Bogart, Bacall, & A Bottle Of Shiraz

Tuesday, August 29, 2023 - 12:01a.m.

Waterloo, Ontario

A few days ago a delightful old college friend messaged me and attached scans of our old college newsletter, wherein I would publish my ramblings from time to time. We're talking back around the year 2000/01. One thing that I wrote about back then was getting together with my friend Darren at his house, where we'd watch an old black and white movie and listen to some soft jazz while imbibing Banrock Station Shiraz from Australia. It sounds like the perfect date cone to think of it, but alas it was just two dudes who loved classic movies, jazz, and wine hanging out while his little dachshund Princess furiously dug into the carpet. We'd watch Audrey Hepburn, Cary Grant, Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall among others. I really miss those days. Tonight I searched for this friend on Facebook and Google and found very little.

This afternoon I went to my friend Jay's place and let his dog Clancy out for awhile on a sunny day. He's a King Charles Cavalier Spaniel, and I've looked after him and his late brother Buttons from time to time. As I was walking home later on and nearing my house, I reached into my pocket as usual to fetch my key, and alas it was gone. Drats! Off to the hardware store tomorrow to duplicate my housemates key.

The other day I wrote a post mainly about where I am when it comes to religion. I wrote about how I was close to leaving Christianity again, and that there wasn't much tying me there. Tonight I'm not so sure. Of course more than a few of my old friends/acquaintances would argue that I haven't been a true Christian at all since I left evangelicalism 20 years ago, but I would turn around and say that progressive Christianity is a more than valid path. Anyways, I plan on re-reading one of the best books by a progressive Christian author I've read. It's called "Convictions: How I Learned What Matters Most" by Marcus J. Borg. If there are 2 books I would recommend to people that explain the progressive Christianity that I am drawn to it's that one, as well as "The Evolution of Faith: How God Is Creating A Better Christianity" by Phillip Gulley. He's a Quaker pastor in Indiana. Speaking of the Quakers, I've been meaning to pay them a visit again sometime soon. 

Anyways, thanks for reading my ramblings. It feels good to put pen to paper (okay, I'm using the app on my smartphone but still...) again - something I used to do 20 years ago. I'll call it a day aoon, right after listening to the soft jazz of Diana Krall.

Be well,

Mark-Andrew

Belonging To The Grand Human Family

Friday, August 25, 2023 4:23pm

Indigo Starbucks, Conestoga Mall Waterloo

The other night before I went to sleep I went on a deep dive into my old blogposts. If you look far back enough, there are posts going back to 2008 or 2009. I wrote a lot back then and in the ensuing decade about chasing your dreams, urging people that it wasn't too late to do so and to see them become reality. Oh, how very idealistic I was back then. Part of me misses that about myself, now that I am a bit more weathered with life.

Of course a lot of my posts are about religion, and Christianity specifically. Some of them are a little angry, reflecting that period of my life after I left evangelical Christianity where I felt the need to distance myself from almost everything that I had once believed in. But most of all, it is the frequency of the posts that I noted. Back in the day I would take my laptop to a coffee shop and sit with my coffee and write down whatever thoughts were in my head. Sometimes I'd be there for hours. I never do that anymore, and I miss that. 

So today, I find myself sitting at Starbucks with my grandè Pike Place roast, having resisted the temptation to order the newly in-stock pumpkin drink - that can wait til September at the very least. While I don't have my laptop with me (which is falling apart again), I do have my smartphone and there's this handy Blogger app, so I thought I would write for a bit.

I have been thinking a lot about belonging lately, and how most of us feel the need to belong to something or someone. Just over three years ago now I posted a Facebook post declaring that I was returning to Christianity in some sense, albeit not to the conservative evangelical version that I grew up with. One of my reasons for doing so was because Christianity is familiar to me. Indeed it was my home, my reference point for the first 20+ years of my life. Another reason why I took up the label "Christian" again is because it bothered/bothers me how many hear that word and immediately think of the conservative evangelical/fundamentalist brand of it. I didn't want that to be the case. I still don't. 

