What Swanny learned in prison

What I Learned in Prison
by Brian Swan "Swanny"

"Then one day it hit me like a ton of bricks. The church I attended was nothing like the church I read about in scripture, it was the small group of inmates I met with that felt like community to me. To me this was what helped me determine what “church” really meant, and one of the main reasons I left the “institutional” church.

The talk in prison was about one thing only.. Christ. And, when we talked we spoke from the heart. There was no hiding behind a fake facade and acting like somebody we were not. The only difference between the inmates and me is that they got caught. Transparency was there every time, and we shared life together. We were all just a bunch of sinners sitting around talking about the only thing that mattered… Christ."

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Stick with what you know

by bonar crump

To the Matthew Paul Turners, Rachel Held Evanses, Jen Hatmakers, Jason Boyetts, Shane Claibornes, Jon Acuffs, Steve & Jamie Wrights, Jimmy Spencers, and Donald Millers in all of us:

What’s the common thread?

What’s the driving force behind our daily spiritual frustrations?

Why do we see certain things so differently than our critics?

Why are we driven to explain our positions ad nauseam?

I have a proposition so simple as to be considered naïve, ignorant, or merely unsophisticated.

Let’s talk about experiential learning, Experientialism, and experiential knowledge. No fun, you say?! Come on…we’re gonna keep this short and sweet. It’s really not very complicated.

I think it’s helpful if you follow the above hyperlinks, but it’s not necessary for the sake of this tiny little idea. As I’m sure you can gather, the root of each of the terms I’ve introduced is experience…and that’s really what we’re after.

In most of our debates, discussions, and enigmatic descriptions of Christian spirituality there is a fundamental flaw to our understanding—it’s the lack of experience. I’ve written about, taught, and spoken of so many topics over the years that I had no experiential knowledge of that I really have no business presenting this idea. However, “even a blind dog finds a bone now and again.”

I’m not suggesting I’ve stumbled on the missing link. I’m just offering a simple idea…I love simple.

What do our discussions look like if we agree to the absolute rule of experiential knowledge? Like discussions of the pitfalls of alcohol, abortion, and homosexuality to site a very few examples.

I am not homosexual. If I agree to the rule of experiential knowledge then I agree to declare my opinions about homosexuality as subjective. Even better – I reach a point that if I want to discover some objectivity about homosexuality then I have to go speak to a homosexual. However, no matter how much time I spend with that person or how informative they may be, I realize that I cannot speak, write, or teach objectively about the subject because I’ve never experienced it. My opinion of right or wrong, by birth or by choice, productive or destructive is objectively irrelevant. Why? Because I am not gay…yes, it’s really that simple.

This idea of limiting oneself to experiential knowledge comes out of the observation that the most widely publicized dumbasses we encounter on a regular basis are vomiting gallons of subjective knowledge into our mouths as if we were baby birds nest-bound and hungry for whatever we can get our beaks on.

I am the member of a small group of Christians convinced by my experiential knowledge that all of Western organized Christian religion is the “offending hand.” It’s what I’ve experienced, and I am offended by those that attempt to devalue my experience. But it’s just MY experience. It’s purely subjective.

My “church” is the open road. My pew is an ’07 Dyna Lowrider. My pastor is the wind, sun, and sky. I don’t need your approval any more than you need mine. But out of respect for one another, if we can agree to the rules of experiential knowledge then it becomes impossible to judge one another.

Now comes the tricky part…in what ways does our relationship with the Bible change if we approach it with the rule of experiential knowledge? That’s a multifaceted concept better left for another day. Suffice it to say that the vast majority of what we loooooove to pontificate about concerning “what the Bible says” or “what the Bible means” is based on subjective knowledge. We teach it as objective, but we don’t experience it. We label our opinions objective, but we don’t have any experience with the subject matter.

