Theology and Compassion, Objectivity and Subjectivity

One of the pastoral and practical tools I use to evaluate theology— besides whether it is Biblical and Creedal and rooted in the Trinity and Incarnation— is this:

If you cannot preach it to hurting people, or pray it with a forgiving heart, it’s bad theology. If you won’t preach it, and can’t pray it, you shouldn’t believe it.

This is to say that our theology must integrate Christlike Compassion as its first and foremost effect on our life for it to be healthy theology.

Two kinds of Mystical Experience: Ecstasy and Emphasis

Let all that you do be done in love. (1 Corinthians 16:14)

There are at least two kinds of mystical experience of God: Ecstasy and Emphasis. Ecstasy is to take you out of yourself. The Greek word "ekstasis" literally means to stand ("stasis") outside ("ek") of oneself. Ecstasy is to experience self-transcendence, and often to have some kind of visionary experience that is utterly unlike everyday life. Perhaps a luminous Divine Darkness that envelops us, or a Divine Light which is infinitely brighter than our normal sight, or a vivid sense of the Personal Presence of God. In Ecstasy we experience rapturous personal union with God in Love on a separate plane of Reality than the normal and mundane plane of existence we are accustomed to. And that transcendent experience is often interpreted through symbols we know and understand, such as the "seeing" or "feeling" or "hearing" the personal presence of Jesus, or even his Mother Mary. 

The other kind of mystical experience of God is Emphasis.

Speed Wobble

You know that feeling

When you are cruising down a hill

On a skateboard

Or maybe a scooter or bike

And you get going

Faster

And faster

And faster

Until you are far beyond

Your ability to steer?

A Prayer for Teachers in Spring 2021

I prayed this for our faculty and staff this morning, and I pray it for all teachers going back into this semester as well:

Lord of Love, God of New Beginnings, we come this morning seeking your blessing as we begin the second semester of a challenging year in difficult circumstances. 

For some of us, we begin this New Year refreshed: Filled with energy and restored from a blessed Holiday Break. Lord, thank you for this refreshment.

For some of us, we begin with heavy hearts filled with worry for loved ones who are sick, or sorrow for loved ones who have passed away. Lord, be with those we care for and embrace them in your undying Love.

And for all of us, we come before you with a mix of energy and apprehension, wanting to do the best we can for our students, but not entirely sure the best way to do that. Lord, fill us with Faith and Hope and Love. 

Fill us with Faith in your sustaining strength, and faith in our abilities as teachers and advisors and educational leaders. 

Fill us with Hope that our world will experience healing, that our lives will experience healing, and that our work with these students really makes a difference. 

And fill us with Love: Love for the students you have entrusted to our care, Love for each other as we support and encourage each other, and Love for the challenges and delights of education. 

With this Faith, Hope, and Love, send us into this new year, confident that you will work through us and our students. It is in Christ's Name we ask all of this. Amen. 

Glimpses of the Sacred

Where is holiness to be found?

Where are the thin places

The fjords between

This shore and that Great Beyond?

Where is the fabric of reality

Most easily rent 

To reveal the Ultimate Reality

Behind the curtain of space and time?

My First Dark Night of the Soul

The year 2020 has been a Dark Night for so many people in many ways: Material, Spiritual, Mental, Emotional, Social. Since it is coming to an end today, I thought I would reflect on the very first time in my life of faith that I remember encountering a "Dark Night" of faith. 

All Yang no yin

Proclaim Hope and you are adored. 

Explain despair and you are ignored. 

Preach Meaning and be applauded. 

Examine meaninglessness and be criticized. 

The Beast Box: DIY Homemade Strongman Stone Simulator

For years I have wanted to create a homemade device that would simulate some of the heavy lifts that are popular in strongman competitions. Since I already have a selection of heavy barbells and dumbbells, it would seem like I would not need any other implements. And some strongman exercises, such as Farmer's Carries and Deadlifts and various kinds of Clean and Press movements, are fairly easy to duplicate with Dumbbells and Barbells. But other movements, such as the Husafell and other stone lifts, are impossible to simulate with even heavy barbells.

