fighting fire with fire or how i learned to stop worrying and hate the bomb

so i've been thinking about the military a lot recently. i was at an anti-war benefit show last night and they had an open mic. the poems were very poignant and there were some extremely well spoken individuals. so i got up on stage with my ipod and my musical gameboy and said, "i wrote this song because i'm a christian..." ::awkward silence from the crowd:: "...and it breaks my heart that people have somehow read Jesus saying 'love your enemy and pray for those who persecute you' and 'he who is without sin, cast the first stone' and taken that to mean 'kill the infidels' and 'bomb all the muslims'. i'm sure it breaks jesus' heart that powerful, rich white men have dragged His name through the mud like this". then i started my song...

A child caught with muddy hands
A termite mound with bigger plans
We stormed the beach and saved the land
But it turns out it was only sand

Wet with blood from other gods
We rallied all our wearied squads
With tired eyes and patient nods
We asked the Lord for better odds

Peace, be still
We've been this way before
Peace, be still
We'll go this way again

The Son of God stood up and said
"Love will carve the path ahead"
So we tied him up and shot him dead
And put his name on our guns instead

muddy_hands.mp3

that last verse is my favorite because the music is quiet and every last syllable is able to be heard. it was surprisingly well received. when i first said that i was a christian, most of the people there immediately thought of the christianity that has been responsible for so many deaths throughout history. they saw the popes sending hundreds of thousands of christians to kill all the muslims. they saw the inquisition, manifest destiny, the people who bomb abortion clinics, and the trail of corpses across history with crosses ironically marking their resting places.

that's understandable.

when people learn about christianity in school, that's what they learn about first, but while hundreds of thousands of people were being killed in the name of the prince of peace, st. francis had another idea. the crazy monk walked unarmed into the court of the sultan of egypt to talk. he was disgusted by how many of his brothers were killing people in the name of the God who refused to fight back against rome's whips, so he decided to do what Jesus would do and lovingly build a relationship with "the enemy" and leave the religious zealots to their own foolishness. had the popes been half as courageous and humble as little francis, then things would have probably ended up differently.

if we were to follow the teachings of Jesus to the letter, we would be more extreme pacifists than anyone in the world. anyone can say that killing someone is wrong. murder is wrong in a lot of contexts, but Jesus takes that a step further to say that if you hate someone, you have already killed them. to follow Jesus' words would mean to not only not murder but to not hate at all. in c.s. lewis' "the great divorce", a murderer and his self-righteous boss are reunited in the after-life, and the murderer tells him this,

"murdering old jack wasn't the worst thing i did. that was the work of a moment, and i was half mad when i did it. but i murdered you in my heart, deliberately, for years. i used to lie awake at night thinking about what i would do to you if i got the chance".

so i ask you this. do you take Jesus seriously? or have you made his words into clever metaphors and pleasant sayings for bookmarks and email signatures? at no point in his 33 years, was Jesus ever a friend of the state. in fact, for the first 300 years of christianity, it was just common knowledge that no christian would be a part of the military or government. after all, what would be the point of trying to use bureaucracy and violence to fight evil when you have the Creator of the universe in your corner? firemen don't bring flame-throwers to a burning building. if you want to fight fire, you fight it with water. if you want to fight violence, you fight it with peace. fighting violence with violence makes about as much sense as fixing a broken window with a brick.

how can a christian who takes Jesus seriously pick up a weapon with the intent to kill another human being? and for what? for the united states? the united states is in NO WAY a christian nation, and the founding fathers (or at least washington, adams, and franklin) made it clear that we are NOT a christian nation. also, what if the person which you are killing is also a professing christian? i am positive that christians are currently killing christians all over the world in the name of their particular geographic region. it blows my mind that this is ok in so many circles! of all the big issues in christianity, this was the one that bothered me most as a kid growing up in a church that was very pro-military. if Jesus were really ok with this, would He really have wasted His time telling us to turn the other cheek? why would he have forgiven the romans instead of fighting back? why wouldn't He have heeded the advice of the zealots all around Him and amassed an army to take out the romans? nothing that Jesus says makes any sense if He is all about war and killing.

