Jeremy's World

I alluded before to some of my questions surrounding Christianity. Specifically, the exclusive nature of it (the only way to salvation) and the circular reasoning behind citing Biblical explanations as truth weigh on me. Why do people who identify themselves as Christians think they are the only ones on the right path and everyone else is wrong?!

I took a “History of Christianity” course as an elective when I was in college. I went to a secular state university and was the biggest voice of evangelical Christianity in the room. At the time, it used to bug the crap out of me how critical people were about Christianity (and even Christians themselves). I fought them tooth and nail on it, citing Biblical reference along the way…Especially those feminist theologians in the class! They were really out there! I earned the A, but I also took a lot of “things that make me go ‘hmm’” from it.

In that course we read books by a guy named Marcus Borg (among others). At the time I viewed him as a heretic. Who can call themselves a Christian while holding such a counter-populist view?! As I’ve gotten older (and I guess more open to questioning things), I find myself relating more to Borg’s line of thinking. The Bible scholars I know kind of poo-poo Borg because he’s a bit old school and not fresh or on the “cutting edge” of critical Biblical scholarship. But, I am actually finding some peace in some of his thinking…Or, my own expansion and definitions based on Borg’s thinking.

Metaphorical Jesus.

Continue reading…

I guess I’m feeling overly sappy or something lately. As you may know, Christian artist Steven Curtis Chapman is among my favorites. Ever. I started listening to him in 1992 and have purchased every album since. I think we’ve seen him in concert at least 5 times. Anyway…

He released a new album this week called “This Moment”. One of the songs caught my ear and proceeded to draw tears. If you didn’t know, for 4 of the last 4 1/2 years Emily has been a Disney princess freak, most notably Cinderella. The playroom looks like a Disney princess bomb went off. So, naturally…

“Cinderella”
She spins and she sways
To whatever song plays
Without a care in the world
And I’m sitting here wearing
The weight of the world on my shoulders

It’s been a long day
And there’s still work to do
She’s pulling at me saying, “Dad I need you
There’s a ball at the castle and I’ve been invited
And I need to practice my dancing
Oh please, Daddy please”

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
‘Cause I know something
the prince never knew
Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don’t want to miss even one song
‘Cause all too soon the
clock will strike midnight
And she’ll be gone …

She says he’s a nice guy
And I’d be impressed
She wants to know if I approve of the dress
She says, “Dad the prom is just one week away
And I need to practice my dancing
Oh please, Daddy please”

Well, she came home today
With a ring on her hand
Just glowing and telling us
All they had planned
She says,
“Dad the wedding’s still six months away
But I need to practice my dancing
Oh please, Daddy please”

Considering the “You’re always so busy” quote from a couple days before, and I’d say someone is trying to tell me something.

I have officially gotten the eBay bug. I’m not sure how as a Computer Science graduate who is about a 10 year IT veteran took so long to jump in. Maybe it was a subliminal revolt against the "fad" that, well, isn’t really a fad now is it?

As of about 3 weeks ago I had made 1 eBay purchase. One. Ever. And I didn’t even bid instead using the "Buy it Now" feature to obtain a much needed clubhead cover for my Titleist 5-wood to protect it from the dust settling on my clubs in the garage. I hadn’t sold anything. Nothing.

Enter Aftershock, my 80′s rock cover band, for which I have turned into a complete gear head. It’s an illness. Ask my wife. Up until now I’ve pretty much been buying gear retail. But over the past couple weeks I have jumped in and bought some equipment like amps, a mixer, and a few guitars off eBay. Guitars? For a drummer? Yeah well…I’m feeding Rob’s guitar whore addiction to guitars so technically he is buying them with my account.

I’ve also been buying hard-to-find software for work. As much as I had resisted, this eBay thing really is pretty cool after all.

Shop Victoriously.

I was sitting watching TV the other day and my 4 year old, Emily, climbed up and sat next to me.  I said “Hi!” and proceeded to tickle her mercilessly.  Once she caught her breath…

Emily:  “How did you know I wanted to play tickle?”

Dad: “You always want to play tickle.”

Emily: “I do always want to play tickle but you’re always so busy.”

Ouch.

I had another set of injections today. Yes, another set. This makes the 6th set since I blew up my back. See my previous post for the background. After the injection today I asked the Doctor, “So, what’s different about this than the other 5 I’ve already had?” He kind of smiled and said, “Well, you tell me.” I took a few steps and it was like NIGHT AND DAY. The pain was down from Holy-sh*t-I-can’t-move-or-even-dress-myself to I-feel-like-I-have-sore-back-muscles level. I was THRILLED. Over the next couple hours I did get a bit more sore. But, that’s to be expected considering the punctures in my back and the fact that, well, my muscles are sore from compensating for the injury for so long.

