Love your Neighbor?

Ramblings of my mind and fingers:
I think a lot about Jesus' summary of the Law and Prophets: "love God and love your neighbor" (paraphrased). I actually think fairly often about many of Jesus' teachings.
Yes, I realize this seems weird since I have walked away from the Christianity I was affiliated with for so long, but I still believe there is a lot of valuable wisdom in His words and it is certainly relevant to the culture I live in. On top of all that, "love your neighbor" is still a great way to articulate my worldview these days.

In case you aren't aware, my family life "hit the fan" almost 3 years ago, and I've done a lot of self-reflection in the time since. With my concurrent departure from Christianity came a need to re-evaluate my moral foundation. I can sum it up by saying that my god is love. This means that I can really adapt "love god and neighbor" for my own guidance, and I think a lot about love, and humility, and prioritizing people and making sure they feel valued. I guess you could say that I'm a humanist. I'm also trying to pass on to my kids that loving people is the most important thing, regardless of your religious or philosophical perspective.

So I find myself asking what it means to love God and love your neighbor? Are they 2 separate things? Are they intertwined? Can I still love my neighbor even if I don't believe that God exists in the way He is described by American Evangelical Christianity (or at all)? What if I skip the first part for now and try to tackle the second part until I can understand the first part better?

Nevertheless, I am fully aware that it means something different to everyone, including the Christians in my life and in the culture around me. Which begs the question:


How do you "love your neighbor"?


I will say this: if doing the first (loving God) renders you unable to do the second (love your neighbor) or gives you reason not to, then I think you're probably doing it wrong. But then some people will just call their abuse or rejection of their neighbor "tough love".


If I bring up Jesus' admonitions about judging and throwing stones, and your first reaction is to divert and talk about not sinning any more, or talk about judging in the discerning sense, or talk about how sinners just use Jesus' words to shut up Christians who are really "speaking in love", then I truly believe you are completely missing the point.

Sometimes I call myself an artist

Sometimes I call myself an artist. The reason it is only sometimes is because it's hard to call myself an artist with such a great lack of art to prove my claim. I would say that my greatest works of art are the spontaneous nuggets that somewhat frequently escape my lips, but those don't usually get documented anywhere for future study. I've been known to play multiple instruments and enjoy taking pictures but I don't have a body of work anywhere for you to make your own assessment of my artistic worth. The closest thing I have to a portfolio are the handful of records I've recorded and produced for other musicians.

However...

One could argue that my entire life is consumed with creativity. My outward appearance is a constantly evolving work of self-expression, from my tattoos and piercings to my various hairstyles and perhaps mostly my clothing (especially considering my decision a couple years ago to reduce my wardrobe to mostly black after experiencing some heartbreaking life changes). Hardly a day passes where I don't put my creativity to use upholding my reputation as a skilled problem solver. I constantly strive to think and live and speak outside the box. And I do engage in a handful of creative activities such as roadie-ing for two bands and building instruments. I'm also looking for a new recording clients.

So yeah, I am an artist. In the end I think it's really more about who I am and not so much about what I do. And I think that's also true for artists with great portfolios of evidence to their artistic worth.

What do you think?

I am no longer religious

This is a "coming out" of sorts: I am no longer religious. I am agnostic now, and I have been for quite some time.

Not to be confused with being atheist, this means that I don't know whether there is a God or not, and I'm not convinced that we really even can know for sure. I've had questions for a long time, but over the last few years I've begun to truly embrace the philosophy and speak about it more openly, ultimately culminating in this public affirmation.

So how did I get here?

I was raised Independent Baptist, which means nothing here because, by definition, every Independent Baptist congregation is unique. However, I chose to go to an Independent Fundamentalist Baptist (IFB) high school, and that label comes with a very specific connotation. I don't care to go into all of the reasons why that sect is awful, but I'll highlight one characteristic for the purpose of this post: this group holds strongly to the Arminian theology that we choose God of our own free will. This mindset comes accompanied with much judgment and condescension towards those who do not choose as wisely as oneself.

In my twenties I discovered a much freer version of Christianity in the Presbyterian Church, which holds the Calvinist view that a sovereign God is truly in control of everything, including our choices. The irony of that statement is not lost on me.

I very much enjoyed my time with the Presbyterians, and I still dearly love many of them personally. However this was yet another step in my spiritual journey.

My first impasse with Christianity lies in the concept of Hell. I cannot bring myself to embrace the idea that an omniscient and omnipotent creator of all things, who is at the same time loving, holy, and just, would create a place of eternal damnation for those beings whom he did not choose or who did not choose him. Maybe some other time I will go into more detail on that, but for the purposes of this post it is sufficient just to say that my understanding of the Christian God and the Christian Hell are incompatible.

