Prayer and intent can be excuses for laziness

I’m starting to sense a pattern with certain people and groups in terms of how they view prayer and the intent for good. As you may have figured out by the title, I think they can be a great option for making people feel ok about laziness. Prayer is nice if it makes you feel more positive about things you cannot change, or gives you peace amid turmoil. But there are many things in life that we can work towards changing. If poverty bothers you, don’t just pray about it, go donate clothes for people to wear to job interviews. If hunger bothers you, volunteer at a food pantry. Sometimes prayer really is the only thing left to do. But the rest of the time, get out and go help someone. I really only have a problem with prayer when it is used as an excuse to sit on your hands. I think God gave us free will so we could use it to decide to help each other, not so we could sit back and expect him to make things happen.

Intent as a problem is harder to pin down and as far as I’m concerned easier to excuse. Intending good is wonderful. It’s the start of anything good you might ever do. But it’s only halfway there. You have to carry out good actions as well. And you have to be willing to really look and listen to where your actions led to make sure it was somewhere good. And the really tricky part comes next. If you see that your good intentions inadvertently caused a bad result, you have to change.

A story to illustrate:
Mice get in my house and I have to get them out. The standard kill trap rarely works right because our mice are too small to trigger it. The only traps that work are glue cards which mice can’t really get off once stuck. I used to trap mice on the cards then kill them by freezing, figuring for them it would be like falling asleep. I later learned that freezing is probably incredibly painful- the exact opposite of what I wanted. While I did feel extremely guilty, I then found out what I could about traps and learned that mice can actually be freed from glue traps by dissolving the glue in oil. My intent was to spare mice from suffering but instead I was probably causing it. I could have responded in any number of easy ways that ignored what I’d done and continued causing harm. But I wanted to fix it, at least for the future. So I did.

Intent for good is not an excuse for you to do whatever and be ok with whatever results. I probably should have done more research on mice and glue traps and stuff before any of what I did. Then I could have started with good intent and used it to good outcome. As it is I got a bad outcome and have since moved to a better outcome. We need to recognize the difference between intent and outcome because its a way to improve. Good intent is good. Good action is better.

Good examples vs. bad examples

So I was wondering recently if people decide how to behave based more on good examples they see or bad examples they see. Imagining for a second that people are either good or bad (which I don’t believe)- are good people that way because they’ve seen and admired goodness, or because they’ve seen and been repulsed by evil? Do we only know what good is because evil exists? I suppose this is the premise of the garden of Eden story. Adam and Eve didn’t know good or evil. Once they found out good was a thing and evil was a thing, they could compare one with the other and see good is much nicer than evil. If we somehow created a paradise here on earth could we keep it? Or, lacking evil to remind us how things could be, would we screw it all up? What are we dismissing as unimportant today because we don’t see it? I’ve never seen war or even a single person dying. If I saw these things often or even once, would I leave my job and spend my whole day trying to stop war and death? I know for a fact that my attempts to be accepting of those deemed different or weird by society are directly related to my own negative experiences as a child feeling ‘weird’. Maybe the best way to learn is by a bad example.

Good vs. Evil

I wanted to talk about good and evil. In trying to start I realized there are several problems which I am going to mention, then gloss over.

First: I think English is flawed. Good is a broad term but evil is not. Evil means intentional and enthusiastic badness and anti-Godness. Evil is extremely awful. Good can range from extreme to moderate and is usually secular. I use good to describe socks that fit, web pages I like; I’d never call ill fitted socks evil. A true antonym for evil should mean extreme loving kindness or helpfulness and how God would like us to act. I am just going to use the word ‘good’ and hope you can figure out whether it means just ok or the opposite of evil.

Second: I think maybe theologically I’m coming at this from a quasi-Catholic standpoint which may or may not line up with beliefs in other types of Christianity. Catholics have the whole confession to forgive/erase sin. So one of the things I sort of believed growing up was that people were in flux between good and evil based on sins making you evil and confessions making you good. This leads me to what I was actually wanting write about.

