Michael Logen

After writing last nights entry, I spoke to a friend that recommended a great song that matches perfectly with what the Church is. So go check it out at http://www.myspace.com/michaellogen

Here are the lyrics:

She's the ancient longing that I feel beside the ocean
When I look across the waters deep and still

She's a new belonging, like some love-inducing potion
And I'll never reach the bottom of this well

Cause she wants to be the mystery and I know I've never found her really
She wants to be a mystery to me
She wants to be a mystery so I wrap my soul around her because
She'll always be a mystery to me

She's a side of God I've never seen in my soul
A whisper of the way we ought to be
She's a soft reminder of the world when it was whole
And part of her is just beyond my reach

Cause she wants to be the mystery and I know I've never found her really
She wants to be a mystery to me
She wants to be a mystery so I wrap my soul around her because
She'll always be a mystery to me

As timeless as the mountains and the sea
The beauty of a lady mystery

She wants to be a mystery and I know I've never found her really

Religiosity to Spirituality

Over the past week, it's been a pretty good experience. I've been able to forget about all the stress that is surely awaiting me on my return home. Things like church, school, specific people that I don't want to see, and the constant questioning that has become tiring recently. All these things have been put on hold since Christmas Eve, as I have visited family in Maryland and Pennsylvania. And even as I sit here in Pennsylvania, with Christmas break not even the whole way done, I'm ready to leave again for Texas in two weeks to visit some friends.

As a little heads up, throughout the following paragraphs I will be referencing the Church/church/Americanized church. So in order for me to clearly establish which one I am referencing, here is my definitions of each.

Church - any body of believers gathering together in the attempt to help and learn from each other to grow deeper spiritually.

• Ex. Two people at Subway talking about a passage from the Bible.
• Ex. A group of people meeting at a house and reading a book together while socializing and talking about the religious repercussions the reading has.

church - the ministry within the physical buildings that I have attended in my lifetime.

• Ex. bricks, steeples, stain glass

Americanized church - the "shade" if you will, of how American has created Christianity to match American culture.

• Ex. Godliness=prosperity
• Ex. Sing songs a certain way, dancing is forbidden, you can't wear jeans to church, etc.

During this whole period of time that I have been intensely questioning the nature of my faith and being upset and scared as to what I believe, I have yet to come up with any very concrete answers. This might sound pretty dreary...but for whatever reason, it is not. I have turned the corner of becoming more and more "religious", and pointed myself instead towards becoming spiritually mature. Usually, when I think of "religious", I think specifically of Christianity...more specifically the Americanized church. When I think of spiritual, I think of life as a whole. Life that includes politics, Darfur, poverty, racism, drinking, witnessing to loved ones, sin, anger, confusion, school, relationships, and everything that life encompasses (much more along the lines of how Plato references politics being much more than simply government). If nothing else, my whole struggle with the church and religiosity as a whole, has shown me how secondary religiosity and the church, and even more so the Americanized church, are to my relationship with God. I'm trying to be very careful in how I say this, because I have already scared and upset numerous people with that concept. Take special not of my blog title before reading this next assessment: I see the Church as being a significant guide to my relationship with God, but not necessarily the central foundation of that relationship. I feel that sometimes the church and specifically the Americanized church would have me jump through more hoops that I feel the need to.

I just got the "Everything Is Spiritual" Tour DVD by Rob Bell for Christmas, and I've been waiting. Waiting for two things: 1) uninterrupted time to sit down and watch the DVD and think about it and write what I think after it and let everything settle. 2) Time to prepare myself emotionally and spiritually before watching it. I recently went to a conference over the summer that was supposed to be this BIG spiritual endeavor, and when I got back home from it there was almost no spiritual impact from it. Since then I have figured out some of the naive reasons to why I did not get anything out of the conference, but one of the big things was that I did not prepare myself mentally or spiritually to be transformed. It's a weird idea, but sometimes you have to mentally calm down and get ready for something else, so that it will have some kind of an impact on you. It's like the feeling that you would get if right after you finished watching a high-stress football game that you jumped up and down for and screamed at and thrown things at the wall for, and, God-forbid, said some rather not-so-Christian words at (all of this by the way describes my experience with the Patriots/Giants game last night...GO PATS!!!) and went straight from that to someone sitting you down and saying, "Okay, what's your biggest struggle in life right now?" You know, you're not going to be ready to answer that question yet, because all you're thinking about is how the Pats came back from being down 28-16 in the third quarter and winning the whole their sixteenth and final game to clinch the perfect season, and that incredible history-making catch by Moss. (Crap that was a long side note)

