Everyone complained about this reading but I am loving it.

What is that something which makes transformation possible in the midst of chaos and hopelessness? What is there that finds us, trapped inside the box of our own thinking with no possibility of breaking out, and moves us to open to an act of creation?


As Martin Heidegger says, we first have to assert the possibility of creation as a possibilty. Without any possibility of possibility, we surrender to what is, and assume that's all there could be. But that conundrum is a wheel within a wheel. Where does the first act of creation come from to create the possibility of possibility?


In the end, we have to proceed as if possibility is a possibility, even when we don't see it or even believe it can exist. This is an act of pure faith, based on nothing, itself born out of a pure declaration that it is. No evidence. No proof. In fact, there is usually lots of proof that what we want cannot be done. If what was needed was clear and seen to be possible, it probably would have happened already.


In the creation story in the Bible, it says in one translation, that "God's intention moved over the face of the deep." I like that! That's a clue of us. If we can simply find in ourselves some intention and take that with us into the darkness of not knowing, an act of creation becomes possible. According to the yogis, we have in us the capacity for being an "uncreated cause," and I wonder if the writers of Genesis weren't referring to this when they said that we are "made in the image of God." This is not something we have to make happen; it is already present, or even better, here within us, just there, an arm's length away, like the "kingdom of God at hand," waiting to be appropriated by an act of faith.

[Scherer, J., "The Role of Chaos in the Creation of Change," The Chaos Network, 2003.]

Conflict/Resolution

May 1, 2011 will forever be known as the day the Navy SEALS killed Osama bin Laden. It will also forever be known as one of the most complicated days in my brain.

For the first 15 minutes of awkward CNN anchors stumbling over NOT saying what President Obama was going to tell us, I was afraid that we were going to war somewhere new. I knew nowhere had been attacked, because CNN and MSNBC would have known about that. So then it switched to awkward guessing about Libya, and then hilarious references to aliens...though, admittedly, most of the alien chatter was on Twitter.

Then, suddenly, someone at the New York Times tweeted that Osama bin Laden had been confirmed dead at the hands of US operatives earlier today.

Twitter went batshit insane. People were making jokes about "Mission Accomplished", bashing W, congratulating Obama, etc. And I'll admit, I participated in all three. This was quite a day for this country.

For about 30 minutes, it was all jokes. There are some clever people in this world. I was having trouble knowing what to feel. Was this a big deal? Like, in the grand scheme of things, worth calling my mother and talking about? I couldn't tell. Does it change a lot that he's dead? Won't his operatives just keep on keepin' on? I was still unclear.

But then, around the 45-minute mark, Wolf Blitzer panned to a shot of hundreds of people crowding around the White House, singing the National Anthem. I don't know what it means, but I cried, then. I'm not much for outspoken patriotism, because I think it is very quickly nationalism and then often warmongering. I'm aware that's a big leap.

It took an hour from the NYT leak to when the President finally took the screen. In that amount of time, every possible emotion had been expressed about the situation.

And, yeah, my facebook status congratulated the CIA for winning the 2012 election for Barack Obama. On his watch, a major goal of this war can be checked off this list. On his watch, the number one most wanted man in the world is dead.

Two friends of mine called me out directly -- one on Twitter and the other on Facebook -- for treating this event incorrectly. Many others showed their support for my thoughts on the matter. I'm stuck on their criticism, though.

It is never my goal to celebrate the death of someone, no matter how evil. But it's hard to not feel some sense of positive vibes being released back into the universe, now that this man will not be directly responsible for the deaths of any more people.

But what does this mean, for the world? New York Times columnist Nick Kristof, whom I love and respect, just called bin Laden's death a "triumph," which will lead to "new possibilities in Afghanistan." Read his piece, here.

Can we call it a triumph? Does being a seminarian mean I have to ask the question of whether Jesus would call it a triumph? I'm not trying to ask that question. I'm just trying to reconcile whether this is a great day or terrible day.

