Understanding Infinity

There's always more to everything than you think there is.

Let me give you more for that statement.  My home church's sanctuary is divided into two parts.  The main space is a large and open area with vaulted ceilings and giant pewter lights that dangle.   There's also an annexed section which served as a classroom that makes the entire room into an upside down "L" shape.

If the pastor was speaking from the right side pulpit, he could sometimes be completely unseen by those in the annex.  This was the case for me one particular Sunday, which led my young self to ask my parents if the person who's voice I was hearing was in fact God's.  Surprisingly, the answer I remember receiving was "yes."  I remember that day clearly; to hear from the voice of God gave me an incredible feeling of invincibility.

I know now that the voice was my pastor's, but I don't believe that my parents lied to me.  God was speaking that day.  I don't remember the sermon, but my pastor's voice made me ponder a great mystery.  God speaks to us.  I had learned a deep truth, but to comprehend it, that truth had to be presented in a way I could understand.

Certainly, there is more to the concept of how God speaks than I could know that day.  In fact, there is more to that concept than I could ever know.  That day, the infinite was reduced to the finite.  Only then was I able to grasp what God was trying to tell me.  This works in the opposite way as well.

Some therapists who work with survivors of child sexual abuse use games to evince the stories of abuse children hide away.  Kids have a difficult time talking about sexual abuse because it's such a large and abstract thing.  Children need a medium they understand to express themselves.  The simple is used to understand the complex.

You and I practice this kind of reduction everyday.  In fact, we do it every time we speak.  Think about why we express things.  It's because we need a way to explain an implicit thought or feeling we have.  We reduce what's inside of us into words we can command.  We can't use abstractions that float around within our minds and souls.  Even our thoughts are reductionistic.  One may understand something that can't be put into words, but in order to hold it in the brain, one needs a label for it.  The incomprehensible is reduced by our own need for comprehension.

Jesus, who some believe is God, understood this.  That's why He used imagery, stories, and metaphors when He explained the Kingdom of Heaven.  Because how do you explain the infinite to people with finite brains?  You reduce it.  We run into huge problems then, when we take reduced pictures of the Kingdom as absolute and literal truth.  That's like saying that voice I heard was literally and in every way God.  I did hear God speak that day, but I also heard my pastor.  And the words weren't even the important part.  It was the mystery.

I've come to the conclusion that trading in mystery for answers is a bad idea.  We're not going to see the whole picture now, so our best truth is always going to be a bit off.  Instead, consider living up to the truth that you have attained.  There's always more to everything than you think there is.

*Thanks to Matt Brown and 509 Community for inspiring some of this post and just generally being awesome.

Taste the Honey

When I was three years old, my parents were horrified to learn that I was a biter.  No parent wants to believe that their precious angel would ruthlessly rend the flesh of another, yet I stood before them; guilty.  What was the reason for this heinous act of deviance?  Another toddler had stolen my chair, and I wasn't going to stand for it.  I knew that seat belonged to me, and that day, justice rolled like water.  I took what was rightfully mine.

My friend Jason wrote recently that children are great and terrible when it comes to different aspects of what we consider love.  I would echo his words when it comes to the concept of justice.  If you don't believe me, take a child's toy while they're playing with it and see what happens.  Or go to an elementary school and watch what happens when a kid cheats at kickball.  Things get bloody fast.  Because kids have a really great perception of justice.

What's tough for kids is when it is they who are being justified, or disciplined.  Likely, you'll hear the words "it's not fair!" at some point in the discipline process.  Kids have a hard time realizing their need for correction.  But parents know it must be done to make the child's future brighter. 

After being in the presence of some of the freakiest creatures described anywhere in Scripture, Ezekiel is told by God to eat a scroll.  This scroll contained words of "lamentation, mourning, and woe" meant for Israel, which is described over and over again by God as "rebellious."  Despite the situation being real weird, Ezekiel eats the scroll, and discovers that it tastes like honey.  He's then told to go and minister to the hardhearted nation in exile. 

Israel was about to experience movement from captivity to freedom caused by the union of God's people and God's Spirit.  How was that going to happen?  Through justice.  What Israel had made wrong, God was about to make right.  This meant that God was going to have to take something away from Israel; thus the words of woe.  But it's going to be sweet.  Things were going to be made right again, but not just for Israel.  When everything is right, the world is as it should be.