But back to what I was saying: I'm about ready to watch this DVD, but I'm being careful not to rush things. As I've been told by several people, I tend to complicate things by not doing one thing at a time (in reference to my questioning). I am notorious for instead of asking one question, I ask one question and before the person I'm talking to (or simply my mind) can think about an answer, there's the "Well, what about..." and then directly after that there's the "Well, if that's true then what if..." It's an endless cycle that has left me far from the original question and completely vacant of any answers. There will always be questions, but I'm trying to take my time with them, because rushing has only left me upset/angry/depressed/scared quicker (note that I am not ruling any of those out by me taking my time, rather they will come slower).

Now the "Everything Is Spiritual" DVD does not have all the answers. I am in no way insinuating that. But it is merely the next step along the uphill journey ahead of me that I am taking. A good way of thinking about it is, "sure it has all the answers...to the next step that I must take, but not at all the answer to my journey."

With that, I am done thinking for at least a little while. I have the most amazing cookies that my grandmother makes awaiting me in the kitchen with coffee and woopie pies (one of God's greatest inventions). So feel free to add on to or subtract from anything that I have said if you feel like it. I always like things added more than things subtracted, but feel free to do what you like. I hope everyone has a great post-Christmas and happy New Year.

- Brendan

Mika, Brian McLaren, and my little poetic twist

"Any Other World" by Mika

In any other world
You could tell the difference
And let it all unfurl
Into broken remnants

Smile like you mean it
And let yourself let go

'Cause it's all in the hands of a bitter, bitter man
Say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in
Take a bow, play the part of a Lonely, lonely heart
Say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in
To the world you thought you lived in

I tried to live alone
But lonely is so lonely, alone
So human as I am
I had to give up my defenses

So I smiled and tried to mean it
To make myself let go


My sister recently let me borrow her Mika CD, and over the past few weeks this song has been on my mind every single day; in particular the line that goes "say goodbye to the world you thought you lived in". It's weird because sometimes songs just hit me, and lyrics just have whole new meanings. This song was constantly on my mind throughout the day, but I couldn't figure out why it wouldn't go away...until today.

I was thinking back to the first Brian McLaren book that I read, "A New Kind of Christian", and the first graph that McLaren presented. I was going to try to copy it here for you guys to see, but I couldn't find it, so I'll do my best to describe/explain it. Basically it showed a continuous cycle of going from 1) being confident of what you believe to 2) questioning your preexisting belief but not knowing what's to come to 3) getting beyond your previous belief and starting to picture your new belief to 4) where you arrive at your new destination. Now this is a constant cycle that you participate in throughout your life. And that's the explanation of where I'm personally at right now. I had this idea of what I thought I believed, and over the past five months I've been searching for a more suitable outlook for myself. The idea is not that I'm throwing out the core to the old beliefs, but looking at those same beliefs in a new light. So right now I'm kind of trapped between step 2 and 3, where I know that what I used to believe won't work for me anymore, but not sure where exactly that leaves me or will take me. By the way, that can get to be a very scary place sometimes.

And tonight, as I started piecing a few things together I just started writing crap down, and some of it turned out alright. It's probably my most somewhat-poetic moment in a while. So here's what I came up with.


My religion does not come from a set of rules.
My religion does not come from or limited by a building.
My religion does not come from or limited by a group of people.
My religion does not solely come from pastors.
My religion is not limited to someone else's words, nor my own.
My religion cannot be compared to anyone else's.

