Plane vision

When we flew to Kansas City recently for my brother-in-law's wedding, I noticed again how amazing the earth looks from way up there. I love to look down on the farms, seeing the streams and rivers snaking around the topography. The cars look like little bugs. The cemeteries are orderly with small specks lined up in rows. The farms make interesting quilt-like patterns.

Of course when you're down on the ground you can't see those patterns. You're too close. Life is like that, isn't it? We are too close to ourselves and our daily existence to see the quilt God is making out of it all. She is the craftsperson, the artist, who is putting together something beautiful. The pattern is obvious to God; but not to us. That's why the Bible tells us to trust God. She can see what's really going on from the perspective of heaven; we cannot.

What Scripture does is to give us an airplane view of life. It takes us up into the heavenlies where Christ reigns and shows us reality from his point of view. (cf. Eph. 2.6) Then it gently sets us back down on the earth and tells us to remember what we've seen from up there. Paul writes to the Colossian Jesus-followers:

3:1 Therefore, if you have been raised with Christ,

keep seeking the things above,

where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God.

3:2 Keep thinking about things above, not things on the earth,

3:3 for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

If the Bible is wrong and there is no way to transcend our earthly viewpoint, then we are limited to a human speculation about the larger meaning of life. The Bible is there to give us to 'higher' viewpoint. Its message rises above our egotistical smallness to show us the largeness of God's purpose.

Perhaps that is why humans have always thought of God (or the gods) as being 'up there.' Because we instinctively know that there must be a loftier perspective on life than just the day to day cycle that ends in worm-eaten extinction.

As we learn and recite the Biblical Story we are able to be lifted up out of the hum-drum of quotidian existence into the Gestalt of eternal life.

 

The eyes have it

I went for my annual eye exam the other day. It had been four years since my last exam. Oh well. After reading all the little letters and having lights shined in my eyes, the doctor said I have good eyes. No problems. Just the normal deterioration from aging. I bought new lenses (wow – that sets you back!) and drove home with that funny glare that you get after 'seeing' the eye doctor.


I guess I'm lucky. So many people have eye problems. By the way, the doctor told me that reading a lot doesn't hurt the eyes. Anyway, human eyes are mysterious things. Some conservative Jesus-followers argue that the complexity of the human eye proves Intelligent Design. Secular scientists disagree and say that evolving complexity over millions of years is just natural.


I think it's significant that the Gospels have a number of stories about Jesus healing the blind. The story in John 9 is particularly powerful. One could say that a major spiritual problem is spiritual blindness. We don't see life as it really is. But God gives us 'new eyes' as we learn to see things the way Jesus sees them. God gives us right vision.


I wonder why all Christians don't see things the same way? Why so much disagreement?

Of course the main problem we humans have in relation to God and each other is an 'eye' problem. It's the eye right in the middle of the word sin.

Proportionality in war

David Cortright wrote an article in the journal America (Oct. 19, 2009) about the U.S. involvement in Afghanistan. He is director of policy studies at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame.

He raises questions about the ethical nature of this war. In Afghanistan, civilian casualties have risen in the last two years to a level of approximately 1000 per year. A thousand civilians a year! Who are we out to kill? (source: Afghanistan Body Count compiled by Marc Herold at the University of new Hampshire)


According to David Kilcullen, former Pentagon adviser, drone strikes killed 14 alleged senior Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan from 2006 through early 2009. During that same period drone strikes killed nearly 700 Pakistani civilians. No wonder we aren't welcomed!

Mary Ellen O'Connell, law professor at the University of Notre Dame, says that these drone attacks lack legal justification and violate fundamental moral principles. 

According to the "Just War Theory" of the Christian tradition, the principles of "proportionality" and "discrimination of civilians" must be observed for a war to be considered "just." These principles are obviously not at work in this war.

