Irreverence. I hold this banner pretty high, sometimes. It’s almost as if I purposely try to shake up the most awe inspiring moments. Actually, I’d say I probably do. I don’t know what it is but I have a habit of breaking up the serious moments with a joke, quip, sarcastic comment, or total derailing of the conversation. The funny thing is that if I look around at most of my friends they are exactly the same way. (Just wait. None of them will be able to pass up the opportunity to do exactly that on the comments section of this post:)
When I was young I was often told to “be serious”. Kind of tough when you’re 8 or 9 years old and you have an overactive imagination. I liked to joke! It was my escape, to some extent. I was never the solemn, serious kid. I had too much energy for that, plus there was no way to be heard in my family if you were serious. I cracked jokes at the drop of a hat. It got me out of work, out of fights, and especially out of anything uncomfortable. It’s like a get out of jail free card.
So here I am as a wise cracking, unconventional anarchist and along comes the concept of God. Hmmmmm. Worship the great “I Am”. Be reverent in the presence of God. Honor and glorify the King of kings. Something just doesn’t seem to jive with my personality. Now, don’t get me wrong. I am truly in awe of God and what He has done in my life. As a matter of fact I am in SHOCK that He has had the concept of grace included in my mishaps and foibles. I’ve never really considered myself to be someone worth the time of day for a diety! In most of the stories of kings and kingdoms that I’ve ever seen the court jester was pretty much bottom of the list when it came to importance. Still, I am here and owe everything that I am, have, and experience to someone so much greater than my imagination could ever fathom.
So, what does an irreverent jerk do in reference to worshipping a reverent God? Am I supposed to be myself and let the wisecracks fall where they may? Or, on the other hand, should I subdue my natural instincts “because of” the reverence of God? Am I wrong to include this slapstick side of my personality in my relationship with God?
These are the questions of one who wants to know the presence of God. I guess I’m asking “Does God really get my jokes or does He just roll His eyes at me?”
I’m a lumberjack and I’m OK. I sleeps all night and I works all day……………………………………..
Ok First off, I thought that was a picture of you and Alison from first glance
. Now as far ireverance. I think its all relative, David danced before the Ark as it was being brought into town and he did it in some very skimpy atire….His wife thought it was pretty irreverent and laugh(God then stuck her barron). David was musician, he was witty, a warrior and a man after God’s own heart.
For many the simple act of wearing a hat in a church is considered irreverance.
Their a subtle different between being who you are and being irreverant. Those that are close typically can tell the difference.
There is a great difference between reverence for God, and reverence toward men. People, in my estimation, are the funniest things God saw fit to create. Sometimes I think He went overboard. Maybe you were a joke in the first place. Seriousness, in my view, is a much larger problem. Taking ourselves too seriously, our rituals, our feelings, our lives. God obviously wants us to be ‘joyful,’ or full of joy. How can you be full of joy and be full of yourself at the same time? Love has always had an element of joy, laughter, lightness in it for me, even love of God. Though I do spend some time crying over spilt milk in his presence, the joy I receive from Him is sometimes overwealming. David’s dancing sans clothes was his full response to the joy he felt. Why am I so much more limited in my responses to God. Maybe because David spent more time with God, and felt more like God’s friend, than God’s unwilling servant. Maybe we worry way to much about ourselves and others than we do about worshipping God. Somehow we have come to this situation of fake awe. somehow we believe we can induce a state of love when none truly exists.
Does God have a sense of humor, absolutely… Don’t you? Are’nt you made in His image? Does He enjoy our little fits of joy…sure, don’t you enjoy your children having pure fun? Especially in your presence..???
So what’s the problem? My feeling is that if we spent more time with Him, we would not have a problem with this. Nor with crying to Him, or pleading with Him, or with just sitting in silence in His presence. but that’s the key, just being in His presence. Get there, stay there, and you’ll not only have the joy and fun He wants for you, but you’ll be ready to let others have that fun and joy also.
Like a playground full of kids doing what is fun. that’s one more thing we as Christians lost along the way. Living in the Kingdom like little children.
Live with your heart.
That is not me and Alison. I am not a lumberjack and, basically, I’m not ok…..
So here’s a thought:
It is so hard to be accepting of someone who “doesnt believe in what i believe”…..wait scratch that….that part is not hard. I will be friends and accept everyone. Here’s the thing…….it doesnt bother me that i stand there and think “hey its okay that your not a ‘believer’ …your a human being and i want to hang whatever your beliefs may be” and then have that person say …”thanks for accepting me..i dont like your beliefs and i’m going to be rude and just a jerk cuz i dont understand what you believe and even if i do…its a joke cuz it doesnt fit me now accept me or your judgemental”.
