A must read

In the aftermath of the international crimes against humanity of 2001 we have
tortured, we have murdered, we have brutalised and killed the innocent – we have
even added our shame at Abu Ghraib to Saddam’s shame at Abu Ghraib – and yet we
are supposed to forget these terrible crimes as we applaud the swinging corpse
of the dictator we created.

From Robert Fisk: A dictator created then destroyed by America

The hangman’s noose

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, who opposed the invasion of Iraq, said
Saddam’s execution will not increase the moral authority of the
United States in the world.

"Saddam’s heinous crimes against humanity can never be diminished,
but he was our ally while he was doing it," he said Friday. "Saddam as
a war trophy only deepens the catastrophe to which we are indelibly
linked."

Via

Here is a question for you to ponder. If you catch a bad guy, rush him through a flawed trial, and then hurry to finish him off at the end of the hangman’s noose, does that make you a bad guy? What if that bad guy was supported by your government, your political party…

 

…your friends?

 

Saddam Hussein was a bad, bad dude. The things he did sicken me. However, this isn’t justice. This doesn’t make the world a better place.

Super-man

I forgot how much I love Miles Davis’ music, especially Kind of Blue. Surely the best jazz album ever, maybe even the best album period. Don’t get me wrong, I am still the headbanger theologian but this music is unbelievable. Paul Chambers‘ bass line on So What is one of the reasons that I wanted to play bass (the other main one was Jason Newsted’s playing on Crash Course in Brain Surgery off the Garage Days EP).

Each track is beautiful, it hits you somewhere deep. Oh, but if I could write one piece of music like that. Miles made a career out of making music that hit you deep. Sure, not all of it was equally great but his body of work speaks for itself.

I remember when Miles died. I was in grade ten and played bass in my high school jazz band. I was shocked to hear of Miles’ death. I didn’t know really anything about the man or his struggles with heroin addiction and his other demons. All I knew was this larger than life person who had made this music that we listened to in awed silence.

I would lean forward in my chair, getting as close to the music as possible. The school’s shitty bass cradled on my lap. My face would be resting in my hands and I am sure my eyes were opened wide as I tried to grasp even a tenth of what was going on. The melodies pouring out of the speaker were pummeling me like a prize fighter. Surely anyone who could make music like this must be invincible?

On the day he died I told my music teacher how surprised I was he was dead. My teacher kind of laughed and said he couldn’t believe that he lived this long. I was filled in on Miles’ weaknesses for the first time. Years later I read his biography and became fully enlightened about the man and his addictions. I also learned just how out there Miles really was.

I wonder, do you have to be nuts to make that kind of art? It seems that the people who played the greatest music, wrote the best books, and painted the best paintings were a bit off their rocker. When I read his biography, superman became quite human. He was odd and abrasive, addicted to heroine and unable to function in the "real" world. Despite all of these foibles, there was the music, that music.

Chances are that I will never write a great book or create that caliber of music. Maybe it is a lack of talent or maybe I am cursed with normalcy (though I doubt anyone who knows me would say that I am normal). I am going to learn, and in some cases relearn, all those great bass lines before my time on earth is done. And anytime I need a little dose of superman, all I have to do is press play.

The fool

About 4 years ago I was diagnosed with Rheumatoid Arthritis. This diagnosis changed my life forever. I had to modify the way I lived my life and undergo serious drug treatments in an attempt to get the disease under control. These drug treatments left me feeling ill and handicapped my ability to function normally. What sucked even worse was that the drugs I was forced to take did not alleviate my symptoms at all.

In the last six months or so, I became much more proactive about my disease. I was more aggressive with my doctor and pushed her to give me a reason why these expensive drugs were not having any positive affect. After two appointments in a row where I felt like I had come up against a brick wall, I decided to seek out another doctor.

It took a couple of weeks to find one here in town. Thankfully, I ended up getting an appointment with a well respected rheumatologist. After a couple of weeks of waiting they managed to slot me in earlier than my original appointment thanks to a cancellation.

The doctor asked me my history and then examined me quite thoroughly. Once he was finished he gave me a great surprise by telling me that he did not believe I had Rheumatoid Arthritis. He sent me for blood work and x-rays that same day. Over the next four weeks I waited anxiously for my test results. Finally I got an appointment and Tiffany went with me to hear the results. We were both prepared for the worse.

After what seemed like an eternity of waiting, we got our chance to sit down with the doctor. He went through my test results and they confirmed that I did not have Rheumatoid Arthritis. Much to our shock, the tests showed that in fact I don’t have anything significantly wrong with me. What I do have is very low vitamin D levels. This condition is commonly known as Rickets. Chances are that I will have to take vitamin D supplements for the rest of my life but according to the doctor I should be pretty much back to normal in 6 to 8 months.

I probably wouldn’t have believed him but he took the time to show me all my test results and to explain what each of them meant. There was no denying it, there is nothing wrong with me. A variety of emotions rushed through me. I was angry at the way my life, and the life of my family, had been so negatively impacted by this misdiagnosis. I was angry about all of the drugs that I had taken and how sick they had made me.

