i am such a frickin' cynic-negative-energy-deconstructionist-antiestablisment-bastard sometimes... are you?...
i swear, i can critique like an american idol judge... and i think i need to stop... not even just stop, but repent, change ways, move to a more beautiful place...
i read two books this last week... "blue like jazz" (a spiritual memoir by a christian in portland) and "the davinci code" (a pop fiction best seller that contains a great deal of history of the church)... as i read them, i found myself quick to embrace "the davinci code" stuff... was mary magdelene married to christ, did the church suppress certain pieces of information regarding christ or even change his nature... i really tried to buy into dan brown's character's ideas... they were different and refreshing and i guess i am a sort of conspiracy theorist...
"blue like jazz"... well, i like _some_ of what he had to say, but mostly it kinda annoyed me... reminded me of "the catcher in the rye" which i love, but i love it for what it is... an adolescent coming into adulthood... reading "blue like jazz" was an adult's memoirs... non-religious memoirs he said, but... and it bugged me how he used holden caufield's voice as his own... and it bugged me how he kept reducing chrisitan fundamental beliefs into the following: jesus christ is god, the devil is as real as jesus, the bible is the word of god...
okay, so i am not here to explain why i have issues with each of these issues... i mention all this instead to show he easily frustrated i get towards other christians and how open i am to people outside of formal christendom...
i went to a church service last night in carlsbad... kind of a young adult service... lame... we got up and left... i wasnt angry or anything, just couldnt handle being there...
somehow i feel this is all very un-christ-like... and one virture i want to live by is living in the way of jesus...
the gospel is a perspective change... its a free-ing from our present reality to see beyond ourselves, our hangups, our annoyances... to see where god is working in perhaps different ways in others...
god, help me in my cynicism... help it turn to love... not just love to make a change, but love to see that i am broken and see through my own lens of what is right and best and wrong and destructive... help...
1 comment:
i hate the da vinci code ...
i like to say that this is the "left behind" of the non-christian world. apologetic buried in poorly written ficiton.
but i think i'm the only one ... for reasons which escape me completely people love this book, and christians get all bent out of shape wondering if it is "true".
but i'm with you on the way i treat the "christian" voices vs. a voice which is not making a claim to speak for god or for any institution.
part of it is just weariness -- there is a battle which i just am not going to fight any more. i wrestled with god, lost and now carry the scars of that, but i'm not going to have that same fight with every person who Knows What The Word of God Says.
part of it is wonder -- god has been speaking through all these people that i never listened to before, and it is so cool to see that he is everywhere, how could i have been so deaf?
part of it is reactionary, swinging from one extreme to the other.
i'm good with it all being complicated like that, i'm a complicated person :)
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