Well, here I am.

 My sabbatical, finished. My mind? Working again, for the moment. For those very few that have kept on checking to see if there were any signs of life in this forgotten corner of the internet, I apologize for being so long.

 Tonight I sit at a wonderful coffee shop. It’s kind of a sight, really. I’m close to the entrance, watching many people come in. Bibles in hand tell me that many entering are attending a church service in the back; a local church has scheduled Tuesday nights for this. Twilight seeping in through my table’s window calmly lights my work area, which is stacked with a journal, an empty red mug, a boatload of trash, my phone, and this laptop. Radiohead plays over the speakers, and many sit laughing. I love this place.

 An eclectic group attends nightly. A local magazine mentioned this not so long ago respecting that although owned by a church, it was a place that was allowed for many different discussions and peoples. Peoples of differing race, sex, alignment. And people of different beliefs – even that of non-belief. Tonight it’s kind of like that. Behind me a group begins singing praise to the God of Christ.

This is what I want to talk about. Something that I have keyed onto lately is the posh-ness of a debate. I see it when I go to Barnes and Noble, always a good place to keep up on intellectual trends. This argument is championed by the likes of voices as Aleister McGrath, Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Ravi Zacharias. A heading under Barnes’ website under the ‘thought provoking books’ tab labels a stack of books under “The God Problem.” Hmph. Listen to a few of these titles:

 - Religion Explained

- The Portable Atheist

- Breaking the Spell

- The God Delusion (by R. Dawkins)

- (followed by) The Dawkins Delusion

- God is No Delusion

- I don’t Believe in Atheists

- The Little Book of Atheist Spirituality

and the Atheist Manifesto

 Do you see how each targets the other? It’s like two giant armies meeting each other on a spanning battlefield. The battlefield is science and apologetics, the arms are words and orations. The stakes, in the mind of the combatants, is faith. And the goal is to defeat, to win, to have the better argument. And to win is winning with teeth bared.

 This wears me out.

 I am a Christian. And I have some profoundly Atheist friends. These people aren’t vindictive with a chip on their shoulder (as many, on both sides are); they are loving, thoughtful and ethically centered people. When I ask them what bothers them most about the Church I usually agree. I had a discussion the other night with one of them. We mused on how many of the appeals that these Atheist authors make is towards the segregation and violence that religious fundamentalism can harbor. This fundamentalism they argue, is often stripped of reason turns their faith into a means to discriminate and dehumanize people, and in extreme cases kill. It can be full of red herrings and false arguments, and to mention this is to be seen as impious or heretical. This friend of mine recognized something that few do, that this new wave of Atheism, although using the tools of the enlightenment and modern science, is still arguing from a moral imperative, and making that the absolute in a way that it estranges people (namely believers) and forces adversity between people. In other words, this person, an outspoken atheist, saw that it combated religious fundamentalism with its own form of the very same fundamentalism.

 Silliness battling Silliness.                  

 For every argument in this debate there is a counter argument. For every Richard Dawkins, there is a McGrath. On a deeper level, for every Bertrand Russell, there is an Anthony Flew. See, I believe that the true crisis of faith that comes from this is not really from the intellectual arguments held within these books because honestly, if one desires he can find the arguments to make him feel better. They are out there; they always will be out there – for both sides.

 True doubt in faith is deeper than the reasoning and the intellect. It is existential. It deals with the being of a person and their spirit. I remember a night when I was a freshman in College, holding a rough draft of a term paper where I philosophically proved the existence of a God. But I didn’t buy it that night. That night my faith crashed and burned. That which carried me could no longer. I had the evidence (so to speak) but I didn’t believe in it. I hoped for belief to come. But the doubt was deep, and painful.

 Unbelief comes when something shakes a person’s presuppositions to the point that their foundation can no longer stand. I wonder how many reading this has had a day where they realized that their faith was merely regurgitated doctrine, or have experienced a crisis where trying to fall on their faith they fell straight through. Here is where doubt begins. When we realize that what we stand on feels, well…shaky. When faith gets to the place of doubt, it gets very very hard. Some, when they approach this, like myself, end up rebuilding and find a faith that is much greater and stronger and unique. Oftentimes, faith like this is often tagged as being “radical”…

 Others loose or renounce faith. But in this way, they are choosing to be true to themselves and how they feel.

