(1500,1,'2011-10-30 01:00:50','2011-10-30 08:00:50','Place yourself into the position of the soldiers that went to battle alongside Gideon. You are part of the biggest army that the nation of Israel has ever been able to assemble, and you are going to defend your nation against these enemies that seemingly never stop coming to attack your nation.\r\n\r\nAll of a sudden Gideon comes from some quiet time, and he tells half of the army to go home. You are still one of the lucky ones that will be part of the army to defend your nation.\r\n\r\nThis scenario plays itself out a couple of time, until there is only about 300 men left. The hope that you had to win this battle is all but gone, you are starting to shake in your sandals, but still you keep a little bit of faith. You do however think how crazy this Gideon is, this man that was nothing before this battle.\r\n\r\nAll of a sudden this man comes from another session of quiet time, and he tells these 300 men to leave their swords at home.\r\n\r\nWhat the heck!\r\n\r\nIs this man totally crazy?\r\n\r\nAfter the battle these 300 men can\'t stop talking about how amazing God is. That He helped them defeat this army with vases filled with fire and some trumpets. All of these men have forgotten about the doubt that they had before they walked into this battle, with no weapons but musical instruments.\r\n\r\nIf you read the Bible, it is filled with heretics. With people that went against all common sense, but in the end did great things. These people changed their immediate world by being a heretic. By going against everything they are told to do by the authorities at the time.\r\n\r\nWhy did they do it?\r\n\r\nTo understand why Gideon was completely obedient to what God told is, is probably because God showed Himself to Gideon through the sheep skin, without a doubt, and Gideon simply did not have any other choice but to have faith.\r\n\r\nIn the day we live in, we seldom get confirmation like Gideon did, but do we still have faith to follow God\'s call? When God says go, do we go, or do we rather say things like: what about my job, what about my family, what about this, what about that?\r\n\r\nI firmly believe we need to get back to following the heretics of out time. By following those that does the easy thing, we are missing out on so much. There is more to life than sitting in a office all day, dreaming about doing other things. If you truly believe you have to do something, go after it, in spite of what the person in the cubicle next to you say.\r\n\r\n<em><strong>Disclaimer:</strong> By no means am I saying that doing a normal job is wrong, it is after all also given by God. I simply encounter so many people in my life that want something else, but are to afraid to pursue their God given dreams.</em>','Following the Heretic','','inherit','open','open','','1449-revision-5','','','2011-10-30 01:00:50','2011-10-30 08:00:50','',1449,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/30/1449-revision-5/',0,'revision','',0),(1501,1,'2011-10-30 16:38:58','2011-10-30 23:38:58','Place yourself into the position of the soldiers that went to battle alongside Gideon. You are part of the biggest army that the nation of Israel has ever been able to assemble, and you are going to defend your nation against these enemies that seemingly never stop coming to attack your nation.\r\n\r\nAll of a sudden Gideon comes from some quiet time, and he tells half of the army to go home. You are still one of the lucky ones that will be part of the army to defend your nation.\r\n\r\nThis scenario plays itself out a couple of time, until there is only about 300 men left. The hope that you had to win this battle is all but gone, you are starting to shake in your sandals, but still you keep a little bit of faith. You do however think how crazy this Gideon is, this man that was nothing before this battle.\r\n\r\nAll of a sudden this man comes from another session of quiet time, and he tells these 300 men to leave their swords at home.\r\n\r\nWhat the heck!\r\n\r\nIs this man totally crazy?\r\n\r\nAfter the battle these 300 men can\'t stop talking about how amazing God is. That He helped them defeat this army with vases filled with fire and some trumpets. All of these men have forgotten about the doubt that they had before they walked into this battle, with no weapons but musical instruments.\r\n\r\nIf you read the Bible, it is filled with heretics. With people that went against all common sense, but in the end did great things. These people changed their immediate world by being a heretic. By going against everything they are told to do by the authorities at the time.\r\n\r\nWhy did they do it?\r\n\r\nTo understand why Gideon was completely obedient to what God told is, is probably because God showed Himself to Gideon through the sheep skin, without a doubt, and Gideon simply did not have any other choice but to have faith.\r\n\r\nIn the day we live in, we seldom get confirmation like Gideon did, but do we still have faith to follow God\'s call? When God says go, do we go, or do we rather say things like: what about my job, what about my family, what about this, what about that?\r\n\r\nI firmly believe we need to get back to following the heretics of out time. By following those that does the easy thing, we are missing out on so much. There is more to life than sitting in a office all day, dreaming about doing other things. If you truly believe you have to do something, go after it, in spite of what the person in the cubicle next to you say.\r\n\r\n<em><strong>Disclaimer:</strong> By no means am I saying that doing a normal job is wrong, it is after all also given by God. I simply encounter so many people in my life that want something else, but are to afraid to pursue their God given dreams.</em>','Following the Heretic','','inherit','open','open','','1449-revision-6','','','2011-10-30 16:38:58','2011-10-30 23:38:58','',1449,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/30/1449-revision-6/',0,'revision','',0),(1502,1,'2011-10-30 16:39:13','2011-10-30 23:39:13','Place yourself into the position of the soldiers that went to battle alongside Gideon. You are part of the biggest army that the nation of Israel has ever been able to assemble, and you are going to defend your nation against these enemies that seemingly never stop coming to attack your nation.\r\n\r\nAll of a sudden Gideon comes from some quiet time, and he tells half of the army to go home. You are still one of the lucky ones that will be part of the army to defend your nation.\r\n\r\nThis scenario plays itself out a couple of time, until there is only about 300 men left. The hope that you had to win this battle is all but gone, you are starting to shake in your sandals, but still you keep a little bit of faith. You do however think how crazy this Gideon is, this man that was nothing before this battle.\r\n\r\nAll of a sudden this man comes from another session of quiet time, and he tells these 300 men to leave their swords at home.\r\n\r\nWhat the heck!\r\n\r\nIs this man totally crazy?\r\n\r\nAfter the battle these 300 men can\'t stop talking about how amazing God is. That He helped them defeat this army with vases filled with fire and some trumpets. All of these men have forgotten about the doubt that they had before they walked into this battle, with no weapons but musical instruments.\r\n\r\nIf you read the Bible, it is filled with heretics. With people that went against all common sense, but in the end did great things. These people changed their immediate world by being a heretic. By going against everything they are told to do by the authorities at the time.\r\n\r\nWhy did they do it?\r\n\r\nTo understand why Gideon was completely obedient to what God told is, is probably because God showed Himself to Gideon through the sheep skin, without a doubt, and Gideon simply did not have any other choice but to have faith.\r\n\r\nIn the day we live in, we seldom get confirmation like Gideon did, but do we still have faith to follow God\'s call? When God says go, do we go, or do we rather say things like: what about my job, what about my family, what about this, what about that?\r\n\r\nI firmly believe we need to get back to following the heretics of out time. By following those that does the easy thing, we are missing out on so much. There is more to life than sitting in a office all day, dreaming about doing other things. If you truly believe you have to do something, go after it, in spite of what the person in the cubicle next to you say.\r\n\r\n<em><strong>Disclaimer:</strong> By no means am I saying that doing a normal job is wrong, it is after all also given by God. I simply encounter so many people in my life that want something else, but are to afraid to pursue their God given dreams.</em>','Following the Heretic','','inherit','open','open','','1449-revision-7','','','2011-10-30 16:39:13','2011-10-30 23:39:13','',1449,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/30/1449-revision-7/',0,'revision','',0),(1503,1,'2011-10-30 16:43:16','2011-10-30 23:43:16','<em><a href=\"http://coopersdell.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Red State</a></em>, director’s Kevin Smith’s recent venture, is a mess of a movie, and he should be applauded for it.\n\nSeriously, I hold Kevin Smith in higher regard after seeing <em>Red State</em>. (It still isn’t a good movie.) He abandoned every crutch from his earlier films—genre, character, dick jokes—and set out to make a film that pushed his creative and technical abilities.  The story sets out on three different narratives—three boys pushing the boundaries of a normal sexual dalliance online, a family that entangles their faith with extreme violence, and an ATF officer who wants to reach beyond the role that petty politics and rigid government policies play in decision-making. Each narrative takes the time to develop and propose certain theories on how societal structures oppress us.\n\nThe married small town Sheriff who’s gay.\n\nThe daughter who wants to save her siblings, even if it means betraying her God.\n\nThe ATF Agent who follows orders not based on the tactical reality—even if he wants to save the occultists.\n\nSmith places these characters right on the brink. Almost pushing the audience into different and exciting philosophical and cinematic territory.  Ready to push the film into a clever, thought-provoking examination of the human condition.\n\nThen Kevin Smith killed it.\n\nIf Kevin Smith was trying to highlight the uselessness of existence, that everything we do here is all for naught because at any point you could inexplicably and arbitrarily die then he succeeded.  All the interesting character and story beats evaporate into nothing.  (Maybe Smith was paralleling the story in Ecclesiastes, and everything <em>is</em> meaningless.)\n\nSmith sets up to examine the Gods of modern America—sex, religion, and politics—and the frightening similarities that exist between the three even as the different sects try to separate them.  He comes right up to the steps of the temple and bails. That’s why <em>Red State</em>—despite all its post-modern genre bending, impressive acting, and beautifully crafted dialogue—fails. At the moment it is ready to really challenge its audience—and creator—it backs off. Too scared to examine the implications of its story.  Too uncertain of the structures it wanted to challenge, and instead comes back to the strong and certain ground of blood and gore.','Red State: The Almost (but Not Quite) Guide to Killing Your God','','inherit','open','open','','1464-autosave','','','2011-10-30 16:43:16','2011-10-30 23:43:16','',1464,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/30/1464-autosave/',0,'revision','',0),(1504,1,'2011-10-30 09:54:29','2011-10-30 16:54:29','<em><a href=\"http://coopersdell.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Red State</a></em>, director’s Kevin Smith’s recent venture, is a mess of a movie, and he should be applauded for it.\r\n\r\nSeriously, I hold Kevin Smith in higher regard after seeing <em>Red State</em>. (It still isn’t a good movie.) He abandoned every crutch from his earlier films—genre, character, dick jokes—and set out to make a film that pushed his creative and technical abilities.  The story sets out on three different narratives—three boys pushing the boundaries of a normal sexual dalliance online, a family that entangles their faith with extreme violence, and an ATF officer who wants to reach beyond the role that petty politics and rigid government policies play in decision-making. Each narrative takes the time to develop and propose certain theories on how societal structures oppress us.\r\n\r\nThe married small town Sheriff who’s gay.\r\n\r\nThe daughter who wants to save her siblings, even if it means betraying her God.\r\n\r\nThe ATF Agent who follows orders not based on the tactical reality—even if he wants to save the occultists.\r\n\r\nSmith places these characters right on the brink. Almost pushing the audience into different and exciting philosophical and cinematic territory.  Ready to push the film into a clever, thought-provoking examination of the human condition.\r\n\r\nThen Kevin Smith killed it.\r\n\r\nIf Kevin Smith was trying to highlight the uselessness of existence, that everything we do here is all for naught because at any point you could inexplicably and arbitrarily die then he succeeded.  All the interesting character and story beats evaporate into nothing.  (Maybe Smith was paralleling the story in Ecclesiastes, and everything <em>is</em> meaningless.)\r\n\r\nSmith sets up to examine the Gods of modern America—sex, religion, and politics—and the frightening similarities that exist between the three even as the different sects try to separate them.  He comes right up to the steps of the temple and bails. That’s why <em>Red State</em>—despite all its post-modern genre bending, impressive acting, and beautifully crafted dialogue—fails. At the moment it is ready to really challenge its audience—and creator—it backs off. Too scared to examine the implications of its story.  Too uncertain of the structures it wanted to challenge, and instead comes back to the strong and certain ground of blood and gore.','Red State: The Almost (but Not Quite) Guide to Killing Your God','','inherit','open','open','','1464-revision-7','','','2011-10-30 09:54:29','2011-10-30 16:54:29','',1464,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/30/1464-revision-7/',0,'revision','',0),(1505,1,'2011-10-30 16:41:56','2011-10-30 23:41:56','<em><a href=\"http://coopersdell.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Red State</a></em>, director’s Kevin Smith’s recent venture, is a mess of a movie, and he should be applauded for it.\r\n\r\nSeriously, I hold Kevin Smith in higher regard after seeing <em>Red State</em>. (It still isn’t a good movie.) He abandoned every crutch from his earlier films—genre, character, dick jokes—and set out to make a film that pushed his creative and technical abilities.  The story sets out on three different narratives—three boys pushing the boundaries of a normal sexual dalliance online, a family that entangles their faith with extreme violence, and an ATF officer who wants to reach beyond the role that petty politics and rigid government policies play in decision-making. Each narrative takes the time to develop and propose certain theories on how societal structures oppress us.\r\n\r\nThe married small town Sheriff who’s gay.\r\n\r\nThe daughter who wants to save her siblings, even if it means betraying her God.\r\n\r\nThe ATF Agent who follows orders not based on the tactical reality—even if he wants to save the occultists.\r\n\r\nSmith places these characters right on the brink. Almost pushing the audience into different and exciting philosophical and cinematic territory.  Ready to push the film into a clever, thought-provoking examination of the human condition.\r\n\r\nThen Kevin Smith killed it.\r\n\r\nIf Kevin Smith was trying to highlight the uselessness of existence, that everything we do here is all for naught because at any point you could inexplicably and arbitrarily die then he succeeded.  All the interesting character and story beats evaporate into nothing.  (Maybe Smith was paralleling the story in Ecclesiastes, and everything <em>is</em> meaningless.)\r\n\r\nSmith sets up to examine the Gods of modern America—sex, religion, and politics—and the frightening similarities that exist between the three even as the different sects try to separate them.  He comes right up to the steps of the temple and bails. That’s why <em>Red State</em>—despite all its post-modern genre bending, impressive acting, and beautifully crafted dialogue—fails. At the moment it is ready to really challenge its audience—and creator—it backs off. Too scared to examine the implications of its story.  Too uncertain of the structures it wanted to challenge, and instead comes back to the strong and certain ground of blood and gore.','Red State: The Almost (but Not Quite) Guide to Killing Your God','','inherit','open','open','','1464-revision-8','','','2011-10-30 16:41:56','2011-10-30 23:41:56','',1464,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/30/1464-revision-8/',0,'revision','',0),(1506,1,'2011-10-29 09:56:41','2011-10-29 16:56:41','<strong>I Never Thought</strong>\r\n\r\nMy trick-or-treating years were in the 70\'s.  Back then, I honestly never thought about whether it was okay to dress up as a Hobo which was my costume of choice.  Thinking back, though essentially it is a homeless person, I did not consider my costume in any terms other than it was <em>cheap and convenient</em>.  You see my parents didn\'t have the money to buy costumes nor were they so rampantly available as they are today.  Is it just me or have costume stores been increasing?  It has made Halloween less creative and more expensive, though admittedly more convenient.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>But that does not mean </em><em>that we can turn of our brains and close our hearts when we walk into Halloween Superstores</em>.</strong>\r\n\r\nI realize now that a Hobo was a horrible thing to be for Halloween.  Those that find themselves homeless are real people, many of whom are certainly down on their luck and are oppressed by a society that makes assumptions about their worth.  Our stereotypes about the homeless are in many cases downright wrong. No-one would choose to be unshaven, dirty or poorly dressed and they are not all alcoholics.  But I digress.\r\n\r\n<strong>“We are a culture not a costume.”</strong>\r\n\r\nI read those words recently and it broke my heart that college kids have to actually utter them.  They were students at Ohio University who went so far as to develop an awareness campaign “We are culture not a costume” to educate other students and to fight the use of hurtful Halloween costumes that stereotype ethnic groups and cultures.   For their brave effort they have been mocked and criticized, but the haters are so wrong.\r\n\r\nThe problem is that there are many beautiful cultures and people groups that are parodied, mocked and imitated today by unthinking or ignorant people.  (Not to mention how women are sexualized in every single profession and identity imaginable but that is not what this is about.)  Some of these are: <a href=\"http://education.byu.edu/diversity/culture.html#african\">African American &amp; African</a>, <a href=\"http://education.byu.edu/diversity/culture.html#asian\">Asian American, Asian, &amp; Pacific Islander</a>, <a href=\"http://education.byu.edu/diversity/culture.html#nativeamerican\">Native American</a>, <a href=\"http://education.byu.edu/diversity/culture.html#hispanic\">Hispanic &amp; Latino Americans</a>\r\n\r\nIf like me, you<em><strong> just never thought</strong></em>, I would encourage you to start thinking.  I cannot let another Halloween pass without writing this essay.\r\n\r\n<strong>Any costume that dresses you up as a real person, a real culture or actual people group implying that this identity can be boiled down to a recognizable outfit is wrong.  </strong>It is white people creating symbols to define other races and then appropriating those symbols without any acknowledgment of their history. There is no part of any culture or history that should become a synonym or a stereotype.  Here are a few examples:\r\n<ul>\r\n	<li>Native indigenous cultures -- Anything Native American or “tribal” or for example<a title=\"Big Kahuna\" href=\"//www.amazon.com/Kahuna-Tribal-Tiki-Warrior-Costume/dp/B000EIGZ5C%3FSubscriptionId%3D19BAZMZQFZJ6G2QYGCG2%26tag%3Dsquidooa32991-\" target=\"_blank\"> this</a> “Big Kahuna Fat Tribal Tiki Warrior.</li>\r\n	<li>Or the use of “Asian” stereotypes of any sort.   Asian Americans are highly diverse, with dozens of ethnic backgrounds and languages, including individuals from Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indonesian, Laotion, Philippine, Thai, and Vietnamese ancestry.  How can this be summed up, for example by these <a title=\"Glasses\" href=\"http://www.motifake.com/20741\">Chop Suey Specs</a>.   Or if you sound it out phonetically to make it “Asian-sounding” like the \'Fee Ling Yu Asian Man Halloween Mask.\' <a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/ILLEGAL-ALIEN-400.jpg\"><img class=\"size-medium wp-image-1301 alignleft\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/ILLEGAL-ALIEN-400-240x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"192\" height=\"240\" /></a></li>\r\n	<li>Mexicans and other immigrants are not “illegal aliens” nor do all the other Latinos in the U.S. do not wear sombreros, over-sized mustache, and a poncho. I’m no <a title=\"Understanding Hispanic Culture\" href=\"http://old.diocesephoenix.org/fc/CatecheticalLeadership/ChurchDocs/UnderstandingtheHispanicCulture.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">expert</a>, but I think people that we call “Hispanics” or Latinos in the US come from <em>at least</em> 20 different countries and cultures including Colombian, Venezuelan, Mexican.  In the US we tend to lump them all together but they have beautiful and distinct languages, cultures and heritages.</li>\r\n	<li>Ghetto or Gangsta are in and of themselves parts of American culture that should not be mocked or stereotyped, if we don’t understand them.  I will be the first to admit the impulse to pull up or pull down the pants of young men that I see wearing their belt at their knees.  I find it silly, but even so things like the puzzling \"Tighty Whitey\" costume complete with a \"jumpsuit that makes it appear you are wearing your pants around your knees\" are wrong.  Rappers are culture in and of themselves whether you or I value it or not.</li>\r\n</ul>\r\nUniversity of Toronto researcher of stereotyping, prejudice and discrimination, Alison Chasteen <a href=\"http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/story/2011/10/26/halloween-racist-costumes.html\" target=\"_blank\">noted</a>:\r\n<blockquote>\"We know from past research that exposure to stereotypical images can activate stereotypes in people\'s minds and influence their subsequent behavior…That is why efforts such as this one in Ohio are needed to educate people about racist images in an attempt to reduce stereotypical portrayals of minority groups.\"</blockquote>\r\nSome may say lighten up Melody!  It’s only in fun.  I’m not laughing.  And neither should you.  We cannot be a part of perpetuating racism and bigotry, no matter our reasons and especially not \"in fun.\"\r\n\r\nIt’s just not funny. This Halloween let’s respect and honor those that are different from us.  And, here\'s a crazy thought perhaps even learn more about that which we do not at first glance understand.\r\n\r\nOur friends deserve our respect.  And perhaps one day we will treasure them as much as our Lord did, for they (too) are made in God’s image.\r\n\r\nThen God said, \"Let us make man in our image, in our likeness, and let them rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, over the livestock, over all the earth, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.\" Genesis 1:26 NIV\r\n\r\nThe bottom line here:  Just think! <strong><em> </em></strong>\r\n\r\n<strong><em>Turn on your brain and open your heart.</em></strong>\r\n\r\nOther Resources:\r\n\r\nKudos to <a title=\"The Root\" href=\"http://www.theroot.com/multimedia/racially-insensitive-halloween-costumes\" target=\"_blank\">The Root</a> for pointing out these racially and culturally insensitive costumes.  If you don’t read The Root, you should.\r\n\r\nThanks to <a href=\"http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jarrah-hodge\">Jarrah Hodge</a> for some <a title=\"Cool Costume Ideas\" href=\"http://www.gender-focus.com/?s=costume&amp;searchbutton=go%21\" target=\"_blank\">cool costume ideas </a> and I can’t resist adding her list of<a title=\"Feminist Costumes\" href=\"http://www.gender-focus.com/2010/10/21/feminist-halloween-costumes/\" target=\"_blank\"> Feminist costume choices.\r\n</a>','We Are A culture Not A Costume','','inherit','open','open','','1298-revision-12','','','2011-10-29 09:56:41','2011-10-29 16:56:41','',1298,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/29/1298-revision-12/',0,'revision','',0),(1507,0,'2011-10-30 17:31:05','2011-10-31 00:31:05','Religion, spirituality, culture, humanity, art, race, freedom, transformation, love, relationships, social justice, community etc ...\n<!--more-->\nAUTHOR: Jim Palmer\nAUTHOR EMAIL: nobody.jimpalmer@gmail.com\nAUTHOR URL: http://www.divinenobodies.com/blog/\nSUBJECT: Provoketive Magazine Writing For Provoketive\nIP: 74.240.194.213\nArray\n(\n    [Name] =&gt; Jim Palmer\n    [Email] =&gt; nobody.jimpalmer@gmail.com\n    [Existing Blog or Website] =&gt; http://www.divinenobodies.com/blog/\n    [List the topic you are interested writing about] =&gt; Religion, spirituality, culture, humanity, art, race, freedom, transformation, love, relationships, social justice, community etc ... \n    [Current or New WordPress Login Name (We\'ll send you a password.)] =&gt; Jim\n)\n','Jim Palmer - 2011-10-30 17:31:05','','publish','open','open','','91407ca0caa5e077d1cdffda97e13b38','','','2011-10-30 17:31:05','2011-10-31 00:31:05','',358,'http://provoketive.com/?post_type=feedback&p=1507',0,'feedback','',0),(1510,64,'2011-10-30 17:42:56','2011-10-31 00:42:56','','SUN_SLIDES_LYR_MHH_10-11 (99)','','inherit','open','open','','sun_slides_lyr_mhh_10-11-99','','','2011-10-30 17:42:56','2011-10-31 00:42:56','',0,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/SUN_SLIDES_LYR_MHH_10-11-99.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(2848,1,'2011-12-01 10:17:57','2011-12-01 18:17:57','God decided He was tired of humanity, tired of the incessant selfish requests. He called His angels in for advice. \"I would like to go somewhere were these humans will not find me.\"\r\n\r\nOne angel spoke up, \"Hide on the highest mountain, they will not find you there.\"\r\n\r\nAnother angel said, \"The bottom of the deepest ocean.\"\r\n\r\nOne angel shouted, \"The dark side of the moon, they cannot see you there.\"\r\n\r\nGod not satisfied that these suggestions would hide Him, He summoned His wisest angel and asked him, \"Where can I hide so that these humans will not find me?\"\r\n\r\nThe angel smiled and replied, \"hide in their hearts, for they fear to look within.\"My intention is to introduce a point out a view that invites one to lose interest in getting something from this world and become aware of a Reality that demands nothing, asks for nothing; One which simply Is.\r\n\r\nTake a moment to pay attention the happenings of the world around you without commenting on it. What do you see? What do you hear? Is it personal?\r\n\r\nThe world changes in appearance as we progressively remove the personal self from the world. As a practice, instead of commenting on how the world effects you, watch your colleague\'s, your wife or husband and children. Treat them as though they have no past history with you, they are simply present. Be with this moment with the intention to be kind to everything.\r\n\r\nFor some this is too simple, or boring. They are far more interested in solving problems, fixing others and (subconsciously) entertaining themselves via the drama of their lives.\r\n\r\nTo understand the addiction we have to the drama of this world think of how someone would react if we walked  into a room of people watching their favorite soap opera and turned off the TV right at the climax. Now just imagine the response. Anger, yelling, pushing and shoving are the likely effects of disconnecting people from their entertainment. Another example would be, walking into a crowded bar on a playoff night, turn the power off just prior to the end of a close game. Would you see the same reactions?\r\n\r\nTranscendence does not mean condemnation of this addiction we see so prevalent in society; at some point one just decides whether or not to continue to participate in it.\r\n\r\nThose of you who were raised in any sort of religion, culture/ethnicity, sports team loyalists, soap opera drama  fanatics upbringing were usually programmed what to believe, in many cases the reason being “because that\'s the way it is.” Even if you were not told directly it was obvious by the behavior of your family.  \"We are Bronco fans because we live in Colorado.\" We hate the Raiders and Chargers with a passion!\"  We are Catholics?Protestants/ Buddhists etc.  because our parents were and theirs before them for generations.\r\n\r\nHow do we know if anything is true? Can our thoughts, perceptions, families beliefs and customs be trusted as Truth?\r\n\r\n<strong>\"Man is intrinsically innocent because he can only choose what he perceives to be good.\" - Socrates</strong>\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/YoungOldWoman.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1976\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/YoungOldWoman-210x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"210\" height=\"300\" /></a>Looking at this picture, what do you see?\r\nIs this your wife or mother-in-law?\r\nWhich perception is real?\r\nDoes one negate the other?\r\nDo both exist simultaneously?\r\n\r\nI John 2: 9-11 Anyone who claims to live in God\'s light and hates a brother or sister is still in the dark. It\'s the person who loves brother and sister who dwells in God\'s light and doesn\'t block the light from others. But whoever hates is still in the dark, stumbles around in the dark, doesn\'t know which end is up, blinded by the darkness.\r\n\r\nLook around the room you are in. Is it possible to see the light? Or can you only see that with which the light illuminates?\r\n\r\nA person\'s way of speaking, behavior and thought process simply reveals what they are aligned with, it does not make them what they are. Light does not judge or condemn, it\'s simply reveals what is. God is light and in Him there is no shadow or darkness. So evil is not the opposite or antithesis of God, but simply the state in which He is not being acknowledged and allowed. Perception is therefore extremely subjective as it usually involves with duality, opposites and either-or situations.\r\n\r\nOur perceptions are derived from a mind that searches for the meaning of what it perceives or, in other words, identifies with. If the mind is programmed to desire that which it perceives to be valuable. Thoughts and feelings arise from desire, and the mind uses them as a tool to get what it views as a ‘need.’\r\n\r\n<strong>You either believe what you think or you question it. There’s no other choice. - Byron Katie</strong>\r\n\r\nOur minds, like children, are innocent. They are analogous to a brand new Mac Book Pro without any software. As we observe our families and our culture we pick up the software that runs our minds’ value system which is called perception.<img src=\"https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/plOB4PsoyoXsnIc0THdPhc-xSEWVLpDugXnQAUsnpD6NtlQuatHkFHb8dzSGGDi4cDOP-YoVJylmZjzSTLL1RXDz1Z8GhnUJdnG5B8Oz8jIxbYL2-2E\" alt=\"\" width=\"400px;\" height=\"248px;\" />\r\nLike this prism, perception, derived from programming, interprets the light and breaks it into categories. We then judge, evaluate and determine if what we see is valuable or deemed something we would like to avoid.\r\n\r\nPerhaps the statement Jesus made in Matthew is an invitation to return to that innocence. To shed our ideas of ourselves and this world. To give up trying to fix everything out there and simply turning within to explore what we fear the most, our heart.\r\n\r\n<strong>Assuredly, I say to you, unless you are converted and become as little children, you will by no means enter the kingdom of heaven. - Jesus</strong>','The Deception in Perception','','inherit','open','open','','1975-revision-38','','','2011-12-01 10:17:57','2011-12-01 18:17:57','',1975,'http://provoketive.com/2011/12/01/1975-revision-38/',0,'revision','',0),(2850,1,'2011-12-01 10:24:19','2011-12-01 18:24:19','','slippery_slope','','inherit','open','open','','slippery_slope','','','2011-12-01 10:24:19','2011-12-01 18:24:19','',2774,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/slippery_slope.png',0,'attachment','image/png',0),(2851,1,'2011-11-29 11:13:05','2011-11-29 19:13:05','<em>The core of this piece was written late on a Saturday night in last June, at the Wild Goose Festival (a gathering of emergent and progressive Christians), sitting under the stars at the campsite, reaching to comprehend and process the transformations that were taking place in me and around me by texting a dear friend and colleague. Turned out to be one very long text.</em>\r\n\r\nThe warning has come in many forms over the years: watch out for the slippery slope.  If we dare to question what we’ve been taught, we cannot predict what could follow, what unearthly pit is around the corner. If we dare to question, before we know it we could be...well…something and surely hell and hand-baskets are involved.  Don’t raise those questions, don’t voice any doubts, you don’t know where it may lead.  I had been warned.\r\n\r\nI didn’t listen.  I’ve had conversations with people whose views differ from mine.  I’ve gone to worship services that have stretched me beyond my comfort zone.  I’ve traveled to other cultures.  I’ve read those “edgy” theological books.  I’ve entered into conversations where I am challenged and uncomfortable.  And in January I finally left the church organization I had called home for many years, as a “radical” pursuing ordination as a woman.  Since then, I’ve dared to open up the Bible without being preemptively sure of what it might have to say to me.  I’ve become friends with fellow seminarians who are seeking to serve God wholeheartedly who also happen to be lesbian, transgendered and gay.  I’ve begun to question the cultural assumptions that had defined my theological reality and am finding the Bible to be alive with humanity and contradiction and the gospels to be downright manifestos of radical living.  I continue to question the theology and church culture, as I understood it, while boldly stumbling along, pursuing God and spiritual community.\r\n\r\nYou open any of these doors, and before you know it, you’re led down a road where you\'re speaking up about the marginalized, selling your possessions to give to the poor, and surrendering your life to something greater than yourself. It\'s a slippery slope. If you open yourself up to revelation being alive and moving, letting it be more than a moral code or a patriarchal history lesson, then you slide.  You slide and find that you\'re surrounded by revelation.  Poems, stories, myths, the writing and lives of Gandhi and Dr. King, Maya Angelou and Rumi, and the mountains, the people, silence, and yes, even the Scriptures are speaking to you.  All overflowing with the Breath of the Spirit and infused with Divine Voice.  Each offers pathways connecting the human and the Divine, enlivening and disturbing, moving you to action, bathing you in peaceful Love.\r\n\r\nIt\'s a slippery slope, letting go of the lines that divide, seeing people different from yourself as human.  Let the walls that make me an \"us\" and they a \"them\" crumble, and there is a world of humanity to love.  No longer can you ignore the vulnerability, the humanity, the absolute sinner and saint in all of us.  No longer can you push others aside or arbitrarily categorize them.   Confronted by the humanity around us, we confront the humanity within us and expose our collective brokenness.  We come face to face with the things we are capable of, for ill or good.  We lose the ability to hide behind our self-righteousness or be cozy in our carefully constructed boxes of absolutism and superiority.  \r\n\r\nAnd then we might start caring. We might start exposing ourselves to the people in the world around us.  We might start seeing needs.  We might start owning and feeling the pain of the human family as our own story, a story that we are drawn into, that we now want to participate in.  It’s risky, this slippery slope of seeing humans as human. It’s transformative, God being Divine. \r\nEntertaining the idea that God is untamable, uncontainable and immersed in all we know, might just lead us to respond. To ask what Jesus taught and at least play with the possibility, maybe for the first time, that we\'re actually called to follow these teachings, is a daring and radical notion.  Maybe Jesus had something right when he told us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. Maybe there\'s something to this command to take care of the widows and orphans. Maybe Jesus wasn\'t being metaphorical when he told us to feed, clothe and heal our human family.\r\nMaybe, just maybe, this whole Jesus on earth thing, this spark of Divinity walking among us, is something to pay attention to.  Maybe model our lives after.  And maybe when we go back to the gospels we might find that most of what Jesus was interested in were the marginalized, the poor, speaking up against the oppressing forces, confronting the hard conversations, going to those that need healing, and approaching the broken parts of each of us. We could find that this radical Messiah came to speak and live out an alternative to ruling over others, to consuming, to living only for ourselves. We may begin to entertain the notion that there\'s something more to live for. We could start to hear the gentle breeze whispering in our ears that there\'s a force of Creative Love calling.  Calling us to act.  Moving us to live in harmony. Drawing us to follow this Radical Christ. And that, that my friend is damned uncomfortable. \r\n\r\nWatch out for the slippery slope.\r\n','The Slippery Slope ','','inherit','open','open','','2774-revision-5','','','2011-11-29 11:13:05','2011-11-29 19:13:05','',2774,'http://provoketive.com/2011/11/29/2774-revision-5/',0,'revision','',0),(2849,1,'2011-12-01 10:24:57','2011-12-01 18:24:57','<em>The core of this piece was written late on a Saturday night in last June, at the Wild Goose Festival (a gathering of emergent and progressive Christians), sitting under the stars at the campsite, reaching to comprehend and process the transformations that were taking place in me and around me by texting a dear friend and colleague. Turned out to be one very long text.</em>\n\nThe warning has come in many forms over the years: watch out for the slippery slope. If we dare to question what we’ve been taught, we cannot predict what could follow, what unearthly pit is around the corner. If we dare to question, before we know it we could be...well…something and surely hell and hand-baskets are involved. Don’t raise those questions, don’t voice any doubts, you don’t know where it may lead. I had been warned.\n\nI didn’t listen. I’ve had conversations with people whose views differ from mine. I’ve gone to worship services that have stretched me beyond my comfort zone. I’ve traveled to other cultures. I’ve read those “edgy” theological books. I’ve entered into conversations where I am challenged and uncomfortable. And in January I finally left the church organization I had called home for many years, as a “radical” pursuing ordination as a woman. Since then, I’ve dared to open up the Bible without being preemptively sure of what it might have to say to me. I’ve become friends with fellow seminarians who are seeking to serve God wholeheartedly who also happen to be lesbian, transgendered and gay. I’ve begun to question the cultural assumptions that had defined my theological reality and am finding the Bible to be alive with humanity and contradiction and the gospels to be downright manifestos of radical living. I continue to question the theology and church culture, as I understood it, while boldly stumbling along, pursuing God and spiritual community.\n\nYou open any of these doors, and before you know it, you’re led down a road where you\'re speaking up about the marginalized, selling your possessions to give to the poor, and surrendering your life to something greater than yourself. It\'s a slippery slope. If you open yourself up to revelation being alive and moving, letting it be more than a moral code or a patriarchal history lesson, then you slide. You slide and find that you\'re surrounded by revelation. Poems, stories, myths, the writing and lives of Gandhi and Dr. King, Maya Angelou and Rumi, and the mountains, the people, silence, and yes, even the Scriptures are speaking to you. All overflowing with the Breath of the Spirit and infused with Divine Voice. Each offers pathways connecting the human and the Divine, enlivening and disturbing, moving you to action, bathing you in peaceful Love.\n\nIt\'s a slippery slope, letting go of the lines that divide, seeing people different from yourself as human. Let the walls that make me an \"us\" and they a \"them\" crumble, and there is a world of humanity to love. No longer can you ignore the vulnerability, the humanity, the absolute sinner and saint in all of us. No longer can you push others aside or arbitrarily categorize them. Confronted by the humanity around us, we confront the humanity within us and expose our collective brokenness. We come face to face with the things we are capable of, for ill or good. We lose the ability to hide behind our self-righteousness or be cozy in our carefully constructed boxes of absolutism and superiority.\n\nAnd then we might start caring. We might start exposing ourselves to the people in the world around us. We might start seeing needs. We might start owning and feeling the pain of the human family as our own story, a story that we are drawn into, that we now want to participate in. It’s risky, this slippery slope of seeing humans as human. It’s transformative, God being Divine.\n\nEntertaining the idea that God is untamable, uncontainable and immersed in all we know, might just lead us to respond. To ask what Jesus taught and at least play with the possibility, maybe for the first time, that we\'re actually called to follow these teachings, is a daring and radical notion. Maybe Jesus had something right when he told us to love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us. Maybe there\'s something to this command to take care of the widows and orphans. Maybe Jesus wasn\'t being metaphorical when he told us to feed, clothe and heal our human family.\n\nMaybe, just maybe, this whole Jesus on earth thing, this spark of Divinity walking among us, is something to pay attention to. Maybe model our lives after. And maybe when we go back to the gospels we might find that most of what Jesus was interested in were the marginalized, the poor, speaking up against the oppressing forces, confronting the hard conversations, going to those that need healing, and approaching the broken parts of each of us. We could find that this radical Messiah came to speak and live out an alternative to ruling over others, to consuming, to living only for ourselves. We may begin to entertain the notion that there\'s something more to live for. We could start to hear the gentle breeze whispering in our ears that there\'s a force of Creative Love calling. Calling us to act. Moving us to live in harmony. Drawing us to follow this Radical Christ. And that, that my friend is damned uncomfortable.\n\nWatch out for the slippery slope.','The Slippery Slope ','','inherit','open','open','','2774-autosave','','','2011-12-01 10:24:57','2011-12-01 18:24:57','',2774,'http://provoketive.com/2011/12/01/2774-autosave/',0,'revision','',0),(1520,64,'2011-10-30 16:35:03','2011-10-30 23:35:03','A popular post at<a title=\"Sharon Hodde Miller\" href=\"http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/7ya3xT/blog.christianitytoday.com/women/2011/10/why_its_your_job_to_break_the.html\" target=\"_blank\"> Her.meneutics</a>, <em>Why it’s Your Job to Break the Women’s Ministry Stereotype</em> by Sharon Hodde Miller, reminded me of something I wrote earlier this year.  You must read her blog <a title=\"She Worships\" href=\"http://sheworships.com\" target=\"_blank\">She Worships</a>.  She is one of the more wise and intelligent female voices of my generation.\r\n<h2>I just want to know what you think.</h2>\r\nFor seven years I attended Women’s Bible studies offered at my church.  I learned a lot and my love for scripture grew deeper.   Over the years, as I refined my ability to study scripture for myself I began to notice an odd trend.  These women who taught with clear outward self-assurance were basically parroting the commentary and words of other (usually male) authors.   I found myself counting the times in a lecture they would say “So and so says ... in such and such commentary.”  <strong><em>I longed to hear what these wise women thought and more importantly what God was saying to them as they studied scripture.</em>   </strong>I believe these women were essentially shuffled to the side of the church “to teach women.”  Noticeably they had not received coaching comparable to the “teaching team” (of men) who taught Sunday mornings.  <em>Subsequently these women lacked the confidence and training to speak with authority. </em>\r\n\r\n<strong>By writing this essay I am not saying that there is no place for women’s ministry in the church, but after all these years <em>I know it is not for me.  Here\'s why.</em></strong>\r\n<h2>My life is incredibly diverse and I\'ll do everything I can to keep it that way.</h2>\r\nI guess the saying is true, “People of a feather flock together.”\r\n\r\nA good friend who is a leader at church told me that <em>people ask for groupings</em> when they come to church.  They <em>want</em> to be with those that are <em>like them</em> – whether it is women or men, youth or college-aged, young marrieds with or without kids, or singles gathering together.  I understand that this is what we are used and more comfortable with but does that mean it is <em>good</em>?\r\n\r\n<strong><em>I have deep concerns with that when it comes to separating men and women.</em></strong><strong> </strong>\r\n\r\nFirst of all, fundamentally it comes out of this notion that men and women are <em>so very different.  </em> We certainly have our differences, but that sort of thinking is divisive and unproductive. It hurts us more than helps as we try to work out our faith together.  Separation of men and women in the church might have begun when women were for the most part at-home and looking for things to do.  That is no longer the case, as people today divide up their lives and work and time very differently.  And today the church is full of the divorced, single parents,  men at home and women working in the marketplace, as well as more and more single men and women who are choosing to remain so longer, not to mention the younger retired boomers who make up the church.\r\n\r\n<em><strong>Scripture isn’t \"for women\" or \"for men.” </strong></em>\r\n\r\nWe don’t need to separate to study the Word.  When we split up it only perpetuates gender stereotypes.  Ah, the stereotypes, women want to be treated like princesses and men are all tough guys.  Women love to talk and are more emotional.  Men are stone and are afraid of being vulnerable and all have pornography problems.  Next thing you know, when women get together we are all making crafts and men are playing basketball.\r\n\r\nI think we benefit as we<strong> </strong>mix generations and genders, hipsters and bikers and soccer moms, boomers, silent gen, teens, single and married with those with higher education or not.  We need to cross all those cultural barriers and learn together.  We are strengthened as people and as a community when we do.  We lose out when we don’t.  There is so much that we don\'t learn when we divide into groups by our comfortable similarities.\r\n<h2>What about Tribes?</h2>\r\nOne of my husband tribes is <strong>Musical Geeks</strong> and they cross many apparent differences, women and men, young and old, it matters not at all, as long as you want to \"geek out\" about all sorts of really boring musical minutia. (That is not my tribe, clearly.)  Not my <em>need, </em>but <em>he needs and loves to be with those people because they have like interests</em>!\r\n\r\nThis is important.  We feel connection, solidarity and even strength when we connect from time to time with our tribe.  One must find a balance.\r\n\r\n<span class=\"Apple-style-span\" style=\"font-size: 20px;font-weight: bold\">What about in the Church?</span>\r\n\r\n<strong><em>It feels like there are a million obstacles to women experiencing true equity within the Christian evangelical church and separating ourselves by gender simply perpetuates the stereotypes and encourages a lack of creativity when it comes to the gifts and talents that people have.</em></strong>\r\n\r\nI know that I am not your typical evangelical Christian woman nor married to the typical man.  We divide our household chores by talents and interests, as well as what brings us joy.  For example, you will not find my husband outside on the weekend mowing the lawn or in the yard at all.  I do it because I love being outside, love the physical effort and I care about our yard.  He can typically be found inside either cleaning or down in his studio working on music.   When we got married, rather than fall into the typical gender stereotypes we just thought about it pragmatically.  Why can’t we do that in the Church?\r\n\r\nI believe that men and women should be using their skills and abilities and spiritual gifts in the whole Church.  They were given to us by Yahweh.  I believe he chose my skills, abilities and spiritual gifts.  God is the one that <em>made me this way. I should be serving.  I should be using the abilities and talents that He gave me. It would be wrong for me to sit back and not use them. </em>\r\n\r\n<strong>This is complicated when you haven\'t had your abilities affirmed in the church.  But some day, women will come to know themselves capable.  I think it is time for us to begin again, to rethink women and men’s ministry and know that we are the body of Christ, at is says in 1 Corinthians 12</strong>.\r\n<blockquote> <strong><sup>4</sup></strong> There are <em>different kinds</em> of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. <strong><sup>5</sup></strong> There are <em>different kinds</em> of service, but the same Lord. <strong><sup>6</sup></strong> There are <em>different kinds</em> of working, but in all of them and <strong><em>in everyone</em></strong> it is the same God at work.\r\n\r\n<strong><sup>7</sup></strong> Now <em>to each one</em> the manifestation of the Spirit is given <strong><em>for the common good.</em></strong> <strong><sup>8</sup></strong> To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, <strong><sup>9</sup></strong> to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, <strong><sup>10</sup></strong> to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues,<strong><sup>[<a title=\"See footnote a\" href=\"http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+12&amp;version=NIV#fen-NIV-28645a\">a</a>]</sup></strong> and to still another the interpretation of tongues.<strong><sup>[<a title=\"See footnote b\" href=\"http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+12&amp;version=NIV#fen-NIV-28645b\">b</a>]</sup></strong> <strong><sup>11</sup></strong> All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them <strong><em>to each one</em></strong>, just as he determines. (NIV, <strong><em>emphasis mine</em></strong>.)</blockquote>\r\nI am so encouraged reading those verses, which were written to us, yes each one, yes <em>to everyone,</em> in the Church.\r\n\r\n<a title=\"Mimi Haddad\" href=\"http://www.cbeinternational.org/?q=content/leadership#dr-mimi-haddad\" target=\"_blank\">Mimi Haddad</a> puts it so well:\r\n<blockquote>“<strong>…</strong> Women need to learn the power and validity of their voices. Women have been given voices as instruments that God intends for them to use—not in anger, but with the grace and dignity with which Jesus spoke. When I look through the pages of Scripture, I see that the words of women and men throughout history have been beautiful gifts from God. It is time we remember that our voices carry weight, that we hold truth from God on our tongues. The world needs to hear from us.”</blockquote>\r\n<strong><em>I believe God is calling women to come forth and speak to the Church not just to women.</em></strong>\r\n\r\n<em>Photo Credit: Alesa Dam</em>','Why Ministry \"For Women\" is Not \"For Me\"','','inherit','open','open','','1411-revision-15','','','2011-10-30 16:35:03','2011-10-30 23:35:03','',1411,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/30/1411-revision-15/',0,'revision','',0),(1521,33,'2011-10-30 16:17:39','2011-10-30 23:17:39','<p align=\"left\">I quit my job recently.</p>\r\n<p align=\"left\"> It was a good job...a relatively well-paying job with good benefits and a dental plan.  I liked my boss and enjoyed my colleagues.  I found the work interesting as it frequently provided a chance to be creative, innovative and kept the cat in kibble.  On the surface, everything appeared as though I was on the path to upward mobility and the good life.</p>\r\n<p align=\"left\">But inside, I was dying a little bit each day.  Each day for the last several months, my soul was being diminished rather than enlarged and I was finding the emotional, spiritual, and even physical demands of the job outpaced the returns.  It became a bad trade...the exchange rate was too high and the return on investment steadily got smaller.</p>\r\n<p align=\"left\"> I thought I could manage the dissonance between not being in the right place but staying for reasons that seemed logical – security, stability, a fancy title and an office with windows that opened.  But each day as I put on my dress slacks and slipped into my shiny black shoes, I was dressing up like an actor to play a character whose motivation I simply couldn’t understand.</p>\r\n<p align=\"left\">So I prayed for wisdom and guidance.  I prayed for clarity and insight.  I waited for the voice from Heaven to shout down the next step of the grand plan.  I waited.  But the voice never came.   I wondered what was causing God to be silent - apparently disinterested in the petty details of my frustrated work life.  I wondered if the lines of communication were clogged on my end...perhaps it was me who was unable or unwilling to open my ears to the voice of the shepherd whom I so desperately hoped would lead me out of the arid desert and into greener pastures and beside still waters.</p>\r\n<p align=\"left\">I grew fearful of making the wrong decision lest I chose the wrong road.  I had grown up being taught that the “human heart is wicked and deceitful above all else”, yet paradoxically encouraged to “commit all your ways to the Lord and he will make your paths straight”.  Apparently my sinful human anthropology meant my own interests, goals and desires were unreliable and suspicious whereas my Christian faith simultaneously called me to trust in a God who has promised to shows the way.  And it is in this apparent duality – the implied distrust of self and a faith in self-revealing, communicative God that I got stuck...afraid to move...growing more miserable each day while trusting the clarity would come in due time.</p>\r\n<p align=\"left\">It was during a long, slow recovery from a life-altering health challenge that I had the opportunity to cut through the noise, give voice to the frustrations surrounding career ambiguity, and to seek out other ways to gain some perspective on issues of career and calling.  Of all the things I had the opportunity to read while lying on my couch, <em>Let Your Life Speak</em> by Parker J. Palmer was the most transformative.</p>\r\n<p align=\"left\">In this short yet profound book, Palmer flips the tables on the commonplace evangelical notion that career and calling come from the ‘outside’ by instead suggesting that the secret to discovering one’s purpose in life is to let your life speak its truth from the inside out.  According to the beginning of Genesis, man and woman were made in God’s image – a notion that insinuates that people enter the world bearing a resemblance to their creator and imbued with aspects of personhood that reflect the heart and nature of the One who gives life.  The key to happiness and fulfillment is to take time to reflect on your life, let it tell you what it was created to do…what moves it, what brings it joy, what breaks its heart and what causes it to rise up in holy anger.</p>\r\n<p align=\"left\"> Palmer writes:</p>\r\n\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p align=\"left\">Vocation does not come from wilfulness. It comes from listening.  I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about-quite apart from what I would like it to be about-or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions. (p.4)</p>\r\n</blockquote>\r\n<p align=\"left\">Parker encourages his readers to reflect on their childhoods – back to a time before they started putting on the masks worn by people consumed with cares of career advancement, social standing, and 401K plans.  These times of innocence, of play, of genuine curiosity and emotion…these contain the silent whispers of a life’s calling.  Spend time away from the noise, from the iPhone and email, and let your life tell you about you.  Let the God-ness in you move you towards how you might be an authentic God-ness in the world.  And for all those who challenge this approach as being self-indulgent and disrespectful of God’s perspective on career choice and vocational calling, Parker simply raises the question of whether it is not equally disrespectful to ignore the person you were created to be by failing to stop and tune in for a while.</p>\r\n\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p align=\"left\">Discovering vocation does not come from a voice ‘out there’ calling me to be something I am not.  It comes from a voice ‘in here’ calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God. (p.10)</p>\r\n</blockquote>\r\n<p align=\"left\">So I did as Parker encouraged and started on a journey of listening inwardly.  At first it was strange but then the memories started coming like a flood.  Memories of the simple joy that came from creating things – a song on the piano, a short story about a dog named Tinsey, or a whole universe out of Lego.  I remembered the tug of compassion towards a friend who had life-saving surgery in eighth grade as well as my awakening to the needs of others brought on by being encouraged to give my old toys to a family that didn’t have enough money to buy their own.  I recalled that I always loved Jesus and was moved by his heart of generosity and acceptance.  I realized that I am a poet, a writer, an encourager, a creator.   The more that the memories came…the more I started to see patterns of attraction and affinity.</p>\r\n\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p align=\"left\"> From the beginning, our lives lay down clues to selfhood and vocation, though the clues may be hard to decode.  But trying to interpret them is profoundly worthwhile – especially when we are lost in our twenties, thirties, or forties, feeling profoundly lost, having wandered, or been dragged, far away from our birthright gifts. (p.15)</p>\r\n</blockquote>\r\n<p align=\"left\">I realized that I am all of these things and so much more.  Many of these things I am because of experiences I have had, but I think that listening to my life has led me hack to my core – to patterns of behaviour, disposition and interests that have always been part of me.  Perhaps more importantly, I started to see where my life was not leading and started to be thankful for it’s intuitive avoidance of things that had the potential for harm.</p>\r\n<p align=\"left\"> And in the final analysis, I realized that although the pay was good and the benefits were generous, I wasn’t living in authenticity.  My life had spoken and realized I wasn’t who I wanted to be anymore.  So I stepped out of one life and back into my own.  I feel like I am standing in Robert Frost’s yellow wood at the juncture of the two roads that diverge into different directions.  I quit my job so I might take the road less travelled.  And I am trusting that it will make all the difference in the end.</p>\r\n<p align=\"left\">Feature Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net</p>','Use Your Inside Voice','','inherit','open','open','','1420-revision-4','','','2011-10-30 16:17:39','2011-10-30 23:17:39','',1420,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/30/1420-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(1522,33,'2011-10-30 19:40:23','2011-10-31 02:40:23','<p align=\"left\">I quit my job recently.</p>\r\n<p align=\"left\"> It was a good job...a relatively well-paying job with good benefits and a dental plan.  I liked my boss and enjoyed my colleagues.  I found the work interesting as it frequently provided a chance to be creative, innovative and kept the cat in kibble.  On the surface, everything appeared as though I was on the path to upward mobility and the good life.</p>\r\n<p align=\"left\">But inside, I was dying a little bit each day.  Each day for the last several months, my soul was being diminished rather than enlarged and I was finding the emotional, spiritual, and even physical demands of the job outpaced the returns.  It became a bad trade...the exchange rate was too high and the return on investment steadily got smaller.</p>\r\n<p align=\"left\"> I thought I could manage the dissonance between not being in the right place but staying for reasons that seemed logical – security, stability, a fancy title and an office with windows that opened.  But each day as I put on my dress slacks and slipped into my shiny black shoes, I was dressing up like an actor to play a character whose motivation I simply couldn’t understand.</p>\r\n<p align=\"left\">So I prayed for wisdom and guidance.  I prayed for clarity and insight.  I waited for the voice from Heaven to shout down the next step of the grand plan.  I waited.  But the voice never came.   I wondered what was causing God to be silent - apparently disinterested in the petty details of my frustrated work life.  I wondered if the lines of communication were clogged on my end...perhaps it was me who was unable or unwilling to open my ears to the voice of the shepherd whom I so desperately hoped would lead me out of the arid desert and into greener pastures and beside still waters.</p>\r\n<p align=\"left\">I grew fearful of making the wrong decision lest I chose the wrong road.  I had grown up being taught that the “human heart is wicked and deceitful above all else”, yet paradoxically encouraged to “commit all your ways to the Lord and he will make your paths straight”.  Apparently my sinful human anthropology meant my own interests, goals and desires were unreliable and suspicious whereas my Christian faith simultaneously called me to trust in a God who has promised to show the way.  And it is in this apparent duality – the implied distrust of self and a faith in self-revealing, communicative God that I got stuck...afraid to move...growing more miserable each day while trusting the clarity would come in due time.</p>\r\n<p align=\"left\">It was during a long, slow recovery from a life-altering health challenge that I had the opportunity to cut through the noise, give voice to the frustrations surrounding career ambiguity, and to seek out other ways to gain some perspective on issues of career and calling.  Of all the things I had the opportunity to read while lying on my couch, <em>Let Your Life Speak</em> by Parker J. Palmer was the most transformative.</p>\r\n<p align=\"left\">In this short yet profound book, Palmer flips the tables on the commonplace evangelical notion that career and calling come from the ‘outside’ by instead suggesting that the secret to discovering one’s purpose in life is to let your life speak its truth from the inside out.  According to the beginning of Genesis, man and woman were made in God’s image – a notion that insinuates that people enter the world bearing a resemblance to their creator and imbued with aspects of personhood that reflect the heart and nature of the One who gives life.  