Rainn and SoulPancake Ask the Hard Questions
The last few days I’ve been spending time perusing SoulPancake. It’s a great site that focuses on asking and answering questions. Both contributors and members post questions to the site for the community to discuss. In addition to discussing and questioning the site also features regular columns and Creative Challenges. Basically everything about the site challenges the community to examine what they believe and why and look at the world from new perspectives.
SoulPancake is more of a mission than a Web site. It's a MOVEMENT to wrestle with and chew on LIFE'S BIG QUESTIONS. It's a way to EXPLORE why we believe the things that we believe. It's a place for you to TALK about your soul and the existence of God. It's a space to ENGAGE in art, philosophy, creativity, truth, and beauty. And ultimately, SoulPancake is a community of people who are digging DEEPER to figure out what it means to be human and to experience this rich, strange, difficult, and awesome journey called life.1
One of the founders of the site is Rainn Wilson (yes, The Office’s Dwight Schrute). He co-created SoulPancake with Joshua Homnick and Devon Gundry because “of their desire to create a space where people from all walks of life could discuss and question what it means to be human—a place to wrestle with the spiritual, philosophical, and creative journey that is life.” Here’s there summary of what SoulPancake is:
The post that I’ve been digging through lately is by Rainn (Mr. Wilson seems much too formal) himself about the earthquake in Haiti titled “How could God do this?” As of right now there are 211 comments that I’m about one third of the way through. I appreciate Rainn’s vulnerability, anger and uncertainty; he yells at God and demands answers:
But God dammit! How could this God, who lives mighty in my mind and heart, literally create, cause, place, know of, ALLOW an earthquake in one of the WORST possible places on this entire planet? There's nowhere least suited for an earthquake than the most poverty-ridden, fragile, helter-skelter city you can imagine.
God can take it. An infinite God can certainly bear the frustration, fear and anger of a humanity so finite that we still don’t understand the world around us or each other. But the value of Rainn’s post is not that he gets angry. The value is that he asks us to answer a question that most of us try to avoid. He asks, “Help me understand: How do YOU rectify God, suffering, and prayer?”
As people of faith we are called to answer this question and others like it. Faith ought to challenge our lives and change the way we view and encounter the world. Ignoring these questions only allows us to ignore the reality that we live in a suffering world and are broken ourselves.
So how do you answer Rainn’s question? I’ll post my response on SoulPancake and here on Friday, January 22 Sunday, January 24 and look forward to yours.
Update: I finished writing it out, but haven't gotten it typed up yet to post. I'm making the decision to be social this weekend and I also work. It'll be up by Sunday evening though. Thanks!
I’m Still Here…
It was recently brought to my attention (thanks for the comment!) that's it's been a while since my last post. The end of the year is often hectic. That isn't the real reason for things slowing down though.
- I'm still a little self conscious. While most of the people who read my blog are friends or acquaintances, whatever I post can be seen by the world. I struggle with the idea of publishing something that isn't up to par or restricted by my narrow experience.
- My ADHD meds are spendy and I haven't been on them since mid November. Sometimes I wonder how much I really need to be on them. After being without them a month, I realize how much I struggle to focus and stay on task.
- Blogging is completely different than any other writing I've ever done. It's taking me some time to find my voice for the posts. I have rough drafts on my computer; some are entirely too long while others struggle to make a concise point.
I don't mean to excuse myself from being such a slacker but I've been struggling with my subpar output and have been trying to figure out why. The good news is that I have found some confidence, am back on my "pay attention pills" and have typed enough rough drafts to feel comfortable getting my thoughts and ideas into the proper form.
I will be getting posts up and will be posting more frequently. To those who keep checking my blog, thank you! To those who've just found it, there's more to come. Thank you for your patience (and prodding) in this project. I knew it would take me some time to find a flow. I also knew that I needed to set things up to provide the motivation to actually move past just wanting to make a blog. I'll have a new (real) post up soon, so please check back!
