The God Who Sees Me

The God Who Sees Me

Hagar, a favorite Bible character, was the first single mother in the Bible, the first woman Aput away@ or abandoned by her man. When she realized that God loved and cared for her, she gave Him a new name: AThe God who sees me.@

Hagar represents the unseen of earth. The poor, the divorced, the outcast, the discarded, the foreign, the poor, the hungry, the rejected. Even now she is unseen or Awrongly seen@ by many Christians.   Yet, her life in many ways mirrors another slave=s: Joseph.

Both Joseph and Hagar were owned by foreigners, faced possible death because of the jealousy of others, were seen as mere objects by female owners because of sex and their youth. Both learned obedience through suffering, were  honored and demoted, were enslaved because God needed them to preserve His people, suffered in order to help their master=s nation, and were saved by divine intervention.

AYou, God, see me@ encompasses all the names of God:

Jehovah-jireh  B God provides  B He sees your needs. 

Jehovah-rapha B God heals B  He sees your sickness because he was afflicted as we were and was wounded for our healing.

The Lord our shepherd B He is not a hireling who pays no attention to the sheep.

The Lord our light B  He sees our path although we know it not.

The Lord our Comforter B  He sees the pain in the heart of the rejected and unseen ones.

AYou, God, see me.@

The name=s meaning can be understood by the most innocent child and by the most guilt-wracked adult. It is a name that the wounded and the powerful, Christians and non-Christians can be enlightened by. It is a name that shows that God is immediate and intimate, yet omniscient, awesome, and eternally loving.

Darwin's Pious Idea: Why the Ultra-Darwinists and Creationists Both Get It Wrong

by Conor Cunningham

Hardcover: 580 pages

Publisher: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company (December 3, 2010)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0802848389

ISBN-13: 978-0802848383

Here's the blurb:
According to British scholar Conor Cunningham, the debate today between religion and evolution has been hijacked by extremists: on one side stand fundamentalist believers who reject evolution outright; on the opposing side are fundamentalist atheists who claim that Darwin’s theory rules out the possibility of God. Both sides are dead wrong, argues Cunningham, who is at once a Christian and a firm believer in the theory of evolution. In Darwin’s Pious Idea Cunningham puts forth a trenchant, compelling case for both creation and evolution, drawing skillfully on an array of philosophical, theological, historical, and scientific sources to buttress his arguments.




Here's a bit of a review

THE STORY OF THE GOSPEL -- Without the Christian jargon

THE STORY OF THE GOSPEL  -- Without the Christian jargon

 Gospel is a word often used by Christians when they speak. It is a word that has two meanings and these two meanings are closely related.

The meaning of the word “gospel”:

•                      The word “Gospel” is an old English word which means good news. It is related to another old currently used old English word: gossip. But “gossip” means rumors and bad news about other people, the word gospel is used of news that is true and so wonderful it sounds unbelievable but which is nevertheless very, very true.

This leads to the second meaning: something which tells the wonderful unbelievable truth about Jesus Christ.

•                      The second meaning of the word gospel refers to four books in the Bible which tells about the life of Jesus Christ. There are four gospels

•                      The gospel according to Matthew

•                      The gospel according to Mark

•                      The gospel according to Luke

•                      The gospel according to John

                These gospel writers are called “evangelists” which is a Greek word which means “Messengers who tell the good news.” Three of the four writers (Matthew, Mark, and John) were friends, followers (sometimes called an “apostle”) and eyewitnesses of Jesus when he lived on earth. The fourth (Luke) was a friend who met them later. He was also a researcher and a doctor and he wrote another book in the Bible called “The Acts of the Apostles” which tells about how Jesus’ followers taught the gospel and what they did as they preached the good news.

All the gospels were written to tell about the good news of Jesus Christ.

Who is Jesus Christ?

Jesus Christ lived more than 2000 years ago in Israel. At that time the country was called Palestine and the Romans had invaded the country. The gospels show Jesus healing the sick, raising the dead, and telling people about God’s love. But for Christians, Jesus is more than a mere historical figure. Christians believe Jesus is:

•                      The Pure and Ultimate sacrifice for a person’s sins

•                      The Love of God made visible

•                      The One and only mediator between God and humans, someone who is equal to both God and humans and so he can speak to both.

•                      The uncreated Son of God who co-created the world with God the Father

•                      The Prophet who spoke the ultimate truth and mysteries about God, God’s love, Faith, Evil and the Devil, Truth, Life, Death, Spiritual Laws, and the spiritual world. 

•                      The True Example of what a real human being should be.

•                      The Living Word of God in human flesh.

•                      The Way to God and to heaven

•                      The revealer of certain mysteries such as how the world really works.

What is the good news of Jesus Christ?

Christians believe that humans don't understand how the real world operates. Christians believe there is a spiritual realm with spiritual laws and operations that affect this earthly world we live on and because the world is confused about these spiritual laws and about God (who created these laws) people wrong God, wrong other people, and wrong themselves.

 The good news of Jesus Christ is based on the following beliefs:

•                      God loved humanity and saw that humanity had forgotten how loved they were.

•                      God wanted humans to know him yet he knew they could not understand his goodness or his essence because the way humans thought was different from the way God thought because God is spirit

•                      God saw that no matter how hard people tried, they could never be as good as God wished them to be. Nor did they wish to be.

•                      God’s holiness required justice and required that all sins – bad things we do, think, or say such as murder, lying, pride, or sexual immorality—be punished. But God’s mercy wanted to provide a way to help people come to Him.

•                      God understood that people couldn’t be good without His help, yet people did not understand that they needed to understand what goodness, justice, and love were.

•                      God sent Jesus Christ, who is the representation of everything God is, to be born on earth as a Savior, Teacher, and Sacrifice on earth

•                      God put the punishment for all the sins humans would ever commit onto Jesus.

•                      Jesus perfectly did everything God sent Him to do.