I don’t think that way anymore. I don’t believe a person is good or evil, or flipping between the two. That’s way too simplistic. People aren’t either sugary or lemon rinds. Everyone is ziti. Ziti can taste better or worse but it never tastes like sugar or lemon rinds. If you say my ziti is sweet like sugar it can only mean you are using a metaphor. Same with calling someone good or evil. It’s a decent metaphor as long as you remember it is just a metaphor. I don’t think people should actually be lumped into ‘good’ or ‘evil’ because the categories are problematic.

For one thing, no one is static. Lives change, choices are made, people change. A person who you’d class as good can do a bad thing. And vice versa. Calling someone good or evil locks up your opinion of them forever. It lets you not think about the actions they take. It gives you a pass to be mentally lazy.

Another problem with having boxes labeled “good” and “evil” is that it encourages a sort of mathematical look a person’s nature/personality. How many good things does it take for a person to be called good? How many new good things must you do to be “good” if you’ve been “evil” most of your life? Is this really how God is seeing us and how we should see each other?

I think we retweak our ziti recipes every day by our thoughts and the actions that reflect those thoughts to the world. Any day’s ziti could be awesome or awful reminding someone either of sweet, delicious sugar or ucky yucky lemon rinds. And yeah if you fix terrible ziti enough days in a row I might be inclined to call you evil. But rarely would I actually go ahead and do it. And I still would consider it something of a metaphor. No person is fully evil or fully good. Even if you literally buried your ziti in sugar or lemon rinds it would still be ziti under there.

Be Nicer to Atheists et cetra

I’ve been thinking for a while that Christians need to be waaaay nicer to the ‘out’ groups. What I mean is, stop being hurtful, pushy, mean, and condescending to anyone you believe is living a sinful life. It isn’t our place to judge people, God is going to figure all that out in the end. If someone is sinful and unbelieving enough to be sent to hell, I say that’s the best argument of all for being nice to them. What on earth would possess you to be mean or hurtful to someone you think is going to burn for eternity? If you really think that’s where they are bound for, this life is the best it’s ever going to be for them. Go and buy them cake and ice cream! Do it now! Throw them a party! Buy them gifts! But don’t ever be mean to them. If you are right about them, they are going to get nothing but mean in the afterlife. And if you are wrong about them, and they are going to make it into heaven- you’re going to see them later so don’t you think you’d better be nice to them? In fact, just be nice to everyone. Yeah, that’s right. And you know what? Since now it doesn’t matter whether they are going to hell or not, you can also stop judging them. There, I fixed it!

Be Nicer to Atheists et cetra

I’ve been thinking for a while that Christians need to be waaaay nicer to the ‘out’ groups. What I mean is, stop being hurtful, pushy, mean, and condescending to anyone you believe is living a sinful life. It isn’t our place to judge people, God is going to figure all that out in the end. If someone is sinful and unbelieving enough to be sent to hell, I say that’s the best argument of all for being nice to them. What on earth would possess you to be mean or hurtful to someone you think is going to burn for eternity? If you really think that’s where they are bound for, this life is the best it’s ever going to be for them. Go and buy them cake and ice cream! Do it now! Throw them a party! Buy them gifts! But don’t ever be mean to them. If you are right about them, they are going to get nothing but mean in the afterlife. And if you are wrong about them, and they are going to make it into heaven- you’re going to see them later so don’t you think you’d better be nice to them? In fact, just be nice to everyone. Yeah, that’s right. And you know what? Since now it doesn’t matter whether they are going to hell or not, you can also stop judging them. There, I fixed it!

Maybe Christians shouldn’t believe in Santa Claus

I’ve decided not to give my kids the story about Santa Claus. Ok, maybe I should talk first about my own experience with the whole Santa thing. I believed Santa was real for a relatively long time- until I was ten years old. I asked my parents to verify his reality around that time and they told me nope, he’s not real. They guessed I had figured it out. I hadn’t, but another kid at school told me. I didn’t actually believe this other kid and wanted an adult opinion to bring back to her the next day. So it was an honest mistake on my parents’ part thinking that I was finally questioning.

