The spirit of the Law?

I'd like to postulate something; could it be that the heart and "spirit" of the Judaic-Christian Bible has always been found in the this verse from Matthew 22;36-40: "Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?" And He said to him, " 'You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and all your soul, and with all your mind.' "This is the great and foremost commandment "The second is like it, 'You shall love neighbor as yourself.' "On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets."

I say this because of a news story I stumbled upon. The story, reported in January of this year, stated that a pottery shard, discovered 18 miles from Jerusalem and dated to around the tenth century BCE, contained this Hebrew inscription (the text below is the English translation);

1' you shall not do [it], but worship the [Lord].
2' Judge
the sla[ve] and the wid[ow] / Judge the orph[an]
3' [and] the stranger. [Pl]ead for the infant / plead for the po[or and]
4' the widow. Rehabilitate [the poor] at the hands of the king.
5' Protect the po[or and] the slave / [supp]ort the stranger.

You can read the rest of the story here. It contains some other insights to how old the written Hebrew language actually is, but to me this is a revelation. Or at least, the beginning of one. We, as Christians, often tend to ignore Jesus as a Jewish individual, someone who studied the Torah and grew up in that tradition. There's a lot of talk among historians about the hospitality of the ancient peoples of the middle east, particularly the Hebrews, and this, along with Jesus' statement about the greatest commandment, seems to affirm all that "hippie, love everyone" ideology that has become popular among Emergent and liberal Christian thinking. I'm not making any grand statements here, because I feel like I'm only scratching the surface but I think my view on things just got a whole new spin and serious shot in the arm.

-Dan

Puppies.

What more need to be said? They are incredibly cute, fun and a great time. Until they don't lose energy and you are trying to write/apply for jobs/watch a movie/eat a peanut butter and jelly sandwich at which point they become the spawn of Satan. Figuratively, of course.

My new roommate has a puppy. She's by and large awesome, well behaved and thankfully small. However, she's also eight months old and has the stamina and energy of a perpetual motion machine. She also happens to like my dirty laundry, which stands in the open due to lack of closet space.

Children are going to drive me bonkers one day.

-Dan

Are we predestined, or free-willed? pt. 1

I read a blog by Donald Miller where he questioned whether or not God had a specific design for your life and he surmised that there probably wasn't. His backing was that out of the vast majority of people in the Bible, only a scant few are reported as being "chosen" for something great. This idea really stuck with me for some reason. I have been wrestling with it for some time now, because I think that he may be on to something. I know that my early life experience in the church was peppered with this "predestination" ideology; that God has "great plans" for my life. However, I must admit that of the six billion people in the world today, hundreds of millions of them being professing Christians, I just can't see it anymore. What is it about me that makes me so much more, "special" than others? Do I really have anymore "favor with God" than the next person? If I am predestined for great things, then does that mean I have no free will of my own? Is my free will found in submitting to this predestination?

I have this feeling, in the back of my mind, that I am not meant for "great things" at least, not on the level that most would assume. Do I have a sphere of influence that I can positively impact? Absolutely. Does this mean that I have "great things" in store for me? Depends on your idea of great things.

I know that there is some "thing" that I am supposed to do. This "thing" is my passion. It is my "gift." It is what will be the vessel that the Holy Spirit can move through, via me, to influence people. To draw them close to the light of Christ. I suppose that this in itself is a "great thing" as I can imagine nothing greater than a restored spiritual relationship with the Creator. However, I don't feel myself, or most of us really, are going to be people of "great influence." For every Martin Luther King Jr. there's a million John Smiths. I am one of those. We should, ultimately be OK with this, because when it comes down to the last legs of our earthly existence, we should be satisfied in knowing that we leave behind loved ones who were positively influenced by our life.

As for the nature of our free will, a stance that includes us not being predestined for "great things" really leaves much of the leg work of our lives to us. You absolutely can not be any sort of influence sitting at home waiting for God to drop a gift in your lap. Sloth is a horrible vice, one that can be twisted to something ultra spiritual as, "I just need to wait on the Lord."

I have some more thoughts, so consider this a preliminary exposition. I want to go into these ideas more and, more specifically, search out the Scripture to see what it says. I plan to follow up in a few days. Be blessed.