The key to happiness and fulfillment is to take time to reflect on your life, let it tell you what it was created to do…what moves it, what brings it joy, what breaks its heart and what causes it to rise up in holy anger.</p>\r\n<p align=\"left\"> Palmer writes:</p>\r\n\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p align=\"left\">Vocation does not come from wilfulness. It comes from listening.  I must listen to my life and try to understand what it is truly about-quite apart from what I would like it to be about-or my life will never represent anything real in the world, no matter how earnest my intentions. (p.4)</p>\r\n</blockquote>\r\n<p align=\"left\">Parker encourages his readers to reflect on their childhoods – back to a time before they started putting on the masks worn by people consumed with cares of career advancement, social standing, and 401K plans.  These times of innocence, of play, of genuine curiosity and emotion…these contain the silent whispers of a life’s calling.  Spend time away from the noise, from the iPhone and email, and let your life tell you about you.  Let the God-ness in you move you towards how you might be an authentic God-ness in the world.  And for all those who challenge this approach as being self-indulgent and disrespectful of God’s perspective on career choice and vocational calling, Parker simply raises the question of whether it is not equally disrespectful to ignore the person you were created to be by failing to stop and tune in for a while.</p>\r\n\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p align=\"left\">Discovering vocation does not come from a voice ‘out there’ calling me to be something I am not.  It comes from a voice ‘in here’ calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God. (p.10)</p>\r\n</blockquote>\r\n<p align=\"left\">So I did as Parker encouraged and started on a journey of listening inwardly.  At first it was strange but then the memories started coming like a flood.  Memories of the simple joy that came from creating things – a song on the piano, a short story about a dog named Tinsey, or a whole universe out of Lego.  I remembered the tug of compassion towards a friend who had life-saving surgery in eighth grade as well as my awakening to the needs of others brought on by being encouraged to give my old toys to a family that didn’t have enough money to buy their own.  I recalled that I always loved Jesus and was moved by his heart of generosity and acceptance.  I realized that I am a poet, a writer, an encourager, a creator.   The more that the memories came…the more I started to see patterns of attraction and affinity.</p>\r\n\r\n<blockquote>\r\n<p align=\"left\"> From the beginning, our lives lay down clues to selfhood and vocation, though the clues may be hard to decode.  But trying to interpret them is profoundly worthwhile – especially when we are lost in our twenties, thirties, or forties, feeling profoundly lost, having wandered, or been dragged, far away from our birthright gifts. (p.15)</p>\r\n</blockquote>\r\n<p align=\"left\">I realized that I am all of these things and so much more.  Many of these things I am because of experiences I have had, but I think that listening to my life has led me hack to my core – to patterns of behaviour, disposition and interests that have always been part of me.  Perhaps more importantly, I started to see where my life was not leading and started to be thankful for it’s intuitive avoidance of things that had the potential for harm.</p>\r\n<p align=\"left\">And in the final analysis, I realized that although the pay was good and the benefits were generous, I wasn’t living in authenticity.  My life had spoken and realized I wasn’t who I wanted to be anymore.  So I stepped out of one life and back into my own.  I feel like I am standing in Robert Frost’s yellow wood at the juncture of the two roads that diverge into different directions.  I quit my job so I might take the road less travelled.  And I am trusting that it will make all the difference in the end.</p>\r\n<p align=\"left\">Feature Image courtesy of FreeDigitalPhotos.net</p>','Use Your Inside Voice','','inherit','open','open','','1420-revision-5','','','2011-10-30 19:40:23','2011-10-31 02:40:23','',1420,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/30/1420-revision-5/',0,'revision','',0),(1523,1,'2011-10-21 18:48:38','2011-10-22 01:48:38','<strong>About Provoketive Magazine</strong>: In a world saturated with people shouting at each other, it\'s rare to find a place where people can engage in conversation with each other.  Provoketive Magazine hopes to change that.  We\'re creating a space of rich conversation about life, faith, justice and culture without judgment.  Our desire is to provoke the reader\'s imagination through conversation and open up spaces of dialogue, learning, and hope.\r\n\r\n<strong>Current Categories</strong>:\r\n<ul>\r\n	<li>Life: Business, Family, Growth, Humorous, Health, Sports, Technology, and World</li>\r\n	<li>Faith: Spirituality, Theology, Interfaith Dialogue, Spiritual Practices, and Questions</li>\r\n	<li>Justice: Social Justice, Gender Equality, Politics and Economics</li>\r\n	<li>Culture: Movies, Books, Music, Art, Poetry and Interviews</li>\r\n</ul>\r\nIf you are a writer and want to participate with us in creating this rich space of conversation, we invite you to sign up today.  Use the form below to provide the following information.  We will respond to you in 1-3 days with instructions for participation.\r\n\r\n[contact-form subject=\"Provoketive Magazine Writing For Provoketive\" to=\"jb@provoketive.com\"] [contact-field label=\"Name\" type=\"name\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"Email\" type=\"email\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"Existing Blog or Website\" type=\"url\" /] [contact-field label=\"List the topic you are interested writing about\" type=\"textarea\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"Current or New Wordpress Login Name (We\\\'ll send you a password.)\" type=\"text\" required=\"true\" /] [/contact-form]','Writing For Provoketive','','inherit','open','open','','358-revision-24','','','2011-10-21 18:48:38','2011-10-22 01:48:38','',358,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/21/358-revision-24/',0,'revision','',0),(1524,1,'2011-10-30 20:21:12','2011-10-31 03:21:12','<strong>About Provoketive Magazine</strong>: In a world saturated with people shouting at each other, it\'s rare to find a place where people can engage in conversation with each other.  Provoketive Magazine hopes to change that.  We\'re creating a space of rich conversation about life, faith, justice and culture without judgment.  Our desire is to provoke the reader\'s imagination through conversation and open up spaces of dialogue, learning, and hope.\r\n\r\n<strong>Current Categories</strong>:\r\n<ul>\r\n	<li>Life: Business, Family, Growth, Humorous, Health, Sports, Technology, and World</li>\r\n	<li>Faith: Spirituality, Theology, Interfaith Dialogue, Spiritual Practices, and Questions</li>\r\n	<li>Justice: Social Justice, Gender Equality, Politics and Economics</li>\r\n	<li>Culture: Movies, Books, Music, Art, Poetry and Interviews</li>\r\n</ul>\r\nIf you are a writer and want to participate with us in creating this rich space of conversation, we invite you to sign up today.  Use the form below to provide the following information.  We will respond to you in 1-3 days with instructions for participation.\r\n\r\n[contact-form subject=\"Provoketive Magazine Writing For Provoketive\" to=\"jb@civitaspress.com\"] [contact-field label=\"Name\" type=\"name\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"Email\" type=\"email\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"Existing Blog or Website\" type=\"url\" /] [contact-field label=\"List the topic you are interested writing about\" type=\"textarea\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"Current or New Wordpress Login Name (We\\\'ll send you a password.)\" type=\"text\" required=\"true\" /] [/contact-form]','Writing For Provoketive','','inherit','open','open','','358-revision-25','','','2011-10-30 20:21:12','2011-10-31 03:21:12','',358,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/30/358-revision-25/',0,'revision','',0),(1525,80,'2011-10-30 12:41:31','2011-10-30 19:41:31','<a href=\"http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2011/10/28/3350576.htm\">http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2011/10/28/3350576.htm</a>','There is no \'they\' and \'us\'; there is just \'we\'.\"','','inherit','open','open','','1476-revision-2','','','2011-10-30 12:41:31','2011-10-30 19:41:31','',1476,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/30/1476-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(1526,80,'2011-10-30 21:16:05','2011-10-31 04:16:05','<a href=\"http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2011/10/28/3350576.htm\">http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2011/10/28/3350576.htm</a>\n\n\"These people down there, they\'re not the counter-culture.\"\n\n\"They\'re the culture.\"\n\n\"They don\'t want free love, they want paid employment.\"\n\n\"They don\'t hate capitalism, they hate what\'s been done to it.\"\n\n\"And they resent the Republican mantra that the market perfectly rewards the hardworking and punishes the lazy.  And the poor are just jealous moochers who want a hand out.\"\n\n\"Yeah, cuz if there\'s one group of people who hate hand outs it\'s Wall Street.\"','There is no \'they\' and \'us\'; there is just \'we\'.\"','','inherit','open','open','','1476-revision-3','','','2011-10-30 21:16:05','2011-10-31 04:16:05','',1476,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/30/1476-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(1531,90,'2011-10-31 08:10:09','2011-10-31 15:10:09','<em>“You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.”</em> When I hear these familiar lines, I’m drawn to the second-half of the equation. Let’s talk about the dancing and this joy-filled clothing. <em>“You brought me up from the grave, you spared me from going down into the pit.”</em> Rescue and new life—excellent! I’ll avoid even acknowledging that the pit is there…thank you very much. Let’s stick with the new life, the joy and the springtime states. They’re pretty, new and shining, light and fluffy.\r\n\r\nBut look outside for a moment.  Fall is upon us. Look outside. The leaves are dying and falling to the ground, the plants are curling up and drawing in. Things are rotting, decomposing, returning, dying. The cycle of the seasons around us reminds us… Surrender comes before growth. Cycles and seasons are part of the journey. The pathway to life is through death. Death to our self, to our agendas, to our need to control. Birth to the idea that God is God and we are not.  Nature displays in front of us, that part of spiritual life is the process of being emptied out. There are internal parts of us that need to die, in order for the Divine Life to flow through more freely.\r\n\r\nOr another way of framing it:<strong> You are a pumpkin.</strong>\r\n\r\nA pumpkin, filled with the seeds and muck, mixed with hope and new possibility, and baggage and old stories. Terrified of the pain of carving, while yearning to shine brightly.  <em>You are a pumpkin</em>. A pumpkin in the hands of the Carver. Anticipating the scooping out, to make space for the light.\r\n\r\nStephanie Eden, a friend and brilliant singer/songwriter paints it this way:\r\n\r\n<strong>Hollow Me</strong>\r\nBy Stephanie Eden\r\n\r\n<em>One October a pumpkin grew</em>\r\n<em>Full of seeds and thoughts</em>\r\n<em>She said I don’t wanna be one of those</em>\r\n<em>That sits around and rots</em>\r\n<em>Pick me now cause I wanna be</em>\r\n<em>Like other pumpkins I’ve seen</em>\r\n<em>With a picture and a warming light</em>\r\n<em>For the kids on Halloween</em>\r\n<em>But the other pumpkins warned her</em>\r\n<em>It’s a process you can’t handle</em>\r\n<em>Being scraped and carved right to the flesh</em>\r\n<em>Till you’re cleaned out for a candle</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me</em>\r\n<em>And make me shine</em>\r\n<em>Make me shine</em>\r\n\r\n<em>The pumpkin she was determined</em>\r\n<em>Her fate was in decoration</em>\r\n<em>But with the first stab of the knife she thought</em>\r\n<em>Time for reconsideration</em>\r\n<em>They were right she thought I’d be better off</em>\r\n<em>As a pie or on the vine</em>\r\n<em>Why wasn’t I satisfied as a big orange squash</em>\r\n<em>Why did I want to shine?</em>\r\n<em>But the carvers hands were gentle</em>\r\n<em>And she could sense the jubilation</em>\r\n<em>As he held her and he made his plans</em>\r\n<em>In great anticipation</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me</em>\r\n<em>and make me shine</em>\r\n<em>make me shine</em>\r\n\r\n<em>As he began to scrape inside she found</em>\r\n<em>To her seeds she was attached</em>\r\n<em>She was afraid without all her junk inside</em>\r\n<em>She’d be more likely to get smashed</em>\r\n<em>But she noticed too a feeling</em>\r\n<em>Of freedom as she was emptied</em>\r\n<em>All the space and possibilities</em>\r\n<em>Like holding light instead of seeds</em>\r\n<em>Though she never had felt pain</em>\r\n<em>As a pumpkin on the vine</em>\r\n<em>The pain could not come close to how</em>\r\n<em>Good it felt to shine</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me</em>\r\n<em>and make me shine</em>\r\n<em>follow me follow me follow</em>\r\n<em>if you wanna shine</em>\r\n<em>make me shine</em>\r\n\r\nYou are a pumpkin.  You have a choice. Each of one of us have a choice. We can stay on the vine. Comfortable and secure, yes, but in the end, probably just a waste, rotting away.  You have a choice. Each one of us have a choice. We have a choice to allow, or in moments of bravery and insanity, even <strong>invite</strong> the Carver to take out the knife and begin to hollow. To open up to the emptying out that Christ calls us to, and that Christ walked. Welcome and invite brokenness and being emptied out? Careful what you wish for…but Christ did. Or at a minimum, Christ boldly and deeply accepted this path, wrestled with it and brought new life from it. Christ rose again.\r\n\r\nI think that in our culture we often like to try to put a little more space between these polarities—to separate the dying from the rising again. We put space between the scooping out of the insides of the pumpkin to the brightly shining jack-o-lantern. We want to create distance from re-birth to the death. We can be drawn to only focus on the newness of life, spring, flowers, shining lights twinkling from the pumpkins. These are all lovely things to focus on, but I believe that in separating the pieces of the cycle, death and life, light and dark, springtime and fall, we can lose the profound message for each of us in our spiritual paths.\r\n\r\nSwedenborgian theology, my faith background, talks about the process that Jesus went through throughout his life, culminating with death on the cross. It outlines this process into two states: One, being emptied out and two glorification or resurrection, new life.\r\n\r\nA passage from Swedenborgian theology states:\r\n\r\n<em>“The reason why Christ experienced these two states, the state of being emptied out and the state of being glorified, is that no other method of achieving union could possibly exist.  This method follows the divine design.</em>\r\n\r\n<em>The divine design is that we arrange ourselves for receiving God and prepare ourselves as a vessel and dwelling place where God can enter and live as if we were God’s own temple. We have to do this preparation by ourselves, yet we have to acknowledge that the preparation comes from God. This acknowledgment is needed because we do not feel the presence or the actions of God, even though God is in fact intimately present and brings about every good love and every true belief we have. This is the divine design we follow to go from being earthly to being spiritual.”</em>  True Christianity 105, Emanuel Swedenborg\r\n\r\nIn order for God to flow through us, the vessel needs to continue to be cleaned out and cleared out. The shining of our light requires being emptied out, being carved, being formed. We can probably all probably pretty quickly think of a time in our lives or an area of our personal and spiritual growth where we have felt the carving, the cutting, the spiritual surgery, the scooping of the goop. Maybe when we lost a loved one, or transitioned jobs. It came upon us when we came up against challenges in relationships, experienced a health crisis, a spiritual crisis. We wrestle when we encounter doubt, struggle in the day-to-day work.\r\n\r\nThis is the work. To be emptied out and to be filled up. The emptying is painful. And powerful. It’s part of the design. It’s part of the cycle. The seasons.\r\n\r\n<em>But the other pumpkins warned her\r\n</em><em>It’s a process you can’t handle\r\n</em><em>Being scraped and carved right to the flesh\r\n</em><em>Till you’re cleaned out for a candle</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me\r\n</em><em>And make me shine\r\n</em><em>Make me shine</em>\r\n\r\nThis link between the suffering, pain and death and the new life, resurrection and hope is at the crux of the human experience. Recently I’ve been reading a number of memoirs and autobiographies and I’ve been struck by this theme. I’m touched by the honesty and vulnerability that is brought forth in these human stories and it leads me to reflect on and wonder about my own story.  If I was writing my life auto-biography, would I have the guts to lay out this level of honesty? To expose my seeds and goopy insides to others?\r\n\r\nSure, it’s easy to be open about the mountaintop moments and the ah-ha’s in our spiritual life. The challenge is, do we share about the places where we are broken, where we’re being emptied out, the times when we wondered about this whole “God thing”, the days when we continued to make the same mistakes, listen to the same old stories and live in ways that were far less than saintly. It’s this that sticks with me and challenges me.\r\n\r\n<em>The pumpkin she was determined\r\n</em><em>Her fate was in decoration\r\n</em><em>But with the first stab of the knife she thought\r\n</em><em>Time for reconsideration</em><em> </em>\r\n\r\n<em>They were right she thought I’d be better off\r\n</em><em>As a pie or on the vine\r\n</em><em>Why wasn’t I satisfied as a big orange squash\r\n</em><em>Why did I want to shine?</em>\r\n\r\nA few weeks ago, in worship, a colleague offered his vulnerability to the group and invited us into the story of Jesus’ healing the man with the withered hand in the gospels.  He pointed out that before the man was healed, Jesus asked him to stand up before everyone and reach out his hand, and show his vulnerabilities.  My whole body tensed as he recounted the text, just imagining God calling me to stand up and articulate my brokenness, my wounds, my scars to the people around me. So much of me resists this, and yet, somewhere inside I feel the wisdom. Not to spew my life history at every turn as if spiritual community is one big therapy session. But to, in those moments of sacredness, present with God and human community, to be strong and courageous and reach out to the Healer in the presence of others. To acknowledge that part of the process of spiritual life IS the emptying out, that is intrinsic in the process of shining. The call, the challenged, is to look honestly in ourselves and see what is blocking the Divine Light from shining through. What are the places in us that are stuck and stagnant? Where do we need to look a little deeper and see how our places of challenge and struggle can be transformed into wisdom and strength by the Great Carver? Or as Rumi puts it: “Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasure”\r\n\r\nI wonder if that’s what these authors did, in sharing their stories.  Is this part of the spiritual process of Anne Lamott, John Woolman, Roberta Bondi, Thomas Merton, Pema Chodron, Dorothy Day and so many others who share their life stories, their spiritual journeys, in the pages of autobiographies, memoirs, blogs and journals.  In the written word they walk through the suffering, line by line, in snapshots and in full-color. The dialog of the challenges, the pain and doubt lead to places of transformation. In these lives laid before us, a sacred offering to the larger community of faith, we can see God at work.  We can see God working through the life of a brilliant, addicted, depressed writer as she bares a child, finds God in a new way and steps into a daring journey of discovering faith. We can see God in the workings of at early church leader, as we see Christ’s light shining through division and mis-understanding, in leading and being silent.\r\n\r\nBe it through the written word, honest preaching, held conversation, or solitary prayer, we can feel Spirit beckoning. Beckoning us to surrender to the Carving. Urging us to bravely look inside and examine and begin to let go of the things that are blocking the Light. Bravely inviting the Carver to hollow us, cleanse us, and shine Divine Light through us.\r\n\r\nBecause this healing is not just for each of us. This call to vulnerability is not about me or you. There is a greater call to healing through our brokenness, restoration through our vulnerabilities, resurrection through inner-death. This challenge to dig into our muck and guck and be cleared out is not simply a personal exercise. There is a world of brokenness, there is a God of Healing. As we walk through this process individually, we can be part of changing the collective. As the Light shines more and more brightly through each one of us, the Light in the world strengthens and spreads, widens and enlivens. The baptism of spirit offers all new life, cleansing and hope, each and every day. As we die to our own ideas of how life should be, as we loosen our grip that clings to the past and the future, as we release our needs to be in control and have it all together…God seeps in, rushes in, moves in our midst. Moves to bring healing to the all.\r\n\r\n<em> </em><em>Though she never had felt pain\r\n</em><em>As a pumpkin on the vine\r\n</em><em>The pain could not come close to how\r\n</em><em>Good it felt to shine</em><em> </em>\r\n\r\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me\r\n</em><em>and make me shine\r\n</em><em>follow me follow me follow\r\n</em><em>if you wanna shine\r\n</em><em>make me shine</em>','You Are a Pumpkin ','','publish','open','open','','you-are-a-pumpkin','','','2011-10-31 08:10:09','2011-10-31 15:10:09','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=1531',0,'post','',2),(1535,90,'2011-10-31 06:38:49','2011-10-31 13:38:49','<em>“You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.”</em> When I hear these familiar lines, I’m drawn to the second-half of the equation. Let’s talk about the dancing and this joy-filled clothing. <em>“You brought me up from the grave, you spared me from going down into the pit.”</em> Rescue and new life—excellent! I’ll avoid even acknowledging that the pit is there…thank you very much. Let’s stick with the new life, the joy and the springtime states. They’re pretty, new and shining, light and fluffy.\n\nBut look outside for a moment.  Fall is upon us. Look outside. The leaves are dying and falling to the ground, the plants are curling up and drawing in. Things are rotting, decomposing, returning, dying. The cycle of the seasons around us reminds us… Surrender comes before growth. Cycles and seasons are part of the journey. The pathway to life is through death. Death to our self, to our agendas, to our need to control. Birth to the idea that God is God and we are not.  Nature displays in front of us, that part of spiritual life is the process of being emptied out. There are internal parts of us that need to die, in order for the Divine Life to flow through more freely.\n\nOr another way of framing it:<strong> You are a pumpkin.</strong>\n\nA pumpkin, filled with the seeds and muck, mixed with hope and new possibility, and baggage and old stories. Terrified of the pain of carving, while yearning to shine brightly.  <em>You are a pumpkin</em>. A pumpkin in the hands of the Carver. Anticipating the scooping out, to make space for the light.\n\nStephanie Eden, a friend and brilliant singer/songwriter paints it this way:\n\n<strong>Hollow Me</strong>\nBy Stephanie Eden\n\n<em>One October a pumpkin grew</em>\n<em>Full of seeds and thoughts</em>\n<em>She said I don’t wanna be one of those</em>\n<em>That sits around and rots</em>\n<em>Pick me now cause I wanna be</em>\n<em>Like other pumpkins I’ve seen</em>\n<em>With a picture and a warming light</em>\n<em>For the kids on Halloween</em>\n<em>But the other pumpkins warned her</em>\n<em>It’s a process you can’t handle</em>\n<em>Being scraped and carved right to the flesh</em>\n<em>Till you’re cleaned out for a candle</em>\n\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me</em>\n<em>And make me shine</em>\n<em>Make me shine</em>\n\n<em>The pumpkin she was determined</em>\n<em>Her fate was in decoration</em>\n<em>But with the first stab of the knife she thought</em>\n<em>Time for reconsideration</em>\n<em>They were right she thought I’d be better off</em>\n<em>As a pie or on the vine</em>\n<em>Why wasn’t I satisfied as a big orange squash</em>\n<em>Why did I want to shine?</em>\n<em>But the carvers hands were gentle</em>\n<em>And she could sense the jubilation</em>\n<em>As he held her and he made his plans</em>\n<em>In great anticipation</em>\n\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me</em>\n<em>and make me shine</em>\n<em>make me shine</em>\n\n<em>As he began to scrape inside she found</em>\n<em>To her seeds she was attached</em>\n<em>She was afraid without all her junk inside</em>\n<em>She’d be more likely to get smashed</em>\n<em>But she noticed too a feeling</em>\n<em>Of freedom as she was emptied</em>\n<em>All the space and possibilities</em>\n<em>Like holding light instead of seeds</em>\n<em>Though she never had felt pain</em>\n<em>As a pumpkin on the vine</em>\n<em>The pain could not come close to how</em>\n<em>Good it felt to shine</em>\n\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me</em>\n<em>and make me shine</em>\n<em>follow me follow me follow</em>\n<em>if you wanna shine</em>\n<em>make me shine</em>\n\nYou are a pumpkin.  You have a choice. Each of one of us have a choice. We can stay on the vine. Comfortable and secure, yes, but in the end, probably just a waste, rotting away.  You have a choice. Each one of us have a choice. We have a choice to allow, or in moments of bravery and insanity, even <strong>invite</strong> the Carver to take out the knife and begin to hollow. To open up to the emptying out that Christ calls us to, and that Christ walked. Welcome and invite brokenness and being emptied out? Careful what you wish for…but Christ did. Or at a minimum, Christ boldly and deeply accepted this path, wrestled with it and brought new life from it. Christ rose again.\n\nI think that in our culture we often like to try to put a little more space between these polarities—to separate the dying from the rising again. We put space between the scooping out of the insides of the pumpkin to the brightly shining jack-o-lantern. We want to create distance from re-birth to the death. We can be drawn to only focus on the newness of life, spring, flowers, shining lights twinkling from the pumpkins. These are all lovely things to focus on, but I believe that in separating the pieces of the cycle, death and life, light and dark, springtime and fall, we can lose the profound message for each of us in our spiritual paths.\n\nSwedenborgian theology, my faith background, talks about the process that Jesus went through throughout his life, culminating with death on the cross. It outlines this process into two states: One, being emptied out and two glorification or resurrection, new life.\n\nA passage from Swedenborgian theology states:\n\n<em>“The reason why Christ experienced these two states, the state of being emptied out and the state of being glorified, is that no other method of achieving union could possibly exist.  This method follows the divine design.</em>\n\n<em>The divine design is that we arrange ourselves for receiving God and prepare ourselves as a vessel and dwelling place where God can enter and live as if we were God’s own temple. We have to do this preparation by ourselves, yet we have to acknowledge that the preparation comes from God. This acknowledgment is needed because we do not feel the presence or the actions of God, even though God is in fact intimately present and brings about every good love and every true belief we have. This is the divine design we follow to go from being earthly to being spiritual.”</em>  True Christianity 105, Emanuel Swedenborg\n\nIn order for God to flow through us, the vessel needs to continue to be cleaned out and cleared out. The shining of our light requires being emptied out, being carved, being formed. We can probably all probably pretty quickly think of a time in our lives or an area of our personal and spiritual growth where we have felt the carving, the cutting, the spiritual surgery, the scooping of the goop. Maybe when we lost a loved one, or transitioned jobs. It came upon us when we came up against challenges in relationships, experienced a health crisis, a spiritual crisis. We wrestle when we encounter doubt, struggle in the day-to-day work.\n\nThis is the work. To be emptied out and to be filled up. The emptying is painful. And powerful. It’s part of the design. It’s part of the cycle. The seasons.\n\n<em>But the other pumpkins warned her\n</em><em>It’s a process you can’t handle\n</em><em>Being scraped and carved right to the flesh\n</em><em>Till you’re cleaned out for a candle</em>\n\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me\n</em><em>And make me shine\n</em><em>Make me shine</em>\n\nThis link between the suffering, pain and death and the new life, resurrection and hope is at the crux of the human experience. Recently I’ve been reading a number of memoirs and autobiographies and I’ve been struck by this theme. I’m touched by the honesty and vulnerability that is brought forth in these human stories and it leads me to reflect on and wonder about my own story.  If I was writing my life auto-biography, would I have the guts to lay out this level of honesty? To expose my seeds and goopy insides to others?\n\nSure, it’s easy to be open about the mountaintop moments and the ah-ha’s in our spiritual life. The challenge is, do we share about the places where we are broken, where we’re being emptied out, the times when we wondered about this whole “God thing”, the days when we continued to make the same mistakes, listen to the same old stories and live in ways that were far less than saintly. It’s this that sticks with me and challenges me.\n\n<em>The pumpkin she was determined\n</em><em>Her fate was in decoration\n</em><em>But with the first stab of the knife she thought\n</em><em>Time for reconsideration</em><em> </em>\n\n<em>They were right she thought I’d be better off\n</em><em>As a pie or on the vine\n</em><em>Why wasn’t I satisfied as a big orange squash\n</em><em>Why did I want to shine?</em>\n\nA few weeks ago, in worship, a colleague offered his vulnerability to the group and invited us into the story of Jesus’ healing the man with the withered hand in the gospels.  He pointed out that before the man was healed, Jesus asked him to stand up before everyone and reach out his hand, and show his vulnerabilities.  My whole body tensed as he recounted the text, just imagining God calling me to stand up and articulate my brokenness, my wounds, my scars to the people around me. So much of me resists this, and yet, somewhere inside I feel the wisdom. Not to spew my life history at every turn as if spiritual community is one big therapy session. But to, in those moments of sacredness, present with God and human community, to be strong and courageous and reach out to the Healer in the presence of others. To acknowledge that part of the process of spiritual life IS the emptying out, that is intrinsic in the process of shining. The call, the challenged, is to look honestly in ourselves and see what is blocking the Divine Light from shining through. What are the places in us that are stuck and stagnant? Where do we need to look a little deeper and see how our places of challenge and struggle can be transformed into wisdom and strength by the Great Carver? Or as Rumi puts it: “Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasure”\n\nI wonder if that’s what these authors did, in sharing their stories.  Is this part of the spiritual process of Anne Lamott, John Woolman, Roberta Bondi, Thomas Merton, Pema Chodron, Dorothy Day and so many others who share their life stories, their spiritual journeys, in the pages of autobiographies, memoirs, blogs and journals.  In the written word they walk through the suffering, line by line, in snapshots and in full-color. The dialog of the challenges, the pain and doubt lead to places of transformation. In these lives laid before us, a sacred offering to the larger community of faith, we can see God at work.  We can see God working through the life of a brilliant, addicted, depressed writer as she bares a child, finds God in a new way and steps into a daring journey of discovering faith. We can see God in the workings of at early church leader, as we see Christ’s light shining through division and mis-understanding, in leading and being silent.\n\nBe it through the written word, honest preaching, held conversation, or solitary prayer, we can feel Spirit beckoning. Beckoning us to surrender to the Carving. Urging us to bravely look inside and examine and begin to let go of the things that are blocking the Light. Bravely inviting the Carver to hollow us, cleanse us, and shine Divine Light through us.\n\nBecause this healing is not just for each of us. This call to vulnerability is not about me or you. There is a greater call to healing through our brokenness, restoration through our vulnerabilities, resurrection through inner-death. This challenge to dig into our muck and guck and be cleared out is not simply a personal exercise. There is a world of brokenness, there is a God of Healing. As we walk through this process individually, we can be part of changing the collective. As the Light shines more and more brightly through each one of us, the Light in the world strengthens and spreads, widens and enlivens. The baptism of spirit offers all new life, cleansing and hope, each and every day. As we die to our own ideas of how life should be, as we loosen our grip that clings to the past and the future, as we release our needs to be in control and have it all together…God seeps in, rushes in, moves in our midst. Moves to bring healing to the all.\n\n<em> </em><em>Though she never had felt pain\n</em><em>As a pumpkin on the vine\n</em><em>The pain could not come close to how\n</em><em>Good it felt to shine</em><em> </em>\n\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me\n</em><em>and make me shine\n</em><em>follow me follow me follow\n</em><em>if you wanna shine\n</em><em>make me shine</em>','You Are a Pumpkin ','','inherit','open','open','','1531-revision-3','','','2011-10-31 06:38:49','2011-10-31 13:38:49','',1531,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1531-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(1532,90,'2011-10-31 06:32:00','2011-10-31 13:32:00','','Pumpkin','','inherit','open','open','','pumpkin','','','2011-10-31 06:32:00','2011-10-31 13:32:00','',1531,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Pumpkin.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1533,90,'2011-10-31 06:34:42','2011-10-31 13:34:42','<em>“You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.”</em> When I hear these familiar lines, I’m drawn to the second-half of the equation. Let’s talk about the dancing and this joy-filled clothing. <em>“You brought me up from the grave, you spared me from going down into the pit.”</em> Rescue and new life—excellent! I’ll avoid even acknowledging that the pit is there…thank you very much. Let’s stick with the new life, the joy and the springtime states. They’re pretty, new and shining, light and fluffy.\n\nBut look outside for a moment.  Fall is upon us. Look outside. The leaves are dying and falling to the ground, the plants are curling up and drawing in. Things are rotting, decomposing, returning, dying. The cycle of the seasons around us reminds us… Surrender comes before growth. Cycles and seasons are part of the journey. The pathway to life is through death. Death to our self, to our agendas, to our need to control. Birth to the idea that God is God and we are not.  Nature displays in front of us, that part of spiritual life is the process of being emptied out. There are internal parts of us that need to die, in order for the Divine Life to flow through more freely.\n\nOr another way of framing it:<strong> You are a pumpkin.</strong>\n\nA pumpkin, filled with the seeds and muck, mixed with hope and new possibility, and baggage and old stories. Terrified of the pain of carving, while yearning to shine brightly.  <em>You are a pumpkin</em>. A pumpkin in the hands of the Carver. Anticipating the scooping out, to make space for the light.\n\nStephanie Eden, a friend and brilliant singer/songwriter paints it this way:\nShe says: <em>These are the lyrics to a song I wrote this past October while carving pumpkins with my children.  It is inspired by a sermon given by Pastor Jonathan Rose a number of years ago on the process of being emptied out, and it’s titled: </em>Hollow Me\n\n<strong>Hollow Me</strong>\nBy Stephanie Eden\n\n<em>One October a pumpkin grew</em>\n<em>Full of seeds and thoughts</em>\n<em>She said I don’t wanna be one of those</em>\n<em>That sits around and rots</em>\n<em>Pick me now cause I wanna be</em>\n<em>Like other pumpkins I’ve seen</em>\n<em>With a picture and a warming light</em>\n<em>For the kids on Halloween</em>\n<em>But the other pumpkins warned her</em>\n<em>It’s a process you can’t handle</em>\n<em>Being scraped and carved right to the flesh</em>\n<em>Till you’re cleaned out for a candle</em>\n\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me</em>\n<em>And make me shine</em>\n<em>Make me shine</em>\n\n<em>The pumpkin she was determined</em>\n<em>Her fate was in decoration</em>\n<em>But with the first stab of the knife she thought</em>\n<em>Time for reconsideration</em>\n<em>They were right she thought I’d be better off</em>\n<em>As a pie or on the vine</em>\n<em>Why wasn’t I satisfied as a big orange squash</em>\n<em>Why did I want to shine?</em>\n<em>But the carvers hands were gentle</em>\n<em>And she could sense the jubilation</em>\n<em>As he held her and he made his plans</em>\n<em>In great anticipation</em>\n\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me</em>\n<em>and make me shine</em>\n<em>make me shine</em>\n\n<em>As he began to scrape inside she found</em>\n<em>To her seeds she was attached</em>\n<em>She was afraid without all her junk inside</em>\n<em>She’d be more likely to get smashed</em>\n<em>But she noticed too a feeling</em>\n<em>Of freedom as she was emptied</em>\n<em>All the space and possibilities</em>\n<em>Like holding light instead of seeds</em>\n<em>Though she never had felt pain</em>\n<em>As a pumpkin on the vine</em>\n<em>The pain could not come close to how</em>\n<em>Good it felt to shine</em>\n\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me</em>\n<em>and make me shine</em>\n<em>follow me follow me follow</em>\n<em>if you wanna shine</em>\n<em>make me shine</em>\n\nYou are a pumpkin.  You have a choice. Each of one of us have a choice. We can stay on the vine. Comfortable and secure, yes, but in the end, probably just a waste, rotting away.  You have a choice. Each one of us have a choice. We have a choice to allow, or in moments of bravery and insanity, even <strong>invite</strong> the Carver to take out the knife and begin to hollow. To open up to the emptying out that Christ calls us to, and that Christ walked. Welcome and invite brokenness and being emptied out? Careful what you wish for…but Christ did. Or at a minimum, Christ boldly and deeply accepted this path, wrestled with it and brought new life from it. Christ rose again.\n\nI think that in our culture we often like to try to put a little more space between these polarities—to separate the dying from the rising again. We put space between the scooping out of the insides of the pumpkin to the brightly shining jack-o-lantern. We want to create distance from re-birth to the death. We can be drawn to only focus on the newness of life, spring, flowers, shining lights twinkling from the pumpkins. These are all lovely things to focus on, but I believe that in separating the pieces of the cycle, death and life, light and dark, springtime and fall, we can lose the profound message for each of us in our spiritual paths.\n\nSwedenborgian theology, my faith background, talks about the process that Jesus went through throughout his life, culminating with death on the cross.\n\nIt outlines this process into two states: One, being emptied out and\ntwo glorification or resurrection, new life.\nA passage from Swedenborgian theology states:\n\n<em>“The reason why Christ experienced these two states, the state of being emptied out and the state of being glorified, is that no other method of achieving union could possibly exist.  This method follows the divine design.</em>\n\n<em>The divine design is that we arrange ourselves for receiving God and prepare ourselves as a vessel and dwelling place where God can enter and live as if we were God’s own temple. We have to do this preparation by ourselves, yet we have to acknowledge that the preparation comes from God. This acknowledgment is needed because we do not feel the presence or the actions of God, even though God is in fact intimately present and brings about every good love and every true belief we have. This is the divine design we follow to go from being earthly to being spiritual.”</em>  True Christianity 105, Emanuel Swedenborg\n\nIn order for God to flow through us, the vessel needs to continue to be cleaned out and cleared out. The shining of our light requires being emptied out, being carved, being formed. We can probably all probably pretty quickly think of a time in our lives or an area of our personal and spiritual growth where we have felt the carving, the cutting, the spiritual surgery, the scooping of the goop. Maybe when we lost a loved one, or transitioned jobs. It came upon us when we came up against challenges in relationships, experienced a health crisis, a spiritual crisis. We wrestle when we encounter doubt, struggle in the day-to-day work.\n\nThis is the work. To be emptied out and to be filled up. The emptying is painful. And powerful. It’s part of the design. It’s part of the cycle. The seasons.\n\n<em>But the other pumpkins warned her\n</em><em>It’s a process you can’t handle\n</em><em>Being scraped and carved right to the flesh\n</em><em>Till you’re cleaned out for a candle</em>\n\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me\n</em><em>And make me shine\n</em><em>Make me shine</em>\n\nThis link between the suffering, pain and death and the new life, resurrection and hope is one of the cruxes of the human experience. Recently I’ve been reading a number of memoirs and autobiographies and I’ve been struck by this theme. I’m touched by the honesty and vulnerability that is brought forth in these human stories and it leads me to reflect on and wonder about my own story.  If I was writing my life auto-biography, would I have the guts to lay out this level of honesty? To expose my seeds and goopy insides to others?\n\nSure, it’s easy to be open about the mountaintop moments and the ah-ha’s in our spiritual life. The challenge is, do we share about the places where we are broken, where we’re being emptied out, the times when we wondered about this whole “God thing”, the days when we continued to make the same mistakes, listen to the same old stories and live in ways that were far less than saintly. It’s this that sticks with me and challenges me.\n\n<em>The pumpkin she was determined\n</em><em>Her fate was in decoration\n</em><em>But with the first stab of the knife she thought\n</em><em>Time for reconsideration</em><em> </em>\n\n<em>They were right she thought I’d be better off\n</em><em>As a pie or on the vine\n</em><em>Why wasn’t I satisfied as a big orange squash\n</em><em>Why did I want to shine?</em>\n\nA few weeks ago, in worship, a colleague offered his vulnerability to the group and invited us into the story of Jesus’ healing the man with the withered hand in the gospels.  He pointed out that before the man was healed, Jesus asked him to stand up before everyone and reach out his hand, and show his vulnerabilities.  My whole body tensed as he recounted the text, just imagining God calling me to stand up and articulate my brokenness, my wounds, my scars to the people around me. So much of me resists this, and yet, somewhere inside I feel the wisdom. Not to spew my life history at every turn as if spiritual community is one big therapy session. But to, in those moments of sacredness, present with God and human community, to be strong and courageous and reach out to the Healer in the presence of others. To acknowledge that part of the process of spiritual life IS the emptying out, that that is intrinsic in the process of shining. The call, the challenged, is to look honestly in ourselves and see what is blocking the Divine Light from shining through. What are the places in us that are stuck and stagnant? Where do we need to look a little deeper and see how our places of challenge and struggle can be transformed into wisdom and strength by the Great Carver? Or as Rumi puts it: “Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasure”\n\nI wonder if that’s what these authors did, in sharing their stories.  Is this part of the spiritual process of Anne Lamott, John Woolman, Roberta Bondi, Thomas Merton, Pema Chodron, Dorothy Day and so many others who share their life stories, their spiritual journeys, in the pages of autobiographies, memoirs, blogs and journals.  In the written word they walk through the suffering, line by line, in snapshots and in full-color. The dialog of the challenges, the pain and doubt lead to places of transformation. In these lives laid before us, a sacred offering to the larger community of faith, we can see God at work.  We can see God working through the life of a brilliant, addicted, depressed writer as she bares a child, finds God in a new way and steps into a daring journey of discovering faith. We can see God in the workings of at early church leader, as we see Christ’s light shining through division and mis-understanding, in leading and being silent.\n\nBe it through the written word, honest preaching, held conversation, or solitary prayer, we can feel Spirit beckoning. Beckoning us to surrender to the Carving. Urging us to bravely look inside and examine and begin to let go of the things that are blocking the Light. Bravely inviting the Carver to hollow us, cleanse us, and shine Divine Light through us.\n\nBecause this healing is not just for each of us. This call to vulnerability is not about me or you. There is a greater call to healing through our brokenness, restoration through our vulnerabilities, resurrection through inner-death. This challenge to dig into our muck and guck and be cleared out is not simply a personal exercise. There is a world of brokenness, there is a God of Healing. As we walk through this process individually, we can be part of changing the collective. As the Light shines more and more brightly through each one of us, the Light in the world strengthens and spreads, widens and enlivens. The baptism of spirit offers all new life, cleansing and hope, each and every day. As we die to our own ideas of how life should be, as we loosen our grip that clings to the past and the future, as we release our needs to be in control and have it all together…God seeps in, rushes in, moves in our midst. Moves to bring healing to the all.\n\n<em> </em><em>Though she never had felt pain\n</em><em>As a pumpkin on the vine\n</em><em>The pain could not come close to how\n</em><em>Good it felt to shine</em><em> </em>\n\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me\n</em><em>and make me shine\n</em><em>follow me follow me follow\n</em><em>if you wanna shine\n</em><em>make me shine</em>','You Are a Pumpkin ','','inherit','open','open','','1531-revision','','','2011-10-31 06:34:42','2011-10-31 13:34:42','',1531,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1531-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(1534,90,'2011-10-31 06:35:42','2011-10-31 13:35:42','<em>“You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.”</em> When I hear these familiar lines, I’m drawn to the second-half of the equation. Let’s talk about the dancing and this joy-filled clothing. <em>“You brought me up from the grave, you spared me from going down into the pit.”</em> Rescue and new life—excellent! I’ll avoid even acknowledging that the pit is there…thank you very much. Let’s stick with the new life, the joy and the springtime states. They’re pretty, new and shining, light and fluffy.\n\nBut look outside for a moment.  Fall is upon us. Look outside. The leaves are dying and falling to the ground, the plants are curling up and drawing in. Things are rotting, decomposing, returning, dying. The cycle of the seasons around us reminds us… Surrender comes before growth. Cycles and seasons are part of the journey. The pathway to life is through death. Death to our self, to our agendas, to our need to control. Birth to the idea that God is God and we are not.  Nature displays in front of us, that part of spiritual life is the process of being emptied out. There are internal parts of us that need to die, in order for the Divine Life to flow through more freely.\n\nOr another way of framing it:<strong> You are a pumpkin.</strong>\n\nA pumpkin, filled with the seeds and muck, mixed with hope and new possibility, and baggage and old stories. Terrified of the pain of carving, while yearning to shine brightly.  <em>You are a pumpkin</em>. A pumpkin in the hands of the Carver. Anticipating the scooping out, to make space for the light.\n\nStephanie Eden, a friend and brilliant singer/songwriter paints it this way:\nShe says: <em>These are the lyrics to a song I wrote this past October while carving pumpkins with my children.  It is inspired by a sermon given by Pastor Jonathan Rose a number of years ago on the process of being emptied out, and it’s titled: </em>Hollow Me\n\n<strong>Hollow Me</strong>\nBy Stephanie Eden\n\n<em>One October a pumpkin grew</em>\n<em>Full of seeds and thoughts</em>\n<em>She said I don’t wanna be one of those</em>\n<em>That sits around and rots</em>\n<em>Pick me now cause I wanna be</em>\n<em>Like other pumpkins I’ve seen</em>\n<em>With a picture and a warming light</em>\n<em>For the kids on Halloween</em>\n<em>But the other pumpkins warned her</em>\n<em>It’s a process you can’t handle</em>\n<em>Being scraped and carved right to the flesh</em>\n<em>Till you’re cleaned out for a candle</em>\n\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me</em>\n<em>And make me shine</em>\n<em>Make me shine</em>\n\n<em>The pumpkin she was determined</em>\n<em>Her fate was in decoration</em>\n<em>But with the first stab of the knife she thought</em>\n<em>Time for reconsideration</em>\n<em>They were right she thought I’d be better off</em>\n<em>As a pie or on the vine</em>\n<em>Why wasn’t I satisfied as a big orange squash</em>\n<em>Why did I want to shine?</em>\n<em>But the carvers hands were gentle</em>\n<em>And she could sense the jubilation</em>\n<em>As he held her and he made his plans</em>\n<em>In great anticipation</em>\n\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me</em>\n<em>and make me shine</em>\n<em>make me shine</em>\n\n<em>As he began to scrape inside she found</em>\n<em>To her seeds she was attached</em>\n<em>She was afraid without all her junk inside</em>\n<em>She’d be more likely to get smashed</em>\n<em>But she noticed too a feeling</em>\n<em>Of freedom as she was emptied</em>\n<em>All the space and possibilities</em>\n<em>Like holding light instead of seeds</em>\n<em>Though she never had felt pain</em>\n<em>As a pumpkin on the vine</em>\n<em>The pain could not come close to how</em>\n<em>Good it felt to shine</em>\n\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me</em>\n<em>and make me shine</em>\n<em>follow me follow me follow</em>\n<em>if you wanna shine</em>\n<em>make me shine</em>\n\nYou are a pumpkin.  You have a choice. Each of one of us have a choice. We can stay on the vine. Comfortable and secure, yes, but in the end, probably just a waste, rotting away.  You have a choice. Each one of us have a choice. We have a choice to allow, or in moments of bravery and insanity, even <strong>invite</strong> the Carver to take out the knife and begin to hollow. To open up to the emptying out that Christ calls us to, and that Christ walked. Welcome and invite brokenness and being emptied out? Careful what you wish for…but Christ did. Or at a minimum, Christ boldly and deeply accepted this path, wrestled with it and brought new life from it. Christ rose again.\n\nI think that in our culture we often like to try to put a little more space between these polarities—to separate the dying from the rising again. We put space between the scooping out of the insides of the pumpkin to the brightly shining jack-o-lantern. We want to create distance from re-birth to the death. We can be drawn to only focus on the newness of life, spring, flowers, shining lights twinkling from the pumpkins. These are all lovely things to focus on, but I believe that in separating the pieces of the cycle, death and life, light and dark, springtime and fall, we can lose the profound message for each of us in our spiritual paths.\n\nSwedenborgian theology, my faith background, talks about the process that Jesus went through throughout his life, culminating with death on the cross.\n\nIt outlines this process into two states: One, being emptied out and\ntwo glorification or resurrection, new life.\nA passage from Swedenborgian theology states:\n\n<em>“The reason why Christ experienced these two states, the state of being emptied out and the state of being glorified, is that no other method of achieving union could possibly exist.  This method follows the divine design.</em>\n\n<em>The divine design is that we arrange ourselves for receiving God and prepare ourselves as a vessel and dwelling place where God can enter and live as if we were God’s own temple. We have to do this preparation by ourselves, yet we have to acknowledge that the preparation comes from God. This acknowledgment is needed because we do not feel the presence or the actions of God, even though God is in fact intimately present and brings about every good love and every true belief we have. This is the divine design we follow to go from being earthly to being spiritual.”</em>  True Christianity 105, Emanuel Swedenborg\n\nIn order for God to flow through us, the vessel needs to continue to be cleaned out and cleared out. The shining of our light requires being emptied out, being carved, being formed. We can probably all probably pretty quickly think of a time in our lives or an area of our personal and spiritual growth where we have felt the carving, the cutting, the spiritual surgery, the scooping of the goop. Maybe when we lost a loved one, or transitioned jobs. It came upon us when we came up against challenges in relationships, experienced a health crisis, a spiritual crisis. We wrestle when we encounter doubt, struggle in the day-to-day work.\n\nThis is the work. To be emptied out and to be filled up. The emptying is painful. And powerful. It’s part of the design. It’s part of the cycle. The seasons.\n\n<em>But the other pumpkins warned her\n</em><em>It’s a process you can’t handle\n</em><em>Being scraped and carved right to the flesh\n</em><em>Till you’re cleaned out for a candle</em>\n\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me\n</em><em>And make me shine\n</em><em>Make me shine</em>\n\nThis link between the suffering, pain and death and the new life, resurrection and hope is at the crux of the human experience. Recently I’ve been reading a number of memoirs and autobiographies and I’ve been struck by this theme. I’m touched by the honesty and vulnerability that is brought forth in these human stories and it leads me to reflect on and wonder about my own story.  If I was writing my life auto-biography, would I have the guts to lay out this level of honesty? To expose my seeds and goopy insides to others?\n\nSure, it’s easy to be open about the mountaintop moments and the ah-ha’s in our spiritual life. The challenge is, do we share about the places where we are broken, where we’re being emptied out, the times when we wondered about this whole “God thing”, the days when we continued to make the same mistakes, listen to the same old stories and live in ways that were far less than saintly. It’s this that sticks with me and challenges me.\n\n<em>The pumpkin she was determined\n</em><em>Her fate was in decoration\n</em><em>But with the first stab of the knife she thought\n</em><em>Time for reconsideration</em><em> </em>\n\n<em>They were right she thought I’d be better off\n</em><em>As a pie or on the vine\n</em><em>Why wasn’t I satisfied as a big orange squash\n</em><em>Why did I want to shine?</em>\n\nA few weeks ago, in worship, a colleague offered his vulnerability to the group and invited us into the story of Jesus’ healing the man with the withered hand in the gospels.  He pointed out that before the man was healed, Jesus asked him to stand up before everyone and reach out his hand, and show his vulnerabilities.  My whole body tensed as he recounted the text, just imagining God calling me to stand up and articulate my brokenness, my wounds, my scars to the people around me. So much of me resists this, and yet, somewhere inside I feel the wisdom. Not to spew my life history at every turn as if spiritual community is one big therapy session. But to, in those moments of sacredness, present with God and human community, to be strong and courageous and reach out to the Healer in the presence of others. To acknowledge that part of the process of spiritual life IS the emptying out, that is intrinsic in the process of shining. The call, the challenged, is to look honestly in ourselves and see what is blocking the Divine Light from shining through. What are the places in us that are stuck and stagnant? Where do we need to look a little deeper and see how our places of challenge and struggle can be transformed into wisdom and strength by the Great Carver? Or as Rumi puts it: “Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasure”\n\nI wonder if that’s what these authors did, in sharing their stories.  Is this part of the spiritual process of Anne Lamott, John Woolman, Roberta Bondi, Thomas Merton, Pema Chodron, Dorothy Day and so many others who share their life stories, their spiritual journeys, in the pages of autobiographies, memoirs, blogs and journals.  In the written word they walk through the suffering, line by line, in snapshots and in full-color. The dialog of the challenges, the pain and doubt lead to places of transformation. In these lives laid before us, a sacred offering to the larger community of faith, we can see God at work.  We can see God working through the life of a brilliant, addicted, depressed writer as she bares a child, finds God in a new way and steps into a daring journey of discovering faith. We can see God in the workings of at early church leader, as we see Christ’s light shining through division and mis-understanding, in leading and being silent.\n\nBe it through the written word, honest preaching, held conversation, or solitary prayer, we can feel Spirit beckoning. Beckoning us to surrender to the Carving. Urging us to bravely look inside and examine and begin to let go of the things that are blocking the Light. Bravely inviting the Carver to hollow us, cleanse us, and shine Divine Light through us.\n\nBecause this healing is not just for each of us. This call to vulnerability is not about me or you. There is a greater call to healing through our brokenness, restoration through our vulnerabilities, resurrection through inner-death. This challenge to dig into our muck and guck and be cleared out is not simply a personal exercise. There is a world of brokenness, there is a God of Healing. As we walk through this process individually, we can be part of changing the collective. As the Light shines more and more brightly through each one of us, the Light in the world strengthens and spreads, widens and enlivens. The baptism of spirit offers all new life, cleansing and hope, each and every day. As we die to our own ideas of how life should be, as we loosen our grip that clings to the past and the future, as we release our needs to be in control and have it all together…God seeps in, rushes in, moves in our midst. Moves to bring healing to the all.\n\n<em> </em><em>Though she never had felt pain\n</em><em>As a pumpkin on the vine\n</em><em>The pain could not come close to how\n</em><em>Good it felt to shine</em><em> </em>\n\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me\n</em><em>and make me shine\n</em><em>follow me follow me follow\n</em><em>if you wanna shine\n</em><em>make me shine</em>','You Are a Pumpkin ','','inherit','open','open','','1531-revision-2','','','2011-10-31 06:35:42','2011-10-31 13:35:42','',1531,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1531-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(1536,1,'2011-10-31 08:13:29','2011-10-31 15:13:29','<em>“You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.”</em> When I hear these familiar lines, I’m drawn to the second-half of the equation. Let’s talk about the dancing and this joy-filled clothing. <em>“You brought me up from the grave, you spared me from going down into the pit.”</em> Rescue and new life—excellent! I’ll avoid even acknowledging that the pit is there…thank you very much. Let’s stick with the new life, the joy and the springtime states. They’re pretty, new and shining, light and fluffy.\n\nBut look outside for a moment.  Fall is upon us. Look outside. The leaves are dying and falling to the ground, the plants are curling up and drawing in. Things are rotting, decomposing, returning, dying. The cycle of the seasons around us reminds us… Surrender comes before growth. Cycles and seasons are part of the journey. The pathway to life is through death. Death to our self, to our agendas, to our need to control. Birth to the idea that God is God and we are not.  Nature displays in front of us, that part of spiritual life is the process of being emptied out. There are internal parts of us that need to die, in order for the Divine Life to flow through more freely.\n\nOr another way of framing it:<strong> You are a pumpkin.</strong>\n\nA pumpkin, filled with the seeds and muck, mixed with hope and new possibility, and baggage and old stories. Terrified of the pain of carving, while yearning to shine brightly.  <em>You are a pumpkin</em>. A pumpkin in the hands of the Carver. Anticipating the scooping out, to make space for the light.\n\nStephanie Eden, a friend and brilliant singer/songwriter paints it this way:\n\n<strong>Hollow Me</strong>\nBy Stephanie Eden\n\n<em>One October a pumpkin grew</em>\n<em>Full of seeds and thoughts</em>\n<em>She said I don’t wanna be one of those</em>\n<em>That sits around and rots</em>\n<em>Pick me now cause I wanna be</em>\n<em>Like other pumpkins I’ve seen</em>\n<em>With a picture and a warming light</em>\n<em>For the kids on Halloween</em>\n<em>But the other pumpkins warned her</em>\n<em>It’s a process you can’t handle</em>\n<em>Being scraped and carved right to the flesh</em>\n<em>Till you’re cleaned out for a candle</em>\n\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me</em>\n<em>And make me shine</em>\n<em>Make me shine</em>\n\n<em>The pumpkin she was determined</em>\n<em>Her fate was in decoration</em>\n<em>But with the first stab of the knife she thought</em>\n<em>Time for reconsideration</em>\n<em>They were right she thought I’d be better off</em>\n<em>As a pie or on the vine</em>\n<em>Why wasn’t I satisfied as a big orange squash</em>\n<em>Why did I want to shine?</em>\n<em>But the carvers hands were gentle</em>\n<em>And she could sense the jubilation</em>\n<em>As he held her and he made his plans</em>\n<em>In great anticipation</em>\n\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me</em>\n<em>and make me shine</em>\n<em>make me shine</em>\n\n<em>As he began to scrape inside she found</em>\n<em>To her seeds she was attached</em>\n<em>She was afraid without all her junk inside</em>\n<em>She’d be more likely to get smashed</em>\n<em>But she noticed too a feeling</em>\n<em>Of freedom as she was emptied</em>\n<em>All the space and possibilities</em>\n<em>Like holding light instead of seeds</em>\n<em>Though she never had felt pain</em>\n<em>As a pumpkin on the vine</em>\n<em>The pain could not come close to how</em>\n<em>Good it felt to shine</em>\n\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me</em>\n<em>and make me shine</em>\n<em>follow me follow me follow</em>\n<em>if you wanna shine</em>\n<em>make me shine</em>\n\nYou are a pumpkin.  