Fearless Wonder

 A question for my sda friends.  The Bible has some troubling parts, God killing the first born Egyptians, condoning slavery etc and if I were to press you on these troubling parts of the Bible my guess is you’d say something like, “He works in mysterious ways,  his ways are above our ways, we can’t know these things but we have to trust in his loving character or something along those lines”.  Other faith traditions have their troubling parts as well, but rather than giving them the sane “God is mysterious” pass you give your own sacred texts, you probably say the troubling parts of their scriptures are proof that their religion is false.  My question is, what has convinced you to give your God a mystery pass?  

Let today be the day.     you look at your anger and self-loathing,  your anxiety and depression, neurosis, obessions and compulsions.   Look at them and see them…not as demons,  but as the traumatized children they are.   Then tell them Thank-you.   In their own way they’ve tried to protect and nourish you, to soothe and motivate you.   They didn’t know how, but they tried.  So Thank-you If they are crying out to you now, tuck them in bed, kiss them on head and whisper… “Go to sleep, little ones. Mama’s got this. “ Then wake up in yourself the children of compassion.   These children who are kind, fierce, curious, sustaining and beautiful.      These sweet little ones need your attention now.  They’ve been weak and malnourished. You’ve always given so much to the children of trauma that you’ve had nothing left for these others.   So feed them now, kiss them and let them play....

So here goes my first Wordy Wednesday offering.   I am trying to write short stories for kids, but the habit of writing is hard for me.  When I sit down to write I want the skies to open, and a rainbow of inspiration to come.  Yeah, right.  Instead I get paralyzed when nothing brilliant immediately appears.  So, I am hoping by giving myself this Wordy Wednesday challenge, I can at least develop the habit of writing something, even if it doesn't amount to anything.   I still want to blog about spiritual and mental health issues, so I am hoping that will play into this as well.    Another challenge to writing is attention span.  (I literally just got distracted checking FB)  I've been meditating and doing yoga on a more regular basis, and that has helped me develop more sustainable emotional health.   It's also helped me to concentrate mindfully but my I still have a ways to go.    I know the internet is a big factor o...

One of the most important sayings of wisdom in our modern era is the phrase, "Haters gonna hate."  These three seemingly simple words have given me perspective over and over again in many tricky situations.  What others thought and felt about me was once a primary motivator in my life, and while I still struggle with this from time to time, it no longer rules me in the way it once did.   I used to think that if I could time my actions and responses just right I could make someone stop hating or judging me or make them happy and that would make me a good, love-worthy person. I have come to see that trying to make haters stop hating, and judges stop judging, and to make others happy is never about me trying to be a good person.  It's really me trying to practice mind control.  I want to change the thoughts of another person, to control their brain, as if I am some sort of mad sciencist from a bad B movie. Once I saw how ridiculous and impossible my little mind c...

When I left Christianity it had almost nothing to do with scientific theories or biblical scholarship (i.e. Bart Ehrman.)  I left because I found the Bible to be morally reprehensible and because I realized that I was not in fact a guilty sinner, just suffering from a lack of serotonin to the brain.  I admit I still have yet to read Ehrman, or Pagan Christianity or really any other fine tome that helped so many to break away from the Bible.  However I think science is just the bees knees.  I credit Brian Williams, my awesome grad school professor for waking me up to the joys of science.  Also seeing the joy in my students faces when we did experiments together really inspired me to dig deeper.  I discovered RadioLab on NPR and I'm currently in love with Neil DeGrasse Tyson.  (Though I first loved him before Cosmos, back when he was hosting NOVA Science Now.) Learning about how all life is interconnected, and our very atoms were birthed in the stars...

No ones likes unsolicited advice...So with that said, don't read my blog if you don't want to hear what I have to say.  I know there were times when I was dealing with anxiety, depression and a fragile emotional state, that you could give me all the good advice in the world and it wouldn't take.   However, if it wasn't for the wise words of people in my life, authors I've read, and speakers I've listened to, I would still be back in neurotic fun land.  So the following is my little contribution to the people in my life who are suffering.  Take from it what you will. 1.  Don't be afraid of your anxiety, or depression, or emotions, or phobias or whatever it is that plagues you.  Your neurosis like to keep you afraid so you won't do anything about them.  They like to pretend they are big terrible monsters with fearsome teeth.  They are really just whiney little babies who have never been loved.  The sooner you can see them for what they ar...

