Don't honk if you hate Jesus
Today I did laundry -- beforehand I got some snacks from Walgreens and I passed by a young black guy. It was a loud event, as it usually is (in Springfield) - culturally loud. I observe the noise and listen to the different kinds of people in my head (people I know) voice their reactions to the collective noise, not realizing their role in the noise, or the noise's role in them. I was buying a watermelon beverage at the time. Shut up. It's a noise that seems to engage the isolated, that descends on unknowable unengaged relationships, imagined/guessed situations. It has nothing to do with acquainted individuals, and hardly anything to do with individuals at all.
Driving across the parking lot to the Gideon's Laundry (? - it does seem to have a lot of gospel tracts planted in it) I see the guy walking to the laundry listening to his headphones. Does he notice I was at the Walgreens? I guess so. He is smiling, seems genuinely happy. I wonder what he's listening to. I also have my headphones. I continue to think about him, as I do in general with people in the laundry -- what are they thinking, what is the substance of our glances, why are they happy or unhappy... since he's a minority there's that resonance of a well-defined cultural alienation, to bounce against my more ambiguous brand. His smile makes me happy.
I listen to my headphones & read Quaker literature (not in tracts, I brought it from the Friends meeting I went to this morning). Checking my laundry I hear the guy talking to an older woman, white, frumpy (?), wore glasses. They seem to have found something they enjoy talking about. He continues to seem happy, and so does she. It's God between them. Jesus. A discussion on Jesus -- I turn off my mp3 player and listen in. I take off the headphones instead. A debate.
I love this stuff. It's neat they are connecting. But I'm not sure how well it's going to work, or where this debate is going. Sitting down, reading the Friends Journal, it's very interesting & I listen to my music and I'm havin a nice time but I hear them still and they're laboring now. What I thought I heard before is confirmed, which is that she's sure everyone's saved by Christ. That's a heck of a controversial idea, and it's really cool she's taking it that far.
Not a single sinner is lost to hell. That was the old covenant. The new covenant is that Christ paid for it all. I heard a story about an evangelist taking up this very cross by his own conviction. Definitely isn't cool with the old school. And this particular guy was old school. He was quoting verses, she was quoting verses. Basically unless you confess Christ & repent you will go to hell. That was his point over and over.
I so wanted them to connect. "See that's the great thing about God, he loves us so much, he gives us the choice. We have free will to choose to reject him," he says -- she is insisting his blessing is poured out on all of us, and in time we will all be drawn back to him.
The first time I heard that freedom-to-reject argument it was weird. My stepdad the pastor told me that, before I had even posed the question. Some obvious doubter's question "why would he create such a reality, why would he start us off damned?" The answer, given so readily when the question was not asked, seems transparently contrived, a struggle, a confession of what really must've been a hard question for the speaker, a challenge to their faith.
Sure I must've asked the question early on, but the answer came quickly to me, I didn't get stuck on it. He probably wouldn't create such a reality for us, not if he was love. We must be seeing it wrong, or from a limited perspective. Still I understand some beauty in the answer, including the idea of free will, the opportunity to reject love. There is something of love in that idea -- that love is freedom, freely given, that love does not force itself upon us. But you can definitely subvert that truth.
If I loved my child enough, and they wanted to drink poison, would I let them? Or if they were born with poison coursing through their veins (to keep the analogy close) would I wait for them to beg me to save them, would I offer them the "choice" to reject the antidote? Would they rationally, out of true "free will" reject such an antidote? Or might I recognize they are ignorant, they are children. If they were afraid of the antidote, or afraid to ask for my help, what would I care, knowing what I know?
In what sense is their will "free" if they have no grasp of the reality of their choice? Let's go back to drinking poison outright. Shall I let them "choose" to continue drinking it, because they believe it's delicious, nutritious, safe? Or have they been deceived, or are they mistaken? Their supposed free will is bound to factors beyond their control. If they have been deceived (such as by Satan) their will is outright subverted, is an instrument of greater wills, is part of larger motions than theirs. I love nothing if I love & respect their ill-informed choice to drink poison.
Let alone their choice to fall into an eternal hell, as though they can possibly grasp that they are choosing that. Even if they are selfish, foolish, etc... no BECAUSE they are selfish, foolish etc, I must recognize they live in a small world. Even if they know well enough that some kind of pain awaits, they dont know absolute eternal suffering - the depth of their sense of consequences in comparison is infinitesimal, "worth it" is plausible to them, "might as well" or "not strong enough" are easy enough mistakes or illusions, accidental disasters.
