Why is Friday Good?

I have heard this question many times, from friends or on TV, usually said as a joke. But this year I really got to thinking about it. Why is Good Friday so good?

And this question was brought into sharp relief to me by recent tragic events in Japan. How can there be a good God when such massive destruction and death is happening in our world. I really had to think long and hard about this. And what follows is my opinion, because I am totally conjecturing about things I cannot know for sure. But I am trying to pull from the facts and evidence I do have to draw my conclusions.

I recently saw an interview with Rob Bell being conducted by Martin Bashir. The interview was about Bell's new book Love Wins, but occurred just after the tsunami in Japan. Bashir asks, "Which of these is true? Either God is all powerful but doesn't care about the people of Japan or their suffering. Or He does care about the people of Japan, but He's not all powerful. Which one is it?" Bell fumbles a bit with the answer, trying to express that these are not the only two options, but he eventually pushes Bashir to get back to an easier topic, his controversial new book. So if an internationally known pastor who has published multiple books doesn't have a quick answer to this, I won't feel bad if I don't either.

But I can't cop out of the question. It is one that so many people are asking right now. I don't except either of Bashir's options. I don't feel like those are the only choices. Another option I reject is that there is no God at all. So with those possibilities out of the way, what is left?

On the day God made man, the day He formed him out of the dust, made Adam in His image, and breathed life into him, God struck a hard bargain. He decided to give us freedom. We would not be robots or automotons. We would not even be like the angels. We would be creatures that are free to choose to have a relationship with God... or not. To even be capable of this relationship, though, we must really be free to choose it.

On the day He made us, God chose freedom. But He knew this choice would have consequences. He knew it meant that we could choose to disobey and leave fellowhip with him, which is what Adam and Eve did. But without the ability to choose, no real relationship could be had, good or bad. Ironically, because of man's choice, God again moved to make it possible for us to find our way back to Him, even after we disobeyed. He called to us and reached for us and loved us. And yet He realized that because of what had happened and because of how we are made, we can never be good enough on our own. We can never do enough to make atonement for our sins. We can never get to Him through our own strength. On the day God gave us freedom, I think he knew that the consequence would be the suffering and death of his own son for us. But he chose to give us freedom anyway.

If God intervened every time a human may suffer, he would be choosing to take away our freedom. First, I want to establish the fact that every single person's suffering is as important to that person as any one elses. We just celebrated or are about to celebrate the anniversary of several tragedies. The Oklahoma City bombing, Waco, the Gulf oil spill, the Tennessee Flood of May 2010, and the start of the Civil War to name a few. People died during each of these events. Everytime a mother loses a child, or a husband loses a wife, or anyone loses anyone else, suffering occurs. So if we expect God to intervene in Japan, then we should expect it in every case, every time there is pain, heart ache and despair. Even when one man is perpetrating evil against another, innocents are victimized. We have to wonder why God didn't stop it.  

The problem is, if he gave us freedom but then controlled our environment to the degree of preventing all suffering, it would essentially result in our love for Him being forced. A relationship where one person forces the other to love him or her is no relationship at all. Under such a scenario, our actions would become the result of programming. So the day God allowed us to choose, He also had to know that He was allowing us to suffer too. And that He was going to have to watch this happen without stopping it, even though He loves us and wants none of His little ones to suffer. It was and is a conundrum. But He had to know it was worth it. That our freedom was worth the cost.

What I am proposing is that there is an all powerful God, and that he cares. Because he wants us to be free, He Himself has had to suffer, and He still suffers to see the pain in our world. But He knows that the rules of this universe must remain unbroken and our freedom to choose must stay in tact in order that we are able to have a real relationship with Him. Is that just some naive way of coping with the horror of our world? Maybe. But I feel like it is the logical conclusion one must reach from the facts given. God didn't stop the wave in Japan. He didn't sheild and protect those babies in the Oklahoma federal building. My friend Ned was washed away in the flood. But God is not impotent, and God still cares.

So where does prayer enter into this discussion? The existence of Biblically mandated prayer seems to go against all that I am saying here. "Ask and you shall receive" makes no sense if God is not going to intervene into our world to give us what we are asking for. But I will say two things to this. Firstly, maybe it is the act of prayer itself that changes things and, for lack of a better word, "allows" changes to be made. Maybe it is what happens in our bodies and minds when we pray or what happens in our actions when we pray that "allows" prayers to be answered. Or maybe God does intervene directly at times in response to our specific prayers, just because He can and He wants to. It is definitely a mystery.

But here is the thing, if we don't engage the mystery we can never really know God. We need to be thinking about these things, puzzling them out, looking at other angles or different options. Are there questions? Only about a bazillion. But there are also answers that we can find and struggle with. And if we don't think about these things in response to tragedy, we are going to be left only with the two options, the two gods, one impotent and the other uncaring. And the question ringing in our ear, "Which one is it?"

Instead of being left with this question, as we approach good Friday, I think of that day long ago and that choice. A God who knew what freedom would mean, for good and for ill, and yet gave it to us anyway. A Son who said, yes, I know that they won't be able to make it right on their own, but I will go and make it right for them. A love that can be shared by all. A way to have a relationship with the Trinity. It really is good. Difficult, humbling, angering, and mysterious. But so good.

Etsy...An awesome place to shop

 I feel like I have been telling everyone about Etsy lately. Etsy is an online marketplace that offers handmade, vintage and upcycled goods from a host of sellers. Each seller has their own "shop", and one buys from each shop separately.

