The world is hollow...

The scary god of love

Love; it will not betray you, dismay or enslave you,
it will set you free.
-"Sigh No More" by Mumford and Sons

I do not much like being told that I must believe a thing or burn in hell for all eternity. Why should I love a god who would do that? When I hear it, it scares me and then I get angry. Why must I be frightened into a certain belief?

If "god is love"...

If "Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. It does not demand its own way. It is not irritable, and it keeps no record of being wronged. It does not rejoice about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance"...

If this is true....god does not condone the scare tactics. How could he? Scaring people so they think like you do is mean. Cruel. Love is kind....right?

posted under beliefs, god, music, religion | 0 Comments

How to free your sneeze

At one time or another, everyone has encountered a sneeze that tries and tries but never seems to come out. Some invisible fetters restrain it, barely containing it in your nose, taunting you with its presence but never actually letting it out. If you've always wished to set your sneezes free, I have the secret solution. For only $5.99 you can learn how to never suffer sneeze bondage again! In just eight easy steps I will teach you how to free your sneeze.

Step 1. Identify the sneeze that is stuck.

Step 2. Hunt down the nearest (full) kleenex box or roll of toilet paper.

Step 3. Roll a corner of the kleenex or toilet paper into a point.

Step 4. Insert kleenex or toilet paper point up nose as far as you can.

Step 5. Move point around slowly until you find that special ticklish spot in the back of your nose that triggers uncontrollable sneezing.

Step 6. Keep kleenex/toilet paper in your nose in that spot and sneeze until you are satisfied.
Step 7. Remove point and throw used kleenex or toilet paper in the garbage.

Step 8. Wash your hands.

posted under how to, humour, random | 0 Comments

Unexpected encouragement

Gosh it's hard to get back into blogging! I sit cross-legged on the floor with a pot of mint tea beside me, my computer on my lap, and a general idea of what I want to say but no idea how to begin. I should think this wouldn't be so hard. After all, I'm pretty sure I lost all of my small readership in the months between August and May when I posted nothing. How hard is it really to write to an audience of none?

I wrote in an earlier post about questioning my beliefs. At the beginning it was hard to question things. Is it ok to question what I was told growing up? Does it make me a horrible person to not question? Should I just muster up more faith from somewhere so I don't have questions and doubts anymore? I mentioned Frank Schaeffer's two books that I read over the summer and how they helped me become ok with the fact of my questions. At no point thus far has my journey been easy. I've had help and encouragement along the way though...and from some unexpected places.

Last autumn I began attending the new young adults group at the Pentecostal church which was just down the street from my grandma's apartment where I was living at the time. I questioned myself constantly about whether I should even be going there or not. I really only went to get out of the house and see other faces...but when I'm busy questioning the christian beliefs I grew up with, do I really want to be hanging out with christians? One morning Grandma roped me into helping for a half hour at the church stuffing envelopes with newsletters and flyers that would later be mailed out to people who likely open the envelope to glance through and throw everything (hopefully!) into the recycle bin. After all the envelopes were stuffed and stacked and ready to be sealed, I wandered down the hall to the youth/young adults pastor's office to see if he had some time to chat. Dustin invited me in and I told him about my questions. I mainly had (and still have) two:

How can any religion so adamantly believe that it has the truth...the only truth...and all other religions and beliefs are wrong?
How can anyone confidently believe that the Bible is without error and is truly the word of God? How do we know the right books made it into the Bible? How do we know we're not missing any? And what was the agenda of the people who did the deciding?

It wasn't until about a week before this little chat in his office that I even became comfortable with sharing my questions with him. Miss Judgemental thought "He's a new youth pastor fresh out of Bible School...my questions will just get bookish Bible School answers and I don't want those." The week before this chat I heard Dustin say that he had questioned Christianity, the inerrancy of the Bible, and even the existence of God for a while and that, while he had searched and found answers that satisfied HIM, anyone who had questions needed to do their own searching and their own research. This he strongly emphasized in our chat in his office and sent me home with a book on world religions. True, it was written by a christian, but he said it was one that really helped him with some of his questions. Surprisingly I quite enjoyed the book. When presenting the history and beliefs of each religion, Winfried Corduan speaks ONLY about that religion. "This is the history of Islam. These are the basic beliefs. These are the main branches of believers. Here are the main differences between their respective beliefs. This is how islamic beliefs tend to look in the average muslim's life." Only after he has spent pages and pages and pages explaining Islam does he finally bring Christianity in at the end. And that is just a small part...often only a page or two suggesting what to do and not to do when evangelizing to a muslim.

While Corduan's book didn't answer my SPECIFIC questions, it DID give me a better understanding of what a lot of other people believe. I have a better idea of what else is out there. Some of my "options".

posted under beliefs, books, god, religion | 0 Comments

Back from the dead

Wow! I...um...it's been a while since I last wrote here! My sister asked over a week ago if I was still blogging and suggested I take it up again. So here I am.

So much has happened since August. I guess a quick overview is as good a place to start as any.

1. I started school. In a previous post I mentioned wanting to teach ESL and so I am pursuing that, although in a slightly different way than I anticipated. I've decided to get a BA in English. My school of choice is Thompson Rivers University because of their distance program that allows me to study from the comfort of my own home...very much like my education has been up until this point. I have just finished my first English course and am studying for the final exam which is on the 14th. In the mean time I am also studying Spanish (because I have always wanted to learn it, and because I would like to travel throughout Central and South America) and will soon find some kind of math course to fulfill the math/science requirements.

