Melted

"Here's another old saying that deserves a second look: 'Eye for eye, tooth for tooth.' Is that going to get us anywhere? Here's what I propose: 'Don't hit back at all.' If someone strikes you, stand there and take it." Matthew 5:39-40

"Nevertheless, with a person we dislike, we take the bit in our teeth." Alcoholics Anonymous pg. 77

In my experience, there's always something that - once found - binds my enemies and I together. Until that something is found, I hate my enemy with a passion and a zeal that'll drive me insane and most likely drive me to drink. That something, I believe, is different for everybody. But there's something nonetheless.

About a year ago, there was a girl I knew who was trying to get sober. She was crazy as a rat running through a cheese factory. She talked a million miles an hour as a result of whatever drugs she was on that day, and she created chaos everywhere she went. She was driven by an obsession that was beyond her mental control, and a craving that was beyond her physical control. 

I, being the superhero recovered alcoholic that I was, did everything in my power to see her get sober. It was to no avail. She wasn't having it. She wasn't done. 

And, she knew where I kept my cash. I know, you're thinking how stupid of me it was to keep my cash in the car. But, at least I kept it under the seat out of sight! 

Eventually, after I let this person take up enough rent space in my head, I decided to call it quits and to cut her off forever. I decided I'd had enough, and that I didn't have the needed tolerance to deal with her anymore. After all, she wasn't ready to receive the solution to her problems based on the program outlined in the book Alcoholics Anonymous.

And so, I cleared her number from the phone, deleted her from Facebook, and said goodbye for the last time.

But then, as I was filling up with gas one day, I reached into my little blue pocketbook in which I keep all my cash, and found there was no money there. There should've been over two hundred dollars, but there was nothing. Immediately, I knew who the culprit was. Although I hadn't caught her visibly, I knew it was her. Luckily, I had some tips I'd made that day so I could put some gas in my car. But the fire that burned inside me towards this girl was raging. I wanted to kill her. I wanted to see her die. How dare she put me in this predicament!

As my emotions rolled on, I decided to dig up her number once again and give her a phone call. I don't know if I've ever been as mad as I was on the phone that day, but I kept my composure as much as I could and asked her why she stole all the money I had. She denied it, of course. She told me I was crazy. Once I realized that if I talked anymore I was going to say something I regretted, I hung up the phone and wrapped myself up in a blanket of self pity for a little bit - until I was ready to do some inventory on the situation and find out what the real problem inside of me was. 

And my truth was, I hadn't turned that money over to God. I was holding onto it so tightly that feeling financially insecure was inevitable. I was putting way too much trust in a couple bills. 

Realizing this, I calmed down and moved on. I still kept her off my phone list, and didn't talk to her. I still didn't have anywhere near the tolerance to have her in my life. 

I let bygones be bygones. 

And then, one night at 2 am, I received a phone call from a number I didn't recognize. It was her. She was hurting and desperate. She was crying and wanted to go to treatment. 

Upon hearing this, I told her I needed to call a friend to get an objective viewpoint. So, I called my friend, told him what was going on, and he asked where he needed to meet me. I called her back and told her we'd be there in a few minutes. 

We ended up taking her to a 24 hour women's treatment facility, and she was truly hurting. She was over-remorseful and wanted desperately to get straight. Her body was craving alcohol, so we stopped on the way to get her some beer to hold her over. 

Now, there was something that happened inside of me when she called that night. That something, as I mentioned above, transformed my enemy into an equal. That something was the common bond that my enemy and I shared, which was alcoholism. When I answered that phone call and heard the desperation in the voice on the other line, all past wrongs faded away. Any unfinished resentment and any memories of stolen money melted away forever. There was a life and death errand to be had now. What started as two enemies transformed into two equal sufferers of this horrible condition called alcoholism. 

I was staring into the reflection of myself - although recovered, my brain was jump-started with moving pictures of my own dark nights, my own battles with the bottle, and my own past chaos and escapades. From there, all ill will stopped. It was now a matter of helping another alcoholic who was just like me. 

This event compounded the truth that every time an enemy forms in my own life, I'm merely seeing a reflection of the things I hate in myself. If I take the wrong they've done against me and simply ask myself the question, Have I ever done that to anybody?, chances are I'll see who I'm truly opposing. 

The people whom I call my enemies are in some ways closer than my friends. I just haven't discovered what binds us together so mysteriously and furiously strong. It's a bondage that - unless examined - will create a world of hurt inside me unless I step outside of myself for just a moment and take an inventory of what's going on. Once taken, I'll most definitely see that my enemy was merely a mimic of me.

Prayer

"And don't say anything you don't mean. This counsel is embedded deep in our traditions. You only make things worse when you lay down a smoke screen of pious talk, saying, 'I'll pray for you,' and never doing it, or saying, 'God be with you,' and not meaning it. You don't make your words true by embellishing them with religious lace. In making your speech sound more religious, it becomes less true"

I have a buddy who went into the hospital about a year ago because something was going on with his heart. I was afraid for him, because on the way he was having trouble putting words together into a complete sentence. So, I grabbed a friend of mine and we went to meet him at the emergency room to see what was going on. 

As we stood there, and as I watched him lay there hooked up to all sorts of wires and IVs, I couldn't help but face the thought of, "Am I seeing my friend for the last time?"