•                      Jesus lived a perfect life, and died for all the sins that sinners had ever and would ever commit in order to pay for their sins 

•                      Jesus gave his life to free humans from death, hell, and the power of sin.

•                      Jesus sends God’s Holy Spirit to live within those who believe what the gospel writers say about Jesus.

•                      That anyone who puts his or her trust in Jesus  and asks Jesus to died for his sin have power over sin and sickness and conquers the world through their faith in all that Jesus did.

God wanted those people on earth to understand what the truth about goodness, spiritual reality, and God's love really is.

What the gospel is not

The gospel is not

•                      A system of laws -- although those who believe in the gospel should be good.

•                      The gospel is not aesthetics – although those who believe in Jesus often worship God in many kinds of beautiful settings and church services

•                      The gospel is not political correctness – although those who believe in Jesus are commanded to be kind and good to all people

•                      The gospel is not etiquette – although good behavior is always a good thing.

How do you become friends with God and stop being separated from Him and His way of thinking?

If you want to be reconciled to God and feel that something is separating you from him, say this prayer:

God, some people are so sure that you exist. Some people are so sure that you love them. They say that if we ask you for anything and mention Jesus to you, you will answer our prayer. Please God please let me know you in the way your son Jesus Christ does. Please let me understand everything about the Bible and about you and about Jesus. Please help me see that you have destroyed even the most powerful sin and that if you live in me that I will be able to conquer sin and all that sin does to my body, mind, and soul. Please let me understand your love, your care, and your power. Help me to trust in you and for the sake of Jesus and all Jesus did for humans, please forgive me of all my sins, free my soul and spirit from the damage sin has caused in my life and make me your true and obedient child. Amen. It's done.

THE END

General creative update and ponderings

Hi all:

Well, another update on creative bottleneck.

CRY FOR HIRE

Am just so confused now about what to do with Cry for Hire, my pulley world story. My soul feels it's about a lonely rejected woman longing for connection even if with a strange little boy in some other reality. And she will lose this kid because he's a kid, not one to really be connected to her because as a kid he has his own life. So the window through which she sees his world is almost akin to the internet. But I could also just make the story all steampunk and not show her world at all and where we don't see the delineation between her world and the child's, where everything in the story occurs in his world. But my emotion is with the sense of loss and alienation and being far off from that world. Gotta think about that one.

NIGHT WIFE

Realized I did something in Night Wife that I would never ever ever let another writer get away with. I so want to challenge the demon lover idea. Just because....as a Christian and as someone who has seen a real demon, I get annoyed with folks who don't take demons seriously or who don't see how seductively evil they are. The story is really in three stages. The first when he woos her and she marries him. The second when she realizes he's been a ghost all this time. The third when she realizes he's been a demon all this time. The reader discovers early enough that he might be a ghost and much of the first pages are flashback to when Lian  (ghost) and Jewel (MC) first met. But the question is...what is poor Jewel going to do with this problem? So what did I do? I skipped to her getting rid of him and him getting all demonic. I kinda wanted to spare Jewel the character torture... and wanted to spare myself as well because digging so deep into one's own sexual attraction fantasy issues is hard. But then ugh! realized the three stages aren't really there. And the second stage is so important. I want it to be like wooing someone with a drug issue. Enabling addiction metaphors. Then I want to go to the last stage where she realizes he is irrevocably evil. But NOOOOOOOOOO! I simply jumped to the ending. Need to add maybe 6000 more words to the ghost wooing section (and still make the readers want her to be with him) and another 6000 pages to the demon section. I sooo don't want to do that. But it seems to me that that is what the story wants. 

CONSTANT TOWER

Other than that... realized the last section of CT, the poetry section, should be an epic poem. (yeah, i know... so stupid because epic poems can suck really badly if done ...well, badly.) We've seen the real life in the prose section and the poetry section must be the fantasy epic poetic "lying" section of the novel, where we see the lie of fantasy macho romantic hero...after we've seen the reality of bullying. Realized the poem as it now is is written in Ktwala's POV -- had thought it was the best thing to do-- but somehow it would be better if it was written in omni poetic epic so we can get a real overview...not just the victim's overview. 

DARK INHERITANCE

Still have to decide if Dark Inheritance (Now called Daniel's Seventh Week) will be a YA "sweet" love story or an adult passionate may-july love story. Ah gee... gotta think. If it's a young adult story, then I'd have to make Danny the sole main character. The character feels older to me, though. But I really really really want to write a sweet little asexual mainstream love story. Every once in a while I see some movie on Hallmark channel that really is quite good. I love a good slice-o-life story. And seriously, there is just so many times one can see a story with some noble white woman trying to live her life while she takes care of some poor oppressed needy black woman. Also, I just feel the need to write a good story with a male Asian kid as the main character. Gotta think.  

 

Will see.

Am always aiming to do dangerous stuff but not quite sure I have the skill. Feeling that I'm beginning to have the health though. Which is saying much. For a while there I thought I was on my way out of this reality. But God isn't finished with me yet. 

Dark Parables: A hateful, terrifying, devouring dragon

Last night, I dreamed a hateful, devouring, terrifying dragon was terrifying my town. It looked like a dragon or like a dinosaur or like Godzilla. It was a little ways up the block from me and it went to certain doors along the road where it would choose it would kill. At one point, I heard it shout to someone to get a particular woman because that was the one it wanted to devour. It seemed to have a particular hatred for women. I was outside my house when it spoke and I rushed inside my house hoping it wouldn't see me or hurt me or take any interest in me. But its voice was so full of hatred that I became filled with terror. There's something very terrifying about such pointed hatred. Glad that I had made indoors, I was still worried about what this creature would do when it came unto my block. Would it choose to devour me? Which of the family --if any-- would it choose to eat? I ran into the kitchen looked out the window of the kitchen. There I saw a woman with blonde hair and in a polka-dot red dress with some pink shawl of collar or something. It was very like the little girl I'd seen in the vision of the dead birds and seemed to be the same woman ...but at the same time it was as if the little girl had grown older. But she wasn't really mature in many ways. She was sort of giggly and was dancing about and she seemed very surprised that the hateful dragon had decided to kill her. I watched her face change as she realized she was being killed. I got so afraid. I started shouting hysterically to my husband, crying, "Where will we go? Where will we go?" He responded, equally agitated, shouting quite quickly, "Pray in tongues, pray in tongues!" The dream ended with me trying to catch up and pray although I thought it was too late to actually be praying because the monster was so near. I wasn't sure the quick sudden desperate prayer --instead of a life of consistently praying-- would have much effect in saving me as the monster approached. 

