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zeborahI currently have a cat sprawled all over me, though at least she's stopped trying to poke at the flies landing on my laptop. In any case it makes me notice again that there are scattered hairs on her that are significantly longer than the rest of her fur, and thence to wonder if those are related to the hairs on humans, and thence to wonder how on earth she fits all this fur on her skin because this is one seriously furry cat.
--Ah, she's just leapt off me to fall instantly asleep on her armchair, I suppose I should go do some dishes and make a cake or something.
Oh but first I was meaning to write about something I was thinking about during a hymn at church today. We had two really interminable hymns and, gorgeous as they were, about halfway through the second one I was getting ideas for a story where a character finds themself singing a song and they're trapped until it's over, but the verses keep on going and going and just when it seems like it must end at this verse, suddenly there's another one.
But also I was thinking about the chorus of the second song (I had about six or seven opportunities to think about it after all), which was:
So I started thinking that what we actually need to do these days might be (to heinously misparse the word) to in-vangelise: to remind other Christians that our religion's meant to be about God's love and that when Jesus talked about hell he never once mentioned abortion or homosexuality or anything like that (when he talked about things like that he mostly said "Keep your sticky beak out and worry about your own conscience"), but rather the sin of not giving practical help to people who need practical help.
And (to parse the word properly) "You're going to hell unless you do what I say" isn't actually good news. It's more like blackmail. So when we let that be the message that gets spread we're kind of failing. If we want to spread good news we've first got to create it, by proclaiming love and living love and spreading love. We need every mention of "God" or "Jesus" or "Christian" to be associated with something good happening, something making people happy. Because when we associate those words with door-knocking and hellfire that's just a really great way to make God's name dreaded; but if we associate them with hugs and puppies then whether or not people actually convert -- it doesn't follow, after all, and honestly I don't think God cares, cf the Good Samaritan -- they'll at least like hearing his name.
--
Boots just looked out the window and noticed that it's 5pm, therefore time for her to be fed.
--
In other random news:
* I ate a peach from my peach tree (the others all went mouldy on the tree, I need to do something about that);
* I ate a blueberry from my blueberry bush (I think the birds got the other one, note the singular, it's a very small bush);
* the neighbour seems to be halfway through chopping down plum trees though he hasn't yet attacked the main one;
* the other neighbour, who pops over every now and then to retrieve errant tennis balls, is going to nail our fence back together temporarily and also talk with his landlord about going halves with me to arrange a more permanent solution;
* filling a green bin with garden waste once a week actually makes a measurable difference to how tidy said garden is;
* otoh doing so during the sunniest part of the day leaves one in danger of sunburn (albeit mild and easily treated with aloe vera gel);
* the company who was going to give me fake double-glazing has now decided that they don't want to be responsible for actually guaranteeing it so have refunded my money, so I guess the next thing on my to-do list is to get a new roof.
--Ah, she's just leapt off me to fall instantly asleep on her armchair, I suppose I should go do some dishes and make a cake or something.
Oh but first I was meaning to write about something I was thinking about during a hymn at church today. We had two really interminable hymns and, gorgeous as they were, about halfway through the second one I was getting ideas for a story where a character finds themself singing a song and they're trapped until it's over, but the verses keep on going and going and just when it seems like it must end at this verse, suddenly there's another one.
But also I was thinking about the chorus of the second song (I had about six or seven opportunities to think about it after all), which was:
Lift high the cross, the love of God proclaimAnd I am so not an evangelist for so many reasons, one of which is that I'm pretty sure anyone I'm ever likely to meet has probably already heard about God/Christ's name, and if they don't already adore it then me telling them about it yet again is just going to make them even more sick of it.
Till all the world adore his glorious name. --Shirley Murray
So I started thinking that what we actually need to do these days might be (to heinously misparse the word) to in-vangelise: to remind other Christians that our religion's meant to be about God's love and that when Jesus talked about hell he never once mentioned abortion or homosexuality or anything like that (when he talked about things like that he mostly said "Keep your sticky beak out and worry about your own conscience"), but rather the sin of not giving practical help to people who need practical help.
And (to parse the word properly) "You're going to hell unless you do what I say" isn't actually good news. It's more like blackmail. So when we let that be the message that gets spread we're kind of failing. If we want to spread good news we've first got to create it, by proclaiming love and living love and spreading love. We need every mention of "God" or "Jesus" or "Christian" to be associated with something good happening, something making people happy. Because when we associate those words with door-knocking and hellfire that's just a really great way to make God's name dreaded; but if we associate them with hugs and puppies then whether or not people actually convert -- it doesn't follow, after all, and honestly I don't think God cares, cf the Good Samaritan -- they'll at least like hearing his name.
--
Boots just looked out the window and noticed that it's 5pm, therefore time for her to be fed.
--
In other random news:
* I ate a peach from my peach tree (the others all went mouldy on the tree, I need to do something about that);
* I ate a blueberry from my blueberry bush (I think the birds got the other one, note the singular, it's a very small bush);
* the neighbour seems to be halfway through chopping down plum trees though he hasn't yet attacked the main one;
* the other neighbour, who pops over every now and then to retrieve errant tennis balls, is going to nail our fence back together temporarily and also talk with his landlord about going halves with me to arrange a more permanent solution;
* filling a green bin with garden waste once a week actually makes a measurable difference to how tidy said garden is;
* otoh doing so during the sunniest part of the day leaves one in danger of sunburn (albeit mild and easily treated with aloe vera gel);
* the company who was going to give me fake double-glazing has now decided that they don't want to be responsible for actually guaranteeing it so have refunded my money, so I guess the next thing on my to-do list is to get a new roof.
no subject
Date: 2010-03-09 10:59 am (UTC)Possibly the main thing for me is that I really don't think of Christianity as the One True Way. I think of it a bit like writing: there are nine and sixty ways of writing tribal lays, and there are a bazillion ways of understanding the relationship (or even the lack thereof) between the human world and the divine. So for me Jesus is a way, a truth, and a light, and the people I know who don't belong to, or who have left/fled, Christianity, I sort of... It's sort of like knowing people who don't Criminal Minds: it's a shame that I can't fangirl with them about how awesome it is, but really the only thing that matters is that they enjoy whatever their own choice of leisure activity (/religion/atheism) is. --Plus if they've left Christianity because Christianity has hurt them, that's a shame but the shame is all on Christianity.
I'm pretty sure that the idea that Christianity is only a way is strictly heretical; however it's not a heresy that's original to me: there are verses in the Bible that I think support it, and whatever else one thinks of CS Lewis he pointed towards (I think a weaker version of it) in The Last Battle re Tash, and various people at my church and also the church I attended in Korea seem to believe something at least like that weaker version, if not like a stronger version. (Also I was probably really heavily influenced by reading "Mister God This is Anna" at a young age, which is sort of Christianity stripped of doctrine and garbed in sense-of-wonder, as expounded upon by a fictional girl to the narrator. Um, the story has some things that could be triggery for some people; I can give more detail if you were actually interested. Anyway it's almost certainly where I got the view that "God" is more of a label and/or a perspective on something ginormous than a monolithic thing that can be described by any single religion.) But we tend to be a lot quieter about this than fundamentalists are about the way, which I think is a shame.
(I think I'm going to wear out my parentheses keys if I go on like this.)
Anyway. I think in retrospect "reward" was a poor choice of words on my part because it still implies that quid-pro-quo thing. And I don't think God works like that. (This is because I start with "God is love" as my absolute bedrock postulate.) I think that if heaven, for example, exists (and I'm super agnostic about heaven; the only thing I'm sure is that there's no hell, see "God is love") then it's just there, and accessible to anyone who wants to go in; same thing with God, I think he's just there, and accessible to anyone who wants to say "Hi God, how's it going?" (How heaven remains heavenly if both me and the people who really irritate me get to be in the same space at once is its own question. I've had ideas but they're not satisfactory through-and-through, so if heaven exists then hopefully God's cleverer than me on that score.)
So I think God would accept that someone mightn't want what Christianity offers, and completely understand it. --I do stick with my belief in an omniscient god (while also thinking that belief in non-omniscient god(s) or belief in non-god(s) or nonbelief in god(s) etc is as... valid/useful(?)) which is why I say 'complete understanding' and also why I don't think God could be misguided. But my reasoning goes: if God is love and if God can't be misguided and if you don't want X then God couldn't want you to have it.
Whether a God who accepts that someone mightn't want what Christianity offers is properly a "Christian God"... I don't know? It's my god and I think I'm a Christian. It's not "the Christian God", but if "God" is just a label/perspective then there's no such thing because Christians have a bazillion perspectives on God.