The beauty of Etsy is that you can find so many cool and unique things. Need a gift for a scientist? type in DNA earrings. How about something for your favorite tandem bike rider?

One of my favorite stores is called Well of Creations, which is run by Robin Norgren . I found this store due to a new policy put in place at my work. A

no visible tattoo policy. I hate this policy and find it pointless, but I would be very hungry with out my job. So I decided it was time to work on compliance.

I wanted to find a cuff to cover my tattoo, but I also wanted to find something that looked as much like my tattoo as possible to cover my tattoo with. I found some really neat cuffs on Robin's site. And after looking at what she had, I realized that it would not be too hard to make one with a dove on it. So I convo-ed her (the etsy way of referring to system messages) and asked if she could make something custom for me. She responded immediately and within 24 hours we had our plan in place. She made me 4 beautiful cuffs to cover my tattoo.

Robin is a funky, hippy, retro kind of chic. She is all about exploring and expanding your creativity, no matter what your skill level. She has a website where you can read all about her philisophy. She even has a curriculum for teaching others how to tap into their own personal well of creations. Check out her bio to see what inspired her to do what she does. Robin is some one who clearly wants to be verdant, and she definitely inspires me. She quotes this verse, which I love, on her page.

 "But whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life"  John 4:14

We can't really be verdant unless we have a water source flowing in us. It is the living water of Christ keeps me verdant.

But I digress.

I have found a couple more great Etsy stores that I want to mention, but I have hardly scratched the surface of all the beautiful stores there are.

Local Wisdom Cards is an awesome shop to find unique and beautiful cards. I could spend hours browsing their selection and reading the cards. I first bought one of their cards when shopping in a funky shop in Louisville, KY. I went to their Etsy store to get more. If you want the perfect card for for someone going through a rough time, but the normal "Get Well" or "Sympathy" cards won't do, click here. Another card I absolutely love is here.

Caustic Threads is another store I have purchased from. The T-shirt I got was awesome (they run small, so be careful when ordering). It was the perfect gift for my sister who was completing a play about Robots.

There is so much to explore, so go on there, have some fun and find a beautiful and unique gift for anyone on your list. You can feel good because you are supporting local artists and local businesses without having to "be there". AND many of the items are re-used and upcycled, so you are helping with the reduce, reuse, recylce cause.

The Life and Times...

I wrote this post quite a while ago, but never posted it. So I am posting it now, with some few edits from when I wrote it, but mostly in the state I found it in when I rediscovered it--

Sometimes I feel like one of the ladies of Cranford, just waiting for the rail road to come to town.

OK, for those not familiar with fairly obscure British mini-series, that reference will mean very little. But I just finished watching it, and then proceeded to come to my computer and watch this preview for the documentary Crude (as in oil). It sort of dovetailed things in my mind to come to this thought.

What thing is in my life now that is like the railroad was to them? Scary, big, unstoppable, will change everything, but in the end will become a normal part of life, bringing good as well as bad.

You see, in the movie Cranford, the rail road IS coming. It is hacking its way through the hills and fields. With it will come scary people who can simply hop on a train and within hours be within the town limits of Cranford. Crime will spike, and the masses will become educated. And this is to be feared by the gentility, because they know what happened in France when the masses were educated and decided to demand more. "Off with their heads!" was the hew and cry.

But Mrs. Gaskins, the authoress, (yes, she went by that moniker, including the "Mrs.") was very forward looking for her time. She wrote these stories in the 1840's and yet the education of the masses and of women were both themes supported in her book. She clearly illustrated that life did not have to be as it always was in order to be good.

So it got me to thinking, what things are going on now, in this day, that I fear may change, when in reality, those things should change.

Here is where the the movie preview comes in. You see I proceeded to watch this video, and I broke into tears just at the preview. Here is the summary of the movie that I obtained from http://www.imdb.com/:

"One of the largest and most controversial legal cases on the planet. An inside look at the infamous $27 billion "Amazon Chernobyl" case, CRUDE is a real-life high stakes legal drama set against a backdrop of the environmental movement, global politics, celebrity activism, human rights advocacy, the media, multinational corporate power, and rapidly-disappearing indigenous cultures. Presenting a complex situation from multiple viewpoints, the film examines a complicated situation from several angles while bringing a story of environmental peril and human suffering into focus"

How can we live in a world where one persons weath is provided through such injustice. And before you think I have gone socialist, it is not capitalism that is to blame here. It is the ability to leave the land of accountability (the US) and go to a place whose government can be bought or bullied into doing what you want. It is the lack of consequences that allows things like this to happen. If they had to dump their sludge in America, we would have changed things long ago. In fact we have. Remember the Love canal? But instead of finding a way not to have sludge, we are just making it someone else's problem.

We as people have to start making change! I want to be one of the ones who is making these changes before her time. Like educating a woman or a slave in the 1840s, or maybe throwing my corset in the lake at the turn of the century, or perhaps wearing pants in the 50's. (I'll keep my bra, but more power to those who burned them in the 70's!)

So what will it be? Driving less, eating less meat (or none), having a smaller house, dumping debt, working from home? Or something we haven't thought of yet. But it has to be something. And it may be something that seems scary. Like the railroad coming to Cranford. But those paradox shifts bring good and bad and, simply put, a new way of life.

I hope I am always far sighted enough to see the change coming and flexible enough to be part of it, instead of fighting against it.

Unless of course the change involves evil Teddy Bears that come out of the ground. We must fight those, of course! :)