And as our conversation unfolded, we started talking about prayer. And one of the things he told me was, "Don't tell anyone that I'm in the hospital. I don't want them to pray for me." His statement kind of caught me off guard because usually when someone's sick or suffering, they're eager to have people pray for them. But he explained what it meant, and it made perfect sense to me. 

He said he didn't want to hear people say, "I'm praying for you," because in his experience, every time he told people he'd pray for them, it was more about him sounding like he cared rather than actually caring. In essence, he was saying if people really wanted to care, they could come visit him in his lonely hospital room. Also, he told me that he was exactly where he was supposed to be in that moment - in the hospital with wires hooked up to him. He knew that if people prayed for him, they were gonna pray for a quick recovery, for the sickness to go away, and in his opinion, God had him right where God wanted him.

He gave me very specific instructions to only tell people about his condition if they were gonna visit him personally. And that was something I'd never thought about, as well as something that made me look at my own life and ask the question, "Am I using prayer as a cop-out to avoid taking action?"

This opens up two points about prayer that really interest me. 

The first is, how many times have I prayed in order to avoid having to get into action? Too many to count. In fact, because of my friend's statement there in that hospital, as well as what Jesus talked about above, and as well as some of the things written about prayer in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, I completely changed the way I pray. I don't pray for people to get well anymore. I don't pray for healing. I don't pray for me to get things.

My whole prayer life when it comes to praying for other people is wrapped up in a few words: "Your will be done." There's a passage somewhere in James that says something along the lines of, "If you neighbor is hungry, don't pray for him and walk away. Give him food." In other words, prayer is two-fold. If I'm going to pray for someone, I need to also be thinking of ways I can physically help the person out. Because many times, physically helping someone is the answer to any prayer I could offer up. And it means so much more to the person than telling them, "I'll be praying for you."

And the second point is this: the way I pray for other people is a reflection of how I view my own suffering. So, when I pray for people to get healed or get the right job or meet the right woman or find a quick exit to their illnesses, it's a reflection of my own inability to trust that God has me right where I'm supposed to be when I'm suffering. When I'm suffering or experiencing some kind of hardship, it takes way more courage and faith to pray "May your will be done," than to ask God to release me from my current state of being.

Prayer is really about relationships. It's about bringing the light of God into someone else's life and being a friend. It's about joining someone else in their suffering and letting them know that you're right there with them the whole way through. 

I have a friend who has a traumatic brain injury, and in the beginning, when no one knew for sure what was gonna happen, there were all sorts of "prayer warriors" who went to visit him in the hospital. There were priests with anointing oil, there were people who laid hands on him, and there were people who made sure to say they were praying for him. But the truth is, hardly any of those people ever came back. They came and went. But then, there were other people who have been visiting every week since he got in the car accident over three years ago. They've been developing a relationship with him, even though he's not cognitively aware sometimes that they're even there. 

Prayer is relationship. 

And one last note. Prayer is our way of connecting with God, however he understand God. But the best evidence we have of God is the way we connect with other people. And so, to connect with God through prayer, but to not also connect with other people is to miss out on half the beauty of prayer. To make myself part of the prayer by being active in the lives of those I pray for is to be a participator in my own prayers - to actually be a part of seeing the prayer come to life and turn into flesh and blood reality. 

I'd like wrap up with this question: Who or where are my prayers leading me to today?

Chances are, if I really think about it, I'm gonna find myself being a participator in God's ongoing restoration of creation, and I'm gonna get to see prayer fleshed out in ways I could've never dreamed of.

Freedom

Little more than five years ago, I was standing with a buddy of mine in his driveway. As we were talking, we managed to get into an argument like we always did. I don't remember what it was about, but I remember him telling me something along the lines of, "You were more fun when you drank." I, of course, took this statement as permission to get loaded. So I did. Being new sobriety, I had no foundation. I didn't know what it took, and definitely wasn't doing anything about it. 

Life as a drunk is very pinball-ish. It doesn't take but one snide remark, one bill paid late, one criticism at work, or one missed opportunity to jump right back in to the obsessive compulsion to drink away my problems. It's a life of jumping from one emotional disturbance to the next, using alcohol as the means of survival and temporary peace and comfort. 
 

But the thing is, even when I stopped drinking, the problems didn't stop. If anything, they got worse because I didn't drink over them. And that's true misery. Wanting to drink but not doing it, and at the same time not having a solution to any of my problems is hell on earth. It's chaotic. It's the pinball times one hundred. 

So this went on for a year and a half. Wanting to drink, but not, and getting crushed by shame, debt, resentment, and fear. I was always on the verge of saying screw it and getting drunk all over again. 

Thankfully, there was an ending point to all of this. There was a point at which the option between life and death became a real thing. Stone cold sober, having not had a drink for over a year, I faced the decision between life and death. The pain I experienced forced me to make a decision: either continue on and kill myself, or try a different alternative. And the different alternative was the one I feared the most, yet I saw that it had worked in others. 

Not long after I started doing the work outlined in the book Alcoholics Anonymous, my constant emotional roller coaster was interrupted by something I'd never experienced before. It was a deep, overwhelming and mysterious sense that everything was gonna be alright. It was so abrupt and foreign to me that I was afraid of it at first. There was no chaos wrapped up in it, or fear, or shame. It was just pure, unadulterated peace, something so indescribably wonderful that it bolstered me to levels of serenity that I believe only happen in the early days of sobriety. 

