I know how it feels to not fully understand your true feelings for someone.  I love someone completely, and want to spend the rest of my life with him; yet I also have doubts.  Doubts include if he is the right man for me, and if he is my one true soul mate.  Thirty years from now I don’t want to look back and think to myself—“I wish I had taken a chance on the other him.” But what am I to do.  I have given my heart to one man that I truly and completely love, and when I am with him my world stops spinning.  When we are apart though, my mind wonders and I think of another.  Do you see the predicament I am in?

From the moment we met, I knew he was special.  We never spent more than a day apart for more than two months, and the times we shared were the best times of my life.  He held me when I cried, and understood how much I needed someone to be there for me.  He respected every part of me, and loved me the way I deserved to be loved.  He was my first kiss, my first boyfriend, and my first true love, yet I also questioned if there was another for me.

Then came another; the other man I so desperately wanted to let into my heart.  At first, we were just acquaintances, but that soon developed into a deep friendship.  We connected on a spiritual level, unlike anything I had ever felt before.  I knew he was unlike others too, and it was because of this I did not want to let him go.  Against the advice of many friends, family, and others I continued to let him into my heart, only for it to become hurt and broken unlike before.

I felt I was hurting all involved so I tried to let one of them go each time, and then I let them go a second time, only to have my heart hurt more than before.  I knew I was not being fair to both, but I wanted both in my life.  At one point I decided upon my love, the one who had stood beside me in these times of turmoil, but I still could not keep the other out of my thoughts.  Upon telling him I no longer wanted him in my life, he did not fight the battle scene, as I had hoped he would.  He let me go, and denied any wrongdoing on both of our parts.

So now I sit here alone, telling a lie to the man I am supposed to love.  What am I to do?

So far I was a Christian who was having a severe problem staying a Christian.

I had severe moral qualms about the God as depicted in the Bible, which forced me to decide not to take the Bible literally. Otherwise I would have to oppose an omnipotent being based on him being an immoral omnipotent being. Not very good odds there.

However this solution did not last very long. Instead of being satisfied that the problem was solved I kept asking questions and found severe issues with the whole concept of a just and loving God making his decision on who goes to Hell and suffers eternal pain and punishment on the basis of belief in him as depicted in Christianity. The whole system was, at its heart, an unjust system.

As I continued to think and ponder about it all I also ran into other problems with the whole idea of an omnipotent and omniscient God. Supposedly God gave man free will. In fact that is how sin entered into the world – man exercising his free will unwisely.

Short digression here. How just and fair is it to set it up for children to be born into original sin, to inherit it, to suffer under it, and to eventually be sent to Hell for it? The whole system is flawed and skewed to injustice.

Anyway, how can you fit the idea of an omniscient God with the idea of humanity having any sort of free will? If man can act freely then God does not know everything. Yet there are many verses in the Bible that says that he does see all and know all. If he does then our actions are determined from our birth. And since God set up the universe he is the one ultimately responsible for our mistakes. And then he punishes us for actions already determined before our birth.

I realized that Judas was a prime example of the problems inherent in believing in both an omniscient God and in free will.

Jesus’ crucifixion was a necessary part of God’s plan for humanity’s salvation. It was already pre-determined before Jesus’s birth.  Then did Judas really have a choice in whether he should betray Jesus? If he had free will and there was a chance that he would not betray Jesus to his death then was it possible that God’s whole plan for humanity’s salvation could be thwarted?   But it is not possible for limited and ignorant humans to thwart the will of God. 

If mankind has no true free will then his fall and God’s system of salvation was a farce. Another moral issue. Either God was not omniscient or God was not just.  If God were truly just and loving as well as omnipotent then why such a wasteful system of salvation? One in which most would suffer for eternity. Where was the love and mercy as well as the justice in that?

This time my doubts were even more serious than when I first realized the moral problems with the whole story of Moses and the Pharaoh.

that I’m still only setting this thing up. Basically if this was a house you’ve come in for the housewarming when the first wall is still being built. So all of you arriving from the trackback on this post bear with me and I hope you hang around. Definitely struggling in my faith which I hope to figure out in time. If you’d stay along for the musings down the road I’d very much appreciate it

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In a day and age where sports stars loom larger than life, it is hard to settle for being average.  It is painful being below average in anything!  How can you compare with the likes of a Kobe Bryant, Vanessa Williams, Roger Federer, Alex Rodriguez, Peyton Manning, or Tiger Woods?  It would seem that the world doesn’t have a place for your average ‘Joe’ or ‘Josephine’.

The wonderful thing we find in a relationship with God, and confirmed in the Bible, is that God does use the average person.  In fact, God uses people in spite of any weaknesses or inabilities.  The Bible story seems to tell us that God delights in using the average, ordinary person to do extraordinary things in his creation and kingdom.

