Life Metaphors: the Garden, the Tree, and the Fall

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Many years ago, I learned to regard Scripture “literally” in a very specific sense: not in the sense that each word must be understood in a literal sense, but that the Bible contains very different types of literature and that it’s often best to treat each type separately. History as history, poetry as poetry, philosophy as philosophy, and so forth.

For some years now, I’ve come to understand more parts of Scripture as metaphor. I won’t go so far as to say I’m right in each case, but thinking of some parts as metaphorical helps me understand it a little better.


(The Garden of Eden, by Thomas Cole, 1828. Public domain.)

For instance, what can the story of the Fall tell us if it is more metaphorical than historical? I’ve begun thinking of it as representative of our human journey through life.

Here’s what I mean by that:

The Garden represents the innocence into which we are born. It represents our earliest breaths, our pure potentiality, and even our exploration of the wonders of the world. It is that state in our lives, before we have grown jaded and corrupted, when we don’t understand the pain we experience, in which we are closest to the God who made us. We walk in the cool shade, naked and unashamed.

Then we encounter the Tree.

The Tree, of course, represents knowledge — it is the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, after all — and possibly wisdom. It is larger than we are, and we can rest in its shade or climb its heights; though, if we climb, we run the risk of falling. And its fruit is not one fruit only, but many: often sweet, but sometimes unfortunately bitter — and even, perhaps, poisonous. As we eat of it, we grow out of the innocence of youth into adulthood (and hopefully into knowledge), but do we grow into wisdom? If we’re lucky, if we’re careful, perhaps, though we may only do so by climbing and falling and climbing again, over and over, despite the injuries we sustain.

Finally, we face the Fall — expulsion from not only the vicinity of the Tree but from the Garden entire. In this metaphor, the Fall represents death. No matter how much knowledge we attain or wisdom we develop, we are condemned to the grave.

But just as being expelled from the Garden opened up a wider world for humanity to explore, we may hope that death opens up new vistas, broader universes, and deeper knowledge of God and all of reality.

___

For other musings and oddball ideas, see
– A Church More Like Christ
– My other recent release, Elements of War
– My Amazon Page or my Bandcamp Page, or subscribe to my newsletter

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God, Knows

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A few weeks ago, a musician friend posted a thought-provoking question on Facebook. He said he is an atheist, but in all sincerity asked: “What does God believe?”

I answered that God believes that all of us are lovable. I think that, even when we feel unlovable, even when we are at our lowest points, God believes we are lovable and acts on that belief by loving us. I believe Scripture bears that out, as 1 John tells us God is love.

The question started my mental gears turning, in their teeth-broken-or-keys-missing-or-bearings-needing-greasing-lest-they-seize-at-any-moment manner, and I began to ponder not what God believes but what does God know?

The pat answer — that God knows everything, that the omniscient nature we ascribe to God is sufficient to account for all nuances of the question — felt unsatisfying to me.

I’ve studied Theory of Knowledge for some years (ha! some decades, now), and written about it in two books — applied to warfare in Elements of War, and to educational administration in Quality Education — and I began to think about God and knowledge from that perspective.

Theory of Knowledge is less about what we know than about how we know: how we observe the world around us and process sensory inputs, how we develop concepts to make sense of “the chaos of the given” (a term I much appreciate from C.I. Lewis’s Mind and the World Order), and how we apply those concepts to develop predictions of how the world will work. Knowledge in action consists of those predictions we make, and experience either bears them out or gives us more input to refine those predictions, those theories. The inputs, the data, are not knowledge, nor is information. Knowledge is a product and a tool: data become information, which becomes knowledge, which we then use to interact with the world.

It seemed too much for me to try to conceptualize God’s knowledge in terms of sensory input data being processed into information and thus into predictive knowledge. It occurred to me that part of God’s nature might just include being omnisentient,* or sensing everything. As the author of all creation, God it seems must have sensed, must have compassed, all the resultant effects of creation. All the raw data of creation, down to quantum phenomenon beyond the charge and spin of subatomic particles, must at least be available to God in every instant of what we think of as time (which itself may be some completely different dimension to God).

The more I tried to wrap my mind around it, the more I found it was rather too much for my feeble brain to begin to comprehend.

