Tuesday, June 26, 2007

Karma is killing me!



Karma. I like the idea. The simplest way to explain Karma would be that "you get what you give". It is like a bank account or investment that I continually see grow as I help a little old lady cross the road, let a driver merge in front of me or stay home on a Saturday night and baby-sit my niece and nephew. Sometimes it's a sacrifice and other times its comes naturally, but the more I "do unto others" the more my Karma stock rises. After my good deeds have been accomplished I just sit back and await my returns, after all, good works translates into good Karma.


Karma is usually associated with Hinduism or Buddhism, so why is a Christian like myself interested in Karma? Well, the Bible does say that "we reap what we sow", so on the surface the idea seems to have some similarities to Christian teaching. "Do onto others as you would have them do unto you", seems like a solid philosophy to live life by. We all want to live as comfortably, happy and healthy as possible and this seems to be the formula for a successful and fulfilling life.


However, I have found that there is a bit of a wrinkle in the whole philosophy. Life plays by its own rules and more often than not it is found to be unfair and unjust. The hardworking, dedicated father who loves his family arrives home late to find his wife in the arms of another man. A minister who gives his afternoons every Saturday to visit the sick is diagnosed with cancer. A son deceivingly scams his elderly mother of every penny she has ever earned in her life and penniless she is forced into a home.


After all our hard work, sacrifice and striving sometimes we are forced to watch as laziness is rewarded at work or at school. A red sports car speeds past like a blur and you are the one pulled over minutes later. The good guy doesn't always win and sometimes it seems the bad guy never loses. Life doesn't always reward us accordingly and sometimes it seems Karma is nowhere to be found.


Whether we call it Karma, "good works" or whatever, often times what we are attempting to do by our actions is please God and remain in his good graces. So in looking at the philosophy of Karma deeper it would seem that our motivation and our intentions are selfish. Our good actions are to our own benefit and in a way we are using others for our own selfish gain. We treat God like we are his co-dependent children who must make sure he is always happy, always smiling and we mustn't make him angry. Love should be our motivation, not fear.


Brennen Manning writes in his wonderful book "The Ragamuffin Gospel" that God "is not moody or capricious; He knows no seasons of change. He has a single relentless stance towards us: HE LOVES US. He is the only God that man has heard of that loves sinners". We can play all of the religious games, use all kinds of smoke and mirrors, yet God sees through our fancy production and sees us as we are, cowering in fear behind the curtain. He sees all our weaknesses, faults and sins and yet he loves us anyways. That is grace.


Karma and grace cannot coexist; they are in opposition of each other. Karma teaches that you do good and good things will be your reward, you do bad and you with reap negative things. Grace teaches that good or bad God accepts us in our current state, with our current problems, hang-ups and loose ends. The Apostle Paul wrote "God Said, My grace is enough for you: my power is at its best in your weakness". God prefers that we stop striving in vain to make ourselves presentable to Him and let him accept us as we are. God practices Grace.


Grace is unnatural and difficult for us to comprehend and sometimes it is even impossible for us to accept. It is learned in us from the time we are born the consequences of good and bad behavior. Our parents and society as a whole molds us through punishment and reward and there is little room for grace. As we develop relationships in life often we feel like we must emotionally punish our friends and loved ones when they hurt us. We must not quickly forgive them but must make them suffer so they understand the wrong they have done without offering them any grace. Throughout the world religions teach that humans must please their god, and most if not every god in religion seems to be unpredictable, angry and vengeful. Unfortunately religion rarely teaches grace.


It isn't easy for us to accept grace; we still want to give something in return. But God extended his hand of grace to us before we could even act. He extended the gift of grace before we could choose to do right or wrong, good or bad. God throws Karma out the window. He has no place for it. It is just another religious tool to get in the way of his relationship and his love of his creation. Karma becomes just another philosophy that clouds our minds and causes confusion in our souls.

Grace is a free pass that allows us to sit out the exhausting Karma game. When we live our lives underneath the umbrella of Gods grace there is no longer a reason for us to keep score. Yet, if we continue to practice our good works in attempts to appease God and the laws of Karma than we have no room for grace.


I like the idea of Karma. We should strive to love, serve and treat others honorably and with respect. We should desire to become better people. But I like grace so much more, because although I try to love others and be a good human being often I fail. I cannot live up to the person I think I should be. I need grace.

"It is by grace you have been saved through faith; not by anything of your own, but by a gift from God; not by anything you have done so that nobody can claim the credit."

The Apostle Paul in Ephesians 2:8-9

Monday, June 25, 2007

Why are you wearing that silly human suit?


The reflection in the mirror is not overly attractive nor is it familiar. My usual strategy of retreat has been aborted despite the sirens blaring in my head. On this occasion I can't break eye contact. I have to look. I have to peer into his eyes and deeper still into the windows of his soul. Some twenty years have passed and to my embarrassment I have to admit to myself that I don't know him at all.

