Interruptions to the Creed series

And no, I don't mean Creed as in the 'can you take me higher' stuff.

I mean, this exploration of me trying to understand the Nicene Creed and my own current belief system.

This is an interruption in several ways.

1. I've been super busy and haven't had the time to write down my thoughts.
2. My personal down time from being busy has been consumed by reading lots and lots of interesting articles online (thanks facebook friends! :D ) that have actually been making me think about things in a completely different way. I'm wondering if it's even a worthwhile endeavor to go through the Creed, when I don't think that having the right 'belief' is the most important thing anymore. Here are a few of the articles I've thought are noteworthy, and you should take a look. I might try to go into more depth on what I think of them at a later time.

• John Shore: The only language you and God share
• Rebecca Trotter: Do you read scripture like a Pharisee or like Jesus?
• Interview with Karen Armstrong: Karen Armstrong on the 'The Bible'
• Frank Schaeffer: Why Evangelical Bible Idolatry Sucks and Why I Go to a Greek Orthodox Church Even Though It’s A Mess Too 
• John Shore: Grace: Everything's Gonna Be Alright 
• Fred Clark: The all-or-nothing lie of fundamentalist Christianity

3. I went a little crazy last night. Like delirious from being stressed. I had to go to the doctor without insurance and the last of my money only paid for half of it. Flabbergasted at generosity that I don't deserve. Getting lost on the way to work and being late because of the stupid doctor's office taking three frickin hours. Trying to balance wardrobe crises from both of my jobs, while not being able to be present for both. My car almost got towed. All of this on a less than stellar sleeping and eating pattern that I've barely maintained since August. Or maybe even since I started grad school.

So I went a little crazy. I yelled at God while driving home from set. I don't think I've ever yelled at God. I always assumed that it's something you Just. Don't. Do. Don't disrespect or anger the guy in the sky, because he might punish you for it. Just like how I've heard people say stuff like, 'don't ask God to soften your heart for such-and-such, because he just might give you what you want.' Yesterday was simply one of the most stress-filled days I've had in at least the last five years (which happens to include senior year at Westmont, an incredibly stressful time and nothing compared to my yesterday). I'm so tired of feeling the way I do. And the funny thing is, I felt better after yelling at God. It felt amazing to completely express the anger I feel toward God and the world. I have been so angry this past year because of how very 'not okay' everything is in my life and the world. Afterwards, I felt goofy and weird and free. I felt more like myself than I have in the past year. I was willing to just say anything and do anything. I didn't care if it was wrong or going to offend or make me look stupid. Because all the yelling and all the anger I let go at the guy in the sky meant there weren't any consequences because I probably pissed him off anyway.

Except for the fact that that very line of reasoning goes against everything I think I believe about God. It's a thought pattern that lives inside me and I can't shake it. I hate it with all the brain power I can muster. I feel like I've never known how to understand grace and forgiveness of God. All my life I've been told about the truth of it only to have them (usually pastors and their sermons) turn around and say that I'm not good enough, I don't deserve anything, you're a big fat ol sinner. Come to the cross, they say. Nail your sins to the cross. What about the sin of not loving yourself enough? Because I'd like to hear one.

4. I'm angry that I don't understand where or when my faith as I knew it up and left. I'm angry that I'm so lonely. I'm angry that 'being a Christian' has never helped that loneliness go away. I'm angry that the ritual of non-denominational church practice is paraded as the best way to discover God and I feel like I've never known 'him.' I'm angry that I don't know if God actually exists. I'm angry about how conservative Christian political right values pervades my existence despite my best efforts to run away from it. I'm angry at all the ways that I have felt shamed by the church for no effing good reason. I'm angry that 'freelance' means that I work 90 hours a week, seven days a week for less than minimum wage. I'm angry that beliefs I don't agree anymore with are ingrained into my consciousness that my knee-jerk reactions are things that I don't want. I'm angry that healthcare costs so much, with or without insurance. I'm angry that it's not feasible to take public transportation for my job because gasoline ruins both my budget and the environment. I'm angry at men like Todd Akin. I'm angry that this world doesn't treat women with more respect. I'm angry at the constant focus on sex. I'm angry that the church has an obsession with genitals rather than compassion for the poor and needy. I'm angry that I'm so busy trying to make enough money just to buy food that I don't actually take action on my beliefs about helping the poor and needy. It makes me feel guilty, even though I'm just trying to survive my own damn life.

