spring cleaning

I know that I have spilled an inordinate amount of cyber-ink on this blog regarding my battle with “stuff”. The problem is that I want to live simply, and I don’t really like being buried in clutter – but I am a packrat by nature. BUT, we have been back in purge mode recently, and I am always amazed by how good it feels to get rid of stuff. We bought a new (to us) TV cabinet, which had led to a fair amount of furniture moving and reorganizing, and along with that a lot of going through the stuff that lives in/on that furniture. It even kicked me into gear to delve into the coat closet, and a few more things have been freecycled onwards. My next project is to read borrowed books and return them to their owners . . . which should do wonders for our shelf space. I know that I will never cure myself of the desire to acquire stuff, but it feels good to let go and get old unused things out of the corners of my house. Spring may not yet be here, but the cleaning has begun!

that's me in the corner . . .

I’ve been thinking a lot about faith stuff recently – about what I believe, about what most Christians believe, and about the gaps in between and what to do about them. I haven’t been writing much, because I am shy about broadcasting these things. I fear condemnation.

An old friend from the camp days e-mailed me a while ago, and asked about God stuff. So, in my mission to be honest in my spirituality, I tried to explain a bit of where I was at. After a bit of back-and-forthing, the ball is in my court with some questions about a statement that I had made, which is that I don’t know that the Bible is the word of God. My friend asked me what, if not the word of God, did I think it was – and what was the point of doing anything with it if I didn’t think it was divine? Good questions, and ones I’ve been kind of waltzing around for the last little bit.

I guess the first issue, which came up in my friends’ questions, is that I don’t think that believing the Bible contains historical accuracies necessarily leads to the conclusion that it’s therefore the word of God. By saying it’s historically accurate, I mean to say that the Bible talks about things that are backed up by other accounts or by archaeological evidence – I am not trying to make any statements about the objective versus subjective nature of history. The Bible also talks about things that aren’t supported outside of its text (and I’m not suggesting that a lack of supporting evidence in itself means that these things didn’t happen, just pointing out the fact). However, the question of whether the Bible is actually divinely inspired, and was meant by God to be taken literally as the primary source of guidance for humanity exists outside the issue of its historical veracity.

So, when I say I am not so sure that the Bible is the word of God, what I am saying is not that I doubt that there was a guy named Solomon who built a temple, or a guy named Jesus who rattled the authorities and suggested a path of love and humility, but that I don’t think that the people who wrote the many texts that make up the Bible were channelling God’s will into a perfectly discernable resource that we can clearly follow so that we know we are doing what God wants us to. Which leads to my friend’s further question – if you don’t believe that the Bible is the word of God, then why believe anything about it at all? Good question – and sometimes I wonder about that myself.

To answer that question, though – I have to answer what the Bible is – if I don’t think it’s a combination of 100% factual history and God-breathed instructions on how to live our lives. I guess I think that the Bible is a story of people trying to understand God – of them putting into words their experiences that they believe were full of him, and their interpretations of how he moved in their lives. As such, I guess I believe that the Bible is one of the sources through which we can understand the nature of God and of the kind of lives he wants us to live. We also see him in our relationships, in the world around us, in amazing art, and in so much more. I guess what I am trying to say is that I don’t see the Bible as the source of truth about God, but at its best as a source of truth about God. It’s tougher this way – having to discern what I think is actually godly, rather than assuming that it all is. I definitely don’t feel wise enough to make these discernments all of the time – but I also don’t feel comfortable saying that hatred and oppression or disregard for the planet we live on (for example) should be accepted because they are in the Bible.

Working through this makes me squirm, but I know it’s an important thing to do, no matter how much more uncertainty (or unorthodox certainty) lies ahead.

things seen while walking around in Indonesia

Growing Up

I remember when I had just moved into my first apartment, in 2nd year of undergrad. My roommates and I went grocery shopping, and we felt so mature buying fruits and vegetables, and going home to make ourselves dinner. There was the sense that we were grown-up, and yet at the same time, a nagging feeling that we were only playing grown-up . . . as if taking personal responsibility for our nutrition was a temporary gig while our parents were out of town, instead of the new reality of our lives.

It’s been almost 10 years since we lived in that first purple closetless triplex, and all of the roommates have moved onto partners and careers. We’ve all managed to avoid getting scurvy, so I guess we’ve been successful in nourishing ourselves. I still have that feeling of playing grown-up, though. It’ll hit me suddenly when I’m washing the car, or look in the mirror and realize I’m wearing a suit.

What’s even stranger, though, is that I’ll be going about my daily business and suddenly realize that I’m living a completely adult life. I remember when I was deciding if I was going to go to law school, and I had this sense that I was not sure enough of myself to put that kind of time and effort into professional training. This week, I signed my letter of offer for a permanent position at work without a blink. When PJ and I were first dating, the thought of marriage terrified me. Even when we got engaged, I was overwhelmed that I had made the decision to spend the rest of my life with him. Now we’ve been married for almost 4 years, and our inter-connection is a given.

