Quirky Thursday: Advent, Bill and Ted, Change and Satan

I hope folks are enjoying the random Thursday posts. This is a collection of stuff from my random blog, On the Journey. I’ve put it in the sidebar (look toward the bottom of the right sidebar here on the blog). So, this will probably be the last random post like this. I might still include some pictures, but my hope is you check it out on the sidebar or subscribe to it.

Also, I added, just as a test, a What Should I Blog About? Widget on the side bar. If you’ve got a topic click on it and type in your topic. I figure if it’s useful, I’ll keep it, if not it’ll be gone. Let me know how I can make the site more useful, or anything I should change. Curious of what people thought of yesterdays post.

advent 06 v1 (via ben bell)

The fact that the scriptures are brim full of hustlers, murderers, cowards, adulterers, and mercenaries used to shock me. Now it is a source of great comfort.
– Bono, “Introduction,” in Selections from the Book of Psalms (Irresistible Revolution, Shane Claiborne, pg. 254)
https://tryingtofollow.com/wp-content/linkedimages/upload/static.flickr.com//EfFLvTB7Qh4recozRP3yYogio1_400.jpg
Sometimes, if i get bored, i look up images of synchronized swimmers. then i laugh at them.
-Christy Page
https://tryingtofollow.com/wp-content/linkedimages/upload/static.flickr.com//EfFLvTB7Qh4t7lfpbh5gCEC7o1_400.jpg
Don’t call me a saint. I don’t want to be dismissed so easily.
-Dorothy Day

https://tryingtofollow.com/wp-content/linkedimages/upload/static.flickr.com//EfFLvTB7Qhawlaiu5s9WOdrqo1_400.jpg

We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community.
-Dorothy Day

That’s where it all began (via bunkercomplex)

In Human Diversity… (via estherase)

Gender and the Attributes of God

(This is part of my December Experiment series)

After a week and a half, one of the realities that has set in is that I simply don’t refer to God often enough to even warrant frequent use of pronouns. One area that most church going folks do reference God is in our singing. So, on our drive home after Thanksgiving, Mindy and I sang a few songs, racking our brains for ones that use pronouns. It’s amazing how much difference a single letter can make. Read, or sing, the words to this rather popular praise song:

Our God
Is an awesome God
She reigns
From Heaven above
With wisdom,
Power and love
Our God
Is an awesome God

We sang a bunch of other songs, but this one sticks out and is a good case study in the impact of this experiment. I’ll just run through some of my thoughts as we sang and thought about God.

The Attributes of God
It’s quite obvious from a song like this, the impact a “gendered” God has both on our perception of God and our perception of genders. We commonly attribute these attributes “awesome” (as in powerful, but probably also in our 90’s slang use as well), “reigns”, “wisdom”, “Power” as being masculine characteristics. In turn, we further see God as being more “masculine” (for clarification, I’m not suggesting this is a proper definition of “masculine”), and a terrible cycle of gender roles and gendered god is built.
Sing that “She reigns” completely transformed the song for me. I did not have some clear female vision of God, but thinking of God in Her wisdom, Her power, Her love, Her awesomeness brought to life those attributes in a way I hadn’t thought of God before.

Neither Male Nor Female, yet Both
Here’s the odd thing about God not being Male nor Female: I think She’s thus best described as both. The vary nature of God is that She is Super-natural, beyond nature and thus unexplainable in natural, human terms. God is Spirit, and thus gendered terms limit our understanding of God. However, I’m not sure the answer is to remove gender when referring to God (I’m open to other opinions). You see, singing of and acknowledging God’s “feminine” attributes helps provide us with an even more full picture of who God is. For example, take God’s power. We often think of these, often subconsciously, in terms of male power, as to be expected since we refer to God as “He” so often. Regardless of how liberal or conservative your gender stereotypes are, your view or perception of God’s power is limited. When I sing “She reigns, with wisdom, power and love,” my eyes are opened to another perspective on the power of God that I hadn’t seen before. (I hope that’s making sense)

A Thought Experiment
Write down the ten most powerful people that you know of. It’s no secret that our perceptions are based on our experiences. The list of people you wrote, undoubtedly influences your perception of God’s Power. Now, on looking at your list, how many are male and how many are female? If your list is unbalanced (more male then female, or vis versa), then balance it out, so that you have an equal number of men and women on your list.
My feeling is that when you draw your perception of “Power” from this new list, your perception of God’s Power will be made more full and complete. (don’t forget to post your list below!)

One Final Thought
I plan on devoting a full post to this later, but I wanted to note that I think our ideas and perceptions of gender roles have had a terrible impact on us as a society (particularly in the church) and our relationship and connection to God. I fear our societal pressures have had a most oppressive impact on women, and also children. For a great post on the topic, read Erin’s recent blog post or for a more concise thought, read this poster we have hanging in our living room.