 Belief or unbelief I do not believe comes from the arguments that either side presents. It comes beforehand.

 So the question remains, what do we do? How do we converse and love those who renounce our God and savior? I can already hear some replies coming to me, telling me that I am being a syncretist or something like that, that I am not standing for truth. Perhaps. But I look around this coffeeshop. Of all the people enjoying each other’s company and loving it. We meet here on a common ground, not necessarily of belief, but of humanity. We are fellow humans, on the same page, living in the same world that confronts the realities of pain and doubt. And in this we can bring them ourselves, lay ourselves out, show them where our joy begins. Not by beating into them their unbelief, but showing them life as we have been shown. As for witness, I tell you what I tell the kids I teach. Our best witness is not our apologetics, or our oration and arguments. It is rather the life we live, the life we know. It is a life of freedom from bondage to that which holds us back. It is when we bend down to help a person in need, and give to someone that doesn’t deserve. It is when we give the grace we’ve been given.

 It is. Well…

Us.

He understood reality…in a way few of us do.

And he just recently wrote it down to be unleashed on us all. So in order to save unnecessary words click this link, read this post. If you came to read mine, skip it…and read this one instead. Come back and let me know your thoughts.

Here ya go. Holding on to something?

http://matthewsnyder.theworldrace.org/?filename=injustice

I wonder if you can relate to this.

Today I sat down with a movie; I do this often. But every once in a great while, I allow myself to get truly wrapped up into the narrative and realize – this will stay with me. Sometimes I find a film that resonates, disturbs, and I realize that when it ends…I will not think the same way I used to.

Today I watched Blood Diamond.

It’s about the civil wars in Sierra Leone that boiled over in 1999. It’s about the diamond trade, a smuggler that uses it, a reporter that wants to expose it, and a resident fisherman…who more than anyone understands the harshness of it. Some parts are wrenching to the spirit, but if you haven’t seen it yet…I beg that you stop reading and drive to Blockbuster.

The movie offers the climate of Sierra Leone at the time, where families are torn apart; daughters are lost, fathers are sent to the diamond fields, and the sons are trained at their ripe age in the art of hate…and are taught to use that hate to kill.

And There’s a trickle effect, and a pattern – the children and the killing, the hate and the war, the greed and the diamond market. It is all connected, and the trickling eventually finds its way down to the consumer…who because of the demand pressed on them, keeps the cycle going. A line in the end of the film says it best.

“The third world is not a world apart.”

Indeed.

The movie shows in great clarity how unbridled consumerism in consumerist-based economies can fan the flames of horrifying injustice. Please bear with me for a moment.

In our country we suffer from sloth. It is not a sloth forged in mere laziness; on the contrary, we know how to fill our schedules better than probably any other. In fact, our sloth is found in our busyness – we can ably use our busyness and extreme individualism to distract us from what truly is.

I don’t blame us…sometimes truth can be quite violent.

But when we still ourselves and intentionally place a chink in the framework of our schedules, we find ourselves in a position to listen…we hear a world crying out. The cries come from Sierra Leone and the greed that fed it. It comes from the Cambodian genocide. We hear it in domestic abuse and broken homes. It comes from Armenia, Peru, the drug cartels, red light districts, from men and women bruised, beaten, and dehumanized. The world looks at us with blood and tears and says…

This is wrong…why are things like this?

And where is God, what are we believers supposed to do when we hear the sound of a weeping world?

Let me get back to the movie; two scenes are very telling. The first one is at an encampment sitting by a river full of diamond deposits. Outside it is dark and raining – a glaring, unremorseful rainstorm. Inside a canvas covered ground sits many rebel fighters, but our attention is drawn to a group of about 7 children; some drink, others smoke. They all carry black-market AK-47s. One of the children is the fisherman’s son. Behind the children there is music, a static-laden late-90’s rap song. It’s an old television playing a music video…in the video the rapper flaunts his wares – a diamond encrusted necklace, bearing the letter of his first name.

