The Atheist that lives in my head.

"The existence of God may be unprovable, but it is not unobservable." - A thing that was said.

There is a perpetual argument I have with an imaginary Atheist that lives in my head.  To me, his arguments seem so self-absorbed, short sighted and inconsistent.  He has no foundation, so he can only pull from whatever is out there and accessible to him.  And then he has to cobble things together into a coherent world view.  But I also know that he has valid points.  I also know that he thinks me a fool, that I have forsaken my own intellect for belief.  He thinks me the fool and sometimes I agree with him.  The current argument is about proof.  He will not consider believing in something unless it can be proven.  I believe that he chooses this extreme criteria to avoid the influence of God or the unseen on his life.  This takes quite a bit of energy to omit all he experiences in his day to day life: Love, Justice, Beauty, Existence itself.  These are not things that are readily provable, but they are certainly observable.  Indeed, how would I go about proving my own existence.  Descartes gives us "I think, therefore I am.", but this is hardly proof and doesn't even intend to be.  My friend would say that philosophy is good exercise, but it cannot replace the rigor of science.  We both adhere to Descartes in this, "It is not enough to have a good mind; the main thing is to use it well."  The real problem with my imaginary friend is that he is committed to the scientific method ONLY in the area of faith or belief.  All his other decisions, big and small are influenced by fear, love, emotion as well as reason.  But he puts a heavy burden on God.  And well, I guess he should, especially since he considers himself an Atheist.  (It can't be easy for an Atheist to live comfortably in the mind of a believer...especially a believer as emotional as myself.)  Belief in God, I admit can feel like an impossible and ridiculous endeavor.  However, considering all that we experience as a human, just by living: the complexity of the eye or the vastness of the universe or the intensity of  bonding with a newborn or the power of fear or the intricacies of human networks or the capacity to reason, all of these and more leave us without answers.  Our evolutionary explanations are compelling, but still require a great deal of faith, considering how little we actually know.  The deeper layers presented by questions like: "Why is a sunset or music objectively beautiful?"  or "Why a particular event feel so unfair/unjust?"  or "Why do I care for my loved one more than myself?"  Being a good and intelligent Atheist, these types of questions are easily dismissed as irrelevant or evolutionary chemical constructs.  But what I hope lingers in his heart (which I guess is my heart) are the questions: "What if I'm wrong?  What if i get all the answers and explanations and there is still something missing?  Why does my heart ache so?"  In these questions, evolution isn't any more of a comfort than Karma (Karma may satisfy a Justice requirement in the Cosmic, but doesn't do much for present and personal comfort).  

The concept of morality is problematic for my inner friend.  Without God, without some conscious force exerting it's will upon existence, there is no absolute truth.  If existence is just Time+Matter+Chance then Good Morals are merely opinions based on consensus.  Good and Evil, right and wrong fade away over time as ANY thing can become justifiable over time.  Truth is subject to survival and fear and evolutionary impulses.  There can be no absolutes without God.  (Of course, even suggesting that an absolute cannot exist is problematic because this is an absolute statement...but that is another argument.)  Without God, without Morals tethered to something eternal and unmovable, then all individual desires can be made justifiable and with enough consensus and normalization...with enough votes.  Something that was formerly wrong can be made right and vice versa.  If we can call something or someone Evil or less than, then we can justify their extermination or enslavement.  Without God, this remains merely a matter of opinion as to whether it is right or wrong.  Standing on the right side of history becomes a punchline with no context or sustainable foundations.  Nationalism and protectionism make more sense in an evolutionary context than working for the greater good.  

So I argue with my friend that it is God's truth that lives within us, working God's will through us, that perpetually moves existence forward, battling with fleshy passions to keep humankind a from destroying itself  either by violence or desire.  This of course is an argument that is irrelevant to him.  It's not provable, so for him it's a non starter.  He is as frustrated with me as I am with him.  My only hope, the best hope is that God would intervene.  The Creator of all, who lives outside of space and time, that sent himself into our reality in the form of a human, Jesus, who upon his very earthly death and subsequent extra-natural resurrection provided his presence to reside in the person of those who believe in him in order to achieve his will in these carriers and through these believers, all for the purpose of restoring a creation that was intended to be perfect, yet is undeniably broken.  Me and my imaginary atheist friend and all my fellow humans are right in the middle of this fray, this struggle to reveal the true nature of reality in the hopes that ALL might be saved and restored right along with the rest of Creation.  I can't prove it, but I can experience the reality of it, supernatural though it may be.  It is my hope, it is THE hope. 

