Archive for February, 2008

My Daily Prayer

February 26th, 2008

Dear Lord,

 Help me to clothe myself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. (Col 3:12) Remind me to not let any unwholesome talk come out of my mouth, but only what is helpful for building others up according to their needs, that it may benifit those who listen. (Eph 4:29)

Lord, help me to remember that a heart at peace gives life to the body, but envy rots the bones. (Prov 14:30) Help me to remember to let my tongue speak of your righteousness and of your praises all day long. (Psalm 35:28)

Amen 

Wisdom for a 6 year old

February 26th, 2008

I have a wonderful and very wise 6 year old son. We talk a lot and I treasure every moment. Recently I realized that I could explain some of the themes of the bible by using contemporary phrases from Disney movies and other newer animated movies. It is funny to see the parallels.

“See a need, fill a need” Uttered from the mouth of none other then Aunt Fanny in the Movie Robots. Of course this is none other then the commandment “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev 19:18) I especially like this one because it tells Jacob that love is an action, it is not passive.

“Just keep swimming, Just keep swimming” from the utterly loveable although memory impaired Dori in the movie Finding Nemo. James 1:12 says “Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.” When my son has a bad day, and when he is down in the mouth I can remind him of this promise and that if he just keeps swimming he will be blessed.

“In the end, it’s just an empty cup”. Who does not love Doc in the movie Cars? He is very wise and I love it. Jerimiah 9:23-24 says “This is what the LORD says: ”Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength 
or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: 
that he understands and knows me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the LORD.”

Wisdom can be found in many places. Today I find it in the morals and stories of Disney and Pixar. Tomorrow, maybe somewhere else. I love sharing these with my son.

John Donne

February 25th, 2008

“All mankind is one volume. When one man dies, a chapter is not torn out of the book, but translated into a better language. And every chapter must be translated. God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice. But God’s hand shall bind up all our scattered leaves again for that library where every book shall live open to one another.”

-          John Donne

Help, I’ve Fallen and I…

February 22nd, 2008

If you are of my generation you remember the commercial that played everywhere showing a woman laying on the floor saying “help, I’ve fallen but I can’t get up”and “s it Ubo sit, Good dog” will go down in commercial infamy for our generation. I have been pondering, what phrase will today’s generation be remembered for. Sorry, I have been home with the flu so if this is rambling, it is the thera flu.

I went to Barnes and Noble last Saturday and bought a few books and sat down with a latte to start reading them. I initially make the observation that the poeple around me were all drinking Frappucino’s. After looking around more I realized they were all teenagers. I was shocked. Just when you think that a generation does not care to read you find that many of them do. At least, so I thought.

I read for awhile, as the teenagers came and went I began to realize that they were not reading books, they were reading graphic novels. You know, the kind that have about 4 words per page and the rest are animation. I went from being impressed to disappointed in  a record .003 of a second.  I know that my generation had comic books, and we had a television, but I think it is worse then it has ever been.

Perhaps the phrase this generation will be remembered for is “Help, I graduated college and I can not read.”

To be fair, I was not a huge reader in high school. The last 5 years or so I have had the world of reading truly open up for me like none other. My curiosity has been peaked and I want to instill this love in my 6 year old. I want him to read Treasure Island when he is 10, not 25 like his old man was.

I love technology. As I write this it is on a nice Toshiba laptop on a wifi connection tied into my DSL line. Technology is good. But I think that more technology is bad. Technology, such as television, actually lulls you into not thinking and accepting what is given to you at face value. Reading forces you to absorb a concept, decide to accept it or reject it. In other words, it encourages free thinking. Reading a graphic novel is nothing more then a television in book form.

I don’t know where I am going with this. I do not espouse the position Doug Groothius does that says the less technology the better, but I do not believe that we should instantly turn something over to technology just because we can do it. Technology is expensive, and it has a human cost. Maybe I will write on that later.

Now pardon me, my thera flu is ready in the kitchen. After that, I have a very stimulating nap planned.

