Sequential Theodicy

[QuirkyTemplate]

Let's get this kickin' with something good. Ed Ames will do.


Who Will Answer?

From the canyons of the mind,
We wander on and stumble blindly
Through the often-tangled maze
Of starless nights and sunless days,
While casting for some kind of clue
Or road to lead us to the truth,
But who will answer?

Side by side two people stand,
Together vowing, hand-in-hand
That love's imbedded in their hearts,
But soon an empty feeling starts
To overwhelm their hollow lives,
And when we seek the hows and whys,
Who will answer?

High upon a lonely ledge,
a figure teeters near the edge,
And jeering crowds collect below
To egg him on with, "Go, man, go!"
And who will ask what led him
To his private day of doom,
And who will answer?

On a strange and distant hill,
A young man's lying very still.
His arms will never hold his child,
Because a bullet running wild
Has cut him down. And now we cry,
"Dear God, Oh, why, oh, why?"
And who will answer?

If the soul is darkened by a fear it cannot name,
If the mind is baffled when the rules don't fit the game,
Who will answer? Who will answer? Who will answer?

In the rooms of dark and shades,
The scent of sandalwood pervades.
The colored thoughts in muddled heads
Reclining in rumpled beds
Of unmade dreams that can't come true,
And when we ask what we should do,
Who? Who will answer?

'Neath the spreading mushroom tree,
The world revolves in apathy
As overhead, a row of specks
Roars on, drowned out by discotheques,
And if a secret button's pressed
Because one man has been outguessed,
Who will answer?

Is our hope in walnut shells
Worn 'round the neck with temple bells,
Or deep within some cloistered walls
Where hooded figures pray in halls?
Or crumbled books on dusty shelves,
Or in our stars, or in ourselves,
Who will answer?

If the soul is darkened
By a fear it cannot name,
If the mind is baffled
When the rules don't fit the game,
Who will answer? Who will answer? Who will answer?
Alleluiah! Alleluiah! Alleluiah!

[QuirkyTemplate]

My knowledge of this life too small,
The eye of faith is dim;
But is enough that Christ knows all,
And I will be with him

[QuirkyTemplate]

"Writers like Aldous Huxley and George Orwell have imagined the sort of scientific utopia which is coming to pass, but already their nightmare fancies are hopelessly out of date. A vast, air-conditioned, neon-lighted, glass-and-chromium broiler-house begins to take shape, in which geneticists select the best stocks to fertilise, and watch over the developing embryo to ensure that all possibilities of error and distortion are eliminated. Where is the need for God in such a set-up? Or even for a moral law? When man is thus able to shape and control his environment and being, then surely he may be relied on to create his own earthly paradise and live happily ever after in it. But can he? . . . Is the endlessly repeated message of the media - that money and sex are the only pursuits in life, violence its only excitement, and success its only fulfillment - irresistible? . . . The Way begins where for Christ himself its mortal part ended - at the cross. There alone, with all our earthly defences down and our earthly pretensions relinquished, we can confront the true circumstances of our being . . . There, contemplating God in the likeness of man, we may understand how foolish and inept is man when he sees himself in the likeness of God."

{Jesus Rediscovered, Bungay, Suffolk, UK: Fontana Books, 1969, pp. 112-113, 115-116}

[QuirkyTemplate]

Cat's foot iron claw
Neuro-surgeons scream for more
At paranoia's poison door.
Twenty first century schizoid man.

Blood rack barbed wire
Polititians' funeral pyre
Innocents raped with napalm fire
Twenty first century schizoid man.

Death seed blind man's greed
Poets' starving children bleed
Nothing he's got he really needs
Twenty first century schizoid man.

The wall on which the prophets wrote
Is cracking at the seams.
Upon the instruments if death
The sunlight brightly gleams.
When every man is torn apart
With nightmares and with dreams,
Will no one lay the laurel wreath
As silence drowns the screams.

Between the iron gates of fate,
The seeds of time were sown,
And watered by the deeds of those
Who know and who are known;
Knowledge is a deadly friend
When no one sets the rules.
The fate of all mankind I see
Is in the hands of fools.

Confusion will be my epitaph.
As I crawl a cracked and broken path
If we make it we can all sit back
and laugh.
But I fear tomorrow I'll be crying ...

- King Crimson, 21st Century Schizoid Man, Epitaph

[QuirkyTemplate]

The Teacher

He came to my desk with a quivering lip, The lesson was done.
“Have you a new sheet for me, dear teacher? I’ve spoiled this one.”
I took his sheet all soiled and blotted and Gave him a new one all unspotted,
And into his tired heart I cried, “Do better now, my child.”

