Battlestar RULES

best. show. ever.

here's the Admiral of the Battlestar Galactica (Edward James Olmos) talks about race as I understand it.



thanks to Bryce for the find.

In the Midst of Enemies

Dietrich Bonhoeffer Life Together:

"Jesus Christ lived in the midst of his enemies. In the end all his disciples abandoned him. on the cross he was all alone, surrounded by criminals and jeering crowds. he had come for the express purpose of bringing peace to the enemies of God. So christians too belong not in the seclusion of a cloistered life but in the midst of enemies. there they find their mission, their work."

i don't understand the idea of Christian music, movies, etc etc. i can find a christian message in pulp fiction or fight club or marilyn manson. is this so hard?! the "secular" movie and music makers don't hide their struggles with their faith. they don't try to separate their faith and their life. too many christians just visit their faith on sunday and leave it in the hands of their pastor and then they get on the beltway and act like a jerk for the rest of the week. i don't understand this separation. it is to me a false separation. people of faith are never separated from it, albiet they sometimes let their emotions get the better of them.

Befriend your enemy, be nice to those who wish you harm.. this is a hard lesson to learn. but just as soon as one learns this, one finds that one has no enemies. if you are constantly turning the other cheek, the enemies cannot harm you. as soon as you love your enemy, that enemy is no longer, but is now a friend.

get out of your confort zones. life awaits you there. this is why kate and i loved the jaycees so much, you're never in your comfortzone. always doing something different and always meeting new people. these people could be your enemies! they could judge you! you're just putting yourself out there for a let down! sure they could be, but they're not.

kate always says, "Dance! Everyone else is too concerned with themselves! Get down!" and she's right. everyone is too nervous about themselves but when someone breaks out of their own self-consciousness and gives themselves the right to have fun, that's when the party begins. so too with faith and all things good. sin is thinking that you're not allowed, that you're not good enough. God loves you, get over yourself and spread the message! volunteer! dance! dress up like leprochuans and run down the street! live like you have no enemies and you won't.

Trees and Quantum Entanglement

Today was a sad day for my field education site. Trinity lost a pillar of their community this past Sunday and the community came out today to say goodbye. I had only known John Hess for a few months, i was blessed to meet him.

John Hess had a non-anxious presence. He had an easy manner, attentive. Around him, I really felt my youth, yet sitting next to him, I had the sense that things would work out. I think the best way to describe how I experienced John in these moments would be like this:

John is like a solid, old, and wise oak tree. Firmly rooted and watching, taking it all in. I was like the jittery squirrel scampering around. But it was in John’s presence, his shade, his branches that I found stability and I would think his family and friends would agree.

You may pass trees every day of your life, they’re unmoving and they don’t attract too much attention… but you notice when their gone. I’m happy to have noticed him while he was here. Trinity sure did. During the good times and bad times, John was there through it all. John was a pillar of this community that won’t soon be forgotten. I’m thankful for my short time with John. I am happy and blessed to know that there are such men in the world as John Hess.

Pastor Nancy talked about how we humans get confused and think that stuff and money are wealth. They aren't. Wealth is measured in relationships and memories. It reminds me of Wilco, when they sing on "Jesus Etc" that our love
our love
our love is all we have
our love
our love is all of God's money
everyone is a burning sun



we're all entangled. we're at the molecular level, through Quantum Entanglement and economically, emotionally, and any other way. the people we meet on the street, on our blogs, all are burning suns. we are colliding all the time with people who give light to the universes of their friends, relatives, children, and sometimes, sometimes we get glimpses of this light.

let your light shine! collide!

Zombie Invasion

a poem based on this post a while back...

i move, duck and cover.
under siege and outnumbered.
the only weapons are my books, my mind, and this pen.

the invasion comes and i am beset!
fighting on all fronts.
zombie assignments sent from Sorcerouses and wizards with doctorates.

i decapitate a NT112 paper in a moldy business suit,
i wield Brueggemann like a shot gun,
peppering the paper with citations.

