Hello friends,

I don't know if you like podcasts, but listening to the Robcast is a regular spiritual practice for me.

On this one, our beloved friend Alexander Shaia talks about his life journey and coming into his authentic self as a gay man.

You may need some tissues for this one.

https://robbell.podbean.com/e/episo.....exander-shaia/

~Spartan

Hello friends,

I've been putting off this journal for a while, but now it's time. Things have been quiet around here of late and it's time to acknowledge why.

I'm in a new season of my life, one which allows me to explore my ministerial calling outside of Furaffinity. I preach/teach weekly at a small group, I'm shadowing the chaplain at a local hospital, and I'm slowly working my way along the journey of ordination. The truth is, I don't often have the time to post here so I wanted to let everyone know that there likely won't be many updates for an indefinite period of time. That said, I could very well suddenly feel the call to start posting regularly again tomorrow. Life is fickle that way.

Open Arms has been a great blessing in my life. I've met and interacted with so many wonderful people here and it has helped me grow in my faith. For all of you who took the time to comment and encourage us, from the bottom of my heart: thank you.

Grace and Peace to all of you.

~Spartan

Have you guys ever heard of God referred to as Almighty? What about all powerful? All knowing? In church, we like to describe God with "alls." And I think what we end up with is a god that looks very Zeus-y: all stern-faced, dramatically pointing, and smiting the naughty here and there.

I want to take a look at a different God.

11 Soon afterward Jesus went with his disciples to the village of Nain, and a large crowd followed him. 12 A funeral procession was coming out as he approached the village gate. The young man who had died was a widow’s only son, and a large crowd from the village was with her. 13 When the Lord saw her, his heart overflowed with compassion. “Don’t cry!” he said. 14 Then he walked over to the coffin and touched it, and the bearers stopped. “Young man,” he said, “I tell you, get up.” 15 Then the dead boy sat up and began to talk! And Jesus gave him back to his mother.
16 Great fear swept the crowd, and they praised God, saying, “A mighty prophet has risen among us,” and “God has visited his people today.” 17 And the news about Jesus spread throughout Judea and the surrounding countryside. (Luke 7:11-17)

Do any of have a savings account at the bank? What about your parents? Do you know what social security is?

It's hard to imagine, but for most of the people in Jesus' time there was no such thing as savings or a financial safety net. Your only social security net was your family. That's why families stuck together and why divorce was almost unthinkable. The only thing you had to take care of you was your family and vice versa.

So here's a woman who finds herself completely alone. She's a widow, so she's already lost her husband, and now she has lost her only son. She has no one to take care of her. So they're taking his body out of the city and Jesus sees them and his heart overflows with compassion. The actual Greek word used there translates as "his bowels groaned." To me, that says that Jesus is moved to the point of suffering. And this isn't the first time we see Jesus moved like this in the Bible. When a friend of his named Lazarus dies, Jesus actually weeps. He cries.

It's kind of hard to imagine that God experiencing any kind of pain or suffering, isn't it? But as Christians, we believe that Jesus is living embodiment of God. God with skin on. In fact, I like to think that Jesus shows us what God's heart looks like. Jesus shows us what is important to God; what He cares about. And if that's the case then God most cares about those who are on the edges, the conquered, the powerless, the outcasts, the suffering; to the point that He himself suffers.

When I was your age I kind of got the feeling that Jesus kind of walked around healing those people, and blessed are those dudes, and then he dies on the cross but not really and that's the end of the story. A god who's here, but not really here. An almighty God.

But if God is almighty then where is He? Where is his power when people are starving? Where is his strength when a gunman opens fire in a school? Where is his mightiness when people are used, abused, and sold?

It's not that I think God isn't almighty or that he doesn't care take part in the world. Just the opposite, I think God is so deeply involved in the world that He shares in our joy and in our suffering. When we laugh, God laughs. When we cry, God weeps. Jesus feels the fear and sadness of this now completely alone woman deep in his bowels, and then He does something about it. The point of this story isn't about Jesus raising someone from the dead. It's to show you what God cares about. And you become the God you worship.

If you worship a god who is a successful businessman or a mighty conqueror then you will worship money and power (which means you could probably run for President.)

I wonder if maybe God's answer to our suffering is to grow people who feel the hurt and then respond to it as Jesus does in this story? I'll leave that up to you.

Christianity's idealizing of a kind of "perfection" seems to have emanated from Jesus' teaching on loving our enemies. His exhortation has usually been translated: "You shall be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect" (found only in Matthew 5:48). Let's take a look at the context leading up to this statement, Matthew 5:43-48, to help us better understand that Jesus was talking about God's unconditional love as the clear goal, measure, and ideal.

You have heard that it was said, "You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy." But I say to you, love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your heavenly Father, for he makes his sun shine on the bad and the good, and causes rain to fall on the just and the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same? So be perfect, just as your heavenly Father is perfect.

The parallel text in Luke (6:36) says, "Be merciful just as your Father is merciful." "Be merciful" surely fits the context more precisely than "be perfect," since Jesus has been describing how God's love is complete and impartial: God loves "the bad and the good." Jesus is telling us to love as God loves. God's love sets the standard and the bar of love very, very high, but that does not imply we can't ever reach it. We must aim and ask for this kind of love.

In effect, most Christian groups and individuals lowered the bar of perfection by emphasizing achievable goals usually associated with embodiment (attending church on Sunday, not committing adultery, not being a thief, etc.)--goals which we could accomplish and for which we could take credit. These accomplishments only inflated our own self-image, not our love of God. Jesus never emphasized such things at all, because they could be achieved without any foundational love of God or love of neighbor--in other words, without basic conversion of either consciousness or identity. We could achieve this limited perfection through willpower, by "thinking correctly" about it, or by agreeing with a certain moral stance. This appeals to the grandiosity of the small self.

The real moral goals of the Gospel--loving enemies, caring for the powerless, overlooking personal offenses, living simply, eschewing riches--can only be achieved through surrender and participation. These have often been ignored or minimized, even though they were clearly Jesus' major points. We cannot take credit for these virtues; we can only thank God for them: "Not to us, O Lord, not to us, but to your name give glory because of your mercy and faithfulness" (Psalm 115:1).

Adapted from Richard Rohr, "Introduction," "Perfection," Oneing, Vol. 4, No. 1 (CAC: 2016). 11-12.

It seems we always find some way to avoid the transformation of our pain. There's the way of fight. Fighters are looking for the evil, the sinner, the unjust one, the oppressor, the bad person "over there." He or she "righteously" attacks, hates, or even kills the wrong-doer, while feeling heroic for doing so (see John 16:2). Philosopher René Girard sees this tendency to scapegoat others as the central story line of human history. Why? Because it works, and it is largely an immediate and an unconscious egoic response. The scapegoat mechanism was almost perfectly ritualized by the Israelites (see Leviticus 16:20-22). They enacted placing their sins on a poor goat and sending it off into the wilderness to die, thus the name, scapegoat.

We are all tempted to project our problems on someone or something else rather than dealing with it in ourselves. The zealot--and we've all been one at different times--is actually relieved by having someone to hate, because it takes away his or her inner shame and anxiety and provides a false sense of innocence. As long as the evil is "over there" and we can keep our focus on changing or expelling someone else (as the true contaminating element), then we feel at peace. But this is not the peace of Christ, which "the world cannot give" (see John 14:27). Instead, it is the simplistic, only temporary peace that the world tries to create.

Playing the victim is a way to deal with pain indirectly. You blame someone else, and your pain becomes your personal ticket to power because it gives you a false sense of moral superiority and having been offended. You don't have to grow up, you don't have to pray, you don't have to let go, you don't have to forgive or surrender--you just have to accuse someone else of being worse than you are. And sadly that becomes your very fragile identity, which always needs more reinforcement.

Another way to avoid the path of transformation is the way of flight. Those with the instinct to flee will deny or ignore pain by naively dividing the world up through purity codes and worthiness systems. They keep the problem on the level of words, ideas, and absolute laws separating good and evil. He or she refuses to live in the real world of shadow and contradiction. They divide the world into total good guys and complete bad guys, a comfortable but untrue worldview of black and white. This approach comprises most fundamentalist and early stage religion. It refuses to carry the cross of imperfection, failure, and sin in itself. It is always others who must be excluded so I can be pure and holy.

Each of these patterns perpetuate pain and violence rather than bring true healing.

The crucified and resurrected Jesus shows us how to transform pain without denying, blaming, or projecting it elsewhere. In fact, there is no "elsewhere." Jesus is the victim in an entirely new way because he receives our hatred and does not return it, nor does he play the victim for his own empowerment. He suffers and does not make the others suffer because of it. He absorbs the mystery of human sin and transforms it rather than passing it on. He does not use his suffering and death as power over others to punish them, but as power for others to transform them. Jesus is the forgiving victim, which really is the only hope of our world, because most of us sooner or late will be victimized on some level. It is the familiar story line of an unjust and often cruel humanity.

