lets make a difference!!!

good question!

read this post entitled "After The Rapture: Who’s Looking After Your Pets?" by Kester Brewin, the author of the excellent book "Signs of Emergence"

working together!

The latest issue of Durham Magazine has a great cover story of friendship and working together for the Kingdom: in Durham, as it is in Heaven...

In the Current Issue - February/March 2010

From camps to three faithful friends to one awkward opera audition, we've got an eclectic mix of fare in the latest Durham Magazine.

The three gents who grace our cover – Bishop Elroy Lewis, Rabbi John Friedman and The Rev. Joe Harvard – have built a great friendship over decades of putting aside theological differences to be an active force for good.

clever picture

this is a clever picture that I got from my daughter...

Donald Miller's Response to Pat Robertson’s Comments about Haiti

Author Donald Miller's response... worth reading.

http://donmilleris.com/2010/01/13/1513/ 

echos of The Screwtape Letters

this letter was published in the Minneapolis Star Tribune...

Dear Pat Robertson,

I know that you know that all press is good press, so I appreciate the shout-out. And you make God look like a big mean bully who kicks people when they are down, so I'm all over that action. But when you say that Haiti has made a pact with me, it is totally humiliating. I may be evil incarnate, but I'm no welcher.

The way you put it, making a deal with me leaves folks desperate and impoverished. Sure, in the afterlife, but when I strike bargains with people, they first get something here on earth -- glamour, beauty, talent, wealth, fame, glory, a golden fiddle. Those Haitians have nothing, and I mean nothing. And that was before the earthquake.

Haven't you seen "Crossroads"? Or "Damn Yankees"? If I had a thing going with Haiti, there'd be lots of banks, skyscrapers, SUVs, exclusive night clubs, Botox -- that kind of thing. An 80 percent poverty rate is so not my style. Nothing against it -- I'm just saying: Not how I roll.

You're doing great work, Pat, and I don't want to clip your wings -- just, come on, you're making me look bad. And not the good kind of bad. Keep blaming God. That's working. But leave me out of it, please. Or we may need to renegotiate your own contract.

Best, Satan

LILY COYLE, MINNEAPOLIS

quote

It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.

  - G. K. Chesterton

The Gathering Storm

At the end of time,
when the many become one,
the last storm shall gather its angry winds
to destroy a land already dying.
And at its center,
the blind man shall stand
upon his own grave.
There he shall see again,
and weep for what has been wrought.

- from The Prophecies of the Dragon, Essanik Cycle.
Malhavish's Official Translation,
Imperial Record House of Seandar,
Fourth Circle of Elevation.

from "The Gathering Storm"

Christmas Grace

I remember Jean Valjean saying in Les Miserables that the real punishment of a convict begins after they are released. This story shows how one man is changing that. It's a great reminder of the Christmas spirit of giving and love and grace toward all people!

Kansas City Star - December 23, 2009 - A1 News

Car wash owner hires ex-convicts when others won't. Jobs are scarce out there, no matter how impressive the resume. If that resume listed time in a state penitentiary, imagine just how much more scarce. Nearly 700,000 people are released from federal and state prisons to their communities each year, about 25,000 between Missouri and Kansas. Where do they go? Some end up with a job and pick up a rag at the bright orange and blue All Seasons Car Wash. Here at 1510 Truman Road is found one of the grittier tales of good will...

(complete article here)

Make Love, not war.

Make Love, not war. Let's end the myth of redemptive violence.

"Violence is for those who have lost their imagination. Has your country lost its imagination?" (hospital administrator in Iraq)

"Our world is desperately in need of imagination, for we have spent so much creativity devising ways of destroying our enemies that some folks don't even think it's possible (much less practical) to love them. We have placed such idolatrous faith in our ability to protect ourselves that we call it more courageous to die killing than to die loving."