You have a choice. Each of one of us have a choice. We can stay on the vine. Comfortable and secure, yes, but in the end, probably just a waste, rotting away.  You have a choice. Each one of us have a choice. We have a choice to allow, or in moments of bravery and insanity, even <strong>invite</strong> the Carver to take out the knife and begin to hollow. To open up to the emptying out that Christ calls us to, and that Christ walked. Welcome and invite brokenness and being emptied out? Careful what you wish for…but Christ did. Or at a minimum, Christ boldly and deeply accepted this path, wrestled with it and brought new life from it. Christ rose again.\n\nI think that in our culture we often like to try to put a little more space between these polarities—to separate the dying from the rising again. We put space between the scooping out of the insides of the pumpkin to the brightly shining jack-o-lantern. We want to create distance from re-birth to the death. We can be drawn to only focus on the newness of life, spring, flowers, shining lights twinkling from the pumpkins. These are all lovely things to focus on, but I believe that in separating the pieces of the cycle, death and life, light and dark, springtime and fall, we can lose the profound message for each of us in our spiritual paths.\n\nSwedenborgian theology, my faith background, talks about the process that Jesus went through throughout his life, culminating with death on the cross. It outlines this process into two states: One, being emptied out and two glorification or resurrection, new life.\n\nA passage from Swedenborgian theology states:\n\n<em>“The reason why Christ experienced these two states, the state of being emptied out and the state of being glorified, is that no other method of achieving union could possibly exist.  This method follows the divine design.</em>\n\n<em>The divine design is that we arrange ourselves for receiving God and prepare ourselves as a vessel and dwelling place where God can enter and live as if we were God’s own temple. We have to do this preparation by ourselves, yet we have to acknowledge that the preparation comes from God. This acknowledgment is needed because we do not feel the presence or the actions of God, even though God is in fact intimately present and brings about every good love and every true belief we have. This is the divine design we follow to go from being earthly to being spiritual.”</em>  True Christianity 105, Emanuel Swedenborg\n\nIn order for God to flow through us, the vessel needs to continue to be cleaned out and cleared out. The shining of our light requires being emptied out, being carved, being formed. We can probably all probably pretty quickly think of a time in our lives or an area of our personal and spiritual growth where we have felt the carving, the cutting, the spiritual surgery, the scooping of the goop. Maybe when we lost a loved one, or transitioned jobs. It came upon us when we came up against challenges in relationships, experienced a health crisis, a spiritual crisis. We wrestle when we encounter doubt, struggle in the day-to-day work.\n\nThis is the work. To be emptied out and to be filled up. The emptying is painful. And powerful. It’s part of the design. It’s part of the cycle. The seasons.\n\n<em>But the other pumpkins warned her\n</em><em>It’s a process you can’t handle\n</em><em>Being scraped and carved right to the flesh\n</em><em>Till you’re cleaned out for a candle</em>\n\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me\n</em><em>And make me shine\n</em><em>Make me shine</em>\n\nThis link between the suffering, pain and death and the new life, resurrection and hope is at the crux of the human experience. Recently I’ve been reading a number of memoirs and autobiographies and I’ve been struck by this theme. I’m touched by the honesty and vulnerability that is brought forth in these human stories and it leads me to reflect on and wonder about my own story.  If I was writing my life auto-biography, would I have the guts to lay out this level of honesty? To expose my seeds and goopy insides to others?\n\nSure, it’s easy to be open about the mountaintop moments and the ah-ha’s in our spiritual life. The challenge is, do we share about the places where we are broken, where we’re being emptied out, the times when we wondered about this whole “God thing”, the days when we continued to make the same mistakes, listen to the same old stories and live in ways that were far less than saintly. It’s this that sticks with me and challenges me.\n\n<em>The pumpkin she was determined\n</em><em>Her fate was in decoration\n</em><em>But with the first stab of the knife she thought\n</em><em>Time for reconsideration</em><em> </em>\n\n<em>They were right she thought I’d be better off\n</em><em>As a pie or on the vine\n</em><em>Why wasn’t I satisfied as a big orange squash\n</em><em>Why did I want to shine?</em>\n\nA few weeks ago, in worship, a colleague offered his vulnerability to the group and invited us into the story of Jesus’ healing the man with the withered hand in the gospels.  He pointed out that before the man was healed, Jesus asked him to stand up before everyone and reach out his hand, and show his vulnerabilities.  My whole body tensed as he recounted the text, just imagining God calling me to stand up and articulate my brokenness, my wounds, my scars to the people around me. So much of me resists this, and yet, somewhere inside I feel the wisdom. Not to spew my life history at every turn as if spiritual community is one big therapy session. But to, in those moments of sacredness, present with God and human community, to be strong and courageous and reach out to the Healer in the presence of others. To acknowledge that part of the process of spiritual life IS the emptying out, that is intrinsic in the process of shining. The call, the challenged, is to look honestly in ourselves and see what is blocking the Divine Light from shining through. What are the places in us that are stuck and stagnant? Where do we need to look a little deeper and see how our places of challenge and struggle can be transformed into wisdom and strength by the Great Carver? Or as Rumi puts it: “Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasure”\n\nI wonder if that’s what these authors did, in sharing their stories.  Is this part of the spiritual process of Anne Lamott, John Woolman, Roberta Bondi, Thomas Merton, Pema Chodron, Dorothy Day and so many others who share their life stories, their spiritual journeys, in the pages of autobiographies, memoirs, blogs and journals.  In the written word they walk through the suffering, line by line, in snapshots and in full-color. The dialog of the challenges, the pain and doubt lead to places of transformation. In these lives laid before us, a sacred offering to the larger community of faith, we can see God at work.  We can see God working through the life of a brilliant, addicted, depressed writer as she bares a child, finds God in a new way and steps into a daring journey of discovering faith. We can see God in the workings of at early church leader, as we see Christ’s light shining through division and mis-understanding, in leading and being silent.\n\nBe it through the written word, honest preaching, held conversation, or solitary prayer, we can feel Spirit beckoning. Beckoning us to surrender to the Carving. Urging us to bravely look inside and examine and begin to let go of the things that are blocking the Light. Bravely inviting the Carver to hollow us, cleanse us, and shine Divine Light through us.\n\nBecause this healing is not just for each of us. This call to vulnerability is not about me or you. There is a greater call to healing through our brokenness, restoration through our vulnerabilities, resurrection through inner-death. This challenge to dig into our muck and guck and be cleared out is not simply a personal exercise. There is a world of brokenness, there is a God of Healing. As we walk through this process individually, we can be part of changing the collective. As the Light shines more and more brightly through each one of us, the Light in the world strengthens and spreads, widens and enlivens. The baptism of spirit offers all new life, cleansing and hope, each and every day. As we die to our own ideas of how life should be, as we loosen our grip that clings to the past and the future, as we release our needs to be in control and have it all together…God seeps in, rushes in, moves in our midst. Moves to bring healing to the all.\n\n<em> </em><em>Though she never had felt pain\n</em><em>As a pumpkin on the vine\n</em><em>The pain could not come close to how\n</em><em>Good it felt to shine</em><em> </em>\n\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me\n</em><em>and make me shine\n</em><em>follow me follow me follow\n</em><em>if you wanna shine\n</em><em>make me shine</em>','You Are a Pumpkin ','','inherit','open','open','','1531-autosave','','','2011-10-31 08:13:29','2011-10-31 15:13:29','',1531,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1531-autosave/',0,'revision','',0),(2672,80,'2011-11-28 08:41:16','2011-11-28 16:41:16','November 25, 2011 may not have inaugerated Black Friday as the newest holiday in the season, but things certainly rose to a new level that day.  The orgy of greed that follows the one day out the year we\'re supposed to stop and give thanks for all the good things we\'ve experienced is nothing new.  But in recent years, violence has begun to rear it\'s head as shoppers will go to great lengths to get something for (what they believe) is next to nothing.','Our Newest Holiday','','inherit','open','open','','2376-revision-6','','','2011-11-28 08:41:16','2011-11-28 16:41:16','',2376,'http://provoketive.com/2011/11/28/2376-revision-6/',0,'revision','',0),(1537,1,'2011-10-31 07:47:38','2011-10-31 14:47:38','At Provoketive, we\'re always looking for great writer\'s to add to the conversation.  If you know someone who is a great writer or has written a great post, and you think we should contact him/her, please fill out the form below and we will make an introduction.  Thank you for your support.\r\n\r\n[contact-form subject=\"Nominating A Writer For Provoketive\" to=\"jb@civitaspress.com\"] [contact-field label=\"Your Name\" type=\"name\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"Your Email\" type=\"email\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"The Writer\\\'s Name\" type=\"text\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"The Writer\\\'s Website or Post\" type=\"url\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"The Writer\'s Email\" type=\"url\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"Why You Think They Should Write For Provoketive?\" type=\"textarea\" required=\"true\" /] [/contact-form]','Nominate A Writer','','publish','closed','closed','','nominate-a-writer','','','2011-12-28 11:25:51','2011-12-28 19:25:51','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?page_id=1537',0,'page','',0),(1538,1,'2011-10-31 07:44:48','2011-10-31 14:44:48','At Provoketive, we\'re always looking for great writer\'s to add to the conversation.  If you know of a writer or a post','Nominate A Writer','','inherit','open','open','','1537-revision','','','2011-10-31 07:44:48','2011-10-31 14:44:48','',1537,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1537-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(1539,1,'2011-10-31 07:47:38','2011-10-31 14:47:38','At Provoketive, we\'re always looking for great writer\'s to add to the conversation.  If you know of a writer, or a the person has written, that you think we should contact, please fill out the form below and we will contact them.\r\n\r\n[contact-form] [contact-field label=\"Your Name\" type=\"name\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"Your Email\" type=\"email\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"The Writer\\\'s Name\" type=\"text\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"The Writer\\\'s Website or Post\" type=\"url\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"Why You Think They Should Write For Provoketive?\" type=\"textarea\" required=\"true\" /] [/contact-form]','Nominate A Writer','','inherit','open','open','','1537-revision-2','','','2011-10-31 07:47:38','2011-10-31 14:47:38','',1537,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1537-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(1540,1,'2011-12-28 11:26:36','2011-12-28 19:26:36','At Provoketive, we\'re always looking for great writer\'s to add to the conversation.  If you know someone who is a great writer or has written a great post, and you think we should contact him/her, please fill out the form below and we will make an introduction.  Thank you for your support.\r\n\r\n[contact-form subject=\"Nominating A Writer For Provoketive\" to=\"jb@civitaspress.com\"] [contact-field label=\"Your Name\" type=\"name\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"Your Email\" type=\"email\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"The Writer\\\'s Name\" type=\"text\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"The Writer\\\'s Website or Post\" type=\"url\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"The Writer\'s Email\" type=\"url\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"Why You Think They Should Write For Provoketive?\" type=\"textarea\" required=\"true\" /] [/contact-form]','Nominate A Writer','','inherit','open','open','','1537-autosave','','','2011-12-28 11:26:36','2011-12-28 19:26:36','',1537,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1537-autosave/',0,'revision','',0),(1541,1,'2011-10-31 07:48:07','2011-10-31 14:48:07','At Provoketive, we\'re always looking for great writer\'s to add to the conversation.  If you know of a writer, or a the person has written, that you think we should contact, please fill out the form below and we will contact them.\r\n\r\n[contact-form] [contact-field label=\"Your Name\" type=\"name\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"Your Email\" type=\"email\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"The Writer\\\'s Name\" type=\"text\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"The Writer\\\'s Website or Post\" type=\"url\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"Why You Think They Should Write For Provoketive?\" type=\"textarea\" required=\"true\" /] [/contact-form]','Nominate A Writer','','inherit','open','open','','1537-revision-3','','','2011-10-31 07:48:07','2011-10-31 14:48:07','',1537,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1537-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(1542,1,'2011-10-31 07:50:44','2011-10-31 14:50:44','At Provoketive, we’re always looking for great writer’s to add to the conversation.  If you know someone who is a great writer or has written a great post, and you think we should contact him/her, please fill out the form below and we will make an introduction.  Thank you for your support. [contact-form] [contact-field label=\"Your Name\" type=\"name\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"Your Email\" type=\"email\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"The Writer\'s Name\" type=\"text\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"The Writer\'s Website or Post\" type=\"url\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"Why You Think They Should Write For Provoketive?\" type=\"textarea\" required=\"true\" /] [/contact-form]','','','publish','open','open','','1542','','','2012-12-18 12:55:09','2012-12-18 20:55:09','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=1542',69,'nav_menu_item','',0),(1544,1,'2011-10-31 07:49:45','2011-10-31 14:49:45','At Provoketive, we\'re always looking for great writer\'s to add to the conversation.  If you know someone who is a great writer or has written a great post, and you think we should contact him/her, please fill out the form below and we will make an introduction.  Thank you for your support.\r\n\r\n[contact-form] [contact-field label=\"Your Name\" type=\"name\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"Your Email\" type=\"email\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"The Writer\\\'s Name\" type=\"text\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"The Writer\\\'s Website or Post\" type=\"url\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"Why You Think They Should Write For Provoketive?\" type=\"textarea\" required=\"true\" /] [/contact-form]','Nominate A Writer','','inherit','open','open','','1537-revision-4','','','2011-10-31 07:49:45','2011-10-31 14:49:45','',1537,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1537-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(1545,0,'2011-10-31 08:03:45','2011-10-31 15:03:45','because he\'s good.\n<!--more-->\nAUTHOR: Jonathan Brink\nAUTHOR EMAIL: jb@thriven.org\nAUTHOR URL: http://jonathanbrink.com\nSUBJECT: Nominating A Writer For Provoketive\nIP: 75.44.207.238\nArray\n(\n    [Your Name] =&gt; Jonathan Brink\n    [Your Email] =&gt; jb@thriven.org\n    [The Writer\'s Name] =&gt; Testing\n    [The Writer\'s Website or Post] =&gt; http://jonathanbrink.com\n    [Why You Think They Should Write For Provoketive?] =&gt; because he\'s good.\n)\n','Jonathan Brink - 2011-10-31 08:03:45','','publish','open','open','','7de279c8be1aea23881982cca00e2c35','','','2011-10-31 08:03:45','2011-10-31 15:03:45','',1537,'http://provoketive.com/?post_type=feedback&p=1545',0,'feedback','',0),(1546,1,'2011-10-31 08:03:22','2011-10-31 15:03:22','At Provoketive, we\'re always looking for great writer\'s to add to the conversation.  If you know someone who is a great writer or has written a great post, and you think we should contact him/her, please fill out the form below and we will make an introduction.  Thank you for your support.\r\n\r\n[contact-form subject=\"Nominating A Writer For Provoketive\" to=\"jb@civitaspress.com\"] [contact-field label=\"Your Name\" type=\"name\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"Your Email\" type=\"email\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"The Writer\\\'s Name\" type=\"text\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"The Writer\\\'s Website or Post\" type=\"url\" required=\"true\" /] [contact-field label=\"Why You Think They Should Write For Provoketive?\" type=\"textarea\" required=\"true\" /] [/contact-form]','Nominate A Writer','','inherit','open','open','','1537-revision-5','','','2011-10-31 08:03:22','2011-10-31 15:03:22','',1537,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1537-revision-5/',0,'revision','',0),(1547,1,'2011-10-31 06:38:51','2011-10-31 13:38:51','<em>“You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.”</em> When I hear these familiar lines, I’m drawn to the second-half of the equation. Let’s talk about the dancing and this joy-filled clothing. <em>“You brought me up from the grave, you spared me from going down into the pit.”</em> Rescue and new life—excellent! I’ll avoid even acknowledging that the pit is there…thank you very much. Let’s stick with the new life, the joy and the springtime states. They’re pretty, new and shining, light and fluffy.\r\n\r\nBut look outside for a moment.  Fall is upon us. Look outside. The leaves are dying and falling to the ground, the plants are curling up and drawing in. Things are rotting, decomposing, returning, dying. The cycle of the seasons around us reminds us… Surrender comes before growth. Cycles and seasons are part of the journey. The pathway to life is through death. Death to our self, to our agendas, to our need to control. Birth to the idea that God is God and we are not.  Nature displays in front of us, that part of spiritual life is the process of being emptied out. There are internal parts of us that need to die, in order for the Divine Life to flow through more freely.\r\n\r\nOr another way of framing it:<strong> You are a pumpkin.</strong>\r\n\r\nA pumpkin, filled with the seeds and muck, mixed with hope and new possibility, and baggage and old stories. Terrified of the pain of carving, while yearning to shine brightly.  <em>You are a pumpkin</em>. A pumpkin in the hands of the Carver. Anticipating the scooping out, to make space for the light.\r\n\r\nStephanie Eden, a friend and brilliant singer/songwriter paints it this way:\r\n\r\n<strong>Hollow Me</strong>\r\nBy Stephanie Eden\r\n\r\n<em>One October a pumpkin grew</em>\r\n<em>Full of seeds and thoughts</em>\r\n<em>She said I don’t wanna be one of those</em>\r\n<em>That sits around and rots</em>\r\n<em>Pick me now cause I wanna be</em>\r\n<em>Like other pumpkins I’ve seen</em>\r\n<em>With a picture and a warming light</em>\r\n<em>For the kids on Halloween</em>\r\n<em>But the other pumpkins warned her</em>\r\n<em>It’s a process you can’t handle</em>\r\n<em>Being scraped and carved right to the flesh</em>\r\n<em>Till you’re cleaned out for a candle</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me</em>\r\n<em>And make me shine</em>\r\n<em>Make me shine</em>\r\n\r\n<em>The pumpkin she was determined</em>\r\n<em>Her fate was in decoration</em>\r\n<em>But with the first stab of the knife she thought</em>\r\n<em>Time for reconsideration</em>\r\n<em>They were right she thought I’d be better off</em>\r\n<em>As a pie or on the vine</em>\r\n<em>Why wasn’t I satisfied as a big orange squash</em>\r\n<em>Why did I want to shine?</em>\r\n<em>But the carvers hands were gentle</em>\r\n<em>And she could sense the jubilation</em>\r\n<em>As he held her and he made his plans</em>\r\n<em>In great anticipation</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me</em>\r\n<em>and make me shine</em>\r\n<em>make me shine</em>\r\n\r\n<em>As he began to scrape inside she found</em>\r\n<em>To her seeds she was attached</em>\r\n<em>She was afraid without all her junk inside</em>\r\n<em>She’d be more likely to get smashed</em>\r\n<em>But she noticed too a feeling</em>\r\n<em>Of freedom as she was emptied</em>\r\n<em>All the space and possibilities</em>\r\n<em>Like holding light instead of seeds</em>\r\n<em>Though she never had felt pain</em>\r\n<em>As a pumpkin on the vine</em>\r\n<em>The pain could not come close to how</em>\r\n<em>Good it felt to shine</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me</em>\r\n<em>and make me shine</em>\r\n<em>follow me follow me follow</em>\r\n<em>if you wanna shine</em>\r\n<em>make me shine</em>\r\n\r\nYou are a pumpkin.  You have a choice. Each of one of us have a choice. We can stay on the vine. Comfortable and secure, yes, but in the end, probably just a waste, rotting away.  You have a choice. Each one of us have a choice. We have a choice to allow, or in moments of bravery and insanity, even <strong>invite</strong> the Carver to take out the knife and begin to hollow. To open up to the emptying out that Christ calls us to, and that Christ walked. Welcome and invite brokenness and being emptied out? Careful what you wish for…but Christ did. Or at a minimum, Christ boldly and deeply accepted this path, wrestled with it and brought new life from it. Christ rose again.\r\n\r\nI think that in our culture we often like to try to put a little more space between these polarities—to separate the dying from the rising again. We put space between the scooping out of the insides of the pumpkin to the brightly shining jack-o-lantern. We want to create distance from re-birth to the death. We can be drawn to only focus on the newness of life, spring, flowers, shining lights twinkling from the pumpkins. These are all lovely things to focus on, but I believe that in separating the pieces of the cycle, death and life, light and dark, springtime and fall, we can lose the profound message for each of us in our spiritual paths.\r\n\r\nSwedenborgian theology, my faith background, talks about the process that Jesus went through throughout his life, culminating with death on the cross. It outlines this process into two states: One, being emptied out and two glorification or resurrection, new life.\r\n\r\nA passage from Swedenborgian theology states:\r\n\r\n<em>“The reason why Christ experienced these two states, the state of being emptied out and the state of being glorified, is that no other method of achieving union could possibly exist.  This method follows the divine design.</em>\r\n\r\n<em>The divine design is that we arrange ourselves for receiving God and prepare ourselves as a vessel and dwelling place where God can enter and live as if we were God’s own temple. We have to do this preparation by ourselves, yet we have to acknowledge that the preparation comes from God. This acknowledgment is needed because we do not feel the presence or the actions of God, even though God is in fact intimately present and brings about every good love and every true belief we have. This is the divine design we follow to go from being earthly to being spiritual.”</em>  True Christianity 105, Emanuel Swedenborg\r\n\r\nIn order for God to flow through us, the vessel needs to continue to be cleaned out and cleared out. The shining of our light requires being emptied out, being carved, being formed. We can probably all probably pretty quickly think of a time in our lives or an area of our personal and spiritual growth where we have felt the carving, the cutting, the spiritual surgery, the scooping of the goop. Maybe when we lost a loved one, or transitioned jobs. It came upon us when we came up against challenges in relationships, experienced a health crisis, a spiritual crisis. We wrestle when we encounter doubt, struggle in the day-to-day work.\r\n\r\nThis is the work. To be emptied out and to be filled up. The emptying is painful. And powerful. It’s part of the design. It’s part of the cycle. The seasons.\r\n\r\n<em>But the other pumpkins warned her\r\n</em><em>It’s a process you can’t handle\r\n</em><em>Being scraped and carved right to the flesh\r\n</em><em>Till you’re cleaned out for a candle</em>\r\n\r\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me\r\n</em><em>And make me shine\r\n</em><em>Make me shine</em>\r\n\r\nThis link between the suffering, pain and death and the new life, resurrection and hope is at the crux of the human experience. Recently I’ve been reading a number of memoirs and autobiographies and I’ve been struck by this theme. I’m touched by the honesty and vulnerability that is brought forth in these human stories and it leads me to reflect on and wonder about my own story.  If I was writing my life auto-biography, would I have the guts to lay out this level of honesty? To expose my seeds and goopy insides to others?\r\n\r\nSure, it’s easy to be open about the mountaintop moments and the ah-ha’s in our spiritual life. The challenge is, do we share about the places where we are broken, where we’re being emptied out, the times when we wondered about this whole “God thing”, the days when we continued to make the same mistakes, listen to the same old stories and live in ways that were far less than saintly. It’s this that sticks with me and challenges me.\r\n\r\n<em>The pumpkin she was determined\r\n</em><em>Her fate was in decoration\r\n</em><em>But with the first stab of the knife she thought\r\n</em><em>Time for reconsideration</em><em> </em>\r\n\r\n<em>They were right she thought I’d be better off\r\n</em><em>As a pie or on the vine\r\n</em><em>Why wasn’t I satisfied as a big orange squash\r\n</em><em>Why did I want to shine?</em>\r\n\r\nA few weeks ago, in worship, a colleague offered his vulnerability to the group and invited us into the story of Jesus’ healing the man with the withered hand in the gospels.  He pointed out that before the man was healed, Jesus asked him to stand up before everyone and reach out his hand, and show his vulnerabilities.  My whole body tensed as he recounted the text, just imagining God calling me to stand up and articulate my brokenness, my wounds, my scars to the people around me. So much of me resists this, and yet, somewhere inside I feel the wisdom. Not to spew my life history at every turn as if spiritual community is one big therapy session. But to, in those moments of sacredness, present with God and human community, to be strong and courageous and reach out to the Healer in the presence of others. To acknowledge that part of the process of spiritual life IS the emptying out, that is intrinsic in the process of shining. The call, the challenged, is to look honestly in ourselves and see what is blocking the Divine Light from shining through. What are the places in us that are stuck and stagnant? Where do we need to look a little deeper and see how our places of challenge and struggle can be transformed into wisdom and strength by the Great Carver? Or as Rumi puts it: “Where there is ruin, there is hope for treasure”\r\n\r\nI wonder if that’s what these authors did, in sharing their stories.  Is this part of the spiritual process of Anne Lamott, John Woolman, Roberta Bondi, Thomas Merton, Pema Chodron, Dorothy Day and so many others who share their life stories, their spiritual journeys, in the pages of autobiographies, memoirs, blogs and journals.  In the written word they walk through the suffering, line by line, in snapshots and in full-color. The dialog of the challenges, the pain and doubt lead to places of transformation. In these lives laid before us, a sacred offering to the larger community of faith, we can see God at work.  We can see God working through the life of a brilliant, addicted, depressed writer as she bares a child, finds God in a new way and steps into a daring journey of discovering faith. We can see God in the workings of at early church leader, as we see Christ’s light shining through division and mis-understanding, in leading and being silent.\r\n\r\nBe it through the written word, honest preaching, held conversation, or solitary prayer, we can feel Spirit beckoning. Beckoning us to surrender to the Carving. Urging us to bravely look inside and examine and begin to let go of the things that are blocking the Light. Bravely inviting the Carver to hollow us, cleanse us, and shine Divine Light through us.\r\n\r\nBecause this healing is not just for each of us. This call to vulnerability is not about me or you. There is a greater call to healing through our brokenness, restoration through our vulnerabilities, resurrection through inner-death. This challenge to dig into our muck and guck and be cleared out is not simply a personal exercise. There is a world of brokenness, there is a God of Healing. As we walk through this process individually, we can be part of changing the collective. As the Light shines more and more brightly through each one of us, the Light in the world strengthens and spreads, widens and enlivens. The baptism of spirit offers all new life, cleansing and hope, each and every day. As we die to our own ideas of how life should be, as we loosen our grip that clings to the past and the future, as we release our needs to be in control and have it all together…God seeps in, rushes in, moves in our midst. Moves to bring healing to the all.\r\n\r\n<em> </em><em>Though she never had felt pain\r\n</em><em>As a pumpkin on the vine\r\n</em><em>The pain could not come close to how\r\n</em><em>Good it felt to shine</em><em> </em>\r\n\r\n<em>Hollow me hollow me hollow me\r\n</em><em>and make me shine\r\n</em><em>follow me follow me follow\r\n</em><em>if you wanna shine\r\n</em><em>make me shine</em>','You Are a Pumpkin ','','inherit','open','open','','1531-revision-4','','','2011-10-31 06:38:51','2011-10-31 13:38:51','',1531,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1531-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(1548,0,'2011-10-31 08:10:36','2011-10-31 15:10:36','Theology, Faith, and Culture.\n<!--more-->\nAUTHOR: Mason Slater\nAUTHOR EMAIL: newways@ymail.com\nAUTHOR URL: http://masonslater.com/\nSUBJECT: Provoketive Magazine Writing For Provoketive\nIP: 76.253.127.38\nArray\n(\n    [Name] =&gt; Mason Slater\n    [Email] =&gt; newways@ymail.com\n    [Existing Blog or Website] =&gt; http://masonslater.com/\n    [List the topic you are interested writing about] =&gt; Theology, Faith, and Culture.\n    [Current or New WordPress Login Name (We\'ll send you a password.)] =&gt; Mason Slater\n)\n','Mason Slater - 2011-10-31 08:10:36','','publish','open','open','','731ad6a545be43c6969a2f286cbfb5a0','','','2011-10-31 08:10:36','2011-10-31 15:10:36','',358,'http://provoketive.com/?post_type=feedback&p=1548',0,'feedback','',0),(1550,94,'2011-10-31 08:44:46','2011-10-31 15:44:46','<strong>I typically avoid talking politics.</strong>\r\n\r\nI might raise certain issues, like <a href=\"http://masonslater.com/2011/09/22/in-which-we-have-no-pro-life-party/\">the death penalty</a>, but <em>I have no interest in endorsing either major party or any specific candidate</em>. I think the proper term is aggressively nonpartisan, which essentially means neither party’s platform looks anything like the message of Jesus to me.\r\n\r\nSo, keep that in mind, because I’m going to discuss Michele Bachmann, but it’s not about the politics.\r\n\r\nA few weeks ago, <a href=\"http://www.liberty.edu/index.cfm?PID=18495&amp;MID=37996\">Liberty University featured Bachmann as their convocation speaker.</a>\r\n\r\nThat’s not the issue though, they can have whatever speaker they would like, and I’m sure Bachmann is the sort of speaker you would like if you like that sort of thing.\r\n\r\n<strong>The issue is the hermenutical gymnastics Liberty has to engage in to feature a female candidate for this nation’s highest office, while at the same time being opposed to women holding the highest office in a local church.</strong>\r\n\r\n<img class=\"alignright\" src=\"http://www.ecclesio.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Women-in-Ministry.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"299\" height=\"289\" />\r\n\r\nIt’s a perfect example of picking and choosing when our principles apply.\r\n\r\nNow, <a href=\"http://masonslater.com/2011/09/21/driscoll-women-and-taking-the-bible-seriously/\">as I’ve discussed before,</a> we all end up picking and choosing when we read the Bible. Look down at your clothes, any of them made of more than one material? Then you pick and choose too.\r\n\r\nAnd that’s fine, inevitable even. The important thing is that we realize why we pick and choose the way we do, that we are intentional about our method of interpretation, and that we attempt to be consistent and reasonable about it.\r\n\r\nWhen your school offers a <a href=\"http://www.liberty.edu/index.cfm?PID=23391\">Women’s Ministries</a> degree that trains women for career paths like “Women’s Ministry Director in the Local Church, Teen Girl Camp Counselor, Women’s Conference Coordinator, Teen Girl/ Women’s Conference Speaker” – in other words anything but teaching men – does it seem consistent to invite a female presidential candidate to speak at your school?\r\n\r\nIf women shouldn’t be pastors because they are too naïve (<a href=\"http://www.redletterchristians.org/ideas-have-consequences/\">Eve was the one deceived by the serpent after all!</a>), or because male headship is the natural order, or because they are somehow weaker or less capable, or simply because God ordained that they shouldn’t have authority over men, <em>then why would it make any sense to have a female president?</em>\r\n\r\n<strong>And if you’re fine with a woman as president, or professor, or CEO, then what sort of hermeneutical gymnastics are necessary to say yes to all that and yet no to women as pastors?</strong>\r\n\r\nIf you want Bachmann for president that’s fine [well, not to me, but that has nothing to do with her gender], and if you don’t want to let women be pastors no one can make you, but I don’t see how you can have both and pretend it is consistent.\r\n\r\n<em>Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore</em>','Bachmann, Liberty U, and Women in Ministry ','','publish','open','open','','bachmann-liberty-u-and-women-in-ministry','','http://www.redletterchristians.org/ideas-have-consequences/\nhttp://masonslater.com/2011/09/22/in-which-we-have-no-pro-life-party/','2011-10-31 08:51:24','2011-10-31 15:51:24','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=1550',0,'post','',13),(1551,94,'2011-10-31 08:18:58','2011-10-31 15:18:58','<strong>I typically avoid talking politics.</strong>\n\nI might raise certain issues, like <a href=\"http://masonslater.com/2011/09/22/in-which-we-have-no-pro-life-party/\">the death penalty</a>, but <em>I have no interest in endorsing either major party or any specific candidate</em>. I think the proper term is aggressively nonpartisan, which essentially means neither party’s platform looks anything like the message of Jesus to me.\n\nSo, keep that in mind, because I’m going to discuss Michele Bachmann, but it’s not about the politics.\n\nA few weeks ago, <a href=\"http://www.liberty.edu/index.cfm?PID=18495&amp;MID=37996\">Liberty University featured Bachmann as their convocation speaker.</a>\n\nThat’s not the issue though, they can have whatever speaker they would like, and I’m sure Bachmann is the sort of speaker you would like if you like that sort of thing.\n\n<strong>The issue is the hermenutical gymnastics Liberty has to engage in to feature a female candidate for this nation’s highest office, while at the same time being opposed to women holding the highest office in a local church.</strong>\n\n<img class=\"alignright\" src=\"http://www.ecclesio.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Women-in-Ministry.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"299\" height=\"289\" />\n\nIt’s a perfect example of picking and choosing when our principles apply.\n\nNow, <a href=\"http://masonslater.com/2011/09/21/driscoll-women-and-taking-the-bible-seriously/\">as I’ve discussed before,</a> we all end up picking and choosing when we read the Bible. Look down at your clothes, any of them made of more than one material? Then you pick and choose too.\n\nAnd that’s fine, inevitable even. The important thing is that we realize why we pick and choose the way we do, that we are intentional about our method of interpretation, and that we attempt to be consistent and reasonable about it.\n\nWhen your school offers a <a href=\"http://www.liberty.edu/index.cfm?PID=23391\">Women’s Ministries</a> degree that trains women for career paths like “Women’s Ministry Director in the Local Church, Teen Girl Camp Counselor, Women’s Conference Coordinator, Teen Girl/ Women’s Conference Speaker” – in other words anything but teaching men – does it seem consistent to invite a female presidential candidate to speak at your school?\n\nIf women shouldn’t be pastors because they are too naïve (<a href=\"http://www.redletterchristians.org/ideas-have-consequences/\">Eve was the one deceived by the serpent after all!</a>), or because male headship is the natural order, or because they are somehow weaker or less capable, or simply because God ordained that they shouldn’t have authority over men, <em>then why would it make any sense to have a female president?</em>\n\n<strong>And if you’re fine with a woman as president, or professor, or CEO, then what sort of hermeneutical gymnastics are necessary to say yes to all that and yet no to women as pastors?</strong>\n\nIf you want Bachmann for president that’s fine [well, not to me, but that has nothing to do with her gender], and if you don’t want to let women be pastors no one can make you, but I don’t see how you can have both and pretend it is consistent.','','','inherit','open','open','','1550-revision','','','2011-10-31 08:18:58','2011-10-31 15:18:58','',1550,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1550-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(1552,94,'2011-10-31 08:19:25','2011-10-31 15:19:25','<strong>I typically avoid talking politics.</strong>\r\n\r\nI might raise certain issues, like <a href=\"http://masonslater.com/2011/09/22/in-which-we-have-no-pro-life-party/\">the death penalty</a>, but <em>I have no interest in endorsing either major party or any specific candidate</em>. I think the proper term is aggressively nonpartisan, which essentially means neither party’s platform looks anything like the message of Jesus to me.\r\n\r\nSo, keep that in mind, because I’m going to discuss Michele Bachmann, but it’s not about the politics.\r\n\r\nA few weeks ago, <a href=\"http://www.liberty.edu/index.cfm?PID=18495&amp;MID=37996\">Liberty University featured Bachmann as their convocation speaker.</a>\r\n\r\nThat’s not the issue though, they can have whatever speaker they would like, and I’m sure Bachmann is the sort of speaker you would like if you like that sort of thing.\r\n\r\n<strong>The issue is the hermenutical gymnastics Liberty has to engage in to feature a female candidate for this nation’s highest office, while at the same time being opposed to women holding the highest office in a local church.</strong>\r\n\r\n<img class=\"alignright\" src=\"http://www.ecclesio.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Women-in-Ministry.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"299\" height=\"289\" />\r\n\r\nIt’s a perfect example of picking and choosing when our principles apply.\r\n\r\nNow, <a href=\"http://masonslater.com/2011/09/21/driscoll-women-and-taking-the-bible-seriously/\">as I’ve discussed before,</a> we all end up picking and choosing when we read the Bible. Look down at your clothes, any of them made of more than one material? Then you pick and choose too.\r\n\r\nAnd that’s fine, inevitable even. The important thing is that we realize why we pick and choose the way we do, that we are intentional about our method of interpretation, and that we attempt to be consistent and reasonable about it.\r\n\r\nWhen your school offers a <a href=\"http://www.liberty.edu/index.cfm?PID=23391\">Women’s Ministries</a> degree that trains women for career paths like “Women’s Ministry Director in the Local Church, Teen Girl Camp Counselor, Women’s Conference Coordinator, Teen Girl/ Women’s Conference Speaker” – in other words anything but teaching men – does it seem consistent to invite a female presidential candidate to speak at your school?\r\n\r\nIf women shouldn’t be pastors because they are too naïve (<a href=\"http://www.redletterchristians.org/ideas-have-consequences/\">Eve was the one deceived by the serpent after all!</a>), or because male headship is the natural order, or because they are somehow weaker or less capable, or simply because God ordained that they shouldn’t have authority over men, <em>then why would it make any sense to have a female president?</em>\r\n\r\n<strong>And if you’re fine with a woman as president, or professor, or CEO, then what sort of hermeneutical gymnastics are necessary to say yes to all that and yet no to women as pastors?</strong>\r\n\r\nIf you want Bachmann for president that’s fine [well, not to me, but that has nothing to do with her gender], and if you don’t want to let women be pastors no one can make you, but I don’t see how you can have both and pretend it is consistent.','Bachmann, Liberty U, and Women in Ministry ','','inherit','open','open','','1550-revision-2','','','2011-10-31 08:19:25','2011-10-31 15:19:25','',1550,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1550-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(1553,1,'2011-11-01 08:00:52','2011-11-01 15:00:52','Recently I had a conversation with a friend about questions of leadership in the church.  It was a great conversation.  We were both really exploring together some key ideas about our faith and how they worked out in the organizations we take part in.  And in the midst of our conversation, I expressed my sincere concern for the loss of women\'s voice in the church conversation.  I just didn\'t understand why men had such an issue with women at the leadership table.  I get Paul\'s directive, but I think it\'s entirely contextual, given Paul\'s other directive that \"all things are lawful.\"\r\n\r\n<strong>My friend said, \"You know Eve was deceived, don\'t you?\"</strong>\r\n\r\nThe obviousness of his statement required a yes.  I\'ve heard that very statement used as a foundation for an entire argument against women in leadership conversations.  Women are the weaker sex because Eve was deceived. And because of this foundational moment, women just can\'t be trusted to sit at the table of important decisions.\r\n\r\nBut something popped into my head at that moment that required a second response.  \"But wait,\" I said.  \"Adam was deceived too!\"  My friend stopped dead cold and didn\'t say a word for about six seconds.  He popped his chin back as if subtly being hit with a two by four.  The idea had never hit him.\r\n\r\n\"Oh yeah,\" he responded.\r\n\r\nMy initial knee jerk response was that Adam was following a long because he wanted to sacrifice himself for Eve. If he didn\'t, he would be separated from her.  Or, Adam didn\'t know what he was doing.  Or, Eve was responsible because she engaged the question.  My mind blindly searched for a reason to support the prevailing notion.\r\n\r\nBut the reality of the story is that Adam didn\'t even think about taking a bite. The story paints no thought process what so ever in his decision.  He just followed blindly a long.\r\n\r\nAs my friend and I continued talking, I was left with a new conversation to ponder. <strong>Why do we blame Eve for being deceived when Adam was too?</strong>\r\n\r\nWhat do you think?','The Deception Of Adam','','publish','open','open','','the-deception-of-adam','','','2011-11-01 08:31:03','2011-11-01 15:31:03','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=1553',0,'post','',6),(1554,94,'2011-10-31 08:19:31','2011-10-31 15:19:31','<strong>I typically avoid talking politics.</strong>\r\n\r\nI might raise certain issues, like <a href=\"http://masonslater.com/2011/09/22/in-which-we-have-no-pro-life-party/\">the death penalty</a>, but <em>I have no interest in endorsing either major party or any specific candidate</em>. I think the proper term is aggressively nonpartisan, which essentially means neither party’s platform looks anything like the message of Jesus to me.\r\n\r\nSo, keep that in mind, because I’m going to discuss Michele Bachmann, but it’s not about the politics.\r\n\r\nA few weeks ago, <a href=\"http://www.liberty.edu/index.cfm?PID=18495&amp;MID=37996\">Liberty University featured Bachmann as their convocation speaker.</a>\r\n\r\nThat’s not the issue though, they can have whatever speaker they would like, and I’m sure Bachmann is the sort of speaker you would like if you like that sort of thing.\r\n\r\n<strong>The issue is the hermenutical gymnastics Liberty has to engage in to feature a female candidate for this nation’s highest office, while at the same time being opposed to women holding the highest office in a local church.</strong>\r\n\r\n<img class=\"alignright\" src=\"http://www.ecclesio.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Women-in-Ministry.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"299\" height=\"289\" />\r\n\r\nIt’s a perfect example of picking and choosing when our principles apply.\r\n\r\nNow, <a href=\"http://masonslater.com/2011/09/21/driscoll-women-and-taking-the-bible-seriously/\">as I’ve discussed before,</a> we all end up picking and choosing when we read the Bible. Look down at your clothes, any of them made of more than one material? Then you pick and choose too.\r\n\r\nAnd that’s fine, inevitable even. The important thing is that we realize why we pick and choose the way we do, that we are intentional about our method of interpretation, and that we attempt to be consistent and reasonable about it.\r\n\r\nWhen your school offers a <a href=\"http://www.liberty.edu/index.cfm?PID=23391\">Women’s Ministries</a> degree that trains women for career paths like “Women’s Ministry Director in the Local Church, Teen Girl Camp Counselor, Women’s Conference Coordinator, Teen Girl/ Women’s Conference Speaker” – in other words anything but teaching men – does it seem consistent to invite a female presidential candidate to speak at your school?\r\n\r\nIf women shouldn’t be pastors because they are too naïve (<a href=\"http://www.redletterchristians.org/ideas-have-consequences/\">Eve was the one deceived by the serpent after all!</a>), or because male headship is the natural order, or because they are somehow weaker or less capable, or simply because God ordained that they shouldn’t have authority over men, <em>then why would it make any sense to have a female president?</em>\r\n\r\n<strong>And if you’re fine with a woman as president, or professor, or CEO, then what sort of hermeneutical gymnastics are necessary to say yes to all that and yet no to women as pastors?</strong>\r\n\r\nIf you want Bachmann for president that’s fine [well, not to me, but that has nothing to do with her gender], and if you don’t want to let women be pastors no one can make you, but I don’t see how you can have both and pretend it is consistent.','Bachmann, Liberty U, and Women in Ministry ','','inherit','open','open','','1550-revision-3','','','2011-10-31 08:19:31','2011-10-31 15:19:31','',1550,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1550-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(1555,1,'2011-10-31 08:28:55','2011-10-31 15:28:55','','Adam_And_Eve','','inherit','open','open','','adam_and_eve','','','2011-10-31 08:28:55','2011-10-31 15:28:55','',1553,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Adam_And_Eve.png',0,'attachment','image/png',0),(1557,1,'2011-10-31 08:48:18','2011-10-31 15:48:18','<strong>I typically avoid talking politics.</strong>\n\nI might raise certain issues, like <a href=\"http://masonslater.com/2011/09/22/in-which-we-have-no-pro-life-party/\">the death penalty</a>, but <em>I have no interest in endorsing either major party or any specific candidate</em>. I think the proper term is aggressively nonpartisan, which essentially means neither party’s platform looks anything like the message of Jesus to me.\n\nSo, keep that in mind, because I’m going to discuss Michele Bachmann, but it’s not about the politics.\n\nA few weeks ago, <a href=\"http://www.liberty.edu/index.cfm?PID=18495&amp;MID=37996\">Liberty University featured Bachmann as their convocation speaker.</a>\n\nThat’s not the issue though, they can have whatever speaker they would like, and I’m sure Bachmann is the sort of speaker you would like if you like that sort of thing.\n\n<strong>The issue is the hermenutical gymnastics Liberty has to engage in to feature a female candidate for this nation’s highest office, while at the same time being opposed to women holding the highest office in a local church.</strong>\n\n<img class=\"alignright\" src=\"http://www.ecclesio.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Women-in-Ministry.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"299\" height=\"289\" />\n\nIt’s a perfect example of picking and choosing when our principles apply.\n\nNow, <a href=\"http://masonslater.com/2011/09/21/driscoll-women-and-taking-the-bible-seriously/\">as I’ve discussed before,</a> we all end up picking and choosing when we read the Bible. Look down at your clothes, any of them made of more than one material? Then you pick and choose too.\n\nAnd that’s fine, inevitable even. The important thing is that we realize why we pick and choose the way we do, that we are intentional about our method of interpretation, and that we attempt to be consistent and reasonable about it.\n\nWhen your school offers a <a href=\"http://www.liberty.edu/index.cfm?PID=23391\">Women’s Ministries</a> degree that trains women for career paths like “Women’s Ministry Director in the Local Church, Teen Girl Camp Counselor, Women’s Conference Coordinator, Teen Girl/ Women’s Conference Speaker” – in other words anything but teaching men – does it seem consistent to invite a female presidential candidate to speak at your school?\n\nIf women shouldn’t be pastors because they are too naïve (<a href=\"http://www.redletterchristians.org/ideas-have-consequences/\">Eve was the one deceived by the serpent after all!</a>), or because male headship is the natural order, or because they are somehow weaker or less capable, or simply because God ordained that they shouldn’t have authority over men, <em>then why would it make any sense to have a female president?</em>\n\n<strong>And if you’re fine with a woman as president, or professor, or CEO, then what sort of hermeneutical gymnastics are necessary to say yes to all that and yet no to women as pastors?</strong>\n\nIf you want Bachmann for president that’s fine [well, not to me, but that has nothing to do with her gender], and if you don’t want to let women be pastors no one can make you, but I don’t see how you can have both and pretend it is consistent.','Bachmann, Liberty U, and Women in Ministry ','','inherit','open','open','','1550-autosave','','','2011-10-31 08:48:18','2011-10-31 15:48:18','',1550,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1550-autosave/',0,'revision','',0),(1558,1,'2011-10-31 08:31:05','2011-10-31 15:31:05','Recently I had a conversation with a friend about questions of leadership in the church.  It was a great conversation.  We were both really exploring together some key ideas about our faith and how they worked out in the organizations we participate in.  And in the midst of our conversation, I expressed my sincere concern for the loss of women\'s voice in the church conversation.  I just didn\'t understand why men had such an issue with women at the leadership table.  I get Paul\'s directive, but I think it\'s entirely contextual, given Paul\'s other directive that \"all things are lawful.\"\n\n<strong>My friend said, \"You know Eve was deceived don\'t you?\"</strong>\n\nThe obviousness of his statement required a yes.  I\'ve heard that very statement used as a foundation for an entire argument against women in leadership conversations.  Women are the weaker sex because Eve was deceived. And because of this foundahey just can\'t be trusted to sit at the table of important decisions.\n\nWhy do we blame Eve for being deceived when Adam was too?','The Deception Of Adam','','inherit','open','open','','1553-revision','','','2011-10-31 08:31:05','2011-10-31 15:31:05','',1553,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1553-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(1870,1,'2011-11-07 08:36:47','2011-11-07 16:36:47','As the lead pastor of a contemporary worship service, I have had a lot of time to meditate upon the lyrics of Jeremy Riddle\'s song \"Sweetly Broken,\" which we sing perhaps every other weekend. The verses are a catechism of penal substitution theology: \"For on [the cross] my Savior both bruised and crushed / Showed that God is love / And God is just\" and \"I was under Your wrath / Now through the cross I\'m reconciled.\"\r\n\r\nI often cringe at the way that an overzealous worship of substitutionary atonement creates an account of divine justice in which God is way more invested in making humanity pay infinitely for every small infraction against Him than He cares about standing up for the widows, orphans, and aliens. I\'ve also spent many hours of my life wrestling with the Greek word <em>orge </em>which gets translated as \"wrath\" in English, but is also etymologically related to our word \"orgy.\" It seems like there is more going on with God\'s <em>orge</em> than just intense anger. I tend to think of God\'s <em>orge</em> as expressing the cataclysmic dissonance that occurs when God\'s all-consuming, infinite love confronts our stand-offish self-reliance and self-justification.\r\n\r\nBut what really makes me uneasy about this song is the chorus:\r\n<blockquote><em>At the cross You beckon me</em>\r\n<em> You draw me gently to my knees, and I am</em>\r\n<em> Lost for words, so lost in love,</em>\r\n<em> I\'m sweetly broken, wholly surrendered</em></blockquote>\r\nAm I the only one who sees this as an uncomfortably erotic image? Madonna\'s song \"Like a Prayer\" uses similar imagery: \"When you call my name, it\'s like a little prayer; I\'m <em>down on my knees</em>, I can take you there.\" Throughout Christian history, erotic language has been used to describe the mystical reality of our relationship with Christ. He is called the bridegroom of the church, and the steamy Biblical book <em>Song of Songs</em> has been interpreted as a description of what that bridal chamber looks like. Jesus certainly used language about his own body that was very uncomfortable for His original listeners to hear: \"Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.\" (John 6:53). Early Christians were accused by the Romans of cannibalism because of language like this.\r\n\r\nHere\'s my concern though. When the cross is eroticized in a song like this, do we forget that real blood was shed? As Mark Baker writes in his <em>Recovering the Scandal of the Cross</em>, the brutality of what was done to Jesus has been lost in an age when we\'re \"lost in love\" with the piety of our atonement theories. Certainly Paul used the cross metaphorically in his writings; it\'s an eternal mystery that transcends the temporal physical event itself, but has the cross lost its power when we are able to use words like \"gentle\" and \"sweet\" to talk about what happened to Jesus? Perhaps the problem is not so much the eroticism, but the fact that Jeremy Riddle isn\'t really \"lost for words\" before a cross that gets domesticated when it becomes the centerpiece of a love song.\r\n\r\nI will never completely understand the cross, though I will probably preach about it several hundred more times before I die. I understand that Riddle is grappling for a way to describe the mystery of atonement and that he\'s talking about his personal experience of redemption rather than what physically happened to Jesus. But it\'s also important to name the truly horrifying eroticism of the cross, since Jesus was <em>penetrated</em> by the world\'s nails. So I\'m not sure that \"gentle\" and \"sweet\" are the right adjectives to use when talking about the rape of the creator of the universe. I must confess I\'m \"lost for words\" myself, because I\'m not sure how I would write the song differently or whether we should be making pop love songs about the cross.','Eroticizing the Cross: Jeremy Riddle\'s \"Sweetly Broken\"','','inherit','open','open','','1852-revision-3','','','2011-11-07 08:36:47','2011-11-07 16:36:47','',1852,'http://provoketive.com/2011/11/07/1852-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(1869,67,'2011-11-10 08:00:46','2011-11-10 16:00:46','Have you ever wondered what your life would look like if told through a story?  Imagine if you had to chronicle your life up to this moment, what would it look like?  How would it sound?  What would you choose to include?  What would you leave out and why?  What would you highlight, and why would that be interesting to others?  What people would stand out as characters in the story?  What would be the plot?  How would the story rise to a climax and then end with every aspect coming together to complete the wonderful tale that is your life, all the while keeping the attention of the reader?  Seems a bit overwhelming, doesn\'t it?  Maybe a little humbling?  After all, most of us don\'t live crazy, exciting James Bond kind of lives, right?  So why would someone want to read \"our\" story?  Good question.  But rather than attempting to solve the seemingly impossible, let me tell you a little about a book and someone who seems to have figured it out.  And with near perfection, I might add.\r\n\r\nIn <em><a href=\"http://store.civitaspress.com/books/242\" target=\"_blank\">Run With Me: An Accidental Runner and the Power of Poo</a>,</em> my friend and author, Jennifer Luitwieler takes all of the ingredients listed above, tells her story in a way that instantly captures your attention, and all the while creates a cohesive narrative that remains adjoined in seamless perfection.  And she does this in one of the most simple ways possible: she takes you on a <em>journey</em>.  The vehicle she uses for the journey is<em> running </em>and the fuel that gets you there is <em>poo</em>.  Yes, poo!  Dog poo to be more specific.  But you\'ll have to read the book to find out why dog poo is so significant to this book.\r\n\r\nAs Jennifer states in the beginning of the book, <em>Run With Me</em> is not only a book about running.  And it really isn\'t, although in a strange way, it is.  Again, you\'ll just have to read the book to understand the dichotomy.  In realty, running is only the cohesive gel that holds the story together.  It\'s the common thread that keeps it going and unites aspects of a life, just like yours and mine and packages them together.  Although running has become a significant part of her life, she uses her passion to link ordinarily life together in an enjoyable story.  That is what is so powerful about this book.  Jennifer creates a story telling model that reveals that each and every one of us has a \"story\", we just have to find the vehicle that carries it.  If you\'re runner, you\'ll get it.  If you\'re not a runner, you\'ll get it.\r\n\r\nOne of my favorite aspects of the book is it\'s simplicity and holistic flow.  In a society that compartmentalizes every aspect of our life, Jennifer is able to blend life realities into a refreshing story that is intertwined at almost every point.  Each theme that she emphasizes and each point she makes, remarkably connects to the entire essential theme and leaves no loose ends.  The story is organic and flows naturally without confusion.  You never get lost in the story or find yourself wondering where a particular point is going.  Whether she is describing her spiritual journey and frustrations with the Church, or the details of her first half marathon, she makes her point while making sure that you\'re connecting with her.\r\n\r\n<em>Run with me</em> is fun, refreshing and uplifting.  In fact, having somewhat of a melancholy personality, at times I found it too uplifting!  Through the story, Jennifer is like the friend that keep telling you jokes or tickling you until you smile.  You do your best to remain in self-pity, but you finally submit, realizing that your attempts are futile.  You WILL smile.  You WILL laugh.  You WILL end up having a better outlook on life. Curse you, Jennifer, and your motivationally themed memoir!\r\n\r\nIn all honesty, Jennifer leaves it up to you.  She has no agenda and no preconceived notions that she will change your perspective on life.  She simply shares her journey.  <em>Run With Me</em> leaves you feeling that you just had a great conversation with a friend, she shared some good stuff with you and hopes you took something from the story.  You get the impression that if she made you laugh, at least for that moment, she accomplished her goal.  Although, if you want to run with her, just a little farther, she\'s ready to go!\r\n\r\nRead <em>Run With Me</em> and run with Jennifer!\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Run With Me by Jennifer Luitwieler: A Retrospective Review ','','publish','open','open','','run-with-me-by-jennifer-luitwieler-a-retrospective-review','','','2011-11-07 13:45:47','2011-11-07 21:45:47','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=1869',0,'post','',0),(1561,93,'2011-11-01 08:00:15','2011-11-01 15:00:15','Question: Isn’t, “I’m spiritual but not religious,” saying something like, “I love communication; I’m just not that into language?”\r\n\r\nI realize that this is probably going to unnecessarily hack off some people who ordinarily like some of the things I say. But, it seems important to talk through anyway.\r\n\r\nTalk. This is an apt place to begin. Talking, after all, occupies a central role in human social life. We can live in <em>community</em> because we <em>communicate</em>. It is perhaps literarily inelegant of me to point to the etymological connection between the two words–both come from from the Latin, <em>communis</em>, meaning common–but elegance is sometimes a casualty in the pursuit of intelligibility. In order to live together, we hold certain things in common (e.g., language systems, expectations of social relationships, the knowledge of a hierarchy of basic human needs, etc.).\r\n\r\nSigns and gestures, for instance, must exist within a system of signification that relies on common understanding for society to function. Put more simply, if everybody gets to pull up to a stop sign and interpret its meaning, the act of driving will have been rendered impossible. Or, if you smile and pat my toddler on the head, and I interpret that as a threat, my attacking you will put a serious tear in the social fabric. We hold certain expectations that our gestures, our words, will be, if not immediately unambiguous, then at least within an acceptable and bounded range of possible interpretations. It would be difficult to imagine a scenario, for example, in which I interpreted being flipped off at a stoplight as an invitation to take tea.