Some people call it God's grace. Some call it joy. Some call it peace. Some call it the stars aligning or the universe being on one's side. Whatever it was, it was catapulting me through an obsession that I'd never been able to get rid of. For the first time, I could experience pain without wanting to drink over it. I could experience hardship without wanting to head to the liquor store. I could experience outward chaos without being swept away by inward turmoil.

And that's how it is today, more than five years later. 

I've learned that freedom doesn't come by not having any more problems, but comes when I can face my problems and not be swept away by them emotionally or spiritually. 

And at the same time, there's so many lies out there about freedom. 

There's the lie that freedom comes from limited government, or limited corporations, or limited both, or none of either one. 

There's the lie that saying some religious prayer or doing some religious ritual will relieve me of all my problems and set me free. 

There's the lie given by commercial after commercial telling me that I'll feel a little more free if I buy a new car, or a different shampoo, or wear that brand of jeans. 

There's the lie that freedom comes by getting a good education and setting myself up for financial success. 

There's the lie that finding the right woman or man will lead to freedom.

There's the lie that taking a loan out at the bank or getting that new credit card will set me free from financial worry. 

There's so many avenues claiming to have my freedom in mind, but none of them work. None of them have the ability to transform my heart in a way that only God can. 

I remember what it was like when I got my first credit card. I was so excited about getting a new pressure washer and starting my own business. But, if I would've known that starting a business matched with drinking most days and nights was gonna spell financial disaster, I probably wouldn't have made that choice. Yet, I did. And it was a mess. It took me years to unravel the damage that both my drinking and my credit card did to my financial "freedom."

The advertisers have figured out that people are grasping and gasping for freedom, so they insert free-sounding phrases like no money down and 0% interest* and lease to own and no payments for a year.

If you wanna find out where society invests the most in hopes of achieving freedom, pay attention to the commercials that are repeating the most. If people weren't picking up what they're putting out, the companies wouldn't be making the money to spend on commercials.

But what is true freedom?

True freedom comes at a cost, and I'm not talking about military victories. It comes with the destruction of self, and I can't use my twisted mind to achieve untwisted thinking. I have to have God's help.

And I'm not talking about the Bible God, or the Christian God, or the Islamic God or the Hindu God. I'm talking about a God personal to me, constructed upon my own wild imaginations and conceptions. My conception of God may share some of the same characteristics as those conceptions of God, but in the end they're different because they're mine. I can't use somebody else's conception of God to set me to freedom. I have to create my own, one that works in spite of my repeated failures and disappointments.

And so, freedom ends up being a way of life that starts in the mind and turns into action. It very rarely gets disturbed because it sees adversity through a lens of opportunity and spiritual experience. And when it does get disturbed, it doesn't run away but presses in even harder to find the peace hidden in the conflict. I believe today that there's always peace mixed in with conflict. There's always a slight mixture of chaos and serenity, death and resurrection, conflict and peace. And freedom quietly waits it out and does forensics and studies what's going on and finds away to extract the truth from any given situation.

So, when you turn on talk radio, or watch the news, or read the newspaper today, remember that most of the world around us is gasping and grasping for cheap freedom. But we don't have to live like that. There is a solution. There's real freedom available whenever we want it enough, or when circumstances make us willing enough.

Lust

"If your right eye or hand causes you to stumble, tear it out and throw it from you. For it is better to lose one part of your body than to have your whole body thrown into hell."

When I was a little boy, I had a friend named Kendra. She was the only friend I had who was a girl, and as we all know, when we're little we're curious. And so Kendra and I decided to get together one night under a fort made of blankets and do some exploring. We explored each others parts. And it was good. And the thing about it was, we weren't ashamed about it. We were innocently curious. Now, we didn't tell our parents about it because we were afraid of what they may do, but it was our little secret. We dove into the profound nature of human sexuality, a crash course if you will. And as kids, we saw this endeavor as a gift, something to be held with care and curiosity. 

But further down the line, as I got older, sex became less of a gift and more of a curse. It became a cause of shame and embarrassment. There were even times when I made vows to never explore the nature of sex before marriage, although I broke them all. As religion became more a part of my life, it seemed that sex was something to be left alone at all costs. It was an evil, corroding thread that caused mankind too much trouble. 

And it seemed that the older I got, and the more religious I became, any act that was sexual became forbidden. Those things weren't to be discussed. Kids in youth group would have their gossip on Sunday morning, and if you had some good information about Tommy and his girlfriend "doing it," then you were the popular kid that day. 

I don't view sex that way anymore, thank God. However, there's still this false narrative that's being pushed by certain religious crowds condemning sex in all its forms. Whether it be sex outside of marriage, masturbation, or same-sex marriage, there's this constant push to take sex out of its original context as a gift from God, and turn it into this evil monster that's waiting to devour every little boy or girl who's curious about sexuality. 
 
And one of the reasons I think this narrative has made it as far as it has is, the verse up top. For some reason, people have connected Jesus's words with sexual lust. And so, according to this interpretation, me and Kendra should have been more concerned about tearing out our eyes and ripping off our hands than asking questions about our sexuality. And so, I've taken the liberty to re-word this famous anti-sex passage into the following:

"If there are parts of your being that need to be let go of, then it's better to let go of them than to become a walking dead person."

I think this is way more along the lines of what Jesus was trying to get across. Why? Because if it means the former, then Jesus was condemning every human being who's ever lived on the face of the earth. No one is removed from the act of lusting. Yet, there are still folks out there who wave the anti-lust banner as if they're cured from this vital part of the human experience. I call it vital because it's wired into us as humans in regard to sexuality. Of course, there are real problems that come from sexual lust that turns into actions that oppress others, but there are also many other forms of lust. Jesus wasn't just talking about the sex form.