-Dan

Truth.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the concept of truth. From a post-modern perspective truth is an elusive concept. It is something that has no "foundation" for lack of a better word; a completely malleable idea that is dependent on the individuals' life, experiences and education. I can imagine there are some things that are not subject to this, such as water always being 2 hydrogens, one oxygen. While we as humans have deemed those elements those things and given them that arbitrary numerical value, the fact is still that those elements when combined in that way produce water. However, this is more a "truth" than "the truth." In short, what post-modernism seeks to do is lay question to "Truth." "Truth," with a capital t takes on a new realm. It is something that is seen as factual, never changing and solid. That there are no "grand narratives" implies that any sort of text, ideology, or belief system is no "Truth" and thus can be "right for the individual" but not for the collective. This is where I saw myself falling, in terms of my views on the world.

When it comes to Jesus Christ however, this doesn't quite hold. Here's what I've come to believe, or in actuality, rediscover. Whatever my thoughts on "truth" or the world may be, however much they may be contingent to my leaning towards post-modernism, I can't do that with Jesus Christ. When I am faced with the reality that is Jesus's death and resurrection, there needs to be a decision made. It is either true, or it isn't. If true, it should radically change our frame of mind, our life, our values. It should alter us in a way that makes us free. Free from the influences of darkness and sin, free to be people how are actively engaged in this thing called life. Free to be "servants to all." Free to love God without abandon.

A couple of months ago, the pastor of the church I was attending gave a sermon on foundations. He said that the foundation of our lives should be the death and resurrection of Jesus. He emphasized the resurrection aspect because, without it, Christianity is without any value. If all we have is a man dead, or at best a God dead, then our faith is literally dead. Not metaphorically, but literally. But, with the resurrection, Jesus conquered death and gave us life. Spiritual life and earthly life to the fullest. We can take part in this, if we only believe.

I've gone back and forth for the past few years about what I believe. I have come to realize that I didn't want to believe, not because I knew it wasn't true. It was just more convenient for me to not believe. The Truth is that Jesus died for our sins, to restore us to relationship with God, and through His resurrection all this was put into motion. Death, not the physical kind, but the spiritual kind, is conquered. We need not fear about what happens when we die. Our souls can now live in full communion with God, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. When it comes down to it, my life is fuller, richer, and much more satisfying when I don't deny the Truth, but when I embrace it.

Where do I go from here? I honestly have no clue. I know that I have the foundation, the starting point, but that's just it. It's my starting point! I would like to invite anyone who reads this blog to comment and give me your insight. I would like this to be a place of discussion, a place where we can "work out our faith" together. Peace be with you all.

Engagement.

Just in case anyone still reads this, I got engaged to the love of my life last night. In December of 2010, I will marry my girlfriend of three and half years, Megan. I am more excited for this than anything else in my life!



-Dan

Sacred Spaces.

I want to talk about spaces. During my undergraduate career I took a course titled, "Writing Beyond Borders" and we talked about the spaces that we all create. Through this course I read such wonderful books as Michael Ondaatje's The English Patient, Graceland by Chris Abani and the wonderful works of Meena Alexander. While that class mainly talked about how these writers "wrote" beyond and within the confines of borders (whether they be racially, culturally, geographically, etc.) one idea that stuck out to me in all that time was the idea of spaces. You can not have borders without spaces, and these spaces are created by us, both to house these borders and to fill them. While the rest of this post won't focus (much) on these novels, I felt it a good jumping off point for my idea on spaces.

As I stated before, we create these spaces that house and fill our borders. In The English Patient, the cave of swimmers became a sort of "sacred space;" a place consecrated in some way or another as different. In that particular novel, it was built around the protective care (and subsequent death) of one character by another (though not intentionally). In this case, the "sacred space" is created because of the death of a lover. It is "sacred" by means of being a place of life and death. We create similar spaces (think graveyards), but the kind I wish to talk about are developed on a separate path. The ones I wish to talk about are not consecrated based on something so convoluted; rather they are created as spaces away. While the cave of swimmers is also a place away, it is not a place that was actively sought out. It provided refuge, yet a grave. Thus the dichotomy of it being a sacred space. Like I said though, there are other means of creating these "places away."