I went to the throne with a trembling heart, The day was done.
“Have you a new day for me, Dear Master? I’ve spoiled this one.”
He took my day all soiled and blotted and , Gave me a new one all unspotted,
And into my tired heart He cried,
“Do better now, my child.”

Author Unknown

[QuirkyTemplate]

You are free in our time to say that God does not exist; you are free to say that He exists and is evil; you are free to say … that He would like to exist if He could. You may talk of God as a metaphor or mystification; you may water Him down with gallons of long words, or boil Him to the rags of metaphysics; and it is not merely that nobody punishes, but nobody protests. But if you speak of God as a fact, as a thing like a tiger, as a reason for chanting one’s conduct, then the modern world will stop you somehow if it can. We are long past talking about whether an unbeliever should be punished for being irreverent. It is now thought irreverent to be a believer.

G. K. Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw, Christianity Today, November 9, 1992, p. 37

[QuirkyTemplate]

And the pain falls like a curtain
On the things I once called certain
And I have to say the words I fear the most
"I just don’t know"

And the questions without answers
Come and paralyze the dancer
So I stand here on the stage

Afraid to move.

[QuirkyTemplate]

Christian Hip-Hop

Artist: The Cross Movement
Album: Human Emergency
Song: The Light


[ Hook ]
The Light of Christ is a blazin' one
There's a fight to live right and it's major son
But the grace has come so we praise the Son
And celebrate Him 'cause we know what He saved us from

[ Verse 1 ]
I get the chills every time I get to spill
Cause it's a thrill to put Christ on a pedestal
Cause men are in sin and death you can bet it's real
But He can take you out and won't make you get the bill
So were tellin' all men we're exhaltin' that Hero
That paid the fee, making you free like Net Zero
What an offer yall should bum-rush the alter
Call to the Lord in any season, He'll salt ya
I ask you, "Don't you know wrath is coming at you?"
But where the Spirit is their liberty with out the statue
Peace _ Sword…Please Lord
There's a debt but we don't have the "cheese" for it
Man's tough but he can't seem to break sin's handcuffs
Proving to be the flake he is like dandruff
And plus at his core man's dust, man shucks
Surrender, come to God with your hands up

[Repeat Hook ]

[ Verse 2 ]
True Christian people get the mad "Big Ups!"
Cause life can jerk you like some bad hick-ups
But your God fights you only spar
Facing drama and trauma like you're on E.R.
But you're victorious in fact already glorious
God said it, I'm just repeating what the story is
But let me set it…straight all the credit
Goes to the Lord don't forget it
If you never get a Grammy get the Name and let it ring
All praise Jesus aka Elohim
Who rules everything, you're every kings King
Lord you outshine every "Bling-Bling"
Doing your "thing" so well you should get a prize your so Nobel
Peace you're the prince of it…angels scream, "Noel!"
Cause you're the Most High but oh my you play the low well
A manger? They should have made room in the hotel
The human race as a whole fell
So now life is short like a mobile phone with a low cell
Can't believe you died when we were screamin' "Go hell"
A people sure to perish like a turtle with no shell
You know well Satan tricks man, pulling him down like quicksand
And got them thinking their a Christian.
We better recognize who you are
Heaven and earth's true Superstar

[ Bridge ]
House hold of faith now raise'm up
If you're living by grace now raise'm up
If you're seeking God's face now raise'm up
All my people in the place now raise'm up

[ Verse 3 ]
Jesus, Jesus---yall know the Name
But yall ain't feelin' Him like Novocain
I know yall think we're so insane
But it don't matter because we're not going for fame
Or flowin' for gain, you know we gotta go in His Name
The same God who's sovereign
Came in a human frame from heaven to earth like falling rain
So that we could call His Name and be born again
We know the God who's controlling things
The Living Water like Poland Springs
Who went away but He's coming back like boomerangs
Until then all of creation groans in pain
Cause sin's got the world locked like a ball and chain.
I get the hunch like Notre Dame.
That many Christians won't expose sin or exalt the Name
But that's the thing that get our names in heaven's hall of fame.

[QuirkyTemplate]

This is my favorite part of "Just as I am". It's probably the only part that really conveys what I feel.

Just as I am, though tossed about
With many a conflict, many a doubt,
Fightings and fears within, without,
O Lamb of God, I come, I come.

