Told from the point of view of Oliver, the son, played by Ewan McGragor, Beginners consists of a series of flashbacks reflecting on the life and death of Hal, Oliver’s father.  Melanie Laurent plays Anna, a young woman Oliver meets soon after his Father’s death.  The flashback vignettes are intertwined with Oliver’s current situation as he works to resolve his feelings about his father, his childhood, Anna, and what it means to love someone.

I do not understand Beginners‘ R rating.  Having seen The Girl with a Dragon Tattoo which also received an R rating and War Horse and The Rise of the Planet of the Apes which both were rated PG-13 despite images of extreme violence I am confused.  Are scenes of consensual intimacy seriously equated with images of rape and torture while flying body parts, massive killing, panoramas of death, and war torn landscapes are thought to be easily understood by (or at least not “damaging” to the psyche of) young teens?  Our rating system is out of whack when language children hear every day in public school causes a movie to have the same rating as extreme acts of violence.  When a man kisses a man and the movie receives the same rating as a film which depicts the brutal rape of both a man and a woman, as well as torture and photographs of murder victims we need a new system for rating movies. Period.

I highly recommend Beginners. The characters show depth.  The subject matter is timely.  And, the cinematography fits the message.  Beginners is a well made film which addresses difficult topics with both sensitivity and humor.  It is simple in its telling and complex in its story.  Beginners is honest.  And honesty in film should be celebrated.

As those who have read other posts already know, I have supported the Occupy Wall Street movement from the sidelines.  I do not want anarchy.  Nor do I think capitalism is inherently evil, though it is not inherently good either.  I wish humanity (and Americans in particular) could be trusted to be Godly socialists but as far as I can tell that won’t be happening any time soon.  I have prayed that the Christian Church would step up to the challenge, sound the call, and takes its place as the leaders of such socialism, but sadly my prayers are still just a drop in the bowl which rests in heaven collecting all the prayers of the saints.

Dr. King’s prayers helped fill that bowl, that not quite full bowl of prayer.  And some of his followers felt a splash of goodness and mercy and peace as its contents got closer and closer to spilling completely over the edge.  As each powerful prayer poured into that bowl the contents was stirred, prayers set in motion sprinkled a little taste of God onto the thirsty world.  But, violence silenced Dr. King nearly 34 years ago.  The prayers in that bowl have grown like still waters, calm, unable to crest the lip of the bowl.

The words King spoke over 30 years ago are as relevant now as they were then, more so.  We’ve had 30 more years to realize that problems don’t fix themselves, that injustice doesn’t just go away, that prejudice is just as ugly now as it was then.  We’ve had 30 more years of senseless war mongering, growing economic disparity, and moral decay.

When the Occupy Movement started I though maybe, maybe the time had finally come.  Perhaps now we would listen, come together, find our moral compass again.  But all the clamoring has not solidified into a single message.  We have not heard a lone voice cry out in the wilderness.  Occupy has no beacon to show the way.  No Mahatma Gandhi, Susan B. Anthony, Harvey Milk,  Martin Luther King.

We are all frustrated.  We all know what’s wrong.  But we can’t seem to figure out what’s right, how to correct the course, how to work together.  Perhaps we have become too jaded and cynical, too distrusting of organizations to organize.  Perhaps we’ve become too post-modern for our own good.

But it’s okay. Really.   The people at the top don’t mind at all.  In fact, they really aren’t too worried about the whole affair.  “Let them eat cake!” and freeze in their tents.

Even though it’s spread across the country, the Occupy Movement has been no more irritating than a mosquito outside the net–the buzzing made sleep a little uncomfortable but other than that…nobody cared.  Why?  Because the people with power know at least one of two things is necessary in order to wield power–an organized mass or money.  So far they have both needs covered.

Our current two party system creates just enough tension to fool the electorate into believing real differences exist between the two parties.  Yet in all honesty very little changes despite which party is in control. You don’t believe me–just ask yourself when Bush was in the White House and the Republicans controlled the Senate and the House what pro life legislation was pushed through?  And, after Obama was elected and the Democrats took over congress was any major environmental or educational issue championed?  Didn’t think so.

