Creation, Love and Foresight of Sacrifice

I deeply, passionately believe that the specific reason that God created humanity was so that he could love us, not the other way around. Yes, the full understanding of God, his love, and the purpose he has given humanity will naturally result in mutual love and respect, but I think that the conception many Christians have of God wanting to be loved being the purpose for our creation is absolutely wrong. He did not create us so that we would give to him, but rather that he could give of himself to us and that this nature of love would be reflected and reciprocated by his creation.
In light of this, something else I have recently come to realize, to my utter astonishment and even confusion, is that when God created humanity, he knew we would hurt him. He knew that loving us would cost him dearly. He knew that humanity would bring sin into the world, and he knew that it would ultimately cost him his life to mend and restore the connection that sin severed between himself and us. He knew that even still many of us would not love him in return and that even those of us who have made that choice do not always fully love him because in truth, we do not always fully believe in him. By all rational standards, there is no way it would possibly be worth of to make such a sacrifice, and yet the Creator of the universe deemed it so.
This leaves me utterly dumbfounded. I cannot possibly understand such love, and even more so I cannot understand how such love could be so central to the nature of God. Honestly, I understand why people do not believe as I do. Heck, I understand why people don't believe in God at all. I understand the validity and agony of the question of evil, pain, and injustice in this world. If anything, these realizations I have made make this even harder and more confusing to come to terms with. But somehow, my God deemed it the greatest good that love would triumph in the midst of such a world, that power would be displayed through great pain, and that rather than stepping down in all his glory that the miraculous would be most meaningful and powerful when displayed through the lives of imperfect and weak human beings. And somehow, it is worth it to my Creator to suffer for and with those he had created. Of all the mysteries I have encountered, this is the deepest and hardest. But it is also what is most beautiful and makes life worth living.
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Love and The Purpose of Human Life

The other day I realized something. I got into a conversation about something deep (although clearly not important enough for me to remember the subject matter), and as usual during such conversations I said super profound stuff that I had never thought of in my life but just came out. Anyway, I was discussing something about love, the human capacity and calling for it, and the inherent and central nature of God as one who loves beyond understanding. And I came to the conclusion that God did not merely create us to love him. In fact I would say this is not even the primary reason. Christians tend to say stuff about the necessity of a being having free will in order to be loved, and angels don't have free will or the choice wether or not to love (also wrong, whole other story), and thus The Lord of Heaven made human beings to love him. I came to the conclusion that this is totally wrong. Rather, I would say that God created us so that HE could love US. The whole life journey of the human being is, I believe, centered around this love. God did not, I think, create us to so that we would serve or lavish ritual praise to him as many Christians seem to think. Naturally, grasping the true creative intent and nature of God leads to many acts of love on our part. But really, I truly believe God created us specifically so that he could love us, in a similar way that a human couple bears a child: they bring a baby into the world so they can love them and give a great deal of themselves in doing so, and walk through life with them. We do talk of God as being our father, after all. And i think it goes even further: this sort of love is tied into the very fabric of what it means to live. As humans, I think it is central to our life, and our ultimate purpose, to learn to love each other and cultivate compassion, empathy and community with our fellow man and Creator. If I had to narrow the meaning of life down to one thing, it would without a doubt be this.


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Reflections on Puddleglum, Pessimism, and Dealing Effectively With Crisis

I just had a thought: I'm currently reading The Silver Chair from the Chronicles of Narnia, and very much enjoying the remarks and personality of the character Puddleglum, who for those of you who do not know the story is the pretty much ultimate archetypal pessimist. He serves as the guide for the other two main characters in an extremely dangerous and seemingly hopeless journey. He is very kind, loyal, and unexpectedly wise. However, he is often disregarded by the other characters as a wet blanket as a result of his persistent over the top negativity. However, once they end up in the midst of their worst danger and trial, he is very insightful, quick on his feet, clear thinking, incredibly helpful and to the surprise of the other characters, actually uplifting and encouraging in the midst of utter hopelessness and despair. And I realized that just like in the book, in reality it seems that it is often the pessimistic and harshly realistic people who actually do especially well coping with crisis and trying situations. I'm not saying this is neccesarily because of their pessimism, but I have seen this often in my own life, the lives of others, and the lives of people in well written fiction. I think it may have to do with the fact that pessimism tends to go along with an understanding of crisis, or disappointment or disaster. Sadly this all to often breeds a counterproductive and self defeating hyper awareness which leads to cynicism. However, I find it no coincidence that sometimes people who are put down for being "a wet blanket" often seen to have the capacity to think clearly and cope effectively in times of crisis, disaster and pain. Like any weakness, there is strength that goes along with it, and like any strength there is a burden to bear that goes along with blessing.


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40 of the Most Powerful Photographs Ever Taken

Last night I ran across a compilation of 40 amazing, moving, even tear-jerking photos from throughout history. Go to the following link to see them. Powerful stuff.