if a christian can read all of Jesus' words and still pick up arms to kill another human being whom God loves "for his country", then that person has bought into the lies of patriotism and forgotten that we are in fact members of no nation, but members of the Kingdom of God. we are a nation within (and without) nations. there are citizens of my nation that are cursing the name of obama for the bombs that are destroying their lives. there are citizens of my nation that are living in holocaust-like conditions in gaza because the united states is funding their oppressors. my nation is full of love, patience, peace, perseverance, and hope. my nation will remain long after all of the other nations have blown each other to Hell. my nation has no master but the Lord God Himself, and we refuse to stoop to the level of this fallen world by resorting to violence, hatred, and bigotry. we will advance our kingdom with love. while other nations make war in order to make peace, we will make peace in order to make peace. we will continue to renew the world despite its best efforts to destroy itself, and there is nothing that ANYONE can do to stop us.

i need more raccoons in my life

the house next to ours is rented our like an apartment and no one uses the backyard. it was completely overrun with weeds and bricks, and it looked pretty bad. so my roommates and i got permission, cleared the whole yard, built a 12' x 12' raised bed and filled it with compost from the recycling center at fairmount park. we wanted to try to live more sustainably by growing all of our own produce.

since then, we've spent countless hours frustratedly weeding, watering, and dealing with animals. a raccoon came into our garden the other day and screwed all kinds of stuff up so we built a massive chicken-wire fence around it with a big wooden door. we also cemented the rocks around the outside of it so that no animal could knock them over.

i was overwhelmed by the ridiculousness of it all today.

i have a caged in box of nature in my backyard.

people are so obsessed with controlling and dominating that we're going to spend an entire day putting up a fence to keep nature out of my nature. let the raccoon do whatever it wants to do in my garden. who cares if the rabbit comes and eats some tomatoes. here i am sitting in my room inside of a climate-controlled, water resistant, house that is attached at the hip to other houses that are surrounded by concrete as far as the eye can see. i couldn't be more disconnected to nature.

nature is rough. it's wet and cold and scary. sometimes raccoons come around and screw stuff up. isn't like the same way? how often have i tried to control my life only to find raccoons throwing everything around. i don't even care anymore. i guess that's why Jesus said not to boast about your plans. like the person who says "oh i'm going to save up for a new house and it's going to be great!" and then they die. life is rough. it'll mess you up. i don't want a fence around my garden. i want nature to be nature. let it get messed up. animals are miserable when you put them in zoos, and trees grow best when they are growing out of dead plants and animals. i think we need a little more chaos in our lives and a little less sense of control.

a little more raccoons and a little less fences.

everything is nothing

this entry is entirely for myself.

just sayin.

it would seem that the answer to depression is not having an awesome life, being surrounded by people who love you, constantly seeing God's faithfulness, and having an active, worry-free lifestyle.

damn.

i was really hoping it would be.

i literally have nothing to complain about right now. i could try to if you would like...

ummmm... i don't have gratuitous amounts of money? i'm not at my absolute dream job? i don't have a chiseled body?

so it's obviously not coming from external circumstances. it would seem that no matter what life actually looks like, my state of mind is separate. maybe that's how paul was able to find the secret to being content in all things. every day is just like the one before it in the grand scheme of things. what trivial differences exist between days? if you take all of the mountains and valleys, plateaus and ocean beds, and consider it overall, the earth is as smooth as a bowling ball. it's all so trivial.

today i saw an advertisement in the subway. it was a guy in his early 20's with his arms crossed and a look on his face that said, "i'm a god. worship me and my greatness." it was some ad for someone's new album or something. the whole charade made me laugh. he's gonna die the same way i am.

kublai khan single handedly ruled an empire that spanned 20.6 million square miles.

and now he's dead.

during solomon's reign, jerusalem was so magnificent that the queen of sheeba walked 2,000 miles just to see it with her own eyes.

and then it burned down.

i think i've been putting too much stock in the way things are. nothing is very significant here. nothing is really that dire. the soul is eternal and everything else blows away. when nothing is significant, there's nothing worth getting depressed or upset over. the only thing that matters is already taken care of. my soul is saved, my life is bought. if i don't get a lot of sleep because my job is stressing me out, who cares? if i haven't been able to write anything good in months, oh well.

there's a fickle beauty in our transience. like a sandcastle or a house of cards. everything is beautiful because everything is nothing.

Apparently God Likes People Who Suck?

In the beginning, God created a couple of selfish naked people who decided that having super powers was more important than listening to God.

Their sons became a murderer and fertilizer.

After a while, people went crazy and forgot all about God. Also, some angels had giant kids with women? That part is a little more hazy. So the man who God chose to basically repopulate the Earth liked to get drunk and pass out in his tent.

His son thought this was hilarious.

It was apparently not.

A bunch of generations passed, a tower was built, languages went crazy, and then the story picks up again.