Greed the lust for more, and is an engine that can drive me and turn me into a walking dead person. 

Materialism is the lust for material success and will give me tunnel vision and blind me from seeing the needs of others.

Resentment is the lust for revenge and will drain any sort of joy I ever thought I had solely so I can entertain the thoughts of paying people back for the wrongs they've done me. In the end, I'm the one who's screwed. 

This passage is about letting God remove the things that block me from experiencing freedom. What are those things?  

Am I willing to let God take them away?

Or, do I need to hold on to them a little longer? Maybe I need to die a little more before I'm ready to let go. 

Sometimes, it's not a matter of being willing as much as holding onto whatever it is that ails me as long as I can until it hurts too much. When my hands are bleeding and my body is screaming, the sheer torment of it all forces me to let go and try trusting God over my crooked self. 

"If there are parts of you that need to be let go of, then it's better to let go of them than to become a walking dead person."


 

Ross

The other day, I was scrambling to find somebody to come work because one of the guys on my crew is having his schedule changed. I looked through all the applications, and nobody who'd applied wanted to work the day shift. So, I did the next best thing. I went to find the most approachable homeless man I could find. 

And, my search led me to a man named Ross. Ross has a thick red beard and sleeps in a tent behind a local business. Him and another man share the tent, and they're both looking for work. 

Although Ross never showed up to work, I got to hang out in his living room, which consisted of a lean-to, a couple lawn chairs, a tent, and some cooking materials. I was afraid he wouldn't show up, but there's always a plan B. 

As he and his buddies drank their beers, I couldn't help but silently thank God for removing my obsession for alcohol before it ever got to the point of homelessness. As the conversation ensued, I had this moment of complete gratitude. Although I felt sorry for the guy, I also realized that I was looking into the eyes of a man who most likely shared the same problems as I once had. So maybe, there is a future of sharing the solution of recovery with Ross if there's not a job in line. 

It's amazing how just beyond the corners, just behind a couple of trees, and just outside of everyday affairs, there can be homeless people camped in the shadows of people minding their daily affairs. 

It reminds me of how when my wife and I were walking along one of the local creeks, and under each overpass was a homeless living room. Out of sight, out of mind. 

I wanted to bad for Ross to show up to work on Monday, but I knew the chances were slim to none. It's a rare occasion that I meet someone on the streets who's ready to go to work in a couple days, much less assimilate to a culture they've been ousted from for years. It takes a ton of training and relearning very simple things that I normally take for granted. 

While I can jump in the car every time I need something from the store, the homeless have a whole series of steps that have to happen in order to get what they need. They have to get the money. Then they have to hide their stuff because they can't carry it. Then they have to walk, most of the time for miles. Then, they have to carry whatever it is they purchased from the store back home. 

What takes me five minutes will take a homeless person hours. 

I can't imagine what it must be like to figure out life on the streets, much less how to hustle for the things I need. 

I complain about so many things that Ross doesn't even experience, like the Internet being too slow. Really? 

Last week, the hot water went out so we couldn't take hot showers. So, we moved in with my parents for a few days until the boiler was replaced at the apartments. Taking cold showers is unimaginable to me. I hate them. I'd rather not shower than have to take a cold one. 

But for Ross to bathe, he'll either have to find a public restroom to scrub down, find a water hose, or a shelter (which would be at least twenty miles away), or just skip the shower altogether. 

 I think we need to check in on Ross every once in awhile. While he screwed up his chances of coming to work with me, we can still be his friend. He may not have anybody besides his roommate. Maybe we can take him to the concert we're going to next weekend. Maybe I can stop sweating the small stuff, realizing there's people like Ross right in my own backyard who are barely making it. 

I can't imagine standing on the median for eight hours either, trying to gather enough dollar bills and coins to get some food. I did that for a school project once, and it was so humiliating that I had to quit after a couple hours. Having to look people in the eyes while hoping for a couple of dollars was one of the most awkward and undignifying things I've ever done. 

But me? I just reach into my back pocket or slide into the ATM to fetch a twenty. 

Everything I need is right at my fingertips. Have I worked for it? Yes, but at the same time I'm conditioned for ungratitude. Since everything's so easy to get, I've let myself turn into a complainer. If things aren't perfectly accessible or perfectly smooth, I'll start whining. It turns out there's a bunch of people like me all crammed together in one place called Facebook. If you want to see the highest percentage of whiners all grouped together, just scroll through the homepage on Facebook. It's pretty ridiculous, but I'm one of them. 

Right now, I have more clothes than I've ever had, more shoes than I'll ever wear, and more stuff than I'll ever have room for. I think it's time to downsize. Maybe Ross needs some. 

When my wife and I encountered Ross in his airy living room, he laughed alot. He laughed more than I had all day. I'm sure the alcohol had a part to play, but he seemed happy. He seemed like he was genuinely enjoying himself in that moment of conversation. Of course, alcohol used to make me happy too. The moments without it were dark and gray and depressing. 

