I am Stepping up...

Stepping up., originally uploaded by Christopher Rauch.  View the LARGE version

to the plate.
     In soooo many different ways. Dat's whats up. Tonight, on the Starbucks patio, I have coffee at my right hand, and a good cigar in my left. I have been in constant motion for days and tonight I have chosen to sacrifice a little sleep to get my bearings. I am taking stock. I am evaluating a few priorities and taking a personal inventory. 
     I have been accepted into the nursing program. It has taken me over three years to get here (really it's taken about eight... I needed a few years before I could even find the balls to listen to that quiet little voice in my head, and look at the picture I kept seeing...) When I began this journey, I wasn't even a high school graduate. Now, three years hence, I have graduated Magna Cum Laude from the Georgia Military College, and I am awestruck when I pause to consider the sheer enormity of what God has accomplished with an attention-deficit dyslexic who left home at seventeen without ever having learned how to live. I have a degree today, and I am engaged in seeking another one. I dream of one day being able to provide for a family, and impact my world in a positive way for the glory of my God. I also hope like hell that this is not entirely my idea, but my faith in this grows stronger with every miraculously opened door, and I have finally come to a place where I am at least a little bit comfortable with letting God handle his end and concentrating on mine. Concentration is not my strong suite, especially if I am distracted trying to handle God's business.
      As soon as I decided to go back to school, my dying marriage took a nose dive, and I ended up getting a divorce. As I was driving across town to have my wife sign the papers, I got a phone call. My father had died. The next forty eight hours were incredible, and I have never been the same. Depression seems to come and go, and returning to school after a twenty five year break has been indescribably stressful. I got more than a little crazy, and still have a difficult time remembering how I managed to get through school with the grades needed to make it into the nursing program at my college. Several times it seemed that someone else was in the driver's seat, and I am grateful. I have also become aware of how unlikely my success was, in the face of my lifestyle and attitude. The stakes are now much higher, both financially and emotionally. I really don't want to deal with the consequences of dropping this ball, and it has become important to come to clarity about my big picture, what I have been doing wrong, and what needs to change in order to pull this off.
     A little over nine months ago, I heard the clue phone start ringing, and when I answered it... it turned out to be for me. Whaddya know. The voice on the line basically said: "You're fucking up. Not only do I have a much better life prepared for you, but I have a job for you to do, and you're not doing it!"

     I argue with God often, (though he has yet to strike me dead, obviously.) This time, I took the divine asschewing without complaint. I knew I had it coming. I was miserable. I was wallowing in self -pity and had fallen into depression. I was drinking daily, and had returned to some old ways of thinking, which I've posted about earlier. In my anger and disappointment, my prayers became arrogant, accusatory, and infrequent. I began romantic involvement immediately, and began to take several hundred pictures a week. Anything to avoid dealing with multifaceted grief, grow the fuck up, and learn how to live. My life was a mess, and I was ripe for the divine wake up call. I had  gotten off track, to say the least. I am among other things, a mystic. Many of us pray. If the surveys are to be believed, even atheists pray, but as Andy Stanley says, a mystic is someone who believes God talks back...or talks period, I forget which. 
     C.S. Lewis tells us that God "whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, and shouts to us in our pain; It is his megaphone to rouse a dying world." My world was dying, and I heard the shout. I have, along with the every other living creature, experienced my share of pain. I have slowly, stubbornly learned to recognize the voice of my God in these instances, and further- have been growing ever more sensitive to the speaking and whispering. Still, he must shout at me from time to time, because, like D.L. Moody, the sensitivity to God's voice leaks out of me, through the many holes in my character.