Learning the truth was rather upsetting. It also made me want to protect all younger kids from the horrors of discovering Santa wasn’t real. I knew the kids would have to be upset by it someday, but I wanted to put it off as long as possible. Our culture also seems to have this pervasive need to keep the truth of the Santa myth a secret from the poor innocent children. There are so many movie in which the plot does this: 1) cynical character asserts Santa is not real 2) little kid is upset and seeks Santa 3) Santa is revealed to both little kid and cynical character whose faith is restored! It is seen as a terrible thing to tug off the beard of a mall or parade santa. The kids might see! Local news stations now often ‘track’ Santa’s progress as he flies around the area. Kids write letters to Santa that parents then ‘mail’ and poof, Santa brings what they asked for in that letter mom ‘mailed’. The whole thing seems like it’s designed to play a big trick on the tiny children, like some massive practical joke. Why does everyone buy into this when it’s actually teaching kids lies?

The difficulty I think Christians ought to have with Santa is based on the part where we lie to children about an invisible being. As a Christian teaching your kids about God, you want them to know He’s real. If you teach them Santa is real and then take that away, how are they to trust God is also real? God is supposed to be an equally mysterious entity you never see who also keeps track of how good you are. How is this not confusing to kids? As a child I saw Santa as the best solid evidence God existed. No human being can delivery toys at the rate Santa is expected to do it. No deer fly. When I wondered about how these phenomena occurred I knew it was with God’s help that they must have happened. Like all those biblical miracles. This was our only miracle left today. Except it wasn’t. And all the grown ups were conspiring to give us this huge show and lie to us about where it came from.

For a while I bought into it and the whole “Don’t reveal it, it’s the magic of Christmas!” stuff. Everyone says little kids need this. But I’m thinking now that even more, little kids need adults to lie less to them. Then they won’t need to be disappointed at the truth. So when I have kids I’ll tell them about a game we play at Christmas called Santa Claus. On Christmas morning the presents will all be from someone real (mostly mom and dad) and we can take turns playing Santa and pretending he’s the one that brought the gifts. There’s no reason Santa has to be ‘real’ for them. And I’m good with that.

December is so not happening

So I missed church again through a combination of factors. I’m still trying keep my diet in line with not bothering my stomach. I’m feeling increasingly blue as the daylight dies. What I’d like to do is finish up the year with some more opinion pieces and thoughts. It seems less likely I will get to church regularly in December (or at all), so I’m scheduling my next new church for January. Feel free to jump in with comments on any post you’d like to discuss. I like that type of thing. Or just give a shoutout. I like that too.

For now here is some religious humor: We know that Noah got on the ark with his three sons; Shem Ham, and Japheth. Also included were their wives, who are not named in the bible. But we do know at least one of their names. What, you never heard of Joan- “of ark”?

Life-Saving Abortion, Savita and Catholic views

I want to post about a news story. It’s really been bothering me and on my mind because there’s some stuff I need to say about it.
Here is a link to an article about it:

Article

Several weeks ago a woman named Savita Halappanavar was taken to a hospital in Ireland, 17 weeks pregnant and in pain. She was miscarrying the child and it would not survive. It seems pretty clear from all I’ve read that there was just no saving that baby. Savita herself was succumbing to an infection which required removal of the dying baby/fetal tissue (we can argue semantics later). Doctors at the hospital refused to do the removal because 1) the baby had a heartbeat 2) this makes it abortion 3) abortions are illegal in Ireland under all circumstances. So this mom suffered for three days and finally died along with the baby. Once Savita had learned the baby would not make it, she requested an abortion; she requested it more than once. Doctors said no. The baby inside her was killing her by poisoning her blood (septicemia), but she couldn’t get treatment to save her because it involved killing a dying baby.
*By the way, people do not even all agree that at 17 weeks it should be called a baby. No delivery is EVER viable until more than 20 weeks. Deliveries before 23 weeks are extremely likely to result in the child dying soon after or having severe disabilities requiring lifelong care.