Shane Claiborne - The Irresistible Revolution

"But I tell you who hear me: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. If someone strikes you on one cheek, turn to him the other also. If someone takes your cloak, do not stop him from taking your tunic. Give to everyone who asks you, and if anyone takes what belongs to you, do not demand it back. Do to others as you would have them do to you.
 "If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' love those who love them. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that to you? Even 'sinners' lend to 'sinners,' expecting to be repaid in full. But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked. Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful."

Jesus - Luke 6:27-36

I can relate...

read the whole article on the "Out of Ur" blog.

the journey continues

It has been nearly eight months since I wrote about my friend and I completing our fantastic 18 month journey through the 11 books of Robert Jordan's The Wheel of Time series. But our milestone, albeit a major one, was not the journey's end. It gave way to a season of pause... to reflect, to appreciate, to anticipate, and to mourn. Sadly, Mr. Jordan died before completing The Wheel of Time. His passing left a chasm that cannot be filled. He was a unique and special soul, and he cannot be replaced. But, thanks be to the Light, Mr. Jordan passed the torch, albeit indirectly, to Mr. Brandon Sanderson. Mr. Sanderson will take us on the remaining journey, a journey with the characters we know and love, to the fascinating places we have savored, experiencing the amazing events as the Wheel turns toward the Last Battle. He will bring us the story that Mr. Jordan envisioned, all the way through to the ending that Mr. Jordan himself wrote before his passing. As I pick up The Gathering Storm, volume 12 of 14 of The Wheel of Time, I'm filled with excitement. Just finishing the Prologue, I already find myself caught up in this epic tale of good and evil, of humans like us making choices which will affect the outcome of the Last Battle.

Our season of waiting is over this weekend as we set out once again to complete the Journey. Mr. Jordan, thank you for the wonderful journey. I give back to you the words that you wrote so many years ago:

"The Light shine on you, and the Creator shelter you. The last embrace of the mother welcome you home."

- Shienaran eulogy, ch.10 "The Great Hunt"

into Aslan's country

Our Maisy has gone to join Cassie and Callie (our passed kitties) in Aslan's country, where they are all talking animals now. We will miss her very much, but we are grateful for all the wonderful years she shared with us. The Pinnacles, Wilburn Ridge, the (not so) wild ponies, and Mt. Rogers were just practice for high adventure in Aslan's country. Further in and higher up!

"The creatures came rushing on, their eyes brighter and brighter as they drew nearer and nearer to the standing Stars. But as they came right up to Aslan... they looked in the face of Asian and loved him, though some of them were very frightened at the same time. And all these came in at the Door, in on Asian’s right...

“Further in and higher up!” cried Roonwit and thundered away in a gallop to the West. And though they did not understand him, the words somehow set them tingling all over. The Boar grunted at them cheerfully. The Bear was just going to mutter that he still didn’t understand, when he caught sight of the fruit-trees behind them. He waddled to those trees as fast as he could and there, no doubt, found something he understood very well. But the Dogs remained, wagging their tails...

Aslan said... “The term is over: the holidays have begun. The dream is ended: this is the morning.”

And as He spoke He no longer looked to them like a lion; but the things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world and all their adventures in Narnia had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on forever: in which every chapter is better than the one before."

C.S. Lewis - "The Last Battle" - The Chronicles of Narnia

democracy of the dead

"democracy of the dead" - that title has a good halloween ring to it. I'm reading a fantastic book by Brian McLaren entitled "A Generous Orthodoxy". I recommend it highly, and I'd love to be a part of a group study of the book. In the chapter "Why I Am catholic", McLaren quotes one of the many brilliant passages from G. K. Chesterton's classic book "Orthodoxy". The wisdom of Chesterton is something we are sorely in need of today. Savour the wisdom in this passage. Read it several times if need be. It is rich.