Four Views on Divine Providence

Four Views on Divine Providence
By: William Lane Craig, Ron Highfield, Gregory A. Boyd, Paul Kjoss Helseth   
General Editor: Dennis Jowers

HERE'S THE BLURB:

March 2011
Zondervan Publishers
272 pages

ISBN: 0310325129,  ISBN-13: 9780310325123,  UPC: 025986325121
This book guides students, pastors, and lay learners to consider and evaluate various ways of understanding God’s involvement in the world, especially in relation to views on predestination and the extent of the atonement. Four different scholars present their positions in point-counterpoint style, and the editor’s introduction and conclusion frame the discussion.

Description: 
Questions about divine providence have preoccupied Christians for generations: Are people elected to salvation? For whom did Jesus die? This book introduces readers to four prevailing views on divine providence, with particular attention to the question of who Jesus died to save (the extent of the atonement) and if or how God determines who will be saved (predestination).
 
But this book does not merely answer readers’ questions. Four Views on Divine Providence helps readers think theologically about all the issues involved in exploring this doctrine. The point-counterpoint format reveals the assumptions and considerations that drive equally learned and sincere theologians to sharp disagreement. It unearths the genuinely decisive issues beneath an often superficial debate.
 
Volume contributors are Paul Helseth (God causes every creaturely event that occurs); William Lane Craig (through his “middle knowledge,” God controls the course of worldly affairs without predetermining any creatures’ free decisions); Ron Highfield (God controls creatures by liberating their decision-making); and Gregory Boyd (human decisions can be free only if God neither determines nor knows what they will be). Introductory and closing essays by Dennis Jowers give relevant background and guide readers toward their own informed beliefs about divine providence.

Here comes the Calvary -- Experts, and Deliverers -- Reality Show as Religion

Was watching Kitchen Nightmares again and was reminded once again about how we humans so desire and honor teachers and deliverers. Gordon Ramsey comes in and saves the day ...the family's livelihood and the family...and I actually get weepy. All they needed was a teacher and a savior. The same goes for a lot of other reality shows: Tabatha's Salon Makeover, for instance.

It also goes for other areas of life. When the computer crashes, when the boiler doesn't work, there is this joyous spark of life that bubbles forth when we the victim of the crash realizes that an expert has arrived. Of course, helping to edit someone's manuscript is often viewed with disdain because some writers think they're great and in no need of improvement, but for the most part, we humans rejoice when a Helper arrives. It's that profound knowledge that we need help and that there is someone to help us. The Calvary has arrived!

I did that in Wind Follower, showed a village where people were sick and diseased and awaited their only hope -- a possible savior and deliverer.  I get so gooey when I read that scene. Because it is essentially part of the human experience. Okay, someone who is healthy doesn't need a savior. Only those who are sick need a savior. And perhaps that is why such a weak Christianity is so often preached. Because we have doctors to deliver us. We aren't as poor in spirit as those who don't have money or doctors.

One of the phrases I love -- especially when it's not overused or used badly-- is the phrase: "Man of God." It fills me with joy and hope. Usually because the person who uses it really honors the Man of God as a possible deliverer. He will say something the sheep needs to hear and after hearing that the sheep will have a shepherd. He will do something that the poor sheep hadn't the power to do.

So, yes.... I like reality-show deliverers and reality-show judges. (I've already discussed the effect of expert-as-judge- on me in other blogs.) Reality-show deliverers and Reality-show judges hint at the REAL things: the real Judge, the real Deliverer. Even so, Jesus, Come. And help me to learn to deliver others as you delivered people when you were still on earth.

Riffing on sins and the ten commandments

Sins, sins, sins. They overpower us so much! Some folks say there is no such thing as sin or that they have conquered them through religion, but when I hear someone say stuff like that... I don't believe them. 

Note: religion isn't Christianity. Religion is following a set of rules. Christianity is letting God inside you do the work of purifying your soul. And this can only be accomplished through a major spiritual work and by the blood of Jesus Christ. 


I see a lot of religious people who think they've conquered sins. And atheist folks who say there is no such thing as sin, that it's all cultural, deterministic, genetic, etc. Whatever it's called, the human soul and the human will are pretty selfish and weak. Especially if one doesn't allow God to take over. People let anger take over..and sometimes they fight against anger but it comes out anyway. Humans have no control really over their worse selves. I'm sure you have done things you didn't want to do. Best to look at our own failings because they are bad enough instead of really stressing ourselves out by looking at other folks' flaws

Emotions! So closely connected with sin. It's like we have to vent them out because the emotions are so much more powerful than the good in us. There are certain emotions we don't feel. For instance, I generally don't feel greed, but I've felt jealousy. I can't understand how someone can be greedy and want things and money but I really understand jealousy. So many different sins in the world to deal with. Jealousy, lying, covetousness, greed. Mercifully not everyone has all of them...generally. I can understand anger a lot, but stealing, no.

But rationality is also connected with sin as well. Pride often goes with those who think they're rational. I always used to watch Star Trek and see how proud the Vulcans were of their lack of emotions. But isn't the very rational sin of pride in one's intellect also very emotional?


It's hard seeing a person sin...well, unless one is used to the sin. Proud people, murderous people, are comfortable with other proud people and other murderous people.


For instance, I don't lie. So when I deal with liars, I am amazed that someone would be so arrogant and cruel as to simply not tell the truth. I see "cruelty" in lying. For me, a liar is someone who is bent on deceiving...and there's a heavy hint of superiority in a person like that...that they should try to deceive someone else.