My religion is mine, and mine alone.
My religion is influenced by others, but cannot create it.
My religion gives me purpose.
My religion is sometimes mysterious, the same as my purpose.
My religion is a painting that I am still working on, or a room that I am still cleaning up.
My religion is misunderstood.
My religion is misrepresented, with only myself to blame.
My religion is confusing.
My religion is frustrating and annoying.


So there's no real question to this blog, just my thoughts at the moment. God bless.

Is God in Control of Everything or Nothing?

So the other day I was reading John 1:1-5, and started asking myself the question "who is God?" As I've already gone from "why do I believe what I say I believe?" to "how do I search for God?" I thought that a good next question was "who is God?" But halfway through my thought process, I came to across a more specific question. It's the question of whether or not God is in control of everything or nothing. I think that the question of "who is God" is a tad too ambiguous to "answer" in simply one blog entry. So I thought I would attempt to put together an answer to this question as a piece of the puzzle to the great question of "who is God?" So here goes:

Why do I hope for things? I ask God for things, expecting him to answer, and either he answers "no" or does not answer in the time frame that I want him to, which irritates me just as much as him saying no. (As you can probably tell if you have ever read my stuff before, I typically start off overly dramatic and then calm down throughout the entry). The pastors that I have come in contact with have not given me any other answers other than the fact that God is not the cause for someone getting cancer (or any other bad thing that happens), at the same time that they praise God for "healing" people of their diseases. Either God is the cause of everything that happens, or he is the cause for nothing. (These are the two extremes that I have been shown within the Christian community). Now I want to look at both of these options, because I think that there are plenty of people that believe at least one of them, which requires me to take a look at both.

If God is the cause for everything, good or bad, then everything he does has a purpose, and he knows it before it happens. Say a mother gets breast cancer and dies from it. All the pastors that I have come into contact with will either say that God is not the cause of "bad" things happening, or they become incredibly nervous about how to answer. And I understand their reasoning, because if I were not a Christian, and was told by a pastor that God was the cause for my mother dieing of breast cancer, I would think that this "God" was either a jerk, a monster, or simply a bully. So I understand the reason. But if God is the cause of everything, then maybe what we are missing in tragedy is the fact that that woman dieing from breast cancer will influence people that she would otherwise not be able to, if it were not for her being diagnosed with breast cancer. I have lost people in my life, and subsequently start questioning why. "Why did this have to happen to me?" And then I think about how life could be "so much better" if things had not happened the way they had. Well, first off, the "other way" things could have happened is merely my imagination running wild, trying to paint a picture of a perfect world that realistically does not exist. And secondly, I look back at those times when I have lost people, and I realize that without those events happening, I would not be the person I am today. This again proves how we have absolutely no control over what happens to us, only the power over how we react.

Now if God is the cause for nothing, then everything that happens is because of our own doing. God becomes merely the angel on our shoulder, or simply our conscience. He becomes the voice inside of our head that tries to get us to do the right things, but ultimately God then has no control over what we do...we have that power. And if God has no control over what we do, then how can we say he has control over what happens? So instead of blaming God, there has to be someone else to blame. But sometimes things just happen. Who is to blame for a mother getting breast cancer? To an extreme, then society would put all its efforts to becoming perfect. Society would strive for perfection, and people with diseases, different skin colors, different hair or eye color, or people who speak different languages would all be prone to discrimination or worse. Look at all the disutopian movies and books out there where this happens: 1984, V for Vendetta, Children of Men, Brazil, or Equilibrium. This sounds a lot like what people in Biblical times thought: a blind person, or cripple was a direct link to the sins of his/her parents. But some things are not anyone's fault and just simply happen. Now if you go down that road further, you get closer to believing that God is in control of everything.

When I wrote all of this and looked back on it, and specifically about the daughter of the breast cancer patient, I thought about how in the Bible it talks about not holding nonbelievers to the same standard as believers. I know that it was talking about not holding nonbelievers to the same moral code, but just go with me for a second, and see if the same idea cannot transfer into a different context. Why do we expect nonbelievers to believe that our God is in control of everything, right after that person's mom died of breast cancer, since that person cannot comprehend a god (who they do not believe in at the moment) to have a larger purpose other than to keep their parent alive? That was a long statement, but I hope you followed me the whole way.

