Day 45: Bad Friday's new tradition.

 

I decided to incorporate Jesus Christ Superstar: Arena Tour 2012 into my day today.  I first watched it last year on my birthday which coincided with Bad Friday.  (Oh yeah... ditching the Good label for this day... it seems so unfitting) 

It is still pretty powerful.  I can't get over Tim Minchin and Ben Forster's vocals in this production.  They both are amazing vocalists and this show is such a tribute to their skill.  

I am glad I am at the end of this forty-five day journey.  I think I'm done thinking about thinkers.  Time to focus more on collecting  postcards and connecting with people from around the world.  

Today, I got to chat with someone from Egypt who is sending me some postcards of the pyramids, Sphinx and the Red Sea.  I am wanting to expand my knowledge and use the opportunity that the postcards give me to learn more about the countries I am hearing from and writing to.  

I still have Courtney's book to finish... Looking forward to getting caught up and back on track with the last two weeks of chapters.  It has been a helpful read and a fine companion on this AFL journey.  

Day 44: There is nothing more beautiful!

 Well this is it.  Tomorrow is Good Friday and my annual tradition to watch Jesus Christ Superstar awaits me.  I didn't get much out of this week.  I think I tried one reflection and fell asleep while listening.  I awoke and forgot what was said and sung.  Oops.  

I did save the reflections in case I do get inspired to try again, or in case I need a sleeping pill.  It's not that they are boring... just relaxing.  

I realize that what I got out of this journey was the community more than the content.  That is the whole story with me... the people matter more than the presentation.  

I value a group of people who are a safe place for this curious agnostic.  We don't all have to agree or line up with our theology or lack there of... but we listen and share space.  I can't think of anything more beautiful.  

Day 43: Obligated

I have three days left to post.  It's 9:00 pm and it's bed time.  I have not been inspired to write.  I feel obligated to finish this week with a post each day.  Is that why I'm writing... because I'm obligated to write.  Where is the fun in that?  Can anything good come out of being obligated?  

A friend of mine claims obligation as the reason she needs to go to church three times over Easter.  I remember those years.  When church was an obligation to fulfill.  I guess that is why I don't do church anymore.  I feel for her... and thought I had gone past that in my life.  But here I am "obligated" to post each day until Lent is over.  Is that any different?  

Day 42: Nothing Deep or Profound Today

 I am so behind.  There is only one week to go and I have at least three or four chapters in Courtney's book from last week to read yet.  I just haven't been motivated to get invested in this week yet.  Maybe after the weekend is over and there is no deadline, I can finish the book and take in what remains to be taken in.  I guess the lack I am connecting with is a lack of ambition.  

I am thankful for yet another ride... but will be glad when I don't have to sit at my computer and wonder what to say at the end of the day that is deep and profound.  

Day 41: It's a small world after all.

 The world is a small place when one looks at it from the stars.   I wish we had that kind of vision.  Maybe we wouldn't be so political, polarized and arrogant.  Maybe we would be more like the humanity that Gene Roddenberry envisioned in his Star Trek Universe.  A humanity without labels and without borders.  

It's a small world... sung and play by "The World" 

Day 40: Inspiration from Courtney

“Since I first became aware of Peter Rollins’s work in 2018, I’ve come to see embracing of contradiction/Lack as vital. Where I initially found it not only unrelate-to-able but downright antithetical to my paradigm, I now perceive it as the greatest freeing I could possibly experience. It’s liberation from running myself down in my head. It’s liberation from the exhaustion of forcing myself to chase after “becoming a better person.” It’s liberation from society’s neverending demand that I figure out and then raggedly chase whatever it is that makes me truly happy.

It is also liberation from religion’s relentless, crushing pressure to “obey God, improve my relationship with God, please God, be perfect.”

McGowan’s way of presenting it all feels very accessible to me. My problem, as ever, is the how. What’s the practical side? How do I turn tarrying with contradiction into something that’s more than a mental/meditative exercise? Practices such as AfL do, in a strange way, “recenter” me to remaining decentered. (YAY, PARADOX.) But I need more than a yearly Lenten practice. I need a frequent, regular “Sabbath” of pyrotheological decentering, something that grows me into true satisfaction with and enjoyment of[…]”

Excerpt From

Appetite for Antithesis: (De)Knowing God in a Lenten Practice

Courtney Cantrell

Today, I just want to share some inspiration from Courtney.  I am still plowing through her book and enjoying the journey.  I am so glad she is walking alongside my last AFL.  

