I coined a phrase =)

Google currently returns zero results for "American style eschatological eisegesis".  That probably means that I coined it. Hooray!  =P

Changing our make believe.

Color perception is a learned behavior: that is, the way we see and experience the world is mostly make-believe. This means we can change our make-believe toward one which we prefer. But only as we become able to know/understand our current make-believe. H/T Joe Turner

The middle squares are the same color

Video of me on my LOPWMIPFMTIMAC

LOPWMIPFMTIMAC from Recycle Your Faith on Vimeo.

Discussion over at Recycleyourfaith.com

or here: Who's on your list?

What I'm learning latelyish, and make-believe

I can choose to be happy.

I can be present in my body.

I can be present in my current physical environment.

I can be present in my current social environment.

I can fully experience "bad" feelings.

I have an internal place to stand, from which I can observe myself.

I can be kind to myself.

I can be kind to my children.

I can be kind to my wife.

I can be creative, fun, and playful.

I don't have to believe what other people believe.

I don't have to feel what other people feel.

I can connect with other people.

My fears regarding what other people are thinking and feeling toward me are very often seriously out of sync with what they are actually thinking and feeling towards me.

I can be bold in asking genuinely curious, non judgmental questions.

Other people have have fascinating internal lives.

The way I see/experience the world is almost entirely make-believe, and therefore I can totally shift to a new make-believe which I prefer/choose. HOORAY!!

What make-believe do YOU prefer?

Itsy bity poo poo

The delightful little girl here is Sofi, with whom I have the grand privilege of playing for a number of hours each week in her playroom.

This last 10 days I've been with Sofi and the amazing Tracey and Saeid, her mom and dad, in Sheffield Massachusetts at the brilliant and beautiful Option Institute and Autism Treatment Center of America, where we've all been getting trained/helped with Sofi's Son Rise Program. I've cried or nearly cried this last 10 days more than I do during most 10 day periods, and laughed more too. I am so thankful for the opportunity. I've learned a ton, and hopefully changed a little as well in the direction which I desire to change.

Before and after

One of these people is happier than the other (hint: One of them feels "unworthy", by their own description)





For more from the happier one, see: Ray Boltz in concert at JesusMCCC
See also Carol Boltz' blog

LOPWMIDFMTIMAC and Mark Driscoll on Christians Fasting for Ramadan

Maybe I should start a List Of People Who Make It Difficult For Me To Imagine Myself A Christian, to go along with my LOPWMIPFMTIMAC.

In the news recently: Brian McLaren, Ries, and friends decided this year to fast during the month of Ramadan, in an act of peacemaking and solidarity between Christians and Muslims. Mark Driscoll was quoted in response as saying

"Christians observing a Ramadan fast is insane at best ... Sad, tragic, horrific, misguided, dangerous, wrong. If Christians want to pray during Ramadan, they should pray not with Muslims but for Muslims — that Muslims would come to know Jesus. To pray with Muslims absolutely dishonors Jesus."

I feel a bit sad for all the folks who sit under his teaching every week. Sigh.

Confused and Bizarre prosecution of persecuted Hmong

The U.S. government is prosecuting Hmong and Laotians in the U.S. for plotting a coup against the communist government of Laos. This a mere 30 to 40 years after the same U.S. government spent untold dollars carpet bombing the small nation with more bombs than were dropped on all of Europe during world war 2 in an attempt to ... stop communism from expanding in southeast asia.

(oh, but that's right--communists are ok now. We have a new enemy: the "terrorists")

Worse, the Hmong, who were U.S. allies during the aforementioned war, were promised support in exchange for their active help and then abandoned to be slaughtered upon our withdrawal from Vietnam.

I can't figure out a way in which we're not the bad guys in this scenario.

Hope

George Macdonald is the most honestly hopeful person I've ever known.

From "A Book of Strife in the Form of the Diary of an Old Soul"


September 14.

Things go not wrong when sudden I fall prone,
But when I snatch my upheld hand from thine,
And, proud or careless, think to walk alone.
Then things go wrong, when I, poor, silly sheep,
To shelves and pits from the good pasture creep;
Not when the shepherd leaves the ninety and nine,
And to the mountains goes, after the foolish one.

Religious Apocalypse, American style.

One of the big problems with American Christianity is that we approach the Bible's apocalyptic stuff taking the point of view of the perpetrator/avenger, rather than the point of view of the victim/one-to-be-avenged. This leads to rampant eisogesis. Note how patriarchy attempts to steal one of the relatively few places in the Bible where God is referred to as female, with "father hen".

Despite all that, my initial reaction upon hearing this was "Wow, I really like it."

9-11, Pearl Harbor, and Benamar Benatta

The September 11, 2001 and December 7, 1941 attack on the United States of America have this in common--they were both remarkably successful in driving us to become ever more monstrous and violent in a futile pursuit of safety.

Listen to the story of Benamar Benatta, who was illegally imprisoned and tortured by my government for 5 years.

The interview starts at about the 1 minute 40 second mark, and runs about 3 minutes