Kirkepiscatoid

I have been doing a lot of reading and reflecting this week. A lot of it is "How to be the best believer I can be with the me I've got to work with." I think we're a lot like birds. We molt in the seasons of our life. We look fairly messy when we molt. Molting season is about stripping the illusions of our feathers and growing new ones for the upcoming season. When our feathers are all ragged, some real truths come out. Here's the biggest one for me and my spirituality: I will never be a "nice Christian." I kind of like Alan Jones' take on his own belief and the problem with "nice":

"I don't think I am a particularly nice person. In fact, one of the reasons I count myself among the believers is that I cannot rely on my being nice to pull me through."

I know one thing for sure. I feel myself becoming a much more grounded, much stronger believer than I ever have in my life, but I don't feel a damn bit nicer. Don't mistake what I'm saying here. I am capable of kindness and generosity, passion and love, compassion and a compass of following the truths in my heart. But I'm just not "nice" and there will always be this bugaboo in my life that on given days, I don't like humans very much and secretly want to believe I am the offspring of space aliens so I don't have to claim any allegiance to the illusory world of "nice." I see a world of pain and death and tragedy and abandonment, yet I wake up every morning with the thought I just might see hope and delight, and I am always pleasantly surprised when I do. This, I believe, is the paradox of the "surly Christian".

The reality of Jesus for me resides in all this negative stuff. Otherwise, Jesus is just a cartoon mascot, like Fredbird, the big fuzzy bird mascot of the St. Louis Cardinals. He's not a real ballplayer to me unless his salvation resides in the dark tragic recesses of the world. It drives me to the belief that to really "put all things in subjection under your Christ," he has to be more than my Sunday hobby, or my morning prayer time distraction. But so many books on spirituality are all just too damn cheerful. The affirmation of Jesus for me lives in the danger zones of my life.

So I sat today with the Nicene Creed. I have fought and fought with the Nicene Creed for all sorts of "pretend" reasons, for decades. I fought over gender. I fought over whether some of this stuff actually happened. My scientific mind does not handle mystery well. I feel pretty "special ed" when it comes to theologic mysteries. But I decided today, "You know, but somehow, in this thing, there is all my reason to believe. Why is that?"

I decided to think about what the Nicene Creed means to the "Surly believer." Here it is....I changed the "we's" to "I" but we are talking about one individual surly believer at a time here, and other surly believers can change what they want to fit. It's a recipe, not a legality.

I believe in one God,
The Father, the almighty.
Even though paternalism scares me to death, I somehow believe God the Father, for lack of a better term, has my interests at heart better than any earthly parent could ever have.

He is maker of heaven and earth,
Of all that is seen and unseen.
It doesn't matter HOW he did it; it's okay if he used particle theory and evolution to do it. Somehow, life in the universe came from nothing, and here we all are.

I believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ,
the only Son of God (for me, anyway.)
I don't have to deny other paths to God for other people to say that.
But He is the one I chose, so there He is.

He was eternally begotten of the Father,
God from God, Light from Light,
True God from true God,
Of one being with the Father.
Through Him all things were made.
I'm pretty sure we all get a little bit of this, it's just that Christ was connected in ways that are unseen and unprocessable by our five puny senses.

For us and for our salvation,
He came down from Heaven.
That is why we don't need to fret about jumping through the right magic hoop to be saved.
He came, He saw, He conquered, and that pretty much covers it.

By the power of the Holy Spirit
He became incarnate from the Virgin Mary,
and was made one of us.
It's a long story; again the "how" is not important; it's that He was flesh and bone, joy and sadness and temper and sullenness, just like us.

For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
He suffered death and was buried.
People who tell the truth and ultimately are proven right are not always dealt a great hand.

On the third day he rose again
in accordance with the Scriptures.
You can take that however you want; it doesn't matter, the end result was the world changed.

He ascended into Heaven
And is seated at the right hand of the Father.
As far as I'm concerned, God's right hand is big enough to hold all of us. It's not a big deal if Jesus gets first chair.

He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
And his kingdom will have no end.
It's a good reason not to take on God's job description when it comes to "judgment."

I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the Giver of life,
Who proceeds from the Father and the Son.
Thanks be to God; it's the only part of this concept of the Triune God I actually get to see for myself.

He has spoken through the prophets.
"He's" more than likely a "she," best as I can tell from the Hebrew, but never mind; we are talking about entities without genitalia. For that matter, the prophets aren't all dead. You, me, or anyone else could be a prophet to someone if they are in desperation and you help pull them from the brink of a spiritual grave.

I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church.
Notice it's the last "C" that is capitalized. That is the point. The Church is not a particular denomination. Now if only others besides me could get to that concept...

I acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
Frankly, I think the "one baptism" means Jesus' baptism, not mine.

We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.
...and for the life of me, I don't know exactly what it means, but it is the most grounding aspect of my faith while I inhabit this earth. I have no facts, no figures, no evidence but the little fire in my gut, but I believe. Praise God, I believe.