"Having found the atomic bomb, we have used it. We shall continue to use it... It is an awful responsibility which had come to us. We thank God that it [the atomic bomb] has come to us instead of to our enemies and we pray that he may guide us to use it in his ways and for his purposes." - President Harry Truman after dropping the atomic bomb on Nagasaki, January 9, 1945. (Quote found in Jesus for President, p. 200)
"In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized to scourged to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was His fight for the world against the Jewish poison." - Adolph Hitler. (Also found in Jesus for President, p. 202)
Dear God,
Help us to distinguish what is of You and what is of the world because Your Name can and has been used to justify all kinds of horrifying crap. Help us to be counter-cultural in a way far, far beyond wearing "WWJD" bracelets. Help us to love our enemies - whether they be Truman/Hitler types within the Church who use Your Name for their own purposes or simply the jackasses - Christian or otherwise - in our own lives. Help me to not think of these people as "jackasses". Please God, just help us find and then portray to the world YOU and purely You, and not some twisted, agenda-based version of You.
Amen.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Delighted In
I think I feel most loved when I am delighted in. I love when people find me fascinating. When I can tell them a story and they get totally into it. I love that. When I can tell them some obscure dream I have and they help me brainstorm how to achieve it. When I come up with a strange idea (like a Weird Movie Marathon) and they think its great. Or, when I decorated my apartment living room with a homemade rainbowy "vine" and I asked my roommate if she could live with it and she replies, "Its you. And I love you." That was pretty great. I love to be delighted in.
I think when we are delighted in, people are encouraging the Jesus in us to become more evident. Does that make sense? Its like they can see something deep within us that is good, and they're drawing it out by affirming its goodness.
I have some friends who are particularly good at making me feel delighted in. My roommate would be one of them. Heather, you are too. Katie, my backpacking-world-traveller friend, if you're reading this, you DEFINITELY are amazing at delighting in people. In fact, I'm mostly thinking of you as I write this post.
Its also with these people that I feel most comfortable, most safe, most myself.
And its not even that they affirm the good in me only when I tell them the good stuff. They affirm the good even when I show them the gross stuff too. They see something better in me beneath the garbage on top and they point it out. And its nice to have people see me that way. Larry Crabb calls it being in spiritual community.
So, my general goal from this point on is to be someone who genuinely delights in people. This is my official declaration, on the internet for all to see.
And by the way, this post was quite inspired by The Safest Place on Earth by Larry Crabb which is a book about spiritual community that I am reading over the holidays.
Merry Christmas!
I think when we are delighted in, people are encouraging the Jesus in us to become more evident. Does that make sense? Its like they can see something deep within us that is good, and they're drawing it out by affirming its goodness.
I have some friends who are particularly good at making me feel delighted in. My roommate would be one of them. Heather, you are too. Katie, my backpacking-world-traveller friend, if you're reading this, you DEFINITELY are amazing at delighting in people. In fact, I'm mostly thinking of you as I write this post.
Its also with these people that I feel most comfortable, most safe, most myself.
And its not even that they affirm the good in me only when I tell them the good stuff. They affirm the good even when I show them the gross stuff too. They see something better in me beneath the garbage on top and they point it out. And its nice to have people see me that way. Larry Crabb calls it being in spiritual community.
So, my general goal from this point on is to be someone who genuinely delights in people. This is my official declaration, on the internet for all to see.
And by the way, this post was quite inspired by The Safest Place on Earth by Larry Crabb which is a book about spiritual community that I am reading over the holidays.
Merry Christmas!
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Things Which Are Wonderful
1. Rainbows. I just like them.
2. Geez Magazine - Available at Chapters, CBC's Library or you can talk to me! The website's caption reads, "Geez magazine has set up camp in the outback of the spiritual commons. A bustling spot for the over-churched, out-churched, un-churched and maybe even the un-churchable. For wannabe contemplatives, front-line world-changers and restless cranks."
Its very real. In general its very pro-environment, pro-social justice and pro-God. Its also filled with poetry and art. Its fabulous.
3. Hidden Art by Edith Schaeffer. This book essentially explains why beauty in daily life matters.
4. Bikini Zone - a cream for getting rid of razor burn... and you can use it in places besides your bikini zone too.
5. Purely Decadent Dairy Free Ice Cream - Chocolate Obsession - really, really good vegan ice-cream.
6. Clove Cigarettes. Bad for your health but liberating nonetheless.
7. Flowering Teas - My current favourite would be the "dragon 4 flower" tea that you can get at the Red Brick Cafe in downtown Guelph.
