How was "Atheism for Lent"?

I still don't know if I want a God.  That label still holds baggage for me.  But if I did.  I would like a God I could hug.   (from Day 33)

I got a text today... "How was Atheism for Lent"?

I published a blog with 45 posts during my journey, all I could think of was... how do I sum up a response in a text?  

I decided to go through all my posts... all 45 of them, and get something from my words that could help to answer that question.  So if reading the whole blog is too much... this is the Reader's Digest Version.  

These are my words (with the exception of three quotes that I put in italics)  This is the closest I get to offering a collection of Ruby Neumann quotes.  

(for access to the post for each day, click on the Day # and it will forward you to the whole post) 

Day 1:  When the darkness is there, when the blackness is visible from my earthly vantage point... No clouds, no smoke screen... just the vastness of space... I see light.  I seen the stars or the moon.  The darkness in its purest form invites me back to light, and yet still lets me rest in the shadows of the night.  How beautiful is that.

Day 2: What happens when someone I love opens up their computer and reads the words I have penned in my space?  Does the magic end?  Will I be condemned instead of being loved?  Is their love really that conditional and incapable of embracing me in my rawness?

Day 3: Today, I am grateful for fire.  It keeps my house warm in the cold winters.  Fire also gives me peaceful pleasure when I sit by the camp fire on the deck and watch the flames dance.  I take for granted that this is a gift that might have cost somebody something. In the bible stories... fire just was.  But in the story of Prometheus, I was given a character that sacrificed himself for my comfort and enjoyment.  That is why I don't forget that story. 

Day 4: I am not a stranger to the stories of WW2.  I grew up around three German Canadians, my Opa, my Oma and my Dad,  who had their own horror stories of the war.  Those were a different kind of horror.   But their stories didn't matter.  They were seen as the enemy even through they were abhorrent to regime in power that caused so much destruction and tyranny to their neighbours and their home.    

Day 5: In listening to Peter Rollins weekly talk for AFL2022 on Youtube, he encouraged us to read and listen without agreeing or disagreeing. I find it absolutely freeing to read a lot of literature that comes my way like that.  Just to read it and take it in without having any conclusions about the material. 

Day 6: One of the reasons I don't like the term God is that it is so vague. I also don't want to label the Creator of the Cosmos with a word that has been reduced to a common cuss world. (God, Jesus, Jesus Christ)... If we are going to discuss the possibility of something or someone that started this whole Universe... then it has to carry more weight than a swearword. 

Day 7: "Very few people in the world would have a God if care had not been taken to give them one."  I really need to digest this one.  

Day 8: But when it comes to approaching the game with some wisdom... it's not about changing Lucy's way of playing the game... it's about not playing the game with Lucy anymore.  

Day 9: Today, I heard the words of Charles Darwin.  I saw some of him left behind in his words, and I could connect.  His story is not unlike my own.  But I wonder if most don't know his story, because, like me, they didn't take the time to see him through and around his words.  This is what I am gaining in "Atheism for Lent".  I am getting a chance to see the people behind the words.  

Day 10: Today I am heavy with thought.  Bart Campolo has introduced me to Robert Ingersoll over and over again on the "Humanize Me" podcast. Ingersoll is a big influence for Bart and I can understand why.  There is so much depth in the dives of his thoughts.

Day 11: I have noticed that not too many people are asking me to reveal my inner soul with them.  Most just enjoy my presence on a social level and express that.  Much beyond that can get awkward.  I have been feeling the lack of the deep places in my relationships,  but I am seeing more clearly that its not always required to navigate life.  Aaahhhh the journey... 

Day 12:  Today,  I feel like I am flying in an airplane looking out the window, longing to be a bird... sad, but happy that at least I am up in the clouds.   I wonder if I am free.  Maybe being on the ground was free and being in this hollow metal tube pretending I'm a bird is not freedom, but captivity.  

Day 13: Maybe the best we have in life is the great "I don't know" and that is the journey.   What if... the "what if's" became more valuable as we lay aside certainty and absolute knowledge.  Our imagination becomes the springboard of the conversation and we can discover an amazing world, not bound by the need to have the answers. 

Day 14: The poet in me is excited at the idea that casting doubt on religion's factual foundations is indeed a beautiful thing.  The agnostic in me is thinking it is necessary for my sanity. The lover in me wonders at the timing and where Love fits into the dance.  But the child in me is frightened that doing so will be another invitation to abandonment.  

