Tag: christianity

prayer, religion

Holy Spirit Raining Down and Welling Up

Have I ever told you about the time that I stopped listening to Christian music, threw away my Christian t-shirts (“Color Outside the Lines –  Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind – Romans 12:2” was my fave) and took down anything from my living space with a bible verse on it? Believe it or not, I did it so I encounter God again. For years after my first encounter with God, I would have experiences in prayer or worship or even just through some unexpected event that I experienced as the Holy Spirit raining down on me. Like heaven was washing over me. It’s not an uncommon experience – in fact there’s a well known worship song called just that: Holy Spirit Rain Down. It’s a wonderful experience but one day it started going away. First God’s voice – that still, small voice that will sometimes come to us – just went silent. I would still have that experience of the Spirit through worship and sometimes through prayer, but in time that became more and more muted. Finally, it just seemed to be gone. I remember at one point telling my husband that I felt like I was wandering through a dark forest and God was there – somewhere above me – watching. He knew the way out but I was lost and he wasn’t helping me find my way. This was the first dark night. As John of the Christ explains it is the dark night of the senses. But I didn’t know much of anything about that then.

As the voice and presence of God became fainter and farther from me, I think that without even realizing it, I started adding things into my world that would remind me of God. Maybe make me feel some sort of connection or even just warm-fuzzies. I never went overboard, but as time passed I listened to more and more Christian music, read more Christian books, bought a few of the aforementioned T-Shirts, put bible verses on the bathroom mirror and on my screen saver. I became more stereotypically and outwardly Christian as if by surrounding myself by reminders would trigger that connection with God again. It may have even looked from the outside like I was growing in my faith – and I was, in a way. But from my vantage point, I was just grasping at straws and trying to will God to show himself to me again. Continue reading “Holy Spirit Raining Down and Welling Up”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter3 Comments
culture, current events

“High Priests of Caesar’s Court”

I came across a post by Greg Boyd today which I think makes a great follow-up to my post earlier this week – Our Faithless Culture Wars – that I hope you will go read. The choice excerpts for me:

We sadly assume our highest calling is to be the high priests of Caesar’s court, telling it how God allegedly wants it to spend its money.

Of course, being the high priests of Caesar’s court means you’ve got to get into the messy complexity of this court. How do we know that fighting for money to go to recreational facilities is the right thing to do? Maybe fighting for more funding for schools, or housing for the poor, or for more and better public transportation is a better fight. And what about the unlivable low minimum wage, or the lack of adequate shelters for the homeless, or the increasing number of people who lack basic health coverage, or the inadequate presence of police in dangerous neighborhoods? As the high priests of Caesar’s court, we have to make these tough decisions — and there’s only so much money to go around.

Not only this, but every action creates a reaction, and as Caesar’s wiser and more caring counselors we have to be experts about all of these things. For example, it certainly feels wise and righteous to insist on higher wages for workers. But are we sure this won’t force many small business owners to fire workers, thereby harming the poor more than helping them? And it certainly feels wise and righteous to insist U.S. troops pull out of Iraq right now. But are we sure this won’t result in a greater bloodbath than there already is over there? And it certainly feels wise and righteous to insist on preserving a pool for inner city kids, but what if the money for this has to be taken from classrooms, requiring that some teachers be let go, resulting in a poorer education for these kids? Is a pool more important than education?

It’s all very complex and ambiguous, but once we position ourselves as Caesar’s high priests, we have no choice but to wade through it all. Continue reading ““High Priests of Caesar’s Court””

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter5 Comments
culture, current events, life, religion

It’s the Prime Directive

Yesterday, I saw a blog post by an atheist asking, “If I had the power to save everyone at the theater that was just shot up because I was all-powerful and all-knowing, and I didn’t do it, wouldn’t I be evil?” The old theodicy question – how do we explain a world of evil if God is all loving? It’s a legitimate question. And one that we have a hard time answering well. So, I was thinking about that atheists’ question last night while laying in bed. And then because I was drifting off to sleep and thoughts become more slippery and less reality tethered as you drift off, my mind wandered to ants. You see, my daughter Sophia had spent some time last night watching an ant colony in the rocks in front of the house. She tried to convince me to let her bring out some sugar for them – probably so she could watch ants carrying sugar crystals. I told her the ants didn’t need any help from us – they do just fine on our own. Partway to sleep, I thought about ants preparing to go off to war against another ant colony while Sophia was watching. What if she could step in to stop it? Would she? Should she? And my mind slipped back to that question – “If I had the power to save everyone at the theater because I was all-powerful and all-knowing, and I didn’t do it, wouldn’t I be evil?” Would Sophia be evil if she didn’t step in to stop an ant war? And just then the words “it’s the prime directive” popped into my head. Which woke me right up.

