The Pancake House

Easter

2011-04-24T21:53:00.000-04:00

I was going to call this Newbiginday #3 - but Easter trumps it categorically. Christ is risen. Hallelujah. As a reflection, I give a summary of some more strong words from Newbigin regarding the congregation as the hermeneutic of the Gospel. Reading below as a part of the Church, I encourage you to know our story more and more each day. If we are the hermeneutic, the interpretive lens, of the Word, then we must know the Word. The Bible is our primary way to know the Living Word Jesus Christ as well as our identity and our story. Looking forwards into this new Christian year, embracing new life everyday, as Christians we must be in the Bible to know how to live in this new life.

Précis of Lesslie Newbigin, “The Congregation as Hermeneutic of the Gospel,” in The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 222-233.

To be faithful to the message of the kingdom of God, the church must claim the high ground of public truth. This does not mean restoring a past condition of the church; neither martyrdom nor ruling power. The current situation of a secular democratic state is weakened from divisions within, and cannot respond to religious fanaticism without denying its own principles (222-223). The church must hold the tension of Jesus as the ultimate source of power and as the one who was nailed helpless to the cross to appropriately grasp the “impossible possibility” of salvation and that it is the supernatural work of God which accomplishes this. The church is to be a servant as Jesus was a servant: responding effectively to people’s needs while ensuring that God alone is in control as master (224-225). The Church represents the kingdom of God neither with the power of the world, nor modern techniques of persuasion. The only appropriate hermeneutic of the gospel is a congregation of men and women who believe and live by it and who seek together to adopt the character of Jesus (226-227).

This community has six characteristics: 1) It is a community of praise to God which contrasts the modern reliance on doubt and includes thanksgiving to God who has given us all we need, 2) It is a community of truth which prevents delusion by cultural plausibility structures, 3) It is a community deeply involved in the concerns of its neighbourhood; where good news overflows into good action, (228-229) 4) It is a community where members are trained and nourished in priestly ministry in the world under Jesus the High Priest and which rejoices in and embraces the different gifting of its members, 5) It is a community which functions as a new social order of mutual responsibility, (230-231), 6) It is a community which is shaped so much by the gospel story that it lives with hope! This local congregation can represent the reality of the new creation, unmasking the illusions of culture (232-233).

A Newbiginday #2

2011-04-08T12:25:00.002-04:00

Newbigin getting deep re: inter-religious dialogue and perhaps more controversially (yet apropos) salvation. Keep in mind this discussion was in 1989 - so one might claim a limited perspective of the 'main world religions' from our point of view.

Précis of Lesslie Newbigin, “The Gospel and the Religions,” in The Gospel in a Pluralist

Society, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 171-183.

‘Religion’ covers a wide variety of entities. The main world religions can be divided into historical revelation: Judaism; Christianity; Islam, and a-historical revelation: Hinduism; Jainism; Sikhism; Buddhism. Worldviews are atomic: human individual is ultimate, oceanic: all things merge to one, and relational: meaning in relationships. The Bible has a relational view. Religion can also mislead as it excludes secular binding commitments or life principles (171-173). Scripture does not hold us to a strictly exclusivist view of eternal damnation outside of accepting Jesus. This view forces creation of barriers and judgments regarding salvation which are for God only to make. The Inclusivist view (as per Rahner) claims Christ as saviour but acknowledges that this saving can happen outside the church to individuals and religions un-confronted by the gospel reality: “anonymous Christians.” There are those who attack people unwilling to make a judgment as to whether other religions can save because there is a need for a basis to pray together for world peace (174-175).

The Christian approach to world religions must be developed as follows: 1) The reality of God as an ocean of love overflowing has meant all people are witness to God’s grace, 2) The revelation of Jesus compels acknowledgement that the world is in sinful rebellion, 3) Everything is held in tension between these two poles: sin and grace - both universalism and exclusivity remove the tension and disable dialogue, 4) “What happens to the non-Christian after death?” cannot be the primary question: a) God alone has the right to answer it (we see this in Jesus’ response to Peter after the rich young man), b) the question abstracts the human soul away from the entirety of the person, leaving no room for the role that is played in the present reality in light of the end of God’s story, c) this question makes the ultimate concern an individual concern and not the glory of God (176-180). This approach to religion creates four implications: 1) we see the grace of God at work in the lives of those who do not know Jesus as Lord is an implication of God’s greatness, 2) we will cooperate with other religions on projects which move toward the Christian understanding of the end of history, 3) we create context for dialogue with others over the meaning of history, 4) the Christian contribution in the dialogue is to tell the story which God has given to us to tell. The view developed is therefore exclusivist as Jesus Christ is the unique key, inclusivist as God works his grace as he wills, and pluralist in that God’s grace works in all lives (180-183).

Faith and Remembering

2011-03-28T16:43:00.000-04:00

Friends,

I recently wrote a reflection on rest, home, remembering and faith as it relates to Hebrews 11 and the story of Egypt. I actually cannot post it here, but if you would like to have a read then send me an e-mail and I would like to hear about how it resonated (or not) with you as well as your thoughts on the passage.

A Newbiginday

2011-03-25T14:39:00.000-04:00

So, a very kind friend of mine was encouraging me to share more - and I probably should do a bit more sharing here. Though this isn't any thought of my own, it is something I appreciate dearly. Lesslie Newbigin's Gospel in a Pluralist Society was a book that I was tasked with reading in the first term of my current studies and to say that it has been influential on me would be an understatement. I have repeatedly come back to his thoughts on a number of issues as I try to synthesize and absorb a lot of other thinking.

Hopefully, I will be able to regularly present some precis of chapters of this book here at this space. I begin with a chapter which one of my professors called 'one of the best summaries of Wink on the powers.' It is dense, given that it is my summary of his summary (already dense). Please ask to borrow the book from me if you want more (you won't be disappointed).

Précis of Lesslie Newbigin, “Principalities, Powers, and People,” in The Gospel in a Pluralist Society, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1989), 198-210.

There is a dualism in modern Western society whereby individual behaviour is considered separately from 'culture' leading to the idea that the gospel is primarily about changing people and not societies or institutions. The relationship between individual behaviour and the behavoiur of societies is, however, reciprocal. The individualistic perspective of the gospel is symptomatic of post-Enlightenment Western culture (198-199). Both the Old and New testaments speak of, and address communities of people as well as societal structures. The kingdom of God is about power, authority, and rule. In St. Paul's writing this can be seen in texts about principalities, powers, dominions, thrones, authorities, rulers, angels and other groups of agents. Paul uses language which does not refer to the temporary people-in-power (even though they are necessary for the exercise of power) but rather a 'power' or 'authority' behind, above, and internal to these offices that is confronted by the supreme authority of God in Jesus' death and resurrection (200-202). John the Seer addresses groups of Christians by the power embodied in their congregation (angels or another spiritual reality) and these groups fight against evil spiritual power in their daily lives.
According to Col. 2:8, 15, 20 and Gal.4:8-9, the stoicheia (or ruling spirits) of this universe have been disarmed, and Christians are delivered from their power. However, these powers are not destroyed but rather serve their new Lord until the time when they will disappear, and it is with these powers that the church wrestles (203-204). Human life is lived within limits set by structural features of the natural world (physical elements) and of the world of human society (cultural elements). These cultural, structural power elements serve God's purpose but can be demonic when they are absolutized so as to usurp the lordship of Christ. Outside the NT we see examples of these demonic powers when the concerns of number, chance, race, or money are placed above Jesus Christ (205-207). The powers, or 'plausibility structures,' are part of God's good creation but were found by the absolute personification of God in Jesus to be in striking hostility to God and were unmasked and relativized, yet still upheld by God (208).
In practice, this does not imply anarchy. All human structures and traditions are prone to evil but they are necessary for human life, and as such we approach them with the judgment evident in the cross as well as patience, understanding they allow time for the Church to witness to God's reality. Second, we do not fight flesh and blood, but rather the powers themselves, which can only be challenged with the gospel itself. Both politically naive evangelism and social justice without conversion leading to unmasking of these powers is ineffective (209-210).

Cultivation

2011-03-12T14:46:00.000-05:00

The church, according to Stanley Hauerwas, is to cultivate a people who ...

can risk being peaceful in a violent world, risk being kind in a competitive society, risk being faithful in an age of cynicism, risk being gentle among those who admire the tough, risk love when it may not be returned, because we have the confidence that in Christ we have been reborn into a new reality.

Against the Nations: War and Survival in a Liberal Society. Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1992, 118, qtd. in Darrell L. Guder, ed. Missional Church. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 1998.

Home and Control

2011-03-01T23:04:00.000-05:00

So, a reflection paper for Beyond Homelessness, which you've probably heard me talk about in some form or another recently. If you want to commit to this post then listen to these two songs, and then absorb the lyrics, and then listen to them again while reading.

Everybody listen to me.

That sounds just about right. In fact, much of what Mark Farner says in “Closer to Home” resonates with my own experience of the desire for attention, interest, and ascription of importance from those around me[1]. I can get it right, if everyone would simply listen to what I have to say. I begin with my personal reflections on this Grand Funk Railroad.

Everybody, listen to me,

and return me, my ship

I want control now. This mutiny has wrested the control of my own vessel from me[2]; I demand its return. As a sailor without a ship I am homeless. My crew, those under my care in this marine home, have refused both my leadership and the importance of my presence. I cannot live without this sphere of control.

I’m your captain, I’m your captain,

though I’m feeling mighty sick.

I am your captain, am I not? What is a captain of a ship? He is the one who is respected, or at least feared. I should be feared, but I am feeling quite sick. Someone, something else, is steering this ship; either that, or I have been left on land. I am sick because I need to feel the rhythm of the ocean – the rhythm of my home.

I’ve been lost now, days uncounted,

and it’s months since I’ve seen home.

I have no direction now. They took control of the ship; they lost my bearing. The sea is not always a place where direction easily can be found. What is clear is that I am not at home now.

Can you hear me? Can you hear me?

Or am I all alone?

There may not be a single soul here where I am now. My crew cannot hear me or they would know I am their captain. …Lord?

If you return me to my home port,

I will kiss you Mother Earth.

I do not want my ship. If you take me home I will kiss your ring as my King. If I can know a taste of home on the land then I will give up the purpose of my life. I will take a new bearing.

Take me back now, take me back now,

to the port of my birth.

Take me back to the home I knew before I was a sailor. That would be better than any of this.

Am I in my cabin dreaming, or are you really scheming,

to take my ship away from me?

I know I am not alone now. It is you who has taken the ship from me; you are setting the course.

You’d better think about it; I just can’t live without it.

So please, don’t take my ship from me.

I take it back. I cannot be here if I am not captain. Do not take control. It hurts too much.

I can feel the hand, of a stranger,

and it’s tightening around my throat.

Heaven help me; heaven help me,

take this stranger from my boat.

This is not my bearing. I am going to die. I am not lost; I know where I want to go.

I’m your captain; I’m your captain,

though I’m feeling mighty sick.

Everybody, listen to me,

and return me my ship.

I’m your captain, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah …

…. I’m getting closer to my home[3] …

The song slowly fades ringing with the question of whether or not we actually are getting any closer to home. The noises of waves and gulls have ceased, so we are no longer near the shore. I am still the captain and I know where this is going; it could be back to Egypt, or it could be Tarshish[4]. Yet “Closer to Home” leaves us convinced that on this voyage the captain is still feeling mighty sick. With the bow of his ship pointed towards the long horizon of the sea, he has settled for nauseating control over suffocating freedom. Similarly, Cain so dreaded the lack of control he had over God’s acceptance of his sacrifice that he preferred living with the sickness of his brother’s death on his hands (Gen. 4:1-16). Attempts to construct homes without ‘a relationship of grateful stewardship’ result in the ‘idolatrous self-protective arrogance’ of the human who simply declares: “I am your captain.[5]”

Grand Funk Railroad’s captain’s sickness betrays the reality that the home of his ship is nothing more than half built. It is a Babel into which the Lord gives confusion expecting response (Gen. 11:1-9). As I resonate with the honesty of Grand Funk Railroad I can feel the shocking pain and understand the revelation expressed in TV On the Radio’s “Halfway Home.” The narrator of this song is a disciple crying to the Lord as Jonah did after he realized the home he had made was only halfway[6]. It is clear that this disciple has known the Lord intimately.