Throughout the Bible we find stories about God interacting with people who have all sorts of inadequacies.  Moses stuttered too much to be a spokesperson.  Caleb was too old to go off to battle.  David was too young to be a national leader.  Elijah suffered depression.  Josiah, made king as a child, was much too young and inexperienced to start a national spiritual revival and renewal.  Peter was too compulsive and hotheaded to be a pastor-leader.  Mark was a quitter and Paul had anger issues.

Lone Tree In Fall Colors, Howard Amon Park, Fall 2009 ©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2009)

Another great example of this is found in the story of Gideon (Judges 6 and 7).  He is someone that God used to deliver Israel from the nation of Midian.  Midian had overrun Israel and sent her people into hiding in the mountains.  They stole crops and cattle, leaving nothing for the Israelites.  Finally, Israel seeks God’s help.  He sends them Gideon.

Gideon is much too timid to be an army general.  He simply lacks the skill set required for such an adventure.  Not only that, but he seems to be somewhat of a doubter.  He is definitely not “a man of faith and power for the hour” that is for sure.  Gideon confronts the Lord with a series of troubling questions:  Why has this happened to us?  Where are all the miracles we were told about as kids?  Why has the Lord abandoned us?  (In other words, where is God when evil is present?)

Gideon’s story teaches us that God is not bound or limited by human misunderstanding or mysteries.  He is not thrown off course by what is humanly unexplainable.  Only God has the capacity to understand everything.  Nothing is a mystery to Him.  Plus, he is not put off by us because of our doubts and lack of faith.  The Lord God seems to have enough confidence in his own power and ability to accomplish whatever he wills.  He’s just looking for a little cooperation, which, indeed, will require a little faith and action on our part.

The Lord tells Gideon to “go in the strength you have.” Since Gideon was real unsure this was a mission he could accomplish, the Lord also told him, “I am sending you.”  God always uses what we have available, which is usually not much.  At the same time, he is not limited by the lack of our abilities, strength, skills or experiences.  He promises to make up the difference with what he has, which are resources way beyond ours.

Gideon’s response is a lot like Moses’ at the burning bush.  It is a barrage of reasons why this plan will not work.  Gideon’s poor self image has taught him that he is powerless and helpless.  His family is on the bottom of the social scale in the tribe of Mannasseh.  Not only that, he is the least of the family, the last born, the smallest.  Plus, he has been living in a nation that has been socialized to expect to be beaten down and on the run.

This is an amazing story that has a principle repeated over and over in the Bible.  It is a story that tells us that God is not bound by the weaknesses we were born with.  Your parents, home life, siblings, birth order, gangs, school, or neighborhood does not limit God’s ability to work in your life.  He is bigger than your genetic or environmental makeup.  He is all-sufficient in himself.  While he does not need us to accomplish anything, he has chosen in his sovereignty to partner with his creation to fulfill his purposes and plans.  So, he is just looking to you and me for a little faith and cooperation.

So, you don’t need to be a superstar.  Average or below average, it doesn’t matter.  God can use you beyond your inability.

©Weatherstone/Ron Almberg, Jr. (2009)

My continuing journey to atheism….  Journey.  That is what I was going to title this segment but looking at it I realize that it sounds so trite; an overused metaphor.  But what to change it too?

 My Road to Atheism?

 My Train Trip to Atheism?

 Avalanche?

 As my former religious beliefs broke and crumbled from under me and fell into the abyss I struggled to keep my balance amid the avalanche of failed ideas and beliefs.

 Hmmm, I don’t know.  Keep the trite journey or go with the melodramatic avalanche?  If anyone has any ideas I’m open to them.

 Anyway, at this time I was still a Christian, a liberal Christian who did not take the Bible literally and who supported evolution.  My parents knew this and although they were more conservative in their beliefs they were fine with mine since they still included such core beliefs as an omnipotent, omniscient God, Jesus as his son and our savior, the resurrection of Jesus, and the triune God.

 However even though my more liberal interpretation of the Bible had allowed me some breathing and comfort room I still had more questions.  I found myself still thinking about Christian beliefs and what they mean.   Specifically I found myself asking questions about salvation and about how people chose their religious beliefs. 

 As part of my questioning I had started to read about other religions – Judaism, Buddhism, Confucianism, Taoism, Islam, Hinduism, etc.  I also started to read about the people who followed those other faiths.  In doing so I began to ask, why are these people going to Hell? 

 For the most part they had the same morals I did.  They were concerned about their family, friends, and neighbors.  They tried to, and for the most part did, live good and decent lives.  I did not see any difference in morality between the different religions and Christians. 

 I knew that we all fall short by God’s standards of perfection and so none of us deserve eternal salvation except by his grace.  Fine.  However does this mean that they deserve eternal punishment and pain?  Does that mean that the Buddhist who raised a good family, helped his neighbor, tried not to hurt anyone deserved eternal Hell – the same as a Hitler or Stalin?   That Gandhi is suffering eternal damnation next to Pol Pot in Hell? 

