The contentions

Recently I got in touch with a very close friend again after a long time! Time and choice had dealt our friendship a dirty blow and we had lost all manner of amity.
The biggest blow was his turn from the faith we both held so dear for a long long time.  We made our choices on the things that mattered to us and have since looked and behaved differently toward life as we know it.  He told me the reasons he got to that place and I listened. They are no different than those of the raging anti-religious intellects that  think faith and religion disreputable and should be walked away from. His reasoning was as  a result of somehow waking up from the devious dream that was faith.   

It got me thinking again…  what changed. How come we took two very different directions? How come it is the story of this world? Some reject the word of truth and others embrace it as Life.  The So-called evidence appears to be at a balance no one can seem to tip.   There seems to be as much evidence (today at least) that God exists, as there is that he doesn’t. Chance, choice and God appear to be merging at an intersection of life from the perspective of an innocent, objective on looker that knows not what to believe. But is searching for truth.

 

I have over and over again been at it with the bunter of the Christian turned atheist.  The debates about the so many seemingly evident inconsistencies in the bible, the immoral stance church leaders have taken, all in the name of God, the hypocrisy within the Church, the ever-growing number of people believing less in the scriptures and more in themselves,  the tedious religiosity that is more mind controlling than transforming…

Truth be told, like it or not, all these contentions are sound in their own right. 

I ask myself however, how many of these questions are queried in the name of objectivity when in fact they are piquantly asked in the spirit of rejection. 

to be continued… 

I have ,in recent times, come to witness a metamorphosis far grater than can be endorsed in nature. It is one of dire deliberations and dismal sacrifice.  A Change that time and nature attest to as the single greatest miracle in a man’s cycle. A come back! A return to normalcy!  It is a beauty that cannot be described or portrayed simply because it is one outside the realms of nature as we know it.

A few months ago my pastor and I , with the help of the saints started a group for the addicts , specific to alcoholics.  This was a result of my previous exposure to a church outside my natural confinements. I met and fellowshipped with a bunch of Ex Cons, wife beaters, home wreckers, and the like. They all reminisced on  a lot of their  dark days . One thing was for sure!  It was impossible to reconcile who they are and who they said they were in a past long gone. I couldn’t imagine it….  However intrigued and charged I was about it!

I come back to my confinement and my pastor requests me to help out with starting an AA meeting.  Long story short, We finally got it going.
I can honestly tell you, the times I have been within those walls, I have learnt more about men thrown out by society because of who they had become, and their struggles to get back on track than I could ever learn in year of Church services.

This is the journey of a Miracle long prayed for. Prayed for by a loving mother, a devoted wife, a desperate husband, a hopeful son, … someone that has a loved one under the power of addiction.

Within the confines of these walls, I have come to respect what was known and sometimes still is known as the “scum of the earth”… The bum!  The struggle to become more than they think they are… the challenge of dispelling a lie that they are worthless… Believing that they are of more value than the dirt they  lie in….

It intrigues me … this journey. It mesmerizes me.  A bunch of guys that have come to an all time low and have hit their breaking point. This is It. This is where it begins to happen. The Miracle of all time! The transformation from scum to king!  They look to the big book for answers….

First they admit they are powerless over the addiction.  That They are beyond redemption and cant do it on their own.  This is acceptance. This is coming straight out of a denial. One that had blinded them from seeing the truth about their despair and pain !

Secondly, They hand over their addiction to a Power Greater than themselves.
Yes, that is to say, They must negate all pride that tells them otherwise and believe in a God that can set them free from their addiction.  One that can restore them to sanity!

Thirdly, they make a decision, to turn their will and their lives over to the care of God as they understood him.  This has to and always will introduce the aspect of Hope. See ,for an addict, the pain they caused, the despair they feel, the control they lack, it all is a literal hell! Their world is crumbling before they. Spiraling into unmitigated chaos and they are helpless and hopeless!

It is at the third step of the Twelve, that the man realizes he isn’t alone. That this isn’t it. He isn’t doomed for a “bottled trap”.  That His Life can still be brought to Sanity.
It hit me! I couldn’t leave the group. I couldn’t have helped it start  for these men alone.  I found, in the depths of my heart, that I needed to see this. For my own sanity! For my own addictions of life! My vices that keep chipping my life away!