Day 15: I write and publish, if only on this obscure blog, to remind "Shame" that I know those lies, and I don't want to believe them anymore.  Love is real and Love wants to drive out Fear and Shame. I am whole. I am free.  I am intertwined with Love. 

Day 16: What kind of "God" inspired that risky graffiti venture?  What kind of pain was so horrid and oozed through that person that made them risk their life to paint those words on the bridge?  What kind of doctrine was painted in their mind that convinced them of that response?   

That painter could have written "God hates me" as a response to internal pain or self absorbed pain,  but that wasn't what was written.  "God Hates us ALL" and ALL was in all caps and underlined.  

Day 17: I am not feeling much of anything except peace.  Maybe this story is allowing me to see that had I still embraced a controlling God narrative, then I couldn't embrace the beauty amid the chance of this story.  There is no normal.  There is only beauty.  

Day 18: As I travel through this Lenten period, I have no goal but enlightenment.  I long to shed light (awareness) into those areas of my world that have been dominated by the shadows.  I don't want to be that person that is fearful of the unknown because of where it will take me.  I want to be encouraged and challenged by that which I have avoided my whole life.  

Day 19: I have been harvesting quotes from some of these great minds, because I don't think I will get to read their books.  Authors like Feuerbach, Ingersoll, Kierkegaard all are inspiring me, but to invest more time and energy in reading them all... well, I don't know if I can... so I will collect the best thoughts and peruse them from time to time.  

Day 20: I don't want to take away a person's faith and belief if that is their lens to see the world and be a better person... but to add to that... now that would be something worth wishing for.  Then maybe I wouldn't be so scared of thinking anymore.  

Day 21: I don't know when real flowers die.  Do they die when they wither or do they die when they are cut?  Good question.  

Day 22:  Today I will let Pete and Joe dominate this post.  I am weak and sick and tired and have little energy to contribute to this forty day commitment to write something.  All I can say.... beautiful song, Joe! 

Day 23: I let another day go by with a body lacking energy to expound on this... so I will let Emma and Peter do the talking once again.  I have included segments of Emma's essay... these snippets are what moved me the most in the reading.  

Day 24: I got "How (Not) To Speak of God" today.  I started reading it.  It might be a lot of stuff I have already read in the other books, but it is Pete's first. 

I actually got the book based on Brian McLaren's raving forward.  With him speaking so highly of it, it was a no brainer for me.  I didn't have it accessible on my Ibooks, so Manfred ordered from Amazon for me.  It's my birthday present.  

I found an interesting quote:  

"Just because you're offended, doesn't make you right." 

Day 25: Thank you Friedrich, for some amazing wisdom.  

I downloaded a collection of quotes from the internet, and selected some that I either resonate with, or am challenged by, or need to seriously reflect further on.  That doesn't mean that I agree or disagree with any or all of them.  I like that I don't have to agree or disagree in order to gain from someone's wisdom.

Day 26: Only one thought today:   "One man's meat is another man's poison."

Day 27:  Had I known that I'd be in too much pain today to write, I just might have listened to that voice inside.  "No one is going to read this.  No one is going to care.  No one will know what boils in the heart of you."

Day 28: This reminded me of the average church service.  People gather around the celebration of someone who they don't see and can't hear.  That person is in attendance... at least that is what they have been told.  But there is no real evidence of that.  There maybe moments when they think that someone is communicating to them, but then others are clueless. 

Day 29: Well.  this is called Authentic Lent.  I am at day 29 and authentically have reached my maximum potential for intake on this course.  I am tired, worn out, sick, and my brain isn't processing the great stuff like I had hoped.  But I will keep going until the end and will find something of value.   

Day 30: Ten days left and I don't know what to write about.  These last two weeks have been draining on me physically.  My brain started out okay with AFL material, but I am over whelmed and feeling like I did when I was taking Computer Programming at NAIT.  I feel like I got in over my head.  

Day 31: I think I live in a world that has a balance issue. When one side is over weighted, the response is to overweight the opposite side in order to create balance.  Maybe that has to happen because we don't know how to ditch the baggage overweighting us in the first place.  So then it becomes the other's responsibility to offset the balance by extra baggage on their end, tipping the scale in their favour.  Then the original overweighted side adds more weight to offset their lack and it goes on and on.  No one learns how to ditch the baggage and even out the scales.  

