Back then
Men wore big hats
Women wore long dresses
And rascals caroused in the bars—
Old west.
Poem of the week: Triolet
A simple lie the baker told
And closed up the brand new shop.
“The flour’s out, the bread is sold.”
a simple lie the baker told.
The patrons left, the oven’s cold.
He watches the business flop.
A simple lie the baker told,
And closed up the brand new shop.
Is it Good that Nietzsche “Killed” God?
Let me begin by clearing up the important details right now. Nietzsche said that God is dead for a very specific reason. According to him, God was a concept man had created and had needed, but during Nietzsche’s day and age, man had outgrown that need and therefore was able to abandon and let the concept of God die.
Whether or not you like the idea of God being a concept man created in order to cope with the world and that concept being laid aside when it was no longer needed, it seems to be a pretty common view. People who still believe in God are often looked at as naive for clinging to a silly, uneducated concept.
Here is the reason it is good that Nietzsche killed the concept of God. When we allow the concept of God to die in our own lives as well as in general, it allows us to begin to search out the living God. Many people today see no need for a concept of God but don’t understand that God might be someone. As a Christian, I often fall into the trap of accepting a concept of God as good enough and fail to remember that God is active, alive, and holy. Our culture accepts science as legitimate and discards the religious and supernatural. In reaction we often try to explain God logically and reasonably and gloss over the fact that He is not a syllogism. The scientific method can’t test for God.
When we lay to rest the concept of God that we can control and mold we free ourselves from one of the most destructive, binding lies that will ever enter our lives. Nietzsche sounded out the idols “with a tuning fork as with a hammer.” In other words, the idols will ring hollow when struck. Living with only a concept of God is a hollow way to live.
Casting down the idols we build up frees us to see the world more rationally but also allows us to seek the God who does not fear the tuning fork or the hammer. The living God is uncontrollable. We do not define him; rather, we draw close to him because he allows us to. A concept of God will never lead to the joy of reverence. A concept of God will never make you feel like you have come close to something that can undo you but that also loves you dearly. A concept of God will not free your mind to search, to pursue hard questions. A concept of God creates slavery; following a living God makes a person unable to be enslaved.
Lay aside the concept of God and search for the God who is real.
Poem of the Week: Bumble Bee
Tumble me Bumble-bee! You sting!
Glass flappers, hasp raspers, six legs,
yellow and black sections and rings.
Flossum dan Possum man! Your dead!
Not yet gone but flat on your back.
Are you dying or just going to bed?
Honely molf, Lonely Wolf! No pack!
Wandering pondering: alone
Except when you’re on the attack.
Moggie tad, Doggie lad! No bone!
Dig on boy, dig on, keep trying.
Pull em up, new treasures unknown.
Ruman noy Human boy! Stop crying!
Go to bed. Sleep! I’ll stop rhyming.
A Poem A Week
My sister and I have decided to try and write a poem each week. I’ll probably post them here each Wednesday. This week will be a terza poem. I know that you are so excited you can hardly wait until Wednesday, but thats too bad. Wait anyway.
Sonnet
I see here bright flashing amber hues
and undulating curves of flesh delight
tanned by sun, wearing naught but shoes
and threads of silky cloth too scant, stretch'd tight
over enhanced unnatural bodies
bought to sell cheap to buyers unaware
of second-hand repeats and empty lies
retold as great love and truth to share
under new linens and atop a bed
awash with naughty joys. Such love oft found
with looking finds both love and pleasure dead
and finds a loneliness unsought, unbound.
Mistake not lust for love or else find strife.
Recall my friend a pleasure is a knife.
Nosce Te Ipsum (part 2)
If you didn’t read part 1, this next section will not make as much sense.
Where do we find identity? Does our identity stem from the things we identify ourselves with, like our hobbies? This is insufficient. We might lose the ability to do a hobby. What happens then, do we lose identity? Identifying ourselves by what we do externally is not true identity.
It can’t be in our physical form, because that too changes.