\r\n\r\nLudwig Wittgenstein, who famously drew attention to language as a central feature of our knowing, argued that there could be no such thing as a private language:\r\n<blockquote>Why can’t my right hand give my left hand money? My right hand can put it into my left hand. My right hand can write a deed of gift and my left hand a receipt. – But the further practical consequences would not be those of the gift. When the left hand has taken the money from the right one, etc., we shall ask,“Well, and what of it?” And the same could be asked if a person had given himself a private definition of a word; I mean, if he has said that word to himself and at the same time has directed his attention to a sensation (<em>Philosophical Investigations</em>,\" #268, G. E. M. Anscombe).</blockquote>\r\nSpirituality, as it functions for many people in the phrase “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR), is thought to be an intensely private experience. But if spirituality is to be accounted more than just a sensation, it has to be named and described–if only to myself. Otherwise, how do I distinguish it from the myriad sensations I feel throughout the course of the day? How do I know this peace is a “spiritual” peace, and not just the sort of peace I might feel after the kids have gone to bed and my life quiets down for a moment? How can I tell if this euphoria is elicited in response to some mystical experience and not the euphoria that falls upon me, seemingly from out of nowhere? Where do I come to know that spirituality is even a taxonomical possibility? The answer is that I cannot “know” any of this without talking to myself about the experience, giving it a name, categorizing it as <em>this</em>rather than <em>that</em>. But the very act of talking to myself about spirituality is, at its heart, impossible without the language I inherit from some community. In other words, I can’t<em>know</em> much of anything beyond my basic animal needs (hunger, thirst, sexual desire, etc.) until I receive the words to name things–my inner life included. In fact, it is arguable whether there is anything like an “inner life” without the language necessary to make it intelligible to myself.\r\n\r\nI would like to suggest, then, that religion functions as a language system for spiritual experience. Religion, of course, is much more than that; and I suspect it is the “much more than that” aspect of it against which people who claim to be SBNR react. My sense of people’s negative reaction to religion is that it has more to do with the way religious people sometimes act or with the way religious groups organize themselves (or fail to organize themselves) than with the language those religions seek to apply to experience of the divine. SBNR is often a response to hypocrisy (viz., the feeling of disillusionment upon witnessing one person\'s failure to live out what that person proclaims) or a response to something perceived to be static or overbearing (e.g., tradition or dogma).\r\n\r\nPoint taken. Religions repel, often as quickly as they attract.\r\n\r\nReligions at their best, though, attempt to offer a common vocabulary, a community of interpretation by which people can make sense of the spiritual; they are a way to organize experiences that would otherwise manifest as sensations or urges, and in the process to offer language through which to make those experiences intelligible–both to others, as well as to one’s self. In other words, religions function like language systems.\r\n\r\nAnd if I’m right about the similarity between religion and language systems, it occurs to me to press the case further by applying Wittgenstein to spiritual experience: In the same way that there can be no such thing as a private language, there can be no such thing as a purely private spirituality.\r\n\r\nNotice I said that “there can be no such thing as a <em>purely</em> private spirituality.” I don’t want to be misunderstood to be suggesting that spirituality isn’t an intensely <em>personal</em> thing. Spiritual experience is most decidedly a personal thing–by which I mean, spiritual experience cannot <em>but</em> be filtered through the many layers that make up who I am. However, because the very layers that make up who I am were not necessarily chosen by me in isolation, but were formed communally, by its very nature my interpretation of spiritual experience is, if only indirectly, a communal achievement. That is to say, by definition my interpretation of my spiritual experience can never be hermetically sealed off from the repository of communal interpretative language that allowed me to identify the experience (from a list of other experiential options) as “spiritual” in the first place.\r\n<h2 id=\"sowhat\">So what?</h2>\r\nAh, yes. So what? Do I honestly think that someone who self-identifies as SBNR is going to read this and come away convinced that “Lone Ranger” spirituality is an epistemological red-herring?\r\n\r\nNo. I realize that people are going to believe what they believe without seeking approval from me.\r\n\r\nSo, why make a big deal out of it–since mostly what you’re doing is making people mad?\r\n\r\nHere’s why: I want to encourage people who find themselves already in the framework of a religion, but who feel somehow like they have to apologize for it. Religion has become (and often for very good reasons) a dirty word.\r\n\r\nWhen I teach <em>Introduction to Religion</em> in the university, I sometimes begin one of the classes with the question: Would you consider yourself a) Spiritual but not Religious, b) Spiritual<em> and</em> Religious, c) Religious but not Spiritual, or d) Neither?\r\n\r\nStudents typically answer with a), b), or d); nobody ever chooses c). Interestingly enough, however, they often claim to <em>know</em> a lot of people who are “Religious but not Spiritual”–which they believe equates to a sort of dead ritualism. There exists in our culture a spiritual/religious binary, in which spirituality is always privileged over “organized” religion. As I’ve argued, however, this binary is a false one inasmuch as it relies on a definition of “private” spirituality versus “organized” religion, which fails to understand the linguistic relationship of interdependence between the two.\r\n\r\nSo, my purpose in writing is to rehabilitate the notion of “Religious but not Spiritual” as a communal alternative to the potential solipsism of SBNR. Religion, on my account, is a necessary precondition for spirituality to be intelligible, to be named and known.\r\n\r\nNow, I wouldn’t want to be in the position of defending every form of organization, or every tradition, or every scrap of dogma. My criticisms of each of those things are extensive. However, those things, in and of themselves, aren’t antithetical to spirituality. Indeed, if I’m right, spirituality can’t properly exist without them.\r\n\r\nSo, if you’re on the inside of a religion, be vigilant against the things that give people such a bad taste in their mouths about religion, but don’t apologize for belonging to a community that provides the very words people need to talk about spirituality.\r\n\r\nI think Wittgenstein would approve.\r\n\r\n<em>Photo Credit: <a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/faceme/\" target=\"_blank\">FaceMe</a></em>','Religious But Not Spiritual','','publish','open','open','','religious-but-not-spiritual','','','2011-10-31 09:48:55','2011-10-31 16:48:55','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=1561',0,'post','',3),(1562,93,'2011-10-31 08:37:54','2011-10-31 15:37:54','<img src=\"http://ofb.net/~epstein/sl/0408/20040816-stop-no-stopping.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" />Question: Isn’t, “I’m spiritual but not religious,” saying something like, “I love communication; I’m just not that into language?”\n\nI realize that this is probably going to unnecessarily hack off some people who ordinarily like some of the things I say. But, it seems important to talk through anyway.\n\nTalk. This is an apt place to begin. Talking, after all, occupies a central role in human social life. We can live in <em>community</em> because we <em>communicate</em>. It is perhaps literarily inelegant of me to point to the etymological connection between the two words–both come from from the Latin, <em>communis</em>, meaning common–but elegance is sometimes a casualty in the pursuit of intelligibility. In order to live together, we hold certain things in common (e.g., language systems, expectations of social relationships, the knowledge of a hierarchy of basic human needs, etc.).\n\nSigns and gestures, for instance, must exist within a system of signification that relies on common understanding for society to function. Put more simply, if everybody gets to pull up to a stop sign and interpret its meaning, the act of driving will have been rendered impossible. Or, if you smile and pat my toddler on the head, and I interpret that as a threat, my attacking you will put a serious tear in the social fabric. We hold certain expectations that our gestures, our words, will be, if not immediately unambiguous, then at least within an acceptable and bounded range of possible interpretations. It would be difficult to imagine a scenario, for example, in which I interpreted being flipped off at a stoplight as an invitation to take tea.\n\nLudwig Wittgenstein, who famously drew attention to language as a central feature of our knowing, argued that there could be no such thing as a private language:\n<blockquote>Why can’t my right hand give my left hand money? My right hand can put it into my left hand. My right hand can write a deed of gift and my left hand a receipt. – But the further practical consequences would not be those of the gift. When the left hand has taken the money from the right one, etc., we shall ask,“Well, and what of it?” And the same could be asked if a person had given himself a private definition of a word; I mean, if he has said that word to himself and at the same time has directed his attention to a sensation (<em>Philosophical Investigations</em>,\" #268, G. E. M. Anscombe).</blockquote>\nSpirituality, as it functions for many people in the phrase “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR), is thought to be an intensely private experience. But if spirituality is to be accounted more than just a sensation, it has to be named and described–if only to myself. Otherwise, how do I distinguish it from the myriad sensations I feel throughout the course of the day? How do I know this peace is a “spiritual” peace, and not just the sort of peace I might feel after the kids have gone to bed and my life quiets down for a moment? How can I tell if this euphoria is elicited in response to some mystical experience and not the euphoria that falls upon me, seemingly from out of nowhere? Where do I come to know that spirituality is even a taxonomical possibility? The answer is that I cannot “know” any of this without talking to myself about the experience, giving it a name, categorizing it as <em>this</em>rather than <em>that</em>. But the very act of talking to myself about spirituality is, at its heart, impossible without the language I inherit from some community. In other words, I can’t<em>know</em> much of anything beyond my basic animal needs (hunger, thirst, sexual desire, etc.) until I receive the words to name things–my inner life included. In fact, it is arguable whether there is anything like an “inner life” without the language necessary to make it intelligible to myself.\n\nI would like to suggest, then, that religion functions as a language system for spiritual experience. Religion, of course, is much more than that; and I suspect it is the “much more than that” aspect of it against which people who claim to be SBNR react. My sense of people’s negative reaction to religion is that it has more to do with the way religious people sometimes act or with the way religious groups organize themselves (or fail to organize themselves) than with the language those religions seek to apply to experience of the divine. SBNR is often a response to hypocrisy (viz., the feeling of disillusionment upon witnessing one person\'s failure to live out what that person proclaims) or a response to something perceived to be static or overbearing (e.g., tradition or dogma).\n\nPoint taken. Religions repel, often as quickly as they attract.\n\nReligions at their best, though, attempt to offer a common vocabulary, a community of interpretation by which people can make sense of the spiritual; they are a way to organize experiences that would otherwise manifest as sensations or urges, and in the process to offer language through which to make those experiences intelligible–both to others, as well as to one’s self. In other words, religions function like language systems.\n\nAnd if I’m right about the similarity between religion and language systems, it occurs to me to press the case further by applying Wittgenstein to spiritual experience: In the same way that there can be no such thing as a private language, there can be no such thing as a purely private spirituality.\n\nNotice I said that “there can be no such thing as a <em>purely</em> private spirituality.” I don’t want to be misunderstood to be suggesting that spirituality isn’t an intensely <em>personal</em> thing. Spiritual experience is most decidedly a personal thing–by which I mean, spiritual experience cannot <em>but</em> be filtered through the many layers that make up who I am. However, because the very layers that make up who I am were not necessarily chosen by me in isolation, but were formed communally, by its very nature my interpretation of spiritual experience is, if only indirectly, a communal achievement. That is to say, by definition my interpretation of my spiritual experience can never be hermetically sealed off from the repository of communal interpretative language that allowed me to identify the experience (from a list of other experiential options) as “spiritual” in the first place.\n<h2 id=\"sowhat\">So what?</h2>\nAh, yes. So what? Do I honestly think that someone who self-identifies as SBNR is going to read this and come away convinced that “Lone Ranger” spirituality is an epistemological red-herring?\n\nNo. I realize that people are going to believe what they believe without seeking approval from me.\n\nSo, why make a big deal out of it–since mostly what you’re doing is making people mad?\n\nHere’s why: I want to encourage people who find themselves already in the framework of a religion, but who feel somehow like they have to apologize for it. Religion has become (and often for very good reasons) a dirty word.\n\nWhen I teach <em>Introduction to Religion</em> in the university, I sometimes begin one of the classes with the question: Would you consider yourself a) Spiritual but not Religious, b) Spiritual<em>and</em> Religious, c) Religious but not Spiritual, or d) Neither?\n\nStudents typically answer with a), b), or d); nobody ever chooses c). Interestingly enough, however, they often claim to <em>know</em> a lot of people who are “Religious but not Spiritual”–which they believe equates to a sort of dead ritualism. There exists in our culture a spiritual/religious binary, in which spirituality is always privileged over “organized” religion. As I’ve argued, however, this binary is a false one inasmuch as it relies on a definition of “private” spirituality versus “organized” religion, which fails to understand the linguistic relationship of interdependence between the two.\n\nSo, my purpose in writing is to rehabilitate the notion of “Religious but not Spiritual” as a communal alternative to the potential solipsism of SBNR. Religion, on my account, is a necessary precondition for spirituality to be intelligible, to be named and known.\n\nNow, I wouldn’t want to be in the position of defending every form of organization, or every tradition, or every scrap of dogma. My criticisms of each of those things are extensive. However, those things, in and of themselves, aren’t antithetical to spirituality. Indeed, if I’m right, spirituality can’t properly exist without them.\n\nSo, if you’re on the inside of a religion, be vigilant against the things that give people such a bad taste in their mouths about religion, but don’t apologize for belonging to a community that provides the very words people need to talk about spirituality.\n\nI think Wittgenstein would approve.','Religious but not Spiritual','','inherit','open','open','','1561-revision','','','2011-10-31 08:37:54','2011-10-31 15:37:54','',1561,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1561-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(1563,93,'2011-10-31 08:40:00','2011-10-31 15:40:00','<img src=\"http://ofb.net/~epstein/sl/0408/20040816-stop-no-stopping.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" />Question: Isn’t, “I’m spiritual but not religious,” saying something like, “I love communication; I’m just not that into language?”\r\n\r\nI realize that this is probably going to unnecessarily hack off some people who ordinarily like some of the things I say. But, it seems important to talk through anyway.\r\n\r\nTalk. This is an apt place to begin. Talking, after all, occupies a central role in human social life. We can live in <em>community</em> because we <em>communicate</em>. It is perhaps literarily inelegant of me to point to the etymological connection between the two words–both come from from the Latin, <em>communis</em>, meaning common–but elegance is sometimes a casualty in the pursuit of intelligibility. In order to live together, we hold certain things in common (e.g., language systems, expectations of social relationships, the knowledge of a hierarchy of basic human needs, etc.).\r\n\r\nSigns and gestures, for instance, must exist within a system of signification that relies on common understanding for society to function. Put more simply, if everybody gets to pull up to a stop sign and interpret its meaning, the act of driving will have been rendered impossible. Or, if you smile and pat my toddler on the head, and I interpret that as a threat, my attacking you will put a serious tear in the social fabric. We hold certain expectations that our gestures, our words, will be, if not immediately unambiguous, then at least within an acceptable and bounded range of possible interpretations. It would be difficult to imagine a scenario, for example, in which I interpreted being flipped off at a stoplight as an invitation to take tea.\r\n\r\nLudwig Wittgenstein, who famously drew attention to language as a central feature of our knowing, argued that there could be no such thing as a private language:\r\n<blockquote>Why can’t my right hand give my left hand money? My right hand can put it into my left hand. My right hand can write a deed of gift and my left hand a receipt. – But the further practical consequences would not be those of the gift. When the left hand has taken the money from the right one, etc., we shall ask,“Well, and what of it?” And the same could be asked if a person had given himself a private definition of a word; I mean, if he has said that word to himself and at the same time has directed his attention to a sensation (<em>Philosophical Investigations</em>,\" #268, G. E. M. Anscombe).</blockquote>\r\nSpirituality, as it functions for many people in the phrase “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR), is thought to be an intensely private experience. But if spirituality is to be accounted more than just a sensation, it has to be named and described–if only to myself. Otherwise, how do I distinguish it from the myriad sensations I feel throughout the course of the day? How do I know this peace is a “spiritual” peace, and not just the sort of peace I might feel after the kids have gone to bed and my life quiets down for a moment? How can I tell if this euphoria is elicited in response to some mystical experience and not the euphoria that falls upon me, seemingly from out of nowhere? Where do I come to know that spirituality is even a taxonomical possibility? The answer is that I cannot “know” any of this without talking to myself about the experience, giving it a name, categorizing it as <em>this</em>rather than <em>that</em>. But the very act of talking to myself about spirituality is, at its heart, impossible without the language I inherit from some community. In other words, I can’t<em>know</em> much of anything beyond my basic animal needs (hunger, thirst, sexual desire, etc.) until I receive the words to name things–my inner life included. In fact, it is arguable whether there is anything like an “inner life” without the language necessary to make it intelligible to myself.\r\n\r\nI would like to suggest, then, that religion functions as a language system for spiritual experience. Religion, of course, is much more than that; and I suspect it is the “much more than that” aspect of it against which people who claim to be SBNR react. My sense of people’s negative reaction to religion is that it has more to do with the way religious people sometimes act or with the way religious groups organize themselves (or fail to organize themselves) than with the language those religions seek to apply to experience of the divine. SBNR is often a response to hypocrisy (viz., the feeling of disillusionment upon witnessing one person\'s failure to live out what that person proclaims) or a response to something perceived to be static or overbearing (e.g., tradition or dogma).\r\n\r\nPoint taken. Religions repel, often as quickly as they attract.\r\n\r\nReligions at their best, though, attempt to offer a common vocabulary, a community of interpretation by which people can make sense of the spiritual; they are a way to organize experiences that would otherwise manifest as sensations or urges, and in the process to offer language through which to make those experiences intelligible–both to others, as well as to one’s self. In other words, religions function like language systems.\r\n\r\nAnd if I’m right about the similarity between religion and language systems, it occurs to me to press the case further by applying Wittgenstein to spiritual experience: In the same way that there can be no such thing as a private language, there can be no such thing as a purely private spirituality.\r\n\r\nNotice I said that “there can be no such thing as a <em>purely</em> private spirituality.” I don’t want to be misunderstood to be suggesting that spirituality isn’t an intensely <em>personal</em> thing. Spiritual experience is most decidedly a personal thing–by which I mean, spiritual experience cannot <em>but</em> be filtered through the many layers that make up who I am. However, because the very layers that make up who I am were not necessarily chosen by me in isolation, but were formed communally, by its very nature my interpretation of spiritual experience is, if only indirectly, a communal achievement. That is to say, by definition my interpretation of my spiritual experience can never be hermetically sealed off from the repository of communal interpretative language that allowed me to identify the experience (from a list of other experiential options) as “spiritual” in the first place.\r\n<h2 id=\"sowhat\">So what?</h2>\r\nAh, yes. So what? Do I honestly think that someone who self-identifies as SBNR is going to read this and come away convinced that “Lone Ranger” spirituality is an epistemological red-herring?\r\n\r\nNo. I realize that people are going to believe what they believe without seeking approval from me.\r\n\r\nSo, why make a big deal out of it–since mostly what you’re doing is making people mad?\r\n\r\nHere’s why: I want to encourage people who find themselves already in the framework of a religion, but who feel somehow like they have to apologize for it. Religion has become (and often for very good reasons) a dirty word.\r\n\r\nWhen I teach <em>Introduction to Religion</em> in the university, I sometimes begin one of the classes with the question: Would you consider yourself a) Spiritual but not Religious, b) Spiritual<em>and</em> Religious, c) Religious but not Spiritual, or d) Neither?\r\n\r\nStudents typically answer with a), b), or d); nobody ever chooses c). Interestingly enough, however, they often claim to <em>know</em> a lot of people who are “Religious but not Spiritual”–which they believe equates to a sort of dead ritualism. There exists in our culture a spiritual/religious binary, in which spirituality is always privileged over “organized” religion. As I’ve argued, however, this binary is a false one inasmuch as it relies on a definition of “private” spirituality versus “organized” religion, which fails to understand the linguistic relationship of interdependence between the two.\r\n\r\nSo, my purpose in writing is to rehabilitate the notion of “Religious but not Spiritual” as a communal alternative to the potential solipsism of SBNR. Religion, on my account, is a necessary precondition for spirituality to be intelligible, to be named and known.\r\n\r\nNow, I wouldn’t want to be in the position of defending every form of organization, or every tradition, or every scrap of dogma. My criticisms of each of those things are extensive. However, those things, in and of themselves, aren’t antithetical to spirituality. Indeed, if I’m right, spirituality can’t properly exist without them.\r\n\r\nSo, if you’re on the inside of a religion, be vigilant against the things that give people such a bad taste in their mouths about religion, but don’t apologize for belonging to a community that provides the very words people need to talk about spirituality.\r\n\r\nI think Wittgenstein would approve.','Religious but not Spiritual','','inherit','open','open','','1561-revision-2','','','2011-10-31 08:40:00','2011-10-31 15:40:00','',1561,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1561-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(1564,1,'2011-10-31 08:41:19','2011-10-31 15:41:19','Recently I had a conversation with a friend about questions of leadership in the church.  It was a great conversation.  We were both really exploring together some key ideas about our faith and how they worked out in the organizations we participate in.  And in the midst of our conversation, I expressed my sincere concern for the loss of women\'s voice in the church conversation.  I just didn\'t understand why men had such an issue with women at the leadership table.  I get Paul\'s directive, but I think it\'s entirely contextual, given Paul\'s other directive that \"all things are lawful.\"\n\n<strong>My friend said, \"You know Eve was deceived don\'t you?\"</strong>\n\nThe obviousness of his statement required a yes.  I\'ve heard that very statement used as a foundation for an entire argument against women in leadership conversations.  Women are the weaker sex because Eve was deceived. And because of this foundational moment, women just can\'t be trusted to sit at the table of important decisions.\n\nBut something popped into my head at that moment that required a second response.  \"But wait,\" I said.  \"Adam was deceived too!\"  My friend stopped dead cold and didn\'t say a word for about six seconds.  He popped his chin back as if subtly being hit with a two by four.  The idea had never hit him.\n\n\"Oh yeah,\" he responded.\n\nMy initial knee jerk response was that Adam was following a long because he wanted to sacrifice himself for Eve. If he didn\'t, he would be separated from her.  Or, Adam didn\'t know what he was doing.  Or, Eve was responsible because she engaged the question.  My mind searched\n\nAdam didn\'t even think about taking a bite. The story paints no thought process what so ever in his decision.  He just followed blindly a long.\n\nAs my friend and I continued talking, I was left with a new conversation to ponder. <strong>Why do we blame Eve for being deceived when Adam was too?</strong>\n\nWhat do you think?','The Deception Of Adam','','inherit','open','open','','1553-revision-2','','','2011-10-31 08:41:19','2011-10-31 15:41:19','',1553,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1553-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(1565,1,'2011-10-31 08:21:45','2011-10-31 15:21:45','<strong>I typically avoid talking politics.</strong>\r\n\r\nI might raise certain issues, like <a href=\"http://masonslater.com/2011/09/22/in-which-we-have-no-pro-life-party/\">the death penalty</a>, but <em>I have no interest in endorsing either major party or any specific candidate</em>. I think the proper term is aggressively nonpartisan, which essentially means neither party’s platform looks anything like the message of Jesus to me.\r\n\r\nSo, keep that in mind, because I’m going to discuss Michele Bachmann, but it’s not about the politics.\r\n\r\nA few weeks ago, <a href=\"http://www.liberty.edu/index.cfm?PID=18495&amp;MID=37996\">Liberty University featured Bachmann as their convocation speaker.</a>\r\n\r\nThat’s not the issue though, they can have whatever speaker they would like, and I’m sure Bachmann is the sort of speaker you would like if you like that sort of thing.\r\n\r\n<strong>The issue is the hermenutical gymnastics Liberty has to engage in to feature a female candidate for this nation’s highest office, while at the same time being opposed to women holding the highest office in a local church.</strong>\r\n\r\n<img class=\"alignright\" src=\"http://www.ecclesio.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Women-in-Ministry.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"299\" height=\"289\" />\r\n\r\nIt’s a perfect example of picking and choosing when our principles apply.\r\n\r\nNow, <a href=\"http://masonslater.com/2011/09/21/driscoll-women-and-taking-the-bible-seriously/\">as I’ve discussed before,</a> we all end up picking and choosing when we read the Bible. Look down at your clothes, any of them made of more than one material? Then you pick and choose too.\r\n\r\nAnd that’s fine, inevitable even. The important thing is that we realize why we pick and choose the way we do, that we are intentional about our method of interpretation, and that we attempt to be consistent and reasonable about it.\r\n\r\nWhen your school offers a <a href=\"http://www.liberty.edu/index.cfm?PID=23391\">Women’s Ministries</a> degree that trains women for career paths like “Women’s Ministry Director in the Local Church, Teen Girl Camp Counselor, Women’s Conference Coordinator, Teen Girl/ Women’s Conference Speaker” – in other words anything but teaching men – does it seem consistent to invite a female presidential candidate to speak at your school?\r\n\r\nIf women shouldn’t be pastors because they are too naïve (<a href=\"http://www.redletterchristians.org/ideas-have-consequences/\">Eve was the one deceived by the serpent after all!</a>), or because male headship is the natural order, or because they are somehow weaker or less capable, or simply because God ordained that they shouldn’t have authority over men, <em>then why would it make any sense to have a female president?</em>\r\n\r\n<strong>And if you’re fine with a woman as president, or professor, or CEO, then what sort of hermeneutical gymnastics are necessary to say yes to all that and yet no to women as pastors?</strong>\r\n\r\nIf you want Bachmann for president that’s fine [well, not to me, but that has nothing to do with her gender], and if you don’t want to let women be pastors no one can make you, but I don’t see how you can have both and pretend it is consistent.','Bachmann, Liberty U, and Women in Ministry ','','inherit','open','open','','1550-revision-4','','','2011-10-31 08:21:45','2011-10-31 15:21:45','',1550,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1550-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(1566,93,'2011-10-31 08:40:08','2011-10-31 15:40:08','<img src=\"http://ofb.net/~epstein/sl/0408/20040816-stop-no-stopping.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" />Question: Isn’t, “I’m spiritual but not religious,” saying something like, “I love communication; I’m just not that into language?”\r\n\r\nI realize that this is probably going to unnecessarily hack off some people who ordinarily like some of the things I say. But, it seems important to talk through anyway.\r\n\r\nTalk. This is an apt place to begin. Talking, after all, occupies a central role in human social life. We can live in <em>community</em> because we <em>communicate</em>. It is perhaps literarily inelegant of me to point to the etymological connection between the two words–both come from from the Latin, <em>communis</em>, meaning common–but elegance is sometimes a casualty in the pursuit of intelligibility. In order to live together, we hold certain things in common (e.g., language systems, expectations of social relationships, the knowledge of a hierarchy of basic human needs, etc.).\r\n\r\nSigns and gestures, for instance, must exist within a system of signification that relies on common understanding for society to function. Put more simply, if everybody gets to pull up to a stop sign and interpret its meaning, the act of driving will have been rendered impossible. Or, if you smile and pat my toddler on the head, and I interpret that as a threat, my attacking you will put a serious tear in the social fabric. We hold certain expectations that our gestures, our words, will be, if not immediately unambiguous, then at least within an acceptable and bounded range of possible interpretations. It would be difficult to imagine a scenario, for example, in which I interpreted being flipped off at a stoplight as an invitation to take tea.\r\n\r\nLudwig Wittgenstein, who famously drew attention to language as a central feature of our knowing, argued that there could be no such thing as a private language:\r\n<blockquote>Why can’t my right hand give my left hand money? My right hand can put it into my left hand. My right hand can write a deed of gift and my left hand a receipt. – But the further practical consequences would not be those of the gift. When the left hand has taken the money from the right one, etc., we shall ask,“Well, and what of it?” And the same could be asked if a person had given himself a private definition of a word; I mean, if he has said that word to himself and at the same time has directed his attention to a sensation (<em>Philosophical Investigations</em>,\" #268, G. E. M. Anscombe).</blockquote>\r\nSpirituality, as it functions for many people in the phrase “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR), is thought to be an intensely private experience. But if spirituality is to be accounted more than just a sensation, it has to be named and described–if only to myself. Otherwise, how do I distinguish it from the myriad sensations I feel throughout the course of the day? How do I know this peace is a “spiritual” peace, and not just the sort of peace I might feel after the kids have gone to bed and my life quiets down for a moment? How can I tell if this euphoria is elicited in response to some mystical experience and not the euphoria that falls upon me, seemingly from out of nowhere? Where do I come to know that spirituality is even a taxonomical possibility? The answer is that I cannot “know” any of this without talking to myself about the experience, giving it a name, categorizing it as <em>this</em>rather than <em>that</em>. But the very act of talking to myself about spirituality is, at its heart, impossible without the language I inherit from some community. In other words, I can’t<em>know</em> much of anything beyond my basic animal needs (hunger, thirst, sexual desire, etc.) until I receive the words to name things–my inner life included. In fact, it is arguable whether there is anything like an “inner life” without the language necessary to make it intelligible to myself.\r\n\r\nI would like to suggest, then, that religion functions as a language system for spiritual experience. Religion, of course, is much more than that; and I suspect it is the “much more than that” aspect of it against which people who claim to be SBNR react. My sense of people’s negative reaction to religion is that it has more to do with the way religious people sometimes act or with the way religious groups organize themselves (or fail to organize themselves) than with the language those religions seek to apply to experience of the divine. SBNR is often a response to hypocrisy (viz., the feeling of disillusionment upon witnessing one person\'s failure to live out what that person proclaims) or a response to something perceived to be static or overbearing (e.g., tradition or dogma).\r\n\r\nPoint taken. Religions repel, often as quickly as they attract.\r\n\r\nReligions at their best, though, attempt to offer a common vocabulary, a community of interpretation by which people can make sense of the spiritual; they are a way to organize experiences that would otherwise manifest as sensations or urges, and in the process to offer language through which to make those experiences intelligible–both to others, as well as to one’s self. In other words, religions function like language systems.\r\n\r\nAnd if I’m right about the similarity between religion and language systems, it occurs to me to press the case further by applying Wittgenstein to spiritual experience: In the same way that there can be no such thing as a private language, there can be no such thing as a purely private spirituality.\r\n\r\nNotice I said that “there can be no such thing as a <em>purely</em> private spirituality.” I don’t want to be misunderstood to be suggesting that spirituality isn’t an intensely <em>personal</em> thing. Spiritual experience is most decidedly a personal thing–by which I mean, spiritual experience cannot <em>but</em> be filtered through the many layers that make up who I am. However, because the very layers that make up who I am were not necessarily chosen by me in isolation, but were formed communally, by its very nature my interpretation of spiritual experience is, if only indirectly, a communal achievement. That is to say, by definition my interpretation of my spiritual experience can never be hermetically sealed off from the repository of communal interpretative language that allowed me to identify the experience (from a list of other experiential options) as “spiritual” in the first place.\r\n<h2 id=\"sowhat\">So what?</h2>\r\nAh, yes. So what? Do I honestly think that someone who self-identifies as SBNR is going to read this and come away convinced that “Lone Ranger” spirituality is an epistemological red-herring?\r\n\r\nNo. I realize that people are going to believe what they believe without seeking approval from me.\r\n\r\nSo, why make a big deal out of it–since mostly what you’re doing is making people mad?\r\n\r\nHere’s why: I want to encourage people who find themselves already in the framework of a religion, but who feel somehow like they have to apologize for it. Religion has become (and often for very good reasons) a dirty word.\r\n\r\nWhen I teach <em>Introduction to Religion</em> in the university, I sometimes begin one of the classes with the question: Would you consider yourself a) Spiritual but not Religious, b) Spiritual<em>and</em> Religious, c) Religious but not Spiritual, or d) Neither?\r\n\r\nStudents typically answer with a), b), or d); nobody ever chooses c). Interestingly enough, however, they often claim to <em>know</em> a lot of people who are “Religious but not Spiritual”–which they believe equates to a sort of dead ritualism. There exists in our culture a spiritual/religious binary, in which spirituality is always privileged over “organized” religion. As I’ve argued, however, this binary is a false one inasmuch as it relies on a definition of “private” spirituality versus “organized” religion, which fails to understand the linguistic relationship of interdependence between the two.\r\n\r\nSo, my purpose in writing is to rehabilitate the notion of “Religious but not Spiritual” as a communal alternative to the potential solipsism of SBNR. Religion, on my account, is a necessary precondition for spirituality to be intelligible, to be named and known.\r\n\r\nNow, I wouldn’t want to be in the position of defending every form of organization, or every tradition, or every scrap of dogma. My criticisms of each of those things are extensive. However, those things, in and of themselves, aren’t antithetical to spirituality. Indeed, if I’m right, spirituality can’t properly exist without them.\r\n\r\nSo, if you’re on the inside of a religion, be vigilant against the things that give people such a bad taste in their mouths about religion, but don’t apologize for belonging to a community that provides the very words people need to talk about spirituality.\r\n\r\nI think Wittgenstein would approve.','Religious but not Spiritual','','inherit','open','open','','1561-revision-3','','','2011-10-31 08:40:08','2011-10-31 15:40:08','',1561,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1561-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(1567,1,'2011-10-31 08:51:13','2011-10-31 15:51:13','','Michelle_Bachman','','inherit','open','open','','michelle_bachman','','','2011-10-31 08:51:13','2011-10-31 15:51:13','',1550,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Michelle_Bachman.png',0,'attachment','image/png',0),(1568,1,'2011-10-31 08:44:46','2011-10-31 15:44:46','<strong>I typically avoid talking politics.</strong>\r\n\r\nI might raise certain issues, like <a href=\"http://masonslater.com/2011/09/22/in-which-we-have-no-pro-life-party/\">the death penalty</a>, but <em>I have no interest in endorsing either major party or any specific candidate</em>. I think the proper term is aggressively nonpartisan, which essentially means neither party’s platform looks anything like the message of Jesus to me.\r\n\r\nSo, keep that in mind, because I’m going to discuss Michele Bachmann, but it’s not about the politics.\r\n\r\nA few weeks ago, <a href=\"http://www.liberty.edu/index.cfm?PID=18495&amp;MID=37996\">Liberty University featured Bachmann as their convocation speaker.</a>\r\n\r\nThat’s not the issue though, they can have whatever speaker they would like, and I’m sure Bachmann is the sort of speaker you would like if you like that sort of thing.\r\n\r\n<strong>The issue is the hermenutical gymnastics Liberty has to engage in to feature a female candidate for this nation’s highest office, while at the same time being opposed to women holding the highest office in a local church.</strong>\r\n\r\n<img class=\"alignright\" src=\"http://www.ecclesio.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/Women-in-Ministry.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"299\" height=\"289\" />\r\n\r\nIt’s a perfect example of picking and choosing when our principles apply.\r\n\r\nNow, <a href=\"http://masonslater.com/2011/09/21/driscoll-women-and-taking-the-bible-seriously/\">as I’ve discussed before,</a> we all end up picking and choosing when we read the Bible. Look down at your clothes, any of them made of more than one material? Then you pick and choose too.\r\n\r\nAnd that’s fine, inevitable even. The important thing is that we realize why we pick and choose the way we do, that we are intentional about our method of interpretation, and that we attempt to be consistent and reasonable about it.\r\n\r\nWhen your school offers a <a href=\"http://www.liberty.edu/index.cfm?PID=23391\">Women’s Ministries</a> degree that trains women for career paths like “Women’s Ministry Director in the Local Church, Teen Girl Camp Counselor, Women’s Conference Coordinator, Teen Girl/ Women’s Conference Speaker” – in other words anything but teaching men – does it seem consistent to invite a female presidential candidate to speak at your school?\r\n\r\nIf women shouldn’t be pastors because they are too naïve (<a href=\"http://www.redletterchristians.org/ideas-have-consequences/\">Eve was the one deceived by the serpent after all!</a>), or because male headship is the natural order, or because they are somehow weaker or less capable, or simply because God ordained that they shouldn’t have authority over men, <em>then why would it make any sense to have a female president?</em>\r\n\r\n<strong>And if you’re fine with a woman as president, or professor, or CEO, then what sort of hermeneutical gymnastics are necessary to say yes to all that and yet no to women as pastors?</strong>\r\n\r\nIf you want Bachmann for president that’s fine [well, not to me, but that has nothing to do with her gender], and if you don’t want to let women be pastors no one can make you, but I don’t see how you can have both and pretend it is consistent.','Bachmann, Liberty U, and Women in Ministry ','','inherit','open','open','','1550-revision-5','','','2011-10-31 08:44:46','2011-10-31 15:44:46','',1550,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1550-revision-5/',0,'revision','',0),(1569,1,'2011-10-31 08:56:49','2011-10-31 15:56:49','','Mason Slater','','publish','open','open','','mason-slater','','','2012-12-18 12:55:08','2012-12-18 20:55:08','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=1569',56,'nav_menu_item','',0),(1570,1,'2011-10-31 08:57:39','2011-10-31 15:57:39','','Robert Patrick','','publish','open','open','','robert-patrick','','','2012-12-18 12:55:07','2012-12-18 20:55:07','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=1570',47,'nav_menu_item','',0),(1571,1,'2011-10-31 09:01:50','2011-10-31 16:01:50','','Anna Woofenden','','publish','open','open','','anna-woofenden','','','2012-12-18 12:55:08','2012-12-18 20:55:08','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=1571',64,'nav_menu_item','',0),(1573,1,'2011-10-31 09:06:24','2011-10-31 16:06:24','','Daryl Thomson','','publish','open','open','','daryl-thomson','','','2012-12-18 12:55:08','2012-12-18 20:55:08','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=1573',61,'nav_menu_item','',0),(1574,1,'2011-10-31 09:07:41','2011-10-31 16:07:41','','Coenraad Fick','','publish','open','open','','coenraad-fick','','','2012-12-18 12:55:04','2012-12-18 20:55:04','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=1574',21,'nav_menu_item','',0),(1575,1,'2011-10-31 09:08:39','2011-10-31 16:08:39','','Drew Proctor','','publish','open','open','','drew-proctor','','','2012-12-18 12:55:07','2012-12-18 20:55:07','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=1575',49,'nav_menu_item','',0),(1576,1,'2011-10-31 09:09:25','2011-10-31 16:09:25','','Bill Huffhine','','publish','open','open','','bill-huffhine','','','2012-12-18 12:55:05','2012-12-18 20:55:05','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=1576',31,'nav_menu_item','',0),(1577,1,'2011-10-31 09:10:20','2011-10-31 16:10:20','','Brooke Eikenberry','','publish','open','open','','brooke-eikenberry','','','2012-12-18 12:55:04','2012-12-18 20:55:04','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=1577',18,'nav_menu_item','',0),(1578,1,'2011-10-31 09:11:19','2011-10-31 16:11:19','','Elizabeth Hagan','','publish','open','open','','elizabeth-hagan','','','2012-12-18 12:55:05','2012-12-18 20:55:05','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=1578',26,'nav_menu_item','',0),(1579,1,'2011-10-31 09:12:56','2011-10-31 16:12:56','','Joel Rieves','','publish','open','open','','joel-rieves','','','2012-12-18 12:55:08','2012-12-18 20:55:08','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=1579',53,'nav_menu_item','',0),(1580,0,'2011-10-31 09:14:02','2011-10-31 16:14:02','Joel, please update your Gravatar for your Provoketive profile.  We ask writers to have a Gravatar so they readers can see a face.  Thanks Jonathan\n<!--more-->\nAUTHOR: Jonathan Brink\nAUTHOR EMAIL: jb@civitaspress.com\nAUTHOR URL: http://jonathanbrink.com\nSUBJECT: [Provoketive Magazine] Loving All Our Enemies\nIP: 75.44.207.238\nArray\n(\n    [Name] =&gt; Jonathan Brink\n    [Email] =&gt; jb@civitaspress.com\n    [Website] =&gt; http://jonathanbrink.com\n    [Message] =&gt; Joel, please update your Gravatar for your Provoketive profile.  We ask writers to have a Gravatar so they readers can see a face.  Thanks Jonathan\n)\n','Jonathan Brink - 2011-10-31 09:14:02','','publish','open','open','','7ff355002fa052259d2acbfe8f3310b8','','','2011-10-31 09:14:02','2011-10-31 16:14:02','',1144,'http://provoketive.com/?post_type=feedback&p=1580',0,'feedback','',0),(1581,1,'2011-10-31 09:15:01','2011-10-31 16:15:01','','Adam Drake','','publish','open','open','','adam-drake','','','2012-12-18 12:55:04','2012-12-18 20:55:04','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=1581',17,'nav_menu_item','',0),(1582,1,'2011-10-31 09:48:18','2011-10-31 16:48:18','Question: Isn’t, “I’m spiritual but not religious,” saying something like, “I love communication; I’m just not that into language?”\n\nI realize that this is probably going to unnecessarily hack off some people who ordinarily like some of the things I say. But, it seems important to talk through anyway.\n\nTalk. This is an apt place to begin. Talking, after all, occupies a central role in human social life. We can live in <em>community</em> because we <em>communicate</em>. It is perhaps literarily inelegant of me to point to the etymological connection between the two words–both come from from the Latin, <em>communis</em>, meaning common–but elegance is sometimes a casualty in the pursuit of intelligibility. In order to live together, we hold certain things in common (e.g., language systems, expectations of social relationships, the knowledge of a hierarchy of basic human needs, etc.).\n\nSigns and gestures, for instance, must exist within a system of signification that relies on common understanding for society to function. Put more simply, if everybody gets to pull up to a stop sign and interpret its meaning, the act of driving will have been rendered impossible. Or, if you smile and pat my toddler on the head, and I interpret that as a threat, my attacking you will put a serious tear in the social fabric. We hold certain expectations that our gestures, our words, will be, if not immediately unambiguous, then at least within an acceptable and bounded range of possible interpretations. It would be difficult to imagine a scenario, for example, in which I interpreted being flipped off at a stoplight as an invitation to take tea.\n\nLudwig Wittgenstein, who famously drew attention to language as a central feature of our knowing, argued that there could be no such thing as a private language:\n<blockquote>Why can’t my right hand give my left hand money? My right hand can put it into my left hand. My right hand can write a deed of gift and my left hand a receipt. – But the further practical consequences would not be those of the gift. When the left hand has taken the money from the right one, etc., we shall ask,“Well, and what of it?” And the same could be asked if a person had given himself a private definition of a word; I mean, if he has said that word to himself and at the same time has directed his attention to a sensation (<em>Philosophical Investigations</em>,\" #268, G. E. M. Anscombe).</blockquote>\nSpirituality, as it functions for many people in the phrase “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR), is thought to be an intensely private experience. But if spirituality is to be accounted more than just a sensation, it has to be named and described–if only to myself. Otherwise, how do I distinguish it from the myriad sensations I feel throughout the course of the day? How do I know this peace is a “spiritual” peace, and not just the sort of peace I might feel after the kids have gone to bed and my life quiets down for a moment? How can I tell if this euphoria is elicited in response to some mystical experience and not the euphoria that falls upon me, seemingly from out of nowhere? Where do I come to know that spirituality is even a taxonomical possibility? The answer is that I cannot “know” any of this without talking to myself about the experience, giving it a name, categorizing it as <em>this</em>rather than <em>that</em>. But the very act of talking to myself about spirituality is, at its heart, impossible without the language I inherit from some community. In other words, I can’t<em>know</em> much of anything beyond my basic animal needs (hunger, thirst, sexual desire, etc.) until I receive the words to name things–my inner life included. In fact, it is arguable whether there is anything like an “inner life” without the language necessary to make it intelligible to myself.\n\nI would like to suggest, then, that religion functions as a language system for spiritual experience. Religion, of course, is much more than that; and I suspect it is the “much more than that” aspect of it against which people who claim to be SBNR react. My sense of people’s negative reaction to religion is that it has more to do with the way religious people sometimes act or with the way religious groups organize themselves (or fail to organize themselves) than with the language those religions seek to apply to experience of the divine. SBNR is often a response to hypocrisy (viz., the feeling of disillusionment upon witnessing one person\'s failure to live out what that person proclaims) or a response to something perceived to be static or overbearing (e.g., tradition or dogma).\n\nPoint taken. Religions repel, often as quickly as they attract.\n\nReligions at their best, though, attempt to offer a common vocabulary, a community of interpretation by which people can make sense of the spiritual; they are a way to organize experiences that would otherwise manifest as sensations or urges, and in the process to offer language through which to make those experiences intelligible–both to others, as well as to one’s self. In other words, religions function like language systems.\n\nAnd if I’m right about the similarity between religion and language systems, it occurs to me to press the case further by applying Wittgenstein to spiritual experience: In the same way that there can be no such thing as a private language, there can be no such thing as a purely private spirituality.\n\nNotice I said that “there can be no such thing as a <em>purely</em> private spirituality.” I don’t want to be misunderstood to be suggesting that spirituality isn’t an intensely <em>personal</em> thing. Spiritual experience is most decidedly a personal thing–by which I mean, spiritual experience cannot <em>but</em> be filtered through the many layers that make up who I am. However, because the very layers that make up who I am were not necessarily chosen by me in isolation, but were formed communally, by its very nature my interpretation of spiritual experience is, if only indirectly, a communal achievement. That is to say, by definition my interpretation of my spiritual experience can never be hermetically sealed off from the repository of communal interpretative language that allowed me to identify the experience (from a list of other experiential options) as “spiritual” in the first place.\n<h2 id=\"sowhat\">So what?</h2>\nAh, yes. So what? Do I honestly think that someone who self-identifies as SBNR is going to read this and come away convinced that “Lone Ranger” spirituality is an epistemological red-herring?\n\nNo. I realize that people are going to believe what they believe without seeking approval from me.\n\nSo, why make a big deal out of it–since mostly what you’re doing is making people mad?\n\nHere’s why: I want to encourage people who find themselves already in the framework of a religion, but who feel somehow like they have to apologize for it. Religion has become (and often for very good reasons) a dirty word.\n\nWhen I teach <em>Introduction to Religion</em> in the university, I sometimes begin one of the classes with the question: Would you consider yourself a) Spiritual but not Religious, b) Spiritual<em> and</em> Religious, c) Religious but not Spiritual, or d) Neither?\n\nStudents typically answer with a), b), or d); nobody ever chooses c). Interestingly enough, however, they often claim to <em>know</em> a lot of people who are “Religious but not Spiritual”–which they believe equates to a sort of dead ritualism. There exists in our culture a spiritual/religious binary, in which spirituality is always privileged over “organized” religion. As I’ve argued, however, this binary is a false one inasmuch as it relies on a definition of “private” spirituality versus “organized” religion, which fails to understand the linguistic relationship of interdependence between the two.\n\nSo, my purpose in writing is to rehabilitate the notion of “Religious but not Spiritual” as a communal alternative to the potential solipsism of SBNR. Religion, on my account, is a necessary precondition for spirituality to be intelligible, to be named and known.\n\nNow, I wouldn’t want to be in the position of defending every form of organization, or every tradition, or every scrap of dogma. My criticisms of each of those things are extensive. However, those things, in and of themselves, aren’t antithetical to spirituality. Indeed, if I’m right, spirituality can’t properly exist without them.\n\nSo, if you’re on the inside of a religion, be vigilant against the things that give people such a bad taste in their mouths about religion, but don’t apologize for belonging to a community that provides the very words people need to talk about spirituality.\n\nI think Wittgenstein would approve.\n\n<em>Photo Credit: <a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/faceme/\" target=\"_blank\">FaceMe</a></em>','Religious but not Spiritual','','inherit','open','open','','1561-autosave','','','2011-10-31 09:48:18','2011-10-31 16:48:18','',1561,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1561-autosave/',0,'revision','',0),(1583,1,'2011-10-31 09:47:32','2011-10-31 16:47:32','','words_wittgenstein','','inherit','open','open','','words_wittgenstein','','','2011-10-31 09:47:32','2011-10-31 16:47:32','',1561,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/words_wittgenstein.png',0,'attachment','image/png',0),(1584,1,'2011-10-31 08:47:49','2011-10-31 15:47:49','<img src=\"http://ofb.net/~epstein/sl/0408/20040816-stop-no-stopping.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" />Question: Isn’t, “I’m spiritual but not religious,” saying something like, “I love communication; I’m just not that into language?”\r\n\r\nI realize that this is probably going to unnecessarily hack off some people who ordinarily like some of the things I say. But, it seems important to talk through anyway.\r\n\r\nTalk. This is an apt place to begin. Talking, after all, occupies a central role in human social life. We can live in <em>community</em> because we <em>communicate</em>. It is perhaps literarily inelegant of me to point to the etymological connection between the two words–both come from from the Latin, <em>communis</em>, meaning common–but elegance is sometimes a casualty in the pursuit of intelligibility. In order to live together, we hold certain things in common (e.g., language systems, expectations of social relationships, the knowledge of a hierarchy of basic human needs, etc.).\r\n\r\nSigns and gestures, for instance, must exist within a system of signification that relies on common understanding for society to function. Put more simply, if everybody gets to pull up to a stop sign and interpret its meaning, the act of driving will have been rendered impossible. Or, if you smile and pat my toddler on the head, and I interpret that as a threat, my attacking you will put a serious tear in the social fabric. We hold certain expectations that our gestures, our words, will be, if not immediately unambiguous, then at least within an acceptable and bounded range of possible interpretations. It would be difficult to imagine a scenario, for example, in which I interpreted being flipped off at a stoplight as an invitation to take tea.\r\n\r\nLudwig Wittgenstein, who famously drew attention to language as a central feature of our knowing, argued that there could be no such thing as a private language:\r\n<blockquote>Why can’t my right hand give my left hand money? My right hand can put it into my left hand. My right hand can write a deed of gift and my left hand a receipt. – But the further practical consequences would not be those of the gift. When the left hand has taken the money from the right one, etc., we shall ask,“Well, and what of it?” And the same could be asked if a person had given himself a private definition of a word; I mean, if he has said that word to himself and at the same time has directed his attention to a sensation (<em>Philosophical Investigations</em>,\" #268, G. E. M. Anscombe).</blockquote>\r\nSpirituality, as it functions for many people in the phrase “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR), is thought to be an intensely private experience. But if spirituality is to be accounted more than just a sensation, it has to be named and described–if only to myself. Otherwise, how do I distinguish it from the myriad sensations I feel throughout the course of the day? How do I know this peace is a “spiritual” peace, and not just the sort of peace I might feel after the kids have gone to bed and my life quiets down for a moment? How can I tell if this euphoria is elicited in response to some mystical experience and not the euphoria that falls upon me, seemingly from out of nowhere? Where do I come to know that spirituality is even a taxonomical possibility? The answer is that I cannot “know” any of this without talking to myself about the experience, giving it a name, categorizing it as <em>this</em>rather than <em>that</em>. But the very act of talking to myself about spirituality is, at its heart, impossible without the language I inherit from some community. In other words, I can’t<em>know</em> much of anything beyond my basic animal needs (hunger, thirst, sexual desire, etc.) until I receive the words to name things–my inner life included. In fact, it is arguable whether there is anything like an “inner life” without the language necessary to make it intelligible to myself.\r\n\r\nI would like to suggest, then, that religion functions as a language system for spiritual experience. Religion, of course, is much more than that; and I suspect it is the “much more than that” aspect of it against which people who claim to be SBNR react. My sense of people’s negative reaction to religion is that it has more to do with the way religious people sometimes act or with the way religious groups organize themselves (or fail to organize themselves) than with the language those religions seek to apply to experience of the divine. SBNR is often a response to hypocrisy (viz., the feeling of disillusionment upon witnessing one person\'s failure to live out what that person proclaims) or a response to something perceived to be static or overbearing (e.g., tradition or dogma).\r\n\r\nPoint taken. Religions repel, often as quickly as they attract.\r\n\r\nReligions at their best, though, attempt to offer a common vocabulary, a community of interpretation by which people can make sense of the spiritual; they are a way to organize experiences that would otherwise manifest as sensations or urges, and in the process to offer language through which to make those experiences intelligible–both to others, as well as to one’s self. In other words, religions function like language systems.\r\n\r\nAnd if I’m right about the similarity between religion and language systems, it occurs to me to press the case further by applying Wittgenstein to spiritual experience: In the same way that there can be no such thing as a private language, there can be no such thing as a purely private spirituality.\r\n\r\nNotice I said that “there can be no such thing as a <em>purely</em> private spirituality.” I don’t want to be misunderstood to be suggesting that spirituality isn’t an intensely <em>personal</em> thing. Spiritual experience is most decidedly a personal thing–by which I mean, spiritual experience cannot <em>but</em> be filtered through the many layers that make up who I am. However, because the very layers that make up who I am were not necessarily chosen by me in isolation, but were formed communally, by its very nature my interpretation of spiritual experience is, if only indirectly, a communal achievement. That is to say, by definition my interpretation of my spiritual experience can never be hermetically sealed off from the repository of communal interpretative language that allowed me to identify the experience (from a list of other experiential options) as “spiritual” in the first place.\r\n<h2 id=\"sowhat\">So what?</h2>\r\nAh, yes. So what? Do I honestly think that someone who self-identifies as SBNR is going to read this and come away convinced that “Lone Ranger” spirituality is an epistemological red-herring?\r\n\r\nNo. I realize that people are going to believe what they believe without seeking approval from me.\r\n\r\nSo, why make a big deal out of it–since mostly what you’re doing is making people mad?\r\n\r\nHere’s why: I want to encourage people who find themselves already in the framework of a religion, but who feel somehow like they have to apologize for it. Religion has become (and often for very good reasons) a dirty word.\r\n\r\nWhen I teach <em>Introduction to Religion</em> in the university, I sometimes begin one of the classes with the question: Would you consider yourself a) Spiritual but not Religious, b) Spiritual<em>and</em> Religious, c) Religious but not Spiritual, or d) Neither?