Am I healed? Not so fast. I’m cautiously optimistic that this is the right course now. The pain isn’t hallelujah-healed, but is significantly better. The net result of this injection is that if it helps significantly over the course of a week, that is a strong indication that a less-invasive-than-surgery, out-patient procedure called “disc decompression” will heal things. This is a relatively new procedure just now being approved by Carolina Back. And, I’m not the ideal candidate for it (something about my pelvis being high), but the doc is confident he can reach the right spots provided today’s injection is still helping a week from now.

Here’s to hoping.

Some who know me know that I’ve recently alluded to some “tiger” questions regarding my affiliation with and identification as a Christian. I won’t go into details here – yet – but I want to toss something out there. If, for some reason, someone picks up and sees my blog, maybe someone will respond.

1. Going back to Abraham, the Jewish race has claimed to be the “chosen people.” Christianity came out of that tradition. Why should we accept that the Jewish people are/were any more “chosen” than anyone else? Because the Bible says so? So a set of books written by Jews and for Jews, giving the history of the Jewish people, say that Jews are the chosen people of God and therefore can assert ownership of land and privilege? That seems oddly self-serving and not a very good argument, really.
2. The New Testament says that Jesus is the only way to the Father. Does it really make sense that one person on the planet for 30-ish years is the only way we can be redeemed? The instruction is to “spread the gospel to all the world” yet until 1492 everyone thought the world was flat! “All the world” consisted of the Roman Empire. So, what of all the people in all the areas outside the Roman Empire who a. never experienced Jesus and b. would not be reached by Jesus followers for some 1,500 years? Are they just out of luck?
3. Estimates are that the population of the Roman Empire at the time of Jesus was about 56 million. The total world population at the time is estimated to be about 170 million with one source estimating as high as 300 million. Would the God who created all of that really choose to redeem all of that creation by only exposing 33% – at best – of his creation to His son and saying “it’s up to you to tell everyone else?”
4. Following on the population point…estimates of land area of the Roman Empire are about 2.2 million square miles. The area of land on the planet is estimated to be about 57.3 million square miles. So, even if those directly exposed to Jesus reached the entire Roman Empire, the salvation of the world is dependent on proselytizing the inhabitants of less than 4% of the land God created?
5. Don’t even get me started on the rest of the solar system, universe, additional universes, etc. If it’s “all about us,” what’s the point of those other things? Ok, I can see how the sun, for example, is necessary to sustain life on earth. Is Jupiter? Are all the stars needed? Why do we believe we are the center of God’s creation universe?

I’m not claiming any of these questions are new or original. I’m not the first to ask them, and I’m too lazy to look up sources for things on my blog. But, these are things that are really, really bothering me, especially at a time when people on the planet are so polarized based on religion. It just doesn’t make sense.

I’m “only” 34 years old. Why does my body feel 60? One big reason is my recent experience with herniated discs. Yep, my 34 year old back blew out on me a few weeks ago. What I thought was just my “back thrown out” turned into 2 herniated discs and a bunch of other medical mumbo jumbo that basically means I am getting old.

In the interest of trying to do as little as possible to fix it, I’ve opted for the most minimally invasive approach to therapy. Doing nothing. Just kidding. I did a little physical therapy which was kinda worthless. I also went through 5 rounds of cortisone and nerve blocker injections (3 in the “wrong place” and 2 in the “right place”). Couple that with Vicoden, anti-inflamatories and muscle relaxers and I should be good, right?

I thought things were getting better for awhile. The pain shooting down my leg and up to my shoulder was gone (or at least masked by drugs) and I was fairly mobile. I hadn’t been lifting anything and was able to play drums in my bands. Then this weekend, something happened. I woke up Monday and couldn’t hardly move. I had to email in sick at work (I freakin’ HATE doing that) and spent the day medicated and on my back. Today I was still sore but decided I could make it through work.

I was doing alright, sitting at my desk doing my thing. I started typing an email – innocuous enough activity – and BAM! Pain shot from both of my hips to my my ankles and I shot back in my chair like I had been struck by lightening. WTF!? I wasn’t doing anything to cause that! And now my back is back to feeling like it was when I was first diagnosed. My lovely wife brought meds, heat packs and ice packs by the office and I stumbled through the rest of the day. Even as I sit here now I am drenched in sweat from excruciating back pain. Neat.

I moved my doctor’s appointment at the Carolina Back Institute up a week. We’ll talk tomorrow about what is the likely inevitable next step…cutting me open.

It really sucks getting old.

You probably didn’t know I had left, right? I’m not sure what prompted it, but I’ve decided to blog again. I think part of it has to do with some interesting theological/spiritual stuff rolling around my brain these days, and I’m tempted to throw them out there for discussion. Also, I just want to be one of the cool kids with a blog again.

So, sit back, relax, enjoy, point and laugh, whatever.