I don't feel greed either. I can understand greed, though. I've seen it in action. It's so clear that those who have this emotion are suffering because of it.  Greed, jealousy, and envy are some sins that make the sinners who are overpowered by them suffer. I know jealousy. I used to have it very bad. And the pain was awful. Covetousness is painful too. And judgemental. Someone sees another person with something and has a pain in their heart, a sense that what belongs to the other person really should be mine. There's a sense there where  it leads to envy and belittling of the person who has the "thing" because the covetous person begins by saying, "I want that person's husband, maid, house, car, etc"...and it ends with the coveter saying "I don't care if that other person gets hurt by me taking the coveted thing from them." In that way, it is idolatry. St Paul calls adultery idolatry for that reason. People simply make the thing they covet -- and they make their own covetousness-- a god.


The sin of disobeying and not honoring one's parent is closely akin to the sin of anger and pride. The person who indulges this sin often really feels they have a right that is being violated. They feel anger at their parents and pride when they rebel against what they consider unfair rules. (I'm not one who believes parents should go treating their kids like dirt, btw.)


Some sins bring joy. Lust, for instance. Whether it's  a totally raw need to hope into bed with someone and do something filthy or whether it's the more refined kind of lust which is sensual longing and carnal concupiscence. There's a strange joy and pleasure in it which can easily be mistaken for love...so that when folks are involved in lust they often genuinely think they're in love. Stealing also brings joy, and a bit of excitement. It also brings a false healing. A covetous person gets it into her head that by stealing a thing she's healed the pain she felt when she coveted something.


Other sins bring neither joy nor pain. Most folks who dishonor God hardly notice it. It's usually a sin of omission, laziness, rationalization, or indifference.


My main characters are always sinners, but not cruelly so. I seem to have an aversion to the perfect heroes who are totally wonderful folks. In Wind Follower, Loic is spoiled rotten...but he has a good heart, and he has a short temper. In Constant Tower, Psal is a whiner and although he's a bit of a revolutionary, he doesn't fight all the wrongs in his culture. I like that. 

Subverting the claptrap -- fierceness

Every once in a while -- much too often-- I just fall apart on my husband and burst into tears. The sweetie is so full of love but who can heal me? I have such a depth of woundedness, hurt, and trauma. "A wounded spirit who can bear?" I need God's love to pour into all my soul, heart, body, mind, spirit. And then there is this about the last days  In the last days mean shall be Without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good,... That's true in America now where being fierce and cold is considered hip. So I guess the day will come when all the world will be fierce.

I don't like fierceness and the world is fierce. It honors fierceness; in fact now it honors fierceness but it lacks the balancing honor. In fantasy, fierceness is always aligned with honor. But in the United States, fierceness -- whether passionate and uncontrolled, whether immature, whether studied, whether callous and cold, whether daring, whether humorous, whether done in gangs and collectively or done by one weak or strong individual-- is everywhere. And it is so kneejerk. Kneejerk disdain/hip disdain ... lacking kindness, politeness, forbearance, empathy, etiquette. One simply says to someone, "I'm on my way to church" and the person, for no good reason has to say in a snide dismissive way, "I don't believe in God." Or one is in church and someone one doesn't know has to come and say one should dress up for church. And don't even talk to me about the fierceness in the Black community where parenting and even well-meaning jokes can be cruel.

(I think this is why I hate cop shows. It's like the cops show their fierceness by being impolite. It's like... the tough female cop and all the cops have to show how tough they are by how much they can destroy the other person's soul. So much soul-annihilation going on.)

I don't know what happened to me. Yes, yes, I know what happened to me. Okay...so I am really stressed by cruelty. I am really empowered by it. The fibromyalgia goes awry when the slightest cruelty comes my way. So of course I end up with a life and with novels where my characters are totally alienated from the rest of the world. Which I suppose is good. In these clannish times where one has to have backup -- racial clan backup, political backup, religious backup-- what happens? I don't fit easily into any camp. Quite the bother, but I remember that my lord Jesus was rejected and despised of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief.

Fibromyalgia is an illness of woundedness, as is lupus. (Weirdly, lupus is really epidemic in the African-American community which makes me wonder if our immune system is so stressed by race, poverty, cruelty, weird families that it just breaks in a certain way.) Supposedly, those women with fibro have were assailed one time too many with feeling of being unloved and abandoned. The immune system just couldn't take it.

I don't believe in terminal or incurable illnesses. And in this case I believe that if I were to feel a super-dose of God's love that I would be healed.

My main female character in Constant Tower is Maharai. She lives in a fierce world within a fierce clan. She cannot deal with it but in the end she ends up with two husbands. I really like that. I really really really like that. Because there are victims of fierceness in fantasy novels and in the real world. A young Christian writer friend was upset with me that I had given Maharai two husbands. It bothered her because she felt one of the husbands would be wounded and plus it was just unChristian. But for me...it was the desire of my soul. My character Maharai builds blanket fortresses in her room. She sleeps between her husbands, protected from the world. In my spirit, that's what I want. I can't have it in this world. It's not legal. Plus my husband is loving and in this world, I have God's love to heal and shield me from the world. But Maharai has nothing.

Sometimes I just cry out for the Lord. I just say "Continue to Love me." I sing and start crying while I listen to, "Come quickly, oh Lord. Even so hasten your return."

Because heaven is my home.

Last night, I was thinking of the angel who smiled so sweetly at me. What love there exists in heaven! Enough to heal me of all the hurts I've received. From family, foe, friend, stranger, social workers, teachers, racists, cops. Enough to heal my soul from trauma. Lord, let our lives on earth be like the lives of the blessed ones in heaven.  Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven!

Sometimes I remember the cruelty that has been hurled at me by people. When I remember the pain, I remember the striking to my heart. I imagine those fiery darts are still in my back and soul and heart and flesh.I want God to pull them out.

