AliBlog

If I Were Still Doing Sunday Sparks, This Would be at the Top of My Spark List

Suebob explains why she goes to church and why she's a church lady. (There's only two reasons and they're both Social Gospel reasons - though she might disagree with my use of the word gospel in relation to her post at all.)

Next Question

Are your parenting philosophies primarily red or blue?

Red parents tend to be:

• patriarchal
• domineering
• powerful
• judgmental
• demanding
• vengeful
• dictators of specific rules and expectations

Blue parents tend to be:

• nurturing
• loving
• accepting
• all-inclusive
• understanding
• embracing of diversity

What about your parents? Which camp did they fall into?

Again, I know these lists oversimplify matters, since some amount of red and blue are needed in any parent/child relationship. But how much of each is needed? Does it depend on the child? I lean toward the blue parenting spectrum and tend to feel guilty when I have to invoke my red parenting skills. Likewise, I was definitely raised by blue parents. My mom in particular is about as blue as you can get. And, it seems to me, if you can get the blue part right as a parent, then very little red is needed.

(Let me remind you that we're talking parenting philosophies here, not politics. If we were talking politics, I'd have a hard time calling my parents blue.)

Red Fish, Blue Fish

Is your God a red God or a blue God? It doesn't matter if you're Christian, Budhist, Atheist, Jewish, Agnostic, Muslim, Pagan, or something else altogether. Just review the two lists below and tell me which God you're more drawn to.

Believers in a red God view the almighty as:

• patriarchal
• domineering
• powerful
• judgmental
• demanding
• vengeful
• dictator of specific rules and expectations

Believers in a blue God view the almighty as:

• nurturing
• loving
• accepting
• all-inclusive
• understanding
• embracing of diversity

I recently listened to a recorded talk by the controversial Joseph Sprague, a retired Methodist Bishop who said, "I will no longer give service to that red God."

Certainly God is larger and more complex than either of these two lists reveal, but the breakdown is intriguing to me as someone who has always believed in the liberal, blue God and still gets antsy and uncomfortable around any belief system that primarily embraces the red God gospel.

So why is that red God so popular today? Why has America embraced those red God ideas so full-heartedly? What is it about that strict, stern ruler that attracts so many people?

Sunday Sparks

David, at True Ancestor describes what he calls the spiritual ecosphere:

The realm of the spiritual is its own ecosphere. Just as each species finds its niche and fills its role in a healthy ecosystem, so the realm of the spiritual always will -- always must -- have atheists, agnostics, fundamentalists, mystics and everything in between.

Plus, David and his sister, amba, are talking about doing a 'radio show' together to discuss religious views from every possible niche within this ecosystem.

Taking all types of spiritual quests into consideration, Tim at Pop Occulture proposes a heuristic for understanding the process of spiritual exploration:

I’d like to present my own fledgling map of personal internal growth. This model was created based on my own experiences - both good and bad - and those of countless people who I’ve interacted with through my website and in my life who walk the same roads as me. The most important thing to keep in mind is that this model is just that - a model. It’s designed to help people out on their own journeys of exploration. Use it if and where it helps you; throw it aside when you’re done with it. If you have any ideas about how this could be improved, please share them.

Richard Lawrence Cohen allows himself the freedom to interpret signs and maybe even the luxury to believe in something:

One thing that has always kept me from accepting any specific religion is that I think God is fundamentally incomprehensible to the human mind, and thus theology is mostly arrogant guesswork and culture-bound fantasizing. Nevertheless, I’ve felt, for equally long, that it’s guesswork and fantasizing about something real.

A Buddhist adage I like very much is that all religious doctrines are like fingers pointing at the moon. If we concentrate on looking at the finger, we’re missing the idea. (In modern terms, someone who looks at a finger instead of what the finger is pointing at is autistic.) We need to look at the moon.

But then, a person pointing at the moon can be beautiful ...

Robey, lately, is enamored with the moon. We don't see it much here in the wintertime, but he loves to look for it through the windows, through sleepy eyes and through long hours of driving on country roads. His searching is a joy to watch and his wonder each time he sees it - whether it's shining full in the afternoon sky or peaking through the clouds at midnight - is so authentic.