I want it to be a great day. Really badly I want it to be a great day. I want to be proud to be an American, today. I want to be proud of my fantastically eloquent President who stood up and declared that this would be a step forward in the fight against hatred in this world. And that this has never been a war on Islam -- just like W said it wasn't a war on Islam -- and that peace will prevail.

I know that killing people is wrong. I don't like that we kill people to show people that killing people is wrong. But what do you do when you are standing feet from a man responsible for the deaths of thousands? Do you want him to have even the slightest chance of killing even one more person? If you are that Navy SEAL, do you pull that trigger? Of course you do.

But what do I do? What do I say, here, now? I am not a Navy SEAL. I am not the President of the United States. I will never have to make that decision, but I will have to vote for people who will, and I will have to respond when they do.

I thought I was going to end up knowing how I felt about this. I still can't tell if this is the conflict or the resolution.

Peace be with you.

It's hard to believe.

This morning I read a blog post about Mark Driscoll, and then someone brought him up in class during our discussion of radical Protestantism, and then I lamented about him over dinner with Kelsey. Have you heard of this man? He runs Mars Hill Church in Seattle, a megachurch among megachurches that has 8 sites and worships nearly 10,000 every Sunday. They've planted 300 churches in the US alone and are planning to plant more than 500 more. Mark Driscoll's goal is to have 250,000 people in worship each Sunday being broadcast his message. 250,000.

Mark Driscoll is young, and hip, and preaches in jeans and a hoodie, and didn't go to seminary [though he does have a BA in Communication!], and tweets and blogs and podcasts his sermons, and teaches his followers the most abrasive, destructive form of mainline protestantism I have ever encountered.

I know that I am usually all about loving my neighbor and respecting the opinions of all people, especially respecting the religious beliefs of all people. But I draw the line at beliefs that hurt the believer or those who come into contact with the believer.

It's hard to imagine that there is anybody in this country who when they hear the word "Christian" thinks of us, nice, boring Lutherans, instead of the rabid followers of this man. Based on the sermons of his that I have read (some of the most hurtful of which are linked below) I cannot think of a religious leader who I am more committed to combating than Mark Driscoll. You might say that Fred Phelps and the Westboro Baptist Church are worse, but there are only like 30 of them and they are most likely certifiably insane. Mark Driscoll has thousands of followers across the country and around the world, and knows exactly what he's doing.

As though we don't already live in a world dominated by men, Mark Driscoll is working to keep women down. He made an awful statement about the female bishop of the Episcopal Church, saying that if we weren't careful, the Episcopalians were going to elect a "fluffy bunny rabbit to lead God's men" next.

I was telling Kelsey that I hardly have words for this man. That might be why this post is so scattered. It just seemed like all of the contact with him I came into today made me need to get my words out.

A sermon on why women cannot be pastors. -- The most devastating part about this one is how he involves his daughter. How he teaches his daughter that she cannot grow up to be anything she wants. That all of the women in the history of the world who have fought to be equal to men are not only not equal in the eyes of men, but are not equal in the eyes of God. That's not just misguided, that's abusive.

A sermon on why Jesus is the only way to salvation and all other religions are too exclusive. -- Because Jesus is a "narrow door" and only so many of us can fit. And because other religions have too many rules. AS THOUGH his is not a religion of exclusion. And he calls out religions in these "sly" ways. Like, he lists these negative attributes and then slips in the word "synagogue" or "Mecca" or "reincarnation" so that we all know which heathens he's talking about this time.

A sermon about what it is to be the true family of Jesus. -- Here, we learn that we are the light to the world. We are the bearers of Truth, convictors of sinners (in that part, he never says forgiveness of sin, just finger-pointing), spreaders of the news that everyone needs to hear (esp our non-Christian friends and family). Not lovers of neighbors, or anything. [Also, he calls out women for having sinful wardrobes. But not men!]

I have to stop. That should be enough, anyway. If you want more fuel for your fire, just scope his sermons online. Or read any of the 13 books he wrote, like "Doctrine: What Christians Should Believe."