 That did not strike me as the actions of a just and loving God.

This struck me as especially true given the fact that the vast majority of people stay within the religious traditions of their family or society.  It is the one we are raised up in, the one that surrounds us, the one that we perceive as normal.  The way we are brought up provides the lens through which we view the world.  It is a lens that can only be changed with great difficulty or in times of great trouble.

 Given this, then how could a just and loving God condemn someone who was brought up a Muslim to hell?  Even though he may know about the Bible it does not normally speak to him in the same manner that the Qur’an does;  just as the Qur’an does not speak to the Christian heart in the same manner as the Bible.  How reasonable is it then to expect someone raised in another religion to become a follower of Christ and be saved.

 It happens, but not for most.  Most follow the faith of their parents.  And for those who do not they do not all wind up Christian.  You have Christians converting to Judaism, to Islam, to Buddhism, to atheism.    Conversions are relatively rare experiences. 

 To base salvation, to base sending someone to hell for eternity on this basis – well, I was again having problems with my faith. 

And this didn’t even consider all of those who died without even hearing of Christianity of Jesus.  Who died without ever having the opportunity to read the Bible.  What about them?  Were they condemned to hell too? 

 My breathing space was gone and I was again suffocating on the avalanche of questions threatening once again to bury me in the rubble of my beliefs.

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Hard to believe Y2K was 10 years ago.  That’s what I was thinking recently, and I realized that of all my memories of the past decade, 80% are negative.  I think about bouncing from job to job.  Never really getting ahead financially, socially, or responsibly.  I think about KM, and how she “took” what I wanted from me.  I think about the Bush years, and all the garbage we got from that. The fact the band fizzled out just when we were starting to build something good.  How many relationships did I tarnish?  How many friends did I take advantage of?  How many people do I owe money to?  Why did I associate with him, and end up getting a DUI instead of him?  Why did I make that phone call?  Why?

For the last ten years, I have spent my time blaming situations on others, calling out people for their indiscretions and decisions.  Leaning on others to get me through my own, because, “I’m cursed.”  Instead of seeing the good in people, the good in myself, appreciating and believing in what I had and what I could do, I focused on the negative.  I became impatient, always thinking there was something better, something more.  I gave up on people, relationships, opportunities, and instead focused on my doubts, my fears, my negativity.  I let it guide me.  It has almost driven me off the edge.  Almost.

Yesterday, in the depths of my created despair surrounding the current episode of My UnCharmed Life, I woke up.  I suddenly realized what I should have known all along…that I am creating all of this.  What I choose to believe and put forth is what I receive.  My negativity attracts negativity.  My doubts and fears lead to greater doubts and fears.  I make irrational choices based on irrational beliefs.  I do not appreciate, and therefore, do not receive appreciation.

I have spent the last ten years (honestly, my entire life) creating my negative life, and the only way I can change that is to create my positive life by seeing the positive, living the positive, appreciating what I HAVE and what I CAN do, instead of complaining about and longing for what I don’t have and what I cannot do.  As the simple quote says…

I am stronger than my doubts, my fears and my negativity.  I am real.  They are not.

I alone give them life, and when I take that away, they can no longer shape My Charmed Life.

2010 IS gonna be good, because I’m gonna focus on the GOOD STUFF.

A weak man has doubts before a decision; a strong man has them afterwards.

~ Karl Kraus

I love this, mostly because it both reflects my approach to life and because it makes me feel better about my track record to date!

At some point, you have to just make a decision.  Are you going to stay where you are, or are you going to take a risk?  You could sit and analyse the pros and cons forever.  The truth is, no matter what path you take, you will probably have doubts about it.  I think there is value to be found in the odd spot of well-calculated, conscious recklessness.

Life is for living!

A person can stand for the rest of his days facing one of the many doors he should go through, but he must understand that he has only truly lived up to that point. He may continue to breathe, walk, sleep and eat – but with less and less pleasure, because he is already spiritually dead and does not know it.

Until one day when, as well as his spiritual death, physical death appears; at that moment God will ask: “what did you do with your life?” We must all answer this question, and woe betide those who answer: “I remained standing at the door.”

~ Paulo Coelho

Shaytan (the devil) approaches you from two doors:

1. The Door of Lusts (Desires)
2. The Door of Doubts

The Door of Lusts/Desires can be slammed at his face by remembering that Allah’s Always Watching and His Punishment is near and also the Destroyer of all Pleasures, i.e. death.

The Door of Doubts can be blocked by acquisition of Knowledge.

What is the fun in this?

I’m sure those of you who are married would be more than happy to tell me. Also, with a certain, deafening tick-tocking going on biologically, I have a pretty good idea.

I haven’t even set foot on campus, yet.

But … what if?

Of course dating is supposed to lead to marriage.

Readers, is it possible? Will the day come when the prowling will stop? when the fancies of just one sweet, slightly insecure, lovestruck, we-were-meant-to-be young fella – who still looks as if he could be in high school – keep my attention? Like, in a forever, eternal way?