http://www.buzzfeed.com/expresident/most-powerful-photographs-ever-taken

Christians and Interfaith Dialogue

So, I just came to the realization that one of my favorite activities of all time is interfaith dialogue. I absolutely love conversing about faith, spirituality and personal philosophy with people of different religions and/or worldviews. Also, as well as enjoying this, I have learned a great deal from such discussion. I am a Christian and very passionate about my faith. I gain a lot from my relationships with fellow believers. However, there is a whole other realm of learning and depth that happens when people who disagree on these things form a friendship and intellectual connection. When I was in high school, for example, this is something that happened almost constantly at school, and it shaped me in my beliefs in some pretty powerful ways. It helped me understand my own faith, and maybe more profoundly it helped me learn how it applies and interacts with the people around me.
Never in my life have I seen a friend "converted". And honestly, this does not bother me. And this is where I will probably lose some of you readers. But let me explain. I think that so often us Christians think of friendship with people of other faiths as a means to an end. Relationship becomes the way to proselytize and change people's opinions. I personally think that this is extremely manipulative for one thing, and turns people off big time, but there are other serious downsides for us as Christians. We have so much to gain from the worldviews, and just plain friendship, of people who do not believe as we do. There is power in people coming together despite, and even through, their differences. And in the end, I truly think that as Christians and friend we have more impact and positive influence on people when we just be with them and not try to change them. And I think that as Christians, we have a particular call to interfaith dialogue. That is part of the great commission at the end of Matthew. Discipleship and community goes beyond and much deeper that trying to convert people. Many Christians may disagree, and that is understandable as their is a tension here. I am processing through this myself still, to be honest. But regardless, I am convinced that interfaith dialogue is incredibly powerful and important not only to those who we are speaking to, but to us as well. Some of the most beneficial conversations I have ever had have been this way. So I encourage you, connect with people and dialogue with them as I have suggested. It is enjoyable, but even more than that, it is an important part of our own faith, striving for God's truth and guidance, and personal spiritual formation. And ultimately, this plays an important role in active, lived out faith.

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The Holy of Holies and Shallow Modern Worship

So, this is a thought that is long overdo, which I meant to post about 6 months ago. So if it sounds whiny or cynical, that's not me now. Well, no...I'm still cynical.
But anyway...

I started thinking (about 6 months ago before I fell into the deadly sin of blogger sloth-aka having a life off of the internet) about ancient Judaism, with the Temple, with God's dwelling place in the Holy of Holies where nobody but the High Priest dared enter (and even then with fear and trembling). And I started wondering: what would it have been like for that High Priest. What would it be like to go into a place where the presence of God was so powerful that people were known to die by entering with impure hearts?  Imagine how much preparation it would take for someone to be anywhere near able to do that- and I don't just mean Levitical purification rights (that would make a truly riveting post)...I'm talking about emotional, psychological preparation. I mean, it's the eternal, all powerful Creator of the Universe we're talking about here. And as for the final act of passing the threshold... that would surely entail an inexpressible amount of awe and reverence. To be the one person who could literally stand before God on behalf of a whole nation... yep, that's pretty intense.  

In the midst of this somewhat dumbfounded pondering, my mind drifted to something else, which had been on my mind a whole lot then, and even now months later: the shallowness of a great deal of modern Christian worship. And by this, I do mean all forms, but the particular one that irks me is corporate worship songs. So... we sing to the Almighty God, and all we can think to praise Him for is what He has done for us, and how He makes us feel? And even when songs are actually reverent, they have no meaningful content whatsoever?
Ok, I recognize that there are good worship songs out there, but going to a Christian college where I have chapel every day, I have been exposed to A LOT of stuff that is shallow, self centered, and has no real content. (Oh don't get me started on the utter lack of content in modern worship songs.) But, moving on to other forms of worship, there are a lot of the same issues there as well. Prayer is another case in point: we talk to God about what we want, how we feel, and quite often treat Him as a divine vending machine or genie of some sort.


I want to be clear: this is a criticism of myself as much- maybe even more- than anyone else. And I am not saying there is anything wrong with valuing the emotional connection that we have with God, or thanking Him for what He has done in our lives. In fact, I wish I were a lot better at these things. But the point I would like to make is that God is worthy of worship that is deeper, more thoughtful, and reverent than what most Christians (including myself) tend to give Him. Our prayers should go beyond simple thanksgiving when things go our way or 30 second prayers when someone asks us to intercede for them, or the more lengthy prayers we offer when we want something for ourselves or someone very close to us. We should go deeper. And this sometimes means Doing things like pouring the darkest parts of out hearts and minds to God in times of desperation and pain, or journaling to sort through deep issues and asking for wisdom. As for corporate worship, there is usual not much we can do when a song during service is shallow or devoid of content, but we can amend the way we engage in it. We can focus not just on the worship, but also on the fact that it is corporate. Community is o e of the most powerful things about structured worship in a church service. Honestly, most emotionally focused lyrical worship bugs the crap out of me, for reasons I have already mentioned. I prefer liturgy and a more meditative environment, as that is what really directs me to worship and reverence. But in situations such as chapel at my university, when I look around me and really listen to my fellow believers offering up their hearts to their creator, I am deeply moved and directed to God in an equally profound experience of worship. That is just one example of the sort of approach I am suggesting.

And of course, life itself is an act of worship. The greatest way for us to serve and worship God is to not separate out daily life from praise, prayer, meditation on God's truth, and possibly most importantly seeking out those moments in which He makes himself known in our lives.

My Art

As a follow-up to the last post, after speaking about my artistic passion, I must show some of my work. This is not anywhere near all of my stuff, but it is what I consider some of my best.
Enjoy, but I will warn you: if you even thing of stealing my ideas and violating copyright laws I will KICK YOU IN THE SHINS!!!!
Anyway, here it is...

 1st piece in a series on Plato's "Allegory of the Cave"

 

 The following 6 prices are a series on the biblical story of Jonah.                                   

                                                 

  From the biblical book of Daniel...

Daniel's vision of a man with skin like topaz and bronze, eyes like fire, surrounded by flashes of lighting. Actually, this is the inspiration for this blog's name!

The mysterious hand writing on the wall to predict the fall of king Nebuchadnezzar. "Mene mene hekel veparsin."