CH113 takes more time, but i systematically
eviserate with a combo of Gonzalez and primary sources.

i grab some pizza and Mt Dew
in an abandoned pub when pastoral care attacks
without warning.
family systems is wielded with finesse and the
ambush is over.

bruised and blooded and one more year to go.

is the pen mighter than the prof? that is the question.

but the reality is that these zombies
aren't half as dangerous than
the ones that will be sitting
in our pews.

Historical Ways of Being Christian

1. Early Church: variety of ways, Gnostic, Pauline, Montanist, Arian, Docetist, and many others. Saw that gospels didn't present one view of Jesus. Matt and Luke show virgin birth but Mark, John, and Paul don't mention it.

2. Roman Catholic: formed around 300 C.E. and came out of a reaction against the Arian and Docetists. Drew up the Nicene and Chalcedonian Creeds. Also built on views of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas, affirms virgin birth and immaculate conception, sin is transmitted biologically.

3. Orthodox, Lutheran and Calvinist: Affirm Nicene and Chalcedon as well as virgin birth (not I.C.) and use lots of bible references.

4. Oriental Orthodox: like the Egyptian Copts or Armenian church. Affirms Nicene NOT Chalcedon.

5. Free Church: Bible Fundamentalism and Virgin Birth. Jump over 15 centuries to get to first century. Baptists, Evangelicals, Congregationalists, Pentacostals and nondenoms all here. my assumption is most of the DeCons came out of this tradition.

6. Rationalist: Christianity conveys universal ideas and morality. no creeds adopted.

7. Liberal Christianity: Jesus is the teacher of love, kingdom of God, and an apocalyptic prophet. No Nicene or Chalcedon. uses the "Modern Criticisms" to study the bible.

8. Pietist: Ignores the Enlightenment of the Rationalists and Liberals as well as the dogmas of the past. Emphasis on Jesus as personal Lord & Savior. Methodist and Anabaptist movements.

9. NeoOrthodox/Emergent: Karl Barth and others: Ecumentical and Christocentric. Nicene and Chalcedon creeds translated into modern and personal language. Rejects both virgin birth and adoptionist ideas and states "To Know Jesus is to know his benefits" God present in Christ and fidelity of God is so perfect, one could say God is in Christ. very postmodern, sees that modernity is debunked, not about secularization, institutions are debunked. looking for honesty and transparency.

books to read on #9 which is where i feel i fall into would be: A Generous Orthodoxy: Why I Am a Missional, Evangelical, Post/Protestant, Liberal/Conservative, Mystical/Poetic, Biblical, Charismatic/Contemplative, Fundamentalist/Calvinist, Anabaptist/Anglican, Methodist, Catholic, Green, Incarnational, Depressed-yet-Hopeful, Emergent, Unfinished CHRISTIAN by Brian McLaren
and the Phoenix Affirmations by Eric Elnes as well as any Barth or Matthew Fox

IDENTITY! (?)

I love seminary! i get to hang out and talk God-talk all day long and get a TON of views backed up with personal experience and denominational doctrine. it's pretty cool! i'd say darn near heaven for someone who loves talking. God is truly bigger than what i think and i'm considering a lot of things i never had to before. from my political views to my philosophical and theological views. it can be scary for some, but i just absolutely love it.

Chris Eden sent me a great article and we had a discussion about it. The article was called "Are You A Christian Hipster?" and at first glance i was all about it!

then Chris pointed out that we pretty much love to label and categorize things, but that is largely on what we NOTICE and THAT is an entirely subjective exercise. The article proves a framework and it's flawed. heavily in some places. but i think it responds to our human need to label & categorize in the hopes of finding identity. our basic need is to belong and be affirmed.