God chose a dude from Iraq to be the father of the Jews and eventually the savior of the world. Turns out that he was a pretty big liar who liked to take matters into his own hands. He ended up with 7 bastard children, and became the patriarch of all 3 major monotheistic religions.

His grandchildren were a brainless buffoon and a conniving backstabber. They were twins. The conniving backstabber lied to his father, stole from his brother, and ran away where he had 13 kids.

11 of his kids sold their other brother into slavery. They hated him because their father liked him best, and he was kind of pompous too. These are the fathers of the 12 tribes of Israel.

Time passed and their descendants became slaves.

God decided to use a murderer on the run from the law who also had a speech impediment to liberate His people.

He did.

The next period of history is full of murderers, liars, cowards, thieves, prostitutes, assassins, and a bunch of brainless brutes.

Then Israel got a king. A king with no regard for the sanctity of God. He ended up going crazy and trying to kill his own court musician.

That musician then went on to become the greatest king that Israel ever had. He abused his power and had one of his good friends killed so that his affair with his wife would not come to light.

The child of that affair was no better. He enslaved his own people to build a magnificent palace for himself that was even greater than the massive temple he built. He had 700 wives and worshiped all kinds of gods.

His kid started a massive civil war and split the kingdom in two.

Every king from that point on would be worse than the murdering, adulterous, idol worshiping kings before them.

While the kings whored themselves out to foreign gods and the people were sacrificing their own children, the prophets were lighting their stoves with their own poop, marrying prostitutes, running around naked, and doing other crazy things to get people's attention.

Then an unwed teenage girl had a baby in a feeding trough while laying in a sickening combination of moldy hay and donkey crap. They were visited by some shepherds and a couple of pagan astrologers from Iraq.

That baby lived a mostly unassuming life until he was about 30 years old, and a crazy homeless man who ate bugs started screaming about the savior of the world coming. The crazy homeless man baptized the 30 year old, and then the fun began.

He assembled an all-star team of fishermen, IRS workers, anarchists, prostitutes, house-wives, business men, and hobos. This group of crazies "turned the world upside down", and most of them were killed. A lot of them were killed by a guy who would then change his mind and spread the gospel across the entire Roman empire.

Liars, thieves, whores, murderers, homeless, rich, male, female, oppressed, oppressors, religious nuts, and irreverent kings.

That's the cast of fools that makes up our sordid history as God's people. Never believe the lie that you are not "good enough" to be a part of God's plan.

Congratulations. You are part of a proud history of idiots.



"But God chose the foolish things of the world, that he might put to shame them that are wise; and God chose the weak things of the world, that he might put to shame the things that are strong;"

1 Corinthians 1:27

Psalm 55

This is how I am feeling these days in this broken city...

1 Listen to my prayer, O God,
do not ignore my plea;

2 hear me and answer me.
My thoughts trouble me and I am distraught

3 because of what my enemy is saying,
because of the threats of the wicked;
for they bring down suffering on me
and assail me in their anger.

4 My heart is in anguish within me;
the terrors of death have fallen on me.

5 Fear and trembling have beset me;
horror has overwhelmed me.

6 I said, "Oh, that I had the wings of a dove!
I would fly away and be at rest.

7 I would flee far away
and stay in the desert;

8 I would hurry to my place of shelter,
far from the tempest and storm."

9 Lord, confuse the wicked, confound their words,
for I see violence and strife in the city.

10 Day and night they prowl about on its walls;
malice and abuse are within it.

11 Destructive forces are at work in the city;
threats and lies never leave its streets.





This is what I tell myself every time I start feeling hopeless...





16 As for me, I call to God,
and the LORD saves me.

17 Evening, morning and noon
I cry out in distress,
and he hears my voice.

18 He rescues me unharmed
from the battle waged against me,
even though many oppose me.

19 God, who is enthroned from of old,
who does not change—
he will hear them and humble them,
because they have no fear of God.

20 My companion attacks his friends;
he violates his covenant.

21 His talk is smooth as butter,
yet war is in his heart;
his words are more soothing than oil,
yet they are drawn swords.

22 Cast your cares on the LORD
and he will sustain you;
he will never let
the righteous be shaken.

23 But you, God, will bring down the wicked
into the pit of decay;
the bloodthirsty and deceitful
will not live out half their days.
But as for me, I trust in you.



Thank you David.

I like that the greatest king Israel ever had was a singer-songwriter. That makes me feel better about what God has in store for me.