The risen, victorious Jesus gives us a history and hopeful future that moves beyond predictable violence. He destroys death not by canceling it out; but by making a trophy of it. Jesus introduces the revolutionary idea of restorative justice, which is a totally divine idea and possibility. Any notion of retributive justice only perpetuates the problem, and pulls God down to our finite level. Jesus says in effect, "I'm going to use my death to love all perpetrators even more."


Adapted from Richard Rohr on Transformation--Jesus: Forgiving Victim, Transforming Savior (Franciscan Media: 1997), disc 1; and
Richard Rohr with John Feister, Hope Against Darkness: The Transforming Vision of Saint Francis in an Age of Anxiety (St. Anthony Messenger Press: 2001), 19-20, 22-24.

Christians pinpoint "original sin" in the Genesis story of Adam and Eve eating from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, even though the phrase is not in the Bible. I think a much truer description of Adam and Eve's experience would be "original shame." They hide when God comes looking for them, and when God asks why, they say they feel naked. Then God asks Adam and Eve, "Who told you that you were naked?" The implication is, "I sure didn't." A few verses later, we see a very nurturing image of God as seamstress, sewing garments and covering the two humans to protect them from their shame (see Genesis 3). How different than the much later and opposite notion of God shaming people for all eternity in hell. The older tradition reveals the deep mystery of transformation: God even uses our shame and pain to lead us closer to God's loving heart. Of course! After forty-seven years now in active ministry, this has become obvious to me.

We live in a time of primal shame, and we don't seem to know how to escape it. I find very few people who don't feel stupid, inadequate, dirty, or unworthy today, even if they do not consciously admit it. When people come to me for counseling or confession, they ask in one form or another, "If people knew the things I think, the things I've said, the things I want to do, who would love me?" We all have had feelings of radical, foundational unworthiness. I'm sure they take ten thousand different forms, but the shame is usually there.

There is no ontological basis for holiness without mysticism; it is all behavioral and psychological. In spiritual direction, so many people start with the premise, "If I behave correctly, I will one day get God to love me or even notice me." We tend toward this behavioral model. But the biblical tradition actually teaches that first we must see God clearly, often by experiencing God's mercy for our bad behavior--and then our right behavior will follow. We first must encounter and experience God's original blessing, choosing, and loving of us. If you start with original sin or shame, normally the pit is so deep you never get out of it. This is why more and more the modern world resents Christianity, as any child would understandably resent a foundationally rejecting parent. All the good theology in the world is not strong enough to overcome bad psychology and anthropology. Some reformers actually thought of human nature as "a pile of manure covered over with Christ" or of human beings as "totally depraved." I am afraid this has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Let's try preaching original blessing and see if that can become a self-fulfilling prophecy instead!


*Adapted from Richard Rohr on Transformation--Jesus: Forgiving Victim, Transforming Savior (Franciscan Media: 1997), disc 1; and
Richard Rohr with John Feister, Hope Against Darkness: The Transforming Vision of Saint Francis in an Age of Anxiety (St. Anthony Messenger Press: 2001), 29-30.

Source: http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unfund.....ight-be-empty/

Theologian Jürgen Moltmann once said in a discussion, “In the final analysis I believe hell will be empty.”

This theological idea comes from Moltmann’s understanding that all who are dead are dead in Christ, just as the living are alive in Christ, whether they acknowledge the presence of the deity or not. God’s presence is in all and through all. Therefore everyone, the living and dead, are contained in the loving presence of the God who Jesus called “Father” and are moving with this God toward God’s future.

That’s some heady stuff, for sure.

Moltmann further asserts, as do many Christian theologians, that all time is already contained in the life of God. Past, present, future, and eternity all glow with God’s presence.

More heady stuff, I know.

If you, like me, are an outsider to the Western institutional church, it could be for any number of reasons. It pains me to know how many friends I have who walked away from the whole faith thing because they were told that anyone who didn’t measure up to an institutional standard was going to hell.

Maybe you’ve experienced the very damaging and un-Jesus like narrative that creates an “us” versus “them” mentality. The kind of thinking that elevates groups of the “ins” over the “outs.” Please hear this: you aren’t going to hell.

See, God’s grace, as displayed through Jesus of Nazareth, is unbounded grace. There is no limit to it. So there’s no way that someone can “fall out of grace” (another theologically incorrect phrase that exists in the Western church system).

And if God’s grace is so amazing, and so boundless, and so infinite, then at the end of all things being made new this God could very likely open the metaphorical gates to the new reality that has been reconciled and say, “Everybody who has ever lived or ever died, come live with me!”

Churchified critics would say I’m talking about weak universal salvation. Branding an uncomfortable idea with dismissive labels is a way to mask what we humans so often do: we place the emphasis of salvation on ourselves. But the focus of salvation has always been on God, not us.

Critics might also say that speaking of unbounded grace lessens God’s justice. But when we talk of God’s justice, we tend to just recast the divine in our own image. God’s justice has a lot more to do with reconciliation, restoration, and redemption than most of us are comfortable with.

Salvation is primarily about God’s grace and power displayed through the love of Jesus. It’s not about any of us being saved from something, but about God saving everyone and all things for something.

The concept of “hell” is such a quandary. I mean, what the hell is hell, anyway?

In the Hebrew Scripture hell was not a concept. Anyone who died went to a waiting place, a time of gestation, called Sheol. In the New Testament, Jesus speaks of a literal place called Gehenna, which was the name of the city trash dump outside Jerusalem. “Gehenna” often gets translated into English as “hell.” Other New Testament writers barely even address the concept of “hell” because they were too busy celebrating the new reality that all of life is contained in God’s life. Or as Paul put it: “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.”

Great minds like C.S. Lewis and N.T Wright resist the traditional literal view of hell entirely. Lewis sees hell as a diminishing of one’s humanity. Wright, similarly, envisions hell as a process of one’s choice to dehumanize what was once human.

So what about Jesus?

The heaven/hell dichotomy for Jesus was a matter of life in the present, not specifically something after death. When Jesus spoke of “eternal” life, he was referring to a quality of life to be experienced right now, in the present. If all time and all the living and the dead are already contained in the life of God, then responding to such grace allows for God-quality life, right here and right now.

Finally, God’s infinite presence cannot be kept out of “hell” whatever and wherever it may be.

So if you’ve ever felt like you don’t measure up to some perceived standard that has been preached at you, remember this: the last will be first.

If you’ve ever felt like the church people who easily throw around words they don’t understand like “hell” and “sin” and “Lord” are barring your way to Jesus, remember this: he once said there will be many who call him “Lord” who don’t know him.

Look, I’m not some expert saying that this is what the future will definitely be like. But I tend to agree with Moltmann. If the God I know, in the final analysis, empties “hell” (whatever that may be) then I won’t be at all surprised. God’s grace is that powerful.

I've been struggling all week with what to say about the shooting in Orlando. Wes and I live about 40 minutes for Pulse, and even though we didn't know any of the victims, the whole tragedy feels like it hits close to home. I'd be willing to be that you feel the same way no matter where you live.

One of my favorite poems reads that "No man is an island," and "we are all a part of the main." When the funeral bells tolls for one it tolls for all of us. Wes and I went to an inter-faith service on Tuesday night at First United Methodist Church in Orlando. During the service, the names of the deceased were read aloud and a bell tolled 49 times. Wes, myself, and hundreds of others wept openly and without shame. I admit that it was almost more than I could take. Each name hurt so badly that I just wanted to flee from the room. I'll be 27 in August and most of the deceased were younger than me.

So what do we do? How do we respond to unspeakable death, persecution, and pain? To answer that I'd like to go back to the early church and the Gospel of Mark. Mark's gospel was written to the church in Rome sometime between the late 50s and mid 60s CE. At around this time there were nearly 2 million people living in Rome, 30,000 to 40,000 of whom were Jews.

On July 19 in the year 64 CE, a great fire erupted in Rome. It blazed for five days, stilled, then ignited again and burned for another forty-eight hours. The flames raced through most of Rome, and when the conflagration finally ended, most of the city had been reduced to embers. Many people died. Common gossip spread among the devastated Romans saying that Emperor Nero was responsible for the fire— that he had started it so that his proposals to raze buildings and rebuild Rome in a grand, classical manner could proceed unhindered. The tales proliferated, and Nero soon found himself under attack by his senators. He needed to find the real culprits, or at least someone to blame, and he needed to do it quickly.

Fate— and ghetto geography— provided his answer. The Jewish quarter, untouched by the fire, made the Jews perfect scapegoats for Nero. The fact that the Jewish section was far away, across the river and on the outskirts of Rome (which is why it didn’t burn), was ignored. Word raced through the quarter that the Jews were about to become Nero’s way out of his predicament. Feelings resurfaced from the earlier disturbance and expulsion in 49. The Jews had been back in Rome for only ten short years. Understandably, they dreaded another eviction, and dreaded even more the likelihood of worse punishments exacted by the desperate emperor. Fear and anxiety rose to near panic. Predictions of mass suffering and executions spiraled out of control.

