Category: Spirituality

I am going to knock on the sky and listen to the sound. – Kevin Flynn

I grew up praying to god.

My earliest memories were praying over food, thanking god for our meal. I prayed over cheerios, peanut butter and jelly, and green beens. In our house, in the early days, this simple religious practice actually carried real meaning: we were very thankful to have what we had. I don’t remember much of those times, but I know now that my father, a blue collar worker, didn’t always have steady work and a consistent income. I do remember some times when my dad was home during the middle of the week and not understanding why. But I never remember missing a meal, unless I was being punished for being rebellious me. And, because we were good Christians, we bowed our heads and thanked our ever-present benefactor.

I prayed in church, too. Of all the places I have prayed, that is probably the most typical. I said I prayed, but more correctly the pastor prayed what felt to be interminable prayers (to my young hyperactive mind, anyway). I would sit with head bowed, desperately trying to keep my eyes closed (as a good Christian should), and would resist the urge to pick at the padding that was sprouting from the seat cushion. My first church was actually a civic centre down the street, and we did not file into pews, but sat in big purple chairs, most of which were so worn out that they were becoming disemboweled, and bored three year olds such as myself probably helped with the active destruction.

After that, I remember praying with my family, whenever we had family Bible study time, or at church during Sunday school. With my family we would sit around the living room, and my father would read something from the Bible, and sometimes a supplemental book, and afterwards we would either divide up prayer “requests” and pray, or my father would simply pray himself. During Sunday school I remember our teachers asking for prayer requests and, as we racked our brains for things to pray about, she would write on the chalkboard what we shouted out. Then we would bow to pray.

Somewhere during this time, I began to pray on my own. As a Christian kid I was encouraged to read my Bible by myself, “a quiet time with god” it was called, and then afterwards I was supposed to pray.

Prayer is talking to god.

Or at least, it is supposed to be. I have never once, outside of the Bible, heard of anyone ever having god audibly talk back to a single person. He certainly never spoke to me. In my entire human existence, whenever I have spoken to another person, I have almost always received a reply back. Even passing someone in the supermarket, and murmuring an “excuse me” usually warranted a grunt response. God is perhaps the most tight lipped person I have ever met.

This puzzled me even as a small boy picking stuffing out of my chair. Why did god never speak to me? Later I was taught that god was definitely speaking to me: “through” the Bible. In reading those hallowed words I was hearing the words of god to me. That was fine for a little kid, and because this whole Bible and Christian thing was so new to me, it worked, because I hadn’t read much of the Bible yet before and there were exciting stories to be distracted by. But, as I got older, and read more (and most of it from the library, not the Bible) I realized that the concept of god talking to me through the Bible was a poor method of communication. For one thing, god said the same thing to everyone and what he said never changed, and was never supposed to. For another, he always spoke to people who lived two thousand years ago, or even older folks, and he tended to speak in metaphor and stories about giants and lions and kings. He never once had anything to say to me as a third brother who only had the black lab to play with most of the day and parents who seemed to fight about everything. He never once said anything to me when my heart ached, or my temper flared, or when I had a really good day. My parents would point me to the Bible. Sad? read a psalm or two. Angry? read some psalms or something. Happy? read some psalms. I never received one unique word from god. I never heard him speak my name, and talk to me.

I asked god for things, I begged him for things, I thanked him for what I had, material and immaterial. I talked to him. I told him how cool he was. All these things I was taught I was supposed to do, regularly, and the more insistently, the better. “The fervent prayer of the righteous man avails much” I was told time and time again when, in despair or confusion or frustration, I went to my mother to ask why I never seemed to hear from god.

Of course, Christians believe that god does answer prayer, just not in words. He performs miracles. He grants requests. He sends good feelings. Theologically there are three answers to prayer (I was taught): yes, no, wait. Yes is for every prayer request that you utter that has a definite object that comes to pass. My grandmother is sick. I pray about it. She gets better. Yes from god. No is the opposite, naturally. My grandfather is sick. I pray about it. He dies. No from god. Wait is for every prayer request that nothing seems to happen about, one way or the other. I need a job. I pray about it. I hear nothing from any job application I ever fill out and when I call no one seems to remember my name. Somehow this doesn’t mean no, but wait, keep praying, it will eventually come.

