"For the first few centuries after Christ the church tended towards believing everyone would be united with God in the end. Then the doctrine of Hell gained prominence.

So, let's see if I read this correctly - closer to Jesus we were more loving and inclusive, once man had time to make his own influence felt things started going to Hell."
David Mclaughlan

I wonder if this switch David is speaking of, had anything to do with the church becoming a political/cultural institution under Constantinople. Certainly force and power and control entered the picture then.
It seems obvious that to force someone to become a Christian completely and effectively bypasses the inner spirituality of a relationship with God.
Hell replacing God's love is pure and simple what happened. Makes you want to cozy right up!!

I am so bold as to think that the fox took over the henhouse a few hundred years ago and corrupted what a relationship with God was meant to be. The same human propensity still affects the church today, using force, control and manipulation through proper thinking and proper action to not enjoy a deep seated inner peace with God but to avoid punishment.

No wonder the church has not affected and deeply transformed the culture. It's not just a perversion to lead people to God through fear and intimidation, it doesn't work well!!

Abstract Vs. Relational

"It is, I grant you, a crass analogy; but crass analogies are the safest. Everybody knows that God is not three old men throwing olives at each other. Not everyone, I'm afraid, is equally clear that God is not a cosmic force or a principle of being or any other dish of celestial blancmange we might choose to call him. Accordingly, I give you the central truth that creation is the result of a trinitarian bash, and leave the details of the analogy to sort themselves out as best they can."

~Robert Farrar Capon

Source: The Romance of the Word: One Man's Love Affair With Theology : Three Books : An Offering of Uncles/the Third Peacock/Hunting the Divine Fox, Pages: 176


"Abstract principles and philosophies are much cleaner and more sterile and manageable than a personal God with personality, will and relational being. When we can reduce our theology to these abstract principles we can create a nice tidy little theology that leaves us feeling safe and in control of things. 

God becomes the giant vending machine in the sky into which we input the right currency, (our prayers, our efforts and our tithes for example) and then we can predictably wait on God to give us what we've paid for according to the divine system and transactional rules we've established.

Living in relationship with a Trinitarian God who embodies love and relationship and moving beyond the systems of what seems to me to be essentially just a form of Christianized Deism, is a very messy thing as opposed to the "safety" and "security" that we would rather find in an impersonal system that leaves us with predictable outcomes and overall control of everything in our lives."

Bart Breen https://www.facebook.com/pages/Trinitarianism/274624109277834?fref=ts

Some of us go through a very severe shift in who we are in life. Usually that shift has to do with all areas of life but sometimes it starts in a particular area, such as relationships not working at all, or breakdowns in the relationship repeating, and sometimes this shift has to do with our spirituality. 

Regarding how our friends can be with us in this often very painful and deep shift;

~ some people don't get it and they resist it for whatever reason.
~Some people don't get it but they stick with you and are with you in it even in their not understanding.
~And then there are people who understand it because they are there or have been through it.

It's interesting that all of life really is and has to be a certain fluidity to it to live it well.

That fluidity is what some people fear. Ironically especially if they are Christians and believe in the powerful goodness of God. They don't seem to trust the human spirit to take care of its self, and they don't seen to trust the hand of God in their life.

That may not be too surprising because many times people's personal dysfunction has become intermingled with the dysfunctions of religious systems and beliefs. So when they start the healing process of the spirit that process may understandable shift how they relate to religion.

What often happens is that the person shifts to a deeper and more intimate relationship with God thus emphasizing spirituality. 

The beauty and mystery of gardens.  

 I believe this photo was taken by a friend who is an amazing gardener and photographer, Kent Burgess.

 The Beauty Bush and some of the wonderful Iris I have in my garden.

What is this thing called "death?"

Tony used to work on my cars for me and apologize for what he had to charge me.  He was full of helpful advice regarding taking care of my automobiles.   He had clear and uninhibited opinions about many things including my son's cars and how he took care of them and drove them.   

 He was ribald and loved to laugh at his own jokes.  He was constantly aware of who was driving by and would know who they were and if they had been good to him or not.  And if they were out to get him.

He recently told me that when he was a young teenager because his step-dad and mother were disabled he would often be kept home from school to drive them to medical appointments or whatever.  And that his step-dad was abusive and he would take measures to avoid being hit even while he was driving.

