conversations with kathy
(part three)


Kathy: CWG, book 1, pg 13: "God created the process of life and life itself as you know it. Yet God gave you free choice, to do with as you will. In this sense, your will for you is God's will for you. You are living your life the way you are living your life, and I have no preference in the matter. This is the grand illusion in which you have engaged: that God cares one way or the other what you do."

I wish I could quote about three paragraphs here, because I know how this can be taken out of context, but we'll just go with it- maybe it will be more provocative :)

While some people may read this and tearfully respond, "God doesn't care about me," this whole idea of literal FREE WILL helped me figure out what to do with my life. Christianity is big on the WILL OF GOD. It's our responsibility to memorize it (according to the bible) or discern it (with the help of the Holy Spirit) and then bring ourselves to heel. But the idea that God has a plan for us- well, for some that might be comforting, but for me, it was terrifying.

WHAT is God's will for me? WHAT am I supposed to be doing with my life? See, if there's something I'm supposed to do, then there's a whole lot that I'm not supposed to do. I've been paralyzed by the fear of doing the wrong thing, making the wrong decision, choosing the wrong career...etc.

But what if there isn't a wrong answer? What if God is perfectly happy with me making choices that reflect who I am, rather than who someone else thinks I should be? What if I can't screw up? Think about how many things you might try if you weren't fearful of doing the WRONG thing? What if you knew that when you made a less than stellar choice, you could simply change your mind, choose again, and face no punishment (other than natural consequences)?

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kevin: i am glad you chose this topic, because it's one i've been dwelling on a lot, too, since reading the book several months back. our whole life landscape in the community of faith that is huffman united methodist church (we'll keep it local right now, since we are both part of that community) is constructed around these dated ideas of what we should and shouldn't do.


one of the reasons that i've been so sensitive to how people are perceiving limbo is that our group was borne out of the idea that church was doing it "wrong". now, to your point and this post's thread, "wrong" would be relative, so we'll go with limbo was borne out of the idea that (our) church was borderline irrelevant. due to the fact that i made the decision that we'd meet during the sunday school hour, the church has understood us to be nothing more than a sunday school, for better or worse, one that is "looking to be involved" and one that should probably be interested in luncheons that might be attractive to other "young adults" that are looking for a place to "plug in". limbo is seen as "filling a need" because we are all under 40 and weren't doing much within the church, corporate, before limbo got off the ground. while all of those things serve a noble and honest sentiment, they still miss the point. i am losing my point.


i think what i am trying to say is that we are salmon swimming upstream, fighting against the antiquated current of what "should be", a structure that was forged and laid hundreds upon hundreds of years ago. it is a structure that relies primarily on the idea that god will "punish" us if we don't figure out what it is that he wants us to do and appropriate our thoughts and measures according to how many generations before me have interpreted who god is through their reading of the scripture.


now, this begs the question, who am i to swim upstream? who i am i to question the proven theory and thesis that is christianity. if i didn't believe in "the story", i wouldn't be worried about my church and it's relevancy and limbo and/or vacation bible school or the halloween carnival or any of the other "ministries" that i have developed a passion for over my 33 year plus years. or, would i?


but back to your thought. or the book's thought. or god's thought. gosh, wouldn't that just be something? that all this time, the nature of our choices and the lives that we led would, at worst, lengthen the period of time between now and when it WILL BE that we meet "our maker". that the choices we make or don't make according to our communities of faith weren't necessarily wrong, but off-path. the nature of reward vs. consequence being thrown completely on its head. it's a lovely thought. it's a thought that my 33-plus years of living in the shadow of eternal separation from god being a reality is not totally comfortable with and totally in love with at the same time...

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The sunk-cost fallacy. That's what popped into my head. For those who aren't familiar with it, it's the argument that "money, time, or energy already invested justifies the investment of yet more time, energy, or money." In other words, if we've been doing religion a certain way for hundreds of years, then we should continue to do it that way because to change the way we do it would in essence be saying we've been doing it wrong all along. We don't want to have wasted all this time...so let's justify what we've been doing by continuing to do it :)

This is the problem with the "God said it, I believe it, that settles it!" crowd. Maybe if we believed that God was still talking, still evolving, then we'd still be listening and evolving too. Maybe we wouldn't be afraid to ask ourselves if God still wants us to be doing religion the way we have been...or if He ever wanted us to do it in the first place. Personally, I thought Jesus was preaching the message that religious law was trumped by personal freedom in God. Maybe I've misunderstood. Wouldn't be the first time. However, I've become cynical enough to believe that Churches have become bureaucracies whose sole purpose is to sustain their own existence. We need to bring people to Christ (church) so that they (or our church) can be saved.

Anyway- maybe that's a little off topic. Or maybe it's just the applying of these ideas at a corporate level, which is where you were going with it, I think. But can we change the way we perceive choice at the corporate level without changing how we see choice at the personal level?

A quick caveat- You've just read this book. I read it over 8 years ago for the first time. The first time I talked about these ideas with another person, I was trembling all over. The very foundation of my Christian belief was shaking apart, and it manifested physically in my body. I couldn't control the trembling- even my voice was shaking. Eight years later, these ideas no longer thrill and scare me at the same time. As I said when I gave you the book, the ideas took root in me, quietly and firmly, OVER TIME...and there they have remained. I trust my soul to discard false ideas. Funny that the ideas that have been discarded are Christianity's most fundamental beliefs.