That day can wait. I’m rocking that campus.

Bring it, BYU.

In the introduction to his new book, Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis, Al Gore posits two questions that a hypothetical future generation could ask when looking back at this first decade of the 21^st-century:

Not too many years from now, a new generation will look back at us in this hour of choosing and ask one of two questions. Either they will ask, “What were you thinking? Didn’t you see the entire North Polar ice cap melting before your eyes? Did you not care?”

Or they will ask instead, “How did you find the moral courage to rise up and solve a crisis so many said was impossible to solve?”

Very touching, but a false dichotomy nonetheless.  There’s a third question, and I think it’s the more likely one.  Not “what were you thinking?”, but:

Were you thinking at all?

The age of “going green” could just as easily be remembered as a time of mass public hysteria.

(After all, it wasn’t so long ago that “global warming” was the scare term of choice, not the more ambiguous “climate change.”  The alteration of terminology was so subtle, I hardly even noticed it.)

There’s been a lot of talk recently about Climategate, the incident and outrage surrounding the Climactic Research Unit’s emails (revealed in November when the CRU’s server was hacked).  Some of the emails’ content suggests that climate change research has been/is being manipulated to produce more shocking “evidence” of radical warming.  Some of the more infamous excerpts:

Phil Jones, Nov. 1999

“I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie, from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.”

Phile Jones again, 2004

“The other paper by MM is just garbage. [...] I can’t see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow — even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is!”

And very recently, Kevin Trenberth in Oct 2009

“The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t.”

But it isn’t just lack of evidence of global warming at the moment that’s a problem in maintaining the climate change orthodoxy.  There are a couple troubling historical trends that prove problematic as well: they’re called the Little Ice Age, and the Medieval Warm Period.

Around 800 CE, the North Atlantic region of the world experienced radical climate change—a warm spell that lasted approximately 400 years.  Financial Post writes:

The Medieval Warm Period, which followed the meanness and cold of the Dark Ages, was a great time in human history — it allowed humans around the world to bask in a glorious warmth that vastly improved agriculture, increased life spans and otherwise bettered the human condition.

As one example, the Vikings took advantage of the newly ice-free seas to establish a colony on the island of Greenland during this period.

And after the 400 years of the MWP came the LIA (Little Ice Age), during which the Atlantic pack ice began to expand, warm European summers became more erratic, and crop failures led to the Great Famine of 1315-1317 all throughout Europe.  The catastrophic nature of the events led many to think the Apocalypse had come (sound familiar?).  The population explosion of the MWP came to a screeching halt as starvation killed thousands—and weakened a populace that would be hit by the Black Plague in just a few decades.

The Medieval Warm Period and subsequent Little Ice Age proved a problem for modern climate change researchers as well—by providing a precedent for radical warming and cooling periods (and I don’t believe it was CO2 emissions driving global warming of the 800s), history challenged the established position that (one) we’re living in the warmest times on record and (two) this climate change must be human-caused.

How to fix this?  Change history.

This week the Financial Post ran an article on William Connolley, U.K. scientist and Green Party activist who served as a one-man Minitrue for the climate change backers.

Connolley took control of all things climate in the most used information source the world has ever known – Wikipedia. Starting in February 2003, just when opposition to the claims of the band members were beginning to gel, Connolley set to work on the Wikipedia site.

He rewrote Wikipedia’s articles on global warming, on the greenhouse effect, on the instrumental temperature record, on the urban heat island, on climate models, on global cooling. On Feb. 14, he began to erase the Little Ice Age; on Aug.11, the Medieval Warm Period. In October, he turned his attention to the hockey stick graph.

He rewrote articles on the politics of global warming and on the scientists who were skeptical of the band. Richard Lindzen and Fred Singer, two of the world’s most distinguished climate scientists, were among his early targets, followed by others that the band especially hated, such as Willie Soon and Sallie Baliunas of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, authorities on the Medieval Warm Period.

In the end, Connolley re-wrote over 5,000 Wikipedia articles.  But let’s give a round of applause for computer hackers (and historians, for that matter).

With the release of the Climategate Emails, the disappearing trick has been exposed. The glorious Medieval Warm Period will remain in the history books, perhaps with an asterisk to describe how a band of zealots once tried to make it disappear.

For political ends, some scientists—the people we’re supposed to be able to count on to search out the truth—attempted to erase history.  This (not any of Al Gore’s fear-mongering) is what I’m ashamed future generations will have to learn about the first decade of the 21^st century.

Meditations in James: 41 : Strategy for Spiritual Warfare

Jas 4:7    Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you.

It has been said that Christians, in respect of Satan, tend to veer towards one or other extremes of belief. The one extreme is to see demons in every situation, and the other extreme is to ignore Satan and even deny his existence. Jesus put it in perspective in the so-called ‘Lord’s Prayer’ when he instructed us to pray, “deliver us from the evil one” (Mt 6:13), but that came late in the prayer and was only one small part of it. A balanced perspective is to acknowledge the existence of Satan but to keep him in his right place. Let’s examine this verse as it stands.

