The Little Planet that Christmas Found, Pt 2

Then one day the Shadow came.  And inside the Shadow lived Darkness.  And inside the Darkness were the Whatifs.  And some of the whatifs were so strong.  Whatif the trees die?  Whatif the little creators hurt you?   Whatif Creator doesn´t think you are good?  Whatif Creator doesn’t think you’re precious?  Whatif he is just pretending that He loves you?

At first Little Planet didn’t listen to them.  But one day, one day when she was very curious, she decided to listen, but just a little bit.  And the next day, she found she wanted to listen a little more.  And the next day, even more.  And soon, Little Planet began to fall under the Shadow. 

And she felt very much alone.  And she felt very sad.  And she felt ashamed of what she had done.  And she believed there was no one there to help her.  No one in the whole world really loved her, or thought she was special.  She was all she had.   And that day, the Shadow covered her completely.

And Little Planet, who had become the Little Lonely Planet, was now the Little, Lonely, Broken Planet.  And the shadow began to grow.

The wind did not work like it was supposed to.  The green and growing things did not work like they were supposed to.  The little creators began to hurt each other and to hurt Little Planet.  And there was sadness across the entire planet, inside and out.  Everyone thought that the Shadow would reign as King forever.

And nobody, not even the Shadow, knew what would happen next.

The Little Planet that Christmas Found, part 1

When the universe exploded into being, there was a great dance of happiness, and the laughter of Creator could be heard in every corner of his creation.

 And the galaxies leaped in delight.  The stars sung out their joy.  The comets raced throughout the universe, announcing Creator’s love.   And the planets…  The planets rejoiced.

Creator smiled.  His happiness was complete with the wonderful world that He had made, the universe that kept unfolding before him.

*         *        *

 As the dust settled, and the universe cooled, there was one planet in particular that Creator loved.  Her name was Little Planet.  Creator treasured her and held near to His heart.  And this planet was the happiest planet in the universe.  She was precious in the eyes of Creator. 

 She could feel the smile of Creator like a beautiful summer day.  And when the wind blew, she remembered the soft breath, Creator whispering its name.  When the waters separated, and the fish appeared, and the birds flew, and the green and growing things grew*, there was great joy. 

 And just when Little Planet thought that every good thing that could ever happen had already happened, Creator put someone that looked just like himself inside. 

 The little creators had Little Planet for their home.   And Creator was with Little Planet, and Little Planet was with Creator.  And every day, every day, was the best day ever. 

Creator told Little Planet, Live in happiness, only beware of the Shadow, and the Darkness, and the Whatifs**.   So Little Planet lived in his happiness, but she did not know anything about the Shadow, or the Darkness, or the Whatifs.

________________________________________

*the “green and growing things” is taken from Jerome Berryman and his work with telling Scripture stories to children.  Check out Godly Play online for more info.

 **the “Whatifs”were brought to my attention by Shel Silverstein…  the ones in this story are the sadder, darker cousins…

Page 9 of my little blue notebook…

would start like this…,

“It is painful to have friends. Painful to let love enter, just like it is painful to come out of the cold, and feel the pins of heat perforate your body as warmth starts to enter the frozen places. Painful like ice when it comes into contact with the swelling on your head when you fall off your bike. It is painful like the first movement of food in your stomach after a three day fast.

“Love has alchemal properties, and transforming the death of lead into the life of gold is painful.

“And it’s scary. What if, halfway through the warm blanket of love, just when you get used to it, just when you relax into it, just when you drift off to sleep in safety, what if it is ripped away and leaves you exposed all the more?

“Rest. Rest. Right now, abandon yourself to love. If the blanket is ripped away, and you are exposed to cold and cold alone, and the cold is freezing beyond all freezing, trust that there is some swollen place inside you which needs the healing properties of ice. And rest.”

Page 9 of the little book Jason Payne Fedexed me, in a first movement at the replacement of my words, will remain empty, save for a small anotation directing readers to my “notes” on Facebook, the notes Jason tells me about on page 7 of my little blue notebook.

Tuesday, assaulted again… by love…

Yesterday morning was nuts for me. As a pastor and a lay counselor, I am familiar with trauma debriefing, and so I know what I’m supposed to go through after getting held up by little mr. sawed off. I just need to give myself time and space and sit in silence, and let those emotions come…

Okay, just let ‘em come…

Just let ‘em flow out… overwhelm me… Yeah, I’m ready… Just, let go…

Ahhh, it’s not through that path today… Okay, read the Psalms… always leaves me undone and open and catharted and all that good stuff… I need some Psalms, and that’s right… 1… 2… 3…, just Let it Go!