“Honey, what exactly is the prime directive again?” I asked my husband whose dream is to have us wear our federation uniforms on a replica of the deck of the USS Enterprise cum entertainment room.

“You can’t interfere with the internal affairs of any civilization in any way, for any reason.”

“And if they are getting ready to destroy themselves or do something really awful?”

“They have a right to their own stupidity,” he answered, “grmpzzzzzzz . . . ” (I think he’s kind of used to me asking strange, random questions when he’s half asleep by now.)

I lay back down thinking that I should go to that post and leave the comment, “it’s the prime directive, dear.”

Now, to be clear, I’m no deist. I don’t think that God created us and is just sitting back watching from a nice, heavenly vantage point. The bible and the existence of Jesus and many of our own lives all point to the reality that God is intensely interested in and invested in us. Like Captain Kirk, God has violated the prime directive many times. However, I have been thinking for a while that our understanding of God’s relationship with us is almost certainly skewed and needs adjusting. Continue reading “It’s the Prime Directive”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter33 Comments
religion

The Feel Good Church vs The Church of Blessed Suffering

Do you realize that we are supposed to feel good about ourselves? God declared creation good and upped it to “very good” once man and woman were in place. After all that got messed up at the fall, he then sent his Son to live, die and rise again so that we could be redeemed – be very good – again. Our desire to feel good about ourselves comes from a deep, God-created place and should not be mocked or belittled.

The problem is that it’s not easy to get to a place of feeling good about ourselves. There are all sorts of counterfeits available out in the world. There always are. But like all counterfeits, they wear out, break, chafe, leave a nasty rash behind. For example, it’s pretty well known that many criminals have much higher self-esteem than the rest of us. And we all know someone who loves themselves to pieces even though their own mother doesn’t want to be around them. It’s just not as simple as telling yourself how wonderful you are over and over until you believe it. Any decent person doesn’t just want to think that they are wonderful – they want to BE wonderful. What the world does get right and the church too often gets wrong is that it’s hard to get to that place while thinking of yourself as a worthless piece of filth.

Continue reading “The Feel Good Church vs The Church of Blessed Suffering”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter4 Comments
culture, current events, politics, religion

Our Faithless Culture Wars

A while ago, I finally realized that I needed to take Jesus’ teachings much more literally. He said, “don’t judge” and I said, “I’m not judging, but clearly some things are wrong. It’s not judging to say that.” He said, “love, pray for and serve your enemies” and I heard, “love the sinner, hate the sin.” He said, “do not resist the evil man” and I signed petitions against groups and politicians in order to protect Jesus’ values. Jesus said, “so do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?'” and I wonder if we should make plans to attend the financial planning series the church is holding on Thursday nights. Jesus said, “the first shall be last and the last shall be first” and I work really hard to be at least in the top quintile in everything I do. See the problem here?

So, haltingly and stumblingly and often failingly, I have tried to unlearn the ways we do things here in the world and adopt the Kingdom way of doing things. What I have learned in the process is that what we see as “standing up for Jesus” or “hate the sin, love the sinner” is really a form of faithlessness. We don’t trust God enough to be able to work things out according to the ways that Jesus told us to do them. We fight and opine and advocate because we are convinced that without our help, God won’t get his way. We think that all that talk about not judging and not resisting and not worrying are good – so far as they go. But there are important issues at play here. If we don’t stand up and fight, we could lose! We could be eating cat food in retirement. “God doesn’t get what it’s like down here” is what I’ve sometimes told myself. Only that’s ridiculous – God made “down here.” He came down here and suffered the worst we could throw at him. And God wins. Always, everywhere. Period. Amen. The reality is that every time I judge or fight or worry or try to keep my position, I’m throwing my lot in with the losing side. Really. Think about that and then think about our culture wars and you can start to see why “the church” has failed so miserably in fighting them. And even more alarmingly, how breathtakingly faithless we are. Continue reading “Our Faithless Culture Wars”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter15 Comments
prayer, religion

Reaching Spiritual Home

Sometimes I hit a blog post where I know what I want to say and why, but it turns out to be much harder than I anticipated to actually write. Sometimes this means I need to let it go. Other times the only thing to do is to just start writing and see what happens. This post is an example of the latter.

I wrote the other day that I had arrived at my spiritual home. My long journey is done. A new chapter has begun. And by the next day I was wondering what on earth I was thinking coming right out and saying something like that. Normally I take days and even weeks to think things through, but I just spouted that one out without even allowing a decent waiting period to see if I would feel the same way in the morning. So, did I feel the same way in the morning? Um, hmmmm . . . can I get back to you on that?

Here’s what I can tell you: the spirit of judgment that I have lived under as long as I can remember is finally gone. Just gone and for the first time I feel safe. But more about that later. First I suppose I should try to explain what happened. Continue reading “Reaching Spiritual Home”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter1 Comment
life, religion

Late Fragment by Raymond Carver

I came across this poem today and thought – yes, that’s it. For a long time, I figured that the point of this life was just to live through it well enough to reap a reward when you died. Continue reading “Late Fragment by Raymond Carver”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter5 Comments
culture, enjoy life, life, religion

Am I Still A Good Person if I Can’t Pay the Bills?

My husband wouldn’t want me telling you this, but I’m sitting here waiting for water to heat up on the stove so my girls can take a bath. Because the water heater broke last week and we don’t have money to fix it. It joins the washer, dryer, 6 car tires, van, sedan, kindle, 3 DVD players, dishwasher, computer and 4 kitchen chairs that have broken … Continue reading Am I Still A Good Person if I Can’t Pay the Bills?

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter4 Comments
blog stuff, Bloggy Linky Goodness

Bloggy Linky Goodness

Look at me – it’s been one week exactly and here’s another addition of Bloggy Linky Goodness, right on schedule. I’ve read some really great writers this week. In fact, too many great writers; they’re feeding my insecurities. But that’s my problem, not their’s.  So, without further ado, here is this week’s Bloggy Linky Goodness, pre-screened and pre-enjoyed for your convenience!

My 2 Great Guys A great post from regular reader and commenter O.R. Pagan/The Bald Scientist about one of those moments that parents of kids with autism cherish. I hope you’ll go check it out. And say “hi”. You guys are too quiet!

He Said/She Said I just discovered this blog – good2begone – and I’m loving it. (I spit my drink out reading about his stepdaughter saying Lincoln lived in a “login” in another post. That’s quite an accomplishment.) This post looks at the differences between men and women’s communication styles. Continue reading “Bloggy Linky Goodness”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter3 Comments
life, prayer, religion

Retreating to the Desert

I’ve always prayed a lot. Mostly because no one else wants to talk to me much. And I can only talk to myself so much. So I pray. And if you spend a lot of time praying, after a while you decide that maybe you should stop just chattering and try to listen. And if you let the Spirit lead you as you try to listen, it will show you to a place of still and quiet where the Spirit in you hangs out. I’ve described it before like finding a faint channel on the radio dial that if you can be quiet and sit still and get the antenna just so, you can tune into. Sometimes if you sit and listen, you can tune into God. Other times, there’s just a sense of something meant for you – an image, a song, a feeling. For a long time there was this joy waiting for me there. In the middle of everything, if I could just get my mind to quiet and my feelings to settle, it was like opening a spring-loaded door that let in this golden light of joy. It was hard to hold onto and once my mind wandered or my feelings intruded, it was gone. But I could get there if I tried and just bask in it for a moment or two. (Yes, I know I sound crazy. So what? If people knew what went on in your head, they’d probably think you were crazy too!) But then the joy went away. And was replaced by . . . nothing.

For a while, I would quiet and settle and reach this nothing and be so upset to find that my joy was gone and God wasn’t there and there was just nothing waiting there to comfort or sustain me that I would quickly withdraw in anger and frustration. Sometimes I would try and sit and wait, wait, wait and look, look, look for something – anything to hold onto. But it was just so, so empty. This is what has been fueling most of my crabby, woe-is-me anger the last couple of months. Everything else that’s going on, I’ve mostly let go of. I can’t make everything I own quit breaking and I can’t make money appear and I can’t make people like me or fix everyone’s issues, so whatever. I’d be quite happy to just draw from that inner place where God’s joy and peace and hope are placed and live off of that. But it’s empty. I’m just SOL. Continue reading “Retreating to the Desert”

Unknown's avatarRebecca Trotter16 Comments