Rethinking Perspective

It was a week ago today that I shared the recent complications that have developed in my spiritual journey. …Wow I almost referred to this as my personal spiritual journey until I realized how silly it would be to use the word ‘personal’ when describing something that has come to be so much of a communal experience. The short story that I shared with my friends in my living room is that, others have used my frustrations with the church and modern religiosity to help me form the greatest questions about faith, the bible and the life of Jesus that I have ever had.

Questions
I guess it was foolish of me to think that my questions would not be perceived as a threat to those that felt that they had always known the right answers. When I shared my story I knew that some would not like the idea that a person must at some point in their spiritual journey deconstruct all the beliefs that they have built their faith upon. For me questions are a central part of me really understanding anything, especially faith. If I can ask a good question I can understand the subject better. I question everything always. Everything is open to questioning. I invite everyone to question with me so that we all might have better understandings, together. I invite everyone to question everything I say.

Answers
When you have been raised in a culture similar to the one I have been raised in you are thought that some questions are forbidden. Answers are sacred. The more answers that you know the more knowledge that you have. The problem with this model of knowledge acquisition is that it is difficult to create new knowledge. Questions tend to generate more questions and deeper understandings. An answer culture tends to pass the generally accepted answers between people until everyone has them. In an answer culture there is no need to gain better answers or deeper understandings. Lately I have begun to see answers as something that you can hold on to for only a brief moment until you question your own answers. Then even the answers you have constructed yourself are gone.

Others with Questions
The other night, I was sharing my spiritual journey with my questions about faith. I also shared two sources of questioning with my friends. The first was a short passage from the book Velvet Elvis by Rob Bell. This is a great book Rob has some great questions. The second was a passage from Acts 15:1-15. In this passage my favorite verse is where the disciples and the elders had to wrestle with the question of circumcision and Gentiles. They knew what the bible said but they did not know what the practical implication of the text was in their newfound cultural sounding. I would love for us to be able to do this more. I would love for us to really start wrestling with the bible more and start to figure out how we can act it out in our current cultural surroundings.

At last someone done something with excel that i find interesting. I think that from now on every time I see someone put a excel graph into a powerpoint presentation I will always think of how much prettier it could have been.

in a new website/quicktime movie/printed book Danielle Aubert has decided that excel makes a drawing tool capable of making something worth looking at.

Check it out here: Excel Art Video

So I just found the coolest website that allows you to make wishes for the world. Then when people see your wishes they can decide that they want to wish the same thing or they can suggest a small step that can be taken to make that wish come true. large groups wishing for the global good or something.

Check out my wishes
my wishes

Come one come all come check out some art. Come participate, view, eat and experance. This will be great! Bring everyone you know.

 Update: here are some pictures from the event