WORKING ON MY ADVENT SKILLS, PART ONE

          In the beginning the elohim created skies and earth.

          Religious traditions (and Star Trek) speak often about being a better person. My own religious tradition, Baptist Christian, urges me to be a better man in principle, but I am often at odds with the ideal human being posited by that tradition.  

          I was raised to believe a better Christian is growing spiritually the more legalistic he or she is, the more magical his or her knowledge is, and the more ascetic is his or her spirit. 

          I truck not with that.  On the contrary, I’ve latched onto something else that seems more authentic.

          A truer faith urges me to believe a better Christian is growing spiritually the more loving he or she is, the more truth and fact based his or her knowledge is, and the more abundant is his or her spirit.  

          Allow me to be more specific.  Being kind, loving kindness, is essential to growing spiritually.  Seeking justice, which includes the knowledge and work that lessens suffering and defends those the world could not care less about is growing spiritually.  Making love incarnate so it overflows in my life and reaches those I love is growing spiritually.  

            I could go my entire life and never cuss, never take a drink, never miss a church service, never doubt life started out in a garden with a talking snake, never stop believing women are second class Kingdom of God citizens, never forget to insist self-righteously to everyone else that my interpretation of the Bible, my theology, and God's theology are identical--yes, I could do all that and still be mean as hell to others.

          I truck not in that.  That crap is way too easy, especially when you have the personality for it.  What's hard as quantum physics is believing all that Sermon on the Mount/Plains stuff is what Jesus intended us to be in this world...now...and not waiting until we get to Sky World.

          Advent proclaims this gospel.  Advent proclaims it with the hope that a new Emperor dwells among us, a son of God who is not a Caesar, but a Son of God who is a Messiah whose peace is not a Pax Romana enforced by violence, but a Kingdom of God enforced by love and justice.  

          Enacting that program is being a better human being and then some.  I so long to be perfect at that, but the plain truth is, I suck at it.

          You see, the problem is this: I might turn the other cheek a hundred times, and speak kindly to insolent others a thousand times, but one moment of meanness reveals to me how I’m no more steadfast than those pillars of Dagon that Samson caused to collapse.

          Next time, I’ll share the event that inspired this post.  The event itself was an Advent inspired good-deed-for-the-day exalting my inner Boy Scout until my big mouth screwed it up.

          Blessings…