aintsobad

The End is Near

   For those who have not read my booklength blog memoir at aintsobad, entitled "Service Interrupted," you probably want to do so in the next day or so.

   I have a hard copy of the memoir for myself. I am about to take it down, sometime in the next few days. It has served its purpose. To leave it up now seems somehow inappropriate.

   Randel Everett is trying hard to do some trust building. He deserves every chance anyone can give him. For this reason, I am seriously considering removing all that work for the blogosphere.

   Take care.

She Changed Her Name to Mine

   She changed her last name to my last name.

   Little matter; we would be no less married if she had kept her "maiden" name.

   Still, thirty four years and one month and a few days ago, she took my last name.

   This is a thing of wonder to me, even now. In fact, it is more a thing of wonder to me now.

   This vivacious, overly intelligent, precise, strong-willed, lovely creature, took my last name. She has now answered to Davis a good deal longer than to her birth name.

   The phone message on our machine is her voice, saying, "You have reached the Davis family."

   This is a wondrous thing.

   I cannot explain the numinous nature of a submissive relationship among equals. It must be willing, loving: like magnets operating on metal, with both the powerful attractor and each the willing responder.

   This is a wondrous thing.

BlogEthics: Why Things Will Get Worse, Then Better

   History imitates itself.

   History imitates itself because humans make history. What happens to humans makes history. A man eating a bear is not news. A bear eating a man is not only news, it is tragedy. This is true even though there are many more men than bears.

   Basic human need drives history. Trapped in mammalian form, man must eat every day, drink copious amounts of water and, virtually hairless, shelter himself from heat and cold. Until human need changes, or humanity disappears, history will replicate itself .

  Humanity teeters ever on the brink of destruction. Conception among humans depends on access, desire, nutrition and willingness (or force). Even after conception, a nine month gestation produces only the most fragile of beings, with a long, helpless infancy before it. The clan (family, social group, significant others) must nourish and protect the child.

   Human nature intrudes on need. The human response to stimuli, at once self-effacing and self-empowering, malicious and charitable, writes history as well. Humanity invents words like generosity, kindness and nurture to describe both what it sees and what it hopes to be. The other words, vindictiveness, hatred and greed, seem as often to appear sans vocare. 

   Reliance on humanity as revealed by acquisitive nature is limited at best. Jefferson could write of the "certain inalienable rights" and Lincoln would appeal to the "better angels of our nature." Still, greed pushes man when he leaves the womb and harder when he exits the cave. Curious men climb the mountain. The same men erode its surface to make a path. One obtains the crest by exertion. He invites his fellows to follow more easily, for a price.

   One day, some day, man will learn to live with one another as lovers, rather than seek to rule over one another like lords. God speed the day.

   We are more likely to see the Day of Love as we work out our understanding of the Sacred. The earth, for instance is not sacred itself. In fact, it is as sin stained as the inner man and perhaps more intent on its own salvation. The earth is perishing, perishes now, will finally perish in complete redemption. Christian environmentalism mars itself when it speaks of the holy earth. God is holy. God's people God enjoins to be holy as God is holy. The earth is renewable by act of God.

   That is, God is unavailable in Creation, though visible in works. Creation (Nature, the ecology, the planet) will be renewed in God. Prayer is as important as recycling, if God is and cares.

   Tell the name in God's belly. Men think we know. The name is some variant of Power, Awe, Authority. Men would be better men, one thinks, if they could get better gods. The search for the Name God Keeps Hidden presupposes god is transformed by association with man. The Biblical idea seems to be that God transforms man when man associates with God.

   Too much to read? Take the weekend off. Happy fourth.

  

  

  

  

  

  

BlogEthics: Moral Engagement

   Can two walk together except they be agreed?

   Can two walk together in agreement if both are thinking?

   What happens when the little guy wants to get out of step with the big guy?

   Children, we call that last act "revolution," by which we mean "rebellion with a high purpose."