So i try not to be an “attacker” with how i life my life for God. In other words i try not to be offensive cuz God knows i dont want to do anything that would cause someone to be turned off. But why….why do i say things to cause people to think “dont worry this part of church is not important”.
It’s kinda like we put away our jesus t-shirt and flag and anything that would turn someone off. I started thinking about being irreverant….that word Andy used…..I make no apologies for who God is in my life. I’m not asking a person to agree with my beliefs. But just as i respect a person and their beliefs….i would expect the same courtesy…not as a christian but as a human being. Common courtesy.
Acceptance is a universal thing….not just something we “christians”, and i use quotes, do. Its what a person does.
Or is it just tolerance?
The change in terminology might be warranted. Here’s the dictionary description of “accept”.
1. to take or receive (something offered); receive with approval or favor: to accept a present; to accept a proposal.
2. to agree or consent to; accede to: to accept a treaty; to accept an apology.
Now here’s the definition of “tolerance”:
1. a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward those whose opinions, practices, race, religion, nationality, etc., differ from one’s own; freedom from bigotry.
2. a fair, objective, and permissive attitude toward opinions and practices that differ from one’s own.
3. interest in and concern for ideas, opinions, practices, etc., foreign to one’s own; a liberal, undogmatic viewpoint.
I think that it might be that we use the word “acceptance” incorrectly, as is being said above. Acceptance tends to lend to the thought that I not only allow other ideas but that I now agree with them. Tolerance is understanding that there is a difference but allowing it to be expressed without retaliation. That has more of the “NETChurch” feel to it. Now I will say that we do accept anyone as a part of this community, but it is tolerance that tames our tongues when we don’t agree. It’s ok to not agree. The problem starts when we decide to force someone else to believe exactly as we do. That process is for God, not us. I cannot “make” someone believe in Him. I can only live as a believer.
yeah…tolerance is a big netchurch feel. I never was much for feelings.
No one is making anyone believe anything. To make someone do something would mean to give them little or no choice not to.
What levels are tolerance are we going to?
There will no longer be any level of tolerance. You must think exactly the same thing I think, or you will be lost forever to a future of burning flesh and asbestos worms eating your brains.
Now, before that statement goes any further I don’t think we should make it sound like there are NO beliefs in NETChurch! We are christians, by the way. I’d say that it’s pretty clear in our gatherings what we believe and who we believe in. The difference would be that we are not attacking others simply because thier beliefs don’t totally line up with ours. Tolerance has nothing to do with adjusting what I actually believe to fit someone else. It just means that they are allowed a voice without feeling that they will be persecuted for it. I think the teaching, though, still says that we believe in Christ and consider that to be the best way.
What levels of tolerance are we going to? Well, what level of tolerance did Christ show?
Christ show tolerance? I remember him yelling at some pharicees because they couldnt get it right. Now he didnt persecute them or anything. Was Jesus more of a dont tread on me cuz i’ll tell ya like it is kinda person? I mean he was God wasnt he?
I think Christ often showed a tremendous amount of tolerance and acceptance both. How often did you really see Christ tearing people down because they didn’t have the same beliefs as he did? If you really read the scriptures you would have to say “Not often”. Sure, there are the examples of the pharisees, but those were the people that were supposed to BE thinking like him as religious leaders. They were not only disagreeing with him as leaders FOR God, but they were purposely trying to discredit him and destroy any ministry that he might have.
I just don’t read alot of times in the scripture where Jesus is seeking people out to tell them that they are wrong. He tries to show them a better way, but he also watches alot of people walk away from the life that he is leading because they don’t accept his way. Does he then curse them? No. He weeps for them, but he would not forsake them being in his presence. He doesn’t agree with them, but he doesn’t tear them down either. I think the true Christ was a very tolerant man. Especially if you consider him as God. That being the case the tolerance is 100 times greater because he accepted a cross instead of just shutting down his enemies.
This is where we have the most problems with this. We keep trying to turn him into someone that the scripture doesn’t really describe him as being. In reading the scriptures I believe you find a bit more Ghandi than you do strong handed tactics.
If we are so open to beliefs ….then why the counterpoint?
If scripture is open to interpretation then why do we take stands on certain things?
I wonder if it would be different if we had the power to heal others..i mean really heal….then again maybe not…if it didnt work for Jesus why would it work for us.
Its funny how we always run, situations like these, to the side of “stop tearing them down for not believing in what you believe”.
Its all about those who dont believe like us?
Well, you could easily go the opposite direction and make it all about what we think and ignore everyone else. That’s worked well throughout history.
The reason for the counterpoint, though, is because within this discussion there is one of us that is purposely playing devil’s advocate and taking the opposite point of view. That usually ends up with someone feeling they need to take a stance which eventually leads to the conflicts that we’ve discussed so often. It’s one thing to take the opposite side when you truly believe it. It’s another thing to take the other side simply to instigate discussion. At some point or another people start to wonder if you actually believe what you are saying or not.
