Timber!

He told his next story to some who were complacently pleased with themselves over their moral performance and looked down their noses at the common people: “Two men went up to the Temple to pray, one a Pharisee, the other a tax man. The Pharisee posed and prayed like this: ‘Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people--robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.’ Meanwhile the tax man, slumped in the shadows, his face in his hands, not daring to look up, said, ‘God, give mercy. Forgive me, a sinner.’ Jesus commented, “This tax man, not the other, went home made right with God. If you walk around with your nose in the air, you're going to end up flat on your face, but if you're content to be simply yourself, you will become more than yourself."
Luke 18:10-14 The Message

Sometimes I think that the folks that need Jesus’ teaching the most are people like me who already claim to be his followers. Ironic? Or have I misunderstood how God’s providence works?

Much of my thoughts lately have concerned how small our (collective) vision of God often is. Thankfully, there are some through history who seem to see things more clearly than us bottom dwellers. I suspect they often just don’t make sense to the rest of us, and their life is only understood after they die – and then only in part.

To continue a theme, I think this leads me to believe that both people inside & outside any given spiritual tradition are just as likely to be “right with God”, assuming they are practicing self-honesty. I just don’t think paradise is guarded by a demand for accurate recitation of a creed. Apologies if I am just repeating myself. I do think this matters.

I don’t think this negates the objective value of true religion or creed as a tutor. And if such a thing as truth exists (and it does), it is likely that some religions are truer than others. Religious practice and belief is to some degree a mirror of the reality it seeks to represent. We can use any good thing toward selfish & destructive end. That is the very definition of sin. Some have decided, either consciously or intuitively, to disregard religion -- or any expression of formalized spirituality -- as a reaction against the negatives that can come with it. Or more practically, because religious folks are regularly twits (see the prior post). That is a classic “baby with the bathwater” shame. Religion doesn’t kill people. People kill people -- no offense to gun-control advocates.

This small-vision thing is so dominant that I’m sure we usually don’t realize it. Western Christians, who to their credit occasionally acknowledge the problem, are a good case in point. We tend to lock in a view, and then patronize those with diverging viewpoints as “lost” or “blinded”, before we understand what the other person really thinks. I know it’s a two way street, but we generate a lot of fine material for satire.

I have this hunch that God will shortly take those of us who look down our snouts at the "heathen", and somehow knock us on our figuratively-lily-white asses. Unless we decide to swallow a healthy dose of humility ourselves. We’ll see.

Effective Life

I must admit that as a group, Christians are often unpleasant to be around. I don’t mean always, or all Christians, but far too much. Many of us are wrapped in our own superior self-righteousness. We are frequently emotionally unbalanced, and our external behavior can easily be a socially-acceptable cover for selfishness.

Notice also, that many people of ambiguous faith, or those without any strong conviction about their own beliefs (let alone the good people of other faiths), can often be not only kind, but also genuinely loving and unselfish.

What of this?

Although for some reason, this does not seem to challenge my own belief about what is true, or who is God, I am gradually persuaded that a truly “effective” life (in the most significant sense) is not necessarily bound to a particular creed. That’s a hard opinion to maintain for someone like myself who not only holds a creed, but my particular selection is rather elaborate and by nature exclusive. But, go figure. That’s what I think.