One more week.  

Day 39: Send me a dog!

It's bed time and I don't have much energy to write anything profound.  Maybe that will come tomorrow.  We have one more week...  

I am grateful, and tired.   It's time to move on soon.  My head needs a refresh and a different direction.  

There is nothing like a Naked Pastor cartoon to fill the empty void in my inspiration.  

Day 38: Sacrifice?: Jesus had a bad weekend.

I said I'd be back... but with what conclusion.  Slavoj Žižek made me laugh...   But was that the point.  

He's funny, but wasn't I supposed to take away more than just his humour.  

So instead of reflecting on his humour, I thought I would redirect to someone whose job it was to make me laugh and also reflect.  David Hayward, aka the Naked Pastor, is a cartoonist.  It is coming up on the end of AFL.  This Sunday is Poplar Sunday .  So I went looking for a cartoon from The Naked Pastor.  

This one reminded me of something Matt Dillahunty said about the whole crucifixion, resurrection event.  

"What was the sacrifice?  Jesus had a bad weekend."  It went something like that.  David Hayward illustrated it perfectly.  I guess that question has yet to be discussed or pondered, much less answered.  

There were a lot of things that came up for question with the narrative of Christianity for me.  This is one that still sits in my cranium begging to be asked and discussed.  The same question is asked in a song in the musical "Jesus Christ Superstar."  (The 2012 Arena Tour is my favourite. ) 

"Who are you, what have you sacrificed?"  

I am looking forward to making that my continued Good Friday tradition.  Andrew Lloyd Webber dared ask the question. 

Day 37: What is

 I saw the moon this morning... and then I didn't see the moon.  It is almost full.  In two days it will be full.  This is what a google search told me about Friday's full moon.  

"The first full moon of spring — the pink moon — will light up the night sky on Friday, April 12, 2025. Although it won't actually appear pink, this full moon is named after the early blooming pink phlox flowers, which signal the arrival of springtime."

I've never heard the first full moon of spring referred to the pink moon.  It didn't look very pink this morning, but I will have to keep my eye on it to see if I can see pink.  

There is "what is"

There is "what I believe about what is"

There is "what some say that it is"

There is "what I believe about what some say that it is"

There is "what I see"

There is "what I believe about what I see"

There is what is

* * * 

Today's reflection title bothers me... so much so that I don't want to listen to the reflection.  

"Why only an Atheist can believe". Slavoj Žižek.  

I am already surmising that each word gets reinterpreted under another set of standards.  He doesn't stipulate in the title "what" the Atheist can only believe.  There is the conundrum.  The reader has to already assume meaning based on lack of specifics.  

I looked up my AFL history and didn't find any inspiration from Žižek over the past years.  Not every voice inspires me.  But since this is my last year of AFL... maybe I need to give this voice a chance.  Even though I am skeptical about his premise from the get go.  

I am in for a long listen.  This sound bite is two hours long.  Yikes.  I guess this will be something I will have to chew on for a while.  I will be back... if I make it through the two hours. And even if I don't make it through... I will be back ...  Even if that means tomorrow.  I think we will get two days to chew on Žižek. 

Day 36: Messengers of Love covered in fur.

 

Love looks different at my house.  Love shows up with fur and four legs.  Love doesn't come when we want it to,  There is no demanding love.  It just comes and brings with it a peace that fills our hearts and our home.  This morning five messengers of love showed up for my husband in the early morning hours.  He needed some extra love today.  Mostly it is only one or two, but this morning when my husband needed it... five messengers showed up.  

They come for the bird seed we have on a plate that we can observe from our kitchen window.  That's right... these messengers of love like bird seed.  They almost never show up in the daylight hours.  They come when it's dark.  Like the stars... their beauty is only visible at night.  

I won't ever see love as ethereal anymore.  Love has air in its lungs and a warm beating heart in its body.  And sometimes love comes covered in fur.  

Day 35: At least the sky has something to say

 Sometimes there are no words to share.  So I am thankful there was a sunset.  At least the sky has something to say tonight.  

Day 34: Not much to share today

"Larch Valley" by Alison Philpotts (StumpCraft Puzzles) 

Day 34: The Torment of Saying Nothing 

Two weeks left.  I think I am coasting now.  When I read posts from past years, I see a lot of "I don't know if I will make it" moments.  Today was Richard Boothby day... and my posts in 2023 about Boothby had me more mesmerized with his story than his philosophy.  I'm not sure that is the goal of the AFL journey.  I am supposed to soaking up more than the stories.  