   Rebellion with a high purpose, like the American Revolution, is the direct result, often, of moral engagement. Moral engagement is a state of passion, out of which an idealist may coyly refrain from either side of an argument or actively take neither side or "revolve" from one "side" to another according to his/her conscience. He/she may seem to waffle, when in fact, he/she holds to his/her convictions without shift as the world goes mad around him/her.

   Moral engagement will not remain moral long without self-criticism. Side taking is often necessary but just as often amoral and not too seldom immoral. Self-criticism disallows side-taking as the final goal of a rebellion with high purpose.

   Moments occur in the lives of most people when, for a moment, their soul is open and one can see the truth of their identity. This is rare, to be sure, as most learn to hide the lustful gleam. As rare as it may be to let someone else look into the windows of the soul, it may be no less precious to see inside there for oneself. The double minded man is unstable in all his ways, the Book says, and forgets his image as he puts down the glass.

   Simply put, one must morally engage himself as he rounds the circle of life. What does he do from conviction and what does he do prompted by circumstance? Does he have that most splendid political adroitness, the genius to see up around the next bend? Or, can even human history be said to proceed in sequential stages?

   Imagine, then, a circle, again. The circle does not allow light in or out of its boundaries but only deepens the depth of the kingdom of light as it expands its own borders. Explosions occur in the circle itself, pushing against its arcing self, propelling objects against her. Still, the circle holds, expanding not for the sake of containment but growing quite because she does contain mighty forces. The circle cannot "explain" all the forces working on her, nor even "describe" them. Yet, the circle "comprehends" these forces, using their power to expand, while she maintains the integrity of her own shape by means of her own "conviction." 

   What is it in us that helps us hold our shape when mighty powers explode within us? I think there must be two "things." That is, there must be room to expand when our borders are forced outward. Then, there must also be something pushing against each part of our circle, equally, holding us "in round," while we grow.

   This room to expand we most often call "the heavenlies." The force holding us in round we most often call "God." God, in love, beckons us into the heavenlies, while divine grace wraps around us, holding us in shape, symmetrical and so functional, but ever expanding.

   It is "God" after all, in which we live and move and have our being.

  

  

  

BlogEthics: Providence

   God arranges history.

   Eternal God laps over on both sides of time. When time was not, God is. When time is, God is. When time is no more, God still is.

   The One True Living God dooms death. In the society of God, death dies and life lives. Death is temporary. Life endures.

   The Providential God, the History Arranger, Death Killer, Life Giver, is the God everyone either believes in or wants to know.

   Non-believers announce their trust in providence when, in tumultuous times, the say, "I believe everything happens for a reason."

   Believers say, in stressful times, "God has a purpose in all this."

   Paul writes, "In all things God works to do good to those who love God and are called to fulfill God's purpose. The ones God foreknew, God also predestined to be transformed into the image of His Son, so that His Son is the First Born of a large family."

   Egalitarians may recoil at words like "foreknow," and "predestin." In fact, these are words of liberty and fraternity. The grace of God makes this so.

   Charles Stanley says, "Mercy is when God does not give us what we do deserve. Grace is when God does give us what we do not deserve."

   In grace, God applies providence, in history, to men and women, to boys and girls. Providence, misapplied, might end in deteminism or fatalism.  Graciously applied, providence, even in its "wrathful" form, for some conditions allow only wrath, soothes and heals.

   Consider the Prodigal Parable. The father allows the son's self-destructive tendencies but looks for his return each day. If, as we think, the father is so intent upon the son's restoration, why does the father allow the son to leave at all? If he wants the prodigal again in the family, why would he not go to look for him?

   In point of fact, the Prodigal may return. The father even looks for his return. The father does not go to look for him because it is not the father who has erred. Where the father is is still home.

   The father will not join the Prodigal in the pig-sty.

   Providentially, graciously, the father will provide an avenue of return for the Prodigal.