One such place, in my own personal life, is located in Glenmere Park, here in Greeley. The park itself is one of the more sought after ones, both due to it's proximity to the UNC campus, but it's relative seclusion. The second is the reason I go there. It is close enough to walk to, yet enough removed so that the sounds of the city fade off into the distance. In Glenmere there is a bench, and it sits facing away from the roads, looking into the park. The view immediately in front is of a pound, with tall, honey brown reeds growing out of the water. There is a slight trickle as the water runs down a stone into a smaller pond, and fish are not uncommon to see swimming through the water. There are birds that nest in the towering trees over the pond and it all sounds so... alive.

I went to this bench the other night, which is where I came across this idea. The area smelled green, and after spending my day working with computers and espresso machines, driving around and staying in my basement apartment, I found the smell of fresh grass and clear water to be refreshing. I felt cleansed. It's this point that I fully realized why I have come to this exact spot over the past six years; it is my sacred space. It is my "away place" where I go to think, pray, be quiet, read, meditate. Write. It is the spot I have designated as "away" from my day to day grind. It, like the aforementioned cave, is also a place of death. It is a place I went to when I was recovering from my aunt's death. A place where I almost broke down thinking of my beloved grandparents who passed away recently. It is a place where I feel like I can be open. A consecrated place.

We erect borders to give us space and definition. As many know though, those borders are quickly disappearing, as the world becomes more and more global. It is this very reason that I think this type of "sacred space" should be sought after. We need areas where we create our own borders, deem it "sacred" by the means in which these places allow us to escape. While I may not have made a strong connection with the literature I began talking about, I still see some small connection between the two. My apologies if I did not quite read into the work what I should have, I've been out of the game awhile. Peace.

Poetry; Ode to a Coffee Bean

A poem I wrote for a class. We were supposed to write something that described a "love" of ours. I decided to write one on coffee. Yes, terribly nerdy, but I thought this might be a good, light post to contrast my previous serious one.

Ode to a Coffee Bean

The smells of sunrise fly into my head
The black, earthy smell of liquid joy
Rouse me from the sleep of engulfing beds
That first sip is as to a child on Christmas,
Getting her favorite toy.
The dark, smooth coating given to the mug
Opens a portal into the secret word
Where one bean from a stately tree hung,
Picked, looked at with a careful eye, in fingers twirled
Chosen to be my morning comfort
From halfway across the globe.
Now you sit, among compatriots ground, covered
With scalding liquid to extract your essence
For me to ingest, to share, to connect as lover
To see the conjoined life we lead, you needing me
To unlock your potential, me needing you to unlock my day.




-Daniel J. Adkins; 2008

Memorium

It's been roughly a year, give or take, since I had to experience three funerals in a row. Two of which were for beloved grandparents, one for my girlfriend's grandfather. To be quite honest, the whole time was utter hell. There was nothing good about the experience, even if all three had the foreboding shadow cast upon the last few months. All three lived full lives, some longer than others. All three left behind families that loved and cared about them deeply. All three, are remembered fondly and while greatly missed, are known to be in better places than they were at the end of their earth bound existence. There was some closure to their lives, too. Grown children, on their own. Grandchildren growing up and becoming adults; the anathema to death. Where there is death, life continues.

But suicide is a different matter. The recent introduction of suicide into my personal sphere of life has brought some new meditations and questions on death. Here was an individual who had nothing apparently wrong. Someone who was, by all accounts, happy and fulfilled in this life. Obviously, this individual was not. Before I continue, I would like to note that this was not someone I knew personally, having only met once or twice. Those times though would not have lead me to think that a little less than a year later that person would be intentionally gone from this existence. It's a curious thing really, that someone would intentionally remove themselves from this life. There was thought, motive, action. Planning. Yet, there is no way to know what brought this on. There never will be.

My grandfather passed because of cancer. My grandmother, old age. Her body simply gave out. There really is no other way to explain it. She lived 95 years and I guess her soul and body decided that was enough time. My grandfather was "taken" by disease. However, even if he had lasted much longer, his body was so ravaged, his 82 year old frame would not have supported him anyway. A twenty something individual taking their own life, with no apparent inner turmoil to cause it? This is where death truly stings.