\r\n\r\nStudents typically answer with a), b), or d); nobody ever chooses c). Interestingly enough, however, they often claim to <em>know</em> a lot of people who are “Religious but not Spiritual”–which they believe equates to a sort of dead ritualism. There exists in our culture a spiritual/religious binary, in which spirituality is always privileged over “organized” religion. As I’ve argued, however, this binary is a false one inasmuch as it relies on a definition of “private” spirituality versus “organized” religion, which fails to understand the linguistic relationship of interdependence between the two.\r\n\r\nSo, my purpose in writing is to rehabilitate the notion of “Religious but not Spiritual” as a communal alternative to the potential solipsism of SBNR. Religion, on my account, is a necessary precondition for spirituality to be intelligible, to be named and known.\r\n\r\nNow, I wouldn’t want to be in the position of defending every form of organization, or every tradition, or every scrap of dogma. My criticisms of each of those things are extensive. However, those things, in and of themselves, aren’t antithetical to spirituality. Indeed, if I’m right, spirituality can’t properly exist without them.\r\n\r\nSo, if you’re on the inside of a religion, be vigilant against the things that give people such a bad taste in their mouths about religion, but don’t apologize for belonging to a community that provides the very words people need to talk about spirituality.\r\n\r\nI think Wittgenstein would approve.','Religious but not Spiritual','','inherit','open','open','','1561-revision-4','','','2011-10-31 08:47:49','2011-10-31 15:47:49','',1561,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1561-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(1585,1,'2011-10-31 09:48:17','2011-10-31 16:48:17','Question: Isn’t, “I’m spiritual but not religious,” saying something like, “I love communication; I’m just not that into language?”\r\n\r\nI realize that this is probably going to unnecessarily hack off some people who ordinarily like some of the things I say. But, it seems important to talk through anyway.\r\n\r\nTalk. This is an apt place to begin. Talking, after all, occupies a central role in human social life. We can live in <em>community</em> because we <em>communicate</em>. It is perhaps literarily inelegant of me to point to the etymological connection between the two words–both come from from the Latin, <em>communis</em>, meaning common–but elegance is sometimes a casualty in the pursuit of intelligibility. In order to live together, we hold certain things in common (e.g., language systems, expectations of social relationships, the knowledge of a hierarchy of basic human needs, etc.).\r\n\r\nSigns and gestures, for instance, must exist within a system of signification that relies on common understanding for society to function. Put more simply, if everybody gets to pull up to a stop sign and interpret its meaning, the act of driving will have been rendered impossible. Or, if you smile and pat my toddler on the head, and I interpret that as a threat, my attacking you will put a serious tear in the social fabric. We hold certain expectations that our gestures, our words, will be, if not immediately unambiguous, then at least within an acceptable and bounded range of possible interpretations. It would be difficult to imagine a scenario, for example, in which I interpreted being flipped off at a stoplight as an invitation to take tea.\r\n\r\nLudwig Wittgenstein, who famously drew attention to language as a central feature of our knowing, argued that there could be no such thing as a private language:\r\n<blockquote>Why can’t my right hand give my left hand money? My right hand can put it into my left hand. My right hand can write a deed of gift and my left hand a receipt. – But the further practical consequences would not be those of the gift. When the left hand has taken the money from the right one, etc., we shall ask,“Well, and what of it?” And the same could be asked if a person had given himself a private definition of a word; I mean, if he has said that word to himself and at the same time has directed his attention to a sensation (<em>Philosophical Investigations</em>,\" #268, G. E. M. Anscombe).</blockquote>\r\nSpirituality, as it functions for many people in the phrase “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR), is thought to be an intensely private experience. But if spirituality is to be accounted more than just a sensation, it has to be named and described–if only to myself. Otherwise, how do I distinguish it from the myriad sensations I feel throughout the course of the day? How do I know this peace is a “spiritual” peace, and not just the sort of peace I might feel after the kids have gone to bed and my life quiets down for a moment? How can I tell if this euphoria is elicited in response to some mystical experience and not the euphoria that falls upon me, seemingly from out of nowhere? Where do I come to know that spirituality is even a taxonomical possibility? The answer is that I cannot “know” any of this without talking to myself about the experience, giving it a name, categorizing it as <em>this</em>rather than <em>that</em>. But the very act of talking to myself about spirituality is, at its heart, impossible without the language I inherit from some community. In other words, I can’t<em>know</em> much of anything beyond my basic animal needs (hunger, thirst, sexual desire, etc.) until I receive the words to name things–my inner life included. In fact, it is arguable whether there is anything like an “inner life” without the language necessary to make it intelligible to myself.\r\n\r\nI would like to suggest, then, that religion functions as a language system for spiritual experience. Religion, of course, is much more than that; and I suspect it is the “much more than that” aspect of it against which people who claim to be SBNR react. My sense of people’s negative reaction to religion is that it has more to do with the way religious people sometimes act or with the way religious groups organize themselves (or fail to organize themselves) than with the language those religions seek to apply to experience of the divine. SBNR is often a response to hypocrisy (viz., the feeling of disillusionment upon witnessing one person\'s failure to live out what that person proclaims) or a response to something perceived to be static or overbearing (e.g., tradition or dogma).\r\n\r\nPoint taken. Religions repel, often as quickly as they attract.\r\n\r\nReligions at their best, though, attempt to offer a common vocabulary, a community of interpretation by which people can make sense of the spiritual; they are a way to organize experiences that would otherwise manifest as sensations or urges, and in the process to offer language through which to make those experiences intelligible–both to others, as well as to one’s self. In other words, religions function like language systems.\r\n\r\nAnd if I’m right about the similarity between religion and language systems, it occurs to me to press the case further by applying Wittgenstein to spiritual experience: In the same way that there can be no such thing as a private language, there can be no such thing as a purely private spirituality.\r\n\r\nNotice I said that “there can be no such thing as a <em>purely</em> private spirituality.” I don’t want to be misunderstood to be suggesting that spirituality isn’t an intensely <em>personal</em> thing. Spiritual experience is most decidedly a personal thing–by which I mean, spiritual experience cannot <em>but</em> be filtered through the many layers that make up who I am. However, because the very layers that make up who I am were not necessarily chosen by me in isolation, but were formed communally, by its very nature my interpretation of spiritual experience is, if only indirectly, a communal achievement. That is to say, by definition my interpretation of my spiritual experience can never be hermetically sealed off from the repository of communal interpretative language that allowed me to identify the experience (from a list of other experiential options) as “spiritual” in the first place.\r\n<h2 id=\"sowhat\">So what?</h2>\r\nAh, yes. So what? Do I honestly think that someone who self-identifies as SBNR is going to read this and come away convinced that “Lone Ranger” spirituality is an epistemological red-herring?\r\n\r\nNo. I realize that people are going to believe what they believe without seeking approval from me.\r\n\r\nSo, why make a big deal out of it–since mostly what you’re doing is making people mad?\r\n\r\nHere’s why: I want to encourage people who find themselves already in the framework of a religion, but who feel somehow like they have to apologize for it. Religion has become (and often for very good reasons) a dirty word.\r\n\r\nWhen I teach <em>Introduction to Religion</em> in the university, I sometimes begin one of the classes with the question: Would you consider yourself a) Spiritual but not Religious, b) Spiritual<em> and</em> Religious, c) Religious but not Spiritual, or d) Neither?\r\n\r\nStudents typically answer with a), b), or d); nobody ever chooses c). Interestingly enough, however, they often claim to <em>know</em> a lot of people who are “Religious but not Spiritual”–which they believe equates to a sort of dead ritualism. There exists in our culture a spiritual/religious binary, in which spirituality is always privileged over “organized” religion. As I’ve argued, however, this binary is a false one inasmuch as it relies on a definition of “private” spirituality versus “organized” religion, which fails to understand the linguistic relationship of interdependence between the two.\r\n\r\nSo, my purpose in writing is to rehabilitate the notion of “Religious but not Spiritual” as a communal alternative to the potential solipsism of SBNR. Religion, on my account, is a necessary precondition for spirituality to be intelligible, to be named and known.\r\n\r\nNow, I wouldn’t want to be in the position of defending every form of organization, or every tradition, or every scrap of dogma. My criticisms of each of those things are extensive. However, those things, in and of themselves, aren’t antithetical to spirituality. Indeed, if I’m right, spirituality can’t properly exist without them.\r\n\r\nSo, if you’re on the inside of a religion, be vigilant against the things that give people such a bad taste in their mouths about religion, but don’t apologize for belonging to a community that provides the very words people need to talk about spirituality.\r\n\r\nI think Wittgenstein would approve.\r\n\r\n<em>Photo Credit: <a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/faceme/\" target=\"_blank\">FaceMe</a></em>','Religious but not Spiritual','','inherit','open','open','','1561-revision-5','','','2011-10-31 09:48:17','2011-10-31 16:48:17','',1561,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1561-revision-5/',0,'revision','',0),(1586,1,'2011-10-31 09:48:36','2011-10-31 16:48:36','Question: Isn’t, “I’m spiritual but not religious,” saying something like, “I love communication; I’m just not that into language?”\r\n\r\nI realize that this is probably going to unnecessarily hack off some people who ordinarily like some of the things I say. But, it seems important to talk through anyway.\r\n\r\nTalk. This is an apt place to begin. Talking, after all, occupies a central role in human social life. We can live in <em>community</em> because we <em>communicate</em>. It is perhaps literarily inelegant of me to point to the etymological connection between the two words–both come from from the Latin, <em>communis</em>, meaning common–but elegance is sometimes a casualty in the pursuit of intelligibility. In order to live together, we hold certain things in common (e.g., language systems, expectations of social relationships, the knowledge of a hierarchy of basic human needs, etc.).\r\n\r\nSigns and gestures, for instance, must exist within a system of signification that relies on common understanding for society to function. Put more simply, if everybody gets to pull up to a stop sign and interpret its meaning, the act of driving will have been rendered impossible. Or, if you smile and pat my toddler on the head, and I interpret that as a threat, my attacking you will put a serious tear in the social fabric. We hold certain expectations that our gestures, our words, will be, if not immediately unambiguous, then at least within an acceptable and bounded range of possible interpretations. It would be difficult to imagine a scenario, for example, in which I interpreted being flipped off at a stoplight as an invitation to take tea.\r\n\r\nLudwig Wittgenstein, who famously drew attention to language as a central feature of our knowing, argued that there could be no such thing as a private language:\r\n<blockquote>Why can’t my right hand give my left hand money? My right hand can put it into my left hand. My right hand can write a deed of gift and my left hand a receipt. – But the further practical consequences would not be those of the gift. When the left hand has taken the money from the right one, etc., we shall ask,“Well, and what of it?” And the same could be asked if a person had given himself a private definition of a word; I mean, if he has said that word to himself and at the same time has directed his attention to a sensation (<em>Philosophical Investigations</em>,\" #268, G. E. M. Anscombe).</blockquote>\r\nSpirituality, as it functions for many people in the phrase “spiritual but not religious” (SBNR), is thought to be an intensely private experience. But if spirituality is to be accounted more than just a sensation, it has to be named and described–if only to myself. Otherwise, how do I distinguish it from the myriad sensations I feel throughout the course of the day? How do I know this peace is a “spiritual” peace, and not just the sort of peace I might feel after the kids have gone to bed and my life quiets down for a moment? How can I tell if this euphoria is elicited in response to some mystical experience and not the euphoria that falls upon me, seemingly from out of nowhere? Where do I come to know that spirituality is even a taxonomical possibility? The answer is that I cannot “know” any of this without talking to myself about the experience, giving it a name, categorizing it as <em>this</em>rather than <em>that</em>. But the very act of talking to myself about spirituality is, at its heart, impossible without the language I inherit from some community. In other words, I can’t<em>know</em> much of anything beyond my basic animal needs (hunger, thirst, sexual desire, etc.) until I receive the words to name things–my inner life included. In fact, it is arguable whether there is anything like an “inner life” without the language necessary to make it intelligible to myself.\r\n\r\nI would like to suggest, then, that religion functions as a language system for spiritual experience. Religion, of course, is much more than that; and I suspect it is the “much more than that” aspect of it against which people who claim to be SBNR react. My sense of people’s negative reaction to religion is that it has more to do with the way religious people sometimes act or with the way religious groups organize themselves (or fail to organize themselves) than with the language those religions seek to apply to experience of the divine. SBNR is often a response to hypocrisy (viz., the feeling of disillusionment upon witnessing one person\'s failure to live out what that person proclaims) or a response to something perceived to be static or overbearing (e.g., tradition or dogma).\r\n\r\nPoint taken. Religions repel, often as quickly as they attract.\r\n\r\nReligions at their best, though, attempt to offer a common vocabulary, a community of interpretation by which people can make sense of the spiritual; they are a way to organize experiences that would otherwise manifest as sensations or urges, and in the process to offer language through which to make those experiences intelligible–both to others, as well as to one’s self. In other words, religions function like language systems.\r\n\r\nAnd if I’m right about the similarity between religion and language systems, it occurs to me to press the case further by applying Wittgenstein to spiritual experience: In the same way that there can be no such thing as a private language, there can be no such thing as a purely private spirituality.\r\n\r\nNotice I said that “there can be no such thing as a <em>purely</em> private spirituality.” I don’t want to be misunderstood to be suggesting that spirituality isn’t an intensely <em>personal</em> thing. Spiritual experience is most decidedly a personal thing–by which I mean, spiritual experience cannot <em>but</em> be filtered through the many layers that make up who I am. However, because the very layers that make up who I am were not necessarily chosen by me in isolation, but were formed communally, by its very nature my interpretation of spiritual experience is, if only indirectly, a communal achievement. That is to say, by definition my interpretation of my spiritual experience can never be hermetically sealed off from the repository of communal interpretative language that allowed me to identify the experience (from a list of other experiential options) as “spiritual” in the first place.\r\n<h2 id=\"sowhat\">So what?</h2>\r\nAh, yes. So what? Do I honestly think that someone who self-identifies as SBNR is going to read this and come away convinced that “Lone Ranger” spirituality is an epistemological red-herring?\r\n\r\nNo. I realize that people are going to believe what they believe without seeking approval from me.\r\n\r\nSo, why make a big deal out of it–since mostly what you’re doing is making people mad?\r\n\r\nHere’s why: I want to encourage people who find themselves already in the framework of a religion, but who feel somehow like they have to apologize for it. Religion has become (and often for very good reasons) a dirty word.\r\n\r\nWhen I teach <em>Introduction to Religion</em> in the university, I sometimes begin one of the classes with the question: Would you consider yourself a) Spiritual but not Religious, b) Spiritual<em> and</em> Religious, c) Religious but not Spiritual, or d) Neither?\r\n\r\nStudents typically answer with a), b), or d); nobody ever chooses c). Interestingly enough, however, they often claim to <em>know</em> a lot of people who are “Religious but not Spiritual”–which they believe equates to a sort of dead ritualism. There exists in our culture a spiritual/religious binary, in which spirituality is always privileged over “organized” religion. As I’ve argued, however, this binary is a false one inasmuch as it relies on a definition of “private” spirituality versus “organized” religion, which fails to understand the linguistic relationship of interdependence between the two.\r\n\r\nSo, my purpose in writing is to rehabilitate the notion of “Religious but not Spiritual” as a communal alternative to the potential solipsism of SBNR. Religion, on my account, is a necessary precondition for spirituality to be intelligible, to be named and known.\r\n\r\nNow, I wouldn’t want to be in the position of defending every form of organization, or every tradition, or every scrap of dogma. My criticisms of each of those things are extensive. However, those things, in and of themselves, aren’t antithetical to spirituality. Indeed, if I’m right, spirituality can’t properly exist without them.\r\n\r\nSo, if you’re on the inside of a religion, be vigilant against the things that give people such a bad taste in their mouths about religion, but don’t apologize for belonging to a community that provides the very words people need to talk about spirituality.\r\n\r\nI think Wittgenstein would approve.\r\n\r\n<em>Photo Credit: <a href=\"http://www.flickr.com/photos/faceme/\" target=\"_blank\">FaceMe</a></em>','Religious but not Spiritual','','inherit','open','open','','1561-revision-6','','','2011-10-31 09:48:36','2011-10-31 16:48:36','',1561,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1561-revision-6/',0,'revision','',0),(1587,30,'2011-10-31 08:16:52','2011-10-31 15:16:52','Heh. Heh heh heh. Heh heh.\n\nThe smartest show about the dumbest people is back.\n\nLast Thursday night I cozied up with a wine cooler, some nachos and turned on MTV for the first time in years to watch the return of Mike Judge\'s Beavis and Butt-head.\n\nThe episode was funny and my husband and I spent the episode texting our favorite lines back and forth to each other. From the insightful social commentary to the just plain funny, we laughed our way through the full half-hour. After a fourteen year hiatus, it was good to have these snickering, smart-mouthed idiots back.\n\n&nbsp;','The Screen, The Screen, The Screen is On Fire!','','inherit','open','open','','1530-revision','','','2011-10-31 08:16:52','2011-10-31 15:16:52','',1530,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1530-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(2837,12,'2011-12-07 08:00:54','2011-12-07 16:00:54','When you\'re raised Southern Baptist, there\'s just some things you don\'t mess around with. You don\'t question them. They are ideas that are stuck into your mind and they are never discussed.\r\n\r\nFor instance, \"once saved, always saved\". End of discussion. That is, until later when your seminary professor tells you that those words don\'t appear in Scripture and you need to find a Scriptural way to defend your own position.\r\n\r\nSeminary was a weird time for me. I had been raised Southern Baptist and was proud of it. I thought I\'d do well at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, surrounded by theological giants like Albert Mohler, Bruce Ware and Thomas Schreiner. But, when I got there, I found my beliefs were shaken to the core. This is a pretty common reaction, actually. Our safe, Sunday School beliefs are challenged by studying the higher critics and those in liberalism and our own minds are challenged. A lot of people don\'t make it to graduation.\r\n\r\nOne of the most fascinating topics for me was the humanity of Christ. I honestly didn\'t think I\'d struggle with it. It\'s a great time to discuss it too, since we find ourselves in the Christmas season. Christ became God in the flesh, Immanuel - God with us.\r\n\r\nI had the belief that Christ was some sort of amazing Superman. He had these amazing superpowers and was fully human and fully God - which He was - but that He combined them to become something more than human. For some reason, I believed that Christ knew He was Christ from day one of His birth and was on a mission.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/002.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-2839\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/002-300x263.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"263\" /></a>Then I had theology class with two really outstanding professors. These men are some of the most conservative men in the Baptist faith. What they said shook me to the core. We were taught about heresy. Heresy is a strange thing. Over the centuries, heresy tends to swing a dangerous balance. For instance, people will emphasize the deity of Christ too much for a long time and forget His humanity to such a degree that heresies will arise to deny His humanity. Then, groups will complain and begin to emphasize His humanity too much, swinging the balance in the other direction, not emphasizing His deity, creating another heresy. The answers, my professors said, typically lay in the middle.\r\n\r\nThe first time my mind was blown was when one of my professors was talking about Christ and His early days. He was talking about His humanity and Him growing up, being a carpenter before His baptism by John. He was discussing Christ\'s studying the Scriptures, knowing that something must be special about His life.\r\n\r\nI raised my hand. The professor, author of several books that praise the sovereignty of God called on me.\r\n\r\nI said, \"Hold on, professor. I was raised thinking that Jesus just always knew He was the Messiah. But you\'re blowing my mind here. You\'re saying He didn\'t?\"\r\n\r\nThe professor leaned over the overhead projector. \"There\'s no biblical evidence. Here\'s the issue. Christ came to us as fully human, didn\'t He? He had to struggle, live and suffer as one of us if His atonement were to mean anything, right?\"\r\n\r\nI thought about that for a moment. \"I suppose. So when did Jesus know He was the Messiah?\"\r\n\r\nThe professor looked down and closed his eyes. \"I don\'t know. But I like to imagine that one day, He was reading the suffering servant passages in Isaiah and He thought, \'This is me.\'\"\r\n\r\nAgain, mind blown. I had never considered that Jesus was so . . . so . . . human. That He actually was like me when He was here. I thought about that for a long time. At first, it made me struggle. I wanted Him to be a superhero who could zap away His enemies with a word. But the more I dwelled on it, I was given peace knowing that Christ lived His life, as the bible says, as fully human. As I do. Fully tempted. Hungry, sweaty, thirsty, and dirty.\r\n\r\nHe was Immanuel. My theology had previously gone too far into the divine category. He is divine. He is fully God. But I had forgotten His humanity. His compassion. His capacity to love and be human.','The Humanity Of Christ Is Not To Be Feared - Part 1','','publish','open','open','','the-humanity-of-christ-is-not-to-be-feared-part-1','','','2011-12-05 09:14:41','2011-12-05 17:14:41','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=2837',0,'post','',4),(1589,30,'2011-10-31 10:07:27','2011-10-31 17:07:27','Heh. Heh heh heh. Heh heh.\n\nThe smartest show about the dumbest people is back.\n\nLast Thursday night I cozied up with a wine cooler, some nachos and turned on MTV for the first time in years to watch the return of Mike Judge\'s Beavis and Butt-head.\n\nThe episode was funny and my husband and I spent the episode texting our favorite lines back and forth to each other. From the insightful social commentary to the just plain funny, we laughed our way through the full half-hour. After a fourteen year hiatus, it was good to have these snickering, smart-mouthed idiots back.\n\nOne of my favorite moments in the show was just two minutes in, when the screen turned to flame and Beavis began chanting \"fire!\" Those familiar with Beavis and Butt-head will remember that shortly after the show premiered back in 1993, there was an accident involving fire that was blamed on the show, resulting in the banishment of that phrase from further episodes. The glorification of destructive behavior on a satirical show for adults was held responsible for the actions of a five year old child. This was around the same time of the infamous McDonald\'s coffee lawsuit, and we began to hear a new buzz word emerge.\n\nPersonal responsibility.\n\nA good thing. Especially if we\'re talking about someone else.\n\nIf I\'m talking to my kids about keeping their room neat, personal responsibility is important. If it\'s my desk, I\'m just too busy writing to keep it neat. If I ask my husband to please put his socks in the dirty clothes hamper, I\'m just being a champion of personal responsibility. If I forget to launder said socks, it\'s because I\'m a liberated woman and I shouldn\'t have to be burdened with the task of making sure everyone else has clean socks. If I\'m driving and someone cuts me off, it\'s clearly a case of people needing to take more personal responsibility on the road. If I cut someone off, it\'s totally an accident because I was singing along to the song on my iPod and you can\'t blame me for Lady Gaga\'s ability to make me lose track of the road.\n\n&nbsp;','The Screen, The Screen, The Screen is On Fire!','','inherit','open','open','','1530-revision-2','','','2011-10-31 10:07:27','2011-10-31 17:07:27','',1530,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1530-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(1590,30,'2011-10-31 10:08:33','2011-10-31 17:08:33','Heh. Heh heh heh. Heh heh.\n\nThe smartest show about the dumbest people is back.\n\nLast Thursday night I cozied up with a wine cooler, some nachos and turned on MTV for the first time in years to watch the return of Mike Judge\'s Beavis and Butt-head.\n\nThe episode was funny and my husband and I spent the episode texting our favorite lines back and forth to each other. From the insightful social commentary to the just plain funny, we laughed our way through the full half-hour. After a fourteen year hiatus, it was good to have these snickering, smart-mouthed idiots back.\n\nOne of my favorite moments in the show was just two minutes in, when the screen turned to flame and Beavis began chanting \"fire!\" Those familiar with Beavis and Butt-head will remember that shortly after the show premiered back in 1993, there was an accident involving fire that was blamed on the show, resulting in the banishment of that phrase from further episodes. The glorification of destructive behavior on a satirical show for adults was held responsible for the actions of a five year old child. This was around the same time of the infamous McDonald\'s coffee lawsuit, and we began to hear a new buzz word emerge.\n\nPersonal responsibility.\n\nA good thing. Especially if we\'re talking about someone else.\n\nIf I\'m talking to my kids about keeping their room neat, personal responsibility is important. If it\'s my desk, I\'m just too busy writing to keep it neat. If I ask my husband to please put his socks in the dirty clothes hamper, I\'m just being a champion of personal responsibility. If I forget to launder said socks, it\'s because I\'m a liberated woman and I shouldn\'t have to be burdened with the task of making sure everyone else has clean socks. If I\'m driving and someone cuts me off, it\'s clearly a case of people needing to take more personal responsibility on the road. If I cut someone off, it\'s totally an accident because I was singing along to the song on my iPod and you can\'t blame me for Lady Gaga\'s ability to make me lose track of the road.\n\n&nbsp;','The Screen, The Screen, The Screen is On Fire!','','inherit','open','open','','1530-revision-3','','','2011-10-31 10:08:33','2011-10-31 17:08:33','',1530,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1530-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(1591,30,'2011-10-31 10:09:06','2011-10-31 17:09:06','Heh. Heh heh heh. Heh heh.\r\n\r\nThe smartest show about the dumbest people is back.\r\n\r\nLast Thursday night I cozied up with a wine cooler, some nachos and turned on MTV for the first time in years to watch the return of Mike Judge\'s Beavis and Butt-head.\r\n\r\nThe episode was funny and my husband and I spent the episode texting our favorite lines back and forth to each other. From the insightful social commentary to the just plain funny, we laughed our way through the full half-hour. After a fourteen year hiatus, it was good to have these snickering, smart-mouthed idiots back.\r\n\r\nOne of my favorite moments in the show was just two minutes in, when the screen turned to flame and Beavis began chanting \"fire!\" Those familiar with Beavis and Butt-head will remember that shortly after the show premiered back in 1993, there was an accident involving fire that was blamed on the show, resulting in the banishment of that phrase from further episodes. The glorification of destructive behavior on a satirical show for adults was held responsible for the actions of a five year old child. This was around the same time of the infamous McDonald\'s coffee lawsuit, and we began to hear a new buzz word emerge.\r\n\r\nPersonal responsibility.\r\n\r\nA good thing. Especially if we\'re talking about someone else.\r\n\r\nIf I\'m talking to my kids about keeping their room neat, personal responsibility is important. If it\'s my desk, I\'m just too busy writing to keep it neat. If I ask my husband to please put his socks in the dirty clothes hamper, I\'m just being a champion of personal responsibility. If I forget to launder said socks, it\'s because I\'m a liberated woman and I shouldn\'t have to be burdened with the task of making sure everyone else has clean socks. If I\'m driving and someone cuts me off, it\'s clearly a case of people needing to take more personal responsibility on the road. If I cut someone off, it\'s totally an accident because I was singing along to the song on my iPod and you can\'t blame me for Lady Gaga\'s ability to make me lose track of the road.\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','The Screen, The Screen, The Screen is On Fire!','','inherit','open','open','','1530-revision-4','','','2011-10-31 10:09:06','2011-10-31 17:09:06','',1530,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1530-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(1596,30,'2011-10-31 11:33:14','2011-10-31 18:33:14','Heh. Heh heh heh. Heh heh.\n\nThe smartest show about the dumbest people is back.\n\nLast Thursday night I cozied up with a wine cooler, some nachos and turned on MTV for the first time in years to watch the return of Mike Judge\'s Beavis and Butt-head.\n\nThe episode was funny and my husband and I spent the episode texting our favorite lines back and forth to each other. From the insightful social commentary to the just plain funny, we laughed our way through the full half-hour. After a fourteen year hiatus, it was good to have these snickering, smart-mouthed idiots back.\n\nOne of my favorite moments in the show was just two minutes in, when the screen turned to flame and Beavis began chanting \"fire!\" Those familiar with Beavis and Butt-head will remember that shortly after the show premiered back in 1993, there was an accident involving fire that was blamed on the show, resulting in the banishment of that phrase from further episodes. The glorification of destructive behavior on a satirical show for adults was held responsible for the actions of a five year old child. This was around the same time of the infamous <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald\'s_Restaurants\">McDonald\'s coffee lawsuit</a>, and we began to hear a new buzz word emerge.\n\nPersonal responsibility.\n\nA good thing. Especially if we\'re talking about someone else.\n\nIf I\'m talking to my kids about keeping their room neat, personal responsibility is important. If it\'s my desk, I\'m just too busy writing to keep it neat. If I ask my husband to please put his socks in the dirty clothes hamper, I\'m just being a champion of personal responsibility. If I forget to launder said socks, it\'s because I\'m a liberated woman and I shouldn\'t have to be burdened with the task of making sure everyone else has clean socks. If I\'m driving and someone cuts me off, it\'s clearly a case of people needing to take more personal responsibility on the road. If I cut someone off, it\'s totally an accident because I was singing along to the song on my iPod and you can\'t blame me for Lady Gaga\'s ability to make me lose track of the road.\n\nIt can be difficult to apply personal responsibility personally. But that\'s where we need to focus our energy. We need to look at our lives and make a choice to','The Screen, The Screen, The Screen is On Fire!','','inherit','open','open','','1530-revision-5','','','2011-10-31 11:33:14','2011-10-31 18:33:14','',1530,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1530-revision-5/',0,'revision','',0),(1593,1,'2011-10-31 08:43:56','2011-10-31 15:43:56','Recently I had a conversation with a friend about questions of leadership in the church.  It was a great conversation.  We were both really exploring together some key ideas about our faith and how they worked out in the organizations we participate in.  And in the midst of our conversation, I expressed my sincere concern for the loss of women\'s voice in the church conversation.  I just didn\'t understand why men had such an issue with women at the leadership table.  I get Paul\'s directive, but I think it\'s entirely contextual, given Paul\'s other directive that \"all things are lawful.\"\n\n<strong>My friend said, \"You know Eve was deceived don\'t you?\"</strong>\n\nThe obviousness of his statement required a yes.  I\'ve heard that very statement used as a foundation for an entire argument against women in leadership conversations.  Women are the weaker sex because Eve was deceived. And because of this foundational moment, women just can\'t be trusted to sit at the table of important decisions.\n\nBut something popped into my head at that moment that required a second response.  \"But wait,\" I said.  \"Adam was deceived too!\"  My friend stopped dead cold and didn\'t say a word for about six seconds.  He popped his chin back as if subtly being hit with a two by four.  The idea had never hit him.\n\n\"Oh yeah,\" he responded.\n\nMy initial knee jerk response was that Adam was following a long because he wanted to sacrifice himself for Eve. If he didn\'t, he would be separated from her.  Or, Adam didn\'t know what he was doing.  Or, Eve was responsible because she engaged the question.  My mind blindly searched for a reason to support the prevailing notion.\n\nBut the reality of the story is that Adam didn\'t even think about taking a bite. The story paints no thought process what so ever in his decision.  He just followed blindly a long.\n\nAs my friend and I continued talking, I was left with a new conversation to ponder. <strong>Why do we blame Eve for being deceived when Adam was too?</strong>\n\nWhat do you think?','The Deception Of Adam','','inherit','open','open','','1553-revision-3','','','2011-10-31 08:43:56','2011-10-31 15:43:56','',1553,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1553-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(1594,1,'2011-10-31 11:23:19','2011-10-31 18:23:19','Recently I had a conversation with a friend about questions of leadership in the church.  It was a great conversation.  We were both really exploring together some key ideas about our faith and how they worked out in the organizations we participate in.  And in the midst of our conversation, I expressed my sincere concern for the loss of women\'s voice in the church conversation.  I just didn\'t understand why men had such an issue with women at the leadership table.  I get Paul\'s directive, but I think it\'s entirely contextual, given Paul\'s other directive that \"all things are lawful.\"\r\n\r\n<strong>My friend said, \"You know Eve was deceived don\'t you?\"</strong>\r\n\r\nThe obviousness of his statement required a yes.  I\'ve heard that very statement used as a foundation for an entire argument against women in leadership conversations.  Women are the weaker sex because Eve was deceived. And because of this foundational moment, women just can\'t be trusted to sit at the table of important decisions.\r\n\r\nBut something popped into my head at that moment that required a second response.  \"But wait,\" I said.  \"Adam was deceived too!\"  My friend stopped dead cold and didn\'t say a word for about six seconds.  He popped his chin back as if subtly being hit with a two by four.  The idea had never hit him.\r\n\r\n\"Oh yeah,\" he responded.\r\n\r\nMy initial knee jerk response was that Adam was following a long because he wanted to sacrifice himself for Eve. If he didn\'t, he would be separated from her.  Or, Adam didn\'t know what he was doing.  Or, Eve was responsible because she engaged the question.  My mind blindly searched for a reason to support the prevailing notion.\r\n\r\nBut the reality of the story is that Adam didn\'t even think about taking a bite. The story paints no thought process what so ever in his decision.  He just followed blindly a long.\r\n\r\nAs my friend and I continued talking, I was left with a new conversation to ponder. <strong>Why do we blame Eve for being deceived when Adam was too?</strong>\r\n\r\nWhat do you think?','The Deception Of Adam','','inherit','open','open','','1553-revision-4','','','2011-10-31 11:23:19','2011-10-31 18:23:19','',1553,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1553-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(1595,1,'2011-10-31 11:25:14','2011-10-31 18:25:14','Recently I had a conversation with a friend about questions of leadership in the church.  It was a great conversation.  We were both really exploring together some key ideas about our faith and how they worked out in the organizations we take part in.  And in the midst of our conversation, I expressed my sincere concern for the loss of women\'s voice in the church conversation.  I just didn\'t understand why men had such an issue with women at the leadership table.  I get Paul\'s directive, but I think it\'s entirely contextual, given Paul\'s other directive that \"all things are lawful.\"\n\n<strong>My friend said, \"You know Eve was deceived, don\'t you?\"</strong>\n\nThe obviousness of his statement required a yes.  I\'ve heard that very statement used as a foundation for an entire argument against women in leadership conversations.  Women are the weaker sex because Eve was deceived. And because of this foundational moment, women just can\'t be trusted to sit at the table of important decisions.\n\nBut something popped into my head at that moment that required a second response.  \"But wait,\" I said.  \"Adam was deceived too!\"  My friend stopped dead cold and didn\'t say a word for about six seconds.  He popped his chin back as if subtly being hit with a two by four.  The idea had never hit him.\n\n\"Oh yeah,\" he responded.\n\nMy initial knee jerk response was that Adam was following a long because he wanted to sacrifice himself for Eve. If he didn\'t, he would be separated from her.  Or, Adam didn\'t know what he was doing.  Or, Eve was responsible because she engaged the question.  My mind blindly searched for a reason to support the prevailing notion.\n\nBut the reality of the story is that Adam didn\'t even think about taking a bite. The story paints no thought process what so ever in his decision.  He just followed blindly a long.\n\nAs my friend and I continued talking, I was left with a new conversation to ponder. <strong>Why do we blame Eve for being deceived when Adam was too?</strong>\n\nWhat do you think?','The Deception Of Adam','','inherit','open','open','','1553-autosave','','','2011-10-31 11:25:14','2011-10-31 18:25:14','',1553,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1553-autosave/',0,'revision','',0),(1597,64,'2011-10-31 11:34:05','2011-10-31 18:34:05','','me and emma','','inherit','open','open','','me-and-emma','','','2011-10-31 11:34:05','2011-10-31 18:34:05','',1592,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/me-and-emma.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1598,64,'2011-10-31 11:35:12','2011-10-31 18:35:12','<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/me-and-emma.jpg\"><img class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1597\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/me-and-emma.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"439\" /></a>\n\nRecently I had coffee with a young, new mom and she told me that she quit her full-time job to be with her baby.  I listened to her talk glowingly about the bonding they were doing and how “right” this decision felt to her.  She said she would go back to work “one day” but “for now” she was doing exactly what she should.  Then, in the same breath, she admitted that she was not without some doubt, whispering that she couldn\'t think of <em>one</em> woman that she admired as a role model, who was a stay-at-home mother.  (Ouch, I tried not to take it personally because this was her story and not about me.)\n\nAs I listened, I was happy for her because <em>there is nothing like</em> that first year of a parent and child’s life together, spent connecting and bonding.  The yeasty baby smells on your clothes and being there for the first belly laughs.  As they grow a little older, hearing their first word.  Eventually seeing their first steps.  I know how meaningful they can be, because I missed many of those firsts.\n\nI was working fifty to sixty hour weeks, through three pregnancies in four years.  And, other than the six weeks allotted me, I was right back to work again, <em>by choice</em>.  Yes, I electric-pumped in the bathroom at work, in between meetings.  I double padded for the crazy moments a baby cries and I might leak or nearly exploded because a meeting went more than an hour over and I needed to pump! <em> I did all that and I don’t regret one minute of it, even </em>though I cannot remember my daughter’s first word or whether I saw her walk for the first time.  It may not be that I physically wasn’t there, but that I didn’t write it down.  I cannot remember much about those years, specifically, but I don’t mind because I loved working!\n\nWhen I quit my job I didn’t know an S.A.H.M. from an M.O.P.S. and certainly didn’t understand why <em>any</em>one with a viable, interesting career would quit their job for kids.  In fact I did not quit my job for any of the reasons many stay-at-home moms do and I never aspired to be one.  I was just fed up with certain aspects of my job and what I perceived as a glass ceiling.  <em>And I was plumb exhausted</em> – so exhausted that I had become irritable and dissatisfied with much of life.  My faith was suffering.  When I walked away from my career I just wanted to take a long, uninterrupted nap!\n\n<strong>You know what I wanted to say to my young friend at coffee?  Don’t do it!!!!  </strong>\n\nYes, the secret is out.  I became a reluctant SAHM in order to get away from my job <em>and to rest.</em>  Additionally, as we looked at the idea of one of us being with our kids, or a Nanny, my husband and I did the math and it just made sense.  Though I was making 40K+, by the time we paid our Nanny a living wage, paid the taxes, I purchased a wardrobe of work clothing and dry cleaned those clothes, ate the inevitable lattes and lunches out, and then ordering take out because both of us were too tired to cook, it added up close to zero dollars left over.   The other thing we considered was the fact that my husband’s job was more lucrative long-term than mine was at a non-profit.\n\nBut when I was thinking and praying about making a change, I should have thought through other career options perhaps even a shared job. I grew up in the organization that I worked for and though I had been quickly promoted up through the organization, I lacked the confidence to go out a find another job.  I thought quitting was my only option at the time.\n\nAnd now that my kids are older and I’m oh so ready to work outside the home, I’m running into the prejudice of having spent all this time, it’s been more than ten years, at home with kiddos.   Katie Read, a freelancer at Salon.com said recently:\n<div>\n<blockquote>\"Research shows that mothers earn <a href=\"http://www.asanet.org/press/motherhood_penalty.cfm\" target=\"_blank\">4 to 15 percent less</a> than non-mothers with comparable jobs and qualifications, that as job candidates, mothers are perceived as <a href=\"http://www.unc.edu/courses/2006spring/geog/203/001/motherhoodpenalty.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">less competent and committed</a> than non-mothers (fathers, in contrast, rate higher than men without kids). Heather Boushey, senior economist at the Center for American Progress, <a href=\"http://www.brainchildmag.com/essays/winter2010_read.asp\" target=\"_blank\">told me last year</a> that the outlook for an at-home mother returning to work in this economy “kind of makes my stomach drop a little bit.” I know the feeling.\"</blockquote>\n</div>\nI know the feeling too.  Unlike Read, who is a single divorced mother of two, I don’t<em> need</em> to work I just <em>want</em> to work.\n\nI recently interviewed for an entry level job, very part-time, that I could have done in my sleep.  I was hoping to ease myself into an organization that I liked and would like to work for long term.  I knew that I was doomed when I was asked to describe one specific project that I had managed beginning to end.  My job had been managing multiple people and projects, ideas, and nearly half a million dollar budget.  When I was told I was overqualified I was just shocked that they had the gall to say so.   An insider later told me, “You are a stallion.  What we really needed in that job is a pony.”  Horse metaphors aside, I was surprised because I had led and managed people, multiple departments, and had tons of responsibility.\n\n<strong><em>Why would anyone NOT want me?</em></strong><strong>  </strong>\n\nThe fact is that I have joined the ranks of other stay-at-home moms who are marginalize and looked down upon, just as I did when I was working.  I remember asking my boss who was a woman with incredulity and some derision, “Why would anyone want to be a stay-at-home Mom?”\n\n<strong>Indeed, why?</strong>\n\nWhat remains now is the knowledge of what I have learned by giving up my job and being at home.  It actually has little to do with my children, but what God wanted to <em>do in me</em>.\n\nMy identity had been too wrapped up in my work and when I left, everything fell apart.  It took more than a year, but eventually I dropped into a deep depression.  (I tell that story in <a title=\"Not Alone\" href=\"http://civitaspress.com/not-alone-stories-of-living-with-depression/\" target=\"_blank\">Not Alone: Stories of Living with Depression</a> and in various places on my blog.)  I needed to go through the experiences that I did.  Why?  Because I never knew how much I was beloved child <em>of</em> God no matter what I do <em>for</em> God, until I fell down into that pit.  (You must read the story to understand.)\n\n<strong>Being a stay-at-home mom it is an incredibly complicated personal decision. </strong>\n\nI do respect the difficult place women (so much more than men) are in. No one can make this choice for a woman or explain away her doubts, fears, aspirations, goals, need and desire for “accomplishments” or why, after making a choice to go back to work, a woman may regret her decision.  I cannot make the decision for my young friend.\n\nAt times I look back over the last decade of my life with huge regret but also with gratitude.  I am still learning.  My experiences have opened me up to a new life.  Christ’s broken body for me is meaningful in a way I never understood until my depression.  And gratefully I can say, all of this drove me to my knees.  I went from someone who felt she was competent, powerful, knowledgeable and puffed up with my own importance to a broken reed, hardly knowing up from down.   It is humbling that I am loved by my husband and adored by my children whom<a title=\"You Are Beloved\" href=\"https://logicandimagination.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/you-are-beloved/\" target=\"_blank\"> I adore</a>.  And gratefully, I know that what a gift this time at home has been.  Yes, I rested (not physically as anyone with babies, small children or middle school kids knows.)  But I rested in Him and became more human.  As I consider what the future holds for me I still want a productive and vigorous career however as I look back at the decade of being at home, I am glad for what I have learned and would not trade it in for a more lucrative career.  (Okay some days I would.)\n\nYes, I was an accidental and in some ways very unhappy SAHM.  In the power of the cross I am being constantly renewed and I continue to hope that even beyond being the mother of four beautiful children, which is gratifying, I have a contribution to make still!\n\n<strong>Th<em>ere is no perfect plan.</em> You must trust while serving, not knowing the future.  You must believe that you have a contribution to make – in your children, in your career and in all the people in your life. </strong>\n\nI hope and pray that I will continue to be grateful for I am a child of God.  And that is enough.','The Accidental Stay-at-Home Mom','','inherit','open','open','','1592-revision','','','2011-10-31 11:35:12','2011-10-31 18:35:12','',1592,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1592-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(1599,64,'2011-10-31 11:35:59','2011-10-31 18:35:59','<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/me-and-emma.jpg\"><img class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1597\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/me-and-emma.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"439\" /></a>\r\n\r\nRecently I had coffee with a young, new mom and she told me that she quit her full-time job to be with her baby.  I listened to her talk glowingly about the bonding they were doing and how “right” this decision felt to her.  She said she would go back to work “one day” but “for now” she was doing exactly what she should.  Then, in the same breath, she admitted that she was not without some doubt, whispering that she couldn\'t think of <em>one</em> woman that she admired as a role model, who was a stay-at-home mother.  (Ouch, I tried not to take it personally because this was her story and not about me.)\r\n\r\nAs I listened, I was happy for her because <em>there is nothing like</em> that first year of a parent and child’s life together, spent connecting and bonding.  The yeasty baby smells on your clothes and being there for the first belly laughs.  As they grow a little older, hearing their first word.  Eventually seeing their first steps.  I know how meaningful they can be, because I missed many of those firsts.\r\n\r\nI was working fifty to sixty hour weeks, through three pregnancies in four years.  And, other than the six weeks allotted me, I was right back to work again, <em>by choice</em>.  Yes, I electric-pumped in the bathroom at work, in between meetings.  I double padded for the crazy moments a baby cries and I might leak or nearly exploded because a meeting went more than an hour over and I needed to pump! <em> I did all that and I don’t regret one minute of it, even </em>though I cannot remember my daughter’s first word or whether I saw her walk for the first time.  It may not be that I physically wasn’t there, but that I didn’t write it down.  I cannot remember much about those years, specifically, but I don’t mind because I loved working!\r\n\r\nWhen I quit my job I didn’t know an S.A.H.M. from an M.O.P.S. and certainly didn’t understand why <em>any</em>one with a viable, interesting career would quit their job for kids.  In fact I did not quit my job for any of the reasons many stay-at-home moms do and I never aspired to be one.  I was just fed up with certain aspects of my job and what I perceived as a glass ceiling.  <em>And I was plumb exhausted</em> – so exhausted that I had become irritable and dissatisfied with much of life.  My faith was suffering.  When I walked away from my career I just wanted to take a long, uninterrupted nap!\r\n\r\n<strong>You know what I wanted to say to my young friend at coffee?  Don’t do it!!!!  </strong>\r\n\r\nYes, the secret is out.  I became a reluctant SAHM in order to get away from my job <em>and to rest.</em>  Additionally, as we looked at the idea of one of us being with our kids, or a Nanny, my husband and I did the math and it just made sense.  Though I was making 40K+, by the time we paid our Nanny a living wage, paid the taxes, I purchased a wardrobe of work clothing and dry cleaned those clothes, ate the inevitable lattes and lunches out, and then ordering take out because both of us were too tired to cook, it added up close to zero dollars left over.   The other thing we considered was the fact that my husband’s job was more lucrative long-term than mine was at a non-profit.\r\n\r\nBut when I was thinking and praying about making a change, I should have thought through other career options perhaps even a shared job. I grew up in the organization that I worked for and though I had been quickly promoted up through the organization, I lacked the confidence to go out a find another job.  I thought quitting was my only option at the time.\r\n\r\nAnd now that my kids are older and I’m oh so ready to work outside the home, I’m running into the prejudice of having spent all this time, it’s been more than ten years, at home with kiddos.   Katie Read, a freelancer at Salon.com said recently:\r\n<div>\r\n<blockquote>\"Research shows that mothers earn <a href=\"http://www.asanet.org/press/motherhood_penalty.cfm\" target=\"_blank\">4 to 15 percent less</a> than non-mothers with comparable jobs and qualifications, that as job candidates, mothers are perceived as <a href=\"http://www.unc.edu/courses/2006spring/geog/203/001/motherhoodpenalty.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">less competent and committed</a> than non-mothers (fathers, in contrast, rate higher than men without kids). Heather Boushey, senior economist at the Center for American Progress, <a href=\"http://www.brainchildmag.com/essays/winter2010_read.asp\" target=\"_blank\">told me last year</a> that the outlook for an at-home mother returning to work in this economy “kind of makes my stomach drop a little bit.” I know the feeling.\"</blockquote>\r\n</div>\r\nI know the feeling too.  Unlike Read, who is a single divorced mother of two, I don’t<em> need</em> to work I just <em>want</em> to work.\r\n\r\nI recently interviewed for an entry level job, very part-time, that I could have done in my sleep.  I was hoping to ease myself into an organization that I liked and would like to work for long term.  I knew that I was doomed when I was asked to describe one specific project that I had managed beginning to end.  My job had been managing multiple people and projects, ideas, and nearly half a million dollar budget.  When I was told I was overqualified I was just shocked that they had the gall to say so.   An insider later told me, “You are a stallion.  What we really needed in that job is a pony.”  Horse metaphors aside, I was surprised because I had led and managed people, multiple departments, and had tons of responsibility.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>Why would anyone NOT want me?</em></strong><strong>  </strong>\r\n\r\nThe fact is that I have joined the ranks of other stay-at-home moms who are marginalize and looked down upon, just as I did when I was working.  I remember asking my boss who was a woman with incredulity and some derision, “Why would anyone want to be a stay-at-home Mom?”\r\n\r\n<strong>Indeed, why?</strong>\r\n\r\nWhat remains now is the knowledge of what I have learned by giving up my job and being at home.  It actually has little to do with my children, but what God wanted to <em>do in me</em>.\r\n\r\nMy identity had been too wrapped up in my work and when I left, everything fell apart.  It took more than a year, but eventually I dropped into a deep depression.  (I tell that story in <a title=\"Not Alone\" href=\"http://civitaspress.com/not-alone-stories-of-living-with-depression/\" target=\"_blank\">Not Alone: Stories of Living with Depression</a> and in various places on my blog.)  I needed to go through the experiences that I did.  Why?  Because I never knew how much I was beloved child <em>of</em> God no matter what I do <em>for</em> God, until I fell down into that pit.  (You must read the story to understand.)\r\n\r\n<strong>Being a stay-at-home mom it is an incredibly complicated personal decision. </strong>\r\n\r\nI do respect the difficult place women (so much more than men) are in. No one can make this choice for a woman or explain away her doubts, fears, aspirations, goals, need and desire for “accomplishments” or why, after making a choice to go back to work, a woman may regret her decision.  I cannot make the decision for my young friend.\r\n\r\nAt times I look back over the last decade of my life with huge regret but also with gratitude.  I am still learning.  My experiences have opened me up to a new life.  Christ’s broken body for me is meaningful in a way I never understood until my depression.  And gratefully I can say, all of this drove me to my knees.  I went from someone who felt she was competent, powerful, knowledgeable and puffed up with my own importance to a broken reed, hardly knowing up from down.   It is humbling that I am loved by my husband and adored by my children whom<a title=\"You Are Beloved\" href=\"https://logicandimagination.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/you-are-beloved/\" target=\"_blank\"> I adore</a>.  And gratefully, I know that what a gift this time at home has been.  Yes, I rested (not physically as anyone with babies, small children or middle school kids knows.)  But I rested in Him and became more human.  As I consider what the future holds for me I still want a productive and vigorous career however as I look back at the decade of being at home, I am glad for what I have learned and would not trade it in for a more lucrative career.  (Okay some days I would.)\r\n\r\nYes, I was an accidental and in some ways very unhappy SAHM.  In the power of the cross I am being constantly renewed and I continue to hope that even beyond being the mother of four beautiful children, which is gratifying, I have a contribution to make still!\r\n\r\n<strong>Th<em>ere is no perfect plan.</em> You must trust while serving, not knowing the future.  You must believe that you have a contribution to make – in your children, in your career and in all the people in your life. </strong>\r\n\r\nI hope and pray that I will continue to be grateful for I am a child of God.  And that is enough.','The Accidental Stay-at-Home Mom','','inherit','open','open','','1592-revision-2','','','2011-10-31 11:35:59','2011-10-31 18:35:59','',1592,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1592-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(1600,1,'2011-11-03 08:36:48','2011-11-03 15:36:48','Recently I had coffee with a young, new mom.  She told me that she quit her full-time job to be with her baby.  I listened to her talk glowingly about the bonding they were doing and how “right” this decision felt to her.  She said she would go back to work “one day” but “for now” she was doing exactly what she should.  Then, in the same breath, she admitted that she was not without<em> some</em> doubt, whispering sheepishly that she couldn\'t think of <em>one</em> woman that she admired as a role model, who was a stay-at-home mother.  (Ouch, I tried not to take it personally because this was her story and not about me.)\n\nAs I listened, I was happy for her because <em>there is nothing like</em> that first year of a parent and child’s life together, spent connecting and bonding.  The yeasty baby smells on your clothes and being present for the first belly laughs.  As they grow a little older, hearing their first word.  Eventually seeing their first steps.\n\nI know how meaningful they are because I missed many of those firsts.\n\nI was working fifty to sixty hour weeks, through three pregnancies in four years, when each of my kids were born.  And, other than the six weeks allotted I was right back to work again, <em>by choice</em>.  Yes, I electric-pumped in the bathroom at work, between meetings.  I double padded for the crazy moments a baby cries and I might leak or nearly exploded, because a meeting went over and I needed to pump! <em> I did all that and I don’t regret one minute of it, </em>even though I cannot remember my daughter’s first word or whether I saw her first steps.  If I didn’t write it down, I cannot remember much about those years but I don’t mind because I loved working!\n\nWhen I quit my job I didn’t know an S.A.H.M. from an M.O.P.S. and certainly didn’t understand why <em>any</em><em>one</em> with an interesting career would quit for kids.  In fact I did <em>not</em> quit for <em>any</em> of the reasons many stay-at-home moms do and I never aspired to be one.  I was just fed up with certain aspects of my job and what I perceived as a glass ceiling.  <em>And I was plumb exhausted</em> – so exhausted that I had become irritable and dissatisfied with much of life.  My faith was suffering.  When I walked away from my career I just wanted to take a long, uninterrupted nap!\n\n<strong>You know what I wanted to say to my young friend at coffee?  <em>Don’t do it!!!!  </em></strong>\n\nYes, the secret is out.\n\nI became a <em>reluctant</em> SAHM to get away from my job <em>and to rest.</em>  Additionally, as we looked at the idea of one of us being with our kids, or a Nanny doing it, my husband and I did the math and it just made sense.  Though I was making 40K+, by the time we paid our Nanny a living wage, paid the taxes, I purchased a wardrobe of work clothing and dry cleaned those clothes, ate the inevitable lattes and lunches out, and then ordering take out because both of us were too tired to cook, it added up close to zero dollars left over.   The other thing we considered was the fact that my husband’s job was more lucrative long-term than mine was at a non-profit.