Rant:

If you aren’t homosexual then maybe you should shut the hell up. If you attend “church” every week, I could really give a rat’s ass. If you don’t drink alcohol or hang with people that do then piss off. If you’re a man then you should keep your piehole shut about the role of women. If you don’t use curse words then fuck off. If you’ve never had an abortion then I suggest you take a flying leap (and if you’re a man talking about abortion then kiss my ass). If you’ve never experienced it firsthand then your ideas, opinions, and evaluations don’t mean diddly squat.

Why did Jesus hang out with the people that he did? Based on what I’ve written here you can guess how I would answer this question. However, it’s only my opinion, so the objective answer for all of us should be WE DON’T KNOW.

Repeat after me:

·         I don’t know what it’s like to be gay.

·         I don’t know what it’s like to be a part of a brotherhood of bikers.

·         I don’t know what it’s like to be 14 and pregnant.

·         I don’t know what it’s like to be taught from the time I’m a small child that because I have a uterus that I’m not as valuable as someone with a prostate.

·         I don’t know what it’s like to grow up in an Islamic nation and never hear the message of Christ.

·         I don’t know what it’s like to bond with people over a bottle of wine, keg of beer, or glass of bourbon.

·         I don’t know what it’s like to have a spouse punch me in the face.

·         I don’t know how good it feels to scream the work “fuck” as loud as I can at the world.

·         I don’t know what it’s like to face foreclosure knowing that my “Christian” friends are going to talk about me behind my back.

·         I don’t know what it’s like to have to leave my child with someone I don’t fully trust in order to earn a paycheck.

·         I only know me…and I’m pretty sure that I’m more fucked up than anyone else I know.

Pity me if you like, but this is my mantra. This should be all of our mantras…

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My grandma, who died in December 2010, distrusted “niggers”, but she had no experience. She loathed the idea of the ordination of a gay bishop in her beloved Episcopalian church, but she had no experience. She was very bold in telling everyone that they’d gained weight since the last time she’d seen them, but she’d been a size 2 all her life. She would spew any opinion that she had at the moment as a means of criticism (or personal attack) and then excuse herself with “I’m just being honest,” but she never knew what it felt like to have such venomous “honesty” directed at her.

…..and I loved that woman very deeply…..

Far be it for me to claim experiential knowledge of her life. She was the way she was, and now I’m betting everything I’ve got that she’s something entirely different.

Experiential knowledge –

Next time you meet a blind person, ask him to explain the color Blue. If you do, I hope he jabs you in the eye with his cane.

God is my fish that lives in my room

As the first day of school has come and gone a simple thought has captured my attention.

It all started with the promise to my 6 year old soon-to-be first grader that I would let her pick out a couple fish and her own fish tank to go in her room to mark the beginning of her journey in a new school, new house, new town, and new state.

The past week my daughter has taught me something about the human soul and its need for interaction.

A fish is a difficult pet for a small child. Small children do not understand the delicate nuances of contemplative visual observation. They want to touch everything. They need to put everything through a series of paces that I think of as “kid testing.” Their minds, fingers, and eyes explore every way in which a new toy, doll, or game can be exploited for weakness and creativity.

For example, give my kid a stick and it is a wand used to ward off evil dragons and, hence, it must be waved about in a creative fashion for just long enough to either poke someone in the face or knock something onto the ground. Then the princess is saved.

A board game becomes an enchanted world which unravels into a story of “bad men” and battles between rivals until the pieces are lost and the game board flung into the air resulting in someone getting poked in the face again. Then the princess is saved.

Evidently, we deal with an inordinate amount of facial contusions in our home…

There is always a narrative, action, and a general sense that everything must be touched, handled, turned every which way, and tested to the limits of the child’s dexterity.

None of this applies very well to fish…

Don’t tap the glass. Don’t put your fingers in the water. Don’t pull them out with the net. Don’t touch them. Don’t overfeed them.

You may watch them and feed them a moderate amount of food 2 or 3 times a day.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I feel so bad for getting her those fish.