Until we see a viable third party followed by sincere campaign finance reform the two parties we have will continue to duke it out on the single issue that matters most to them–who can please their financial backers better.  Believe me when I say Wall Street has its fingers filling both party’s pockets.  The 99% needs to quit being afraid of its shadow and get organized.  The 99% needs the voice of Dr. King to renew its cry.

A couple of years back I received a word (as in I believe God pressed this word into my consciousness) to meditate on for the year.  So, rather than construct a list of resolutions to try to keep and then beat myself up over when I failed to keep them, I meditated.  The word was INTENTIONAL.  It fit my life at the time.  We had just purchased a house.  Our youngest would be old enough to start school in the fall and we needed to decide what that meant: Would we home school her the way we had her older siblings at that age or was she going to go where none of our crew had gone before–to public Kindergarten?

Intentional fit me personally as well.  I was emerging from a mind-set that held me captive to self-destructive ways of thinking about God and my role as a wife and mother.  I needed to move away from reactionary ways and rote ways of behavior in order to understand who I was choosing to be and why.  I needed to be intentional.  And, over all I think the word informed my life that year.

Last year my word was RISK.  This too fit, pushing me to explore new ways of thinking about art and living as I continued to pursue school and tried to figure out who I am, who I honestly want to be.  I kayaked with abandon.  And I took my professor’s feedback to stop being so “romantic” to heart, ending the semester building a small scale refrigerator with a screen door that was to sit on top of some over-sized puzzle pieces.  The piece was unsuccessfully finished and I may decide to redo it but the idea was risky and fun and freeing.

All that was to say this–the closer January first came the more conscious I was about possibly “receiving” a new word for 2012.  I read a couple other bloggers’ posts about their experience with receiving and/or picking words in the past and for the up coming year.  And, I started mentally praying things like, “Well God?  What do You think?”

Then I got my word.  About a week before New Years there it was.

“Naw…That’s just my guilt talking.”

And I waited another day.  “Maybe,” I told myself, “maybe I’m just not going to get a word this year.  That’d be too bad.  I really like getting words.”

And I waited another day.  I almost forgot about wanting a word.  I worked, went to a movie with my son and daughter, got ready for her birthday, checked out Facebook and…there it was again.

“No God.  That can’t be my word.  It’s too much like a resolution.  I don’t want a resolution.  I just want a word.”  I started writing this post, thinking maybe I just needed to be in the receiving mind-set, be excited about hearing from God, get the right mo-jo going.  Grrr…

I couldn’t shake it.  I had my word.  I could take it or leave it but it was there staring me in the face and it wasn’t going to change.

My word for 2012 is HEALTH.  Yuk.  Boring.  Sounds way too much like eat celery, go jogging, and lose weight.

On the other hand…if I think of it following on the heals of  INTENTIONAL and RISK, if these words for our lives are meant to be accumulative rather that exclusive my word for 2012 might actually be kind of interesting.  (I hope I’m not just trying to add color to a black and white picture…I guess I’ll have to let you know next year).

You see I didn’t used to have (and still don’t have really) many face to face conversations I would describe as engaging or challenging.  Most run along the lines of answering such riveting questions as: “What are your plans today?” and “What do you want to add to the grocery list?”  Not that I’m complaining, but the real-life life of this blogger is a bit dull.  Next semester’s art history and upper level art criticism classes give me a little hope for a little more stimulating discussion BUT we are still talking controlled discussions and…well…we all know it is not the same thing as all out political and social debate.

I am not sure exactly what point I am trying to make with such a long intro except that I miss what I liked about blogging before I went back to school.  At the same time, I realize on-line debates are not exactly going anywhere or achieving anything and that too is frustrating.  As I’ve watched the Occupy movement, basically from a sympathetic distance, my angst with it stems mostly from its lack of movement.  They stand around.  They protest.  Every now and then they march for a few blocks.  But then what?  They stand around some more.  I have said from the beginning that if the movement is going to have real impact it will need to occupy the ballot box.  Yet I see no evidence it is heading in that direction.  Why?  Has having the world at our finger tips (AKA the internet) truly turned us into a giant pool of stagnant flesh–too over weight and over stimulated to act?