I have for sooo long pointed a figure at how “they are the ones with the problem” and how they should ” just change” Or “just leave the habit”…

Only to realize I am one. I am a problem too!
To witness these men pick up their lives’ pieces and watching them put them back together … is truly the single greatest metamorphosis of all time….

I have come to know about it all to well, but never thought it was mine to have.  I never thought I needed it.

I thought I was still in control….

I thought I had it all together,

But to know it isn’t true is the beginning of perfect freedom…

Hi, I am me, and I am an addict

I was at a free thinkers meeting some time back and the biggest question I heard them ask was “why can’t people Critically think for themselves?”

It was an ordeal tale of a mind-boggling collision of philosophies, ideologies and values that were clad in the bright light of the intelligent and logical thinkers.

Their biggest contention was of cause, the little or no thinking done in the religious circles.  It is a well-known fact among these oh-so-bright scholars that faith and belief in an intangible power greater and more potent than can be imagined is simply superstitious. And in their books, superstition is the very enemy of critical thinking.

So faith and belief pose a threat to the mind and retard it from progressive and ideal rational.

Free thinkers pride themselves in their literary prowess on all matters scientific, logical and attainable. They reckon everything else that can’t be explained by these tools is either non-existent or a hoax.

On further study of what was referred to as critical thinking, one cannot fail to see the utter lack of commitment to the moral implication of one that does or doesn’t think critically.  Because you see, Critical thinking, to them has no moralistic boundary to it. It just is. If one adds a moral notion to it, it will almost always quickly degenerate into a feud between religion and “logic”.
So I ask, who determines what Critical thinking entails? And God help you if your response is as base as “ the thinker” .
I would then ask why it is wrong for the thinker in a faith/ religious setting to believe with all he has got that what he has done or is doing is out of the best way he could have critically thought.

I ask again, on whose standards do we measure Critical thinking… If it is indeed without a moral point of view!
For if it is indeed outside the boundaries of an ethical concept, then no one can say there is a wrong way to think. We can only go as far as different.
There is no right or wrong way to determine actions by what one thinks.
It is said, “as a man thinketh, so is he. “ It goes without saying that if there is no moral code to check that statement, everyman is ok being that way. There is no right or Wrong. He just is.

I think not. I think it is borderline barbarism to even entertain and elevate ideas like those. Coz Lets face it, this is a pretty messed up world.

To this effect, I submit the following: There has got to be right thinking and wrong thinking. And if the standards of integrities are set in stone this way, I will argue that there must be a logical way to arrive at an illogical conclusion.

It is logically wrong for one to murder, yes? Well from the murder’s point of view, Why? Who said? Is it a fellow Human? Well, If it is, then he is one of them and he says it is OK? Right?

I submit  that it may be a general consensus that there are some things embedded in the Human DNA that witness to the wrongness or rightness of an action. It is beyond reason and logic, to understand the intricacies of why an action out of pure chemical reaction or imbalances in the brain can be deemed right or wrong.

I submit the God-element! 

With Blood short eyes and half a smile, He looks up to the stars at night …
He says nothing, His lips part and a deep sigh slowly runs through.
The memories of a time once much brighter and warmer cause a stark pain in the pit of his insides…
He still looks up and from the ashes of anguish that lay on his face, he whispers, “some day my love… some day”

A little girl stands over the big white ornamented 6 by 3. Unable to comprehend the full extent of loss, she leans over and kisses the all too familiar but emotionless face. “ I’ll see you soon momma” she says with glassy eyes and a cracked voice.

“I can’t do it any more” he cried, “ She has left me, My kids hate me, and I am all alone! Help Me! I need you to tell God to help me!” he lay his head on the bench and sobbed for what seemed to be eternity, as the man of prayer comforted him with a part on the back and a load full of Hope!

Atheism, in my opinion, is most cruel, not to the apologist, or the priest, but to these despairing souls . To them it screams, “THERE IS NO HOPE FOR YOU!”
Or “ YOU ARE ALL ALONE IN THIS WORLD”

For A child with the hope that they will meet with her loved one beyond the borders of life,… which borders science(a thing atheism so fully thrives on) has never ventured into, To be told on pure speculation based on immature statistical data about the great beyond , that they should kill all hope of ever meeting them again is not only dishonest but cruel too.

To tell a man that believes he will see his wife of 30 years, again after the cancer took her, that all of that is a lie, is impersonal and inhumane.