But there’s another aspect of knowledge I think applies. Under Theory of Knowledge, all knowledge in our experience is predictive — we apply the concepts and theories to decide how to act, based on how we think those actions and other factors are likely to turn out — and, as such, our knowledge is subject to error. There are some things we know with near certainty, but always we face the possibility that we may be wrong. Every prediction we make, from the most mundane to the most critical, has within it the possibility that it will be wrong.

Not so with God, I think. To us, knowledge is probable; to God, knowledge is certain. We think we know; in contrast, God knows.

I do not mean that in the quasi-Calvinistic sense that everything is predetermined. I reject that utterly, because I reject the notion that we are puppets deluded into thinking we have agency and because it has led to too many painful outcomes to have been the intent of our loving God. Instead, I mean it in terms that while our limited human brains can predict a wide variety of possible outcome for any action, God’s infinite mind can conceive of every possible outcome.

Fork in the road, decision tree, September, Discovery Park, Seattle, Washington, USA
(Image: “Fork in the road, decision tree, September, Discovery Park, Seattle, Washington, USA,” by Wonderlane, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

Think of our actions as taking place at metaphorical forks in the road, where we must decide which path to take. The farther we go, the more such choices we make, always hopeful of the destination we have in mind. But because our knowledge is imperfect, we cannot always be sure of our choices. Some of those paths may lead us to destruction, some to penury, some to success beyond our wildest imaginations, but we cannot know with certainty which path is best to take.

In contrast, God knows the outcomes of all the paths. Perhaps it is not that God knows which specific decision we will make in any given moment, which fork in the road we will take, as much as that God knows what will happen whichever path we pursue: at that fork, and the next, and the next, outward into infinity. And not only that: As we exercise our freedom to choose, even if our choices are unwise, God loves us no matter what.

I hope that is as great a source of comfort for you as it is for me: Not only that God knows, but that God loves us despite the possible (and the realized) failings that our limited-knowledge choices may produce.

___

*A word of my own coinage, at least as far as I know. I reckon we could consider God to be omnisapient as well.

___

If this post provoked any thought for you — or just provoked you — you might also be interested in my latest book, A Church More Like Christ.

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Does Your Church Deny Itself?

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At the church we attended yesterday, the sermon text was from the eighth chapter of the Gospel of Mark and, once again, I found myself thinking about Christ’s words as they might apply to the organized church as well as to individual Christians.

To paraphrase,

… He summoned the crowd together with His disciples, and said to them, “If any church wants to come after Me, it must deny itself, take up its cross, and follow Me. For whoever wants to save his soul will lose it, but whoever loses his soul for My sake and the gospel’s will save it. For what does it benefit a church to gain the whole world, and forfeit its soul? For what could a church give in exchange for its soul?”

The pastor spent some time on what “denial” means in this context, i.e., what it means for us to deny ourselves. But what church denies itself?

In my experience, a church only denies itself if it’s not bringing in enough offerings to cover whatever it wants to do or buy– and even then, I’ve seen churches go into debt (often couched as “stepping out in faith”) to finance projects that were more wants than needs, and that served themselves more than others. I do not recall being a member of or associated with a church that systematically denied itself in order to bless or benefit others more consistently or more thoroughly.

Do you know of one? This example came to my attention recently: a church in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, that over the years has bought and forgiven millions of dollars’ worth of medical debt. Have you heard of any others?


(Image: “Matthew 16:24,” by GuardtheDoors, on DeviantArt under Creative Commons.)

And what might it mean for a church to deny itself and take up its own cross? What church is prepared to follow its Savior to Calvary, to sacrifice itself — its riches, its reputation, even its very existence — for the sake of the gospel?

Too many churches — and even one is too many — seem instead to sacrifice the gospel for the sake of worldly standing, influence, and power. Those churches build monuments to themselves more than temples to a holy God: sheepfolds in which to shelter more and more converts that join their flocks, rather than training grounds to develop more and better disciples to send out in service. They focus their attention so much on those inside the church that the wider world becomes blurry in their vision, sometimes to the point that the world outside the church may as well not even exist — or, if they do cast a quick glance at and reach out to the world outside the walls, their efforts are perfunctory and only a pale imitation of their Lord.