“Submit yourselves to God”. Isn’t this the primary call of the whole content of the Bible?  Isn’t this the call to a right perspective, which sees and recognises God as The Lord, the One who is over and above everything?  If, as we read the Bible, we start to catch a picture of who God is, then our only response is to bow before Him and submit to Him. Paul declared that God’s ultimate purpose was that, “at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord.” (Phil 2:10,11). Awareness of greatness, ultimate greatness, causes a response of submission and worship. That is our starting place.

“Resist the devil”. There is first an implicit recognition of Satan’s existence here. He’s given no great fanfare; we’re just told to resist him. There is also an implicit recognition that he requires resisting, which means he comes to us to do wrong. Now that wrong, the Bible tells us elsewhere, may be to tempt us into doing wrong, or it may be to sow doubts in us, or deceive us with lies, or even to come against us with physical hindrances. So, says James, don’t let him tempt you to do wrong, don’t let him sow doubts in you or deceive you to believe lies, and don’t let him bring illness or infirmity upon you. We have repeated that list of things that he does to ensure you take note of his strategies which we are told to resist. Why are we to resist them? Because God is jealous for us and is zealous to help us overcome anything which would draw us away from Him.

“And he will flee from you.” Have you seen the certainty of that? He will flee! It’s not he might flee, but he will flee.  Now in saying that, we have to point out the order of things here to ensure that. There is no question of you going against Satan on your own, because on your own you are not big enough or strong enough to deal with him. No, the order is submit yourself to God then resist the devil. You need to go to God and re-establish contact with Him, to put yourself in His hands, and to know His grace and strength before you stand against Satan. It is God’s presence and God’s grace that will enable to you resist him. It is when he sees God’s presence in you that he will flee for he knows there is no point coming against you now.

But there is one little important word that we have left out so far: then.  Did you see it?  Submit yourselves, then, to God. This means that this verse is a direct follow on to what has gone before. The full meaning of it, the full significance of it, can only be seen when we see what has gone before.  Remember what we have recently considered in this chapter. A call to take sides, to side with God against the ‘world’, because God is jealous for us, and is zealous for a relationship with us, and so He looks for us to crucify pride and come in humility to Him to receive His grace. How do we do all this? Submit yourselves, then, to God. This verse sums up all that has gone before it. We come to God, we side with Him, we reject the ‘world’, and we kill off pride and come humbly to God in submission, for he is our Lord. As we’ve said numerous times, it is the natural response to all this, and as we do it, we resist Satan and his works, for he only seeks to bring things that will pull us down, that will pull us away from God.

God’s objective is to bring us into relationship with Him, and when that happens and we ‘see’ Him, then our natural response is going to be to submit to Him. Part of submitting is to be open to the Lord for whatever He wants. A beautiful expression of this was seen in the case of Isaiah. He recorded, “In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord seated on a throne, high and exalted.” (Isa 6:1). He had an awesome sense of the Lord’s presence and holiness and was ministered to by the heavenly creatures (v.5-7), but then, “I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?” (v.8). He didn’t need to think about the response; it was automatic. In the presence of the Almighty, Holy God, there was only one response possible: “I said, “Here am I. Send me!” (v.8) In God’s presence there can only be that one response that basically says, “Lord, whatever you want I will do it.” That is submitting to God. In doing that we reject all the ways of the ‘world’ and we reject Satan’s overtures. In doing this we put ourselves in the most secure place possible – right in the centre of the Lord’s will.  May it be so for each of us!

Though asking spirits to rap on walls has been mostly out of vogue since the decline of Spiritualism (that’s so 19^th century), Syfy’s bringing it back with a bang in Ghost Hunters, Ghost Hunters International, and the most recent spin-off series, Ghost Hunters Academy.

Well, not exactly.

To a skeptic’s great delight, Steve Gonsalves and Dave Tango—paranormal investigators turned teachers in the newest series—spend more time debunking shoddy sightings than anything else, probably much to the chagrin of Syfy producers pushing haunting music tracks and sensational editing.

“We’re not big fans of mediums,” is one of the first comments of Tango in the pilot episode, and throughout the series that definitely comes through—Heathyr, a self-described “sensitive” with mediumship abilities, is the first of the class to flunk out.

The students, raised on ghost stories and quick to turn any shiver up the spine into the spectral communication of a residual spirit, make easy targets for the more critically-thinking Steve and Tango, whose (usually successful) attempts to fool the ghost cadets through the power of suggestion provide some amusing television.  Edifying too—as counterintuitive as it might seem, Syfy’s new ghost hunter school might just provide lessons in skepticism for audiences expecting goosebumps.