Desperate to forestall what they were certain would be Nero’s terrible wrath, it appears that someone or a small group went to the emperor and confessed that a fringe group of Jews had indeed set the fire. They identified the culprits as the Messianic Jews, the Christus followers. Centuries later, it is impossible for us to know precisely what anxieties or divisions drove them to Nero with this story or what they expected that Nero would do. Today, we know only what Nero’s horrific response actually was.

Nero immediately demanded that the Jewish community collaborate with Roman soldiers to identify those who belonged to the Christus group. Presented with a completely untenable situation and trying to reduce casualties, the Jewish community agreed. What ensued was a mini-genocide. Roman soldiers knocked on every door of the quarter, demanding to know if anyone in each house was a Christ believer. The answer determined the fate of the householder and everyone else in that house.

If a believer was identified, either by others in the community or his own admission, everyone in his house was seized and publicly executed. The normal execution involved leading victims to the floor of the Circus Maximus, shackling them, splattering them with blood, and then loosing starving dogs to eat them as Roman citizens watched. Today, twenty centuries later, when we visit St. Peter’s Basilica and walk on its great piazza or watch televised ceremonies held there, it is difficult to imagine that this was a place of terrible torture and slaughter.

If the head of the household denied being a believer, he was nonetheless required to name someone who was. There was no exemption from horror. The named individual was summarily arrested and executed, with no opportunity for appeal or protest. Neighbor was forced to turn on neighbor. As the number of executions mounted, self-preservation was the order of the day. Family members even reported on other family members. Fear and paranoia reigned.

In the end, the Roman Messianic community was totally destroyed. Among its many casualties were the great leaders, Peter and Paul. Although Peter initially fled Rome to avoid the slaughter, accounts written years later told that his escape was stopped— not by Romans, but by a vision of the Christ. As the story goes, Christ appeared and asked, “Peter, where are you going?” Chastened, his conscience and faith reawakened, Peter reversed his footsteps and returned to Rome, where he was immediately arrested and executed. Later unsubstantiated accounts relate that he died after being lashed upside down on a post or cross.

What could possibly have been worse for the believers in Jesus as the Messiah? They identified themselves as faithful Jews (Self identification as Christians would not come for another 20 years). Their community had totally betrayed and abandoned them. Their families, their children, their elders— even Peter and Paul— had been gruesomely murdered. We can only imagine the overwhelming extent of their isolation and pain, and undoubtedly there were times when the promise of the Christ, the prophesied Messiah, seemed hollow and empty. Terror, shame, abandonment, and death are the context of the Gospel of Mark.

Mark’s words are terse and spare. He gives us nothing but the barest outlines. He does not paint the landscape with flowery descriptions. His stories are stark and revelatory. Why? First, because he addresses Rome’s Messianic Jews, who lived under a death sentence. They had no use for hearts and flowers. Second, because the core message of the gospel itself is simple, direct— even tough. That message is embodied, in this gospel, by a Messiah who fully understood the suffering of his followers— who came to earth, took human form, and withstood agonizing pain. This Messiah wanted those who followed him to know that while their pain was necessary— because they were part of a much larger process— their Messiah not only genuinely understood their suffering but was there, in their very midst, with them, as they suffered. And Mark didn’t need a lot of words to convey that.

How often do we ask, in the midst of suffering, where is God? I do truly believe in a God who is not some far off deity, sitting on a cloud, in a white robe; but instead he is a God who is as close to us as our next breath. When a woman is raped and receives no justice, God feels pain and injustice. When 49 people are brutally murdered in an Orlando nightclub, God dies with them. And when the survivors sit in a packed church and weep at the tolling bell, God weeps as well. I encourage you not to run from your feelings in times like this. Weep. Cry out. Rage against the universe. Go fully into the suffering and know that God is there with you every step of the way. We cannot heal properly if we try to flee from the full extent of tragedy.

Now, I want to teach you something you may not know. In your Bible, the gospels are listed in the order of: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. This order is presented from liturgical history. However, the early church likely read them in the order: Matthew, Mark, John, and then Luke. Why?

The early church understood each of the gospels as answering a great human question. In Mark's Gospel it is: How do we face suffering? Mark uses the metaphor of wilderness, as well as two equivalent-to-wilderness metaphors drawn from Jewish history and tradition: deserts and bodies of flowing water. In order to escape Egypt centuries earlier, the Jews had had to enter and traverse the Red Sea. It was their nemesis, the great barrier to their freedom. Seas in general were wild and unruly places, treacherous. In Hebrew writings, seas, lakes, and rivers represented deep anxiety and even death, and so did the desert. The great flood of Noah was strong in memory, as were the myriad stories of the forty-year desert trial of the Jewish people, from which few survived to enter the Promised Land. Mark compassionately uses these three images— wilderness, deserts and bodies of flowing water— throughout his gospel to represent the inner landscape of frightening and uncharted territory.

Despite Mark’s often bleak language, he does not— ever— deliver a singular message of difficulty. Nor does he depict trials that lead only into despair. We will see that each image of wilderness is coupled with an image of comfort or hope. John the Baptist eats both locusts (yuck!) and wild honey. When sin is confessed, cleansing is received. Heaven is torn apart and a dove descends. Jesus goes into the wilderness and encounters both beasts and angels. The sparseness of language may make this coupling difficult to grasp at first. Our initial impression is anything but hopeful. Mark writes nothing but the barest outlines: no long descriptions, or even a list of the temptations. He acknowledges the angels with little more than a nod. Patience and close reading, though, will reveal the pairings. Mark always includes hope.

I could go in-depth on Mark's gospel for pages and pages, but I'll stop here and skip to John. As I said, each gospel answers a significant life question and John follows Mark for a reason. What follows the path of suffering? Revelation, unity, and joy. John's gospel is about receiving joy.

Until this point, so much of the story has been struggle. In Mark's gospel, believers cowered in the battering storms and were tossed in the treacherous seas. Nonetheless, the church remained faithful through all difficulties and missteps. They prayed that their yearning, outstretched hand would be met by a firm answering grip that would lead them ashore. How often do we seek the same? We beg God for mercy and peace in the darkness, and if we're paying attention, what we receive goes so much farther than we could imagine.

The empty tomb at the (original) end of Mark's gospel is followed by John who explodes off the page with:

In the beginning the Word already existed.
The Word was with God,
and the Word was God.
2 He existed in the beginning with God.
3 God created everything through him,
and nothing was created except through him.
4 The Word gave life to everything that was created,[a]
and his life brought light to everyone.
5 The light shines in the darkness,
and the darkness can never extinguish it.

Those first lines remind us of the omni-present God who not only has suffered with us, but has always been and always will be. A God whose brilliance shines in the darkness and is not overcome. Add on to this that John's gospel was written to the church in Ephesus (or Alexandria), a church that was unique for being made up of many Jewish and non-Jewish believers, and its joy comes to bring unity to all people.

I know for many, it's hard to talk about joy and unity so soon after the Orlando massacre. The hurt is still present for me as well, but I wanted to share with you how my experience at the inter-faith service at FUMC Orlando completely embodied the journey between the gospels of Mark and John.

As I said, so many people entered that service with so much pain in their hearts. Together, hundreds of strangers entered into that pain together and filled the pews from front to back. We wept for the fallen. We listened to prayers and chants and sermons from Muslims, Hindus, Christians, Sikhs, Buddhists, and Atheists. At the end of the service, we all joined hands across the aisle and sang:

Let there be peace on earth
And let it begin with me.
Let there be peace on earth
The peace that was meant to be.
With our Creator
Children all are we.
Let me walk with my brother
In perfect harmony.

Let peace begin with me
Let this be the moment now.
With every step I take
Let this be my solemn vow.
To take each moment
And live each moment
With peace eternally.
Let there be peace on earth,
And let it begin with me.

Grace and Peace be with you, my friends.
~Spartan

Hey everyone,

We got locked out of this account with the whole site crash thing, but we're back now. I'll start trying to get caught up on notes and what-not today.

Grace and Peace,
Spartan

Hello everyone,

As you're no doubt aware, the country is awash in anti-transgender legislation. My heart breaks to see so much hatred against our transgender friends. In an attempt to help foster communication, and hopefully understanding, I sat down with my transgender friend Martin for an Open Arms exclusive interview.

Hey Martin! Thanks so much for being willing to sit down with me. Let's start with some basic definition, because I think that's where a lot of people get lost. What does it mean to be Transgender?

This can vary for a lot of folks, but the bare basic is a discomfort with your birth sex. Some notice this sooner than others, and many decide to transition. Gender dysphoria is the current medical term for the phenomena, previously listed as Gender Identity Disorder.

And what gender do you identify as?

I identify as male, and I was born female.

How long have you known you were transgender? And what was that journey like?