[photo credit] and [ht. to Aunt B for posting thoughts on her blog]

Female Pronouned God Experiment: Week 1 Review

For the past week, I’ve been referring to God as “She” or “Her” when the need to use a pronoun arises. I mentioned this experiment on the blog last week and it brought with it a string of conversation I found very interesting. It’s also shaped some of my thoughts through out the week. You really should go read the comment section on the post, there are a lot of great thoughts. I felt a clarification or two might be in order.

This Is An Experiment

I think experimenting is important (don’t take that the wrong way). Christians especially are notorious for our sort of black and white stances on so many things. Sometimes I think it’s justified, but many times I think it’s not. When I decided to spend the month referring to God as “She” I did not make a fundemental switch in my doctrine or theology. I’m not making a definitive statement of the gender of God or even of my social or political leanings. If I decide to go back to referring to God as “He” come January, I don’t think any irreversable damage will be done. I think we need to be open to trying new things, hearing other opinions, walking a mile in another persons shoes. This is just an attempt to do that in a small way.

Men and Women have experienced life Differently

Regardless of what you think about gender, gender roles, sexual orientation, societies stereotypes, and more, there is the undeniable reality that we have been shaped by our experience; and men and women’s life experience is fundamentally different. I’m not attempting to make any statement about biology or innate traits of men and women, I’m simply acknowledging that the way we are treated as “boys” and “girls” affect the types of adults that we become. One way I believe we’ve been shaped differently is in our understanding and connection with “God”. The reality that we have almost all grown up with God being a “He” has an impact on us, particularly differently if we ourselves are “he” or “she”.  That being the case, this experiment is also an opportunity to see this small aspect of my life differently then I have for the past 26 years.

I’ll try and share more of my thoughts thus far on the actual practice of calling God “She” later this week if I can. For now, I hope these two points open your mind a bit to what this is about.

[photo credit]

Capricious Thursday: Better Than Sliced Bread

Do not be too moral. You may cheat yourself out of much life. Aim above morality. Be not simply good; be good for something. -Henry David Thoreau

How to dry a baby

The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy. -MLK

I wish I had written this book via dktoday:www.beawesomeinstead.com

You are never going to build a church by kicking people out. This isn’t a fast-food restaurant; it’s the kingdom of God, and quality disciples take a lot of time. Jesus is patient to the end. -donald miller in Searching for God Knows What

New Friend Requests

It’s not your salary that makes you rich, it’s your spending habits.
-Charles A. Jaffe

Now this is a “Christian” Billboard

We don’t save souls…

We just make sure there is no booze or porn on their life raft.
-Keane

I Died For Your Grins

Book Review: Sway by Ori and Rom Brafman

Looking for a quick and interesting read, I picked up Sway: The Irresistible Pull of Irrational Behavior, by Ori and Rom Brafman. In the vein of Freakonomics, The Tipping Point and others (don’t know what that genre’s called). The book proved thoroughly interesting.

The basic premise is that we are swayed to act irrationally by various external forces. By learning and being aware of them we can learn to make more rational decisions, though the reality is we our often affected so sub-consciously by these forces that they are hard to avoid.

Rather then summarizing the different Sways myself, I found an excellent summary over at JollyBlog‘s book review:

Loss aversion – this is a form of playing not to lose, making decisions in order to cut our losses, or avoid further losses.

Commitment – this is our tendency to hold fast to our course of action in the face of accumulating losses.

Value attribution – we attribute value to people or things based on quick impressions.  In other words, if the right people like something we attribute greater value to that thing than if the wrong people like it.

Diagnosis bias – once we diagnose a situation we see the world through the lens of that diagnosis and all of reality conforms to our bias.

Fairness perception – we’ll often act against our own best interests if we feel that we are being treated unfairly.  There is a cool experiment he talks about involving two subjects.  Someone offers them a sum of money, let’s say $100.  One person gets to divide it any way they want and the other person can decide to accept or reject that division.  If the second accepts they both get the money per the division by the first.  If the second rejects, they both get nothing.  Most of the time the first person divides it 50-50, the second accepts and they walk away happy.  But, when the first person makes an imbalanced division – let’s say he keeps $70 and offers the other $30 – in pretty much every case the second rejects it.   In either case, whether it was a 50-50 or a 70-30 split, the second person would have come out to the good, but in the second case they rejected their own gain because of the fairness perception.

Altruism-Pleasure conflict – people will perform better for altruistic motives than for rewards.  In other words, if someone does something for altruistic motives and then you come back and offer them a reward for doing the same thing, you will often find them losing motivation and/or performing worse.  You gotta read that chapter to understand how it works.

Group Conformity – when in group settings, people tend to stifle their own opinions, often when their own opinions are patently correct and the groups are patently false, to go along with the group.

I’d recommend this book to anyone whose enjoyed any other books in this genre. It’s a quick and easy and interesting read. For some further insight into the subject matter here’s a video by the author about the book.