I started to check out a local church and attended sporadically, but honestly I've found it challenging. Here's where I say the quiet part out loud: I left behind my belief in a supernatural God and supernaturalism altogether almost 20 years ago, and I've never regained it. Thus, all the God talk that is naturally found in Christian churches is almost like a foreign language to me. It's a language I once spoke and fluently, but one that I have little desire to pick back up. 

Prayer is another thing that I don't believe in, which is a natural extension of not believing in a Supreme Being who can hear said prayers. 

The Bible is not a book that I gravitate toward at all anymore. Perhaps that is a natural result of growing up worrying that if I didn't pray and read the Bible everyday that I would somehow be out of God's good graces. 

All of this leaves me wondering "What keeps me calling myself a Christian then?" Honestly, as I sit here sipping on my Pike Place, I am awfully close to shedding the label again because there really isn't that much keeping me there. The values of Jesus, such as love, kindness, mercy, gentleness, compassion - the fruits of the Spirit if you will - they appeal to me and I find them laudable for sure. But if I ask myself "Am I devoted to Jesus?" or if I ask myself in situations "What Would Jesus Do?" then the answer is no to both.  For me, the truth is that all those laudable qualities that I just listed above, they are not merely Christian qualities. They're human qualities. Atheists, Buddhists, Muslims, Agnostics, Jews, you name it - they are often just as loving and compassionate as followers of Christ.

So maybe it will be the case that, while I undoubtedly will always be highly interested and fascinated with Christianity, the only label I'll really use and need going forward is that of human. I belong to the interdependent web of all life, and that's enough. I must admit it is sad to think of leaving my "home" once more. While I may and will go back and visit from time to time, I no longer take up residence there. 

Thanks for reading this. Perhaps I'll force myself to write again more often to keep the depression at bay.

mark-andrew

Are Religious People Suffering From OCD?

I'm currently downtown Kitchener at Starbucks and spending some time journaling. One of my recurring thoughts goes something like this: 

Sometimes I think religious people - at least some of us/them - are suffering from a large, chronic case of obsessive-compulsive disorder. I know quite vividly and personally what OCD looks like. It's the obsession that something bad or worse is going to happen if we don't complete some sort of compulsive task. For me, a bit earlier in my life, it meant exhaustively and repeatedly washing my hands or checking that the stove was off or that the doors were locked. So what would religious OCD look like? Perhaps for many people it's the persistent, obsessive thought (and fear) that "I must believe certain things or do certain things, or else God is going to be disappointed or even angry with me and will cast me aside, maybe even into Hell." I lived with these thoughts and fears all through til the end of my Bible college days. I thought that if committed certain "sins" and didn't pray and repent enough, that I was going to be cast into Hell by God (who paradoxically I surmised was also all-loving.) It was utterly exhausting. 

A question that I have is: If grace and love are to be taken seriously, especially what is thought to be perfect grace and the purest love, then how can it be dependent on what we do or what we believe? Exactly when did my present state and eternal fate become dependent on my ability to give mental assent to a set of theological doctrines?

I was somehow able to leave regular OCD behind (except for minor exceptions) some time ago. Now there is no need to take on religious doom and gloom and fret over my eternal soul.

mark-andrew

God Is Like An Octopus

I believe that You are like an octopus and we are Your tentacles. Each person, each living thing has been and is a chance for You to experience this thing called life and to be in relationship. There are so many colours and cultures and religions, each seemingly different but really we're all the same. Instead of simply being You, we have - so far - made an idol, called You separate and worshiped You. When all You desire is to live and to experience and to love. Each of us is a wave in Your great ocean. We are never truly born and we never truly die - we just change shape. We rise and we fall. It is so tempting to pray TO You, but today I feel like praying AS You. And all I can say is this: May I swim boldly in Your great sea of love, experiencing love in every face and with every interaction and every relationship. Amen.

What Do I Mean When I Say I Am A Christian?

Good evening. It's just after 9pm Eastern as I type this while listening to the Chamber music channel on my phone. I hope you're settling into post-Christmas life and that the New Year is looking up so far. 

