This is one of those late night/early morning word purges, so pick any heading that you are interested in, realizing that some of this is redundant. I did type fast so be gracious with my typos.

Introduction

This is not my final statement on my thoughts on the pursuit of self-worth, which I will return to soon. But as a title, rather than “hodgepodge” I’ve reverted to my old heading of “Ramblings.” This was the heading I used for my blog for almost twenty years. That old blog, The Christian Monist, was about two things. The first was speaking to those post-evangelicals, such as myself, who left that movement only to suddenly find themselves in the middle of a confusing wilderness. I wanted to help them in the same way I needed help when I came out of that movement in 1990 and began an intense study to find a path out of the wasteland.

The second topic was me speaking against late-post modernism. At the time I would have said speaking against the tenets of post modernism in general. However, some of my readers have since persuaded me that post modernism contributed positive things to our culture and with further study, I agree. In the 1960s to 1980s the movement was responsible for deconstructing ideas of our culture that needed deconstructing. But like all big philosophical fads, it too went to seed as a destructive force eroding away    all aspirations of truth.

Then I felt I had said all I needed to say to those groups and re-tooled my blog to focus on writing just months before I became deathly sick, and you know the rest of the story.

My Exit from Evangelism

On a cold December evening in 1990 I was sitting in a Chinese restaurant in old Cairo. My missionary boss, who I saw about once a year as he lived in Syria, was in town. My time with him at dinner was awkward. Like many spiritual leaders within our Navigator organization, he had a Yoda complex, spoke in Yodish syntax or even limericks as if they were God’s magic mouthpiece. Confusing at best. Never questioning them, doubting their words was a sign of being “unspiritual.” Being spiritual or unspiritual is the ultimate manipulative words of control within most religious movements. Social coercion at its best.

At the end of that delicious meal, as we were standing to leave, he with a toothpick in his mouth, nonchalantly added (as it was none of my business), “Oh, I’ve decided to move you (and my family, Denise and three young children, implied) to Sana, Yemen in a couple of months.”

I mumbled, “This will be tough on Denise and the kids (the organization offered little help in our move to Egypt and would offer no help for our move to Yemen).

The goateed man then snickered with a holy-Yoda snicker, “Uh, but lie to Denise. Tell her you are moving her to Cyprus (a MUCH easier place to live) because I’ve found that women can’t handle these things very well.”

This was not a sudden departure from this boss’s normal tone. But this was the last straw of a 28-year journey within American evangelicalism’s peculiar world behind the looking glass. Earlier that year, that same boss blocked our attempts to take our three-year-old son Daniel to an American doctor, after five of the best Egypt physicians could not figure out why he was very ill, near death at one point. He sent us a telex (old-fashioned text), “Permission to take you son to American for healthcare is denied. We depend on the national system and God for our care.” I know this sounds bizarre now, but this is how religious fervor often trumps our God-given reason. There is a flavor of cult-ness within all religious groups with zeal.

I stood in that restaurant as my pent-up rage began to peculate up through my veins. He could see I was angry, then he added, “Some day Mike, you,” taking the toothpick out of his mouth and point it at me, “will have to be the leader of your family.” My hands fisted, and I was within seconds of knocking his Yodish grin off his face, the toothpick spinning through the air. I, instead, fled into the cold dark night of old Cairo, stumbling through the maze of alleys like a drunk, inebriated on raw emotions. Lost. I knew if I had punched him, repercussions would have echoed throughout our evangelical world. I would have lost my job, my friends, my reputation, and my world. I did eventually lose all those things, but at a gradual pace rather than abruptly as the punch would have brought.

My evangelical friends—and I still have some, who I dearly love—read my departure as I was abused, and bitterness has turned me sour against their “wonderful” movement. No, not true. Revisionist history. The moment within the Chinese restaurant opened my eyes to a world of nonsense, smoke, and mirrors, lies and hype, where I was a participant in the abuse, not a victim, accepting it and using it myself. I was done lying. My last words to God were, “I want to seek truth at all costs and if you exist, I will find you there but not here, not within the religious masquerade.” God’s last words to me? I think I heard him whisper into my ears, on those dark and dirty streets were, “You should have punched him. I would have held your beer.”