The song provides no introduction. The fast hand-clapping beat simply arrives surprisingly, bringing with it Tunde Adebimpe’s slow and purposeful retelling of the story which so clearly changed the disciple’s life[7]. The surprise continues, as he immediately recalls the ‘gold and blue and grey’ of the Pharisees (Luke 22:66-71), Pilate and Herod (23:1-12), and of Jesus’ ‘gorgeous robe’ (23:11) as they laid him in the dead’s rest stop: a tomb (23:53). The disciple had known of this day, he had seen the difficulty with which his master had struggled to speak to them of his coming dread[8]. The way he speaks of that which he saw and heard seems to indicate he knew the blood Jesus sweat as he cried out in agony for his father to take away his cup[9]. Yet the disciple also knows, vaguely, of the ‘silhouette’ he saw escape from the ‘top-side’ of Jesus’ earthly burial bed. He knows of the Spirit promised by Jesus, released ‘from out [his] chest,’ colliding with the world and the wilderness[10]. He knows that it is the gentle hand of the spirit who will work to call both the world and the wilderness home. She will work until that day when the mold-breaking Christ returns with eyes ablaze (Rev. 19:12). The disciple’s recognition of who Jesus is forms the basis for conclusions he draws about his relationship to Christ. His loss of control in accepting the path that Jesus lived is crucial to his experience of home.

The song’s narrator has difficulty expressing his own experience of discipleship to Christ. He has been ‘folded’ by the touch of Christ; everything in his life is re-oriented. He knows the words that Jesus spoke are too much for him to live the way he was before:

Whoever wishes to be great among you shall be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you shall be your slave. Matthew 20:26-27

He must change his bearing, but yet at the same time he feels as though what he has learned is ‘not enough’ for him to undertake this radical change.

This disciple knows he is part of the pain that Jesus bore. He knows that Jesus came to serve, and “to give his life as a ransom for many” (Mat. 20:28). This disciple is sure that Jesus succeeded. He knows that Jesus has faced the worst of the judgments that the world can offer[11] and still ‘showed it up.’

The problem is that his knowledge of this subversive victory has made him insane; he knows that to participate he will suffer as he saw his master suffer:

If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Matthew 16:25

He thinks that he cannot then bear this; he would rather wrest back control of his ship. He is the captain, yet his thinking changes. He begins to realize what his master, the Lord Jesus, has done for him. He has been culled into the clutch of the triune God; they are closer now and they have spoken enough to one another. This does not mean he is naïve. He understands the rules of his new house. He knows the road his master walked, the choices he made to release control. He chooses to be rolled under the same pain which crushed Jesus. He chooses to be a disciple, and then proclaims:

Go on throw this stone

into this halfway home.

Here we can see why his release of control is so crucial for home. In accepting his discipleship he cries out to heaven for God to crush his own Babelic halfway home. He is an incurable homemaker, but he has chosen “a relationship of grateful stewardship” over the protective, self-arrogant, halfway constructed, traveling-to-Tarshish, sort of home he had before[12].

The song closes as it began, the beat is quick and there is still the surprise of a single final crash. There is life in this song of the kind declared in John 3:36. It does not end with the false self-assurance of a sure direction. The narrators of both songs are visited by the covenantal Word Jesus, who establishes a new vision of home that involves complete surrender and submission to the will of the father. “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me” was what this Word said (John 6:38). The disciple of Grand Funk Railroad’s “Closer to Home” rejects this covenantal word. The disciple in TV On the Radio’s “Halfway Home” does not. The former continues to sail closer to what he thought was home. The latter is culled into the clutching home of the living and triune God. I can respond humbly, prayerfully, and fearfully as he did:

See it take me so.

Bibliography

Bouma-Prediger, Steven and Walsh, Brian J. Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008.

Grand Funk Railroad. “Closer to Home.” The Best of Grand Funk. EMI Capitol, 1995.

“Grand Funk Railroad – Closer to Home Lyrics,” LyricsWorld, http://www.lyricsdomain.com/7/grand_funk_railroad/closer_to_home.html (accessed Feb. 7, 2011).

“I’m Your Captain (Closer to Home),” Wikipedia. January 21, 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'm_Your_Captain_(Closer_to_Home) (accessed Feb. 8, 2011).

“Lyrics for Halfway Home as interpreted by wphantom,” Song Meanings. http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858740848/ (accessed Feb. 7, 2011).

The New American Standard Bible. Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2002.

tommusicfan19. “Grand Funk Railroad – I’m Your Captain/Closer to Home.” YouTube. March 28, 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8MYsii4DZY&NR=1 (accessed Feb. 8, 2011).

TV On the Radio. “Halfway Home.” Dear Science. Touch and Go Records, 2008.

“TV On the Radio,” Wikipedia. Feb. 5, 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_on_the_Radio (accessed Feb. 8, 2011).

valentinehead65. “TV On the Radio – Halfway Home.” YouTube. October 29, 2008. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4nBwwUufWE (accessed Feb. 8, 2011).

Appendix - Lyrics

“Closer to Home,” by Grand Funk Railroad[13]. Song can be listened to in full at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8MYsii4DZY&NR=1.

Everybody, listen to me,
            and return me, my ship.
I'm your captain; I'm your captain,
            though I'm feeling mighty sick.
I've been lost now, days uncounted,
            and it's months since I've seen home.
Can you hear me? Can you hear me?
            Or am I all alone?
If you return me to my home port,
            I will kiss you Mother Earth.
Take me back now; take me back now,
            to the port of my birth.
Am I in my cabin dreaming, or are you really scheming,
            To take my ship away from me?
You'd better think about it, I just can't live without it.
            So, please don't take my ship from me.
Yeah, yeah, yeah ...

I can feel the hand, of a stranger,
            and it's tightening, around my throat.
Heaven help me; Heaven help me,
            take this stranger from my boat.
I'm your captain; I'm your captain,
            though I'm feeling mighty sick.
Everybody, listen to me,
            and return me, my ship.

I'm your captain, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm your captain, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm your captain, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I'm your captain, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

I'm getting closer to my home ...
I'm getting closer to my home ...
I'm getting closer to my home ...
I'm getting closer to my home ...
Ohhhh ...
I'm getting closer to my home ...
Repeated to fade

“Halfway Home,” by TV On the Radio[14]. Song can be listened to in full at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4nBwwUufWE.

The lazy way they turned your head
            into a rest stop for the dead,
            and did it all in gold and blue and grey.

The efforts to allay your dread,
            in spite of all you knew and said,
            were hard to see and harder still to say.

A comfort plush all laced in lead
            was sent to quell your sentiment,
            and keep your trembling sentinel hand at bay.

And when a sudden silhouette
            escaped the top-side of your bed,
            I knew you'd never ever be the same.

Is it not me?
Am I not folded by your touch?
The words you spoke,
            I know too much.
It's over now,
            and not enough.

Is it not me?
The damage you hold inside your blush?
The load you towed,
            You showed it up
It's over now,
            and I'm insane.

Wild spirits winds from out your chest.
Collides with world and wilderness.
It needs a gentle hand to call it home.

Now surfs the sun and scales the moon,
            and winds the waistband of her womb.
All eyes ablaze the day you break your mold.

Is it not me?
Am I not culled into your clutch?
The words you spoke,
            I know too much.
We're closer now,
            and said enough.

Is it not me?
Am I not rolled into your crush?
The road you choose,
            unloads control.
See it take me so.

Go on throw this stone
            into this halfway home.

[1] Mark Farner credited as writer, “I’m Your Captain (Closer to Home),” Wikipedia. January 21, 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I'm_Your_Captain_(Closer_to_Home) (accessed Feb. 8, 2011).

[2] Mutiny in this song discussed Ibid., “Themes and Interpretations.”

[3] Lyrics personally modified from “Grand Funk Railroad – Closer to Home Lyrics,” LyricsWorld, http://www.lyricsdomain.com/7/grand_funk_railroad/closer_to_home.html (accessed Feb. 7, 2011).

[4] The Israelites grumbled about going back to the security of what they knew in Egypt (Exodus 16:1-3). The importance of this is noted in Steven Bouma-Prediger and Brian Walsh, Beyond Homelessness: Christian Faith in a Culture of Displacement, (Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans, 2008), 17. Jonah went to Tarshish to “flee … from the presence of the Lord” (Jonah 1:3). He knew the hand that was choking him.

[5] Prediger and Walsh, Beyond Homelessness, 16. For the biblical images, I am influenced by Ibid., 14-17.

[6] His prayer is found in Jonah 2.

[7] Confirmation of Tunde Adebimpe singing and discussion of surprise in their style, “TV On the Radio,” Wikipedia. Feb. 5, 2011, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TV_on_the_Radio (accessed Feb. 8, 2011).

[8] The three passion predictions in Matthew (17:22-23, 20:18-19, 26:2) clearly result in death for the ‘Son of Man.’ Jesus’ preferred name for himself is the ‘Son of Man’ (Matt. 26:24), see also Terry Donaldson, “Lecture 11- Jesus,” New Testament I: From the Gospel to the Gospels, 17.

[9] Luke 22:44; Matt. 26:38-46; Mark 14:35.

[10] This is the Spirit of Truth which Jesus spoke of in John 13:16.

[11] This language influenced by a sermon of Kevin Makins, Eucharist Church, Feb. 7, 2011.

[12] This language again due to Bouma-Prediger and Walsh, Beyond Homelessness, 16.

[13] Lyrics personally modified from “Grand Funk Railroad – Closer to Home Lyrics,” LyricsWorld, http://www.lyricsdomain.com/7/grand_funk_railroad/closer_to_home.html (accessed Feb. 7, 2011).

[14] Lyrics personally modified from “Lyrics for Halfway Home as interpreted by wphantom,” Song Meanings. http://www.songmeanings.net/songs/view/3530822107858740848/ (accessed Feb. 7, 2011).

People are Awesome

2011-01-30T12:52:00.002-05:00

This guy has an amazing collection of pictures.

http://timothyallen.blogs.bbcearth.com/

Ironic Quote of the Day

2011-01-26T14:35:00.000-05:00

I go back and forth about this blog. Looks like Francis has some words (hah) for me.

“the flesh desires and is most eager to have words, but [cares] little to carry them out. It does not seek a religion and holiness in the interior spirit, but it wishes and desires to have a religion and holiness outwardly apparent to people” Francis of Assisi,

quoted by Angelyn Dries, "Mission and Marginalization: The Franciscan Heritage." Missiology: An Internal Review, 1, XXVI, Jan. 1998.

Some Ecumenism For Today

2011-01-24T21:08:00.001-05:00

Last term, as a small part of one of my papers for a good class, I had to reflect on some similarities and differences between a whole bunch of Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic catechisms that we had read. It was a lot of work, but I found the process exceedingly fruitful, and hopefully someone else might too. A lot of the catechisms (modern and some older) are available online ... if you are into that kind of stuff. Here is that part of the paper.

The Christian world today is one of disunity. The primary dimension of separation is along lines of tradition corresponding to the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Protestant churches. One of the ways each church defines itself is through its professed process of salvation: the Orthodox process involves the will, the Roman Catholic membership in the body, and the Protestant the mind.[1] However, they agree on how Jesus Christ and the continuing work of the Holy Spirit enable this process of salvation. The three groups also differentiate on understandings of the nature of the church and its relation to scripture, but they share in common the goal of unity with God. Given some claims that salvation is sure only through group-particular beliefs, the differences do matter, but all three processes subsume a necessary belief in the saving work of Jesus Christ.

The Eastern Orthodox catechism, Guiding All to the Heavenly Kingdom, by John Veniaminov begins by claiming that “all human beings desire … prosperity and happiness” which can only be found in God (80). Assuming that people want to know God and the joys of heaven because they want to know the happiness found in that (Veniaminov, 81), it proceeds in claiming “Your salvation … depends on your own will” (Veniaminov, 90). This process of the will is following the suffering pathway of Jesus Christ the ultimate sufferer (Veniaminov, 88-89). The moment of salvation is ambiguous but what is important is a whole hearted commitment to choosing to act in the way that leads to suffering, as Jesus did. This suffering desired is primarily an internal tension which forms holiness (Veniaminov, 95).

In contrast, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that it is the Church that is the goal of all things and the salvation of all (760). It claims that “the Church is Christ’s instrument,” a universal sacrament of salvation (CCC, 776). In other words, to be Catholic is to understand salvation as the process of membership into the Church’s (and Christ’s) body. The Roman Catholic Church is the sole church (870), and outside the Church there is no guarantee of salvation (CCC, 846). The need for this salvation becomes evident because one is a religious being (CCC, 28) who can naturally come to know God and the need of him through reasoning about the world (CCC, 32, 36). God being evident, faith becomes “free assent to the whole truth that God has revealed,” which is held by the Roman Catholic Church (CCC, 150).