   As yesterday, love is most lovely when it appears without prior announcement. If there is a name metonymous for love, it would be the name of Jesus. In this name, there is the active intention of God (providence), applied gracously, with mercy, in apparent affection. One uses religion poorly when you use religion to impart "moral values." In fact, religion, to be of value. must transcend morality by means of eternal, transforming love.

   Love is the divine corrective for the human tendency to evil. If love conquers all, if mature love  casts out fear, the first application of love ought to be to one's habitual hatred for self and for his fellows. That is, providence applies to the individual and to the collective. God intends for me to be better. God wants us to be better. God intends for us to be better. I can do/be/behave better on my own, for myself but that is not in line with the divine intention. God brings each man to other men in order to make all men better.

n

  

  

  

  

BlogEthics: Tyrant and Martyr

      Love may be most joyful when it is unanticipated. For instance, if Jesus, the Christ, comes into the world to be the Typical Messiah, He might run the risk of trading the tryanny of the Romans or the collobrative ham-handedness of the Sadduccees for a dictatorship of the (religious, nee Christian) proletariat. Instead, Jesus announces His Kingdom is atypical. He insists that anyone who insists He rule like any but the Heavenly Father mistakes Him and His Father and His Spirit.

   For whatever it is they miss, the early Church founders do comprehend the expanse of the Christian Kingdom, founded in the sacrifice of the Christ and so continuous through the presence of the Holy Spirit. Christ the King is not a tyrant in the earthly sense of fiated command. Nor is the Christ a martyr to a deceased cause.

   The Christ, however, reveals Christself as the unchanging presentation of God before humanity. There is no give or take in His presentation of Himself as man as man should be or of Himself as God is.

   In His factual presentation of Himself Christ must insist on the transformation of man-who-would-follow Him, for man is not what man ought to be. If he were, the Christ would certainly not need to come into the world, to live or die.

   In this way, Christ can be characterized as "tyrant." If you pull out your dictionary, you will of course discover a "tyrant" in the old Greek understanding of the word, is any cruel or despotic ruler, or anyone who arrogates to Himself a position of leadership and authority to which he is not entitled and so, usually, achieves this position by the bloody use of power.

   Jesus does all those things. Jesus insists on a position to which no one elected or appointed Him. His political standing in mocked at His trial and execution. He is told by one jurist that He is a blasphemer (talking for God, instead of talking about God; speaking with the personal claim of authority rather than by acquired experience).  By the other interlocutor He is told He has no power even over His own body.

   In all of His travels and trials, Jesus the Christ insists He is the earthly emobdiement of God. If you see Him, you see the Father. If you know Him, you know the Father. Miss Jesus, Jesus says, you miss God altogether.

   He could be branded a mere Reform Jew except for His personal claim to be the True Vine. He will tear down the Temple (worship) and in three days build it back in His own body.

   He is a tyrant, insisting on a spot no few think He should occupy. He is a tyrant, by the earthly definition.

   He is cruel, condemning HImself to so demonstrate the Father before men He Himself will undergo the most painful torture one might imagine. One supposes "demanding" could be substituted for "cruel" in the previous sentence but, really, was the Cross "demanding" or "cruel?"

   To mitigate His torture Jesus will not accept the least pallative. He feels it all.

   In point of fact, then, the only curative for His deathish tyranny is love. Love may be most joyful when it appears unanticipated. The last place one might look for love is in an execution chamber. In the death place one can wish for some small crumb of respect, at best. Love does not seem to fit the room, nor the stony hill where Jesus dies. He has to bring the love with Him.

   He uses His power cruelly, with all the cruelty aimed at Himself. He deflects the wrath from its rightful recpients, even praying for them (us) in our ignorance.

   He is a tyrant.

   He is a lover.

   He is a martyr.

   A martyr, you know, is a witness. A martyr knows something so personally, he/she will suffer the stake or languish in chains for his/her purpose.

   A martyr without a cause is a lunatic. A martyr with the wrong cause is just wrong (and dead).