This week looks like the voice are more alive than dead.  So that is encouraging.  It's nice to see that we haven't had to bury everyone on this journey.  It is nice to see that the world is still producing some great minds.  

I don't have much to share today.  And I'm not really tormented by that... sorry Boothby!  Maybe tomorrow will more inspirational.  

Day 33: I am accepted

“Religion, in the largest and most basic sense of the word, is ultimate concern. And ultimate concern is manifest in all creative functions of the human spirit.​” Paul Tillich

I am wondering this morning why it took three years of AFL for me to finally get Paul Tillich's message of acceptance.  Maybe I still had to purge the remainder of the baggage around terms like 'sin' and 'grace', so Tillich could redefine them for me.  Courtney helped me into that space this morning.  I am so grateful for her guidance on this journey.  It really as made all the difference this time around.  Thank you Courtney!  

“Sin, to Tillich, is separation, an aspect of the experience of every human. “To be in the state of sin is to be in the state of separation...[which] constitutes the state of everything that exists...it is the fate of every life.”​[641] There are three aspects of this separation (state of sin):

1. separation of individuals from each other, 

2. separation of an individual from self, and 

3. our collective separation from what Tillich calls the “ground of being.” ” 

 (Courtney Cantrell: Appetite for Antithesis) 

This takes the concept of sin and gives it wings instead of the five thousand pound weight around my neck that the Christianity of my past gave me.  Separation Is Normal.  Separation happens as part of the human condition.  That is the wings part of the picture.  There seems no shame in that, there is only an awareness of that separation and an invitation for a coming together again.  I think I just got recharged.  Understanding that it is part of the human condition to be separated, even from myself, I can now make strides to find a coming together...even within me.  That is beautiful.  And that coming together might look alot like Paul Tillich's picture of 'grace'.  Courtney again gives me such a beautiful synopsis of this.  

“Grace is the acceptance of the rejected. Grace is one Life looking another (an Other) Life straight in the face and saying, “I accept you. I take you as you are, not asking for you to change. Not asking for you to make restitution. Not asking you to do anything. You don’t have to try harder. You don’t even have to try. You can rest in this acceptance. You can breathe. I accept you, and now you can breathe.” ”

 (Courtney Cantrell: Appetite for Antithesis) 

I am accepted.  I started feeling like that in my star time.  When I am alone with the stars, I feel like I belong to the greaterness of the space around me.  I feel less alone and less alienated and less separated.  Maybe that is my grace from the "Ground of Being" and I don't need anymore labels for it.  I am here.  Maybe that is enough.  Maybe I don't need to limit that to just my parents having sex in summer of 1967.   Maybe "I am here" can find a reality beyond that.  Some would call that purpose.  Again... no need for more labels.  

“I want to state bluntly this point Tillich is making: you will never feel grace permeating you...you will never feel accepted...you will never be able to accept that you are accepted...until you acknowledge and admit sincerely that you cannot know who the other person is, you cannot know who you are, and you cannot know who/what “God” is because you are essentially (in your essence) abysmally divided from every last physical and “metaphysical” atom of all of it.

(You are not an onion. You are a mystery.)”

Courtney Cantrell: Appetite for Antithesis

I already embrace the idea that knowledge is beyond me.  This isn't frustrating anymore, it's freeing!  

I will end with the synopsis of this chapter that Courtney so beautifully left for me to ponder and wonder if I can join her in that space.  It's kind of hard for me to forget what is still so prevalent around me, but I will try, if only for me in my own space.  

“I am forgetting everything traditional I’ve learned about God. I am forgetting the word itself.

But I involve myself with mystery. I involve myself with depth. And that’s more of God than I’ve ever had before.”

Courtney Cantrell : Appetite for Antithesis: 

Day 32. "Christian Atheism".

So today was Paul Tillich.  Maybe I will catch up with him tomorrow.  But today... before I head to bed... soon... I want to talk about something that was on the Whatsapp conversation.  Someone brought up "Christian Atheism".  It sparked quite the discussion.  I dropped in on the weekly Zoom chat and it even made it there.  Maybe my mind isn't tracking with most of the conversation that happens around the  AFL table... but this one... blows my mind completely.  I'm almost glad that no one is reading my posts this year.  (That's right... not that many hits).  I feel like I can be a bit more candid and less morphing into what others are saying.  