Day 32: If I can aim to be like Mother Teresa... like what she did overrode her struggles with her belief and faith... I will be alright.  She didn't let her doubts and disbeliefs slow her down.  She did what she did for as long as she could do it.  Her values gave her direction when her faith couldn't.  

Day 33: For me, Aslan is not human and that is his redeeming feature.  He is strength, wisdom, life and love.  In Aslan, I see the Creator beyond that which I can limit in my imagination.  That is the beauty.  I can float with my wonder and not have to be concerned with proving texts.  I can take the story and become wrapped in it.  How precious is that.  

I still don't know if I want a God.  That label still holds baggage for me.  But if I did.  I would like a God I could hug.  

Day 34: I find that the more I distance myself from the need to believe, I find that I can embrace the joy and spirit that still attracts me to the music.  I understand that the musicians and vocalists still need to embrace the words, and that is okay.  That is their journey.  I'm just excited that I don't have to let go of the whole song, just because the words don't make sense to me anymore.  

Day 35: Maybe some where along the journey, we have become frustrated with the elusive answers, and we have settled on explanations of the unknown instead.  We only see the unknown or unknowable or the unknowing... and it isn't satisfying us, so we use mystery as an answer and a conclusion.  But maybe there was never meant to be an answer or a conclusion.  

Day 36: I tread lightly on the claim of truth now.  I am not being a coward;  I am just putting my relationships ahead of my own need to be right.  I am letting Love override Truth.  What is Truth without Love?  And then when Love is there, is there a need for claiming what I have is Truth?  What if Love is enough.  Love and my opinion if I need to say anything.  Everything else seems arrogant to me.  

Day 37: If God is that which man has created to explain life, then maybe there is a hope that God can be seen, even as low as the bathroom floor.  But if that which gave her breath, breathes in her and through her... then that very breath exhausts itself on the bathroom tiles and waits to be taken in again.  In, Out... that is how breath works.  Not something high above looking over her, but in and out as she labours to breathe.  Not only that which gives her breath... but Breath itself.  

Day 38: Is the Resurrection all that makes Jesus matter? Was his life worth nothing if the Resurrection can't be proved?

Day 39: I am still going to say that I am 2000 years past the story and that is a long time to hang on to something that is life changing for me now.  I don't think I am able to envision a Creator that is going to be limited to a revelation from 30 CE and expect it to hold through millennia without getting twisted, marred and seriously out of date.

Day 40: I am officially christening the Sunday before Easter as Poplar Sunday.  I know there aren't leaves on the trees yet, but in the spirit of recreating a story in this time and space, poplar is what I have to offer.  

Day 41: This journey through Atheism for Lent has been enriching for me.  I have been given a look inside the windows of many a soul and have found more beauty in the empty hearts.  Empty hearts always have room for others.  

Day 42: I think these six weeks have been about letting go of a lot of things.  Maybe letting go of toxic relationships, maybe letting go of expectations, maybe letting go of the need to be right all the time, or even right most of the time.  

Day 43: Leading up to Good Friday, I am asked to remember that someone died.  Instead of pretending that this tragedy didn't happen or pretending that it happened but there would be a miraculous event to end my sadness... I am letting go.  I am unplugging the machines, I am facing reality.  I am going to find some flowers to lay at the grave of Jesus.

Day 44: If foot washing was an act of love back in 30 CE, is it still an act of love now and if not... why is it being done.  Oh yeah... ritual?  

Day 45: Atheism for Lent is over.  We finished our time together with a funeral of a very different flavour.  There were readings and music.  There was a time for silence and a time for shared sorrow.  There was beauty in all of it.  

DAY 45: Good Friday: "Being the Resurrection"

Atheism for Lent is over.  We finished our time together with a funeral of a very different flavour.  There were readings and music.  There was a time for silence and a time for shared sorrow.  There was beauty in all of it.  

Pete ended it off with this parable from his book "The Orthodox Heretic"  that was the most profound of all.  I want to share it here as the last message for this blog.   

"Being the Resurrection" From "The Orthodox Heretic" 

Peter Rollins 

Late that evening a group of unknown disciples packed their few belongings and left for a distant shore, for they could not bear to stay another moment in the place where their Messiah had just been crucified. Weighed down with sorrow, they left that place, never to return. Instead they travelled a great distance in search of a land that they could call home. After months of difficult travel, they finally happened upon an isolated area that was ideal for setting up a new community. Here they found fertile ground, clean water, and a nearby forest from which to harvest material needed to build shelters. So they settled there, founding a community far from Jerusalem, a community where they vowed to keep the memory of Christ alive and live in simplicity, love, and forgiveness, just as he had taught them.