8. Flatlander's Inn - I came across this while googling "Canadian Christian Communes." Its about living in community with people in danger of homelessness in Winnipeg. I'm hoping to get an internship there starting in April. But I don't know. I'm super confused about the future right now. Anyway, it looks like an amazing place to be.
2. Geez Magazine - Available at Chapters, CBC's Library or you can talk to me! The website's caption reads, "Geez magazine has set up camp in the outback of the spiritual commons. A bustling spot for the over-churched, out-churched, un-churched and maybe even the un-churchable. For wannabe contemplatives, front-line world-changers and restless cranks."
Its very real. In general its very pro-environment, pro-social justice and pro-God. Its also filled with poetry and art. Its fabulous.
3. Hidden Art by Edith Schaeffer. This book essentially explains why beauty in daily life matters.
4. Bikini Zone - a cream for getting rid of razor burn... and you can use it in places besides your bikini zone too.
5. Purely Decadent Dairy Free Ice Cream - Chocolate Obsession - really, really good vegan ice-cream.
6. Clove Cigarettes. Bad for your health but liberating nonetheless.
7. Flowering Teas - My current favourite would be the "dragon 4 flower" tea that you can get at the Red Brick Cafe in downtown Guelph.
8. Flatlander's Inn - I came across this while googling "Canadian Christian Communes." Its about living in community with people in danger of homelessness in Winnipeg. I'm hoping to get an internship there starting in April. But I don't know. I'm super confused about the future right now. Anyway, it looks like an amazing place to be.
Friday, December 12, 2008
Brokenness (aka "Snapped" - Get it?)
"We need each other, never more than when we are most broken. But brokenness is not a disease, like cancer, that may or may not develop. Brokenness is a condition, one that is always there, inside, beneath the surface, carefully hidden for as long as we can keep a facade in place. We live in brokenness. We just don't always see it, either in ourselves or in others. A central task of community is to create a place that is safe enough for the walls to be torn down, safe enough for each of us to own and reveal our brokenness." - Larry Crabb in The Safest Place on Earth
I feel like I already knew this... Nevertheless it was such a powerful statement that I had to share it.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Blogging = Awkward
Its hard to be authentic on these things because you never know who's reading it. Or if they will misinterpret you. And I don't want to come across as whiny and emo. But I also certainly don't have it all together either. So yes. I've decided that blogging is an awkward art because its hard to gauge just how much of yourself is appropriate to present to an unknown audience.
I think I'm learning about myself that I associate sadness with weakness. And so to people who don't know me very well I tend to come across as very chipper. At least I'm often told I come across that way. Its entirely an accident, probably often coming from a belief that if I show sadness I'm just being an unnecessary burden and what kind of an example of Christ is a burden?
But that's dumb. Because you can't spread the Gospel by lying.
Stupid damn authenticity. And its stupid, awkward rawness. And even though I REALLY, REALLY want it, its one of those things. "God, help me to want to want to be authentic."
Anyway, this morning was this poem. And I crawled into bed with my roommate, read it to her, and she agreed. I love this poem. And this poetry book.
Silence - By Billy Collins (from The Trouble with Poetry)
There is the sudden silence of the crowd
above a player not moving on the field,
and the silence of the orchid.
The silence of the falling vase
before it strikes the floor,
the silence of the belt when it is not striking the child.
The stillness of the cup and the water in it,
the silence of the moon
and the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun.
The silence when I hold you to my chest,
the silence of the window above us,
and the silence when you rise and turn away.
And there is the silence of this morning
which I have broken with my pen,
a silence that had piled up all night
like snow falling in the darkness of the house—
the silence before I wrote a word
and the poorer silence now.
And it is 3:16am. But I am on holidays, so whatever. But good night!
I think I'm learning about myself that I associate sadness with weakness. And so to people who don't know me very well I tend to come across as very chipper. At least I'm often told I come across that way. Its entirely an accident, probably often coming from a belief that if I show sadness I'm just being an unnecessary burden and what kind of an example of Christ is a burden?
But that's dumb. Because you can't spread the Gospel by lying.
Stupid damn authenticity. And its stupid, awkward rawness. And even though I REALLY, REALLY want it, its one of those things. "God, help me to want to want to be authentic."
Anyway, this morning was this poem. And I crawled into bed with my roommate, read it to her, and she agreed. I love this poem. And this poetry book.
Silence - By Billy Collins (from The Trouble with Poetry)
There is the sudden silence of the crowd
above a player not moving on the field,
and the silence of the orchid.
The silence of the falling vase
before it strikes the floor,
the silence of the belt when it is not striking the child.