I wanna find out Ross's story - where he comes from, where his family is, what he likes to do. There's something about interacting with the homeless that just puts things in perspective for me. I don't know what it is, but there's something sacred about it. It's not so much that I want to necessarily give as much as I want to receive. The God I've come to believe in reveals itself through the down-and-outs, the folks who are barely making it. Because in those interactions and conversations, I find reality. I see people wearing reality on their sleeves, and they're exposed with nothing to hide. They don't have any closets or basements to hide stuff away in. They're just there, naked and exposed, unshaven, unfiltered, and real. They say whatever's on their mind and don't apologize for it. 

In a way, it's God's picture to me of what authenticity looks like with skin on. It's bitter, messy, rough around the edges, but it's real. I need doses of reality. I need to be reminded constantly that all this stuff that I think I need is just an illusion. It's all fake. It holds no value. What matters is what I do when it's all stripped away. What matters is how I function when I have nothing to depend on except the graciousness of others.

I hope that Ross gets off the street one day. I hope he gets to have some of the things he wants. I hope he gets to rebuild his life from the ground up. But, I hope he never forgets what it was like. I hope he never becomes like me, taking everything for granted and becoming conditioned into a lifestyle of ingratitude, complaining about slow internet. 

 



 

Enemies

"Make friends quickly with your enemies so they won't hand you over to the judge, and the judge to the officer, and you be thrown into prison."

In recovery, we have this thing we do called a moral inventory. Just like a business inventory, it's taking stock of everything in the store to see what's saleable and what's damaged. The point of the inventory is to first see what's been sitting on the shelf too long, and secondly to get rid of unsaleable or damaged goods. 

I just looked up the word "enemy," and discovered that - after many years of wrong thinking - it's anyone for whom I have hatred or resentment toward. An enemy is anyone who's an object of my resentment.

Now, I have to confess. 

Much of my inventories over the years have had a lot to with the Christian religion: pastors, biblical literalists, and pretty much any Christians who claims they hold the truth to every issue under the sun because "the Bible says so."

You could say I've had and I have a lot of enemies. 

As much as I'd like to think I'm exempt from Jesus's message about making friends with one's enemies, I'm not. In fact, my relationships with the religious crowd isn't very unique from the relationships Jesus's audience had with the religious crowd. 

I believe Jesus's message was pointed toward the common, average, Jew who was carrying hatred and resentment toward the Jewish priests and Roman authorities. 

Why hate the Jewish priest? Because they were so intertwined with Roman government that if you slipped up with religious law, or opposed religious law, they would find a way to get you penalized through Roman law. At times, Jewish leaders were more feared than Roman leaders, just because you had two sets of laws that you were to follow. The Roman government pretty much stayed out (with the exception of a few Jewish-hating Caesars) of Jewish politics, unless there were groups of more liberal Jews like Jesus or John the Baptist who were defying both Jewish and Roman politics. 

So, as a common, practicing Jew, you were constantly "policed" by Jewish authority. Also, at this time, the Jewish temple authorities were all wrapped up in corruption. It was all about the money. It's easy to see how a common, average Jew could develop resentment and hatred toward the authorities. And hatred and resentment lead to retaliatory actions if not taken care of. And when a common Jew retaliates toward a Jewish authority, the courts get involved and you most likely get thrown in jail and lose everything for your resistance. 

"Make friends quickly with the people you hate, because otherwise you're gonna end up doing something that'll get you thown into jail by the Jewish leaders." 

Obviously there are some differences between then and now. If or when I defy religious authority, I don't have to worry about the Christian police coming to take me away. I don't have to worry about any police coming to take me away. I can't say that's true in countries which have more of a theocracy, but that's how it is here (at least for now). There are countries in the Middle East that will stone you for breaking religious law, and they come a lot closer to how it was in Jesus's culture. 

But, how does this message apply to American Christians like me, who have enemies but no direct authorities who are looking to throw me into jail for believing or doing things against religious law? 

While the results look differently, the issue of the heart remains the same. It boils down to either having hatred or not having hatred. And I, within a few minutes of reading through Facebook posts, can develop a seething hatred. And so I'm writing this post not only to help those of you who are carrying resentment toward religious people, but to myself who carries unresolved resentment toward certain religious people. 

In some ways, it's harder to resolve when there is no threat from authorities. Since there's no chance anytime soon that I'll be going to jail for sharing my opposing opinions on this blog or wherever, it's easy to let the hatred roll like a river. 

There was this pastor once who was adamantly against homosexuality, and he still is. I hated it. I didn't necessarily hate the man, but I hated what he stands for. And so, I wrote several blogs in a row condemning the man and his church for supporting such issues. I even gathered a few friends and showed up one morning to the church and did a demonstration, only to be asked to leave within the first half hour. While I didn't get into trouble and didn't face any external consequences for my actions, I faced an internal conflict. I was filled with hate and resentment. And, the only way to get rid of it was to confront this pastor and admit the wrongs I'd done. And so, I did that. I told him how I'd written blogs trying to make people hate him just like I did, and asked him if there was anything I could do to make it right. The answer he gave me was simply, Tell the truth. 

And the truth is, I don't have to use my passions and talents to hurt anybody. But, I always have the choice to make. And lately, I've been getting off the path. I've been hearing that prideful, arrogant voice inside me say, "You can start writing things now that may offend people. It's okay, you've earned the right."

And so, I'd like to apologize right now for writing things that are packed full of resentment and hatred in the past few weeks. They're not helpful to me, and not helpful to anyone. Is there anything I can do to make this right if you've been hurt by my words in any way? Let me know and do my best to reconcile that. 

