a person waits a long time to be born

you dont know when

and then you find yourself living life. people hand you a name and a host of signifiers. If you are fortunate, you get it sorted out - you understand what your projections are - that even God (the way he's described by family and ministers and such) is a projection: a fantasy of omnipotence and omniscience. God (and there is God) is elsewhere than in the accumulations of propositions people throw up around him (look at how things, doctrines, icons, symbols, money hoarding [and kind of hoarding] are used to maintain power and status). Jesus tried to show that we meet God in loving service - this is the faith and these are the works. That widow, that prisoner, that debtor, that broken man.  Jesus even showed that it's alright to kill God. God, the true God, can withstand death; can die - and it's OK. What a wild thought. What a wild reality. When you are with the God who dies, you don't need war, or hate, or exclusion, of abusive relationships to be the human being you are called to be. People who need these things don't know God - though they may talk about God a lot: mostly to hide their ignorance in their authority. When they talk about the Bible - think of the Bible as kidnapped, held hostage and sedated in an undisclosed location. They are afraid the Bible might become known in a critical way - and then there's noting for it. The Bible goes on about how messed up people are - not because of the "fall" which isn't in there - but because we want what other's and others' have. Cain and Able are the human story: violence followed by remorse and fear of revenge. The Bible also talks about love and courage and generosity - if you would know the living and dying God, let those be yours. That is the life of faith.

God, like Jesus, is met on the Road - as the Emmaus bound disciples experienced. They saw their friend in the sacrament - that is, they saw their Lord and friend in the hospitality of the Meal. Eucharist - give thanks. Give thanks, not like the Pharisee, who fenced the table and said, "I'm glad I'm not like those sinners." Give thanks like the woman breaking the ointment jar on the feet of the dying God. The living God is the dying God - incredible isn't it. But why should this make us happy? We want a God who expresses our power, our triumph - not weakness or humility. Our God kicks ass and takes no prisoners. And that is where you are trapped in your projections - the demand of the Other. There is no end to appeasing this God: whose power is without end - as it is closely followed by his impotence; whose knowledge knows no confounding - as his stupidity closely follows. The Kick Ass God cannot show kindness and can never grieve with you. But don't fear him. The God of scripture is the God who lives and dies and lives again, who works his power through weakness - even yours; and displays his wisdom through stupidity - even yours. Faith working through love: that is how you'll recognize Her and recognize yourself around Her.

The living and dying God is the true parent: the Father who connects and the Mother who nurtures. Human beings are made to be nurtured and to nurture, to connect and to be kind. Our history is one of misuse and abuse: human beings are captured by signifiers of nation, race, class, religion and family - and they find themselves stuffed by them; cowering behind the barriers of their egos, they are too easily inflated by groups, parades and dogmas.

I once took issue with people who didn't believe correctly. I learned my Reformed theology precisely and loved its intellectual quandaries (supralapsarian or infralapsarian). I felt that anger and violence that come from wanting to enforce credal conformity. What got into me? I asked myself. Again and again. Why did a religion that promised freedom have me feeling caged up; how did a faith that promised love fill me with bitterness? I look back and say that a group got into me (but that shifts the blame - I let them because I wanted their acceptance, and that was the price I paid). I say that a signifier (Reformed Theology - as absolutely defined by Berkhof and Bavinck and Hodge et al) got inside of me. And I swallowed it whole. To the point where I mused, "how does knowledge of God that should bring me closer to God's love, God's blessing, God's presence actually seem to be pushing me further away?"

So now I say, "that's behind me." A little bit each day. Now I'm free to find what I want to find in the Bible. Free for Rumi and Deleuze and Whitman and Lacan and Freud and Jung (just as you are free not to - the important thing is that you are free - free from needing the endorsement of a "teacher" for instance). Free to paint what I want to paint (as people are just as free to not want it or to be offended). I feel that in my last 10 years I've pulled a Houdini. Thrown into the water I'm twisting out of my straight jacket. The years I have left are really too short to go through these tricks again. How will I avoid this? James in his letter talks about how we recognize the wisdom from above: that it brings peace and love and not scorn (those people don't know true theology, what idiots) and devaluing human beings.  Importantly I recover a sense of my own agency each day. If my depression tells me anything, it is a clue to how much of my own value I've given over to an other.

I see this dilemma in other people. I know others who struggle with this. They don't trust themselves to use their own mind and investigate deeply themselves. On the one hand, they accept the debasement of critics and intellectuals - and so cut themselves off from the thinking tools that have been developed. Foucault's analysis of Power - that's very liberating; Deleuze's investigation of fascism and delineation of the liberating line of flight -- I would say people need that. Paul, writing in Galatians says that Christ set us free for freedom - and reading this, understanding that they are free - they seek ways to curb freedom in others - quoting Leviticus, for instance, and very selectively. And on the other hand, they are easily taken in by groups where they experience an inflation of ego (Jung is so right about this, an inflation that contains an infantile regression - "teacher think for me") and where knowledge is presented in too simplified and desiccated a form.

I was once there, among them, and now I'm free.

It seems like I've written variations on this before in this blog. Certainly there's more to come. But I am getting better.