Like i loooove most of the authors listed, i definately don't like anything labeled "Christian" before my music and movies, and i'm idealistic. I LOVE thinking and acting Catholic but have no respect for the institution of the church (patriarchy on crack). i don't have any tattoos and i don't smoke. but i WANT TO belong.. i just don't fit the mold.

and here's the secret... none of us do perfectly. we're individuals who want to be a community. we are finding that we can only establish our identity only if we're comparing ourselves to something else... i don't think you can define yourself without using a relationship. and here's what it's all about:

IDENTITY! I am apart from all these other slobs! just look at how i fashionably blend goodwill with Lucky and Gap clothes and put that with some Adidas sneaks and my iPod with a collection of bands NO ONE ELSE HAS!

i am me. and the sooner you recognize this the better off we'll be.... never mind the fact that a whole bunch of other people are doing the exact same thing and listening to the same bands just not in the order i have... just never mind that!

it's our American INDIVIDUALITY! and reliance on self that keeps butting up against our need to be in relation with one another. and the only way to get individuals into a group is through good marketing. at least.. that's the answer the church is going for (whether be fundie or liberal settings). and this too will fail. but it's how we're trying to frame the situation now.

so what's the answer?

Cussing where appropriate

okay.. y'all should know two things about me. i LOVE NPR's RadioLab and i also like to cuss. it's something i'm working on, but i really can't explain things any other way sometimes. i really need to start reading the dictionary or something...

well imagine my surprise when RadioLab cussed! my two loves found each other! this caused a minor uproar, so i decided to send an email:

Dear RadioLab Email Reader,

I LOVED when Jad said "bitches" at the end of one of the segments of "Choice." Jad had to defend himself (was it on the Obama Effect?) and cited "generation" as his defense and he apologized. Although his apology was nice, Robert wasn't buying his reasoning. I will stand up to defend him. I LOVED it! As a 27 year old, I was right there and felt happy that RadioLab was in touch with the culture. It's why I listen to the show.

Here are two proofs to show that "Bitches" is part of my generation, I'll resort to some nasty means: Paris Hilton. She must be a listener or Jad is.. but I don't want to assume.
Proof 1:
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/64ad536a6d/paris-hilton-responds-to-mccain- ad-from-paris-hilton-adam-ghost-panther-mckay-and-chris-henchy

Proof 2:
http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/06ae3d8563/paris-hilton-gets-presiden
tial-with-martin-sheen-from-paris-hilton

Thank you Jad, for reaching out to the neglected twenty-something crowd.
Bravo!

And I must say RL is my all time fave show on TV, radio, and pretty much anything else. I even used y'all in a sermon I gave at my church.
I hope I did y'all justice: http://toothface.blogspot.com/2008/12/god-in-unexpected.html

Peace, bitches!

-Luke

AND THEY WROTE BACK!!!

Thanks, Luke. I'm now imagining Paris Hilton listening to Radio Lab.

Jad appreciates all the support in these difficult times. Thanks for listening.

Best,
Emma, Radio Lab

yup.. that confirms it. i'm a RL Nerd. a label i'm happy to own!

ALMOST SPRING POETRY SLAM!

if you're in town, please join us!

For everything there is a season

Science is finding out new things about time. Humans have been interested in time for as long as we’ve been writing. The writer of Ecclesiastes reflected on time just as our modern scientists are doing today. What the writer, these scientists, and we gathered here at Trinity know about time is that it doesn’t stop.

And, I don’t know about you, but I’m angry about this.

I’m angry that time stretches out for an eternity and it will not stop for me, and I’m assuming you are too. We only get a fraction of eternity. Time keeps on marching on and we’re all too aware that it will one day leave us behind. Time takes away our childhood, our pets, and eventually us. And there are no two ways around it. We human beings are in time; we're defined by its limits. But from the midst of time we have a sense for eternity. We have inklings of something more. All we get are glimpses of this place. Every now and then we see that there is something more beyond just us, our watches, calendars, Blackberries, and history books. We’re frustrated by our mortality and Lent and Ecclesiastes don’t help that feeling. We hate being reminded of how short our lives are.



