what we ode, we could never repay...

it's a shame Christians are collectively narrow-minded on occasion.
i've been reading a little lately from the odes of solomon. it's an apocryphal "book" of the bible, and more gnostic than fundamentalists like, and as such, you won't be seeing it in the bible for a long, long time. and honestly, the way books are chosen for the bible, it doesn't really belong with them... but everyone should read it, because in places, it's fantastically beautiful, and abstract, and probably too open to interpretation in many parts to be safe for people who love division and doctrine and denomination more than they love the God of love and unity.
but that's not the point... the point is really just that i wanted to share this passage, because it's something i wish everyone could understand, because it's something I wish i could understand, instead of just reading and hoping for. but revelation can't be solicited, it comes as it will, from God... so my hope, my wish, my desperate plea for myself and humankind in general today is that we all receive a revelation of this particular passage, because if we all understood this a little better, we'd be in a better position to offer ourselves the kind of love that god offers us, the unconditional kind that doesn't ever really seem to exist.

1 As the impulse of anger against evil, so is the impulse of joy over what is lovely, and brings in of its fruits without restraint: 2 My joy is the Lord and my impulse is toward Him: this path of mine is excellent: 3 For I have a helper, the Lord. 4 He hath caused me to know Himself, without grudging, by His simplicity: His kindness has humbled His greatness. 5 He became like me, in order that I might receive Him: He was reckoned like myself in order that I might put Him on; 7 And I trembled not when I saw Him: because He was gracious to me: 8 Like my nature He became that I might learn Him and like my form, that I might not turn back from Him.

I'm gonna say it again, because it's so amazing... "Like my nature He became that I might learn HIM and like MY FORM."
we need to learn Christ, and in doing so, learn to love ourselves through Him.

or at least, that's the ideal.

wouldn't it be amazing, though, if it was also everyone's personal truth?
i hope it's possible,
despite all the evidence to the contrary most days.

check out the rest of the odes at http://www.goodnewsinc.net/othbooks/odesolmn.html

the armor of god...

sorry, but i'm going into this post in the way i go into most of my posts, assuming that people who read them know the basics of some of the things i'm talking about beforehand, because it would take me too long to explain the context for everything. so if you are completely unfamiliar with the armor of god, i suggest reading ephesians 6, because it's extremely relevant.
in the meantime...
are the things that trouble us things we always need removed from us, or are they things we just simply need to boldly stand against? are they, in essence, hinderances that we should be praying to be freed from, or are they the things that make the rest of our faith valid?
there are flaming arrows, fiery darts of the enemy. and we're supposed to stand against them. it doesn't say that god will stop the arrows coming, it says that he will protect us from them. we're not necessarily supposed to be free from the arrows, we're supposed to stand in the armor and thus not be mortally wounded by them.
if the arrows are in my life, that doesn't negate the armor. in fact, the arrows justify the armor's existance, the arrows give good reason to put the armor on, and to keep it on, the arrows should make me love the armor. but i don't. i want to be pierced through to death. i don't want to have to walk through the battle zone, through the no-man's land, through the hurly-burly, because i'm not a warrior, i'm just a frightened kid. but i can't even do that, because i know that i'm supposed to wear the armor, just like i was supposed to do my homework when i was a kid, not because i wanted to, but because i felt obliged to do it. but not necessarily to do a good job doing it.
so instead, i put on just enough armor to save my own life, but my leg is on fire, and my right arm is bleeding, and i'm stuck in the middle, unwilling to put on the rest of the armor, but too afraid to just stand in the warzone unprotected. so i hurt and struggle on, dragging the "extra" armor along behind me, weighing me down instead of being part of me, baggage instead of clothing. but at this point, i can't put the rest of the armor on over my wounds, because they need to be cleaned and repaired first, so i walk, stagger wounded, dragging my now useless security, and cursing my pain and wondering, in my 5 year old way, why mommy or daddy won't just pick me up and love me and heal my wounds and dress me properly and then put me back, ready to face it all and secure in their love and my protection, and i know it's lazy and immature, but i'm not strong enough, not old enough, not whole enough to do it myself. it's not a cop-out, it's my frightened, lonley truth. but i'm tired, of hurting, of dragging, of being lost, of falling when i'm supposed to stand, of burning and being consumed rather than refined, tired of crying in the dirt and the flames and wondering where those who loved me went, where my army disappeared to, why someone who's better than me at this whole swordfighting and battling thing doesn't ever come along and help me.
so, i'm either selling armor, or trying to learn how to wear it and not clash (bad pun) with everything around me. wish me luck. and if you offer the right price, today, it might be yours. i wish i had the conviction to say otherwise.