Known is a bit of a hard point to pin down, at least without giving the whole story. I have experienced gender dysphoria since very early childhood, but never had a word for it. I kept mostly male friends, I wished I could be a boy but didn't quite understand what all it entailed, and I was raised in a pretty gender neutral childhood unless grandma wanted me in a dress, which I hated. I remember in Kindergarten we read a story about how if you kissed your elbow, you'd change genders, and I'm pretty sure I tried to dislocate my own shoulder all day in my attempts. But I never outright said or identified that I was a boy or would be one, I just wanted to, and when I realized that wasn't an option then I accepted it.

I was a very geeky tomboy as a kid, went through a rather rough puberty, and was actually very femme in late high school and almost all of college. I spent a long time behaving and attempting to be as feminine as possible, part of why my choice to transition came as a shock to a lot of folks, because they'd never even seen me in pants! It took a lot to explain that I was trying so hard to be female and accept it, I was waiting for that magic moment when I would wake up some day and this girly facade I'd made for myself would finally be the real deal. I probably spent two years knowing I identified as male, and still trying to play the part of a woman and hope that it would all go away. I'd tried for years, and when I realized I was never going to be happy this way, I attempted suicide to save myself and my family from what I knew would be a long, painful journey. My partner insisted I at least give transition a try, just dressing as masculine at first, and if I didn't like it, I could stop as soon as it felt wrong. I'm coming up on year 6, and I still haven't had my "wrong" day yet.

Are you out with your family? How did they react?

My entire family and I think most of my in laws know at this point. Reactions have been a mixed bag. My mother is supportive, and now a proud PFLAG mom and helping out at a local trans health conference. My dad is tolerating it, his stance is that "I've been divorced twice, you're an adult, I'm not telling you how to live your life." He still uses the wrong pronouns in private, but finally stopped calling me "she" in public. I think the beard helped.

My extended family is a mixed bag of accepting, and of me being banned from certain get togethers. I can't visit my great aunt because if I do, her kids won't visit her. Some of my in-laws are avoiding me, and female pronouns are still common among them. When I first came out, my partner was told we would be divorcing over this, and that I had gone crazy, and that's a grudge I'm still trying to let go and make peace with. As a Christian, I know it's not right to hate, but he said that "As a Christian" as well, and that cut me worse than punch probably would have.

Rough patches aside, I've had bright spots in unexpected places. A distant cousin that's one of the most conservative people I've met sent me a Christmas card with my chosen name on it. My great uncle said that this is between the Lord and I, and my walk and journey is not his to judge, My 85 year old grandma sends me cards to my new name, and says I'm brave to do what makes me happy. Just to be out, and see that they sky isn't falling, even after a very long rough patch brings me hope, and living honestly brings me joy.

How does your Christian faith interact with your identity?

It's been an odd journey, to say the least. I am Eastern Orthodox, and can no longer attend liturgy due to the fact I'm seen as a man, and am married to one. The church hasn't come around on the issue of same sex marriage, but I can't bring myself to attend with my "friend" or "brother." I cannot lie in the house of God, and have had to in some ways step away from the more formal aspects of my faith. I also feel as though a huge weight has been taken from me, I can live and exist honestly, and every day I was telling a lie to myself, and to the world, and we as Christians must live and dwell in honesty. I trusted I would be safe, and cared for. I listened so closely to my heart and to the spirit for a sign that what I am doing is wrong. I never heard that voice, but have made so many connections and moments in the spirit because I opened myself to the path that was ahead of me. I've even met a Transgender priest, and a handful of other LGBT Orthodox out there, and I have faith that some day the Lord will find a home for me in the church again, it just may not be as soon as I'd like.

There have been several laws passed that, among other things, prevent trans people from using the restroom of their gender identity. What are your thoughts on that? How do these laws make you feel?

I've been very keenly keeping an eye on these laws, because the two big states involved have been very dear to me. My job is based out of North Carolina. My in-laws live in Indiana. And because of these laws, I can't visit either state safely. The other side of the law that many are glossing over is that this law requires transgender men to use the women's rest room, and would involve a great many men who look like men suddenly in women's spaces. Or people will just ignore the law, and run the risk. I know I probably would, because my bearded, weight lifting self would get maced in the women's room, and I'd like to avoid that.

The fact of the matter is, this law wouldn't prevent peepers, or rapists. It's already illegal to peep, and to rape, and to harass. This law will not be a gateway to do an already illegal act, and it's not suddenly okay to be harassed. I live in a state that's had "gender identity" protection in place for years, and no one has been harassed or attacked by a transgender person, or a cross dresser, or a pervert pretending to be transgender to get into the bathroom. But it has saved several transgender women from being attacked by men for outing themselves, which is a real danger many trans women face every day. Violence on transgender women is a very real risk, violence by them is so rare I couldn't find a confirmed report. And the boogieman of a man in a dress going into the bathroom to harass women hasn't happened here. Ever.

Is there anything you'd like to say to people who support these laws on the basis of protecting their children?

You have a significantly higher risk of your own unattended boy being assaulted in the men's room, by a biological man. Most children are most at risk from close friends and families. This doesn't mean we need another restroom for boys under 12, or bars on every bedroom at night. Keep your children safe by teaching them about what kind of contact or suggestion might be inappropriate, teach them how to say no or get an adult if they feel uncomfortable. This will go so much further than a law that will actively endanger a significant number of men and women.

Chances are, you have already been in a bathroom with a transgender person, never known it, and walked away without an issue. Chances are this has happened more than once.

And what should "we" tell our children if they see a transgender person in the restroom?

Chances are, you have been in the restroom next to a trans person and never known it. The same goes for your kids, and a protection law means this would still be the case, and you wouldn't notice. If your child sees an obviously transgender person (which may not be the case. Trust me, I tried to reach out to a woman I thought was trans, and I think I just ruined her day.) then be as brief, to the point, and move on. "Some people look a little different:" is a great way to handle it, and will placate all but the most curious of children. Children can be frustratingly good at noticing differences, but this doesn't mean you need to give them a lesson on all things LGBT. Be as brief as you can get away with, including in the bathroom because said kid probably just gave someone quite the flustering. Most trans people don't use their identified bathrooms until they feel they're being consistently read as their transitioning gender. It's a source of anxiety for many people, especially trans women.

But from my personal experience, no one has noticed, not even kids.The most scandalous situation I have had out of a kid in a bathroom was one asking me if my mommy let me have my nose ring, and then he asked his dad if he could have one. To the father of whatever kid I just turned punk, I'm so sorry.

Is there anything you'd like to say to trans-people who might not feel safe being out?

As much as I talk about honest living and my own happiness, do what makes you happy, do what makes you feel safe. Be as much of an activist or wallflower as you feel comfortable being. You can do this.

Thanks so much for being willing to talk to us. Is there anything else you'd like to say?

I'd like to say thank you for interviewing me. It'd been great giving some insight on the issues, especially as I value being a trans educator when I'm able It can be exhausting, but I hope this brought a little understanding to the world.

Hey everyone!

Some great artists have teamed up with us to kick off the Second Open Arms Charity Drive! Take a look at this list of wonderful people willing to donate their time and talents to make a difference in the world:

 kalahari

 aleutia-the-weasel

 kittfur

 luthiennightwolf

 musclewolf and  dineegla

 from-nihility

 spacecadet

Now we need some help from you. We've narrowed down our charity options to two very reputable and worthy organizations:

1. Charity Water https://www.charitywater.org/whywater/

2. Doctors Without Borders http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/

If you want to vote then just leave a comment below with your choice. We'll let the voting run until 00:00 Tuesday EST.

Please consider sharing this journal to raise awareness! Together let's make a difference in this world!

~Spartan

Hey everyone!

We hope you had a great Easter!

I've been communicating with some great people in the fandom and I'm so excited about the artists that are willing to take part in our charity drive this year. It's gonna be great!

Stay tuned over the next week or so for more updates.

~Spartan

Hey everyone,

It's been way too long since we did a charity drive here and I was hoping to gauge the interest in doing another one?

So if you're interested in seeing us do another one, leave a shout!

If you're an artist and would like to donate your time/products/ talents, send us a note!

If you know an artist who might be willing to take part send us a note with their info and we'll contact them!

Also, please consider sharing this journal to boost our signal!

~Spartan

Hey everyone,

Not a long or new post, but I enjoyed it.

Source: http://robbellcom.tumblr.com/post/1.....-bible-part-75

[username] said:
You seem to support homosexuality on the basis that God is for love and fidelity. But what do you do with all the places in the Bible that seem to clearly denounce it? I want to be okay with it, but can’t find the support for it. Help?


All right then, [username], a bit of help…

First, some people are gay. They’re our friends and family and neighbors and coworkers and that’s who they are. I realize that this is a really, really obvious fact, but let’s start there. They’re not gay because they are deviant or destructive or trying to spread harm, they are who they are and it’s vitally important that we embrace and affirm them as they are.