We're typically interested in justice when it applies to us.  When someone takes something that's mine, watch out (I haven't bitten anyone in a while, by the way).  But what if we're the wrong ones?  Do we want justice then?  In this way, maybe we have yet to truly grow up.  God shows Ezekiel that Israel is about to face correction on a pretty big scale.  But Israel will also taste the sweetness of the results.  Because when God makes things right, we can taste and see that it's good.  

God sent His Spirit to move Israel out of captivity by forming a relationship with them and making them righteous.  That sounds a lot like the God I know now.  Do you want movement from where you are?  Come and taste the honey of justice.

Driving the Story

When I started my undergraduate work at Shippensburg University, I was swooped up into a very unique group of people.  These folk played tag with fruits, turned dorm rooms into coffee shops, and went to Philadelphia for no reason other than cheesesteaks.  They knew how to be, and they lived out their lives and faith authentically.  After experiencing the Spirit of God through them, I moved from where I was to a new place.  I became different.

God has been working this way for a while.  As I've mentioned before, the Spirit of God in relationship with people causes movement.  In fact, the Spirit is a movement.

In the first chapter of Ezekiel, the titular character is witness to a vision involving four strange creatures.  These creatures, in addition to having four faces and a variety of other curious features, had four wheels.  Verse twenty says that the Spirit of God led the creatures, as the creatures' spirits were in these wheels.  There is some pretty heavy symbolism at work here.  The Spirit of God is causing movement.

Ezekiel is a prophet for God while Israel is in exile, separated from their land and temple.  For these imprisoned Israelites, to hear that the Spirit of God was on the move would have been comforting.  God is sending His spirit out before Him, and He's a Spirit of movement.  A movement is always what brings change.  That's why we call it a social movement.  Things were about to change.

Notice also that God's Spirit was interacting with the wheels in the vision to move them.  He was leading them.  The Spirit does His work in us via relationship.  So what does this mean for captive Israel?  It means that the Spirit of God was coming to form a relationship with them to move them from bondage to freedom.

This sounds much like the God I know.  When I experienced the Spirit through my friends and other ways at Shippensburg, I gained a new freedom.  When God sends His Spirit, it's to help us understand a new way of living.  A way that is free of some sort of slavery we're in, even if we don't know it.  We're moved to a new place, turning over a new page in our story.  If you're ready for a new page of life, the Spirit is hovering over the waters, waiting for the pen. 

Togethering Somethings

For some reason, I've taken five classes on statistics in one form or another.  There's few reasons someone should take five statistics classes, and there are even fewer reasons for a person as terrible at math as me to take five statistics classes.  Nevertheless, I have taken them, and if I've learned anything, it's that variables can be very significant (I am so sorry for that joke).

You can do a few things with data from a single variable, but you can do a whole plethora of interesting things with the data from two or more variables.  When analyzing two variables, something interesting happens.  Data from one or both variables can be significant, but the interaction between these two variables can also be significant, even if the two variables themselves are not.

You may not care about statistics at all, which is most likely justified, but they show us all kinds of information about relationships.  Namely, that when two somethings act in conjunction, stuff happens.

In fact, I'd go so far as to say that without a relationship, nothing happens.  Everything in the whole world is happening because two or more somethings are coming together to make it happen.  Without relationship, there is no movement.

This means that when entering into a relationship (of any kind) with another person, the interaction between the two moves both individuals.  Relationships cause interaction, and interaction causes movement.  That's why, in a counseling relationship, technique accounts for only fifteen percent of positive change, while the relationship itself accounts for eight-five percent. There's power in coming together.

This relational principle is the same reason God chooses to make relationship with a group of people on earth.  In the tenth chapter of the book of Deuteronomy, Moses urges the people of Israel to dedicate their hearts to the God who has freed and restored those in relationship with Him.  When people and God come together, miracles happen, the captives are set free, and there's jubilee.

Relationship has always been the vehicle through which God has moved.  As I said last time, what we form relationships with has the power to harm us or heal us.  When you join with something, movement occurs.  Are your relationships taking you where you want to go?