I am still the same person who proudly brought home her very own frozen juice and pasta from the grocery store, but somewhere along the way, I’ve learned to trust my judgement, make decisions, and take care of myself. Weird.

el Maggie in Asia

I am writing to you all from the Hong Kong airport, trying to mentally prepare for the flight back to Canada, which will begin in a couple of hours. I've been in Asia for a week and a half now, and have just got over the jet-lag in time to turn around and do the 12-hour time change in the opposite direction.

The purpose of this trip was for work meetings in Indonesia. The meetings were in Yogyakarta, a mid-sized city on Java Island. I found Yogya to be pretty concrete and bustling - everyone drives a motorcycle, and those who don't drive motorcycles sit on the back of their friends' motorcycles (or, if they happen to be a small child, in front; or, if they happen to be an elderly woman, on back, side-saddle).

For my mini-vacation after the meetings, I headed to Bali for a few days. I felt very sophisticated jetting off to Bali for a long weekend, let me tell you (a fact which probably belies my lack of sophistication . . .). Bali has beautiful beaches and green green rice paddies. The people there are Hindu, while the majority in Indonesia are Muslim.

I was a bit nervous about travelling alone, but I found it to be actually quite easy. It really re-affirmed how spoiled Anglophones are, as we can go anywhere in the world and people will know our language. I also never felt truly harassed, the constant "where you from? What your name? How many time you in Bali?" didn't really border on anything dangerous - my closest call was to being forcibly manicured, and I managed out of that one. At the end of the day, I am infinitely more wealthy than any of the Indonesian people who tried to hustle me on the streets, and I have come to comsume a slice of their paradise, so who can blame them for trying to sell me an hour of para-sailing, an over-priced silk scarf, or a massage on the beach?

God doesn't want me to be pretty

Through the blog of a friend, who belongs to a pastor’s wives blog roll, I’ve discovered a woman who is married to a Baptist pastor in Chicago. She is a completely different kind of Christian from me, and probably would not even admit that I deserve the title (and/or would pray fervently for my soul, if she knew about my spiritual state). Anyway, I appreciate her optimism and delight in the world around her, and her solid simple faith in the Bible as the word of God. These are all things which I lack, and while I am happy with my honest doubts, I fear I would look like a grumpy cynic were I to dismiss anyone else whose spiritual walk was not wracked with similar ambiguity.

This woman is leading a woman’s Bible study on "A Woman and her Appearance" which she posts on her blog. Basically, she has looked at various Biblical passages and come to the conclusion that God cares about our appearance, and He wants us to look beautiful and womanly. I, to put it mildly, disagree. In fact, the first sermon I ever gave at Ecclesiax (back in the days of innocence, before I became de facto pulpit supply) was about our bodies – about our need to accept them and then to move beyond them. If I believe anything about God’s interaction with humans, it is that He sees our souls, and that he wants us to do likewise when we look at other people.

I believe that every person has inherent worth, and a focus on beauty separates us from this truth. In our society, old people are considered ugly – but I can’t accept that God does not love old people, or that he wants women to try to hide the outward evidence of their life experience. Also, poor people are often not as beautiful as rich people, because what we consider beauty is a luxury taking time and money - Jesus was pretty loud and clear about his preference of the poor over the rich.

I do not embrace many absolutes in my faith, but from what little I understand about God, I am pretty sure He does not want me to put my energy into trying to be pretty.

hope's in the bag

I am, as my regular readers might have noticed, a bit of a pessimist. So, it is with great delight that I am able to inform you that I have noticed a trend that is ENCOURAGING, and in relationship to human wastefulness, nonetheless! I am talking about the proliferation of reusable shopping bags. I have been reusing plastic bags or carrying cloth bags for years (my mom started using them in the 90s). Just 5 years ago, I would get confused looks from store clerks, and they would insist on wrapping my meat in a plastic bag before putting it in my cloth bag. The worst, I remember, was when Grandma took Sim and I to Disney World many years ago - if we had a large plastic bag from an earlier purchase and were buying something from another kiosk, they would put it into a smaller Disney-branded bag, even when we tried to say we'd just put it in the bag we were already carrying.

Now, though, I see more and more people with reusable bags. It's more common for store clerks to ask if I want a bag, rather than assuming, when I am getting just a few items or an already carrying a bag. A lot of this spread seems to be related to the President's Choice black bags with green logos on them - they've somehow become cool. I knew the tipping point had come when I was walking across the parking lot in the grocery store and saw your average cool looking 20-something guy (cell phone, flip-flops, baggy shorts, golf shirt with the collar up) heading towards the store swinging his black grocery bag. If cool male university students are doing something that's somewhat inconvenient, as opposed to a more convenient option, you know it's become mainstreamed. . .

Despite my glowing optimism, there are still an awful lot of plastic bags going out of Loblaws every time I am there. We are making progress, and I think we're ripe for the next step - make people pay for every plastic bag they use. The plastic bag tax in Ireland actually reduced plastic bag usage by 94%! Plastic bags are the type of environmentally harmful thing that really only exist for convenience - we're starting to change the culture to favour environmental responsibility over disposabal convenience, and this trend will only continue if we consumers took a hit in the wallet every time they wanted a plastic bag.