A Letter I Found Recently While Moving

Recently I was digging around in some old cabinets and furniture during the move to my new house. I happened to come across the following letter:

---

To whom it may concern,

It is not my wont to compose short letters like this with jocular titles. However, given the heftiness of the present subject I feel some levity is in order. Indeed, the title betrays what I feel was the sense in my spirit when I first learned of Darwin's theory of evolution after having been educated for a while in Sunday school.

I had already been told of Jesus Christ and of his saving miracle and of all those other wonderful things which the Christians claim make their religion so great. Indeed, I even accepted Jesus into my heart and I believe he is still there now. At the time I did this I felt God to be a kind of Santa Clause, only much more serious. If you were bad during the year, Santa punished you by withholding presents from you - or at least by giving you pieces of coal in your stocking. However, if you were bad during your life God punished you by withholding entrance into heaven.

Being good has always been something of a challenge for me. This is not to say that I was a particularly rambunctious child or that I got into drugs or casual sex while I was a teenager (as seems to have been the case among many of my Christian friends while I grew up). But I was not always a well-behaved child, and I was on more than one occasion thrown out of class for swearing in French at the prompting of a peer and for finding the banging noises of another student amusing.

But my true offense, the one for which I still do penance whenever I am in the presence of other Christians, is daring to believe that God did indeed make use of a single evolutionary process in order to fashion humankind. Of course my mother agreed wholeheartedly with me, as did my father and most other members of my family. But the other 'family,' the family of Christ, seemed hell-bent (excuse the pun) on hurling anathemas at me and condemning me for my belief. You see, when I first heard of the theory of evolution and I learned of the transitional forms of human beings before our present form my curiosity was piqued. "Okay, God," I said (though perhaps not in words like that), "I'm ready! Tell me more about the universe!" Soon after I learned about astronomy. This was even better. Not only could I learn about the evolutionary process God had apparently kicked off somehow but also the way in which the entire universe formed before that process even began.

But still many Christians I knew simply would not budge. They refused to appreciate how majestic and all-powerful God truly is. Instead, the only way God could have created the universe and indeed the world was by means of discrete tasks conducted over a sequence of seven days, culminating with the creation of a man who was then commanded to conduct a thorough zoological survey of the animals in his present habitation, which happened to be a Sumerian garden.

More often than not, I tried to find something beautiful in the hymns sung during church services. Where were the songs of praise to God for creating quarks or the shouts of adoration for the grand invention of the planet Jupiter? Why did no one fall prostrate before God in appreciation of the immune system, or weep at the beauty of natural selection? Instead, out-dated and irrelevant songs about converting the heathen as he lay prostrate before wood and stone echoed through the church, while the congregates bowed before the altars of law and text.

Adulthood, it seems, is a thoroughly impoverished state in which the only concrete thing which one can use to guide one's self is a literal interpretation of a bronze-age text purporting to be the spoken word of God. It is terribly sad that so many a Christian refuses to hold fast instead to the faith of a child and to declare, no matter how strange, curious, and wonderful the universe turns out to be, "Okay God! I'm ready!"

Sincerely yours,
L

Redeemer

I thought I'd make a few comments on my education. When I was attending Redeemer I noticed a lot of people complaining about a shortage of course, or about the lack of weight that Redeemer carried when compared with McMaster or some other large school. Indeed, I fell victim to that mentality on more than one occasion.

But I'd like to comment on some things my education at Redeemer gave me which, unless I am mistaken, I likely would not have gotten at a larger university.

Smaller Class Sizes
I was able to approach professors whenever I wished. Classes were very small and personable. The seminar classes were lots of fun.

Liberal Arts Education
I am a very divergent thinker. That is, I love to approach problems from strange directions or to invent new ideas based upon bits and pieces from seemingly unrelated disciplines. This got me into trouble with at least one of my friends when I would make allusions to my then in progress education in computer science while attending classes on Christian philosophy.

The liberal arts atmosphere, however, empowered me and enabled me to see myself in a light in which no one had ever invited me to see myself before. For example, I was not afraid to submit a paper in a Jewish philosophy course that took the form of a narrative whose style borrowed elements from the notion of multi-threaded programming. In short, I was able to discuss the nature of Martin Buber's philosophy using my training in english courses and borrowing from my knowledge of computer science to produce what for me was a new literary style.