I need love so badly.
Where is the redemption?

I love this. I want to have that kind of sass.

The Nicene Jesus, Part 1 of 4

We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,

--------------------------------------------------

This upcoming section is the bulk of the Nicene Creed. It's all about Jesus. God the 'Father' gets five lines, the Holy Spirit gets four lines, and four lines for 'miscellaneous.'

How many does Jesus get?
Twenty. Twenty lines of clarifying a belief about a person.

Now, I get it. Jesus is super important, guys. Also, considering the roller coaster that the early Church went through, they had to get specific. They needed to make sure that everyone knew that Jesus was a certain kind of Person-God and not something else. If I had Harry Potter magic, I would legilimens the sh*t out of that Council. Seriously. I am very very curious about how it actually went down. Because, let's face it, the victors write the history. God only knows what Constantine told them to write.

Wow, that makes me sound like a conspiracy theorist of history. No wonder the History Channel keeps making those shows about aliens, the Knights Templar, and the Illuminati. So much intrigue just in second guessing someone's intentions. You can't ever really know what's true if people burn letters. Or delete facebook posts.

Right. Jesus. Let's get back on subject now, shall we?


We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,

'Lord' Κύριον or Kyrion in Greek. Meaning lord, master, owner or sir. Much like the use of 'señor' in Spanish. It is a title designating superiority. 'Jesus.' Yeshua in Hebrew. A common name back then. A common name in Hispanic Catholic culture. The Western English correlation is Joshua, or Yehoshuah in Hebrew. Yeshua means 'to rescue, to deliver' or 'he saves.'

'Christ' Χριστόν or Christon in Greek. Coming from the Hebrew of meshiach or messiah. The Anointed One. I actually have 'Χριστός' (Christos) tattooed on my back. Not too many people know about it, mostly because my clothes cover it about 95% of the time. I got in back in 2007. '

I don't know how I feel about it anymore, just as I don't know what exactly I believe anymore, which is sort of the whole point of this experiment. I thought back then it was a good choice because Christos is the one thing that I never thought would change for me. A 'safe' tattoo. The truth is, nothing is 'safe.' I've been thinking about adding to it by getting a gnarled looking tree to spiral up my back, a metaphor that Christos is the root of the tree of life. Or maybe a phoenix, the letters being the beginnings of the resurrection, the rebirth, and all that changes.

Anyway, back to the point.
One Lord, Jesus Christ. One Kyrion Yeshua Christon.
The Anointed One who Saves and is Superior to all.
I can dig that.

Now why exactly is he considered Superior to all? That's what's next.


the only Son of God

No one else is the literal Son of God. We are metaphorical sons and daughters to God, but Jesus is THE Son, and there is no one else like him. An invisible God has a physical child. Really, the idea is just plain weird.

Okay, okay, I'm forgetting the context I think. Back then, Caesar was the son of god. The king was born of god and held divine rights over all. As king, they inherit the rights of god. I think contemporary Western sensibilities about equality make me question that ideology, but it was common in the ancient world. I mean, they made all kinds of statues of these guys.

There's also the Hebrew tradition of the Son of God being the hopeful redeeming figure of the Scriptures to help the people through their years in exile in Babylon. He is the Son of God as a prophetical fulfillment. There's a line later about the virgin birth etc, so I won't go into that now. But that's a really grand statement to make, 'only Son of God.' Not really sure my little explanation even covers what that actually means and what the implications are.


eternally begotten of the Father,

Now that idea is just kind of nutty. Okay, not nutty, it's just...strange. Strange phrasing, strange declaration. 'Begotten' meaning has been born or has been caused. A past participle that is eternal, somehow. It's a paradox. And what does this mean to be eternally, or continuously born? It's like when Nicodemus asked Jesus about this business of being 'born again' (a phrase that has been butchered to death by Protestants, I don't think it has the right meaning anymore). Essentially would this mean that Jesus' eternality of birth means spiritually, not actually? It would make more sense in the context of how Jesus has talked about birth himself.

Back then, birth was something the average man would have known nothing about. Now, I'm no expert on ancient midwifery practices, but I would say that it's likely it was mostly women in the room. And Jesus probably never experienced a birth other than his own. I find it a little odd that there are so many birthing metaphors in Scripture when it's been predominantly written by men (the book of Hebrews being the only exception scholars have proposed as being written by a woman). Which makes the definition of 'being caused' for 'begotten' make more sense to me. Except I think there's a heresy about Jesus 'being caused.' I'll have to look into that.