We humans run around stressed out about time. There should be more time! We have things to do, things to accomplish, goals to reach, more money to get because we have more things to buy. We are a funny bunch. For everything there is a season, so says the wise writer of Ecclesiastes, but we wish that weren’t true. For some of us who are happy, we’re guilty about that and think we should be sad. For those of us who are suffering, we think we should be happy, so we don’t offend those jerks who are content. If we’re poor, we want to be rich… if we’re rich, we could always be richer. It’s all overwhelming! So much to do! And death is always just around the corner; it could sneak up on us at anytime. And there should be someone to protect us from death, but this person, this, GOD, isn’t doing their job.

We sometimes get an image of God as some sort of divine air traffic controller, choreographing all our takeoffs and landings, responsible for everything that happens to us. But when we find ourselves in the wreckage of one of life’s crashes… we often wonder if the giant air traffic controller in the sky is napping, negligent, or just plain mean.

But God is not protected behind glass, high in a tower above us, manipulating the world on a divine computer. We are not separated, God is here with us. I think I can only describe this through means of camp legend of a boy’s rite of passage into manhood.

The father takes the son into the forest, blindfolds him and leaves him alone. He is required to sit on a stump the whole night and not remove the blindfold until the rays of the morning sun shine through it. He cannot cry out for help to anyone. Once he survives the night, he is a MAN.

He cannot tell the other boys of this experience, because each lad must come into manhood on his own. The boy is naturally terrified. He can hear all kinds of noises. Wild beasts must surely be all around him. Maybe even some human might do him harm. The wind blew the grass and earth, and shook his stump, but he sat stoically, never removing the blindfold. It would be the only way he could become a man!
Finally, after a horrific night the sun appeared and he removed his blindfold. It was then that he discovered his father sitting on the stump next to him. He had been at watch the entire night, protecting his son from harm. We, too, are never alone. Even when we don't know it, God is watching over us, sitting on the stump beside us. Just because you can't see God, doesn't mean God is not there. When trouble comes, all we have to do is reach out to God.

We walk by faith, not by sight. Our faith is hard and it is questioned all the time. Some would like to tell you that once you become Christian, the road will become smooth. But it isn’t. Our lives are like a bumpy road. We sometimes find ourselves in a pothole that’s in a bigger pothole! Our faith then, tells us where we’re at. It tells us whether we should be trying to get out of a pothole or watch out for that curve up ahead. Our faith tells us to take note of where we are. Our faith tells us to notice what season we’re in.

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven. Whatever season you’re in, God is with you. If you’re in the winter of your discontent, if you’re sick, in a troubled relationship, in mourning at the death of a relationship, God is just as much with you as if you were in summer. Ecclesiastes’ answer to all of our limited, short, crazy, chaos-filled lives is to be content and enjoy ourselves as long as we live. Ecc 3:13 says we should enjoy God’s gift, we should eat and drink and take pleasure in our toil. This can be hard sometimes because Chaos keeps coming into our lives. And even time itself is relative.

Einstein taught us that for each person, time passes at different rates, we perceive time differently. If I had a watch on, and Pastor Nancy had a watch on and she happened to be going at the speed of light, her watch would have a very different time on it than mine would. That’s an extreme example, but I bet if we took a poll of the congregation, not even four of us would be in the same season, the same time of our lives. Some are grieving over the loss of a job, some are fearful about their future, some are anxious, awaiting news of a diagnosis, and some are excited to bring new life into the world. We are all in different seasons, different times, and Lent asks us to take account of what season we’re in, with no layers over our answer, just a stark and honest look at ourselves amid the chaos. And there is always chaos.

Scripture states that God created the world out of chaos and it keeps breaking back into creation and causes havoc with our order. God took a great chance with this beautiful creation that surrounds us. Our parents took a great chance at having us because they knew chaos is dangerous. Chaos destroys the created. But the creative order itself is creative. Creation keeps changing just like the seasons keep rolling along, each one similar, but not quite the same. Everything changes, the world is sand. But blessed is the person who realizes this and creates anyway. To reframe a parable, blessed is the one who builds on sand knowing what will happen, than the one who builds on rock thinking it will last forever.