For the Protestant, the realization of the need for salvation begins with an argument. In the Heidelberg Catechism, one is shown to be sinful because of how one’s life does not live up to the law of God (HC, 3). After this acknowledgement, the process of salvation involves response to a single, reasoned argument of human insufficiency (Luther, 345), and the sufficiency of God’s grace and actions through Jesus Christ (Luther, 345). What is necessary is acceptance of this grace and intellectual belief in the words of forgiveness declared in baptism and the Eucharist (Luther, 348, 352). In this manner, inclusion under God’s forgiving grace is dramatic (Luther, 347) and depends on a mental conclusion that one wants to accept the gift of salvation and repent (Luther, 22).

What is shared by all of the above salvation processes is the belief that they are enabled by the once-for-all sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The Eastern Orthodox believe that it is through following Jesus’ perfect life which paid for our sins that one finds the path of salvation (Veniaminov, 86-87, 84, 81). The Catholic belief is that Jesus is the head of the church and it is through his work that the church has gained its salvific power (CCC, 763-766). Protestants likewise believe that Jesus is the Redeemer and Saviour (Luther, 345; HC, 18). All three understand the work of the Holy Spirit as that which continues the development of the Christian along the process of salvation (Veniaminov, 103; CCC, 734; HC, 53).

Another way to define what it means to be Protestant, Orthodox, and Catholic is their understanding of the nature of the church and its relation to Scripture. For the Orthodox believer, the ultimate goal of life is the ecstasy of heaven (Veniaminov, 81), and as such, the formation of an earthly church is to ensure that individuals can learn what it means to be true Orthodox Christians. Through immersion in the church, the reality of Christ the Saviour emerges experientially.[2] Study of the Scripture is necessary to ensure that it is the foundation of the Orthodox Church’s faith (Veniaminov, 91), but after such a realization, it is the corresponding action to “live with Him in the Church” that is important (Clement, xv). For the Catholic Church, the Sacred Tradition and the Sacred Scripture have one common source in Christ, and each are “accepted and honored with equal sentiments of devotion and reverence” (CCC, 81, 82). These two streams come together in the truth of Christ which is bound to the Church itself.[3] The Pope and the bishops in communion with him are the sole authority for interpretation of Scripture (CCC, 100). Contrastingly, a Protestant’s faith is founded on the primacy of Scripture alone. Both Luther’s Small Catechism and the Heidelberg Catechism demonstrate a focus on the scriptural basis for every conclusion they make. The Church is that body of believers chosen by God for everlasting life (HC, 54), which arises when a culture adopts the truth of the gospel message. What all these traditions share is the belief that God has acted to reveal himself through both a body of believing people and his written, holy, word.

In a world where ‘tribal’ membership is important for identity, often the essential components of a Christian faith tradition become that which differentiates it from other Christian traditions. In a practical way, this must be acknowledged as important, since the tradition may claim its knowledge to be the only sure means of salvation (CCC, 846; Veniaminov, 81). Yet even these divisions, at their core, stem from common beliefs[4]. God has acted in Jesus Christ to unite humans together with him. How that happens can be debated, but all three traditions agree that it involves belief: that Jesus’ path is the way to the kingdom of heaven (Orthodox), that Jesus has redeemed and continues to redeem the world through the church his body (Catholic), and that Jesus’ sacrifice is the ultimate atonement for sins (Protestant). A Protestant may point to an Orthodox believer and claim they outwardly practice without any inner belief. Likewise, a Catholic may tell a Protestant they do not grasp the full truth of God’s plan because it has always been held within the Church, and an Eastern Orthodox may claim all others haven’t experienced the mystery of God because of their lack of suffering. Each tradition holds tightly to its own conclusion, in essence making those beliefs more ‘essential’ than the shared foundation. In contrast, I would judge that which each tradition has shared for centuries to be ‘essential,’ exactly because of the agreement.

[1] I do not mean to ignore practical doctrinal differences, including the differing use of Icons, transubstantiation of the Eucharist, and pre-destination etc. Yet, the effort to define the true differences among the churches, especially with respect to their teaching, needs to begin at a point preceding that of the end practices, and as such, my analysis is focused on base differences in understanding.

[2] As discussed by Dr. Radner in class on December 7, 2010.

[3] As discussed by Dr. Radner in class on December 7, 2010.

[4] One can begin to see this in the common use of the Apostles’ or Nicene Creed, the Lord’s Prayer, and the Ten Commandments for catechesis.

Works Cited

Catechism of the Catholic Church. 1997. St. Charles Borromeo Catholic Church. http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc.htm (accessed December 11, 2010).

Clement, Olivier (ed.). 1989. Living God. Crestwood: St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press.

The Heidelberg Catechism. 1563. Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics. http://www.reformed.org/documents/index.html?mainframe=http://www.reformed.org/documents/heidelberg.html (accessed Nov. 13, 2010).

Luther, Martin. 1959. Small Catechism. In The Book of Concord. ed. and trans. Theodore Tappert. Phiiladelphia: Fortress Press, pp. 337-356.

Veniaminov, John. 1987. Indication of the Pathway Into the Kingdom of Heaven. In Alaskan Missionary Spirituality. ed. Michael Oleska. New York/Mahwah: Paulist Press, pp. 80-119.

Relevance to Resonance

2010-11-26T15:51:00.001-05:00

I feel kind of sneaky posting anything on the blog these days because of my extended absence, hah! But, alas, I have to share this. It truly is an amazing blessing to be able to share space closely with brilliant minds all thinking about ways to know, love, worship, and follow God. Sometimes, a question might lead one of these minds to expand on a topic helpfully. I recently asked a question of Brian Walsh while eating lunch and his response turned into this post: http://empireremixed.com/2010/11/26/orange-sky/ . It's a great reflection.

Feel free to join in: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjHvJE1XU7E.

The Question

2010-10-28T12:31:00.000-04:00

The question is not how I or anyone else will be saved but rather,

How

shall

God

and his amazing grace

be glorified and adored?

... thinking that rises from reading Newbigin all day.

Go Away!

2010-09-09T23:32:00.001-04:00

but please ... for, by and through the love of God come back. come back to me and to others and demonstrate, live, and teach what you have learned.

go away though. seriously.

find a separated room, a closet of sorts; a lone park bench; a long open stretch of road; maybe a large stack of dishes.

Imagine if in a romantic relationship a couple only were able to express and then understand and learn about the other's love in the context of being together with the partner AND other friends and community? God wants to be able to show her love on the level of personal separated intimacy you would expect in that relationship.

Eighth Letter

2010-09-01T15:45:00.000-04:00

So, the next evolving church conference is called Eighth Letter. The point being another letter (on top of the 7 in Revelation) written to the North American church. The organizers challenged possible attendees as well as speakers to write a letter to the church in North America. I thought for about 10 minutes, and after that felt I was pretty sure about what I wanted to say:

A letter to the North American Church:

The Scripture scholar Ernst Kaseman is noted with saying that what is wrong in the world and in the churches is that the pious aren’t liberal and the liberals aren’t pious. The theologian Ronald Rolheiser notes that this sentiment is paralleled in the Western culture’s divorce of private and social morality. My question for the North American church is exactly that:

Are you equally satisfied with both your personal morality; the ethics of self, and your social morality; justice for all? Do you pour through Scripture with the same aching, searching desire to find truths about how to live personally as Jesus did as you do to find truths about building the Kingdom as he did? Conversely, do you judge the systems-of-power, political and commercial institutions with the same ferocity as you do the sins you find in that person you love so dearly?

The Kingdom lies in the balance in more ways than one. It lies in our ability to balance an every-day-search to abide in God by keeping his commands, and an every-day-search for ways in which to bring about God’s loving justice for all. My prayer for you, the North American church, is that the divorce would be undone. A revolution is a community committed to both private and social morality. A revolution is a church evaluating how they live in relation to one another as often as how they live in relation to those around them.

“If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love… This is My commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you.”

John 15

Thank the Lord that we often find his power working in existing communities in North America that try to live in the balance. Let the ache and the desire for both unite us and not the vision for one separate us.

Live Together, Live Alive

2010-08-30T17:44:00.001-04:00

I've been struggling. Truth is I'm trying to figure out what to write about my trip to Rwanda. Usually when I write a blog post it hits me hard in a way that I see mostly all of what I am going to say. With regard to this experience I have not yet had that feeling. I neither know where to start nor have I finished catalyzing my thoughts and reactions to what I saw and experienced. I will say it was a fantastic, blessing-filled and thought provoking time. As for what those thoughts are, you might need to wait just a bit longer. However, I do have some beautiful stories of people of unimaginable strength and love to share with you. The stories are important because these experiences are what triggers thoughts, ideas and opinions, so you will be able to process alongside me.

Kotutu

I never did get the Kinyarwanda spelling on that, but thats as best I could pick out form the scribbles in my notebook. It is the name of one of the most inspiring co-operatives we visited (and we visited a lot). It means, as the title of this post betrays; Live Together, Live Alive. It began in 2007 as a number of associations of people infected by HIV/AIDS coming together to create a new co-operative where each individual member could work to contribute his and her gifts and share in the positive outcomes. This co-operative has 176 members. They lead us on to a row of chairs and stools at the front of a large room filled with benches and about 75 people. Sitting down, we begin the familiar process of introducing our group, telling our names, our ages, and our marital status. Already one can tell that this is a spirited group. They have energy, they have passion and drive, sometimes they even have arguments with one another as to what the correct answer is (eg. how exactly did this all get started?). It doesn't seem like a group of people who are living on borrowed time, or with an internal clock which constantly counts down. Iriakim translates their fascinating and inspiring story of community support and hardwork. He lays out how they wrote proposals to World Vision for many different income generating activities, including the keeping of bees to harvest and then sell fresh honey.

The people then explain how the training about HIV/AIDS provided by WV has helped them understand better how to live; the fact that the part of the national health insurance that they need to pay is covered by WV doesn't hurt either. When we come to the topic of the building we are sitting in, they cannot contain their pride. This building, this beautiful large meeting area was built by them for weekly meetings. All the members contributed large amounts of money to fund its construction. CIDA and WV provided the remaining needed funds (and some materials), but the people in the co-operatives built it with their own hands. I have seen Rwandans work on construction - and I can imagine they were there everyday working much harder than you or I could. Before the conversation devolves (as it so often does) into a minefield of questions like 'Why is Canada so well-off?' or cultural exchange about birth control methods and how to maintain marital fidelity, they also explain that they grow crops together for food for themselves, as well as to store and sell at lucrative times. Furthermore, they have their own cows and goats (I believe the first of which were provided by WV), another valuable income source.

But after all this group discussion, people are asked to share their own stories; how has the co-op affected your life? A lady who was loud-spoken, excited, funny, and thoroughly charming throughout our previous discussion is the first to pop up. Lets call her Veridien. She has children. In 2004, she discovered that she was infected with AIDS. She recalls the traumatizing effect on her and her family. She expressed that there was great sadness in this time. Another lady, in the telling of her story claimed she 'felt it was better to die.' Eventually she was visited by the co-operative. She was accepted into that tight-knit community and encouraged by counsellours and friends alike. 'Life began to change,' she said. She received the training mentioned above, and even as her funds went to the co-op she received the benefits of food security and a supporting community for her family. Her children, with WV support are now able to return to attending school. Mom, with the help of the co-op, can run the house herself. The truth is, she can do much more than that. She is also the vice-president of the co-operative running a fruit tree orchard, which has been fundamental in creating further income generation and providing support for 100s of other people. Veridien moves, speaks, laughs, and hugs with confidence. She is living alive (the one in the yellow with the smile, in case you hadn't already picked her out).

Trans-Atlantic Toys

2010-08-06T00:15:00.000-04:00

Finally the excuse I have been waiting for for why I am not blogging! I will be gone for 17.5 days as of tomorrow and sit (almost) fully packed at this point. Matt was very kind to lend me an awesome 85 litre bag which is full to the brim of seemingly primarily toys, notebooks, bics and soccer balls given by awesome friends and family. Sometimes I think about how these are odd things to travel across the Atlantic with. Sometimes I think about how the idea of spending long days of travel in order to sit with, learn from, relate to, and try to help people across the world is an odd idea. But yet it seems like the right one, and, alas, I am anxcited - a new-to-me word coined exactly for you know what!

I would love it if you would pray for me; for openness, energy and strength.

Contributors

2010-06-23T19:57:00.001-04:00

So. There is this section on the side of the blog called 'contributors.' This is a regular blogger feature when you have a blog with more than one administrator. This harkens back to the beginning of the blog, which I dreamt up while sitting in The Pancake House, of all places, with a group of fantastic friends. I had a big vision, as I often do, about a team blog, a communal space. This was a place where we would all be able to post thoughts, and in fact carry on a sort of creative conversation. Kindly, my friends said they would join and I set them all up with full administrator rights on the blog, a tiny bit of guilt, and set off for San Diego. Initially, we all had a few posts, and I felt connected in a way that I couldn't have been otherwise. It was pretty great. So great I raved about it to a telecommunications brainstorming session I was invited to be part of at work. The ability to have this kind of a private/public shared community space on the internet would be important I thought, not that it was unprecedented.