A Man desperate to find healing for his addiction problem that ruined his home and his marriage turns to a power greater than himself at wits end, only to be told, he is on his own. No god can help him because there simply is no such thing.
Atheism might call it the Hard cruel truth of the world, or that there is no way of knowing if there is a hope. It doesn’t take away the cruelty, the logical inhumanity and all the manure it paints life with.

For those that search for the purpose of life, it says life is meaningless and void. We are the ones that make it purposeful, and when it ends, so does our purpose. We are done.
There is no greater emptiness that this system brings to a weary and tired heart. There is no worse despair that it brings to one burdened and weighed with the pains of this world.
The problem is(, for the most part,) those that claim there is no hope beyond us, don’t really need it. They are usually the rich, the well to do , or the highly learned. Those who have somehow survived the cruelties of the world! The rest that promote it do it out of frustrations, anger and or bitterness.

Jesus said he came for the lost, for the tired and for the downcast… those that really needed him and cried out to him.
He came to establish an eternal hope in the hearts of men… to push them through the hell that is their life, until they saw the light of truth.

Truth that will, in the end, set them free.
The addict free of his addiction, the child free of the pain of loss, the widow free of despair.
He came to restore the brokenness in their lives. Lives crushed by a cruel and hard world that cares for nothing.
He is the Hope of the broken world. Whether or not the world knows it.

To my surprise, Falling in love twice with the same person is a lot more exhilarating than most give it credit for! It is filled with a mixture of anticipation, worry, and fear along side a determination, a courage and a gentleness.

Come to think of it, a lot about love has been down played over the decades and I have been both pleasantly surprised and immensely encouraged by how wrong they have gotten it!

We often hear statements like, “ love is not all that” or  “sex is over rated,” and these are usually followed by bitter statements like “ men are all the same… DOGS” or “marriage will suck the life out of you” among others. Do you sense a pattern here?  On the one hand, we have a powerful downplay of all that was once pleasurable and esteemed as sacred, sacrosanct, hallowed… and on the other, there is heavy reason why one shouldn’t esteem this one known sacredness of hedonism.

I have found in my love adventures that loving again, is more curative than a combination all life’s toxins right from resentment or hatred to ecstasy, or morphine. Loving again, is the single most purely courageous thing a man with a broken heart can ever do. It is a pressure point to greatness.

For most men this is what loving again means,

“ I have been hurt but I am not dead yet.

I ‘m afraid, but I have faced it

I  am anxious, but determined…

I am a man…in Love again”

Now all this might be cheesy for most, but for the men who have truly loved and have truly lost…. There is no greater demonstration of strength.  This goes for the married and the not so married alike. Imagine with me for a second, how the world would be if it were filled with more men that loved again. If more Men fell in love with their wives again and again, If forgiveness, courage, determination and gentleness dictated the path of love for men….
This, our very broken world would see a healing such as never before! A reclaiming of life’s purity from the snares of a darkened realm!

It is not without risk that one loves again. The pain of loss in that moment is insufferable. I equate it to giving birth. Excruciating as it may be, an introduction of a life supersedes all pain.  To men, Love is life.

A man that loves, lives life. A man that loves again, experiences life!

To all men great and small, may love be re-lived.

Love again. 

It has been indeed Quite a while since i wrote. I had a bit of Writer’s block and i figured it was time for me to recollect myself and find some inspiration before I came back. Well, I guess I am back. 

 

For the most part, inspiration isn’t one you quickly come into.. and even if one did, it isn’t easy to put in words.  I have met sooo many people, witnessed amazing events and been apart of extraordinary beginnings.  Today, and the on coming traffic in blogging heading your way, I am going to be pouring my heart and thoughts about some of the things i have been reminiscing about. 

I fell in love, I sang a ton more, I traveled, I lead a team, I cut my hair, and i learnt so much about myself. I have mead great leaps into the discovery of who I am. I am going to share a bit of that today. 

For the longest time, I had no opinion of my own. It may have been because of my position as a first born that I was an experiment, or that I was always an approval seeker, or that I never thought my opinion or ideas amounted to anything. It always seemed like I tailed the class and in my books..especially in those days, if you tailed, you didn’t have a say in life! All my friends were brilliant, charming and had a way with words that confirmed I did better listening and not opening my mouth… EVER.. for whatever reason! 