Whether corporate churches or individuals, may God forgive us for all the good we could have done for others if we were not so focused on doing good for ourselves.

___

If you’re interested in more thoughts along these lines, I’d be honored if you took a look at my book, A Church More Like Christ.

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The brush in my hand is empty of paint

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The brush in my hand is empty of paint to color you all the same
And it’s empty of tar to feather you with in some politician’s name
Instead I’ll just use it to dust off the clinging debris of road and fray
So we can sit down and break bread together in hope of a better day

(Royalty-free image from PickPik.)

___

For other musings and oddball ideas, see

– A Church More Like Christ (e-book)

– My other recent release! Elements of War (paperback)

– My Amazon Page or Bandcamp Page, or subscribe to my newsletter

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Not Very Christian of Me

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Confession can be good for the soul. Will you take my confession?

I confess that I would like — in the sense of taking perverse enjoyment — to kill a man. Two men, in fact. Or, possibly better yet, to maim them: beat them to bloody pulps and leave them to contemplate their crimes in as much pain as I could inflict.

Not very Christian of me, I know.

Here’s what I wrote about one of the base-born whom I would like to destroy: a child molester who has never been called to account.

I know of a case where a particular brand of Calvinism led an otherwise upstanding Christian woman to discount her middle-school molestation by a college dropout (and purportedly good, strong Christian) as “God’s will.” They were, she claimed, “in love”—and while it’s true that Scripture tells us love covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8, perhaps alluding to Proverbs 10:12), we might debate whether it covers what would get one party on a sex offenders’ register. As it was, neither that victim nor another I learned of later were willing to call the perpetrator to account; and hearsay, alas, is insufficient to interest law enforcement.

And here, I confess how much I would like to wound him and another abusive fiend:

As one who harbors a certain amount of unforgiveness in his heart—truthfully, a significant amount, particularly toward men who have abused women I love—this part of the Lord’s Prayer [i.e., “forgive us … as we forgive”] gives me pause. These men have never asked for forgiveness, which would force my hand and put the onus on me to live up to Jesus’s instruction to forgive numerous times (Matthew 18:21-2), and I expect they never will: My anger toward them is all internal. These men did not sin directly against me, but nonetheless all I feel for them is marginally controlled fury. As much as I remind myself that the Lord claimed the right of vengeance (Romans 12:19, after Deuteronomy 32:35), part of me would dearly love it if I could be, to corrupt St. Francis of Assisi’s prayer, made an instrument of the Lord’s wrath.

How I wish the Lord would change my heart — cool the burning rage, soothe the intolerable pain, or (even better!) excise the cancerous memory — so I can go through my days without wishing for the opportunity to swing a baseball bat, a tire iron, or some even more dangerous weapon at their smug, self-satisfied faces.

Anyway, that’s my confession.

rage
(Image: “Rage,” by istolethetv, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

From time to time, I see a post on social media along the lines of “the only thing keeping me from killing someone is not wanting to go to jail,” and I can relate to that — but avoiding jail isn’t the only thing that stays my hand. I’ve been told that neither of them are worth it, and I see the wisdom in that. But, primarily, I want to be better than either of them can ever hope to be. But sometimes that’s not as satisfying as I might wish. I would settle for selective amnesia, by which I might evict all thought of them from my head.

How about you? Is there anyone you wish you could injure, or kill, or visit with some other form of vengeance? I’m genuinely curious if anyone else would admit, would confess, to the same deadly desire.

___

P.S. Believe it or not, those passages of confession are from A Church More Like Christ. It’s a short book, and thankfully has more in it than just me railing against abusers.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Unwanted Epiphanies

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Today is Epiphany, when we Christians celebrate the wise men visiting the infant Jesus.

An epiphany, in more general terms of course, is some sudden insight, some moment of revelation, some instant of burgeoning wisdom.

And sometimes, epiphanies suck.


(Image: “Epiphany,” by Beck3D, on DeviantArt under Creative Commons.)

Discovering unwanted, unimagined, heartbreaking facts, after which we can never return to that state of innocence, of blissful ignorance we previously enjoyed — those epiphanies can be soul-crushing. The pain, the bitterness, lingers.