Anyway, whatever, now he is no more.  At least here.  He was working on clearing land near his house and his backhoe wouldn't start and then I suppose unexpectedly it did and ran over him.   At something like 36 years of age his life here is done.  Complete.   Over.

Now his wife is without a husband and his son and daughter have no dad.  Now for them I imagine there will struggle and memories and faded pictures.

And I am in this surreal world where I drive by his house or drop off some flowers for his wife and I avoid the torn up patch of ground where I suppose the accident happened.  The backhoe thankfully is gone.

Something has ruptured.  The world feels different.  I look out my window towards the direction of his house and tears well up.  I'm not entirely sure why but I think it has to do with unfinished business and what seems like the futility of life.   One cantankerous backhoe and death shows up eager and vengeful.

Anyway,  there will be a memorial service and a burial and life will go on.

For some reason I don't even consider "where" Tony is now.  I choose to have a certain belief regarding God and so I don't worry about Tony.  His life with in some ways was always a struggle is over and he is in love.  I don't know where, I don't know how, well actually I do have a clue, but I'm sure he is well taken care of.

So here I sit with no answers really.  The sun is shining, the rest of the household will get up and life on the surface will go on.  But I tell you something was ruptured and will never be the same.  For me at least there is a golden remedy that fills the cracks but the cracks of life are always there even though the event of the breaking may fade.

Rest in peace, Anthony Clark.

Heart Happens

I've been thinking about how we get (or don't) get each other's heart. I realized this is a metaphor for something. So it's not going to be described precisely but perhaps the conversation around something indescribable is the beauty of it.

I am fortunate to have a lot of friends that "get" my heart and I get theirs. We relate at what I would call a heart level. It's interesting that I'm quite sure we have dramatically different political perspectives, we are all over the place in how we understand (or misunderstand God) but that is immaterial to the enjoyment of our friendship.

I love something one of those friends posted this morning;

"I still crave the extravagant gesture, the woman spilling a year’s wages on the feet of Jesus, the rarest perfume, washing his feet and drying them with her hair, a gesture so sensual it left the other men in the room paralyzed with criticism, analysis, theoretical moral concern - for what - the poor?

Or was it just misdirected outrage in light of the glaring poverty of their own imaginations?" Linford Detweiler

Jesus' interest in people must have so strongly connected with their heart. And it seems like often the people he connected with so strongly and beautifully were people with wounded hearts.

So I think there is something about the wounding and breaking processes, the processes that were so wrong or so painful and feels unredeemable, of life that open us up to heart connection. It's so often true that those events that have been painful make us respond by hiding our hearts away but also I think they create a yearning to have our hearts opened up and connected with others.

At least with people that we think value our heart. Not our wisdom, our beauty, but our heart.

The mystery of that heart. Just as I believe God finds endless enjoyment watching us grow and act and be, we find people who connect with that open-ended invitation to be who we were created to be.

When we are in conversation with those people it feels open and inviting. We don't have to measure our words. We get to experiment in ways that perhaps have been shut down for years.

Silliness becomes possible. Wisdom unexpectedly shows up. Tears happen. Empathy connects us. We walk away invigorated and refreshed.

Rob Bell and my family, a parable

My kids don't have to struggle to be my kids that I love so much. They don't have to do anything. If they want to participate in that relationship all they have to do is rest in being my kids. I don't require that they love me, though I like that, they don't have to do special practices altho hey, if they give me a little red two-seater as I have requested, I'd love it.

I haven't given them a booklet on how to maintain that family relationship because thankfully at some point we developed a healthy "spirit" of the family that they can either grow in or grow away from. I'm not even requiring that Scott love me the same way Tim does, and I certainly don't need Jenny to keep track of Jesse's way of being with me.

As we love each other, our being with each other will grow and develop and change if it needs to, to allow us to continue to love each other in ways that work.

Are there specific ways of being and doing that will enhance the relationship? Yup! Could we develop and use a booklet to enhance the growth of love in the family? Sure enough.

But without referencing the "spirit" of the family, even following the instructions in that booklet won't produce more closeness in fact it could lead to disjointedness.

I have to wonder if part of the enjoyment of my family is that I just plain and simply think my kids are the best. Thinking of them, and the fact that they are where they are, just gives me pleasure.