So despite being an "Ex-Christian" I am a person of faith. I have faith in myself.  I believe and live by the faith that I will grow as a human in love and compassion.  I have faith that I will recover from my mistakes and that I will allow my successes and failures to transform me into a better person. I have faith that others are capable of learning to grow, think, love and recover from their mistakes. I have faith that living in the present moment will put my worries and fears into the right perspective. I have faith that the seeds of love, kindness and compassion that I plant will grow. I am trying to live this faith out from day to day.  It's not a complex -ology held together by a web of correctly ordered texts.  It's a faith born out of hardship and experience, joy and love. My faith is about being true to myself and the people in my sphere of influence,  rather than being true to a god or a religious text.   I know many wonderful peopl...

I've seen this statement going around today. "Dear God, why do you allow so much violence in schools?" "Dear Student, I'm not allowed in schools." If you believe that God's absence from schools is the reason for Sandy Hook and other school shootings, then why aren't you putting God back into the schools yourself? 2 Corinthians 5:20 We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. Christians, aren't you supposed to be God's ambassadors, his hands and feet?  If you are, then you can walk into the schools yourself.  You don't have to wait for the government to pass a law. I would love to have you in my classroom.  You could kneel beside a child and help them with their reading.  You could bring in school supplies to pass out to my needy ones.  You could read stories, sweep up spills, and wipe away tears.  You could tutor af...

Right now I am reading a book called "A Chosen Faith."  Its sort of a primer to the Unitarian Universalist faith.  I am thinking about formally joining our local congregation.  (I already sing in the choir.)   Unitarian Universalism seems to line up with where I am right now.  However I find myself still in the awkward getting to know you stage with the congregation.  Folk are fairly friendly and there is a lot to do and a lot to get involved with.  However there are not a lot of younger childless couples in the church so its a bit harder to form those easy friendships one does with ones peers.  This has me thinking about the place of awkwardness in the spiritual experience.  We'd all like to be up on the mountaintop, blissing out to a spiritual high, but life is not often made of moments like this.  I think the Buddhist view of the present moment helps.  i.e. "Dwelling in this present moment, I know this is a wonderful moment." Th...

This is a response to my friend's comment on my last post. Yes, I have heard the lunatic/liar/lord argument.  I know there are scholars from the different camps who have written extensively on the historical Jesus, some to give evidence for faith, some to destroy faith, and some who simply want to examine the facts honestly.   For me, to parse out the truth of what happened 2000+ years ago is an hopeless task.  To call myself even an amatuer history buff would be too much.  I enjoy history but only have devoted myself to it sporadically.  Yet even if I did devote myself fulltime would the conclusions I come to be any more valid than the countless other historian who have gone before?   I have trouble enough determining what is true in the here and now, let alone seeing the truth in a distant path, where much knowledge has been lost and forgotten. In truth I haven't given a lot of thought to the historical Jesus, to either prove or disprove his worth. ...

My blog is a bit mad at me for ignoring it for so long, and it went and collected all kinds spam comments to show me that it's feelings were hurt.  Well, I cleaned up the comments and now I need to go one step further and post something so that my blog can finally forgive me.  (Sorry to Noah, whose last comment was accidentally deleted while I cleaned up spam.) Sooooooooo....um......life, and meaning, and religion, and er.....stuff.    I recently finished both War and Peace and Anna Karenina.  Tolstoy got me thinking about a lot of things, but I fear that if I start in posting about what I've learned from Tolstoy that this post will end up the same length as War and Peace.   I am also reading a book on Unitarian Universalism since I am thinking about joining our local congregation.  I already sing in the choir.  But since I am still making up my mind about the UU I don't have anything clear to say about it.   I could post about...

Earlier this year I started taking anti-depressants and anti-anxiety medication.   I had put off doing so for many years because of the bad experiences of some people close to me on various medications.  However, my therapist assured me that some of the newer medications did not have the same awful side effects and that if I did experience prolonged negative side effects I could always go off the medication and be no worse off that I was before.  I was at a crisis point in my life, where my depression and anxiety had become too difficult to manage on my own so I finally gave it a try.   After two terrible weeks of the initial side effects, the medication worked.  I was good.  I stopped have panic attacks and only had infrequent and short periods of depression, rather than the weeks on end depressions I'd had before.  Aside from that I finally knew what it was like to feel normal. Being on medication didn't put me in a fog, or send me to euphoric heig...