Lord, heal my heart, please! And in the meantime, help me to show my heart in my stories. -C

Too strange, too lovely, too good, too magical to believe

My sweet Psal in Constant Tower is an atheist. He's a tolerant atheist, however. (Well, tolerant enough.) He's certainly not as rude as the militant angry hateful atheist I've encountered in life and seen on TV or on the web. Loic, in Wind Follower, was a believer in the Creator but was very unclerical and hated the shaman of his people. In that way he was a prophet. But Psal is an atheist. Or rather, he is a secret believer. Except the secret is a strange one: the owner and keeper of the secret doesn't know his own secret: Psal is an agnostic who believes but who is unaware that he is a believer. Or maybe he fights against believing. What, then, will bring him to see that he might secretly want to have a Creator in the world? He becomes aware that there are things in the world that no kind or amount of science can fix: the evil in men's hearts, the evil in his own heart, the strange evil in the world. But really there's more. He discovers that something can be righted in the world...but that only the spiritual Creator can fix it. There is, one might say, a specific joy the Creator can bring to Psal which will prove the Creator's existence to Psal.

That brings me to this: We Christians find it hard to believe that the God who made heaven and earth, the taste buds (yeah, the tongue can discern about 10,000 different tastes, if I remember rightly...which amazes me because it shows God wants us to love food and not merely feed ourselves) and the eyes (tons of flowers and patterns out there) should care for us?

It's not as if we're Hindus who are caught in a kind of universal indifferent machinery. It's not as if we're Moslem who have a holy far-off God who rules and dispenses and whose will one must submit to. We have a God who is God-with-us who has put a ladder between heaven and earth, who has created for us a mediator who can put one hand on God's shoulder and one on ours, who has provided us with a high priest who is not untouched by compassion for us, who has given us an advocate to walk beside us. So then, why the difficulty in believing?

I'm thinking of St Thomas again. And as usual I'll state that St Thomas' problem with believing wasn't some rationalism...it was melancholy and pessimism. And that is the problem with many in the Christian world. We really aren't rationalistically unbelieving, we're just unable to believe that something good can happen to us....now that Jesus is not here.

But the righteousness that is by faith says: "Do not say in your heart, 'Who will ascend into heaven?'" (that is, to bring Christ down) "or 'Who will descend into the deep?'" (that is, to bring Christ up from the dead). But what does it say? "The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart," that is, the word of faith we are proclaiming: Romans 10:6-8. 


We know if Jesus was here that all would be well, that He would heal us...that the healing He's placed in our spirit would transform our mortal bodies. But this God-with-us business, this Christ-in-us the hope of Glory stuff....that is a problem...because our rational minds want to see Jesus is here with us standing beside us in the flesh. 

Paul said this.
Last night an angel of the God whose I am and whom I serve stood beside me 
And I can say it as well.

Yet, although I have seen an angel with my very own eyes, and seen a demon with my very own eyes... I still find it hard to believe that the world operates in the way God says it operates.

I have spoken to you of earthly things and you do not believe; how then will you believe if I speak of heavenly things? John 3:12

The world doesn't work the way we've been taught. But to jump in -- with all one's heart, faith, mind, soul, will-- into the God machinery and to trust that other way as being the true way of being....wow! Difficult. Dar I believe that God has given his people dominion over disease, sin, demons? Can I be transformed by the renewing of my mind? We will see.

Evil and the Justice of God

Evil and the Justice of God by N T Wright

Hardcover: 176 pages

Publisher: IVP Books; 1ST edition (October 5, 2006)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0830833986

ISBN-13: 978-0830833986

Seemingly tiny spiritual stronghold, major healing obstacle

Ooh, new insight into a strange little stronghold we Christians have. When we ask God to heal us we ask him to heal a specific area. We here people say, "a touch, Lord" as if when God heals someone He picks and chooses from among the person's illness which he will heal at that time. This of course leads us to only receiving healing in that area.

It leads us to limiting God and not ascribing to him glory and strength. We start thinking, "But can God do it all?" And yet, if we think about it... God's normality is to do it all. This is the God who uses the words "all" "any" and "every" very easily. His arm is not straitened that it cannot save. This is the God who adds, "And because it is a small thing, I will also...."

But what typically happens in healing services is that we see God as going about with a healing finger or hand and touching someone's knee or neck or lower disc or tooth. We don't see him as one whose healing purpose and power is so good that he makes someone every whit whole. We say to ourselves, "Such and such is wrong with me. This too, this as well. I will ask God to heal this, or this, or that. I will ask God to heal the worst of my problems." It's as if we think the power is meted out. As if God can only give a little of health here and there when it's really A) the church's tradition that has trained us to think this was and B) our limiting God.

It seems to me that when we encounter God's power, the same spirit that raised Jesus from the dead should be able to to transform and heal our mortal bodies. ALL of it. That's what St Paul said, anyway. When the enemy comes in like a flood the Spirit of the Lord raises a standard against him.

Strange that the God we have, who healed everyone of the Israelites on the Passover and there was no illness upon them, who caused their feet to not grow old on their feet for 40 years, who made his people rich when they left Egypt, who would not allow Pharoah to whittle away and wheedle down the full deliverance of all his people and their lands and goods....is the God we ask for a small touch.

So someone who has tooth issues and foot issues and depression and weight issues and a combination of illnesses should not be questioning if God is able to heal ALL. When the power of God comes in at us, all our being should be opened to Him. Like light coming into a dark room, God's light should touch every part of our souls, spirit, minds, flesh. And the power of God's light is so powerful it should transform us entirely...not just the parts of our bodies we are begging Him to do. Just my 0.02 and yet, to me it's worth a million dollars because it makes me reframe the idea of God's healing power. It's not a finger-pointing, fine-tuning of healing power but a gusher and a tsunami of His love. When we reframe, we can see ourselves being entirely healed as we're overwhelmed with his loving power.

