Category: religion

family, life, religion, thoughts

The Injured Easter Bird

Once upon a time, there was a farmer who decided not to go to church on Easter Morning. He’d been going his whole life, but a few years earlier he had decided that he was old enough to stop pretending that what went on in church was important enough to get up early for on his only day off.

This year his wife had harrumphed when he announced that he wasn’t even going to keep up the bare minimum of appearances required to be a Chreaster (a person who attends church only on Christmas and Easter). The whole thing was ridiculous, he said in his calm, practical way. If there was a God, which there could be, despite the utter lack of evidence, why would he or she care so much what we did? Why didn’t God just show up in the sky every few years to confirm his existence and provide some clear, practical instructions for us to follow? Why all the drama? Why ask us to believe that some guy who probably didn’t bathe regularly was actually God and that his gruesome death provides for our salvation? Ridiculous.

He suspected that his wife thought much the same, but held on to religion almost out of superstition. Sort of like knocking on wood when you say something that could come back to haunt you. You know it can’t really do anything to protect you, but it’s such a small gesture to make. Might as well not take the risk in case there is some truth to it after all.

So his wife rolled her eyes at his little outburst and got up for Easter service all by herself. She didn’t put any particular effort into being quiet about it, though. She knew he was a light sleeper and had been awake from the moment threw back her covers with a little extra force while getting out of bed and went to the shower humming loudly. He said not a word through her entire performance, but she knew he was only pretending to be asleep when she left. And came back in to grab something she forgot before leaving again. Just to be sure he wasn’t actually still asleep when she left.

After the third time his wife had left, the farmer waited a long moment before peeking out the window to watch her car pull out the driveway. He’d said his piece and the conversation was over. But he knew that sometimes his wife needed a little time to adjust to not getting her way. Better to feign sleep than get drawn into a pointless argument over it.

Just as his wife’s car drove past the mailbox, a bird flew right into the window he was looking out of. The farmer was so startled, it took him a moment to realize what had happened. He looked down and saw a small downy woodpecker laying on its back on the ground below the window. He tried looking to see if the bird was breathing. He was too far away to tell, of course. But just as he realized that he’d have to go down and look if he wanted to know, he remembered the barn cats. He quickly put on a shirt and rummaged around the top shelf of the closet until he found an old shoe box. Continue reading “The Injured Easter Bird”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments
Being Christian, Inspirational, Memes, religion

Late Fragment

I just love this poem. BTW, I wrote about this poem here, if you’re interested. And sorry about the silence around here. Our internet company has this ridiculous, oppressive policy of expecting their bill to be paid on time every month. Which normally we manage. But it’s been a long, crazy couple of weeks. If you’ve been following along for a while, you are already … Continue reading Late Fragment

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter1 Comment
Being Christian, bible, life, religion

Becoming People of the Story

Christian theology, while it’s often thought of as an argument over who’s right and who is wrong, can actually be understood as the stories we use to explain the reality of God, the reality of human existence and how to live in right relationship with God, neighbor and self. Using the bible and varying doses of church tradition and reality, we’ve written thousands of different stories, each purporting to be THE Christian story. Except the idea that any of us has found THE Christian story is preposterous.

Jesus said there was one narrow path to him and we’d know we’d found it by its fruit. And I can say with confidence that not a damn one of the stories Christians have told produced fruit worthy of my God. None of them is good enough. Some are clearly better than others, but all of them are wrong.

At best, the different theologies are like placeholders, explaining the best we’ve been able to figure out thus far. At worst, they are ideological prisons keeping people enslaved to a story utterly inferior to the real one. But none of the stories deserve our allegiance. Only Christ does.

In Islam, Christians are called “People of the Book”. Jews also call themselves “People of the Book”. I think we need to become “People of the Story”. Continue reading “Becoming People of the Story”

Unknown's avatarRebecca TrotterLeave a comment
Being Christian, bible, exegesis, religion

What Jesus and Paul Left Out

Let’s do some bible study, shall we? I look to do that sort of thing around here, donchano. Today I want to show you something kind of amazing about how both Jesus and Paul used scripture. And if we’re honest, it doesn’t fit with either liberal or conservative preferences for how to use scripture.

First, let’s look at these quotes from the Old Testament:

The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
    because the Lord has anointed me
    to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
    to proclaim freedom for the captives
    and release from darkness for the prisoners,
2 to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor
    and the day of vengeance of our God.

~ Isaiah 61:1-2

Rejoice, you nations, with his people,
    for he will avenge the blood of his servants;
he will take vengeance on his enemies
    and make atonement for his land and people.

~Deuteronomy 32:43

Continue reading “What Jesus and Paul Left Out”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter2 Comments
Being Christian, culture, current events, exegesis, life, religion

The Quality of Mercy

I want to follow up on that last post with an account of a sermon given by a Christian man who is doing what he can to change our broken system. His name is Mark Osler. He used to be a federal prosecutor in Detroit and sent many men, particularly, black men to prison for drug crimes. He did it with the best of intentions, motivated by a genuine love for his home town which was falling apart before his eyes. But eventually, after he left the job to take a position at Baylor University in Waco Texas, he began to question the justice of what he had been involved in. He was seeking ways to bring his work and his faith into proper relationship with each other, and in the process has become one of the most influential lawyers working to change our drug sentencing laws and bring a different sort of justice to people caught up in the drug trade. Justice which is joined with mercy, not justice which demands the sacrifice of the lives of young men of color.