Alas, the posts began to wear thin. I felt as though I had to wait for someone else to say something before I could weigh in again because I was trying not to dominate the conversation. In fact, I think for a while there I learned how to think of an idea to write about and then squash the thought immediately. Time went by, and I posted here and there, and eventually this blog became what it is now, my own individual creative outlet.

All that to say I really like having that list of contributors there. They stand as a public reminder that what goes on here is fundamentally dependent upon so much more than me. And in fact, all my close friends, even those who weren't listed at the time (whom i'd love to set up with the same privileges), contribute so much to my life and character. Some of them have great blogs of their own. I can and do learn a lot about writing, expression and creativity from these people. Still more friends of mine have musical, artistic, athletic and intellectual creative drive and ability that I learn more from every day.

So yeah. There are a lot of contributors here. Many more than are listed. And i'm thankful.

Lessons from a World Cup Coach Potatoe

2010-06-18T17:57:00.000-04:00

Well, if you are willing to take in a thought from a guy who starts his mornings by eating breakfast, watching soccer, drinking coffee, eating more breakfast and getting stuck in wikipedia loops about Christian existentialism then read on, otherwise, I'm not sure I have much to offer you at this point!

For those that might still be with me, I will say this, only because it seems to have been proved to me time and time again. First I will attempt to describe a situation which could be felt by different people in vastly different ways but which fundamentally revolves around restlessness. It may be a time or day in which you feel like you must change your schedule, you must get out and do something different, or you must be at an event or something socially acceptable as fun. Maybe you just must see some friend of yours, any of them. It could be loneliness, dissatisfaction, boredom, or an suffocating familiarity. I think universally it involves the urge to just do something, which I am not saying is altogether unhealthy or inappropriate, but I think it can be a hint at something larger. All that to say, the action that I would recommend is to not frantically pursue the urges. In the rare times when I am able to, against all intuition, use these moments to take a step back and away, I can gain some perspective. Again, at even rarer times, I can use this retreat to try and focus on God, to plead God to show me his person, to implore him for greater understanding of his love, and to ask for peace. Often after much (sometimes seemingly fruitless) effort put in this direction, returning to the day's activities, it is later when I begin to notice a change. Almost always it involves a heightened sense of creativity, a feeling of peace, contentment, and joy at experiencing some of the mysteries of Christ. And thats that. God reveals his heart and his peace to people in different ways I am sure. I speak to this because I feel like I've experienced the correlation. So try it sometime, the next instance you have where you feel along the lines of which described above. But I can't just say do what I do, because its possible that a simple act of service or contemplation-in-activity causes you to feel closer to God, but then I'd say try that too.

Good News

2010-06-18T00:18:00.001-04:00

Beware the broaching of a somewhat/sometimes controversial topic. But, alas, I have yet again decided to outlet into the blog more instead of just being concerned over production and perception.

So, as usual, I quote:

Evangelism should be less of a duty and more of a desire. It is the natural and normal outpouring of a Christ-centred, God-impacted, kingdom-enjoying life. We ARE the light of the world and the salt of the earth. It’s significant that Paul never has to instruct any of the churches to whom he writes to evangelize. That much they were already doing quite naturally. The commission passages in Scripture are less commands to be awkwardly and artificially obeyed and more promises of the presence of Christ in partnership with us as we naturally and unavoidably manifest our faith to others. If you are not showing and sharing your faith regularly, you may be artificially holding back from doing what would come naturally if you stopped worrying and cultivated some gelassenheit (let-go-ness). - Bruxy Cavey

Hmmmphh. Call me way behind the ball, but I was thinking about this kind of a thrust today, about the church as Christ continuing on the role of Jesus, the Gospel, or the Good News, in the world now. It actually makes sense, how can the church be the body of Christ, entwined in a loving (and growing) relationship with creator God Almighty and not share the message of the Good News. I'm not talking about the evangelism that gets tonnes of press and creates the odd names and reputations that evangelicals have developed (see tele-anything or right wing republicans). I'm talking about living as Jesus Christ and his disciples did in that life as an active way of sharing the idea that there is something different, another possibility, and Jesus is right at the centre of it. I liked how Bruxy noted that the unity of the church (hopefully) , across racial, status, age, and political boundaries is one of the first ways in which 'a different way' can be demonstrated. This point may seem so simple to you readers and you've run with it all along. But bear with me, because I think previously I avoided the discussion of 'evangelism' given the negative connotations and reputation. In reality, its about figuring out how and what one is sharing in one's life. If I consider the understanding of love that I have through relationship with God and others to be what defines my life, then I should be able to share what I believe to be the power of Jesus Christ that enables it. Even this could be slightly controversial I guess because it might bring some down the track of the problem of determining that other people's systems of belief are wrong, and this might be territory you might not want to be in - but I think that that is to be thought out and discussed more another time!

A Saviour

2010-06-14T00:05:00.001-04:00

If there is one way to think of God that I don't really actively dwell on that much it is as a saviour. It's not that I don't think I am in need of saving - much to the contrary. It is, for some reason, that I don't naturally use that part of the language of God. Why not? It's possible it is because it has strong connotations of imperialistic evangelism or something like that. Truth is, thinking about God in that way need not involve thinking about actions of the church.

If I asked you whether you sometimes (appropriately or not) looked at friends of yours as saviours for you of your loneliness, or 'lostness' - would that resonate? Your relationships with these people may drive you, or help maintain your balance, prevent you from despair. Now that's a way to think of God as a saviour eh? In fact, our relationship with God is the only one that could save us from a lonely and bitter despair.

Humility?

2010-06-13T23:37:00.000-04:00

... it had made her realize that any good thing we do has its source, not in ourselves but rather in that spring where this tree, which is the soul, is planted, and in that sun which sheds its radiance on our works. She says that she saw this so clearly that, whenever she did any good thing, or saw such a thing done, she betook herself straightway to its Source, realizing that without His help we are powerless. She then went on at once to praise God; and, as a rule, when she did any good action, she never gave a thought to herself at all. - St Teresa of Avila

I had this quote written down a while ago and was dwelling on it today. I feel like I wish I knew more what humility was and this, I think, might be a good place to start. My sister-in-law, quoting her pastor I believe, once said "humility is the shyest of virtues." I like that thought too - but then I don't really know much about it if I am writing and talking in the search to learn no? Well, it is what it is. I think the good thing about going straightway to the Source is that it reinforces that in some way we are known by God in what we do, in our efforts to love and live right and hopefully we get to the place where that is enough (most likely through repetition). Or at least we try to get to that place, which is a struggle enough sometimes...

Through a Glass Darkly

2010-05-06T11:01:00.000-04:00

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love. - 1 Corinthians 14:37 (emphasis definitely mine)

Isn't it exciting!? *face* to *face*. That is how intimately we will know God. And I love how Paul puts this in 'the love chapter' as if to begin by describing the best we know of love - and then imply - this is only our understanding as through a glass darkly, or a mirror dimly; we will know deeply and intimately a greater love than this. In fact we will 'know fully' as we are 'fully known.' What more can we ask for indeed! I pray that in the meantime I will abide fully in the faith, hope and love that I do know and that this grows evermore.

Empire State of Mind

2010-04-29T16:07:00.000-04:00

I think i might know one reason people like New York City. In New York City you are important, its like you're witnessing 500 tv show narratives at the same time as you are writing/acting/directing your own. I learned today that Charles Addams (of Addams' Family and New Yorker fame) would often draw up his little cartoons for the New Yorker from stories and scenes witnessed and overheard on the streets, in the buildings, and in the parks of the city. While walking around after I began thinking about this because I just could NOT concentrate on praying nor reading. Anyway, i witnessed my own little hilarious scene in which 2 young sisters walking home from school were having a difference of opinion over speed of travel.

... "this is the speed in which I am going to walk at!" declared the younger, pronouncing the syllables as slow as she took her steps, her knapsack rolling behind her.

.... The older sister slows down to wait for the younger so that it would be impossible to avoid noticing the frustration painted across her face ...

I laughed to myself. That's funny. Because its life. We have all had those moments. The thing with New York is everything is played out for everyone else. First of all, there is so many people everywhere. Second, the scenes are set perfectly - 1/2 the films out there try to reproduce these backgrounds. Third, everyone looks great and is dressed perfectly (I mean just browse through a few pages of The Sartorialist), or they are dressed authentically and with purpose, and lastly everyone is LOUD. Walking in New York you witness little snippets of everyone else's life narrative - their anger, their love, their best and their worst. So this is the first reason people like New York - because lets be honest, who doesn't want to be able to glimpse so many other people's lives; absorb, compare, laugh and judge.

But more importantly, one (or is it just me?) feels as though his narrative for his time in New York is also being observed and judged. It is as though, the setting creates importance, which gives our actions and decisions, even just our appearance - value? Take for example, this morning after a long time eating breakfast in bed watching soccer I strolled out to get a coffee and read for a bit at M. Rohrs: a great little cafe right near my brother's apartment. One of those New York cafe's that is a quaint little thing sunken down from the sidewalk with tables, pastries, and *things* everywhere. While reading my book, and drinking my fantastically smooth latte, I find myself looking up when people walk in the door to judge whether they belong in my scene - and to observe whether they take notice of my importance in the headline role. Really? yes really. I'm not saying its healthy or correct. But it is what it is.

It makes me think of value. And our search for it. It makes me think with a bit of sadness about humility. The thing is, at the risk of sounding cheesy, I already a live a pretty damn important narrative. It's not important because I'm in New York. It's important because God is there - loving me to a fault - loving me in action - with care, kindness, responsibility, respect, trust, knowledge - to an infinite degree. Mind you - its almost easier just to travel to New York to try and feel that way. Because understanding this value is. hard. work. Often it requires situations much the opposite of the streets of NYC - unless of course - the depths of your soul are organized in a grid pattern with a great big park in the middle!

Paralyzed

2010-04-19T13:58:00.001-04:00

"A short time ago I was told by a very learned man that souls without prayer are like people whose bodies or limbs are paralysed [sic]: they possess feet and hands but they cannot control them." - St. Teresa of Avila

On Violence, Shame and Love

2010-04-06T09:32:00.000-04:00

Introduction

‘After these tearings with the pincers, Damiens, who cried out profusely, though without swearing, raised his head and looked at himself; the same executioner dipped an iron spoon in the pot containing the boiling potion, which he poured liberally over each wound’ Quoted in Foucault (1995, p. 4)

Violence can be gut-wrenching. Violence is always devastating and can be highly emotional. Violence is not always a tragedy in the works of Shakespeare, but his tragedies employ violence without fail. In the consideration of the most violent act committed towards oneself or loved ones an individual begins to understand her own definition of what violence is. Does this exercise bring memories of the abuse of power? Most likely; violence is inextricably related to power. In the situation considered was violence used as a ‘last resort’? How many creative alternatives to the use of violence in the situation can be imagined? Did the violent offender achieve the desired end? What was it that was desired? Is there respect now for the offender because of what they did?

There are countless questions that are raised during and after an experience of violence. Attempting to answer these questions, not just from the victim’s point of view, but also from that of the offender is crucial to understanding violence. Understanding what people desire from violence and why it is undertaken is fundamental to determining appropriate and effective ways of preventing and dealing with it. But what is it that most people want? Respect? Love? Theories of violence attempt to establish this psychological, even spiritual, connection between individuals and their violent actions. With the motivational understanding provided primarily by the Germ Theory of Violence, it can be seen that the Restorative Justice framework of practices is exceptionally valuable for providing a process where the causes behind violence are addressed and included in the attempt to make the situation as right as possible. It is this effort that could also lead to a reduction in future violence.

What is Violence?

Hannah Arendt (1999) claimed that “there exists a consensus among political theorists from Left to Right to the effect that violence is nothing more than the most flagrant manifestation of power” (p. 3). This power is used for abusive and one-sided ends. Voltaire noted that “Power consists in making others act as I choose” (as cited in Arendt, 1999, p. 3), and Arendt (1999) quotes Max Weber as saying that this power is present “wherever I have the chance ‘to assert my own will against the resistance’ of others” (p. 3). Violence exists in the space created by the unequal distribution of power, for if one is able to assert his will ‘against the resistance of others’ then usually one possesses greater power.