I was not a good husband, father, or thinker under the auspices of evangelicalism, or religion in general. The word “spiritual” while now vogue in this post-reason world, sends chills up my spine. After a stent in atheism in the 1990s, in my journey, I did rediscover the historical Jesus. It is profoundly simple; all you need to know is held within his sermons. No longer a fan of Christian religion, which I see as a human endeavor—a man-made business of instilling a feeling of piety, which I no longer desire. Religion has always had an unhealthy lust for power. For that reason, the popes were in bed with murderous kings for centuries. The same reason is that evangelicals are now in bed with unscrupulous politicians, naked, entangled, sheets pulled over their heads. A loss of truth. The historical Jesus never even checking into the same motel.

Since I’ve digressed so far, I must also clarify, so that I’m not misunderstood. While I’m critical of movements, I have a much greater respect and love for individuals, even those of said movements. As an evangelical, if you did not adopt the same numerous religious tenets as we had (beliefs that made us feel pious) you were stupid, immoral, and likely bound for hell. Some of my evangelical friends still tell me that I’m bound for hell for attending a church with a woman at the helm. “Not Biblical,” they say. But their “biblical” encases many things that give them piety, and a feeling of power (such as power over women as my missionary boss promoted), nowhere in the Bible, but against the grain of a loving, reasonable, and just God.

I even humbly respect atheists, as I was one and for good reason. They are not immoral or stupid. I respect the beauty of the culture of Catholics, Muslims, Buddhists, not because I believe all their teachings are true, but because I believe all people are created in God’s image and bring his beauty to everything they touch. Their cultures are rich, and I offer them my fullest respect and love. Something I couldn’t have done 30 years ago as an evangelical. Estranged from them by dogmas.

Yes, I am still involved with church life for a simple reason, there are some wonderful people there. No better pastor. With a common cause, we can do better in bringing justice to an unjust world. But I stay out of the religious weeds.

My Speaking Against Post Modernism.

I am not one screaming with their hair on fire that the sky is falling under post-modernism’s watch. There have been 4-5 (depends on how you count it) major philosophical fads in western civilization since the Greeks, and we silly humans always take the fads too far. We don’t understand that the way we think, philosophically, is driven by fads in the same way we pick out what we wear. Even my favorite movement, The Enlightenment, eventually went too far as modernity and scientific positivism, with ideas that reason (as good as it is) and science would usher us into bliss. It didn’t.

No fad starts or ends on a dime.  However, the movie (and real story) of Oppenheimer and the nuclear bomb was the defining movement of the end of modernity. I think (and hope) that the defining apex of post-modernism was expressed in pop culture when Harrison Ford says, as Indiana Jones, “I’ve learned that it doesn’t matter what you believe, but how hard you believe it.” This represents a total loss of truth. While this loss of truth gives humans a fleeting good feeling and social peace (all opinions are the same), it ends in disaster. Without a sense of absolute truth, all views are the same and there must be a total loss of morals and meaning. As I’ve said many times, I love and respect people of all pure beliefs, classical Buddhist, Muslims, Jews, atheists, etc. not because they are all true, but because their aspirations are for a pure belief. I have no patience for those who blend opposing beliefs, which pop-pastors and writers like to do, because they are disingenuous. Opposites cannot be contained within the same belief system unless you give up the aspiration for truth. While a truthless world is inviting, seems to bring social peace, it ends in disaster. You cannot speak against racism if there is no truth. You cannot challenge the “opinions” of the serial rapist if there is no truth. Ethics will eventually collapse under the late post-modernism’s loss of truth. That’s why I speak, but this is not the end of the world. New thinking fads will grip us when post-modernism eventually fails.

