05.29.10
Posted in Commentaries
at 02:21
The other day I saw the clouds. I ‘see’ them just about every day, but usually they don’t register. They’re just there, an insignificant part of the landscape. Why should I be concerned with them? I know weather as something to be owned and controlled. I can look at the forecast or check the temperature and plan accordingly. I can take a jacket or scrape my car windows and master the minor inconveniences nature throws my way.
It was not always so.
Once I knew the weather. I knew it because I couldn’t control it. I lived outdoors, and not indoors. I walked to school, and at recess I played outside. I walked home, abandoned my school things and went to play in my back yard, or a friend’s. I felt the seasons change. I knew the sensation of cool grass beneath my feet. I listened to the drone of cicadas buzzing in the trees and the song of crickets in the yard. I caught grasshoppers and knew the tickle of their legs kicking to get away. I dug in the dirt with my hands and held its cold, moist weight. I felt small and anxious beneath vast thunderclouds, green and grey and black. I felt scared when the civil defense sirens whirred to life and sent us to the basement to wait out a tornado. I knew that when the grass grew prickly underneath my feet and the air had that certain chill, fall was coming. I was acquainted with the musty smell of a pile of dead leaves. I knew the cold of winter, the crunch of wet snow beneath my boots, and the sneaking in of spring.
I’ve forgotten all these things. When I was young, I wondered at what I saw. I was curious and alive. I lived in and touched the weather. But now I’m impatient. I know what’s coming next and I want that instead of what’s going on now. It snows and I “really don’t want to go out in that.” But I do anyway. I bundle up, scrape my windows, then jump in my car and crank up the heater, all the while picturing the cup of coffee that will warm my hands at work. I’m too busy scraping and being impatient to actually feel the cold in any meaningful way. And what was it, really, that I was going out into? My car, neatly sealed from the outside air, where I have control over the weather with a little knob? I go for a walk but am too preoccupied with my petty troubles to really notice what’s around me, and too dignified to climb a tree or dig a hole or catch a grasshopper. I’m too busy to lay on the ground and stare at the clouds.
People look for images in the clouds. I always found emotions. Lazy contentedness in the high fluffy clouds of a summer afternoon. Mystery and wonder in low, foggy clouds. Heavy foreboding in stormclouds. Glory in the grey-white puffy masses with pink, purple and orange linings and descending shafts of light. Coziness in the blanket-like snow clouds. Eerie disorientation in green hail-filled clouds.
I don’t think I can get back what I’ve lost without a radical change of lifestyle. Maybe someday I’ll own a farm.
Permalink
04.08.09
Posted in Commentaries
at 03:07
(Or, Why I Don’t Believe in the Rapture)
Heilsgeschicte, or salvation history, is a theological term describing the history of God’s interaction with humanity, beginning with Adam and Eve, throughout time. Dispensationalism is a particular understanding of salvation history, which divides it into epochs called dispensations. These dispensations are framed by various covenants and certain portions of scripture. Underlying this framework is the assumption that with each new dispensation, a purer understanding of God is achieved (progressive revelation). Premillenial dispensationalism is a particular brand of dispensationalism with an eschatological thrust.
There are four basic views on the millennium:
- Post-tribulational (tribulation happens, Jesus comes back, millennium happens)
- Pre-trib (rapture happens, tribulation happens, Jesus comes back, millennium happens)
- Post-milliennial (millennium happens, Jesus comes back)
- Amillennial (Jesus comes back)
Premillennial dispensationalism and pre-trib sort of go together.
So why am I not a pre-trib/premilleniannial dispensationalist?
Dispensationalism is very new, circa 1830. A man named John Darby, a staunch Calvinist, came up with the idea, which later came to be associated with such paragons of high-caliber academia as the Scofield Study Bible, Dallas Theological Seminary, and Bob Jones University.
Dispensationalism approaches a very complex and nuanced genre of scripture, viz, apocalyptic literature, with a very un-nuanced literalism. This is bad.
Dispensationalism contributes to Chistians being weird. Discussions of hypothetical or metaphorical images of the future (or possibly even of the past) as literal, endless speculation about meaningless particulars of the end times, obsessive searches for the number 666, and the occasional accusation of a public figure being the Antichrist really make us look bad.
Dispensationalism contributes to carelessness and apathy in terms of stewardship of creation. Since it’s all gonna burn anyway, who cares if we destroy the ozone layer? Sucks for us if it isn’t all gonna burn.
I accept the creeds as a source of authority. Here’s what the Nicene creed says: “[Jesus] will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.” I don’t claim to know what that looks like. But I believe and hope in the return of Christ, and the fullness of His Kingdom.
I believe that apocalyptic literature has more to offer the Church than inspiration for poorly crafted Christian fiction like the Left Behind series. I believe salvation history is more nuanced and complex and interesting than a series of dispensations. I believe in not being unnecessarily weird. I believe in caring for creation.
Thoughts on Dispensationalism and Christian Zionism
I think scripture points to an ongoing special relationship between God and Israel (the people, not the state). You might even be able to call me a Christian Zionist. I think it’s a good thing (for the most part) that an Israeli state was reestablished. I don’t think it’s a sign that the end is near. In fact, I think looking for such signs betrays a gross misunderstanding of Jesus’ words. I think it’s a good thing (for the most part) that the U.S. has a special relationship with the state of Israel. I don’t think that Israel can do no wrong. I really don’t think that Israel’s handling of the Palestinian situation is cool at all. And I don’t think the U.S. has a special relationship with or favour from God, on its own or as a result of its support of Israel.
If you haven’t guessed, I’m amillennial.
Permalink
06.25.08
Posted in Commentaries, food
at 21:52
Why do we have more regard for companies than people? When the cost of oil goes up, we unflinchingly pay “fuel surcharges” on airline tickets and shipping so that companies don’t have to absorb the cost. Yet when food prices go up, where is the “food surcharge” for third-world sweatshop workers who aren’t earning a living wage to begin with? I guess they’ll just have to absorb the cost themselves. Even if I did get charged a “food surcharge”–now maybe I’m just a pessimist–I wouldn’t count on any of it making it to its recipient anyway. That’s just not how business works.
Permalink
05.21.08
Posted in Commentaries
at 06:47
I’m getting kind of tired of hearing about the election. It’s not ’til November and yet it dominates the media. It’s nearly impossible to turn on the radio or surf the web without hearing about superdelegates or campaign fundraising. I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t care who wins anymore. It seems the system has already done its job. There are three candidates, all of whom have proven themselves able to lead our country. And after all, isn’t that what’s important?
The issues can be very divisive, and they play to the natural human desire for affirmation. We want a candidate to come along and shout from their soapbox the truths we’ve quietly espoused for years. Then we want them to win so we can say “See! See, I was right all along!”
Well, maybe I’m just disillusioned by the failure of any candidate to affirm my beliefs, but I’m starting to question whether the issues really mean all that much. Has any president kept all the promises he made on the campaign trail? Or even half of them? Is the president really so powerful that s/he can effect those promises and enact those beliefs on a meaningful level? Will the political party of the president be remembered in twenty years? Fifty? Two hundred?
Of course there has to be something, some criterion that at least gives the impression of being intellectual–otherwise it would merely be a popularity contest. But the criterion can’t be too cranial, lest the uneducated be unable to participate. Hence, issues!
It seems that the function of our government is to intervene a necessary bureaucracy in between a lot of people far too stupid and far too fickle to run a country (myself included) and the people their decisions would otherwise adversely impact (mostly themselves, but also the rest of the world). I think it might be working.
Permalink
02.22.06
Posted in Commentaries
at 00:58
Figure skater cum actress.
Permalink