L’Engle on Revelation
L’Engle herself from Walking on Water, Reflections on Art and Faith, pg 27-28: Of course, because I am a struggling Christian, it’s inevitable that I superimpose my awareness of all that happened in the life of Jesus upon what I’m reading, upon Buber, upon Plato, upon the book of Daniel. But I’m not sure that’s a bad thing. To be truly Christian means to see Christ everywhere, to know him as all in all. I don’t mean to water down my Christianity into a vague kind of universalism, with Buddha and Mohammed all being more or less equal to Jesus–not at all! But neither do I want to tell God (or my friends) where he can and cannot be seen. We human beings far too often tend to codify God, to feel that we know where he is...
Use your Blinkers
My wife has a female coworker that is quite possibly one of the worst drivers of all time; she drives everywhere at high rates of speed and has been in close to 10 accidents–and she’s never suffered a debilitating injury! She must also have incredible luck. This may be due to the fact that she goes through a ritualistic “blessing” process with a Buddhist monk whenever she gets a new car. “I think they tie a bunch of strings to it (the car) and say some sort of blessing,” explained my wife. “They use strings a lot.” I don’t know much about the power of Buddhist Blessing Strings, but I do know that the road is often a place of warfare–spiritual or otherwise. Perhaps that is why an obscure religious office...
“Beep for Christ”
There are several sorts of places that produce an incredibly stifling effect upon me. One of the worse offenders in this area are Christian bookstores. I hate them. They are staffed by soft and happy naivettes who tend to be obsessed with the meaningless external trifles that, to many western Christian families, make up the core of visual Christianity. Things such as fish stickers and Tim LaHaye novels. Thomas Kinkade paintings and fancy Bible covers, Scripture Gum and Holy Mints. I feel like I can’t breathe when I’m around those things–and Lord help me, I feel contempt for these things, and sometimes for the people who fall into the trap of thinking that they have any value or significance. I feel unrestrained and unabashed...
Nehemiah Mission
Yesterday I returned from a weekend missions trip in Cleveland at the Nehemiah Mission. My Lifegroup spent almost two days at the Mission doing service projects and interacting with the community. The time was really meaningful to us and I hope to the community we served as well. Cleveland is the poorest city in the United States, the Pastor of the Mission told us that “that’s one of the few things we beat Detroit in–we’re poorer.” In most cities there are rundown areas surrounded by suburbs or more well to do neighborhoods, but in Cleveland the slums go on for miles and miles. The whole city is old and dirty, like one giant moldy puddle sitting on Lake Erie. The Nehemiah Mission works closely with other area churches and...
Lent and Self Denial
Last year Britt and I gave up going out for entertainment during Lent; that mainly meant no going out to dinner or movies. It was a good exercise for us. Not only did we save lots of money and get in some good cooking practice, we also managed to undergo some considerable relationship-building. Instead of going out to dinner by ourselves we had people over and practiced intentional community. This year for Lent neither of us felt compelled to give up anything specific, and so far we still haven’t defined anything to abstain from. I decided, philosophically of course, that the purpose and power of Lent lies completely in understanding one’s actions, rather than in the actions themselves. “Giving up something out of tradition has no purpose,”...
RE: Sports, religion strange bedfellows
This post is a letter I sent Rick Telander, a Chicago Sun-Times columnist in regard to his article Sports, religion strange bedfellows. Please read the article here. —————————– Dear Rick, I was frustrated after reading your article and have been sorely tempted to fling an ad-hominem laden vindictive your way. Of course you might assume that my desire to do such springs from my supposed inherent intolerance that is (naturally) inextricably bound to my religious beliefs. But then again, you probably know that such assumptions are dangerous because they are often wrong, and are a form of intolerance that unfairly binds others to a preconceived idea. No, I’m not frustrated by the fact that...