So I kept telling myself to be on the peripherals of all things brilliant.
“Just look the part and you will be fine” i told myself. So I made sure my shirts were as white as the next best guy, I walked like the coolest guy would, and raised my brow like the swagger dude would do it! I tried it all… and as sure as day, it all slapped me right in the face. I was either over zealous or an under performer! And I mean in all places…atleast for me. No complement ever meant more than just a simple polite gesture because whoever gave it was obviously way better than myself! I took no pleasure in believing what they kept telling me! It made me feel like iI had lied to myself long enough and they had all started believing the lie! 

I had lost all but myself! And I didn’t like him either! Now don’t get me wrong! I was already a Christian. Christianity was the only thing that was making sense of my sorry situation. So I clung and held on for the day of redemption.. coz you see… it is the only promise that could stop me from ending it all. And yes… I did try ending it all. 

So, to the Lord I cried. To the God who’s perfection, for some strange reason, I was comfortable with, I cried night and day for a time I will be a somebody! Night and day I talked to Him about my frustrations, my pain, my loneliness and all the while, how I never could understand why i felt that way, especially with what I had going for me! I have a good home. A loving family, that was filled with laughter and sweet song. I had a hope, that not too many children my age had. I had privileges that our neighbors couldn’t even smell into. So what was wrong!? 

It took me all of 10 or so years to begin to figure it all out. You see, I let myself live in the shadow of others either by will or demonic persuasion.. i don’t know… but I found myself bound by my own thoughts of myself! Boy, was that a lot of me! I sabotaged myself by looking at everyone else I thought was better than me and convincing myself I was worthless! I kept going, though.. I kept Hoping… I kept trying to unearth the purpose for my existence! Why was God enduring my living? i felt it caused more pain to those around me and to him! I never thought I could get anything right! I thought I was always a disappointment to my parents and to myself! What could this perfect God want with me???
 

That Last question… that is what kept me going…that is what lead me to an answer…when all the while I was looking for solutions to solve my life problem( notice i didn’t say my life’s problem) 
What could this perfect God possibly want with me? When It hit me that i recognized him as PERFECT and that He WANTED me, that was it! That was all I needed to start the journey! 

Over the years, i have come to a great knowledge of who God has been to me through it all! I have no doubt in my heart that He exists. Even through my quest for knowledge and my interactions with those whose faith went cold, He has set a fire in me that ever so burns with the knowledge of His realness in my life! i am persuaded by all that he brought me through that he is greater than I could ever imagine and that everything will be understood with TIME! 

So I waited… I still wait…. upon a promise of his return…. I wait on the redemption of his own, I wait on the fulfillment of prophesy… I wait on the eternal and perfect Justice…. i wait for the Return of a King! 

In the mean time, my life has more meaning now than i could have ever imagined! i have reason to peruse goodness and to live right! I have reason to search for knowledge and be free of all that held me back! I now can be a somebody and believe it! I have an opinion that I believe matters! I have just met the real me! And boy am I going to get to know him as God intended! 

Not everything is crystal clear. Not everything makes sense… in fact more times than not, i find myself complaining to God about all the chaos He is doing nothing about, both in my little world and in the universe at large! But to be fair, there is only so much my mind can take in at a time… and I have just started! I love it! 

That a sentient being from which all that is life comes, could find me even worth his attention is a phenomenon of vast proportions. That the magnitude of His greatness could in the same breath live amongst a lowly, mindless species that was on the verge of extinction by their own hands, (and sometime by his) is a mystery unlike any other. One that life and time alone would unravel! 

The providence of a force this mighty has opened my eyes now and again at how insignificant I really am in light of His enormity, let alone his universe!

How so very small I am in light of other more significant parts of nature, the glowing stars, the raging sees, the suns’ life….. time and time again, I am very small.

 And Yet, somehow, in the midst of life’s continuous flow, there is an over whelming sense of security and purpose that I ironically perceive, the smaller I realize I am.

A sense of belonging instead of loneliness, a sense of oneness with all that could seemingly obliterate the very core of my existence. A desire to participate in the sentient Deity’s plan to sustain life!

Yes, in spite of the reality of my insignificance, the truth of His magnitude and of his creation is more inviting than it is superior. 
That the sentient, a Deity from of old could, in all his beauty and infallibility, be apart of the intricacies of my existence, is nothing short of a wonder… A miracle!