Actually, I do not think the internet is the problem.  Nor do I think the nay-Sayers who point at the hypocrisy between those who protest capitalism but own name-brand clothes, drink name-brand beverages, and protest via name-brand tech tools see the true picture.  Most of the protesters are not calling for an end to capitalism, even though those are the voices the media and nay-Sayers want to make the focus.  Most are calling for accountability.  Yet, until we are willing to truly do the leg work, to figure out how to change the laws that keep the systems we depend on inequitable, to hold our representatives accountable by VOTING the bad ones out of office so new ones can honestly and sincerely REPRESENT the PEOPLE they SERVE, we will be stuck with the system we currently have in which the wealth buy power in order to maintain the status-quo or tilt the scales in their own direction.

As much as I like blogging, and debating issues on-line or in person, unless I am willing to follow through with action, the words, the whining, my protest really doesn’t amount to much.

It is not easy being 16 when you were not only the youngest for ten years but the only girl and now you’re not.  Now, you have to “compete” with a six year old.  The reality is my oldest daughter is not your stereo-typical teen.  She’s not an angry teen, a rebellious teen, a sullen teen, a lazy teen.  She’s not totally self-absorbed.  And, she doesn’t act like the adult world is out to make her life miserable.

The reality is—Christmas does suck, sometimes.  It’s no fun to feel like you’re being selfish just because you want some of the magic that makes the holiday special for you, to actually happen.  It’s difficult to be cheerful when your innocence is challenged by the realities of an economic crunch, prickly relationships, and rampant materialism.

I responded badly to my daughter’s declaration.  I snapped back at her, “Yes it does suck!” and shut the door hard behind me.  I fought back my tears all the way to work and thought about what my daughter said, what I said, and why we said the things we did the rest of the night.

You see, my daughter’s words brought me face to face with my own selfish feelings.  I did not want to be going to work on Christmas Eve and I did not want to go back to work Christmas Day night.  Even though I really respect the organization I work for, my boss, and my co-workers, my job is anything but glamorous or life changing.  I work in a group home for children who have been removed from their homes due to severe neglect and/or abuse.  But the tasks I perform—cleaning, cooking, and laundry—don’t put me in much contact with the children, especially since one of my main responsibilities is to stay awake through the night, while the children sleep.  And on Christmas Eve, staying awake and cleaning toilets wasn’t my idea of fun!

I text apologized to my daughter, though I don’t suppose it changed many of her feelings toward what was happening to Christmas.  Especially since, realizing what was going on didn’t do all that much to change mine.  At the same time, when I got home Christmas morning I was greeted with hugs and smiles, the smell of bacon and eggs, and the offer of a made to order latte.  We gathered (as per our family tradition) in my husband’s and my bedroom (only some of us still fitting on the bed) and took turns opening our stockings.  Breakfast was eaten in the living room where I read the Christmas story from Luke and we again took turns opening gifts handed out by our oldest and youngest “elves”.

By the time we’d all gone up to my Dad’s for dinner with my sister’s family, I’d taken a bit of a nap, and was heading back to work I had received an attitude adjustment.  Or maybe I just received the blessing of my family—people I love, loving me.  Their presence helped me to put aside my disappointment and embrace the moments we did share.  Watching them engage with one another even when the situation didn’t go their way gave me moments to ponder in my heart.  And ironically, the joy and fun I needed to leave behind helped me head back to work without resentment.

In the end I learned that sometimes God’s presents aren’t tangible.  And, sometimes, even when Christmas sucks (and incidentally I really hate that word), what we receive blesses us.

I’m not too sure mine fits with the other Synchroblogs for December but I will pass on these links:

Kathy Escobar – Pain Relief Not Pain Removal

Glenn Hager – Underwear For Christmas

Jeremy Myers – The Unexpected Gift From Jesus

Tammy Carter  - Unstuck

Jeff Goins - The Day After Christmas: A Lament

Wendy McCaig – Unwanted Gifts: You Can Run But You Can Not Hide

Christine Sine – The Wait Is Over – What Did I Get?

Maria Kettleson Anderson – Following The Baby We Just Celebrated 

Leah – Still Waiting For Redemption

My youngest son spent the night.  He moved out not quite a month ago so this is a new phase.  His oldest brother is “looking”.  We won’t have many more holidays with all of us together.  In fact–this season’s worth (at least through Easter) could be the last.  I love having these people in my life.  I love listening to them tease and tell stories on each other.  I am blessed by how much they enjoy one another’s company and how deeply they care about their brothers and sister(s).  Of course they’ve each had their moments but the bond is strong and I believe, for the most part, will remain.