The stillness of the cup and the water in it,
the silence of the moon
and the quiet of the day far from the roar of the sun.
The silence when I hold you to my chest,
the silence of the window above us,
and the silence when you rise and turn away.
And there is the silence of this morning
which I have broken with my pen,
a silence that had piled up all night
like snow falling in the darkness of the house—
the silence before I wrote a word
and the poorer silence now.
And it is 3:16am. But I am on holidays, so whatever. But good night!
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Monday, December 1, 2008
Silly Gothic Christians
Gabelkreuz, 1304
Versus:
Upper Chapel, Sainte-Chapelle, Paris. Built 1243-48
During the Gothic period, lavishness - gold, jewels and *ahem* pure gluttony(?) was associated with the Divine. Churches were decked out in all that sparkled and impressed. In art, Jesus was continually associated with the aristocracy of the Bible and the aristocracy of the time. So when the cross pictured above was put on display in a London Cathedral - a chapel at Coneyhoop in the parish of St Mildred, Poultry, London - it caused quite the scandal.
The rich found this rawness threatening, caling it a "terrifying cross" that "incurred much harm." The cross was taken down, and Ralph Baldock, Bishop of London, ordered that it be "borne forth...to some place without our diocese, either at early dawn or late in the evening, when it can be done most secretly and with least scandal." In other words, the cross was secretly destroyed in the middle of the night so that the poor wouldn't riot.
Then, the creator of the cross, a German craftsman called Thydemann, was made to promise never to create such an atrocious looking thing again.
And this makes me sad. It also makes me want to hang a picture of that cross up somewhere. And it also creeps me out that the Church can be so off base about such fundamental issues to Christianity. And it makes me wonder just how good our mass mechanisms for discerning Truth really are.
Versus:
Upper Chapel, Sainte-Chapelle, Paris. Built 1243-48
During the Gothic period, lavishness - gold, jewels and *ahem* pure gluttony(?) was associated with the Divine. Churches were decked out in all that sparkled and impressed. In art, Jesus was continually associated with the aristocracy of the Bible and the aristocracy of the time. So when the cross pictured above was put on display in a London Cathedral - a chapel at Coneyhoop in the parish of St Mildred, Poultry, London - it caused quite the scandal.
The poor loved it, and made their own copies to wear around. This was a Jesus they could relate to. I mean, just look at it... its so beautifully raw.
The rich found this rawness threatening, caling it a "terrifying cross" that "incurred much harm." The cross was taken down, and Ralph Baldock, Bishop of London, ordered that it be "borne forth...to some place without our diocese, either at early dawn or late in the evening, when it can be done most secretly and with least scandal." In other words, the cross was secretly destroyed in the middle of the night so that the poor wouldn't riot.
Then, the creator of the cross, a German craftsman called Thydemann, was made to promise never to create such an atrocious looking thing again.
And this makes me sad. It also makes me want to hang a picture of that cross up somewhere. And it also creeps me out that the Church can be so off base about such fundamental issues to Christianity. And it makes me wonder just how good our mass mechanisms for discerning Truth really are.
Friday, November 28, 2008
Monday, November 24, 2008
Homeless
I felt homeless this summer. I felt let down by my expectations of what life would be like once I was back and consiquently I felt let down by God. I felt as though I should be getting along better with the people in my life now that I've had this "transforming" year at Bible College.
I had not "transformed" except into some monster who aggrivated the hell out of my family and pushed away some friends. I started feeling as though I couldn't depend on God because my messy life was evidence that absolutely nothing in me changed enough to positively impact my relationships, especially with my family members.
Then, a particularly intense experience happened as I was walking home from work, at around 11:30 at night. It was a long walk, over an hour, but I had been fighting so much with my brother lately that I didn't dare call him up for a ride.
I was terrified. I started singing songs that automatically creep up when I'm feeling helpless like "I Cast All My Cares Upon You." Then, it dawned on me: God doesn't seem to effect anything, even if you desperately want Him to. He still lets rape and murder happen every hour of every day. So if He had not cared enough to transform me into some awesome person within the last year, why would He do something small like protect me then?
I did make it home safe but nevertheless it was an emptying experience - because, after all, not EVERYONE makes it home safe. Later I wept, feeling as though all this time I had served a God that didn't really give a damn. I felt hollow, lost, unwanted and physically and spiritually homeless. I determined I needed to harden myself, to not let it bother me that I had no place or Person to call home.