     Anyway, I heard the message and made the decision to return to habits and disciplines that had brought me so far, and helped me so much in the past. I began to again seek personal growth, and the struggle to redefine and rebuild my life, this time with a commitment to surrender to God's design for the life of Chris Rauch. 
     Now, a decision is one thing, and for the most part, an indispensible prerequisite to intentional progress, but it is in the theatre of practical application that the rubber truly meets the road. In my resolve, I must answer the question: “How do I do this?" For me, the renovation of life is a process, and it begins with constructive action. I work out before I develop muscles. My inclination is to lose weight, develop muscular definition, and then start going to the gym, but things don’t work this way. I have to figure out what to do. To obtain knowledge I must go to those who profess to have it… and if I am wise, I will go to those professors who are actively engaged in ongoing practical application. The best hospitals are research hospitals, and the best universities are those that research the frontiers of knowledge. 
     Self-actualization, as defined by Maslow, is when the desire for fulfillment drives us to reach our maximum potential. When our life is lacking joy/fulfillment, this absence drives us to grow. So the question for me is "Who is busy today, taking practical action to reach self actualization? Who is doing the research?" 
     I find upon reflection that it is usually not the politicians, not the proponents of religious piety, and not the millions of couch potatoes that claim Oprah Winfry as their guru. In all of these cross sections of western society, those who actively seek personal growth are a tiny minority. Honestly, there is no demographic that that is not dominated by apathy, but there is a global community represented my members of all areas of humanity where the minority seeking to actively improve their lives reaches the point of statistical significance. This is the recovery movement. The Twelve Step Programs. It is the alcoholics, the addicts, the codependents, the gamblers, and the compulsively promiscuous, that are driven by the pain of their dysfunction, to apply spiritual principles in their lives and strive toward their maximum potential. These people with all their failings, are my teachers. 
     
     I'll post next on the twelve steps programs, and my take on how the steps operate, but it is late, and this post has gotten a helluva a lot longer than I intended. 


"Now, With God's Help, I Shall Become Myself" ~ Soren Kierkegaard.

   


       Good Night. :)

Heresy, Part II

Shrooms by a Pear Tree    Large
Originally uploaded by use2blost

Okay, I am probably not gonna have another 'to be continued...' blogpost. The pressure was horrible. Plus, thinking about Part II made me wonder if Part I sucked. It was totally different from posting and forgetting about it. Not good. And fair warning, BTW. This is a post on theology. It may be boring... and is contrary to what I have been taught in Church.

So, to recap Part I (actually, this will be much easier to follow, with a couple points I forgot to mention.)

1. Much Church doctrine comes out of the epistles.
2. I believe this is a bad Idea.
3. The Apostolic Writer's Alliance (Peter, John, James, The Unknown Author of Hebrews, and of course, Paul) are surely special, and men to be taken seriously, but they should not be confused with Jesus.
4. The Bible, in many ways idolized by mainstream evangelicals and put on a higher plane than Jesus himself, makes clear that even Church Fathers are capable of grave misjudgment. This is a clear distinction from Jesus, who never botched it.
5. Jesus was God. They weren't. Why in the hell would somebody view their words with equal authority?

In Acts chapter 15, when Peter and the Boys hold palaver on the Issue of Making Gentiles Cut Off Pieces of Their Penises, they draft a letter for Paul's posse to carry back to the newbies explaining it was a false alarm. Which is all good. Nobody today seriously thinks you have to be circumcised to Go to Heaven.

But there is verse that catches my eye.

For it seemed best to the Holy Spirit and to us ⁸⁸ not to place any greater burden on you than these necessary rules: ⁸⁹ 15:29 that you abstain from meat that has been sacrificed to idols ⁹⁰ and from blood and from what has been strangled ⁹¹ and from sexual immorality. ⁹² If you keep yourselves from doing these things, ⁹³ you will do well. Farewell.

Now, as they saying goes "Did it ever occur to you, that nothing occurs to God?"

Think about it. You're Peter. This means you are :

1. Headstrong, and Transparent, and prone to making sure your ass is covered.
2. A good Jew.
3. You're also The Pope. Yeah. A Jewish Pope.

You are a Jerusalem Rock Star. A redneck fisherman, you hung with Jesus, and You have healed people miraculously in public. More then once, the bible portrays you as having a defective filter between your brain and your mouth. Now if this man hears audible direction from God, in an environment where such things were known to happen, He says "God told me that was WRONG." he doesn't use the word "seems".