\n\nBut when I was thinking and praying about making a change, I should have thought through<em> other</em> career options perhaps even a shared job. I grew up in the organization that I worked for and though I had been quickly promoted up through the organization I was there my entire thirteen year career.  I lacked the confidence to go out a find another job.  I thought quitting was my only option at the time.\n\nAnd now that my kids are older and I’m <em>oh so ready</em> to work outside the home, I’m running into the prejudice of having spent all this time, it’s been more than ten years, at home with kids.   Katie Read, a writer at Salon.com, <a title=\"Wish I Hadn\'t Opted Out\" href=\"http://www.salon.com/2011/01/06/wish_i_hadnt_opted_out/\" target=\"_blank\">wrote</a>:\n<div>\n<blockquote>\"Research shows that mothers earn <a href=\"http://www.asanet.org/press/motherhood_penalty.cfm\" target=\"_blank\">4 to 15 percent less</a> than non-mothers with comparable jobs and qualifications, that as job candidates, mothers are perceived as <a href=\"http://www.unc.edu/courses/2006spring/geog/203/001/motherhoodpenalty.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">less competent and committed</a> than non-mothers (fathers, in contrast, rate higher than men without kids).  Heather Boushey, senior economist at the Center for American Progress, <a href=\"http://www.brainchildmag.com/essays/winter2010_read.asp\" target=\"_blank\">told me last year</a> that the outlook for an at-home mother returning to work in this economy “kind of makes my stomach drop a little bit.” I know the feeling.\"</blockquote>\n</div>\nI know the feeling too.  Unlike Read, who is a single divorced mother of two, I don’t<em> need</em> to work I just <em>want</em> to work.\n\nI recently interviewed for an entry-level job, very part-time, that honestly I could have done in my sleep.  I was hoping to ease myself into an organization that I liked and would like to work for long-term.  But I knew that I was doomed when I was asked to describe <em>one specific project</em> that I had managed beginning to end.  I honestly tried to but my job was managing multiple people, programs, ideas, and nearly half a million dollar budget.  When I was told I was \"overqualified\" I suppose I was just shocked that they had the gall to say so even thought they said it differently.  \"This job wasn\'t in my sweet spot of gifting.\"  Huh, I started my working life as an entry-level office person.\n\nAn insider later told me, “You are a stallion.  What we needed in that job is a pony.” Implication, you don\'t want this job.  Horse metaphors aside, I applied for the job so I\'m sure I wanted it and I was surprised to be rejected.  I had led and managed people, multiple departments, and had tons of responsibility.  Why<em> would anyone NOT want me?</em>\n\nThe fact is that I have joined the ranks of other stay-at-home moms who are marginalize and looked down upon, just as I did when I was working outside of home.  I can remember asking my boss who was a woman with incredulity and some derision, “Why would anyone want to be a stay-at-home Mom?” <em>Why indeed?</em>\n\n<strong>What God did in me.</strong>\n\nWhat remains true now is the knowledge of what I have learned by quitting my job and being at home.  It actually has little to do with my children and all to do with what God wanted to <em>do inside me</em>.\n\nMy identity had been too wrapped up in my work and when I left, everything fell apart.  It took more than a year, but eventually I dropped into a deep depression.  (I tell that story in <a title=\"Not Alone\" href=\"http://civitaspress.com/not-alone-stories-of-living-with-depression/\" target=\"_blank\">Not Alone: Stories of Living with Depression</a> and in various places on my blog.)  I needed to go through the experiences that I did.  Why?  Because I never knew I was a beloved child <em>of</em> God, no matter what I could do <em>for</em> God, until I fell down into that pit.\n\n<strong>Being a stay-at-home mom it is an incredibly complicated personal decision. </strong>\n\nWe must respect the difficult place women (so much more than men) are in. No one can make this choice for a woman or explain away her doubts and fears, the dreams and aspirations, the personal goals, or our need and desire for “accomplishments.”   And no one can understand, after making a choice to go back to work, why a woman may regret or is torn by her decision.  <em>And I cannot choose for my young friend.  She will have to walk that path and sort it out herself.</em>\n\nAt times I look back over the last decade of my life with huge regrets, but also with gratitude because <em>I am still learning!</em>  My experiences have opened me up to a new life.  Christ’s broken body for me is meaningful in a way that I never understood until my experience with depression and addiction.  And gratefully I can say, all of this drove me to my knees.\n\nI went from someone who felt competent, powerful, and knowledgeable -- quite puffed up with my own importance, to a <a title=\"bruised reed\" href=\"http://bible.cc/matthew/12-20.htm\" target=\"_blank\">broken and bruised reed</a>, hardly knowing up from down.   I am humbled by my husband\'s love and the fact that my children adore me and I do them.  And gratefully, I know what a gift this time at home has been to me.  Yes, I rested (not physically as anyone with babies, small children or middle school kids knows.)  <strong>But I rested in Yahweh and became more human.  </strong>As I consider what the future holds for me, admittedly I still want a productive and vigorous career.  However as I look back at the last decade of being at home, I am glad for what I have learned.  And I would not trade it in for a more lucrative career.  (Okay some days I would, I honestly would!)  But the investment in my children is an honorable one and a privilege at this point.\n\nYes, I was an accidental (and in some ways very unhappy) SAHM.  By the power of the cross I am being constantly renewed and I continue to hope in it!  I know that even beyond being the mother of four beautiful children, which is gratifying in and of itself, I have a contribution to make<em>!</em>\n\n<strong>My advice, finally, to my young friend?  Th<em>ere is no perfect plan.</em> You must trust while serving, not knowing the future.  Believe that you have a contribution to make in your children\'s lives, in your own career and in all the people God brings into your life. </strong>\n\nI hope and pray that I will <em>continue</em> to be grateful that I am a child of God.  That this simple truth is enough.\n\n(Most days.)','The Accidental Stay-at-Home Mom','','inherit','open','open','','1592-autosave','','','2011-11-03 08:36:48','2011-11-03 15:36:48','',1592,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1592-autosave/',0,'revision','',0),(1602,1,'2011-10-31 11:41:30','2011-10-31 18:41:30','','kardashian_divorce','','inherit','open','open','','kardashian_divorce','','','2011-10-31 11:41:30','2011-10-31 18:41:30','',1601,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/kardashian_divorce.png',0,'attachment','image/png',0),(1603,1,'2011-10-31 11:48:19','2011-10-31 18:48:19','File this under \"Schocker!\"\n\n---------------------------------------------------------\n\nTMZ, the famous celebrity stalker site is <a href=\"http://www.tmz.com/2011/10/31/kim-kardashian-divorce-kris-humphries-files/\" target=\"_blank\">reporting</a> that reality star Kim Kardashian filed for divorce from husband Kris Humphries after just 72 days of marriage.  \"Keeping Up With the Kardashians\" executive producer Ryan Seacrest <a href=\"http://twitter.com/#!/RyanSeacrest/status/131039186609385472\" target=\"_blank\">broke the news</a> on Twitter.\n\n\"Yes @kimkardashian is <a href=\"http://tmz.vo.llnwd.net/o28/newsdesk/tmz_documents/1031_kim.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">filing for divorce</a> this morning. I touched base with her, getting a statement in just a few mins.\"\n\nTMZ is suggesting the reason for divorce is because, \"the couple were at odds over where to finally settle down. Humphries was reportedly passionate about settling down in his native Minnesota, and Kardashian simply wasn\'t going for it.\n\n---------------------------------------------------------\n\nIf you\'ve followed this couple for any length of time, and I\'ve seen them on magazine stands and watched ten minutes of their show th\n\nOkay, there is an ironic twist to this whole thing.','Kim Kardashian Shocker','','inherit','open','open','','1601-revision','','','2011-10-31 11:48:19','2011-10-31 18:48:19','',1601,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1601-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(2976,1,'2011-12-05 09:35:13','2011-12-05 17:35:13',' ','','','publish','open','open','','2976','','','2012-01-19 11:08:29','2012-01-19 19:08:29','',15,'http://provoketive.com/?p=2976',20,'nav_menu_item','',0),(1605,1,'2011-10-31 11:50:53','2011-10-31 18:50:53',' ','','','publish','open','open','','1605','','','2012-01-19 11:08:30','2012-01-19 19:08:30','',12,'http://provoketive.com/?p=1605',38,'nav_menu_item','',0),(1606,64,'2011-10-31 11:36:16','2011-10-31 18:36:16','<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/me-and-emma.jpg\"><img class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1597\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/me-and-emma.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"439\" /></a>\r\n\r\nRecently I had coffee with a young, new mom and she told me that she quit her full-time job to be with her baby.  I listened to her talk glowingly about the bonding they were doing and how “right” this decision felt to her.  She said she would go back to work “one day” but “for now” she was doing exactly what she should.  Then, in the same breath, she admitted that she was not without some doubt, whispering that she couldn\'t think of <em>one</em> woman that she admired as a role model, who was a stay-at-home mother.  (Ouch, I tried not to take it personally because this was her story and not about me.)\r\n\r\nAs I listened, I was happy for her because <em>there is nothing like</em> that first year of a parent and child’s life together, spent connecting and bonding.  The yeasty baby smells on your clothes and being there for the first belly laughs.  As they grow a little older, hearing their first word.  Eventually seeing their first steps.  I know how meaningful they can be, because I missed many of those firsts.\r\n\r\nI was working fifty to sixty hour weeks, through three pregnancies in four years.  And, other than the six weeks allotted me, I was right back to work again, <em>by choice</em>.  Yes, I electric-pumped in the bathroom at work, in between meetings.  I double padded for the crazy moments a baby cries and I might leak or nearly exploded because a meeting went more than an hour over and I needed to pump! <em> I did all that and I don’t regret one minute of it, even </em>though I cannot remember my daughter’s first word or whether I saw her walk for the first time.  It may not be that I physically wasn’t there, but that I didn’t write it down.  I cannot remember much about those years, specifically, but I don’t mind because I loved working!\r\n\r\nWhen I quit my job I didn’t know an S.A.H.M. from an M.O.P.S. and certainly didn’t understand why <em>any</em>one with a viable, interesting career would quit their job for kids.  In fact I did not quit my job for any of the reasons many stay-at-home moms do and I never aspired to be one.  I was just fed up with certain aspects of my job and what I perceived as a glass ceiling.  <em>And I was plumb exhausted</em> – so exhausted that I had become irritable and dissatisfied with much of life.  My faith was suffering.  When I walked away from my career I just wanted to take a long, uninterrupted nap!\r\n\r\n<strong>You know what I wanted to say to my young friend at coffee?  Don’t do it!!!!  </strong>\r\n\r\nYes, the secret is out.  I became a reluctant SAHM in order to get away from my job <em>and to rest.</em>  Additionally, as we looked at the idea of one of us being with our kids, or a Nanny, my husband and I did the math and it just made sense.  Though I was making 40K+, by the time we paid our Nanny a living wage, paid the taxes, I purchased a wardrobe of work clothing and dry cleaned those clothes, ate the inevitable lattes and lunches out, and then ordering take out because both of us were too tired to cook, it added up close to zero dollars left over.   The other thing we considered was the fact that my husband’s job was more lucrative long-term than mine was at a non-profit.\r\n\r\nBut when I was thinking and praying about making a change, I should have thought through other career options perhaps even a shared job. I grew up in the organization that I worked for and though I had been quickly promoted up through the organization, I lacked the confidence to go out a find another job.  I thought quitting was my only option at the time.\r\n\r\nAnd now that my kids are older and I’m oh so ready to work outside the home, I’m running into the prejudice of having spent all this time, it’s been more than ten years, at home with kiddos.   Katie Read, a freelancer at Salon.com said recently:\r\n<div>\r\n<blockquote>\"Research shows that mothers earn <a href=\"http://www.asanet.org/press/motherhood_penalty.cfm\" target=\"_blank\">4 to 15 percent less</a> than non-mothers with comparable jobs and qualifications, that as job candidates, mothers are perceived as <a href=\"http://www.unc.edu/courses/2006spring/geog/203/001/motherhoodpenalty.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">less competent and committed</a> than non-mothers (fathers, in contrast, rate higher than men without kids). Heather Boushey, senior economist at the Center for American Progress, <a href=\"http://www.brainchildmag.com/essays/winter2010_read.asp\" target=\"_blank\">told me last year</a> that the outlook for an at-home mother returning to work in this economy “kind of makes my stomach drop a little bit.” I know the feeling.\"</blockquote>\r\n</div>\r\nI know the feeling too.  Unlike Read, who is a single divorced mother of two, I don’t<em> need</em> to work I just <em>want</em> to work.\r\n\r\nI recently interviewed for an entry level job, very part-time, that I could have done in my sleep.  I was hoping to ease myself into an organization that I liked and would like to work for long term.  I knew that I was doomed when I was asked to describe one specific project that I had managed beginning to end.  My job had been managing multiple people and projects, ideas, and nearly half a million dollar budget.  When I was told I was overqualified I was just shocked that they had the gall to say so.   An insider later told me, “You are a stallion.  What we really needed in that job is a pony.”  Horse metaphors aside, I was surprised because I had led and managed people, multiple departments, and had tons of responsibility.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>Why would anyone NOT want me?</em></strong><strong>  </strong>\r\n\r\nThe fact is that I have joined the ranks of other stay-at-home moms who are marginalize and looked down upon, just as I did when I was working.  I remember asking my boss who was a woman with incredulity and some derision, “Why would anyone want to be a stay-at-home Mom?”\r\n\r\n<strong>Indeed, why?</strong>\r\n\r\nWhat remains now is the knowledge of what I have learned by giving up my job and being at home.  It actually has little to do with my children, but what God wanted to <em>do in me</em>.\r\n\r\nMy identity had been too wrapped up in my work and when I left, everything fell apart.  It took more than a year, but eventually I dropped into a deep depression.  (I tell that story in <a title=\"Not Alone\" href=\"http://civitaspress.com/not-alone-stories-of-living-with-depression/\" target=\"_blank\">Not Alone: Stories of Living with Depression</a> and in various places on my blog.)  I needed to go through the experiences that I did.  Why?  Because I never knew how much I was beloved child <em>of</em> God no matter what I do <em>for</em> God, until I fell down into that pit.  (You must read the story to understand.)\r\n\r\n<strong>Being a stay-at-home mom it is an incredibly complicated personal decision. </strong>\r\n\r\nI do respect the difficult place women (so much more than men) are in. No one can make this choice for a woman or explain away her doubts, fears, aspirations, goals, need and desire for “accomplishments” or why, after making a choice to go back to work, a woman may regret her decision.  I cannot make the decision for my young friend.\r\n\r\nAt times I look back over the last decade of my life with huge regret but also with gratitude.  I am still learning.  My experiences have opened me up to a new life.  Christ’s broken body for me is meaningful in a way I never understood until my depression.  And gratefully I can say, all of this drove me to my knees.  I went from someone who felt she was competent, powerful, knowledgeable and puffed up with my own importance to a broken reed, hardly knowing up from down.   It is humbling that I am loved by my husband and adored by my children whom<a title=\"You Are Beloved\" href=\"https://logicandimagination.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/you-are-beloved/\" target=\"_blank\"> I adore</a>.  And gratefully, I know that what a gift this time at home has been.  Yes, I rested (not physically as anyone with babies, small children or middle school kids knows.)  But I rested in Him and became more human.  As I consider what the future holds for me I still want a productive and vigorous career however as I look back at the decade of being at home, I am glad for what I have learned and would not trade it in for a more lucrative career.  (Okay some days I would.)\r\n\r\nYes, I was an accidental and in some ways very unhappy SAHM.  In the power of the cross I am being constantly renewed and I continue to hope that even beyond being the mother of four beautiful children, which is gratifying, I have a contribution to make still!\r\n\r\n<strong>Th<em>ere is no perfect plan.</em> You must trust while serving, not knowing the future.  You must believe that you have a contribution to make – in your children, in your career and in all the people in your life. </strong>\r\n\r\nI hope and pray that I will continue to be grateful for I am a child of God.  And that is enough.','The Accidental Stay-at-Home Mom','','inherit','open','open','','1592-revision-3','','','2011-10-31 11:36:16','2011-10-31 18:36:16','',1592,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1592-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(1607,30,'2011-10-31 11:51:24','2011-10-31 18:51:24','Heh. Heh heh heh. Heh heh.\n\nThe smartest show about the dumbest people is back.\n\nLast Thursday night I cozied up with a wine cooler, some nachos and turned on MTV for the first time in years to watch the return of Mike Judge\'s Beavis and Butt-head.\n\nThe episode was funny and my husband and I spent the episode texting our favorite lines back and forth to each other. From the insightful social commentary to the just plain funny, we laughed our way through the full half-hour. After a fourteen year hiatus, it was good to have these snickering, smart-mouthed idiots back.\n\nOne of my favorite moments in the show was just two minutes in, when the screen turned to flame and Beavis began chanting \"fire!\" Those familiar with Beavis and Butt-head will remember that shortly after the show premiered back in 1993, there was an accident involving fire that was blamed on the show, resulting in the banishment of that phrase from further episodes. The glorification of destructive behavior on a satirical show for adults was held responsible for the actions of a five-year old child. This was around the same time of the infamous <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald\'s_Restaurants\">McDonald\'s coffee lawsuit</a>, and we began to hear a new buzz word emerge.\n\nPersonal responsibility.\n\nA good thing. Especially if we\'re talking about someone else.\n\nIf I\'m talking to my kids about keeping their room neat, personal responsibility is important. If it\'s my desk, I\'m just too busy writing to keep it neat. If I ask my husband to please put his socks in the dirty clothes hamper, I\'m just being a champion of personal responsibility. If I forget to launder said socks, it\'s because I\'m a liberated woman and I shouldn\'t have to be burdened with the task of making sure everyone else has clean socks. If I\'m driving and someone cuts me off, it\'s clearly a case of people needing to take more personal responsibility on the road. If I cut someone off, it\'s totally an accident because I was singing along to the song on my iPod and you can\'t blame me for Lady Gaga\'s ability to make me lose track of the road.\n\nIt can be difficult to apply personal responsibility personally. But that\'s where we need to focus our energy. I need to look at my life and see what things I need to change and make those changes myself. I need to have grace for the places where I don\'t live up to my own expectations, but I also need to be willing to examine my choices and make appropriate adjustments.\n\nWhen I only apply personal responsibility to other people\'s lives, I end up sound like, well, a Butt-head.','The Screen, The Screen, The Screen is On Fire!','','inherit','open','open','','1530-revision-6','','','2011-10-31 11:51:24','2011-10-31 18:51:24','',1530,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1530-revision-6/',0,'revision','',0),(1608,1,'2011-10-31 11:55:13','2011-10-31 18:55:13','File this under \"Schocker!\"\n\n---------------------------------------------------------\n\nTMZ, the famous celebrity stalker site is <a href=\"http://www.tmz.com/2011/10/31/kim-kardashian-divorce-kris-humphries-files/\" target=\"_blank\">reporting</a> that reality star Kim Kardashian filed for divorce from husband Kris Humphries after just 72 days of marriage.  \"Keeping Up With the Kardashians\" executive producer Ryan Seacrest <a href=\"http://twitter.com/#!/RyanSeacrest/status/131039186609385472\" target=\"_blank\">broke the news</a> on Twitter.\n\n\"Yes @kimkardashian is <a href=\"http://tmz.vo.llnwd.net/o28/newsdesk/tmz_documents/1031_kim.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">filing for divorce</a> this morning. I touched base with her, getting a statement in just a few mins.\"\n\nTMZ is suggesting the reason for divorce is because, \"the couple were at odds over where to finally settle down. Humphries was reportedly passionate about settling down in his native Minnesota, and Kardashian simply wasn\'t going for it.\n\n---------------------------------------------------------\n\nIf you\'ve followed this couple for any length of time, and I\'ve seen them on magazine stands and watched ten minutes of their show, which just happened to be the moment he wondered if he was making a mistake in marrying her, you\'ll know it was reality television.  I have no judgment for Kim or Kris.  They are free to do as they please.  I don\'t know if they staged the marriage or not.  It\'s possible that it was, and its possible that their love was real.\n\nBut there is an ironic twist to this whole thing. If it was real, then Kim has lost that love. And she\'s the one who really suffers, to the tune of a broken heart and 10 million dollars (the cost of the wedding). If it\'s not, than Kim has turned the idea of marriage into something that she\'s willing to make a mockery of.  I hope she got what she wanted.','Kim Kardashian Shocker','','inherit','open','open','','1601-revision-2','','','2011-10-31 11:55:13','2011-10-31 18:55:13','',1601,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1601-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(1609,1,'2011-10-31 11:57:06','2011-10-31 18:57:06','File this under, \"Shocker!\"\n\n---------------------------------------------------------\n\nTMZ, the famous celebrity stalker site is <a href=\"http://www.tmz.com/2011/10/31/kim-kardashian-divorce-kris-humphries-files/\" target=\"_blank\">reporting</a> that reality star Kim Kardashian filed for divorce from husband Kris Humphries after just 72 days of marriage.  \"Keeping Up With the Kardashians\" executive producer Ryan Seacrest <a href=\"http://twitter.com/#!/RyanSeacrest/status/131039186609385472\" target=\"_blank\">broke the news</a> on Twitter.\n\n\"Yes @kimkardashian is <a href=\"http://tmz.vo.llnwd.net/o28/newsdesk/tmz_documents/1031_kim.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">filing for divorce</a> this morning. I touched base with her, getting a statement in just a few mins.\"\n\nTMZ is suggesting the reason for divorce is because, \"the couple were at odds over where to finally settle down. Humphries was reportedly passionate about settling down in his native Minnesota, and Kardashian simply wasn\'t going for it.\n\n---------------------------------------------------------\n\nIf you\'ve followed this couple for any length of time, and I\'ve seen them on magazine stands and watched ten minutes of their show, which just happened to be the moment he wondered if he was making a mistake in marrying her, you\'ll know it was reality television.  I have no judgment for Kim or Kris.  They are free to do as they please.  I don\'t know if they staged the marriage or not.  It\'s possible that it was, and its possible that their love was real.\n\nBut there is an ironic twist to this whole thing. If it was real, than Kim has lost that love. And she\'s the one who really suffers, to the tune of a broken heart and 10 million dollars (the cost of the wedding). If it\'s not, than Kim has turned the idea of marriage into something that she\'s willing to make a mockery of.  I hope she got what she wanted.','Kim Kardashian Shocker','','inherit','open','open','','1601-autosave','','','2011-10-31 11:57:06','2011-10-31 18:57:06','',1601,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1601-autosave/',0,'revision','',0),(1610,1,'2011-10-31 11:55:58','2011-10-31 18:55:58','File this under, \"Shocker!\"\r\n\r\n---------------------------------------------------------\r\n\r\nTMZ, the famous celebrity stalker site is <a href=\"http://www.tmz.com/2011/10/31/kim-kardashian-divorce-kris-humphries-files/\" target=\"_blank\">reporting</a> that reality star Kim Kardashian filed for divorce from husband Kris Humphries after just 72 days of marriage.  \"Keeping Up With the Kardashians\" executive producer Ryan Seacrest <a href=\"http://twitter.com/#!/RyanSeacrest/status/131039186609385472\" target=\"_blank\">broke the news</a> on Twitter.\r\n\r\n\"Yes @kimkardashian is <a href=\"http://tmz.vo.llnwd.net/o28/newsdesk/tmz_documents/1031_kim.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">filing for divorce</a> this morning. I touched base with her, getting a statement in just a few mins.\"\r\n\r\nTMZ is suggesting the reason for divorce is because, \"the couple were at odds over where to finally settle down. Humphries was reportedly passionate about settling down in his native Minnesota, and Kardashian simply wasn\'t going for it.\r\n\r\n---------------------------------------------------------\r\n\r\nIf you\'ve followed this couple for any length of time, and I\'ve seen them on magazine stands and watched ten minutes of their show, which just happened to be the moment he wondered if he was making a mistake in marrying her, you\'ll know it was reality television.  I have no judgment for Kim or Kris.  They are free to do as they please.  I don\'t know if they staged the marriage or not.  It\'s possible that it was, and its possible that their love was real.\r\n\r\nBut there is an ironic twist to this whole thing. If it was real, than Kim has lost that love. And she\'s the one who really suffers, to the tune of a broken heart and 10 million dollars (the cost of the wedding). If it\'s not, than Kim has turned the idea of marriage into something that she\'s willing to make a mockery of.  I hope she got what she wanted.','Kim Kardashian Shocker','','inherit','open','open','','1601-revision-3','','','2011-10-31 11:55:58','2011-10-31 18:55:58','',1601,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1601-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(1611,1,'2011-10-31 11:59:09','2011-10-31 18:59:09','File this under, \"Shocker!\"\r\n\r\n---------------------------------------------------------\r\n\r\nTMZ, the famous celebrity stalker site is <a href=\"http://www.tmz.com/2011/10/31/kim-kardashian-divorce-kris-humphries-files/\" target=\"_blank\">reporting</a> that reality star Kim Kardashian filed for divorce from husband Kris Humphries after just 72 days of marriage.  \"Keeping Up With the Kardashians\" executive producer Ryan Seacrest <a href=\"http://twitter.com/#!/RyanSeacrest/status/131039186609385472\" target=\"_blank\">broke the news</a> on Twitter.\r\n\r\n\"Yes @kimkardashian is <a href=\"http://tmz.vo.llnwd.net/o28/newsdesk/tmz_documents/1031_kim.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">filing for divorce</a> this morning. I touched base with her, getting a statement in just a few mins.\"\r\n\r\nTMZ is suggesting the reason for divorce is because, \"the couple were at odds over where to finally settle down. Humphries was reportedly passionate about settling down in his native Minnesota, and Kardashian simply wasn\'t going for it.\r\n\r\n---------------------------------------------------------\r\n\r\nIf you\'ve followed this couple for any length of time, and I\'ve seen them on magazine stands and watched ten minutes of their show, which just happened to be the moment he wondered if he was making a mistake in marrying her, you\'ll know it was reality television.  I have no judgment for Kim or Kris.  They are free to do as they please.  I don\'t know if they staged the marriage or not.  It\'s possible that it was, and its possible that their love was real.\r\n\r\nBut there is an ironic twist to this whole thing. If it was real, than Kim has lost that love. And she\'s the one who really suffers, to the tune of a broken heart and 10 million dollars (the cost of the wedding). If it\'s not, than Kim has turned the idea of marriage into something that she\'s willing to make a mockery of.  I hope she got what she wanted.','Kim Kardashian Shocker','','inherit','open','open','','1601-revision-4','','','2011-10-31 11:59:09','2011-10-31 18:59:09','',1601,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1601-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(1612,30,'2011-10-31 12:08:59','2011-10-31 19:08:59','','Fire!','','inherit','open','open','','2562959725','','','2011-10-31 12:08:59','2011-10-31 19:08:59','',1530,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/2562959725.png',0,'attachment','image/png',0),(1613,30,'2011-10-31 12:10:24','2011-10-31 19:10:24','Heh. Heh heh heh. Heh heh.\n\nThe smartest show about the dumbest people is back.\n\nLast Thursday night I cozied up with a wine cooler, some nachos and turned on MTV for the first time in years to watch the return of Mike Judge\'s Beavis and Butt-head.\n\nThe episode was funny and my husband and I spent those 30 minutes texting our favorite lines back and forth. From the insightful social commentary to the just plain absurd, we laughed our way through the full half-hour. After a fourteen year hiatus, it was good to have these snickering, smart-mouthed idiots back.\n\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/2562959725.png\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1612\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/2562959725-300x253.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"253\" /></a>One of my favorite moments in the show was just two minutes in, when the screen turned to flame and Beavis began chanting \"fire!\" Those familiar with Beavis and Butt-head will remember that shortly after the show premiered back in 1993, there was an accident involving fire that was blamed on the show, resulting in the banishment of that phrase from further episodes. The glorification of destructive behavior on a satirical show for adults was held responsible for the actions of a five-year old child. This was around the same time of the infamous <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald\'s_Restaurants\">McDonald\'s coffee lawsuit</a>, and we began to hear a new buzz word emerge.\n\nPersonal responsibility.\n\nA good thing. Especially if we\'re talking about someone else.\n\nIf I\'m talking to my kids about keeping their room neat, personal responsibility is important. If it\'s my desk, I\'m just too busy writing to keep it neat. If I ask my husband to please put his socks in the dirty clothes hamper, I\'m just being a champion of personal responsibility. If I forget to launder said socks, it\'s because I\'m a liberated woman and I shouldn\'t have to be burdened with the task of making sure everyone else has clean socks. If I\'m driving and someone cuts me off, it\'s clearly a case of people needing to take more personal responsibility on the road. If I cut someone off, it\'s totally an accident because I was singing along to the song on my iPod and you can\'t blame me for Lady Gaga\'s ability to make me lose track of the road.\n\nIt can be difficult to apply personal responsibility personally. But that\'s where I need to focus my energy. I need to look at my life and see what things I need to change and make those changes. I need to have grace for the places where I don\'t live up to my own expectations, but I also need to be willing to examine my choices and make appropriate adjustments. To own up to my own mistakes, not point out how others are making mistakes.\n\nWhen I only apply personal responsibility to other people\'s lives, I end up sound like, well, a Butt-head.','Hey Butthead! It\'s about Personal Responsibility!','','inherit','open','open','','1530-revision-7','','','2011-10-31 12:10:24','2011-10-31 19:10:24','',1530,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1530-revision-7/',0,'revision','',0),(1614,30,'2011-10-31 12:10:28','2011-10-31 19:10:28','Heh. Heh heh heh. Heh heh.\r\n\r\nThe smartest show about the dumbest people is back.\r\n\r\nLast Thursday night I cozied up with a wine cooler, some nachos and turned on MTV for the first time in years to watch the return of Mike Judge\'s Beavis and Butt-head.\r\n\r\nThe episode was funny and my husband and I spent those 30 minutes texting our favorite lines back and forth. From the insightful social commentary to the just plain absurd, we laughed our way through the full half-hour. After a fourteen year hiatus, it was good to have these snickering, smart-mouthed idiots back.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/2562959725.png\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1612\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/2562959725-300x253.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"253\" /></a>One of my favorite moments in the show was just two minutes in, when the screen turned to flame and Beavis began chanting \"fire!\" Those familiar with Beavis and Butt-head will remember that shortly after the show premiered back in 1993, there was an accident involving fire that was blamed on the show, resulting in the banishment of that phrase from further episodes. The glorification of destructive behavior on a satirical show for adults was held responsible for the actions of a five-year old child. This was around the same time of the infamous <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liebeck_v._McDonald\'s_Restaurants\">McDonald\'s coffee lawsuit</a>, and we began to hear a new buzz word emerge.\r\n\r\nPersonal responsibility.\r\n\r\nA good thing. Especially if we\'re talking about someone else.\r\n\r\nIf I\'m talking to my kids about keeping their room neat, personal responsibility is important. If it\'s my desk, I\'m just too busy writing to keep it neat. If I ask my husband to please put his socks in the dirty clothes hamper, I\'m just being a champion of personal responsibility. If I forget to launder said socks, it\'s because I\'m a liberated woman and I shouldn\'t have to be burdened with the task of making sure everyone else has clean socks. If I\'m driving and someone cuts me off, it\'s clearly a case of people needing to take more personal responsibility on the road. If I cut someone off, it\'s totally an accident because I was singing along to the song on my iPod and you can\'t blame me for Lady Gaga\'s ability to make me lose track of the road.\r\n\r\nIt can be difficult to apply personal responsibility personally. But that\'s where I need to focus my energy. I need to look at my life and see what things I need to change and make those changes. I need to have grace for the places where I don\'t live up to my own expectations, but I also need to be willing to examine my choices and make appropriate adjustments. To own up to my own mistakes, not point out how others are making mistakes.\r\n\r\nWhen I only apply personal responsibility to other people\'s lives, I end up sound like, well, a Butt-head.','Hey Butthead! It\'s about Personal Responsibility!','','inherit','open','open','','1530-revision-8','','','2011-10-31 12:10:28','2011-10-31 19:10:28','',1530,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1530-revision-8/',0,'revision','',0),(1615,24,'2011-10-31 12:33:58','2011-10-31 19:33:58','<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Rick2.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1249\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Rick2-275x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"275\" height=\"300\" /></a>\n<div>Pain invited my ear, \"Listen to me, for I have knowledge of Truth hidden in what you fear.\"\n\nFear roared, \"Do not listen to pain, it will only lead you to more discomfort!\"\n\nShame whimpered, \"Remember everything that has happened to you, everyone despises you. This will not work.\"\n\nCourage invoked, \"All fear is an illusion, walk straight ahead!\"\n\nPride demanded, \"You have everything you need already, this is a waste of time.\"\n\nLove whispered, \"Go into this pain, it is safe. You will only discover more to love.\"\n\nEver notice how throughout a day your feelings  interpret? As you become aware of these feelings they usually lead you to thoughts. It appears that these thoughts are constructed as demands for answers to arise; such as why is this happening to me? Why did I not get noticed? These thoughts are ideas about yourself, others and how life is either giving or taking from you. Few question these thoughts, or face the idea\'s of being separate, alone and unwanted.\n\nWhat would life be like if we embraced all of it? What would we be like if we stopped avoiding pain and ran into what we have been taught to fear.\n\nWhy do we stop going to the gym? Because we no longer engage with the benefits the pain brings us. This benefit is strength.\nWhy do we fear the dentist? His cleaning, shots and drilling give our teeth longevity.\nWhy do we fear conflict or confrontation with people? Will it not expose the lies and assumptions we hide behind.\n\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/pain1.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1171\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/pain1-300x226.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"226\" /></a>SEARCHING IN THE WRONG PLACE\nA neighbour found Jon on his  hands and knees.\n“What are you searching for Jon?” “My key.”\nBoth men got on their knees to search.\nAfter a while the neighbor says, “Where did you lose it?”\n“At home.”\n“Good Lord! Then why are you searching here?”\n“Because it’s brighter here.”\n\nThe key to discovering Love is searching where you left it.\nUntil you have the courage and the an environment which allows you to fall apart, breakdown and let go, you will not experience the Life/Truth/Experience Jesus spoke from. Jesus was not a command but an invitation to give up the meaning we have given our lives. To loose it all for the Truth. The Truth that you have never been alone, you have never been unloved, rejected and hated. People always gave you their best, since they could only give you what they had.\n\nSearch for Love where you lost it. Where did you learn to stop loving yourself? Where did you learn that what you did was not good enough? Who told you that you were worthless, meaningless and annoying? Let anger come up, let grief stay for a while, let all the desires pushed down and forgotten come up and cry aloud.\n\nWe have worked hard seeking love in the places we were told it was hidden. Our careers, education, titles, accomplishments and activities were supposed to be the givers of meaning to our lives.\n\nAs an exercise slow down for a minute and look at these phrases below. Honestly observe which one seems to resonate with your heart:\n\nI work to have value vs. my value determines my work.\nI seek love/acceptance from others vs. I love and accept everything as it is now.\nI am only noticeable when what I do matters vs. I notice the effort and meaning the people around me are contributing.\nMy body/beauty are determined by comparing myself to others vs. I view the world from this body, not for it.\nI will get what I want my way vs. I will be kind to everyone and everything no matter what.\n\nThe next time you find yourself in a painful situation, instead of looking for a way out, face it, welcome it and allow yourself to feel it deeply. Give pains cry for attention your full focus. You might be surprised at the amazing discoveries that await you on this journey inward.</div>\n<strong>WHY BADSTUFF HAPPENS\n</strong><em>by Elsa Joy Bailey</em>\n\nIf it weren\'t for my beautiful sad mother\ndrinking a beaker of cold cyanide when I was three,\nI wouldn\'t have learned\nshe could both love and abandon me\nin one hot severe breath.\nNor would I have grown flowers in my heart\nfor people who urgently want to die.\n\nIf I had not broken my leg in a wild fall,\nI wouldn\'t have learned that stark physical pain\nis, to my great surprise, not permanent.\n\nIf I hadn\'t fallen in love with someone\nwho didn\'t love me,\nI would never have realized that unrequited love\nis still an ecstatic dance of the heart.\n\nIf I hadn\'t encountered praise and blame,\nsuccess and failure, heat and cold, darkness and light,\nblows and kisses, pain and bliss,\nnever would I have found out that through it all\nthere is a Spirit within me\nwhich remains unceasingly alive and loving.\n\nIf I hadn\'t received the gift of knowing you,\nI would not have come to realise\nthat our stories are different in details,\nbut never in essence.\n\nIf I hadn\'t lived through an era of hurting\nI would never have met the miracle\nof being fed with kindness by a friend.\n\nIf I hadn\'t discovered that you and I\nare two threads in the same vast cloth,\nI would have remained forever lost and imprisoned\nin my separate universe.\n\nIf I hadn\'t seen both good and evil\noccupying space in the same event,\nI would never have met the hand of humour\npainting over these polarities\nwith new clarity and light.\n\nIf I hadn\'t wept a thousand tears\nover the loss of a beloved,\nI would never have been driven inward\nto find the eternal companion,\nmy Soul.\n\nIf I had not witnessed cruelty\nand man\'s inhumanity to man,\nI would not have been forced to look\nbeneath the ugliness of fear,\nand encounter the common Heart\nthat lies beneath it.\n\nIf I hadn\'t encountered our myriad differences,\nI would never have discovered that you and I\nare not two,\nbut infinite sparks of love ever arising\nfrom one indestructible Flame.\n\nAnd if I hadn\'t felt abandoned and heartsick,\nI would never have heard the wordless whisper\nof an abiding, unseeable Friend,\nwho translated the feeling of alone\ninto All One.','Pain Demands an Answer','','inherit','open','open','','843-revision-15','','','2011-10-31 12:33:58','2011-10-31 19:33:58','',843,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/843-revision-15/',0,'revision','',0),(1616,24,'2011-10-31 12:35:43','2011-10-31 19:35:43','<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Rick2.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1249\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Rick2-275x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"275\" height=\"300\" /></a>\r\n<div>Pain invited my ear, \"Listen to me, for I have knowledge of Truth hidden in what you fear.\"\r\n\r\nFear roared, \"Do not listen to pain, it will only lead you to more discomfort!\"\r\n\r\nShame whimpered, \"Remember everything that has happened to you, everyone despises you. This will not work.\"\r\n\r\nCourage invoked, \"All fear is an illusion, walk straight ahead!\"\r\n\r\nPride demanded, \"You have everything you need already, this is a waste of time.\"\r\n\r\nLove whispered, \"Go into this pain, it is safe. You will only discover more to love.\"\r\n\r\nEver notice how throughout a day your feelings  interpret? As you become aware of these feelings they usually lead you to thoughts. It appears that these thoughts are constructed as demands for answers to arise; such as why is this happening to me? Why did I not get noticed? These thoughts are ideas about yourself, others and how life is either giving or taking from you. Few question these thoughts, or face the idea\'s of being separate, alone and unwanted.\r\n\r\nWhat would life be like if we embraced all of it? What would we be like if we stopped avoiding pain and ran into what we have been taught to fear.\r\n\r\nWhy do we stop going to the gym? Because we no longer engage with the benefits the pain brings us. This benefit is strength.\r\nWhy do we fear the dentist? His cleaning, shots and drilling give our teeth longevity.\r\nWhy do we fear conflict or confrontation with people? Will it not expose the lies and assumptions we hide behind.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/pain1.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1171\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/pain1-300x226.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"226\" /></a>SEARCHING IN THE WRONG PLACE\r\nA neighbour found Jon on his  hands and knees.\r\n“What are you searching for Jon?” “My key.”\r\nBoth men got on their knees to search.\r\nAfter a while the neighbor says, “Where did you lose it?”\r\n“At home.”\r\n“Good Lord! Then why are you searching here?”\r\n“Because it’s brighter here.”\r\n\r\nThe key to discovering Love is searching where you left it.\r\nUntil you have the courage and the an environment which allows you to fall apart, breakdown and let go, you will not experience the Life/Truth/Experience Jesus spoke from. Jesus was not a command but an invitation to give up the meaning we have given our lives. To loose it all for the Truth. The Truth that you have never been alone, you have never been unloved, rejected and hated. People always gave you their best, since they could only give you what they had.\r\n\r\nSearch for Love where you lost it. Where did you learn to stop loving yourself? Where did you learn that what you did was not good enough? Who told you that you were worthless, meaningless and annoying? Let anger come up, let grief stay for a while, let all the desires pushed down and forgotten come up and cry aloud.\r\n\r\nWe have worked hard seeking love in the places we were told it was hidden. Our careers, education, titles, accomplishments and activities were supposed to be the givers of meaning to our lives.\r\n\r\nAs an exercise slow down for a minute and look at these phrases below. Honestly observe which one seems to resonate with your heart:\r\n\r\nI work to have value vs. my value determines my work.\r\nI seek love/acceptance from others vs. I love and accept everything as it is now.\r\nI am only noticeable when what I do matters vs. I notice the effort and meaning the people around me are contributing.\r\nMy body/beauty are determined by comparing myself to others vs. I view the world from this body, not for it.\r\nI will get what I want my way vs. I will be kind to everyone and everything no matter what.\r\n\r\nThe next time you find yourself in a painful situation, instead of looking for a way out, face it, welcome it and allow yourself to feel it deeply. Give pains cry for attention your full focus. You might be surprised at the amazing discoveries that await you on this journey inward.</div>\r\n<strong>WHY BADSTUFF HAPPENS\r\n</strong><em>by Elsa Joy Bailey</em>\r\n\r\nIf it weren\'t for my beautiful sad mother\r\ndrinking a beaker of cold cyanide when I was three,\r\nI wouldn\'t have learned\r\nshe could both love and abandon me\r\nin one hot severe breath.\r\nNor would I have grown flowers in my heart\r\nfor people who urgently want to die.\r\n\r\nIf I had not broken my leg in a wild fall,\r\nI wouldn\'t have learned that stark physical pain\r\nis, to my great surprise, not permanent.\r\n\r\nIf I hadn\'t fallen in love with someone\r\nwho didn\'t love me,\r\nI would never have realized that unrequited love\r\nis still an ecstatic dance of the heart.\r\n\r\nIf I hadn\'t encountered praise and blame,\r\nsuccess and failure, heat and cold, darkness and light,\r\nblows and kisses, pain and bliss,\r\nnever would I have found out that through it all\r\nthere is a Spirit within me\r\nwhich remains unceasingly alive and loving.\r\n\r\nIf I hadn\'t received the gift of knowing you,\r\nI would not have come to realise\r\nthat our stories are different in details,\r\nbut never in essence.\r\n\r\nIf I hadn\'t lived through an era of hurting\r\nI would never have met the miracle\r\nof being fed with kindness by a friend.\r\n\r\nIf I hadn\'t discovered that you and I\r\nare two threads in the same vast cloth,\r\nI would have remained forever lost and imprisoned\r\nin my separate universe.\r\n\r\nIf I hadn\'t seen both good and evil\r\noccupying space in the same event,\r\nI would never have met the hand of humour\r\npainting over these polarities\r\nwith new clarity and light.\r\n\r\nIf I hadn\'t wept a thousand tears\r\nover the loss of a beloved,\r\nI would never have been driven inward\r\nto find the eternal companion,\r\nmy Soul.\r\n\r\nIf I had not witnessed cruelty\r\nand man\'s inhumanity to man,\r\nI would not have been forced to look\r\nbeneath the ugliness of fear,\r\nand encounter the common Heart\r\nthat lies beneath it.\r\n\r\nIf I hadn\'t encountered our myriad differences,\r\nI would never have discovered that you and I\r\nare not two,\r\nbut infinite sparks of love ever arising\r\nfrom one indestructible Flame.\r\n\r\nAnd if I hadn\'t felt abandoned and heartsick,\r\nI would never have heard the wordless whisper\r\nof an abiding, unseeable Friend,\r\nwho translated the feeling of alone\r\ninto All One.','Pain Demands an Answer','','inherit','open','open','','843-revision-16','','','2011-10-31 12:35:43','2011-10-31 19:35:43','',843,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/843-revision-16/',0,'revision','',0),(1617,24,'2011-10-31 12:38:54','2011-10-31 19:38:54','<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Rick2.jpg\"><img class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-1249\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Rick2-275x300.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"275\" height=\"300\" /></a>\n<div>Pain invited my ear, \"Listen to me, for I have knowledge of Truth hidden in what you fear.\"Fear roared, \"Do not listen to pain, it will only lead you to more discomfort!\"\n\nShame whimpered, \"Remember everything that has happened to you, everyone despises you. This will not work.\"\n\nCourage invoked, \"All fear is an illusion, walk straight ahead!\"\n\nPride demanded, \"You have everything you need already, this is a waste of time.\"\n\nLove whispered, \"Go into this pain, it is safe. You will only discover more to love.\"\n\nEver notice how throughout a day your feelings  interpret? As you become aware of these feelings they usually lead you to thoughts. It appears that these thoughts are constructed as demands for answers to arise; such as why is this happening to me? Why did I not get noticed? These thoughts are ideas about yourself, others and how life is either giving or taking from you. Few question these thoughts, or face the idea\'s of being separate, alone and unwanted.\n\n<strong>What would life be like if we embraced all of it? What would we be like if we stopped avoiding pain and ran into what we have been taught to fear.</strong>\n\nWhy do we stop going to the gym? Because we no longer engage with the benefits the pain brings us. This benefit is strength.\nWhy do we fear the dentist? His cleaning, shots and drilling give our teeth longevity.\nWhy do we fear conflict or confrontation with people? Will it not expose the lies and assumptions we hide behind.\n\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/pain1.jpg\"><img class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1171\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/pain1-300x226.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"226\" /></a><strong>SEARCHING IN THE WRONG PLACE</strong>\nA neighbour found Jon on his  hands and knees.\n“What are you searching for Jon?” “My key.”\nBoth men got on their knees to search.\nAfter a while the neighbor says, “Where did you lose it?”\n“At home.”\n“Good Lord! Then why are you searching here?”\n“Because it’s brighter here.”\n\n<strong>The key to discovering Love is searching where you left it</strong>.\nUntil you have the courage and the an environment which allows you to fall apart, breakdown and let go, you will not experience the Life/Truth/Experience Jesus spoke from. Jesus was not a command but an invitation to give up the meaning we have given our lives. To loose it all for the Truth. The Truth that you have never been alone, you have never been unloved, rejected and hated. People always gave you their best, since they could only give you what they had.\n\nSearch for Love where you lost it. Where did you learn to stop loving yourself? Where did you learn that what you did was not good enough? Who told you that you were worthless, meaningless and annoying? Let anger come up, let grief stay for a while, let all the desires pushed down and forgotten come up and cry aloud.\n\nWe have worked hard seeking love in the places we were told it was hidden. Our careers, education, titles, accomplishments and activities were supposed to be the givers of meaning to our lives.\n\nAs an exercise slow down for a minute and look at these phrases below. Honestly observe which one seems to resonate with your heart:\n<ul>\n	<li>I work to have value vs. my value determines my work.</li>\n	<li>I seek love/acceptance from others vs. I love and accept everything as it is now.</li>\n	<li>I am only noticeable when what I do matters vs. I notice the effort and meaning the people around me are contributing.</li>\n	<li>My body/beauty are determined by comparing myself to others vs. I view the world from this body, not for it.</li>\n	<li>I will get what I want my way vs. I will be kind to everyone and everything no matter what.</li>\n</ul>\nThe next time you find yourself in a painful situation, instead of looking for a way out, face it, welcome it and allow yourself to feel it deeply. Give pains cry for attention your full focus. You might be surprised at the amazing discoveries that await you on this journey inward.\n\n</div>\n<strong>WHY BADSTUFF HAPPENS\n</strong><em>by Elsa Joy Bailey</em>\n\nIf it weren\'t for my beautiful sad mother\ndrinking a beaker of cold cyanide when I was three,\nI wouldn\'t have learned\nshe could both love and abandon me\nin one hot severe breath.\nNor would I have grown flowers in my heart\nfor people who urgently want to die.\n\nIf I had not broken my leg in a wild fall,\nI wouldn\'t have learned that stark physical pain\nis, to my great surprise, not permanent.\n\nIf I hadn\'t fallen in love with someone\nwho didn\'t love me,\nI would never have realized that unrequited love\nis still an ecstatic dance of the heart.\n\nIf I hadn\'t encountered praise and blame,\nsuccess and failure, heat and cold, darkness and light,\nblows and kisses, pain and bliss,\nnever would I have found out that through it all\nthere is a Spirit within me\nwhich remains unceasingly alive and loving.\n\nIf I hadn\'t received the gift of knowing you,\nI would not have come to realise\nthat our stories are different in details,\nbut never in essence.\n\nIf I hadn\'t lived through an era of hurting\nI would never have met the miracle\nof being fed with kindness by a friend.\n\nIf I hadn\'t discovered that you and I\nare two threads in the same vast cloth,\nI would have remained forever lost and imprisoned\nin my separate universe.\n\nIf I hadn\'t seen both good and evil\noccupying space in the same event,\nI would never have met the hand of humour\npainting over these polarities\nwith new clarity and light.\n\nIf I hadn\'t wept a thousand tears\nover the loss of a beloved,\nI would never have been driven inward\nto find the eternal companion,\nmy Soul.\n\nIf I had not witnessed cruelty\nand man\'s inhumanity to man,\nI would not have been forced to look\nbeneath the ugliness of fear,\nand encounter the common Heart\nthat lies beneath it.\n\nIf I hadn\'t encountered our myriad differences,\nI would never have discovered that you and I\nare not two,\nbut infinite sparks of love ever arising\nfrom one indestructible Flame.\n\nAnd if I hadn\'t felt abandoned and heartsick,\nI would never have heard the wordless whisper\nof an abiding, unseeable Friend,\nwho translated the feeling of alone\ninto All One.','Pain Demands an Answer','','inherit','open','open','','843-revision-17','','','2011-10-31 12:38:54','2011-10-31 19:38:54','',843,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/843-revision-17/',0,'revision','',0),(1886,1,'2011-11-07 10:05:09','2011-11-07 18:05:09','Have you ever wondered what your life would look like if told through a story?  Imagine if you had to chronicle your life up to this moment, what would it look like?  How would it sound?  What would you choose to include?  What would you leave out and why?  What would you highlight, and why would that be interesting to others?  What people would stand out as characters in the story?  What would be the plot?  How would the story rise to a climax and then end with every aspect coming together to complete the wonderful tale that is your life, all the while keeping the attention of the reader?  Seems a bit overwhelming, doesn\'t it?  Maybe a little humbling?  After all, most of us don\'t live crazy, exciting James Bond kind of lives, right?  So why would someone want to read \"our\" story?  Good question.  But rather than attempting to solve the seemingly impossible, let me tell you a little about a book and someone who seems to have figured it out.  And with near perfection, I might add.\r\n\r\nIn <em>Run With Me: An Accidental Runner and the Power of Poo,</em> my friend and author, Jennifer Luitwieler takes all of the ingredients listed above, tells her story in a way that instantly captures your attention, and all the while creates a cohesive narrative that remains adjoined in seamless perfection.  And she does this in one of the most simple ways possible: she takes you on a <em>journey</em>.  The vehicle she uses for the journey is<em> running </em>and the fuel that gets you there is <em>poo</em>.  Yes, poo!  Dog poo to be more specific.  But you\'ll have to read the book to find out why dog poo is so significant to this book.\r\n\r\nAs Jennifer states in the beginning of the book, <em>Run With Me</em> is not only a book about running.  And it really isn\'t, although in a strange way, it is.  Again, you\'ll just have to read the book to understand the dichotomy.  In realty, running is only the cohesive gel that holds the story together.  It\'s the common thread that keeps it going and unites aspects of a life, just like yours and mine and packages them together.  Although running has become a significant part of her life, she uses her passion to link ordinarily life together in an enjoyable story.  That is what is so powerful about this book.  Jennifer creates a story telling model that reveals that each and every one of us has a \"story\", we just have to find the vehicle that carries it.  If you\'re runner, you\'ll get it.  If you\'re not a runner, you\'ll get it.\r\n\r\nOne of my favorite aspects of the book is it\'s simplicity and holistic flow.  In a society that compartmentalizes every aspect of our life, Jennifer is able to blend life realities into a refreshing story that is intertwined at almost every point.  Each theme that she emphasizes and each point she makes, remarkably connects to the entire essential theme and leaves no loose ends.  The story is organic and flows naturally without confusion.  You never get lost in the story or find yourself wondering where a particular point is going.  Whether she is describing her spiritual journey and frustrations with the Church, or the details of her first half marathon, she makes her point while making sure that you\'re connecting with her.\r\n\r\n<em>Run with me</em> is fun, refreshing and uplifting.  In fact, having somewhat of a melancholy personality, at times I found it too uplifting!  Through the story, Jennifer is like the friend that keep telling you jokes or tickling you until you smile.  You do your best to remain in self-pity, but you finally submit, realizing that your attempts are futile.  You WILL smile.  You WILL laugh.  You WILL end up having a better outlook on life. Curse you, Jennifer, and your motivationally themed memoir!\r\n\r\nIn all honesty, Jennifer leaves it up to you.  She has no agenda and no preconceived notions that she will change your perspective on life.  She simply shares her journey.  <em>Run With Me</em> leaves you feeling that you just had a great conversation with a friend, she shared some good stuff with you and hopes you took something from the story.  You get the impression that if she made you laugh, at least for that moment, she accomplished her goal.  Although, if you want to run with her, just a little farther, she\'s ready to go!\r\n\r\nRead <em>Run With Me</em> and run with Jennifer!\r\n\r\n&nbsp;','Run With Me by Jennifer Luitwieler: A Retrospective Review ','','inherit','open','open','','1869-revision-6','','','2011-11-07 10:05:09','2011-11-07 18:05:09','',1869,'http://provoketive.com/2011/11/07/1869-revision-6/',0,'revision','',0),(1619,17,'2011-11-01 08:00:32','2011-11-01 15:00:32','The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life is an ongoing adventure. It’s having a family.\r\n\r\nOf course the normal issues play into this: the time it takes to coordinate schedules, get my daughter ready to go with me to meetings, to squeeze in a meal and a nap somewhere, and still find some quality time with my wife; the need to plan around appointments, learn the ability to Frankenstein a crazy budget when unexpected car trouble finds us, and so on.\r\n\r\nAll of those are concerns, along with a million other new wrinkles in life when one starts a family of his or her own, that make life a rollercoaster ride indeed. But those are problems that, over time, you can get somewhat deft at handling. Each parent finds a way to manage time (some definitely better than others); schedules somehow get coordinated <em>just</em> enough.\r\n\r\nThere are other concerns, moments really, that cannot be mastered. They can only be weathered as each family attempts to find a way to deal with these moments.\r\n\r\nToday, in the bathroom, my daughter told me about God sending people to hell. We’ve never talked about it—she’s only three years old, you see, and frankly, it isn’t an issue of whether I think <em>she’s</em> ready to handle it or not. It’s that <em>I’m</em> not. I am unsettled, to say the least, on this particular issue. I asked her where she had learned that, and here’s where the wrinkle comes in that makes this a truly landmark family issue: “From mom.”\r\n\r\nI didn’t know what to say. You see, one reason that being a part of a family is so hard is because there are at least two different perspectives on nearly everything. And unlike other relationships, this isn’t one that simply agreeing to disagree is always a viable option. A large percentage of the time, those perspectives converge. But what happens when they don’t?\r\n\r\nWhen I, myself, was around three years old, my mother was going with another lady from our small community church to visit an elderly lady in our very small farm town in Idaho. As my mother talked with the lady, she told my mother that she was in a ‘mixed marriage.’ My mother was pretty amazed at this, because she thought it was pretty radical for a lady of her age, from her era, and from such a small, behind the times town in Idaho to be married to someone from another race. She made mention of this later to the other lady from the church as they were leaving. “Oh, no, she’s not talking about someone from another ethnicity. She’s married to someone from another religion.” On and off since then, I’ve wondered how families navigate these murky and sometimes tumultuous waters.\r\n\r\nLife on one’s own is already a tough balancing act. There are all of the questions about how to live out your faith in public, or if you even should. Who is safe to be open and honest with about doubts? Will people understand my own views that run counter to the seemingly communal beliefs held by my own religious congregation?