lonely thoughts

I miss talking to people. I just finished a great book (The Unlikely Disciple) that made me really think about a few things, and thought that I would love to talk about it with people. But I realize that out of all the people I know in Austin, I can only think of a few that I would feel comfortable discussing something like this with (and two of them went to Rice).

Not that what I want to talk about is especially personal or anything - I just don't think I know the people as well, and thus don't feel as at home talking to them about anything. The people at work are not usually interested in discussing things like this, and I am kind of surprised to find that when I think about it, I've never really had even a moderately in-depth one-on-one conversation with most of my friends from church.

I'm not convinced this is completely an isolated case, either. I used to wonder why Rice relationships seemed so magical - could it just be that Rice students spent lots of time together? Post-college, and even in a larger college town, the compartmentalization of different life areas kind of takes its toll. I have work friends (with whom I can party), church friends (that I only see once a week), and outside friends (whom I seriously need to talk with more). No particularly strong relationship built on memories and shared experiences with the church friends; no particularly deep connection to the work friends.

I'm looking forward to going back to Houston and seeing friends, but I feel like I've spent much time immersed in Austin (with little to show for it relationally), and have lost regular contact with most friends in Houston. I've got a 10-year time capsule reunion with old high school friends, and a host of Rice friends to see again. I don't think I've been a particularly good friend to either group in the time I've been apart, but I hope I can start again this weekend.

a beautiful idea

Richard Beck's most recent post reflects on a painting of called "Rest on the Flight into Egypt". Many of the ideas he presents there address (in a more positive light) things I complained about in my previous post, so I figured I'd include them.

An excerpt

What I like about Rest on the Flight into Egypt is how it depicts, from the very beginning of his life, the homelessness of the Messiah. God is a refugee, an immigrant, a stranger in a strange land, a person of exile. Rest on the Flight into Egypt is a model for the life of the church. We are people of exile. Strangers among the nations. All we carry across the wastelands of this earth is the Christ Child. We have nothing else to offer.

Galut is a Hebrew word for the situation of living in a state of exile or homelessness...Yoder uses the phrase "galut as calling" to describe the landless missionary existence of Christians. The biblical models for this existence in the Old Testament are Joseph, Daniel and Esther. Joseph, Daniel and Esther each lived as exiles, as resident aliens. Each labored alongside the people of a nation to which they did not belong, each working elbow to elbow "seeking the welfare of the city" (Jer. 29.7).

We can add Mary and Joseph to this list while they lived and worked in Egypt with the baby Jesus.

That is my wish for the church this Advent season, that "non-Christians" find us, in every place, working side-by-side with them, as partners, seeking the welfare of the city. The church isn't a fortress or a gated community or a community of snobbish like-mindedness and self-righteousness. The church is a mission as we live in exile among the nations. Purposely scattered, in jobs and neighborhoods across the world, to work alongside our neighbors to bring peace on earth and good will to all.

"in", but not "of"

I've been reading Conservapedia for fun. For those of you who don't know, it's another user-edited online encyclopedia that hopes to dispel the "liberal, anti-Christian, and anti-American bias" of Wikipedia. It's been in the news recently for attempting the first social media-based retranslation of the Bible (in order to remove non-conservative bias from the text), though previous publicity has been through criticisms in having significant error and bias in it's posts, and being inhospitable to any non-Conservative edits.

Many of the articles are written with a sort of commentary on theologically neutral ideas. An interesting case of this is it's article on diagonalization, a famous mathematical technique (that I just had to use in a homework) - the end of the article questions the validity of the argument because it seemingly disproves God ("diagonalization argues that no greatest idea can exist: quite bluntly, God is infinite, therefore He can be diagonalized to produce an even greater infinite. This seeming disproof of the existence of God has cast doubt on the validity of Cantor's diagonalization.")

Ignoring the fact that this argument is probably bogus, it's a bit worrisome to me to find this sort of commentary - not just that it's wrong or biased or presuppositional, but that it's an example of Christianity isolating itself from the outside world. There are links to other Christian-based website copies on the Conservapedia Wikipedia page. GodTube, MyChurch, QubeTV - each is a knockoff of a secular website. What was wrong with the original website to begin with? Why could we, as the church, not be a part of these? Didn't Jesus say he sent his disciples "into" the world in John 17?

I see a fair number of negative consequences to this trend of self-isolation: for example, the creation of religious subcultures, a very narrow view of God, and a deaf ear towards wisdom from other sources (and in this, an implicit assumption that wisdom from outside a specific church/religious circle is inferior). A concrete example might be faith healing movements against modern medicine - a subculture is created that demonizes non-faith-based healing, creating another way of boasting of works and of distinguishing oneself as being "holier than thou". A narrow view of God working results - I'm of the opinion that such "faith-healing only" movements deny that God would work indirectly (thru doctors, drugs, etc), which can be a severely limiting and damaging viewpoint in its own right. The result of denying outside wisdom from the medical and scientific community is both poorer health for such movement members, harsh criticism from the rest of society, and a lack of witness to the rest of the world as a result.

This might be a stretch, but the anti-dating subculture could stand as a similar example. My pastor mentioned this odd subculture last week, and I'm still digesting and thinking about it.