Identity must come from within. But from where? Is it a burried stone, or does it bubble up like a spring? Is it contained within me or does it have a source beyond myself? Who am I and what makes me who I am?
The fact that Chuang Tzu came to the conclusion that there must be a True Master that has identity but not form made me think about God. Chuang Tzu wrote between 200 and 300 BC. Not long after his death, the True Master took on form in order to live among the formed. Through the form Christ took he was able to reconcile our spirits to the One True Master. When my spirit communes with the one who is Spirit my spirit hears the Pipings of Heaven (things as they are meant to be). My identity begins to be found in deeper things.
When I dwell with Christ in my mind and heart, my spirit is constantly refreshed like like a river. Only when I know that the Source of who I am is something greater than myself do I begin to know myself.
Nosce te Ipsum (Part 1)
A couple of posts ago I mention the phrase nosce te ipsum which means know thyself. The Taoist philosopher Chuang Tzu said that the great Taoist masters knew the line between internal and external. He also said that there must be a True Master of everything that gives it its nature and harmony. He didn't know the True master but said that he "has identity, but not form."
I've been thinking about those two passages a lot the past few weeks. The line between internal and external is a very difficult one to know. It is nowhere more blurry than in human relationships. Reflection and solitude help me to know myself internally. Relationships demand a certain level of exposure of your inward self.
A friend of mine struggles with her physical image. She has struggled with bulimia and anorexia. She told me she isn't a very confident person. I encouraged her to do what I do when there is an area of weakness in my confidence: strengthen other areas.
One of my area of struggles is confidence in relationships. Fear of rejection can cripple any relationship. Too often people take rejection as an internal thing. This is where the line between external and internal blur. A friend who treats me poorly does so externally, yet there actions also show a lack of regard for my inward self. In the past, rejection has caused me to think that I'm not good enough and doubt myself. Recently I asked a girl out and got turned down. What amazed me was that this time I wasn't so hurt. The past few years have been a period of learning my strengths, weaknesses, interests, abilities, likes and dislikes. Rejection does not cause me to doubt myself because I know myself. I am learning the difference between internal and external and the ways that they overlap. I have a long way to go still, but seeing that rejection stung but did not crush was worth the rejection. When I have a sense of identity, I do not need to fear the opinions of other people. Nosce te ipsum.
A Hymn to God the Father
Wilt thou forgive that sin where I begun,
Which was my sin, though it were done before?
Wilt thou forgive that sin, through which I run,
And do run still, though still I do deplore?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I have won
Others to sin, and made my sin their door?
Wilt thou forgive that sin which I did shun
A year or two, but wallow'd in, a score?
When thou hast done, thou hast not done,
For I have more.
I have a sin of fear, that when I have spun
My last thread, I shall perish on the shore;
But swear by thyself, that at my death thy Son
Shall shine as he shines now, and heretofore;
And, having done that, thou hast done;
I fear no more.
-John Donne
Living a PG Life in an R-rated World
Too often, when confronted with immorality, people retreat from the world around them, trying as hard as they can to avoid all reality of immoral things in order to stay "pure" or "holy" in their minds. I don't think that being in the world but not of it means isolationism.
When someone tries to live a PG life in an R-rated world, they decieve themselves and look rediculous as well. Acting as if there are not things going on in the world that are offensive, violent, and just downright evil is purposely blinding oneself to the truth. Nowhere is a follower of Christ ever called to self deception. If anything we are called to face the truth, no matter how brutal it is.
Any person who looks at the world as it is and acknowledges that people are making bad decisions that hurt themselves and others all the time will look at someone who reduces his or her world to family and a few close friends as odd. When people pretend that the world is not so bad by limiting their interaction with the world, they loose touch not only with reality, but also with people who live in reality.
If you want to escape the R-ratedness of this world, retreat is not the method that will free you. Chuang Tzu said that the great masters knew the difference between internal and external. When you know yourself and are true to yourself, you can live unviolated by the evil things in the world. The journey to living a clean inward life begins for me with "nosce te ipsum." Know thyself.