Arendt (1999) goes on, however, to strictly differentiate violence from power by noting that it is instrumental; it is not the “essence of anything,” because “it always stands in need of guidance and justification through the end it pursues” (p. 9). Robert Paul Wolff (1999) qualifies the above discussion by saying, “violence is the illegitimate or unauthorized use of force to effect decisions against the will or desire of others” (p. 15). He uses this definition to contrast murder with capital punishment; one is an act of violence where the other, by “a legitimate state,” is not (Wolff, 1999, p. 15). However, the question of whether a legitimate authority making use of violent acts is different from that of a renegade should bear no influence on the discussion within this paper. That is because an effective theory of violence should address the use by any and all individuals and groups. As such, we will limit the definition of violence to the instrumentation through which power is leveraged in order to assert the will of one party against and through the resistance of another.

Finally, Social Work practice has discovered that violence by its nature does not exist in isolated incidents. It is noted by Gilbert et al. (2009) that the experience of maltreatment and violence (especially in childhood) often leads to the perpetration of violence later in life (p. 173). This is often referred to as ‘cycles of violence.’ Understanding these cycles, and how they can be broken, is a crucial element of understanding violence and the appropriate responses to it.

The Germ Theory of Violence

“I never got so much respect before in my life as I did when I first pointed a gun at somebody.” Quoted in Gilligan (1996, p. 109)

We return now to the question of why individuals commit acts of violence. The theory of violence on which much of the American and Canadian Justice Systems are built is that of the rational self-interest theory. This theory says that people engage in violence because it is rational or ‘common-sense’ for them to do so in their situation. Furthermore, they, like others, do not desire any physical harm, prison terms or death. As such, the state needs only to provide punishments for violence in exactly these forms in order to prevent it (Gilligan, 1996, p. 94). One can note, however, that the focus on punishment as prevention of violence has not succeeded. The murder rate in the United States in 1996 was almost 10 times as high as in 1900 and grows continually (Gilligan, 1996, p. 95). Furthermore, anyone who has experienced a serious act of violence understands the offense of referring to it as rational. Others, such as Meadows (2010), believe that there are “[identifiable] biological and personal traits that increase the likelihood of becoming a perpetrator of violence.” (p.16) James Gilligan (1996) spent years in prisons interviewing and talking with male offenders who had committed violent crime in order to determine why it would happen and began to draw some conclusions:

“I am convinced that violent behavior, even at its most apparently senseless, incomprehensible, and psychotic, is an understandable response to an identifiable, specifiable set of conditions; and that even when it seems motivated by “rational” self-interest, it is the end product of a series of irrational, self-destructive, and unconscious motives that can be studied, identified, and understood.” (p. 102)

He identifies the “pathogens” which carry “the most lethal form of pathology of our time” (Gilligan, 1996, p.104). These germs begin with shame. In a situation in which an individual is experiencing great shame and a lack of respect, violence is seen as the only alternative through which respect from others (for oneself) can be restored. He developed this hypothesis as a response to the answers he received from individuals asked bluntly why they had murdered. Initially believing the thought was original, he began to discover it everywhere he looked. Gilligan (2001) notes that Hegel identified “the desire for recognition as the central motive force behind all human history,” and that recognition is a synonym for respect; literally meaning to be re-spectare or re-cognized (p. 31). Other clues can be found in language itself, for Gilligan (2001) says “People become indignant (and may become violent) when they suffer an indignity” (p. 30). Gilligan (2001) notes that psychological studies have shown that the “most potent stimulus of aggression … [the] most reliable in eliciting this response is not frustration per se …, but rather, insult and humiliation” (p. 32). It is not only Gilligan who supports this theory of violence. Terry Aladjem (2008) discusses similar themes in saying:

“That dubious enterprise – to be restored in the esteem of an enemy – then, must seem to register in the fellow’s eyes, and is best achieved if he perceives or appears to perceive that one has been the cause of his own loss of esteem or destruction.” (p.113)

Aladjem is demonstrating the same thought from the perspective of what is gained by an individual in committing violence: pride, or relief from shame. He says, “My pride swells in proportion to my enemy’s humiliation” (2008, p. 133).

But what is the source of this shame? Gilligan (2001) feels that it is shame “over being valued so little by the other person, and for being too weak to make him treat one fairly” (p. 33). It is the “Violence towards others, such as homicide, [that] is an attempt to replace shame with pride” (Gilligan, 1996, p. 111). This prevents the offending individual from being overwhelmed with the shame (Gilligan, 1996, p. 111). Gilligan (1996) identifies three pre-conditions which need to be met in order for those individuals who feel intense shame to act out violently. The pre-conditions are as follows (1996):

The matters over which they feel shame are in fact so trivial that it is of greater shame to them that these are the cause of their shame. This is why many murders are in response to a trivial slight – the individual involved is “fighting to save himself, his own self” from being overwhelmed with shame (p. 112).
Potential violent offenders must see themselves as having no other non-violent means available to them in order to reduce the amount of shame they feel (p. 112).
Finally “the person [must lack] the emotional capacities or the feelings that normally inhibit the violent impulses that are stimulated by shame” (p. 113). The most important of these being love, guilt towards others, and fear for the self (p. 113).

With regard to cycles of violence, this theory continues to hold water. For, as Gilligan (1996) is clear to point out, most violent men (for it is men on whom his research is based) experience shame as a bottomless pit because of the intense and horrible experiences of abuse they have been subjected to (p. 105). He says “the pathogen is psychological, not biological, and it is spread primarily by means of social, economic, and cultural vectors, not biological ones” (Gilligan, 1996, p. 105). Namely, the conditions under which individuals are raised and the experiences of their life contribute to the bacterial infection which creates violence. This continues even after the acts of violence are perpetrated as, the “more violent people are, the more harshly the prison authorities punish them; and, the more harshly they are punished, the more violent they become” (Gilligan, 1996, p. 106). It should be noted that this is just a summary of Gilligan’s theory which is important for conclusions drawn in this report.

Finally, it should be noted that the above theory originated in a context of studying “behavioural” violence and not “structural” violence. Gilligan (1996) defines “structural violence” as “the increased rates of death and disability suffered by those who occupy the bottom rungs of society” (p. 192). This contrast is made in order to recognize that the violence of poverty and systemic abuse results in 14 to 18 million deaths per year whereas armed conflict results in 100,000 deaths per year (Gilligan, 1996, p. 196). Gilligan (1996) claims the determination of which form of violence is more important or dangerous is moot given that they are “inextricably related to each other as cause and effect” (p. 196). This paper’s discussion will focus primarily on “behavioural” violence with the hope that progress made in preventing and resolving this form of violence will lead to reductions in “structural” violence as well.
Two Mutations to the Germ Theory

“Perhaps love (is anything more dangerous?) is the mother of tragedy, love in an unloving world of pain, loneliness and confusion.” (Gilligan, 1996, p. 2)

There are two further points I would like to make in discussing a theory of violence. The first is an explicit recognition of the role that culture plays in establishing violence as the only alternative of last resort. One of the reasons for the establishment of violence as the only viable alternative when faced with the experience of intense shame is our own culture’s glorification of violence as a solution. Bushman et al. (2001) note that in 2000, six major professional societies within the United States signed a joint statement “on the hazards of exposing children to media violence” (p. 480). That is to say that the old intuition that repeated exposure to media violence is harmful holds true. When it is continually demonstrated to an individual in their community, family, and entertainment that violence is the primary means of maintaining power and creating respect, then it is of little surprise that individuals believe that there are no other non-violent means available to them. This media effect in conjunction with the violent offender’s own experience of violence and dis-empowerment in other cultural interactions limits creativity. Furthermore, aside from limiting alternative recourses, society does a poor job at providing struggling individuals with respect. Henri Nouwen (1992) notes that the message one most often seems to receive from society is: “Prove that you are worth something; do something relevant, spectacular, or powerful, and then you will earn the love you so desire” (p. 34).

Robert Meadows (2010) discusses a model of the influences on violent behaviour as “the interplay between individual, familial, and community influences experienced by a person” (p. 14). It should be noted here that individual influences may include pre-existing debilitating mental or other conditions which facilitate Gilligan’s third pre-condition, namely an inability to generate guilt towards others or fear for self.

The other mutation to germ theory I would like to discuss began, for me, as a thought I was dwelling upon after digesting Gilligan’s theory. It seemed to me that to claim shame as the driving cause of violence was a misnomer. To me, shame is nothing more than a way of expressing how one feels when he is unable to understand his worth or value, or in other words: lacks self-love. I protested the use of shame as a descriptor because it seemed to imply that a solution to violence would involve getting people to feel less shame. This feels to me like applying a band-aid to a severed leg. It is a syntactic difference, but I believe that it would be more accurate to identify the fundamental motivating cause of violence as an inability to understand one’s innate worth and value. This statement is built upon my own conclusion that individuals are of infinite and unique value, which will be discussed more fully later. Unfortunately, we most often gain an understanding of our own value through the mirror of our relationships: the people with whom we interact and the love and respect they demonstrate to us (and we are able to process). As individuals, the conclusion of this love and respect of others builds our own self-love, and when we feel as though we are not loved and respected, we begin to feel the shame Gilligan’s theory hinges on. However, in using the language of love, respect, and meaning we situate the theory in a place where a deeper understanding of the causes of violence can be seen. As a small example, for the child who is repeatedly sexually or physically abused, the parent who needs to be the earliest and most fundamental source of love is instead deeply wounding the individual by ascribing to them no worth or value. Furthermore, the language of possible solutions sits naturally within the context of a discussion of an understanding of love. Effective preventions of violence or strategies to break the cycles must include the introduction of a new understanding of love on the part of the individual perpetrating the violence (which in turn reduces their shame).

Fortunately, I had the opportunity to realize that Gilligan, in fact, shared much the same views as those expressed above. After all, he notes at the beginning of his description of the theory that “The word I use in this book to refer to the absence or deficiency of self-love is shame” (Gilligan, 1996, p. 47). The following summarizes his conclusions with relation to the above mutation of his germ theory (Gilligan, 1996):

“violence … is the ultimate means of communicating the absence of love by the person inflicting the violence… The self starved of love dies… The two possible sources of love for the self are love from others and one’s own love for oneself. Children who fail to receive sufficient love from others fail to build those reserves of self-love, and the capacity for self-love, which enable them to survive the inevitable rejections and humiliations which even the most fortunate of people cannot avoid. Without feelings of love, the self feels numb, empty, and dead.” (p. 47)

This, for me, generates the question of why Gilligan chose to express the theory in terms of shame and not the inability for self-love. Due to limited space, I can only speculate that he believed it would be more easily understood?

A Personal Note

“And I so long … to cry! I feel as if I am going to burst, and I know that it would get better with crying; but I can’t, I’m restless, I go from room to room, breathe through the crack of a closed window, feel my heart beating, as if it is saying, “can’t you satisfy my longing at last?” Anne Frank Quoted in (Rolheiser, 2004, p.1)

I would like to make one final comment regarding the theory of violence now that we have expressed the causation as a lack of understanding of love or value. I believe that all people are longing for a true understanding of love and value. It is my faith that causes me to believe that fundamentally we will be unable to fully understand true love and meaning until we experience the source and strength of all love: God. In fact, I believe that each and every individual has innate value strictly because of the way in which they are loved by God, their creator. Nouwen (1992) expresses the idea of fundamental longing in this way, “Aren’t you, like me, hoping that some person, thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire?” (p.35) I mention this belief not because I feel that it gives credence to Gilligan’s Germ Theory of Violence. Rather, I mention it firstly because it is the reason I made a personal connection with the above theory. Secondly, I mention it because I believe this is the idea that gives a spiritual basis from which one can set the idea behind the theory; in my opinion, all individuals are attempting to learn to understand their own value through the love found in relationships with others, and ultimately from God, and it is because of our difficulty with understanding and claiming this value that we act out in violence (not the least of which in cases of religious violence).

The Goals of Restorative Justice

“…putting right requires that we address harms [and] address causes” (Zehr, 2002, p. 30)

The purpose of this paper is to address the above theory of violence from the perspective of Restorative Justice. It is valuable here to take time to review the goals of Restorative Justice as they relate to violence in terms of prevention and response. When relevant, I will contrast the goals, principles and practices of Restorative Justice with those of the traditional Criminal Justice Systems and other approaches to dealing with and preventing violence. This discussion is similar to one contrasting the Criminal Justice System and Restorative Justice approaches to crime, but will focus specifically on incidents of violent crime.

Susan Sharpe summarizes the goals as follows (cited in Zehr, 2002, p.37):

put key decisions into the hands of those most affected by crime,
make justice more healing and, ideally, more transformative, and
reduce the likelihood of future offenses

The goals outlined above are accomplished in a variety of tasks and programs which attempt to put right a situation of crime (or violence) as best as possible. As noted in the opening quote, Howard Zehr (2002), the grandfather of Restorative Justice, claims that in doing so both the actual harm and the cause behind it need to be addressed. One can already see how the goals of Restorative Justice can speak volumes to how the practices are able to prevent violence according to the above theory. The violent harm must be acknowledged and the underlying cause must be addressed in order to prevent re-offense or a continuation of the cycle of violence in future generations. Zehr (2002) notes that rather than specifically a violation of the law (against the state), crime (and violence) “is a violation of people and relationships” (p.21). According to him, these violations create obligations and a process of justice needs to “[involve] victims, offenders, and community members in an effort to put things right” as opposed to the state determining guilt and imposing punishment (Zehr, 2002, p. 21).