The members of this community lived in great solitude for over a hundred years, spending their days reflecting on the life of Jesus and attempting to remain faithful to his ways. And they did all this despite the overwhelming sorrow in their heart.

But their isolation was eventually broken when, early one morning, a small band of missionaries reached the settlement. These missionaries were amazed at the community they found. What was most startling to them was that these people had no knowledge of the resurrection and the ascension of Christ, for they had left Jerusalem before his return from the dead on the third day. WIthout hesitation, the missionaries gathered together all the community members and recounted what had occurred after the imprisonment and bloody crucifixion of their Lord.

That evening there was a great festival in the camp as people celebrated the news of the missionaries. Yet, as the night progressed, one of the missionaries noticed that the leader of the community was absent. This bothered the young man, so he set out to look for this respected elder. Eventually he found the community’s leader crouched low in a small hut on the fringe of the village, praying and weeping.

“Why are you in such sorrow?” asked the missionary in amazement. “Today is a time for great celebration.”

“It may indeed be a day for great celebration, but this is also a day of sorrow,” replied the elder, who remained crouched on the floor. “Since the founding of this community we have followed the ways taught to us by Christ. We pursued his ways faithfully even though it cost us dearly, and we remained resolute despite the belief that death had defeated him and would one day defeat us also.”

The elder slowly got to his feet and looked the missionary compassionately in the eyes.

“Each day we have forsaken our very lives for him because we judged him wholly worthy of the sacrifice, wholly worthy of our being. But now, following your news, I am concerned that my children and my children’s children may follow him, not because of his radical life and supreme sacrifice, but selfishly, because his sacrifice will ensure their personal salvation and eternal life.”

With this the elder turned and left the hut, making his way to the celebrations that could be heard dimly in the distance, leaving the missionary crouched on the floor.

Day 44: Go in Pieces and wash some feet?

Maundy Thursday is today.  What is Maundy?  I looked it up.  Something about a command to love and foot-washing.  I am wondering if foot-washing has any significance in an era where people wear shoes instead of sandals.  The whole idea of foot-washing back in Jesus' day was to clean the dirt and sweat on the feet acquired from walking in sandals.  

I have been a part of foot washing ceremonies before, but I don't remember them as an act of love.  I think that was the whole idea of the original foot washing story on the night before the crucifixion.  Jesus was showing love to his disciples and asking them to show love as a response.  Well in 30 CE... washing someone's feet was an act of love because it was something a servant did.  Is it really an act of love now, or just a ritual? 

I am all about updating our expressions.  I can think of more loving expressions than foot washing in 2022.  

If foot washing was an act of love back in 30 CE, is it still an act of love now and if not... why is it being done.  Oh yeah... ritual?  

So we have convinced people that those things which were loving 2000 years ago, are still loving today? In two thousand years, things change... maybe we can find something else to do to show love that means something to the person we are showing that love to.  Maybe we don't have to ask them to take off their socks and shoes today.  

That being said... when I was a child... I went barefoot everywhere... so I would get dirty feet.   My mom would give me a basin with warm soapy water and a wash cloth, so I could wash my feet.  Yep... two thousand years later... I'm washing my own feet.  But at least she gave me the water.  

I will end with today's reflection.  It is the last one, so it is appropriate... "Go in Pieces"  How beautiful is that!  

"The task has ended. Go in pieces. Our faith has been rear-ended, certainty amended, and something might be mended that we didn’t know was torn. And we are fire, bright, burning fire, turning from the higher places from which we fell, emptying ourselves into the hell in which we’ll find our loving and beloved brother, mother, sister, father, friend. And so friends, the task has ended. Go in pieces to see and feel your world."

Pádraig Ó Tuama

"The Catholic Church ends her services with the benediction ‘Go in Peace’. This poem by Ó Tuama was written as a closing benediction for Ikon. As you listen, you’ll hear how it affirms the fragmented nature of our existence. As such, I can think of no better way to end this journey." 

Peter Rollins

Day 43: Unplug the Machines, Let him go!

 "I'd rather lose my mind, than lose my son and my husband and my family."  

That quote came from an episode of Touched by an Angel - "Shallow Water".  A woman who submitted her mind, her memory and her life to mental illness in order to spare herself the horror of what happened to her family.  