I have always said my children are my most favorite people in the world.  That is never more true than around the holidays!  Around the holidays they seen unburdened, more at peace.  They always love life.  But “on break” I can see it more clearly.  They engage.  They carry joy with them.  They all make GREAT missionaries–not in the legal definition of the word (though some might eventually do that too), but in the metaphorical sense.  They are lights.  They are connectors.  They have pain and weakness and strength and goodness they are not afraid to share.  That character trait makes them accessible outside our family walls as well as within.

Today is Thanksgiving.  And I am thankful.  But I am also discontent.  And sad.  And angry.  I am disappointed–not with what I have–but with what I have done with what I have.  I know, I am on a journey and I can always make better choices “next time”.  But the truth is–my “next times” are limited.  I only have so much time here, where what I do can/does make a difference.  And what I do not do makes a difference as well.

Today is Thanksgiving.  And, I am incredibly thankful.  I am healthy.  I have a healthy family.  I have a roof over my head, food on my table, and warm, clean clothes to wear.  I have neighbor’s who are willing to let me borrow their car and people who encourage me in school and in my life.  I am blessed.  But I have also been given eyes to see and I am keenly aware that while I eat my turkey dinner others do not have turkey to eat.  And while my husband and I are surrounded by our children others stare at empty chairs.

I do not want to turn joy to sadness, bring others down with my dose of reality, or fail to be grateful for what I’ve been given.  But I also long to live a life aware.  And follow a path of equity and justice.  I want to embrace the good yet strive for the best.  A friend of my husband signs all his correspondences with the phrase–walk in balance.  Balance isn’t a given.  Balance must be practiced.

Part of balance is understanding all is not well with the world but that is not the last word.  Part of balance is opening our eyes to the differences we can make and knowing that being thankful for what we have is the best place to start.

None of the specific information the panel provided was new to me; I have seen the scripture references that were provided and heard the arguments on both sides of the issue. I was heartened however, by the individual panel members’ willingness to share their own stories and perspectives.  One young man shared how throughout high school his continuous church and school attendance (He went to a Catholic school.) was like receiving hundreds of little paper cuts.  No single cut was insurmountable but the accumulation of cuts produced inside him a self-loathing that took several years to heal.  Another panelist described how difficult it was as a lesbian to try and have relationship with parents who run an exit program, a ministry geared toward “healing” gays and lesbians from being gay and lesbian.  The most conservative voice on the panel came from a Presbyterian pastor who explained to the audience that he was probably ahead of most of his congregation in his point of view.  He called for continued dialogue and a recognition on the part of the more liberal minded that more than a few of those he pastors are sincere in their desire to be true to scripture and avoid being hateful or hostile as they wrestle with the issue of same sex sexual relationships.

For many homosexuals the Presbyterian pastor’s position does not go far enough especially for a religion that promotes its God as a God of love.  Personally I tend to see the pastor’s position as a vital starting point but agree it does not make a good stopping spot.  This issue touches me personally as I have recently emerged from a religious tradition stuck in a much more restrictive and judgmental mindset than the Presbyterian pastor’s.  And, I have a son who for years fought his own sexuality in isolation.  A gifted intercessor, he initially thought his feelings were part of his gift, allowing him to identify with others struggling with their sexuality.  Realizing his feelings were more personal than that he spent a period of time begging God to take them away, all the while filling his own mind with self-depreciating thoughts.  After all, according to the Church, his God considers him as an abomination, especially since (with regard to sexual matters) the Church sees little difference between thought and action.

How long my son lived with this torment I cannot actually say.  Sadly he was too afraid his family would reject him to share the truth about what he was going through.  His fear stopped him from telling us for several years and caused him to suffer alone. As his mother I am grieved.  Yet, I understand the experience of many gay children growing up in religious homes mirrors my son’s, or is worse.  And, while my son was not greeted with the violent rejection he feared, he was also not received with an enthusiastic round of applause either.  Coming out has not been easy.  Becoming comfortable in his own skin has not been easy.  Educating us about what hurts has not been easy.

My son’s story is one of thousands, hundreds of thousands, of young people struggling to understand who they are in the context of faith.  Obviously, for many of these children, probably most of them, the message of an unconditionally loving Father has been overshadowed by images of condemnation and rejection.  Those of us who believe in the former need to do something about the latter.  We need to wake up and we need to wake up the rest of the Church.