Now, I am aware of the doctrine of universal salvation, which says that all souls eventually find their way home to God, but that is rejected by most of Christianity, and it doesn't provide any answers for my second impasse: if God is truly omnipotent, loving, holy, and just, then why is there so much suffering? You can argue that eternity in heaven will be more meaningful because of our suffering on Earth, but I call bullshit. You see, if God is truly the omniscient and omnipotent creator of all things, then the answer to every hard question is ultimately: because God made it that way.

Ultimately I am left with two versions of God that are not Godlike to me: 1- omniscient and omnipotent, but not interested in saving humanity; or 2- loving, holy, and just, but powerless to do anything about it. Either of these gods may very well exist, but I'm just not that interested in interacting with them.

That may leave you wondering where I find my moral compass. I believe in the preservation of life, liberty, and beauty, with human life being the top priority, and those closest to me being my greatest responsibility. This is the basis I propose for all actions and policies.

And as for what happens to me when I die, well I guess I will find out when I die. Or maybe I won't, because maybe there won't be anything. But I do know this: even the Bible tells me that the only moment I can be sure of is this very moment right now. And so I will attempt to make the most of every moment by living the principles I laid out above. And if it turns out in the end that this was not enough for a co-dependent deity who needed me to love him and tell him how awesome he was then I guess we're all kind of screwed, aren't we?

Peace.

I married the wrong person

I'm extremely fortunate that I did not marry a bad person, but nevertheless I had no business being married at all at that time in my life.

It all started when my first love died in a car crash in 1999. My world was turned upside down and everything came into question. This was the beginning of a steady decline into great darkness for me.

In the desperation and uncertainty that followed Amber's death I succumbed to various pressures and ideologies and married someone who should have never been more than a good friend. Many people knew it leading up to my wedding day, including myself, but it wasn't until the morning after that it really hit me.

But then it was too late. Due to religious and cultural pressures, and no small amount of stubbornness, I decided I needed to pray to God to give me a miraculous connection with this friend I had married. That miracle never happened and in my foolishness I pursued other connections while trying to preserve some form of my marriage. I even had kids hoping they would spark the necessary magic.

As all of this progressed my spirit became darker and darker and I felt less and less alive. I started going to therapy for depression and anxiety.

Early in 2015 I finally came to my senses and realized that despite my religious expectations I needed to acknowledge reality and end my marriage to bring authenticity to my life and the lives of all of those connected. I began receiving counseling and thinking about the ways in which I could most carefully follow through with this while doing the least amount of further emotional damage to all those involved.

Unfortunately time was not on my side. Instead of being able to carefully plan and carry out I was unexpectedly confronted one day and I knew I had to do it then. When given the ultimatum to continue trying to make something work or call it quits I chose the latter.

This began a new chapter, which is about redefining relationships and discovering who I am and who I really ought to be. All of that belongs in a different post, but suffice it to say that I am in a much better place despite the struggles and complexity my new life includes.

Copied from Facebook March 11th 2017

3/11/2017 - 

On this day two years ago some things came to a head that changed my world. By the end of the day my marriage was at the beginning of the end. This was a change I knew was necessary, but it was not my timing.

That day I lost a lot of things, including respect, trust, most of my community, and a shared home with my children, but I finally found authenticity. I had become trapped in a facade that I couldn't uphold much longer. If things had not crumbled that day, then it surely would not have been much longer. It was just a matter of time.

But time...

Two years later I'm still struggling with the challenges that were introduced that day, but now the result of the effort is growth and progress rather than sinking deeper into depression and anxiety. Now that I know who I am I can strive to be the best I can be. Now I can build on truth and reality instead of building a fragile facade on a crumbling foundation of lies.

So I'm building. Building me. Building my family. Building relationships. Building my career. Building my future. It's not easy, but it's worth it.

I welcome all those who want to build with me.

P.S. I'm happy to converse privately if you have questions or just want to know more.

Edit 1: I just want to be clear on something that I accidentally left fuzzy: it was my fault. As much as something involving two people can be the fault of one, it was mine.

Edit 2: Also, the biggest lesson I've learned in all this is that I can't judge anyone because I have no idea what they have experienced and there's no way I can know what is right for their life.

I pledge allegiance

I am hesitant to pledge allegiance to any flag, because flags are all too often accompanied by zealots with a fervent ideology that divides people into groups and presumes that the people in their own group are somehow greater than those who are not. I pledge allegiance to the pursuit and preservation of life, liberty, and beauty, in my own circle first, and then progressively outwards in my community, my country, and the world.