Personally, I’m impressed.  Steve and Tango make a point of emphasizing their focus on either verifying the personal experiences of “sensitives” and others or debunking them entirely:

“We’re looking for evidence, hard core evidence,” Steve drills into his students’ heads.  “We go by the method that, if there’s any way that anybody else can doubt what we’re going to present, we don’t even use it.”

Maybe it’s not the scientific method, but there’s a definite priority on protocol and technology.  (Do you know the difference between EVP and a disembodied voice?)

With cameras covering ever corner possible—at sites like a Civil War battleship, not getting everyinch of the brig might be acceptable—and thermal imaging tracking unusually cold or hot spots, the aspiring Ghost Hunters attempt to capture as much verifiable evidence as possible.  And though investigations can last from dusk to dawn—and Syfy fills an hour each week—that evidence is often shown to be disappointingly meager.

Steve and Tango are the first to admit it.

While it’s certainly entertaining to watch the personal reactions of sensitives, mediums, and empaths (apparently, there are betazoids among us) to potentially paranormal stimuli, accounts and personal experiences, however sincerely told, are ultimately just hearsay.  Steve and Dave understand that, and I fully believe that they’re there to turn the content of a Syfy series into science fact: in one early episode, they go so far as to throw out the tapes from an entire night’s work after learning that their cadets weren’t “tagging” the recordings (narrating their progress to ensure, for example, that a student’s sneeze isn’t taken as some sort of spiritual emission).

Even with the central role critical analysis of evidence plays, Ghost Hunters Academy still reads at times like a reality show (and that’s a good thing)—after a weekend Syfy marathon, I felt as strongly attached to certain members of the “class” as I ever have for a tribe on Survivor.  I even managed to put my own powers of suggestion into action by getting a friend I forced into joining my paranormal-TV spree to root for the cadet I personally wanted to “win” the opportunity to join an official TAPS (The Atlantic Paranormal Society) investigative team.  For the record—I chose right (and celebrated with excited shrieks as shrill as any banshee’s).

Overall, I was pleasantly surprised—while still thoroughly entertaining (and kind of addictive),Ghost Hunters Academy, whose season one finale aired Wednesday December 16, proved much less sensationalistic than I’d expected from a show which takes place predominantly in dark abandoned asylums with bobbing flashlights making creepy shadows everywhere.  In fact, with their focus on sifting the wheat from the chaff in terms of borderline “evidence,” I’d be just as comfortable calling Steve and Tang ghost busters as ghost hunters.

In this century, knocking on walls isn’t enough.

Here’s a blast from the past…

________________________________

Here I am again…

I thought I’ve gone over this in my head a million times and yet….

I had questions I thought I knew the answers to. I even thought, “How can I not be sure?”

How could I ever doubt?

I saw it, felt it… I was sure.

Was I?

For a fleeting moment, I thought I’m seeing clearly for the first time.

Now I feel blindingly stupid.

AAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGGGGGGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am starting to question my sanity.

Expectations, schmectations.

I know I should just take whatever comes my way but I know I deserve better than that. Better than this.

Damn. I just hate it when I get soooooooooo worked up.

Will the uncertainty ever go away?

Like I said before again, how can one simple, trivial thing be sooo damn difficult?

I need a manual for these kind of things. Except for this particular thing, there isn’t one.

I think the bottom line is, I am afraid.

I am scared that I might screw this up.

I should’ve known better.

So, the question now is, should I or should I not?

It’s gonna hurt either way.

Either rip the band-aid now or wait for a  coronary.

Thinking about it, I don’t like my chances. Slim to none, I’d say.

I’m confused and I hate this feeling of not knowing — not knowing what’s on the other end.

I’ve never felt this helpless before.

I have made myself too vulnerable and I am already kicking my own ass for it.

I guess I had it coming…

The irony of all this is that I’ve already fallen when I should’ve just stumbled.

But how could I not?

For the first time in my life, I don’t know what my next move is. The ball isn’t in my court anymore. This time, I’m on the receiving end and I don’t know what to expect. And that’s what scares the shit out of me.

I don’t know what tomorrow’s gonna bring. One could only hope.

Rejection is a risk I gotta take. But looking back on my track record, I am good at that — do I even dare say that rejection is my middle name?

I am just venting my frustrations….

Who knows, tomorrow will be a complete turnaround. A walkabout.

Knowing me though, I wouldn’t bet against it.

xoxo

With every birth that happens around me, I get a new confidence in myself as a potential mommy. I think I am going to be a great mom, despite any physical limitations I have. I have a lot of love and knowledge and lessons that I can pass on, and any child I have, I think, will be well-rounded and open to people, no matter how weird or singled-out they may be. My child will be a good person because of my physical disability.

But it is also the part that scares me too. I’m going to be a mom who can’t do every single thing like “normal” moms can. I don’t want my child to grow up and somehow, even the littlest tiny bit, resent me for not being the “normal” mom.

