Re: Atheism (TL;DR)

http://adapadapa.tumblr.com/post/4487131173/atheism-tl-dr

My housemate recently brought his atheism, in a sense, out of the closet--well, out of the shadows, really. There was plenty there to relate with--a struggle with faith and doubt, the reality and relevance of the church and common practice. And I, too, have grappled with it, neglected it, and let it worry at and guilt me.

I've felt that distance from God--when you know you've drifted and pushed him away just enough so that you don't let him convict you anymore. When you've cushioned yourself in sin and determination; I know that deciding to outright deny God is an effective way to rid oneself of guilt, responsibility and doubt that comes from living in between.

This is when people like to cite Revelation. "Don't be lukewarm..." and all that. "Yeah," they'll say, "if you're not gonna live it up, I guess you're aloud to straight up give it up." And I suppose there could be a point in that. You might as well line up your mentality with your behavior, your learned instinct.

By thus turning, you do feel invigorated: you're no longer swimming against the current. (Figure 1) http://dresdencodak.com/wp-content/gallery/stickman/2007-07-16-whistl_in_the_wind.jpg

One point Gareth brought up that I've been slowly learning, too, is that atheism does not beg amorality. This is a personal struggle of mine, in that I'd say, "Man, if I weren't a Christian--if I didn't have this upbringing and this standard for myself--I'd so be living it up. Like at some secular school, drinking, sleeping around, doing whatever the . . ." yeah not really. That's only reflective of a person looking for trouble, or excitement or what have you.
Living in a generally Christian community most of my life, I've developed this "Us and Them" kind of thing. You can tell someone is one of "them" because they don't follow our rules; ergo if you don't follow the rules you're one of them--and so on.
But I'm beginning to understand how it's not about the rules--it never has been. I'm trying to take all I've learned in fact and idea, and apply it to actuality. People talk about a relationship with God, with Christ, and through him, that fills you up, that heals you, that gives you company, a hope and a future. Some like to dichotomize Religion/osity and Christianity/-following, etc. And I'm digressing into Christian in-fighting, and that's not the point.

I've become accustomed to a slightly deterministic outlook--if something happens/ed, it was meant to be, even if you don't get why (God knows it, who cares if you get it). If it makes you sad, that's fine; it's part of becoming a better person: dealing with pain--mayhaps a result of sin (yours or humanity's). People change, of their own volition, of God's. He shows us things or he doesn't. Things just are the way they are and who are we to think that we matter, in the scheme of humanity or history or existence. You could be wrong or right in the way you think or understand something, but it doesn't matter--someone else could be wrong or right, but it doesn't matter either.
What is knowledge but material for debate and discussion? What is fact but an idea that can be skewed by the way you portray it? Chad Anderson used to always say, "Nothing happens in a vacuum," in English or Bible class, alike. Everyone has a context that they can argue from, and it postmodernity teaches us that you can choose to acknowledge that or not. A thought might mean something more to me in how I understand it from my experience; I like to deconstruct and pick out the differences in thought. I see it this way, but from a 17th century scholar's perspective, this language implies this, and modern psychology shows us that the scholar was actually referring to pent up desires, not inherent truth, etcetera, etcetera, ad infinity.

On the other hand, I've recently learned that my background and upbringing leads me to be more relationally oriented. I don't have a geographical point or social ideology or theology that I can particularly adhere to or call my own. What I've learned is that I can use others' and toy with them--pick them out, organize them on the table top and make connections, give it a person's name and move on to the next problem set. I've anchored my life in relationships, and even then it's tough because they keep moving, and changing.

