Many research telescopes have lenses made up of multiple mirrors. Each individual mirror must be pointed in exactly the right direction to focus the light they gather into a clear picture. By using many smaller mirrors, telescope lenses can be made much more economically and much larger than is possible with a single, large lens. The only drawback is that if one of the mirrors … Continue reading Why We Sin
I’ve been doing some pretty heavy-duty repenting lately. Like actually going to God and saying, “I reject and repent of this.” No, I hadn’t taken up drug use or prostitution or started walking around my yard naked or anything. Rather I had become a double minded man, er, woman.
What is a “double minded man”, you ask? James 1 explains the it and its dangers this way:
If you need wisdom, ask our generous God, and he will give it to you. He will not rebuke you for asking. But when you ask him, be sure that your faith is in God alone. Do not waver, for a person with divided loyalty is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is blown and tossed by the wind. Such people should not expect to receive anything from the Lord. Such a person is double-minded and they are unstable in everything they do. ~ James 1: 5-8
I suspect that all of us are double minded in some way or another, but what had happened in my case was this. First, as a teen I followed the instructions of scriptures and positively begged God for the gift of wisdom. Which like all such prayers is foolishness which is guaranteed to make you miserable. But Jesus said that we needed to pick up our crosses to follow him, so whatevs. And for a long time, I stood firm in the wisdom God gave me. Not perfectly, of course. But I knew what I knew from God and didn’t worry too much about results and wasn’t swayed by people’s disagreement or disapproval.
The problem is that when you are following God’s ways, it does have a tendency to put you into conflict with the world around you. People are totally fine with you having your crazy holy-roller ways right up to the point that it racks up costs in money or prestige or comfort. Then you are supposed to get practical and make smart decisions rather than just trusting on God to provide.
If a man mints many coins from one mould, they are all alike, but the Holy One, blessed be He, fashioned all men in the mould of the first man, and not one resembles the other. ~ Babylonian Talmud
I am not the first to say it, nor is this the first or last time I will say it, but one of the foundational errors of most Christian theology is that it begins with the fall of man rather than with our creation. When we start with the fall, we ground our identity and understanding of ourselves in sin and brokenness. And the Christian walk which comes out of this foundation is duly oriented to this sin and brokenness. But this is a grave error. The story of you and me and every human being ever doesn’t begin with the fall, but with an almost breath-taking premise: that we are made in the very image of God. This is reality. It is who we are. It is our true identity.
If we believe that we are defined by our sin and brokenness, then the claim that who we actually are is the very image of a mighty, loving God is absolutely scandalous. “Oh no,” we say, “I’m merely a sinner saved by grace. A lowly worm in whom there is no good thing. I am nothing and God is everything.” But go back and read your bible from the beginning. God’s purposes are clear and no where have they been changed or removed: “Let us make man in our own image.” If we are not in reality the very image of God, then God’s work has been destroyed, The enemy has stolen what belong to God and taken it for himself. God is not an all powerful, victorious God if we aren’t walking, talking, living, breathing images of God.
The problem we have – and which scripture makes clear – is that we do sin and others sin against us. Continue reading “Who Are We? (Your Answer is Probably Wrong)”
Writer and lecturer Phyllis Tickle has pointed out that the church undergoes a major shift every 500 years. The Protestant Reformation happened about 500 years ago, so we’re due. And I think anyone who pays attention would agree that it’s time for a major change. We’re too fractious. The world and our understanding of it has changed in really radical ways. The church really hasn’t adjusted well and it’s created an unsustainable gap between the world we live in and the church.
I’m hardly the first one to say this, but the state of the church is pretty similar to the state of Judaism during the time of Jesus. There were differing factions. Some wanted to accommodate or at least cooperate the Roman ruled world they lived in. Some wanted to fight it tooth and nail. Others just wanted to withdraw from the battles and set up their own pockets of faithful living. There were factions among the Pharisees who fixated on following the rules just so in order to curry God’s favor as a way to bring about change. Many were looking for the arrival of a Messiah who would just wipe the whole mess away and set things right. Over all of it were the various power structures of the religious establishment who argued among themselves while remaining largely oblivious to the needs of the people under them. Just like today, they weren’t all bad or wrong, but over all, it wasn’t working. And a real solution to the problems faced by the Jewish people seemed almost unimaginable. Continue reading “Reforming Christianity”
A few years ago my family needed a new church. So we were looking a couple of non-denominational churches in our town. The problem was that I quickly learned that none of them allowed women in leadership positions. But, as my husband pointed out, it’s not like I was looking to be made pastor. And we aren’t going to agree on everything. So I figured we could give them a shot. The problem became that at each of them I had the same experience. As I was sitting in service, something in me kept saying, “get up. Leave. Walk out.” Finally, it was more like a scream and I couldn’t ignore it anymore. So I walked out and didn’t return to any of them.