The second scene we should listen close to. The son looks at his father, the aforementioned fisherman, and the father looks past the handgun pointed at his face to his boy’s eyes. Tear’s stream down the father’s eyes, and with unbelievable bravery he closes the distance between the two of them. He begins…

“They have made you do bad things…but you are not a bad boy.

 I am your father, who loves you…and you will come home with me

 And be my son, again…”

In these two scenes, we hear the cry…and see the answer. Just as the father in the story reconciles, brings back, the child…so God reconciles man to him. Lately, around my circle, a theme that keeps on popping up is freedom. I asked a class a couple of weeks ago if they really believed what the end of Romans 6 says. That is…do we really understand that sin no longer has any foothold on us? The gospel here is about breaking death, and destroying the power of that which kills. This is God’s reconciliation and redemption of the world, a movement that brings forth the God’s Kingdom, and we help bring forth that kingdom. Indeed, we are ambassadors.

And as ambassadors to this kingdom, we don’t shirk these cries of the world, and we don’t look upon them hopelessly. We hope…because we know that a process is occurring, a process of making things good. It occurs when a shelter gets built in Malawi, so that orphaned children can eat even when it is raining. It occurs when a prostitute witnesses the true love of a fellow person, instead of an empty and loveless embrace. It happens when a person sits on a bench with a homeless person, and acknowledges their story. It happens every time a person is liberated from that which holds them, whether it be mistakes in the present, or heartbreak in the past, and finds themselves truly able to live…

In the truth…of God.

-Mike

Relationships are a great risk. Hang on, let me reword that. Romance is a friggin’ huge risk. Most that have been in serious relationship understand why…but I still fight myself to try and explain the “why.” Call it the academic side of me.

But let me try and suffice to say just this: I’ve been reading much on the matter…academically. This can only tell us so much. But, without getting into it let me just say that to pursue life as a unit, a couple, rather than a mere individual is a high calling indeed. And a risky one, for to find success in this area, much is required and a great deal is given. Much needs to be entrusted to the being of the other. This is required.

This also leaves us in the most venerable state that we will experience in our lifetime.

This isn’t a cautionary blog, nor (as it most definitely sounds…) is this coming our of me as a reaction. I only bring this up is to clarify the title of my blog page.

A Risky Wonder.

I had a friend tell me that it sounded like something from the Watchmen – the “Risky Wonder.” I’m okay with that.

Here’s the thing, and I’m not sure how to say this. The Gospel of Christ is about one thing, bringing life to the dead. It’s not about admission to heaven or hell, not about social justice, not about ethics. All of those things are involved, but are not the point. The Gospel is essentially about God abrasively invading this world so that we can know what Life truly is. In other words, the redemption that Christians speak of, whether they know it or not, is about God bringing the whole of the earth back into the fold of God. The gospel is about God breaking the cycle of death, so that we may truly live.

And what does life look like in this?

It is about a relationship, a romance…that was absolutely not possible for the longest time.

This is a blog for my fellow Christians, and I hope I don’t run any others off. But before I get into things like discrimination and hypocrisy (even my own), or before I get into seedy topics like sex trafficking, or not so much, like…movies I like (Fight Club!), I must say this.

We can experience this tenacious love of God in a couple of ways. To truly appropriate it, to truly experience it, to truly understand the Gospel as a believer…there comes a point that we must decide to dive in. And I mean nothing short of this.

In the dive we entrust, we bear our hearts and our true desires. We fight sometimes, and are willing to hear when we’re wrong. We have to bear ourselves to the other in a way that is completely open, bearing everything, and withholding nothing. We have to relinquish our idea of going about this life autonomously, even going about it with the help of God…into going about it in life-partnership with him. Sound familiar? Here’s the kicker…

The Gospel, when really lived…is a romance. And this is where it becomes hard, very hard; a flirting relationship is admittedly much easier than a marriage.

God will test and temper. We beg to go further and he quietly asks, “Are you sure?”