But I have problems with all of this. First, I could never, ever find a single answer to prayer that I could not logically reason would have happened anyway. I saw no direct miracles. I heard of them. I believed that they could happen. Logically, it even made sense: I was told that god was all-powerful, so a being that is infinite in his ability to influence the universe can do what humans consider to be miracles, I just never saw any. Second, I could not reconcile a need to pray with another of god’s attributes: god is supposed to be all-knowing. So, why do I need to ask him, or tell him, anything? He already knows, is aware, and if he is good and all that, working towards the answer. The Bible even says that god knows what we pray before the words are formed. So, what was the point again? Ostensibly, my own growth, in discipline, to be humble before my master and show that I was leaning on his understanding for my life, or was aware of how awesome he really is. Sure. But to me, that makes god a massive egotist and a jerk. If someone does me wrong, I want them to be humble about it and apologize, but I could never stand people who fawned before me to get something. Just ask, man. I’m happy to help, and really, the only reason I need you to ask is because I don’t know you need something. I, at least, am not all knowing.

Do I sound arrogant, or unwilling to be humble? Well, I am now, but I remember countless times of pressing myself into my bedroom carpet, or onto my bed, face down spread eagle – “prostrate before god” begging and crying and trying as hard as I ever knew how to be humble, and contrite, and properly presented before the sovereign god. I cried, I was quiet, I shouted, I cursed, I was controlled, I repented – literally everything I was ever taught I was supposed to be, or do, or say: I was, did, or said. “The fervent prayer of a righteous man…” Maybe I was never righteous enough, but then, god was supposed to meet me where I was, he was supposed to make me clean, he was supposed to make me righteous, he was supposed to be big enough to handle a little tarnish, because, after all, who is perfectly clean? All of this I was taught time and time again.

But beyond all that, any answer to prayer one “receives” is rationalizable. My grandfather dies. God said no to healing. Or, god said yes to ending his pain. Hitler survives World War I, and at least one assassination attempt. God said no to averting millions of deaths and horrible holocaust. Or, god said yes to Corrie ten Boom’s personal growth. Now, if you don’t know who Corrie ten Boom is, go read her story, and I don’t mean to diminish the strength of an extraordinary person who saw extreme evil up close, but my point is that god’s answers to prayer are subjective, and open to any interpretation one wishes to ascribe to them. “Ask and ye shall receive” is a popular verse, but of course it is taken out of context and doesn’t mean what most Christians most of the time think it means: god will give you what you want. You have to ask for the right things, in the right way, with the right amount of humility, without the wrong amount of sin in your heart, and so on. The small print on that verse goes longer than most cell phone contracts and most celebrity pre-nuptial agreements. God will never, ever give you a Ferrari. Ever.

Back to a personal conversation with someone I was told was a father, a friend who sticks closer than a brother, a lover, and a god with whom I was supposed to cultivate a personal relationship: he doesn’t do that anymore. In the Bible god speaks to people all the time. But that was before most of the Bible was written. Now that it is written, god thinks that is sufficient, or so I had been taught. Wonderful. Can I live in the time of Abraham, please? I really didn’t ever want anything from god. I just wanted to talk to him. To have a talk with the one person I was told comprehended me completely, who understood every single one of my pains. But god doesn’t do that. I have two options: I can read a psalm, or I can talk to someone who hasn’t got a clue, or is often the cause of my pain. Terrific.

This is part of why I have renounced my Christian faith, and have turned my back on what I have believed my entire life.
All I wanted was one, single word. Am I asking too much from an all powerful, all knowing, all loving deity?

I grew up praying to god. All I ever got back was silence. I’m done.

I really like the movie TRON: Legacy. My favorite line from that film was Kevin Flynn’s mantra: “I’m going to knock on the sky and listen to the sound.” I love the poetry of the line: the imagery, the emotion, the zen. I have adopted that mantra for myself.

It reminds me of my father’s conversion to Christianity in 1978. He was 18 and filled with despair at life. He wondered if all he experienced was all that life had to offer. In desperation, he wandered outside and gazed up at the stars. Being a ardent fan of science fiction, his mind was filled of fanciful tales of aliens, spaceships, and worlds beyond the small confines of earth. Not really expecting an answer he spoke to the black: “If you are out there, come get me, because whatever you have has got to be better than this.” It was not much later that a casual friend invited him to church and my father, finding value in what was said there, became a Christian.