I think Jesus's message went deeper than getting thrown into jail for opposing authority because it was possible to get thrown into jail and at the same time not harbor hatred towards the enemy. There were many instances where the apostle Paul was thrown into jail, but he made friends and had dialogue with his opponents. He used the opportunity to continue implementing the same program he implemented outside of prison. 

Another way to translate what Jesus said is: "You don't have to agree, but stay away from hatred. It's never good no matter who it's directed toward."

So, how do I make friends with my enemies? First, I have to see how torn up inside I really am. I have to see the root causes of my frustrations with my enemies. And, I have to see that they're not the cause of my problems or frustrations. There's something inside of me that's off-kilter. And nine times out of ten, it's fear that's welled up inside of me and ready to explode. Fear drives resentment. It doesn't matter what kind of fear it is, because there are millions of different kinds of fear. All that matters is that I recognize that it is fear. Catch it before retaliating. 

After realizing how much fear is driving my resentment, I can ask God to remove it.

Then, I can attempt to dialogue with my enemy. That's why it's so good to sit down and have coffee with the people I hate, or the representatives of the institutions or principles I hate. Profound things happen when two opponents sit down and have a conversation. Light bulbs go off and friendships are even made.

Face to face dialogue is something that's becoming old school. It's losing popularity due to the overwhelming influence of social media and the fast-paced lifestyle. And so it's really easy to rant and rave about what and who I hate on Facebook and the blog, while never attempting to actually have a conversation with my enemies. It's really hard to hate someone who's sitting across the table having a conversation with me. Or, it's really hard to keep hating the person once the conversation is finished. 

As a practice, it'd be good to list the people I need to sit down and have a conversation with, as well as the questions I could ask them to help understand why they believe what they believe.

Conversation #1: Someone who doesn't support gay marriage.
Question #1: Why don't you support gay marriage?
Question #2: Do you have and friends who are gay?
Question #3: What was your family life like growing up?
Question #4: What was marriage like for your parents?
Question #5: What is marriage like for you now?

Conversation #2: Someone who is against abortion.
Question #1: Have you ever known anyone who's had an abortion?
Question #2: Have you ever been a willing participant in an abortion?
Question #3: Why are you against abortion?
Question #4: Do you have any children?
Question #5: If you put yourself in the shoes of a girl who's been raped and gets pregnant, what kind of feelings do you think you'd have towards the baby inside of you?

These are the kinds of conversations that have the potential of turning hate into love, misunderstanding into understanding, and resentment into compassion. And I think this kind of thing is what Jesus was driving at with his audience - understanding the enemy instead of hating the enemy. Because once an understanding is established, it's hard to hate and it's much easier to accept who people are and why they do what they do. 

I'll be the first to admit that when I've got some anger inside of me that needs to get out, I'm not seeking open dialogue but one-sided rants on Facebook or blogger. I'm not putting in the time and effort to ask the hard questions and create the necessary dialogue. So, that's something that I want to try to do a better job of this year. Resentment and hatred towards people or institutions or principles will only work for so long before it ends up killing me. Because, when resentment gets deep and hard enough, the best solution that I'll be able to come up with is taking a drink. And for this alcoholic, to drink is to die. 

"Set up a conversation with your enemies before you become imprisoned by your own resentment and hatred."

Temple

"Therefore if you are presenting your offering at the altar, and there remember that you've hurt someone in any way, leave your offering there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to that person, and then come and present your offering."

Drinking created so much chaos in my life, so much turmoil in my relationships, that I couldn't keep up. During one of these episodes, I tried to sleep with a married woman who had two kids. In a drunken stupor, I dismissed any thoughts of the consequences that could possibly arise from the situation, and made a fool of myself. All I could think about was what I wanted in that moment, and I was demoralized. Whether I didn't know the difference between right or wrong, or I didn't care, I'm not sure because the alcohol was having its way with me. 

Thankfully, she cared about the consequences enough not to fall for my advances. Regardless, the next morning I was crushed with the realization of what I had tried to do. But, at the same time, I was afraid of going back there to make things right. So, I did the next best thing I could think of. I prayed for her. I have yet to make any attempt to apologize to this woman, and it's ten years later. How many prayers have I uttered in that time? How many acts of worship have I done? How many forms of service have I participated in? 

In the words of Jesus, prayers and offerings mean nothing if unresolved conflicts are lingering. If I've hurt someone, praying for them doesn't absolve me from the responsibility of attempting to make things right. 

But there's more to this statement than what's on surface level. 

Jesus's words came at a time when religious ritual was the most important thing that mattered. Never mind the homeless and crippled people who were turned away at the front door. Never mind the priests who were making a killing off the sacrificial animals being purchased inside the temple. Never mind the oppressive gap between the spiritually weak and dogmatically strong.

It was a world that revolved around the temple, and the temple was an oppressive pyramid scheme.

Social justice had been eradicated and replaced with the bogus idea that religious ritual was the only thing that mattered. Or, to put it another way, everything outside the temple was secular. Everything that happened inside was spiritual. 

Jesus wasn't only telling people to make things right in their relationships, but he was calling them to remember that everything is spiritual. 

And it doesn't feel good to tell on myself and to know that I have one more unresolved conflict in my life that I only thought was smoothed over and taken care of. But, the truth is, I've ignored the fact that making amends with my old friend is more important than praying and going to church. I've ignored the fact that there's a little piece of me that's still incomplete because I slipped this old episode under the rug.