   Lasting causes cannot just be against. A lasting cause must point to something better. The methods of the lasting cause cannot be said to "give the lie" to its intended end. When a cause loses its way, it loses its end.

   So, Jesus and Judas Iscariot may be members of the same band, with Judas committed to the violent overthrow of the Romans, while Jesus is commited to the foundation of a Kingdom of Heavenly Love in HIs own body and blood. Judas pursues his own very earthly cause with the attendant risk of replacing one human tyranny with another. Jesus tyranizes Himself, a method pointed to a final, loving end.

   One may first encounter Christ personally,  only to one day awaken and find oneself merely religious. You find you have replaced the love-intention of the Master with the despotism of the institution. Love is most joyous when it comes unexpectedly. Love may be most disappointing when it disappears into inaction or even morphs into a cause for  resentment. The Christ-martyr demonstrates the (cause) ethos of purposeful love ( do not be disturbed; the description of His love requires many modifiers).

   Life is not "too short" for inaction or resentment or (mere)  institutionalized religion. Life is too long for such petty wastes of time. In the Edenic socety of God's intent, life is durable and death is temporary. Could no who lives resentfully in this age be expected to find happiness in the next (much longer) phase? Or is it enough to accept religion in order to escape punishment?

   The martyr-Messiah does not spare Himself cruel punishment in order to establish His faith. He eschews the natural resentment of any innocent sufferer. What does this say?

   Life is too long for inaction, resentment, unconcern, dispassion, selfishness. If those are the lasting emotions, eternity is not worth much.

   So, Jesus, the Christ, orders a culture of "malice for none and charity for all..."

   When the bloody conflict ends, who will stand? If the Scripture is true, it will be those who stand with Jesus, in His resurrection, with Jesus, in his crucifixion.

   Why? Well, maybe tomorrow.

  

  

  

  

  

  

  

BlogEthics: Obligation or Privilege?

   No one must blog anymore than anyone must read a blog. If a blogger has nothing to say, he/she should not feel obligated to say it.

   A blog is much like a credit card. A credit card is good to use for credit but very bad to use for debt. When one allows a thirty day credit account to become a high-interest debt, it is not the "same as cash." A blog can be a good place to visit friends, venture out with thoughts and write about things that concern us. When a blog becomes a mandatory daily exercise tied to a high hit count it may lose its value.

   For instance, aintsobad is a Christian-based blog with certain standards of investigation and comment that would be unacceptable elsewhere. If Christianity itself is seen as unacceptable and unanswerable the only motivation to try it (as to read aintsobad) is individual need. That is, to come to Christ (and remain and grow; to convert) is the result when one finds something of personal value. Psychologists study "conversion" syndrome, only to find one can describe the incident of conversion much more readily than  plumb the depths of its issues. Long-term conversion differs as much from short-term conversion (attention getting, escape, release of anxiety) as night does from day.

   When men reject the old Calvinism, for instance, we believe we decide against fatalism, when, in fact, we actually make a memory of providence. In providence, God is not so much a determinist as a history-arranger. So long as I am revealing my absolutist stance, let me say the providential answer is the "only way" to answer the skeptic's questions about life, including destiny.

   That is, in the face of tragedy of epic proportions, or sin of heinous portent, or atrocity of colossal potence, the skeptic accepts no answer. The providentialist we leave to hold the proverbial bag. He must come to some answer. The skeptic may stop at the grave. The providentialist must wrestle with the horrors men impose on men and nature.  

   The difference between the skeptic, the fatalist and the providentialist may simply be seen as this: the providentialist sees what occurs as a result of action dependent on the intention of a determinative being with an active will, interrelative to the variables of human thought. The skeptic sees a random universe, the fatalist sees coming anarchy/catastrophe (easy enough to expect in this sphere) as the expected end to every action.

