say incredibly mean and insensitive things about the other without working together to try to prevent more killings.

I hate that we kill our own fellow humans.

I hate that we are surprised that we kill our own fellow humans because it happens every day.

I hate that it happens every day.

I hate that we gobble up violent video games and violent movies and pretend that it isn’t affecting the way we see people.  It is.  And it’s horrific.

I hate that inside me, right now, I’m mad at that stupid kid for acting out the way he did while at the same time I am secretly contemplating getting a gun to protect myself which will only further the vicious circle of violence.

I hate that although I have never physically killed a living soul, I am still a part of the problem.  I am still killing children every day.

Because I am an American.

And I have been brainwashed by my own fear and lust for entertainment.

God help us.

Halloween Blasphemies

This October 31st I decided to browse Wikipedia and see if anything interesting came up in regards to keeping the tradition of Halloween.  A few interesting things:

1.  The idea of honoring deceased saints (those who are "hallowed") on the 1st of November was around for quite awhile longer than Halloween.  Some people think it sprang up based on pagan rituals, but it makes sense to me that Christian children would want to try to scare each other the night before you were going to recognize holy dead people.
2.  Jack o' Lanterns were originally just candles put inside skulls, left out at graveyards.  Morbid, huh?  Some think that it was a representation of souls burning in hell.
3.  People originally used to wear masks on Halloween to hide their identity from spirits who were roaming the earth looking for vengeance on those who wronged them while they were alive!  It was the spirit's last chance before they were sucked back to hell or wherever.  Gruesome...

But on a serious note.

Some close friends of mine have been experiencing deaths in their families.  I see them wrestle with feelings of pain, anger, resentment, joy, sorrow... it's overwhelming for them.  My heart goes out to them in their pain.  When I lost my grandmother, my grandpa turned into such a weeping mess that I have always looked at life differently ever since.

What happens to us after we die?  Sure, I can just regurgitate what I've heard others in my Faith recite dutifully from others that have regurgitated what others have recited before them.  But let's get real, Christians.  We don't know.  We make shit up that sounds good and doesn't seem to contradict with Scripture too much.  But we've got weird stuff to go off of: beasts with multiple heads and eyes everywhere and seventy times seven hundreds more than you thought were necessary to carry a point across... (I'm poking fun at Revelation, btw, which is most likely not a smart thing to do, but I have already established that I'm a blasphemer)

People say that I'm a Universalist because I, like Rob Bell, believe that LOVE wins, and the whole notion of God saying, "Nope, you had your chance, and you blew it! Now suffer forever" doesn't compute.  I believe we have a choice- God can't force us to love him- but there will be a day when we will see God's goodness in it's full and complete nature and we will be unable to resist His love. People say that that's just wishful thinking.  I tend to think these people are the true wishful thinkers.  They like the idea of "bad people" being kicked out of the "good people's" 700 club so that they can enjoy all the Holy Martinis by themselves, uninterrupted by freaks and whatnot.  They focus on symbolic things that Jesus said in order to manipulate others into reforming or just puffing up their own egos.  That's not what Christ was about.

Really the only people Christ questioned in regards to their immortal soul were the overly religious folk.  The people that Christ said would be in heaven were those who were often pitted as last or least likely or (hell!) diseased and decrepit- cast out by society.

Well, this wasn't supposed to get all preachy, but this is stream of consciousness here.

The point is that we don't know and there's nothing to be gained by taking the position that we do.  We are finite beings with this insatiable urge for the infinite.  We will be met by God.  And he will see us, just as we are.  That can be pretty horrifying and comforting at the same time.