Once again I digress. I suppose my point is, from a Third Culture perspective, God makes more sense from a relational perspective, and I don't expect other people to agree--you can't say that it's not true to me, either. I can't associate God with a right way of doing things, because no one does things the same way, which would alienate everyone from that way. Are we meant to build from/on what we have in common?
I'll pick on love, and see where it takes me (because it's what I can cling to). Going back, what I can see is that atheists can demonstrate (have, show) what we call "Christian love". There will be pragmatists who say there's not such thing as an unselfish love, or an unerotic love--that it all has tones of one or the other. When I choose not to question God's love, I see it as first, in reference to which all other loves are constructed--all other relationships. If I take a humanist perspective, deity is constructed from all human relationships--idealized from the best in each, to create a hope that we need to plod on. What can I do when a person chooses one or the other? All I've learned how is to love them, and know that God has a discreet plan for them either way. No matter what I do, it is not my will toward a person that will change or affect them at all. Love has power, but I'm not trying to use it thus. I'm just trying to get by as best I can.
What that means, practically, though, is that I don't always remember the best way to live. I don't always love or show love. Ask any of the guys I've lived with, or anyone I've dated. I can be sharp, snappy, rispid, malicious, cruel, unfeeling. Yet, deep down, what I want and need is to love. My problem is that I still love myself the most--and, yes, I see that as a problem in myself. I know that I live best when I live for others. Out of self love, you might say, I need to love others more.
How does God play into that love? For one, he's stronger than my conscience. Further, it is only through his love that I can love myself, which is more than I deserve. We, Him and I, know how bad I am and can be. It hurts the most when I try to keep things that way, and pretend they're not. I only become stronger when I accept that I am not strong, but I can gain strength through Him. With love, I don't see it as such a clear cut, deliberate process, but I do believe there's a connection.
God's love can be something to compare myself to, but I believe that at times, it is in me, and it may flow out to others. This is when I'm the best I can be. This is what I hope for most.
I have a faith in Christ, the Father's love and provision. I have a hope for what he promised us, but the greatest of these is His love, which is all that I can live for.

Shattering Glass with my Face.

On my way home on my bike at night, I'm often nervous around cars. Here in Cambridge cyclists have it easy, with designated lanes and enough of a population to keep drivers wary, but having been in one accident last year, I too am always wary of cars. I suppose it's a healthy fear, and it makes me look twice or three times if I'm not sure. I maintain a certain level of tension somewhere in my gut as I coast down Beacon St in Sommerville and I start to tighten my grip on the brake ever so slightly as cars go by only slightly faster than I'm going. I am effectually bracing myself for impact.

Sometimes, though, I brace myself mentally. I can picture the car pulling out and not seeing me or turning to the right when I'm in its blind spot--it's not a still, it's a moving picture. My bike crashes into the wheel as I begin to flip forwards over the hood or it catches me from the right side and my head jerks as the bike flies out from under me or my head smashes through the window as the bike crumbles under the big SUV wheels. I see it happening, and I brace myself for something else. I'm preparing for what it seems to me is some sort of relief or release: it's not as if I love death or anything, because I don't think such a crash would kill me right away, but it seems that from such an accident I expect my life to be put into someone else's hands. It's as if I expect suddenly to be taken care of, and I won't need to worry about details anymore.

This of course is not true: upon surviving I would need to worry about getting out of the road, stopping blood loss, immobilizing broken limbs, telling the ambulance crew the right things, calling the right people, keeping track of pending responsibilities and appointments, not to mention the eventual payment for treatment and dealing with whoever caused the accident.

Then again, if I did die, I would not have any of those worries (someone else would). I would be at rest in the fathers arms--or wherever it is, specifically, that you go first in heaven. I would no longer have to care about my work schedule, making any sort of payments, meeting deadlines or expectations; it's all said and done. I'm definitely joyful that I have that sort of confidence, that I'm so sure of my salvation, but it definitely sounds freaky.
I suppose there's a lot of tension right now that I've been avoiding or biking away from, and in stead of dealing with it right away, I'm half heartedly (or half mindedly) expecting some sort of Deus ex machina to relieve me of it all. I really need to just face it.

Is this a new kind of morality that i've invented?