If I were God I think I would recognize larger motions, would see life in larger systems than these critters. I would recognize the motion of true free will where it really is, and it is not in these small spheres & stupid limited choices. I would save these poor stupid kids from stupid choices in a heartbeat, so they can live in bliss eternally thinking "damn, that was my ticket to hell. I sure wish God had loved me enough to let me go there."
And I'm sarcastic but, well heck yeah, I do think he loves us enough to let us go there. I just don't think its eternal. I think it's a balanced, continuous reflection. He loves us enough to give us the choice to leave or change, no matter how long we've been there. It's just we get more and more attached to our own creations, to understanding the depth of them. At some point, if we recognize the source of our wills, the meaning of the fire changes, and the loss of self is complete. At that point, hell never was.
So I think in some way this lady might've had some sense of that, that still, at the bottom of the bottom of hell, at the end of the end of time, God's love is still there, and is still true. Hell is a lie and that's why it's hell. The more they talked the more he went on and on, and it became a pride issue. He handed her a tract at some point and I guess he had all but decided she was in need of yielding on his point, or else she was not at all saved. She proudly pointed out she'd been baptised 3 times and the first was enough. Once saved always saved. He disagreed with that too. They compared dick sizes in terms of knowledge of the Bible. Everything rested on Bible knowledge, and every truth they'd gotten lost in, was authorized by the Bible, the Word of God. She was sure with enough time, if she had her bible there, she could show him. It was sad. She asked him to go to church with her, any church, she so wanted to have a continued connection with him, and he wanted to prove to himself he was right. I think he was afraid of her, wanted the comfort of his own church people, didn't want to bring her into his world. I think she was probably very lonely.
She had a truck with a large camper shell with praise for God sloppily written on the side of it. He kept kept kept on his one point, his one salvation, which was all about how Jesus is the only way, and there is a "physical place" called hell and lots of people were really going there. While I listened, there was no sign of humility or love, no effort to connect with her beyond just the urgency of her accepting that. She was defensive. I feel like with her age & professed experience, it rested on her even more than him to show him some real humility and to stop the circular bible-crutching point-making frame of mind. She so wanted to prove that she was authentic in an old-time-religion sort of way. And it's true, she needed that authority to keep his attention. I even identify with it, I like my own status as witness (though not exactly recipient) of the Missionary Baptist brand of salvation, which held a lot of authenticity (in our eyes) in comparison to other baptists & other kinds of Christians because it was a raw, privately revealed, prayer-triggered catharsis/liberation. Understanding it later in my own away, having seen it from inside I like the immunity I have against the standard Christ-cult-purveyor, and have only to defend myself from the potential for pride in some sense of role reversal fantasies that those who might try to save me are actually coming to be freed from their religion.
The best perception of it I think, is that we are trying to lay down our arms, all of them, and embrace. That neither of us is trying to save the other but that we are both giving our witness trying to co-surrender, that something between us is trying to be born. We may play at saving the other, so much as it aids the process of discussion, so much as it helps us through our private stories, but truly we wish only to share a connection, to praise & give thanks, & accept/recognize a salvation already granted, and manifest in our loving each other.
So something like that I would've liked for these two people to share. But I'm just some side-listener. They went outside, their laundry was finishing. Voices were raising. He was saying the same things, she was trying a little harder to get a "future" with him. I wanted her to stop the discussion and start discussing the discussion. Start discussing the circles they were getting stuck in. Recognize there are other ways to reach people than directly discussing these topics. Jesus saving the world is such a huge kind of topic, and the specifics of it & all that, people pretend they can easily understand & break into with strangers but the truth is it just fosters greater and greater misunderstanding. People pretend, but they bank more and more on canned statements, and they stop listening to the other person and the other person stops saying anything anyways. Only I heard her message faintly, her impatience, her familiarity with his approach, his stubborn trap.
I watched them outside, I watched their body language as they debated by her truck. I sincerely hoped that the opportunity to raise voices brought some sort of breakdown in the conversation, some sort of new ground, some sort of drama that would honestly break the ice, force them out of the programmed unlistening patterns. The body language did look promising. They kept going & going. My laundry was done. I left and got food & returned DVDs. Drove back by Gideon's Laundromat and there they still were behind her truck. I so hope that at the end of that, he was unable to blow off the "struggle" as just him-saving-sinners, could value the struggle as more than that, could notice that most sinners won't be nearly the "find" she was. Honestly I hope they became lifelong friends (or lovers??), I really think she was shooting for that, so happy to find a God-lovin young black feller, someone a little on the outside in Springfield culture. But he loved his church and I think felt safest there, sticking to what he'd learned.