On A Personal Family Note

As you know, I write here about four things; 1) my fight with cancer, which is stable thank God, 2) building my cottage (which is part of my fight against cancer), 3) speaking in favor of absolute truth in a truthless world, and 4) occasionally about writing. I don’t normally speak about other things in my personal life or my family. I avoid those topics for two reasons. The first is that I consider the life of my wife and kids as private to them and I don’t like to talk about them without their consent. Secondly, these things about my everyday life and typical struggles are no greater than your own. I feel narcissistic to write about tough things in life when I know that many of you are living in a worse plight. But this morning, I’m making a rare exception.

This has been a tough three months. Where to begin? First, I must set the situation up by saying I’m not well, physically, as you know. The effects of renal failure and a rather intense chemo program leaves me seriously fatigued plus a plethora of other side effects like stomach flu several times a week . . . unannounced.

We had a wonderful trip to Iceland in June, returned home and things got busy. It was an alignment of stars (not literally of course) where we had 15 guests come and stay with us over a period of 30 days. I loved having the guests, my sisters, my son and his family, my grandsons, and my daughter and her friends.

Overlapping with the later guests, suddenly my cottage building became a bit of a crisis. I needed help putting these giant roofing panels on and my son and his friends, graciously, offered to come and help. I would have been ready for them by the end of September, however, they only had break in the middle of August. For me to get ready for them, I had a humongous amount of work to do. I usually work for two hours, come in and rest, and then work for two more hours. But during this time, I had to work eight hours and work fast to get ready for them. I sustained several painful injuries during this time which did not help. While they were here, I felt obligated to work with them. They worked 8–10-hour days to get the work done.

As soon as the panels were on, the next crisis was I had another humongous amount of work to do, in the wake of their work. For one, the roof panels were not supposed to get wet. It took eight weeks to find a roofer and during this time, it was a constant effort to keep the cottage dry with giant 50 foot by 50-foot tarps.

I understand that this work is of my own making, and I have no right to complain. Right? That is true. But now, this period of insane cottage building has ended, the roofer has the top dried in and now I can drift back into my casual and enjoyable cottage building. I am thrilled.

Why don’t I ask for help? It is complicated. First, at a normal pace as I have now, I don’t need help. But I also find it hard working with others. It’s not like the grade school note on your report card “doesn’t play well with others,” it is about my cancer and treatment. When I work with normal people, especially young and normal, it wears me out. I did this again yesterday as I helped my son-in-law with a project. I’m in pain 24-7 (peripheral neuropathy from my chemo) and with long standing or ladder climbing my pain goes through the roof. I also have several musculoskeletal injuries that limit me and then there is my fatigue factor. Normal people cannot appreciate these limits, so I push through the pain to continue. I don’t mean to sound like a whinner, but this is my life “running with the mortals” assuming I’m sub-mortal.

My other family issues that came up during this difficult season involved my daughter and my son in Minneapolis. First, the story with the better outcome.

My daughter was expecting her first child. She was thrilled as any new mother-to-be would be, wanting a natural at home delivery. Unfortunately, something happened about her fifth month where the baby stopped growing. Tests could not figure out why. She was turned over to an obstetrician and watched carefully. They were trying to get her along with the pregnancy as far as possible. Finally, last week, the call was made to take the baby by c section a month early . . . and tiny.

Vivian Lola came into this world last week at 4 lbs. much better than feared. Her and mom are doing well, and Vivian got out of ICU after 4 days and is now home. A happy ending to that story.

The second story involves my oldest son. Before Vivian, he was our only bearer of grandchildren, three grandsons, and they live in Minneapolis. He, his wife, and one son met us in Iceland. A wonderful trip in June.Then they were out here in August for a fabulous visit, his wife leaving a little early. But then a couple of weeks later, to our surprise at least, their marriage suddenly and severely went off the rails. It is chaos and without a vision of hope of repair at this juncture. The two older boys were already dealing with some mental health issues and this situation has not been good for them to say the least. The middle child speaking of self-harm. We are going out in two weeks and may bring one or both older boys back to live with us.

So, with all the things shared this morning, our plate has been full this season. I know that you have your own personal issues and things that may even eclipse what I’ve shared and for that I feel guilty talking about our things. Fortunately, with the birth of Vivian going well and now the cottage back to a sane pace of work, it is only my son that keeps us awake at night.

Mike