Google translates that phrase as 'begotten before all ages.' Now that is much better. That suggests that Jesus was present at the beginning of the world and even before that. Though I think we still have to go with a spiritual understanding of 'begotten.' Because if he physically existed in a time and place on earth, then that physical existence would have to abide by our laws of physics and he could not exist prior to that birth. Unless parallel worlds are real. Because I have this idea relating to that about the resurrection of the body, but that is still a few posts down the road.


God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,

God, Light, True God. These little phrases are an affirmation of the theology of the Trinity. That Jesus comes from God and is also God. I like the mention of Light. Because I think of the first chapter of John, which I think is a beautifully poetic description of Jesus' entrance into the world. It feels like it comes from the same vein as the creation poetry of Genesis 1, an idea that Paul latched onto in Romans 5, by calling Jesus the Second Adam. Maybe? I think I need to look more into the exegesis of Romans to grasp that idea better. But I'm here to talk about the Nicene Creed, not Paul.

But if you think about it in another way. How does one produce light from light that already exists? A mirror? Would that make Jesus a reflection of God?


Now my brain hurts.
Thus ends part one of four.
Four? Really?
Yep, for realsies. Otherwise these posts would be even longer than this one.

God the 'Father'

We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is,
seen and unseen.

--------------------------------------

We believe in one God 

Really, this seems quite straight forward. But there are so many, many assumptions. 

'One God': yes, I believe in one God. But I think that humans call 'him' many things. I see more God in my agnostic/Buddhist/whatever friends who help me move from one house to another, who offer advice and love when needed, who have more grace for my pitfalls than any of my Christian friends, who have more faith in me to do great things than I ever could. If God is Love than all expressions of that Love are the One True God. That includes all religions. Because if we/I truly believe that God is bigger than all I can think or imagine...well, I can imagine that God has been so desperately trying to connect with the world that he shows up as the Allah, Brahman, Zeus, Jesus, the source of Higher Consciousness and it's up to the humans to get that revelation a little wrong. Believing that God is all of these does not make the understanding any less potent, that is a deception of an us vs them worldview to say that if one thing is right, then the whole belief system is right and everyone else's is wrong. That's outdated modernity. God has been subjected to cultural interpretation for as long as humans have had a consciousness of a power outside themselves. He is the oneness that connects us all together, and makes us all the same at the foot of the cross. And whatever actions that are done in his name, if they result in love and peace, then they come from God. Actions that result in hate, anger, bullying, or any multitude of sins, they are not from God. 

the Father, the Almighty

There is this whole question of 'he,' or 'Father.'

God is not a 'he,' it's simply the most convenient way to refer to God especially since English does not afford a pronoun of neutrality other than 'it.' It is also the most traditional way because of the rampant misogyny of the church. I really don't like referring to God as 'it' because it's not personal enough.
And I still believe in the personhood of God.
I don't really think of God in terms of 'he' or 'she' anymore, it only comes out that way in speech, but not in my thought patterns. But in terms of being created in the 'image of God,' I honestly don't know what that means. I think the super religious Christians are overly obsessed with genitalia. The thought of ascribing God both physical features of a male and female is not weird to me, because I have become used to what the drag world looks like, it is simply the incorrect focus. God is both 'he' and 'she' without us knowing what that means physically. Just as you do not know, nor need to know if someone who is transgender still has all the sexual organs they were born with or not. You don't need to know, it's not your business. But in all honesty, God the Mother/Father is probably not physical anyway. Jesus was/is. 

maker of heaven and earth

Yes, I believe God made all of heaven and earth. But I'm not a creationist anymore. I left that behind about four years ago. God was the Big Bang. And he was there with creation as it formed. 

I'm interested in what it might mean if there are other Earth-like planets out there. Are there any human like creatures out there?  Did Jesus die for them too? And by 'out there' I mean completely beyond the reach of our telescopes. Something so far, we don't even see the light. The light is one of the things that really converted me to a Big Bang/evolution believing lady. That and string theory. Because if the light takes a million years to reach Earth, you would have to say that God defies his own laws just to prove that he could make the world in six days. That idea seems so ridiculous to me now.  

Those passages in Genesis are poetry, not science.

