Well, we are only one week away from moving out to Utah. Regardless of how much crap we pack, there seems to be more of it. Mary Lee is out with her Mops group, and I have just gotten the kids to go to sleep. I seem to take multiple month breaks between writings. I think that is due mostly to the fact that I always have something on my mind that I would like to write about, but it would be long, so therefore I never get started on it. For example, tonight the issue of LDS folks is on my mind. I seem to be wayyyyy left of most evangelicals on this topic, and am probably still pretty left of the rank and file in my church... and they are a pretty open bunch.
I am not going to sit here and type out my developing views on LDS. Too much to say. I will say this, I am determined to learn about their faith from them .... not from people who oppose them. I will also add, just so you can get a sense of my direction, that I do not think their beliefs in what happened before we were born, or what happens after we die, in any way effects their or anyone else's salvation. My Theology is (and here I borrow a metaphor from Terry Taylor) Koko the Gorilla describing a California earthquake with his 300 word sign language vocabulary - "Damn Floor, Big Bite". Paul said we see through a darkened glass and we know in part. Therefore, I am not going to be so presumpteous to disqualify them (or anybody) for having theology that doesn't wash with me. My caveman-pounding on rocks to describe the Almighty probably sound to his ears an awful lot like their poundings.
Tuesday, July 13, 2004
Friday, April 23, 2004
What is that to you?
It is funny that as I read all that I have written on this blog in the past I find that I do not disagree with it. Everything I wrote is still valid. Those questions still are not answered.
So then.... why would I go out to Salt Lake?
That is hard to answer, because it depends on when the question is asked.... but since I am asking it now, I will give now's answer.
There is a part in John when, after Jesus had given a hard teaching, a bunch of people left him. Jesus turns to Peter and asks if he is going too? Peter's answer is, "Where else would I go."
I think that answer explains why Christ had such a heart for Peter. That was such a non-bullcrap answer. How many times Christ must have listened to the prim peacocks and the regurgitators, saying what they were supposed to say, sounding like they had it together when in honesty they were as hollow, if not more so, than anyone else. Peter gave the best answer he could. He would like to leave. He did not like what was happening. But there were simply no other options.
I also like Jesus' response to Peter at the end of John. Jesus tells Peter about a number of nasty things that are going to come his way in the years to come. Peter points over to John and says... "What about him?'
Jesus says something like, "What is that to you? You follow me."
I kind of get the impression that that has been his word to me of late. I used to (and still do) see other people's burdens and tragedies and think God Why? How? What for? .... I feel like Christ is looking at me and saying, "What is that to you? You follow me."
I think so many of my doubts and insecurities about God have risen as I have watched how he has dealt with other people. A man of God dies at a young age of cancer; a child begs for the life of her sick mother to no avail, a giving, kind man watches his son waste away to a horrible disease.
I distrust God vicariously.
I fear I may develop it experientially.
It is late and my brain is fuzzing out. I just wrote a paragraph of nonsense that I deleted. We will see where this is going at another time.
So then.... why would I go out to Salt Lake?
That is hard to answer, because it depends on when the question is asked.... but since I am asking it now, I will give now's answer.
There is a part in John when, after Jesus had given a hard teaching, a bunch of people left him. Jesus turns to Peter and asks if he is going too? Peter's answer is, "Where else would I go."
I think that answer explains why Christ had such a heart for Peter. That was such a non-bullcrap answer. How many times Christ must have listened to the prim peacocks and the regurgitators, saying what they were supposed to say, sounding like they had it together when in honesty they were as hollow, if not more so, than anyone else. Peter gave the best answer he could. He would like to leave. He did not like what was happening. But there were simply no other options.
I also like Jesus' response to Peter at the end of John. Jesus tells Peter about a number of nasty things that are going to come his way in the years to come. Peter points over to John and says... "What about him?'
Jesus says something like, "What is that to you? You follow me."
I kind of get the impression that that has been his word to me of late. I used to (and still do) see other people's burdens and tragedies and think God Why? How? What for? .... I feel like Christ is looking at me and saying, "What is that to you? You follow me."
I think so many of my doubts and insecurities about God have risen as I have watched how he has dealt with other people. A man of God dies at a young age of cancer; a child begs for the life of her sick mother to no avail, a giving, kind man watches his son waste away to a horrible disease.
I distrust God vicariously.
I fear I may develop it experientially.
It is late and my brain is fuzzing out. I just wrote a paragraph of nonsense that I deleted. We will see where this is going at another time.
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