Now, some totally random tidbits that don’t necessarily give you a good overall view of the book, but might be interesting nonetheless.

Apparently LBJ was a pretty crazy guy…

“There’s a thin line between determination and intimidation and LBJ had no trouble skipping between the two. When he was elected to Congress, he’d call fellow legislators at all hours of the night, just to catch them off guard. Later, as president, during official White House meetings he’d shock and intimidate visitors by announcing a swimming break, taking off his clothes and jumping naked into the pool.” (p.33)

They did a study where a college class has a surprise substitute teacher. The students receive different descriptions of the teacher, an identical biographic paragraph except one line: “People who know him consider him to be a very warm person…” or “People who know him consider him to be a rather cold person…” After sitting through the class, hearing from the exact same professor, the students fill out a questionnaire. Those who had the “very warm” description described the teacher as such. Yet, students who’d sat through the exact same class but who’d received the “rather cold” description described the professor as “self-centered, formal, unsociable, unpopular, irritable, humorless, and ruthless.” One word difference completely changed their perception of the same person! (p.73)

The book also references studies challenging the effectiveness of SSRI’s (Prozac, Zoloft, etc)

“When it comes to SSRIs and children, only three out of the sixteen randomized control trials they had for kids showed a positive result. Only three out of sixteen. And of course there is also the risk of serious side effects.” -Dr. David Antonuccio, regarding research on SSRI’s (p. 97)

The Season Is About The Children

As I’ve said in the past, I’ve struggled in recent years with the Christmas season. And I’m making an effort to stay positive this year. This past Sunday I had a beautiful glimpse of what I think the season is about, or should be more about if anything.

After Thanksgiving, we had the chance to go to church with some dear friends of ours whom we lived with in Nashville who now live in Iowa. On the first Sunday of Advent they had their three children dedicated at the church they attend. They have three wonderful, beautiful free-spirited little ones whom they love.

I think typically most of the kids our in the nursery during the service, but that day they had their three kids and we had our daughter all in the service. As you can imagine they didn’t sit still and silent the whole time. During the singing, the lighting of the advent candle, the children s sermon and more, the kids wandered around and explored, smiled, said “hi” to the person behind us and grunted in frustration at times. My initial instinct was concern for being polite and respectful of those around us and making sure my daughter kept quite and out of the way.

Fortunately, the Christmas singing set me straight. I don’t know what song it was but some line about baby Jesus reminded me that we are celebrating a birth, we are celebrating a child, hope for humanity comes to us packaged in a whiney, messy, crying, smelly, wandering, giggling, antsy, tired, noisy, lovely little child.

And I was able to sit back and let the kids enjoy themselves. I think God must have smiled and cried a little as She* watched that scene unfold in Bethlehem 2000 some years ago. It brought a tear to my eye that day as I watched the kids run around, in many ways my hope for humanity is tied up in their lives.

I don’t mean that as an encouragement to shower kids with presents or take frequent trips to see Santa in the mall. I think instead we need to be reminded that what we celebrate this season is that the hope of humanity came through a child, and it is carried on through us (children who have grown to love our neighbors and raise the next generation of children to do the same). Remember, this season is about the children.

*An explanation of why I’m using female pronouns for God.

My December Experiment: Female Pronouned God

For 26 years I’ve grown up hearing “God” referred to with male pronouns. Occasionally it’s acknowledge that God is neither male nor female, but following the tradition of our male-centric, paternalistic society (and original bible writers) we refer to God as a male, frequently and often.
For reasons, whether doctrinal or societal, we are hesitant to move away from, in any way, referencing God (specifically the God God part of the trinity [Jesus, Holy Spirit, God]) in any feminine term or pronoun.  Any attempt to do so is often written off as “new agey” or “feminist” as if referring to God as a “he” is one of the central doctrinal issues of our faith. Yet, we do acknowledge that God is spirit, and though extremely rare there is scripture acknowledging female attributes of God.
The truth is that both males and females have been impacted by this “male” God and what that means for us as people, individuals and within our gender. My wife has spoken about the impact she’s felt it’s had on her, not just of seeing God as male, but the near silence or absence of woman’s value and voice in the scriptures she sees as the foundation of her faith.
One month is not nearly enough to reverse any long term psychological impact, but for the month of December (or longer), I’d like to refer to God as a female (with female pronouns). We currently do this to a small degree in our own home, but I haven’t moved beyond.
I’ll refer to God as “she” in my blog posts (I’d encourage others whom I read or read here to do this as well), around and amongst family and friends, and in any other “God” talk. I won’t go out of my way to say it and make a scene, but I won’t shy away from it either.
I’ll write about the impact the experiment has had on me and how I think about God.
I’d love to hear your feedback or thoughts on this topic, and if there are any others who want to experiment with me I’d love to have some fellow adventurers.