Maybe on this day we can be more like the wise men, who saw a good sign and reckoned it for what it was, and then fitted out their caravan and sallied forth.

Hopefully what we find will bring more joy than pain, more happiness than hardship. And hopefully it will be enough to comfort us, and maybe to heal us, when unwanted epiphanies come our way.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

So Much Hatred Everywhere

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Reading so much vitriolic rhetoric over the past few days, I ginned up this little verse and posted it to my main social media accounts today:

So much hatred everywhere
On my left and on my right
But I won’t surrender to despair
Or give up in the fight
To support and do the good I can
Even if my good may not be great
And to try to be a better man
Without giving in to hate

It’s nothing much, but it reflects how I feel.
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Social Media Proliferation … and, Bridging the Gap

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So, how many social media sites are you on these days?

I ask because I’ve been watching with some amusement the mass exodus from X/Twitter to Bluesky. A great many folks on Facebook have announced their transition from the one with the blue bird logo to the one with the blue butterfly logo, often with snarky commentary about Mr. Musk’s management of the former and/or the results of recent election. (Alas, some of the commentary is more hateful than snarky.)

I’m still on X/Twitter, but the other day I set up a Bluesky account to see what it’s all about. As my first post, I submitted some verse:

Bluesky Beckoning

I see blue sky outside my window
Behind the few remaining leaves
Shaking as the autumn wind blows
And the smiling sun deceives me
Into thinking that it’s warm out
Despite the trees becoming bare–
Still, I’ll go stumbling down the scenic route
In the invigorating air

This makes the sixth social media site I’m on, which is probably three too many. In rough order of how much time I spend on them, I’m on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, MeWe, and Bluesky. I was on Google+ while it lasted, though I didn’t use it much, and still have a Gab account which I haven’t looked at in ages. That’s in addition to bulletin boards like Baen’s Bar and Discord; sites that are considered social media but I don’t use as such, like YouTube; and things I’m not sure how to categorize, like Substack. Imagine if I were also on TikTok and Threads and Reddit and Snapchat and Pinterest and Tumblr and … what did I miss? I’m sure I missed some.

It makes me long for a treaty on the nonproliferation of social media.

Social Media Icons With Paint Splash Effect
(Image: “Social Media Icons With Paint Splash Effect,” by Lewis Ogden, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

Which brings me back to the X/Twitter-to-Bluesky exodus.

From what I’ve seen, the majority of people posting about moving completely from one site to the other seem wistful, as if remembering X/Twitter as some idyllic playground where they waltzed carefree among sweet-smelling flowers of approval and likemindedness. And perhaps for them it was just so! Now that others have gained verbal ground on them, though, with arguments they consider distasteful and attitudes and opinions of which they disapprove, they have packed up their toys and moved to another playground.

Now, I’m all for spending time with friendly people rather than enduring hostility. But that Bluesky playground has its own unsavoriness. Much of the posting — and this may be because it’s still so new to so many people — expresses relief that they found a new playground, albeit often with no small amount of disdain for those who would choose to stay behind. Some of the sneering and condescension is amusing, though not when it seems to slide from simple dislike into snobbery and hatefulness.

I don’t know how comfortable all the Bluesky immigrants should be. One day, something may spark an exodus from Bluesky to some new platform yet to be imagined. Sites come and go — MySpace, anyone? — and some people will always be looking for the next, better thing.

I expect the end result will be more societal fragmentation, as the echo chambers resound in chorus and the political bubbles thicken and calcify by us-versus-them rhetoric, rather than minds meeting in ways that help us understand one another — even if we choose not to appreciate one another. But because I can be a glutton for punishment and believe that bridging gaps between people is important, I will stand in the middle, dipping my toes into each pond now and again, ready to engage with anyone on either side who is willing to discuss, debate, or even argue in good faith and civility.

Let me know if you’d like to stand with me.

___

For other musings and oddball ideas, see
– My latest release, also with some gap-bridging implications, A Church More Like Christ
– My other recent release! Elements of War
– My Amazon Page or Bandcamp Page, or subscribe to my newsletterFacebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

You – Yes, YOU – Are Salt and Light

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Whoever you are, wherever you are, as you read this, I believe you are the salt of the earth and you are the light of the world, as Jesus told his followers they were two-thousand-some years ago.