Sacred Rhythm

February 18th, 2008

Life is all about Rhythm. Just about everything we do individually, as a family, as a society genuflect to a certain rhythm. We can not avoid being a part of it. It is inveterate in our spiritual, physical and social D.N.A.

God created our bodies to have a certain biological rhythm called the circadian rhythm. In the increasing demands of our society and the need for people working late nights and early mornings and the advent of artificial light we have been fighting the natural rhythm for our bodies. We are just now beginning to understand the detrimental effect it is having on our bodies. It is truly important for us to listen to the wisdom of our bodies. When we rebel against it we find it beginning to betray us at an accelerating rate. Before we know it we are taking more pills then a nursing home patient.

Rhythm also communicates to us at our deepest soul stirring levels. Rhythm is used to communicate emotions that are a total dichotomy. Anything from peace to war, love to hate, joy to pain. It all can be told in a rhythm. Slow and sanguine is more likely to communicate pain and loss, fast and lively communicates joy and convivial attitude.

When Negro slaves were hoping and praying for relief and release from the toils of life they sang. They sang songs of hope, songs of sorrow. Everything was a way of communicating encouragement and community to one another. When emancipation was not in reach and thousands of slaves risked there lives to go north to safety and freedom they got their direction to safe harbor by listening to the rhythms of the people around them. Songs that came from fellow laborers in the burden of slavery.

Just as God gave our bodies and our minds a rhythm, he gave us a spiritual rhythm as well. We often have to take time and practice listening to the rhythm that God has put in our spirits, but it is there. Some of us are more adept at listening to it, while others of us have to clear everything away and take time to cultivate it. I fall in that category. Something I practice is called Lectio Divina. Lectio Divina is simply a way of studying scripture that causes you to study, ponder, listen to and pray from God’s word.

I believe God has given us rhythm in so many things. We are always so busy and driven by our own goals and our own work to keep the potemkin village standing that we do not listen to those around us who can realign our goals, rhythms and priorities into the one rhythm that is most important, our spiritual rhythm. Until we reach that point we will never find that true fulfillment that we so desire. God gave us the desires, we just need to listen to him to provide the answers to those desires.

For a little more light hearted but poignant view here is some classic Fraggle Rock on the subject!

Lou Marinoff

February 18th, 2008

“The twin lamps of spiritual truth and religious awe are not extinguished by scientific progress and technological innovation. On the contrary, we illuminate human lives more brightly by acknowledging man’s discovery of lawful processes in nature, and by implementing technologies that further spiritual practice and sustain religious community.”

 

The Middle Way, page 18

Oh yes, this book has my attention

Historic Rust

February 16th, 2008

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Growing up in small town America does have its advantages. I have learned that in my 30 trips around the sun. I have just had to look a little harder for the lessons and the life that it provides. One such advantage was that I had a whole 3 or 4 square miles as my backyard and I was free to roam wherever I choose. I took Mother Nature up on her offer on many of warm days and went exploring with the neighborhood boys.

One discovery I was particularly proud of happened when I was probably 8 or 9. My friend and I were walking along a path recently discovered by our young eyes and came across a rusty hunk of metal. After doing a little bit of clearing away of the brush around it we discovered it was the wrecked shell of an old Model T. We were ecstatic! We stayed all day and made story after story about who must have been driving the car on that fateful day. Maybe it was bank robbers, maybe it was two young lovers escaping from their moms and dads trying to go get married. Our list of possibilities was endless.

Sometimes I feel like the rusty hunk of metal. I have failed God again and again. I have a list of things I want to do in life and I have hardly begun to do them and so on. In other words, I feel that my hunk of metal has begun to rust and is no longer filling the God given purpose it was intended for. I so often get up on my feet and then fall down again. One day I feel God is just going to leave me on the ground. I know He won’t though.