movies...

there are so many things i'm thinking about, so many things i want to post, but for one reason or another, they are not yet posted. some of them just arn't in my heart right now, some of them confuse me still, and some of them are personal on a level that makes me afraid, even when i am secure in the knowledge that more than 5 people are unlikely to ever read any of these thoughts.
fortunately, i'm bored to death, so i'm sure i'll have time to sort some things out and post them before christmas. in the meantime, i'm trying to watch as many movies as possible (because you've gotta have goals). but because i like things to have meaning, and because often the things in movies mean more to me than the things in real life (sad, i know, but true none the less), i will recommend a few that i have watched lately, hoping that they will mean something to others as well.

city of angels - because sometimes love requires giving up everything, knowing that you won't get it back.
the fisher king - because sometimes the strength to face reality comes through our daily escapes from it.
matchstick men - because sometimes you have to lose everything before you realize that you can't ever really lose everything.
edward scissorhands - because fear of something you once loved does not negate it's beauty.
what dreams may come - because sometimes, when you lose, you win.
dangerous minds - because the condition of your mind and soul are more important than the conditions of your reality.
eternal sunshine of the spotless mind - because the things that mean the most can never truly be forgotten, and because sometimes, even pain can be beautiful if we let it.
good will hunting - becacuse what you know and what you do with what you know is the difference between just being alive and living.
rudy - because compassion gives us all things that by human standards we do not deserve, if we have the heart to see beyond our lack of qualifications and ask for it regardless.
who framed roger rabit - because i'm not bad, i'm just drawn that way.

that's all for now... more to come, i hope... one of these days, i'll get to the Law of Grace, it's hanging over my head like a piano, and i'm down here struggling to learn how to play so that if it crashes on my head, i can still make something beautiful out of it...

i'm not NDP...

in light of recent affronts to the concept of free will and human rights, no matter how small the scale, i thought it in my best interests to make sure it was clear that my last post in no way supported the NDP.
for those who don't know, Layton and his gaggle of regulators are attempting to ban, not control, not supervise the production of, but BAN, artificially processed trans fats. you know, the things that make things like donuts and cereals and pizzas and greasy cheesburgers the good things they are. on the surface, they're saying "we want Canadians to be healthy". sounds downright noble, doesn't it? But what they're really saying is "we want to force Canadians to be healthy". and that's repugnant. It's a slap in the face to anyone with a mind of their own. we're not children. and even those who ARE children have parents of their own. this isn't public safety, this isn't general health, this is CONTROL.
it's not like we're stupid. i don't think anyone goes into a Tim Hortons and buys a box of maple donuts (great, great invention, those...) thinking to themselves "this is the healthiest thing i can do for myself". we choose them because we like them, because we want them.
the government has a responsibility to increase awareness, to make sure that deception of the public is kept to a minimum, but their responsibility to us stops well short of deciding for us what we can and can not eat. if i decide, tomorrow, to live entirely on a diet of chocolate bars and slurpees, there's not a damned thing anyone can do about it, and that's the way it should be. teach, educate, inform, warn, but don't take away our choice. it's one step closer to dictatorship than i like to think we're capable of taking.

truth is beauty, beauty truth

it's always interesting to me where we discover truth and beauty.
today, it's in the wasteland that is reality tv. i will spare you all (in my imagination, people actually read these posts) a diatribe on the perils of television and it's supposed "reality", because there is something wholesome to be taken from it at present, and i will not overshadow that with my inherent cynicism.
so, i'm watching the finale of "He's a Lady", a competition wherein several big, burly, "manly" men don feminine apparel in the endeavour to become the best woman. lots of rediculous moments, lots of mass market appeal as we watch paragons of macho masculinity humiliate themselves for money.
but in all of that cheapness, something real and wonderful happened.
the fat guy won.

i'm not discriminatory by nature, but the guy was huge, he had no neck. even after the contest, he marvelled, in his own words, at how "the ugly girl won". but he wasn't ugly. that's the point.

in true pageant tradition, the three finalists had to answer a question before the panel of judges near the end of the competition. the question was "what, as a woman, have you learned about being a man?" a good question, to be sure, although the other two guys used humor to mask their feelings, like most men. but the speech given by David at the end was incredible. as soon as i find a link or a transcript i will post it, it was that good. it was sincere, and heartfelt, and it made him beautiful. John Salley, the judge who was unmoved and indifferent and unimpressed with the men as women as a whole was seen to wipe a tear away from his eye at the end of it. and the big guy won.
they should take this footage and show it to absolutely every person in the world with a bad body image. all the girls who think they have to throw up to be pretty, all the kids who didn't go to grad because they wern't a size 4, everyone who doesn't think they can find love and happiness unless they look like the cover of vogue. because none of that matters.
it's kind of a sad reflection on society that we've taken a concept like inner beauty and made it the setup to a joke, the punchline of which is judgmental commentary on body type. "she's got a great personality" has been used in so many sitcoms to mean "she's ugly" and we laugh at it, lap it up, think it's hilarious, while our kid sister is putting her finger down her throat in the bathroom after supper.
but the beautiful part of this whole thing is, this big, non-perfect, anything-but-"ideal"-bodied man won the pageant. he beat the pretty ones, he beat the thin ones, he walked away with pride and the prize. and it was absolutely beautiful to watch.
so let's learn something about what beauty is. let's stop cheapening people who arn't perfect, let's stop evaluating people based on the smallest amount of fabric required to cover their bodies, let's stop dehumanizing and demoralizing people based on one small, constricted concept of beauty and discover the value of actual beauty, in all its forms.
and then,
let's celebrate it.

buy this

so, i was eating a bag of chips on the bus this afternoon. and i was reading the bag, because hey, i'm on a bus, and there are only so many things you can do on a bus that won't get you arrested... or something... anyway... there on the package, in bold lettering, highlighted, was the following:
NO TRANS FATS!
EXCELLENT SOURCE OF VITAMIN E!
NO CHOLESTEROL!

i gotta tell you, i was excited. but i had to check it out. went to the nutritional information box. and sure enough, if you were to eat this whole bag of chips in a day (250 grams is a lot of chips, but let's not delude ourselves into believing there are not many, many people out there capable of such a feat), you would get 250 per cent of your daily recommended percentage of vitamin E. great. can't go wrong with vitamin E. but that's not the whole story... it never is. because, if you were indeed to devour this entire bag of chips, you would also manage to consume 115 per cent of your daily recommended intake of fat. still excited? that's marketing for you.
can you imagine if we did this in every facet of society? like perscription medicines? as it stands now, side-effects are the FIRST thing that people look for, want to know about, ask about until they feel they're safe. you wouldn't just take something that fought acne, say, but gave you rampant and uncontrollable diarhea in the process. that's not a good trade off. however, if we were to apply marketing's concepts to this, we'd hide the unfortunate side of the drug until it was too late. not only that, we'd probably make it into something good. "fights acne, and completely prevents constipation!" or something equally horrid. we are probably the first society in history so wrapped up in profit that we could bill a block heater that often bursts into flames as something that "exceeds any and all heat output expectations!"
but meanwhile, cars are burning everywhere, children are getting fat on vitamin E, and we're all turning a blind eye to all the things we don't want to see, convinced that they don't matter until we have no choice but to see them. and by then, thank God, it's too late, we can't do anything about the problem but we can benefit from some retroactive sense of morality, like we would have tried to do something if only we would have known... completely forgetting that the ignorance was self-imposed. it's all doublethink, and the concept behind truly functioning doublethink is to forget you're doing it while relying on it to get through the things that require it.
this would all be bad enough if we didn't perpetuate the problems. but we do. not only do we ignore the bad and sell the good, but we do it knowingly, and a lot of the time, we're selling things to peole that we don't even use ourselves. we've become a society of toothpaste salesmen with yellow teeth, fat people selling diet pills, and illeterates peddling books. and nowhere is this more prevalant than in the church, where the rules are supposed to be different, but arn't. it's expected in most of society, it's all going to hell in a handbasket, and we know it. but a church is supposed to be on a different plane, the people there are supposed to be telling us how to cut down on fat intake, but they're still selling us chips with vitamin E, just like everyone else. they're a different flavor, but at the end of the day, they'll still be a contributing factor to your heart failure.
so what, then? be less greedy, realize there's a point at which personal extravagance comes at too high a cost, understand that production can't keep up to ever increasing demand without cutting corners, that if we diminishing the visibility of consequences while increasing the actual consequences we'll all suffer in the end?
if not, come over to my house... i'm serving chips.

Light the Fire Again...

i'm going to say something controversial. or at least, it will seem that way at first. just read the rest, and don't judge something based on one sentence, because religion has been doing that for years and all it's gotten them is division and doctrines. trust me, and we'll all get to the end and learn something.

the KKK had the right conceptual goal.

there, now that that's over with, we can proceed.

to save what's left of your opinion of me, let me say that they had the wrong everything else. the wrong methods, the wrong audience, the wrong subject. but the goal, the destination, was the one that humanity is born to seek... purity.
hitler probably felt the same way... to create the perfect world, to cleanse humanity, to purge the flaws from something that had so much potential. but his personal view of what consisted of a flaw was completely and utterly corrupted by a rediculous and contemptible world view. and so, instead of fixing things, he slaughters 6 million innocent people.
flash forward a few decades...
and here we have the KKK, burning crosses on the lawns of black people, convinced all the while that they're in the right. they're doing the same thing. a different visible minority is chosen, but the resulting actions are almost identical.
now... to the crux. the burning cross. i have seen several different opinions as to what exactly it meant, but i'm going to go with the one that seems most true and good... and again, it's about purity. just like the gold being refined in the fire, the impurities being taken away. they wanted a pure faith. don't we all? but the problem is when we get wrapped up in human concepts of just what exactly an impurity is. this is the distinction:
Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at the heart.

for those of you who don't follow, it means that there ARE NO physical impurities. so stop looking for black people or jewish people or islamic people or iraqi people. stop racial profiling, it's disgusting. and learn how to discern the spiritual things, learn to begin spiritually profiling.

(this is not, as it sounds at the moment, intolerance or bigotry or prejudice. because this process starts with OURSELVES. but more on that in a second...)

like i said, we're not fighting the right fight, the right "enemy". we're looking for visible minorities to dispell, when we are being consumed alive by an invisible majority that struts about unfettered, because we don indifference when perception is difficult. there was nothing hard about finding a black person to fight. finding a hypocrite, howver, is a different game. and even then, it's not them you're fighting, it's all the things they've learned, it's their contraty beliefs, it's lies, it's deceit, it's satan masquarading as an angel of light.

but the solution is not to focus on everyone else. we need to take some plank-removing classes first, so that we can properly see. everyone's impairment is a mote to someone else, but it's a personal plank. and you can't see for shit with it in your eye.

what's the solution, then? stay tuned, because understanding The Law of Grace will perhaps lay the groundwork for what we have to do.

musings...

what is sacrifice standing on self-preservation's shoulders but a giant that knows whre it is walking but not why, that can see direction but make none of it's own?
what is faith bludgeoned with logic but a blund razor cutting the face of idealism in clumsy strokes meant only to remove impurities but stripping beauty?
what is justice clothed in greed but a king on a streetcorner begging vagrants for change?
what is character for appearance's sake but a palace of dirt painted yellow where fools worship dust?
what is belief without risk but a man with no fingers who can not stop bying gloves?
what is integrity without abandon to it but a door with 3 windows and no knob?
what is service for profit but an ad for a window repair service wrapped around a flying brick?
what is consequence but the dirt that grows under fingernails if you let them get too long?
what is morality on demand but a shirt that makes you popular to people who know you only for your clothes?

thoughts unbidden wander stray
under synapse matter grey
transient insanities
pirouette on mental breeze
autumn hues, brown, yellow, red,
gather curbside in my head
slipping out upon my breath
to sing the beauty of their death.

loss isn't sad. it's sometimes unfortunate, but necessary, and natural. but untimely loss, loss out of season, burns with regret, burns with sorrow, like leaves in an incinerator, because that's what the loss has become... leaves changing, dying, falling to the ground in spring, haunting the summer with barren hope, until we can't stand looking at them on littering the ground, can't bear the memory of what they could have been, can't stand the empty beauty that dries and turns to dust under the feet of the ignorant, and we have to gather them up and burn them, light them like a prayer of remorse to a god we can't really comprehend but hope will accept this last fragile offering. so many things are lost.

south winds and handsaws

today, hamlet is our model for self-deception for fulfilling goals that we don't want to consciously admit we want to fulfill.

it's partly because we are made in the image of god that we occasionally allow ourselves the illusion of control, especially of those things that we create. and we manipulate this extrapolation of power, exploiting it for our personal ends, like every gift from god intended for our benefit, except that we misinterpret our benefit because we don't seek god's will first.

"i am mad but north-northwest. when the wind is southerly, i know a hawk from a handsaw." this is hamlet's arrogance coming to the fore. because he created his own appearance of insanity, he feels completely assured of his own power to control his creation. or at least, he is allowing himself the luxury of deceiving himself into that belief. but the truth is that he is losing his control, and moreover, using his own arrogance and confidence against himself in an effort to do what everyone wants to do: to let go and be out of control, to be free from responsibility and the burden of deliberation. to abandon necessity, and expectation, and all the pretenses and constructs of the world, and just be honestly screwed up.

it's the things that we won't admit to ourselves that take the most power over us even as we attempt to assert our own power over them. and, in the completion of the cyclical reasoning, the main thing we will not admit to ourselves is that we are often not as powerful as we let ourselves think. and in the end, the things to which we give power by believing we have power over them are the things that overtake us.

but as long as we have pretense, we plug on, pretending we know what we're doing, pretending we're in control as our own creations slowly assume more and more authority over our actions, in the end living primarily off our self-delusion, telling ourselves over and over that we can tell hawks from handsaws whenever we really want to, and sucumbing to the base truth underlying all of that, that we really don't want to know the difference most days.

self-serving "servants" pt 1

everyone is greedy and selfish. christians are no different from others in that respect, but the expectations are higher for them, because they are claiming to follow a doctrine of selflessness, of emulation of christ, of service and love's expression to common man. people who don't strive for selflessness don't have as much to be held accountable for.
but this is not the point for which i'm reaching. what i really want to bring to attention is the lack of personal credibility. and THAT is why christians are judged. because they claim to believe things when it's convenient for them, but can bring themselves to suspend said beliefs whenever they want if it's more profitable to them. they can believe things for themselves but not for others, and yet claim to believe in a gospel that is primarily about others.
let's take a common catch-phrase example. phillipians 4:13... "i can do all things through christ who strengthens me". religious people are only too happy to spout this little nugget of "truth" whenever their own personal interests are concerned. and nothing sounds more pious than "i can beat this addiction through christ who strengthens me" or "i can overcome this obstacle through christ who strengthens me" or anything else that's all about themselves.
but this is not what is at the heart of the gospel. jesus said if you want to be great, be a servant. he said that the whole law stems out of love for god and love for your neighbor, and then defined your neighbor as a bleeding and robbed man on the side of the road who is out of your way and not part of your personal agenda, but needs your help.
here's something else from the bible, and this will perhaps add the most perspective of all. "bear one another's burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of christ".
now, if we can do ALL things through christ who strengthens us, you'd think that, of all the things we could do with that strength, he'd be most willing to give us strength to do the things that directly fulfill his law. so unless we all believe that christ is too weak to fulfill his own laws, then we should most deffinitely be able to "bear one another's burdens through christ who strengthens us". but strangely, the opposite happens. a friend comes to a christian, or sometimes an entire church, broken, in need of assistance, of guidance, of hope, and the response is "sorry, i'm not strong enough to handle that right now. i have to work on myself, i can't have people like you around at the moment, i have to be around religious people so that i will be strong, you might hinder my own personal spiritual walk with christ".
when did we become so deluded as to our own importance? when did a gospel message meant to create disciples of nations become about being afraid to reach out? when did the central messages of serving humanity and regarding others higher than yourself and bearing one another's burdens turn into self-preservation (like god isn't strong enough to give us the strength we need to be safe), self-service (like every good and perfect gift isn't supposed to come frome the father of lights who knows how to give good gifts to his children) and self-denial (as though the holy spirit isn't supposed to lead us into all truth).
so what's the solution? believe something. if you claim to have a belief, stand behind it all the time, otherwise it's meaningless. faith is accorded to people as righteousness, but there are qualities that create faith, like perseverance, and consistancy, and integrity. don't just discard your beliefs when something clashes or it suits you better to believe something contrary. all that does is negate your faith. and for god's sake, if you're going to call your self a christian, remember that the first syllable of your title is CHRIST, and that your primary responsibility is to emulate him, not redefine him so that he looks more like YOU.