A Crisis of Integrity

Last week, I got another email from my assistant principal about some technology that had been assigned to me last year. Long story short, it wasn't until I went to the school and looked for it that the tech was found.

While I knew it was unreasonable to think that someone had just walked off with a large, heavy, awkward piece of equipment, my stomach apparently was not paying attention to my brain. It was in knots! I was so worried that I wouldn't be able to find the device, and that some other teacher would have to start the school year without equipment that can be really useful, and it would be my fault. That was what worried me, even more than the possibility that I would be held financially responsible and have to pay for it.

I was desperate.

Perhaps whoever-it-was was right; there really are no atheists in foxholes. Because even while realizing that it was a silly, stupid idea, I found myself thinking, "God, or whoever might be listening, if you will let me find this dumb thing now, I will start going back to church."

Stupid, stupid, stupid.

And of course, yes, I found the darn thing within five minutes. At first, naturally, I was like "hurray!" and I was super relieved. And I was proud of myself, because it was right where I'd suspected it would be. Let's face it - being right is pretty sweet! But then after I remembered my 'deal' I was annoyed with myself. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Do I really think it was divine intervention? Definitely not. Did finding the equipment make me believe a little more in god? Nope... not particularly. I'm pretty open to possibility, and even before finding it I had sort of decided that the best descriptor for me was "theistic-leaning agnostic" rather than "atheist."

So I found myself in something of a quandary. I stopped going to church not only because of my own loss of faith, but also because while I didn't want to speak out against ideas and practices I no longer believed in, and cause problems for others, I felt that by passively "playing along" I was implying that I do believe -- that by doing so I was acting a lie, if not speaking one. But I also believe in keeping your word. And while I still don't believe in god, I made that promise to myself as much as anyone or anything else. I know that I said I would, and so it doesn't much matter whether or not anyone else was listening.

I did end up going to church -- or to the small prayer/study group that meets before the service, at any rate. It was pretty miserable, and I ducked out and didn't attend the service. That would have felt disrespectful and even blasphemous.

I'm still not sure what I'm going to do tomorrow. I think both the wording and intent of my idiot oath implied more than just one visit. Still, these are good, kind people, and I feel like I'm lying to them, and that's really difficult for me.

But I don't know that I'm ready to tell them the truth.

Owl's Song

has an awesome post on the nature of marriage this morning.

Marriage is, by its nature, two people in a relationship. TWO people. One cannot carry the burden for both, no matter how much they want the marriage to succeed. We cannot love enough, lead enough, or submit enough to make it happen.

I love it!

Father

For me, there is a certain amount of trust in the word father. This isn't to say that my dad has never let me down or broken a promise. But (to my knowledge) it's never been through anything more selfish than absent-mindedness. And I can't complain too much about that, since I'm rather heavily burdened with it myself!

I know that if I ever had serious problems, my dad would do what he could to help me out. No matter what.

It wouldn't necessarily mean bailing me out. But he'd try to help me pull through.

I love my dad. Sometimes he gets down on himself, and I don't like that. He's smart, but sometimes he has trouble expressing precisely what he means, and from his comments from time to time I get the idea that he doesn't think he's smart. (Mom and I are both pretty verbal!)

He's also really easy-going most of the time. "Passive" tends to have a negative connotation; maybe "patient" would be a better term for it. On the other hand, he doesn't like waiting! (Though, in fairness, who does?!) But my point is that his way of showing love is much more quiet than my mom's. She's very active. He just - is.

Sometimes he gets grumpy, and he can be a bit of a bear! He gets frustrated when things don't go the way he wanted them to, and especially when he feels like he's being interrupted or actively ignored.

When I think about my attitude toward my dad, I can see that my attitude toward God parallels it in a lot of ways. I don't go to God a lot in prayer. We don't chat. But I try to keep an ear to the ground. If things don't go as I planned, I try to think about why. Is it just an awkward situation, or is it God's guidance?

Likewise, I've lost my tension about doctrine and believing the right thing. I don't understand how or why salvation works; I just trust that it does. I'm more concerned about modeling "Be Kind No Matter What" for my students. I figure that God knows what to do and can take care of things. I'm okay with that. If I've got a particular part to play, God'll let me know. (And if I don't get the message the first time, I expect He'll just be a bit louder the next.)

I love my dad.