When we say, “Yes,” he opens himself more to us, even romantically…and the encounter with such holiness becomes very painful to that which isn’t yet holy. To seek God in such a way is a risk…we risk hurt, and scorn from others. We risk our schedules to our willingness to move on his command. We risk other relationships, even with fellow believers; some of the godliest people I know (in my opinion) are oftentimes the most shunned by their fellow brothers and sisters, for they are too radical. We risk our own security, and even our own understanding of God…to that which is real and intimate. We even risk the pain of actual silence…from him whom we begin to relish.

Or…

We can take the other route to experiencing God. Faith can be easy, with easy answers. We can seal ourselves off, in our own sub-community. We can experience God comfortably.

And never know God any more than just as an acquaintance…

God is calling me out, as he’s done before, to an even deeper relationship…the deeper it goes, the more romantic it gets. It’s hard. I fight and scream and yell at him. I get frustrated at the way he works. But I’m searching, and I have a feeling it will bring me to a place uncomfortable and dangerous, but very beautiful where God peeks from behind the latticework.

So there you have it…when we truly wonder…it is risky. But inside of the risk we choose to take, is a romance very deep indeed.

Abrasively pursue God, as he has abrasively pursued us. He’s got broad shoulders, he can handle it.

Some time ago, I heard the Spirit of God. It was quiet; winter had finally arrived, a processional of slowly blanketing snow. It fell quietly, and peacefully – it wasn’t with the vindictive gusto that most think of when they think of winter. It was a serene night, the city quieted as if in a holy week service. And I quieted with it. I sought out an elusive Spirit along with a glass of Italian red. And when it found me, its presence took my breath away like only a lover can.

I relished it, as only a beloved can…and it spoke. One word…

…. “listen” …

I’m still listening. The spirit still eludes me, and I am trying desperately to attune myself towards it, to hear it better.

That night I walked around my drafty apartment, barefoot on the cheap shag-like carpet. I wanted to write, and asked this spirit to anoint my hands. I began thinking about a number of things. Mainly people. I thought about the homeless man that I saw drunk and passed out at the coffee shop the other day – tonight was much, much colder, and I hoped that he had found some place to stay. I thought about my neighbors, who had fought with such hate towards each other earlier.

I stopped typing and took a drink, the wine was beautiful…Allegrini, I believe was the vineyard. The topic of my typing…a profound and very ancient groan.

It is the groaning of Creation. It is the cry of a world that witnesses such things like genocide and poverty, war and plague. It is the cries of many people that find themselves entrapped by bad relationships, hate, dehumanization, and perversion. It is a world that knows in complete clarity that things…well…aren’t as they should be. Scripture talks about the rocks crying out. I think I get it.

I feel sometimes like I can hear the cries, in the creaking of the trees and in the wail of a siren from a police car. Creation – the people and the earth. Creation screams.

And it screams for redemption.

The words flowed from me, almost like I was possessed by some…spirit… I wrote of paying attention, of listening to the groans of the world. I wrote of the discipline of stilling ourselves and freeing us from our busyness long enough to consider. To consider the fighting and the sickness. To address the things in the world that just doesn’t seem right.

I must stop for a moment here; I’m having trouble moving on. See, I have these things that I want to discuss. No…discuss isn’t right, they are violently pressing to get out. But I have to hold them in for the moment. But let it suffice to say this: I am a Christian, and that night the spirit instilled within me a renewed restlessness.

The thing is, is that we as Christians are not hermetically sealed in a separate, counter-cultural pouch. Our duty isn’t to try and separate ourselves from the world and judge and damn those that aren’t within our sealed pouch. No. To do so isn’t so far removed from our attempt to sidestep truth by busying ourselves. What I am getting at is that we are ambassadors of the kingdom of God, and carried within our very being is the answer to the cries of Creation. But to get there we must stop and listen. We hear those cries in all of their various forms: drugs, war, malaise and sloth, hate, and sex trafficking, and we consider them. We enter these arenas, embrace those within, and begin to bring about this redemption that Creation groans for.  To damn and turn our back on those issues is to turn our back on our intrinsic duty and privilege in being Christian. That is, to take place in the God’s act to bring forth this redemption and to make the world right again.

Creation speaks to us, let us listen to it.