I received several books for Christmas this year, including Do I Stay Christian? by Brian McLaren, which I'm almost half way through now. As you're probably aware, I struggle with what a life of faith looks like for me these days, so I thought I'd write a bit about that. 

As a lightning-quick refresher for anyone reading this who doesn't know my background, I was born into the conservative evangelical (and fundamentalist) Christian tradition in the late 1970's, and I quickly adopted those beliefs and that worldview, not knowing of any other appropriate way to believe or live one's life. I was involved in church activities usually 3 times a week. I eventually became involved in music ministry, which only grew as I went on to attend a small conservative evangelical Bible college in the late 90's. I led worship, was part of missionary committees, and was an R.A. on my dorm. Near the end of my time there, I had a crisis of faith and after several excruciating weeks I decided I would leave and take a year off to get myself straightened out. I never went back, and within a few years I had stopped calling myself a Christian whatsoever, not knowing of any way to live within the faith that was not of the conservative evangelical bent. I eventually became a Unitarian Universalist and found my home in a local congregation. It was a highly needed place where I could ask questions and be truly myself without fear of judgment. I'll always deeply appreciate that place and am glad to still have some connections and close friendships from those times.

It was March of 2020 I think when I made the decision to re-engage with Christianity, to walk a Christian path. For years I had remained interested in the faith and read mostly progressive/liberal Christian authors to remain aware of where parts of Christianity were going. I eventually missed having more of a spiritual component to my life and a path to follow, which is what led me to decide to re-enter the faith one day as I walked along a trail near my house.

When I think about what I mean when I say I am a Christian now is much different than what I meant when I was say 8 years old. And shouldn't it look different? Mustn't we always be growing, even evolving in our faith life? We grow and evolve in all other areas of our lives - why not our spiritual lives? 

To be Christian, for me, is again about following a path or walking on a path, rather than sitting down on a part of the path and saying "There! I've arrived at the absolute truth and I can fold my hands and know that I'm all set for life now!"

The early Christians were referred to as followers of The Way, not as those who believed all the correct theology. Indeed, many different Christian movements emerged that featured many different theologies. Eventually and unfortunately Christianity wasn't about following a Way anymore; it became about making sure you held the right theology or believed all the right doctrines. What a stale and stagnant and uninspiring way to define faith! Faith, to me, is a commitment to growth and evolution while walking a path that looks a lot like the path Jesus walked.

Let me tell you that there are many days even recently when I have wondered "What the hell have I done in re-engaging with Christianity. I see misogyny, abuse scandals, the growing scourge of Christian nationalism, and particularly the leaning toward gatekeeping and exclusivism that rear their ugly heads. Somehow Christianity for some has become a club where upstanding members that look very much like you and I decide who is in and who is out, and who is saved and who is unsaved. Christianity for many has become about wielding increasing power in the halls of government and about shunning those who are already marginalized, such as people of colour, women, LGBTQ folks. Of course this shunning looks nothing like the Jesus who consistently befriended and included the marginalized of his day. And Christianity was never about gaining political power or success. Rather it was about subverting and critiquing political power. 

To put it briefly, I want simply to be a follower of the Way of Jesus. I have no interest in the exclusive club of Christianity that is so sadly prevalent in many parts of our world. And as Jesus saw value and included those of other cultures and traditions, I also include people who don't look like me, love exactly like me, or believe what I believe. 

Following the way of Jesus is about compassion, empathy, kindness, love, and all those other qualities that are also listed as being fruits of the spirit. Are Christians the only humans who can exemplify those traits? Of course not. So I walk hand in hand with those of other faiths or no religious faith at all who are committed to these virtues.

I am sometimes (often?) tempted to say Screw It and leave Christianity behind again. But if all of us pack our bags and leave, where is the faith going to head? It will fall into the hands of those gatekeepers and exclusivists who often do much damage in the name of Jesus.

So I remain a Christian, and am encouraged and inspired when I can connect with others doing their best to follow the Way. I am so thankful for progressive Christian communities and churches. I remain Christian because I long to see these communities grow, and to contribute to a world where no one is excluded from being God's Beloved. 

Thanks for taking a few moments to read along. Goodnight.

Mark-Andrew