It's the whole Vietnam thing over again: destroying villages in order to save them. Cortright recommends this: a smaller number of foreign troops; special operations forces to maintain pressure on Al Qaeda and disrupt attempts to re-establish terrorist bases; increased international commitment to development, responsible governance, and the promotion of human rights.

I think Al Qaeda has gotten what they wanted. Our soldiers are dying. We are killing civilians and being hated more by people in those regions. We are using up our economy in military costs. They have drained us of resources. Our hostile actions are helping them recruit more terrorists. It's a never-ending cycle. They get us to come over there where our soldiers can be sitting targets--they don't even have to come over here. Is this intelligent on our part? It doesn't work. 

But what do I know? I'm not a General. I'm just a specific.

Me/We in the Sea

I read recently in the newspaper The Christian Science Monitor an article about the nature of God's existence in relationship to space.

(Oct. 25, 2009 edition)

The article said:

Sojourner Truth once said, "God is the great house that holds all His children; we dwell in Him as the fishes dwell in the seas."

 

Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, described God as infinite Mind, filling all space. She wrote, "It would require an infinite form to contain infinite Mind. Indeed, infinite form involves a contradiction of terms." 

Therefore, since Mind includes all, there is no "outer" space to God.

[my comments]:

The Bible agrees.

Everything lives in God.

Paul said, "In God we live and move and have our being."

We tend to think of God as "out there" somewhere.

But not so.

We are IN God.

God is not remote.

We need no remote control to connect with God.

God is our home.

We dwell in him.

He is the Sea.

Our being is in BEING.

Where is God?

Here.

All around.

In us...through us...beyond us.

We shall dwell in the House of the Lord forever.

He is the House.

Let's have some more married priests, says the Pope

Another blogger I read led me to a new blog I hadn't read, and it's deliciously well written and funny. Maybe you have read about how the Pope is inviting schismatic Anglicans (Church of England folks) into the Catholic Church. Take a look at the Wasabi Mama blog.

Burning Bibles

What to get rid of all those Bibles you have that aren't really God's Word? Well, here is a church that will burn them for you...

See this video

Nun Sense

In 1965 there were 180,000 nuns in the U.S. In 2009 there are 59,000. The median age is 75. So, the Presbyterian Church has something in common with nuns.


But here is something interesting: There seems to be a liberal caucus of nuns and a conservative caucus. A national organization called the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) relates to the liberal nuns. And the Conference of organization. (I'll refer to them as the L nuns and the C nuns.)


These two types of nuns come from different theological perspectives. Father Timothy Radcliffe compares the two groups. He says that the L nuns emphasize the Incarnation of Christ. The C nuns emphasize the Cross. The L nuns see Christ as breaking through boundaries; the C nuns see Christ as gathering folk into community. The L nuns see religious life as being in solidarity with the poor and working for justice for the oppressed; the C nuns see religious life as divine espousal with Christ. Of course these polarities are generalizations and are about emphases. This dichotomy of sisterhood represents two different responses to Vatican II. The whole Catholic Church continues to debate the meaning of that historic Council of the Church. Pope Benedict was there as a theological advisor. And he takes a conservative view of the implications of the Council. But there is a diversity of opinion about Vatican II among theologians, priests, etc.


Sister Ilia Delio, writing in the Jesuit publication America (Oct. 12, 2009) says that from her perspective (as an L nun) the difference between the two groups is the fear of change. Her personal experience began as a C nun and journeyed beyond that perspective into the land of L nuns. She felt restrained and claustrophobic in the C nun world. It wasn't the type of spirituality she was made for. When she came in contact with a different breed of nuns, a more activist, liberal-minded order, she discovered that there are nuns and there are 'nuns.' The newly discovered nuns had none of the numbing characteristics of the old nuns. The new nuns had a habit of wearing jeans and sweatshirts. They seemed more alive. Her vocation as a nun was saved by her connection with fun nuns.


My own perspective is that there is a place for both C nuns and L nuns. It takes all kinds. Recently the Vatican has begun an investigation of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (L nuns). Let's hope this doesn't become a habit.