Theopoetics’s Weblog

God is in the shit of it.

God is in the midsy of it.

Like comes into the world with a body that could break in the wind,

among the shit of animals,

praised by strangers from far lands with strange agendas.

This is what Life does. It emerges. It shows up. It burst forth in the dirty corners of life. It seeps in and takes up our hearts, enlarges them, makes them oversized. Life shows up in dangerous places and in dangerous people. Life showes up in people who live on the margin.

Do not forget Life = God.

Advent saved my Christmas. I used to get overwhelemd by it all, the plastic decorations, the ‘peace on earth, good will to men’ that was someone how contained in the retail expierence. It drives me nuts, eats at my soul. Advent saved Christmas for me, cut open the four weeks leading into Christmas and made them about something else: waiting, wondering, pondering.

Do you not get it? Do you not understand this baby in a manger? This oldest of Christian symbols? Its not about any of the crap you have ever been taught. It is this: When God – when Spirit – when New Life – enters the world its among the vulnerable. Its among the poor. It comes with a body that could be lost on the side of the road.

Life is God and when Life comes among us it is delicate. It needs to be tended to. Looked after. It needs us to pause, to breath, to allow room for expectation and wonder and awe.

What else are you going to do? How else are you going to respond? Life is the only resposne, prayer and crying and laughing is the only response. Joy and sorrow and all of the things of our deep humanity.

Live. Love. Laugh. That is how we encounter God.

Am I a Christian?

Im not sure anymore.

I used to know.

Used to be certain, arms in the air waving

passing out tracts at the football games

praise the lord praise the lord.

My friends think I am not

I have gone to far

Rejected too much

No Original Sin for me

No miracles or deity of Christ.

So maybe I am not a Christian

Maybe I am a Jesusian

A friend of Jesus

Child of Wisdom

Following

Seeking

Inspired by the life that stood up to the powers that be.

I cannot ask anymore of myself, honestly

but i can taste and see

I can seek the face of resserection in my life, heart and world

Here I Stand, i can do no other.

God is Life.

Not that life comes from God, or flows from God or was created by God.
But God is life.

Life is the body of God.

The process of life unfolding is God.

What of the devil

What of him?

I do not belive in demons on my shoulders, whispering into my ear, tempting me with porn and drugs and hard candys.

I am a human

I am more than capable of creative brokeness on my own

I do not belive in the devil

In a satan

I do belive in devilishness.

In humanitys capacity to break each other.

I do belive in my own selfishness.

1.

God

Such a heavy word. Ask anyone their opinion on that word and the hornets nest gets rattled, the teeth come out, the tears flow. Its a heavy word, dripping in the connotations of child hood trips to church, sunday school lessons, the church choir, early childhood spiritual expierences, over bearing religious leaders, exclusiveist theologies.
We don’t really hate the word, we hate the connotations. We hate the spiderwebs, the weight of history.

2.

What is God?

What is dying is the old God. God is dead. God is dying. Not really though. The models are dying. We squirm under the weight of a god that no longer makes sense.

God does not sit outside the world waiting to judge.

God is that which the world is steeped in. God is that which we are swimming in. God is that which includes and transcends the world.

3.

God is love.

God is life. Life is God.

God is not a person, but the unfolding of life in our midst.

God is life! God is living.

God is that which we all participate in. That which we are all a part of. God is that which we do with each other.

God is dead, long live God!