Quick Update

Hello All,
Just a quick update on my life and happenings. I promise, this post will involve no long obscure theological speculations. Just the facts.
Last weekend I went down to Houston because my Dad was in town on a business trip. Actually, before that on Friday night my roomate and I hosted a little Canadian Thanksgiving party for our classmates at the apartment, and did all the cooking and baking ourselves, almost entirely from scratch! (Those of you who believed it wasn't possible, I've now proven that I can in fact cook!) So, after the party I drove down to Houston, and the next morning my dad and I headed down to Galveston, because I needed to see water. Unfortunately, the A/C in my car died recently, so it wasn't a perfect trip, but we spent the whole afternoon walking the beach and talking, and then went to dinner on the oceanfront, and it was a great day.
The next morning we went to a church that is pastored by my old children's pastor from Houston. He was a man who had made a big impact on my life, and it was great to see him up there, the head pastor of a thriving church. But, I was a little scared about going over to say hello, because I thought the chances of him remembering me from a children's program the size of mine, from 7 years ago, was very slim. Much to my surprise, the moment he was freed from his conversation, he bounded over and gave me a huge hug! It was so wonderful to know that I had been remembered by someone who was that important to my development. One wonders if one stands out, instead of just being one of the crowd. He even remembered my Mom and asked about her. It was a wonderful time.
That evening, my Dad and I went to a Gaither concert in Houston. Laugh all you want, I had a splendid time. The Gaither Vocal Band particularly, and Signature Sound, are both absolutely awesome men's quartets, and I love them deeply. I had planned on driving home that night, but Houston was having one of its characteristic torrential downpours, so I decided to wait and go early the next morning. Well, early the next morning the city was flooding and there were several tornadoes directly on my path back to Wacko. I waited around till 10:30 for the storm to disperse, but at that point I decided to just go for it. I started the drive, but within an hour I was in the worst weather I've ever driven in in my life. I honestly am blessed to be alive now, and I was more scared than I can express. But, as always God was working in and through. He gave me a beautiful passage in Isaiah - "Oh you storm-tossed one who is not comforted..." It's so good to know He's in it.
I got back to Wacko safe and sound, and began a very very stressful week at school, caused mostly by a killer Symbolic Logic assignment I'll be working on all weekend. I hate modal logic. More than I can say. On the up-side though, tonight I spent several hours playing with 6-week old kittens, one of whom may soon by mine. I plan to name her Chairman Mao.

All the best,
Jerome

The Problem of Evil

So, I was sitting in church this Sunday listening to a sermon about heaven, and I got to thinking about the idea of heaven and hell and had what (to my mind, at least) was an interesting thought on the subject. I don't know that it's all that original, and as in previous cases I can't guarantee that I'll get anything remotely like it across to you, but I'll make a go of it:

I always pictured the judgment of Christ in very spacio-temporal terms. I pictured us all standing in front of Jesus and him calling us by name and pointing us towards one of two stairwells (one going up, the other going down). When he tells you that you are condemned, he tells you to go to a particular location (hell) and there you sit, experiencing physical and emotional pain and suffering. This weekend I realized for the first time that that might not be at all accurate. I believe (though my Biblically-minded friends might have to correct me on this) that the judgment will take place before the new Jerusalem, before we have new bodies and inhabit a new earth. If this is so, none of the events of the judgment are corporeal at all. They only happen on the spiritual plain.

Now, when I picture the incorporeal, often what I'm actually thinking of is a corporeal world with fuzzy lines. Like, my spirit is sort of wavey, as if I were a cartoon ghost or something. But, if we're talking about the really incorporeal, we mean something very different from this. The idea of me having boundaries, of being in one place rather than another, is meaningless. The borders of "me" aren't merely fuzzy, they're non-existant. This is an interesting puzzle in itself - how are spirits differentiated from eachother? For us, the differentiation of objects is almost entirely physical. How does it work for angels? How does Gabriel address Michael, or pick himself out as something distinct from Michael in the first place? I can't conceive of anything of the kind without slipping into physical metaphors - something like clouds that meet at a seam but do not intermingle. I simply have no idea what individuality looks like in an incorporeal world.

The problem here can be extended with regards to the judgment seat again. What happens when a person is condemned? Again, if we're talking about incorporeal beings, then they can't "go" anywhere when they're judged to be part of the kingdom of God or of Satan. So, what does it mean for them to go to hell? Are they re-incarnated and sent to a physical place in the new heaven that's fiery and painful? I don't want to disclude this as a possibility, but that's not how I ever pictured hell. I thought of it as a spiritual torture, not a physical one. It almost seems too cruel for God to give new bodies just so that he can inflict pain on them.

You are wondering why this post is called "the problem of evil". Here's why: if we think of hell not as corporeal, but as spiritual, I think we're given a way out of some of the paradoxes of hell. Think about it. What's hell? Not a place. Then what? I think what it is is a person's reaction to God. The knowledge of and presence of an omnipotent, perfect being has to be dealt with once the veil of the physical is lifted. (This makes the physical world seem more like a protection from God than anything else. A time we are given to become aquainted with the world a piece at a time. It seems like the incorporeal world could not provide that kind of limited exposure) So, we leave the world of bodies, and there is nothing to protect us from the experience of God. I think at this point there are two things that can happen: either a person submits to that God (acknowledge the greatness of it, their inability to contend with it or comprehend it), or they do not (and make an attempt to deny it, combat it, overcome it, understand it). The first experience relief. They have chosen wisely, they accept what they do not understand, they are not overwhelmed by the thing. The second are literally exploded by the attempt. Crushed by the weight of what they cannot do (I realize I have slipped back into corporeal metaphor. What I mean is, their soul is wrecked by the attempt to comprehend God, it is too much. I cannot describe it any more).

If I am correct about this, then it is not God's cruelty or even really God's decision that people experience hell. It is the choice to submit alone that prevents those who choose to do so from being (words fail here. tortured? killed?) by the attempt to comprehend God. We see now why God asks us to submit. It is the only way to survive past the veil. God is not an egotist, if we don't submit to Him, His very presence will destroy us. The advantage of this view is how well it accounts for the things God teaches about himself and asks of us. All He asks is that we acknowledge His Presence (that word isn't right. I mean, His presence as God. BIG BIG thing). He asks us to have faith, which is to give up the need to understand. All these are completely necessary for my view, and the only thing that could possibly save someone from the Experience of God.

I should say more, but that's a start. Thoughts?

Cockroach in My Shower

A Poem
by Jerome

Cockroach in my shower
Life must be awful rough
For you to come and visit me
While I'm all in the buff

Cockroach in my shower
I didn't see you there
Climbing up the curtain
I didn't check with care

Cockroach in my shower
Did you think it strange
To see me scream and jump
And run out of your range?

Cockroach in my shower
How cruel the stinging spray
That knocked you off my curtain
And stole your life away

Cockroach in my shower
Though short, you life was sweet
And we promise to remember you
Each time we clean our feet