I have heard this story many times throughout my life. I’ve lived all my life, unlike my father, in a home full of committed Christians. In particular, we were Baptists, which, if you know anything about Christian sects, is a fairly fundamental, conservative brand of the Christian religion. I grew up being taught everything there is to know about being a Christian, going to church at least three times a week, and I thought of myself as a committed Christian. I talked like one, tried desperately to act like one, and was ready to convert the world. But as I grew older, I started to question, to reason, to wonder. Now, as a young man myself, I reflect back on my life and I no longer call myself Christian. I no longer believe what I used to, or think like I used to. I don’t go to church, and I don’t read the Bible.

Anyone who has lived free of any religious entanglements might not really understand what I mean, and might have radically different thoughts about the nature of religion. I follow several admitted atheists on Twitter, and I routinely read disparaging comments they make about those who choose a religious path. At this point I am not an atheist, but having been a Christian myself, and being surrounded by a family full of them still, I know that Christians are not always as they appear, or are portrayed, and even general attacks on them is hurtful to me. Religious bigotry is no more right than racial or sexual or economical or political bigotry. Real people live everywhere, and some of them believe in one god, some of them believe in two, some of them believe in many, and some believe that the idea of god is absurd: but none should be mocked for their beliefs.

All my life I have let my spiritual beliefs be dictated by those around me, those I perceived as having authority over me, and those I respected and looked up to. Such a life has led me to live at odds with myself. Always I battled against my innate beliefs, my natural inclinations, and my thoughts. I was forced to reject or ignore what I felt in favor of what I was told was right. Even though I have been to college, graduated, and got married to the love of my life, still I found myself quieting my doubts and disbeliefs for the sake of those around me.

I can no longer do that. I can no longer keep quiet about what I truly feel. I can no longer let those whom I love and respect dictate what I believe, even passively. I must discover such things for myself. I do this as gently and as quietly as possible because I do not wish to upset or concern those who love me. I am unable to be callous and uncaring. Many care deeply about my well being and the state of my soul, and are compelled to do so because of their love for me and their sincere beliefs, and I will not begrudge them that.

As Shepherd Book says in the science fiction film Serenity, “I don’t care what you believe: just believe!” Book is a holy man, a part of a religious order traveling with a brigand Captain. Captain Reynolds used to believe in god, but an unjust, brutal war burned the belief out of him. As a result of believing in nothing, Reynolds was unfocused and haunted. Book didn’t care if Reynolds believed in his particular religion, but he knew that some sort of belief was essential to the human life.

Atheist or not, there is no denying that part of the human condition is a need to believe. A cause, a god, a purpose, a goal, a mantra: all people believe in something. The business man believes in business. The politician believes in social service. The soldier believes in battle. The mother believes in nurturing. The Christian believes in god. The writer believes in words. All of this is messy, blended, confused, and interwoven. There are no clear cut definitions. We are all of us searching and learning and assimilating and growing and every day our beliefs are reinforced, either negatively or positively or neutrally. It is human.

So, because I am especially confused and thoughtful and searching for some clarity in my spiritual life, I am going to knock on the sky and listen to the sound and find something to believe. I am doing this formally in my blog and publicly in my blog for two reasons: first, I find it very hard to write unless I have the illusion that someone out there is reading what I write, and secondly, I hope that something in my struggle and my process of working through what I believe can help someone out there somehow. Perhaps an atheist will realize that Christians are not self-deluded idiots willfully believing in what they know to be a fanciful and absurd make believe world, or perhaps some Christians will realize that it is ok to doubt, to question, and to think deeply about what they believe, or perhaps someone living somewhere in between the two will read one man’s exploration of belief.

Don’t mistake me: I don’t have any answers, but I do have questions. Back when I was learning ancient Hebrew in an effort to understand the Bible better, my professor told me that it was ok to live in the questions. So here I am, Brian: I am living in the questions, and they are many.

Love: Abandoned baby kicking on the side of the road…(1)

Hosea was a man called by God specifically to love. “Go, marry a woman…” (2) was God’s call to the prophet, and one he performed faithfully. His love story is intertwined with God’s allegorical love story with the nation of Israel, as told by Ezekiel (3):

Once upon a time, in a faraway land, there was a baby. This baby was born to an Amorite father, and a Hittite mother, but they abandoned her along the side of the path. The baby wept and screamed, still covered in blood, and fluid, naked for the world to see. People walked by, and heard the wails of the child, but none cared, none pitied, none even stopped to cast a glance in the direction of the shrieks. Compassion fled, and sympathy turned away. Abhorred, this child was cast away.