I left the church for a number of reasons, but I think the strongest reason I left was the realization that religious thinking was only fueling my problems with depression and anxiety. I'm not blaming the church for causing my depression and anxiety. I know now that the chemicals in my brain just work a little strangely which leads to bouts of depression, panic attacks and self-hatred. I found some relief in Buddhist meditation, which showed me that the SDA church did not have all the answers. Later therapy and medication helped me gain more ground against these messed up feelings. I applaud the SDA church for spreading the health message, because exercise and healthy eating are two important tools in combating depression. I also applaud a pastor in the church who encouraged me too seek the help of a mental health specialist. However, overall the message I got from the church was that I was a miserable sinner, and only prayer and God's grace would save me. For a long tim...

I know the feeling stick man...I know the feeling. It's an irresistible urge to correct certain opinions that I strongly disagree with. The urge be to snarky in combating said opinions is especially tempting. Having seen many internet debates devolve into mudslinging and anger I've tried to refrain from engaging (or starting) internet debates. However, I think the real problem is their aren't a lot of safe spaces in our society for people of differing opinions to converse. The media gets people all hyped up into an us versus them frenzy (both sides are guilty of this). People get very protective of their opinions as well. Rather than recognize that we all have a lot to learn, we build up bulwarks of anger and self-righteousness to protect our opinions and then refuse to hear what anyone else has to say. Our opinions must be very fragile things indeed if they need so much protection. I like to refer to this phenomenon and invincible ignorance. The fact is that...

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Trial run of a fashion update. I'm chronicling my attempts to gain a sense of fashion here rather than trying to present myself as some sort of expert.

Time to give the ole blog a make-over. It realized that the blog was still dressed in all black, like me in middle school. Maybe it was harboring those harsh, self-absorbed, nazel gazing, immature attitudes as well. Time for girly, happy and fresh! In other news... The deadly duo of First Year Teacher/Grad School student tried to chew me up and spit me out yet I have survived and thrived. Still a few more months to go. With a lot of hard work I just might make it. (It helps that I love my students...SOOOOOO cute.) Nothing much to report on the spiritual front. No time to philosophize these days. Becoming a teacher made me realize my happiness relies more on me being engaged and active. Thinking and pondering (read Obsessing) about the meaning of life leads to depression and confusion. Meditation and mindfulness on the other hand are still extremely essential and important. I regret letting them slip from my life the last few semesters. I have been going back to the local med...

On June 15 I got a letter in the mail stating that my name had officially been removed from the membership rolls of the Seventh-Day Adventist church per my request. It was a nice form letter, very respectful of my choice, and I give the church kudos for it. So, just a few short days latter the General Conference of Seventh-Day Adventists rolled into my town, and so did many friends and family members, some from ages past. Of course I had to go to the GC. You don't often get the chance to catch up with so many people from various stages of your life. That part was wonderful. The exhibit hall was wonderful too, with lots of color and sound and pretty display booths, many which were promoting amazing things like health outreach, ministry to the poor (Go ADRA!!) and general "light unto the world" kind of stuff. I went to the first weekend's Sabbath service with a family member who was staying with us. The Sabbath School was fairly uplifting and it reminded us to re...

So I never finished that big post I was working on. It took on a life of it's own and got away from me. In the meantime, here is this thought to ponder... In my education courses we learn that GREAT teachers give their student strategies to help them engage in higher-level thinking, make connections and examine things critically. They help them to learn to be independent and intrinsically motivated. In other words they don't stand at the board lecturing their students for an hour, but rather create an environment where students can learn, explore, question and create. This progressive model of teaching needs to make its way into the church. I find that even in most progressive learning churches the emphasis is still on the song service and a sermon. I've already written about my issues with most modern church music, so let me just focus on the sermon. According to the best teaching pedagogy today, teachers should give a 10-15 minute INTERACTIVE mini-lesson and leave ...