In the mind of those two boys so many years ago that hunk of twisted and mangled rusty metal held so much more potential. For that day, and many days after, that hunk of metal served as inspiration for the imaginations of the entire neighborhood. You see, I went home and told my dad, who told the local sheriff, who told the newspaper and so on. For an entire week or more my entire community was inspired by what that piece of metal meant. I know that God has more in store for my hunk of metal, I just have to be ready when he provides the opportunities to grow and not be looking so hard for them that I miss them.

1 Cor 2: 6-10 reads “We do, however, speak a message of wisdom among the mature, but not the wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are coming to nothing. No, we speak of God’s secret wisdom, a wisdom that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. However, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit…” Just as that hunk of metal waited for so many years to reveal itself to my young eyes, so does the wisdom of God wait to reveal itself to us and inspire us with a fresh perspective and a new direction.

My New Theme

February 16th, 2008

O.K. all the bugs are tackled and taken care of…I hope. Please tell me if you like the new theme or not. It took awhile, but I finally figured out how to load new themes.

So far I just find the free ones and use them. It seems none of them fit just the way I would want. I might break down and pay someone to design a template for me at some time, but not right now.

Please leave feedback. Also, if you see a template you think would fit here better leave the link. I am always looking! Thanks for your patience everyone.

If

February 15th, 2008

If I only had a nickel, I would surely spend it on you.

If I only had one moment left, I would want to spend it with you.

If I only could say a few words, I would want to share them with you.

If I find my walk in this world is lonely, I surely would call on you.

This worl d is not our home, but while I am here I am glad for you.

In you I see the perfection, that I only dreamt that I could see.

If I find my walk gets slower, and my eyes get somewhat dim,

I hope that you are walking beside me, staying close so that I can see you.

If I loose my sense of direction, and I don’t know where I am,

I hope you are walking by my side, teaching me to carry on.

I love you Mrs. Amy. Thanks for a great 9 years!

 

Point of View

February 13th, 2008

 

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When I first saw this picture today I caught myself thinking “wow, they only sent one jet to intercept this plane?” This is a picture of the recent plane that got into the airspace of the U.S.S. Nimitz. It took me a few seconds to realize that the picture was taken probably from the cockpit of another fighter plane. After the obligatory DUHH CARL, I started to ask why I did not realize this at first. Maybe I am just tired, gullible or all the above. But I think it is syptomatic of something a little deeper in culture.

In all my wandering through the blogsphere and listening to the talking heads on the radio and the television I have realized that the medium has so much sway over me that I find myself swayed by the point of view of the person, at least at first. It takes a refined mind and some clear thinking to realize that there is another point of view, sometimes many points of view.

I am beginning to understand why it is so important to be a reader. I have always liked to read, but reading forces us to read a point of view, digest it, and then make a decision to believe, or to reject the idea or proposition that is given. Television, radio and other such mediums do not force that on you. In fact they lull you into not thinking, just consuming. I wonder how much of our culture is so media saturated that they get every last opinion and belief that they have from the televison and the John Stewart Show? ( I think that is his name, I have never seen him)

Since birth we begin to build our own bias filters. They help us to process the sometimes overwhelming amounts of data we digest. We decide what we keep, and what we delete, and what we repress for another day. I am seeing why it is important to instill in my 6 year old the importance of reading and learning to express himself through the medium of reading. I want him to find his authentic voice, not the voice of those around him.

Our culture today teaches us to use ourselves as our own arbiter of our experiences. Reading helps us to see the point of view of others. Unfortunately we look at the Bible through the same lens of ourselves. We look to the Bible to teach and guide us, but we rarely take time to look at the Bible in the light of those who are writing it and the historical meta narrative. I am constantly challenged by the writings of Eugene Peterson in this regard. It is amazing what you can see and feel when you read a passage of scripture with the whole picture.

As I look to my next reading and challenges I am going to be looking to someone and or something to guide me in seeing the overall picture of the Bible. Yes I want to see how it applies to me, but how does it apply to others, how does it apply to my workplace, how does it apply to my blog, how does it apply to those things that are so much bigger and better then me? As I journey I will share with you what I am learning, will you join me in the journey?

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