When God and spirituality are confined to a certain time - like 10:00 a.m. on Sundays - or place - like a church building, tunnel-visioned spirituality happens. It becomes commonplace to forget about the least of these. And, the least of these include the people in my life who've been hurt by my self-centered behaviors. I'll forget that spirituality doesn't just mean praying, but means managing healthy personal relationships.

But why wouldn't I think that spirituality happens outside the church building? The bogus religious system tell us that the only things that matter are reading the Bible, believing the right things, and tithing in a certain way. The system tells us that as long as there's a church building, it doesn't matter what the church is doing for the community outside. As long as membership is growing, it doesn't matter that half the membership is living paycheck to paycheck. 

Jesus was calling his audience to open their minds to the reality that the temple had way less significance than it was being given, as well as the offerings inside the temple. What mattered was the stuff going on outside. What mattered was the people outside. Because, everything is spiritual and nothing is secular. 

"Don't think twice about bringing an offering to the altar if you've hurt someone and haven't done anything about it. Your primary act of worship is going to take care of that."

Law

"Don't think I came to get rid of the law or the oral traditions of the prophets. I came to bring it full circle."

About a year ago, I was sitting in a courthouse in Pasadena. I'd gotten a ticket for not having a valid inspection sticker. As I was waiting for the judge to appear, the deputy was giving his spill about the rules of the courthouse. One of the rules he gave was turning off all cell phones. The problem was, after he finished laying out all the rules that everyone was supposed to follow, he sat down, made himself comfortable, and pulled out his cell phone. Without a second thought of how hypocritical I and everyone else sitting in that courthouse thought he was, he didn't take his eyes off his phone more than three times in the hour that I was there. 

And then there's this local megachurch. Without giving too much information, this church spends around $50,000 a year on food for staff and member events, living high on the hog, yet I know of homeless people who've tried to approach the front desk of said church for the slightest bit of help and were turned away within the first few minutes of the conversation.

And then there's what we've probably all experienced - the police officer speeding in the patrol car with no sirens on, no turn signals, nearly running people off the road, but for some reason thinking it's okay to do so.

And then there's the "constitutionalist" business owner who's gung ho about protecting him or herself from the crooked hand of the government while at the same time enacting legislation for employees that would send him/her crying to mommy.

Why is it that the people who are supposed to be enforcing the law don't hold themselves to the same standards as the rest of us? 

And then there's Jesus. Right in the middle of one of the most tumultuous "police state" eras in history. You have Jewish law and Roman law, both working against the average citizen to the point that it feels like an oppressive, dominating system that's sucking the life out of everyone.

That's where I want to go today. 

But first, a little about the religious laws of Jesus's Jewish culture. 

There were a ton of them, roughly 600. And, you had different categories of them. If I could boil them all down into one category, I would call it social justice. 

And there was a systemic problem that had been escalating within Jewish religious culture (mainly among the high priests and Jewish elites) for centuries. Yes, centuries. On paper, Jewish religious leaders called for everyone to follow every law to the letter. And, there were penalties for breaking any of the laws. There were very precise, detailed penalties that required all sorts of amending processes. 

If you were a passionate Jew who was trying to seek God and grow spiritually, you would've been told that keeping the law was the way to do that.

But back to the systemic problem. At some point, the practice of Jewish law got way off balance. At some point, Jewish leaders found that they could get away with turning the laws into a program of self preservation, while ignoring the social justice laws. And so, it was very common practice for a Jewish leader to keep his body pure, eat the right foods according to law, and fast for days according to the law, while at the same time ignoring the poor and the marginalized of society. 

"I didn't come to get rid of the law, but to fulfill it."

In other words, the religious system was very, very, corrupt. While the laws in themselves were created for good, they were twisted and turned and molded over years and years and years in ways that created a huge gap between the rich and the poor, the elites and the marginalized. 

The religious system became a club for the elite. This rich, beautiful, form of spirituality designed to enlighten people in their connection with God was turned into a means of oppressing those who didn't have the resources or the means to be like the Jewish religious leaders. 

And so, when Jesus arrived on the scene, the religious leaders obviously didn't like the program he was teaching. It threatened the empire they were well on their way in establishing. It threatened their view of the laws, and it threatened their powerful grasps. Why was he so threatening?

Because Jesus spent his life in the balance between morality and social justice. In a world that chose to ignore the plights of the marginalized and only focus on how moral one should be, Jesus lived both and he followed the laws as an expert in Jewish practice. 

But, wait. Doesn't this sound familiar? Doesn't this sound like something that's happening now, in 2015? 

Today's religious system is just as full of contradictions as it was in Jesus's time. I still don't know how to put the program of self preservation aside in order to be the spearhead of social justice that I signed up for when I signed up to follow Jesus's program.

In the Church's efforts to keep her congregation "pure and holy," she'll spend thousands of hours and dollars on developing programs and groups under the facade of "discipleship," while ignoring her responsibility of being a beacon of hope for the poor, the marginalized, and the forgotten members of society. In a way, the responsibility of taking social justice seriously has been replaced with the idea that the only thing that matters is people being "holy" and "set apart."

What Jesus did was pretty clever. Being an astute pupil of Jewish law, he knew it every way you could read it. And by following it to the letter, he threw the current system on its head. He exposed how corrupt the religious leaders really were by doing everything the law asked. And naturally, the law took him to the places where the poor were at. The law took him to the homeless, the disease-ridden, the lame, and the blind. 

Have we missed something?