I watched that episode again today.  Another quote came in the same episode as a response to this woman's mental block of her tragedy from the woman's father-in-law.  

"Maybe it's better if she didn't remember.  I wish I didn't remember."  

There were two very different responses to the common tragedy.  The woman denied the existence of the tragedy but blocking it out of her mind, and her father-in-law denied the seriousness of the tragedy by pretending his son was still alive, even though he was brain dead.  Both had lost sons in the same accident.  Both were in denial that their sons were gone.  

Leading up to Good Friday, I am asked to remember that someone died.  Instead of pretending that this tragedy didn't happen or pretending that it happened but there would be a miraculous event to end my sadness... I am letting go.  I am unplugging the machines, I am facing reality.  I am going to find some flowers to lay at the grave of Jesus.

Day 42: Blisters on my Brain

 I am still insecure.  What am I supposed to do with that?  

I am forty two days in to this blog, and I am feeling exhausted.  It is kind of like I have been walking every day and I have blisters on my feet.  Only with me, the blisters are on my brain.  I am worn out.  I have nothing to write about after over a month of purging my soul again.  

The amount of philosophical material I have ingested in the last month has done well to melt my brain too.  It has rendered me incapable of ever being the person I used to be.  Now I know why philosophy isn't welcome in evangelical and fundamental Christian circles.  There is no room for thinkers or thinking.  

I think these six weeks have been about letting go of a lot of things.  Maybe letting go of toxic relationships, maybe letting go of expectations, maybe letting go of the need to be right all the time, or even right most of the time.  

I realize that I may still be tempted to pretend and hide, and maybe that is okay.  Maybe I don't need a platform other than my blogs that no one reads.  (okay... if you are reading this, you aren't "no one") 

Day 41: I'm Okay

What would I say?  If I had a platform and a podium and the undivided attention of those people who really mattered to me.  

"I'm okay."

And I might just leave it at that.  I might chicken out and say nothing else.  I might wonder if my words matter.  I might spare those who matter to me from the hard core stuff that I share so openly on my blogs.  I might look in their eyes and rethink my freedom of speech.  But to tell them, to tell everyone that "I'm okay"; maybe that is all I need to say.  

I guess that is what I would like everyone to understand.  I am not someone that needs fixing.  I'm on a journey.  I am bound to hit bumps in the road.  But I'm okay.  

This journey through Atheism for Lent has been enriching for me.  I have been given a look inside the windows of many a soul and have found more beauty in the empty hearts.  Empty hearts always have room for others.  

Day 40: Poplar Sunday

 

For fifty some years, I never questioned the sense of Palm Sunday.  I live in Alberta.  We don't have palm trees in this province.  People have to import branches so their kids can wave them in church on Palm Sunday.  I get it... they are bringing the story to life and according to the story, Jesus' donkey walked on palm trees.  But Jesus' donkey made hoof prints in the Middle East where there is probably an abundance of palm trees.  

I am officially christening the Sunday before Easter as Poplar Sunday.  I know there aren't leaves on the trees yet, but in the spirit of recreating a story in this time and space, poplar is what I have to offer.  

I think I have an issue with something more than trees.  I have an issue with a very out of date story and a culture that exists two thousand years later.  Why can't we embrace the world we live in and our amenities and create a story more relevant?  People have only done damage to the ancient story by not understanding the cultural context.  Like flying palm trees in an Edmonton church, they take the ancient stories and fit them to their Canadian evangelical doctrine.  So why not come up with something more culturally significant?  Just a thought.  

I got a call from a former landlady of mine, and she was overjoyed to find a copy of my book in her collection that I published fourteen years ago. Some recent letters that we have exchanged had her concerned about my spiritual wellbeing.  But as she was reading the book, she seems excited that maybe I'm okay.  Did she look at the publication date?  I am a very different person than I was fourteen years ago.  She hopes that I am the same person.  It would make her journey a lot less troubled if she didn't know the whole story.  Maybe the loving thing for me to do is to just let her believe that I haven't changed since she knew me.  

I have no courage to have a phone conversation with her, but I might write her again.  I just don't know if I want to keep up the charade.  We aren't in regular communication, so maybe I can just send her an Easter card. What if I asked her not to ask any questions that she doesn't want the honest answer for.  What if I asked her just to accept her version of the story as true, then I wouldn't have to disappoint her.  

She isn't the only one that I fear disappointing with the real story.  WWLD: What does Love do?  