Ummm…

Okay, so I need… my guitar! Old faithful. A little strumming on that guitar, singing a little Mercy Me… “When I cannot feel… when my wounds don´t heal… Lord I humbly kneel… Hidden in you…,” and,… Come on, here we go, let it… OUT!!!

Nothing…

Okay, well, at least, let’s say, God, HELP!!! There is so much I have to do here and I don’t quite know where to start… (stll small voice… “Take a shower, and then we’ll go from there…”). Wow, who would have thought it would have taken so much faith, hope, and courage just to get up and take a shower… But it was a miraculous act… Those were fightin’ words, and moving in that direction unlocked a whole bunch of other stuff… But… it didn’t unlock… the heart…

Later on, Toni arrived, and while we were in the office chatting, the phone rings… We answer, it’s Randall Johnson… and a bunch of other pastors from Central Church, and they start singing, “Jesus loves you this we know…”

But the tenth word, I’m undone. I’m a puddle. A gelatinous blob. Bawling like a baby, swimming in grace, love, tenderness, and care. And then the blessings… Blessings in round robin… Mutual tears, love, heart care, being held…

Like something inside says, “We’re safe now. It’s okay. You can come out now. He’s gone. It’s over. You’re okay. Yeah. You’re really okay. It’s gonna be okay…”

We hung up the phone and held each other and cried a bit more. It was going to be all right.

It is going to be all right.

Grateful to Be Alive

Okay, so there have been lots of bits and pieces of this that have been mentioned, but I wanted to give the “official story” of Monday’s (Monday, 26 Nov) encounter with a youth and a shotgun, so I can maybe get this thing out of my head and get back to work. It’s good to be alive….

I woke up yesterday still distraught at the loss of my computer, my palm, and my mountain bike. It had only been 6 weeks since the prior robbery, and between all the kicking myself for (for what? for living in Uruguay? for having an alarm company, insurance? for hiding my stuff inside my house? for locking up my bike?)… for bad things happening, and the grieving of the loss of data, I woke up not feeling like doing much of anything.

I happen to be remodeling my garage/office and so I had to give some attention to that yesterday morning. I also went and got some copies made of a flyer. The flyer has a beautiful picture of my laptop on it and it says, ROBBED, in brazen letters across the top. I was determined for EVERYONE to see my flyer, and left the house to conquer evil and get my computer back. Now Montevideo is not all that big, and there are two or three pockets of crime in the city. So if you can just drop a few flyers in the store windows in those neighborhoods, you up your probability of someone’s little brother wanting reward money badly enough that they give you information… well, we all know how informants work, so I want bother you with trifles.

It happens that one of those neighborhoods is close where I go teach a computer class to sixth graders. So, I say to myself, I’ll just drop some flyers by there, and that will surely help me get my computer back. The main street that separates this neighborhood from a more economically privileged neighborhood is called Acosta y Lara, named after a guy who got shot during the time of the military dictatorship in Uruguay. It is literally one of those “other side of the tracks” experiences where $150,000 homes are on one side (heavily protected by walls, gates, glass, bars, dogs, expensive alarm systems) and on the other side there are tin shacks.

I drove down the street looking for a place to park that wouldn’t end my car up in a ditch, and passed two mom-and-pop stores and one center for community development. Finding a good place to park, and three good places to hang flyers, I hopped out of the car and walked 50 yards back to the first store. A scraggly looking teenager walked out of the store while I was walking in. His presence just confirmed what I already knew… “Rough neighborhood.”

A woman behind the counter about my age was more than happy to post my Reward Note. I remember thinking how much I liked the font at the top, and the way the pictures and text were aligned, and that I had been doing too much amateur graphic design work of late. I thanked her again, turned, and proceeded to walk out of the store, only to be greeted by the same scraggly teenager, who pulled out a sawed-off, double-barreled shotgun from his backpack, and told me to give him my wallet, “Or I´ll kill you right here…”

I honestly have to tell you, I thought the whole thing was a joke. His “piece” looked like it would fall apart at any minute… vintage 1934, or some year similar. I laughed inside and glanced at the “ROBBED” flyers in my hand, thinking, “Hey, maybe this is the guy who stole my laptop yesterday.”
At the same time, I freaked out. It was like when a yellow jacket hones in on the yellow flowers on your Hawaiian shirt, and you start dancing to get away, but no matter where you turn, the thing is still on top of you. The thing was still on top of me. The human being, who I wanted to make into a “thing,” was on top of me. The divine image-bearer, caught up and bearing some of the worst elements of original sin and whatever evils had befallen him or befallen others at his hands, was on top of me.