Finally an Update

Back on September 30th, I wrote a note talking about how God came outa nowhere and told me to leave seminary in order to work with the poor people of the inner city. So, I finished up my semester and headed home with absolutely no idea what I was going to do with my life. I applied to about 30 different jobs that ranged from wildlife conservation to homeless advocacy, and just about everything in between. Anyone who was around me knows how much I was struggling with not having a plan. Actually, I could have done without a plan, but not having even the slightest idea where to find work or housing was driving me crazy.

Then, I randomly got a call from Education Works on December 22 asking me to come in for an interview on the next day. They are an organization that sends people into low income schools to give extra attention to kids who are failing out. The entire process from the first call to me signing the contract only took about 2 weeks, and before I had time to let it sink in, I had a job. Well, it's not really a job. I'm a full time math tutor/mentor in Furness High School in south Philly. It's a pretty bad neighborhood, and the kids have about a 3% chance of rising above their situation. It's a pretty vicious cycle that ensures that these kids and their kids after them will be stuck in the same situation their parents were in. Education is really the best way for them to get out of that cycle. Education Works provide health care and deferment for my student loans, but the living stipend equates to about $5 an hour before taxes. Sadly, two of the things that were first to get their budgets slashed as a result of all of the wars was education and Americorps, so the funding for my program does not exactly runneth over.

So my next problem was housing. I was NOT looking forward to living in a tiny studio apartment all by myself in a new city. That was entirely the opposite of what I came here for. I came here to love people ridiculously and find the kind of Christian community that the early Church shared. So I emailed a couple of churches to ask if they knew of anyone who needed a roommate. One of the pastors from Circle of Hope forwarded my email to a group of guys living in West Philly who were in an intentional community that was looking for another guy. So I had dinner at their house, and met everyone. Over the the next 2 weeks, we emailed each other, and gave it some serious prayers. The house is a 3 story row-home near U-Penn, and some of the floors are pretty crooked which is why they call it "The Crooked House".

So while I was waiting to hear back from them, I was taking the train to work. I should clarify. I was taking 3 trains to work. Apparently I have been spoiled by Chicago public transportation, because SEPTA is teeeeeeeeeeerrible. I've been doing these 2 hour commutes that end up costing about $10 a day for the past week or so, and they have taken such a toll on me. Every night at about this time, I start thinking about waking up in a few hours, and I just want to run away all over again.

Luckily, I just got an email from the guys at the Crooked House saying that they want me to move in. So as of tomorrow, my Philadelphia adventure will officially begin. Also, I'm going to start going to Circle of Hope on Sundays and get involved with some of the ministries to the poor and homeless that they have. My days will be full of helping kids rise above the situations they've been born into, my nights and weekends will be full of caring for the poor and homeless who have already been sucked into the cycle, and every other moment will be lived in community with like-minded Christians who are as tired of the comfortable Jesus as I am. Everything is starting to come together, and I'm REALLY excited for it. I'm taking on ridiculous amounts of work and responsibility, but I know that God will support me while I'm doing it.

I do have one concern though, that you might be able to help me with. Like I mentioned before, this is not a job. I am technically a full-time Americorps volunteer, and I am getting paid well under minimum wage. I really feel like this is what I need to be doing though. For some of these kids trapped in the cycle of poverty, education could be their only way to escape a life of violence and drug addiction. So, those of you who know me well know that I HATE asking people for help of any kind, but here goes.

I need help.

As it is now, I might need to take a second job on the weekends to pay to live in the city. That would basically mean that a good chunk of my ministry plans would have to change, and I might have to miss church. Both of these options seem ridiculous to me considering that this is the reason why I came out here in the first place. So basically, I'm just asking that if any of you want to help support me and share in the work that God is doing in Philadelphia, I would be eternally grateful. I understand that peoples' wallets are not exactly bursting at the seams right now, but if a bunch of people gave $10-$20 a month, I would be set. Or if you feel like God wants you to support my ministry more than that, by all means. The more support I gain, the more work I am free to do in the city, and trust me, despite its name, this city needs all the love it can get. I'm shocked by the amount of suffering in every corner. High school kids randomly beating up old guys on the subway, a father beating another guy with a hammer on the subway, rampant unemployment, 8th graders with 2 kids, and middle schoolers addicted to hard drugs. I want to do all that I can here, and I hope that you can help me. For those of you who want to help, I'm setting up a paypal system to make it simple and easy for you. Just let me know that you're interested, and we will settle the details.

Also, as a closing note, I'll be sending out a (roughly) weekly update on what God is doing through and around me. So if anyone is interested in that, let me know, and I'll add you to the list.

