Arising Unscathed from the Grave December is full of holidays. The first is Hanukkah, which this year starts on the 18th. It commemorates the success of the Maccabean revolt and the miracle of the oil that burned for eight days. On the Winter Solstice, there’s Yule, which welcomes the return of the sun. On December 26th, Kwanzaa begins. Started in 1966 to honor the heritage of African Americans with symbols of unity, cooperation, creativity, and faith, the holiday includes seven days of lighting candles. Throughout the month, Christians mark the Sundays of Advent with candlelight to mark the coming of Christmas, the day when they celebrate the birth of their…
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Knowing God’s Love
The God of Job About a year ago, while working on a column about the Book of Job, I came across the passage below. Job has demanded that God be put on trial, that he answer his questions about fairness and justice, yet God answers nothing. Instead, God grills him. He asks Job: Can you pull in Leviathan with a fishhook or tie down its tongue with a rope?Can you put a cord through its nose or pierce its jaw with a hook?Will it keep begging you for mercy? Will it speak to you with gentle words?Will it make an agreement with you for you to take it as your slave for life? [1] Job…
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Shame, Shamelessness, and the Parson
Shame, Shamelessness, and Narcissism Shame sometimes looks like its opposite. When our shame becomes unbearable, it twists into an intractable shamelessness. Then we can hurt others without remorse. Unless something stokes our pride or satisfies our lust, it means nothing to us. When we are shameless, no consequence society can enforce will affect us. No matter how ferocious or ingenious, punishments cannot squeeze remorse from an indifferent heart. Catcalls, beatings, imprisonment, banishment might sting, but only those who entertain the possibility that they have done wrong will be moved to change. The shameless feel offended by chastisement. They see themselves as victims. Thus, they defend themselves from condemnation by condemning…
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Shattering Images of God
The First Cause It may be an illusion, this world we inhabit: a virtual reality machine, a dream, a joke. But if so, who’s running it all? If it’s all smoke and mirrors, surely something is tending the fire, polishing the glass? Perhaps the Big Bang is truth, and a singularity randomly popped into existence, just as quanta wink in and out, without someone or something controlling it. Alternately, quantum fluctuations may have created a series of Big Bounces, resulting in one multiple universes. Some people imagine there was no beginning, that space always existed. When conditions were right, time manifested, and the universe-building began. No god required. It’s hard…
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Texts of Terror and Love
Death in Numbers 25 The Hebrew Bible is the story of a love affair between Yahweh and his chosen bride, Israel. In return for God’s blessings, the people promise fidelity, yet over and over, they rebel, complain, and bow down to other gods. Sometimes Yahweh is patient. At other times, he punishes them harshly. One such harsh punishment occurred at the end of the Israelite’s wilderness journey. They were camped along the Jordan River across from Canaan. In between Balaam’s prophecy that Israel would be victorious in battle against the neighboring tribes and the taking a census of the Israeli people, lies the tale of the murder of Zimri and…
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Communicating with God
Does God Communicate? Her parents talk to God. Her partner feel God’s presence. They all say that the Holy Spirit guides them. Yet God has never spoken to her. That doesn’t mean she stopped believing in God. She believes. How could she not when she has been taught since infancy that this Christian God was real, that he created the universe, walked through a perfect garden with Adam and Eve, and blessed the faithful. This woman tried so hard to be faithful. She did not feel blessed. What was wrong with her? Had God forsaken her because of some terrible thing she had done, something she could not remember? She…
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God’s Wrath and God’s Love
Divine Inspiration Divine inspiration comes from many sources. In Ancient Greece, there were the muses. According to the tradition of some religions, God spoke directly to their founders. For instance, there was the Mesopotamian author of the Atra-Hasis; Muhammad, who wrote the Quran; Joseph Smith of the Latter Day Saints; Báb and Baháʼu’lláh, authors of the Baha’i scripture; and Helen Schucman, who claimed that, when she wrote the Course of Miracles, she was receiving dictation from a voice who identified itself as Jesus. Although neither Jews nor Christians assert that God dictated their scriptures, many consider the Bible to be God’s spiritual word, if not the literal one. If nothing…
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Bearing the Beams of Love
Our Capacity to Love Although I haven’t heard this sentiment from other than Christians, I suspect they are not the only religious people who find it hard to imagine how an atheist copes. This makes sense. After all, if you find comfort in your relationship with God, you might conclude that peace comes from this connection alone, yet I have known many atheists, and from them, I have learned that the ability to cope with hardship, to find peace in the midst of adversity, has less to do with the specifics of one’s belief than with the capacity one has to love. Of course, this begs the question, what is…
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Being Seen and Hiding No More
Shame and Being Seen Last week we talked about our shadow side, the part of our psyche hidden from our conscious mind. By living an examined life, we discover more about ourselves each day, yet we will never fully understand what lurks within the recesses of our being. We often act out of ignorance, deluding ourselves about our true purpose, feeling annoyed by the idiosyncrasies of others that – without our knowledge – touch on our own. With effort, we can mitigate our flaws, but we never avoid them completely. One way to discover our true self is to allow others to see us. This is also the only way…
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The Humble Heart
Rewards for the Humble It’s a common theme in folklore, the youngest brother or sister who makes good after the older ones fail, or the reviled stepsister who earns riches through her compassion, industriousness, and obedience, while her lazy and disrespectful sibling earns beatings or tarring or death. In “Mother Holle,” a Brother’s Grimm tale, the ill-treated girl is sent by her stepmother to fetch a spindle she dropped down the well, so she jumps in. She lands, though, not in the water, but on a grassy knoll. Seeing a meadow of flowers, she walks toward it. On the way, she passes by a baker’s oven. The bread inside calls…