saved?

i'm still trying this whole church-thing out.
it's been a few years since the
bad things happened,
and it's been restorative in some ways
to try and go back.

in light of everything, i find myself to be
a bit more critical, perhaps, of
the information being fed to me,
and am feeling a certain freedom to
challenge the words that are 
fleeting from behind the pulpit.
this week, a speaker challenged everyone
in the room to specifically ask someone-
a peer, a coworker, a friend, a family member-
if they had a personal relationship with
jesus christ- and to use that question as a
springboard into further discussion.

he went on to use an analogy that
ultimately depicted a man
trying to save a neighbor from a burning building,
which, i assume, would allude to christians
attempting to save non-christians
from hellfire and the like.

i've heard it tossed out so casually
and frequently over the years:
are you saved?
and it seems to be the grand ethos
of the christian faith:
to get everyone saved.

my question is:
what exactly are we trying to save everyone from?
hell/ damnation/ satan/ etc?

is that really what this life is all about?-
to serve as a primer for the next?
am i living every day to simply prep
for the rest of eternity?
sounds mundane- and like a waste of a life.

am i really attempting to live, the best possible
version of this life i can, to assure that the life i live
in the next will be the optimum choice?
kind of sounds like a watered down version
of reincarnation, doesn't it?

and once you're "saved", are you saved forever?
can it really boil down to you being
either "in" or "out"?
i refuse to think of myself as being saved.
rather, i hope that today, and everyday,
that my salvation will be a work in progress,
as, lord knows, i certainly need it.
may he always in the practice of saving me.

the way i see it is, that we only need to be "saved" from
two things:
ourselves, and
from living a lifeless life.

it's a man's world

being a male is something that
i have been born into, and therefore,
have been conditioned to live the male life.
i've never considered myself to be a man's man,
and wouldn't consider my testosterone levels
to be the highest,
but it is my gender nonetheless,
and learning to be a man above reproach
has been a journey in itself.
having been a male for twenty six years,
i have difficulty imagining life from a
female perspective.
and i especially can't imagine
what it'd be like to be a woman, and to
encounter the bible for the first time.

i'm not sure what emotions would arise
as i flipped through pages of references
to brothers and fathers, with no trace
of sisters and mothers in sight.
i can't imagine the initial shock of realizing
that my gender would be saved through child birth,
or that we would not be permitted to speak
in a church setting.
i could see how women flock to all those
crazy goddess movements and lilith fairs,
just for a mild slice of belonging.

i've often said that context is everything,
and christianity in itself, is a religion that was
birthed in a highly masculine and patriarchal society.
and yet, i can't help but wonder:
how differently would we see and understand god and jesus,
if we even had just a single book of the bible,
written from the perspective of a woman?

what aspects of god's caring and nurturing
attributes would be highlighted in such a text?
perhaps it would help us to view god,
not only as an upright father figure,
but also as a mother,
through his/her affection and devotion.

and maybe we'll let go of those
gender stereotypes along the way.
maybe we could stop being bound by
the restrictions of gender in general,
and allow who we are to define
ourselves and how we interact with our creator.

lyrical

"he will take you-
if you run,
he will chase you.

he will take you-
if you run,
he will chase you
because he is the lord."

-sufjan stevens, seven swans

i'm glad that he's still chasing-
even when i'm running
2000 kilometers
in the wrong direction.

unknown

it was a typical sunday,
and we followed the routine format:
we poured into the sanctuary
upon conclusion of our various bible classes.

the band started up with gusto,
and the vibrations of the bass
hummed through the rough hewn pews.

two songs in, and everything 
was going exactly to plan.
the ushers were preparing to take
a collection, just as the song concluded.
typical. typical. typical.
and then, she entered.

she entered from stage left,
and casually picked up a microphone.
her appearance was slightly mundane,
and certainly not memorable, to say the least.

"hello", she greeted.

all eyes were on her.
and then on each other.
some thought this was the beginning of a skit,
or an impromptu presentation.
others thought she had stepped up
with a word of prophecy-
and maybe she did.

"for an entire year,
i've been attending this church.
every week, i hang out in the rafters.
i sway to the same music as you.
i share in the same message.
i pass you in the foyer.
i smile at all of you.
we even call ourselves a church family.

and for an entire year,
not a single one of you
have introduced yourselves,
nor have any of you
learned my name."

silence penetraded the sanctuary
with heavy notes of guilt
and awkwardness.

several women-
"female bouncers", if you will-
approached from alongside her,
and began to console her.
they offer to connect her
into a small group.
they introduce themselves.
they do anything within their power
to get her off that stage,
and get things back to typical.

she refuses their offering.
instead, she points a finger,
hovers it in the direction of an entire
congregation, and utters that same sin:

"for an entire year,
not a single one of you
have gotten to know my name.

not a one."

silence.

"you call yourselves christians,
but you have never shown christ to me.
but, how could you,
when you have no clue who i am?"

and with a final sneer,
she hands over the microphone,
and is dragged off stage,
sobbing like a troubled child.
"they never bothered to learn my name"...
she whimpers.
and disappeared into the unknown.

i wish i could tell you her name.
trouble is,
i just can't seem to remember it.

oh-emm-gee

"you shall not take the name
of the lord, your god,
in vain,

for the lord will not hold him
guiltless who takes his name
in vain."
-exodus 20:7

apparently this is a pretty big sin 
to commit. 

i'm just trying to figure out
if it'll make god angry,
the next time i think something is ridiculous,
and reply with "oh my god".

i remember the first time i said it.
i did it on a dare, in the third grade.
man, i felt like a rebel that day.
and sure enough, a whole slew
of other naughty words closely followed.
to say "oh my god" was the gateway drug
for my pottymouth.

what about the next time i text an "omg"?
will that phrase be written in my
book of life and reiterated back to me
on judgment day.

or, maybe we're missing the point.

maybe god isn't offended at all.
maybe he looks down on our
messed up lives and situations,
throws his arms up in the air,
and declares, "oh my me!"

swansong

oddly enough,
the most substantial thing
that i witnessed on television
(or, rather, streamed online a day after
the show aired), this week
involved a group of lunchtime comrades
called "the god squad"
that met to constructively show god's love
to their peers.

i'm not sure how god would feel
to know that he has a squad.

in this case, the group collectively determined
that they could offer to sell song-a-grams
from one valentine to another,
to raise money for a fundraiser-
and to spread christian awareness-
two birds, one stone, right?

the god squad was poised with a decision:
one lesbian schoolmate wanted to deliver
a song-a-gram to her girlfriend.

what a dilemma!

well, what would jesus do?
the jesus that i've seen would typically
call her out on her sin,
tell her that she was going to hell,
cut off all further comminication,
and ostracize her from all future events.

the jesus that i've read about
would pick up a microphone,
and serenade her with the sweetest song
that she's ever heard.

why can't i seem to find more of that
jesus around me?

*referring to the valentine's day special of glee

paradox

when a bad thing happens to us,
is it in our best interest
to rehash the situation
until healing falls upon us?

or,

should we instead,
seek to walk away,
never looking back,
and heal in the growth
of our progressive steps forward?

god is said to be the great healer,
but, he also to be considered the author of all things:
life and disaster.

does god rip us apart
like raggedy little dolls,
just to sew us back together again?-
all for the sake of what, exactly?
to learn/ grow/ love/ be stretched?

to what gain is this giving
and taking away,
and giving all over again?

not being cynical.
just wondering.
that's all.

misleadings

maybe you were in a similar spot
that i was in a few weeks ago.
someone, somewhere in a church
that i was attending,
decided to share a little prayer.
and in that prayer of innocence,
he quoted, almost with a sense of reassurance,
that "where two or three are gathered in my name,
there am i among them".

a bit of certainty overwhelms us
when we weave that promise into a prayer.
or bible study. or whatever.
it causes us  to realize that because two or more
of us have gathered in unison,
that god must be present among us-
because he said so.
didn't he?

but this statement is preceded by several others
that really has nothing to do with prayer,
or communally gathered bliss-
at least, not in the way we'd like it to.
in fact, it's a closing statement- a definitive exhortation-
that when we are confronting another about their sin,
that god is there among us.

essentially, this text is a set of basic instructions
on how to go about removing a sinful member
from the congregation.

and this little phrase somehow seems like a good idea
to quote when least applicable.

i can't help but wonder how many other phrases-
little shreds of promised hope-
that we blindly take out of context,
are out there?

how much of faith is dependent upon
and strategically structured around
randomly selected out-of-context phrases
that define what we label "christianity"?

someone once told me that if
what you believe is strong, true, and authentic,
that, when questioned and torn apart with doubt,
it will still remain.

i want a faith that let's me ask those deep questions-
and maybe i'll gain some answers.
or maybe i'll just have to learn to dwell
in the sweet silence of uncertainty,
all for the satisfaction of having asked the question
in the first place.

*all scripture content from matthew 18

re(construct)

why un:yoke?
i like to think of this space
as a place to undo and to unlearn
everything that has previously shaped
my faith and understanding of god.

i hate to start this thing off with a quote,
but it holds so much validity that
i simply cannot help myself:

"my wife, kristen, and i often talk about
raising our kids in such a way that they
have as little as possible to
unlearn later on in life."
-rob bell, love wins

i'm tired of subscribing to the beliefs
of a religion based on tradition alone.
i want to know it, understand it,
live it, and feel it-
all for myself.

authenticity is birthed when we strip
away the layers of who we pretend to be.
i want an authentic faith,
and the freedom to dwell in the questioning.

to unyoke, is to separate from the herd.
i want to start this thing all over again.
hit that reset button.
like becoming a christian for the first time,
and to figure out what that loaded statement
even means.

i'm not sure where this is headed.
but in that uncertainty, i can find solace
and can feel okay in being wherever

i
need
to
be.