I've come upon a new struggle over the past month or so, that I've really been dealing with my whole life. People talk about different things being right and wrong, and different factors influencing that. What matters is what you do. What matters is what you meant to do. What matters is the journey; what matters most is why you're doing it. And, well it's a combination of all of these and more, of course.
After reading and thinking Mark Jarman's Unholy Sonnets, I could finally put my finger on something that I've always taken into consideration. I've used this to consider the nobility and redemption of tragic heroes, and to evaluate whether to turn right or left. At the same time, I've cultivated a suspicion of my own gut reactions and first impressions at the same time as I over-value them.
The word that struck me, while this brings it sharply out of context, was "easily." Part III of Jarman's book of poetry dialogues the struggle of being alive in this world, in the face of Christ's resurrection, still often forgetting it. It's about the struggle. The saints struggled with sin; they struggled with men and devils; they died painful deaths. Life is meant to be painful and hard. Paul says so, too. We need those trials to get that perseverance and faith and all that other jazzy stuff. The hard-working wise man gets his grub, and the sluggard's field is full of thistles.
I've been caught between this perfection of living, the triumph of going the hard way and still getting it, and the inclination to just lay back and let it all wash over and over.
Any time I think about things, my conclusion is that the easy way must be the worse way. There has to be something immoral about it. I suppose it comes partly from my delight in a good challenge--although too big of a challenge will bring about despair. It's more fun to do things the hard way, not the accepted way. You learn, figure things out. It's partly a stubbornly blind independence, I guess. If I'm in a specific situation, I don't want to cop out. I don't want to give up; that's about as low as you can go. You're weak. If you give it a shot, you tried.
I digress.
I suppose the easiest (see, there it is again...oh man) way to explain this is by an aspect of my decision making that I've discovered recently and has landed me where I am at Houghton. I'm an English and Education major. Sure, I picked that because, although I like math and science, I could communicate life-important ideas to kids by teaching English, like people did for me. I could do that. I enjoyed the challenge that numbers and theories gave me, but I think the amount of work it promised in college intimidated me. I guess I thought I was taking an easier route.
Here's what I've realised. I love the theory of literature, and the wonderful ideas it brings up and faces people with, but I struggle with language. I don't know if I always have, but I do now. I was a pretty good reader the second time I did Kindergarten, but I guess it's cuz all the other kids hadn't really done it enough before. I remember having the hardest time reading things. Becoming bored or frustrated because I could stick with it. Did I have an attention problem? Retention? Memory? I think my developmental psych tells me I was just different. Is that a cop out?
So I still have a hard time reading. I know it. The result: sometimes I don't even read, cause I just assume I won't finish and it's not worth it. Now that's a cop out. So I have to work harder. Keep at it. Stop saying I can't; say I can to everything--cause that's what Christ can give me, right? In him I can do anything?
Right. So the many times that I'm not in his will, I can't do anything. That's simple enough.

Where do draw the line? That's not the only criterion! There is the Bible, I know that--but people still get tattoos, eat pork. Other people are doing it? That must be the easy way: take Frost's "road less traveled by;" make all the difference.
Christian, in the Pilgrim's Progress, takes the straight and narrow. It's the hard way. He didn't lay down on the downy grass. He didn't run away from the great dragon. He kept walking; he fought and won. He died and was taken to heaven, never having ceased his struggle.

Clearly there are other factors, but this is what stands out to me now. There is a right way of doing things--sometimes it's a bit harder, like washing the dishes well or sorting laundry. It makes things easier, but it's harder or takes more energy [I don't think I've ever accounted for time spent. just saying].
It is immediately, in a sort of pragmatic sense, easier to stay here after I graduate. To follow the natural course of tradition, and wallow through student teaching, get a job out of college, start my grad school, and settle down here in the US so I can pay off my debts--oh then I buy a house and a car...
It's harder to go somewhere else--I have to do research, travel, arrange documents, adapt/re-adapt to culture and expectations. It's harder to quit school and look for something else to do. I've never done that. It's harder to leave Houghton and do college in Brazil. Or just do Grad school there. It's unfriendly ground, who knows what kind of support I'll get. I have support systems in place here.
It's easier to keep dating and avoid the pain of a breakup. It's harder to stay together and work out the problems from thousands of miles away. It's easier to break up and turn away, take on someone new.
It's easier to tickle my brain and try to get some of this down than to write my paper. It's easier to stay up late than to wake up early. Or sleep early.