I'm not sure where this leaves me. As I looked at both sides, I see faults in both. I was talking to someone about the possibility of God being the cause for everything (good and bad), and he quickly stated that "evil is the absence of God", something I had not thought about prior to. So to say that God is the cause for evil (a lack of God) the whole argument starts to crumble. The idea that God is in control of nothing makes me skeptical, because why would I believe in a god that is merely a conscience to me and nothing more. There's a scene in one of Brian McLaren's books where he gets to the point of two conflicting ideas, and he says that the way God looks at it is that it's not the one extreme, or the other but something completely different. I think that applies to my question. It's not that God is the cause for bad things, but at the same time it's not like he has no control.

So if you would, please add on to this. I have looked at the question from the only two angles that I've seen in the Church, and I'm not completely satisfied with either of them. I don't believe that it's a 50/50 thing either. I think what it comes down to is that the answer is completely different than either of these. So please, respond. Thanks, and God bless.

How Do You "Search for God"?

So the last few weeks something has kind of been on the back of my mind, so here goes: I've realized how much my spiritual growth is affected by my attitude at the time. Now I know this may sound pretty common-sense, but I've been thinking about all the repercussions it has on life. For example, the last entry was written at the end of pretty chaotic week, and at a time when I was pretty high-stress mentally. So that will probably explain at least a little about the tone of the paper.

There have been times when I've gone to places (the two big things that come to mind right now are church and school) where even before I walk through the front doors I've started saying, "Why am I here?" And the result is a long drawn out day of constant annoyance, in which even when good things happen, it doesn't phase me...which pretty much sucks. Yes I know, this is where the phrase "stubborn as an ___" comes from, and it's a pretty good comparison. But here are the two ways my attitude could potentially influence my spiritual growth.

Option A: I'm in a good mood, and have a positive attitude. In these circumstances, if I ask deep spiritual questions either I find some form of answer to the question and find some revelation or I ask a deeper question and find accomplishment in my advancement in thinking. If you have no idea what I'm talking about here, it came from a guy I was talking to one time. He said, "the search for God does not lead to better answers...it leads to better questions". So either way, if I find answers or just ask better questions, I'm even happier at the end of the ordeal. The other way I can go about this is I'm being positive, and I ask a question that I can honestly admit to not knowing, but I have the confidence to say that it's okay not to know. These are the two ideal places I would want to be in. But then there's another instance...

Option B: I'm pissed off/sad/tired/angry/upset for whatever reason, and somewhere along the path I start asking some tough spiritual questions. Like a few weeks ago, when I asked "Why do I believe what I say I believe?" But this time, there's no comfort in asking difficult questions. There's fear and a sense of failure and more being upset. And what is a step further is if I stay upset for too long, I get tired of the questions and feel like giving up. You start asking crazy questions like "Is everything I've ever believed all wrong?" Crazy, but a question that needs to be asked at some point to move on.

So I guess my question is, "How do we stay from questioning everything we've ever believed?" Or not even staying away from questioning, but how do we become confident enough in what we believe? And I've heard the answer "Search for God, not answers". And it's a legitimate answer, but how does that translate? What do I do? Do I need to read my Bible more? I don't see the Bible as being merely an answer bo0k. It's not like I have this problem, so I need to read this passage. Do I need to go to church more? I think I've established the fact that the church is good, but will nonetheless let me down. Do I pray more? I'll admit that I don't pray as much as I could, but still, I'm hesitant to believe prayer alone completely answers the question. So where does that leave me? I've talked to people that I respect and one person in particular said about the fact that right now I lack a sense of Christian community. And I've agreed with them that it is probably having a large role in my current predicament. So whatever the answer is to this "how do I search for God?" question, I feel that it's going to be pretty personal and individually focused for me and not me feeding off someone else's relationship with Christ.

Now I know that asking for help is almost contradictory to what I just said about individualism, but I could use some comforting words, or tips, or pointers. Or anything. Thanks again.