And that's the point of these Sunday Sparks: to understand the beauty in our searching for the moon and, of course, to try - in some small way - to understand the beauty of the moon itself.

Sunday Sparks

Scheherazade at Stay of Execution finds comfort - and more - at a new church:

And then the sermon.  Oh my goodness.  The minister softened me up by bringing Annie Dillard into it, and from then on I was toast.  He hit me in my softest places.  He painted pictures with his words and my eyes welled up and soon I was crying.  He made me laugh.  He touched my longing.  Besides Dillard he brought in GK Chesterton and Winnie the Pooh, and, of course, Jesus Christ.  He talked about wonder and adoration and fear.  This is my place.  I want to listen to this minister some more, I thought.  I didn't even care if the attorney beside me could see me crying.  It felt safe. 

Rachelle at Notes from a Truth Seeker reflects on her chosen faith:

What does that say about me–that I knowingly and repeatedly choose this one? A baby in a manager. A carpenter king. A crazy man on a crowded hill. A dead man on a cross. Perhaps it means, in all honestly, that I am not too smart. Perhaps it means that I am deluded, overly emotional, too easily swayed by tradition and heritage. Or perhaps is means that deep calls to deep, that knowledge sometimes surpasses reason, that many decisions are made primarily by the heart.

These posts generated thoughtful comments as well, so you'll enjoy reading them both from top to bottom.

Sunday Sparks

Melissa at Suburban Bliss ponders the significance of holiday giving:

Those are cute but homeless people don't need 'cute', they need warm. They don't need mittens either. They need a warm house and a job and a way to kick an addiction or a mental illness. They need mittens that can do all of that, and I'm not seeing that brand here.

Tim at Popular Occulture asks, "What's wrong with mega churches?" and elicits some interesting responses. I call them "big box" churches myself, because - when I attend them - I experience the same uncomfortable feelings of congestion and mass consumption that I experience at Wal-Mart. One commenter, James, makes a similar comparison:

Mega-churches aren’t bad. It’s the difference between seeing your favorite band play a small club vs. opening for U2 at the Hollywood Bowl. One is bound to be more intimate, and it’s usually the one where you don’t feel lost in a sea of people.

Finally, my latest blog obsession - checking in multiple times a day to read the comments about The Wounded Angel at ambivablog. I stand by my original interpretation, but I'm fascinated and amazed to "see" this painting through the eyes of so many other spiritual critics as well. Go check it out and add your thoughts to the comment section too.

Sunday Sparks, Week 4

Mark Daniels asks, "Why are we so litigious?"

Real Live Preacher is dumbfounded by a man who claims to believe every word in the bible.

Jeneane Sessum describes how regular people talk about Revelations.

Sunday Sparks, Week 3

This week the spark's on me. With inspiration from these posts about labels from fellow bloggers, I wrote and shared the speech below with the congregation at our church last Sunday. It felt great to be so open and honest with a group of people that I thought - just a few years ago - would never accept me and my liberal belief system. Judging by the reaction, most of them not only accept me but are glad to welcome me into their community. And some of them even agree with me.

The Labels of My Faith

Published the year I graduated from high school, Douglas Coupland’s novel, Generation X, characterized my generation – at the time – as a cohort of twenty-somethings whose main characteristic was a tendency to have no main characteristics. It was a label that stuck in the media. And then, of course, the label was quickly embraced by a generation of self-proclaimed label haters.

It’s true. My generation, now known as Generation X, has produced legions of independent voters, including myself. Outside of politics, we defy labels like house wife, soccer mom, yuppie, hippie, punk or workaholic. We don’t want to be pegged or pinned down or stereotyped, so we focus on individuality and rebel against anyone’s efforts to pigeonhole us into specific categories.

This is especially true when it comes to faith. And that’s really what I want to talk about today: The labels of faith – and why so many men and women in my generation are more likely to say they’re spiritual as opposed to religious.

Sunday Sparks, Week 2

David at True Ancestor meets a kindred spirit and a "free" soul:

She was beyond us. She had discovered truth. She was free. She was gone.