Pardon my extensions here, and just consider it part of making this something that is containable in story, not something that defines my reality in its entirety (that’s what the therapists say is supposed to happen with debriefing).

I ducked back into the store, sure the specter of the whole situation would dematerialize in the presence of other human beings, but the firearm, young man connected securely behind it, entered the store and found me in the corner between the bargain brand soda and the empty meat container.

“Give me your money or I’ll kill you right here.” The only thing I could think of was Uruguayan bureaucracy, the three legal documents I would have to replace, and all the hassle of cancelling credit cards (my missing laptop for the moment took on less importance). I showed him the inside of the wallet, and told him I had no money, but he could have it anyway. Could he just let me get my ID card and my two drivers licenses out (stupid idea, I know… but at this point, it´s part of the story). He yelled even louder. I recognized I was getting off-script, and plucked out four or five plastic cards as I handed him the wallet. I showed him that they weren’t money, just little bits of plastic. I didn’t even look to see what they were.

He looked inside the wallet and then got really mad. “Where the @!@#$# is your money?” Now those who know me well, all the way back to the lunch cafeteria in elementary school, know the answer… “Matt never has cash.” That’s why they invented debit cards! For some reason, the guy who entered to rob the corner market, and decided to go for the gringo instead, and who wasn’t even born when I was bumming spare change from my friends in 7th grade, couldn’t believe that I didn’t have any money.

So, doing as one does to a foreigner when you feel they don’t understand you, he proceeded to speak louder and more impatiently. He wasn’t about to leave empty-handed.

My hands, quickly thinking how they could save the 200 pound human they are connected to, decided they would show him my pockets and give him the cell phone. General Santa Ana of Mexico said of all his rival officials, “A dog with a bone its mouth will neither bark nor bite.” My hands must have dug back into the memory of my Latin American history class in university and pulled out the bone of a cell phone to throw him.

Meanwhile, I just kept getting smaller and smaller in the corner by the meat counter, trying to reduce my body mass and shrink the target, hoping the yellow jacket would smell some other flower somewhere.

And so with an empty wallet, and the cheapest model of cell phone on the market, he somehow disappeared. I don’t remember, but I might have been peeking out from in between the eyelashes on my right eye, hoping that it would be all over. And it was.

The women who own the “store in the front room of their house” quickly ushered me to the other side of the partition, and started making all sorts of noises about calling 911 (yeah, we have that here too… they liked the TV show so much, they decided to co-opt the number for themselves). All the neighbors wisely stayed at bay. The woman began giving details to the police about what had just happened. I crouched down in the easy chair observing everything in that part of the house. The golden wired TV stand with the white plastic casters, an old black porcelain clock, a poster from a favorite soccer team, a deep red brick fire place, the bunk beds on the other side of the partition from the “store.”

“This is their life. Every single day. Every day. I get to go home. I have a hundred friends to call and they help change the situation. Every day.” And it’s not just Uruguay. It’s Orange Mound. It’s “South Side.”

I sat there thinking how scary and exciting this narrative sounds to white suburban dwellers, and how, “Dang, boy, that’s all that happened to you… you ain’t even entered the neighborhood to you take one to the chest…” that must sound for folks that live with it every day.

I called Toni and let her know I’d be late with the car (as usual), and that I didn’t, in the end, get shot. She was glad for the news.

So the police arrived. “What in the world were you doing over here?” “I was coming to try to spread the word and get my stuff back.” We both shared that “knowing look.” That, “yeah, that was a pretty stupid idea in retrospect, wasn’t it, aren’t we both glad I’m alive and that the nice police officer doesn’t have to go home and tell his wife the story about the foreign fatality that happened today at work” look. “No, but why are you HERE, in this country?” “Because I love Uruguay, and I love it no less after the last two days of my life, and I have an incurable addiction to it.”

“You’re crazy.”

Half an hour later I was leaving there. It was a weird drive home. I thought about my flyers, and how since I didn’t have a cell phone anymore, I guess I would have to make new ones. Then I thought that maybe someone who saw the cell phone number might not respond anyway, since it costs 10 cents a minute to call a cell number. I thought maybe there is one kid who would go in the store, who would know where my stuff is, and who would call, and find the number blocked, or worse, would end up talking to the kid who stole my wallet, and would tell him where he could go to find the computer.