It is clear that the founders of Restorative Justice believe that in an incident of behavioural violence, as with a crime, there are offenders and victims, as well as other parties involved. Any approach to dealing with or preventing violence must be sensitive and aware of the needs of these groups. Restorative Justice was originally motivated as an approach that took into account the needs of all the individuals involved in the crime and one of its goals is to address both victim and offender needs. In fact it is a key pillar of Restorative Justice to focus on engagement of all parties involved (Zehr, 2002, p. 24). We will see later how crucial this is in terms of preventing and dealing with violence considering the theory presented in this paper.

With respect to the victim’s involvement, Zehr (2002) claims “Victims often feel ignored, neglected, or even abused by the justice process” (p. 14). Given that the violent incident itself already causes abuse and demonstrates a lack of love for the victim, it is undesirable for this abuse to continue in the process that deals with the violence. As such it is a goal in Restorative Justice that victims are given information, a voice, an aspect of control, an opportunity to be heard in a safe space, and as best a feeling of restitution as possible (Zehr, 2002, pp. 14-15). Zehr (2002) outlines offender needs as accountability, encouragement to experience personal transformation, encouragement and support for integration into the community, and at least temporary restraint (p. 17). We will see how it is exactly the goal to meet these needs of the offender that is crucial for limiting the effects of violence as well as preventing it.

Breaking Cycles of Violence with Restorative Justice

“If I had to put restorative justice into one word, I would choose respect: respect for all, even those who are different from us, even those who seem to be our enemies… Respect insists that we balance concern for all parties.” (Zehr, 2002, p. 36)

We can see in the above quote that Restorative Justice seeks to restore respect in all individuals involved in crime. We know that Restorative Justice is diametrically opposed to promoting shame, opting instead to provide as much respect to all individuals involved as possible. Given the theory of violence developed above we can see the kind of impact RJ practice has on situations of violence. If respect is attributed to the violent offender, then even after the act she may begin to regain a sense of self-respect, to feel less overwhelmed, and ultimately be able to move towards a state where violence does not seem necessary. If respect is attributed to the victim than she may be less affected by the horrific loss of respect and value felt through the experience of violence. Hopefully, this new respect will be able to foster development of empathy, or prevent a de-valuing of self such that she will not end up feeling as though she too has the need to perpetrate violence in order to regain respect. As such, if respect is the focus of Restorative Justice practice it could have a profound effect on situations of violence. To see more evidence of this we can look closely at some of the needs that Restorative Justice tries to meet, specifically those of the offender. Howard Zehr (2002) describes the accountability and transformation needs as follows (p.17):

Accountability that:

o Addresses the resulting harms,

o Encourages empathy and responsibility

o And transforms shame

Encouragement to experience personal transformation, including

o Healing for the harms that contributed to their offending behaviour,

o Opportunities for treatment for addictions and/or other problems,

o Enhancement of personal competencies

Barb Toews (2006), in her own handbook about Restorative Justice for people in prison describes accountability which includes “Understanding how the crime hurt others and owning up to one’s responsibility for those damages; [and] Taking steps to repair those harms” (p. 46). If the above forms of accountability and accommodation for transformation can actually be achieved by Restorative Justice practices then offenders will definitely be in a position to break the cycle of violence in their own lives. This has large ramifications for offenders released from prison back into society. In order to prevent further violence, they must have developed some forms of empathy, transformed their shame, and created other alternatives according to Gilligan’s theory of violence.

But how do the practices of Restorative Justice achieve the goals of meeting the above needs and providing that transformation? The one element that all of the core practices of Restorative Justice share is an encounter. Victim offender conferences, family group conferences, and circle approaches all can and do involve opportunities for violent offenders to come face to face with their victims (Zehr, 2002, p. 44). It is most often these encounters which, through the desires and guidance of the participants themselves, lead to the attempt at ‘resolution’ of the violent wrongdoing. This may simply be a form of making things as right as is possible. Ron Claassen notes that to resolve wrongdoing (cited in Zehr, 2002, p.45):

The wrong or injustice must be acknowledged.
Equity needs to be restored.
Future intentions need to be addressed.

The most effective acknowledgement of wrongdoing is an encounter in which the offender has the opportunity to sincerely express their regret and apology. It is the engagement with each other and understanding of pain and suffering (which comes from the opportunity for expression) which allows both parties to possibly choose to develop the empathy desired in transformation. We know from behavioural studies, such as that conducted by McCollough (2008) that “when you feel empathic toward someone, our willingness to retaliate goes way down” (p 148). Clearly this is a concrete step towards a reduction of violence.

Toews (2006) discusses that when offending individuals choose to experience growth through the preparation for and participation in these Restorative Justice (and other) practices they can meet certain key needs. These include dealing with their own victimization experiences, creating healthy values and living by them, and acquiring the “skills and education necessary to lead a full life in the community” (Toews, 2006, p. 49). The importance here, she notes, is that fulfilling these needs results in “personal meaning. Meaning places the individual back into the web of relationships” (p. 49). This again has profound implications on the individual’s propensity to commit violence according to the Germ Theory of Violence. Understanding it in terms of an individual recognizing his own value – Toews claims that it is meeting these needs which reconnects him with his meaning and value. Furthermore, being within the web of relationships again allows the offender to continue growing in feelings of empathy and guilt toward others. That is exactly the place where the offender is able to transform shame!

The effects of the practices and encounters are not limited just to the offender. Pyschiatrist Sandra Bloom makes the point that “If it is not adequately dealt with, trauma is reenacted in the lives of those who experience the trauma, in their families, even in future generations” (cited in Zehr, 20002, p. 31). Victims of violence choose incredibly unique ways in which to deal with the trauma they have experienced, and all need to be respected and valued. If a victim does choose to be involved in Restorative Justice practices (including preparation and encounters) I believe they are provided with extended and empowering opportunities to deal with the trauma they have experienced. With the chance to express the harm that has been done to them and the recurring difficulties and problems it has caused they receive recognition and respect for what they have experienced. Hearing the offender’s admission of guilt and apology may reinforce or make clear to them that they did not act wrongly, but instead were abused and attacked. Finally, being provided with information of what is happening in the process, as well as control over how it unfolds, reinforces their legitimacy and power. It is possible that this leveling of power may in fact make it more difficult for violence to occur at all, as the abuse of power often requires an imbalance. All of the above may aid in restoring their own sense of pride and value, not as something to be used, but as something to be valued.

Finally, we can note that the Criminal Justice System often reinforces the notion that both the offender and the victim in the violent situation did not deserve respect and that they may have no other alternatives available to them to save themselves from shame than violence. This is because the offender may have experienced pride in the reaction solicited from the violent act itself, but is not given the opportunity to reduce shame by sharing his stories of victimization in the ensuing court process. He also is not truly given the opportunity to take responsibility for the action because of the understanding that he is to plead not guilty and work with the attorney to demonstrate innocence. Likewise, the victim certainly does not discover any alternatives to violence within the criminal justice proceedings as he may have experienced as much trauma from the court process as from the original incident! In contrast, Restorative Justice demonstrates through the discussion and consensus based practices that alternatives to violence are possible. Understanding cultural influence as a large reason why offenders believe violence is the only option, we can again see how Restorative Justice, by taking time to recognize the negative impact violence has on all parties, slowly works to educate against its idolization.

We have seen how the practice of Restorative Justice works to transform shame through meaningful interaction, develops feelings of empathy and understanding of guilt towards others and provides clear examples of alternative practices to violence. As such it addresses all of the pre-conditions for violence raised by Gilligan’s germ theory for each of the parties involved. What has not been demonstrated is how Restorative Justice aims to prevent and respond to structural violence such as poverty. This discussion is beyond the scope of this paper, but it suffices to say that even though the focus of the Restorative Justice practices studied is on behavioural violence, this does not rule out the principles being applied in large scale.

Conclusion

Violence is not rational or to be expected. People act out using violence due to a combination of factors revolving around their experience of shame or understanding of their own intrinsic value (expressed as self-love). Furthermore, violence usually requires a set of preconditions which include the ‘overwhelmingness’ of shame, the inability to feel fear and guilt towards others, and the lack of possible alternatives. It has been shown that the principles and practices of Restorative Justice are fundamentally opposed to these conditions which create and facilitate violence in relationships and communities. It is because of multiple reasons that Restorative Justice practices can break down the conditions of violence. First, they are based in the idea that all parties need to be respected, which transforms the experience of shame for all individuals. Second, they are encounter-based and can provide opportunities, through meaningful interaction, that allow involved parties to develop empathy and understanding towards each other. Third, the practices themselves demonstrate that there are alternatives to gain respect and value other than violence.

We have also seen how Restorative Justice practices are able to break cycles of violence given the possible transformation in the lives of the participants, including preventing future violence from offenders, and preventing the victim from continuing the pattern of violence. Finally, it is important to note that the limitations of the Restorative Justice practice are two-fold: they are limited in scope and thus in their ability to combat structural violence, and also they are limited by the choices and desires of the individuals involved, who only experience transformation if they choose to.

References

Aladjem, T. K. (2008). The culture of vengeance and the fate of american justice. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Arendt, M. (1999). Excerpt from On violence. In Steger M.B. & Lind, N.S. (Ed.) Violence and its alternatives. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Bushman, B.J. & Anderson, C.A. (2001, June/July) Media Violence and the American Public. American Pyschologist, 477-489.

Foucault, M. (1995). Discipline & punish: The birth of the prison. (Alan Sheridan, Trans.). New York: Vintage Books.

Gilbert, R., Kemp, A., Thoburn, J., Sidebotham, P., Radford, L., Glaser, D. & MacMillan, H. L. (2009) Recognising and responding to child maltreatment. Lancet, 373, 167-180.

Gilligan, J. (1996). Violence: Our deadly epidemic and its causes. New York: G.P. Putnam’s Sons.

Gilligan, J. (2001). Preventing violence. New York: Thames and Hudson.

Meadows R. J. (2010). Understanding violence and victimization. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.

McCullough, M. (2008). Beyond revenge: The evolution of the forgiveness instinct. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.

Nouwen, H. J. M. (1992). Life of the beloved: Spiritual living in a secular world. New York: The Crossroad Publishing Company.

Rolheiser, R. (2004). The restless heart: Finding our spiritual home in times of loneliness. New York: Doubleday.

Toews, B. (2006) The little book of restorative justice for people in prison. Intercourse, PA: Good Books.

Wolff, R. P. (1999). On violence. In Steger M.B. & Lind, N.S. (Ed.) Violence and its alternatives. New York: St. Martin’s Press.

Zehr, H. (2002). The little book of restorative justice. Intercourse, PA: Good Books.

To Wit

2010-03-22T16:02:00.000-04:00

As if in perfect timing with my previous post on messiness, AKA 'tortured complexity.' My man Rolheiser offers this:

Life isn't simple: We want the right things, but we want the wrong things too. We are drawn towards generosity but drawn towards selfishness too. We like to be honest, but we find it easy to rationalize and not tell the truth. One part of us wants to be humble and not stand out, even as another part of us is prideful and wants to be recognized. We would like to pray but are drawn towards entertainment instead. We crave depth of soul but crave too the pleasure of sensuality. We want to give ourselves away in sacrifice, but we want too to experience the pleasures of life. A deep part of us wants to kneel in reverence even as another part of us is cynical and resistant. We crave both purity and promiscuity. We are drawn both towards the things of God and towards the things of earth. It is not easy, as Kierkegaard once said, to will the one thing. - Ronald Rolheiser , March 21, 2010

There is solace in mutual understanding.

Messy

2010-03-18T17:50:00.000-04:00

Have you ever tried to have a conversation with someone about something you think is so fundamental and important for your meaning; for the perspective from which you see and understand the world, and you totally had no idea what they were talking about - and felt like they totally had no idea what you were talking about?

Isn't understanding life etc... very messy? How is it that we can all think of things so differently. And this is probably a good thing - but it also makes for so much confusion.

....or is it just me?

Secrecy

2010-03-12T14:30:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking a lot about secrets lately, or more specifically: secrecy. The reason for this is that it has come up a lot in one of my courses. A big part of the discussion has been the role that secrecy plays in cycles of violence, especially domestic violence. After an individual 'acts-out' or commits the act of violence toward a child for example, it is secrecy that is fundamental for creating the space for rationalization and justification which pushes the individual back towards 'pretend normal' and restarts the cycle of violence.

