grow up: do the dialog thing: be the hope

'You spend your whole life looking for answers: because you think the next answer will change something: maybe make you a little less miserable: and you know that when you run out of questions, you don't just run out of answers: you run out of hope': The character 'Thirteen' in dialog with House: From the House episode: 'You don’t want to know'.

But the thing is: I do want to know and I don't want to run out of hope: So let’s start with some common ground: we all inhabit planet earth: so dialog without the bullhorn: shouting doesn’t aid debate. Let’s get into relationships where the telling of both your story and my story is expected. Being there and listening is the best human being thing you can do for your neighbor. For we do spend our whole life looking for answers; and some of us find them in the person and the mystery of Jesus: and some of us don't: but wherever we are, we never run out of questions and therefore we hope that the next question provides a revelation: and the question after that: a little more revelation: and for those of us who would argue for His existence: these revelations of Jesus need to be seen to have influence in our lives: all talk and no walk doesn't cut it: any idiot can talk, preach or write a book: so for those who claim to know Him, He needs to be clearly seen as an ever present actuality in our lives: we have to practice making less noise via the relentless cacophony of dogma and listen much more: this applies to us all: whether we profess a faith or not: and whatever shade you color your religious beliefs: whether you have painted them black or a whiter shade of pale: or run out of questions (difficult to do): or run out of answers (which are difficult to find: so less likely): make sure you make your modus operandi 'dialog over dogma': before you do indeed run out of hope. For where dialog triumphs over dogma: there is no need to run out of hope.

There is a good case to be made for exploring all ideas relevant to all faiths and any/all of their current concerns: no matter where the ideas and the dialog behind the ideas may lead us: as long as it's dialog over dogma, we can make a start: the very act of engaging in rational discourse presupposes a commitment to evaluating ideas: (sound thinking over sound bite): dialoging with each other and anyone else who cares to take part in a serious attempt to find out exactly what we need to hold onto tightly and what we need throw into the delete bin of life. I would suggest we hold loosely to all the artifacts and traditions of man that have made their way into and then complicated beyond any reasonable measure the act(s) and the mindset(s) of faith: the same thought process needs to apply to the current trendy zeitgeist posturing of no faith: which has slowly become a faith of its own: truly there are oxymorons everywhere: and the 'no faith' lobby spend as much time throwing around dogmas as the 'faith' lobby: dialog, it seems to me, would be better? It is amazing how irrational 'rationalist' who refuse to believe that there is no God can be: it is also thoroughly alarming how folks who proclaim belief in a loving, forgiving redeemer God, are among the most close minded, intolerant and judgmental neighbors you may well ever meet. Ironic kudos here to all concerned on both sides of the faith/no faith debate who fall into these ridiculously entrenched 'fingers in ears while humming a tune' postures: if you aren't listening: you aren't learning: if all you do is repeat your learned opinion ad nauseum to yourself and to all you meet: all you do is convince yourself of what you were already convinced of in the first place: there is no growth in this modus operandi: it is a zero sum game.

So in the best Talmudic tradition of arguing a position as forcefully as possible and then switching sides: believers can prove to a disbelieving world that they are not of a closed mindset via the vehicle of open honest authentic dialog: a willingness to shift the prism of thought to enable such dialog to take place will foster much more discussion on matters of faith: not less: followers of Jesus used to be called followers of ‘the way’: somewhere along the way however human traditions crept back into a simple way and a simple faith and ‘complicated it up’: Paul rightly asked: Who cut in on you? The way is simple and simpler formulations run on swifter legs. Artifact laden, fully entrenched behemoth-liturgy and theology is not swift of thought: or swift of movement or swift of response: if you've ever wanted to offer your service to the local church body, you may have been on the receiving end of this type of dialog: 'Due diligence and proper protocols, procedures and channels require us to form a committee that will eventually form a designated committee of appropriately designated folks (translation: those the pastor wants) that will as some stage in the future: in the fullness of time and at the appropriate juncture: tell you exactly why you can't 'do that thing' you've offered to do, without being excommunicated. The Trinity creates, improvises and plants the desire for us to serve and the ability to vision and then 'roll with it' within our hearts and minds and the church provides as much theological red-tape as possible to 'head it off a the pass': if the early church worked the way the current one does: we wouldn't be here: theological red tape got Paul asking: who cut in on you? Moving swiftly forward into more recent history, we find the appropriately named dark ages: mired in authoritarian Torquemada church mindsets: which could reasonably be renamed the theological red-tape ages: but thank God for Jesus, who will build His church and neither the gates of hell, nor the gates of the church will be able to stand against Him. He loves His bride: in spite of herself. If only the bride were to wake from the petty slumber of inward looking, navel gazing, tit for tat theological debates and the so called 'hot button' issues: and concentrate on the groom: we might all be better off?