I lay in bed the other night thinking about this (Raelyn’s birth has me feeling baby fever, lol), and it was the first time I have ever doubted myself when it came to future motherhood. I’m not proud to say it because frankly, it was probably one of the worse doubts I have ever felt, like an ache of looking forward to something so badly and then realizing that it isn’t going to happen. And it was just me, overthinking. I asked myself: Is it selfish of me to put a kid through life with a mom in a wheelchair? For a moment, I had almost convinced myself, yes. But at this very moment, I say no, it isn’t. For every thing that I can’t do, his/her daddy will be able to, and also for every thing I can’t do, I will be able to make up for it with something I can. I haven’t quite figured out what those are, but they’ll come. It’s going to have to be a compromise for me. I can’t do this, so I’ll do that.

And there’s that confidence.

I don’t need anyone to tell me I’m going to be a great mom. I already know I will. How do I know? I know I will because I want to be.

It’s in me, that motherly instinct, that nurturing, caring, let-me-hold-you-while-you-cry-over-a-scraped-knee type of love. I have that, and I own it and hold it close. I like that part of me.

I know that my life will never be full until I have done that, had a husband and a family. That’s a part of the plan, and it always has been. It sure has taken me longer than expected to find the husband and start the family, but it’s going to happen. Because it’s in the PLAN, dammit.

Thousands of Norwegians witnessed a bizarre spiral of light in the sky on the morning of November 9.  Still, take a look:

(Read the original article and see more photographs at The Sun)

Update: 12/11 — Looks like the word is in, and the mysterious light show was a Russian missile launch after all.

Still, for what it’s worth, my first thought back on the 9th, after I snapped my gaping jaw shut and got over the initial shock, was that the images from Norway bore  a striking resemblance to what some researchers have pointed to as a description of UFOs in the Bible.

Ezekiel 1:16 (New American Standard Bible)

The appearance of the wheels and their workmanship was like sparkling beryl, and all four of them had the same form, their appearance and workmanship being as if one wheel were within another.

“Beryl,” notably, is transparent mineral often of a blue or green color (much like in the pictures of the spiral over Norway).

The similarity of the spiral seen to the description of “wheels within wheels,” I think, needs little explanation.

What I love most (even in my awe– in the traditional definition of wonder and fear) is that this suggests, if nothing else, that modern analysis of early texts might want to give a little more credit to the historiography of ancient people.  Now I’m not saying that the spiraling light was the fiery chariot of cherubim; that’s probably less likely than an alien invasion.  But it is interesting to consider that, if this fiery wheel does turn out to have been a natural “astral phenomenon” as some were claiming earlier, it may have been seen sometime in the distant past as well.

We’re all quick and willing to apply “to err is human” to people of earlier centuries (how much more so for millennia?) without considering that we ourselves could be lacking vital information.  Human eyewitness accounts haven’t changed so much since biblical times, even if the equipment to capture something as bizarre as a fiery “wheel within a wheel” is now available.  After all, a number of Norwegians, grasping for words, compared the sight to a “Catherine wheel.”

Just a thought.

Scripture Reading: Mark 10:46-52

Have you ever been a part of a conversation like this before?

“Why do I have to do it today?  Why can’t I do it tomorrow?  What’s the purpose? Why can’t you get someone else to help?  Why can’t I go out with my friends first?”

Can you guess the next part of the conversation?  It goes something like this – “Stop asking questions and just do it.”

Have you heard this statement, “Stop asking questions and just believe?”  Is that the message the church gives out?  Should that be the message the church gives out?

Where did we ever get the idea that church is a place for people who have all the answers? Why are we uncomfortable with people who come into our church and express their doubts?  Why are we ourselves inclined to stay away from church when we are having doubts?  Is it possible we are far more comfortable giving answers than listening to questions?  What kinds of questions are we not hearing – maybe not even allowing – that has resulted in the better part of a whole generation writing off the church as irrelevant?

Of course, it wouldn’t be quite fair to say that we don’t allow questions in church.  I can’t imagine that any of our Christian Education leaders and teachers don’t listen to the questions posed to them by their students.  Yet, we have this tendency to downplay questions and dwell on answers.

Becky Pippert, who has written and taught about Christian evangelism for several years says, “Jesus always seemed to be doing two things: asking questions and telling stories. Christians always seem to be doing two other things: giving answers and ‘preaching.’” (Becky Pippert, Leadership, Vol. 6, no. 1.)

Again, I don’t want to diminish the fact that part of the ministry of the church is to provide answers for people.  It is in God, the One who made us, that we find the answers to life.  Jesus is the answer for the world today – He is the way, the truth and the life.  However, we need to teach that questions and doubts will not diminish or disqualify faith, but rather faith will grow through honest searching.  Maybe more important than teaching our children and youth the right answers, we need to teach them how to ask the right questions.  If they search with integrity and honesty, they will discover that no matter how their life experiences expand they will never be able to outgrow God’s wisdom and God’s love.