space time and the mind

if i were planning to go into psych, this would be my thing. i would study, for my own benefit, the psychological implications of modern travel. people today travel so much and so far and transit between social groups and societies so much that we are developing new strategies for it. we don't have that kind of "evolutionary experience"--this is a novel phenomenon brought on by the revolutions in communication and transportation.
over the past year i have not lived in one place for more than four months. i have traveled thousands of miles, been surrounded by vastly different languages, cultures, atmospheric pressures and geographic features--oceans, waterfalls, rivers, forests, cities, trains, highways, aircrafts, cars, and so much more. i've lived in houses, a dorm, a guesthouse, a students' house and an apartment. varying routines, supervision, expectations.
can a person create and duly respond to the social construction of reality when it is constantly in flux?? surely, there are some who can--perhaps not well--, but there are many who can't. what separates them?? what can we do to help people through such a lifestyle, or need it be obliterated from society?
i believe that so much in life relies on permanence. in order for relationships to persist, you need to maintain the social context of that relationship, and when it is in a parallel construct, it takes more work. in one mind there must be a running, changing conception of the place that mind came from as well as sensing and reacting to the mind's present environment.
anyways, that's what im suffering right now. i just came from brazil, and boston before that. now im with my sister before heading to middle-of-nowhereville, NY. im finally returning to a world i'd left behind, leaving so many other worlds behind. im conscious of upcoming psychological turmoil, but i don't know what to do with it now.

when God speaks, there's no doubt about it

these days, my life has been a storm, an utter whirl-wind upon earthquake, and god's voice was in them. the hubbub kept me busy and spinning, but god broke through like a truck to a deer on a forest road; his still, small voice has been with me ever since. he has showed me his wonders and his mighty power; how he orchestrates all of creation--time and space together--to his purpose. this is not to say that i have stuck with him all of the way. at times i recognized myself pulling a jonah, going exactly where god said not to, but called me persistently back. he spoke through me and to me. he has used his beautiful, broken body, the church, to speak to me. he has used books and circumstances. and he has given me the desire of my heart. i believe that my going to brazil is god's desire as well as mine--for what specific purpose i will only discover afterward--and only by seeking his kingdom first was i granted this wonderful oportunity to return to the place i call home closest to my heart. i suppose the last lesson i have to learn is that my home is not here, or there or at the ends of the earth, but in god's kingdom--and the when and wheres of that kingdom are only dimly seen today.
soon we will see face to face

key to hearts

keys are no modern invention. they've been around for ages, locking things up, keeping people out, and being broken in various locks. they can be to a door, a padlock, a mailbox, or a car. either way, they grant you access to something--access that you and perhaps a select set of others also have. a key sets you apart from the masses in respect to the thing you have a key to; of all people, you can get through the door, you can retrieve what's inside, you can drive away in it.
however, i think it is more touching from a different perspective: having a key to something sets it apart to you. it's not a store to which the door you simply push open, but you must feel uncomfortable and out of place until you look like you're going to buy something. it's not a public square with odd-smelling people lying on the bench who you're embarrassed to talk to. it's not a workplace you go to to get worn out, stressed out and payed, and then leave uncomfortably. it's not the the grimy door to a free newspaper holder that hundreds of other people have touched in the last 35 minutes, having washed their hands or not. when you have a key to someplace, you belong there, and that place is thereby specific to you. it is always a joy and a relief for me to skip up the porch steps to my apartment here in Cambridge, and pull out my brass-colored key that matches the brass-colored doorknob. i insert and turn it, and i know that i am trusted here, i can relax, i don't have to worry so much. i can sit back, eat a bite, chat it up with loving people, and cool down after a long day. when you have to ring the doorbell, you have to prod someone, to disturb them from their current activity to come attend to your need, even if your need is merely access to the housing structure. that dependence is already a negation of belonging. you may belong in part, but never fully until you have your own key. that place can't fully belong to you until you have a key, until you have independent access to it.
similarly, i guess, jesus is our key to the deep peace and strength of our relationships with god and the holy spirit's belonging to us and us to him. when we have the key, when we have jesus, our foul smells are overlooked, because we can come in and take a shower, shave, wash up and put on a fresh set of clothes. that is the only true home we can have in this life, the only complete safeplace; god is not subject to fires nor thievery--people can't break in to god and steal our peace and comfort; not unless we walk out of god and surrender it to them.
that's why i love keys.