But I did not really want to purchase a $200-$700 metal stone simulator, such as the Titan loadable Atlas Stones, Husafell Simulator, or Husacross. They are expensive and single use. And if the steel gets dented or has a crease, it can easily create a nasty gash. Likewise, I did not want to mold my own stones, because they would be single use, non-adjustable, and take up lots of space (as well as time to make). Finally, while I like training with Sandbags, they are impossible to quickly change weights with. You have to pour them out, seal them up, and weigh them if you want to change weights.

So, basically, my design specifications included the following: I wanted something that was cheap; Something that I could make at home out of wood; Something that wouldn't rip my skin up; Something that offered a variety of hold and carry options; And something that was easily loadable for doing strongman conditioning work. So, after having the idea rattle around in my head for a couple of years, I developed the Beast Box. Here are the plans I created:

Durkheim’s Ghost

At this time of social distance, 

We need shared rituals 

Now more than ever

Even if they are shared 

At a distance 

Over an internet connection 

Or in a choppy livestream. 

.

In an age of 

Alacarte 

Individualized 

Atomized

Disconnected 

Consumerism

We have very few communal rituals 

To bind us together

To remind us

No one is an island

Separate from the main. 

.

And the ersatz rituals we do have

Seek to monetize us

Commodify the experience 

For passive consumption 

As a lifestyle product: 

A sportsball game 

A lackluster blockbuster

A concert of prerecorded audio loops. 

.

So let us embrace 

The communal

The collective

The old fashioned

The traditional

The ritual

The participatory 

As an act of resistance 

Against the totalitarian hedonism 

We are immersed in

And the nihilistic anomie 

It inspires.  

The Bodyweight Quotient -BWQ- A tool for lifelong lifting

Note: The material here has been incorporated and enlarged into my comprehensive Training Program and Principles, as well as my thoughts on the Spirituality of Physical Training. 

I first fell in love with lifting weights at age 12, when my dad enrolled me in a weight lifting course at our local community center. That followed with a summer in a non-air-conditioned hardcore gym near my mom's house on the coast. I was hooked. I felt awesome, I looked good, and I enjoyed the ability and resilience of my body. By the time I was 18, I was benching just less than 400 and squatting just less than 700. Weight lifting followed me through college football and into young adulthood.

Then, as often happens, life got in the way. Career. Marriage. Divorce. Marriage. Grad School. Child one. Job change. Child two. Move and job change. Child three. Keeping up with a busy family of five. I would hit the gym a few weeks a year. But for the most part, I lapsed completely, became very over weight, and generally uncomfortable in my own skin. Then, right before turning 40, and after my Dad was diagnosed with Type II Diabetes (like many others in my family), I decided I wanted to lose weight, and get in shape, and return to a habit that was as spiritually formative as it was physically helpful: Weight lifting.

A Textual Meditation on Theosis

This is mainly a collection of texts from across the first three centuries of the Church which speak about Theosis: Our destiny to be divinized by our Lord Jesus Christ working through the power of his Spirit, so that we may become godlike as Children of God. Theosis is typically an Eastern Orthodox way of describing salvation in Christ, but it is also taught under such ideas as Divinization, Deification, Apotheosis, Union with God, Communion, Sanctification, and even Glorification. While I have written several times about Theosis, I have never really made a catalogue of the main texts that inspire the concept. 

Noah's Flood and God's Justice

Lots of people have lots of questions about the flood of Noah in Genesis 6-9. Why did it happen? How did it happen? And who were those pesky Nephilim? I have answered many of these questions in another article. But another perennial question is how does the God of Wrath displayed in the Flood story relate to the God of Love seen in Jesus Christ. How can the evil of the Flood be justified in the light of the Goodness of God? Although I have touched on this in other articles on Divine Violence and Divine Sorrow, I would like to write more here on how the Flood connects with the larger problem of God and Evil.