Since I have no interest anymore in the label Christian, and the label of Atheist isn't that appealing for me to embrace, do I even need to go there with Christian Atheism? Do I even need to try and understand the premise?  I am understanding that with AFL, we are seeing Theism and Atheism as two sides of the same coin.  It just gets flipped each week and we see a different side.  I am not seeing the attraction factor for keeping the Christian label for anything other than the 2000 year old narrative that needs people to conform to one way of doing life.  There is no whitewashing the exclusivity of Christianity and anything that holds to that label.  There is no room for the whole world for anything bearing that label.  Atheism is also pretty exclusive.  For the most part... it doesn't allow for spirituality.  I remember Sam Harris being somewhat mocked for his embrace of spirituality along side his staunch atheism. 

I get it... If I had paid more attention to conversations... maybe I would see some sense in people's explanations... but I don't see the sense.  Co-opting those two exclusive terms into one package seems messed up.  Just my thoughts.  Another reason to make AFL 2025 my last go around.  I'm getting dizzy!!! 

For the record... here is what Wikipedia says about Christian Atheism... 

"Christian atheism is an ideology that embraces the teachings, narratives, symbols, practices, or communities associated with Christianity without accepting the literal existence of God. It often overlaps with nontheism and post-theism."

I strangely understand Jewish Atheism more.  Jewish culture is exactly that ... a culture.  Christianity is a religion, a belief system.  It's not a people group or a cultural entity.  So for me, it makes more sense that someone who is Jewish can still attend Passover even through they don't believe in "Yahweh" that it is for a Christian to take communion if they don't believe in Jesus.  

I ditched the symbolism of Christianity long before I let go of Jesus and God.  All the trappings were the first to go.  So the letting go of Jesus and God didn't give me an invite back to the rituals.  Those were long since buried.  Now it makes sense why it doesn't make sense.  

Day 31: I can't, I can't, I can't...

 

I don't know if this picture and this quote have anything to do with AFL... but I wanted to put it somewhere other than the desktop of my computer.   I only have one question when I see this.  

How do you know the Sun is loud, when you can't hear it?  

This is the issue I have with science and theology and every certainty in between.  It's things like this that make it hard for me to believe anyone or anything at face value.   At the end of the day... which it is right now... I can't ride on any train that requires me to sign on the dotted line.  I can listen, say nothing, let the person have a right to say what they want to say, give them their platform... but in my heart of hearts, I can't ride the train with them.  I can't get on their platform with them.  I can't, I can't, I can't... 

Day 30: Uncomfortable

 

This evening's sunset in Calmar

Okay...  Thirty Days in and I am sad today.  Sad that Simone Weil only had 34 years of life.  At first I found it hard to think that she had something of wisdom to pass along to me at 57.  I remember me around her age.  I was heavy into the Pentecostal scene.  I couldn't even imagine walking near to the thoughts and queries that Simone Weil had.  I wasn't introduced to the idea of thinking beyond denominational belief structures back then.  I was told what, how and why to believe what I did.    Church wasn't about thinking... I was just looking for a place that wasn't boring and I found it.  That's right.  The Lutheran church was boring; The Pentecostal church wasn't.  

I did find something interesting in Courtney's chapter on Weil.  

“In La Pesanteur et la Grâce (Gravity and Grace), a collection of her reflections, she says religion hinders true faith when religion gives us God in a way that consoles us. In other words:

if we find rest and comfort

in the God our religion presents to us

(seen)

then the God we’re accepting is an idol

standing between us and the Real God

(unseen).

For Weil, the Real God is one that disturbs and destabilizes instead of comforting, and she insists that the purpose of religion is to open us up to longing. Instead of offering succor, religion should continuously generate our desire for the Real.”  Courtney Cantrell

Excerpt From Appetite for Antithesis: (De)Knowing God in a Lenten Practice

Comfort seems to be the bedrock of the religion I grew up with and embraced for four decades.  Who doesn't want to be comfortable.  It explains so much cognitive dissonance in religious circles.  There's not thinking and not questions... because comfort is the requirement.  To think and to ask questions is uncomfortable... and we aren't going for that.  

I checked my blog.  I didn't find any reflecting in the other AFL years on Simone Weil.  I don't know why I didn't register with her.  Maybe it was her age.  Not sure.  Her story captivates me more than her words.  Oh yeah... that would hurt right there.  As a writer... I would hope my words captivate people, but maybe all I have to offer is my story.  