If God didn't want us to creatively use our minds to discover and be enraptured by his world and all its complexities, then we would still be monkeys. Even then, what are the laws of physics when they are discovering such things in the quark world that completely defy what we observe to be true about the big things?

Also, belief in evolution completely changed my understanding of God. Because if God is a God who likes to watch his world change, unfold, grow and develop into something new every day, then that is how he sees us. This mentality of 'create, perfect, done' that is spouted by creationists then puts the pressure on the human being to think of themselves that way. 'God made you perfect, why are you not behaving perfectly??' is how I have felt most of my life. It helped me feel ashamed of who I was rather than accepting that I am a growing changing person who will always be growing and changing and that God loves me that way.  

God loves this planet so much. 
 He loves this universe. It's gorgeous in the gaseous violence that occurs in the stars every second of every day (which, to be fair, I'm using a metaphor with concept of time, which is a relative thing depending on gravity and rotation and doesn't exist in the same way on other planets, stars, or in the darkness of empty space).

This is the core of the difference between the political left and right on environmentalism. If the right's worldview says 'the world was once perfect, now it's all just going to hell in a handbasket,' of COURSE they aren't going to care about trash heaps, pollution, climate change, etc. But the left says 'this world is constantly changing and evolving and we must help it change for the better,' then of COURSE they are going to care more about clean energy, recycling, all that green hippie stuff. It's one of the reasons that I switched sides politically.

of all that is,
seen and unseen.

Now, see, I actually kind of love this. Because this gets into my obsession with string theory. At least, that's how I interpret it. We can't see the other dimensions that are proposed by string theorists and the maths and all that jazz. I know that the original writers of this probably meant the angelic/demonic realm, and I think that on some level that those things actually do live in another dimension that exists within our three dimensions.  That's the only somewhat scientific understanding I can make of it. Because it's those tiny unseen vibrating strings that have only been proven in the math of the universe. But they found the Higgs Boson this year!! And still God created it.

I apologize to anyone who is not familiar with string theory, because that all probably just sounded like a bunch of crazy talk. Suffice it to say, that scientific discovery has me more interested in the creation that is unseen rather than thinking about supernatural forces that might be at work. I really don't know if they exist or not. I have no personal experience of it, though I know people who have. But at the same time, Radiolab has nearly convinced me that that stuff might all just be a glich in the chemical processing of the brain.

Though, to be honest, I'm kind of hoping that the Doctor exists in one of those parallel worlds.

an experiment in belief

I have not posted on here in nearly a year. It's been over a year since I've written.
My, how things change.
My thoughts and beliefs have changed so much in this period of time that I feel the desire to write here again. To express things that are difficult to put into words. Because the fact of the matter is, I'm not sure that I'm really a Christian anymore, or that I know what that word means, or I even wonder if I ever truly was. I'm more inclined to think that I never actually knew what it meant rather than I never was or that I'm not. Rather, I am attempting to redefine who I am and what 'Christian' means to me. But more on this later.
This experiment is an exploration of my belief. Belief is something I question a lot these days (what does it mean, why does it matter, blah blah blah) and I had an idea that I might truly assess what I still believe and what I don't and what I question by going through the Nicene Creed, step by step, line by line, and see what happens. I will start this endeavor with my next post. Below is the text I will be using, which is the form I memorized when I attended All Saints By-the-Sea Episcopal.

And so, dear world, I jump back into the blog. Without knowing where I am headed, but with a good deal of hope for some clarity of mind and spirit.
I warn any who might read the posts to come that I'm not looking for an argument; this is for me. Comments from anyone, even those who disagree with me, are welcome. BUT I'm not looking to debate on the internet. Call me up and have coffee with me if you want to debate something.
------------------
We believe in one God,
the Father, the Almighty,
maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is,
seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God,
begotten, not made,
of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation
he came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary
and was made man.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
he suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures;
he ascended into heaven
and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead,
and the life of the world to come. Amen.

Ingrid is the BEST

It's time for a revolution!

Speech by Slavoj Zizek from Liberty Square, New York on October 9, 2011

#occupy

Video of the speech part 1
Video of the speech part 2

…2008 financial crash more hard earned private property was destroyed than if all of us here were to be destroying it night and day for weeks. They tell you we are dreamers. The true dreamers are those who think things can go on indefinitely the way they are. We are not dreamers. We are awakening from a dream which is tuning into a nightmare. We are not destroying anything. We are only witnessing how the system is destroying itself. We all know the classic scenes from cartoons. The cart reaches a precipice. But it goes on walking. Ignoring the fact that there is nothing beneath. Only when it looks down and notices it, it falls down. This is what we are doing here. We are telling the guys there on Wall Street – Hey, look down! (cheering).