I still go back to the statements I made above: Christ didn’t tear people down for what they believed if they were not believers in God. He cultivated relationships, showed them a different way, but didn’t tear them down. His conflict was with the hypocrites WITHIN the church who believed that it was all about them. It’s a bit of a tough pill to swallow if we were to think that Christ didn’t believe that it was all about everyone else. Otherwise what’s the use in dying on the cross? That could have easily been avoided if he had been stuck on himself enough to think that those that don’t believe aren’t as important as us.
Complexity is not of God. How could it be when all he knows is one? He knows of one creation, one reality, one truth… and but one Son. Nothing conflicts with oneness. How then could there be complexity in him? What is there to decide? It is only conflict that makes choice possible. The truth is simple; it is one without opposite. And how could strife enter in its simple presence and bring complexity where oneness is? The truth makes no decisions, for there is nothing to decide between. What is everything leaves room for nothing else….
What is Heaven but a song of gratitude and love and praise by everything created to the Source of it’s creation?
In honesty, is it not harder for you to say “I love” than “I hate”? You associate love with weakness and hatred with strength, and your own real power seems to you as your real weakness… You have built your whole insane belief system because you think you would be helpless in God’s Presence, and you would save yourself from His Love because you think it would crush you into nothingness. You are afraid it would sweep you away from yourself and make you little, because you believe that magnitude lies in defiance, and that attack is grandeur. You think you have made a world God would destroy; and by loving Him, which you do, you would throw this world away, which you would.
Therefore you have used this world to cover your love, and the deeper you go into the blackness of the ego’s foundation, the closer you come to the Love that is hidden there. And it is this that frightens you…
You can accept insanity because you made it, but you cannot accept love because you did not. You would rather be a slave of the crucifixion than a Son of God in redemption. Your individual death seems more valuable than your living oneness, for what has been given to you is not as dear as what you have made.
Child of light you know not that the light is in you. Love always leads to love… There is a light that this world cannot give,,,, and YOU can give it as it was given to you.
Teach only love for that is what you are.
“Great Scott, Pandora! You’ve opened the box!!”
I couldn’t agree more, Oh nutty one. We have trouble with accepting love because we are not the ones who created it. Beautiful.
one more thought…
Any split mind must involve rejection of a part of it, and this is the belief in separation. The Wholeness of GOd, which is his peace, cannot be appreciated except by a whole mind that recognizes the Wholeness of God’s Creation. By this recognition it knows it’s creator. Exclusion and seperation are synonymous, as are separation and disassociation, and once it occurs projection becomes its defense… What you project you disown, and therefore do not believe it is yours. By doing this you exclude yourself by the very judgement that you are different from the one on whom you project. Since you have also judged against what you project, you continue to attack it because you continue to keep it separated. By doing this, you are unconsciously trying to keep the fact that you attacked yourself from your awareness and in this imagine that you are safe. But projection will always hurt you because it reinforces your belief in your own split mind, and it’s only purpose is to keep the seperation going. It is soley a device of the ego that makes you feel different from your brothers and sisters and separated from them.
the alternative to projection is to see as the Holy Spirit sees.
The Holy Spirit begins by perceiving you as perfect. Knowing that this perfection is shared He recognizes it in others. Thus strengthing it in both. This perfection has no labels of race or creed or religion… and instead of anger this arouses love for both because it establishes inclusion.
Percieving equality, the Holy Spirit percieves equal needs. This invites atonement automatically, because atonement is the one need in the world which is universal. The perfect quality of the Holy Spirit’s perception is the reflection of the perfect equality of God’s knowing. The ego’s perception has no counterpart in God. The Holy Spirit is the bridge between perception (projections) and knowledge. It enables you to use perception in a way that reflects knowledge.. it can inspire perception and lead it toward God. The difference between the ego’s projection and the Holy Spirit’s extension is very simple.
The ego projects to exclude, and therefore decieve. The Holy Spirit extends by recognizing Himself in every mind, and thus percieves them as one. Wherever He looks He sees Himself.
I promise I’m done now… since I’ve really gone and stuck my foot in it!!!
WOW, well said.
Just let me add that the ego spoken of is what we refer to as the soul, the Holy Spirit sees us as spiritual beings because we essentially are, and spirit sees spirit. And division, spearation, in any form is not of God.
Again, well said.
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That’s a cheap shot………..:)
IT’S ALIVE!!!!!!!!!IT’S ALIVE!!!!!!!
THROW THE THIRD SWITCH!!!!!!!!!!!
This blog is “Abby Normal”………….
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