When someone is told that who or how they are is wrong or deviant, it creates massive dissonance in the depth of their being. Especially if they are told that God is opposed to who they are. This is why suicide rates among gay teens are so tragically high. Sexuality is one of the most mysterious dimensions of our humanity, and to tell a young man or woman in their most formative years that there is something deeply wrong with them at the core of their being and if they are true to who they are they will bring the wrath and condemnation of the creator of universe upon them is a crushing weight no one should have to carry.

Second, it is normal and natural and healthy to want to spend your life with someone. In the Genesis story that begins the Bible, the storyteller wants us to see that something is wrong in the Garden of Eden. Long before anyone ate any fruit, things aren’t right. What is it that’s wrong? The man is alone.

Loneliness is one of the oldest aches in the bones of humanity. We want someone to share the journey with, someone to witness to our life, someone who will be there for us. We should not deny anyone the joy of sharing their life with a partner simply because they want to be with someone of the same gender. It is extremely important that we acknowledge gay marriage as a reflection of the natural, normal, healthy human desire to spend your life with someone. The world needs more-not less-fidelity, sacrifice, love and monogamy.

Third, let’s talk about the Bible. Before we get to the actual verses in the Bible that refer to same gender sex, it’s important that ask the question

Are the writers of the Bible talking about what we’re talking about?

Because in the ancient world they did not have the categories we do. There simply aren’t Hebrew or Greek or Latin words that correspond to our words. There were pagan temples with male prostitutes. There were gangs of men who wanted to rape male visitors to their village. There was every variation of promiscuity we can imagine. There were men who had coercive, nonconsensual sex with young boys. When the writers of the Bible refer to same gender sex, these are the practices they’re referring to-They aren’t talking about two people who are deeply committed to each other, being faithful to each other in a loving and monogamous relationship.

Next, the numbers. There are roughly 31,102 verses in the Bible. There are five or six or seven, depending on who you talk to, that refer to homosexuality.

Five. Or six. Or seven.

Out of 31,000.

Now, the verses. Lots and lots of work has been done interpreting and discussing the few verses in the Bible that do appear to address this topic. One of the best is Dale Martin’s book Sex and the Single Savior. A massive number of people have done great work here understanding the scriptures on this topic, a few of the best…

Here’s a great one from the fine folks at NALT
http://notalllikethat.org/taking-go.....homosexuality/

Here’s another
http://ecinc.org/clobber-passages/

And here’s another
http://epistle.us/hbarticles/clobber1.html

And here’s another
http://www.stjohnsmcc.org/new/Bible.....se/Malakos.php

All of which leads me to a story. A man called me last week. He’s a pastor. He oversees several areas of the church he works in. In his role, he interacts with a number of volunteers. Two of his best volunteers are gay. The leaders of the church recently came to this man and told him it was his job to tell these two volunteers that they couldn’t serve in the church anymore because they’re gay. He shared this with them, they were devastated, and they left the church.

Let’s be very clear here: These people were told they can’t serve in a church-a church that gathers to honor and follow the Jesus who never said a thing about same sex relationships-because of how the leaders of this church have chosen to interpret 5 of the 31,000 verses in the Bible. This is wrong, sad, heartbreaking, and destructive.

And it will not survive. These attitudes, as robust as they appear from time to time, simply cannot withstand the inevitable forward momentum of spirit rolling across the ages, call us all to greater connection, love, compassion, and understanding.

Women didn’t use to be able to vote, but now they do. There’s used to be two drinking fountains for people with two different colors of skin, but now there’s only one. While this issue continues to be controversial for many, the truth is, it’s just a matter of time until everybody looks back and says Remember when that used to be an issue?

Adapted from Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality




Life itself is always three steps forward and two steps backward. We get the point and then we lose or doubt it. In that, the biblical text mirrors our own human consciousness and journey. Our job is to see where the three steps forward texts are heading (invariably toward mercy, simplicity, inclusion, nonviolence, and trust) and to spot the two steps backward texts (which are usually about vengeance, exclusion, a rather petty and insecure god, law over grace, incidentals over substance, and technique over actual relationship).

The Bible is an anthology of many books. It is a record of people's experience of God's self-revelation. It is an account of our very human experience of the divine intrusion into history. The book did not fall from heaven in a pretty package. It was written by people trying to listen for and to God. I believe that the Spirit was guiding the listening and writing process. We must also know that humans always see "through a glass darkly . . . and all knowledge is imperfect" (1 Corinthians 13:12). Prayer and patience surrounding such human words will keep us humble and searching for the true Living Word, which is exactly how the Spirit always teaches (1 Corinthians 2:10,13). This is what it means to know something "contemplatively."

We must trust that there is a development of the human capacity for divine wisdom and human response inside the Bible. We must be honest and recognize that things like polygamy, slavery, genocide, torture, racism, sexism, stoning, and mutilation of sinners--things that are often fully accepted in the ancient text--become more intolerable as the text matures. God does not change, so much as we do. If believers cannot begin to be honest about this, we are going to lose most future generations to any sincere or faith-filled reading of the Bible. Far too many have already thrown the Bible out when they really did not need to. But they had no good teachers to guide them.

Woven throughout these developing ideas are what I call "the Great Themes of Scripture." (This was the title of my very first recordings in 1973.) I try to mine these timeless, essential themes from the text. My approach is almost so simple, it is hard to teach. It is what I call the "Jesus hermeneutic." (Hermeneutic is a method of interpretation.) My approach is, quite simply, to interpret and use the Bible the way that Jesus did.

When we get to the Risen Jesus, there is nothing to be afraid of in God. Jesus' very breath is identified with forgiveness and the Divine Shalom (see John 20:20-23). If the Risen Jesus is the full and trustworthy unveiling of the nature of God, then we live in a safe and love-filled universe. It is not that God has changed, or that the Hebrew God is a different God than the God of Jesus; it is that we are growing up as we move through the texts and deepen our experience. Stay with the text and with your inner life with God, and your capacity for God will increase and deepen.

Just as the Bible takes us through many stages of consciousness and history, it takes us individually a long time to move beyond our need to be dualistic, judgmental, accusatory, fearful, blaming, egocentric, and earning--and to see as Jesus sees. The Bible itself is a "text in travail," according to Rene Girard's fine insight. It mirrors and charts our own human travail. It will offer both the mature and the immature responses to almost everything. In time, you will almost naturally recognize the difference between the text moving forward toward the mercy, humility, and inclusivity of Jesus and when the text is regressing into arrogance, exclusion, and legalism. Even a child can see the difference, but an angry or power-hungry person will not. They will favor the regressive and violent passage every time.

Source: http://johnpavlovitz.com/2014/10/07.....gbt-community/


Love doesn’t always look like love.

When I published this blog post, I was prepared for some people to applaud it and for others to condemn it. That’s what happens whenever you put an opinion out there.

I was fully prepared for the waves of both support and hostility that accompany a vantage point on anything, especially a controversial topic like Sexuality.

What I was not prepared for in any way, were the literally hundreds and hundreds of people who have reached out to me personally to thank me for bringing some healing and hope to their families: parents, children, siblings, and adults who have confided in me (some for the first time anywhere) telling of the pain and bullying and shunning they’re received from churches, pastors, and church members—professed followers of Jesus.

Scores of people from all over the world have shared with me their devastating stories of exclusion and isolation, of unanswered prayers to change, of destructive conversion therapies, of repeated suicide attempts, and of being actively and passively driven from faith by people of faith.

Church, this is the reality of our theology on homosexuality.

This is the cost of our religion to the LGBTQ community. More accurately, it’s the cost of our religion to LGBTQ human beings. This is the painful collateral damage that comes when we see principles and ignore people, when we refuse to give them the dignity they deserve.

Apparently Love does hurt—really, really badly.

The most common defense I’ve heard over from Christians who believe that being gay is both chosen and sinful, has been some variation of the supposedly well-meaning, “Well, we’re just loving people by being honest with them, by giving them ‘the Truth’. Telling people the truth is loving them.”

Well every single day I have a crammed, bursting inbox of “Truth” for you if you’re interested in reading it, Church.

It’s full of vile profanity and utter contempt and crude jokes and physical violence and white-hot fear. It’s packed with school hallway harassment and city street beat downs and church expulsion and workplace hazing and brutal self-harm and all sorts of perpetual, personal terrorism.

And none of it looks a thing like Love to me.

It certainly doesn’t look like love to the sweet, 12-year old middle school girl in your church whose been repeatedly told she’s an abomination; that God already despises her.

It doesn’t look like love to the devastated parents who have watched their son hang himself because he was assured by his Christian schoolmates that he’s better dead than gay.

It doesn’t look like love to the devoted, faithful Christian school teacher who has lost her life-long career for no other reason than her Relationship Status.

It doesn’t look like love to the 60-year old Christian man who has prayed his whole life to be “fixed”, and who God has refused to and yet who remains an outcast in his family of faith.

It doesn’t look like love to the gay couple having their heads smashed-in by professed “Christian” strangers while walking down the street.