Don’t get me wrong, I was happy too. Suddenly my life had been given back to me. I didn’t have a terrible disease hanging over my head anymore. I could actually look forward to a healthy future. My family and I could begin to live a normal life and do normal things without fear of destroying my joints. I could also resume doing some of the things that I used to love to do. Top of that list was making music. To that end I got a new bass for Christmas.

The last emotion I felt was embarrassment. I felt like a fool when I realized that many of the symptoms of RA that I was feeling did not actually exist. They were manifestations of my expectations of what this disease would bring to my life. They were all in my head.

I suppose it speaks to the fragility of my ego that this was probably the most powerful emotion that I felt. I didn’t want to be the fool, but there was no denying that my imagination had fooled me. This is a way better outcome than suffering through a lifetime of RA, but it still sucked in it’s own way.

It has been a couple of weeks now since I found out the truth. I couldn’t gather my thoughts on this enough to write about it before now. Truly, my ego didn’t want me to write about it at all. I have to though because regardless of the damage done to my ego I have been given many gifts. The gift of a normal life. The gift of not having to make my family change their plans or worry about me. The gift of music.

Each of these gifts is from above. God has taught me some important lessons about how little I truly rely on Him, and how much I can rely on Him now that I know the truth. Not the least lesson is that my ego is something that holds me back. It is something that I must shed if I can ever be who I was created to be.

Like most of the important lessons we learn, these were not easy. I will, however, learn to thank God for them. Even if it kills me.

Forgiveness

In the Catholic tradition that I grew up in, confession is an important sacrament and ritual within the church. I must admit that I doubted the efficacy of taking part in it. I felt that if I confessed my sins to God and asked for forgiveness, I didn’t need to do anything else. Most of me still feels this way, but I am starting to see the benefits of confessing one’s sin to another.

In prayer there is a connection between what God does and what you do. You can’t get forgiveness from God, for instance, without also forgiving others. If you refuse to do your part, you cut yourself off from God’s part (Matthew 6:14-15 MSG)

Jesus was clear on the importance of forgiving someone when they confess their sin to you. As with most things that He taught, I think the benefits of doing this flow in two directions. First, as the forgiver, we open ourselves up to the forgiveness of God. As the one confessing the sin, we have the opportunity to experience forgiveness from the person we have wronged. This restoration of relationships is indicative of how God wants us to live.

A person usually feels great relief when the one they have wronged forgives them and allows them to continue their friendship. This relief can sometimes go beyond just the human. When a person forgives you, it makes it possible for you to feel the forgiveness of God.

When we confess our sin to God, we may sincerely believe that we are forgiven. It isn’t always easy to feel that forgiveness in our heart. By being forgiven by the people in our lives, and in the case of going to confession, by someone who may be a stranger to us, we are able to internalize God’s forgiveness and shed the guilt that encumbers us. Shedding this weight allows us to go forward in life, free to love and free to pursue a life where sin is practiced less and less.

What a powerful gift it is to be the intermediary of God’s grace. I pray that I become a big enough person to be more free with it.

Sir Bono of U2

U2 frontman Bono is being awarded an honorary knighthood by the Queen, the British Embassy in Dublin has said.

The singer, whose real name is Paul Hewson, has been
given the honour for "his services to the music industry and for his
humanitarian work", it said.

Prime Minister Tony Blair congratulated him, telling the
singer in a letter: "You have tirelessly used your voice to speak up
for Africa."

Via

Good for him. I think what he has done for Africa is awesome. His little band ain’t half bad either.

Hot Lixx Hulahan

THe 2006 air guitar American champion.

The same damn thing

I hope I am not boring all of you with this, but I am really enjoying my reading of the Epistles of Paul in the Message Bible.

Later, when Peter came to Antioch, I had a face-to-face confrontation with him because he was clearly out of line. Here’s the situation. Earlier, before certain persons had come from James, Peter regularly ate with the non-Jews. But when that conservative group came from Jerusalem, he cautiously pulled back and put as much distance as he could manage between himself and his non-Jewish friends. That’s how fearful he was of the conservative Jewish clique that’s been pushing the old system of circumcision. Unfortunately, the rest of the Jews in the Antioch church joined in that hypocrisy so that even Barnabas was swept along in the charade (Galatians 2:11-13 MSG).

In 2 Corinthians we see Paul called out by the church in Corinth for being harsh. Here in Galatians Paul turns the tables a bit by relating a story of how he called Peter out for being embarrassed by his gentile friends. It is interesting because the Corinthians didn’t like Paul excluding someone and Paul got pissed off at Peter for doing the same thing. Not much seems to have changed.

Christians are still getting pissed off at each other over this kind of thing. Recently some Episcopal churches left the American church and aligned themselves with a Nigerian diocese. Why did they do this? Because the Episcopal church has just voted a woman as their de facto pope and also because a few years ago they elected their first openly gay bishop, Gene Robinson.