My mind is more open to the transcendence of knowledge about him. For with all my pride and vanity crushed at the onslaught of pure awesomeness, there is nothing left in my heart but adoration. I now, understand better, what Isaiah meant when he, in bated breath said, “Mine eye have seen the Lord”.

I know with all my heart that this is all our world needs. A healing, a touch  a sound… 
The World, broken and decadent, lost in all despair and hopelessness could yet again, out of the ashes of ruin, find its heart. The heart to belong and the mind to participate in the sustenance of life!

Through time, the signature of the sentient Deity has and will always be the insignificant you and me. 

 

To fully understand this, one must have read the previous post or been on facebook following it!  So this was my response to his question. 

 “Firstly, I am honored that you believe I have above average brain activity!( always wanted to use a line like that on myself but never got round to it because of this humility thing I have got going!) Soo, thanks for that! I will do my best to not outshine you…me and my black boyness! Hehehehe

On to the good stuff then! Again, I am grateful for the caution you bring to my attention and it is going to be put under advisement in the course of this discussion.. (I feel so formal!)

In general I agree with most of what you are saying because I understand from where you are coming. It would be disingenuous to cover up a faulty idea so as to keep the ideology going. It is inane to subscribe to such audacious philosophies. Brace your self. This is going to be long! As always. 😉

To directly address your contentions I must make certain underlying assumptions on some of the issues you have raised..
First off, I do believe you did allude to something similar in an agenda else where on the yoms page.  It is from that thread that I will assume your sentiments are driven.
Secondly, I will refer to a statement you made about the more moderate Christian saying “They will rarely correct others publicly where it’s necessary, nor will they come out strongly against archaic views because I guess they don’t want to fracture the team.”
As in the case  ASCK YOMS Vs Frobisha on matters to do with alcohol,(which I assume is the point of reference for this post) I believe this assertion is rather inaccurate.  To be clear, I , as this post strongly suggests, am one of the moderate Christians, right? So the response will be purely based on the defense of my “moderate” approach.

To suggest that we sit back and watch the fundamentalists make fools out of themselves and shrug it off would basically point to a level of irresponsibility in epic proportions. This, in my defense (and that of all the moderates I know) is an erroneous presumption. I am passionately involved in the intricacies of pastoral care and as such, my heart goes out first and foremost to the young in Christ.. to the growing, to the ones that still ‘drink milk’ as it were. To these, I provide guidance, correction and direction the best way I know how and with special care depending on what level of growth and in what particular area.

In no way should the moderates “accept” wrong doctrine. In fact, rebuking, teaching and correcting are tools that must be used to edify the brethren (both young and mature) However, as you witnessed in that case against Frobisha, It is also, the moderates’ duty to foster peace, promote love and encourage humility. These facets of our faith are most important in whatever task we undertake, whether it be in doctrine, whether it be in rebuking, correcting and/or exhorting. If these facets are in danger of being misrepresented, then no matter what doctrine you are preaching (be it true or false) these-according to my faith- take precedence over everything else. These facets must be addressed as fundamentals to any resolution. Without them, as Christians, we are simply wasting time. Correcting, teaching and rebuking quickly degenerate into quarrels, dissentions and mindless banter about who is right and who is wrong. It results into more strife, gossip emerges and hatred abounds. This has happened one too many times because people have elevated “passionate rebukes” over their love for others. This is a special time for the “moderates” to step in and bring balance to the world!(the avaters of Christianity! J)

 Christians fighting amongst themselves simply because they believe they are all right has been the story from of old. Moderates see all this and want to reconcile based on the more important, the more essential… the more significant things of our faith. Peace, love hope… all in humility.    

Attacking and showing someone how so very wrong they are is never going to be the solution to get anyone to understand their mistake! It will drive them harder to it!  That is all the moderates are up against. Make no mistake, these moderates to whom I refer do not just sit back and defend false doctrine because they are afraid to “fracture the team”. No! It is the context in which its all done that matters for them. The context that yields the best results… Peace and love to all men!

 So to answer your question “Don’t you think it’s time the more enlightened shall we say of the brethren have a duty to sharpen their fellow brothers instead of having outsiders so to speak have to do it and so be attacked for it?” It has been the case. It’s being done. Just not the way everyone thinks it should be. Actually I welcome with both hands the outsiders’ challenge. If it is what will help us learn how to discuss and debate amicably then by Heaven yeah! I say bring it on! Make us stronger! We need all the help we can get!