I got home and decided on a hamburger and a bowl of ice-cream for lunch, decided to take the afternoon off, and popped in Lord of the Rings. I needed to see Frodo, and Gandalf, and the White City, and remember, that in spite of all the bad things, the worst things out there possible, there is something and Someone above and beyond. There is a just end to the evil we see every day… The global evil a million light years away from our hearts, the evil of the corners we cut in our daily living, the evil of the folks who cut us off in traffic, the evil of the one who aims the firearm… and even the evil of the one who pulls the trigger.

“My peace I give to you, not as the world gives. In the world you shall have tribulation. But be of good cheer. I have overcome the world.” –Jesus

I suppose it’s time to write…

Chutzpah…  Pizzazzz…    Shwing…

I don’t know what you call it.

I don’t seem to have it. 

The blogs slow down.  Slower.  Slower.   Stop.

Is it the end of the year?  Is it too much, or too little, stirring inside?  No matter, really.  It just seemed good to show up and say nothing. 

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Am I a friend with ME if all we ever do is blog and respond?

I loved ME’s comment… okay, let’s throw anonymity aside and call thee, Marcelo!  Thanks for writing me, ME.  I have to say I smiled when I saw the comment that was signed with ME.  It’s the way I sign off when I write a very close friend, or heaven forbid, my wife. 

The kind of thing I leave on a note for my daughter when I remember to drop one in her lunch box. 

“Me.”   Like Henri J. M. Nouwen (he said it stood for “Just Me”).  What a great way to define ourselves.  Not Unitedstatesian, not Uruguayan, not Christian, Buddhist, Baptist, teacher, businessman, housewife, white, black, female, male, homosexual, heterosexual…

Just me. 

I wonder if that is why the God of the Hebrews called himself, “I am.”  I wonder, if in the original Hebrew (or whatever Semitic language or transcendental linguistic bypass mechanism God used), “I am” really meant, “Me.”  “Just me.” 

“Who shall I say sent me to them.”
“Tell them, ‘Just me.’”, and then perhaps, “and tell them I love them.”

Well, at the risk of more honesty than any of us have asked for, I would venture to say that I have a friend in “ME.”  Even though we have yet to eat an asado or play music together.

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No other alternative but to stay and fight?

Washington needs a primer on Buddhism… you know, “the third way”?  Remember, it is not a middle course, but a third, unknown course that reveals itself to the aware person (or nation, or political party) as they “take their seat beside the fire” of whatever problem they are facing, and take a posture of not only an actor, but of one who acts while watching their acting.  It is then that new alternatives open up.

And to borrow once more from Eastern wisdom, in the gateway to a higher consciousness regarding the current unpleasantness, “If you’re going to bow, bow low.” 

The option I don’t hear coming out of Washington is one that maybe Jesus himself would have advocated…   REPENT!!! 

No, I don’t mean the guy with the sandwich-board signs telling everyone they are going to hell.  I mean the Greek, man…  Like, metanoia, you know, dude?  Like, a radical shift of internal awareness vis-a-vis the etat d’affaires, catch me? (sorry, my internal hippie just snuck out and took over!)

Metanoia…  it’s the same thing those Buddhists were talking about, and the same thing the Hebrews talked about when they said, “A haughty spirit cometh before the fall,” and all that good business.

So here’s the medicine…  What about this?  What about going before the rest of the world that ALSO doesn’t like terrorism (I think it’s like 99.99% of the population) and saying, “We as a nation have made a grave moral failure and further jeopardized international security, destabilized the world, and caused fuel prices to skyrocket.  We rescind all our rights to control foreign contracts and now once more retake the moral high ground by telling you, the world, that we are extending our hands to take yours so that we, fully together, might serve as agents of healing, not as agents of further destruction.”

As we now have more U.S. soldiers dead (not to mention the tens of thousands of Iraqi fighters and civilians) than died in the World Trade Center bombing, isn’t it time to put down the bottle and call out for help?

It might start like this:

–”Hello, my name is Sam, and I am a power-holic…”
–”Welcome, Sam.  We are too.  We’re glad you’re here.”

Am I naive here?  Really… I’m open, just need some help understanding a bit more.

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Is this still an argument?

An atheist friend of mine trusted me with one of their secrets the other day.  I think she has held this as a secret for three reasons, and I think the whole secret slipped out in spite of herself yesterday, because she got so excited talking about Herman Hesse and Demian.  The way she dropped it scared me, like the way I used to get scared as an 18 year old in Philosophy 101 class, when the “sure proof for God’s non-existence” was presented by a smug 50 year old professor, as though being 50 and a philosophy professor automatically made you smarter than anyone else on the entire planet.

