Change

Do people change? I'm talking a major internal shift emotionally or mentally. Having very close ties to the ministry for the last ten years or so...well really since I can remember, I was convinced that no matter what 'man doesn't change'. This view was conceived out of years of disappointment, and letdown. The church I attend has been failing since it's formation in the 1850s. In my eight years here, I've seen attendance go from 30 to 80 to 50 back to 80 to 40 and now to about 25. People came, were converted, had their lives 'changed', began discipleship, only to slowly remove themselves, and eventually never to come back. Nothing that was said or done mattered. I've seen so many different people walk through the doors of the church. And they were 'changed', but they're not here now. It wasn't for real. It was all an act. 

A close friend of mine was abused by her father when she was little. They were missionaries over in China (Needless to say, her father resigned from ministry). But my friend has carried that hurt inside, and refuses to let it go. Her past is too much with her. It controls her life. It's the underlying current that lurks in the shadows of every decision she makes. Maybe it's not possible for people to change, because no one is willing. If my friend were to move beyond her past, she would lose everything she is. She would lose her identity. Because her past defines her. My past defines me. I leave some, I take some, add and subtract. But I'm still me. I haven't changed.

So often I hear, "just pray for them, God will do the work", "the Holy Spirit is the only thing that can help man change", "without God, they will never change" but I haven't seen God change people. I've seen people predisposed to God. But I haven't seen someone change to fully embrace God. In my experiences with my church those who claim conversion have never lasted more than three years. I'm told that this is what church is, and what ministry is, but I want nothing to do with it. 

So after that rambling mess, I think i would say that change is simply an illusion. Tennyson states it perfectly, "Let the great world spin forever down the ringing grooves of change".

Looked like too much fun.... They're definitely not all from '08, rather they're which song I listened too the most during that month.

January- Lose Yourself, Eminem

February- Hands Held High, Linkin Park

March- Tears Don't Fall, Bullet for My Valentine

April- First Day of My Life, Bright Eyes

May- Say It To Me Now- Glen Hansard

June- Hey Jude, the Beatles (from Across the Universe)

July- Violet Hill, Coldplay

August- Forever Young, Youth Group

September- Listening to Freddie Mercury, Emery

October- Jesus Christ, Brand New

November- The Image of the Invisible, Thrice

December- The Good Left Undone, Rise Against

Origins of Evil

Could an all-loving God create evil? It seems like that would be against His very nature. Because if God created everything, and if evil exists what does this show us about God's nature? Is He both good and bad? Benevolent and Malicious? And if He created evil, He tried to trick us with it. Because evil is beautiful and the most alluring lie ever. I mean, we don't even get a warning sometimes. It's just BAM right there. We don't even see it coming. I've been thinking this through the past few months. The day I came home from college I had a good conversation with a friend about the origins of evil. I told him I thought maybe evil is not tangible. Good is tangible, we can see it and feel it, but maybe evil is simply the absence of good. God created good. But where God is removed, evil resides. He said the idea sounded familiar and later posted this note:

"According to popular story there was once a university professor who challenged his class with the following question: If God created everything, then He also created evil. From the audience a young student replied in return with the question of whether darkness did or did not exist. Naturally the professor responded in the affirmative and so the student proceeded to explain his position. Just as there is no way to measure the depths of darkness there is no real way of measuring evil. On the other hand however we can indeed measure light. A prism will divide a beam of light into different wavelengths and colors. Yet there is no band for darkness, because darkness is the absence of light. In the same fashion evil is the absence of God. God did not create evil. Evil is the word we use to describe the absence of God just as darkness is a word used to describe the absence of light. The name of the student was Albert Einstein."

Evil like darkness cannot be tangible because it is only a condition, only an absence of the good/light.

From Modern Christianity, greetings!

Where to start? I guess with, "We are the sum of our past experiences." Is that a good thing? I don't know. Very easily I could say, "No, it is most definitely not a good thing." But if I were to have had the most perfect past experiences would I still feel the same? Would I see life the same way? I'd be someone different with different thoughts and goals. But you see, my past makes me bitter.

Coming from a world in which children are taught the fundamentals of their parents faith through talking cartoon vegetables. Where "Satan is a Nerd" tee-shirts are at the height of fashion, and "A Bread Crumb and Fish," is more preferable than "Abercrombie and Fitch." Where tee-shirts with a cross on them saying, "This Shirt is Illegal" are paraded around by the bold Christians. (Maybe in China it might be considered illegal. Please go over there to fulfill your need to feel like a martyr.) Where Casting Crowns (a second-rate version of second-rate mainstream music) is practically deified, and we satisfy all of our literary needs through Thomas Nelson publications. Where our Holy book is now being produced to look like a fashion magazine in the hope of making it more acceptable to the ignorant teen culture. Where questioning is encouraged as long as it stays within the confines of orthodoxy. (Beware: before beginning one's questioning, let it be known that one's salvation might coming into question by others) Where our spirituality is measured by the length of our hair, lack of tattoos, and whether we wear a skirt to church. Where transparency is being preached everywhere I look, but all I see are the most un-transparent, bigoted, selfish, self-righteous and proud individuals I have ever met. Where they make a subpar "christian" version of everything to correspond with their "separatist" lifestyle. Where our fucking replacement for Spiderman is Bibleman. And where parents make their children jump up and down before a painting of saints ascending to heaven in preparation for the rapture.  From Modern Christianity, greetings!

The Road Goes Ever On and On

An excerpt from,"The Road Goes Ever On and On", by J.R.R. Tolkien:

Still round the corner there may wait

A new road or a secret gate,

And though I oft have passed them by,

A day will come at last when I

Shall take the hidden paths that run

West of the Moon, East of the Sun.

I've been thinking about starting a blog for sometime, but never really knew what to say. 

Maybe this will end up being an exploration of, "the hidden paths that run

West of the Moon, East of the Sun"