2. Home has moved. In February I moved back in with my parents instead of living with my grandma. It was time for a change of scenery. I really like my new community, although we are planning to move yet AGAIN to another one due to my dad's job. While I think I may miss it here, I always enjoy getting to know new places, so I think I'll like this next move.

3. I HAVE TWO NEW BROTHERS!!! I think I like this change the best. Until November or December of last year, I was the oldest in my family and had always wished for an older brother. My parents provided MANY brothers and sisters for me....but they were always younger. Sometimes you just have to take matters into your own hands. So I adopted one...and a few days later was adopted by another. They're the best, and now I can't imagine life without Nicky and David. =)

I guess that's a good summary of the last 8 months...at least, as far as the big events go. I'll try and be back soon and post more frequently.

Until later.

posted under ESL, family, life | 0 Comments

The old way feels safer

"Whatever goes against the Book of Law [the belief system you were raised to believe in] will make you feel a funny sensation in your solar plexus, and it's called fear. Breaking the rules in the Book of Law opens your emotional wounds, and your reaction is to create emotional poison. Because everything that is in the Book of Law has to be true, anything that challenges what you believe is going to make you feel unsafe. Even if the Book of Law is wrong, it makes you feel safe."

--"The Four Agreements" by Don Miguel Ruiz

This has been my experience. When I first started questioning my beliefs, I was rather scared. Was it ok that I was questioning? What was wrong with me? Was I a bad person for questioning? I've gotten to the point now where I'm ok to question things. If the stuff written in my "Book of Law" is really true, then it will hold up to questioning.

I was just talking to my friend Ryan tonight, and he was sharing a little about how he went from growing up in the church to becoming Atheist to becoming Agnostic to coming back to the church. He said he's wondered if the reason why Christianity makes more sense to him than any of the other religions is because he grew up in it, or if it really does just make more sense. Would he have become a Hindu if that's what he'd grown up in? Who knows.

I read "Crazy For God" and "Patience With God" by Frank Schaeffer this summer. Both of these books helped me get to the point where I'm ok to question things, and even ok to have no answers to my questions. I particularly enjoyed "Crazy For God" for this reason. In "Patience With God", though, Frank talks about how he fluctuates between being Christian, Agnostic, and Atheist...and try as he might, he can't completely shake the Christian beliefs he was raised in. It becomes a part of you...whether you were raised Christian or Hindu or Muslim or Atheist...it is your "Book of Law".

This place of unknowing. Of questioning. Of suspense and adventure... I'm content and happy right now. Right here.

Sometimes I catch myself thinking....

the old way feels safer.

posted under beliefs, books | 1 Comments

A thank you

International House's Junior Program of the summer of 2010...what an experience! Mostly good. Some bad. I definitely learned a lot and I think I made some pretty good friends.

A few months ago I broke off my engagement. Naturally, that was a very hard thing to do and it hasn't been easy getting over it. I'm not even sure if I'm completely over it yet. But I do know that some of my new friends unwittingly and significantly helped me through. For that I would like to thank Matt, Bobby, John, and Joe. Strangely enough, just hanging out with you guys and your incessant joking and teasing has helped a lot in healing the pain. I don't know if any of you will read this...probably not...but I just needed to say it here. Thank you. Jerks. =D

posted under life, thank you | 2 Comments

Lady Old, Lady New

Who would have guessed I'd learn something new about myself while playing games on Facebook? Certainly not I!

I am rather addicted to Kingdoms of Camelot right now...although, it's not so much the game as the sarcastic bantering that takes place in the rather small alliance I belong to. Yesterday I popped on to build a little more of my city and discovered that three new people had joined my alliance and one "old" member had left...apparently due to a misunderstanding between her and one of the new members. My friend (the "old" member) had given an ultimatum: "Either she goes or I go". I guess maybe people thought she was bluffing or something, and nobody really likes to respond to ultimatums anyway. So when nobody did away with Lady New, Lady Old left like she had threatened to do.

I was sad to see her go.

Later that evening Lord Peacemaker sent me a private message asking me for my vote: Lady Old or Lady New? I was hesitant to give an answer because I thought it was just idle talk, and I didn't know the whole story and couldn't say who was right or wrong or anything. With the knowledge I had, I said my vote was for Lady Old because I knew her. I don't know Lady New from a hole in the ground, though the little I had seen of her in the chat room seemed to suggest she would fit very nicely in our alliance. But I also mentioned my lack of knowledge of what had transpired between the two ladies. He later informed me that Lord Chancellor had handed the issue over to him, which was why he was taking a vote. He wanted to know what the rest of us voted. Apparently everyone (or almost everyone...I don't really know) voted Lady Old, because today Lord Chancellor talked to Lady New and explained things to her (probably still trying to work things out so both ladies could stay!), and she left. Lady Old is back!

Through this whole thing, but particularly through the dialogue I had with Lord Peacemaker about the vote, I learned that I tend to value "right" and "wrong" over relationship. I wasn't sure who to vote for at first because I didn't know which of the ladies was more in the "right" and which was more in the "wrong". But I think it shouldn't matter so much. Right or wrong, you stick by your friends. Ultimately that's where I cast my vote, but I'm a little disappointed that I couldn't see it that way before.

Anyway, I THINK I believe that relationship comes first and THEN you can worry about right and wrong. But I will admit that I haven't sat down and thought this out completely to it's logical conclusion. It just occurred to me that placing right and wrong before relationship could lead to becoming more like the villains that scare me most--the logical, un-emotional, un-relational ones. For example, the Borg from Star Trek or the people on drugs in Equilibrium. And as with almost everything else in my life right now, I'm at the point where I really don't know what I believe so pretty much everything is open for consideration.

posted under beliefs, life | 1 Comments