A Temporary Thing
Being married to Luria was all I ever wanted in life. It was the thing I prayed for in bed when I was nine-years-old. I wanted to be married to a beautiful, smart, sweet girl. I’m not sure what I believe about God anymore, but Luria turned out to be an answered prayer. I loved her, love her and will always love her.
I worked on things to fit what she said where her dreams. Modeling didn’t work because that business is just weird. She groked it and that business doesn’t like girl who grok it. We then started writing a book. Harry Potter was taking off and we started writing a book set in New Orleans with a flood threat that skidded to a halt with Katrina. My next thing was podcasting inspired by Dawn and Drew. The Crappy Christian Show quickly evolved from Luria and me getting drunk and talking into a mic into a ministry type thing to share the idea that God may love gay people just as they are, without any expectation they change. I didn’t want to be in ministry and Luria certainly didn’t.
Steve Jobs announced the first iPod that played video and I worked to make that iPod play GeekBrief.TV. That worked well. We started making money. Mevio was a great partner. Luria wanted more, and people in her life convinced her she was the character I wrote every day. Her belief that she was Cali Lewis grew into an argument that led her to leave our marriage.
I still want to be writing tech news as Cali Lewis and producing GeekBrief.TV. I don’t get that as an option, and I’ve come close to launching alternative visions. I almost released a gadget show yesterday.
Here’s the deal though … I don’t want to work on a next thing that is anything but temporary. My heart can’t currently believe in long term. I want to work, but I’m not ready to say, “This is the thing that replaces Cali Lewis and GeekBrief.TV for me.” Even my dreams for Bacon.TV in partnership with Wright Brand Bacon isn’t that powerful!
The Mayans predicted the world ends at the end of 2012. Obviously, that’s silly just like when that preacher dude did it twice in 2011. But you know what? So what! What will happen if I live this year like it’s not only my last year, but yours? That’s what I’m going to do.
Tomorrow I launch a temporary thing I can believe in and I think it will inspire you to do something better than you planned to do in 2012. It isn’t serious because I’m not ready to be serious. It’s just about fun.
I’ve lost my life goal of being married to a beautiful, smart, and kind girl. I’m not making that kind of goal again. To make it through. I want to live as though it’s not only my last year but yours too.
Read MoreArtificially Intelligence Has Evolved to the Level of Political Discourse
When we get to Singularity, I’m hoping for some improvement. This computer generated conversation isn’t all that different than a political chat show.
Read MoreThe God Thing
People who don’t buy into the God concept tend to have a problem with me, but they shouldn’t. Neither should Christians that I criticize. I had a little fight with Leo Laporte when he was criticizing my ex-wife when she was envolved with an atheist but the truth is there are few people I respect more than him. Thank Zuckerberg for the, “It’s Complicated” Facebook relationship status.
Here’s the deal with me…
I believe in belief. Belief works no matter what you believe. Young Muslim men will make themselves into bombs because they BELIEVE. Christians will be mean to gay people and protest abortion clinics because they believe homosexuality is an abomination to God and abortion is killing innocence. Belief is like fuel for life. It motivates!
Here’s the thing though …
I believe in God because that belief fills in blanks for me. I grew up trying to understand God through the Bible. That works because it’s the way billions of people have come to a maybe true understanding of what God is all about. The problem is you can’t study the bible truthfully and not find imperfection. Just like me, and you, and any attempt to know and understand what that God thing is about … everything is flawed … including that book.
My sense is that God is a He and a She and a Do and a That. If there is a God, God is bigger than religion and to really encounter God makes religion shrink to pretty much nothingness.
I simply cannot believe that supreme intelligence cares about the minute details of my life, but I can total believe in an idea of love that created people to love and doesn’t like it when we don’t love. Everything I’ve experienced in trying to understand what God IS suggests that God is simply love. I quickly dropped the Bible as fully true because of the parts that inspire hate and oppression. I don’t reject the God the bible introduced me to, though. I love that concept!
My gay friends who follow Jesus know God loves them because that’s what God is. Our churches have become about rules and make believe. I don’t like that. If God is love, church should be too and all too often it’s just a place where mean men make the rules.
I sin when I fail to love, but when I love I smash right into what the God thing is all about. I believe God is technology. I believe God is love. I believe God is AWESOME!
Read MoreWhere I Stand
To say the last few months have been crap on toast is only getting at the start of the point. I came very close to giving up. In the process I dealt with what I believe about God and the bible. I wrestled with my beliefs and came through the process feeling pretty positive about what I believe. I’m pro God and not a big fan of the bible.
I’ve gotten to the place where I believe God is love and Love is god. Sin is only a failure to love (failure to love oneself, failure to love one’s neighbor and/or failure to love God/Love). I believe the narrative story of the bible, but I do not believe the bible is the inspired, inerrant word of God. I believe the bible contains scripture inspired by God that is immutably true, but it also contains stuff that has nothing to do with God. Jesus didn’t promise a book. He promised a spirit.