God

Okay, so no picture. I mean, God isn't a starry sky or an old man, which is what I mostly get from googling for an image.

Well, anyway, I find it interesting that when lay Christians talk about God, they typically mean God the Father. Jesus and the Holy Spirit are just kind of... also God. But God the Father is the "real" God. Almost like he's the boss and they're the underlings.

I think the Apostle's Creed is a major cause of this. The divinity of two-thirds of the triune God is not stated in the creed. And while I think a lot of Christians don't know the creed by heart, I also think it's kind of "gone underground" and is a part of our cultural psyche. The Apostle's Creed illustrates the way we think about God on a subconscious level.

---

Also? Capitalizing the "g" in "God" is important. Some people say we oughta capitalize all pronouns that refer to one of the persons of the Trinity (oo! There's another one!) but I'm not all that careful about it.

We use the capital letter to show that "God" is a name, not just a word; by changing a word into a name, we make the word itself special and restrict its use. No longer can it be one among many. It personalizes it. Our dog's nickname is Puppy (never mind that he's, like, ten). Making the word "puppy" into a name means he is OUR puppy - and the only one.

I still feel awkward calling my in-laws "Mom" and "Dad". There are many moms and dads in the world, but that's how I refer to my parents; those words have taken on a special significance since I use them as names.

Believe

I love this image, because I think it illustrates what so many people today do believe: that we can't believe anything - not really. We are hyper-aware of the limitations of our perception, most of us because we have more than once believed in a lie and later found out how foolish we were.

For a Christian, though, belief is more than just mental acceptance of a principle. Belief guides action (or it should). Now in some cases, it doesn't have to. For example, in my life, it really doesn't matter whether or I believe Earth is flat or round. It doesn't affect what I do or how I interact with others.

But a belief like "all humans have value to God" does - or should - affect the way I live. If every person has value to God, how should that affect the way I treat them? The way I think of them? Is it right of me to say nasty things about someone who cut me off in traffic? or about a political candidate? or, well, anyone, for that matter?

Even in fiction, we are encouraged to see the value of human life as relative. I mean, everybody knows you can't shoot James Bond and expect to get away with it, right? Good guys struggle through challenges and get the girl. Bad guys laugh at the suffering of others, give expository monologues, and perish in interesting ways.

Sometimes I think the stories we tell affect the way we view our lives. Or, maybe, it's the other way around; we tell stories in terms of "good guys" and "bad guys" because we already have a tendency to see things in terms of "us" and "them." Either way, I don't think that's God's perspective on the matter.

As Walter Donovan says to Indy (just after shooting James Bond Henry Jones), "It's time to ask yourself - what do you believe?"

We need to ask ourselves the same thing. And we need to follow that question with another: do our actions prove that we believe what we say we believe?

Images thanks to http://www.luxor.com/entertainment/entertainment_believe.aspx and http://jpsgranville100favefilms.blogspot.com/2008/05/indiana-jones-and-last-crusade-1989.html

The Is (eyes? ayes?) Have It

I always find creeds, like the Apostles' Creed, the Pledge to the American Flag, the various scouting mottos ("and to OBEY the LAW of the PACK!" hee!) and other created statements of belief to be intriguing.

You see, so often, we say them together. In unison. They are a statement of corporate belief. They list what we believe.

And yet, without any excpetions that I know of (although I'm sure there are some), they start off with "I."

Why is this, I wonder? I'd like to think that it's a way of showing respect for the individual. After all, we're choosing to subsume that individuality and coalesce with a group just by reciting the group's creed.

As individuals, we're affirming our personal choice to be a member of that group.

So while as a church we believe the statements of the Apostles' Creed, that in and of itself is not enough. Each of us must make that choice on our own. Each of us bears the responsibiltiy for that choice.

What will your choice be?

I -

I believe!

Image thanks to http://flickr.com/photos/35744138@N00/925335248/

Apostles Creed Wiki

So I've been inspired by a post over at McKinney Methodist, in which Matt linked each of the significant words to its entry in Wikipedia.

However, when I saw the post, I first thought that each link led to another blogpost about that word and what it means from a Christian perspective - specifically, that blogger's reflections on the word.

So, since it looks like it hasn't been done, I'm going to try to do it.

If nothing else, at least I can't say I've got nothing to blog about! XD

Image thanks to http://blog.mrm.org/2007/09/abominable-creed/