\r\n\r\nBut when a family is in the mix, especially with children, things can get a little dicey. What if my theological views do not line up, in some areas, with my spouse? How do we have conversations about these things without making each other feel alienated or inferior/superior? And what do we hand on to our children? Is it okay to present two different views, or even all of the potential views, to our children? Or will this lead to unsettling confusion?\r\n\r\nI don’t have a lot of answers for this. All of this is new ground for me. Over time, my views and my wife’s views have indeed converged in a lot of areas, but as with any relationship, there are areas where we simply do not agree or, at the very least, one or both of us are not sure where we actually stand, because one or both of us might still be processing where we are. And of course, nothing is ever really a settled issue, as we both continue to learn and grow.\r\n\r\nUltimately, this is where I’ve found some hope. I know that I am never going to stand on anything like ‘solid ground,’ because I know that the very ground I stand on incorporates things handed on by others down to me as well as my own flawed reasoning. I can only be humbly open, to correction and adjustment, and always be willing to learn, adapt, and change. This, as a parent, is something of a legacy that I would like to pass on to my daughter and her sister that is on the way. I don’t want to raise parrots, but active-questioning-always-learning adults. This means modeling for my children that I value multiple perspectives and lines of reasoning. It means I have to be willing to have open, honest dialogue with my wife about the views we hold that are different from one another, and not hide from them or ignore them. And it also means I have to show the humility to be changed by my wife’s perspectives when (more often than not) she is right.\r\n\r\nWhat about you? What areas have you had disagreement in your family? If you are single or not in a family relationship such as I am, how do you deal with differences with those you are close to? If you have children, what kind of legacy do you want to pass on? Is it okay to offer many different views to a child, or do children benefit (initially) from more concrete explanations?','\"Mommy Said They\'re Going to Hell\"','','publish','open','open','','mommy-said-theyre-going-to-hell','','','2011-11-01 16:20:00','2011-11-01 23:20:00','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=1619',0,'post','',4),(2450,1,'2010-11-21 13:41:10','2010-11-21 21:41:10','this is a test post','Life Post','','publish','open','open','','life-post','','','2011-11-21 13:41:40','2011-11-21 21:41:40','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=2450',0,'post','',0),(1621,63,'2011-11-02 09:00:56','2011-11-02 16:00:56','<div>\r\n<div class=\"mceTemp mceIEcenter\">\r\n<div style=\"text-align: left;\"><dl><dt>In my faith journey I find my self again at the cross roads. I\'m beginning to see the reality of religions being stuck, bogged down in one big profound mysterious cross-road. And, what makes navigation difficult is the lack of obvious controlled signals for direction; there is heavy traffic;it is getting increasingly noisier as conflicting voices vie for control. This would be the reality of \"faith\" in the 21st century, the new millennium...the threshold of post-modernity is barely visible as we look back.</dt></dl></div>\r\n</div>\r\nMore, and more traffic is backing up here. It\'s like a clogged artery ready to burst, and in it, trying to push their way to the center are the fundamentalist voices of \"religious\" police man. Each trying to direct their commuters forward, or in new directions.\r\n\r\nWe have culture, technology, religion,the environment, and <strong>go</strong>(<strong>d</strong>)ogle..and humanity jammed into this profound mysterious cross-road. Yet, this is where faith finds it self these days. Even so-called atheists engage the noise of religious bickering suggesting there is no God, that we are more in control than some supreme being with his hand on a joy stick. This is where we\'re all living.\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"attachment_1633\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"241\" caption=\"(Moray Place, Dunedin, New Zealand – Artist unknown)\"]<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/jesus-versus-google1.jpeg\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-1633 \" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/jesus-versus-google1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"241\" height=\"322\" /></a>[/caption]\r\n\r\nI would estimate that most of the church hasn\'t even lifted their head, to look around. It\'s like the dazed driver with tunnel vision. They don\'t even acknowledge the intersection. They know everything has come to a stand still, and are content on inching their way forward. But if they really had a good look around they\'d see many have abandoned the vehicle.\r\n\r\nLook around what ever \"church\" vehicle you\'re in. How many passengers under 20-30 are in your vehicle? Then ask yourself why? I suspect most have got tired of waiting in the intersection. They\'ve opted to exit the vehicle and live \" in \" it.\r\n\r\nIs there a way forward?\r\n\r\nI think back into the gospel story, Jesus and the disciples on their way to Caesarea Philippi. Fascinating, that this too was a cross-road. An intersection of trade and commerce, of religion, of philosophy, and culture. And, mysteriously, it\'s at the cross-road Jesus asks, the provocative question, \" Who do people say I am?\"\r\n\r\nProphet, teacher...Messiah. There not really sure. They continue to follow...the \" way \" , could it be beyond  religion, more about \" living \" now?\r\n\r\nAgain, the gospel story. A roof top rendezvous with a pharisee, a religious scholar of the day. Nicodemus is profoundly aware of the intersection. And also he is captivated by imagination, and mystery of what, and who Jesus is. He sees Jesus as away forward, or what may be more true...is a way to live in the intersection. To live in the intersection, one needs to be born of the Spirit...reborn from above.\r\n<blockquote>So don\'t be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be \'born from above\'—out of this world, so to speak. You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it\'s headed next. That\'s the way it is with everyone \'born from above\' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God.\" ( Eugene Peterson\'s, The Message: John 3:7-8 ).</blockquote>\r\nThis is not the wind of any one religion. It\'s a wind that blows around, through, in the midst of all humanity...all creation. Humanity as \" one \" must hoist its collective sail and learn how to navigate together. Could it be, the wind is not controlled by christianity, Islam, Judaism or any \" religion \". Could it be about something beyond religion embracing all humanity?\r\n\r\nThe following quotes are from <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Cox\">Harvey Cox\'s</a> latest book, \" <a href=\"http://www.amazon.ca/Future-Faith-Harvey-Cox/dp/0061755524/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1263519037&amp;sr=1-1\">The Future of Faith</a>.\" He says...\r\n<blockquote><em>All signs suggest we are poised to enter a new Age of the Spirit and that the future will be a future of faith</em>” (p.224). “<em>Faith is resurgent, while dogma is dying. The spiritual, communal and justice-seeking dimensions of Christianity are now its leading edge as the twenty-first century hurdles forward, and this change is taking place along with similar reformations in other world religions</em>” (p.212).</blockquote>\r\nAgain, the gospel story. Jesus meeting a woman on the extreme fringe of her culture, religion and community. So embedded is her identity in that intersection, she is stuck with no way forward. Interesting the well is central to the story, and the metaphor of religion as being a well. She is convinced her well is the only way forward. There\'s history, family heritage, ritual...and culture. They have always drank from that well. Tradition can become deep ruts, in the intersection, where we just sit and spin our tires.\r\n\r\nBut Jesus convinces her that there is way to live in the intersection. It comes from drinking from another well, where it doesn\'t matter if you worship God on your mountain, or in your temple. What matters, is that you worship in Spirit, and in truth. That is the living, God is looking for, and...that is how you live in the intersection. It is a well beyond religion, it is a well that sustains all humanity, all creation.\r\n<blockquote>\"It\'s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That\'s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.\"( Eugene Peterson\'s;The Message:John 4:23-24 )</blockquote>\r\nHumanity must move beyond the exclusivity of \" religions \", and again find the spirit that embraces \" all \" humanity...only here will we find life that is hope-filled, and which will sustain all humanity. What has always caught my attention, and my heretic imagination is the profound mystery of the gospels. How the disciples lived out faith in the midst of the cross-road. No where do I find the disciples making a statement of faith...other than Jesus was somehow the way.  Jesus seemed totally unconcerned about reducing faith to doctrine or dogma. Jesus was outside, beyond their religions, beyond the narrative of the prevailing empire. Could the faith Jesus lived, spoke and imagined be far more about the Spirit, of living in that profound incredible divine mystery in the context of the cross-road?\r\n\r\nSo if religion is going to live, and survive in the cross-road...we will really need to think seriously about abandoning our vehicles. And I say that more in a sense of  its exclusive fundamentalism. To live in that cross-road, will in a sense, be to live, more of a profound simplicity of theological structures. In the intersection there is more of a profound sense of mystery. Religions will once again have to learn to engage mystery. It will have to ask the big big question, \" What is it, to live in the age of the Spirit?\"\r\n\r\nI think we will begin to find far more profound mysterious truth in the Jesus story, in the gospels. Especially when we can learn to live out the fullness of its theology and practice. I think with the help of the Spirit , not the Spirit of Christianity, or the spirit any one religion, but the spirit of the origin of all reality and existence, and of \" all \" humanity... we will live and grow in the cross-road. I really think, that is where the future of faith will be found.\r\n\r\n<em>Photo Credit: mortsan</em>\r\n\r\n</div>','Finding Life Beyond Religion...Is There A Way Forward','','publish','open','open','','finding-life-beyond-religion-is-there-a-way-forward','','','2011-11-01 16:59:10','2011-11-01 23:59:10','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=1621',0,'post','',0),(1622,63,'2011-10-31 13:30:00','2011-10-31 20:30:00','<div>\n\nIn my faith journey I find my self again at the cross roads. I\'m beginning to see the reality of religions being stuck, bogged down in one big profound mysterious cross-road. And, what makes navigation difficult is the lack of obvious controlled signals for direction; there is heavy traffic;it is getting increasingly noisier as conflicting voices vie for control. This would be the reality of \"faith\" in the 21st century, the new millennium...the threshold of post-modernity is barely visible as we look back.\n\nMore, and more traffic is backing up here. It\'s like a clogged artery ready to burst, and in it, trying to push their way to the center are the fundamentalist voices of \"religious\" police man. Each trying to direct their commuters forward, or in new directions.\n\nWe have culture, technology, religion,the environment, and <strong>go</strong>(<strong>d</strong>)ogle..and humanity jammed into this profound mysterious cross-road. Yet, this is where faith finds it self these days. Even so-called atheists engage the noise of religious bickering suggesting there is no God, that we are more in control than some supreme being with his hand on a joy stick. This is where we\'re all living .\n\nI would estimate that most of the church hasn\'t even lifted their head, to look around. It\'s like the dazed driver with tunnel vision. They don\'t even acknowledge the intersection. They know everything has come to a stand still, and are content on inching their way forward. But if they really had a good look around they\'d see many have abandoned the vehicle.\n\nLook around what ever \"church\" vehicle you\'re in. How many passengers under 20-30 are in your vehicle? Then ask yourself why? I suspect most have got tired of waiting in the intersection. They\'ve opted to exit the vehicle and live \" in \" it.\n\nIs there a way forward?\n\nI think back into the gospel story, Jesus and the disciples on their way to Caesarea Philippi. Fascinating, that this too was a cross-road. An intersection of trade and commerce, of religion, of philosophy, and culture. And, mysteriously, it\'s at the cross-road Jesus asks, the provocative question, \" Who do people say I am?\"\n\nProphet, teacher...Messiah. There not really sure. They continue to follow.\n\nAgain, the gospel story. A roof top rendezvous with a pharisee, a religious scholar of the day. Nicodemus is profoundly aware of the intersection. And also he is captivated by imagination, and mystery of what, and who Jesus is. He sees Jesus as away forward, or what may be more true...is a way to live in the intersection. To live in the intersection, one needs to be born of the Spirit...reborn from above.\n<blockquote>So don\'t be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be \'born from above\'—out of this world, so to speak. You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it\'s headed next. That\'s the way it is with everyone \'born from above\' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God.\" ( Eugene Peterson\'s, The Message: John 3:7-8 )</blockquote>\nThe following quotes are from <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Cox\">Harvey Cox\'s</a> latest book, \" <a href=\"http://www.amazon.ca/Future-Faith-Harvey-Cox/dp/0061755524/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1263519037&amp;sr=1-1\">The Future of Faith</a>.\" He says...\n<blockquote><em>All signs suggest we are poised to enter a new Age of the Spirit and that the future will be a future of faith</em>” (p.224). “<em>Faith is resurgent, while dogma is dying. The spiritual, communal and justice-seeking dimensions of Christianity are now its leading edge as the twenty-first century hurdles forward, and this change is taking place along with similar reformations in other world religions</em>” (p.212).</blockquote>\nAgain, the gospel story. Jesus meeting a woman on the extreme fringe of her culture, religion and community. So embedded is her identity in that intersection, she is stuck with no way forward. Interesting the well is central to the story, and the metaphor of religion as being a well. She is convinced her well is the only way forward. There\'s history, family heritage, ritual...and culture. They have always drank from that well. Tradition can be come deep ruts, in the intersection, where we just sit and spin our tires.\n\nBut Jesus convinces her that there is way to live in the intersection. It comes from drinking from another well, where it doesn\'t matter if you worship God on your mountain, or in your temple. What matters, is that you worship in Spirit, and in truth. That is the living, God is looking for, and...that is how you live in the intersection.\n<blockquote>\"It\'s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That\'s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.\"( Eugene Peterson\'s;The Message:John 4:23-24 )</blockquote>\nWhat has always caught my attention, and my heretic imagination is the profound mystery of the gospels. How the disciples lived out faith in the midst of the cross-road. No where do I find the disciples making a statement of faith. Jesus seemed totally unconcerned about reducing faith to doctrine or dogma. Faith in Jesus was far more about the Spirit, of living in that profound incredible divine mystery in the context of the cross-road.\n\nSo if the church is going to live, and survive in the cross-road...it will really need to think seriously about abandoning the vehicle. And I say that more in a sense of structure. To live in that cross road, will in a sense, be to live, more of a profound simplicity of theological structures. In the intersection there is more of a profound sense of mystery. The church will once again have to learn to engage mystery. It will have to ask the big big question, \" What is it, to live in the age of the Spirit?\"\n\nI think we will begin to find far more profound mysterious truth in the Jesus story, in the gospels. Especially when we can learn to live out the fullness of its theology and practice. I think with the help of the Spirit , not the Spirit of Christianity, or the spirit any one religion, but the spirit of the origin of all reality and existence, and of \" all \" humanity... we will live and grow in the cross road. I really think, that is where the future of faith will be found.\n\n</div>\n<div></div>','','','inherit','open','open','','1621-revision','','','2011-10-31 13:30:00','2011-10-31 20:30:00','',1621,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1621-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(1623,17,'2011-10-31 13:58:28','2011-10-31 20:58:28','','Stauffer Family','photo credit: Photography by Joncee May','inherit','open','open','','stauffer-family','','','2011-10-31 13:58:28','2011-10-31 20:58:28','',1619,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/Stauffer-Family.jpg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1624,17,'2011-10-31 12:55:16','2011-10-31 19:55:16','The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life is an ongoing adventure. It’s having a family.\n\nOf course the normal issues play into this: the time it takes to coordinate schedules, get my daughter ready to go with me to meetings, to squeeze in a meal and a nap somewhere, and still find some quality time with my wife; the need to plan around appointments, learn the ability to Frankenstein a crazy budget when unexpected car trouble finds us, and so on.\n\nAll of those are concerns, along with a million other new wrinkles in life when one starts a family of his or her own, that make life a rollercoaster ride indeed. But those are problems that, over time, you can get somewhat deft at handling. Each parent finds a way to manage time (some definitely better than others); schedules somehow get coordinated <em>just</em> enough.\n\nThere are other concerns, moments really, that cannot be mastered. They can only be weathered as each family attempts to find a way to deal with these moments.\n\nToday, in the bathroom, my daughter told me about God sending people to hell. We’ve never talked about it—she’s only three years old, you see, and frankly, it isn’t an issue of whether I think <em>she’s</em> ready to handle it or not. It’s that <em>I’m</em> not. I am unsettled, to say the least, on this particular issue. I asked her where she had learned that, and here’s where the wrinkle comes in that makes this a truly landmark family issue: “From mom.”\n\nI didn’t know what to say. You see, one reason that being a part of a family is so hard is because there are at least two different perspectives on nearly everything. And unlike other relationships, this isn’t one that simply agreeing to disagree is always a viable option. A large percentage of the time, those perspectives converge. But what happens when they don’t?\n\nWhen I myself was around three years old, my mother was going with another lady from our small community church to visit an elderly lady in our very small farm town in Idaho. As my mother talked with the lady, she told my mother that she was in a ‘mixed marriage.’ My mother was pretty amazed at this, because she thought it was pretty radical for a lady of her age, from her era, and from such a small, behind the times town in Idaho to be married to someone from another race. She made mention of this later to the other lady from the church as they were leaving. “Oh, no, she’s not talking about someone from another ethnicity. She’s married to someone from another religion.” On and off since then, I’ve wondered how families navigate these murky and sometimes tumultuous waters.\n\nLife on one’s own is already a tough balancing act. There are all of the questions about how to live out your faith in public, or if you even should. Who is safe to be open and honest with about doubts? Will people understand my own views that run counter to the seemingly communal beliefs held by my own religious congregation?\n\nBut when a family is in the mix, especially with children, things can get a little dicey. What if my theological views do not line up, in some areas, with my spouse? How do we have conversations about these things without making each other feel alienated or inferior/superior? And what do we hand on to our children? Is it okay to present two different views, or even all of the potential views, to our children? Or will this lead to unsettling confusion?\n\nI don’t have a lot of answers for this. All of this is new ground for me. Over time, my views and my wife’s views have indeed converged in a lot of areas, but as with any relationship, there are areas where we simply do not agree or, at the very least, one or both of us are not sure where we actually stand, because one or both of us might still be processing where we are. And of course, nothing is ever really a settled issue, as we both continue to learn and grow.\n\nUltimately, this is where I’ve found some hope. I know that I am never going to stand on anything like ‘solid ground,’ because I know that the very ground I stand on incorporates things handed on by others down to me as well as my own flawed reasoning. I can only be humbly open, to correction and adjustment, and always be willing to learn, adapt, and change. This, as a parent, is something of a legacy that I would like to pass on to my daughter and her sister that is on the way. I don’t want to raise parrots, but active-questioning-always-learning adults. This means modeling for my children that I value multiple perspectives and lines of reasoning. It means I have to be willing to have open, honest dialogue with my wife about the views we hold that are different from one another, and not hide from them or ignore them. And it also means I have to show the humility to be changed by my wife’s perspectives when (more often than not) she is right.\n\nWhat about you? What areas have you had disagreement in your family? If you are single or not in a family relationship such as I am, how do you deal with differences with those you are close to? If you have children, what kind of legacy do you want to pass on? Is it okay to offer many different views to a child, or do children benefit (initially) from more concrete explanations?','\"Mommy Said They\'re Going to Hell\"','','inherit','open','open','','1619-revision','','','2011-10-31 12:55:16','2011-10-31 19:55:16','',1619,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1619-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(1625,17,'2011-10-31 14:05:12','2011-10-31 21:05:12','The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life is an ongoing adventure. It’s having a family.\r\n\r\nOf course the normal issues play into this: the time it takes to coordinate schedules, get my daughter ready to go with me to meetings, to squeeze in a meal and a nap somewhere, and still find some quality time with my wife; the need to plan around appointments, learn the ability to Frankenstein a crazy budget when unexpected car trouble finds us, and so on.\r\n\r\nAll of those are concerns, along with a million other new wrinkles in life when one starts a family of his or her own, that make life a rollercoaster ride indeed. But those are problems that, over time, you can get somewhat deft at handling. Each parent finds a way to manage time (some definitely better than others); schedules somehow get coordinated <em>just</em> enough.\r\n\r\nThere are other concerns, moments really, that cannot be mastered. They can only be weathered as each family attempts to find a way to deal with these moments.\r\n\r\nToday, in the bathroom, my daughter told me about God sending people to hell. We’ve never talked about it—she’s only three years old, you see, and frankly, it isn’t an issue of whether I think <em>she’s</em> ready to handle it or not. It’s that <em>I’m</em> not. I am unsettled, to say the least, on this particular issue. I asked her where she had learned that, and here’s where the wrinkle comes in that makes this a truly landmark family issue: “From mom.”\r\n\r\nI didn’t know what to say. You see, one reason that being a part of a family is so hard is because there are at least two different perspectives on nearly everything. And unlike other relationships, this isn’t one that simply agreeing to disagree is always a viable option. A large percentage of the time, those perspectives converge. But what happens when they don’t?\r\n\r\nWhen I myself was around three years old, my mother was going with another lady from our small community church to visit an elderly lady in our very small farm town in Idaho. As my mother talked with the lady, she told my mother that she was in a ‘mixed marriage.’ My mother was pretty amazed at this, because she thought it was pretty radical for a lady of her age, from her era, and from such a small, behind the times town in Idaho to be married to someone from another race. She made mention of this later to the other lady from the church as they were leaving. “Oh, no, she’s not talking about someone from another ethnicity. She’s married to someone from another religion.” On and off since then, I’ve wondered how families navigate these murky and sometimes tumultuous waters.\r\n\r\nLife on one’s own is already a tough balancing act. There are all of the questions about how to live out your faith in public, or if you even should. Who is safe to be open and honest with about doubts? Will people understand my own views that run counter to the seemingly communal beliefs held by my own religious congregation?\r\n\r\nBut when a family is in the mix, especially with children, things can get a little dicey. What if my theological views do not line up, in some areas, with my spouse? How do we have conversations about these things without making each other feel alienated or inferior/superior? And what do we hand on to our children? Is it okay to present two different views, or even all of the potential views, to our children? Or will this lead to unsettling confusion?\r\n\r\nI don’t have a lot of answers for this. All of this is new ground for me. Over time, my views and my wife’s views have indeed converged in a lot of areas, but as with any relationship, there are areas where we simply do not agree or, at the very least, one or both of us are not sure where we actually stand, because one or both of us might still be processing where we are. And of course, nothing is ever really a settled issue, as we both continue to learn and grow.\r\n\r\nUltimately, this is where I’ve found some hope. I know that I am never going to stand on anything like ‘solid ground,’ because I know that the very ground I stand on incorporates things handed on by others down to me as well as my own flawed reasoning. I can only be humbly open, to correction and adjustment, and always be willing to learn, adapt, and change. This, as a parent, is something of a legacy that I would like to pass on to my daughter and her sister that is on the way. I don’t want to raise parrots, but active-questioning-always-learning adults. This means modeling for my children that I value multiple perspectives and lines of reasoning. It means I have to be willing to have open, honest dialogue with my wife about the views we hold that are different from one another, and not hide from them or ignore them. And it also means I have to show the humility to be changed by my wife’s perspectives when (more often than not) she is right.\r\n\r\nWhat about you? What areas have you had disagreement in your family? If you are single or not in a family relationship such as I am, how do you deal with differences with those you are close to? If you have children, what kind of legacy do you want to pass on? Is it okay to offer many different views to a child, or do children benefit (initially) from more concrete explanations?','\"Mommy Said They\'re Going to Hell\"','','inherit','open','open','','1619-revision-2','','','2011-10-31 14:05:12','2011-10-31 21:05:12','',1619,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1619-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(1626,1,'2011-11-01 16:19:36','2011-11-01 23:19:36','The hardest thing I’ve ever had to do in my life is an ongoing adventure. It’s having a family.\n\nOf course the normal issues play into this: the time it takes to coordinate schedules, get my daughter ready to go with me to meetings, to squeeze in a meal and a nap somewhere, and still find some quality time with my wife; the need to plan around appointments, learn the ability to Frankenstein a crazy budget when unexpected car trouble finds us, and so on.\n\nAll of those are concerns, along with a million other new wrinkles in life when one starts a family of his or her own, that make life a rollercoaster ride indeed. But those are problems that, over time, you can get somewhat deft at handling. Each parent finds a way to manage time (some definitely better than others); schedules somehow get coordinated <em>just</em> enough.\n\nThere are other concerns, moments really, that cannot be mastered. They can only be weathered as each family attempts to find a way to deal with these moments.\n\nToday, in the bathroom, my daughter told me about God sending people to hell. We’ve never talked about it—she’s only three years old, you see, and frankly, it isn’t an issue of whether I think <em>she’s</em> ready to handle it or not. It’s that <em>I’m</em> not. I am unsettled, to say the least, on this particular issue. I asked her where she had learned that, and here’s where the wrinkle comes in that makes this a truly landmark family issue: “From mom.”\n\nI didn’t know what to say. You see, one reason that being a part of a family is so hard is because there are at least two different perspectives on nearly everything. And unlike other relationships, this isn’t one that simply agreeing to disagree is always a viable option. A large percentage of the time, those perspectives converge. But what happens when they don’t?\n\nWhen I, myself, was around three years old, my mother was going with another lady from our small community church to visit an elderly lady in our very small farm town in Idaho. As my mother talked with the lady, she told my mother that she was in a ‘mixed marriage.’ My mother was pretty amazed at this, because she thought it was pretty radical for a lady of her age, from her era, and from such a small, behind the times town in Idaho to be married to someone from another race. She made mention of this later to the other lady from the church as they were leaving. “Oh, no, she’s not talking about someone from another ethnicity. She’s married to someone from another religion.” On and off since then, I’ve wondered how families navigate these murky and sometimes tumultuous waters.\n\nLife on one’s own is already a tough balancing act. There are all of the questions about how to live out your faith in public, or if you even should. Who is safe to be open and honest with about doubts? Will people understand my own views that run counter to the seemingly communal beliefs held by my own religious congregation?\n\nBut when a family is in the mix, especially with children, things can get a little dicey. What if my theological views do not line up, in some areas, with my spouse? How do we have conversations about these things without making each other feel alienated or inferior/superior? And what do we hand on to our children? Is it okay to present two different views, or even all of the potential views, to our children? Or will this lead to unsettling confusion?\n\nI don’t have a lot of answers for this. All of this is new ground for me. Over time, my views and my wife’s views have indeed converged in a lot of areas, but as with any relationship, there are areas where we simply do not agree or, at the very least, one or both of us are not sure where we actually stand, because one or both of us might still be processing where we are. And of course, nothing is ever really a settled issue, as we both continue to learn and grow.\n\nUltimately, this is where I’ve found some hope. I know that I am never going to stand on anything like ‘solid ground,’ because I know that the very ground I stand on incorporates things handed on by others down to me as well as my own flawed reasoning. I can only be humbly open, to correction and adjustment, and always be willing to learn, adapt, and change. This, as a parent, is something of a legacy that I would like to pass on to my daughter and her sister that is on the way. I don’t want to raise parrots, but active-questioning-always-learning adults. This means modeling for my children that I value multiple perspectives and lines of reasoning. It means I have to be willing to have open, honest dialogue with my wife about the views we hold that are different from one another, and not hide from them or ignore them. And it also means I have to show the humility to be changed by my wife’s perspectives when (more often than not) she is right.\n\nWhat about you? What areas have you had disagreement in your family? If you are single or not in a family relationship such as I am, how do you deal with differences with those you are close to? If you have children, what kind of legacy do you want to pass on? Is it okay to offer many different views to a child, or do children benefit (initially) from more concrete explanations?','\"Mommy Said They\'re Going to Hell\"','','inherit','open','open','','1619-autosave','','','2011-11-01 16:19:36','2011-11-01 23:19:36','',1619,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1619-autosave/',0,'revision','',0),(1628,64,'2011-10-31 11:51:20','2011-10-31 18:51:20','<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/me-and-emma.jpg\"><img class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1597\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/me-and-emma.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"439\" /></a>\r\n\r\nRecently I had coffee with a young, new mom and she told me that she quit her full-time job to be with her baby.  I listened to her talk glowingly about the bonding they were doing and how “right” this decision felt to her.  She said she would go back to work “one day” but “for now” she was doing exactly what she should.  Then, in the same breath, she admitted that she was not without some doubt, whispering that she couldn\'t think of <em>one</em> woman that she admired as a role model, who was a stay-at-home mother.  (Ouch, I tried not to take it personally because this was her story and not about me.)\r\n\r\nAs I listened, I was happy for her because <em>there is nothing like</em> that first year of a parent and child’s life together, spent connecting and bonding.  The yeasty baby smells on your clothes and being there for the first belly laughs.  As they grow a little older, hearing their first word.  Eventually seeing their first steps.  I know how meaningful they can be, because I missed many of those firsts.\r\n\r\nI was working fifty to sixty hour weeks, through three pregnancies in four years.  And, other than the six weeks allotted me, I was right back to work again, <em>by choice</em>.  Yes, I electric-pumped in the bathroom at work, in between meetings.  I double padded for the crazy moments a baby cries and I might leak or nearly exploded because a meeting went more than an hour over and I needed to pump! <em> I did all that and I don’t regret one minute of it, even </em>though I cannot remember my daughter’s first word or whether I saw her walk for the first time.  It may not be that I physically wasn’t there, but that I didn’t write it down.  I cannot remember much about those years, specifically, but I don’t mind because I loved working!\r\n\r\nWhen I quit my job I didn’t know an S.A.H.M. from an M.O.P.S. and certainly didn’t understand why <em>any</em>one with a viable, interesting career would quit their job for kids.  In fact I did not quit my job for any of the reasons many stay-at-home moms do and I never aspired to be one.  I was just fed up with certain aspects of my job and what I perceived as a glass ceiling.  <em>And I was plumb exhausted</em> – so exhausted that I had become irritable and dissatisfied with much of life.  My faith was suffering.  When I walked away from my career I just wanted to take a long, uninterrupted nap!\r\n\r\n<strong>You know what I wanted to say to my young friend at coffee?  Don’t do it!!!!  </strong>\r\n\r\nYes, the secret is out.  I became a reluctant SAHM in order to get away from my job <em>and to rest.</em>  Additionally, as we looked at the idea of one of us being with our kids, or a Nanny, my husband and I did the math and it just made sense.  Though I was making 40K+, by the time we paid our Nanny a living wage, paid the taxes, I purchased a wardrobe of work clothing and dry cleaned those clothes, ate the inevitable lattes and lunches out, and then ordering take out because both of us were too tired to cook, it added up close to zero dollars left over.   The other thing we considered was the fact that my husband’s job was more lucrative long-term than mine was at a non-profit.\r\n\r\nBut when I was thinking and praying about making a change, I should have thought through other career options perhaps even a shared job. I grew up in the organization that I worked for and though I had been quickly promoted up through the organization, I lacked the confidence to go out a find another job.  I thought quitting was my only option at the time.\r\n\r\nAnd now that my kids are older and I’m oh so ready to work outside the home, I’m running into the prejudice of having spent all this time, it’s been more than ten years, at home with kiddos.   Katie Read, a freelancer at Salon.com said recently:\r\n<div>\r\n<blockquote>\"Research shows that mothers earn <a href=\"http://www.asanet.org/press/motherhood_penalty.cfm\" target=\"_blank\">4 to 15 percent less</a> than non-mothers with comparable jobs and qualifications, that as job candidates, mothers are perceived as <a href=\"http://www.unc.edu/courses/2006spring/geog/203/001/motherhoodpenalty.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">less competent and committed</a> than non-mothers (fathers, in contrast, rate higher than men without kids). Heather Boushey, senior economist at the Center for American Progress, <a href=\"http://www.brainchildmag.com/essays/winter2010_read.asp\" target=\"_blank\">told me last year</a> that the outlook for an at-home mother returning to work in this economy “kind of makes my stomach drop a little bit.” I know the feeling.\"</blockquote>\r\n</div>\r\nI know the feeling too.  Unlike Read, who is a single divorced mother of two, I don’t<em> need</em> to work I just <em>want</em> to work.\r\n\r\nI recently interviewed for an entry level job, very part-time, that I could have done in my sleep.  I was hoping to ease myself into an organization that I liked and would like to work for long term.  I knew that I was doomed when I was asked to describe one specific project that I had managed beginning to end.  My job had been managing multiple people and projects, ideas, and nearly half a million dollar budget.  When I was told I was overqualified I was just shocked that they had the gall to say so.   An insider later told me, “You are a stallion.  What we really needed in that job is a pony.”  Horse metaphors aside, I was surprised because I had led and managed people, multiple departments, and had tons of responsibility.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>Why would anyone NOT want me?</em></strong><strong>  </strong>\r\n\r\nThe fact is that I have joined the ranks of other stay-at-home moms who are marginalize and looked down upon, just as I did when I was working outside of home.  I remember asking my boss who was a woman with incredulity and some derision, “Why would anyone want to be a stay-at-home Mom?”\r\n\r\n<strong>Indeed, why?</strong>\r\n\r\nWhat remains now is the knowledge of what I have learned by giving up my job and being at home.  It actually has little to do with my children, but what God wanted to <em>do in me</em>.\r\n\r\nMy identity had been too wrapped up in my work and when I left, everything fell apart.  It took more than a year, but eventually I dropped into a deep depression.  (I tell that story in <a title=\"Not Alone\" href=\"http://civitaspress.com/not-alone-stories-of-living-with-depression/\" target=\"_blank\">Not Alone: Stories of Living with Depression</a> and in various places on my blog.)  I needed to go through the experiences that I did.  Why?  Because I never knew how much I was beloved child <em>of</em> God no matter what I do <em>for</em> God, until I fell down into that pit.  (You must read the story to understand.)\r\n\r\n<strong>Being a stay-at-home mom it is an incredibly complicated personal decision. </strong>\r\n\r\nI do respect the difficult place women (so much more than men) are in. No one can make this choice for a woman or explain away her doubts, fears, aspirations, goals, need and desire for “accomplishments” or why, after making a choice to go back to work, a woman may regret her decision.  And I cannot make the decision for my young friend.  She will have to walk that path and sort it out herself.\r\n\r\nAt times I look back over the last decade of my life with huge regret but also with gratitude because I am still learning.  My experiences have opened me up to a new life.  Christ’s broken body for me is meaningful in a way that I never understood until my experience with depression and addiction.  And gratefully I can say, all of this drove me to my knees.\r\n\r\nI went from someone who felt she was competent, powerful, knowledgeable and puffed up with my own importance to a broken reed, hardly knowing up from down.   It is humbling to know that I am loved by my husband and adored by my children whom<a title=\"You Are Beloved\" href=\"https://logicandimagination.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/you-are-beloved/\" target=\"_blank\"> I also adore</a>.  And gratefully, I know what a gift this time at home has been to me.  Yes, I rested (not physically as anyone with babies, small children or middle school kids knows.)  <strong>But I rested in Yahweh and became more human.  </strong>As I consider what the future holds for me, admittedly I still want a productive and vigorous career.  However as I look back at the decade of being at home, I am glad for what I have learned.  And I would not trade it in for a more lucrative career.  (Okay some days I would, I honestly would!)\r\n\r\nYes, I was an accidental (and in some ways very unhappy) SAHM.  In the power of the cross I am being constantly renewed and I continue to hope!  I know that even beyond being the mother of four beautiful children, which is gratifying in and of itself, I have a contribution to make<em> still!</em>\r\n\r\n<strong>My advice, finally to my young friend?  Th<em>ere is no perfect plan.</em> You must trust while serving, not knowing the future.  You must believe that you have a contribution to make in your children\'s lives, in your career and in all the people God brings into your life. </strong>\r\n\r\nI hope and pray that I will <em>continue</em> to be grateful to be a child of God.  That simple truth is enough.\r\n\r\n(Most days.)','The Accidental Stay-at-Home Mom','','inherit','open','open','','1592-revision-4','','','2011-10-31 11:51:20','2011-10-31 18:51:20','',1592,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1592-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(1627,20,'2011-11-04 08:00:35','2011-11-04 15:00:35','I was just listening to an interview with <a href=\"http://dougpagitt.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Doug Pagitt</a> (whose book <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Preaching-Re-Imagined-Sermon-Communities-Faith/dp/0310263638\" target=\"_blank\">Preaching Re-imagined</a>, among others, was a big eye-opener for me when i first started doing youth ministry) on the <a href=\"http://homebrewedchristianity.com\" target=\"_blank\">Homebrewed Christianity podcast</a>, and he was talking about how the dominant narrative for Christendom prior to recent decades was one of moving from “being lost” to “being found.”  This is illustrated well by the extensive familiarly you find in the West with songs like “Amazing Grace”… “I once was blind but now I see.”  This idea was, and for many perhaps still is, the dominant thinking about religion in general and Christianity in particular.\r\n\r\nWhat Pagitt suggests is that in today\'s cultural climate, which he calls “the inventive age” (see his latest books with this phrase in the title <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Church-Inventive-Age-Christianity-Now/dp/1451400853/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1320097483&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>), people in North America are more likely to have conversions for “aha” to “uh-oh” than from “I don’t know” to “aha.”  Pagitt is not implying, however, that these people are all saying goodbye to their Christian faith.  He makes a distinction between the current context as a post-Christian era vs. post-Church era, arguing for the latter more so than the former.\r\n\r\nIn many ways, I find this to be true in my own experience.  It’s not a new story; I hear it frequently.  Like Pagitt, my faith background was significantly influenced by conservative evangelicalism.  For those who can relate, what’s funny about the way this story usually goes for people is that we started singing “Amazing Grace” so early, it\'s hard to remember a time when we were ever “lost.”  I didn\'t have<em> time</em> to get lost!  By my baptism at age ten, I don’t even know how many times I had already prayed for Jesus to come into my heart.  During high school and most of college, if I did any reading related to difficult theological questions, it was usually to seek out confirmation for what were already my solidified doctrinal presuppositions.\r\n\r\nAfter college and partly during seminary though - though not really <em>because</em> of seminary - I went through a challenging season of having many of my assumptions questioned . . . in some ways I may have even been too open-minded for my own good.  Nonetheless, I experienced what I guess could be called a second-conversion – a conversion to <em>not</em> knowing.  It was a conversion to a place of frustration with preconceived boundaries and filters.  I wouldn\'t have ever have called myself agnostic; nor would I fit into the popular category of “spiritual but not religious.”  But a fundamental paradigm shift definitely took place, and it has deeply affected my worldview. It wasn\'t just about the creeds of orthodoxy.  My transformation touched the political, economic and cultural.  Nor was it about left and right - while there may have been implication there.  The product is unfinished, and there’s a combined sense of both liberty and estrangement as a result.\r\n\r\nI still confess the faith of my upbringing, but its significance for me has evolved substantially.  I sometimes wonder how this fits into the rubric for discipleship.  Maybe I’m off course a bit? On the other hand, maybe I’ve learned how to be a little more honest and gracious toward myself and other people.  Most importantly perhaps, the journey doesn’t have to end at this point, and having conversation with others about it might be the doorway to the next chapter.\r\n\r\nDespite my resonance with Pagitt’s thesis, I do have some doubts about its soundness insofar as it’s superimposed on American culture writ large.  To what extent do others really relate to this, and to what extent is it more of a sub-cultural, Bible-belt phenomenon as a result of things like the information revolution, hipster Christian trends, and environmental changes in the burgeoning stages of young adulthood?  In addition, this narrative might also just nicely follow the typical stages of faith development - rules, doctrine, doubt, mature belief (or second naiveté) - but for some reason I\'m not sure.  Maybe I just want to feel more special than that :)  The <a href=\"http://www.emergentvillage.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Emergent Church movement</a> (with which Pagitt is associated) has sometimes been accused of being too ethnically and culturally insular, of being composed primarily of middle-class folks.  Whether this is fair, would it necessarily take away from the legitimacy of this testimony for a portion of North American Christians like myself?\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://peterrollins.net/\" target=\"_blank\">Peter Rollins </a>talks a lot about a <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fidelity-Betrayal-Towards-Church-Beyond/dp/1557255601\" target=\"_blank\">church “beyond belief”</a>.  We have our differences, but what Pete proposes seems to me to be striking a chord with a lot disenchanted would-be Jesus followers.  In order to do or be much of anything, a community certainly needs belief.  Going beyond belief doesn’t mean doing away with it or even changing it – though change might happen.  Moving beyond belief means changing <em>how</em> we believe.  Do we believe primarily with epistemology (knowledge) or ontology (being)? Do we lead with confession or action?  Do our beliefs first comfort or direct us?  Which kind of belief did Jesus embrace?  Maybe it\'s not always either/or.  Dark days require consolation.  But what does belief look like for privileged citizens in the land of plenty and power?  This is one of the main questions I hope to explore here, especially with regard to the responsibility that churches have in light of this belief.','From \"Aha\" To \"Uh-Oh,\" And Then What?','','publish','open','open','','from-aha-to-uh-oh-and-then-what','','','2011-11-04 19:16:04','2011-11-05 02:16:04','',0,'http://provoketive.com/?p=1627',0,'post','',4),(1629,0,'2011-10-31 14:21:10','2011-10-31 21:21:10','The Faith and Culture sections primarily, which collide with the 3 main topics of my own blog: Embodied Faith, Creative Life, and Millennial Culture\n<!--more-->\nAUTHOR: Stephanie S. Smith\nAUTHOR EMAIL: steph.duncan.ssd@gmail.com\nAUTHOR URL: http://www.stephindialogue.com\nSUBJECT: Provoketive Magazine Writing For Provoketive\nIP: 67.251.97.21\nArray\n(\n    [Name] =&gt; Stephanie S. Smith\n    [Email] =&gt; steph.duncan.ssd@gmail.com\n    [Existing Blog or Website] =&gt; www.stephindialogue.com\n    [List the topic you are interested writing about] =&gt; The Faith and Culture sections primarily, which collide with the 3 main topics of my own blog: Embodied Faith, Creative Life, and Millennial Culture\n    [Current or New WordPress Login Name (We\'ll send you a password.)] =&gt; shequotes\n)\n','Stephanie S. Smith - 2011-10-31 14:21:10','','publish','open','open','','a0ab531c3d355eb1987412c95bcac889','','','2011-10-31 14:21:10','2011-10-31 21:21:10','',358,'http://provoketive.com/?post_type=feedback&p=1629',0,'feedback','',0),(1630,64,'2011-10-31 14:20:51','2011-10-31 21:20:51','<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/me-and-emma.jpg\"><img class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1597\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/me-and-emma.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"439\" /></a>\r\n\r\nRecently I had coffee with a young, new mom.  She told me that she quit her full-time job to be with her baby.  I listened to her talk glowingly about the bonding they were doing and how “right” this decision felt to her.  She said she would go back to work “one day” but “for now” she was doing exactly what she should.  Then, in the same breath, she admitted that she was not without<em> some</em> doubt, whispering sheepishly that she couldn\'t think of <em>one</em> woman that she admired as a role model, who was a stay-at-home mother.  (Ouch, I tried not to take it personally because this was her story and not about me.)\r\n\r\nAs I listened, I was happy for her because <em>there is nothing like</em> that first year of a parent and child’s life together, spent connecting and bonding.  The yeasty baby smells on your clothes and being present for the first belly laughs.  As they grow a little older, hearing their first word.  Eventually seeing their first steps.\r\n\r\n<strong>I know how meaningful they can be, because I missed many of those firsts.</strong>\r\n\r\nI was working fifty to sixty hour weeks, through three pregnancies in four years, when my kids were born.  And, other than the six weeks allotted me, I was right back to work again, <em>by choice</em>.  Yes, I electric-pumped in the bathroom at work, in between meetings.  I double padded for the crazy moments a baby cries and I might leak or nearly exploded, because a meeting went over and I needed to pump! <em> I did all that and I don’t regret one minute of it, </em>even though I cannot remember my daughter’s first word or whether I saw her first steps.  If I didn’t write it down, I cannot remember much about those years but I don’t mind because I loved working!\r\n\r\nWhen I quit my job I didn’t know an S.A.H.M. from an M.O.P.S. and certainly didn’t understand why <em>any</em>one with a viable, interesting career would quit their job for kids.  In fact I did not quit my job for any of the reasons many stay-at-home moms do and I never aspired to be one.  I was just fed up with certain aspects of my job and what I perceived as a glass ceiling.  <em>And I was plumb exhausted</em> – so exhausted that I had become irritable and dissatisfied with much of life.  My faith was suffering.  When I walked away from my career I just wanted to take a long, uninterrupted nap!\r\n\r\n<strong>You know what I wanted to say to my young friend at coffee?  Don’t do it!!!!  </strong>\r\n\r\nYes, the secret is out.  I became a reluctant SAHM in order to get away from my job <em>and to rest.</em>  Additionally, as we looked at the idea of one of us being with our kids, or a Nanny, my husband and I did the math and it just made sense.  Though I was making 40K+, by the time we paid our Nanny a living wage, paid the taxes, I purchased a wardrobe of work clothing and dry cleaned those clothes, ate the inevitable lattes and lunches out, and then ordering take out because both of us were too tired to cook, it added up close to zero dollars left over.   The other thing we considered was the fact that my husband’s job was more lucrative long-term than mine was at a non-profit.\r\n\r\nBut when I was thinking and praying about making a change, I should have thought through other career options perhaps even a shared job. I grew up in the organization that I worked for and though I had been quickly promoted up through the organization, I lacked the confidence to go out a find another job.  I thought quitting was my only option at the time.\r\n\r\nAnd now that my kids are older and I’m oh so ready to work outside the home, I’m running into the prejudice of having spent all this time, it’s been more than ten years, at home with kiddos.   Katie Read, a freelancer at Salon.com said recently:\r\n<div>\r\n<blockquote>\"Research shows that mothers earn <a href=\"http://www.asanet.org/press/motherhood_penalty.cfm\" target=\"_blank\">4 to 15 percent less</a> than non-mothers with comparable jobs and qualifications, that as job candidates, mothers are perceived as <a href=\"http://www.unc.edu/courses/2006spring/geog/203/001/motherhoodpenalty.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">less competent and committed</a> than non-mothers (fathers, in contrast, rate higher than men without kids). Heather Boushey, senior economist at the Center for American Progress, <a href=\"http://www.brainchildmag.com/essays/winter2010_read.asp\" target=\"_blank\">told me last year</a> that the outlook for an at-home mother returning to work in this economy “kind of makes my stomach drop a little bit.” I know the feeling.\"</blockquote>\r\n</div>\r\nI know the feeling too.  Unlike Read, who is a single divorced mother of two, I don’t<em> need</em> to work I just <em>want</em> to work.\r\n\r\nI recently interviewed for an entry level job, very part-time, that I could have done in my sleep.  I was hoping to ease myself into an organization that I liked and would like to work for long term.  I knew that I was doomed when I was asked to describe one specific project that I had managed beginning to end.  My job had been managing multiple people and projects, ideas, and nearly half a million dollar budget.  When I was told I was overqualified I was just shocked that they had the gall to say so.   An insider later told me, “You are a stallion.  What we really needed in that job is a pony.”  Horse metaphors aside, I was surprised because I had led and managed people, multiple departments, and had tons of responsibility.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>Why would anyone NOT want me?</em></strong><strong>  </strong>\r\n\r\nThe fact is that I have joined the ranks of other stay-at-home moms who are marginalize and looked down upon, just as I did when I was working outside of home.  I remember asking my boss who was a woman with incredulity and some derision, “Why would anyone want to be a stay-at-home Mom?”\r\n\r\n<strong>Indeed, why?</strong>\r\n\r\nWhat remains now is the knowledge of what I have learned by giving up my job and being at home.  It actually has little to do with my children, but what God wanted to <em>do in me</em>.\r\n\r\nMy identity had been too wrapped up in my work and when I left, everything fell apart.  It took more than a year, but eventually I dropped into a deep depression.  (I tell that story in <a title=\"Not Alone\" href=\"http://civitaspress.com/not-alone-stories-of-living-with-depression/\" target=\"_blank\">Not Alone: Stories of Living with Depression</a> and in various places on my blog.)  I needed to go through the experiences that I did.  Why?  Because I never knew how much I was beloved child <em>of</em> God no matter what I do <em>for</em> God, until I fell down into that pit.  (You must read the story to understand.)\r\n\r\n<strong>Being a stay-at-home mom it is an incredibly complicated personal decision. </strong>\r\n\r\nI do respect the difficult place women (so much more than men) are in. No one can make this choice for a woman or explain away her doubts, fears, aspirations, goals, need and desire for “accomplishments” or why, after making a choice to go back to work, a woman may regret her decision.  And I cannot make the decision for my young friend.  She will have to walk that path and sort it out herself.\r\n\r\nAt times I look back over the last decade of my life with huge regret but also with gratitude because I am still learning.  My experiences have opened me up to a new life.  Christ’s broken body for me is meaningful in a way that I never understood until my experience with depression and addiction.  And gratefully I can say, all of this drove me to my knees.\r\n\r\nI went from someone who felt she was competent, powerful, knowledgeable and puffed up with my own importance to a broken reed, hardly knowing up from down.   It is humbling to know that I am loved by my husband and adored by my children whom<a title=\"You Are Beloved\" href=\"https://logicandimagination.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/you-are-beloved/\" target=\"_blank\"> I also adore</a>.  And gratefully, I know what a gift this time at home has been to me.  Yes, I rested (not physically as anyone with babies, small children or middle school kids knows.)  <strong>But I rested in Yahweh and became more human.  </strong>As I consider what the future holds for me, admittedly I still want a productive and vigorous career.  However as I look back at the decade of being at home, I am glad for what I have learned.  And I would not trade it in for a more lucrative career.  (Okay some days I would, I honestly would!)\r\n\r\nYes, I was an accidental (and in some ways very unhappy) SAHM.  In the power of the cross I am being constantly renewed and I continue to hope!  I know that even beyond being the mother of four beautiful children, which is gratifying in and of itself, I have a contribution to make<em> still!</em>\r\n\r\n<strong>My advice, finally to my young friend?  Th<em>ere is no perfect plan.</em> You must trust while serving, not knowing the future.  You must believe that you have a contribution to make in your children\'s lives, in your career and in all the people God brings into your life. </strong>\r\n\r\nI hope and pray that I will <em>continue</em> to be grateful to be a child of God.  That simple truth is enough.\r\n\r\n(Most days.)','The Accidental Stay-at-Home Mom','','inherit','open','open','','1592-revision-5','','','2011-10-31 14:20:51','2011-10-31 21:20:51','',1592,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1592-revision-5/',0,'revision','',0),(1631,20,'2011-10-31 14:42:55','2011-10-31 21:42:55','I was just listening to an interview with <a href=\"http://dougpagitt.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Doug Pagitt</a> on the <a href=\"http://homebrewedchristianity.com\" target=\"_blank\">Homebrewed Christianity podcast</a>, and he was talking about how the dominant narrative for Christendom prior to recent decades was one of moving from “being lost” to “being found.”  This is illustrated well by the extensive familiarly you can find in the United States with songs like “Amazing Grace”… “I once was blind by now I see.”  This idea was, and for many perhaps still is the dominant thinking about religion in general and Christianity in particular.  What Pagitt suggests is that in today cultural climate, which he calls “the inventive age” (see his latest books with this phrase in the title here), people in North America are more often having conversions for “aha” to “uh-oh” than from “I don’t know” to “aha.”  Pagitt is not saying, however, that these people are necessarily saying goodbye to their Christian faith.  He makes a distinction between today being a post-Christian era vs. post-Church era, arguing that the latter is more so the case than the former.\n\nIn many ways, I find this to be true in my own experience.  It’s not a new story; I hear it frequently.  Like Pagitt, my faith background is largely that of conservative evangelicalism.  For those who can relate, what’s funny about the way this story usually goes for people is that we started singing “Amazing Grace” so early that it\'s hard to remember a time when we were ever “lost.”  By my baptism at age ten, I don’t even know how many times I had already prayed for Jesus to come into my heart.  During high school and most of college, if I did any reading related to difficult theological questions, it was usually to seek out confirmation for what were already my solidified doctrinal presuppositions.  After college and partly during seminary though, I went through a challenging season of having many of my assumptions questioned . . . in some ways I may have been too open-minded for my own good.  Nonetheless, I experienced what I guess could be called a second-conversion – a conversion to <em>not</em> knowing.  I don’t think I would ever have called myself agnostic; nor would I fit into the popular category of “spiritual but not religious.”  But a fundamental paradigm shift definitely took place, and it has deeply affected my worldview.  The product is unfinished, and there’s a combined sense of both liberty and estrangement as a result.  In some respects I still confess the faith of my upbringing, but its significance for me has evolved substantially.  I sometimes wonder how this fits into the rubric for discipleship.  Maybe I’m off course a bit? Maybe I’ve learned how to be a little more honest and gracious toward myself and other people.  Most importantly perhaps, the journey doesn’t have to end at this point, and having conversation with others about it might be the doorway to the next chapter.\n\nDespite my resonance with Pagitt’s thesis, I do have some doubts about its soundness insofar as it’s superimposed on American culture writ large.  To what extent do others really relate to this, and to what extent is it more of a sub-cultural, Bible-belt phenomenon as a result of things like the information revolution, hipster Christian trends, and environmental changes in the bourgeoning stages of young adulthood?  