This is the nature of being creative amidst the chaos of the world. God didn’t design the chaos any more than we did. The chaos is what it is. The miracle is that good and beautiful things can happen even in the midst of it. All of our art and music IS designed to bring truth and beauty and yet it can bring wrenching tears. The children we decide to bring into the world to share in life’s joy will also share in life’s sorrow. The friendships we create will bring great joy, but only at the risk of causing real pain from time to time. Seasons change. And for everything, there is a season, a time for every matter under heaven.

That’s the secret of Lent and Ecclesiastes. It’s the secret that our pets know, that I learned from the book Marley & Me. A dog or a cat does not care if you're rich or poor, educated or illiterate, clever or dull. Give them your heart and they will give you theirs.

The secret is that in the "less" there is "more." The less we obscure what is truly important with bitterness, animosity and cynicism, with striving for the next goal, for checking off the next box on your life’s plan. Lent and Ecclesiastes ask us to be more aware of the promise of possibility and new life. They remind us that every single day of our lives, we are asked to walk in the way of love over hate, courage over fear, and hope over hopelessness. Do not dwell in the past; do not dream of the future, concentrate your mind on the present moment, no matter what season you’re in. Give God your heart, and you’ll find God has loved you always.

Works Cited
Scott Hoeze’s sermon "Setting Eternity" found at http://www.calvincrc.org/sermons/topics/ecclesiastes/eccles3.html

Paraphrase of “Parable” by Joe Pintauro from the books Kites at Empty Airports.

Theology for Preaching: Authority, Truth and Knowledge of God in a Postmodern Ethos by Ronald J. Allen, Barbara Blaisdell, and Scott Johnston pages 80-85.

Paraphrase from Marley and Me by John Grogan

Reverend Bill Federici, from an email about Ash Wednesday and Lent

BENEDICTION! (dvd extra)

And here’s another secret. It’s a math secret. Our fraction of time that we spend here on earth is a little itty bitty piece of infinity. If you take “forever” and divide it in half, it’s still forever. Divide that half by 3/4, it's still forever!This is good news as we believe in being part of forever! Time is infinite and we get but a fraction of it in our earthly form, and then our season changes and we go onto something else. Jesus assures us that we should fear not! For in his Father’s house there are many rooms! So take note and own where you are at, what season you’re in, and live fully into that season. Take joy that you get all of time, all of forever, and you get to enjoy it in many forms, in many seasons of life and thereafter. What a joy that we all may be in different seasons, but we get to share this time together.

Go forth and be reminders of this message of eternity in the name of our Creator, Sustainer and Redeemer. AMEN.

The Egypt Send Off

CLICK HERE FOR DVD EXTRAS!

the Mashi Mashi Song (Romani had us say Mashi Mashi to find where we were or to get our attention... it's arabic for Okie Dokie)



THe Posh Restaurant Alternate Ending:



this is the end for now about Egypt... more when the reflective bug bites. until then, any questions?

Urban Life

Cairo is one #($%&$#'n crowded city!!! horns constantly honking, traffic jams around the clock.. it's crazy! just check the fotage!



officially Cairo ranks in the top 25 most populated cities (according to wiki it's #22 with 6 million people). with the trains and commuters, this number doubles. i've never been in a place so crowded!

think New York, then make the buildings right next to each other and take away all the parks and add more buildings... triple the traffic and take away all the traffic laws.. sprinkle in a few donkeys and you're beginning to see the picture.

Layers

just finished watching an episode of Joan of Arcadia...and this particular episode stood out. the episode was in season one called Death Be Not Whatever (2003) i was really struck by the last conversation between God and Joan on the bus.