When I did that, a wave of utter peace came over me. I realized that it had been the Spirit in me which was telling me to leave. And I knew that never again would I be able to look at the teaching of the unique submission* of women as something we can agree to disagree on. Like Jesus said, anyone who, having put their hand to the plow turns and looks back is not worthy of the Kingdom of God. God had already lead me out of humanity’s old ideas about women and trying to ignore that to sit under churches which were perpetuating what I had been lead out of was like looking back.
The reason the issue of women in leadership, the church and family is such a flash point is because it gets to the heart of the challenge of what it means for the Kingdom of God to be made manifest among us. It’s not just a matter of the interpretation of scripture or rules governing churches, but is a potent sign of how we understand God’s Kingdom ways. Are they improved versions of our ways? Or is God calling us to utterly abandon our ways in favor of an entirely new Kingdom’s set of rules? What we’re seeing here is actually a spiritual battle between the stronghold of of the enemy’s ways which have reigned for so long and the coming Kingdom of God. (Yes, I know it’s not nice or charitable to say that fellow Christians are actually fighting for Satan on this issue. But as you will see below, I do believe it’s well justified. And I don’t mean to say that they are evil. We’re all just learning to grow up, after all.) Continue reading “Women, Church and God’s Kingdom”
Sometimes I surprise people by telling them that I’m really excited about the direction the church is heading. That there’s something really amazing and beautiful happening in the body of Christ. And I can hardly wait to watch and see how it’s all going to unfold.
Some of you know just what I’m talking about, but probably more of you are wondering if I forgot to take my pills today. We’ve all heard the news about people – especially young people – leaving the church. Fewer people show up on Sundays. Christians seem to be represented in public mostly by angry, hateful, oppressive apes in suits who specialize in teaching the faithful to hate everyone in the name of God. And they’re trying to infiltrate our schools, our governments and even our morning coffee to try make sure no one has any choice but to do it their way. Our supposedly Christian country has devolved into one where making money is our God, morality has become a punchline and the poor a punching bag. Surely we need to fix these problems before we can get excited about the direction the church is headed in. Right? Nope. Wrong. Completely wrong. Continue reading “I Am So Excited About the Direction the Church Is Heading. Seriously. Stop Laughing.”
In Trotter family lore, the years of 2010-2012 will go down as the time of the great breaking. Because everything we owned broke. In a relatively short period of time we had a TV, a VCR, three DVD players, two cars, 4 kitchen chairs, our refrigerator, dishwasher, dryer, washing machine, nearly all of our plates and glasses, a kindle, two laptops, a business and what little was left of our financial stability break. (I’m sure I’m forgetting a few things.) It got so bad that one day I went to take a drink of my coffee and the handle of the coffee mug I was using broke off in my hand. Seriously. We just started laughing about it after a while.
It was also the period when my marriage broke and my husband and I separated for about 7 months. So, lots of breaking.
When events pile up like that, it’s often not a coincidence. There’s a reason for it. (For the record, our house was only 7 years old and one of the laptops was just over a year old. This wasn’t simply a matter of things just getting worn out and breaking.) While we were separated my husband actually prayed about why everything we owned was breaking. He came back to me with what he believed he had been told. The reason things were breaking, he said, was because he had been the glue holding our material world together. When he left (or at least checked out), there was no glue left to keep everything from breaking.
When he told me that, almost without thinking, I blurted out, “but I don’t want broken shit that needs glue to keep it from falling apart!”
Now, glue has its uses. If nothing else, it can be a stop-gap to hold broken things together for a while longer. But it’s not a permanent solution. Things are always weaker at the spot where the glue is holding it together. And it can’t do anything to keep the next break in a different spot from happening. Duct tape may hold the world together, but eventually, broken things need replacing.
It seems to me that humanity has been depending on glue to hold everything together for a long time. We’re broken and our world is broken, so we just keep gobbing on the glue. We want money so it can hold everything together for us. We fight wars and each other, thinking that will preserve us. We lie and cut corners to cover the gaps between what is and what we need it to be. We lose our tempers, use intimidation and control others to keep them from tearing our world apart. We seek pleasure and comfort to fill in the breaks in our souls. We hold grudges and see others as enemies to shore up the weak spots where previous breaks have occurred. And we pass on the glue from generation to generation.
When God tells us to do something – not worry about money, not judge, love freely, give up our lives – we say “that’s nice” and go right on playing with our paste. Continue reading “Let’s Stop With the Glue Already!”
If you’re a regular reader, it’s probably hard to imagine a happy-clappy Rebecca, but honestly, I haven’t always been a broken, whiny, suffering Christian. In fact, for most of my adult life, I was pretty darn happy, although I never was very clappy. Unless there’s a good gospel-worship band going and I can get as clappy as the next gal.
Sure I had my ups and downs. Sometimes I was really unhappy and even fell into a serious depression once before. But those were passing phases, really. Most often, I was happy in the face of challenges and sometimes life was reasonably decent enough that I was simply content. Ah . . . those were the days.
