Dry Forest Seeks Lightning
On the cusp of something new. Don't really know what it is. Can't see for the smog...
Not sure why I'm talking like Captain Kirk.
LA is hazy, Pasadena is hazy and dusty. But at least it's a dry heat. The fires are still burning in the San Bernadino Mountains a few miles behind where I sit. I'm sure they contribute to this smog. I hear that it's only really heavy in the summer. Hopefully it will clear in a few weeks.
Clarity is part of what I came here for. I was just looking at my last post (it's been a while, I got married, so I've been living in the real world, not on my computer). I seemed a bit lost, confused. I'm not really much better now. I'm still in an environment where I'm surrounded by church-speak (reference to 1984). I don't think all the lingo really makes anything better. I'm looking for a job. The last thing I need right now on the verge of starting seminary is a "ministry" job. I did that. I can't do it again. At least not for a while.
I don't like what I became. I became what I had always despised.
I don't like what Christianity became to me. A clique that required the proper vocabulary for assurance of membership. I don't really think that Jesus wanted to turn his new Way into a country club.
I've been burned. Certainly that's true. But this fire has had a purifying effect. Clearing away the underbrush. Burning off the leaves that cast shadows.
Fire is necessary to propagate life in many forested areas. There are certain types of trees (lodgepole pines are one example) that actually cannot reproduce without the intense heat of a fire. Some trees won't drop their seeds until there is a fire. This makes the soil more fertile, as well as clearing away all the older adult plants, allowing maximum light, nutrients, and water for the seedlings.
The past 2 years have been good, in retrospect. Very revealing. I've been able to peer through the canopy of Christian lingo, marketing, misinterpretation, and motives. Unfortunately, from what I've seen, the ground below is in desperate need of a good fire.
In the rain forest, there are trees that grow on other trees. Any plant that grows on another plant is called an epiphyte. Rain forest epiphytes may never actually touch the ground. They receive the water and minerals they need either hydroponically or by parasitism. Modern American evangelicalism is epiphytic. It has grown on top of the convoluted forest of fundamentalism with little contact with the soil of the Way of Christ himself. It has created a torrid lattice that feels foundationally solid, but bears little resemblance to what the authors of the Bible intended.
Sound judgemental? Well, I am, after all, a product of my environment. I am an epiphyte by birth, straining against my genetic destiny, growing down, away from the sun, feeling for the soft, cool, dark soil. The real, the ground. Not the human construct.
Hopefully, they'll serve some of that up here. If not, I'll keep straining. Truth is what I'm bound for.
Not sure why I'm talking like Captain Kirk.
LA is hazy, Pasadena is hazy and dusty. But at least it's a dry heat. The fires are still burning in the San Bernadino Mountains a few miles behind where I sit. I'm sure they contribute to this smog. I hear that it's only really heavy in the summer. Hopefully it will clear in a few weeks.
Clarity is part of what I came here for. I was just looking at my last post (it's been a while, I got married, so I've been living in the real world, not on my computer). I seemed a bit lost, confused. I'm not really much better now. I'm still in an environment where I'm surrounded by church-speak (reference to 1984). I don't think all the lingo really makes anything better. I'm looking for a job. The last thing I need right now on the verge of starting seminary is a "ministry" job. I did that. I can't do it again. At least not for a while.
I don't like what I became. I became what I had always despised.
I don't like what Christianity became to me. A clique that required the proper vocabulary for assurance of membership. I don't really think that Jesus wanted to turn his new Way into a country club.
I've been burned. Certainly that's true. But this fire has had a purifying effect. Clearing away the underbrush. Burning off the leaves that cast shadows.
Fire is necessary to propagate life in many forested areas. There are certain types of trees (lodgepole pines are one example) that actually cannot reproduce without the intense heat of a fire. Some trees won't drop their seeds until there is a fire. This makes the soil more fertile, as well as clearing away all the older adult plants, allowing maximum light, nutrients, and water for the seedlings.
The past 2 years have been good, in retrospect. Very revealing. I've been able to peer through the canopy of Christian lingo, marketing, misinterpretation, and motives. Unfortunately, from what I've seen, the ground below is in desperate need of a good fire.
In the rain forest, there are trees that grow on other trees. Any plant that grows on another plant is called an epiphyte. Rain forest epiphytes may never actually touch the ground. They receive the water and minerals they need either hydroponically or by parasitism. Modern American evangelicalism is epiphytic. It has grown on top of the convoluted forest of fundamentalism with little contact with the soil of the Way of Christ himself. It has created a torrid lattice that feels foundationally solid, but bears little resemblance to what the authors of the Bible intended.
Sound judgemental? Well, I am, after all, a product of my environment. I am an epiphyte by birth, straining against my genetic destiny, growing down, away from the sun, feeling for the soft, cool, dark soil. The real, the ground. Not the human construct.
Hopefully, they'll serve some of that up here. If not, I'll keep straining. Truth is what I'm bound for.
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