But, a man, walking through the field, suddenly stopped. The child, now weakening in the elements and sun’s harsh glare, was barely able to whimper. The blood had crusted to her body, and dust was caked to mud in the fluids. The man rushed with gentle steps to the baby’s side. His eyes welled with tears, and he knelt over the small, fragile form. His lips began to move, and a whisper was heard, “Live!” All the urgency, all the power, all the will of the master of the universe was embodied in that command. “Live!” he commanded again, this time in a strong clear voice, stretching out a hand over the baby’s brow.

Taking the baby home, he cared for her, and gave her everything she needed, everything she wanted. The little baby girl grew into the most beautiful woman in the land. The man passing by one day, saw her anew, and loved her with not just the love of a caretaker, but the love of a husband. He rushed with passionate steps to her side, and spread his cloak over her. He washed her, and anointed her, and dressed her in the most stunning clothes. He covered her with gold, and precious stones, so that her natural beauty was enhanced, and she outshone the stars.

But this rags-to-riches princess betrayed her true love, and went into the markets, brazenly displaying her beautiful body, and selling her affections to anyone who paused. So lusting was she that she took her jewels, her gold, her expensive clothes and bartered them for sex, paying her lovers. She took her sustenance, given by her husband, and used it to feed her partners.

If that were not enough wickedness in the face of undying love, and rescue from certain death, she took the sons and daughters born in the marriage, and sacrificed them to the heathen gods, in the fire of ash of darkest evil. What then were her whorings? She no longer remembered her beginnings, and the babe covered in blood and dust of so long ago.

It was in the height of her flagrant wantonness that her husband had his fill, and stretched out his hand against her. He cut off her support, and gave her up to be raped and robbed. He wept bitter tears, for her longed only to love her, in passion and compassion, but she would not take his selfless offerings. He cried out to her, “My love, I gave you all! You were to stay faithful, not spend your beauty on anyone who chanced by! I was your husband; I loved you!” But he had no choice: he brought lawsuit against her, and judged her as an adulteress and a murderess. He destroyed completely her whore houses and her beds of lust. And then he left, heart shattered.

Many years later, the woman, now ashamed and utterly destitute, sat by the road with nothing at all. Silent tears streamed down her cheeks. A man passed by, but she did not glance at him, she had long since abandoned her licentious ways. But the man had stopped, and was staring at her. When, after many moments, she dared cast her eyes up to him, she saw the face of her husband. He too was crying, and held his arms out to her. He gathered her to himself, and restored her as his wife, and forgave her evil.

Hosea married a prostitute, and had children with her (4). A few years later, his wife returned to prostitution, leaving her devoted husband and children. At God’s request, Hosea went, and found her, and re-married her. Imagine the heartache, the devastation, the worry and the confusion of a husband who does everything to care, support, and love a wife who leaves him, and shares the most sacred physical act of marriage with complete strangers for love. Imagine going and finding her, and trying to love her again. Issues of trust, resentment, heartache would threaten daily civility, and Hosea’s trust in a sovereign God must have been a constant question mark upon his soul.

Gomer, Hosea’s wife was not quite as evil as Ezekiel portrays God’s bride, but her betrayal was real. Not just a work of fiction to stir up the emotions, when she left Hosea she shattered his heart. What devotion to his wife, and to God, Hosea must have had, to endure such personal turmoil as a prophet! His eyes surely wept God’s tears as a grieving husband.

Notes :
1. Michael Card Lyrics
2. Hosea 1:2
3. Ezekiel 16
4. Hosea 1

This is a look at the prophets of Ancient Israel, as discovered through the Hebrew Old Testament, in six parts…

Part One Introduction:

How do you see an invisible God? How do you interact with a spirit you cannot touch? God has emotions, and a voice, but how can you experience that emotion, and how do you hear the voice of God?

This question plagued the children of Israel. As a fledgling nation, no bigger than a large family, the patriarchs directly interacted with God. After four generations, they found themselves enslaved in Egypt without a God. The deliverer Moses then stepped into the role of proxy to God through the wilderness wanderings on the way back to the promised homeland. After the reconquest of Canaan, the Hebrew people again lost sight of God through a series of semi-king judges and into the establishment of the Israelite Kingdom. To answer this loss of vision, God ordained the prophets, after the tradition of Moses, to be His physical presence, to show His emotion, and to speak His words. The prophets became the being and essence of God in the nation of Israel.