But there is one thing that I have never from my youth up been able to understand. I have never been able to understand where people got the idea that democracy was in some way opposed to tradition. It is obvious that tradition is only democracy extended through time. It is trusting to a consensus of common human voices rather than to some isolated or arbitrary record...
It is quite easy to see why a legend is treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a book of history. The legend is generally made by the majority of people in the village. The book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad...
If we attach great importance to the opinion of ordinary men in great unanimity when we are dealing with daily matters, there is no reason why we should disregard it when we are dealing with history or fable. Tradition may be defined as an extension of the franchise. Tradition means giving votes to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead. Tradition refuses to submit to the small and arrogant oligarchy of those who merely happen to be walking about. All democrats object to men being disqualified by the accident of birth; tradition objects to their being disqualified by the accident of death. Democracy tells us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our groom; tradition asks us not to neglect a good man’s opinion, even if he is our father. I, at any rate, cannot separate the two ideas of democracy and tradition; it seems evident to me that they are the same idea. We will have the dead at our councils.

G. K. Chesterton in "Orthodoxy", pg 52-53

subtle but huge distinction

The following is from the Introduction to the book "From Achilles to Christ" by Dr. Louis Markos. This subtle but huge distinction is often overlooked in the way we define Truth, and the way we view the Bible. The more I read and learn, the more I realize the importance of a proper view of scripture and not equating scripture with Truth. As Christians, we believe that the ultimate Truth was revealed to us in Jesus.

"Many Christians, particularly evangelicals like myself, are prone to claim that the Bible is the ultimate source of truth. But that is not technically true. Christ, not the Bible, is the ultimate source of truth; the Bible is but the most perfect and reliable embodiment of that truth which resides in Christ alone. Indeed, in the Gospel of John, Christ tells his disciples that he is the truth (14:6). The distinction here is vital. If it is the living Messiah and not a single book that is the source of truth, then it is possible for that truth (albeit in a lesser, fragmented form) to appear throughout the imaginative literature of the ancient pre-Christian world.

We have all been programmed by our Creator with a desire to seek and yearn after the God who is truth. If it is true, as Paul teaches in Acts 17:26-28, that we were all made in his image, that he is not far from us, that in him we live and move and have our being, then it must also be true that those timeless works of ancient Greece and Rome that record the musings of humanity’s greatest seekers and yearners will contain traces, remnants and intimations of that wisdom which made us.

Truth is limited neither to the Scriptures nor to the sacred tradition; the Bible, though it tells us all we need to know to find salvation in and through Jesus Christ, does not attempt or purport to be an encyclopedia of all knowledge and wisdom. It can lead us to Christ and can instruct us in the rudiments of our faith, but it cannot answer all our questions nor can it satisfy all our deepest desires and yearnings for truth, beauty and understanding. God speaks to us in many other ways and through many other media. Though the Scriptures must ever act as the touchstone against which all such communications are to be measured, we must not allow puritan suspicion of the moral value and doctrinal status of humanistic pursuits to prevent us from accessing these messages from our Creator."

excellent book!

Misquoting Jesus: The Story Behind Who Changed the Bible and Why by Bart D. Ehrman
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This past week, I read UNC Professor Bart Ehrman's book entitled "Misquoting Jesus". It is an excellent book! It is not the attack on faith and scripture that I was expecting. Rather, it is a scholarly, yet accessible, work on how our scriptures came to us! I find my faith and understanding of the scriptures strengthened, not shaken! I now have a better understanding of the alternate versions of the text which appear in the footnotes of my study bibles. I have also gained a deep respect for the hundreds of people over the course of history who have dedicated their lives to finding the text of the original manuscripts, helping to bring us closer to the them, and to the authors who penned them. The investigative process that Dr. Ehrman and others use is fascinating, and I'm encouraged that this work has been and is taken very seriously. I recommend this book to anyone seeking a better understanding of the processes through which the Bible has come to us.

View all my reviews

The Great Reversal

Walking with the crowds
Carried along by the pressing forward.
Each one eager to get ahead
But each one starting the same:

Born as a baby, and from then on, struggling towards meaning, power and influence.
Be someone
Be remembered
Make a big impression.
Leave some indelible mark in your 3 score years and 10.

From birth, a struggle to find eternity, to burst through life with such dazzling intensity, that everyone will remember forever.
But walking the other way, picking out a route against the crowds, a solitary figure passes me... passes all of us - all straining away innocence, to be someone,
And he passes us, a quiet chaos in the crowd.

Christ, eternal, omniscient, creator; beyond time, source of wisdom and beyond petty claims of influence. . . in very nature God, slips into reverse and walks back past us - away from Kingship, away from power, away from influence, away from eternity, away from wisdom. . . towards infancy.
Calmly stepping into the body of a tiny child.

And even as this baby grows, figuring out how to control the body he himself designed, he still walks the
other way, realising that life cannot be found in the struggle for permanence, but in giving it up.

This Great Reversal subverts me. Tired of pressing forward, I realise I need to turn, for what I have been searching for has just walked past me the other way.

Quoted in the book Signs of Emergence from VX23: see www.vaux.net for an extensive archive of Vaux writing.

Cassie

Sweet Dreams Kitty. :-)

Seven Pounds of Guilt?

Last night, we watched the film "Seven Pounds". It had been recommended to us by many folks, and we were anxious to finally see it.

"Seven Pounds" is a fascinating story of a man doing his best to repay a great debt he had incurred with humanity... the taking of seven lives in a moment of carelessness. The story is presented in many pieces, and I found myself riveted to the screen as I took in as many details as possible, hoping to assemble the pieces into the whole story. This assembly eventually came (but due to my characteristic "slowness" in putting together the whole story, it came near the end of the movie), and when everything clicked into place, I was left disappointed and saddened by the apparent messages of the story.

The primary character, Tim, indeed put forth a remarkable effort toward redeeming himself of the debt he felt he owed to humanity. In essence, he saved seven lives, even at the cost of his own, in order to atone for the seven lives he had taken. He accomplished this atonement by giving life saving gifts, mostly in the form of organ donations, to the fortunate recipients. Which leads me to one of the troubling aspects. I've read in other reviews that these gifts were given in the spirit of grace. But I think they were not. Before each gift was given, Tim carefully and sometimes ruthlessly evaluated each recipient's worthiness of the gift. He even denied the gifts to some he judged unworthy. While this all seems fair and just and noble in our contemporary worldview, it is not a picture of the Grace that we receive from God, the same Grace that we are called to bestow on others. Tim's grace definitely had some strings attached, and was to some degree earned by the recipient. This left me sad.

My other disappointment with the story is that Tim lived the rest of his life under the belief that he alone could atone for his debt. Again, on the surface, this seems very fair and just in the perspective of our contemporary worldview. Tim was willing to pay his debt to society and did so at the cost of his own life. But I see an atonement that depended solely on Tim. His redemption was self earned, and all up to him. And it was driven by the constant weight of guilt and debt that he, presumably, was only able to relieve through the seven life saving gifts he made. Tim lived the remainder of his life under the weight of the Law. He did not experience Grace for himself. Again, I was left saddened, and disappointed by this message in the story.

In "Seven Pounds", I had hoped for a picture of real Grace and Redemption, not a modern day parable of a life under the burden of the Moral Law which none of us can keep. It is nice that Tim took responsibility for his debt and his careless actions. But his lifelong burden and enslavement to make things right by his own efforts paints a powerful picture how badly the world is in need of the perfect Grace and Freedom that is offered us by God. Tim may have "evened the score" in one respect, but he lost more than his physical life in the process. He gave up Joy, true Grace, and perhaps lost his Soul as well.

the temptation of power

Jacques Ellul wrote:

"We have to say very forcefully that we see here the perversion of revelation by participation in politics, by the seeking of power. The church lets itself be seduced, invaded, dominated by the ease with which it can now spread the gospel by force (another force than that of God) and use its influence to make the state, too, Christian. It is great acquiescence to the temptation Jesus himself resisted, for when Satan offers to give him all the kingdoms of earth, Jesus refuses, but the church accepts, not realizing from whom it is receiving the kingdoms."

This so reminds me of the agenda of the so-called "Christian right" which has been so powerful over the past few decades. It would be wise to note from whom they receive their power and influence.

Jacques Ellul, "The Subversion of Christianity", p.124