However, a little while later I was watching TV and while I was doing so, I absentmindedly felt the bookshelf beside me. I pulled out a book, opened to this page, and read the following:
It was exactly what I needed to read. It gave me hope because it affirmed my homesickness. It gave me hope because I had already been playing with an idea for a painting lately that I planned to put up in my new apartment. This seemed to perscribe that painting idea as a comforter. Lastly, it gave me hope because it was dedicated to "all my L'Abri family," which makes it personal since I was a part of the L'Abri family for awhile.
There is a point - This experience has served as a springboard for all I've been pursuing recently. I don't want, "God will change your heart if you just trust Him." I want tangible, practical ways to become more like Jesus because I've realized that is more the point of Christianity. Its not about having a spiritual insurance policy.
To me becoming more like Jesus mostly means learning how to love practically. I've also taken a huge interest in Beauty and the importance of its presence in life to comfort and enrich us - through decor, music, food, clothes, whatever. (The rest of Hidden Art speaks of these things. Awesome book.)
So this is where I'm coming from right now. Enjoy!
I had not "transformed" except into some monster who aggrivated the hell out of my family and pushed away some friends. I started feeling as though I couldn't depend on God because my messy life was evidence that absolutely nothing in me changed enough to positively impact my relationships, especially with my family members.
Then, a particularly intense experience happened as I was walking home from work, at around 11:30 at night. It was a long walk, over an hour, but I had been fighting so much with my brother lately that I didn't dare call him up for a ride.
I was terrified. I started singing songs that automatically creep up when I'm feeling helpless like "I Cast All My Cares Upon You." Then, it dawned on me: God doesn't seem to effect anything, even if you desperately want Him to. He still lets rape and murder happen every hour of every day. So if He had not cared enough to transform me into some awesome person within the last year, why would He do something small like protect me then?
I did make it home safe but nevertheless it was an emptying experience - because, after all, not EVERYONE makes it home safe. Later I wept, feeling as though all this time I had served a God that didn't really give a damn. I felt hollow, lost, unwanted and physically and spiritually homeless. I determined I needed to harden myself, to not let it bother me that I had no place or Person to call home.
However, a little while later I was watching TV and while I was doing so, I absentmindedly felt the bookshelf beside me. I pulled out a book, opened to this page, and read the following:
"It is stupid to try to be 'hard', 'brave' or 'stoical' about that emotion we call 'homesickness' or 'lostness'. A continuity which can help in the tremendous upheavals in life is a continuity of things with which one is surrounded, even small things. It seems to me that some of the frustration of not being married, on the part of some men and women, is caused not only by lack of sexual fulfillment, but also by the lack of any sense of making a 'home' with a continuity of things, right now... Make the place where you live a place where you are expressing your own taste right now."
(Hidden Art by Edith Schaeffer)
It was exactly what I needed to read. It gave me hope because it affirmed my homesickness. It gave me hope because I had already been playing with an idea for a painting lately that I planned to put up in my new apartment. This seemed to perscribe that painting idea as a comforter. Lastly, it gave me hope because it was dedicated to "all my L'Abri family," which makes it personal since I was a part of the L'Abri family for awhile.
There is a point - This experience has served as a springboard for all I've been pursuing recently. I don't want, "God will change your heart if you just trust Him." I want tangible, practical ways to become more like Jesus because I've realized that is more the point of Christianity. Its not about having a spiritual insurance policy.
To me becoming more like Jesus mostly means learning how to love practically. I've also taken a huge interest in Beauty and the importance of its presence in life to comfort and enrich us - through decor, music, food, clothes, whatever. (The rest of Hidden Art speaks of these things. Awesome book.)
So this is where I'm coming from right now. Enjoy!
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
The Purpose of This Blog
Hello all!
I decided to start a blog because I realized that there are a lot of ideas I encounter and conceive every once in a while that I'd really like to bounce off of several people. Most of those people, unfortunately, don't live close enough to go out for coffee with on a whim which makes idea-bouncing more tricky. Yet I'd still really like to do it!
I read a book this summer called The Lost Art of Listening and a major theme in that book was how insights are best gained through dialogue. So that is exactly what I hope to establish with this blog. That said, please feel no inhibitions about commenting!
I decided to start a blog because I realized that there are a lot of ideas I encounter and conceive every once in a while that I'd really like to bounce off of several people. Most of those people, unfortunately, don't live close enough to go out for coffee with on a whim which makes idea-bouncing more tricky. Yet I'd still really like to do it!
I read a book this summer called The Lost Art of Listening and a major theme in that book was how insights are best gained through dialogue. So that is exactly what I hope to establish with this blog. That said, please feel no inhibitions about commenting!
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