Proposition 1: I believe that there is an objective reality; that what is, is; that a = a.

• Clarification of the above Proposition: I believe that what is, is neither as good, as bad, or even as easily defined or comprehended as it first seems.
• Corollary of the above Clarification: I believe that labels, like all nouns and symbols, are useful tools- if you remember they are not what actually is.
• Addendum upon previous three statements: I believe that observation, experimentation, reason, and logic are the best tools we’ve yet found to learn what actually is.

Proposition 2: I believe that actions have consequences.

• Corollary on Proposition 2: I believe that what we think, say, do, and choose matters.
• Conclusion drawn from above Corollary and previous Clarification: What we think, say, do and choose matters, but rarely in the manner we expect or intend.
• Corollary on above Conclusion and previous Addendum: We don’t really know what we’re doing, but that’s no reason not to do our best. Please refer to Corollary two statements previous.

Proposition 3: I believe that value is extrinsic.

• Addendum on Proposition 3: I believe that we attribute value through ritual and sanctification (blessing, or intentionally making sacred/holy).
• Corollary on Propostions 1 through 3: I believe that we create what meaning and purpose there is, and can, through changing our choices, change what meaning and purpose we create.
• Addendum on above Corollary: I believe that empathy, introspection and reason are the best tools we’ve found yet for choosing what meaning and purpose to create, and that the ethic of reciprocity (popularly summarized as the Golden Rule) is the best starting point from which to employ our empathy, introspection and reason, with special attention paid to the resources we have to draw on and the needs which we can fill (including, but not limited to, our own).

Overly simplistic, yet still valid Conclusion drawn from everything said thus far in this creed (much to my pleasant surprise): I believe in love.

Edit: And a short while later, I catch another video that I’d like to post with the first. Enjoy!

Some of the more interesting groups I’ve come across include:

The Church of Google
The Church of the One Miracle
The Memetic Warriors
The Druidic Order of Naturalists
The Church of Universal Esoterics
The Humanist Manifesto
And, of course, The Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster

Take a look!

The video mentions that honesty, communication skills, self-awareness and the ability to ask for what you want are key elements of a successful relationship- whether monagamous or not. Well, when I was thinking about this, days later, I had unconsciously included self-awareness under the category of honesty (being honest with yourself, about yourself) and thought of the final category, “the ability to ask for what you want” as “security” instead.

Honesty, security and good communication skills. I think these are desirable in all sorts of relationships, sexual or not. Are these not attributes you want in all levels of business, professional and personal relationships? Different aspects of the attributes, depending on the relationship, perhaps, but these are the three key attributes in any case.

So, I’m thinking about these attributes, and about how humans are a social species, and how our relationships help define who we are, and I start wondering if these are three attributes are simply desirable in being a human (a “successful” human?).

Being self-reflective, I start reviewing my past through this lens. I’m usually pretty good at being honest with myself, about myself. I make mistakes, but I don’t tend to intentionally mislead myself. I feel more comfortable being around people I can be honest with, and have been careful in choosing friends and a spouse I don’t have to lie to about who I am. Family’s a different matter, but my choices are limited there.

Communication skills are something I’ve been working on all my life. I’ve taken courses and workshops, I’ve earned an undergraduate degree in English, I’ve gone through a lot of trial, error and broken relationships trying to learn about conscious and unconscious communication. I sabotage myself with laziness and fear occasionally, and sometimes I’m just wrong (body language can be read so many different ways), but I’m actually pretty decent at this.

Then there’s security. I’m hideous at this one. I’m not secure in who I am. I don’t like myself. I don’t trust myself. I don’t expect others to like me, and tend to make plans with the unspoken assumption that I’ll soon wear out my welcome. I never assume I’m invited or wanted. I do not drop by unannounced. When reading body language, I err on the side of assuming I’m being told to shut up and go away.

In high school, I watched too many of my friends try to harm or kill themselves in various ways, from smoking to cutting themselves, to swallowing bottles of pills; from eating disorders to semi-random sexual encounters. I decided that low self-esteem was at the root of way too much evil, and I tried to discover what I could do to stop it. It was not easy.

People don’t seem to accept compliments easily. They assume you want something. They don’t believe you. It’s even harder when you’re unobservant and get in trouble for complimenting a new hairdo someone’s had for weeks. I persevered, and got a reputation where no one took me too seriously, but gave me points for trying. Not quite what I was going for, but this gave me a bit of freedom to give the occasional boost without triggering automatic defences.

Looking back, I can see why I saw low self-esteem (or lack of security) as so important- more important than honesty or communication skills. I don’t value things I’m good at. Moderate skill at things I can’t do impresses me. It takes phenomenal skill at something I’m good at to impress me.

I also begin to see why the security of a god’s unconditional love meant so much to me, and why I’ve been so torn without it, and trying to find something else to use as a foundation in my life.

Not sure where I’m going with this, but I think it helps for me to get the words out and be consciously aware of them.

Here’s a sample:

A few words about what we’re doing here today.  God created the church to be an instrument of wholeness. We gather as a community to be made one with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Then, as one, we can go out into the world and live out this unity, not through everyone acting, dressing and talking the same, but through love for each other as children of God. But we do not only love other Christians, but all whom God has made. That’s everybody. For God desires everyone to be made one in Him, and to be made whole in Him.