Success Narrative
Maybe I was lucky. I often think of myself as such. It took a lot of work after I graduated for me to feel confidence enough in myself in my job. Parts of that I am sure were my fault and parts perhaps were the fault of the smaller course selection offered by Redeemer. But the fact that I am presently gainfully employed and more than capable of dealing with things in my job by recourse to innumerable resources from a variety of disciplines I think is evidence enough for the effectiveness and robustness of the liberal arts education Redeemer offered me.

New Conceptions of God
How do you live life as a Christian? Redeemer encouraged me to throw out a lot of notions I'd previously had of God. It also saddled me with some undesirable new ideas. It was by becoming an atheist briefly in 2008 that I lost those newer ideas. However, much of my theology now still borrows from what I learned at Redeemer.

Redeemer, then, contributed positively to my spiritual journey both directly and indirectly.

I am a Christian

This is a contradiction in terms. To say that I am a Christian is to claim that I hold as true some kind of belief system and that I owe my allegiance to a certain organization or organizations. I think it would be more accurate to say that the former is true while the latter is not. I do not owe my allegiance to any man-made institution. To be sure, many will claim that my taking the Bible as some kind of truth is an act of giving such allegiance. Perhaps I am a protestant? Maybe I am a seventh day adventist?

I think that I will refrain from making any arguments about the veracity of the Bible because firstly I would lose and secondly I would annoy too many people. For example, if I claimed that the Bible is in fact a kind of interpretation of revelation the Christians in my life would be absolutely livid. If, on the other hand, I were to hold it up as the spoken word of God, then others whom I know well would be equally incensed.

I think that I will refrain also from making confessions. I won't say "I believe in God the father bla bla bla in accordance with the theology set down by a group of men in Ancient Rome trying to settle a schismatic dispute." Were I to do that I should be opening myself again to falling back into atheism. Indeed, nothing gets one to that place faster than owing one's allegiance to confession and doctrine.

Instead, I think I will challenge the interested reader to make a confession for himself. My name is Kevin. You know this by means of looking at the title of this blog. I challenge you then to make a confession regarding your beliefs about me. "I believe," you might say, "in the existence of a man named Kevin who, born of a woman somewhere, did come to this earth and write some mediocre blog posts. He then lived out his life, said some additional things, left again." Indeed, I challenge the interested reader to exchange actually speaking with me and getting to know me for the aforementioned confession. This Kevinology will do and will ensure that you will not be cast into hell should I ever find myself in the position of being able to cause or prevent such an event.

I will refrain from placing my faith in historical documentation. For me there is no question of whether or not a claim like mine holds up against history. Rather there is only the question of whether or not the claim benefits me. And, shock, horror, I am the ultimate arbiter of that. I think I'll refrain from offering any arguments to bolster my rather selfish position. Perhaps the Calvinist will be familiar with the sensus divinitatus and find there some sense of the shocking position that I am in fact able to discern what's good for me spiritually without the help of experts.

I will also not indulge in the act of placing my faith in some scholar's writings or in another theologian's ideas. I won't ask this expert or that friend whether or not God is this way or that. Rather, I leave such questions as those to the interested reader who wishes to take me up on my challenge to produce for himself a set of confessions concerning me.

Instead, I will enjoy every part of this world as a creation of God. I will enjoy my understanding of God as such a creation. I will enjoy my thoughts of this and my activities in other areas as further participation in God's creation.

Finally, I will go to bed for the night and allow anyone who wishes to hurl epithets like 'pantheist!' or 'nasty protestant bastard!' or 'sellout!' at me while I sleep.

Spiritual Warfare

Recently the topic of spiritual warfare has approached the horizon of my Christian life again. It comes to me this time by way a good friend of mind who has taken up the writings of Neil Anderson. I could argue that that writer was the single most damaging influence on me before my university years. In many cases it was because of his teachings that I refused to study or read about anything beyond the Bible and what I had to learn in high school.

Will the writer have the same effect on my friend? Will he do as I did and, in a frenzy of self righteous indignation, 'tear down his strongholds' and burn many of his books, stop thinking about certain things, condemn to the fires of hell certain ideas?

This is quite possible, as it was the reformed theology lectures of professor Mike Goheen which helped me to push on the bubble of fundamentalism which Anderson had created in my mind. For my friend, however, he may find himself dealing with quite the reverse situation. Perhaps Goheen is the devil of hell because of certain of his teachings.

Well I'll leave things to play themselves out and, in the meantime get to bed and maybe listen to some of Anderson's more recent Bondage Breaker sermons.