My personal exit from an organized religious institution was not the result of my son’s struggles but it certainly would have been had I not already left.  When I asked the pastor’s on the Day of Dialogue panel if anything was being done to “educate” other pastors in the community, to open lines of communication within the Church, or to expose the condemning language used in most of the more traditional Church settings, the panel members basically shrugged their shoulders.  Some muttered something about it being hard enough to simply keep their own places of worship talking in open positive ways.  And, other simply remained silent.  This, too, grieves me.

At the same time, all six members of the panel for the Day of Dialogue were people of faith who are part of larger communities which are trying to make a difference.  I need to hang on to that fact.  As I continue to encourage my son in his faith, embrace and speak life into the vision he has for his future, and build my own relationships with the people he is in relationship with, I am buoyed by knowing the journey I am on need not be made in isolation.  The Church is bigger than its ugly, hurt, and lonely places.  In some circles grace, forgiveness, and acceptance abound.  I believe these circles are growing and that belief gives me hope.

This is a late addition to the Synchroblog.  Here are some other links:

• Joy Wilson at Solacetree- The Blessing of Losing Your Faith
• Jeremy Myers at Till He Comes – I Have a Dream
• Glenn Hager at Breathe – Uncomfortably Numb
• Linda at Kingdom Grace – On Earth as it is in Heaven
• Sally at Eternal Echoes – Where are the True Prophets?
• Tammy Carter at Blessing the Beloved – No Compromise
• Alan Knox at The Assembling of Church – My Word of Prophecy:  Quit Listening to Prophetic Voices
• Liz at Gracerules – Listen
• Christine Sine at Godspace – Surrounded by Prophetic Voices: Clouds of Witnesses That Call Us Out of Numbness
• Amy Martin – The Window of Suffering, the Beginning of Hope 
• Kathy Escobar at The Carnival in My Head- Rising Up From Below 
• K.W. Leslie at More Christ – What is God Challenging You to Do?
• Katherine Gunn at A Voice in the Desert – Where is Your Heart? 
• Steve Hayes at Khanya – Murder of the Cathedral
• Leah Chang at desertsspiritsfire – Wall Street, Our Street
• Bobby Aunder at Deconstructing Neverland – Shift

Bullshit.

Yes, I know I just swore.  On a public forum.  There goes my political career.  But to quote a movie now, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore!”  The problem is, no matter how mad I get, in order to actually change the situation, I need the 99% to get mad as well. I need the 99% to get so mad that they do more than protest.

I  understand much of the frustration the Occupy Wall Street protesters feel.  Unlike Romney, I understand because I feel it, too.  I even understand how that frustration builds until one is tempted to throw the baby out with the  bath water.  In other words, I understand the extremes, the voices that call for an end to capitalism, the ones who think anarchy might be better, the ones who want to tax the rich ’til it hurts.  I don’t agree with the extremes but I do understand how people get to them.

The fact that the Occupy Wall Street movement, now entering its fifth week, has started Occupy protests across the country suggests more of us understand than our politicians, new reporters, and Wall Street investors want to admit.  Even my little city of under 100, 000 people has gotten into the act.  Last Saturday (10/8) a group held a general assembly meeting at a riverside park and then walked to the courthouse, carrying signs and trying to call attention to the issues they feel most strongly.  Some have been camping there ever since, in the rain and the cold, as well as in the sunshine.

The Courthouse Lawn

I find the criticism regarding the occupy movement rather telling. Some have said, “They (meaning the protesters) don’t even know why they’re protesting.”  Others that, “They’re disorganized and leaderless.”  The protesters have been characterized as lazy and their protest as a “flea party” (trying to be clever and pit them against the Tea Party I suppose).  Multiple times politicians and talking heads have suggested those gathered in Liberty Plaza “ought to just get jobs,” “quit expecting hand outs,” or “throw away their laptops, cell phones, and i pods if they hate corporate America so much.”  These characterizations are used to distract us and avoid confronting the real issues.