There is an ancient Asian proverb which states: “You cannot love without knowing pleasure; you cannot be happy without knowing sorrow; you need to know all of them to know one”(1) and I think this truth is evident in the great love story told through the ages by the prophets of God. The prophets exhibited the emotions of an intensely personal God to a wayward nation.

Michael Card in his song entitled “The Prophet” references many of the ancient prophets, and portrays their deep emotional frustration, “I am the prophet, and I smolder and burn…won’t you listen to me? I sorrow in His anger; my eyes weep His tears” (2) These man of ancient faith struggled mightily to bear the emotions of an awesome God.

In portraying the interactions of the primary emotions of life (love pleasure sorrow and happiness) I will personify them through the lives of seven prophets, six of whom were contemporaries, and across the backdrop of the fall of Jerusalem and the exile to Babylon, and demonstrate them to be the multi-faceted emotions of God displayed in humanity.

Notes

(1) As referenced by director Jieho Lee according to his film The Air I Breathe

(2) Michael Card Lyrics

I hear Russian through my window, rising from the street below. Students are walking by, to and from class. Lithuanian, Ukrainian, and Albanian I hear in my room on a regular basis, and I encounter several other languages if I stroll through my dorm…or through the Klaipeda city streets. When I go to the Orthodox church, beneath the tall spires and domes, looking up at the priests I could hear Polish, depending on which church I am in.

I go to the store, called IKI meaning “see you later”, and the packages are in Lithuanian, or Russian, or sometimes something else…rarely in English. I select what I want by looking at the picture. The cashier greets me, and I do not know what she says. After I pay, and receive my change, I usually respond “Achu” meaning “Thank you” and go my way, arms full.

I feel alone, separated here. I am learning the language, becoming familiar with the customs, but I am a man apart: I am in exile here. It is an exile because I am completely removed from the environment that is comfortable to me, that I grew up in, that I know best. Exile because I am living so far from home, from family, from where I usually see God.

I find it interesting that the root idea of the word, which we get from the Latin by way of Old French, is the idea of a “wanderer.” Certainly I feel like a wanderer here…having recently visited Latvia and Estonia and soon will be visiting a small corner of Russia. I am moving, seeing, experiencing, living.

The Old Testament of the Bible tells how the entire nation of Israel was forced into exile for their generations of disobedience of God. They were deported to Babylon for over 70 years, and most of the nation never returned. Here in the Baltics I have learned that the Soviet Russians exiled Lithuanians by the thousands to Siberia, and few ever came home.

What is the purpose of my exile? I have not disobeyed God, at least not as Israel did. I am not being oppressed by a Communist regime. Mine is an exile of being; to learn: about other countries, ways of life…and myself; to grow, for that is the direct result of learning. One cannot truly learn without growing. To mature, for I am still a boy, awkwardly being a man. In seeing who I am from different perspectives, like viewing my reflection in foreign shop windows, layers of vision are added to my sight. In experiencing God in totally different contexts, like standing in churches I would never have entered before, dimension is added to my faith. In being transplanted into Lithuanian soil, like living in a foreign city, I branch out in ways I never thought possible. In losing comfort, familiarity, friends, and family, like in being exiled, I mature in the wake of those losses.

Sometimes it takes exile, a crucible of life, to grow a man.

It’s the waiting that kills.

It seems like I have spent a good part of my life waiting: for Christmas, birthdays, visits from relatives, to grow up, to finish schoolwork, for my life to change around me. I somehow thought that if I just waited long enough that everything I hoped for, dreamed for, and wanted would come to me.

Like magic.

Funny thing: the magic never came.

Even now, I catch myself holding my breath, waiting for something. Some days, I don’t even know what that something is. Abstract, I know, but here is the ironic twist: I think I am supposed to be waiting. Take a read through the mid-Bible book of Psalms some time, and not just 5 or 10, but 30-40 of them, and I think you will notice a pattern emerging: waiting. David, Asaph, or whoever wrote many of the Psalms seemed to understand waiting, because the writer often urges the reader to “wait on the Lord.”

What does that mean? It is quite simple, actually: to wait on God is to believe that He is able to act and that He will act, and then to live each moment in that certainty just as much as you believe in gravity and live depending on that data. It is active trust in a future occurrence based upon the knowledge of who God is (see: the Bible for more information). But, its not like you must believe every second…this isn’t a magic formula for a genii…it is a lifestyle that allows for doubt, despair, disbelief, and struggle with the rationality of such a lifestyle. God is big enough to allow for you to wait on Him even when you yourself may not be totally convinced that He even exists. I knew growing up that my parents loved me, but when I got caught with my hand in the cookie jar, I despaired of all such knowledge. Eventually, though, I learned again that they did love me, and wanted me to be more than a sugar junkie. It was a cycle of constant rediscovery.