I think this makes a lot of sense. Why rail against secrecy though? Well it is often very difficult to manipulate ourselves into justifying or rationalizing actions when we are not sitting on an island alone with those thoughts. Dwelling on the idea of secrecy brought to mind the Christian teachings of 'accountability' (for me that is, ultimately I think one would find this in many 'religious' teachings). And how even without discussing the idea of secrecy we stress accountability as a way of helping people deal with things they want to change. The thing is, while very beneficial, one might have a negative view of this because it seems all about finding out what people did wrong. The focus could be adjusted though. When we consider it is the secrecy, as we said, that creates the space for crazy rationalizations, accountability is basically just trying to remove this secrecy. Lets call it honesty, or lets call it "discussing odd stuff with trusted friends." My prof Judah was talking once about strategies in families to prevent abuses; one of the best being creating at atmosphere where there isn't secrets. I think often we tell ourselves, this person doesn't need to be troubled with that, or "some things are better left unsaid." Definitely some things are better left unsaid to everyone. But I don't think there is much of anything that is better left unsaid to anyone. It seems common sense - but don't you think communities could go a long way with just talking to each other about weird stuff.

The thing is, we need to go even further than just talking about it. I think sometimes in relationships of 'accountability' (or something resembling this idea) there can be a tendency sometimes to respond with contributions to the justification - this can even be the case in cycles of violence. In this case, it is possible that together the individuals in the relationship don't want to mess with whatever 'pretend normal' they have created, and are living under (possibly both 'benefiting' from). I ask that if I ever talk about things that seem out of the ordinary to readers of this that you would tell me that they are not normal! This is how one can break a cycle. One can continue to love and value the other even while bringing up the perspective that what is shared need not, or should not be the case.

Furthermore, this is a snowball. It only seems scary to share stuff when that isn't demonstrated by those around you. Communities which are honest with each other can be empowering.

Some kind of ecstasy!

2010-02-23T14:55:00.000-05:00

Sun's up, uuh huh, looks okay
the world survives into another day
and i'm thinking about eternity
some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me.

I had another dream about lions at the door
they weren't half as frightening as they were before
but i'm thinking about eternity
some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me.

Walls windows trees, waves coming through
you be in me and i'll be in you
together in eternity
some kind of ecstasy got a hold on me
- Bruce Cockburn, "Wondering Where the Lions Are"

Bruce Cockburn knows the peace of the Lord. The story goes that in the heart of the cold war and at a particular tense 'nuclear-war-worrying' moment Cockburn went to bed and had a dream of lions coming to his door. But he woke up the next morning and felt great; an unexplained feeling of peace and joy. Where could the lions be that day? Morning after morning I know I am left wondering where the lions are! I could not be more blessed in this regard. I praise and thank the Lord for that.

Besides that small bit of background the lyrics above speak for themselves. Brilliant. Poetic, beautiful and true. Its as if I can shout it in challenge to the devil - "I am wondering where the lions are!?"

As a friend of mine is fond of saying, take a listen and let the words rush over you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L6Lpx6JIMmk&feature=related

grrrr

2010-01-28T12:59:00.000-05:00

http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2010/01/imf-backtracks-debt-relief-haiti

the good news is that Canadians can sign this petition as well:

http://salsa.democracyinaction.org/o/863/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=2106

and this one: http://www.newevangelicalpartnership.org/?q=node/20

Healing and Justice

2010-01-27T21:08:00.000-05:00

“an experience of justice is so basic that without it, healing may be well impossible.” Howard Zehr, "The Victim" in Changing Lenses

I realize that he said may be, but as defeatist (or escapist) as this may sound, I would claim that in a strictly world-as-it-is sense a state of true justice is difficult (impossible?) for humans to achieve on their own (It is here where we run into interesting contrasts between ‘experience of’ and ‘state of’ but alas). I will be honest in saying that this belief comes from my faith and the fact that I believe restoration to a state of true justice, in the universal sense, will be seen only after another act of God. This does not mean that I don’t think we should do all that we can work to provide for victim’s needs and to build up or fix situations so as to create space for as much experience of justice as possible here and now in anticipation of (and participation in) what is to come. Somehow still, I think healing is separate from justice, and needs to be so. Again, it sounds harsh, but ‘justice’ even in an isolated situation is often a human construct it seems, and I think it is important for victims not to connect their own healing with the things that others do. I should acknowledge that I haven’t experienced anything of the sort of crime discussed by Zehr so the above is said with a grain of salt.

On Me, On Us

2010-01-24T12:52:00.001-05:00

Lord have mercy,
Christ have mercy,
Lord have mercy on me.

Lord have mercy,
Christ have mercy,
Lord have mercy on us.

I think this was written by Michael W. Smith

Ava-tarred

2010-01-18T14:51:00.001-05:00

I loved this not just because he expressed effectively and concisely what many others have said but also because his writing made me laugh:

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/08/opinion/08brooks.html

Beloved

2010-01-09T19:04:00.000-05:00

This is probably something that if you know me you have heard me talk about a thousand times ... but nonetheless, for a recent Grad School app I had to write about how a theologian's view on a particular passage of scripture had affected my understanding of it. I thought it would make sense to write about something that was quite important for me! I think the footnotes are lost in the blog transfer, but almost all quotes are the Nouwen book.

Beloved

“Prove that you are worth something; do something relevant, spectacular, or powerful, and then you will earn the love you so desire.”

Often, I believe, this statement is tacitly accepted as a fundamental motivation for success for any and all individuals no matter their beliefs about God or spirituality. In fact it sometimes seems that these few words are all that the world ever tells us. In the conversations in our churches, there are times that this belief seeps into our words to each other without us being conscious of it. We feel like ministry needs to succeed on our own terms. After all, if there are no visible outcomes then how can God be glorified? Outside of the arena of the church, this love equation dominates our every action. We have an insatiable desire for fulfillment through perceived love of everything created; we begin to forget the creator.
One begins to wonder how Jesus dealt with the above questions and issues as a human. The first answer, I believe is: very well. Why? Jesus was continually and firmly grounded in the reality of His Father’s love, as well as grounded in His Father. At the onset of his ministry, God the Father spoke plainly.
“Now when all the people were baptized, Jesus was also baptized, and while He was praying, heaven was opened, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Him in bodily form like a dove, and a voice came out of heaven, ‘You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased.’” Luke 3:21-22

Henri Nouwen wrote an entire book to his dear friend based on those words. He believed that the phrase “’You are My Beloved’ revealed the most intimate truth about all human beings.” The writings and thoughts that surround this claim have formed much of my understanding not just about the passage detailing Jesus’ baptism, but also about life, love, and relationship to God. What Nouwen says has implications for our understanding of the biblical text, for communication with our soul, and for our existence within culture.
Firstly, I can speak to how Nouwen’s approach has influenced my own understanding and interpretation of the text of the Bible, including ways to read all of scripture as well as just simply this passage. In the book, Nouwen is writing to his friend who does not have a faith of his own. Immediately after the introduction of the passage above, he says plainly, “Fred, all I want to say to you is ‘You are the Beloved.’” For his friend, unfamiliar with the Bible and biblical interpretation – couldn’t this seem like an odd conclusion? God was clearly speaking to his Son Jesus, and told Him he was beloved but Nouwen seems to extend this to Fred as well. I believe this speaks to Nouwen’s understanding and interpretation of text here. He connects multiple truths. We, as humans, are in fact all God’s children (Romans 8:16). Furthermore, the entire story of continuing redemption presented both in the Old Testament and again in the New Testament and our current experience reflects God’s immeasurable love for us. This love is the reason Jesus was here with us (John 3:16). Nouwen uses these truths to extend what God the Father says to Jesus to what he says to Fred.
In this way he teaches me not only the truth of what he is saying, but also informs an understanding of interpretation of biblical text. We must be diligent, careful and prayerful in what we conclude that God is telling us in Scripture and we must make sure to connect the truth of words themselves with the larger truths that we see throughout the narrative of scripture and through the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Even more important than what Nouwen implies for the interpretation of text through his discussion of this passage, is what he tries to show us it means for our soul. Here Nouwen speaks to how easy it is to listen to the negative voices that tell us we are despicable and lead our soul into the trap of self-rejection rather than the life of the beloved. He goes so far as to postulate that arrogance is simply ‘the other side of self-rejection’. Both are connected in that in arrogance we lift ourselves up to avoid being seen as we believe we are. He says, “Both self-rejection and arrogance pull us out of the common reality of existence and make a gentle community of people extremely difficult, if not impossible, to attain.” The idea that I am beloved by love itself is in striking contrast to the words that opened this essay. The fact that I am the beloved has infected my soul with a knowledge that is beautiful and painful all at once. It is beautiful because in many ways it forms a milestone in my soul’s journey to learning how to rest in the heart of God. Reading this book helps to move along my understanding of what St. Augustine means when he says “My soul is restless until it rests in you, O God.” Furthermore, this has led me whole-souledly into the writings of Ronald Rolheiser who is explicit in articulating the needs that all human hearts have to find a solution to their restlessness; their reach outwards for fulfillment. What this means not only for my own soul, but also the souls of my friends and communities is one of the most important questions I am currently seeking to answer. This is exactly why the knowledge is also painful. Nouwen even notes that understanding that there is a voice which tells we are beloved, makes us long for a greater and fuller experience of it. It is, I believe, the right direction to be travelling and for that I am grateful.
The idea of what this means for our soul is also exactly why my relationship to Nouwen becomes valuable. Nouwen taught as a brilliant professor at Harvard, Yale, and Notre Dame. I would think this is a rather successful way to find the voices of others telling us we are worthwhile. But it didn’t sooth his soul. Ultimately he found himself embedded in the L’Arche Daybreak community for people with intellectual disabilities in Toronto (my home city). The understanding that it is a beautiful place such as this that he began to further understand his own soul’s fulfillment in the Lord gives my own soul hope for growth in all of my, less than prestigious, situations.

Finally, the question begs itself, of what Nouwen’s interpretation of Scripture means for my understanding of culture. First I think it is valuable to note that the words quoted at the outset of this essay are in essence what our culture speaks to us. Leading us to “[hope] that some person, thing, or event will come along to give you that final feeling of inner well-being you desire?” Instead we must look at the example of how Jesus reacted to God’s simple declaration of his beloved status. Jesus owned it daily, sought after God rather than life, and ended up incarnationally affecting his own culture, and truly the culture of the entire world in a way that no one has done or ever will do. We are indeed called to nothing less. We must learn to own more and more of this truth, living incarnationally through God’s power in the Holy Spirit working through us to show our culture and community that they are beloved, and that they need not listen to any lies. Thus, Nouwen’s words lead me to the prayer that my culture would be able to seek first after God and his love rather than simply and only his creation, even as Dorothy Day once commented,
“… how much man would be capable of if his soul were strong in the love of God, if he wanted God as much as he wanted to penetrate the power and glory of God’s creation.”

I pray that knowing that I am the Lord’s beloved would lead me every day right back into his heart.

Works Cited

Day, Dorothy, Patricia Mitchell ed. A Radical Love. Ijamsville, Maryland: The Word Among Us Press, 2000.

Nouwen, Henri. Life of the Beloved. New York: Crossroad Publishing Company, 2002.

The New American Standard Bible. Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2002.

In Your Hands*

2009-12-29T20:44:00.001-05:00

... to follow-up on further thoughts from the last post over a holiday which has had a greater than normal amount of reflection time.

I think what I love most, or at least find most valuable, about the 'secret of life,' as cheesily coined below, is the change in focus, and that it is so darned applicable in most every situation.

One could be sick over Christmas break and wrenching his guts out and really start to pity himself. But that same person could have that statement posed to them?

Is there no way to make this worship and honour God or is there just no way to make this worship and honour your life; the life you think you should be living/ think you are totally entitled to?

And therein lies the rub! The truth is that the situation can be used to honour and worship God. In fact, and it's possible that this only works for me, but thinking along those lines seems to quash the logical leverage of most restless "I don't deserve this" (read "I am unfulfilled") frustrations! It is not, unfortunately, that it causes these thoughts to flee. But thinking this way does seem to expose the selfish humanity of it all.

Furthermore, it is possible that this line of thinking reminds one, surprisingly enough, that it really is about God. So if you are in a particular in-action/action which seems rather dull but is the action/in-action which glorifies God - than that is more than what you could ask for to experience in that phase of your life. As such, it really is the most fulfilling thing one could do.