Some people are afraid that this schism is the end of the Episcopal Church. I am not so convinced. I think this may even be a good thing. Jesus said that His road is a narrow one and few people will take it. Maybe this is the future of the church, people leaving because they don’t like what they see. Some leave because it is to open so they go and start a church of their own. Others leave because they can’t break into the closed society. Instead of starting their own church, they give up on it altogether.

The question is, which is the path of God? Is God found in the institutions or the margins? Is God accepting or judgmental? These are important questions. The way you see God says a lot about you. It will go a long way to defining the kind of person you are going to be and the life you are going to live.

Well I would say that anybody ought to seek the holy through whatever means they know how to seek the holy. But ultimately you get to the place where you have to say is this leading me to where I want it to go. You see I believe that the Christian life is not a religious life, I think it’s a whole life. My basic creed is to say that since God is the source of life I worship by living. Since God is the source of love, I worship I love him. Since God is the ground of all being I worship by having the courage to be everything that I can be. And my discipleship of the Jesus who gives me this understanding           of God is not to make everybody think like I think. My discipleship is to live my life in such a way as to build a world where every human being, every human being regardless of race or colour or gender or sexual orientation, every human being can live fully and love wastefully, and be all that they were created to be in the infinite variety of God’s   humanity, and I’m tired of having the church try to say: ‘humanity is only this, humanity is only that, religion is only this, religion is only that’. – John Shelby Spong

Just like the rest of us

This week I have been writing on thoughts that I have had as I read through 2 Corinthians in my Message Bible.

I hear that I’m being painted as cringing and wishy-washy when I’m with you, but harsh and demanding when at a safe distance writing letters. Please don’t force me to take a hard line when I’m present with you (2 Corinthians 10:1-2 MSG)

I am convinced that sometime between the writing of 1 Corinthians and 2 Corinthians Paul received at least one letter from the church in Corinth. As I posted earlier, part of the subject matter of this letter(s?) was to call Paul out for his harsh attitude towards a particular member of that church. It appears that the Corinthian Christians felt that Paul was too hard on this person.

As a result of this correspondence we see Paul back-peddle a bit, saying basically that if they forgive this person then he forgives them too. What I find interesting about the passage I cited above is how Paul was also apparently called out for his attitude toward the church in general. His critics seemed to think that he was very gentle when he was with them and much less so when contacting them via letter. Because of this, Paul feels the need to defend himself with what he calls a "foolish aside" in chapter 11.

Despite Paul’s defense, I am inclined to believe that he was different in person. I believe Paul found the same thing in life that I have. Namely, that it is much easier to be judgmental towards someone when they are far away then when they are close.

The interesting part is that this realization has not diminished Paul in my eyes. If anything, I admire him more now than I did before. With the deification of Paul that is evident in the modern church, I had come to see him as a bit of a prick. Somebody who didn’t model the acceptance that Jesus did. However, as I have read this epistle with new eyes I can see Paul for who he really was, a person just like the rest of us trying to be the best follower of Christ he knew how to be. Sometimes that meant he did and wrote amazing things, other times, just like me, he messed up a bit and his own prejudices got in the way.

What a reformation it would cause for the church as a whole to see Paul this way! I am sure that the way Christians interact with, and see the world would be quite different. I am convinced more than ever now that these epistles are sacred scripture. Like all scripture they give us insight into how people interact with God. We can’t read Paul’s letters expecting them to be perfect, we must read them and understand them for what they are, the reflections of a fallible human being who had an incredible conversion experience. It is amazing how God is able to work through people like Paul, me, and you.

Forgiving

Yesterday I wrote about Paul and his relationship with the Corinthian church. In that post I said::

Paul is content to say "if you forgive him, I forgive him."

After I wrote that post I thought of a passage from Matthew.

Jesus came back, "God bless you, Simon, son of Jonah! You didn’t get that answer out of books or from teachers. My Father in heaven, God himself, let you in on this secret of who I really am. And now I’m going to tell you who you are, really are. You are Peter, a rock. This is the rock on which I will put together my church, a church so expansive with energy that not even the gates of hell will be able to keep it out (Matthew 16:17-18 MSG)

This is a pretty famous and important passage. This is where the Catholic Church gets the whole concept of a pope from. Their belief is that Peter was the first pope, the rock on whom the church is built. I think it might mean a whole lot more than that.

What I mean is, I think it is bigger than one person, Peter, or one title within the church. The passage continues:

And that’s not all. You will have complete and free access to God’s kingdom, keys to open any and every door: no more barriers between heaven and earth, earth and heaven. A yes on earth is yes in heaven. A no on earth is no in heaven (Matthew 16:19 MSG).

I am thinking that Jesus makes this promise not only to Peter, but to everyone who recognizes Him for who He is. Any believer has the keys to Heaven, whatever they forgive on earth is also forgiven in Heaven. The reason that God gives us this opportunity is not to lord it over our fellow human beings. God allows us to do this so that we may learn to be as open and forgiving as Jesus is.

We have so totally, completely missed the point.