She wants to interact with them. I don’t mean to imply that she doesn’t get what fish are about, but I’m worried now that I’m teaching her the skill of loving without interacting.

Matthew 18:3 says that if we do not change and become like children then we will NEVER enter the kingdom of heaven.

I’m wondering if I’ve begun to teach my little girl one of the pathways to NEVER know the kind of peace which results from living in a place where God is truly in charge.

By giving her something to love that she isn’t allowed to touch or interact with in any kind of meaningful way, am I setting the stage for her to relate to God as if in an aquarium?

Say a prayer now and again.

Routinely attend church.

Feed the offering plate.

Vote for the “right” causes.

I think I may have really screwed up on this one. How do I spin this into a positive?

What is "real" anyways?

Bombastic—

*(of speech, writing, etc.) high-sounding; high-flown; inflated.

Pretentious—

*refers specifically to language that is purposely inflated in an effort to impress.

Verbose—

*characterizes utterances or speakers that use more words than necessary to express an idea.

…all killers when attempting to write something that a wide range of people can relate to and connect with.

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So, I think that what I’m beginning to learn is that brevity coupled with simple diction wrapped around profound meaning is the key to success if you want to be a writer.

Whew. I’m glad I got all that figured out. Easy enough, right?

Wait…what about that profound meaning part? How is that supposed to work? How is a writer supposed to take top shelf items down and casually place them on the bottom shelf for everyone to easily reach? For that matter, how is anyone (orator, writer, educator) expected to unpack all of the difficult terms and phrases we use in order to convey meaning which is palatable and objectively significant?

My attempt to accomplish the “shelf reorg” is via metaphor…and it drives some people crazy. I don’t realize I’m doing it most of the time. It seems as if I am so visual that even non-visual concepts such as compassion, grace, and benevolence take up residence in my head via images which later show up as metaphors. I’m pretty sure that if you took away my ability to understand the world via metaphor, simile, or implied comparison I’d be spending my days sitting in a corner wearing a diaper and drooling a lot….it’s really that bad.

My world makes perfect sense to me.

BUT….

Is this world I’ve grown accustomed to a construct of my imagination or is it real? If it’s real and I see some things that others don’t then I have something to contribute via populating the bottom shelf (see, I just did it again). If it’s all my own little construct then I’m wasting people’s time with my ideas that don’t necessarily have any value.

How does one know which is which? And if there is no way to determine one from the other then how can we every discuss absolutes, truth, and reality?

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In what ways do you think that your perception of the world is unique?

I'm sick of all the dumbasses

by Bonar Crump

I’ve been cursed by knowing and interacting with a lot of dumbasses.

I’m not trying to infer that I’m a “know-it-all” who looks down on those that don’t know any better. I’m talking about people that have every advantage imaginable and still respond to each and every situation with mind-numbing examples of dumbassness.

In the Christian community we like to talk about the underprivileged and unfortunate but we never think of those folks as being white-collar with multiple academic degrees and 6 figure incomes.

Have you ever been involved in a corporate board meeting? Have you ever witnessed the level of depravity and absolute dumbassness emitted by a person (or group of persons) with high academic pedigrees? Believe me…it is a vulgar site to watch men and women of affluence feed on each other, psychologically rape one another, and denigrate one another in the name of pride and position.

It’s enough to make any “common” man scream WTF.

Here’s the point to this mess…depravity, unconscionable malice, selfishness, and absolute dumbass behavior know no boundaries. As a matter of fact, “upper echelon” dumbass behavior is much more toxic because it goes unsanctioned. These folks allow one another to behave in this manner because there is an unspoken creed that says, “as long as they are one of US then we cannot let them be accountable to the THEM.”

It happens in the corporate world. It happens in the Christian church world. It happens in the suburban dilettante – Jr. League world. I simply don’t know what to do with it.

Do you have any suggestions?