Day 39: Mike and Bart Debate

 I am enjoying the debate so far.  Mike Licona started it off.  He had some good things to say, but he is still basing his hypothesis on a 2000 year old story and his trust in the authorship of that story.  

I asked a couple of questions, but they must have been lost in the flood.  So maybe I won't ask anymore.  I will just sit back and learn and listen.  

I think this whole debate will not be able to answer the one question I have today... 

Even if the Resurrection did happen... what is it supposed to mean 2000 years later?  

Oh... got to go.... Bart's up

After listening to Mike and Bart, I am still leery of how Mike is hanging on to real weak evidence.  I wish he would say something about it being okay if you can't prove the Resurrection, but can still have faith in it being helpful for life.  This world is very limited in what it can give people to survive it.  Believing that the Creator of the Cosmos became human isn't a bad story...  it is just old and needs updating, not to mention the bloody narrative that the whole bible embraces.  But if I dare suggest an update, then that is going against everything most hold sacred.  But sacred doesn't mean it happened.  It is just sacred.  

I think I could end now with so much taken away from the discussion.  And yet there is more this afternoon.  I might miss some due to my presence needed to load heaters, but this discussion is not lost.   It will be recorded and I will have access to it for later viewing.  

I am still going to say that I am 2000 years past the story and that is a long time to hang on to something that is life changing for me now.  I don't think I am able to envision a Creator that is going to be limited to a revelation from 30 CE and expect it to hold through millennia without getting twisted, marred and seriously out of date.  I look at the stars, the animals, the trees... I feel the wind and the snow on my face.  This is evidence for me that there is something beyond myself wanting to connect with me.  That is a Creator that moves with the changes in time and space.  That makes a lot more sense to me.  Maybe I can gain something from the story, but it will never be enough anymore.  Like I said to my mother... I need something in my lifetime that I can connect with.         

Okay... On to the afternoon.  

I don't think I was ever bored during the hours of interchange between Bart and Mike.  Both are incredible communicators.  That is something greatly lacking in a lot of the speakers that make their way to Youtube these days. 

My favourite part of the whole day was Bart's closing bit, because he explained why he does debates.  He does it to include those who get excluded by Evangelical Christianity.  He made a point to say that he doesn't mind if people embrace religion until it gets harmful.  He strongly emphasized that Evangelical Christianity really flowed in the direction being divisive. As much as Mike is a nice person, it is the message he supports.  That part was sad, but over all, the last five minutes was beautiful.  

I want to end this post off with a quote I found as a reply to a post from someone on Facebook.  I don't know if I agree or disagree, I just like the quote. 

"Faith is nothing more than substituting knowledge with emotions" Lloyd Moore

Day 38: Questions to ask Bart and Mike tomorrow

 Tomorrow is the "debate to end all debates" according to Bart Ehrman and Mike Licona.  I don't know what kind of head I have going into tomorrow's event, but I need to ask some questions.  So this is what I want to understand.  

We are 2000 years past the story.  How much confidence do you have that the story as written was authentic, and not creative writing?  

Is the Resurrection all that makes Jesus matter? Was his life worth nothing if the Resurrection can't be proved? 

I have no faith in the Bible as 100% historically accurate... Is there any other evidence to help support the Resurrection?

If the Resurrection can't be proved, does that mean that 2.3 Billion people can't have faith in it?  What is faith, if certainty is required in the event of the Resurrection?

You are asking that we pick sides, but our identity has already landed us on a side (Christian vs Not Christian) .  Can we really be impartial in a debate like this?

What percentage of that 2.3 Billion believe in a Resurrection because they don't want to burn in hell? (ie fire insurance)... It seems that most have been convinced to believe, not on evidence or proof, but because the alternative is ugly. 

Is Christianity based on historical facts or theological truths? 

How much of Christianity is about Jesus life, and how much is about his death and resurrection.  If you can't embrace the latter (resurrection) , does the former still hold value for life? 

It seems like the only way to believe in the Resurrection is to believe in an infallible, inerrant bible.  Is this the case?

So many questions, and I doubt I want to plug up tomorrow's chat box with all of them.  But I do want to aim a few in Mike's direction.  I think I can pretty much agree with Bart's conclusions that the Resurrection is about faith, not evidence or historical fact. But maybe for Mike, faith isn't enough... so it has to be proven and believed to be historical.  That is a stretch for me now.  I will write more tomorrow about what I learned.  