   No? There is a 5.8 billion dollar supercollider about to be turned on in France after twenty plus years of construction. Some believe the natural consequence of enacting the collider will be the creation of a black-hole that will inhale all of earth and indeed, the solar system, if not the galaxy. Talk about your fatalism. Trust the French to destroy the earth.

   If the earth will die in August, perhaps one could invest in some personal pleasures in July. What happens, however, to paraphrase the old song, if I see you in September?

   The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong but that is always the way to bet. Don't bet on an early or easy end. You are more likely to live longer out in eternity than in time now.

   So, Christians do more than villify evil for the sake of a skeptical good conscience, if Christ-like we be in truth. Christians war against evil, in word and deed. We invoke the terrible justice of God against evil, our own, or borrowed evil.

   Why may we (must we) do so? We may because the "judgements of the Lord are true and righteous." We must (or may) because the attributes we see in God are those we wish to see in ourselves and in our fellows.

   Any life, then, is privilege. Any corrective is obligation but joyful obligation. The first is the wind and the latter the whirlwind. We start in the wind. We calm the whirlwind.

   Aintsobad is one of those intolerant, exclusive screeds one keeps as a "guilty pleasure," I think. We argue here for Christian conversion and cannot wait to see it occur among Christians. Our thoughts move toward that purpose, regardless the direction our reading or experience takes us.

*For the sake of readers who find me somewhat wordy, please understand I had time to revise this post and deleted fifty words.

*No dictionaries were injured during the writing of this post.

  

Demise of IKant

   For several years I left up three typepad sites; aintsobad, pastor's pal and IKant. When I had more time or something, I fed all three fairly often. I Kant, for Immanuel Kant, was the direct result of daily readings in philosophical expression, which I continue to do.

   In fact, reading(again) Kant's Critique of Pure Reason, made me decide to take down what Dr. Roark and I had put on the spot for some time. I don't know what I think about Kant just now...or Hume...or Heraclitus. I am flying under a false flag to leave it up and I pay the freight here, so I took down I Kant. If I ever get my mind straight on Immanuel and David, I Kant may return. As to now, he is gone and a sad adieu...

Sermon Brief (Not a Brief Sermon): Acts 4:13-22

      Peter and John speak before the religious jurists of their day in Jerusalem. The men who judge Peter and John that day are the same men who killed Jesus a short time ago. The religious jurists do not repeat the social/religious actions necessary to arrest and try Jesus with Peter and John in the Temple.

    Why not?

   Apparently...

• The Religious Jurists do not understand the difference in Christian discipleship. That is, ancient discipleship (rabbinical schools included) intended for the disciple to surpass his mentor/master by making disciples for himself. In ancient Christianity, the purpose of discipleship was to draw persons into the Christian community in order to make disciples for Jesus Christ. The Religious Jurists seem to believe they can stop the whole thing if they can just get the disciples to stop talking about the Master, Acts 4:7; 17,18.
• The first commandment of the Christian disciple is to believe in, speak of and live according to the life of Jesus Christ. Believing is the first act of the Christian, Acts 4:18-19.
• Preaching is required. Preaching is dependent of past learning (experience and reflection; authority tested as well as accepted). Preaching sets the out the faith as well as recounting the history of the faith, Acts 4:18-19.
• Public opinion, more based on Christian good works, validates the worth of the Christian experience. Preaching and right living should be circular (simultaneous, continual, ever deepening) rather than consecutive (mutually exclusive), Acts 4:18-22

   The surprising aspects of the Christian experience include, but are not limited to:

• The will to do good, Acts 4:9
• The power to do well, Acts 4:16
• The wax and wane of boldness to speak, Acts 4:13 and 29. In church meeting, we ought to pray for the ability to confound the world with how we live and what we preach in the name of the One we serve.

Back to the Fat Man's Waddling Workout

   I am back at the gym with a vengeance. Somehow I let myself baloon up three to four pounds in the last eight weeks. This is unacceptable. I am getting up earlier and staying up later to get everything done and get in a higher impact workout.

   Fat cells, beware.