Many people are outraged by this story. I am one of them. Ireland has it on the books that abortion is illegal. Some years ago a court ruled that legislation be passed to make it allowable in cases where the mother’s life is in danger. The only problem is that no such legislation was passed. To my shame, this rule is a result of the heavy influence of the Catholic church in Ireland. The Catholic church is very zero tolerance when it comes to abortion. Apparently the reasoning goes like this: if you actively remove or dismantle a fetus you kill it directly which counts as murder. Even if it was dying already and taking mom along too, you must at all cost avoid the primary action that causes fetal death. This suggests that actions are to be counted in terms of whether we sin or not, whereas inaction absolves us. In this case it means failure to treat Savita (which did kill her) would not count as murdering her. I find this strange because embedded in the Catholic mass is the confiteor. When we say this we state “I confess I have sinned through my own fault…in what I have done and in what I have failed to do.” This clearly calls us to be responsible for wrongs we did AND wrongs we allowed to happen. Action and inaction; I believe this is called sins of commission and omission. The stance regarding Savita should have been to save her, since through inaction doctors allowed her to die, and as I said, the baby was lost no matter what they did.

I guess I’m pretty removed from this as its happened in another country, but it upset me enough that I thought I should mention it. Maybe someone else will mention it to someone else who will mention it to someone else… Someone mentioned it to me and now I can’t shut up about it. Maybe other people still need to hear about it.

What should happen now is lots of people saying this was wrong. Like a really really lot. It sounds like a lot already are. I’m hearing plenty of pro-life views that this was incredibly stupid and sad and that Savita didn’t need to die. Then the Catholic church should condemn this type of neglect by doctors and call on Ireland to write in a legal exception for life of the mother. Then Ireland should write up the legislation. Should. I don’t really know what’s going to happen though.

November Update

It’s been an annoying week and a half. The stomach problems I sometimes get are plaguing me again, and I’ve been trying to deal with working and eating food that doesn’t upset things . It’s hard not to become frustrated due to the fact that Thanksgiving is in less than a week and I’m not sure I can enjoy it.
So in terms of this blog, I’m wanting to slow down so I can catch up on life and enjoy the holidays a little bit. I still have a church repeat to write about. Also an opinion piece has been on my mind. For the end of the year I wanted to try a quick “year one tour” of my favorites church-wise. This project has been so many unexpecteds. I didn’t think I’d find as many connections as I’ve found. There are pastors I keep in touch with; churchgoers who now recognize me. There are churches out there open to gay ministers and lots of programs helping people in so many ways. I have been anticipated at several churches now as “the Tracey with the blog”. I am also trying to decide what to do on Christmas eve. I’d need to find a midnight mass or service if I chose any church that day; I’m working second shift. I suppose there are Christmas day services as well? I’ll post again as soon as I can work some of this out.

How I spent last weekend

Last weekend I attended a Christian retreat about an hour from home. It was unconnected to a specific denomination. I’d characterize the themes and theology as moderate and vaguely Protestantish. The attendees were mostly college students from campuses around New York state. Format-wise, there were a series of sessions bookended by meals. The sessions started with Jesus jam band style worship. Next we listened to a speaker address a particular subject. Then we met in smaller groups of around 10-15 people to discuss our chosen topic- different from whatever the speaker talked about.

First I’ll discuss some of my favorite occurrences of the weekend. A lot of things ranked very high for me on this trip. I will give them all points based around an imaginary scale.
I was asked to hold a baby by someone I barely knew who barely knew me. That’s about 4000 points for trusting me with a baby and 1000 points for noticing I really want to hold a baby.
I was taught how to hold a ping pong paddle by an extremely patient and friendly student. 700 points for humoring me.
I had a great conversation randomly with someone about the ethics of harming or killing animals. 800 points for rationality.
Kim asked me to check a baby for a dirty diaper. 400 points for knowing I am capable and willing to check diapers!
My small group delivered its summary of out topic discussion including this line, “It’s up to us to make up our own minds.” 20,000 points for individual thought! I cannot agree more and wish this was the way most questions of faith ended.
Kim asked me if I believe in God. 1000 points for asking me this excellent question!
I don’t know how many that is because I’m too sleepy to do basic math, but it’s a lot!