It doesn’t look like love to the family of a Transgender high school Junior, who can’t find a church family that will welcome them or include them or acknowledge their child as she now requests to be acknowledged.

And I’m totally comfortable believing that it doesn’t look like love to Jesus either.

The real problem with so much Christian theology toward the LGBTQ community, is that it seemingly works fine from a distance, for someone firing-off Scripture passages or religious phrases; it just often falls apart for them when trying to translate it to actual human lives and within authentic, caring relationships.

When you have the guts and the decency and the compassion to crawl out from behind computer keyboards and touch screens and raised pulpits; from radio show phone calls and bullhorn shouting, you end up standing face-to-face with beautiful, wounded, scarred people with real stories, and you realize something’s wrong here.

Something’s badly broken.

This is not what Christ’s love looks like.

Jesus’ love, even if it came with hard words somehow always seemed and felt like love. People were seen. They were heard. They were touched. They were left with more dignity than when they started. I’m not sure LGBTQ people can say the same about their encounters with most Christians.

Can they say it about you? About your church? About your small group?

So many believers want to make this all about sin; about the “Biblical position on homosexuality” that they’re claiming to be defending, but it really isn’t. Regardless of where you stand theologically as a Christian, this is about treating all people like they are made by God and in the image of God.

Jesus’ command to love God and love others as we would desire to be loved, that is theology too. In fact, He said it was the greatest portion of it; our most pressing personal moral responsibility. You wanna argue that? Argue with Jesus.

Church, the blood and the bruises of the LGBTQ community are on your hands and mine as believers, as long we allow any Christian to dehumanize people under the guise of loving them.

However we want to frame it or justify it, the net result of our religion to so many gay people is that entire families are being torn apart, sent to the shadows, and horribly mistreated in the name of Jesus. Real flesh-and-blood people are going through uninvited, individual Hell every day at the hands of people who claim Christ. The Church’s treatment of the LGBTQ community people has been downright sinful, and it’s killing our testimony to the world.

We’re making it virtually impossible for gay people to exist in our churches and then feeling justified in damning them for walking away from God when they leave. The truth is, so often they aren’t turning away from God, they’re just removing themselves from harm’s way.

We are losing credibility to those outside the organized Christianity, not because we’re condoning sin, but because when the rubber meets the road we really don’t know how to “love the sinner” in any way that remotely resembles Jesus, and all our God is Love platitudes ring hollow.

Church, this is our legacy that we are building in these days to the LGBTQ community and those who love them, and I assure you it’s not legacy of love.

I don’t know what the answer is for you and I can’t tell you how your theology gets expressed in the trenches of real people’s lives. I only know that we as Christ’s Church can do better, regardless of our theological stance. We have to do better.

This is where our faith is proven to be made of Jesus-stuff or not.

This is where the love of God we like to preach about is either clearly seen—or terribly distorted.

Source: http://www.womansday.com/life/inspi.....given-excerpt/


On October 1, 2006, my son Charlie, his wife, Marie, and their children came over to our house in Strasburg, PA. Later, as we said our farewells, Charlie seemed quieter than usual. It would be the last time I'd see him alive.

The next day, on my lunch break at work, I heard sirens and wondered what could be happening in our small rural community. Just as I got back to my desk, my husband, Chuck, called. He asked me to come immediately to Charlie and Marie's home. As I hurried down the stairway from my office, a sense of foreboding squeezed my stomach.

The drive was only 10 minutes, but I heard on the radio that there had been a shooting at an Amish schoolhouse nearby. Children were among the dead and injured. Charlie drove a truck for his father-in-law's business collecting milk from area dairy farms, and he often parked right near the school. Fear clutched at my heart. Could he have intervened to help and been killed? As soon as I got to his house and pushed through the crowd of police and reporters, I asked a trooper if my son was alive. "No, ma'am," he responded somberly.

I turned to my husband. With pain in his eyes, he choked out, "It was Charlie. He killed those girls."

All I recall is falling to the ground in a fetal position, wailing. Eventually, we were walked to the police cruiser and driven home. My husband is a retired police officer. I could not imagine his feelings as he was escorted out like a perpetrator after 30 years of being the one who did the escorting.

Absorbing the truth

Chuck sat at our breakfast table, crying. I had not seen my strong, protective husband shed tears since his father passed away years before. Now he could not even lift his head. He'd covered his face with a dish towel to control the flow of tears, his eyes sunken and dull.

And I had no answers. Even after hearing from police what the survivors saw, I struggled to accept the reality: My beloved son had walked into the schoolhouse with an arsenal of guns, boarded up the windows and doors, bound and shot 10 girls, ages 6 to 13, then killed himself. Five of the children died.

Later, anger set in, mixing with my pain. Where were you, God? I found myself screaming out in my head. How could you let this happen? I didn't understand how Charlie could leave his children fatherless, to face the shame and the horror. And the gentle Amish families—what darkness had so possessed Charlie that he would want to rip away daughters as precious as his own? And I felt enormous self-doubt. I didn't know what kind of mother could bear a son who could perpetrate such horrible deeds.

The first miracle

As we sat and sobbed, I looked through our window and caught sight of a stalwart figure dressed in black. It was our neighbor Henry Stoltzfoos, whom we'd known for years. He is an Amishman, and was dressed in his formal visiting attire and wide-brimmed straw hat. Striding up to the front door, Henry knocked.

Mind you, Henry had friends and relatives whose daughters had died in that schoolhouse, at the hands of our son. Like all the Amish, he had every reason to hate us.

But as I opened the door, I saw that Henry didn't look angry. Instead, compassion radiated from his face. Walking over to Chuck, he put one hand on his shoulder. The first words I heard him speak took my breath away: "Roberts, we love you. This was not your doing. You must not blame yourself."

For more than an hour, Henry stood by my husband, consoling him and affirming his love and forgiveness. Chuck kept saying that we had to move away from the people Charlie had hurt. But Henry reassured Chuck that there was no reason for us to move. The Amish did not hold our family responsible for Charlie's actions. "I think the devil used your boy," Henry said.

By the time he left, my husband was sitting up straight, some of the burden eased from his shoulders. To this day I call Henry "my angel in black." But he was far from the only one to show tremendous grace and forgiveness in the face of loss. The next day, a group of Amish leaders walked into the yard of Marie's parents' house. Every one of them had a family member who had died in the schoolhouse. But they did not raise fists in fury. They reached to pull Marie's father into their embrace. Together, the families of the victims and the father-in-law of their killer wept and prayed.

Forgiveness in action

While I was grateful for the reaction we received, I can't say I understood it. "If we will not forgive, how can we be forgiven?" a spokesman for the Amish said on the news shows covering the shooting. "Forgiveness is a choice. We choose to forgive," another spokesperson added.

But these were not just words. The Amish insisted that part of the funds donated to help the victims' families go to Marie and her children—for they'd lost a husband and father. And one grieving father of a girl Charlie had killed visited us. I shared how brokenhearted I was that our son Zach would not attend Charlie's funeral—he couldn't forgive him. I asked him to pray that Zach would have a change of heart.

"Of course," he said. Then, "Would you like me to call him?"

The Amish don't keep phones in their homes and have a distaste for such technology, so his offer deeply touched me. He left a message asking Zach to forgive his brother and come support his family.

A few days later, Zach was there. He told us later that our pleas had softened his heart, but his turning point had been that message.

Lesson learned

And there was still more kindness. After my son's service, at the grave site, the media jostled to take pictures. All at once, at least 30 Amish emerged from behind a shed, the men in their tall, wide-brimmed hats, the women in white bonnets. The group fanned out into a crescent between the grave site and the photographers, their backs offering a solid wall of black to the cameras. They did this to show compassion for the family of the man who had taken so much from them.

Fresh anger shook me then. I could think only of the terrible wrong Charlie had done. At that moment I was not sure that I could ever forgive the unspeakable evil he'd perpetrated on these young parents, his own children, our family. Yet neither could I stop loving Charlie. He was my son.

I held on to my composure as our Amish guests stepped forward to express their condolences. Among the first to approach us were Chris and Rachel Miller, whose daughters, Lena and Mary Liz, had died in their arms. Murmuring a greeting to Chuck and me, they added softly, "We are so sorry for your loss."

Sorry for our loss. I could barely choke out a response. Our son had taken the lives of their daughters. And here they were comforting us!

It was a moment of sudden, healing clarity for me. Forgiveness is a choice. The Amish had made that very clear, but now I knew what it meant: Forgiveness isn't a feeling. These sweet parents were as grief-stricken as I was, their hearts broken like mine. I did not have to stop feeling anger, hurt and utter bewilderment at the horrific decisions Charlie had made. I only had to make a choice: to forgive.

And I understood the other part of what the Amish had said: If we cannot forgive, how can we be forgiven? I am not a murderer, but I have committed wrongs as well. And I was forgiven! How can I, in turn, not offer the forgiveness I've received—even to my own son? Especially to my own son.

