Getting emotional

When I was in grade one or two, kids made fun of my laugh. I was also informed by several adults that “big boys don’t cry”. So I did my best to stop laughing or crying. By about grade eight, I decided that I needed to do something about this. I was tired of bottling myself up out of fear of ridicule and rejection. I had few friends. I was small, scrawny, and stubbornly liked what I wanted to like. I had no desire to be cool or popular, yet I was still letting others control how I would or would not express myself. It was time for a change. When I started high school, I decided to also start expressing emotions.

Now, you can’t control what emotions you feel,

A third look in the mirror

So, to what extent am I sexist? It is hard for me to say for certain. I expect that I have blind spots in this area keeping me from knowing for certain. Yes, I have links to Feminist groups in my blogroll, but that doesn’t mean I’m feminist, so much as that I enjoy reading interesting articles by intelligent people.

I have often adopted the awkward grammatical structures of how God reveals God’s self and God’s purpose or how one might reveal what they think by how they act, in the attempt to avoid gendered pronouns. But when I want to make sure I am clearly getting my point across, or just get sick and tired of the grammatical circumlocutions, God becomes He, and our random example of a hypothetical person becomes a man. I’ve preached sermons on God’s lack of a gender, and on the male and female images of God in the Bible (these sermons raised more controversy than any other), but I’ve refused to change the words to the Lord’s prayer to gender-neutral.

I told my wife that I’d like if she took my name when we got married, but that it was her choice. I had no intention, however, to change my own. I’m not saying she couldn’t have persuaded me, but that I would have had to be persuaded. She has hyphenated her last name.

I knew I had these issues. I don’t apologize.

When I read articles like the one on Feministing about a NYT write-up on summer dresses, though, I think about attitudes I have and actions I perform that perhaps I should apologize for. Maybe. I’m not positive.

A second hard look in the mirror

While I was reading this article over on Skepchick and the ones that it linked to, and the ones linked to in the comments, and the ones that they linked to, I had a lot more thoughts than I shared in my last post. I chose not to write it all out as one ginormous article- for your sakes and mine- and wasn’t sure if I was going to add my other thoughts.

But it looks like I will.

As I was reading about racism, sexism and privilege, I reflected on some of the privilege I have, but hadn’t realized was privilege, as well as on my own sexism (a later article, perhaps), and some of the ways in which I am a racist.

It’s not something I like about me, but

A hard look in the mirror

I was looking at the Skepchick blog, particularly at this post about feminism, racism and skepticism. I followed some of the links in that post (and the comments to that post) to other sites, where I found other links to other sites. Basically, I ended up spending a few hours reading about feminism, racism, and privilege. As I read, I recognized some parts of myself that I don’t particularly like. I also faced the question of whether I am actually going to change.

When I created this blog, I hesitated in calling it One Man’s Journey. I like the anonymity of the Internet. I don’t often refer to my own gender, race or age. I don’t say what country I’m from

God-incidences

Wikipedia defines a coincidence as “the noteworthy alignment of two or more events or circumstances without obvious causal connection”. Sometimes, when faced with a coincidence, we may see a causal connection that is not actually there. Yesterday, I spent four hours cleaning my car- inside and out. Just as I was finishing and putting the floormats back inside the car, it began to rain. I could get the impression that washing my car caused it to rain (especially if it happened often, or I never listened to weather reports). I could further claim that scheduling picnics also causes it to rain, being in a hurry causes the photocopier to jam, and stepping into the shower causes the phone to ring. Instead, I see these things as events that coincide in time but are unrelated by any causal connection (one did not cause the other, nor were both caused by the same thing).

There is a tendency, in some Christian circles to look at coincidences and call them God-incidences,

Is our pain God’s problem?

Over on Beliefnet, there is a ‘blogalogue’ between Bart Ehrman and N. T. Wright about pain, suffering, and God. It is short and limited, apparently on purpose, but I found it worthwhile to read.

Many people have recommended Wright’s works for me. Others have recommended Ehrman’s recent book. I can relate strongly with Ehrman’s view, and what he says of his experiences. The amount of suffering in the world has been one of the major factors in my inability to continue believing in a God. After reading this exchange, I’m not confident reading Wright’s works will give me fresh insight into this issue.

Edit: I should mention that I found the above link while reading Kay’s blog while trying to find out what sort of person would put my confusion of anecdotes and musings on her blogroll.

What colour is the sky in your world?

When I was a child, they taught me that the sky is blue. I looked up and I saw blue above me. I sat down with my crayons and some paper and I coloured the bottom inch of the page green and the top inch blue. In between, I drew a house with four-paned windows, and a stick figure family that was bigger than the house.

As I grew older, I saw other drawings. Other people did not draw the sky at the top of the page and the grass at the bottom, with so much white space in between. In their drawings

Nihilism and squirrels

If there is no one to impose meaning upon us, we have to choose our own. Some people seem to insist that this is depressing, instead of the central challenge that makes us human. Those people obviously don’t climb enough trees.

((In case it is not obvious: the above comic was not drawn by me. Click on the comic to visit the owner’s site. Click here to visit the associated store. Buy one of everything. Thank-you.))

Christian magic, Part II: the Sacraments

When I was ordained as a pastor of a church with a strong sacramental theology, I spent a lot of time thinking about the difference between sacramental ritual and ritualistic magic. In my mind, the difference between magic and prayer was who was in control. If we were trying to compel God to act in some certain way through our ritual, it was magic. If we were celebrating and participating in God’s action through our ritual, it was prayer and worship, and thus okay.

Suddenly, I was looking at Baptism, Communion, Marriages and Funerals very differently. What happened if we refused to baptize someone? If we could not compel God to include someone in His family, could we, through our inaction, compel God to leave someone out?

Christian magic, Part I: Prayer and prophecy.

Spellcraft, divination, magic, I believed in it all. I believed that it was possible to communicate with spirits and affect the physical world with the right words, thoughts, actions and equipment. After all, in the bible, Saul consulted mediums, Pharaoh’s magicians met Moses with their own versions of his miracles, et cetera, et cetera. Magic was possible, certainly, but dangerous and untrustworthy. The spirits dealt with did not have your best interests at heart. Trying to affect the world by will alone I saw to be similar to trying to conduct electricity with an up-raised golf club in a thunderstorm: possible, but likely fatal. We simply do not know enough to mess with such power, and need to leave it all in God’s hands. His will be done. That’s what I believed. I could not understand how anyone who believed magic was real would choose to play with something so potentially dangerous.

In university, I met Wiccans, neo-Druids and others who claimed to be magical practitioners. As I spoke with them and tried to tell them of my concerns