I haven't thought too much about the positive aspects to these; to be fair, I'm probably a little biased against these "Christianized" secular inventions (and welcome observations on what I might have missed). Overall, I do get the sense that good intentions went into these attempts to be "not of the world"; however, in the end, it seems to result in the creation of another religious clique or cult.

facebook

Hey all - I got removed from Facebook due to my account getting hacked =\. I'm trying to get them to restore my account, but so far have gotten no reply back. More on this later, hopefully.

EDIT :: well, I'm back. And Alan, touche.

the Incarnation

At a recent small group, I posed a series of questions, and the small group leader asked me one in return - "what is the Incarnation?". Jesus became man (the Word became flesh), but why? For most, Romans 8 would lead to the conclusion that he came to save the world. But if the fall never happened, would the Incarnation have still occurred in some form or another?

The Eastern Orthodox church takes the stance that Jesus would've become man even if there was no sin to absolve. Jurgen Moltmann speaks of the Incarnation as a fulfillment of the love of God, of his desire to be present and living amidst humanity, to "walk in the garden" with us". Moltmann favors the idea that Christ would've come down regardless of sin, for the reason that Christ's life on earth holds a deeper meaning under that interpretation.

A part of me feels strange asking "what if the fall never happened?". Another part of me wonders how the analogies that I've used to understand Christ's coming down fit into this. And yet a third part of me wonders - what changes, if this were true? What would change about the way I see God - and what would change as a result of that?

Thoughts? More to come on this later, I hope.

on "God's will"

A post from Pat Hastings on the will of God, and the problem with the way people usually interpret the "will of God". He outlines a few problems with the way we've expected to hear the will of God, and offers, instead of "knowing the will of God", the idea of "having a perspective on the will of God".

Enjoy!

long time no post

as the title reads, I haven't written here for a while - sorry =\. Part of this is because I've been busy; much more of it is just that I haven't given the effort or time for good thought and introspection. It's as if I reached my limit a month ago with deep and thoughtful subjects and instead occupied myself with trivialities. Lets hope that changes.

Anyways, in short, a few updates.

1. I've been a fool. I've been thinking back a lot to what one of my closest friends said - (paraphrased) "thinking isn't the way you reflect God". I kind of took that as an insult, but I think I've learned the truth of it in some sense. For one, the knee-jerk reaction to my friend's constructive criticism should've alerted me that I might be a little oversensitive about the issue - and for what reason?
   
   More so, my de facto response to not knowing a topic seems to be to learn about it enough to seem like I'm an expert. At one time, I think I was desperate to learn in order to genuinely come to a decision on some matters of faith. My resultant point of view diverged from that of my friends around me, and on a few topics, I found that I ended up far more educated and informed than most people. I think this quickly evolved into arrogance, with me needing to always feel like one of the intellectual elites among my circle of friends.
   
   Luckily for me, I have friends whose callings to reflect God DO seem to be through intellectual pursuits. I think I've embarrassed myself around them enough to be alerted to my own folly.
   
   
2. I'm getting used to Austin. I'm nowhere near the social butterfly (or popular guy) I was at Rice, but I'm getting more adjusted to Austin and the fact that I can be happy just as the average Joe here. There's so many people here that it'd be impossible to meet them all, but most people seem content with a smaller group of friends. I've gotten used to that, and I feel like I'm getting more plugged in to my church, Vox Veniae. I'm grateful for the people there and the chances I get to serve.
   
   That said, it seems kind of difficult for me to find a group of people that I consistently see and share my life with. I feel like, out of all the guys in CCF, I somehow became the one who was closed off. So, I'm hoping to 1) learn how to commit better to relationships in Austin (which is a bit diff from Houston, it seems), and 2) find opportunities to do so (i.e. find people).
   
   
3. I'm getting older. Not to lament my age, but being older and out of college seems to have awakened me to the idea that I'm at the last stage of my life (in some sense). There's childhood, primary education, college, and then work. Somehow, I thought I'd have it figured out by now. Faith, purpose, love (yikes - no experience here), identity, but really, I think that the assumption that these things would just work themselves out as I got older has kept me from really digging in and developing each of them. Perhaps that's not as uncommon as we think; after all, we kids often aren't expected to grow up until after our college playtime.
   
   I think that more and more, I feel like regardless of age, so many people don't have it figured out. Given my experience with adults growing up, I had imagined that the average person knows where he or she's going by 30, but I've met so many counterexamples in Austin that show me otherwise. It's a bit scary to know things don't magically work out regardless of what we do (gasp! consequences!), though as I realize this, I can feel myself trying to take life more seriously as well.
   
   
4. I'm improving! To put a positive spin on things, I have to admit, it's nice to be improving on things while I'm here too =). A few things I feel like I've improved on while in Austin
   
   • Cooking - I used to be able to make good dishes. Inconsistently. More so now, I feel like I can whip up a meal without too much effort
     
   • Songwriting - I joined a band in the CAM dept, which has definitely pushed me musically. Likewise, Vox Veniae has opened my ears to a whole new world of music. I hope I'm right in claiming my songwriting has expanded a bit too =). Once I'm over my cold, I hope to record vocals and put some new songs up.
   • Handyman(-ing?) - I've learned basics of fixing/maintaining my bike, running sound, keeping the house clean, even maintaining my car (a little). I feel useful!
     
   • Math - for the first time, I don't always feel like I'm perpetually struggling to catch up with the rest of the class! I'm not devoting all my energy and time to school anymore! And research is actually going alright! I am very grateful for that.

Well, thanks for reading. Hopefully a more topic-oriented, substantial update is to come soon =P.