A Long Overdue Update
So a long overdue update. Lisa and I are getting very used to vegan dietary restrictions. We’ve found that we’re eating a lot of Indian and Asian cuisines because they’re easy to make vegan. It’s a little frustrating trying to go out to eat (which may not be a bad thing), because, especially in Iowa, there are not a lot of choices on the menu. We’ve started to find recipes that we really enjoy as well. One of our personal favorites is a seared tofu (yes, it does sear) in peanut sauce. Maybe once we hit March we’ll post our favorites. I’ve noticed that I’m sleeping deeper, I’ve felt more awake, but we may have hit a snag.
We had our physicals last Tuesday; Thursday I got a call from the doctor because some of my blood levels caused her some concern. So today it was a trek to Mercy Hospital for an ultrasound of my right-side organs (liver, right kidney, etc) and then to Weland Labs to have more blood drawn. When the nurse called me last week, she said that sometimes these tests are just flukes, so we’ll see what the deal is. We should have results by Wednesday of the ultrasound, hopefully sooner from the other labs. Be praying, please.
So on another note, I’ve been talking with some other folks about just feeling disconnected from the church. Perhaps it’s a generational thing, maybe it’s more, but I feel genuinely disconnected with many of my brothers and sisters when it comes to topics of faith and other “Christian” topics. I hear talks about “faith” and “salt and light” and “righteousness”, but rarely do I hear or see my brothers and sisters doing anything differently than the rest of the American society. Granted, this has been a “kick” I’ve been on for several months now (indeed, it was what inspired Lisa and I to experiment with being vegan), nor do I think that everyone should be exactly like me, but at the same time, surely our “faith” inspires us to do something differently from the “unrighteous” world around us. Surely being “salt and light” means something other than spending our Sunday mornings (and perhaps our Wednesday evenings) in a different location! It’s like we’ve changed Jesus’ words to “First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside will appear the same as before.” (Matthew 23:26 NIV, italics changed for point). I’m not advocating following the law or that all Christians appear the same way, but it seems to me that our faith is pretty meaningless if it only changes the way that we think. Indeed, if we give our lives to Jesus (as so many have proclaimed to do), then certainly the way we interact with the world around us should be given to the Lord as well!
I’ve felt this disconnection with people in the church (note…I use “church” to refer to a localized American church and will use Church to indicate the global, universal Bride of Christ) for some time. About 2 years ago I kept thinking to myself “if this is all there is to Christianity, I’m not sure we serve an infinite God!” And indeed, there seems to be much more…and it’s not even unexplored! I find myself reading Foster, Augustine, Benedict, Claiborne, Bell…and they all too have felt this way. It’s comforting to know that there are and have been others like me that have felt like the current incarnation of church is lacking.
The frustration that I have comes from being in a place where I’ve never been called to anything higher than “don’t have sex before marriage and come to church on Sunday”. A few years later the suggestion was made that we might want to start tithing. I’ve felt like I’ve been alone in this for some time. It’s only in the last year or two that I’ve begun to discover that I’m not alone, that I’m not crazy; there really is more that Jesus is calling the church to than where we are now, if only we’d listen.
The real question is: what can I do about it? I don’t think I, personally, can do much for anyone else, nor do I think that it’s productive to try to do so. My goal, first and foremost, is to focus on myself and my household. Control those things that you can, right? The next is to encourage those who seem like they want to try stuff out; they are not alone or even the first to want to attempt to have the Good News shape their entire lives.
What do you guys think?
In the Beginning
So I’ve been seriously contemplating this for a while. I have a tendency to jump onto new things and then leave them quickly, so I guess that only time will tell exactly how this will end up.
Over the course of the last few months, my wife and I have been talking about what it really means to follow Jesus. The thing that has occurred to us is that we are way too afraid to try new things as Christians. If what Jesus said about always being with us, then why is it that we’re so afraid? The church has to start a new way of thinking, a new way of approaching this thing called Christianity. What I’m suggesting is that we look to the open source software communities for ideas.
Open source simply means that the information used to create the end product is open for anyone to see. For software, this means the source code is available for anyone to look at. What this leads to is groups of people improving the software over time, adding features that they think would be neat, or fixing bugs that inevitably arise. If the software is useful and people enjoy using it, a community forms around the software to support it and modify it as it sees the need to do so.
Being the geek that I am coupled with the strong beliefs that I have in a loving God, I feel that Christianity could greatly benefit from this idea. The first and most obvious idea, in my opinion, that we need to look at is simply opening up the inner workings of our faith. To be able to say that this is what I believe and this is why I believe it from a centered, well developed place is essential to Christian faith and practice. This flies in the face of what (I hesitate to say majority here, but it feels that way quite a bit) Christians have been taught to do. We’ve so emphasized that “all we need is faith” that we no longer really know what we have faith in. We’re so worried about making things work and look good that we’ve missed the intent of the program in the first place. We’ve become the Netscape Communicator (or Windows ME, if you will) of belief systems, so bloated with crap that nobody really wants or needs that we’ve completely lost what Jesus intended us to be in the first place. But I digress.
We should be free in all kinds of ways because we know that God’s with us, no matter what. We are free to disagree with each other in love, and try new things and really just see if God honors them.
We’ve decided to call this “trial and error” kind of living “experiments in holiness”. Here’s the idea: if we feel that the Bible tells us to live a certain way, or if the ideals found in the Bible dictate a certain lifestyle, we’d like to try it and see if God honors it. We’ll set a timeline for change, a re-evaluation point, and go for it. The idea is simple. If God seems to be in it, we’ll keep doing it as long as He’s in it. If we feel He’s leading us to stop, we will. If He doesn’t lead us to stop, we won’t.
The first experiment we’ve decided to do is going vegan. The motivation is as follows: 36% of the grain worldwide goes to livestock. The ratios of grain in to meat out in pounds from livestock and poultry, even when including milk and eggs, range anywhere from 5:1 (eggs) to 54:1(beef). When 13% of the world’s population is starving, is it right for us living as Christians to continue to consume meat or animal products? There are all kinds of people that disagree, but we believe that the answer is a resounding “no”. And that’s ok! But rather than try to convert you with facts and statistics, we’d invite you to pray about it, talk with people about it, and if you feel God is leading you to try it, or even if you’re unsure, try it out! We figure, what’s the worst that can happen? We’re trying it, we’ll let you know if God is blessing us through it in our lives. In fact, if you decide to try it, let’s hear your results!
I want to encourage you, whether it be giving away all your stuff and living simply or fasting regularly or starting to practice periods of solitude like Jesus did, don’t be afraid! Our God is amazing and He’ll let you know where He wants you. The only unacceptable thing in this grand experiment is to follow Jesus and have our lifestyles remain unchanged!