Sibling Treasure.

We are not our own.  Our genetics come from elsewhere: our mother and father and of course from beyond them as well.  But it's more than genes, we are made up of what those around us contribute, what they input and what they teach and give.  They feed and strengthen.  For 44 years I have been given an unceasing stream of support from my 5 siblings.  Of course the love and the sacrifice of my parents makes up the foundation and support, but it has been the extraordinary generosity and hospitality of the Fab five that has sustained me.  

I am so thankful that I have moved beyond trying to calculate how much of it I deserve. That can weigh a person down.  Or trying to plan a way to somehow pay them back for the financial, emotional, and spiritual support they have given to me so freely.  It almost insults the Grace they have shown, because I don't deserve it and I can't repay it.  That's not a self deprecating statement, that is a fact.  Those who love us and raise us, they give us more than we can ever account for or at times more than we can even see.  I am not my own, I am the product of those who had always been there.  It has  been the love and acceptance of Jesus that has allowed me to just enjoy that which is given.  And I pray I can give freely to others that which has been given to me.  Both receiving the blessing and having the awareness to enjoy the blessing is The Double Blessing of Christ. He gives and he gave all, but equally important is that he has given us a way to enjoy that blessing and indeed to see blessing when it seems like there is none.  We are able to enjoy each other in all circumstances, with no expectation, just persistent Joy.  The joy of my siblings, of my family is multiplied a 1000 fold because of the joy I have in Christ.  Christ is my Treasure and they are my Treasure in him.

"For where your Treasure is, your Heart will be also."  Matthew 6.21

God's Plan.

Lately, I've been thinking about the comforting Christian phrase: "God has a plan for your life!"
Whether that is true or not doesn't really matter.  God has a plan.  The question is: Are you in or are you out?  Every moment, every decision you are either growing closer to or further from him.  Everything else is circumstantial. 

It's possible that I am wrong about this, that the specifics of my trajectory are of utmost importance.  But I can't help but feel like I've wasted too much time on thoughts and actions related to comfort, wealth, power, direction and calling.  Proximity to Christ is the only thing that matters.  God has a plan and it's a lot bigger than my life.  He wants me, he loves me, he accepts me...that should be enough to determine: Am I in or am I out?

^{John 14:15} “If you love me, keep my commands. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— ¹⁷ the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be^[c] in you. ¹⁸ I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. ¹⁹ Before long, the world will not see me anymore, but you will see me. Because I live, you also will live. ²⁰ On that day you will realize that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I am in you. ²¹ Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them.”

Easter Breakdown 2018.

Each year I can't help but try to breakdown the Easter message into as simple terms as possible.  Each year I end up writing pages and pages of tangents, quotes, metaphors trying to get to something that is simple, but hard.  

It's 2018, here goes:

The World is awful, often without Hope.
Yet, our hearts long for Love and Peace and our spirits seek Justice in an unjust world.
What in this world would make us think Love, Peace and Justice are things to be desired?
The answer:  There is nothing from THIS world that brings these desires out of us, but it is the Creator of all that has written these other worldly expectations into our very DNA.

Why Christ Matters:

Things are not as they should be, yet we retain these expectations, working towards them.  Something had to come from the outside the world to infect the world with the power to deliver on these strange expectations.  Jesus Christ came from outside in, from perfection into chaos.  To Teach?  Yes.  To Heal?  Yes.  But more comprehensively to display the Kingdom, his Kingdom on Earth.  

Why it's tricky:

The world is awful, and also, if we are honest, so are we.  Each of us possesses not only Hope, but also the ability to dismantle Hope.  It is this fundamental nastiness that prevents the presence of our perfect Creator.  What balances the equation?  Payment.  Christ's death is the payment for our global, local and personal awfulness.  

Overcoming:

In his Death, we have payment.  In his Resurrection, we have hope.  If he only died for our sins, that would leave us with no debts, but also with nothing to look forward to.  The Risen Christ calls us into action.  Though he has physically ascended, we are strengthened by his Spirit to do his work until he returns again.  We work for Love, Peace and Justice...this is what we are made for.

Timeline:
Perfect Creation. Broken world.  Personal failure.  A rescuing Savior from another world.  Redemption and Calling.  Everything made new.