I believe the bible shows an unfolding understanding of the concept of God by people who longed to know him. I believe the understanding continues beyond the church’s canonization of the book we called the bible. I believe all written truth is scripture inspired by God, although I’m not sure if God is a who or a what. I believe bible writers wrote scripture, I believe Albert Einstein wrote scripture, I believe Julia Child wrote scripture, I believe The Shack contains scripture, I believe you and I sometimes write scripture and I believe all scripture is inspired by God, but not everything in the bible is scripture. Our spirits tell us what’s true and what isn’t. For example, our spirits tell us God is not pissed off if we wear a poly-cotton blend.
I use common terms to identify with folks, so I will call myself a Christian to connect with someone, but ultimately, I am not a Christian. I believe that Jesus is God made flesh sent to connect, redeem and solve the difference between God and man. I don’t believe you have to believe it. I believe His death and resurrection saved everyone whether or not they pray a Billy Graham prayer. Any other belief is grace +. I don’t believe God needs a decision of faith. I believe God did everything through the person of Jesus to make everyone ultimately one with who God is. I am a believer in Jesus, but not a follower. I believe to follow Him requires giving up everything (family, money, dreams … everything) to work for the poor because that’s what HE said. I’m not ready to do that.
A decision to acknowledge God and Jesus and what Jesus did creates a spiritual reality for believers that cannot be scientifically understood or classified. Belief has power regardless of the aim of the belief. Belief has benefits whether it’s based on truth or nonsense. I do better when I believe than when I struggle to understand what is true.
I think of God as a concept more than as a person. I believe in the God concept and want to know and understand the God concept as much as a person can without developing another sense of blessed assurance that makes me think I’m right and you’re wrong (if you don’t agree with me).
God is love, and therefore, I will try to love you whether you love me or hate me because I think that is the best goal of life.
Read MoreExistential Crisis # 732
One day, I hope I can stop having deep, depressive episodes where I wonder what the purpose of life is or should be. My current existential crisis follows a year of spiritual searching, finding, wandering, frequently getting lost, and sometimes being found.
I have faith in God, but it’s only occasionally stronger than my doubts about Him or Her. The thing I believe in more than anything else is belief. Believing seems to work for me even when I’m unsure about the truth of what I believe. Believing makes me feel better than cynicism and doubt.
I’m not a fan of fundamentalists, but as I’ve very seriously considered ending my life lately, I’ve been introduced to a different kind of fundamentalist. Shane Claiborne fundamentally believes that Jesus meant it when He said, “Sell all you have and give to the poor.” Shane grew up a blessed, American kid, but in college, he started taking Jesus seriously and living like Jesus said to live. That isn’t what Christians do. Christians worship God and work on prosperity. Jesus said to give away everything and work on helping the poor and the outcasts.
I’m not there yet. I want to be there. Having so much taken from me in the last year has made me open to the idea of being there. I used to only sleep in certain kinds of beds in certain kinds of places with LOTS of air conditioning. Now I’ll sleep on the floor. I don’t care about stuff the way I used to care.
One of the reasons I haven’t started a new show to replace GeekBrief.TV is that every time I sit down to look at gadget news, I think about how shallow it is. There are so many people hurting more than I’m hurting. Gay teenagers are killing themselves because the Church gives aid and comfort to bullies.
I’m not saying I won’t do a gadget show or an entertainment show. If I can create properties that generate the kind of revenue we did with GeekBrief.TV and give that away, it might be far better than if I just give away what I have to help people in the short-term.
I go back and forth from being angry at Luria for taking my business away from me to thinking it’s one of the best things that’s ever happened in my life.
I don’t know how it’s all going to work out for me, or even if it will. I have very little motivation to live for myself right now. I’m motivated to live for the people in my life who love me, but not for myself. If I can figure out a way to really help hurting people and spend my life doing that … I want to do that!
I get really upset with Christians who tell me, if I kill myself, I’ll go to “hell.” I really don’t think those people are friends with God. God knows I’m in hell right now. I believe He wants me to do something with my life that matters and that helps people, but the idea that God is love transcends all that judgement crap religious people throw around so they feel saved and superior.
The song in my head right now is so sweet and simple,
“Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus
Just to take Him at His Word
Just to rest upon His promise
Just to know, thus saith the Lord.”
I’m not going to be where Shane Claiborne is any time soon, but I am going to aim in that direction. The rest I’ll have to figure out along the way.
Buy Shane’s book, The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical.