You were probably wondering what I answered Kim. I said “Yes, I’ll totally check a diaper!” Oh you meant how I answered about God? Well I said that I’m not sure. I don’t think it’s a thing anyone can really know for sure. And maybe God isn’t defined the same way for me as for others. For instance, I don’t think it’s possible that God is interacting with us all personally on a minute to minute basis. There are too many times he seems conspicuously absent. If he is really micromanaging everything, bad things that happen would imply God either sucks at his job or he’s a jerk. I don’t think either of those is true. So God must be functioning some other way that is either minimal or no longer active. It could be that God did creation and then said “Laissez Faire! Hands off! You guys figure it out on your own.” Or maybe he (or she (or zie)) is working on Earth in a minimal way, perhaps to allow us the chance to help each other. Or I’m even willing to consider the idea that God is the goodness found in all of us when we help each other. God is good, God is love, right? I see no problem at all with calling it God in our lives when we do good things one for another. Does this make me agnostic? Maybe. I think openness to being wrong is good and I’m all about continuing to question.

Perhaps this begs the question: why are you still doing this church exploration project? I like religion. I like people and I like stories about life. No one is ever checked with a belief-o-meter to gain entrance into a church. I would venture to guess that many church members aren’t 100% ‘sure’. And none of this really conflicts with my original description in post #1 of what I want to gain by this adventure.

Since I’m still talking about my weekend, I’ll tell you what my small group talked about. Our topic was “are Genesis and evolution compatible?” I think it’s interesting that we didn’t actually talk much about which to believe over the other one. Even without this key point it seemed obvious that a few of us favored evolution and a few of us favored the bible. Those who were expecting a final answer would have been disappointed. One of our conclusions was that we weren’t sure. And our group leader did nothing to give us an ‘easy answer’- I think part of his point was that Genesis 1 is confusing. God creates light first, but doesn’t make the sun until day 4. God creates plants even before the sun is around. So what are we to make of this? Even in biblical times they must have been aware plants need the sun. The Genesis writer may have been making a poetic point rather than a logical point. God is big and can do anything. No one in the group seemed inclined to believe these ‘days’ in the beginning were 24 hours long. We noticed other things too. One student remarked that no dinosaurs are mentioned- perhaps they aren’t real? I responded by noting that rabbits aren’t mentioned either, then disavowed belief in rabbits!
Several in the group came to the conclusion that evolution is possible only within a species, and that one creature turning into another makes no sense at all. As a corollary they saw man as somehow different and special- created separately. We talked about this briefly in a small small group of three. Myself and another fan of evolution wondered/wandered into a chat about the big bang and the universe. He had the thought, ‘If life was found on another planet, the bible would collapse.’ Maybe it would. So much hangs on humans being special. How would we react if this was not the case?
In the end, we didn’t all agree on how to take Genesis. Really the only conclusion we could make was for each of us to decide what we believe. I think it was a good conclusion.