I have let so much time pass, yet at last we are getting acquainted. He is a pretty good guy after all, much kinder than I was led to believe. Sure he has his moments. For example, the other day when he lost his patience with everyone at work and just started acting like a jerk…complaining about everything and acting self-righteous. Oh…or how about a few weeks back when he sat around with a buddy saying some pretty cold things about a friend behind their back. Totally uncalled for. But you have to forgive him, he defiantly is far from perfect and but for the most part he is a good person. He loves his family, works hard and is a loyal friend.

I have to say it feels pretty good now that I'm getting to know myself a little better. I really did ignore me for so long. I guess in my experience the act I put on can be traced back to Sunday school. I was taught how a good boy was suppose to be, what I was and wasn't supposed to say and do. I was an astute kid anyways, I didn't really have to be taught it, I just had to watch the actions of all the adults around me, squirming in their pews, putting on fake smiles and trying to hold it all together until they could get to the car and have a cigarette.

I don't blame the church so much anymore. I realize we all try to be something or someone we are not, whether we were raised a Christian, Catholic, a banker's son or a teacher's daughter, middle class, or whatever. Whether we do it to please someone else or ourselves it is too exhausting trying to hold up appearances, to pretend, and to live a lie. What follows are some truths I have come to learn from, hold too and attempt to live by. Hopefully truths that will encourage you to gaze in the mirror and face yourself.

At times I, and maybe you have experienced this too, have struggle with the lie that God is not happy with the person I am. Now don't get the person I am and the life I am living confused. God will always love me the person, but won't always love the life I have chosen to live. Make sense? Sometimes in my self-loathing, pity party of a life I have these glimpses of the truth that God created me to be the person I am and he is happy with that. I think I disrespect Him in a way when I am unhappy about my life, my mistakes and even myself and continually compare myself to everyone else.

Although God loves us as we are that is not a license to be complacent. We should always strive to be better people and improve ourselves. But beware of self-help books! In my quest I have found that I'm not a big fan of books that promise some kind of life change in 7 easy steps. The titles are endless, the promises sound too good to be true and the results are almost guaranteed. Yes, maybe it took only 5 steps for the author to become financially secure or 10 steps for a person to forgive, but just because that approach worked for one person doesn't mean that it will work for anyone else.

Our relationship with God is said to be a personal one and God works in our lives in individual ways. If this is true than I don't want God to deal with me in a cookie cutter way that he used with someone else. I am a different person, with different feelings and needs. Fortunately God already knows this about me. He knows that it may take me 20 steps when it takes others only three. Yet he is patient with me because he knows me. He knows how to get lasting results and what I must go through to achieve them. Of course we might not always like how God chooses to mold our lives, instruct our minds or mature our souls. It can be the most painful time of our lives.

I have always liked the Bible passage that says "God turns all things to good for those who trust in Him". I don't fully understand it but I do believe it because sometimes it is all I have to hold onto. When life turns sour or things go wrong it is something I have to hold tight too and say, "Somehow God is going to use this for good". I admit there have been moments in my life where I have not seen these results as of yet. Although there isn't much sign of any good coming of it, I am still weakly holding on to Gods promise that something good will come from the tragedy or failure.

Dark secrets, shame, regrets and failure are things we all face in life. We either react by bury them or facing them. We can spend our whole lives hung up on a mistake we have made or even spend years in regret. There is nothing that can be done to erase a mistake, forget a failure or hide a sin. There is no way to turn back time and change things. Although there are things that stay with us, taunt us, mock us and maybe even hold us back, we have to take a positive view of it somehow. We learn from our mistakes no matter how painful they are.

Failure has the potential to make us stronger. Failure molds our character. I know there aren't many of us that would choose to go out and make a mess of life so they could learn from it and I'm not suggesting anyone should, that is just foolish. What I am saying is that if you have already made a mistake, or error than let it go. God is so much more merciful and forgiving than we are taught in church. He forgives you but the thing is you have to forgive yourself. God can turn our defeats into something positive. We need hide no longer.

We keep our failures chained and locked in the basement of our souls. Hidden from the world, but slowly it is rotting us away from the inside out. We bury our own dreams to please those around us, living a life that will never bring us happiness. We hold our tongue to keep a peace that we only imagine still exists. In the process we have lost our identity. We become someone we hardly recognize, maybe even someone we hate.

I have tried to please the world around me and I admit sometimes I still do. I was a seeker of a blessing from the church and at times I persist in my longing to be smiled upon. At my worse I have betrayed my very self. I traded the things I believe in to carry their membership card. To make it quite simple I lived a lie and I have to continue to guard myself from living a life that is not my own.

Every part of life can define who we are right now. We cannot erase any moment no matter how painful, hurtful, or damaging it was. We cannot and should not pretend that tragedy never stuck. We can choose however, how we approach those moments. What we take with us from them, what we learned and how we live because of those moments.

It is time to step out of the skin we have been hiding inside. It is time to look in the mirror and face ourselves.



Don't forget you're beautiful
Just the way you are
Change for you and not for me
I like who you are
DUg Pinnick singing "Beautiful"