Over the last decade, the love our family was given has inspired me to spread the message of forgiveness wherever I can, often hand in hand with the Amish families my son had harmed. October 2, 2006, brought a tsunami to my world. But I've learned that without storms, there'd be no rainbows. I don't know what is coming, but I am not afraid. I've come to trust my life to the God of both storms and rainbows.

From Richard Rohr's daily meditations.


Franciscans never believed that "blood atonement" was required for God to love us. Our teacher, John Duns Scotus (1266-1308), said Christ was Plan A from the very beginning (Colossians 1:15-20, Ephesians 1:3-14). Christ wasn't a mere Plan B after the first humans sinned, which is the way most people seem to understand the significance of the death and resurrection of Jesus. The Great Mystery of Incarnation could not be a mere mop-up exercise, a problem solving technique, or dependent on human beings messing up.



Scotus taught that the Enfleshment of God had to proceed from God's perfect love and God's perfect and absolute freedom (John 1:1-18), rather than from any mistake of ours. Did God intend no meaning or purpose for creation during the first 14.8 billion years? Was it all just empty, waiting for sinful humans to set the only real drama into motion? Did the sun, moon, and galaxies have no divine significance? The fish, the birds, the animals were just waiting for humans to appear? Was there no Divine Blueprint ("Logos") from the beginning? Surely this is the extreme hubris and anthropomorphism of the human species!



The substitutionary atonement "theory" (and that's all it is) seems to imply that the Eternal Christ's epiphany in Jesus is a mere afterthought when the first plan did not work out. I know there are many temple metaphors of atonement, satisfaction, ransom, "paying the price," and "opening the gates"; but do know they are just that--metaphors of transformation and transitioning. Too many Christians understood these in a transactional way instead of a transformational way.



How and why would God need a "blood sacrifice" before God could love what God had created? Is God that needy, unfree, unloving, rule-bound, and unable to forgive? Once you say it, you see it creates a nonsensical theological notion that is very hard to defend. Many rightly or wrongly wondered, "What will God ask of me if God demands violent blood sacrifice from his only Son?" Particularly if they had a rageaholic or abusive parent, they were already programmed to believe in punishment as the shape of the universe. A violent theory of redemption legitimated punitive and violent problem solving all the way down--from papacy to parenting. There eventually emerged a disconnect between the founding story of necessary punishment and Jesus' message. If God uses and needs violence to attain God's purposes, maybe Jesus did not really mean what he said in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5), and violent means are really good and necessary. Thus our history.



In Franciscan parlance, Jesus did not come to change the mind of God about humanity; Jesus came to change the mind of humanity about God. This grounds Christianity in pure love and perfect freedom from the very beginning. It creates a very coherent and utterly positive spirituality, which draws people toward lives of inner depth, prayer, reconciliation, healing, and even universal "at-one-ment," instead of mere sacrificial atonement. Nothing changed on Calvary, but everything was revealed as God's suffering love--so that we could change! (Please read that again.)



Jesus was precisely the "once and for all" (Hebrews 7:27) sacrifice given to reveal the lie and absurdity of the very notion and necessity of "sacrificial" religion itself. Heroic sacrifices to earn God's love are over! That's much of the point of Hebrews 10 if you are willing to read it with new eyes. But we perpetuated such regressive and sacrificial patterns by making God the Father into the Chief Sacrificer, and Jesus into the necessary victim. Is that the only reason to love Jesus?



This perspective allowed us to ignore Jesus' lifestyle and preaching, because all we really needed Jesus for was the last three days or three hours of his life. This is no exaggeration. The irony is that Jesus undoes, undercuts, and defeats the sacrificial game. Stop counting, measuring, deserving, judging, and punishing, which many Christians are very well trained in--because they believe that was the way God operated too. This is no small thing. It makes the abundant world of grace largely inaccessible--which is, of course, the whole point.


It is and has always been about love from the very beginning.

More from Richard Rohr's daily meditations.


Francis emphasized an imitation and love of the humanity of Jesus, and not just the proving or worshiping of his divinity. Even Christian art changed after Francis; take a look at paintings before and after Francis' life (1182-1226) or Medieval Art from the 5th century through the 15th century. Francis fell in love with the humanity and humility of Jesus, which made Jesus imitable. But in most of Christian history we have emphasized the divinity, omnipotence, omniscience, and "almightiness" of Jesus, which makes actually following him--or loving him--seem unrealistic. We are on two utterly different planes. A God who is "totally other" alienates totally.

I hope this doesn't upset some of my Christian friends, but an awful lot of Christians are not really Christian. That's not a moral judgment; it's a description. Many Christians simply believe in a Supreme Being who made all things; that Supreme Being happens to be Jesus. He was the available God figure in Europe, so we pushed him into that position, while avoiding Jesus' living message: that the human and the divine coexist in him. He is actually a "third something." This is hard for us to grasp or even imagine, because it seems a contradiction in terms, an irreconcilable paradox. Already in Byzantine art and many later icons Jesus is shown holding up his two fingers, indicating, "I am fully human, and I am fully divine at the same time." We were struck dumb by this paradox.

For most Christians today, Jesus is totally divine, but not really human. Here is the price we pay for our inability to think non-dually: When we deny what Jesus holds together, we can't put it together in ourselves! And that's the whole point: you and I are also daughters of heaven and daughters of earth, sons of God and sons of this world. Both are true at the same time, which defies all reason and logic. We also are a living paradox. But we need a model, an exemplar, a promise, and a guarantee (all words used in Pauline letters) to imagine such a far off impossibility. For us, that model is Jesus. In Scholastic philosophy we call this an "Exemplary Cause"; this is how Jesus "causes" our salvation. It is not a magic act accomplished by moral behavior; rather, salvation is a gradual realization of who we are--and always have been--and will be eternally.

Two years before he died, in September of 1224, Francis' body was emblazoned with the stigmata, the five wounds of Christ. This is highly documented and attested to--not a Catholic fairy tale. Francis walked around like a living Christ the last two years of his life and this was witnessed by crowds of people. Clearly the Christ Mystery was something Francis believed not just with his mind, but lived with his spirit and his body; so much so that it finally overtook him in a psychosomatic way. Modern science now recognizes that psychic diseases and memories do affect our bodies in profound ways. Body and soul really are one, and psychology and medicine are making this more and more obvious and compelling for our practical lives. To live happily in such wholeness is often called holiness.

From Richard Rohr's daily meditations.


The alternative orthodoxy of Francis and the mainline orthodoxy of most Christian denominations largely have different starting points. Francis' alternative orthodoxy emphasizes incarnation instead of redemption. For Franciscans, Christmas is already Easter because in becoming a human being, God already shows that it's good to be human, to be flesh. The problem is already somehow solved. Flesh does not need to be redeemed by any sacrificial atonement theory. This opens up an entirely different field in which to move freely.

Our sense of shame and guilt seems to localize in the body. The body ages and dies and so it looks inferior, but actually the soul can age and die too, and that is probably what we meant by the word "hell." Both body and soul are on a journey. Of all people, Christians should have known that "flesh" is not a bad word. In fact, "The Word became flesh" (John 1:14) according to the inspired words of John's Gospel. Unfortunately Paul used the same word "flesh" (sarx) in a most judgmental and dualistic way--and that is the one most people remember. It got us off to a bad start.

I think my wonderful Church history and liturgy professor, Fr. Larry Landini, in Centerville, Ohio, may have given the best explanation for why so many Christians seem to be ashamed and afraid of the body. In 1970, on the last day of class, as he was backing out of the classroom, Fr. Landini offered these final words to us: "Just remember, on the practical level the Christian Church has been much more influenced by Plato than it has been by Jesus." He then left the room, leaving us laughing and stunned, but fully prepared to understand the sad truth of what he had just said, since he had led us through the history of spirituality and liturgy for four full years.

For Plato, body and soul were incompatible enemies; matter and spirit were at deep odds with one another, utter opposites. But for Jesus, there is no animosity between body, soul, and spirit whatsoever. In fact, this is the heart of Jesus' healing message, and this is why incarnation is at the heart of Franciscan theology. Jesus healed both body and soul in most Gospel stories.

Francis understood the deep implications of the Incarnation and took Incarnation to its logical conclusions: Real Presence is everywhere--in the neighbor, in the other, in nature, in animals, in Brother Sun and Sister Moon, in sinner and enemies, in the collective Body of Christ, and yes, in distilled form in the bread and in the wine, just as it was distilled and focused in the person of Jesus. The principle is this: we must struggle with the truth in one concrete place--and then universalize from there. This has sometimes been called the first philosophical problem of "the one and the many."