Well, thanks to all of you who have prayed for me and been with me during this whole crazy transitional period. I'm really excited for what God is going to do next in and through me, and I hope you'll all be as enriched by it as I will be.

The Problem of Evil is a Problem for Me

i head home in a few days, and when i do, i will more clearly articulate the immense mercy that God has shown me since my last depressed, introspective post. like the ice that melts after being long exposed to the hot sun, so my inner demons have begun to melt away, revealing a truer form of myself than i could have ever imagined. all that on another day. today, i am consumed with another thought. i've been reading an absurd amount of c.s. lewis over the past 3 weeks (out of the silent planet, perelandra, the four loves, and the pilgrim's regress), and a common theme keeps popping out to me.

the afterlife.

more specifically, who goes where and why.

having been brought up in a conservative church, i was taught plainly that christians (though what they really meant was protestants) went to heaven and non-christians (again, non-protestants) went to hell. hell is the domain created to punish satan and his demons for their rebellion, and after our own rebellion, God begrudgingly began sending people there as well. bound to a law which was seemingly above God Himself, He had no choice but to send mankind to hell for their sins because God and sin is like oil and water; they can never mix.

a sort of double-predestination was taught to me from an early age. just as God predestined some people for salvation through faith in Jesus, He also predestined everyone else for eternal damnation. this always bothered me. this was the God who says that He wishes all people would be saved. Jesus, who wept over jerusalem's rebellion also apparently chose from before time began that they would reject Him. above all other things i was taught, this one bothered me the most, and it actually still does to this day. i've gone through so many stages from trying to ignore it, to trying to rationalize it away. i've even gone so far as to say that hell is just an allegory and we all end up in heaven anyway.

i know it isn't just me who struggles with this. the same people who have no problem telling you that every muslim is going to hell would hesitate to say that eternal torment is reserved for aborted babies, the mentally handicapped, or those who simply lose their minds and become like animals after a long life of upstanding behavior. as usual with these sort of things, the lines are a frustrating shade of grey.

the other night i was listening to a podcast from erwin mcmanus and he perfectly described the problem i was having. the entire issue can be rephrased like this,

"do i care about people more than God does?"

i have been so horrified by the concept of a God who could callously condemn people to eternal punishment because they just happened to live in brazil in 33 A.D. instead of jerusalem. the God that i was forming in my mind didn't care about people as much as i did, and that meant that He wasn't really God. it's the same realization a child would have if they were to realize that the hand they've been holding for the past 30 minutes is not actually that of their mother, but of a complete stranger. i didn't want to believe in universalism because i loved my fellow person that much. i wanted to believe it because i was afraid of the God who would condemn people to hell because they were born in the wrong country to hear the saving message of Jesus.

at this point in my life, i believe that the Bible does teach that those who were never given the Gospel were given their conscience which will either convict them or free them by the saving blood of Christ whether they know Him by His jewish name or not. (see romans 2). to that end, I would love to proclaim to you that gandhi is in heaven right now hanging out with st. peter and zarathustra, but i've been struck with a more profound truth. i believe that if i were to ask Jesus face to face what happened to gandhi after his death,his response would be a lot like his response to peter in the end of the gospel of john. Jesus had just finished insinuating that peter would be crucified, and so he turns around and asks
what would happen to john (obviously feeling like he was getting the shaft). Jesus responds by saying,

"If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!"

it is that same poignant sentiment that paul gives in in romans 9 when he reminds us not to assume to know the mind of God. he says that even if God had designed some people for destruction so that his saving power might be known, who are we to question that? paul won't come out and answer my question as much as Jesus won't answer peter's question. the honest truth is that it is not my business what happens with someone else's soul. the only reason i want an answer so badly is because i want to be able to trust that God does in fact care about people more than i do.

well, if God cared enough about people to actually empty Himself of His divinity and become a wretched, humiliated person so that humanity might be freed from the trap it walked freely into, i would venture to say that He loves people more than i do. that being the case, i have no doubt that on the other side of the curtain, things look a lot less bleak. by what standards God judges those who never had a chance to believe or were unwillingly deceived is not any of my business. my business is to follow Him, and trust that He does care about people more than i do.

so this is where i am. stuck between trying to trust the sovereignty of God in the face of the apparent fact that God is sometimes the cause of evil in the world. like when He inspired david to number the men of israel so that he could send a plague over the land. or when He killed thousands of egyptian children because He hardened pharaoh's heart. my view of God is somewhat confused right now. the old testament writers didn't have any problem saying that God was the cause of both the positive and the negative things that happen in the world, so why can't i believe the same thing? your input would be appreciated.