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God. Blessed are you who hunger now, for you will be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep now, for you will laugh,” Osler reads before getting to the less frequently cited sentences. “But woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn. Woe to you when all men speak well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets.”

Osler pauses. “Sometimes,” he says with a grin, “the Bible is not very reassuring for a fairly affluent straight white guy from Edina,” referring to the Minneapolis suburb where he and his family live. “But that is me, and this is one of those times. In this passage, Jesus is talking about turning everything—everything—upside down. The poor will have the kingdom, while the rich will face woe. The hungry will be filled, while those who are full will be hungry. Those who are reviled will be blessed, and it’s bad when all speak well of you. This teaching, this idea of turning everything upside down, is dangerous.”

Continue reading “The Quality of Mercy”

Unknown's avatarRebecca TrotterLeave a comment
Being Christian, Inspirational, life, relationships, religion

Forgiving Is Hard, Not Impossible

One of my many idiosyncratic beliefs is that Africa has a special role to play in God’s upside down kingdom. For so long, Africa has been last which according to Jesus’ words, means that the day is coming when they will be first. I suspect that we will be looking to them in order to understand God’s kingdom rather than assuming that it is our job as westerners to hand out the kingdom like a goody bag to the rest of the world.

I bring this up because, as you might know, it is the 20th anniversary of the Rwandan genocide in which 1,000,000 people were killed in 100 days. It was a remarkable spasm of violence and hatred such as the world has never seen before. Truly unspeakable things happened during those 100 days. Rarely has humanity’s capacity for evil been put on such lurid display.

One startling and fascinating thing about the Rwandan genocide is that in the early 80s, there were a series of Marian apparitions which took place in Rwanda. Three different youth were given horrific visions of the genocide which took place in 1994. The apparition of Mary in Rwanda is one of only three Marian apparitions which has been given approval by the Roman Catholic Church.

In one of her messages, Mary said, “Today, many people do not know any more how to ask forgiveness.” Now, on the anniversary of the Rwandan genocide, the people of Rwanda bring an astonishing testimony of forgiveness to the world.

I hope that we will take their witness seriously and allow their example to inspire us to seek forgiveness from those we have wronged and to forgive those who have wronged us. The witness of the Rwandan people shows us that whether we are dealing with conflicts between neighbors or between nations or groups, the seeking and giving of forgiveness are the only way forward for humanity.

Below are images and quotes from Rwandan perpetrators and their victims. You can find more pictures and quotes, along with an explanation in this New York Times story “Portraits of Reconciliation”: Continue reading “Forgiving Is Hard, Not Impossible”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter6 Comments
Being Christian, religion

Overcoming the Fall

At the fall, Adam and Eve’s eyes were opened to what they looked like from the perspective of someone who didn’t like them very much. Prior to the fall, they were defined by God who thought they were as cute as toddlers in a bath tub. After the fall, they realized that this wasn’t the only possible way of being seen.

God looked at them through the eyes of a loving, doting father. But his is not the only perspective in the universe. We also have an enemy whose entire reason for being is to tell God what is wrong with his creation; ie to make accusations. He’s the one who looks at mankind’s nakedness and says, “Look at how ignorant they are. Why don’t they stop lolling around and do something with themselves? Put some clothes on, go explore the mountains, become more sophisticated and refined? They’re capable of it. They should be ashamed of themselves.”

The enemy views the world entirely differently than God does. God looks at it and says, “it’s good.” He looked at us and said, “they are very good.” The enemy looks at everything and says, “here’s what’s wrong with creation. Here’s how it ought to be better. Here’s what’s not good enough.”

When the serpent told baby Adam and Eve that God didn’t want them to be as he was, he wasn’t lying. God knew what it was like to see things from the perspective of the enemy, the one who didn’t like him or approve of his ways. It was useful to him even, much like giving your work to someone with an extremely critical eye for evaluation can be useful.

But God did not want us to have that experience. He wanted us to live and enjoy our lives like the animals do, without worrying about being judged. The enemy knew that we were different from the animals in an important way.  If you sneer at a lion for it’s poor table manners, it will take no notice. But the mere prospect of of using the wrong fork at a fancy dinner has been known to drive us humans into a panic. The enemy took advantage of that. He invited us to see what we looked like not just from the perspective of good, but the perspective of evil as well.

Prior to the fall, all we knew was good. All we knew was what we looked like through the eyes of one who loves us. If we wanted to run around naked and throw poop at each other, that was no problem. Sure, throwing poop is unsanitary so we might get sick from doing it. But we humans are particularly good at learning. We’d figure out soon enough that the poop throwers always had the runs, sometimes died and had no friends.  In time we’d teach our kids that poop throwing wasn’t such a great idea. Continue reading “Overcoming the Fall”

Unknown's avatarRebecca TrotterLeave a comment