Discussion and Logic (and lack thereof)
Last night I went to Skinner's Pub with a few friends. We talked about politics and religion - oh, and the thread count of our sheets. We had some great conversation. One of my friends (he considers himself an unbeliever) said that one of the reasons he has a lot of trouble with Christianity is the lack of logic. He said that he finds it nearly impossible to follow many Christian's theology in a logical manner.
The sad thing is that I didn't even feel the urge to correct him. To be honest, I agreed with him very enthusiastically. A lot of effort is required to develop theology that explains how scripture is analyzed (is it literal, figurative, for a people that are not us, for us or inspirational) and to be able to explain the picture we have of God and what that means for us today.
So I wonder if we encourage each other to examine our faith enough. Do we take opportunities (at the bar or any other "unconventional" place) to discuss what we claim to believe? Are we willing enough to admit if something we believe doesn't quite hold up?
Reluctant Reformation
Last week was about the third most important week in the church, if you're Lutheran. At the top of the list are Christmas and Easter. Last week was number three: Reformation week. It isn't too difficult to see why it's such an appealing week for Lutherans to celebrate. We're named after the reformer after all.
Unfortunately we don't seem to have much of the spirit of ol' uncle Marty. For the last fifteen years I've heard sermons about the importance of congregations having a reformation attitude, but see (and hear about) congregations that struggle to change the smallest things. I hear reasons ranging from the importance of not pushing away the people already in the church to the importance of tradition.
Now, I certainly don't want to alienate people already in the church and do respect and value tradition, I wonder, at what expense? Youth and Young Adults are increasingly absent from the church and membership in the ELCA is down in general, but there is no real reformation.
My frustration lies in the fact that we've celebrated Reformation Week as long as I can remember, but I've never seen any substantial reformation happen. We're often the slowest to adjust when it comes to staying relevant. People need to be engaged and people want sincerity. But a church talking about reformation but never moving forward isn't engaging or sincere.
I think rather than talking about reformation, we ought to actually do it. Reformation is like baptism. Yes, it is an event that is part of our past; yes, we need to know what it means and what God did for us in those events; and yes, they are certainly big parts of our identity. But reformation, like baptism, must be celebrated daily. We must embrace that the old is dead so that newness in Christ is our identity.
Baptism is death from the old sinful self and life in Christ and for our neighbor. And that is the reformation we need: a church dead to itself. Tradition, comfort and history are only valuable in that through them we can relate to our neighbor and make them feel comfortable. If those things become barriers to the people we should be focusing on, then Christ calls us to find a way to bring the Gospel to them.
So let's wait to talk about the "reformation we're having" until we're actually having one. Let's pull our traditions, church culture and comfort out by the roots. If it's out by the roots we can reshape the church to focus outside itself, rather than in pews. And once we do that, we can replant some of what's been pulled out, remembering that the church is about bringing Christ to the world, not about the world coming to church.
Ta-Da!
Well, as you can see, I settled on a theme for the blog. I do still plan to design my own, but this is a great start. I also got a logo up for the site. This will all change depending on how quickly I learn the CSS and PHP required to develop my own. I will have my first real post up tomorrow. So instead of these little updates, we'll have a decent enough topic to discuss. Thanks for everyone who's given me input and encouragement while getting things up and running!
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- Rainn and SoulPancake Ask the Hard Questions
- I’m Still Here…
- Discussion and Logic (and lack thereof)
- Reluctant Reformation
- Ta-Da!
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- What do I have to do to get my phone working on twitter? I've done everything they suggested and did a follow up for my trouble ticket. boo.
- Having lunch at Taco John's with Dana.
- Listening to O.A.R. "Rain or Shine" (Live) while I clean around the house - AMAZING!
- Well, I guess since I always have Sunday off now I don't have to feel bad that I overslept church today...oops!
- I'm excited that my new work schedule starts today - no more working on Sundays!