SET UP: Joan talks to God, Joan learns a boy she's babysitting is dying of Cystic Fibrosis and one of her best friend's mom died, Joan is really angry:

Joan Girardi: A lot of what happens here really sucks, so much for your...perfect system.
[pause]
Joan Girardi: Can you see me being really mad at you right now?
Cute Boy God: Yes.
Joan Girardi: Why does it have to be so hard?
Cute Boy God: What specifically?
Joan Girardi: Being alive, let's start there.
Cute Boy God: You wish you weren't alive?
Joan Girardi: No! I...I don't know. I wish...it didn't...hurt so much.
Cute Boy God: It hurts because you feel it, Joan...because you're alive. You love people, that generates a lot of power, a lot of energy. The same kind of energy that binds atoms together, we've all seen what happens when you try to pry them apart.
Joan Girardi: So, if I don't get attached to people then...it won't hurt so much?
Cute Boy God: No, it's in your nature to get attached to people, I put that in the recipe. It's when you guys try to ignore that...when you try to go it alone, that's when it gets ugly. It's hell.
Joan Girardi: It's Hell? Like the Hell?
Cute Boy God: Oh look, your house. Go on, Joan, people are waiting for you...
(Joan exits the bus with no clear answer and looks puzzled)

humans are funny.

maybe for us the pain of separation is easier to bear than the pain of attachment. we get so wrapped up in our identities, those layers at play who we THINK make up who we are... but that's not the full story. like the song says "your caste, your class, your country, sect, name or your tribe, there's people always dying trying to keep them alive".



these things are a part of our identity, but we must go beyond that. we must help each other regardless of these identities... and help is fluid, it moves around like light. and a little bit is a good thing, and it doesn't stop.

thank you, dear readers, for providing light to me on who i am and who i am perceived to be and i hope i'm providing help to you in the articulation of who you are. dialogue is key to realizing our interconnectedness, it is key to our humanization and prevents systematic DEhumanization.

but these are just my rantings and babblings and i recognize i'm "privileged" with an optimistic and idealistic worldview ;-) i could be WAY off.

what are your thoughts?

Islam

I had a friend in college who was muslim. we would sit and talk about religion from our perpectives.... Ausuf on Sunni Islam and myself on Roman Catholicism and Buddhism. We would lament the spread of fundamentalism and the lack of dialogue between our faiths.

on the trip we visited two mosques, the oldest one in Cairo and this one in Alexandria. both were impressive and laid out completely unlike a church. Mosques have no particular design, for the Quran just states that a mosque can be any place people gather to pray. some mosques were designed by Christian architechs and resembled churches.

Egypt is a Sunni muslim country with a 10% Christian population. conversion from Islam to Christianity is a hard choice to make as families are torn apart, communities are fractured, and all involved will resist such a change. the society is extremely communal. everyone is out talking and hanging out on the streets, everyone seems to know everyone else's business. the Christians in the country have lasted for centuries as the minority but are quickly "losing the baby race" as Romani put it.

so what's up? am i lamenting that Islam has the majority here? no! Islam provides an excellent structure for it's adherents, just as Christianity does for us here in the states. it's not without it's problems either... but here's some interesting facts:

-there is more about Mary in the Quran than in the N.T.
-Jesus is viewed as a high prophet, some would place him just under Mohammed.
-Jesus viewed as God doesn't make sense to the muslim mind, as the Trinity is viewed as a pagan idea transposed on the truth of One God (a marketing point from the church to the pagan cultures)
-the women (who we here in the west call oppressed) lament how oppressed and awful we treat our women and ourselves here. they view us as constantly working and view our family network as falling apart.

it was an interesting aspect to our trip and i wish we would have spent more time with this religion. we did meet with Dr. Ali El-Samman who talked about the importance of interfaith dialogue. he's responsible for putting on many forums and has met everyone from John Thomas (president of the UCC) to the popes of the orthodox churches (Coptic, Roman Catholic, Eastern, etc).

Absolute Truth?

some recent posts i've had on facebook and other places concerning A.T.

Mac, a great philosopher and mentor from OU weighed in and said:

I'd question whether any truth is absolute. I mean metaphysically, there may be a truth out there, but given the limits of our empirical experience, the closest practical approximation of any truth we can attain is variable based on the accuracy (or lack thereof) of whatever is our most current knowledge. Or something like that...

