Waving or Drowning?

Like a Page From a Book

"You've got Bono's book On the Move, right?" asked the friend on the other end of the phone. Before I could answer, she said, "Of course you do. I forgot who I was talking to for a minute."

"I feel like page 18 and 19." She confessed. "It had me in tears yesterday."

God is in the slums, in the cardboard boxes where the poor play house. God is in the slince of a mother who has infected her child with a virus that will end both their lives. God is in the cried heard under the rubble of war. God is in the debris of wasted opportunity and lives, and God is with us if we are with them.

"If you remove the yoke from your midst, the pointing of the finger and speaking wickedness, and if you give yourself to the hungry and satisfy the desire of the afflicted, then your light will rise in darkness and your gloom will become like midday and the LORD will continually guide you and satisfy your desire in scorched places,"
(Isaiah 58:9-11)

I pointed my friend to yesterday's post and the lyrics of Matthew West.

"Yeah, that's pretty much it in a nutshell." She replied.

I'm listening to those words right now.

Lots of movement. Bring it on.

My Own Little World

I know, it's been a while. I've been working hard on Linwood House stuff lately, which is great, but it leaves little time for personal blogging. (Be sure to check out the Linwood blog... there's been so much good stuff going on lately. We're on Facebook and Twitter too.)

It's no secret that I'm not a huge fan of the Christian music genre, with some exceptions. I'm a brute for punishment though, so I frequently dial in to the regional Christian radio station when I'm on the move, and listen until I can't do it anymore. Yesterday a song caught my ear. A quick search of the google , and I found this:

My Own Little World
Matthew West

In my own little world it hardly ever rains
I’ve never gone hungry, always felt safe
I got some money in my pocket, shoes on my feet
In my own little world
Population me

I try to stay awake through the Sunday morning church
I throw a twenty in the plate but I never give ’til it hurts
And I turn off the news when I don’t like what I see
It’s easy to do when it’s
Population me

What if there’s a bigger picture
What if I’m missing out
What if there’s a greater purpose
I could be living right now
Outside my own little world

Stopped at a red light, looked out my window
I saw a cardboard sign, said “Help this homeless widow”
Just above this sign was the face of a human
I thought to myself, “God, what have I been doing?”
So I rolled down the window and I looked her in the eye
How many times have I just passed her by
I gave her some money then I drove on through
And my own little world reached
Population two

What if there’s a bigger picture
What if I’m missing out
What if there’s a greater purpose
That I could be living right now
Outside my own little world

Father break my heart for what breaks Yours
Give me open hands and open doors
Put Your light in my eyes and let me see
That my own little world is not about me

What if there’s a bigger picture
What if I’m missing out
What if there’s a greater purpose
That I could be living right now
I don't want to miss what matters
I want to be reaching out
Show me the greater purpose
So I can start living right now
Outside my own little world

 

(Click the image below to catch the track on YouTube)

Dude gets it. This one is going to get a lot of play around here.

Paul and the Politics of Empire

Streams of Justice has an upcoming event that may be of interest to some of you local types:

Reading the Text / Reading the World: Paul and the Politics of Empire

MONDAY, SEPT 27TH
7:00 – 9:00 PM
Grandview Calvary Baptist Church
1803 East 1st Ave
Vancouver, BC

Most often, the letters and writings of the apostle Paul are read through the lenses provided by different theological traditions. On this occasion, however, we will engage Paul in light of the world in which he lived, a world that was dominated by the ever-present reality of the Roman Empire. Approaching Paul in this way reveals how a number of terms and themes that are key to his work were also centrally employed in the theo-political propaganda of the Empire. This helps us, as 21st-century readers, to understand the depth of the ideological conflict that existed between Paul and the Powers of his day, and informs our own lived engagement with the structures of domination in our own day.

GUEST SPEAKER: DAN OUDSHOORN

Dan is a scholar, writer, activist and advocate who currently combines work alongside street-involved youth with research and writing of a book entitled Paul and the Uprising of the Dead: Eschatology, Ethics, and Empires.

A Brief WorD: On Why/How I believe

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen: not only because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else."
~ C.S. Lewis, via AZspot & Sojourners

A Brief WorD: On an Initial Surrender

THE SPIRITUAL JOURNEY

An initial surrender must precede any spiritual search. It is a primal acceptance that there is meaning out there, history does have a goal, and love is somehow that meaning. I fully admit that is a leap of faith for many people, for others it comes more easily. It is this surrender that finally generates the long-lasting spiritual search. If you begin with cynicism, you usually never get beyond it. If you begin with a “falling into love” you will fall ever deeper into it, and afterwards you will understand. Many of us go at it backwards: we try to understand first and then we never get to the mystery of love or faith. It is a falling, and we are afraid to fall, I guess.

Yahweh said to Job, “Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundations? Did you ever hear the morning stars singing together or all the angels shout for joy? Have you ever in your life given orders to the morning or sent the dawn to its post?” (Job 38: 4, 7, 12). I wonder if Yahweh is just talking to Job or if God is not talking to all of us who would go on the spiritual search?

Richard Rohr, adapted from Radical Grace, Daily Meditations, p.55, Day 57

More Stuff to Read

For my friends in West Vancouver here are some of the links we talked about this morning, with a couple others thrown in for good measure:

Conversations on Being a Heretic | Notes & Review
This is a transcript along with a good commentary on the Scott McKnight/Brian McLaren interview I told you briefly about.

Brian McLaren's Personal Blog

The Brian McLaren channel at TheOoze.tv.
Brian records a brief interview for each of the Ten Questions

Finally, A few of my own blog posts, some of which we talked about:
Thoughts on Heresy and Blasphemy
Our God Isn't an Awesome God
The Opposite of Faith is not Doubt

UPDATE: Access an index of my Palestinian posts at the end of this one.

Thanks to everyone for the intereaction. Remember... I expect to hear from you!

 

A Brief WorD: On Grace

Grace is not opposed to effort. It is opposed to earning.
Dallas Willard

A Brief WorD: On Who God Loves

God does not love America.

He loves the people of America. The people of Iraq, Iran, North Korea, South Korea, China, all of Europe and South America. Every unknown tribe of every unknown nation. God loves them all. “For God so loved the WORLD, that he gave his only begotten son, so that whosoever believes in him will not perish but will have everlasting life.”

It’s not about us.

We are not God’s BFF, folks.

God does not love America.

Read the rest of this brilliant post from Karen Spears Zacharia here for more.

(Hint: God doesn't love Israel either.)

A Brief WorD: On Creativity

John Cleese on creativity:

Source: Presentation Zen blog

A Brief WorD: On Being Far Too Easily Pleased

"If we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."

C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory