Imperative in the Indicative

A Question Regarding Spiritual Abuse

If I were to do a Tumblr about spiritual abuse in the church, would it become popular?

Would anyone want to submit a story and help me? A Tumblr account with stories, pictures, art, where the victims or spiritual abuse can share their story irregardless of religion.

Though it’d focus on Christianity, at first, if only because that’s my faith.

Perhaps a photo? Or a painting?

This is me thinking out loud. Thank you.

On Driscoll, Asperger’s Syndrome, and the ESV (A Reflection on Madness)

I have a girlfriend.

And my girlfriend likes the fact that I cry, alot. I am a cryer. I’m very sensitive, very easily hurt. When I feel things, I feel them strongly. When I am happy, I am very happy. And when I am sad, I am very sad. And when I am angry, I am very angry. And when I love, I love to the point of burnout.

My former youth minister with whom I used to work with at my old church (a Southern Baptist megachurch, Lord have mercy!) was, very, infatuated by Mark Driscoll. He was a young man, and he was young. He got married you. Yes, his ego had ballooned to the size of Genghis Khan’s empire because he had accomplished all of this by the age of 23. And he was a “man”.

All thanks to Mark Driscoll getting him off his butt and doing stuff other then bully people and fornicate with women. He was tough and he became tough for Jesus.

But I am not a tough man, really. I am a more gentle soul, I mean, I wanted to fornicate with women (thus the severe porn addiction I had a long time ago) but really I just wanted love. And so did he, I’m sure. All topics that can explored at a later date.

I was impressed. He was the man I wanted to be, this youth minister. I saw his gruffness and I despised my sensitivity. And Mark Driscoll? He had all the answers it seemed.

Now that I think about it, I wonder if Mark Driscoll was the youth pastor of my old church…

The point is, I tried to be a man. And I burnt out. And I despised myself for it.

But you know what the ironic thing is?

I find out a month ago that I have Asperger’s Syndrome, and apparently, that makes me more sensitive then most. Anxiety and whatnot. God made this way. And God loves me the way that I am. I don’t need to be “manly” as to what Driscoll calls manly. I just need to be loving, as best I can.

And when I’m not, it’s okay, because God loved and loves me when I’m not.

And honestly, now that the story of Mars Hill abusing its members have come to light, I’m grinning because I feel that I have been vindicated. Let justice roll down like a might river.

God have grace on that man, me, and that church, and the Church.

P.S.

The NRSV is better then the ESV. Isaiah meant a young woman. Sorry folks.

To take a Breath Away (A Short Reflection)

If the gospel isn’t taking your breath away then something else is.

I have a friend who is always wanting to post inspiring things, things that will make me excited about God and the Gospel.

But to be honest, what does it mean that the Gospel take your breath away? That I’m zealous at all times? Must I be in an excited emotional state about the Gospel?

I guess. But hopefully God has enough grace to let me thrilled by something else, like Tumblr.

In other words, thank God loves us when we’re not enthralled by Jesus.

Psalm 8 (A Short Reflection on our Worth and our Place)

1 O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.

2 Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.

3 When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established;

4 what are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?

5 Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.

6 You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet,

7 all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,

8 the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

9 O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Rather popular to have two views of us, humanity.

The first is to think rather highly of ourselves. Self-aggrandizement. We do this in our daily lives, and how we ask? Ask the person who gossips so that they might feel important for having secret knowledge. Or ask the person who serves so that they might feel as if reality could function without you. 

Perhaps we use people so that might benefit us? Yes, that person in your pew would make a wonderful guitar player for your ministry. 

I don’t know, or you befriend a person so that they might help you with a difficulty that you’re having. And then you abandon them as soon as they’ve helped you.

Because all the world’s a stage and you’re the star?

Selfish. Nobody wants to be friends with a person like that. And neither do you.

But read what the Psalmist writes. The Psalmist writes “what are human beings that you are mindful of them”?

And why should the Lord be mindful of us? Look at the works of the stars, the moon. Why, He holds the cosmos together lest the lights be blown out and leave us in the darkness.

And yet.

And yet we must be mindful that we do not fall into the second common view of self that we hold, that is, that of self-hatred. Disgust.

I’m sure you feel out of place because you’re not popular amongst your peers, friends. Or that you feel out of place because you’re too poor. Or you’re too rich.

The point is, you fail to satisfy some sort of law that you’ve imposed on yourself. So you fail, and you feel worthless.

Yet listen to what the Psalmist writes. That “we are crowned with glory and honor”.

And yet, paradoxically almost, we are given dominion over all the earth. The land, the sea, the fish, the oxen, the birds. Even the liger?

Yes, even the liger.

Of course you tell me, how is it true that we rule over all the earth? And that we are crowned with glory and honor? We have hurricanes, deaths due to deranged ducks and other deadly diseases, that we hate ourselves and we use others to make much of us, usually at the same time? 

It can be, and it is, in Jesus Christ.

In Jesus Christ, God the Son, sent by the Father and empowered by the Spirit became incarnate, human, and had dominion over creation and ultimately over death as he came back from the dead.

Indeed, he let the brokenness of the creation ravage him so that he might come back from the dead by the power of the Spirit and reconcile us and the whole creation to God the Father, so that Christ might be all in all.

But what does that mean?

It means that in Jesus Christ we can understand our place. That we are sinful, but not worthless, not beyond repair. That we are needing to be reconciled to God the Father and that Jesus was made far so that we be brought close.

So then, we are humbled.

However we also learn that we have worth, because we are made in God’s image, and that because for those of us in Jesus, we become partakers of the divine image, as St. Peter once wrote in his epistle. We become more like God, and in that, we become more human. We start to have dominion over ourselves and our sinful nature.

So then, we see our dignity. We are loved by virtue of being. And God demonstrates this love in sending His Son.

And because Jesus has ascended, even know, all things (though it does not appear that way) are even now under His feet. And He will return again and set all of the cosmos right again, and all of us who are in Jesus Christ will have dominion over all of the creation as He sits at the right hand of the Father.

And all of us in Christ will be singing “O LORD, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

A Narratival Context (My Life so Far) I, I, I, I,…

I have a girlfriend.

I have Asperger’s Syndrome.

I have Lord knows how long to graduate.

I suppose I should update my two readers as to what has been going on in my life. Sure. 

I stumbled towards a relationship. Stumbled because everything I learned about pursuing a woman blew up in my face. I learned to dance, play music, became funny, attempted to be cool, just so that a woman could pay attention to me.

Instead, this woman paid attention to me because I witnessed to her sister about Jesus, more then that, because I befriended her with no strings attached. She liked me because I was myself, in my failures.

I did nothing to deserve this, truly.

I want to love her. Not in that dopamine high sort of sense, but rather, I want to appreciate her because I don’t deserve her. It’s a bit overwhelming at times because this relationship is rather new to me, and I don’t know how such things work. 

I also found out that I have Asperger’s Syndrome. If you don’t know what that is, go to Wikipedia. Other then that, it means I’m socially awkward and obsessed with certain topics which makes me appear to be rather intelligent. Apparently the DSM-IV has a category for geek. But that’s besides the point. 

It, the point? The point is, something that I have been struggling with my entire life has been diagnosed and is being treated. Finally. All those times that I felt awkward, unable to read the social atmosphere of a place, it has a name! Now I can just tell people to be patient with me just like the Father is patient with humanity to repent, and stuff. But that’s another story.

I, thirdly, finally accepted that I’m going to graduate late. Two classes this semester. Whatever. I’m going to have fun and make music, listen to music, and pursue peace. 

I’ll end this post now, because now I need to write others. I have much to process ya know.

Aye!