Though my rendition would probably go something like this:


Though I quivered in anger broken, strewn and alone
By thoughts casting shadows on all I’d once known
And the faith that once fed me, feels fallen, feels flown
O Lamb of God, let me come! Let me come.

[QuirkyTemplate]

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on this thread. Not sure why exactly, but here goes.

I took spring break this last week and went down to New Orleans with the Collegiate Ministries at UC to help out with some inner-city kids at this Christian mission center. We spent one day at the beach, played some ultimate Frisbee, chilled. Worship on the beach was thwarted by the massive amount of gnats and mosquitoes. :)

The next day we started the working, which was actually pretty fun. Not that it was easy, but it just seemed like God made everything enjoyable. We worked probably four or five hours each day (moving those giant stacks of wood, painting, putting on floorboards, weeding, trash clean up, etc), and then we’d go and play (basketball, football, soccer, stuff like that) with the children in the neighborhood. These kids made me smile. I have to say, it was really great to just help all of these people out and watch how God was so powerful in everything we were doing. I don’t know what kind of home most of these kids come from, but they were so starving for love, and God does not disappoint.

I’m not sure how to explain it, but I could feel the Spirit of God sort of sheltering me from temptation and spiritual weakness (i.e., my tendency to ignore God) while I was on this trip. But as soon as I got back to Cincinnati, it was like I was slapped in the face with it. But regardless, God has proven that all praise honor and glory belong to Him.

Peace and God bless :)

[QuirkyTemplate]

Creed
This poem is by Steve Turner, I first discovered it in Ravi Zacharias' book, Can Man Live Without God. I think I've quoted it before ... hmm.

We believe in Marxfreudanddarwin.
We believe everything is OK
as long as you don't hurt anyone,
to the best definition of hurt,
and to the best of your knowledge.

We believe in sex before, during and after marriage.
We believe in the therapy of sin.
We believe that adultery is fun.
We believe that sodomy's OK.
We believe that taboos are taboo.

We believe that everything's getting better,
despite evidence to the contrary.
The evidence must be investigated
And you can prove anything with evidence.

We believe that there's something in horoscopes,
UFO's and bent spoons;
Jesus was a good man just like Buddha,
Mohammed and ourselves.
He was a good moral teacher although we think
His good morals were bad.

We believe that all religions are basically the same --
at least the one that we read was.
They all believe in love and goodness.
They only differ on matters of creation,
sin, heaven, hell, God, and salvation.

We believe that after death comes the Nothing
Because when you ask the dead what happens
they say nothing.
If death is not the end, if the dead have lied, then it's compulsory heaven for all
excepting perhaps
Hitler, Stalin and Genghis Khan.

We belive in Masters and Johnson.
What's selected is average.
What's average is normal.
What's normal is good.

We believe in total disarmament.
We believe there are direct links between warfare and bloodshed.
Americans should beat their guns into tractors
and the Russians would be sure to follow.

We believe that man is essentially good.
It's only his behavior that lets him down.
This is the fault of society.
Society is the fault of conditions.
Conditions are the fault of society.

We believe that each man must find the truth that is right for him.
Reality will adapt accordingly.
The universe will readjust.
History will alter.
We believe that there is no absolute truth
excepting the truth
that there is no absolute truth.

We believe in the rejection of creeds,
and the flowering of individual thought.



There is a postscript to this poem called Chance.

Chance
If chance be
the Father of all flesh,
disaster is his rainbow in the sky,
and when you hear
State of Emergency!
Sniper Kills Ten!
Troops on Rampage!
Whites go Looting!
Bomb Blasts School!

It is but the sound of man
worshipping his maker.

[QuirkyTemplate]

The Hound of Heaven


I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat -- and a voice beat
More instant than the Feet --
"All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."

I pleaded, outlaw-wise,
By many a hearted casement, curtained red,
Trellised with intertwining charities;
(For, though I knew His love Who followèd,
Yet was I sore adread
Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside.)
But, if one little casement parted wide,
The gust of his approach would clash it to :
Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.
Across the margent of the world I fled,
And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,
Smiting for shelter on their clangèd bars ;
Fretted to dulcet jars
And silvern chatter the pale ports o' the moon.
I said to Dawn : Be sudden -- to Eve : Be soon ;
With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over
From this tremendous Lover--
Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see !
I tempted all His servitors, but to find
My own betrayal in their constancy,
In faith to Him their fickleness to me,
Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.
To all swift things for swiftness did I sue ;
Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.
But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,
The long savannahs of the blue ;
Or whether, Thunder-driven,
They clanged his chariot 'thwart a heaven,
Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o' their feet :--
Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.
Still with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
Came on the following Feet,
And a Voice above their beat--
"Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me."