I thought about honking at them and how they would have no clue why I was honking. I thought about her unique truck. I thought of bumper sticker ideas. Honk if you Love. I picture having such a bumper sticker and making some kind of positive hand-sign when people honk. It would be cool. Thumbs up? Corny! Devil sign / Rock Hands? Tee hee. I laugh and shout "Don't honk if you hate Jesus!"
Driving across the parking lot to the Gideon's Laundry (? - it does seem to have a lot of gospel tracts planted in it) I see the guy walking to the laundry listening to his headphones. Does he notice I was at the Walgreens? I guess so. He is smiling, seems genuinely happy. I wonder what he's listening to. I also have my headphones. I continue to think about him, as I do in general with people in the laundry -- what are they thinking, what is the substance of our glances, why are they happy or unhappy... since he's a minority there's that resonance of a well-defined cultural alienation, to bounce against my more ambiguous brand. His smile makes me happy.
I listen to my headphones & read Quaker literature (not in tracts, I brought it from the Friends meeting I went to this morning). Checking my laundry I hear the guy talking to an older woman, white, frumpy (?), wore glasses. They seem to have found something they enjoy talking about. He continues to seem happy, and so does she. It's God between them. Jesus. A discussion on Jesus -- I turn off my mp3 player and listen in. I take off the headphones instead. A debate.
I love this stuff. It's neat they are connecting. But I'm not sure how well it's going to work, or where this debate is going. Sitting down, reading the Friends Journal, it's very interesting & I listen to my music and I'm havin a nice time but I hear them still and they're laboring now. What I thought I heard before is confirmed, which is that she's sure everyone's saved by Christ. That's a heck of a controversial idea, and it's really cool she's taking it that far.
Not a single sinner is lost to hell. That was the old covenant. The new covenant is that Christ paid for it all. I heard a story about an evangelist taking up this very cross by his own conviction. Definitely isn't cool with the old school. And this particular guy was old school. He was quoting verses, she was quoting verses. Basically unless you confess Christ & repent you will go to hell. That was his point over and over.
I so wanted them to connect. "See that's the great thing about God, he loves us so much, he gives us the choice. We have free will to choose to reject him," he says -- she is insisting his blessing is poured out on all of us, and in time we will all be drawn back to him.
The first time I heard that freedom-to-reject argument it was weird. My stepdad the pastor told me that, before I had even posed the question. Some obvious doubter's question "why would he create such a reality, why would he start us off damned?" The answer, given so readily when the question was not asked, seems transparently contrived, a struggle, a confession of what really must've been a hard question for the speaker, a challenge to their faith.
Sure I must've asked the question early on, but the answer came quickly to me, I didn't get stuck on it. He probably wouldn't create such a reality for us, not if he was love. We must be seeing it wrong, or from a limited perspective. Still I understand some beauty in the answer, including the idea of free will, the opportunity to reject love. There is something of love in that idea -- that love is freedom, freely given, that love does not force itself upon us. But you can definitely subvert that truth.
If I loved my child enough, and they wanted to drink poison, would I let them? Or if they were born with poison coursing through their veins (to keep the analogy close) would I wait for them to beg me to save them, would I offer them the "choice" to reject the antidote? Would they rationally, out of true "free will" reject such an antidote? Or might I recognize they are ignorant, they are children. If they were afraid of the antidote, or afraid to ask for my help, what would I care, knowing what I know?
In what sense is their will "free" if they have no grasp of the reality of their choice? Let's go back to drinking poison outright. Shall I let them "choose" to continue drinking it, because they believe it's delicious, nutritious, safe? Or have they been deceived, or are they mistaken? Their supposed free will is bound to factors beyond their control. If they have been deceived (such as by Satan) their will is outright subverted, is an instrument of greater wills, is part of larger motions than theirs. I love nothing if I love & respect their ill-informed choice to drink poison.
Let alone their choice to fall into an eternal hell, as though they can possibly grasp that they are choosing that. Even if they are selfish, foolish, etc... no BECAUSE they are selfish, foolish etc, I must recognize they live in a small world. Even if they know well enough that some kind of pain awaits, they dont know absolute eternal suffering - the depth of their sense of consequences in comparison is infinitesimal, "worth it" is plausible to them, "might as well" or "not strong enough" are easy enough mistakes or illusions, accidental disasters.
If I were God I think I would recognize larger motions, would see life in larger systems than these critters. I would recognize the motion of true free will where it really is, and it is not in these small spheres & stupid limited choices. I would save these poor stupid kids from stupid choices in a heartbeat, so they can live in bliss eternally thinking "damn, that was my ticket to hell. I sure wish God had loved me enough to let me go there."