Facebook Message

The sign on the left seems to suggest occupiers just need to be willing to do without luxuries, work hard, and  save their money in order to get a college education and live comfortably.  My hat goes off to the integrity shown by the person holding this sign.  Avoiding debt shows wisdom.  Choosing to save, live frugally, and get a college education show sound financial priorities. This young person has a fairly good reason to hope for a relatively bright future.  Yet, whether or not s/he agrees with the Occupy protest or not unless s/he is somehow making over $300,000 dollars a year on a 30 hour a week just above minimum wage job s/he is part of the 99%.  There is simply no way around it.  Granted, the point of the sign was not to contradict the facts; it was to express opposition to the Occupy Wall Street protesters, at least as far as this individual understands their position.  Yet even so, I find myself asking why?

Why would anyone with a college education, who works hard to make ends meet, and values frugal living not want investors (who use other people’s money to make money for themselves) to be held accountable for their actions?  How could a college educated hard-working person not be frustrated by the unethical if not out right criminal behavior of the banking industry and Wall Street Investment companies which lead up to the bailout in 2008*, caused severe unemployment, and created housing foreclosures to reach levels unheard of since the great depression?  Why aren’t people like this sign holder outraged by the blatant conflict of interest represented in both the Bush and Obama White Houses with regard to their choices of financial advisers and fed chairmen?  AKA chair holders from the very investment companies responsible for the 2008 collapse as well as the fed chairman who pushed for the deregulation which allowed the unethical behavior to go unchecked in the first place.  Why?

Accountability is just one issue raised by the Wall Street protesters.  Jobs, health care, education, the environment, inequality–all these concern those at Liberty Plaza and the multitude of support protests across the country.  But like I said before, if the 99% are not will to do more than protest, the occupation will be for naught.  In addition to Wall Street, we must occupy the ballot booth.  We must insist that the politicians who claim to represent our interests actually do.  We must make democracy, not just money, work.

* If you want a succinct education on what lead up to the 2008 banking crisis take 108 minutes and watch Inside Job, the award-winning documentary on the subject by Charles Ferguson.

While this post doesn’t quite fit the theme, below are some SynchroBlog posts looking at the idea of intentional downward mobility and the experience of the marginalized.

So, what does objectifying God look like?  Is it different from objectifying people?

When someone becomes a something our relationship to the person changes.  In truth something relationships rarely begin as someone relationships because relationships begun with mutual respect do not often shift away from that position.  (Mostly because the people who forge relationships with others based on mutual respect tend to look at nearly all people with a mutual-respect-mindset).

I can already hear the questions.  But what does that have to do with God?  Is not our regard for God supposed to be greater than His for us?  Are we not called to worship Him?

No, and yes.  Without a doubt in my mind God is worthy of our respect, our loyalty, our allegiance, and our love.  As our Creator, God enabled us to express those same feelings and display those same behaviors.  If He had not we would not be able to do so. (Which, I might add, is different from saying He makes, AKA forces, us to feel or behave in a certain manner). Additionally, His response to us, to our existence, is to love us and to allow us to choose how we respond to Him.  His response is the reason for my “No”.  We may justifiably worship God (He is worthy.) but our regard for Him cannot possibly be greater than His for us.

The problem with trying to esteem God more than He esteems us is in order to do so we make ourselves greater than God (more capable of loving Him than He is of loving us).  In order to justify what we are saying, we begin to attribute to God attitudes and behaviors which are not actually His, for example that He regards humanity as filthy rags and cannot be in the presence of our sin.  If you think about it, this is the same as saying God’s love is conditional and He is not omnipresent, all-powerful, and omniscient after all.

Rather than a loving Father, we turn God into a jealous idol we have to somehow appease.  And, we set out to do so by attending weekly services, having daily quiet times, and giving a regular tithe (among other things).  We may not consciously be trying to manipulate and control God but eventually, everything in our lives becomes spiritualized.  If Suzie fails to get the healing we prayed for then she needs more faith, or worse we predict there is hidden sin in her life.  A new car, a raise–obviously God loves me after all I have favor.  Yet, the message Joe who has been out of work for six months gets is not about a loving father.  Instead he hears, God does not love you as much as He loves me because I have favor and you do not.  We find a parking place close to the door in a busy lot and God by golly has seen and met our need because we were faithful to pray or said something nice to our spouse earlier in the day.