I sought no more that after which I strayed,
In face of man or maid ;
But still within the little children's eyes
Seems something, something that replies,
They at least are for me, surely for me !
I turned me to them very wistfully ;
But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair
With dawning answers there,
Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.
"Come then, ye other children, Nature's -- share
With me" (said I) "your delicate fellowship ;
Let me greet you lip to lip,
Let me twine with you caresses,
Wantoning
With our Lady-Mother's vagrant tresses,
Banqueting
With her in her wind-walled palace,
Underneath her azured daïs,
Quaffing, as your taintless way is,
From a chalice
Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring."
So it was done :
I in their delicate fellowship was one --
Drew the bolt of Nature's secrecies.
I knew all the swift importings
On the wilful face of skies ;
I knew how the clouds arise
Spumèd of the wild sea-snortings ;
All that's born or dies
Rose and drooped with ; made them shapers
Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine ;
With them joyed and was bereaven.
I was heavy with the even,
When she lit her glimmering tapers
Round the day's dead sanctities.
I laughed in the morning's eyes.
I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,
Heaven and I wept together,
And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine ;
Against the red throb of its sunset-heart
I laid my own to beat,
And share commingling heat ;
But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.
In vain my tears were wet on Heaven's grey cheek.
For ah ! we know not what each other says,
These things and I ; in sound I speak--
Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.
Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth ;
Let her, if she would owe me,
Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me
The breasts o' her tenderness ;
Never did any milk of hers once bless
My thirsting mouth.
Nigh and nigh draws the chase,
With unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy ;
And past those noisèd Feet
A Voice comes yet more fleet --
"Lo ! naught contents thee, who content'st not Me."

Naked I wait thy Love's uplifted stroke !
My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me,
And smitten me to my knee ;
I am defenceless utterly.
I slept, methinks, and woke,
And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.
In the rash lustihead of my young powers,
I shook the pillaring hours
And pulled my life upon me ; grimed with smears,
I stand amid the dust o' the mounded years --
My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.
My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,
Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.
Yea, faileth now even dream
The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist ;
Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist
I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist,
Are yielding ; cords of all too weak account
For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.
Ah ! is Thy love indeed
A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed,
Suffering no flowers except its own to mount ?
Ah ! must --
Designer infinite !--
Ah ! must Thou char the wood ere Thou canst limn with it ?
My freshness spent its wavering shower i' the dust ;
And now my heart is as a broken fount,
Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever
From the dank thoughts that shiver
Upon the sighful branches of my mind.
Such is ; what is to be ?
The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind ?
I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds ;
Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
From the hid battlements of Eternity ;
Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then
Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again.
But not ere him who summoneth
I first have seen, enwound
With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned ;
His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.
Whether man's heart or life it be which yields
Thee harvest, must Thy harvest-fields
Be dunged with rotten death ?

Now of that long pursuit
Comes on at hand the bruit ;
That Voice is round me like a bursting sea :
"And is thy earth so marred,
Shattered in shard on shard ?
Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest me !
"Strange, piteous, futile thing !
Wherefore should any set thee love apart ?
Seeing none but I makes much of naught" (He said),
"And human love needs human meriting :
How hast thou merited --
Of all man's clotted clay the dingiest clot ?
Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art !
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save Me, save only Me ?
All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might'st seek it in My arms.
All which thy child's mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home :
Rise, clasp My hand, and come !"
Halts by me that footfall :
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly ?
"Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest !
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest me."

[QuirkyTemplate]

"To give truth to him who loves it not is only to give him more plentiful reasons for misinterpretation."

George MacDonald

[QuirkyTemplate]

Had to do some serious thinking the other day. I was on campus and I noticed this fellow doing a presentation on the gospel message, so naturally I stuck around. Well, during the end this guy started doing the whole questioning thing. "Ah, but is that really justice?" and "but Jesus really DID sin!" and "There was death before the fall!" and "God is evil, just look at such and such a passage in your book!" and all that jazz. The thing was though, I said nothing to him. It wasn't like I didn't have answers to it, the guy's objections were fairly typical. I just didn't say anything to him, and I have no explanation for it. And what makes me feel even worse is how none of the other Christians there had any experience in any form of apologetics at all. So I know the guy left absolutely positive that there were no answers to counter his reasoning. So blinded and I did nothing about it.

ugh.

But, it is God who calls.