The devil's deceptions are subtle and have been around for ages in many ways. And this is one of the most powerful, most subtle of these pseudo-spiritualities.

Should children come to their heavenly loving Father thinking he will only give them the necessary little food?
-C

Story characters as an exploration of spiritual strongholds

Okay, so there's King Nahas in Constant Tower.

Last night Luke (beloved hubby)  and I were talking about God and King Nahas. Nahas represents the totality of his clan's traditions and belief about strength and suffering, and I was wondering if there is some stronghold in me which considers God a bit like Nahas.

Nahas will not relent until all the tests Psal goes through have been overcome, until Psal proves himself. He is absolutely merciless, even to his son....especially to his son. And I said to luke, "I hope to God I don't have that idea of God working and mixing in my faith in a kind of double-minded stronghold. Because it would mean that I won't allow myself to receive any blessing until i think I've "suffered enough" or "endured enough." 

So am trying to take every thought captive. Trying to focus on God's love and on the quality of unearned love, of grace..unmerited favor.

This is one of the blessings of fictions. They're fictive dreams and we see the argument our soul is having with our spirit when we look at our characters. 

A stronghold is something within our minds that battles against faith. A stronghold is not doubt, per se. But it is a subtle belief or self-deception and it gets intermingled in our world view and it works against us getting our prayers answered or our growing closer to God.

If Nahas is one of my mental images of God as king, then I need to explore that. This character kinda reminds me of a dream I had when I was young where I was shouting, "God, Father! God, Father!" When I woke up I realized that God was showing me in my dream that my idea of God was that he was like Mario Puzo's "godfather" -- someone to be feared.

In Wind Follower, Loic's dad was loving but misunderstood. In some ways he was inscrutable and ineffectual. Yeah, the dads in a Carole McDonnell novel tend to be odd. 

The interesting thing is I do not have a father. He disowned us when we were younger. And I've only seen him twice or thrice since the folks divorced. So I don't know what fathers are like. People talk about dads and I'm like... "uh, uh..okay." And so I have to wade through this God as Father thing.  But God is helping me. When I discover His true love for me and how He wants to give me so much and how freely His love is given...maybe I will be able to receive more answered prayers.

Will see. Happy creating!

Advent: the bit in Zechariah's mouth

When the angel Gabriel was sent to Zechariah with the good news of John the Baptist's conception, Zechariah didn't believe. Luke 1:20 Gabriel made him immediately dumb and unable to speak his unbelief. This just wasn't Gabriel being antsy. He was putting a bit in his mouth James 1:26 -- as Psalm 32:9 tell us. This is someone taking away the rudder of Zechariah's life. Jesus tells us that we will give an account of every idle words Matthew 12:36 we speak. God has given us such wonderful promises to speak, wonderful words of life. So we have to commit to speaking properly. Why? Because as Christians, we do not walk in the dark. We know how the world operates. We do not stumble in the dark as those who have no light.

I often wish I would have a bit put in my mouth Psalm 39:1 so I won't say anything negative about my life and put the ship on the wrong path. James 3:2 James 3:4

It's tough but God has asked us to be mature and grown and to be adult about our authority, our power, our use of words.

So, no matter what I will watch my words. I will say of the Lord, he is my refuge and my fortress

Let the redeemed of the Lord say so Psalm 107:2and stop talking negatively or affirming the pathological truth.

Oh God, set a watch before my lips.Psalm 141:3


The Lord had prepared a blessing for the world, yet even in such a great situation there was the possibility that Zechariah's speaking lack of faith would cause the blessing to be destroyed. We Christians work in collaboration with God. God works with us, never without us. Speaking the word and not having a mouth that  speaks sweetness and bitterness is important.

Think of the Wise woman whose son had died. Everyone kept asking her what the problem was with her son? She kept saying "All is well." SHALOM. The temptation to speak about the pathological situation is strong.

2 Kings 4:18-35

18And when the child was grown, it fell on a day, that he went out to his father to the reapers.19And he said unto his father, My head, my head. And he said to a lad, Carry him to his mother.20And when he had taken him, and brought him to his mother, he sat on her knees till noon, and then died. 21And she went up, and laid him on the bed of the man of God, and shut the door upon him, and went out. 22And she called unto her husband, and said, Send me, I pray thee, one of the young men, and one of the asses, that I may run to the man of God, and come again. 23And he said, Wherefore wilt thou go to him to day? it is neither new moon, nor sabbath. And she said, It shall be well. 24Then she saddled an ass, and said to her servant, Drive, and go forward; slack not thy riding for me, except I bid thee. 25So she went and came unto the man of God to mount Carmel. And it came to pass, when the man of God saw her afar off, that he said to Gehazi his servant, Behold, yonder is that Shunammite: 26Run now, I pray thee, to meet her, and say unto her, Is it well with thee? is it well with thy husband? is it well with the child? And she answered, It is well. 27And when she came to the man of God to the hill, she caught him by the feet: but Gehazi came near to thrust her away. And the man of God said, Let her alone; for her soul is vexed within her: and the LORD hath hid it from me, and hath not told me. 28Then she said, Did I desire a son of my lord? did I not say, Do not deceive me?
29Then he said to Gehazi, Gird up thy loins, and take my staff in thine hand, and go thy way: if thou meet any man, salute him not; and if any salute thee, answer him not again: and lay my staff upon the face of the child. 30And the mother of the child said, As the LORD liveth, and asthy soul liveth, I will not leave thee. And he arose, and followed her. 31And Gehazi passed on before them, and laid the staff upon the face of the child; but there was neither voice, nor hearing. Wherefore he went again to meet him, and told him, saying, The child is not awaked.

32And when Elisha was come into the house, behold, the child was dead, and laid upon his bed. 33He went in therefore, and shut the door upon them twain, and prayed unto the LORD.34And he went up, and lay upon the child, and put his mouth upon his mouth, and his eyes upon his eyes, and his hands upon his hands: and he stretched himself upon the child; and the flesh of the child waxed warm. 35Then he returned, and walked in the house to and fro; and went up, and stretched himself upon him: and the child sneezed seven times, and the child opened his eyes. 36And he called Gehazi, and said, Call this Shunammite. So he called her. And when she was come in unto him, he said, Take up thy son. 37Then she went in, and fell at his feet, and bowed herself to the ground, and took up her son, and went out.