It is from the Epistles that we get much of the doctrine regarding marriage, sexual morality, treatment of divorcees, treatment of homosexuals, and what to tell people about about the Good News That You Go To Hell If You Don't Believe What We Believe. If we rank scripture hierarchically, placing the speech of Jesus at the top, followed by His canon (The Old Testament), then the epistles, we can construct and entirely different set of protocols for how the church should behave about these matters. My point is that getting doctrine from the pulpit, is contrary to Jesus' directive in Matthew:

23:1 Then Jesus said to the crowds and to his disciples, 23:2 “The ¹ experts in the law ² and the Pharisees ³ sit on Moses’ seat. 23:3 Therefore pay attention to what they tell you and do it. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they teach. ⁴ 23:4 They ⁵ tie up heavy loads, hard to carry, and put them on men’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing even to lift a finger to move them. 23:5 They ⁶ do all their deeds to be seen by people, for they make their phylacteries ⁷ wide and their tassels ⁸ long. 23:6 They ⁹ love the place of honor at banquets and the best seats in the synagogues ¹⁰ 23:7 and elaborate greetings ¹¹ in the marketplaces, and to have people call them ‘Rabbi.’ 23:8 But you are not to be called ‘Rabbi,’ for you have one Teacher and you are all brothers. 23:9 And call no one your ‘father’ on earth, for you have one Father, who is in heaven. 23:10 Nor are you to be called ‘teacher,’ for you have one teacher, the Christ. ¹² 23:11 The ¹³ greatest among you will be your servant. 23:12 And whoever exalts himself will be humbled, and whoever humbles himself will be exalted.

23:13 “But woe to you, experts in the law ¹⁴ and you Pharisees, hypocrites! ¹⁵ You keep locking people out of the kingdom of heaven! ¹⁶ For you neither enter nor permit those trying to enter to go in.

I think a good argument can be made, that we should read for ourselves, and never think we are in a position to decide people should be denied things we have because their moral performance is lower than ours.

Heresy. Part I

MSR Hubba, Solo backpacker tent, a copycat, originally uploaded by use2blost.

     Just a thought...A lot of Church Doctrine comes from the epistles. In my mind, Scripture should be weighted selectively. First priority, or the heaviest weight should be accorded to the red ink, the speech of Jesus. From there, I tend to give equal credence to the remainder of the Gospels, and the Old testament as a whole. Lastly, The epistles, and Revelation. My reasoning for this is a little convoluted. Jesus endorses the older writings, and he did rise from the dead, after all. That's a big deal.
     Interestingly enough, Jesus tells the blindly religious:

"You have your heads in your Bibles constantly because you think you'll find eternal life there. But you miss the forest for the trees. These Scriptures are all about me!"

John 5:39, The Message

     Jesus places himself above Scripture more than once (Imagine that!). It's funny. As soon a religion overwhelmed relationship, we began to use Scripture to explain Jesus, rather than Jesus to explain Scripture. When we do this, we get funny.
     We burn witches. And Protestants. And Catholics. And Mormons. We persecute homosexuals. If Church leaders are capable of something as asinine as the Crusades, surely they are capable of a couple of theological errors. Paul, Mr. Gung Ho Off the Freaking Chain, speaks to the fact in 1st Corinthians, when he holds forth on what he and God think about marriage and divorce, making it a point to mention that his ideas and God's are separate. What a concept. I have never  heard any mention of this from a pulpit. Another troublesome verse in Acts speaks tellingly to the fact that even Peter and the Jerusalem Apostle's Association don't know where God stands on doctrine. Peter even goes so far as to put this in writing.
     One passage of Acts tells us a story of some new gentile Christians. They have been relaxing in euphoric generosity (Old school Christians would sell their shit and give the money to the Church to parcel out to the needier Christians), because they don't have to go to Hell and Burn Forever. Hell Yeah! (hell, no?) Of course we love Jesus! Have some money, and lets eat together!
     Often,  just as we are thinking how cool Jesus is some religious guy comes over and has to ruin it. God wanted to make sure we knew this has been happening since the very beginning, as we see from Acts of the Apostles. Some ultraspiritual dudes pop up and tell the newbies "Ah, You need to cut off part of your dick to do this Jesus thing, and not go to Hell and Burn Forever."
     There is naturally a stunned silence. (Ya gotta love Luke. His Gospel, and the Book of Acts are fascinating.)
     The Committee Representing Those Who Read the Bible and Know What God Wants continue: "Not all of it. Just part of it. And not even the most important part. We just want you to cut off the skin that keeps the head sensitive. So sex is more fun. Cut that part off. We had to do it. Don't you love Moses? Jesus did this. Jesus loved Moses."
     This seemed like a big step. These new Christians wanted a second opinion. Even the girls. (I'm sure this was the talk of the congregation, even though Luke doesn't explicitly state this).
     They send Paul's Posse to confer with Peter and The Jerusalem Apostle's Association. (This had to really annoy Paul, who thinks he is an Apostle...good stuff, the Bible.) They Have A Meeting. Never known for verbal restraint, Peter begins to preach.   Then they write a letter. A letter where Peter makes clear that apostolic opinion on doctrine is only that. An opinion. This is special. We'll take a look at the letter next week.