Day 29: "Imagine there's no [religion], it's easy if you try."

"For Barth, atheism becomes an unlikely ally in this struggle. Insofar as atheism rejects the human-made religious constructs that mask themselves as theology, it serves a theological function—it exposes conceptual idolatry, stripping away the false gods that we create in our own image. The true theologian, then, must take atheism seriously, recognizing in it a necessary negation: the refusal to equate human thought with divine reality. God is not an object within human understanding but a disruptive, destabilising presence who breaks into the world from beyond.

Barth’s vision of theology is thus profoundly unsettling. It demands that we abandon any attempt to ground God in reason, experience, or tradition, accepting instead that true knowledge of God begins in the recognition of our own ignorance. Faith, for Barth, is not a matter of grasping divine truth but of being grasped by it—of encountering a revelation that overturns all our assumptions rather than confirming them." 

Peter Rollins

“In Barth’s view, any attempt to comprehend or define God is an attempt to “humanize the divine, to bring it within the sphere of the world of time and things....”​[482] But this accomplishes only a widening of the unbreachable gulf between us and God. We can’t put God in a box—not even if that box is labeled “religion.” God is not what’s contained in religion—”

“God is also what ruptures our political beliefs. Try to connect Jesus to a specific political party, and it’s eventually going to go bad; you’ll end up manipulated and deceived, manipulating and deceiving. What is going on in the name “God” can’t be reduced to any one ideology; if you try to reduce it to one, you’ll end up with nothing but projections of your own personal history. Or, perhaps worse, someone else’s history.” 

Courtney Cantrell

Excerpts From

Appetite for Antithesis: (De)Knowing God in a Lenten Practice

Today, my inspiration doesn't come directly from Karl Barth... but from Pete and Courtney about Karl Barth.  

After all my readings this morning, I pondered what the world would look like if John Lennon's imagination became reality... "No Heaven, No Hell, No Religion".   According to Lennon, it was easy to imagine Earth with no Heaven, Hell or Religion.  But does "God" still show up if Religion vanishes?  That is the ultimate exercise in imagination.  Is "God" the product of Religion, or according to Barth... beyond religion and only accessible when religion gets out of the way.  Some would say that even embracing the idea of "God" puts you in religion's bubble.  

I stalled at getting anything from Karl Barth when he opened up his discourse with these words. "…We know that God is...  "  Who is "We"?  What does it mean to "know"?  And who is "God", Karl???  That is why I just blanked out for the rest of the reading.  He lost me.  So many assumptions and I feel like the ass.  

It's Day 29... and I am nearing happiness that I anticipate this AFL journey will be the last one.  I am almost done trying to get any wisdom out of Old dead white guys that are trying to keep the character of "God" in the story while tossing out the book that the story is written in.  Religion is the book.  Religion is the framework that gives "God" structure and substance.  Without Religion... "God" ceases.  Maybe then the mystery of the cosmos is magnified and we would be left wondering.  I don't see anything bad about that.  That would be a world without answers, without conclusions, without certainty, without division, without wars, without....  It would be a world without... and humans will never let that happen, because humans can't live without and be satisfied... we only know how to live with.  Even then... satisfaction is still beyond our reach.  

Day 28: Foolish Frustration

I find it hilarious that Barnett Newman is scheduled for April Fool's Day.  It seems like a joke on me, even if it's probably not a joke on anyone else.  Maybe I'm the only one who sees this artwork appreciation exercise as a joke.  And I will only admit it here.  But it's not a joke.  I just don't appreciate his art like others have found a way to appreciate his art.  

In 2023, Barnett Newman came in to the reflections on Day 29, but I ignored him.  I think I was too frustrated.  But after calming down for a day, I did mention in in the following post and shared why I was so uncomfortable.  

2023: Day 30: Wolves in the Snow

I did feel abandoned as my Day 29 post indicated.  I felt like I was the only one not welcome into the space that everyone else so willingly found understanding in.  No one was critiquing the artistry of Newman as insignificant in their journey.  It is the awkwardness of walking into an art gallery and seeing a painting that makes no sense to you, but the artist is standing behind you wanting your thoughts and feelings.  It's two years later, and I still don't have any positive or inspirational thoughts and feelings about Newman's artwork.  I have frustration.  Maybe today... I can call it foolish frustration.