Day 37: God is on the Bathroom Floor (by Nightbirde)

I don’t remember most of Autumn, because I lost my mind late in the summer and for a long time after that, I wasn’t in my body. I was a lightbulb buzzing somewhere far.

After the doctor told me I was dying, and after the man I married said he didn’t love me anymore, I chased a miracle in California and sixteen weeks later, I got it. The cancer was gone. But when my brain caught up with it all, something broke. I later found out that all the tragedy at once had caused a physical head trauma, and my brain was sending false signals of excruciating pain and panic.

I spent three months propped against the wall. On nights that I could not sleep, I laid in the tub like an insect, staring at my reflection in the shower knob. I vomited until I was hollow. I rolled up under my robe on the tile. The bathroom floor became my place to hide, where I could scream and be ugly; where I could sob and spit and eventually doze off, happy to be asleep, even with my head on the toilet.

I have had cancer three times now, and I have barely passed thirty. There are times when I wonder what I must have done to deserve such a story. I fear sometimes that when I die and meet with God, that He will say I disappointed Him, or offended Him, or failed Him. Maybe He’ll say I just never learned the lesson, or that I wasn’t grateful enough. But one thing I know for sure is this: He can never say that He did not know me. 

I am God’s downstairs neighbor, banging on the ceiling with a broomstick. I show up at His door every day. Sometimes with songs, sometimes with curses. Sometimes apologies, gifts, questions, demands. Sometimes I use my key under the mat to let myself in. Other times, I sulk outside until He opens the door to me Himself. 

I have called Him a cheat and a liar, and I meant it. I have told Him I wanted to die, and I meant it. Tears have become the only prayer I know. Prayers roll over my nostrils and drip down my forearms. They fall to the ground as I reach for Him. These are the prayers I repeat night and day; sunrise, sunset.

Call me bitter if you want to—that’s fair. Count me among the angry, the cynical, the offended, the hardened. But count me also among the friends of God. For I have seen Him in rare form. I have felt His exhale, laid in His shadow, squinted to read the message He wrote for me in the grout: “I’m sad too.” 

If an explanation would help, He would write me one—I know it. But maybe an explanation would only start an argument between us—and I don’t want to argue with God. I want to lay in a hammock with Him and trace the veins in His arms.

I remind myself that I’m praying to the God who let the Israelites stay lost for decades. They begged to arrive in the Promised Land, but instead He let them wander, answering prayers they didn’t pray. For forty years, their shoes didn’t wear out. Fire lit their path each night. Every morning, He sent them mercy-bread from heaven. 

I look hard for the answers to the prayers that I didn’t pray. I look for the mercy-bread that He promised to bake fresh for me each morning. The Israelites called it manna, which means “what is it?” 

That’s the same question I’m asking—again, and again. There’s mercy here somewhere—but what is it? What is it? What is it?

I see mercy in the dusty sunlight that outlines the trees, in my mother’s crooked hands, in the blanket my friend left for me, in the harmony of the wind chimes. It’s not the mercy that I asked for, but it is mercy nonetheless. And I learn a new prayer: thank you. It’s a prayer I don’t mean yet, but will repeat until I do.

Call me cursed, call me lost, call me scorned. But that’s not all. Call me chosen, blessed, sought-after. Call me the one who God whispers his secrets to. I am the one whose belly is filled with loaves of mercy that were hidden for me.

Even on days when I’m not so sick, sometimes I go lay on the mat in the afternoon light to listen for Him. I know it sounds crazy, and I can’t really explain it, but God is in there—even now. I have heard it said that some people can’t see God because they won’t look low enough, and it’s true. 

If you can’t see him, look lower. God is on the bathroom floor." (NIGHTBIRDE MARCH 9, 2021)

"GOD IS ON THE BATHROOM FLOOR" 

There is a poetry to that and I don't have much else to say but how much that moves me.  I can even forget that in Nightbirde's eyes, God is still a dude.  But maybe when she gets to the last line, there is not a dude that is there laying beside her... but the Breath that dwells in her and moves in and out and back in her again.  

If God is that which man has created to explain life, then maybe there is a hope that God can be seen, even as low as the bathroom floor.  But if that which gave her breath, breathes in her and through her... then that very breath exhausts itself on the bathroom tiles and waits to be taken in again.  In, Out... that is how breath works.  Not something high above looking over her, but in and out as she labours to breathe.  Not only that which gives her breath... but Breath itself.