Let's shift the thought process a little here: light is made up of many colors: some we see: some we don’t: but to see all the colors we need the aid of a prism: and just as we need to shift the prism to see the colors: we are all in need of a gear change in relationship to our worldviews and accompanying mindsets: we all need to shift the prism of our thought processes: to see what we don’t yet see: to hear what we don’t yet hear: to understand what we don’t yet understand: and to love where, what and whom we don’t yet love. No simple task: but one required of us all surely?

Now unless we've spent the last 1000 years in a cave: we know that corrupt and demagogic legislators, businessmen, pastors, are/will/do increasingly stifle research and debate or legitimate questions that they find inconvenient to their own interests: now while one can expect this of politicians/legislators and corporate leviathans: one should not expect to see this stifling of debate within the life of either local or global church: alas it happens all too often as pastors forget whose kingdom it is that they are co-workers in building: forgetting this: and then covering up that: they talk and act like they own what they have now come to perceive as their particular part of His Kingdom: once this attitude and mindset becomes part of the church furniture: the only way from here is downhill: a slow almost imperceptible death begins: slow: but still a death nonetheless.

Things appear to carry on as normal: but the Spirit 'does an Elvis' and has long since left the building: to be followed out the door by folks who regard the Spirit as vital and not an optional extra. For it is liturgy that is the optional extra: not the Spirit. So now we have too many pastors reliant on the standard three point sermon, the nice overhead projector slides, the requisite smattering of Greek ( which BTW they looked up on Google) who come off the seminary conveyor belt having learned how to teach and then forgot how to learn, or how to remain accountable, or how to shepherd their congregation, or heaven forbid: actually answer their emails: these past-masters of chicanery now adept in telling half truths about circumstances within their local church body: those 'wracked with fear of everything that moves' individuals now thoroughly adept in manipulation and the perpetuation of their web of lies within lies wrapped up as some kind of truth: are the worst of sinners. If they looked in the mirror and walked away: they wouldn't recognize themselves upon return: charlatan, not pastor, is the correct nomenclature.

They are a disgrace to the name Jesus: the title of pastor they wear with the swagger and smell of arrogance: they walk the thinly veiled walk of disdain as they interact with those they have precious little time for: the undesirable multitude who don't fit within their self determined demographic or 'spiritual golf club' agenda that they wish to push at the expense of their current congregation: which would be the people before them that they are actually supposed to serve and if the congregation actually stopped and looked long enough to see the wood for the trees: would have the revelation that they are better off without them. We all are. Those of us who believe and those of us who don't.

Sunlight is the best disinfectant: (Justice Louis Brandeis): for freedom of thought and expression: so open examination is required to determine the merits of any postulate under discussion. Then we’ll be in a better position to dialog with others: or else we let judgment and assumption fester in private: where our very avoidance of certain mindsets serves as tacit acknowledgment that ‘some things that must never come up for discussion’: why? Everyone needs to accommodate the thought that they still have some learning to do: no human is the fount of all wisdom: Jesus is a mystery: so how come so many folks tell you they’ve got Him all nailed down? Since no good can come from sanctifying a delusion: let’s drop this delusion now.

Living the new testament understanding of an organic church body produces symbiotic relationships: a positive-sum gain from co-operation of all those actively involved in its life. As we walk and work out our faith together: encouragement, advocacy, empowerment, support, compassion, acceptance, permission, sustaining grace and self sacrificial love are all must have characteristics: bringing about a 'me we' mindset and culture. For the self cannot be self without other selves. An organic church therefore resembles a living organism in its continuous development of interconnected relationships, culture, mindsets and organizational structure. Lets become the royal priesthood, the holy nation: not a merchandized corporate church. The unsurpassable worth given by Jesus to each and every individual is realized within such an organic body of believers. Where dialog over dogma is the modus operandi: we have the chance to pull off the almost unimaginable: authenticity.

You spend your whole life looking for answers: because you think the next answer will change something: maybe make you a little less miserable: and you know that when you run out of questions, you don't just run out of answers: you run out of hope: dogma is a hopeless thing to cling to: grow up: do the dialog thing: be the hope.

Acknowledgements: TV: House. Book: What's your dangerous idea? My own thought processes.