If the Christian church is so adamant about following the commands laid out in scripture, then why is the law leading her to build more buildings, install more pews, and put out more billboards?

If "by fulfilling the law . . ." led Jesus to the margins of society, to the places that were dark and uncomfortable, then why does the American church find herself needing to expand the parking lot? 

I can understand why atheists get so riled up about people like me. They see what I can't see. They see how lopsided my actions are versus my belief systems. They see that I'm following the wrong set of laws. 

So, I'm gonna wrap this rambling job up by saying this: If you're a Christian and you subscribe to the commands and laws laid out in the scriptures, then you should find yourself going into the same hairy situations that Jesus went into. You should find yourself socializing with people that society wants nothing to do with. You should find that your morality is pointing you toward social justice and not toward self preservation. 

That's it. I'm done.

Light

"Let your light shine before people that they may see your good works and glorify God."

There's this guy I know who's devoted his whole life, every bit of his being, to building stuff for people. From houses to water wells to medical trailers, Kim goes around Texas and Northern Mexico with his F-250 and trailer just building. I've had the chance to go on a few trips with Kim to Mexico, and they were nothing short of amazing. I've done stuff with him that I never thought I'd ever be able to do - like putting shingles on roofs and installing water pipes underground. 

And the thing about the dude is, when you try to talk theology with him, he doesn't know much and he doesn't really care. But when it comes to building stuff for people, he's an ox. He doesn't stop. And because of it, people's lives are being dramatically changed by the dozens. 

He's got so much stuff going on that churches are jumping on his bandwagon to find stuff to do. He's taking groups of twenty and thirty people around so they can do mission work. 

On one of these trips I went on, I overheard a conversation between two of the church people. One of the guys asked the other guy, "You know Kim's not a Christian right?" Immediately after hearing this, I wanted to choke the guy because in this Christian's opinion, everything Kim did hinged on whether he believed the right things. Yet, people's lives were being changed by the light that Kim was shining.

In my opinion, there's not enough people like Kim around - people who care less about getting other people to believe certain things and more about loving people in a way that has the divine written all over it.

And that's where I want to go today. 

"Let your light shine before people so they may see your good works and glorify God."

In a Christianity that has splintered into over 40,000 different denominations, there should be plenty reason to see why the whole beliefs thing isn't working. These days, there are churches within blocks of each other, but most of the time they're blind to each others existence. They each have their own agendas, their own philosophies, their own programs. But why has Christianity splintered into so many directions? 

Because at some point in time, people decided that what they believed was more important than what they did.

I believe there's a reason why Jesus didn't say, . . . so they may see your good words . . .

People can't see words. People aren't nearly as affected by being told they need to do [blank] in order to get [blank], as they are watching someone cut a homeless man's hair or watching a church officiate a marriage between two gay people. 

Yet, here we are 2,000 years later, and around every corner is a different church, with a different catchy slogan, with a different philosophy. All words. Did words ever really get people to change? 

Did Martin Luther King, Jr. start a revolution by talking alot or did he get his hands dirty and do things that blew people away, pissed people off, and essentially got him killed?

Ever since I met Kim, I thought that if I was Jewish I would've picked him as my rabbi. He talks very little, and does very much. Yet, he's not going around worrying about who's a Christian and who's not, who believes in Jesus and who doesn't. He's doing what he does based on the simple fact that he cares about people. 

"Let your light shine before people so they may see your good works and glorify the God they believe in."

Lets take it a step further than this.

What if the light I shine before others isn't an attempt to get them to believe in the God I believe in, but rather pushes them to explore their own connections with the divine? 

This is where I stand today. As much doubt as I have about the "authority" of the scriptures, and with all the research I've done on the authorization of the scriptures, I've learned that I just don't know. I don't have enough faith in my own understanding to even care about trying to sway people any direction. If there is a direction I try to get people to go in, it's trying to get them to wake up to the present reality in their own lives, the presence of Ultimate Reality, the glimpses of the divine in their own journeys. 

Frankly, I don't care if people are Christians or not. I believe that Christianity has revealed herself to be a flawed, broken system among many flawed and broken systems. She's exposed herself to be just as brittle, just as corrupt, just as prejudiced as any other man-made religious system. Yet, she's still moving, still progressing, and still changing people's lives for the better. The Christian Church is still opening peoples' minds and hearts to the beauty of God. 

Just recently, the American Presbyterian Church redefined her position on marriage as "between two persons." In an era where the Church seems to be taking way more steps back than forward, this is a prime example of what it looks like for not just an individual, but an institution to shine its light before people. Because of this historical landmark in the faith tradition, there's no telling how many lives are gonna be changed, how many people are going to wake up to the Ultimate Reality of God being right here, right now, and working for and with humanity instead of the still-common-philosophy that God's against humanity or certain populations of humanity. 

Recently, I posted the following question on a large atheist group on Facebook: What's one thing every Christian can do to help restore the relationship between atheism and Christianity? And the most common answer had to do with being open-minded to other styles of thinking. 

We've come to a time when culture is evolving (in a good way) faster than the Church is. In many cases, the Church still thinks that clinging on to thousand year old letters and poems is the only way to God, yet culture is moving forward in ways that are incredible. Non-profit organizations and the waking conscious of a hurting world and hurting people is gaining steam by the minute, and I wonder if the Church is ever gonna catch up. Only time will tell. 

"Let your light shine before others so they may see your good works and awaken to the beauty of God's presence in their own lives."