So this is what she said, “Oh, have you ever read Demian, it is my absolute favorite book by Hesse.  Have you ever heard of Abraxas?  You know that idea that a benevolent God wouldn’t make a world of suffering, and an omnipotent God would be powerful enough to make a world without suffering.  Suffering exists, therefore God is either not all-benevolent, or he is not omnipotent?”  Like, “You know, that argument?  Well, gotta go, bye!”

I think maybe she has never brought this up because first she basically is all-benevolent and wouldn’t want to cause me suffering.  Basically, she is a dear, dear woman.  Secondly, I wonder if this is a such big piece for her for kicking back against the great Cosmic Load of Crap that was served up for her life that it becomes a pretty essential piece to hold on to in order to not get crapped on anymore.  Lastly, I wonder if she secretly believed that the argument really doesn’t work at the end.  That if you used it as a big umbrella to keep God’s Love or Power from reaching in and screwing up your life, you would still end up getting wet.

I have been spinning the whole thing around for the last day or so, and I am wondering how much truck the whole thing gets in any serious philosophy departments.   I am thinking about Alvin Plantinga’s book on God, Evil, and Freedom and am wondering are there any philosopher’s worth their salt who still use this argument (I know it has a name, and I have never heard it called Abraxas; though I trust in Uruguay, given all its subterranean esoterism and other forms of “rational religiosity” that perhaps it is called this here and lots of other places).

The argument seems to be answered very easily, and that’s why, perhaps, the answer is suspect.

What about this:

A loving God would not create creatures that have a mere appearance of free will but who, in reality, are automatons.  Freedom is a legitimate choice.  If freedom is really real, suffering must be then be a real possibility.   The presence of suffering in the world, at least that chosen by human beings (whether inflicted on self or inflicted on others) is neither a reflection on God’s power or God’s love. 

However, a all-loving, all-powerful God would indeed need to build in a “failsafe” to his/her system.  What happens when the real, true, bona fide freedom is used for malevolent ends and thereby suffering results? 

If God had not answered that question, then I would start to fill out my complaint letter.  On the question, “How would you rate your service today?,” God would score a big, whopping, UNSATISFACTORY.   So, as I browse around the whole created order looking for God’s answer to suffering resultant from the free will of finite beings, I think of a couple of answers.  When I put those reflections together, I have no problem conceiving of, and trusting in, a benevolent, omnipotent God who allows suffering.

Here are a smattering of answers:
1.  The universe is broken, and it became broken by through the free will of a finite created being. 
2.  Who says suffering is senseless?  Buddhists seems to have this question licked even before you start thinking about it, and that is why I love Buddhists.  They suggest that we suffer because we want reality to be other than what it is.  If we could accept suffering as a clear part of life, than we would cease to suffer. 
3.  Is suffering redeemable?  That seems to be the essential question, and the essential answer.   God’s great metaphor for suffering he painted for us by showing himself suffering.   In doing so, he did two things:  a.  In the resurrection, he ended suffering as “the final word,” and b. he showed that the new life resulting after the crucifixion is suffering redeemed. 
4.  There is ultimately no growth without suffering.  This might not have been necessary in the original plan.  But, being born finite and out of sync with the original design for things, human beings (and all sentient creatures for that matter), have a gazillion imperfections.   We are a bit like that  hunk of stone Michaelangelo looked at and saw David.  After chipping off and beating out everything that was not David, something extremely beautiful emerged.  Well, something very beautiful, with really big hands, emerged.  If David had been there inside the marble waiting to come out, I can only sense there would have been a suffocating feeling that dominated his existence.  And once the hammer blows started falling, I can only imagine the concussive effects.  But in the end, there was sense to it all.

So, if you have real freedom, a broken universe, and a path for suffering to be redemptive, can you really say that the presence of suffering in the world is incompatible with an all-loving, all-powerful God? 

I, for one, can’t imagine any other scenario that sufficiently explains all the beauty and beastliness I am steeped in every day. 

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World Silence Day

Ganithguru proposed a day for World Silence.  You can see the nondescript link by clicking on http://www.perfspot.com/groups/comment.asp?id=2557 . 

It is a rather silly thing really.  I googled “International Stillness Day” this morning before googling the other, because I just knew that someone, somewhere, must be on to this.

I wonder what a day would be like where we opted for complete stillness and silence.  Remember that ancient Hebrew concept of shabat?  I have always thought that individualized, personalized shabats were well-nigh fruitless.  I mean, what if I am shabating and my neighbor is out turning business hand over fist?  What if I am shabating when the spiritual need comes, and the seeker becomes a Muslim or a Buddhist instead of an upright Christian such as myself? 

You get the idea.

But if we all stopped…

If…  Just a day. 

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