My Sufi friend Ausaf, also from OU stated:

It seems you don't question the existence of absolute truth, just mankinds ability to learn absolute truth which I would agree with you about.

Absolute truth itself, in my opinion, must exist for the simple fact alone that if one was to say there is no absolute truth, that, in itself, would become the absolute truth and disprove itself. Or something like that.

it makes me reflect and think that maybe, just maybe, humanity’s greatest sin is to look for some sure and unassailable truth. craving for certainity, for an infallible authority will always lead to the “death” of our life with the Living God.

we make GOD the eternal immutable Truth and in turn make the scriptures immutable, omiscient, omnipotent, eternal and so on… does a disservice to the witness and revelation of both!

here's my absolute truth: i didn’t expect to be born… yet here i am. this is a result of massive eons of evolution, physics, chemistry, things unbeknownst to me and human wisdom, and not to be outdone, my mom having sex with my dad… ick! but anywho, here i am! somehow i’ve survived thus long… all of this is a gift.

we unwrap gifts, delight in gifts, live with gifts, and are grateful for gifts… authority seldom prompts gratitude. sometimes we need tools in opening a hard to get at package. scripture does that for me but it’s not the primary tool, it just tells me how others have tried to unwrap their gifts and what they expected to find inside. it's all part of the journey back to a God that was ever present yet ever absent.

in response, Brother Eden stated:

I disagree - I think (one of) humanity's greatest endeavors IS to look for sure and unassailable truths. It's what makes us tick sometimes, isn't it? Let's go find them (surely there are some) for the betterment of mankind and the glory of God's creation. But...perhaps the sin is to argue that POV is truth, to hold onto it like POV is salvation.

Sally concured and stated:

Yes! POV assumes that the place where POV originates, human reason, is paramount. Can our salvation be based on that?

i'm not doubting that there's Absolute Truth, i'm doubting humanity's ability to understand it. even Jesus spoke of the Kingdom is metaphor and allegory.. saying "The Kingdom of God is like..."

we have eyes that don't see the full spectrum.. we have ears that can't hear dark matter.. what makes us think we have a brain that can comprehend absolute truth?

that doesn't mean we shouldn't pursue AT... yet we must realize that when we think we've found one.. that it might not be applicable to all situations. thou shalt not steal only works if you're not starve'n, although it's generally a good rule to follow. Love your neighbor as yourself and love God with all your heart, mind, and soul... those are pretty darn close to AT as i can see.

as Brighteyes sang "IF you swear that there's no truth and who cares, how come you say it like you're right?"

long post... but what are your thoughts on this subject? if you hold absolute truth, what is it? here is mine:

Reflections from today

today didn't go as planned in any sense of the word. Pastor Nancy called at 7:10 and said she had the flu and i had to cover today. yikes!

so we found a really good sermon written by Dr. Susan Fleming McGurgan you can read it here. but i added a few things that i would like to highlight here.

Mark’s Gospel hurls us,
ready or not,
into a lonely and barren wilderness—
a desert—
where everything
either bites
or burns
or stings.

Sometimes, the wilderness can feel a lot like home.

The single mom, stretched so thin that she almost disappears, knows the desert of exhaustion and guilt.

The rejected child, watching silently from beyond the playground, knows the desert called Loneliness.

The convict, numb to the brutality that surrounds him, knows the desert of violence and regret.

The person who has just realize their sexuality and now must come out of the closet, not knowing how their friends and family will react. This is the desert of fear and alienation.

Our nation is in a desert. With two wars, a collapsing economy, and a two party system that is not on speaking terms, we are now in the desert of an uncertain future.

We know the truth about deserts, don’t we?

The truth is; Jesus has been there first.



It was nice to have the support of my wife and the congregation at Trinity Reformed. It affirmed that this is my call and that i can wing it if needed. good day today, despite a sick pastor and the chaotic beginning.