War on women, war on little boys, true witnessing and walking the borderlands

I'm totally convinced that much of the war on women nowadays -- yes, there is a war on women!-- is a perverse response to the war against little boys and children.

So, what am I not saying?
I'm not saying that the war on women is unimportant compared to the war on boys.
I'm not saying that all criminal men are emotionally wounded as boys.
I'm not saying that all abusive men should be treated as wounded souls.
I'm not saying that all bad guys are to be pitied.

But a part of me gets very antsy when the media goes on about how bad men are. Often people take it up as a feminist issue, as if there is this evil genetic inclination toward abuse in the y-chromosome. They think men are bad simply because men are men.

Little boys and little girls are unable to deal with abuse. When the abuse happens, they blame themselves most often. Especially if they have prudish blaming parents. The pain has to go somewhere...so the pain gets turned out against themselves or against someone else weaker than themselves. The weaker is often the woman in the relationship, but in same-sex relationships the weaker of the couple will be abused.

I like fairness. This is probably one of the reasons why I get so antsy when I hear folks hating on all men. I imagine a little boy being raped and going to his mother and trying to tell her and his mother -- priggish and Christian and holy-- doesn't want to hear. (Actually, the friend I'm thinking about was raped by his dad from age four and their family was Jewish and his dad was a lawyer...but you know what I mean.)

I've often wondered why I seem to want to write more about the woundedness of boys rather than the woundedness of girls. Several of my feminist writer friends have chided me -- quite cruelly-- saying that I wasn't enlightened because I've fallen into the trap of writing about male fantasy heroes, which is par for the course. Shouldn't I -- they ask-- make a woman/girl a hero? I've really gotten a lot of tongue-lashings about this. But the way I see it is this: If feminism is about helping the outcast and seeing the world as equals, if being my truest self is feminism, then writing about emotionally-wounded males is the thing for me to do. These feminists often don't think I'm being my own true self at all. They think I've allowed the mythos of the patriarchal world to affect me.

Which leads me to another weird thin: I often write more about the white culture (or white cultures) than I do about the black culture. In all my stories, some poor black girl/woman is in the middle of a white culture. And to make matters even sicker, the white culture is often a rich culture..so there's a lot of wish fulfillment mercenary romance thing happening. So, again, is this me being unenlightened? Or is this being myself?

The Bible says: "a true witness delivers souls." This is what I try to be in life: true. I try to be transparent. If I am at heart an oreo, someone who has lost her femininity and her race along the way because of the society and culture I hung around in as a kid, shouldn't I just write from that imperfect place...until the time I get "racially sane and femininely enlightened" as my black and/or feminist friends would define it?

I am also not saying that only the pain of abused little boys matter. I think there are many young girls being abused all over the world. Probably as much as young boys.
I have had three close lesbian friends -- they were all raped by fathers or brothers.
I have had some close gay male friends -- they were raped by fathers and uncles.

I'm not pathologising all gay folks, btw. It's just that in my own experience...my own gay friends were terribly abused. I've personally never met anyone who was born gay, although I've met many people who were oriented toward homosexuality because they were adopted and had unloving dads or they were raped.

To grow up with male friends who were brutally-raped by men or women and to A) say that they were born gay or B) say all men are victimizers...well, to me it would be dishonest to keep silent. And why should I silence myself? To have been bullied by both Christians and non-Christians, to have been slammed by whites and blacks, why should I silence myself? To have been hurt by men and by women, why should I silence myself? Aren't there many people who walk the borderlands as well as I?

Something else: a minister once complimented me by saying my writing is ambassadorial Christianity. He meant that anyone can read my books and for the most part see me as part of their own society.
My friend, Nick Wood, also says of me that as a writer I "walk the borderlands." In effect, when a white person reads my stories, they don't see it as a story written by a black person. True, they see a black main character, and they see black issues. Yet in some odd way, I do not write as they expect a black person to write. So, am I being unenlightened again? Did all that reading of Irish and British Romantic and Victorian literature (and way too much watching of PBS and Masterpiece Theater) screw me up? (Honestly, I still haven't read a lot of Black literature...compared with the Euro-books I've read.)

I'm not saying one should aim to be an oreo. Or aim to straddle the borderlands. But heck, if one finds one's self in the borderlands...and if the borderlands is one's home...well, wouldn't it be a kind of dishonesty to pretend to be something one isn't?

In Constant Tower, my main character Psal is abused. He's unpleasant, as many abused people are. But he's also my  hero. He's honey-colored in a clan of white-skinned people, and he's very emotional in a rational, warrior culture. I love him a lot. 

Theme, Variations, Healing

Okay, anyone who reads a Carole McDonnell novel will find the same themes:
Abuse,
A married family within an extended family or clan
Physical, sexual, and emotional violation
Belongingness/inclusion

There are more...but that's just to give you some examples.

Now, Paul and St John both complained in their letters about people who had harmed them.
Demetrius the coppersmith did Paul much evil and Diotrephes liked "having the preeminence" and didn't allow John -- Jesus' best friend!-- to visit.

But those are letters, not really works of art.

In the same way, we have King David with his deathbed vengeance list and his grief at his own treachery toward his friend whom he had betrayed.

David manages to talk about his pain and the cruelty of his friends in the psalms. He uses his art to raise his pain to a high level.. Psalm 39, Psalm 37, Psalm 73, for instance, are not mere regurgitation of his pain. They are well-crafted.