In April 2011, the Chinese government prohibited on TV and films and in novels all stories that contain alternate reality or time travel. This is a good sign for China. It means that people still dream about alternatives, so you have to prohibit this dream. Here we don’t think of prohibition. Because the ruling system has even suppressed our capacity to dream. Look at the movies that we see all the time. It’s easy to imagine the end of the world. An asteroid destroying all life and so on. But you cannot imagine the end of capitalism. So what are we doing here? Let me tell you a wonderful old joke from communist times.

A guy was sent from East Germany to work in Siberia. He knew his mail would be read by censors. So he told his friends: Let’s establish a code. If the letter you get from me is written in blue ink ,it is true what I said. If it is written in red ink, it is false. After a month his friends get a first letter. Everything is in blue. It says, this letter: everything is wonderful here. Stores are full of good food. Movie theaters show good films from the West. Apartments are large and luxurious. The only thing you cannot buy is red ink.

This is how we live. We have all the freedoms we want. But what we are missing is red ink. The language to articulate our non-freedom. The way we are taught to speak about freedom war and terrorism and so on falsifies freedom. And this is what you are doing here: You are giving all of us red ink.

There is a danger. Don’t fall in love with yourselves. We have a nice time here. But remember: carnivals come cheap. What matters is the day after. When we will have to return to normal life. Will there be any changes then. I don’t want you to remember these days, you know, like - oh, we were young, it was beautiful. Remember that our basic message is: We are allowed to think about alternatives. The rule is broken. We do not live in the best possible world. But there is a long road ahead. There are truly difficult questions that confront us. We know what we do not want. But what do we want? What social organization can replace capitalism? What type of new leaders do we want?

Remember: the problem is not corruption or greed. The problem is the system that pushes you to give up. Beware not only of the enemies. But also of false friends who are already working to dilute this process. In the same way you get coffee without caffeine, beer without alcohol, ice cream without fat. They will try to make this into a harmless moral protest. They think (??? unintelligible). But the reason we are here is that we have enough of the world where to recycle coke cans…

….Starbucks cappuccino. Where 1% goes to the world’s starving children. It is enough to make us feel good. After outsourcing work and torture. After the marriage agencies are now outsourcing even our love life, daily.

We can see that for a long time we allowed our political engagement also to be outsourced. We want it back. We are not communists. If communism means the system which collapsed in 1990, remember that today those communists are the most efficient ruthless capitalists. In China today we have capitalism which is even more dynamic than your American capitalism but doesn’t need democracy. Which means when you criticize capitalism, don’t allow yourselves to be blackmailed that you are against democracy. The marriage between democracy and capitalism is over.

The change is possible. So, what do we consider today possible? Just follow the media. On the one hand in technology and sexuality everything seems to be possible. You can travel to the moon. You can become immortal by biogenetics. You can have sex with animals or whatever. But look at the fields of society and economy. There almost everything is considered impossible. You want to raise taxes a little bit for the rich, they tell you it’s impossible, we lose competitivitiy. You want more money for healthcare: they tell you impossible, this means a totalitarian state. There is something wrong in the world where you are promised to be immortal but cannot spend a little bit more for health care. Maybe that ??? set our priorities straight here. We don’t want higher standards of living. We want better standards of living. The only sense in which we are communists is that we care for the commons. The commons of nature. The commons of what is privatized by intellectual property. The commons of biogenetics. For this and only for this we should fight.

Communism failed absolutely. But the problems of the commons are here. They are telling you we are not Americans here. But the conservative fundamentalists who claim they are really American have to be reminded of something. What is Christianity? It’s the Holy Spirit. What’s the Holy Spirit? It’s an egalitarian community of believers who are linked by love for each other. And who only have their own freedom and responsibility to do it. In this sense the Holy Spirit is here now. And down there on Wall Street there are pagans who are worshipping blasphemous idols. So all we need is patience. The only thing I’m afraid of is that we will someday just go home and then we will meet once a year, drinking beer, and nostalgically remembering what a nice time we had here. Promise ourselves that this will not be the case.

We know that people often desire something but do not really want it. Don’t be afraid to really want what you desire. Thank you very much!