Vices I Hate

I have elected to compose this short text so as to provide a source of hope to anxious and bitter people everywhere. It is not intended in the least to be a treatise on the way one ought to live in one's mind. Further I suspect that, were they presented with it, many would malign and attack the text written here firstly because it is far too specific to me and secondly because I am in no wise a man of distinction beyond that of a simple undergraduate degree from a university whose name is not even in the annals of the great educational institutions of the world. I am no Oxford graduate, nor am I a famous thinker. I have never explored a country beyond my own and a small portion of the United States. I could do little to convince the great minds of any field to change on any subject. And yet, my first act as author of this text is to take up the pen and compose it in spite of my lowly station.

My last act is not so much one of conviction concerning something I ought to do but rather one of refusal. I shall detail here a small set of things which I refuse to do with my time and with my life. These vices have come to me as a result of my careful observations of a man very close to me. He is a negative person, one filled with anxiety and depression. My observations of him have provided me no shortage of stone and mortar by which to throw up walls against the vices to which I shall turn. Perhaps these boundaries carved out of negation will serve better to illuminate the positive.

I do not wish to become a man obsessed with complaining for its own sake. I have seen this all too often in my friend and it brings about nothing but depression and despair. Let him wallow in his own filth and I shall set myself to work creating my life as a nobler and more splendid accomplishment. The complainers say what they will whilst the builders compose and construct to their hearts' content, enduring all the while what scorn and hardship fate sees fit to mete out as toll for crossing this prestigious bridge.

I do not wish to become a man obsessed with criticizing others. It is rather myself that I should criticize and that in a gentle way. To demean one's self is the lowest form of self talk and, sadly, the most common. Because I am not like that man, the reasoning goes, I am to be scoffed. Because I have not achieved what that other man has I am as a consequence less of a person. Because I experiment with technologies and set out upon quests of self improvement I am to be shunned for being stricken as I am with blotches of curiosity and ambition which colour my soul.

In place of self contempt, why can one not say instead, now here is a man who has achieved this greatness which would be of value to me? The fact that he has done it serves all the more as encouragement to me, for now I see that it can be done by a human being, a member of the race to which I belong. Why can I not look to that woman over there who, in spite of her depression, has produced some great work and use that as inspiration to proceed on in constructing what I see fit as my life's purpose unimpeded by her malady? And what is to prevent me from looking back upon the small set of tracks behind me at the close of each day and saying, now here is yet another portion mapped out with zeal and zest?

I do not wish to become a man concerned chiefly with labour for its own sake. Labour is a means to an end rather than an act of sacrifice before a brutal tyrant. If a man need work to achieve a goal or to remain alive then in heaven's name let him set himself to the task before him. But if he feels that because his father has demanded of him that he remain in some wise busy at every moment of his time then let his task be to throw off as promptly as possible the shackles of this foolish and stultifying doctrine. Let his work be a path to a destination which is his own rather than a sacrifice of time before a tyrant who threatens him with tongue lashings or worse for non-compliance.

I refuse to become a man so rigid in his thinking as to denounce as unworthy the result of an undertaking which was in some wise blemished. What man or woman is there who can execute a project with such perfection as to render the entire business without flaw? I will not do as my friend does, and point only to the flaws which reside in the implementation, ignoring the accomplishment.

Finally, I will take up these denunciations as guideposts on my journey through life. I will look to others and listen and watch for things which I might learn. But I will not hesitate in the end to follow the advice given Anselm on the day he was plunged into himself again and out of his fantasies. I shall refuse to follow another man in order that I might shirk my responsibility to myself.

Of Bouncing Back

I suppose now would be a good time to come clean and state out front that I am now more a Christian than I am an atheist. My little game of playing atheism was fun for a while but it wasn't really something that matched up with how I really feel.

It is odd that someone supposedly as analytical as myself should be making statements like these, but I think that it is my overly analytical self that is partially to blame. The virtually religious devotion to the suppression of emotion and wonder at all God has done in the name of a scientific view of the same without God were getting to be too much for me. Perhaps my atheist friends would say that I have cracked. But in response to them I would say that their philosophy wasn't enough.

Indeed, I should say that I am seeing once again a pattern has repeated itself many times in my life. I have adopted some idea or other preached by others, carried it around with enthusiasm, done several stupid things I have regretted in the name of the idea, and then rejected it. But let us suppose for the moment that I have indeed cracked and not lived up to my previous Nietzschean Übermensch doctrines.