We can legitimize an elderly death, or one by disease. It wasn't the persons fault, they succumbed to natural forces of the universe. Suicide takes that away. That comfort, that meaning is gone. The death hangs too, like a thick fog, engulfing everything in muted tones, obscuring what should be good foresight. Yet, life continues.

Life and death are intimately connected, so much so that they are nearly one and the same. Life feeds on life. Carnivorous or not, all things we consume are "alive" and all of them die. From before we are conceived by the meeting of our genetic raw data, death is there. Millions of potential pieces of us "die" in the struggle to create us. Women, before the advent of modern medicine, could very well die in child birth. Truth be told, this is still more the case in the majority of the earth. We are truly spoiled in the West.

When a loved one dies, we all must find a way to continue. This is the harshness and sweetness of death; we must continue on without a valuable part of ourselves, yet we are still able to continue. Graveyards are fascinating to me. The person buried there won't give one rip about the plot of land or the headstone. It's all for us. To remember them and to give us hope to soldier on. This should make life all the more beautiful to us. It should cause us to take chances, laugh loudly and heartily, and love without reservation. We don't though.

We get wrapped up in our own lives. Paying bills, raising children, feeding our bodies, the everyday realities of life ad nauseum. Then again, maybe we should just find joy in these realities. Maybe this is where we should find our joy. I could also be blowing smoke out of my ass. That's more the case I think. I'm not going to pretend to understand any of what I've read, or have any answers. A simple meditation on that facet of life that is constantly engaged in the ending of it.

April is national poetry month... and I'm going to post about it again!

First off, I suck at this blog thing. I don't know why, but I don't see myself as having interesting enough content for an all the time thing. I will post, just sporadically (for the 5 of you following anyway).

April is National Poetry Month and as one of my favorite art forms, I plan to engage in this celebration of the written, rhythmic word. To start off, here is another poem I wrote. This came from a class I took where I had to take the title of a poem, not read said poem, and then write my own based only on the title. Here it goes! Happy April!

Only One of My Deaths

Walk down the cereal path and you’ll notice
A curious thing,
The sugar cane smiles brightly, cheerfully,
and resides on equal footing with
The smallest ones.

Happy go lucky creatures dance in
Suspended prose
Grinning eternally , saying to all,
“Come run with me through the syrup fields with
High fructose corn bellies.”

I, as it goes, am immune to this
Siren song, rather my hand
Clutches onto all bran, hydrogenated, iron weighted
Damn near, 100% system maintaining
Rabbit food.

-Daniel J. Adkins; 2008

Please sir, I'd like another.

This blog may come down to being little more than an excuse to complain, but I really dislike my job. Actually, let me rephrase that; I really dislike aspects of my job. I work in retail and a particularly odd kind of retail. On any given day I will find myself selling cigars, brewing coffee, making lattes, baking bread, stocking books/magazines, making sandwiches... you get the point. It's not any of the specific work that gets me down. All lines of work have the tedious aspect that is required to keep said business/employer/whatever going. It's also (most of the time) not the customers that bother me. Rather, it's the realization (or continuous realization) that retail doesn't care about you. As an employee, you are easily replaceable. This element of capitalism is necessary to it's survival; money has no feelings and values so should we expect those invested in the pursuit of such to have any? This is not a diatribe against gaining comfortable living means or buying fun stuff, it is simply a reality of the situation.

I was looking at some customers in line while I was working on something the other day and this thought came into my head; I grew up hearing that everyone was special and, especially coming from a Christian upbringing, that there was something significant and special I can and am meant to do. God had a plan for me, and my gifts and talents could allow me to become anything I wanted. Looking at the people standing in line, I realized how fleeting that sort of thinking is. I imagined all the customers waiting for me working jobs fairly similar to mine. Low pay, long hours, lots of physically demanding work (in one capacity or another) and I imagined them hearing the same things I heard growing up. Then I imagined them feeling beaten down in some fashion because they realized that only 1 out of a couple million ever get a book published. Only a select few see the art, music, karate, whatever classes they take as children turn into something when they get older. We all have to "settle" at some point. This is what I imagined the people in line feeling, because this is what I feel.