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regarding your caveat, it's obvious we found this book at very different points in our respective spiritual journeys, which i think is one of the reasons that having a back and forth about the ideas contained within the book are fun and invigorating. what i found while reading the book was not something scary or something that shook my foundation, rather ideas that characterized a god that i've always wanted to believe in but one that is continually reinforced in my "christian" experiences doesn't exist.


advancing the thought of churches having evolved into entities where survival is priority number one, well, you already know that i agree with you here. let's take a quick look at the northeast alabama united methodist conference for a second. god bless our beloved pastor, but it is now no secret that he is under immense political (read this word intentionally) pressure from his district superintendent and bishop to increase humc's connectional giving. so much pressure in fact, that if we do not change our giving habits, harris legitimately feels that a likely consequence will be his appointment being moved away from us. simply put, what kind of retarded logic and broken system would make such threats??? before i continue, let me reinforce what should already be obvious. i believe in the theory of the united methodist connectional system. in theory. i have colored my own person, literally, with how strongly i believe in it if done correctly. having said that, our system no longer is working in theory. in practice, it has been perverted. in practice, is the bishop truly concerned the the spiritual wellness of his congregations as shown through their connectional tithes, or he is concerned that our not giving makes his budget on the conference level more likely to be out of whack? there may be some of the former in there somewhere, but political threats such as the ones that have been levied against our pastor and congregation argue much more strongly for the latter. as much as i love harris, will humc stop being a church if he is removed and someone lower on the totem pole that the bishop feels we "deserve" is sent to us? of course not. we'll continue to fall back towards our "final stand" becoming more instinctual and more survival-prone and eventually we will dwindle away. but who does our dwindling away actually hurt? what harm will be done? in truth, not much. inventories will be taken. new ministries will arise. a new daycare in the heart of our community will open to service the needs of those we might leave behind. the conference budget will be adjusted to account for our absence. and that will be that.


in the first several meetings i took part in while serving as lay leader, i continually tried to ask the question, "who are we?" is humc a building or an idea? currently, i would say that we are a building. a building with old plumbing and old ideas and a congregation that is in love with our building and the way we've sustained ourselves for close to 140 years. shouldn't we be an idea, though? before the richards moved, as part of my rhetorical question i would say out loud that, while i loved my church, i would be okay if i worshipped around the richards' pool every sunday morning if it meant our church finally found a way to be an idea not handcuffed to a building.


this longwinded example speaks to choices our collective community makes out of fear of "the consequences". what if we could remove that from the equation...

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One of the quotes I'd wanted to include above I'll add here, paraphrased: God is like a parent who sends his children into the back yard to play. He doesn't care WHAT we play- we could play hide and seek or capture the flag or kickball- it's up to us because he's put us in a safe place and he gives us the freedom to experience what we want. We may get hurt accidentally, or hurt someone in anger intentionally- and God, like a parent, would be quick to soothe and/or correct, but the next day, the children get to go out and play again.

Somehow we've gotten the idea that God wants us to play kickball (or church). And that's all we've played. And it's not fun anymore- we're bored, we don't know why we're still playing, and hardly any of our friends want to come over anymore.

Metaphors are just popping into my head like crazy- I'll try not to bore you.

You have to be willing to part with old, rarely worn, outdated clothes before you'll have room in your closet for new ones.

Nature's forest fires clear acres and acres of old wood so that a forest can be reborn.

You get the picture.

Why are we so afraid to let go of things that are no longer inspiring? I won't say they're no longer working, because for some people they work. But what we lack is inspiration. What makes you excited about God?

I'll be bold and say that I don't think God gives a flip about church. God cares about people joyfully experiencing their God-given potential, and let's face it, a majority of the time religion is stifling rather than inspiring.

God, IMO, doesn't care about church. We can do Sunday morning worship or Saturday afternoon football parties or Wednesday night supper clubs- out of those three, where do find yourself truly connecting with people?

We're free to do a new thing- why is that so hard to believe?

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well, i can only speak to my experience of course, but it is so hard to believe because it sounds too good to be true. at least, personally, it does.

church-wise, like i've said, i am and have been asking the same question? it shouldn't be this hard. it isn't this hard. we make it this hard.

we serve platitudes like "seek god's will" and "guide me, holy spirit" and "change the world" to each other without spelling out what any of those things actually mean. when i hear someone offer the advice that we just should "seek god's will", i cringe, because the implication is that i or we or our church isn't doing just that. it implies that the giver of the platitude has things completely figured out in their life and is hiding the magic answer from the rest of us. it rings hollow. just as it feels the practice of church as we currently know it and do it rings hollow for many, many people close to me.

does that mean we are right and the rest of the "christian" world is wrong? no, of course it doesn't. but, if even one part of god's collective genuinely feels a twinge to move in a direction opposite of the norm, it does a disservice to god's collective to not hear the differing opinion with the same weight as anyone else's.

if we are made in god's image and he has given us free choice that is associated with free will, we are doing shamefully little with that gift if we continue to constrain ourselves to someone else's right and wrong.

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Let's try (Ha!) to come full circle here. We've focused a lot on Christianity and the church experience in particular here, but that's only one example of how a belief in GOD'S WILL (as being somehow "out there" and separate from ours) can create staleness in life. Fear of doing the wrong thing, or the fear of failing to figure out God's will, paralyzes us from moving forward in TRUE FAITH. Faith to me is not about believing in things that can't be proven- Faith (to me) is believing that all is right in God's world and that what's happening cannot be outside of God's plan. How is it phrased in the book? "If you're looking for God, you're in luck! God is so big, you can't miss."

I'm going to make a prediction- which I will probably not be around to see-

I think that within the next century the church institution will die out and be replaced by small group communities. We are trying to inject life into a terminal patient. I understand why we're doing it- because we haven't figured out the alternative yet. But God has given us the ability to figure it out- and he's given us permission as well. Now, we just have to give ourselves permission.