Given this pathetic state then, I can only hope that the blood and other fluids that will flow from my broken shell will serve to benefit others. May this quixotic quest against the calm and churning faiths carried largely in silence in the hearts of others never be repeated again. And may others learn from me.

The Girl: Musings on a Strange Encounter

I'd been sitting in my class for far too long, working on an assignment I didn't like and sitting among kids I couldn't stand.  I had contemplated going and telling Mr. Dube that I wanted another group to work with, as my present company was too dim-witted to be able to discern between the pencils and pens they held in their hands various parts of their bodies.  However, looking at the other members of the class and the rather limited gene pool they represented, I decided that any attempt to find an alternative group would be a futile one at best and a way to start a fight and further showers of insults at worst.

And so, I excused myself, ostensibly to go to the bathroom. 

"Mr. Dube," I said.  "I have to go to the washroom."

"Okay," he said, allowing me to leave.

Exiting the classroom I roamed the hallways looking for the closest exit from the school.  I hated high school. 

I saw a girl walking in my direction – someone new perhaps.  At any rate, I had never seen her in this school.  As she approached, she said, "Kevin," smiling and letting out a slight laugh perhaps in embarrassment at some task or other that she knew she needed to perform and which required her to speak with me.  She sounded as though she and I had done something or been somewhere together, perhaps on a trip of some kind.  In fact, her voice, crisp and somewhat low-pitched, sounded familiar. 

But before I could respond she was gone.

And now I sit here typing at my computer, some fifteen years after the incident, comfortably employed though in the midst of the recession of 2009.  I think of the girl every now and again.  I think that I should have said something to her - at least asked her who she was.  I wonder what role she thought she played in my life that necessitated her greeting me with such familiarity despite our being unacquainted.  And the gears of my mind set into motion as I try to fill in the gaps.

What would her name have been?  Laura?  No, Laura doesn't sound like the name of a girl who speaks with a crisp and raspy voice.  Candice?  Again, too plain.  Lindsay!  Yes, that is a name which allows for the strangeness of voice and the echoes of acquaintance long forgotten.  What would Lindsay have been doing roaming the halls of Fern Pond Secondary School?  Well, I suspect that the obligation she felt toward me will soon betray her purpose....

Lindsay glanced at the kids in the hallway as she walked.  She knew her way around, through, and over the intricate protocols of high school life.  Yet she was completely alien to the whole thing.  She was here looking for one person, for the young man who was troubled and in need of something to do with the rest of his life.  He didn't know it yet, but he would face a lot of problems later on and she was here to steer him away from them.  There was the bus that would hit him exactly ten years, four weeks, two days, twenty hours, ten minutes, and thirty seconds from now.  But for the fact that the youth would at that time be ruminating about her appearance today he would most certainly be killed. 

"Kevin," Lindsay said, letting out a tiny puff of laughter at the prospect of causing the boy, prone as he was to excessive thinking and daydreaming, to ponder her appearance ten years from now.  The kid, looking a bit surprised, walked onward without glancing back much less thanking Lindsay for saving his life. 

And then there was that big guy who was planning at that moment to accost the ungracious and wholly ignorant young man.  Lindsay calmly approached him and struck up a conversation.  Hot young girl with raspy voice and generous smile.  Can't go wrong there.  And so the brute made other plans. 

That night, in her mobile hut, Lindsay celebrated her mission and its success.  She thought of the poor and ignorant Kevin, who by no fault of his own, did not know her and yet was so much her friend. She and Kevin had been on many trips together to strange places. She remembered the time they had visited Ezannia and seen the flying monks of Osasto performing their sacred rites, or the time they had quested after Orin in the Belt System.

But these were other places, other times. The Kevin she'd seen today was a pale and dim shadow of the young man she knew. His life was a tragedy, a fall from a paradise he never knew existed and a relief from duties he couldn't begin to imagine.

“And so,” Lindsay said to herself, parodying the hilarious line from Monty Python's Flying Circuis, “Let's forget about him and follow instead one Kelvin Basir.”

She looked at the new orders that had just come up on her laptop screen. Kelvin was a promising young fellow. He had his share of difficulties but he wasn't beyond saving.

Her mobile hut began to whir, and fade from view, producing a psionic wave of mis-perception and amnesia. Nobody had been here, Lindsay was a figment of your imagination, her hut was a trick of the light in the forest near the Marshe's trailer. Both it and Lindsay never existed except in stories and books and even then they went by different names and different roles.