On Grace and Faith and Works

There seems to be a great deal of interest and controversy parsing the exact position and proportion and progression of the roles of grace and faith and works in accomplishing and maintaining and completing our salvation. So what is the role of human effort in solving the human plight? Does salvation come entirely from God, or is human belief or action necessary to complete God's work of salvation? The Christian Scriptures offer perspectives such as the following:

Is a Politics of Life possible in a culture of death?

The LORD of Love is the God of Life. God’s Love is shown precisely in healing broken lives, and protecting vulnerable lives, and elevating endangered lives so they find abundant life. The Glory of God is humanity fully alive, and the fullest human life is revealed in God Incarnate, Jesus Christ, who overcame death by the power of his undying Love. And it is Christ who healed and fed and taught so that all might partake in his Life. Therefore it is incumbent upon those of us who claim to serve the God of Love, revealed in the Life of Christ, to actually do what he taught, and live as he lived: By healing and feeding and teaching others his Way of Life. 

This entails a number or commitments personally, ethically, societally, and even politically...

Is Christianity Political?

As we gallop into yet another conflicted election cycle, it is inevitable that people will ask the question of whether Christianity is political. Well, if by politics we mean a cohesive vision of Society which a group of people strive to implement, then yes. Christianity is deeply political. In the synoptic Gospels the core message of Jesus was the immanent arrival of the Kingdom of God. Kingdom is a politically charged word. It is a place ruled by a King. You don't get more political than that. And the phrase "Kingdom of God" occurs 66 times in the New Testament. "Kingdom of Heaven" occurs 31 times, mostly in Matthew. And other than that, Kingdom occurs over 50 more times. If that is not political, I do not know what is. Not only that, but Jesus came to call a community of people into communion with the Living God. And wherever there are people, there are politics. It is simply unavoidable.

Is Social Justice merely a Leftist Talking Point?

We've heard a lot about Social Justice lately. When used in a positive way, it is often connected with the move toward public recognition and equal treatment for historically disenfranchised peoples, including Blacks, Latinx, and Queer persons. When used in a negative way, Social Justice is portrayed as a kind of Leftist "trojan horse" to inflict good hearted people with guilt and shame and even debt because of historic policies and events they had nothing directly to do with. So, is "social justice" just some kind of newly devised left-wing catch phrase designed to browbeat Americans into policies which are at odds with the foundational principles of our civilization?

Deuteronomy Five Seventeen

A didactic poem

Hope in a Hollow Culture

“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says the Teacher. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless!” (Ecclesiastes 1.2) 

It is easy to lose Hope in a counterfeit Consumer Culture like ours. Outwardly, we appear to have every resource and luxury, but inwardly so many of us are hollow and empty...

A Squandered Jubilee

It seems God has given us what could be a Jubilee year. But we are squandering it. 

“You will make the fiftieth year holy, proclaiming freedom throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It will be a Jubilee year for you: each of you must return to your family property and to your extended family. The fiftieth year will be a Jubilee year for you. Do not plant, do not harvest the secondary growth, and do not gather from the freely growing vines... The land will give its fruit so that you can eat your fill and live securely on it... The LORD says: The land must not be permanently sold because the land is mine. You are just immigrants and foreign guests of mine.” (Leviticus 25:10–11, 19, 23) 

Sam Harris’ Monstrous Moral Landscape

I recently picked up Michael Brooks’ book about the “Intellectual Dark Web” in which he critiques the views of several “renegade” intellectuals, including the famous secular crusader Sam Harris. This was one of those instances where I was reminded of something I intended to write, but never got around to. In particular, around 2013 I read through Harris’ 2010 book entitled “The Moral Landscape”. In it, Harris advocates the idea that Moral Values can be derived from empirical observation alone. While this thesis is problematic on its own, what makes it especially problematic for Harris is an incendiary moral claim that he made six years prior in an earlier book: