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Holy Land, Peace, Nonviolence ...
Lynne Hybels gets it right ... here.
I've seen the film she refers to - it really is worth seeing.
Also worth seeing - Bob Roberts and Prince Turqi model Christian-Muslim dialogue:
Categories: CCbloggers, Featured Bloggers
Where I'll be this Fall:
I've had a quiet summer - good for writing (and recuperating from 2 tick-borne diseases). Next week a full travel schedule ramps up again. Between now and Christmas I'll be ...
In North Carolina
In Tennessee
In Minnesota
In Baltimore
In Edmonton, AB, Canada
In Hong Kong
In Cambodia
In Boston, MA
In Houston, TX
In Toronto, Canada
In Boston, MA
In Philadelphia, PA
In Shreveport, LA
In VA Beach, VA
In Louisville, KY
In Dallas, TX
In Philadelphia, PA
I'm looking forward to meeting many of you in one of these cities. If we meet, be sure to tell me you read my blog. Thanks!
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Gathering in the big tent ...
Philip Clayton gives one of the best overviews of "what's emerging" that I've seen anywhere ... right here.
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The Cross and the Greco-Roman narrative
A reader writes ...
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September 2 — The Closer Touch
Two Sunday’s ago I noticed, but didn’t have time to touch base with him. This Sunday after church I noticed him again and I did have the time. “Tom (not real name), you look tired. Are you doing okay?”
This man in his late thirties looked at me so surprised. “Yeah. Fine. Just tired. We’re putting in a lot of hours at work.”
We chatted for a minute or so until the rest of his family was ready to go and he left.
He was back a minute later. He came up to me, put his hand on my shoulder and said. “Thank you for noticing.”
He couldn’t believe I had noticed the change in him. We talked about his work for five more minutes, before he thanked me again and left.
That is one of the great blessings of the rural congregation. We really do have the capability of noticing even small changes in people and we can touch base with them and find out what is going in their lives.
I remember when I left the seminary, one pastor told me to make sure to take notice of the cars or trucks people drive. When I asked him why, he related a story about getting a call from a concerned parishioner. She told him that she thought a husband and wife in the congregation were having some marital issues. After she shared the name of the couple, he immediately remembered that he had been seeing the husband’s truck down at the local bar more than usual. He told me that realization helped him a great deal when they began marriage counseling.
So, let’s celebrate our small gatherings on Sunday – it may not always meet our ego’s needs, but it just might meet God’s!
Blessings, Dan
Categories: CCbloggers
Spiritual Field Trips
Do you remember how incredibly tedious school was when you were a teenager? Do you recall those eternally long days and weeks and months and years of adult designed and enforced education? I remember spending a lot of time with my chin in my hand, staring at the wall while my teacher read things like Ode on a Grecian Urn to us.
But sometimes we would get to school and discover there was a field trip, a blessed reprieve from the tedious repetition of class. We could have been going to a pencil factory for a lecture on #2 lead, but we didn’t care. It was wonderful if only because it broke up the monotony of the familiar...
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Turning the Page
I didn't watch the President's speech from the Oval Office the other evening. I knew what he would say, and I knew I stood behind him (in some ways I feel like the last man standing in this regard). I knew that he couldn't win for losing, that the Right would go after him because he had opposed the war in Iraq (as well as the surge) and the left would go after him because he didn't pull all the troops out the moment that he took office -- and now because he commended his predecessor -- not because they agreed on the war, but because the former President was a man who loved his country and is a patriot. During President Bush's term I admit taking swings at him, but he's no longer President and to his credit he's pretty much stayed out of the way.
Although my ideology tends toward the left, my instincts have always been centrist. I grew up Republican and voted for Gerald Ford in my first opportunity to vote. I opposed entrance into both of the current wars -- writing to my Senators at the time to register my views -- but I also believe that its time to move on -- or as the President said, turn the page.
One of the most disheartening thing about the current political climate is the fresh polarization. We're witnessing a civil war within the Republican Party, which is being orchestrated by a far right fringe that is reminiscent of the John Birch Society, and whose voices are people like Rush, Sean, and Glenn. It is important to note that the central influence on Glenn Beck is a shadowy character named Cleon Skousen, a Mormon who is so extreme that the LDS establishment distanced itself from him. Skousen had connections with the John Birch Society and proffered conspiracy theories, many of which Beck now spreads, that the conservative establishment leaders like William Buckley feared would taint the conservative movement. On the left, you have a dispirited Democratic Party unhappy with its President because he's made too many compromises in the hope that he could achieve his goals. One of the fallacies that lies behind the supposed opposition to the recently passed health care bill is that 60% oppose health care reform. Yes, many do, but many opposed this bill because it didn't go far enough. So, we have extremes defining the political moment.
So, yes, it is time to turn the page, to get realistic so that we can solve important problems. We'll not all agree. But, let's stop the conspiracy theories of left and right, and get busy dealing with the issues that trouble the nation and the world.
I appreciate a piece written today by Allan Bevere. Allan would agree with me that I'm much more liberal and more partisan than is he. I'm not a political independent, I am a Democrat. And yet we agree that its time to put aside the bickering and get to work. Allan did listen to the President and offers an appreciative statement in that regard. He's disheartened by the dismissals left and right of the President's statement, and then points us to another President who was criticized on all sides, but whom history has lifted up as a man of honor and wisdom -- Abraham Lincoln. As the war ended, and the nation began turning its focus to rebuilding after the devastation of four years of war, Lincoln said:
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
Even then partisans didn't want to see this happen. Conspirators moved to murder the President, and succeeded, removing the wise hand from the tiller. Radicals from the north sought to punish the south in ways that led to a hundred years of segregation and resistance to change. Let us heed the words of that wise President, whose life was cut short by violence, but whose voice still rings its clarion call to finish the work we're on.
Although my ideology tends toward the left, my instincts have always been centrist. I grew up Republican and voted for Gerald Ford in my first opportunity to vote. I opposed entrance into both of the current wars -- writing to my Senators at the time to register my views -- but I also believe that its time to move on -- or as the President said, turn the page.
One of the most disheartening thing about the current political climate is the fresh polarization. We're witnessing a civil war within the Republican Party, which is being orchestrated by a far right fringe that is reminiscent of the John Birch Society, and whose voices are people like Rush, Sean, and Glenn. It is important to note that the central influence on Glenn Beck is a shadowy character named Cleon Skousen, a Mormon who is so extreme that the LDS establishment distanced itself from him. Skousen had connections with the John Birch Society and proffered conspiracy theories, many of which Beck now spreads, that the conservative establishment leaders like William Buckley feared would taint the conservative movement. On the left, you have a dispirited Democratic Party unhappy with its President because he's made too many compromises in the hope that he could achieve his goals. One of the fallacies that lies behind the supposed opposition to the recently passed health care bill is that 60% oppose health care reform. Yes, many do, but many opposed this bill because it didn't go far enough. So, we have extremes defining the political moment.
So, yes, it is time to turn the page, to get realistic so that we can solve important problems. We'll not all agree. But, let's stop the conspiracy theories of left and right, and get busy dealing with the issues that trouble the nation and the world.
I appreciate a piece written today by Allan Bevere. Allan would agree with me that I'm much more liberal and more partisan than is he. I'm not a political independent, I am a Democrat. And yet we agree that its time to put aside the bickering and get to work. Allan did listen to the President and offers an appreciative statement in that regard. He's disheartened by the dismissals left and right of the President's statement, and then points us to another President who was criticized on all sides, but whom history has lifted up as a man of honor and wisdom -- Abraham Lincoln. As the war ended, and the nation began turning its focus to rebuilding after the devastation of four years of war, Lincoln said:
With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.
Even then partisans didn't want to see this happen. Conspirators moved to murder the President, and succeeded, removing the wise hand from the tiller. Radicals from the north sought to punish the south in ways that led to a hundred years of segregation and resistance to change. Let us heed the words of that wise President, whose life was cut short by violence, but whose voice still rings its clarion call to finish the work we're on.
Categories: CCbloggers, Featured Bloggers
Q & R: A great question about prayer ... and a hint about my next book
A reader writes ...
Continue reading Q & R: A great question about prayer ... and a hint about my next book...
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Centerfield
The following post appeared Sunday, August 29th on Episcopalcafe.com, a website to which I am a monthly contributor. Check it out here or read it below.
* * *
The Sandlot (1993, 20th Century Fox), a.k.a. one of the best baseball movies of all time.
Long before I realized the sacredness of the altar or the font or the Gospel book with its gilded edges, my contact with the holy happened twenty yards due north of second base. The play-by-play guys and color commentators speak of the “baseball gods,” but I can forgive their polytheism, for they must not have heard the good news that the Almighty God of heaven and earth became the God of baseball around 1912. Of course, half a lifetime ago, I didn’t realize that. All I knew was that centerfield was, somehow, holy.
I lived to play defense—my hitting and striking out and stealing bases and popping out to the first baseman and scoring from second were dry toast. Catching fly balls and cutting off balls hit in the gap were pizza and hamburgers. I relished being a member of the home team because it meant wallowing in the purgatorial dugout was delayed half an inning. I sprinted out to centerfield, my cleats enduring a few mouthfuls of dusty clay before clamping their teeth into the damp, tussock-strewn earth of the outfield.
It had rained that morning—not hard, but the ground had drank in the drizzle for the same several hours that I sat around my house hoping the coach wouldn’t call with bad news. Any ball that bounced would be wet, making it harder to throw accurately. I would be slower by the third inning, after my cleats and socks each added a pound or two of mud and water. The rain had stopped, but the clouds still muffled the late-spring twilight. The sky was the color of a scuffed baseball, which, of course, made the actual scuffed baseballs that would soon be arcing toward me quite difficult to see.
I sprinted all the way to the chain-link fence that bounded the field. Faded, plywood advertisements for local car dealers and Baptist churches adorned the fence, which was polka-dotted with pockets of rust. The top of the fence was just out of my leaping reach, since I hadn’t hit my growth spurt yet. With my gloved right hand, I tapped the chain-links with all the reverence of crossing myself with holy water. Then I squelched back to continue my ritual north-northwest of the pitcher’s mound.
As a centerfielder, I never stood perfectly in the center of the field, else the pitcher would obscure my view of the batter. Instead, I let my internal dowsing rod lead me to the patch of ground four or five steps to the shortstop side of second base, the better to get the jump on balls batted by right-handed hitters. This spot was the spring at the center of my fiefdom, a territory it was my duty to protect from incoming mortar fire. I dug my cleats into the spot, creating a shallow foxhole. This was my land, and it was holy, and I soaked up its sacredness through my cleated feet.
As the leadoff batter walked toward home plate, the field’s lights hiccupped and hummed to life. But there was already electricity in the air, and the aftertaste of bubble gum mixed with the mint chocolate flavor of exhilaration in my mouth. The banks of lights cast four shadows, and they swirled around me like Busby Berkeley’s dancers. The familiar, but always surprising, feeling of anticipation hiccupped and hummed to life in my bowels.
The batter kicked his heals into the clay. The pitcher gripped the ball in his glove. I punched my glove and paced my foxhole. As the pitcher went into his windup, the organs south of my lungs declared war and started marching north. Strike One. My stomach occupied the region around my larynx. Ball One. My heart beat a double time cadence. Crack. I took a step back and moved to my right. The ball hurtled into the air, past the artificial horizon where the sloping roof of the concession stand met the sky. I took four more steps to my right and waited, while in my mind the thousands of ways I could fail tried to smother the single way I could succeed. For half a second, I wondered if Ashlee were in the bleachers. I waited as the ball reached its peak and fell back to earth, towards my land. Finally, after three and a half seconds of forever, the ball sailed into my glove and made the satisfying SWAPTH sound that I lived for. My sacred ground remained undefiled, and I could breathe again.
I tossed the ball to the shortstop, marched back to my foxhole, and the warring organs broke their ceasefires. Would that be my only catch of game? Or would I have a busy night patrolling my fiefdom? There was no way to know. So I stared down the batter on each pitch, flinched reflexively on each swing, and waited in anticipation, my feet poised on holy ground, connected to something that brought out the best in me and that called to me from the scuffed baseball sky and the fence and my foxhole. That something – I wouldn’t have known to call it God then – that something called to me, speaking the grace needed to taste the mint chocolate flavor of exhilaration, speaking the devotion that enabled me to move with purpose each time ball and bat connected, speaking the love that kept me returning again and again to the ballpark in rain or shine, speaking my very life into being.
Filed under: episcopalcafe Tagged: Baseball, centerfield, God, sacredness, where the wind, wherethewind
Categories: CCbloggers
Islamophobia by the numbers
by Steve ThorngateAccording to a Quinnipiac University poll, 54 percent of New York State voters agree "that because of American freedom of religion, Muslims have the right to build the mosque near Ground Zero." That strikes me as a shockingly small minority—almost half don’t feel that “religious freedom” by definition applies to all religions, even when the question’s put that way?—but hey, gladthe Christian Centuryhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13235684418107619434noreply@blogger.com0http://theolog.org/2010/09/islamophobia-by-numbers.html
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Report from Dr. Qamar in Pakistan
(ed. received August 30, 2010. Aslamalkum is Arabic for Peace be upon you)
Aslamalkum,
After two training sessions at Lahore I had to through a lot of different routes to get the units shipped to their location on time. Now to my knowledge all the purifying units are at their base.
Yesterday, I visited Charsada and its surrounding 6-7 villages along with Mamoon Rashid (GM PIA).One of the flood victim village belongs to Mr.Mamoon. Due hot weather and short time I could visit only one village in detail. It has 1200 homes and about 250 are completely washed out and about 300 are partially damaged. Rest of the houses are intact. No body is living in tents and it is my understanding that they have few things to eat.
Today I visited Nowshehra, Resalpur and three camps. The very first camp I visited is composed of 1500 people and they have water purifying unit working very well. They have 800 liter water tank and they can purify is within one hour. Folks at the camp are happy that they have at least clean water and they have few dedicated people for its operation and security. This unit was placed by Quaid-e-Azam hospital refereed by Dr. Zaka Rehman.
The 2nd unit is installed few miles away from the first one which has about 200 families. They have many 800 liters water tank and two of them are being used for water purification, I did witness the purification process and tested the water. People at this camp are very thankful to donors. This unit is given to Human development foundation.
There is another camp in between these two camps and I managed to have clean water at this camp, too. I believe that Dr Rafiq Rahman’s NGO is also installing its units on Sept 1 as told by them.
I got reports from 5 different places from southern Punjab and all of the purifying units are working well, These units are controlled by Punjab health department. These units are installed at some public place and people from the whole city can get clean water.
I made some arrangements for monitoring these units at PukhtoonKhawa. The PAF highers up at the Resalpur academy will be providing us the monitoring reports at these units. I am still working on making some arraignments for monitoring the performance of the units installed at southern Punjab.
I will send the pictures very soon.
I am working with Rukhsana Foundation and another organization to provide food and shelter, I will send the details very soon.
One of the camp at Noshehra might be a good target for rebuilding.
(I cant write more as I am dead tired, Bravo to Babar)
Thanks Shahid Share|
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Christian Spirituality and the Environment - Part 1 - Our Concept of God
"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth"
Our understanding or image of God has a profound influence on how we relate to the world of nature and its environment. It may seem strange to us, but if our relationship with nature is to change, that change, apart from others, will be rooted in a changed perception of God. The two go hand in hand.
Perhaps the best place to begin is with a present and dominant image people have of God which to a large extend has re-enforced our alienation from the world of nature, leading to very real ecological consequences. I'm not saying we all have this image, but many do. It is the image of God who comes to us from the outside of life, that God rules this world from a position outside of God's creation. And so God is on a throne in the heavens somewhere out there and makes these constant little excursions of intervention in to our world.
Now there are those who will say, but that's right, God is transcendent, God is above all and transcends all creation. The problem is that we have come to see this transcendence in a spatial kind of way and we have forgotten how God is also portrayed as close and within. Jesus spoke of being in God and God being in him. He went further and said this "inness" is so profoundly close that it includes us - we are in him, and in him, we are all in God. It's this "inness" and closeness that we have to recapture in our image of God. Why? Because when God is seen to be spatially distant from the world of nature, nature, like us, is in danger of losing its connectedness with God who ultimately gives it divine significance and essence. When nature is not seen as an expression of the Divine with something of the essence of the Divine in it, it simply becomes dead, inert and soulless, and then, we can do with it as we please. When nature is robbed of its divine connectedness and sanctity, the ecological plundering begins. On a very small scale, obviously incomparable, it's something like that shocking and horrifying moment when Michaelangelo's "Pieta" was defaced by Laszlo Toth using a hammer. In that moment it simply became an object void of all sanctity and beauty which could be easily smashed with a hammer - so too with the world of nature which is the very expression of the Divine Soul.
Christian Spirituality, if it is really going to contribute to the restoration of the environment, must rediscover the imminence, the inness, the immediate presence (not forgetting transcendence and mystery) of the Divine expression in all things. The same Divine Breath that has blown through and shaped us, has also blown though and shaped the world and the environment in which we live. We are one with the world we live in, and together we are one with the One who has created it all. If one part of the body is suffers, all suffer including the Divine. That's how close we are. We must never forget this.
Our understanding or image of God has a profound influence on how we relate to the world of nature and its environment. It may seem strange to us, but if our relationship with nature is to change, that change, apart from others, will be rooted in a changed perception of God. The two go hand in hand.
Perhaps the best place to begin is with a present and dominant image people have of God which to a large extend has re-enforced our alienation from the world of nature, leading to very real ecological consequences. I'm not saying we all have this image, but many do. It is the image of God who comes to us from the outside of life, that God rules this world from a position outside of God's creation. And so God is on a throne in the heavens somewhere out there and makes these constant little excursions of intervention in to our world.
Now there are those who will say, but that's right, God is transcendent, God is above all and transcends all creation. The problem is that we have come to see this transcendence in a spatial kind of way and we have forgotten how God is also portrayed as close and within. Jesus spoke of being in God and God being in him. He went further and said this "inness" is so profoundly close that it includes us - we are in him, and in him, we are all in God. It's this "inness" and closeness that we have to recapture in our image of God. Why? Because when God is seen to be spatially distant from the world of nature, nature, like us, is in danger of losing its connectedness with God who ultimately gives it divine significance and essence. When nature is not seen as an expression of the Divine with something of the essence of the Divine in it, it simply becomes dead, inert and soulless, and then, we can do with it as we please. When nature is robbed of its divine connectedness and sanctity, the ecological plundering begins. On a very small scale, obviously incomparable, it's something like that shocking and horrifying moment when Michaelangelo's "Pieta" was defaced by Laszlo Toth using a hammer. In that moment it simply became an object void of all sanctity and beauty which could be easily smashed with a hammer - so too with the world of nature which is the very expression of the Divine Soul.
Christian Spirituality, if it is really going to contribute to the restoration of the environment, must rediscover the imminence, the inness, the immediate presence (not forgetting transcendence and mystery) of the Divine expression in all things. The same Divine Breath that has blown through and shaped us, has also blown though and shaped the world and the environment in which we live. We are one with the world we live in, and together we are one with the One who has created it all. If one part of the body is suffers, all suffer including the Divine. That's how close we are. We must never forget this.
Categories: CCbloggers
A Mountain
Rensburg Kop is a mountain near Swinburne that never fails to move me deeply when making the journey up to Gauteng from Durban. Its presence is awe inspiring. As you drive past, it seems to persist in presenting itself from all angles like a beautiful model modelling a range of clothing. There's something wonderfully dignified about it. Rooted and full of belonging it stands alone, enormous and majestic in its stillness, contemplating the vistas of the surrounding horizon as if taking everything in.
I often ask myself how it came to be, what kind of power pushed it up from out of the earth, what has it witnessed over the vast years of its life and what ancient and modern memories does it carry in its secret depths. Seasons come and go, its cliff faces cut by wind, caressed by sunlight and pelted by rain, and yet there it stands faithful and immovable. I always become extremely silent when I drive by. It's as if its sense of time transports me in to the very patience of eternity itself.
I can understand why mountains have become such a profound spiritual image in both the Jewish and Christian traditions, and indeed in other faith traditions as well. As an image pointing to the Divine, who can fault it, not unless you're completely soulless. It was when Moses came down from the mountain that his face was radiant with Divine light; "The mountains will bring peace to the people, the hills the fruit of righteousness," says the psalmist, and one of the greatest sermons in the world was preached from a mountain, "Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down."
Someone has said that nature was our first scriptures and I think St Paul would concur in his words: "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities, eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."
In the coming weeks I wish to do a series of posts on our relationship with nature, entitled, "Christian spirituality and the Environment." In the series I'll be taking a number of scriptural images and reinterpreting them within our context which is crying out for deeper care and concern. Without becoming overly dramatic, it has to be said that humanty's destiny depends upon how seriously we take this aspect of our faith. I hope it will have meaning for us all.
I often ask myself how it came to be, what kind of power pushed it up from out of the earth, what has it witnessed over the vast years of its life and what ancient and modern memories does it carry in its secret depths. Seasons come and go, its cliff faces cut by wind, caressed by sunlight and pelted by rain, and yet there it stands faithful and immovable. I always become extremely silent when I drive by. It's as if its sense of time transports me in to the very patience of eternity itself.
I can understand why mountains have become such a profound spiritual image in both the Jewish and Christian traditions, and indeed in other faith traditions as well. As an image pointing to the Divine, who can fault it, not unless you're completely soulless. It was when Moses came down from the mountain that his face was radiant with Divine light; "The mountains will bring peace to the people, the hills the fruit of righteousness," says the psalmist, and one of the greatest sermons in the world was preached from a mountain, "Now when he saw the crowds, he went up on a mountainside and sat down."
Someone has said that nature was our first scriptures and I think St Paul would concur in his words: "For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities, eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse."
In the coming weeks I wish to do a series of posts on our relationship with nature, entitled, "Christian spirituality and the Environment." In the series I'll be taking a number of scriptural images and reinterpreting them within our context which is crying out for deeper care and concern. Without becoming overly dramatic, it has to be said that humanty's destiny depends upon how seriously we take this aspect of our faith. I hope it will have meaning for us all.
Categories: CCbloggers
toddler bed quilt
This is the quilt I made for T’s second birthday last week. I didn’t use a pattern (it’s just a block quilt) and it took me a really long time. This was the first time I attempted continuous quilt binding, which I then sewed by hand (a lot less traumatizing than I had imagined). I think the mitered corners are quite lovely.
Why do toddlers think this is what “smile at the camera” means?
The only other crafty project was this crown.
Categories: CCbloggers
choose life
"Choose life," Moses pleads on behalf of God, "Choose life."
It makes sense. Right? It should be a no brainer that we would choose those things that are good for us, those things that are God ordained. Walking in his way. Observing his commandments. Choose life. Of course.
And yet, inevitably we choose death. Each and every one of us. Yep, even me. We reject forgiveness and refuse to offer it. We harbor mistrust and lie, cheat, and steal our way ahead. We covet. We work ourselves like slaves. We forget the poor, the needy, the widow, the orphan, the sick, the imprisoned, the lonely, and the oppressed.
I'm trying, and often failing, to choose life more often. I think that's the charge of the disciple; always be striving for life. I think that is what Jesus is talking about when he suggests that we count the cost before following him. Because choosing life sometimes means choosing the harder part. It is a whole lot easier to wear blinders, get blitzed, and rock the party. It is hard to see the faces of the oppressed, to be sober, and to feel the pain in their eyes.
But that is life, messy as it is, and it is the choice that we are asked to make. Today, with God's help, I choose life. What do you choose?
It makes sense. Right? It should be a no brainer that we would choose those things that are good for us, those things that are God ordained. Walking in his way. Observing his commandments. Choose life. Of course.
And yet, inevitably we choose death. Each and every one of us. Yep, even me. We reject forgiveness and refuse to offer it. We harbor mistrust and lie, cheat, and steal our way ahead. We covet. We work ourselves like slaves. We forget the poor, the needy, the widow, the orphan, the sick, the imprisoned, the lonely, and the oppressed.
I'm trying, and often failing, to choose life more often. I think that's the charge of the disciple; always be striving for life. I think that is what Jesus is talking about when he suggests that we count the cost before following him. Because choosing life sometimes means choosing the harder part. It is a whole lot easier to wear blinders, get blitzed, and rock the party. It is hard to see the faces of the oppressed, to be sober, and to feel the pain in their eyes.
But that is life, messy as it is, and it is the choice that we are asked to make. Today, with God's help, I choose life. What do you choose?
Categories: CCbloggers
September 2 - Jean Marie du Lau and Companions, Martyrs, Champions of a Free Church
In 1792, France was a powder keg waiting for ignition. The French revolution was in full swing and the Reign of Terror was fast approaching. The French monarchy had been trampled underfoot and the new leaders of the State hoped to fix things for themselves and their people. The Constituent Assembly had passed a law that hoped to bring the vocal Church under control in France. The hope was that the Church could be placed under the "enlightened" control of the State and be made to say and do things that supported the aims of the new rulers of France. This new rule involved an oath that clergy were required to take if they wanted to remain in France. In other words, the French revolutionaries only had room for a Church that played according to the new State's rules.
Most of the clergy in France refused to sign the oath and submit the Church to state control. It included a passage that invalidated any "bishop or archbishop whose see is established under the name of a foreign power." Not only was this person not welcome in France but it was also criminal to support or follow them. The State had outlawed the Kingdom that was "not of this world." They rounded up the resisting clergy and imprisoned some of them and detained others in their churches so that they could forcibly exile them from their new republic that was to be devoid of a free Church. For many of these ministers, their sanctuaries became their prisons.
While awaiting deportation, the ministers heard the mob approach their prisons and churches. They must have known that the mob was coming for them full of furor for the State and disgust for the actions of the Church. They must have suspected what was coming. They approached the church where Jean Marie du Lau was being detained and pulled the doors open. Jean was waiting for them at the entrance in his clerical vestments as he might await the body of a parishioner for a funeral. He stood at the front of his people but offered no violence or resistance. The mob asked, "Are you the archbishop?" Jean smiled--perhaps knowing what was coming--and confirmed that he was, indeed, the one they were looking for. When he answered, they hacked him to pieces with their pikes and swords. He died offering forgiveness instead of wrath.
They seized the sanctuary of the ministers and began holding a "trial" to determine their fate. Two-by-two, the ministers were paraded before the "judges" and questioned forcefully. They were ordered to take the oath and admit the right of the State to rule the hearts and minds of the people. When they inevitably refused the oath, they were sent down a narrow stairway to a garden. When they stepped through the door, an angry mob would tear them to pieces and brutally murder them. This bloody exercise in the power of the State--the power to take a life--continued until 191 priests and bishops had been murdered and martyred.
One of those martyred was Francis de La Rochefoucauld Maumont--the bishop of Beauvais. He was an invalid and aged minister who could no longer walk. He had been carried to the sanctuary by others on a stretcher and rested on it as others were ushered to their trial and martyrdom. They called his name and he responded, "I am here at your disposal, judges, and I am prepared for my death but I cannot walk to you. I would appreciate it if you would carry my cot wherever it is that you want me." They brought him before the self-appointed judges and he refused to take the oath. They carried him down the narrow stairs and he was murdered like all of his friends.
It is good for us to remember the deaths of these faithful men and their stance against control and for a free Church. They were not afraid of the deadly threats of the State because they were citizens and ministers of a Kingdom that was--at its essence--established under the name of a foreign power: Jesus Christ and a kingdom of love and forgiveness.
Most of the clergy in France refused to sign the oath and submit the Church to state control. It included a passage that invalidated any "bishop or archbishop whose see is established under the name of a foreign power." Not only was this person not welcome in France but it was also criminal to support or follow them. The State had outlawed the Kingdom that was "not of this world." They rounded up the resisting clergy and imprisoned some of them and detained others in their churches so that they could forcibly exile them from their new republic that was to be devoid of a free Church. For many of these ministers, their sanctuaries became their prisons.
While awaiting deportation, the ministers heard the mob approach their prisons and churches. They must have known that the mob was coming for them full of furor for the State and disgust for the actions of the Church. They must have suspected what was coming. They approached the church where Jean Marie du Lau was being detained and pulled the doors open. Jean was waiting for them at the entrance in his clerical vestments as he might await the body of a parishioner for a funeral. He stood at the front of his people but offered no violence or resistance. The mob asked, "Are you the archbishop?" Jean smiled--perhaps knowing what was coming--and confirmed that he was, indeed, the one they were looking for. When he answered, they hacked him to pieces with their pikes and swords. He died offering forgiveness instead of wrath.
They seized the sanctuary of the ministers and began holding a "trial" to determine their fate. Two-by-two, the ministers were paraded before the "judges" and questioned forcefully. They were ordered to take the oath and admit the right of the State to rule the hearts and minds of the people. When they inevitably refused the oath, they were sent down a narrow stairway to a garden. When they stepped through the door, an angry mob would tear them to pieces and brutally murder them. This bloody exercise in the power of the State--the power to take a life--continued until 191 priests and bishops had been murdered and martyred.
One of those martyred was Francis de La Rochefoucauld Maumont--the bishop of Beauvais. He was an invalid and aged minister who could no longer walk. He had been carried to the sanctuary by others on a stretcher and rested on it as others were ushered to their trial and martyrdom. They called his name and he responded, "I am here at your disposal, judges, and I am prepared for my death but I cannot walk to you. I would appreciate it if you would carry my cot wherever it is that you want me." They brought him before the self-appointed judges and he refused to take the oath. They carried him down the narrow stairs and he was murdered like all of his friends.
It is good for us to remember the deaths of these faithful men and their stance against control and for a free Church. They were not afraid of the deadly threats of the State because they were citizens and ministers of a Kingdom that was--at its essence--established under the name of a foreign power: Jesus Christ and a kingdom of love and forgiveness.
Categories: CCbloggers
Open discussion doesn't exist
There is no such thing as a free debate or an open discussion. In their purest form, they simply do not exist. There will always be some subjects which aren’t up for debate, or some values which inhibit and impinge on others.
More importantly, there will always be some voices which are louder or more confident than others.
What I mean is that in every group, there will always be a small group of voices who feel they have more to contribute, or are in a better position to contribute, or are simply better at thinking on their feet, than the other voices in the room. This is the big flaw in the ideal of free debate, and in the discursive method.
So often, discussion is utilised over monologue with the justification that it is a more equal, fairer way of learning. I’m not sure that this is true.
Let’s discuss - but not because it is any more free, fair or open.
Categories: CCbloggers
Making Straight Paths Crooked--September 2, 2010
I. Readings
Psalms 116, 147:12-20, 26, 130
Job 16:16-22; 17:1, 13-16
Acts 13:1-12
John 9:1-17
II. Selections
Psalm 26:11
But as for me, I walk in my integrity;
      redeem me, and be gracious to me.
Job 17:1
“…My spirit is broken, my days are extinct,
      the grave is ready for me … ” [Job prays]
Acts 13:9-10
But Saul, also known as Paul, filled with the Holy spirit, looked intently at [the magician Elymas] and said, “You son of the devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? … ”
John 9:17
So [the Pharisees] said again to the blind man, “What do you say about [Jesus]? It was your eyes he opened.” He said, “He is a prophet.”
III. Meditation
“I walk in my integrity”—what does that mean?
Is sounds prideful. Some days I feel akin to Job:
“My spirit is broken, my days are
extinct, the grave is ready for me.”
Be gracious to me, redeem me, Jesus.
Open my eyes and let me recognize you.
Your paths are straight; forgive me if I have made
them crooked as I attempt to walk in my integrity.
Categories: CCbloggers
C. S. Lewis on the Clergy
Creedal Christian: C. S. Lewis on the Clergy: "Here's what C. S. Lewis once wrote about and to the clergy:
It is your duty to to fix the lines (of doctrine) clearly in your minds: and if you wish to go beyond them you must change your profession. This is your duty not specially as Christians or as priests but as honest men. There is a danger here of the clergy developing a special professional conscience which obscures the very plain moral issue. Men who have passed beyond these boundary lines in either direction are apt to protest that they have come by their unorthodox opinions honestly. In defense of those opinions they are prepared to suffer obloquy and to forfeit professional advancement. They thus come to feel like martyrs. But this simply misses the point which so gravely scandalizes the layman. We never doubted that the unorthodox opinions were honestly held: what we complain of is your continuing in your ministry after you have come to hold them. We always knew that a man who makes his living as a paid agent of the Conservative Party may honestly change his views and honestly become a Communist. What we deny is that he can honestly continue to be a Conservative agent and to receive money from one party while he supports the policy of the other."
It is your duty to to fix the lines (of doctrine) clearly in your minds: and if you wish to go beyond them you must change your profession. This is your duty not specially as Christians or as priests but as honest men. There is a danger here of the clergy developing a special professional conscience which obscures the very plain moral issue. Men who have passed beyond these boundary lines in either direction are apt to protest that they have come by their unorthodox opinions honestly. In defense of those opinions they are prepared to suffer obloquy and to forfeit professional advancement. They thus come to feel like martyrs. But this simply misses the point which so gravely scandalizes the layman. We never doubted that the unorthodox opinions were honestly held: what we complain of is your continuing in your ministry after you have come to hold them. We always knew that a man who makes his living as a paid agent of the Conservative Party may honestly change his views and honestly become a Communist. What we deny is that he can honestly continue to be a Conservative agent and to receive money from one party while he supports the policy of the other."
Categories: CCbloggers
The plastic bag
So funny, and scary...need to bring a reusable bag to the store!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLgh9h2ePYw&feature=featured
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLgh9h2ePYw&feature=featured
Categories: CCbloggers