A healing service is a special sort of liturgy in which we come to pray for wholeness where we now experience brokenness.  The major form of brokenness in our lives is the distance we find between where God calls us to be in relation to Him and His purpose in our lives, and where we actually are.  We long to have our relationship with God healed so that we might become whole.

We come to pray for healing of illnesses, disabilities, and relationships.  We pray for healing of our selves, our families, and our church.  In response to our prayers, God’s power will move among us in many different ways, granting us healing and bringing us closer to wholeness.  Some of this will be experienced in terms of healing of physical ailments, but other sorts of healing will be experienced as well, if not necessarily recognized right away.

If you do not receive the sort of healing you are hoping for as you pray this morning, it is not because you sinned or you don’t have enough faith.  Wholesome habits do affect personal wholeness, and treating yourself and your loved ones in a way that is neither loving nor nourishing on physical, emotional or spiritual levels will result in brokenness and sickness in yourselves and your relationships, but when prayers are not answered with the speed or result we expect, don’t tear yourself up with suspicions that you’ve done something wrong.  God wants healing and wholeness for you, and it will happen.  If it does not happen in the way we expect, instead of looking for someone to blame, we need to reach out to God in trust.

God loves you and is with you.  In the prayers we are about to pray together, we will open ourselves up to God’s loving presence and His desire that we be made whole and healthy.

One of the main ministries we read about Jesus performing is healing, and that is a ministry he calls us to perform in our world today.  This morning we read about healing, think about healing, sing about healing, and pray for healing.  We will confess our sins to God and receive forgiveness as God heals the distance our sins have created between us and God.  We will exchange the peace, healing any brokenness in our relationships with each other.  We will pray for the wider church and the wider world, that the Holy Spirit might bring healing where there is sickness and brokenness.  We will give an offering, and through that symbol pledge all we have to God’s purpose.

And, shortly, we will be purposefully gathering around those who wish prayer for healing, anointing them with blessed oil, and praying with them.

We are not casting spells, where if we say the right words we can make God do what we want.  We are not performing scientific experiments where the same actions always achieve the same results.  We are not taking the place of medical professionals, who have gifts and a calling God uses to heal.  What we are doing is putting our trust in God, knowing that He wants us to have health and wholeness, that the entire history of God’s involvement with humans has been to bring us to wholeness in Him.  So we come with our sicknesses and brokenness and lay them at God’s feet.

There will be healing, today.  Dramatic or subtle.  Physical, emotional, spiritual or mental.  The Holy Spirit is present here and will move among us today.

Safely Home

I am home in heaven, dear ones;
Oh so happy and so bright!
There is perfect joy and beauty
In this everlasting light.

All the pain and grief is over,
Every restless tossing passed;
I am now at peace forever,
Safely home in heaven at last.

Did you wonder how I so calmly
Trod the valley of the shade?
Oh, but Jesus’ love illumined
Every dark and fearful glade.

And he came himself to meet me
In that way so hard to tread;
And with Jesus’ arm to lean on,
Could I have one doubt or dread?

Then you must not grieve so sorely,
For I love you dearly still;
Try to look beyond earth’s shadows,
Pray to trust our Father’s will.

There is work still waiting for you,
So you must not idly stand;
Do it now, while life remains,
You shall rest in Jesus’ land.

When that work is all completed,
He will gently call you home;
Oh, the rapture of that meeting,
Oh, the joy to see you come!

No, I have not died, but my wallet has. It died of old age, having fallen apart at the seams. As I removed various identification and buyer loyalty cards to transfer to my new wallet, I found the above poem, carefully written in my handwriting. Seeing it reminds me that I had placed it in my wallet years ago to be found after I had died- to reassure and bring some comfort to my loved ones.

I do not fear my death. My dying, perhaps, but not my death. It saddens me, though, that my loss of faith will make it harder for those I care about to reconcile themselves to my death. I wish I could still offer them something like the poem above, but I have nothing to give.

One day, a theologian decided to challenge a street preacher. “Preacher,” he asked, “what must we do to be saved?”

“What is written in the Gospels?” the preacher replied. “What do you read there?”

The theologian answered answered: “It is through Jesus that we are saved. We must believe in Him.”

“You have answered correctly,” the preacher replied. “Do this and you will live.”

But the theologian wanted to justify himself, so he asked the preacher, “And who is this Jesus that we must believe in?”

In reply, the preacher said: “A man was walking downtown, when he fell into the hands of robbers. They stole everything, even his clothes, beat him and went away, leaving him to die. After he died, Jesus came to him, wearing a frayed loincloth and a crown of thorns. Blood dripped from his hands, feet, brow and side. He was beaten but not broken, and there was a fanatic gleam in his eyes when he raised his head to snarl,

“Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not invite me in, I needed clothes and you did not clothe me, I was sick and in prison and you did not look after me.”

Again, Jesus came to him, blond and blue-eyed with a sad smile and a pure white robe. He sat in the midst of quiet children and clean sheep and gently told the man,

“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’”

A third time, Jesus came to him, almost unrecognizably: a young, Jewish man with traces of sawdust on his faded blue jeans. When he saw the man he took pity on him. He went to him and bandaged his wounds, tears falling down his face. Then he took the man up in his arms, and carried him to our Heavenly Father. “Look after him,” he said, “I have paid for any debt he may owe.”

“Which of these three do you think was a saviour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?”

The theologian replied, “The one who had mercy on him.”

The street preacher smiled, “Go and do likewise.”

((I wrote this for a heretical Christian blog that has since disappeared. I’m including it here so as not to lose it.))