At this point one can see very little difference between the Christian God and  a pagan god.  Both are worshiped through the giving and receiving of gifts, offerings, praises, and  sacrifices (which I might add, our god supposedly does not need but which some how put us in good standing).  When we present this version of God to the world it is understandable that the world rejects Him as incomprehensible and unfeeling.  As significant as the picture of God we paint for the rest of the world is however, using God to meet our needs and make us feel good makes God an idol.  And, worshiping an idol is sin.

Ta-dum!  Sounds pretty simple.  That is, if we can really and truly walk through our lives looking at the other without preconceived attitudes as to how they do and do not measure up to us.  And, if we can really and truly figure out how to let go of the offenses we have suffered rather than hold them against the offender.  And, if we can actually show grace toward others, and love without reason.  You know, the way God first loved us.  Maybe then the judgment we face at the end of our earthly lives will be full of grace and love without reason.  Maybe it will be laced with forgiveness.  And, maybe it will be void of preconceived perceptions as to our worth.

On the other hand, if we make getting to God an obstacle course, full of hoops to jump through and not-so-secret passwords we have to know, say, and mean in our hearts before they count, then that might be the course we will have to run.  The laws we expect others to live by before we trust them on the podium, or in the prayer room, or on the worship team, or beside us in the believer’s pew may end up being, if Matthew 7:1-2 really means what it says, the laws we face come Judgment.

I do not know about you but that thought scares the hell right out of me.  I know that sounds flippant, especially if you are one of the people who think in order to believe God is just He actually must. send some people. to a place of everlasting torture. because justice can only be served by torturing those people forever. for a sin they committed during the limited. time of their life span.  But, this post is not about hell, per se.

I do actually think if Matthew 7:1-2 is to be taken literally, hell is best taken off the table.  (Please do not read that statement as my actual reason for not accepting the traditional hell doctrine, because its unpleasantness has nothing to do with not being able to find it in scripture which is the actual reason I do not embrace it).  But honestly, I am more concerned about the nature of judgment–the impact my attitudes, words, and actions have on the people around me in the here and now as well as, selfishly, the repercussions those judgments might have for me.

If we are honest with ourselves we must admit we make judgments everyday–That is safe.  This is too expensive.  These colors look good together.  Those do not. That milk is spoiled.–The Bible calls this kind of judgment discernment and actually encourages its readers to have and use it.  So, if some types of judgment (AKA discernment) are considered desirable from a Biblical point of view which kinds are not?  The Matthew passage focuses on our judgment of other people.   I would even go so far as to say it is not focused on judging other people’s behavior so much as their worth.

We need to be wise about who we follow and the behaviors we embrace, tolerate, avoid, and even disallow.  Wisdom in those areas is discernment.  Yet, even as we understand certain behaviors to be dangerous, damaging, or undesirable we must be careful to avoid thinking of people in the same way we think of behavior.

While discussing my ideas for this post with a friend he challenged me by setting up the following hypothetical scenario:  You are in a service.  The pastor just started the sermon and a person enters who appearing to be drunk begins to cause a scene–loud talking, cat calls to the front, stumbling down the aisle.  My friend believed the person should be removed from the service by the ushers.  When I asked why and if that would be the most loving response.  He answered that the others in the service needed to be “protected” and had a right to hear the pastor’s message.  And, he added, removing the drunk was not unloving.  I would agree, especially if the person was not just thrown out of the building but actually offered some kind of assistance.

Yet, I argued with my friend, removing the person from the service treats him like a behavior more than a person because our concern and response would be less about him and more about ourselves–our rights and our comfort levels.  I believe loving the person would have included inviting him to sit with us, offering to get him a cup of coffee or something to eat, and addressing the issues gnawing in his head which caused him to stumble through our doors to begin with.  I believe our ministering to that individual’s need would have demonstrated the Biblical principle of loving one another with much greater poignancy than  any sermon points a pastor might have had in that moment.  And in fact, in Mark 2 when four men lowered a paraplegic through the roof disrupting Jesus from preaching the word, Jesus modeled just such love by forgiving the man’s sins and healing his body.

Perhaps our drunk would have continued to be disruptive.  And, the service would have been dismissed without a happy ending or the neatly tied package we find in Mark 2.  Certainly the others in the service would have had lots to chew over.  And maybe, once our drunk had sobered up he would have remembered not being thrown out and what it felt like to be loved instead of judged.