Goodbye

Note: I've moved my blog to my own web site - the new address is:
www.nonaverage.net/insomanywords/
Comments can only be left at the new location.

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This morning, my friend Jane died of cancer. It was a shock to me, not because of the cancer - I knew she had it - but because I hadn’t talked with her or her husband Cy since August and I didn’t know that the cancer had advanced that far. Jane developed cancer several years ago, but went into remission. Then earlier this year she was told that the cancer was back, and she started treatment. But this summer the doctors discovered that the cancer had moved into her lymph nodes, which is very bad news.

Jane was an artist. She was very creative - it seemed like she always had some kind of project that she was working on. Several years ago she gave me a watercolor painting of a barn in a field, which is one of my favorite pieces of art and is still hanging on my living room wall. She was very kind, with a quiet wisdom that only made me feel encouraged when she offered her advice. She seemed to enjoy my sense of humor, and we could get together after long periods of absence and talk and laugh with ease. She was not a vegetarian, but she and Cy loved veggies and she made them a part of most of her meals, and she also who grew a lot of her own food. I don’t care for veggies, and that was the source of a little joke between us about vegetables. Once when I was visiting she gave me a small bag of sugar candies made to look like peas and carrots. I guess she thought that was the only way to get me to eat veggies.

Cy and Jane were married 29 years, and they genuinely loved each other. They struggled through the same things many couples struggle with - trying to buy their first house, seasons where the money was tight, raising Jane’s two boys from her first marriage, then having two more children, a boy and a girl… typical married-life issues. And they were good friends to me as I struggled through my life… tolerant of me as a young rowdy musician type, compassionate when my first marriage ended in divorce, encouraging as I spent several years living single, and supportive when I married Emily. In fact, Jane and Emily found they were kindred spirits, both of them being creative women who lived their lives following Jesus, and both being artists who came to appreciate each other’s work. I’m disappointed that they didn’t get to spend more time together.

As I spoke with Cy he wondered aloud why someone, a wife and mother as kind as Jane, should die from cancer while people like terrorists or brutal dictators live seemingly healthy lives. This is probably a question of faith that comes to many - why does God allow evil people to live while good people suffer painful deaths. I think the answer is faith itself - do we trust God, not just in good and pleasant times, but in light of terrible, painful events? If we believe in God, can we say that we trust Him in all things, even with the life - or death - of a loved one? Can we cry out in our grief that, even though we don’t see or understand the reason, we believe that God has a reason, and we trust Him?

For Cy, who misses his wife terribly, his response is simply:
“Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him“.

Bad Religion

Note: I've moved my blog to my own web site - the new address is:
www.nonaverage.net/insomanywords/
Comments can only be left at the new location.

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I have noticed that people here in America sometimes - well, alot of the time - get the wrong impression about God. For example, there is a popular bumper sticker here that you may have seen - it reads “Don’t drive faster than your Guardian Angel can fly!” Personally, I have never thought it was even possible to drive a car faster than an angel can fly. If you believe in God and believe that He created angels as supernatural beings, capable of performing His miraculous work - the very idea that we as humans can make a machine that can travel faster than an angel is either somewhat foolish or a bit arrogant. And I think that this kind of misunderstanding of God misrepresents God.

But there are different ways that people misrepresent God. There is a web site - I’m not going to print an address so as to not give it any more publicity (and there are probably several websites like this anyway) - a web site that is more than just foolish or arrogant… it promotes hatred of people in the name of God. Unfortunately, there are multiple websites that do this, but this particular web site claims to be “Christian”, to being followers of God and believers in Jesus… yet preaches that God hates people. Not all people, of course - just people who are homosexual. The group responsible for this web site recite their favorite bible verses in an effort to convince visitors that God truly hates homosexuals. And that homosexuals are going to hell, no questions asked. But what this website is really doing is misrepresenting God. They are misrepresenting God by twisting His words in an obvious effort to defend and promote their personal beliefs. Now, I’m no one in particular and certainly not in the position to engage these misguided people, nor do I simply want to get involved in an argument for argument’s sake or throw my pearls before swine. But what I do want to say, to gay and straight people, from what I have read and learned and lived and know about God, is that these gay-hating-website people are as wrong about God as is humanly possible. That God loves homosexuals. That He loves homosexuals as much as He loves hetros. That He loves homosexuals as much as He loves Baptists, soccer moms, priests, yuppies, car thieves, Catholics, liberals, Muslims, goth teenagers, Bill Gates, hippies, bikers, African children with AIDS, conservatives, drug addicts, my first wife, rude fast food workers, high school cheerleaders with perfect teeth, socialists, Wal-Mart greeters, Ronald Reagan, the jerk who promised to build me a custom guitar body and then gave me nothing but kept my $90 deposit, Nicolas Sarkozy, porn stars, drunken neighbors, tree-huggers, Joe Walsh and me. In other words, God loves people. All people. This is such a central theme of the Bible that to suggest anything else is highly deceptive at best and plain evil at worst. Evil not just because they are spreading hatred in the name of God… that of course is bad enough. But even more evil because these people claim to represent God and claim that they are declaring His words. So visitors to that web site might assume that these hate-preachers know God and know his desires, and the visitors may be deceived into believing that this is what God is really like… in other words, that web site is misrepresenting God, with the real evil being that they are causing people to misunderstand God. They are describing God based on personally selected, self-serving portions of scripture instead of understanding the full message of the gospel, which is a message of love, forgiveness, restoration and reconciliation. They are confining God to their limited understanding of His love instead of accepting that God’s love is beyond our understanding. And they are creating a god who is too small to love everyone instead of preaching about the god who is big enough to love anyone.

And God even loves these hate-preachers… yes, I do believe that He does love them. But I also believe that He hates what they are doing.

Creed

Note: I've moved my blog to my own web site - the new address is:
www.nonaverage.net/insomanywords/
Comments can only be left at the new location.

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I believe in God the Father… almighty Maker of Heaven and Maker of Earth. And in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the Holy Spirit, born of the virgin Mary. Suffered under Pontius Pilate, He was crucified and dead and buried.

And I believe what I believe is what makes me what I am. I did not make it, no it is making me. It is the very truth of God, not the invention of any man.

I believe that He who suffered was crucified, buried, and dead. He descended into hell, and on the third day He rose again. He ascended into Heaven, where He sits at God’s mighty right hand. I believe that He’s returning to judge the quick and the dead of the sons of men.

I believe in God the Father, almighty Maker of Heaven, and Maker of Earth. And in Jesus Christ, His only begotten Son, my Lord. I believe in the Holy Spirit, One Holy Church, the communion of Saints, the forgiveness of sins. I believe in the resurrection… I believe in a life that never ends.

And I believe what I believe is what makes me what I am.

(The Nicene Creed as adapted by Rich Mullins)