You can make a solid rational argument that the story of Christianity, the Good News of Jesus is the most comprehensive explanation for why things are the way they are and why we continue to Hope.  But we don't make decisions entirely based on rational thinking. It's emotional.  It's painful. There are things that prevent us from hearing the call of our Creator.  I heard the Gospel 100's of times before it took.  I can't say exactly why it did take.  But I know this:  I am Loved and that Love will endure forever.  If that sounds good, it might be time to take a good long look at Jesus.

Feed Back Loop.

Positive Feedback Loop is a ecological and biological term.  It is used as an economic term as well.  Here is one definition:  

Positive feedback loops enhance or amplify changes; this tends to move a system away from its equilibrium state and make it more unstable.

I was watching a YouTube video on "The last time the Globe warmed"  which talked about ice ages.  It was pretty interesting.  At one point, as Hank Green was going through theories of warming he talked about how a slight increase in warming may have melted methane trapped in the ice.  That released methane into the atmosphereand more methane meant more warming, which meant more methane ice melt.  This is a Positive Feedback loop.  The Last Time the Globe Warmed.

When I look at my YouTube recommendations, I see this happening as well.  My daughters (and myself) watch a fair amount Vine Compilations and Fail Videos.  So now when I scroll through recommendations, it is ALL of these types of videos.  I watch Ted Talks sometimes just to alter the embarrassing recommendations.  I won't tell you what Amazon suggests based on my searches.  You may have noticed that the news that is suggested to you through Google or Yahoo starts to become homogenized.  It all starts to look the same.  This effects us.  It may even drive fear or anxiety if there isn't a balance to it.  Where we live and who we hang out with can do this too.  We have a natural affinity for others that look like us and think like us and validate the way we feel about things.  

We currently live in a state of distrust in which we are questioning everything (rightfully so).  But what can happen is that we dig into our positions out of self protection and rarely question ourselves.  Awareness is key.  Nothing can be analyzed without first being aware.  As I become aware of the Positive Feedback Loops in my life, what is my responsibility?  Every single one of us has unique views and every single one of us thinks those view are the correct views.  Each of us has somehow come up with the most nuanced and thoughtful world view.  Of course, that can't be true for all of us.  Some of us are more receptive the idea that we could be wrong or could change our minds than others.  Hopefully, the majority of people feel a need to be well informed, no matter what the subject.  The problem of course is that if that informing comes from a Positive Feedback Loop, the chances of diverse or alternate thinking gradually goes away.  Our responsibility means that we have to be intentional about seeking diversity.  And I think it should be Diversity in news sources, entertainment, food, and friends.  But here's a tricky little scenario I encountered.  Sometimes when I intentionally seek the opposite of what I have come to believe, that opposite will be so far from my belief that it actually reinforces the belief.  

My neighborhood is pretty progressive and as a result, even though I consider myself conservative by nature, I have begun drifting more and more liberal as I get older.  My kids have had an effect on that as well.  But wait, since I live in a diverse community, isn't that community just reinforcing the belief that diversity is the most important thing?  Isn't there value on being around people that are like you, grew up like you and you feel at home with?  Yup, I think that's true too.  I wouldn't stop being with family because I need diversity.  I need my family to remind me of who I am.  I don't have any real answers for this problem I have brought up.  That's kind of the point as well.  We cannot pretend like there is a "right" way to be a person.  We each have to figure it out.  I do suggest that each of us has a responsibility to question our own worldview and question what has fed that worldview.  Be intentional about what you consume for your own good and for the good of those around you.  

And since I usually talk about Jesus in this blog, I will end with this:  Jesus dug diversity.  The knuckleheads he hung out with, his disciples, were a diverse group: zealots, wealthy, poor, doubting, disloyal.  Jesus was a Jew, that was his affinity group, but often he would lift up other ethnic groups in praise and certainly was the most critical of his own tribe.  The Good Samaritan is a prime example.  This story has power because the people Jesus was talking to would have despised Samaritans.  He hung out with women and improved their status, affirming their value.  That was radical!  And while a lot of people have a problem with Christianity because it appears to exclude, the reality is that there is no belief that is more inclusive than this:  Christ Died for all.  John 3:16.  While the way in is narrow, through Jesus, it is available to all.  Nothing has disrupted me more than following Christ.  Every time I set a belief in stone, he shatters it.  He consistently corrects me when I miss the point.  As I became more conservative, hoping to please him and follow his teachings, he said "What about Love and Compassion?"  And as I lean in the other direction, he will have something to say as well.  On this Earth, I will never be settled, I will never be comfortable, I will always be in conflict with my heart and flesh.  But that's okay, I wasn't meant for this Earth.  I'll love it and those in it, but I'm preparing for Eternity.