The Emergent Church movement has sometimes been accused of being too ethnically and culturally insular, of being composed primarily of middle-class citizens.  Whether this is fair, would it necessarily take away from the legitimacy of this testimony for many North American Christians like myself?\n\n<a href=\"http://peterrollins.net/\" target=\"_blank\">Peter Rollins </a>talks a lot about a <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fidelity-Betrayal-Towards-Church-Beyond/dp/1557255601\" target=\"_blank\">church “beyond belief”</a>.  We have our differences, but what Pete proposes seems to me to be striking a chord with a lot disenchanted would-be Jesus followers.  In order to do or be much of anything, a community certainly needs belief.  Going beyond belief doesn’t mean doing away with it or even changing it – though change might happen.  Moving beyond belief means changing <em>how</em> we believe.  Do we believe primarily with epistemology (knowledge) or ontology (being)? Do we lead with confession or action?  Do our beliefs first comfort or direct us?  Which kind of belief did Jesus embrace?  Maybe it\'s not always either/or.  Dark days require consolation.  But what does belief look like for citizens in the land of plenty and power?','From \"aha\" to \"uh-oh,\" and then what?','','inherit','open','open','','1627-revision','','','2011-10-31 14:42:55','2011-10-31 21:42:55','',1627,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1627-revision/',0,'revision','',0),(1632,63,'2011-10-31 14:48:31','2011-10-31 21:48:31','','looking for answers','(Moray Place, Dunedin, New Zealand – Artist unknown)','inherit','open','open','','jesus-versus-google','','','2011-10-31 14:48:31','2011-10-31 21:48:31','',1621,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/jesus-versus-google.jpeg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1633,63,'2011-10-31 14:54:21','2011-10-31 21:54:21','','jesus-versus-google','','inherit','open','open','','jesus-versus-google-2','','','2011-10-31 14:54:21','2011-10-31 21:54:21','',1621,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/jesus-versus-google1.jpeg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1634,20,'2011-10-31 14:54:20','2011-10-31 21:54:20','I was just listening to an interview with <a href=\"http://dougpagitt.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Doug Pagitt</a> on the <a href=\"http://homebrewedchristianity.com\" target=\"_blank\">Homebrewed Christianity podcast</a>, and he was talking about how the dominant narrative for Christendom prior to recent decades was one of moving from “being lost” to “being found.”  This is illustrated well by the extensive familiarly you find in the West with songs like “Amazing Grace”… “I once was blind by now I see.”  This idea was, and for many perhaps still is, the dominant thinking about religion in general and Christianity in particular.  What Pagitt suggests is that in today\'s cultural climate, which he calls “the inventive age” (see his latest books with this phrase in the title <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Church-Inventive-Age-Christianity-Now/dp/1451400853/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1320097483&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>), people in North America are more likely to have conversions for “aha” to “uh-oh” than from “I don’t know” to “aha.”  Pagitt is not saying, however, that these people are necessarily saying goodbye to their Christian faith.  He makes a distinction between the current context as a post-Christian era vs. post-Church era, arguing for the latter more so than the former.\n\nIn many ways, I find this to be true in my own experience.  It’s not a new story; I hear it frequently.  Like Pagitt, my faith background is largely that of conservative evangelicalism.  For those who can relate, what’s funny about the way this story usually goes for people is that we started singing “Amazing Grace” so early, it\'s hard to remember a time when we were ever “lost.”  I didn\'t have time to get lost.  By my baptism at age ten, I don’t even know how many times I had already prayed for Jesus to come into my heart.  During high school and most of college, if I did any reading related to difficult theological questions, it was usually to seek out confirmation for what were already my solidified doctrinal presuppositions.  After college and partly during seminary though, I went through a challenging season of having many of my assumptions questioned . . . in some ways I may have been too open-minded for my own good.  Nonetheless, I experienced what I guess could be called a second-conversion – a conversion to <em>not</em> knowing.  It\'s a conversion to a place of frustration with preconceived boundaries and filters.  I don’t think I would ever have called myself agnostic; nor would I fit into the popular category of “spiritual but not religious.”  But a fundamental paradigm shift definitely took place, and it has deeply affected my worldview.  It wasn\'t just about the creeds of orthodox.  My transformation touched the political, economic and cultural.  Nor was it about left and right - while there may have been implication there.  The product is unfinished, and there’s a combined sense of both liberty and estrangement as a result.  In some respects I still confess the faith of my upbringing, but its significance for me has evolved substantially.  I sometimes wonder how this fits into the rubric for discipleship.  Maybe I’m off course a bit? Maybe I’ve learned how to be a little more honest and gracious toward myself and other people.  Most importantly perhaps, the journey doesn’t have to end at this point, and having conversation with others about it might be the doorway to the next chapter.\n\nDespite my resonance with Pagitt’s thesis, I do have some doubts about its soundness insofar as it’s superimposed on American culture writ large.  To what extent do others really relate to this, and to what extent is it more of a sub-cultural, Bible-belt phenomenon as a result of things like the information revolution, hipster Christian trends, and environmental changes in the bourgeoning stages of young adulthood?  The Emergent Church movement has sometimes been accused of being too ethnically and culturally insular, of being composed primarily of middle-class citizens.  Whether this is fair, would it necessarily take away from the legitimacy of this testimony for many North American Christians like myself?\n\n<a href=\"http://peterrollins.net/\" target=\"_blank\">Peter Rollins </a>talks a lot about a <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fidelity-Betrayal-Towards-Church-Beyond/dp/1557255601\" target=\"_blank\">church “beyond belief”</a>.  We have our differences, but what Pete proposes seems to me to be striking a chord with a lot disenchanted would-be Jesus followers.  In order to do or be much of anything, a community certainly needs belief.  Going beyond belief doesn’t mean doing away with it or even changing it – though change might happen.  Moving beyond belief means changing <em>how</em> we believe.  Do we believe primarily with epistemology (knowledge) or ontology (being)? Do we lead with confession or action?  Do our beliefs first comfort or direct us?  Which kind of belief did Jesus embrace?  Maybe it\'s not always either/or.  Dark days require consolation.  But what does belief look like for citizens in the land of plenty and power?','From \"aha\" to \"uh-oh,\" and then what?','','inherit','open','open','','1627-revision-2','','','2011-10-31 14:54:20','2011-10-31 21:54:20','',1627,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1627-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(1635,20,'2011-10-31 14:57:09','2011-10-31 21:57:09','I was just listening to an interview with <a href=\"http://dougpagitt.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Doug Pagitt</a> on the <a href=\"http://homebrewedchristianity.com\" target=\"_blank\">Homebrewed Christianity podcast</a>, and he was talking about how the dominant narrative for Christendom prior to recent decades was one of moving from “being lost” to “being found.”  This is illustrated well by the extensive familiarly you find in the West with songs like “Amazing Grace”… “I once was blind by now I see.”  This idea was, and for many perhaps still is, the dominant thinking about religion in general and Christianity in particular.  What Pagitt suggests is that in today\'s cultural climate, which he calls “the inventive age” (see his latest books with this phrase in the title <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Church-Inventive-Age-Christianity-Now/dp/1451400853/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1320097483&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>), people in North America are more likely to have conversions for “aha” to “uh-oh” than from “I don’t know” to “aha.”  Pagitt is not saying, however, that these people are necessarily saying goodbye to their Christian faith.  He makes a distinction between the current context as a post-Christian era vs. post-Church era, arguing for the latter more so than the former.\n\nIn many ways, I find this to be true in my own experience.  It’s not a new story; I hear it frequently.  Like Pagitt, my faith background is largely that of conservative evangelicalism.  For those who can relate, what’s funny about the way this story usually goes for people is that we started singing “Amazing Grace” so early, it\'s hard to remember a time when we were ever “lost.”  I didn\'t have time to get lost.  By my baptism at age ten, I don’t even know how many times I had already prayed for Jesus to come into my heart.  During high school and most of college, if I did any reading related to difficult theological questions, it was usually to seek out confirmation for what were already my solidified doctrinal presuppositions.  After college and partly during seminary though, I went through a challenging season of having many of my assumptions questioned . . . in some ways I may have been too open-minded for my own good.  Nonetheless, I experienced what I guess could be called a second-conversion – a conversion to <em>not</em> knowing.  It\'s a conversion to a place of frustration with preconceived boundaries and filters.  I don’t think I would ever have called myself agnostic; nor would I fit into the popular category of “spiritual but not religious.”  But a fundamental paradigm shift definitely took place, and it has deeply affected my worldview.  It wasn\'t just about the creeds of orthodox.  My transformation touched the political, economic and cultural.  Nor was it about left and right - while there may have been implication there.  The product is unfinished, and there’s a combined sense of both liberty and estrangement as a result.  In some respects I still confess the faith of my upbringing, but its significance for me has evolved substantially.  I sometimes wonder how this fits into the rubric for discipleship.  Maybe I’m off course a bit? Maybe I’ve learned how to be a little more honest and gracious toward myself and other people.  Most importantly perhaps, the journey doesn’t have to end at this point, and having conversation with others about it might be the doorway to the next chapter.\n\nDespite my resonance with Pagitt’s thesis, I do have some doubts about its soundness insofar as it’s superimposed on American culture writ large.  To what extent do others really relate to this, and to what extent is it more of a sub-cultural, Bible-belt phenomenon as a result of things like the information revolution, hipster Christian trends, and environmental changes in the bourgeoning stages of young adulthood?  The <a href=\"http://www.emergentvillage.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Emergent Church movement</a> (with which Pagitt is associated) has sometimes been accused of being too ethnically and culturally insular, of being composed primarily of middle-class citizens.  Whether this is fair, would it necessarily take away from the legitimacy of this testimony for many North American Christians like myself?\n\n<a href=\"http://peterrollins.net/\" target=\"_blank\">Peter Rollins </a>talks a lot about a <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fidelity-Betrayal-Towards-Church-Beyond/dp/1557255601\" target=\"_blank\">church “beyond belief”</a>.  We have our differences, but what Pete proposes seems to me to be striking a chord with a lot disenchanted would-be Jesus followers.  In order to do or be much of anything, a community certainly needs belief.  Going beyond belief doesn’t mean doing away with it or even changing it – though change might happen.  Moving beyond belief means changing <em>how</em> we believe.  Do we believe primarily with epistemology (knowledge) or ontology (being)? Do we lead with confession or action?  Do our beliefs first comfort or direct us?  Which kind of belief did Jesus embrace?  Maybe it\'s not always either/or.  Dark days require consolation.  But what does belief look like for citizens in the land of plenty and power?','From \"aha\" to \"uh-oh,\" and then what?','','inherit','open','open','','1627-revision-3','','','2011-10-31 14:57:09','2011-10-31 21:57:09','',1627,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1627-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(1636,20,'2011-10-31 14:58:26','2011-10-31 21:58:26','I was just listening to an interview with <a href=\"http://dougpagitt.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Doug Pagitt</a> on the <a href=\"http://homebrewedchristianity.com\" target=\"_blank\">Homebrewed Christianity podcast</a>, and he was talking about how the dominant narrative for Christendom prior to recent decades was one of moving from “being lost” to “being found.”  This is illustrated well by the extensive familiarly you find in the West with songs like “Amazing Grace”… “I once was blind by now I see.”  This idea was, and for many perhaps still is, the dominant thinking about religion in general and Christianity in particular.  What Pagitt suggests is that in today\'s cultural climate, which he calls “the inventive age” (see his latest books with this phrase in the title <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Church-Inventive-Age-Christianity-Now/dp/1451400853/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1320097483&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>), people in North America are more likely to have conversions for “aha” to “uh-oh” than from “I don’t know” to “aha.”  Pagitt is not saying, however, that these people are necessarily saying goodbye to their Christian faith.  He makes a distinction between the current context as a post-Christian era vs. post-Church era, arguing for the latter more so than the former.\r\n\r\nIn many ways, I find this to be true in my own experience.  It’s not a new story; I hear it frequently.  Like Pagitt, my faith background is largely that of conservative evangelicalism.  For those who can relate, what’s funny about the way this story usually goes for people is that we started singing “Amazing Grace” so early, it\'s hard to remember a time when we were ever “lost.”  I didn\'t have time to get lost.  By my baptism at age ten, I don’t even know how many times I had already prayed for Jesus to come into my heart.  During high school and most of college, if I did any reading related to difficult theological questions, it was usually to seek out confirmation for what were already my solidified doctrinal presuppositions.  After college and partly during seminary though, I went through a challenging season of having many of my assumptions questioned . . . in some ways I may have been too open-minded for my own good.  Nonetheless, I experienced what I guess could be called a second-conversion – a conversion to <em>not</em> knowing.  It\'s a conversion to a place of frustration with preconceived boundaries and filters.  I don’t think I would ever have called myself agnostic; nor would I fit into the popular category of “spiritual but not religious.”  But a fundamental paradigm shift definitely took place, and it has deeply affected my worldview.  It wasn\'t just about the creeds of orthodoxy.  My transformation touched the political, economic and cultural.  Nor was it about left and right - while there may have been implication there.  The product is unfinished, and there’s a combined sense of both liberty and estrangement as a result.  In some respects I still confess the faith of my upbringing, but its significance for me has evolved substantially.  I sometimes wonder how this fits into the rubric for discipleship.  Maybe I’m off course a bit? Maybe I’ve learned how to be a little more honest and gracious toward myself and other people.  Most importantly perhaps, the journey doesn’t have to end at this point, and having conversation with others about it might be the doorway to the next chapter.\r\n\r\nDespite my resonance with Pagitt’s thesis, I do have some doubts about its soundness insofar as it’s superimposed on American culture writ large.  To what extent do others really relate to this, and to what extent is it more of a sub-cultural, Bible-belt phenomenon as a result of things like the information revolution, hipster Christian trends, and environmental changes in the bourgeoning stages of young adulthood?  The <a href=\"http://www.emergentvillage.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Emergent Church movement</a> (with which Pagitt is associated) has sometimes been accused of being too ethnically and culturally insular, of being composed primarily of middle-class citizens.  Whether this is fair, would it necessarily take away from the legitimacy of this testimony for many North American Christians like myself?\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://peterrollins.net/\" target=\"_blank\">Peter Rollins </a>talks a lot about a <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fidelity-Betrayal-Towards-Church-Beyond/dp/1557255601\" target=\"_blank\">church “beyond belief”</a>.  We have our differences, but what Pete proposes seems to me to be striking a chord with a lot disenchanted would-be Jesus followers.  In order to do or be much of anything, a community certainly needs belief.  Going beyond belief doesn’t mean doing away with it or even changing it – though change might happen.  Moving beyond belief means changing <em>how</em> we believe.  Do we believe primarily with epistemology (knowledge) or ontology (being)? Do we lead with confession or action?  Do our beliefs first comfort or direct us?  Which kind of belief did Jesus embrace?  Maybe it\'s not always either/or.  Dark days require consolation.  But what does belief look like for citizens in the land of plenty and power?','From \"aha\" to \"uh-oh,\" and then what?','','inherit','open','open','','1627-revision-4','','','2011-10-31 14:58:26','2011-10-31 21:58:26','',1627,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1627-revision-4/',0,'revision','',0),(1637,63,'2011-10-31 14:58:20','2011-10-31 21:58:20','<div>\n<div class=\"mceTemp mceIEcenter\">\n<div style=\"text-align: left\"><dl><dt> In my faith journey I find my self again at the cross roads. I\'m beginning to see the reality of religions being stuck, bogged down in one big profound mysterious cross-road. And, what makes navigation difficult is the lack of obvious controlled signals for direction; there is heavy traffic;it is getting increasingly noisier as conflicting voices vie for control. This would be the reality of \"faith\" in the 21st century, the new millennium...the threshold of post-modernity is barely visible as we look back.</dt></dl></div>\n</div>\nMore, and more traffic is backing up here. It\'s like a clogged artery ready to burst, and in it, trying to push their way to the center are the fundamentalist voices of \"religious\" police man. Each trying to direct their commuters forward, or in new directions.\n\nWe have culture, technology, religion,the environment, and <strong>go</strong>(<strong>d</strong>)ogle..and humanity jammed into this profound mysterious cross-road. Yet, this is where faith finds it self these days. Even so-called atheists engage the noise of religious bickering suggesting there is no God, that we are more in control than some supreme being with his hand on a joy stick. This is where we\'re all living.\n\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/jesus-versus-google1.jpeg\"><img class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1633\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/jesus-versus-google1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"600\" /></a>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">(Moray Place, Dunedin, New Zealand – Artist unknown)</p>\nI would estimate that most of the church hasn\'t even lifted their head, to look around. It\'s like the dazed driver with tunnel vision. They don\'t even acknowledge the intersection. They know everything has come to a stand still, and are content on inching their way forward. But if they really had a good look around they\'d see many have abandoned the vehicle.\n\nLook around what ever \"church\" vehicle you\'re in. How many passengers under 20-30 are in your vehicle? Then ask yourself why? I suspect most have got tired of waiting in the intersection. They\'ve opted to exit the vehicle and live \" in \" it.\n\nIs there a way forward?\n\nI think back into the gospel story, Jesus and the disciples on their way to Caesarea Philippi. Fascinating, that this too was a cross-road. An intersection of trade and commerce, of religion, of philosophy, and culture. And, mysteriously, it\'s at the cross-road Jesus asks, the provocative question, \" Who do people say I am?\"\n\nProphet, teacher...Messiah. There not really sure. They continue to follow...the \" way \" is not about religion, it\'s about \" living \" now.\n\nAgain, the gospel story. A roof top rendezvous with a pharisee, a religious scholar of the day. Nicodemus is profoundly aware of the intersection. And also he is captivated by imagination, and mystery of what, and who Jesus is. He sees Jesus as away forward, or what may be more true...is a way to live in the intersection. To live in the intersection, one needs to be born of the Spirit...reborn from above.\n<blockquote>So don\'t be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be \'born from above\'—out of this world, so to speak. You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it\'s headed next. That\'s the way it is with everyone \'born from above\' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God.\" ( Eugene Peterson\'s, The Message: John 3:7-8 ).</blockquote>\nThis is not the wind of any one religion. It\'s a wind that blows around, through, in the midst of all humanity...all creation. Humanity as \" one \" must hoist it\'s collective sail and learn how to navigate together. The wind is not about christianity, it\'s about humanity.\n\nThe following quotes are from <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Cox\">Harvey Cox\'s</a> latest book, \" <a href=\"http://www.amazon.ca/Future-Faith-Harvey-Cox/dp/0061755524/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1263519037&amp;sr=1-1\">The Future of Faith</a>.\" He says...\n<blockquote><em>All signs suggest we are poised to enter a new Age of the Spirit and that the future will be a future of faith</em>” (p.224). “<em>Faith is resurgent, while dogma is dying. The spiritual, communal and justice-seeking dimensions of Christianity are now its leading edge as the twenty-first century hurdles forward, and this change is taking place along with similar reformations in other world religions</em>” (p.212).</blockquote>\nAgain, the gospel story. Jesus meeting a woman on the extreme fringe of her culture, religion and community. So embedded is her identity in that intersection, she is stuck with no way forward. Interesting the well is central to the story, and the metaphor of religion as being a well. She is convinced her well is the only way forward. There\'s history, family heritage, ritual...and culture. They have always drank from that well. Tradition can be come deep ruts, in the intersection, where we just sit and spin our tires.\n\nBut Jesus convinces her that there is way to live in the intersection. It comes from drinking from another well, where it doesn\'t matter if you worship God on your mountain, or in your temple. What matters, is that you worship in Spirit, and in truth. That is the living, God is looking for, and...that is how you live in the intersection. It is a well beyond religion, it is a well that sustains all humanity, all creation.\n<blockquote>\"It\'s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That\'s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.\"( Eugene Peterson\'s;The Message:John 4:23-24 )</blockquote>\nHumanity must move beyond the exclusivity of \" religions \", and again find the spirit that embraces \" all \" humanity...only here will we find life that is hope-filled, and which will sustain all humanity. What has always caught my attention, and my heretic imagination is the profound mystery of the gospels. How the disciples lived out faith in the midst of the cross-road. No where do I find the disciples making a statement of faith...other than Jesus was somehow the way.  Jesus seemed totally unconcerned about reducing faith to doctrine or dogma. Jesus was outside, beyond their religions, beyond the narrative of the prevailing empire. Faith in Jesus was far more about the Spirit, of living in that profound incredible divine mystery in the context of the cross-road.\n\nSo if the church is going to live, and survive in the cross-road...it will really need to think seriously about abandoning the vehicle. And I say that more in a sense of structure. To live in that cross road, will in a sense, be to live, more of a profound simplicity of theological structures. In the intersection there is more of a profound sense of mystery. The church will once again have to learn to engage mystery. It will have to ask the big big question, \" What is it, to live in the age of the Spirit?\"\n\nI think we will begin to find far more profound mysterious truth in the Jesus story, in the gospels. Especially when we can learn to live out the fullness of its theology and practice. I think with the help of the Spirit , not the Spirit of Christianity, or the spirit any one religion, but the spirit of the origin of all reality and existence, and of \" all \" humanity... we will live and grow in the cross road. I really think, that is where the future of faith will be found.\n\n</div>','Finding life beyond religion...is there a way forward.','','inherit','open','open','','1621-revision-2','','','2011-10-31 14:58:20','2011-10-31 21:58:20','',1621,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1621-revision-2/',0,'revision','',0),(1638,20,'2011-10-31 15:00:41','2011-10-31 22:00:41','I was just listening to an interview with <a href=\"http://dougpagitt.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Doug Pagitt</a> on the <a href=\"http://homebrewedchristianity.com\" target=\"_blank\">Homebrewed Christianity podcast</a>, and he was talking about how the dominant narrative for Christendom prior to recent decades was one of moving from “being lost” to “being found.”  This is illustrated well by the extensive familiarly you find in the West with songs like “Amazing Grace”… “I once was blind by now I see.”  This idea was, and for many perhaps still is, the dominant thinking about religion in general and Christianity in particular.  What Pagitt suggests is that in today\'s cultural climate, which he calls “the inventive age” (see his latest books with this phrase in the title <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Church-Inventive-Age-Christianity-Now/dp/1451400853/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1320097483&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>), people in North America are more likely to have conversions for “aha” to “uh-oh” than from “I don’t know” to “aha.”  Pagitt is not saying, however, that these people are necessarily saying goodbye to their Christian faith.  He makes a distinction between the current context as a post-Christian era vs. post-Church era, arguing for the latter more so than the former.\n\nIn many ways, I find this to be true in my own experience.  It’s not a new story; I hear it frequently.  Like Pagitt, my faith background is largely that of conservative evangelicalism.  For those who can relate, what’s funny about the way this story usually goes for people is that we started singing “Amazing Grace” so early, it\'s hard to remember a time when we were ever “lost.”  I didn\'t have time to get lost!  By my baptism at age ten, I don’t even know how many times I had already prayed for Jesus to come into my heart.  During high school and most of college, if I did any reading related to difficult theological questions, it was usually to seek out confirmation for what were already my solidified doctrinal presuppositions.  After college and partly during seminary though, I went through a challenging season of having many of my assumptions questioned . . . in some ways I may have been too open-minded for my own good.  Nonetheless, I experienced what I guess could be called a second-conversion – a conversion to <em>not</em> knowing.  It\'s a conversion to a place of frustration with preconceived boundaries and filters.  I don’t think I would ever have called myself agnostic; nor would I fit into the popular category of “spiritual but not religious.”  But a fundamental paradigm shift definitely took place, and it has deeply affected my worldview.  It wasn\'t just about the creeds of orthodoxy.  My transformation touched the political, economic and cultural.  Nor was it about left and right - while there may have been implication there.  The product is unfinished, and there’s a combined sense of both liberty and estrangement as a result.  In some respects I still confess the faith of my upbringing, but its significance for me has evolved substantially.  I sometimes wonder how this fits into the rubric for discipleship.  Maybe I’m off course a bit? Maybe I’ve learned how to be a little more honest and gracious toward myself and other people.  Most importantly perhaps, the journey doesn’t have to end at this point, and having conversation with others about it might be the doorway to the next chapter.\n\nDespite my resonance with Pagitt’s thesis, I do have some doubts about its soundness insofar as it’s superimposed on American culture writ large.  To what extent do others really relate to this, and to what extent is it more of a sub-cultural, Bible-belt phenomenon as a result of things like the information revolution, hipster Christian trends, and environmental changes in the bourgeoning stages of young adulthood?  The <a href=\"http://www.emergentvillage.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Emergent Church movement</a> (with which Pagitt is associated) has sometimes been accused of being too ethnically and culturally insular, of being composed primarily of middle-class folks.  Whether this is fair, would it necessarily take away from the legitimacy of this testimony for a portion of North American Christians like myself?\n\n<a href=\"http://peterrollins.net/\" target=\"_blank\">Peter Rollins </a>talks a lot about a <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fidelity-Betrayal-Towards-Church-Beyond/dp/1557255601\" target=\"_blank\">church “beyond belief”</a>.  We have our differences, but what Pete proposes seems to me to be striking a chord with a lot disenchanted would-be Jesus followers.  In order to do or be much of anything, a community certainly needs belief.  Going beyond belief doesn’t mean doing away with it or even changing it – though change might happen.  Moving beyond belief means changing <em>how</em> we believe.  Do we believe primarily with epistemology (knowledge) or ontology (being)? Do we lead with confession or action?  Do our beliefs first comfort or direct us?  Which kind of belief did Jesus embrace?  Maybe it\'s not always either/or.  Dark days require consolation.  But what does belief look like for citizens in the land of plenty and power?','From \"aha\" to \"uh-oh,\" and then what?','','inherit','open','open','','1627-revision-5','','','2011-10-31 15:00:41','2011-10-31 22:00:41','',1627,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1627-revision-5/',0,'revision','',0),(1639,20,'2011-11-11 08:42:40','2011-11-11 16:42:40','I was just listening to an interview with <a href=\"http://dougpagitt.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Doug Pagitt</a> (whose book <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Preaching-Re-Imagined-Sermon-Communities-Faith/dp/0310263638\" target=\"_blank\">Preaching Re-imagined</a>, among others, was a big eye-opener for me when i first started doing youth ministry) on the <a href=\"http://homebrewedchristianity.com\" target=\"_blank\">Homebrewed Christianity podcast</a>, and he was talking about how the dominant narrative for Christendom prior to recent decades was one of moving from “being lost” to “being found.”  This is illustrated well by the extensive familiarly you find in the West with songs like “Amazing Grace”… “I once was blind but now I see.”  This idea was, and for many perhaps still is, the dominant thinking about religion in general and Christianity in particular.\n\nWhat Pagitt suggests is that in today\'s cultural climate, which he calls “the inventive age” (see his latest books with this phrase in the title <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Church-Inventive-Age-Christianity-Now/dp/1451400853/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1320097483&amp;sr=1-1\" target=\"_blank\">here</a>), people in North America are more likely to have conversions for “aha” to “uh-oh” than from “I don’t know” to “aha.”  Pagitt is not implying, however, that these people are all saying goodbye to their Christian faith.  He makes a distinction between the current context as a post-Christian era vs. post-Church era, arguing for the latter more so than the former.\n\nIn many ways, I find this to be true in my own experience.  It’s not a new story; I hear it frequently.  Like Pagitt, my faith background was significantly influenced by conservative evangelicalism.  For those who can relate, what’s funny about the way this story usually goes for people is that we started singing “Amazing Grace” so early, it\'s hard to remember a time when we were ever “lost.”  I didn\'t have<em> time</em> to get lost!  By my baptism at age ten, I don’t even know how many times I had already prayed for Jesus to come into my heart.  During high school and most of college, if I did any reading related to difficult theological questions, it was usually to seek out confirmation for what were already my solidified doctrinal presuppositions.\n\nAfter college and partly during seminary though - though not really <em>because</em> of seminary - I went through a challenging season of having many of my assumptions questioned . . . in some ways I may have even been too open-minded for my own good.  Nonetheless, I experienced what I guess could be called a second-conversion – a conversion to <em>not</em> knowing.  It was a conversion to a place of frustration with preconceived boundaries and filters.  I wouldn\'t have ever have called myself agnostic; nor would I fit into the popular category of “spiritual but not religious.”  But a fundamental paradigm shift definitely took place, and it has deeply affected my worldview. It wasn\'t just about the creeds of orthodoxy.  My transformation touched the political, economic and cultural.  Nor was it about left and right - while there may have been implication there.  The product is unfinished, and there’s a combined sense of both liberty and estrangement as a result.\n\nI still confess the faith of my upbringing, but its significance for me has evolved substantially.  I sometimes wonder how this fits into the rubric for discipleship.  Maybe I’m off course a bit? On the other hand, maybe I’ve learned how to be a little more honest and gracious toward myself and other people.  Most importantly perhaps, the journey doesn’t have to end at this point, and having conversation with others about it might be the doorway to the next chapter.\n\nDespite my resonance with Pagitt’s thesis, I do have some doubts about its soundness insofar as it’s superimposed on American culture writ large.  To what extent do others really relate to this, and to what extent is it more of a sub-cultural, Bible-belt phenomenon as a result of things like the information revolution, hipster Christian trends, and environmental changes in the burgeoning stages of young adulthood?  In addition, this narrative might also just nicely follow the typical stages of faith development - rules, doctrine, doubt, mature belief (or second naiveté) - but for some reason I\'m not sure.  Maybe I just want to feel more special than that :)  The <a href=\"http://www.emergentvillage.com/\" target=\"_blank\">Emergent Church movement</a> (with which Pagitt is associated) has sometimes been accused of being too ethnically and culturally insular, of being composed primarily of middle-class folks.  Whether this is fair, would it necessarily take away from the legitimacy of this testimony for a portion of North American Christians like myself?\n\n<a href=\"http://peterrollins.net/\" target=\"_blank\">Peter Rollins </a>talks a lot about a <a href=\"http://www.amazon.com/Fidelity-Betrayal-Towards-Church-Beyond/dp/1557255601\" target=\"_blank\">church “beyond belief”</a>.  We have our differences, but what Pete proposes seems to me to be striking a chord with a lot disenchanted would-be Jesus followers.  In order to do or be much of anything, a community certainly needs belief.  Going beyond belief doesn’t mean doing away with it or even changing it – though change might happen.  Moving beyond belief means changing <em>how</em> we believe.  Do we believe primarily with epistemology (knowledge) or ontology (being)? Do we lead with confession or action?  Do our beliefs first comfort or direct us?  Which kind of belief did Jesus embrace?  Maybe it\'s not always either/or.  Dark days require consolation.  But what does belief look like for privileged citizens in the land of plenty and power?  This is one of the main questions I hope to explore here, especially with regard to the responsibility that churches have in light of this belief.','From \"Aha\" To \"Uh-Oh,\" And Then What?','','inherit','open','open','','1627-autosave','','','2011-11-11 08:42:40','2011-11-11 16:42:40','',1627,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1627-autosave/',0,'revision','',0),(1640,1,'2011-11-01 16:58:02','2011-11-01 23:58:02','<div>\n<div class=\"mceTemp mceIEcenter\">\n<div style=\"text-align: left;\"><dl><dt>In my faith journey I find my self again at the cross roads. I\'m beginning to see the reality of religions being stuck, bogged down in one big profound mysterious cross-road. And, what makes navigation difficult is the lack of obvious controlled signals for direction; there is heavy traffic;it is getting increasingly noisier as conflicting voices vie for control. This would be the reality of \"faith\" in the 21st century, the new millennium...the threshold of post-modernity is barely visible as we look back.</dt></dl></div>\n</div>\nMore, and more traffic is backing up here. It\'s like a clogged artery ready to burst, and in it, trying to push their way to the center are the fundamentalist voices of \"religious\" police man. Each trying to direct their commuters forward, or in new directions.\n\nWe have culture, technology, religion,the environment, and <strong>go</strong>(<strong>d</strong>)ogle..and humanity jammed into this profound mysterious cross-road. Yet, this is where faith finds it self these days. Even so-called atheists engage the noise of religious bickering suggesting there is no God, that we are more in control than some supreme being with his hand on a joy stick. This is where we\'re all living.\n\n[caption id=\"attachment_1633\" align=\"alignleft\" width=\"241\" caption=\"(Moray Place, Dunedin, New Zealand – Artist unknown)\"]<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/jesus-versus-google1.jpeg\"><img class=\"size-full wp-image-1633 \" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/jesus-versus-google1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"241\" height=\"322\" /></a>[/caption]\n\nI would estimate that most of the church hasn\'t even lifted their head, to look around. It\'s like the dazed driver with tunnel vision. They don\'t even acknowledge the intersection. They know everything has come to a stand still, and are content on inching their way forward. But if they really had a good look around they\'d see many have abandoned the vehicle.\n\nLook around what ever \"church\" vehicle you\'re in. How many passengers under 20-30 are in your vehicle? Then ask yourself why? I suspect most have got tired of waiting in the intersection. They\'ve opted to exit the vehicle and live \" in \" it.\n\nIs there a way forward?\n\nI think back into the gospel story, Jesus and the disciples on their way to Caesarea Philippi. Fascinating, that this too was a cross-road. An intersection of trade and commerce, of religion, of philosophy, and culture. And, mysteriously, it\'s at the cross-road Jesus asks, the provocative question, \" Who do people say I am?\"\n\nProphet, teacher...Messiah. There not really sure. They continue to follow...the \" way \" , could it be beyond  religion, more about \" living \" now?\n\nAgain, the gospel story. A roof top rendezvous with a pharisee, a religious scholar of the day. Nicodemus is profoundly aware of the intersection. And also he is captivated by imagination, and mystery of what, and who Jesus is. He sees Jesus as away forward, or what may be more true...is a way to live in the intersection. To live in the intersection, one needs to be born of the Spirit...reborn from above.\n<blockquote>So don\'t be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be \'born from above\'—out of this world, so to speak. You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it\'s headed next. That\'s the way it is with everyone \'born from above\' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God.\" ( Eugene Peterson\'s, The Message: John 3:7-8 ).</blockquote>\nThis is not the wind of any one religion. It\'s a wind that blows around, through, in the midst of all humanity...all creation. Humanity as \" one \" must hoist its collective sail and learn how to navigate together. Could it be, the wind is not controlled by christianity, Islam, Judaism or any \" religion \". Could it be about something beyond religion embracing all humanity?\n\nThe following quotes are from <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Cox\">Harvey Cox\'s</a> latest book, \" <a href=\"http://www.amazon.ca/Future-Faith-Harvey-Cox/dp/0061755524/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1263519037&amp;sr=1-1\">The Future of Faith</a>.\" He says...\n<blockquote><em>All signs suggest we are poised to enter a new Age of the Spirit and that the future will be a future of faith</em>” (p.224). “<em>Faith is resurgent, while dogma is dying. The spiritual, communal and justice-seeking dimensions of Christianity are now its leading edge as the twenty-first century hurdles forward, and this change is taking place along with similar reformations in other world religions</em>” (p.212).</blockquote>\nAgain, the gospel story. Jesus meeting a woman on the extreme fringe of her culture, religion and community. So embedded is her identity in that intersection, she is stuck with no way forward. Interesting the well is central to the story, and the metaphor of religion as being a well. She is convinced her well is the only way forward. There\'s history, family heritage, ritual...and culture. They have always drank from that well. Tradition can become deep ruts, in the intersection, where we just sit and spin our tires.\n\nBut Jesus convinces her that there is way to live in the intersection. It comes from drinking from another well, where it doesn\'t matter if you worship God on your mountain, or in your temple. What matters, is that you worship in Spirit, and in truth. That is the living, God is looking for, and...that is how you live in the intersection. It is a well beyond religion, it is a well that sustains all humanity, all creation.\n<blockquote>\"It\'s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That\'s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.\"( Eugene Peterson\'s;The Message:John 4:23-24 )</blockquote>\nHumanity must move beyond the exclusivity of \" religions \", and again find the spirit that embraces \" all \" humanity...only here will we find life that is hope-filled, and which will sustain all humanity. What has always caught my attention, and my heretic imagination is the profound mystery of the gospels. How the disciples lived out faith in the midst of the cross-road. No where do I find the disciples making a statement of faith...other than Jesus was somehow the way.  Jesus seemed totally unconcerned about reducing faith to doctrine or dogma. Jesus was outside, beyond their religions, beyond the narrative of the prevailing empire. Could the faith Jesus lived, spoke and imagined be far more about the Spirit, of living in that profound incredible divine mystery in the context of the cross-road?\n\nSo if religion is going to live, and survive in the cross-road...we will really need to think seriously about abandoning our vehicles. And I say that more in a sense of  its exclusive fundamentalism. To live in that cross-road, will in a sense, be to live, more of a profound simplicity of theological structures. In the intersection there is more of a profound sense of mystery. Religions will once again have to learn to engage mystery. It will have to ask the big big question, \" What is it, to live in the age of the Spirit?\"\n\nI think we will begin to find far more profound mysterious truth in the Jesus story, in the gospels. Especially when we can learn to live out the fullness of its theology and practice. I think with the help of the Spirit , not the Spirit of Christianity, or the spirit any one religion, but the spirit of the origin of all reality and existence, and of \" all \" humanity... we will live and grow in the cross-road. I really think, that is where the future of faith will be found.\n\nPhoto Credit: mortsan\n\n</div>','Finding Life Beyond Religion...Is There A Way Forward','','inherit','open','open','','1621-autosave','','','2011-11-01 16:58:02','2011-11-01 23:58:02','',1621,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1621-autosave/',0,'revision','',0),(1641,63,'2011-10-31 15:05:58','2011-10-31 22:05:58','','jesus-versus-google','','inherit','open','open','','jesus-versus-google-3','','','2011-10-31 15:05:58','2011-10-31 22:05:58','',1621,'http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/jesus-versus-google2.jpeg',0,'attachment','image/jpeg',0),(1642,63,'2011-10-31 15:00:02','2011-10-31 22:00:02','<div>\r\n<div class=\"mceTemp mceIEcenter\">\r\n<div style=\"text-align: left\"><dl><dt> In my faith journey I find my self again at the cross roads. I\'m beginning to see the reality of religions being stuck, bogged down in one big profound mysterious cross-road. And, what makes navigation difficult is the lack of obvious controlled signals for direction; there is heavy traffic;it is getting increasingly noisier as conflicting voices vie for control. This would be the reality of \"faith\" in the 21st century, the new millennium...the threshold of post-modernity is barely visible as we look back.</dt></dl></div>\r\n</div>\r\nMore, and more traffic is backing up here. It\'s like a clogged artery ready to burst, and in it, trying to push their way to the center are the fundamentalist voices of \"religious\" police man. Each trying to direct their commuters forward, or in new directions.\r\n\r\nWe have culture, technology, religion,the environment, and <strong>go</strong>(<strong>d</strong>)ogle..and humanity jammed into this profound mysterious cross-road. Yet, this is where faith finds it self these days. Even so-called atheists engage the noise of religious bickering suggesting there is no God, that we are more in control than some supreme being with his hand on a joy stick. This is where we\'re all living.\r\n\r\n<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/jesus-versus-google1.jpeg\"><img class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1633\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/jesus-versus-google1.jpeg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"600\" /></a>\r\n<p style=\"text-align: center\">(Moray Place, Dunedin, New Zealand – Artist unknown)</p>\r\nI would estimate that most of the church hasn\'t even lifted their head, to look around. It\'s like the dazed driver with tunnel vision. They don\'t even acknowledge the intersection. They know everything has come to a stand still, and are content on inching their way forward. But if they really had a good look around they\'d see many have abandoned the vehicle.\r\n\r\nLook around what ever \"church\" vehicle you\'re in. How many passengers under 20-30 are in your vehicle? Then ask yourself why? I suspect most have got tired of waiting in the intersection. They\'ve opted to exit the vehicle and live \" in \" it.\r\n\r\nIs there a way forward?\r\n\r\nI think back into the gospel story, Jesus and the disciples on their way to Caesarea Philippi. Fascinating, that this too was a cross-road. An intersection of trade and commerce, of religion, of philosophy, and culture. And, mysteriously, it\'s at the cross-road Jesus asks, the provocative question, \" Who do people say I am?\"\r\n\r\nProphet, teacher...Messiah. There not really sure. They continue to follow...the \" way \" is not about religion, it\'s about \" living \" now.\r\n\r\nAgain, the gospel story. A roof top rendezvous with a pharisee, a religious scholar of the day. Nicodemus is profoundly aware of the intersection. And also he is captivated by imagination, and mystery of what, and who Jesus is. He sees Jesus as away forward, or what may be more true...is a way to live in the intersection. To live in the intersection, one needs to be born of the Spirit...reborn from above.\r\n<blockquote>So don\'t be so surprised when I tell you that you have to be \'born from above\'—out of this world, so to speak. You know well enough how the wind blows this way and that. You hear it rustling through the trees, but you have no idea where it comes from or where it\'s headed next. That\'s the way it is with everyone \'born from above\' by the wind of God, the Spirit of God.\" ( Eugene Peterson\'s, The Message: John 3:7-8 ).</blockquote>\r\nThis is not the wind of any one religion. It\'s a wind that blows around, through, in the midst of all humanity...all creation. Humanity as \" one \" must hoist its collective sail and learn how to navigate together. The wind is not about christianity, it\'s about humanity.\r\n\r\nThe following quotes are from <a href=\"http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvey_Cox\">Harvey Cox\'s</a> latest book, \" <a href=\"http://www.amazon.ca/Future-Faith-Harvey-Cox/dp/0061755524/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;s=books&amp;qid=1263519037&amp;sr=1-1\">The Future of Faith</a>.\" He says...\r\n<blockquote><em>All signs suggest we are poised to enter a new Age of the Spirit and that the future will be a future of faith</em>” (p.224). “<em>Faith is resurgent, while dogma is dying. The spiritual, communal and justice-seeking dimensions of Christianity are now its leading edge as the twenty-first century hurdles forward, and this change is taking place along with similar reformations in other world religions</em>” (p.212).</blockquote>\r\nAgain, the gospel story. Jesus meeting a woman on the extreme fringe of her culture, religion and community. So embedded is her identity in that intersection, she is stuck with no way forward. Interesting the well is central to the story, and the metaphor of religion as being a well. She is convinced her well is the only way forward. There\'s history, family heritage, ritual...and culture. They have always drank from that well. Tradition can be come deep ruts, in the intersection, where we just sit and spin our tires.\r\n\r\nBut Jesus convinces her that there is way to live in the intersection. It comes from drinking from another well, where it doesn\'t matter if you worship God on your mountain, or in your temple. What matters, is that you worship in Spirit, and in truth. That is the living, God is looking for, and...that is how you live in the intersection. It is a well beyond religion, it is a well that sustains all humanity, all creation.\r\n<blockquote>\"It\'s who you are and the way you live that count before God. Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth. That\'s the kind of people the Father is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before him in their worship. God is sheer being itself—Spirit. Those who worship him must do it out of their very being, their spirits, their true selves, in adoration.\"( Eugene Peterson\'s;The Message:John 4:23-24 )</blockquote>\r\nHumanity must move beyond the exclusivity of \" religions \", and again find the spirit that embraces \" all \" humanity...only here will we find life that is hope-filled, and which will sustain all humanity. What has always caught my attention, and my heretic imagination is the profound mystery of the gospels. How the disciples lived out faith in the midst of the cross-road. No where do I find the disciples making a statement of faith...other than Jesus was somehow the way.  Jesus seemed totally unconcerned about reducing faith to doctrine or dogma. Jesus was outside, beyond their religions, beyond the narrative of the prevailing empire. Faith in Jesus was far more about the Spirit, of living in that profound incredible divine mystery in the context of the cross-road.\r\n\r\nSo if the church is going to live, and survive in the cross-road...it will really need to think seriously about abandoning the vehicle. And I say that more in a sense of structure. To live in that cross-road, will in a sense, be to live, more of a profound simplicity of theological structures. In the intersection there is more of a profound sense of mystery. The church will once again have to learn to engage mystery. It will have to ask the big big question, \" What is it, to live in the age of the Spirit?\"\r\n\r\nI think we will begin to find far more profound mysterious truth in the Jesus story, in the gospels. Especially when we can learn to live out the fullness of its theology and practice. I think with the help of the Spirit , not the Spirit of Christianity, or the spirit any one religion, but the spirit of the origin of all reality and existence, and of \" all \" humanity... we will live and grow in the cross-road. I really think, that is where the future of faith will be found.\r\n\r\n</div>','Finding life beyond religion...is there a way forward.','','inherit','open','open','','1621-revision-3','','','2011-10-31 15:00:02','2011-10-31 22:00:02','',1621,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1621-revision-3/',0,'revision','',0),(1643,64,'2011-10-31 14:22:57','2011-10-31 21:22:57','<a href=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/me-and-emma.jpg\"><img class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-1597\" src=\"http://provoketive.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/me-and-emma.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"500\" height=\"439\" /></a>\r\n\r\nRecently I had coffee with a young, new mom.  She told me that she quit her full-time job to be with her baby.  I listened to her talk glowingly about the bonding they were doing and how “right” this decision felt to her.  She said she would go back to work “one day” but “for now” she was doing exactly what she should.  Then, in the same breath, she admitted that she was not without<em> some</em> doubt, whispering sheepishly that she couldn\'t think of <em>one</em> woman that she admired as a role model, who was a stay-at-home mother.  (Ouch, I tried not to take it personally because this was her story and not about me.)\r\n\r\nAs I listened, I was happy for her because <em>there is nothing like</em> that first year of a parent and child’s life together, spent connecting and bonding.  The yeasty baby smells on your clothes and being present for the first belly laughs.  As they grow a little older, hearing their first word.  Eventually seeing their first steps.\r\n\r\n<strong>I know how meaningful they are because I missed many of those firsts.</strong>\r\n\r\nI was working fifty to sixty hour weeks, through three pregnancies in four years, when my kids were born.  And, other than the six weeks allotted me, I was right back to work again, <em>by choice</em>.  Yes, I electric-pumped in the bathroom at work, between meetings.  I double padded for the crazy moments a baby cries and I might leak or nearly exploded, because a meeting went over and I needed to pump! <em> I did all that and I don’t regret one minute of it, </em>even though I cannot remember my daughter’s first word or whether I saw her first steps.  If I didn’t write it down, I cannot remember much about those years but I don’t mind because I loved working!\r\n\r\nWhen I quit my job I didn’t know an S.A.H.M. from an M.O.P.S. and certainly didn’t understand why <em>any</em><em>one</em> with an interesting career would quit for kids.  In fact I did <em>not</em> quit for <em>any</em> of the reasons many stay-at-home moms do and I never aspired to be one.  I was just fed up with certain aspects of my job and what I perceived as a glass ceiling.  <em>And I was plumb exhausted</em> – so exhausted that I had become irritable and dissatisfied with much of life.  My faith was suffering.  When I walked away from my career I just wanted to take a long, uninterrupted nap!\r\n\r\n<strong>You know what I wanted to say to my young friend at coffee?  Don’t do it!!!!  </strong>\r\n\r\nYes, the secret is out.  I became a reluctant SAHM in order to get away from my job <em>and to rest.</em>  Additionally, as we looked at the idea of one of us being with our kids, or a Nanny, my husband and I did the math and it just made sense.  Though I was making 40K+, by the time we paid our Nanny a living wage, paid the taxes, I purchased a wardrobe of work clothing and dry cleaned those clothes, ate the inevitable lattes and lunches out, and then ordering take out because both of us were too tired to cook, it added up close to zero dollars left over.   The other thing we considered was the fact that my husband’s job was more lucrative long-term than mine was at a non-profit.\r\n\r\nBut when I was thinking and praying about making a change, I should have thought through other career options perhaps even a shared job. I grew up in the organization that I worked for and though I had been quickly promoted up through the organization, I lacked the confidence to go out a find another job.  I thought quitting was my only option at the time.\r\n\r\nAnd now that my kids are older and I’m oh so ready to work outside the home, I’m running into the prejudice of having spent all this time, it’s been more than ten years, at home with kiddos.   Katie Read, a freelancer at Salon.com said recently:\r\n<div>\r\n<blockquote>\"Research shows that mothers earn <a href=\"http://www.asanet.org/press/motherhood_penalty.cfm\" target=\"_blank\">4 to 15 percent less</a> than non-mothers with comparable jobs and qualifications, that as job candidates, mothers are perceived as <a href=\"http://www.unc.edu/courses/2006spring/geog/203/001/motherhoodpenalty.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">less competent and committed</a> than non-mothers (fathers, in contrast, rate higher than men without kids). Heather Boushey, senior economist at the Center for American Progress, <a href=\"http://www.brainchildmag.com/essays/winter2010_read.asp\" target=\"_blank\">told me last year</a> that the outlook for an at-home mother returning to work in this economy “kind of makes my stomach drop a little bit.” I know the feeling.\"</blockquote>\r\n</div>\r\nI know the feeling too.  Unlike Read, who is a single divorced mother of two, I don’t<em> need</em> to work I just <em>want</em> to work.\r\n\r\nI recently interviewed for an entry level job, very part-time, that I could have done in my sleep.  I was hoping to ease myself into an organization that I liked and would like to work for long term.  I knew that I was doomed when I was asked to describe one specific project that I had managed beginning to end.  My job had been managing multiple people and projects, ideas, and nearly half a million dollar budget.  When I was told I was overqualified I was just shocked that they had the gall to say so.   An insider later told me, “You are a stallion.  What we really needed in that job is a pony.”  Horse metaphors aside, I was surprised because I had led and managed people, multiple departments, and had tons of responsibility.\r\n\r\n<strong><em>Why would anyone NOT want me?</em></strong><strong>  </strong>\r\n\r\nThe fact is that I have joined the ranks of other stay-at-home moms who are marginalize and looked down upon, just as I did when I was working outside of home.  I remember asking my boss who was a woman with incredulity and some derision, “Why would anyone want to be a stay-at-home Mom?”\r\n\r\n<strong>Indeed, why?</strong>\r\n\r\nWhat remains now is the knowledge of what I have learned by giving up my job and being at home.  It actually has little to do with my children, but what God wanted to <em>do in me</em>.\r\n\r\nMy identity had been too wrapped up in my work and when I left, everything fell apart.  It took more than a year, but eventually I dropped into a deep depression.  (I tell that story in <a title=\"Not Alone\" href=\"http://civitaspress.com/not-alone-stories-of-living-with-depression/\" target=\"_blank\">Not Alone: Stories of Living with Depression</a> and in various places on my blog.)  I needed to go through the experiences that I did.  Why?  Because I never knew how much I was beloved child <em>of</em> God no matter what I do <em>for</em> God, until I fell down into that pit.  (You must read the story to understand.)\r\n\r\n<strong>Being a stay-at-home mom it is an incredibly complicated personal decision. </strong>\r\n\r\nI do respect the difficult place women (so much more than men) are in. No one can make this choice for a woman or explain away her doubts, fears, aspirations, goals, need and desire for “accomplishments” or why, after making a choice to go back to work, a woman may regret her decision.  And I cannot make the decision for my young friend.  She will have to walk that path and sort it out herself.\r\n\r\nAt times I look back over the last decade of my life with huge regret but also with gratitude because I am still learning.  My experiences have opened me up to a new life.  Christ’s broken body for me is meaningful in a way that I never understood until my experience with depression and addiction.  And gratefully I can say, all of this drove me to my knees.\r\n\r\nI went from someone who felt she was competent, powerful, knowledgeable and puffed up with my own importance to a broken reed, hardly knowing up from down.   It is humbling to know that I am loved by my husband and adored by my children whom<a title=\"You Are Beloved\" href=\"https://logicandimagination.wordpress.com/2011/07/27/you-are-beloved/\" target=\"_blank\"> I also adore</a>.  And gratefully, I know what a gift this time at home has been to me.  Yes, I rested (not physically as anyone with babies, small children or middle school kids knows.)  <strong>But I rested in Yahweh and became more human.  </strong>As I consider what the future holds for me, admittedly I still want a productive and vigorous career.  However as I look back at the decade of being at home, I am glad for what I have learned.  And I would not trade it in for a more lucrative career.  (Okay some days I would, I honestly would!)\r\n\r\nYes, I was an accidental (and in some ways very unhappy) SAHM.  In the power of the cross I am being constantly renewed and I continue to hope!  I know that even beyond being the mother of four beautiful children, which is gratifying in and of itself, I have a contribution to make<em> still!</em>\r\n\r\n<strong>My advice, finally to my young friend?  Th<em>ere is no perfect plan.</em> You must trust while serving, not knowing the future.  You must believe that you have a contribution to make in your children\'s lives, in your career and in all the people God brings into your life. </strong>\r\n\r\nI hope and pray that I will <em>continue</em> to be grateful to be a child of God.  That simple truth is enough.\r\n\r\n(Most days.)','The Accidental Stay-at-Home Mom','','inherit','open','open','','1592-revision-6','','','2011-10-31 14:22:57','2011-10-31 21:22:57','',1592,'http://provoketive.com/2011/10/31/1592-revision-6/',0,'revision','',0),