If you’re not familiar with what Jesus said about salt and light, here’s a paraphrase from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter five, the Sermon on the Mount:

You are the salt of the earth. But if the salt has lost its saltiness, how will it be made salty again? It is then good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot.

You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden, nor do we light a candle and put it under a basket, but on a candlestick so it lights everyone in the house. So let your light shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

To be considered salt is to be both useful and valuable. In the ancient world, salt was extremely important: not just as a flavoring but as a preservative and even as currency (the word “salary” derives from salt). A few years ago, in fact, I wrote a trio of blog posts about salt in which I examined such things as how just the right amount of salt is needed and “salty” language and even how “Immigrants Are Like Salt”.

And to be the light of the world is not only to be useful but to be, quite literally, illuminating.

I believe that you, whether you are of any faith — Christian or Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist or Shinto or Taoist or what-have-you — or no faith, are salt and light. Yes, whether you are a theist or an atheist, whether you are devout or agnostic, you are — not “might be,” not “ought to be,” but are — salt and light at least to some degree.

Why do I think that? Because

Jesus told his listeners that they were — and, by extension, we are — the salt of the Earth and the light of the world, and it is worth noting that Christ was not speaking to Christians because no one at the time would have been considered such. We must conclude, then, that everyone, whether a professed believer or a staunch antitheist, is salt that is either savory or has lost its savor; likewise, everyone is a light that is either on a stand or under a basket.*

Salt of the Earth
(Image: “Salt of the Earth,” by David Campbell, on Flickr under Creative Commons.)

It is true that Jesus’s audience was primarily Jewish, but I feel certain some Gentiles who either lived in the area, were passing through as merchants, or were observing the crowd as Roman soldiers might, must have heard what he said. I believe his words were meant for them as well. And while many things in the Hebrew Bible apply only to Jewish people, and many things in the New Testament apply only to professing Christians, this can be true of everyone, for all time.

So I conclude that you, in whatever situation you find yourself in, and wherever you go throughout your life, are salt and light. And so am I. As such, it is up to us whether we will be flavorless and thereby worthless salt, or whether we will be flavorful; and it is up to us whether we will be dim lights or hidden, or whether we will shine brightly on the world around us.

___
*From A Church More Like Christ, now available as an e-book, a trade paperback, or an audiobook.Facebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather

Is This Book Right for You?

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My latest nonfiction book, A Church More Like Christ, is now available for pre-order!

Specifically, the Kindle e-book can be pre-ordered, and will be delivered on 3 September. It costs $1.99, which I hope folks will find reasonable.

If you’re wondering whether the book is right for you, the back-cover copy may give you an idea:

A church like Christ would
• Teach like Jesus
• Worship like Jesus
• Pray and live and love like Jesus

Is your church a force for good, a light in the darkness, an outpost of God’s kingdom in the world? Do the wounded find comfort and healing in your church? Do the broken find repair and restoration? Do the vulnerable find help and hope? Does your church offer refuge for the oppressed, a hand up to the beaten-down, and recognition to the unseen? If so, this book may not be for you.

If not—if your church is divided against itself, or focused only on itself, or more judgmental than caring—it may be that the church is not as much like Christ as it could be. A Church More Like Christ can help you examine how Christlike your church is, and give you new ways to think about what it means for a church to live out the faith it practices.

If the church were quicker to comfort than to condemn, quicker to heal rather than harm, quicker to love than to hate, disparage, or ignore, perhaps it would be a greater source of inspiration, strength, and change in people’s lives—and in the world. If so, it would be, in effect, more like Christ.


(A Church More Like Christ graphic courtesy of Stephen Minervino.)

If you decide the book might interest you, by all means pre-order the e-book at this link; or, wait for the paperback to be released on 3 September and order that instead! (It’ll be $7.99, which again I hope folks will find reasonable.)

And if you know anyone else who might be interested, please let them know!

___

For other musings and oddball ideas, see
– My other recent release! Elements of War (paperback)
– My Amazon Page or Bandcamp Page, or subscribe to my newsletterFacebooktwitterpinterestlinkedinmailby feather