With all this said, I don't want to leave on a hopeless note. While the reality of our society and economic model encourages complacency and settling, there is one thing that we have not had taken from us yet. I may make coffee for a living instead of being a famous writer or missionary or something to look up to, but I do have my thoughts. I have my freedom to express my views and this is not limited to a constitutional model. It is inherit in my being as a reasoning human. I can look at a line of people who only want me to make a sandwich for them so they can get back to their lame, shitty job in half an hour and realize how much it says about society. How much it says about myself. Realize that I can express those thoughts via blog on the internet and if that right were taken from me I can still express it on paper, to a loved one, to any one who will listen. So, as I stare another day in face, another day filled with sandwiches, espresso, books and impatient employers and customers, I know that I'm not defeated if I have "settled" for a pedestrian job, because I can think and speak freely and am actively aware of that. It might make all the difference.

A poem.

I have finally decided on the direction I want to take this blog. The things I am presently interested in, and have been for sometime, are literature, society and spirituality. Therefore, that is the direction I am now going to take this blog. I will be posting a few times a week until I can get myself back up to speed on posting. To start things off, I would like to post a poem I wrote for your Sunday afternoon enjoyment. :)

A Steelworker Finds St. Louis Not So Pleasant

Thirteen, the day I began
To belt steel into steel to the tune
Of a Southern Man. My wages stoked
The fire of my mother’s stew
And the threads of the stitches on my
Sibling’s garments.

Nineteen, the day I began
To coat garish wooden boxes
With latex, and oil and stain.
With hues of green, purple, grey
And clothed my siblings the same.

Twenty-five, the day I began
To see the world through hops
Stained lenses, from the planks of floors
To the cool black of pavement, on streets.
My siblings repeated, every line of my
Coarse, brown breath, verbatim.

Forty-two, the day I began
To accept my mother’s words,
“Shades of your father, all of you,”
Echoed from the bottom of our shared
Cocktail glass. My siblings did the same.

Sixty-seven, the day I began
My career as a brown beard,
Much to the chagrin of my siblings,
Our mother needed the company.
Or so I told the smoking pepper-box.

-Daniel J. Adkins; 2008

It's time to post again.

And that's the size of it. I want to post again and I'm not sure if it will be on here or somewhere else. It most likely will be on a blogger server, but I don't know if I will continue this "Proto Merkaba blog." Which reminds me, I never, in the three years I consistently posted on here, explained the meaning of that name. I think that's a good place to start.

There are two different explanations for the name. The main one is probably the most damaging to any sort of "cool" image I may project. However, I am not going to say that first. Fooled ya, didn't I? No, first I am going dissect the two words themselves and give you a "better" explanation. "Proto" is a prefix denoting "first" or "foremost," used commonly in chemical terminology. So to attach "proto" to something is to say that the following word is the "original" or "foremost" of that something. "Merkaba" is a bastardized spelling of the name for the "spirit vessel" or "Chariot of God" referred to in Ezekiel 1:4-26. It should follow then that a logical interpretation of the two words in succession of each other would read as such; "proto merkaba" can be read as the "first spirit vessel." This is the way in which I have interpreted it for the most part. I like the way it sounds, and it gets me thinking. At the start of this blog I ascribed some arbitrary meaning to the phrase "first spirit vessel" that related to Jesus Christ. Yes, that is very "mystic" and some might say "emergent" of me to call Christ the "first spirit vessel" but it makes some sense. If Christ is the first and the last, being one with the Holy Spirit, but also housing it as the human, earthly "vessel" He was for 33 years, then it isn't too hard of a stretch. On a more recent reflection for the title of the blog, it seems very arbitrary in a literal sense. I'm not sure if I totally like it, but it seems to get people thinking and that is a reason that I started this blog that I hope to continue.

Now, the main reason why this name appears as it does. I would like to say the lengthy paragraph I just typed out is the main reason the title exists, but it is only a secondary one. Truthfully, this is where I got the name from. Nerd city, bitches.

-Dan