When I was in confirmation, we had a little blue book called The Westminster Shorter Catechism, which contained 107 questions and answers concerning the Christian faith.  Confirmation depended on passing a final test proving we had memorized all of it.  There was good theology in that little book but a few years later as I faced the realities of young adulthood and the challenges of other perspectives – especially when I got away to college – the questions and answers from that book didn’t seem applicable or at least I had no idea how to fit it all together.

Yes, the church is a place to receive answers from God but it also needs to be a place where we can ask questions of God.

And then, to be fair, the church must also be a place where God can ask us questions of us.

God has always been the asker of questions.  After Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree and hid from God, God asked, “Where are you? … Who told you that you were naked?  Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?” (Genesis 3:9, 11) Another great example is found in chapters 40 and 41 of the Book of Job as God questions Job.  For a whole lot of chapters before, a miserable Job carries on with his own questions, wondering about the place of suffering in his life and God’s fairness in it all.  God comes back at him in 40:6, “‘Gird up your loins like a man; I will question you, and you declare to me. Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be justified? Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his?’” (Job 40:6-9 NRSV)

When we get to the New Testament, we hear Jesus asking questions. For example, to his disciples, afraid for their lives as a storm hits their small boat, Jesus asks, “Why are you afraid?  Have you still no faith?” (Mark 4:40) Without going into detail, when the disciples had forgotten to bring bread onboard the boat, and are afraid Jesus is mad at them, Jesus asks, “Why are you talking about having no bread? Do you still not perceive or understand?  Are your hearts hardened? Do you have eyes, and fail to see?  Do you have ears, and fail to hear?” (Mark 8:17-18) As Jesus is gathered with his disciples at Caesarea Philippi he asks, “Who do people say that I am?” and then much more personally, “… who do you say that I am?” (Mark 8:27, 29)

In today’s scripture Jesus asks a question of a blind man by the name of Bartimaeus who has been calling out for Jesus’ attention.  The blind beggar wants mercy.  Jesus wants the answer to a question.

“What if church was a place to allow God to ask questions?”  We come to church and we pretty much know what’s going to happen.  We take a bulletin and the morning is all lined out for us.  For the most part we sing songs we already know, we hear the sermon and the scripture reading on passages with which we are familiar.  We are nearly certain we will get out in an hour, give or take a few minutes.

But, how often do we come to worship with anticipation, maybe even a little nervousness, because we expect God to ask some questions of us?

As Bartimaeus is brought to Jesus, Jesus asks, “What do you want me to do for you?”  The question seems to be a “no brainer.”  What else would a blind beggar want?  Of course, he would want vision.

Can we really make that assumption?  The man must have known that if he were to receive his sight things would change for him and not all of it for the better.  More would be expected of him – he might have to get a job.  He would see things – bad things – ugly things – that he had been oblivious to before.  He might have to rebuild relationships that taken away from him in his blindness – relationships he might want but the others would not welcome.  Jesus might ask him to give up what he knew to follow him.  His life as a blind beggar was not much but at least it was predictable and for the most part he was in control of it.

This is an important question.  It becomes even more prominent when we consider that Mark records that just before this encounter with Bartimaeus, Jesus asks the very same question to some other folks.  Like Bartimaeus, his disciples, James and John, approach him with a need.  They say, “Teacher, we want you to do for us whatever we ask of you” to which Jesus asks that question, “What do you want me to do for you?” (Mark 10:35,36 NRSV)

Whereas Bartimaeus expresses a need, James and John express a want – a pretty incredible and selfish want.  They answer, “Grant us to sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your glory.” (Mark 10:37 NRSV)

What a difference between these two answers to the very same question.  The two disciples of Jesus beg with ambition.  Bartimaeus, in faith, asks for mercy.

If Jesus came into the sanctuary this morning and during the prayer time sidled up to you and asked, “what do you want me to do for you?” what would be your response? Would it be, “I just want the Vikings to win again,” or “I want to get out on time this morning,” or “I would really like to win the lottery – I could pay off my bills and my house and even give a bunch of money to the church” or would it be something like, “Jesus, please be merciful to me, I don’t deserve anything from you, but I know you love me. Forgive me for falling so far short of who I should be.  Forgive me for ignoring you so much of the time.  I want to see things your way – I want you to help me live your way with you.”

Someone has written that God lets you love the question until you can live the answer.  Whether we are asking questions of God or listening for the questions asked by God, it is never time for the questions to stop.  If they are God-oriented and God-originated these questions will bring life.

What if church was a place to ask questions?

getting close. being close. getting closer. and closer. too close. much too close.

fear of asphyxiation.
it has already been there when i could still find meaning in our closeness and everything went right.

“A compensation of insecurities.” – “An accumulation of uncertainties.”

two different people. two different doubts. mutual attraction – which occurs but abundantly amongst human beings and thus is swappable. probably. obviously.

you’re a nice guy though. and i guess that’s all one can be within 10 days.