Maybe I am reading too much into an English translation of a Hebrew concept, but I think the principle applies: hurry up, and wait (as the cliche goes). God is good, He is sovereign, and He is at work…taken together with everything else the Bible reveals about God and you have a Person that you can wait on. Unlike your mother at the department store, your sister in the bathroom, your brother with the car, or the professor with the endless lecture, God is worth waiting on. Why? Will He give you everything you are waiting for if you hang around long enough? Not likely; but He will act, usually in exactly the way you needed but not the way you thought.

Consider: David, author of psalms, was a battle-hardened warrior ordained king as a youth, but he had to wait on the Lord for the throne, and he didn’t win it through a military coup, or even when his predecessor met his doom at the foot of a mountain, but several years later through a complicated set of circumstances (like that really long sentence). Point being, waiting always yields results.

However, waiting should not be understood as inaction. Back to David, he fought in countless engagements, took down belligerent giants, learned leadership by making mistakes, and forged relationships with men who would support him his entire life while hiding in caves and honoring God’s choice of a corrupt king even when it wasn’t convenient. In short, he was busy learning to be king while he was waiting to be king…and proved it by being the greatest king the nation of Israel ever had.

But why God? Couldn’t one wait on their own…and have all good things come to them? I suppose so, but to pile on the triteness…that might be a long wait for a train don’t come. You see, it really is God that causes “all things to work together” because mankind is utterly impotent to bring about meaningful change: we still fight wars, world hunger, and see families fall apart around us after having observed millennia of heartache without solution. Honestly, how much progress has unaided man made?

So wait on God for whatever it is you think you need, would like to see, or want to survive: a difficult class, an ungrateful child, world peace, or marriage to the woman of your dreams, and while you wait, go ahead and be busy learning to be king. Some day coming the waiting will end, and the solution you sought will have been formed in a way that could only have been arranged through divine intervention.

You may even be surprised.

They walked the world. Most times, as you passed them on those long, hot dusty roads, you wouldn’t think anything of them. Another old man, leaning on a staff, clothed a bit shabbily, but then, what do you expect? Israel is in another recession. Judah is having financial troubles. And sure…the barbaric Assyrians are breathing down from the north…the Babylonians from the east…the Egyptians from the south. They can smell it…the stink of corruption in the monarchy, and the scent of weakness. But then, that’s the way it has been most of your life…and really, things aren’t that bad. Your dad’s flocks and herds are a bit lean, but you still have enough cow to go around. The crops haven’t done as well the past couple seasons, but it’s just one of those times. All these thoughts bounce around your brain, and by the time the dust has settled behind you…you have mostly forgotten the bearded man who walked by with the weight of the world on his shoulders.

But then, the next day, your friends are talking…the town is a buzz. Did you hear what happened yesterday?? Did you catch what went down in the palace court? A friend’s friend’s father is a guard and he overheard…the prophet, ish ha-elohim: the man of God. Apparently he stalked into the court in the middle of some meeting and berated the king. After that, the crazy guy started yelling into the streets, tears streaming down his face. Something about a prostitute and the wrath of God. It doesn’t make much sense…the story, coming as it does in bits and pieces, but it burns in your mind…”Elohim has spoken!” It damages your calm…your casual nonchalance has fled and suddenly the world shrinks in around you. The twisted branches of the fig trees you pass seem menacing. The bull behind the fence glares with fiendish gleam. The crow caws ominously. The sky seems to grow dark…even at midday.

The prophets…the seers: they spoke for God, they saw crazy visions and dreamed impossible dreams. They cried in the towns, they wailed in the desolate regions; they shouted, they cursed, they called down doom from heaven.

Daily routine was interrupted…the ordinary became disjointed…comfort was annihilated.

They were mocked, beaten (finally the authorities stepped in to do something), imprisoned, or simply run off. But still, cousins talked and wanderers told tales. Their messages became splinters in the mind, itches beneath the skin, burnings in the ears.