Some of my issues have reached a place of art where I can talk about them without being aware that I'm talking about them. I don't really think about the person who harmed me. The rape stuff for instance. I was beaten terribly by a white guy who wanted to sleep with me in college but I didn't want to sleep with him. (Good little Christian that I was.) He was quite handsome and a good friend so his appearing in my room one night and trying to rape me and beating me up was something of a surprise. Weirdly, he pops up a lot in many of my stories -- he's Noam in Wind Follower-- and I have no hatred for him although I think he definitely affected my attitude toward men and sex.

I suspect without quite realizing it I've forgiven him. So although the effect of the beating is still with me it just becomes a part of the terrain I travel in my writing. My characters have sexual issues and are not healed. Like me, they are too sickly or too sexually wounded to enjoy any kind of sex. Yet that brings a uniqueness and a gem of healing to my stories. I used to sit there freaking out that I couldn't write good sex scenes, then I realized that there is no way my characters could enjoy sex...so the crap in romance novels where folks have explosive passionate sex just wan't gonna happen in any of my books. There is too much woundedness in sex for me. Because of this guy in college beating me up, because of my preacher grandfather, because my mother didn't want any of her daughters coming home "with the belly like all these poor American Blacks."

My treatment of the Wheel Clan in Constant Tower shows some healing as well. Really, there's this stockholm syndrome thing with my writings. I mean, on the one hand it's good for me that my writing is so... soo.. ambassadorial. As a black writer, I write in such a way that I deal with black issues in a way that whites can understand. I also tend to have a black character alone among whites and yet the story doesn't feel as if the black character belongs to her own tribe but to the white tribe. Ah, little oreo that I am!  But Constant Tower is so much about being wounded in the house of one's friends: whatever that house is -- race, religion, family, church, gender. I am very aware of the evil groups I belong to have done to me...and that awareness permeates my stories...yet.... I feel no need in Constant Tower to describe any particular instance.

But there are other instances --as in My Life as an Onion-- where I go into post traumatic mode and want to put the entire event into the story.  It's obvious I haven't forgiven because when these themes pop up in my stories and my characters actually start telling the exact story of what happened to me the plot gets bogged down. I've ruined many stories by trying to write about a certain incident. It's as if I feel I've not had my say on that issue yet, or that the person(s) who wounded me still don't "get" it.

So there is anger there. Or maybe not anger, but the need to explain...to have my say.  Which is human. But as a Christian, should I be human? And as a writer, can I afford the luxury of writing about certain things that affect my stories for the worst?

God whines a lot about Israel and Judah. In Ezekiel, he even calls them sister/whores who were jonesing for the hottie Assyrian/Egyptian/Ethiopian armies. I think God understands our need -- my need-- to tell my heart.

I think I'm creative enough to write about the variations of these same themes without boring folks to tears. I hope so anyway. Although there are moments where I say to myself: "Uhm, what would I be writing about if my in-laws hadn't rejected me? What would I be writing about if I had gotten along super-well with blacks? What would I be writing about if I had been a cookie-cutter Christian? Would I even be writing? Am I healed because I can write and walk the borderlands? After all, for all my annoyance with holier-than-thou smug Christians and judgmental smug atheists, racist whites and snobby blacks, I tend to be pretty even handed when I write about them. Stockholm Syndrome again? So maybe in some ways I am healed.

And I also think God gave me art to heal me. Not everyone who is wounded becomes dedicated to writing.  Will I write in heaven? We need drama on earth to work through pain. Journaling is okay, mind you...but something about fiction forces the wounded to look into the heart of the abuser. Anyways...singing I can see in heaven. Painting, as well. But will Constant Tower last in the heavenly library? Will it even be applicable? Who knows? But it's applicable now, I guess. It's healing me.

Jacob's third time leaving home

So today, we opened the Bible to this verse:

And Israel took his journey with all that he had, and came to Beersheba, and offered sacrifices unto the God of his father Isaac. And God spake unto Israel in the visions of the night, and said, Jacob, Jacob. And he said, Here [am] I. And he said, I [am] God, the God of thy father: fear not to go down into Egypt; for I will there make of thee a great nation:  Genesis 46:1-3


It dawned on me: Jacob left his "home" three times. True, they were "habiru" (wanderers) but there is wandering around in your general homeland and there is going away on a far journey. 


The first time Jacob/Israel left home, he fled from his brother Esau and ended up in Laban's territory and found himself a wife. In this instance, trials at home and his own crime led him to up and leave. It was an utterly unplanned leaving. He found his wives...so although it was unplanned, it turned our well...kinda. Well, kinda well.


Which leads to the second time he left home. This was somewhat planned but it had to be done sneakily. Here again, he was fleeing from family and he really had nowhere to go except that he was going somewhere else. And there was still the problem of the pesky brother Esau who was out there somewhere still waiting for him.  This leaving led to Rachel lying about the household gods and Jacob accidentally cursing his wife which led to her dying in childbirth. Before Jacob left he'd been talking to God and it was through God's help that he had increased. As he prepared to leave, he prayed to God and reminded God of God's promise. Then he sojourned there for a while, while his family grew.


Then the third time he left home, he had a large family. This was not the usual wandering around but the big leap of going to live in Egypt. Interestingly -- and this is my opinion-- Jacob knew by now that leaving for big journeys always seemed to big major issues. One of Jacob's most telling words: 


And Jacob said unto Pharaoh, The days of the years of my pilgrimage are an hundred and thirty years: few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage.  Genesis 47:9


I suspect that Jacob is now incredibly tired and incredibly wary. He has seen that journeys can bring big trouble, great blessings, and a scary combination of both. Life is a scary, unpredictable thing. So now, although his son is finally found -- his beloved, favorite son-- he is utterly terrified. Also, he probably knew of the prophesy God had given to Abraham that his children would be slaves in Egypt. So now...he has to go down to Egypt. I can imagine the thoughts running about in his head. But God told him to "go" and to not be afraid. So he went.


Hubby and I have been praying for guidance....and I keep feeling God wants us to move. So...must become brave...and  must also ask Him to tell us where to go. Like Jacob, we've ended up in a bit of a mess in our lives because we didn't ask God what to do. So now...