And I'm sarcastic but, well heck yeah, I do think he loves us enough to let us go there. I just don't think its eternal. I think it's a balanced, continuous reflection. He loves us enough to give us the choice to leave or change, no matter how long we've been there. It's just we get more and more attached to our own creations, to understanding the depth of them. At some point, if we recognize the source of our wills, the meaning of the fire changes, and the loss of self is complete. At that point, hell never was.
So I think in some way this lady might've had some sense of that, that still, at the bottom of the bottom of hell, at the end of the end of time, God's love is still there, and is still true. Hell is a lie and that's why it's hell. The more they talked the more he went on and on, and it became a pride issue. He handed her a tract at some point and I guess he had all but decided she was in need of yielding on his point, or else she was not at all saved. She proudly pointed out she'd been baptised 3 times and the first was enough. Once saved always saved. He disagreed with that too. They compared dick sizes in terms of knowledge of the Bible. Everything rested on Bible knowledge, and every truth they'd gotten lost in, was authorized by the Bible, the Word of God. She was sure with enough time, if she had her bible there, she could show him. It was sad. She asked him to go to church with her, any church, she so wanted to have a continued connection with him, and he wanted to prove to himself he was right. I think he was afraid of her, wanted the comfort of his own church people, didn't want to bring her into his world. I think she was probably very lonely.
She had a truck with a large camper shell with praise for God sloppily written on the side of it. He kept kept kept on his one point, his one salvation, which was all about how Jesus is the only way, and there is a "physical place" called hell and lots of people were really going there. While I listened, there was no sign of humility or love, no effort to connect with her beyond just the urgency of her accepting that. She was defensive. I feel like with her age & professed experience, it rested on her even more than him to show him some real humility and to stop the circular bible-crutching point-making frame of mind. She so wanted to prove that she was authentic in an old-time-religion sort of way. And it's true, she needed that authority to keep his attention. I even identify with it, I like my own status as witness (though not exactly recipient) of the Missionary Baptist brand of salvation, which held a lot of authenticity (in our eyes) in comparison to other baptists & other kinds of Christians because it was a raw, privately revealed, prayer-triggered catharsis/liberation. Understanding it later in my own away, having seen it from inside I like the immunity I have against the standard Christ-cult-purveyor, and have only to defend myself from the potential for pride in some sense of role reversal fantasies that those who might try to save me are actually coming to be freed from their religion.
The best perception of it I think, is that we are trying to lay down our arms, all of them, and embrace. That neither of us is trying to save the other but that we are both giving our witness trying to co-surrender, that something between us is trying to be born. We may play at saving the other, so much as it aids the process of discussion, so much as it helps us through our private stories, but truly we wish only to share a connection, to praise & give thanks, & accept/recognize a salvation already granted, and manifest in our loving each other.
So something like that I would've liked for these two people to share. But I'm just some side-listener. They went outside, their laundry was finishing. Voices were raising. He was saying the same things, she was trying a little harder to get a "future" with him. I wanted her to stop the discussion and start discussing the discussion. Start discussing the circles they were getting stuck in. Recognize there are other ways to reach people than directly discussing these topics. Jesus saving the world is such a huge kind of topic, and the specifics of it & all that, people pretend they can easily understand & break into with strangers but the truth is it just fosters greater and greater misunderstanding. People pretend, but they bank more and more on canned statements, and they stop listening to the other person and the other person stops saying anything anyways. Only I heard her message faintly, her impatience, her familiarity with his approach, his stubborn trap.
I watched them outside, I watched their body language as they debated by her truck. I sincerely hoped that the opportunity to raise voices brought some sort of breakdown in the conversation, some sort of new ground, some sort of drama that would honestly break the ice, force them out of the programmed unlistening patterns. The body language did look promising. They kept going & going. My laundry was done. I left and got food & returned DVDs. Drove back by Gideon's Laundromat and there they still were behind her truck. I so hope that at the end of that, he was unable to blow off the "struggle" as just him-saving-sinners, could value the struggle as more than that, could notice that most sinners won't be nearly the "find" she was. Honestly I hope they became lifelong friends (or lovers??), I really think she was shooting for that, so happy to find a God-lovin young black feller, someone a little on the outside in Springfield culture. But he loved his church and I think felt safest there, sticking to what he'd learned.
I thought about honking at them and how they would have no clue why I was honking. I thought about her unique truck. I thought of bumper sticker ideas. Honk if you Love. I picture having such a bumper sticker and making some kind of positive hand-sign when people honk. It would be cool. Thumbs up? Corny! Devil sign / Rock Hands? Tee hee. I laugh and shout "Don't honk if you hate Jesus!"