Messages heralded the signs of the times: the oracles of God shattered the status quo; the tears of the world shakers shredded the peace…

Lately, that is to say, the last week and today, I have begun a study of Hebrew prophetic literature. It is something that has long fascinated me, and my recent learning of the ancient Hebrew language has rekindled a desire to delve into the Bible once more to unearth these strange treasures: the oracles of the prophets. It certainly isn’t easy reading, but then, it was never meant to be. The prophet’s soul task was to create chaos in the current world system, so that God could reintroduce His order and display His sovereignty.

In my life, just over two weeks into my time in Lithuania, through the teachings of professors and simply life experience, I am becoming uncomfortable. I am not at ease with how little I know about the world, about the Bible, and how small my faith is. Some things the profs teach enrage me, and I don’t quite know why…but I am becoming compelled to find out…to learn for myself. In their own way, they have become prophets to me, to shake me from my lethargy into active pursuit of knowledge, of faith, and of God.

I am become unsettled…by the tears of the world shakers.

This was written as a response to my friend Zach wondering about just war, killing, and all the rest….I thought it worthy of posting here….

Death, War, Killing, Defense, Capital Punishment….where is the end of the matter?

Extreme examples do little to advance the issue: “A man with a bomb on his chest about to destroy 100 babies,” Hitler, rape happening right in front of you. Of course, there are few people who could object to saving babies, who could keep themselves from punching the rapist’s lights out, or from seeking a way to stop Hitler.

The solution must be able to work in the simple areas of human life, else, how could it apply to the larger issues of a Hitler? Life is lived in the small, not the grandiose. More often than not, the decision is to strike out against a fellow human, not to go to war. Should we not govern ourselves in the micro, and thus, be able to govern ourselves in the macro? What was it Naaman was told, “Be faithful in the small things.”

You cannot get around the history of the Israeli people. The Bible is full of God-sanctioned wars, and killings. He Himself practiced genocide against the entire human race save eight people. But, granted, God is God, and the Creator by right has complete control over the Created. So God can move as He wishes. Herein is my first point. Most of the wars and killings we see are at God’s command. Kill Achan and his family. Wipe out every inhabitant of the land. Destroy the Amalakites with the edge of the sword. As human followers of God, we must obey Him, and do as He commands, no matter how it seems to us. But ok, I doubt any of us have received a directive from God to move against Toledo because it is an exceeding wicked city. What then?

Jesus taught a gospel of love. “Love the Lord your God, and your neighbor as yourself.” Who is your neighbor? Practically anyone beyond yourself. The book of 1 John declares how love is to be. Complete unselfishness towards another. If you are acting for another’s benefit, are you going to hit them, let alone, kill them? Chances are no. But ah, here is the issue, what if someone else is? Protection and defense, what then?

God goes to a point of telling us to accept wrongdoing against ourselves, to stand up and suffer for His Name’s Sake, and that He will reward us in the end. But for others, we are told to protect the fatherless, the widow, the weak. I believe God gives strength to protect weakness. The woman being raped, the unborn baby, the Jew, the oppressed, all lack the ability to protect themselves. It is the duty, the responsibility, and the obedience towards God to step in, and defend. But how far? Lethal force? Love is your guide, love of your enemy. I believe, only as much as necessary. If one punch will do the job, do not swing two. But some evil cannot be so easily restrained. If they insist on trying to harm to their own detriment and death, then that is a choice they have made.

This then, I believe, applies from the small, all the way to the large. Sometimes war, that great evil, is necessary to stop an aggressor who simply refuses to cease hurting the defenseless. In the rules of war in Deuteronomy, God gave instructions to give the city a chance to surrender, before the Israelites attacked. If you are governed by love, even of the unlovable, you will be slow, as God is, to move. He gave the inhabitants of Canaan 400 years to repent, and they still refused to turn from being evil. They chose their doom. Achan chose to sin, and to lie. He chose his doom. In both situations though, it was man who had to shed man’s blood.

Is the statement “Whoso sheds man’s blood, by man his blood shall be shed” a command or a prophecy? I could see both, but think of it this way: Which makes you less likely to repeat an act, making reparations yourself, or having another do it for you? If God killed all offenders, so be it. But if you, acting in obedience to God, yet still loving them, must kill the offender, will you be as likely to let it get to that point? No. I think not.

Of course, evil is in the world, and some murderers get themselves made executioners, but that is the way of things. It is for us to make it as much like God has declared it should be.

Love all men, even your enemy, but so also, protect those without protection.

This then, is my understanding.