The Nicene Creed and the Apostles' Creed, which many Christians recite at church, go back to the second and third centuries. In them we say, "We believe in the resurrection of the body." I want to point out what that is not saying: We believe in the resurrection of the spirit or the soul--yet that is exactly what most Christians have almost exclusively concentrated on. The Christian religion makes the most daring affirmation: God is redeeming matter and spirit, or the whole of creation. The very end of the Bible speaks of the "new heavens and the new earth" and the descent of the "new Jerusalem from the heavens" to "live among us" (Revelation 21:1-3). This physical universe and our own physicality are somehow going to share in the Eternal Mystery, whatever it is in its fullness. Embodiment is not insignificant; your body is not bad. In fact, it is the new and lasting temple (1 Corinthians 6:19-20 and throughout Paul). It is the very hiding place of God--so only the humble and the humbled will find such a Treasure.

For much of Christian history we've severely limited people's in-depth experience of God by making religious faith largely into a set of mental abstractions. We split the mind from the body and both of them from the spirit. Many of us are now victims of not knowing how to receive, access, enjoy, suffer, and appreciate what can only be known in its wholeness. No wonder so many have left the church, doubt the truth of Christianity, become practical materialists inside the church (including many clergy) or agnostics and atheists outside the church (including many who are actual "believers"). I am not sure which is sadder. What they seem to affirm or seem to reject is too often not the real thing anyway. As wise Augustine said in the 4th century, "God has many that the church does not have; and the church has many that God does not have." Any who put body and spirit together are already "had" by God! They are privileged to "carry in their bodies the very brand marks of Jesus" (Galatians 6:17).

Re-submitting this one with a title this time.


The story of Moses and the burning bush is one of my personal favorites. There's a lot going on there, but I was recently introduced to a new angle.

When God calls out to Moses, Moses replies: "Here I am." When Moses asks for God's name he is told: "I am" or "I am what I will be" (depending on your translation).

Two I ams meeting over a burning bush.

We often forget that, at this point, Moses had no knowledge of Hebrew stories or tradition. He'd been raised as an Egyptian and saw the gods in the ways that they did. Egyptian gods required sacrifice, monuments, and conquest as shows of devotion from their followers. For the most part, those gods did not bestow favor or blessings on most people in this life. Such things only happened to Pharaoh and the high priests. As a peasant, the best you could hope for was to live in the underworld with Osiris after you died.

So Moses meets this I am at a burning bush and you can imagine he's wondering how to please this new god. What monument does he have to build? Who does he have to enslave? But this god wants none of those things. Instead, He says "I have heard the cries of my people, I love them, and I'm going to free them." Ancient gods didn't hear the cries of the oppressed masses. They never promised something without wanting something in return. This God shows up in the middle of no where (not a temple in sight) in a burning bush. This God hears the cry of the oppressed. This God loves and delivers because He loves, asking for nothing in return.

Two I ams meet over a burning bush and one overturns everything the other thinks he knows about the way the universe works.

~Spartan

More from Richard Rohr.

Source: https://cac.org/a-santa-claus-god-2016-01-27/


I strongly believe that good theology has two important tasks: to keep all people free for God and to keep God free for all people. In my opinion, most churches do not allow God much freedom. God is always so much bigger than the theological and churchy boxes we build for “him.” Without recognizing it, many people have an operative image of God as Santa Claus. He’s “making a list and checking it twice, gonna find out who’s naughty or nice.” He rewards the good kids with toys (heaven) and punishes the bad kids with lumps of coal (hell). If you don’t have a mature spirituality or an honest inner prayer life, you’ll end up with a Santa Claus god, and the Gospel becomes a cheap novel of reward and punishment. That’s not the great Good News! An infinitely loving God is capable of so much more than such a simplistic trade off or buy out.

Bringing social acceptability to Christianity has not helped in this regard. After Constantine made Christianity the established religion of the Roman Empire in 313, the great biblical concepts of grace and forgiveness gradually were controlled by formulas and technique. Empires cannot afford too much mercy or forgiveness. Soon the Church created equations: this much sin results in this many years in purgatory or hell; this much penance results in this much time released from purgatory. Grace and forgiveness became juridical and distant concepts instead of deep spiritual realizations. Disobedience or disloyalty were seen as much more sinful than any failure to love or serve or show mercy.

The work of the priesthood became sin management much more than the marvelous work of transformation and inner realization that we see in Jesus’ ministry. Church largely became a “worthiness attainment system” managed from without, instead of a transformational system awakening us from within.

When forgiveness becomes a weighing and judging process, then we who are in charge can measure it, define who is in and who is out, find ways to earn it, and exclude the unworthy. We have then destroyed the likelihood that people will ever experience the pure gift of God’s grace and forgiveness.

When you fall into the ocean of mercy, you stop all counting and measuring. In fact, counting and weighing no longer make sense; they run counter to the experience of grace. As long as you keep counting, you will not realize that everyone is saved by mercy anyway.

I recently visited the 9/11 Memorial at the site of the Twin Towers in New York City. A huge waterfall drops down into the darkness of a lower pool whose bottom you cannot see. It struck me deeply as a metaphor for God: mercy eternally pouring into darkness, always filling an empty space. Grace fills all the gaps of the universe. Counting and measuring can only increase the space between things. Even better, water always falls and pools up in the very lowest and darkest places, just like mercy does. And mercy is just grace in action.

source:https://cac.org/retributive-justice-and-restorative-justice-2016-01-26/

In my forty-five years as a priest, I have found that one of the best things we can do to remove people’s ingrained inability to experience grace and mercy is to first clear away their toxic image of God. As I see it, there are two major obstructions that need to be removed. One is theological and one is more psychological.

Poor theology has led most people to view God as a sometimes benevolent Santa Claus or as an unforgiving tyrant who is going to burn us in hell for all eternity if we don’t love him. (Who would love, or even trust, a god like that?) Psychologically, humans tend to operate out of a worldview of fear and scarcity rather than trust and abundance. This stingy, calculating worldview makes both grace and mercy unimaginable and difficult to experience. We’ll spend several days looking at these impediments to receiving grace.

First, let me expand on our secular and limited definition of justice, which for most people is merely retributive justice. When people on the news say, “We want justice!” they normally mean that bad deeds should be punished or that they want vengeance. Our judicial, legal, and penal systems are almost entirely based on this idea of retributive justice. Retributive justice seems to be the best our dualistic world can do. This much bad deserves this much punishment; this much good deserves this much reward. The rational, logical, tit for tat, quid pro quo system makes sense to most of us.

This does hold civil society together. I certainly recognize many early passages in the Bible that present God as punitive and retributive, but you must stay with the text—and observe how we gradually let God grow up. God does not change, but our knowledge of God surely evolves. Mere divine retribution leads to an ego-satisfying and eventually unworkable image of God which situates us inside of a very unsafe and dangerous universe. Both Jesus and Paul observed the human tendency toward retribution and spoke strongly about the limitations of the law.

The biblical notion of justice, beginning in the Hebrew Scriptures with the Jewish prophets—especially Moses, Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Hosea—is quite different. If we read carefully and honestly, we will see that God’s justice is restorative. (This term has only been around for about the last twenty-five years as human consciousness has evolved.) In each case, after the prophet chastises the Israelites for their transgressions against Yahweh, the prophet continues by saying, in effect, “And here’s what Yahweh will do for you: God will now love you more than ever! God will love you into wholeness. God will pour upon you a gratuitous, unbelievable, unaccountable, irrefutable love that you will finally be unable to resist.”

God “punishes” us by loving us more! How else could divine love be supreme and victorious? Check out this theme for yourself: read such passages as Isaiah 29:13-24, Hosea 6:1-6, Ezekiel 16 (especially verses 59-63), and so many of the Psalms. God’s justice is fully successful when God can legitimate and validate a human being in their original and total identity! God wins by making sure we win—just as any loving human parent does. The little “time outs” and spankings along the way are simply to keep us awake and growing.

Love is the only thing that transforms the human heart. In the Gospel we see Jesus fully revealing this divine wisdom. Love takes the shape and symbolism of healing and radical forgiveness—which is just about all that Jesus does. Jesus, who represents God, usually transforms people at the moments when they most hate themselves, when they most want to punish themselves or feel shame and guilt. Look at Jesus’ interaction with the tax collector Zacchaeus (Luke 19:1-10). He doesn’t belittle or punish Zacchaeus; instead, Jesus goes to his home, shares a meal with him, and treats him like a friend. Zacchaeus’ heart is opened and transformed.

As Isaiah says of God, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways” (Isaiah 55:8). Yet I am afraid we largely pulled God down into “our thoughts.” We think fear, anger, divine intimidation, threat, and punishment are going to lead people to love. Show me where that has worked. You cannot lead people to the highest level of motivation by teaching them the lowest. God always and forever models the highest, and our task is merely to “imitate God” (Ephesians 5:1).

For many people, the opposite of faith is doubt. The goal, then, within this understanding, is to eliminate doubt. But faith and doubt are not opposites. Doubt is often a sign that your faith has a pulse, that you're owning your path, engaged, thinking, feeling, that your heart is alive and well and exploring and searching. Faith and doubt aren't opposites; they are, it turns out, excellent dance partners.

-Rob Bell

https://youtu.be/7rZOMY2sOnE