Eternal Things.

Eternal Things.

I owe nothing.
Nothing is owed to me.

I owed a debt, but that debt was paid.
Because I now owe nothing,
I can accept that nothing is owed to me.
Nothing is owed but all has been given.

Gratitude is a gift,
Not a duty of obligation.

Joy is the progression of surrender.
They increase together.

It doesn’t make sense,
But that doesn’t mean it’s not real.

Pain is real,
Death makes an impact now,
Because we can’t see beyond.
Death has no place among eternal things.

But you do. 

Anniversary.

Marriage:

Though stronger than ever, we are beautifully more delicate than ever.  We have become increasingly sensitive to our own, and each others proximity to God.  If we are distant from each other, we are distant from God and if we are distant from God we are distant from each other.  This ebb and flow in marriage is to be expected.  What is extraordinary is that God will not allow us to endure this distance.  Like a rock in the shoe, our discomfort must be resolved.  Our hyper-sensitivity won't allow us to just push through or ignore things, God insists on resolution and restoration.  That is amazing to me.  Even in the petty stuff, no matter how hurt or sad one of us feels, what does not fail is our trust and hope in Christ.  Thus, our success in marriage comes from nothing we bring to it, merely a complete (and it must be nothing less than complete) dependence on God and the work of Christ.  God's strength in our marriage hasn't made us individually stronger, it has made us more fragile and more vulnerable.  It's so beautiful though.  If we turn from him even for a moment, we are no further along than 21 years ago.  Christ is not a helping hand to see us through hard times, he is everything, the very breath of life.  It is clear now that our marriage is not our own, but a vessel for God's will, and what joy it brings to us as a result.

Wander Wonder.

My ache was proof that what I ached for existed.
Belief persisted.
But dreaming of a pillow doesn't comfort my head.
Rock is not a bed.
Hoping for healing does not persuade where I bled.
What am I risking by what I have shed?
Push past confident convictions.
Doubt, like grace, always listening.
Examine past wrestled restrictions.
Codified, accepted belief, cannon of grief,
You: the honored thief.
Parade in route, triumphant in appearance,
But the grand height didn't make the clearance.
No longer moving forward now,
Yes, Yes, look around.
What is it made of which is it made of which is made of which.
Pulling thread, tug at the stitch.
No lies, no deceit, just accepting too much that is incomplete.
Wander away from the parade, it is stopped, halted by it's own girth.
Wander away for a while.
Wander away.
Wander.
Wonder.
Wonder away.
Wonder away for a while.
Wonder why?
I wonder why.
I wonder, I.
Great the burden, the force of creation, the weight of the universe demands movement, life needs birth.
It presses down and we have to decide.
Not deciding is deciding.
It takes work to not engage.
It takes discipline to stay un-enraged.
It takes stamina to scream.
It takes stubborn-ness to dream.
It takes team.
But solitary, sometimes sedentary, faking nobility through immobility,
Makes for hostile tranquility.
Beyond my ability.
I can't continue on the parade.
I can't bring myself to tear it down.
I wonder away.
Tears of a clown.
Tears at this gown,
And at his bride in waiting.
In her head is all the debating:
Will he come or won't he, he loves me, he loves me not,
He loves me but he forgot, he loves, but love is hot.
And heavenly heat cannot be contained,
It's not for one bride but for the all,
Does that mean it is not personal?
Is it personal because I feel so small.
This battle for my soul has come to a draw.
Wander away, given up, but the question remains:
Are you real?
Are you really real?
What I have believed, is it what you proposed?
Did I mess it up and now I'm exposed?
What did you say and what did you promise?
And then what did I hear?
What did I want that made you not near?
I hoped for the wrong thing, Did I?
Did I believe in the parade?
The not quite charade, but the shadow displayed.
The savior dismayed.
Slayed.
Him with confidence,
Him the real fool.
Him who doubt.
Him more foolish, because he know the fool he is,
And wishes to be a different kind.
A different kind of blind.
A blind that doesn't know so much.
Blind that could never see,
A deep blind to what was meant to be.
Crawling, broken with no crutch.
Do you know of such?
Completeness is not to be, not from here to eternity.
Will completeness be made in him,
Or to the returning to the ground?
Who then will echo my sound?
I wander,
I wonder,
I am lost, by whom will I be found?