The water at waiterrant tells about the time his godfather lectured a room full of pro-lifers, saying:

“Let me tell you something about Hell,” my godfather says, “We know there’s a hell because Jesus said there’s one. But we don’t know if anyone’s actually in it ...  What’s more,” he says, “Jesus never liked hypocrites. He once said, ‘They do not practice what they preach. They tie up heavy burdens and lay them on people’s shoulders, but will they lift a finger to move them? No! Every thing they do is done to attract attention!’”

Dave at Via Negativa muses on paradise:

15. Paradise is others. Paradise is the world in the midst of creation, which is on-going. The sabbath is not-yet.

Infision at Social Gospel today argues that the Southern Baptists are preaching the wrong message:

No, if the SBC is indeed declining it is not for lack of evangelistic zeal. It is declining because it has the wrong message. Jesus Christ is about more than saying a magic spell, getting baptised and refraining from pre-marital sex. As more and more Christians realize this, the SBC will continue to decline.

Sunday Sparks, Week 1

As a rule, I don't blog on Sundays. In fact, I try pretty hard not to go near the computer at all that day. But I've also been bookmarking favorite posts from faith-inspired bloggers for months that I'd like to share. So, I'm going to try something scheduling a weekly Sunday post with links to blog entries where I've found wisdom, guidance or simply an interesting point of view.

One thing you should know is that I'm pretty open in my definition of faith. Although I call myself a Christian, I learn from Unitarians, Pagans, Jews, Buddhists and assorted spiritual nomads - a lovely term coined by Amba.

The first installment of Ali's Sunday Sparks follows.

Rachelle at Notes from a Truth Seeker is saddened by people who choose conversion over conversation and doctrine over communion:

And it’s sad, very sad to me that people just cannot ... see past the fact that we don’t have a doctrinal statement; that we care more about conversation than conversion; that we see all of life as an invitation into relationship with God; that we don’t mind if you can’t call God ‘Jesus’, or’ the Trinity’, or even ‘God,’ as long as you, like us, are longing for connection to the Divine. I don’t think that’s a bad thing. I think that’s a way in, for me and for others around me—a way into the loving reality of God. And if I can provide that, in any little way, I’ll do it.

Mark at Better Living takes Pat Robertson to task for condemning a whole town in Pennsylvania:

Along with Jerry Fallwell and James Dobson, he's a straw man that skeptics, agnostics, atheists, and genuine inquirers into Christian faith can read about in their local paper, easily knock down or dismiss, and decide that Christians are every bit as legalistic, clueless, and venomous as your average Islamofascist.

Augustine Interviews God - Part Fifteen

Amba finds a sanity clause in at least one major branch of religion:

Catholics and evangelicals may have drawn closer together over life issues and the spirit of revival, but here's where they part company: Catholics, it seems, can open their hearts (and their Bibles) without losing their heads.

The Zero Boss argues that religious texts are not our sole source of religious inspiration:

The Bhagavad Gita is one of my favorite religious texts. Yet even it - like the Holy Bible, the Talmud, the Quran, the Nag Hammadi, the Vedas, the various Sutras of Buddhism, the Tibetan Book of the Dead, and even modern classics like Starhawk's The Spiral Dance - are riddled with the prejudices and errors of their otherwise gifted authors. Is it little surprise, then, that modern Americans are bypassing the wisdom of old, and going directly to the Source for their religious communion? It's evident that the writing is on the wall: most Americans would prefer to talk to the Divine directly rather than go through a mediator - whether that mediator be a man in a white collar or a stack of bound pulp.

In her lectionary blog, Dylan questions our culture's focus on family values:

One problem with our talk about "family values" is that it's just that: TALK. Pontificating about the standards to which all families ought to rise makes us like the Pharisees and scribes Jesus condemns unless we act to lighten the burden for others rather than merely condemning those who don't rise to our ideal. Got a problem with out-of-wedlock births? Want to reduce abortions? There's a direct correlation between rising levels of education and reduced rates of both. Wagging fingers and punishing women or their doctors won't lighten the burden, but making sure that every neighborhood school is safe and provides quality education – and that every neighborhood in the world has a school that will receive all its children – will.

Finally, Mr. Gobley extends a daily challenge to himself that we all should strive to achieve.