Jesus tell us in the gospels

that to divorce is a bad thing... in one paraphrase, however, he specifies an exception for an unfaithful spouse. This gets complicated, the verses are many, the applicable contexts that must be considered, are convoluted, and the modern denominational prejudice against divorcees, especially here in the south-  do nothing to promote clear thinking. I have a dear friend, respected and wise, who was probably a virgin on her wedding night (the lady is a proper christian widow approaching 80... I am not going to ask her to confirm this) Who expressed concern at where Debbie, my  girlfriend had spent the weekend. The conversation left me feeling embarrassed,  defensive, and uncomfortable, as well as mildly aggravated with gossip, though in this particular instance, gossip was not the source of my friend's information. My point, Is that it seems kinda silly, sometimes to be overly concerned with a biblical view on sexual purity, if your take is that, according to Jesus, all post-divorce sex is adultery. There is just not a little voice in my head saying "Don't have sex... keep the biblical boundaries of sexual purity" Unfortunately, I need some kind of hope other than a life of sexual abstinence until death (you can make a scriptural argument that this is God's Will for the divorcee, at least the baptists can, as well as Andy Stanley, one of my favorite communicators.) to motivate me. I really need to take some time and delve into this. Looking at my past, and the reality around me, I realize the enormous power God chose place in human sex. The Fire... it's ability for nurture or destruction is something I have a healthy respect for. I cannot find the willingness to seriously contemplate a lifetime without warmth, and if I shall be disobedient,  Why not now, after I have lost hope of Sex with Gods approval, than later, after having committed to remarriage against his will, though with the approval of the judgemental ?

"Faith may be described as an attitude of trust adopted in the face of our ignorance of God."- Jeremy Young.

Small Goup

I go to three bible studies/small groups. I cannot imagine what state I would be in without those connections. While I have not renounced my faith, there is undeniable repproach in my "personal" relationship with God, who seems so silent, when I want most to hear him, and my prayers/private devotions have been practically non-existant. My Thursday night group is listed on the church calendar as the "misfits" possibly because we are mostly new Christians (I don't know about Bonnie...), but for the first week of my Father's death, I needed a babysitter (for myself!) and Bonnie and Janel especially, stepped right up to the plate, though neither has known me long. Andy Stanley states that spiritual maturity is indicated "not by how much you know-but by how well you love", that familiarity with principles and doctrine are a means to an end, good only insamuch as they improve our knowlege of, and resemblance to, the Character of Jesus Christ. I have made poor choices during episodes of devastating pain more than once. Or twice. Or three times. With their support, I seem to have made it through the first week...They gave me food, company, and money ( I am a very small contractor, and an unplanned week without working, during a divorce and move left me unable to buy so much as a can of coffee). The Misfits, have been for me, a classic example of what Jesus meant when he instructed the knowledgable pharisee to "go and do likewise"

this morning was a little better,

though I still dont sleep well. I went to the men's breakfast, showed my ass a little, and may possibly have convinced some of them that I am a heretic. Feel in the mood to actually write something today, but I gotta go to work.

Inertia

I can't seem to move, really. I can wander from room to room, but purpose escapes me. I stumble across memories...How could I have expected to begin functioning today? I know I scheduled an appointment, but I cannot for the life of me find the data, location, time. I feel worse. and different, and disconnected than ever before. I'm not drinking enough water. The task of programming the coffee pot taxes my intellect. I feel my lower back degenerating as I neglect my physical therapy. Prayer seems a joke. I could sit here all day. I would read my bible, but to reach for it would require some strange effort that feels foreign to me, I cannot muster up the energy to even engage in self destructive behavior. lol. It's a long walk to the toothbrush. I can't unpack a box, clean my vehicle, run a vacuum. activate spellcheck. Log in to check my financial aid. find a pair of socks. decide how to end my post

He was so cold

YOU MUST VIEW IT LARGE TO READ IT

 the moisture in an air-conditioned funeral home was condensing on his head. this was because he was not embalmed. My father's wife asked them to hold off on the cremation so that my sister could see him one last time.
A couple of years ago, a man co-ordinating a retreat asked me to teach on the study of scripture. He said the Holy Spirit directed his request. I was sick with anxiety. I had never before felt humbled and greatly honored simultaneously. While researching, I stumbled across another author quoting Philip Yancy's Disappointment With God:

• “Power can do everything but the most important thing: it cannot control love. In a concentration camp, the guards possess almost unlimited power. By applying force, they can make you renounce your God, curse your family, Work without pay, eat human excrement, kill and then bury your closest friend or even your own mother. All this is within their power. Only one thing is not: they cannot force you to love them. This fact may help explain why God sometimes seems shy to use his power. He created us to love him, but his most impressive displays of miracle—the kinds we may secretly long for—do nothing to foster that love.”

When It became clear that I was getting a divorce, I purchased the book and read it in it's entirety. In my emotionally raw state, Phillip's writing struck me powerfully. Possibly a week or ten days after I completed it, I found myself reeling from the death of my father. At this time it feels as though I read it years ago.The divorce papers sit in a kitchen cabinet in my new, beautiful, empty house, unsigned. My to do list has been put on hold, at least until tuesday. Since the tornadoes passed through the Macon state campus, I'm told that this semester will not begin on time. Last month, I could look back on the last six or seven years, and God's hand on my life seemed undeniable. My sight grows dim, My dreams are a joke, and I wonder if I deceived myself. I have journals going back to a time when I wrote prayers to a God whose name I did not know, I know If I could bring myself to read through them, I could trace my path as my Savior drew me to Him, and taught me his name. My faith is in shreds, I am suspicious even when comforted. Seven years Papa. 10 percent of my life. I have followed you, as best I could. My anger grows, I am surprised and fear you. I'm sorry. I have never been more aware of the gulf between souls. I know many suffer greater pain than this. I am so tired in the deepest part of me I yearn for rest. Reassure me of your love. Tell me again that this matters to you.

Tired again!

Ahh, sweet exhaustion...
For the 2nd night in a row, I am up past midnight with an early morning planned. I miss my large( by my standards), empty house. I cannot seem to feel secure in the blessings My Father in Heaven showers on me, and my new house, which should have been impossible for me to obtain is something that I dream over helplessly, making impractical plans to furnish and landscape, as paranoid fear lurks in the background, whispering that there must be some mistake. I hunger for more of everything, an abundant life! Time to think, time to write, time to love and be loved, time to know and be known. I get the same twenty-four hours as every one else, yet I feel like most people have a better handle on life then I do. Hence the feelings of insecurity and inadequacy. My stepfather, Chuck, told me tonight that a foundational awareness of self keeps you from allowing others to project onto you. Presumably, this would apply to Satan, also. Lol. I also remember the Desidarada, warning "if you compare yourself to others, you will become vain and bitter, for always there will be people greater or lesser than yourself"

Tired

Larger

Haven’t posted in a while…I browse through some peoples blogs and the craftsmanship humbles me…some of these people are so prolific, they are obviously putting things into words at a much faster rate than I can under the best of circumstances. My incompetent keyboarding combines with a pathetic attention span, requiring too much time to articulate my thoughts with any regularity and still get my chores done. The inevitable storms of everyday life take their toll as well. Lately, my disintegrating marriage and the upcoming divorce, along with all it entails has occupied most of my attention.
I am forced to redefine my faith and reconcile the consequences of relational failure, with a loving God who nevertheless has standards of acceptable behavior. I begin to wonder at the propriety of some of the things I can see me posting in the future. This Blog is fairly anonymous, only one or two friends have ever intentionally browsed through it, but with a little deduction, it could probably be traced to my Public Identity.
The cathartic release I seek when I put pain of this magnitude into words, requires complete freedom, and the knowledge of who I am, however unlikely it is stumbled across, could compromise the privacy of people that I still care about. School begins the 28th of May, and the drastic change in lifestyle was something I reasonably expected to be quite challenging in it’s own right. The prospect of having to acquire a familiarity with a large amount of data spread across several disciplines while simultaneously working through the grief of shattered hopes to complete life with my first wife is paralyzing. I have heard many stories of God’s grace restoring impossible relationships, but realistically, it seems this involves two willing souls, and Divine Providence seldom overrides freewill, especially in the realm of personal relationship.