Ministry or Media
When I was twelve, I built a replica of the Jim and Tammy PTL set out of lego. I sponge painted the walls of the outdoor patio area to look like stone. I made cameras. There was actual lighting. I even made dresses for Tammy Faye and the PTL singers. I LOVED Jim and Tammy. I’m pretty sure I always will, even as Jim wants to sell me some Glenn Beck supplies. Tammy may have worn some heavy makeup, but she wasn’t fake. She loved people just like they are and Jim and Tammy ended every show saying, “God loves you. He really, really does.”
Before we started GeekBrief.TV, Luria and I did an audio show called The Crappy Christian Show. It was intended to be silly and funny and we were trying to be like Dawn and Drew. The show had an underlying message, though, that kept cutting through the silliness. We said, “If good Christians hate gay people, we must be crappy Christians.” We really believed a Crappy Christian is the best kind you can be. When we started that show, our goal was to be like Dawn and Drew and to quit our day jobs to podcast full time. The Crappy Christian Show quickly transitioned into something deeper that looked a whole lot more like ministry than show business. We had about 3000 downloads per episode and 80% of the audience was made up of gay Christians. I wasn’t ready to be in any kind of ministry, but I had a heart for the gay community that I didn’t understand. I believed back then, and believe it even more strongly now that God loves GLBT people just as they are and doesn’t expect them to change.
Over the last five years I’ve had conversations with hundreds of gay men and women. Their stories are all so similar. So many of them grew up in church loving God and feeling a same-sex attraction. They begged God to change them, to take it away. It scared them. They didn’t want to be different. They didn’t want to be gay. No matter how much they begged. No matter how much they pleaded. No matter how much they quoted scripture, went to counseling and got prayed over, God didn’t change them. So many of them were kicked out of churches and told to return only if they repented. Some of them felt rejected by God, but so many of them still felt God’s love and acceptance in spite of what they were getting from people who say they loved God fulltime. When these men and women got to be around 40-years-old (some sooner), they started to be really okay with the fact that God doesn’t seem to have any interest in turning them straight.
One of my biggest struggles over the past few months has been over the same thing I struggled with when we were doing The Crappy Christian Show. I don’t think the church has done a good job loving people just as they are. We’ve been so worried about hating the “sin” that we claim to love while holding our noses. If the love is genuine, it certainly isn’t being perceived by GLBT folks who long for God’s presence. I could be completely wrong about what I believe, but I sincerely believe we need to only love people and let God deal with whatever He chooses to deal with. I’ve had chains of sin and bondage just fall off this year. I didn’t struggle. I didn’t fight to be free. I just focused on what is true and pure and holy and God did the work. I don’t believe that God wants to turn gay people straight, but if He does, He can’t do it when we are pushing people away.
I know that I’ve so frequently gotten God wrong and not shown His amazing love and grace. My heart’s cry is for me to never let my stuff interrupt God’s grace and love. That isn’t the righteousness of God. That’s self-righteousness and I want every bit of that out of my life. Jesus said we have to die to ourselves. I embrace that with everything in me and with every step, the amazing grace of God overwhelms my mind, will and emotions and fills my spirit with love that can’t be defeated.
I want to continue to make a difference in what new media is and is supposed to be, but a lot of days that hardly matters to me. If you want to see me filled with passion, talk to be about Jesus loving gay people. Every time I hear about another gay kid killing himself, I know deep down my life is meant to be about not letting that happen anymore. My friends tell me there is a balance between the two. Maybe so, but it’s been the thing I’ve struggled with for five years and I haven’t stopped yet! I believe in a God who loves us with extravagant grace, and I think He wants His people to always love, no matter how hard it is. I have huge new media dreams, but I also know I have a huge calling to challenge the church on the gay issue. I just can’t help doing it no matter how freaking hard I try!
I really believe that’s a big part of why I’m divorced. Jesus condemned divorce. He never condemned gay people. The church has massive grace for divorced people. It’s time that the church starts to have massive grace for GLBT people too.
At my church we sing a song called God Be Praised (I don’t think my church would support my postion on gay rights, but I love the people there just as they are, even if they aren’t ready to be as accepting as I am). The words bring me to tears every time we sing it:
You saved my life from death
When I was all defeated
You spoke Your promises
And brought life to my weakness
Came as a conquering King
And You warred for my freedom
My soul can’t help but sing
Hallelujah
You opened up my eyes
For the first time I saw You
Your love commanding life
And deserving devotion
You told me who I am
Now in faith I believe it
My soul can’t help but sing
Hallelujah
You’ve made a place for me
Silenced all my accusers
Leading me forth with peace
Filled with joy I will follow
Your cross demands my life
Now Your grace is my anthem
My soul can’t help but sing
Hallelujah
Hallelujah, we’re redeemed and made free
By the blood of the Lamb We have won
Hallelujah, we will sing victory
Jesus conquered the grave
God be praised
I’m very glad God hasn’t required me to be a good Christian. He seems to like using me as a crappy one!
Read More