One of the things I learned during those years was that I’m a much better Christian when things are going well than when they aren’t. As you may have noticed, when life really sucks – like way more than is normal for a life to suck, sucks – it doesn’t bring out the best in me, faith-wise. I get angry with God. I complain incessantly. I delve into despair. Bitterness crops up. I question every choice I ever made – especially the one to follow God. I feel betrayed. I complain. Did I mention that I get angry with God?
Yes, it is true that sucky times teach me a great deal. I grow in them. I’m sure it’s all for the good. Maybe. But really and truly, if you were to ask me when my walk with God is most faithful, most intimate and most life-giving, it would be during the good times. Hands down. And as is so often the case with me, it turns out that this is a little weird.
Many Christians who have had the experience of following God in hard times find that it’s actually easier to be faithful during those times. When life is crushing us, we are forced to depend on God completely. Not being able to do anything else, we may spend much more time in prayer, calling out to God for help. We rely on scriptures for comfort. And then when the clouds clear and life gets easier, and we don’t have to be so dependent, aren’t continually calling out for rescue and don’t need so much comfort, many people’s relationship with God kind of falls off. Continue reading “Keeping Faith When Life is Good”
One of the things I have learned is that your gut always tells the truth. It’s not always right, but it always tells you the truth about what you really, deep down believe. Which can be a useful thing to know. Often we know something, we intellectually assent to it, we try to live out of it and we fail continually. Because you can think your way to right belief, but knowing it deep in your gut is another thing. It’s really only when you know it deep in your gut that it becomes real and you can live out of it successfully.
The problem most people have is that their gut level reaction is often in conflict with what they think or know is right and so they push it away. (Think of the person who says she isn’t racist, but has either never been honest with herself or made excuses about the fact that her stomach clenches up when she finds herself near a group of minorities.) I’ve found that once I allow myself to be aware of my gut level reactions, I can deal with whatever underlying issues they are pointing me to. And in time, what my gut says will start to line up with what my brains says. It’s a good thing.
Now, I bring all of this up because I have a confession to make and I’m going to ask y’all for some help with it. You see, about a month ago, I was at a meeting where the leader mentioned in passing the wholeness that comes from knowing down to your bones that God is madly in love with you. And my gut went all woo-woo-gah-fargle-pthhhh on me. I almost started to cry. Because my gut was telling me that I at a deep level, I don’t believe God loves me. It’s true. And I can write here talking about God’s love. And I can pray over a person – an enemy even – and be amazed to discover the deep love God has for them. But it’s a truth that I just haven’t been able to accept for myself.
It makes no sense. I know that I love God, so God must love me – “we love because God first loved us”. Continue reading “Excuse Me While I Get Naked With Y’all”
Did you know that research has found that people in interracial marriages report that marriage is more difficult than they anticipated and are slightly more likely to divorce? As someone in an interracial marriage, I can tell you why that is. Our normals are different. And that causes problems.
By normals, what I mean is what we each assume is right, good and normal. All couples deal with this. You think it’s normal to walk around the house in your undies and your beloved wouldn’t dream of walking out of the bedroom with out his shoes on. He thinks spaghetti is served with velveeta melted on top and you’re not a lunatic, so you recognize crazy when you see it.
Most of the time we are able to adjust, compromise and accept that each of us thinks the other person is certifiable in some way. But people who marry people from other races tend to face much deeper differences in what they think of as normal. African American’s relationship with authority is much different, more complicated and often more rigid than a white American’s. (Oddly enough, attitudes towards authority just don’t come up much while dating.) A woman I know married a man from Peru and was shocked to discover that he expected her not to speak with men she didn’t know when he wasn’t present. He was shocked that she would even consider doing such a thing. Another woman I know married a man from East Asia and learned that they had very different ideas about secrets – he felt perfectly comfortable telling their children lies about some important things to protect them from hard realities. Authority, gender, secrets – when people from different cultures get married, they often discover that they are in conflict about some very deep things.
What makes interracial relationships so difficult, I think, isn’t just the conflicts that come out of these differing ideas of what’s normal. It’s that you are constantly being forced to examine and question the underlying assumptions you have regarding really deep things. And we’re not good at that. We can barely admit when we’ve taken a wrong turn and gotten ourselves lost. Considering if maybe your entire concept of the role of fairness in relationships and society is off is painful and confusing. Add in the fact that there isn’t necessarily a “right” answer to questions you always used to know the right answer to and . . . . arrrrgh!
Sometimes you just want to tell the other person to leave you alone – life was just fine before you came along with your crazy ideas and made me question the existential meaning of housekeeping! (And yes, I do know that in my case, some of this is driven by the fact that my husband and I are very intense people who completely over-think everything. But really, that just means we can define what we are arguing about in greater detail than most people!)
I happen to think that as hard as it is, couples in interracial relationships are doing hard, but good, important work. The sort of work the heroes of the bible did, in fact. Wait . . . what? Interracial couples challenging each other’s ideas about normal is just like the bible heroes? How’s that for a complete non sequitur! Allow I to explain. Continue reading “What’s So Great About a Bible Hero?”
The Upside Down World 