ice ice baby

my job this summer is at midwest grill--a typical brazilian grill, churrascaria, that wouldn't compete with any of the same kind in brazil. it is an establishment that survives on what is left of its exotic appeal, and the comparatively cheap price for meat--a novelty that to an american is unheard of. while the somewhat half-baked establishment keeps running, it has a lot of people that run around keeping the place going. mostly, it is the four partners who own the place--they are always in the kitchen, talking to people, and tending to different matters with people; at any common restaurant, the owner might be overseeing in the kitchen, but rarely doing the meat of the cooking--or cooking the meat either. they're surely not the only ones around, though. there are many minions and hang-abouts in the place. many have been there for ages, for as long as the place has been. the three leading waiters, all men, have been there for more than ten years. some of the meat-cutters, too. when i met one of them on my first days of work, and we were talking about ourselves, he said that he had been there for only three or four years--that he hadn't been there for very long. for me, of course, that is a long time. but compared to the others, it really isnt long.
i started off as a meat cutter. it was my job, along with others or sometimes on my own, to tend to the three tiered gas grill, with rotating spits under the flame, and be sure that all the tables got their share of all the different cuts of meats. it took me about a week to become accostumed to the work, but the different expectations took much longer to understand. working in that kind of place, you need to know the right dance to please each manager or boss--that's how it seemed in the beginning. now i've learned the ropes, and i get along fine most of the time.
since then, i've also learned the role of waiter, which takes much more work. i'm no longer bound to the spits or the grill; i've been loosed upon the customers. as a waiter, i need, of course, to tend to my tables, keep all of my people happy and content, and keep an eye on the rest of things in the establishment. that's not too hard to learn. as a waiter, though, the periferal responsibilities are much more important than tending to the tables themselves. we have to watch the salad bar, get the clean dishes in their places, handle take-out orders, bus the 'used' tables; when i have to set up in the morning, the process is even more elaborate.
things are easy enough to handle as a group, when there are other people around to cover your back and keep things going. it's the morning set-up that gets rough. i have to rejuvenate the salad bar--taking things from the fridges, distributing them to their appropriate receptacles and getting it all out the the cooler buffet. i have to see to the lights, the tvs, the mood music, and make sure everything's ready to bring all kinds of drinks to the tables. i get out the frozen concentrate for juices, make sure all of the +21 drinks are stocked up and all the cocktail ingredients are readily available. i have to stock up the water pitchers and get ice to where it needs to be.
one of the first ways i learned to be helpful, one of the first things i did when i was training as a waiter was to go down to the basement to stock up the ice. you need it at the bar--at least 20 liters of it--and at the water station to have it ready for all the tables. you walk down the stairs into a cool dark. when the lights come on, you're surrounded by shelves of boxed disposable supplies, and stacked tables and chairs. past the stacks of clean rags and table napkins, next to the table full of bleaches and detergents. there it is. the ice machine. the reason i've come down to the cool, damp, dimly lit room. i set down the containers for the ice, grab myself the big metal scoop and flip open the metal door to the freezer.
this is the best part of my day. i sink the 1 liter metal scoop into the pile of ice in the cooler. it makes a crisp chink. i feel the cold waft toward me as i lift the first scoop and dump it in the container. the chips of ice tumble noisily into it, and the scoop takes another dive into the pile. when i hear the sound of the ice falling against the inside of the cooler in the wake of my metal tool, i feel a relaxation come over me, as i steep in the gelid air. even more fulfilling is to scoop away the ice at the center of the pile, where it accumulates from the ice-maker. sometimes it freezes onto the walls of the spout from the ice machine on top of the cooler, and i always take pride in knocking it down with my metal scoop. the most fulfilling of all is to hear the freezer start up and the water start running into the machine, initiating the process that will create the millions of chunks of solid di-hydrogen oxide solution that i need for each day of work.
i slam the door, discard my metal friend on a small ceramic plate on top of the cooler, and walk away with a box on my shoulder and a bucket in my hand; i walk up into the light, into the heat, but my endorphins are still going. my happiness takes me through the dining rooms, up the hallway and to the bar, where i scoot in and deposit my treasure--i dump the bucket and slide the box in place--until i turn around and have to face the light, the heat the people, the responsibilities, the things, in short, that i am actually paid to do.