The rest of the large group lectures were alright. One in particular was very disappointing though. It was called something like “How can I know what the bible really says- won’t people twist it?” The talk was rambley and unclear. I think the points are summed up as follows: 1) God’s understanding will always be higher than our own 2) pray about it, and 3) read the words and you’ll get it. That last point was articulated the worst. In my notes I wrote “nouns, verbs, therefores” and I remember it was pretty disjointed at the end. Clarity was not my only complaint however. Our speaker was obviously not a fan of what’s called biblical criticism. Biblical criticism and biblical scholarship seek to find historical information about a book of the bible. They try to answer questions about when and why a book was written. Sometimes it reveals an author you weren’t expecting. This was not in the talk, but I’m familiar with letters from ‘Paul’ that biblical scholars think were written by someone else as an homage to Paul. Well this talk made it clear the biblical scholars were the enemy. They determined John is less reliable than the other three gospels. How dare they! And our speakers refuted this by… saying it was wrong. That’s not much ammo for me if I was interested in arguing down the atheists and religious softies.
There was also a very discouraging point in the talk when the speaker addressed the ills of ‘rationalism and scientism’. As far as I am aware scientism is not a word. He said these two evil forces dismiss miracles because science doesn’t allow miracles like resurrection. Instead the resurrection is treated like the spirit or idea of Jesus living on. According to our speaker that is very very bad. Personally, I love, new wider interpretations of the mystical stories. I don’t think it necessarily means the stories with lose their power. If anything that power is more accessible. I heard a version of the loaves fishes miracle told this way: Jesus begins passing around the bits of food they have. As the baskets go past people they begin pulling food from their pockets to add for those with less. So many are inspired to add to the baskets that the bits leftover are more than when they started. What a great testament to human goodness. Almost the stone soup story. According to our speaker, this type of story is dangerously wrong.
The speaker then addressed the fixing of the biblical canon. I know some of this story. There was no fixed bible for the early church. They used any number of scrolls or books which were floating around at the time. I suppose you could pick your faves. The church decided to pick certain books to keep and throw the rest out the window. As this was a human endeavor, my assumption would be this was done by folks arguing and asserting power and so on. Our speaker contends that no politics were allowed in and the church fathers were guided solely by the Holy Spirit. Which is funny, because you’d think God would consider doing that for us today on even a single issue- letting the Holy Spirit guide us all to harmony without political bickering. Unless of course politics were in play back in the day, which I suspect.
Our speaker also talked at some length about biblical rules and what their importance should be. He rightly said that Jesus had a few run-ins with the rule-obsessed Pharisees. Jesus and his disciples skipped washing up before a meal. Because that’s in the Jewish law, the Pharisees called Jesus out. Jesus told them that cleanliness doesn’t come from from stupid little rules. Jesus said we cannot leave people high and dry when they are in need. These points I actually think are well taken. We should toss the cleanliness rules that bar us needlessly. Among these are restrictive sex rules dictating how, when, and who to sleep with. We also need to take care of those in need, in poverty, or in other terrible situations. I will not put words in the speakers mouth. But many religious groups seem to miss these key points when it comes to say, gay marriage and welfare programs.

So this particular speaker wasn’t my favorite. But the topic of gay marriage (is this like my new favo topic?) brings me to another conversation I had with a student. It was brief but pretty interesting. I was wondering to him whether God really wants us to wait until marriage to have sex. In at least a few cases married people may find out they aren’t compatible. Are we so obsessed with waiting that we believe God wants us to be unhappy and stuck? If God is a nice guy he doesn’t want us unhappy right? I also said that speaker (the one I described already) was being naive or stupid when he asserted the biblical rules are not about controlling women. I wasn’t there in biblical times, so it’s possible they aren’t meant that way, but that’s what they do. Just based on pregnancy ‘proving’ a woman’s transgression this seems obvious. Not one single man will ever be pregnant, so they already have less worry about being ‘caught’. The student I spoke with seemed a fan of marriage. The last thing I said was, “Now that gay people can marry, we can all just accept them I guess.” He seemed surprised at the statement. Maybe he hadn’t considered the juxtaposition of the ideas together. His answer was ambiguous; he seemed to be truly thinking about how to answer the idea of homosexuality as ok inside a committed relationship. And that was basically it.

The weekend was a lot of good talks and interesting folks. I remembered some of the reasons I like retreats. I think the normal church crowd is going to include those who are wondering, those who don’t care, those who are thinking deeply and those who aren’t. A retreat has the bonus of being all people who want to answer questions of faith. They are all interested and nearly all will be rather engaging to talk to. They really want to deepen their faith and be a better human being by being a better Christian. No one ambivalent is going to take the time from their busy life to go on some retreat they don’t care about. And I got some of the in-depth talks I was craving. I think size helped too. If I can find some relatively small retreats to attend in the future those will go to the top of my effort list.

PS: It had slipped my mind, but I was part of a really hilarious game of life. You know, the board game? I was the banker for the game. The other players made some observations about the nature of the game. It’s really about making money. And they force you to get married and have kids. A bit of a narrow view I always thought, which is why I banked. One of the players made an extremely low salary, constantly landed on squares for babies, and spent money (again landing on squares dictating this) like it was going out of style. I told her she had a shopping addiction. At the end of the game we all reviewed our ‘life tiles’ and hers included a Nobel prize. How she had the time stumps me, but at least she made the world a better place.