The trick for me is seeking out those actions, in-actions, attitudes and places which glorify God, of which there are many available. [Edit 10 minutes later: Or in fact, simply just embracing them when they are given to me. My language in this last paragraph originally showed that I learned nothing. In fact that whole thing about glorifying God while being bedridden is about embracing the in-action as something just as fulfilling. There is a time for seeking and a time for embracing]

*title credit goes to my man Charlie Winston - whose album my sister was kind enough to get for me from England!

The Secret of Basketball?

2009-12-08T19:10:00.000-05:00

I confess, Bill Simmons and his Book of Basketball has taken over half my commuting life. Last week I was reading this part of the book...

"Isiah [Thomas] smiled. I could tell he was impressed. He took a dramatic pause. You could say he even milked the moment. 'The secret of basketball,' he told me, 'is that it's not about basketball.' The secret of basketball is that it's not about basketball. That makes no sense, right? How can that possibly make sense?" pp. 39, The Book of Basketball

Bill goes on to discuss that there is a fundamentally important social dynamic to a basketball team; that teammates must care most about winning and about making each other better - and not about the basketball itself. But I could hardly pay attention to this ... because I had read Brother Lawrence's thoughts and opinions earlier in the morning as such:

"That in this conversation with God we are also employed in praising, adoring, and loving Him incessantly, for His infinite goodness and perfection." pp. 23

"That the most excellent method he had found of going to God was that of doing our common business without any view of pleasing men, and (as far we are capable) purely for the love of God." pp. 24

"That we ought, once for all, heartily to put our whole trust in God, and make a total surrender of ourselves to Him, secure that He would not deceive us. That we ought not to be weary of doing little things for the love of God, who regards not the greatness of the work, but the love with which it is performed." pp. 24 - 25

"That the end we ought to propose to ourselves is to become, in this life, the most perfect worshipers of God we can possibly be, as we hope to be through all eternity." pp. 25, Brother Lawrence, The Practice of the Presence of God

It's possible that I have a particular problem with loving to find connections in these different sort of texts - but it all got me thinking on this a rare train ride home that i wasn't almost falling asleep...

"If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul?" Jesus, Mathew 16:24-26

Could it be that,

the Secret

of life

is that it's not about life

... it's about God?

Please bear with me for a moment, because I'm sure you're probably either thinking that that sounds rather escapist or of course that is the case and how could it take me so long to realize it.

If its the latter - than I want to honestly thank you because you have most likely beautifully influenced me to finally come to this sort of conclusion. Even with being behind in the game - i've really liked dwelling on this thought a lot recently. I'll be in the car annoyed at the car in front of me who has to travel over the speedbumps at like 2 km/h WHEN ALL I WANT TO DO IS GO HOME - and i have to laugh - because isn't that me making it too much about life? In fact - this has come up an inordinate number of times recently, and each time I guess I just have to ask forgiveness for how selfishly I care about the stupidest little things in my life - just because it's mine! In that way, I'm thankful for God revealing this thought to me - because it's been very valuable.

If you were the former - thinking that its just way too escapist to think about something other than what is present here in front of us - I don't think that's what I'm trying to say. In the same odd way that Isaiah's '89 Pistons team cared so much about winning, and getting the group together and to another level that they were the best basketball team they could be without the focus being on basketball, Jesus lived the best life a human could live with his focus entirely not on life. It isn't that He wasn't present to where He was, on the contrary, God was where He was, with Him - so his focus on God showed Him where life was and how to redeem and fulfill it!

Lord please help me to get a place more resembling Isaiah as a player than as a GM!

Work is a Gift

2009-11-21T22:43:00.000-05:00

"Work is a gift, a vocation. Before the Fall, Adam was given the garden to cultivate. It was only after the Fall that all nature travailed and groaned so that man has to work with the sweat of his brow and combat earthquakes, floods, droughts, boll weevils, Japanese beetles, fatigue and sloth." Dorothy Day

Did you see how she included fatigue and sloth in there amongst all these awesome things like boll weevils? What a truly profound thought - 'Work is a gift.' Something about this hit me right. Adam was gifted with the opportunity to work to tend and care for the garden. I don't think many people today (at least the ones I go to work with) consider the work part of their work a gift. Most are happy with the wage part though. But 'Work is a gift' isn't a philosophy that ends when we say we are thankful for a job because it can pay the bills and its hard to get a job that does so. 'Work is a gift' is to say - I am thankful that you trusted me to be a steward of something Lord - that you have filled me with talent such that I have responsibility.

I've been trying to think about whether or not work and rest are opposites. I think generally we consider them so. I desire to REST in the heart of God more than anything else. Is part of that feeling that I get imagining that the idea that the 'work' of this life will be over - that grasping and seeking work. Correct me if I am wrong, but I think the error in my thinking in that sentence is in my definition of work - or my automatic association of it to that which is longing and unfulfilled in life. I'm thinking maybe that rest isn't the opposite of work. This morning I fixed the dishwasher and leveled out the oven with my dad. I can confess that I didn't do much of the work, but I was still focused on the task and trying to help and it was incredibly restful. Work can be restful no? Rest, in the way I am thinking of it here, is more a state of the heart than a horizontal position. Does it make sense that if one considers work a gift than one can rest in the thought that someone out there thought enough of the person to bless them with it.

I think we can also turn work into a frustrating annoying thing. I had to 'work' today on an assignment that I thought was bogus and unnecessary - and it somewhat soured my rested mood from the morning. So much so that I had to try and talk less, because it was one of those situations where you could tell that your quick thoughts and words weren't rational, let alone compassionate. Was it simply the struggle with that frustrating 'work' that pushed out my rest? Maybe. Maybe it was my attitude towards it. This wasn't destructive work, and in fact it was probably training me in more ways than I thought. Could it be possible that I just didn't have the right attitude about it? This kind of seems like a big jump - but I was thinking abou this other passage of Day's and considered that maybe I was a bit short-sighted about what I had to do. If i considered that work part of the work fo the Kingdom, in that even the discipline was most likely training me, then I could see it still as a gift. The amazing opportunity God has given me to work in this life to begin to build his Kingdom. The Kingdom he will return and finish, the Earth he will renew and restore!

"There is work now. Much of our national expenditure by the government is for war, past and present. Much of this work, this labor, is not good work, constructive work, but work for preparedness, or dealing with pensions or hospitals, etc. It is not even in building homes that have been destroyed by war, let alone homes here in this country where we did not have that destruction. Slums are still with us. Many houses have been torn down, more than hvae been put up. Farms have been consolidated and produce less than if they were all small farms; soil has been depleted, national resources have been wasted. And are we to sit by and see man, and God's good earth, so ruined and degraded, and then be told, "Do not bother bout these things, seek first the kingdom of haven?" Dorothy Day

The truth is, and please let me know if you agree that this is the case, I may have romanticized the work I did today. Trying to get to some kind of a place where I can consider it a gift. But Lord-willing that will lead me towards constructive Kingdom work - where I see that the seeking of God's will intersects with work on the Earth. Another note I want to make is that I don't want to carelessly dismiss the idea of struggling through work. We often talk about 'heart work' which can involve difficult, emotional, and slow growth and change. I do not want to disregard the struggle that that involves and just say that it is all gift and rest. But I do want to throw the thought out there.

A Love Story

2009-11-01T14:35:00.000-05:00

This past week I saw Michael Moore's Capitalism: A Love Story. I liked it. Of course it had Moore's trademark manipulative use of emotion and people's stories and at-times-one-sided presentation of facts. But what I thought was good was the optimism and positivity that it showed. Obviously it highlighted some problems with our economic system, which were saddening and frustrating when they were laid out. But it also showed the possibility for improvement and change and gave examples of the group actions of people and what they had accomplished. It also showed what communities and the church were doing to help different groups of people who were not being treated compassionately. In fact, I thought it did this so well that it was, in a way, encouraging, and inspiring. It left me wanting to work to fight against economic injustices rather than just complain (or write on my blog) about how wrong things are.

That was pretty cool.

a bit of housekeeping

2009-10-22T18:02:00.000-04:00

so, i think i spend too much time thinking about things that I say and write. for example - one reason i struggled to write thoughts out in this blog (other than making time to do it) is that I would write something out and then I would look at it and read it and think that my friends would think odd of me for writing that. In truth, at times I was afraid to be honest about what I was thinking - this is probably partly because what I am thinking is often dumb and should be vetted well - but at the same time I need to be willing to honest with thoughts as well. More importantly, I need to be willing to show my wrongness - because, honestly, I am wrong in thoughts a lot of the time. But those wrong thoughts are still a part of some larger whole - and i think it is probably valuable (humbling) that I am honest about those wrong thoughts too and ask for [gentle] correction from friends that would be kind enough to read said thoughts :).

so as such i feel much more appreciative about the whole cycle. with that said - i will still make one more note i was mulling over about my previous post. When I was talking about how it can be most difficult to be like Christ in social situations I want to clarify that I think this is not because of the people around us. It is because of our own desire to come across as who we want to come across as - it is because of how we care about how others view us - exactly what I was dealing with above. For our entire lives we have trained ourselves to *react* in social situations in order that the outcome would be that which we want to 'portray' to our friends and acquaintances. how unfortunate. but anyway - just was thinking about that a bit more today. a scary thought - but i better post it anyway exactly because i need to try and practice not being worried about some scary and stupid thoughts!

"No - I do not know Him!"

2009-10-20T21:42:00.001-04:00

"The genius of the moral teachings of Jesus and his first students was his insistence that you cannot keep the law by trying not to break the law. That will only make a Pharisee of you and sink you into layers of hypocrisy." Dallas Willard, The Great Omission

Its true. I think this does not just make you a hypocrite - but can be a trigger to the struggle of anger. Trying NOT to break the law is a lonely and saddening pursuit, which then in turn means that when others around you fail in the ways that you are failing in - you can automatically react with anger - because what they do is making it difficult to do what you want to do. This is, in fact, entirely selfish, and another problem that arises out of this effort to simply not break the law.

"Instead, you have to be transformed in the functions of the soul so that the deeds of the law are a natural outflow of who you have become." Dallas Willard, The Great Omission

"When you try to 'bless those who curse you,' for example, trying will prove never to be enough; you have to be trained for that." Dallas Willard, The Great Omission

"Our good ideas and intentions are practically helpless in the face of what our body in the social context is poised to do automatically. Jesus, of course, understood all this very well. Thus, he knew that Peter's declaration that he would not deny him were irrelevant to what he would actually do in the moment of trial." Dallas Willard, The Great Omission

"So, you men could not keep watch with Me for one hour? Keep watching and praying that you may not enter into temptation; the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak." Jesus, Mathew 26

Recently I was able to see that Jesus truly believed that the spirit of the disciples was willing to do everything to support him, even to join him in prayer in a time of great struggle. It was the part of their self known as flesh that was weak - as ours is - to do that 'which we want to do'. This is especially true in social situations (partly the reason, apparently, why solitude & silence is so fundamental to our growth - maybe more on that later) because other people around us can and do help us to do the things that our spirit desires but, alas, it is also in these social situations where we see ourselves act seemingly without our control, doing the things we wish not to. Peter denied Jesus simply because that was the natural, protective reaction of his 'flesh'. Imagine the self-kicking he did for that.

"Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, 'Do you love Me?' And he said to Him, 'Lord, You know all things; You know that I love you.' Jesus said to him, 'Tend My sheep.'" John 21: 17b

In response and forgiveness, what does Jesus tell Peter to do - 'Tend My sheep.' Jesus told him an action to do in order to work to correct a weakness in his flesh. But we cannot *try* not to break the law, and similarly we cannot just *try* to live as Jesus did. I think what I am beginning to learn is that Jesus told Peter to 'Tend My sheep' in order that Peter would be trained. To expand, it is as if the discipline of tending sheep is the active vehicle through which God works in grace in Peter's life - slowly creating a situation in which he is able to do that which previously he is unable to do by direct effort. (aside: Willard's definition of discipline is something that we make do in order that, through grace, we are able to do what we previously were unable to do by direct effort). This is part of how we are united together, as a body of people being trained. We cannot simply try to be good in selfish and hypocritical pursuits. BUT - thankfully, we can take steps into disciplines which allow the grace of God to work to train our flesh and renew and restore our soul in such a way that we will naturally act in the way that Christ did.

Lord please continue to work through your grace in my wretched and weak flesh!

Need for Love

2009-10-18T19:45:00.000-04:00

"These days I can never look up at the sky and see the moon without thinking with wonder and awe that men have walked there. To conceive of such a thing - to desire such an adventure, to be capable of overcoming all fear, all doubt, to have faith in man's ability to solve problems, and seek out the way to go about this great exploration - what dedication of mind and will! 'What is man that thou art mindful of him? Thou hast made him little less than the angels.' It keeps coming into my mind - how much man would be capable of if his soul were strong in the love of God, if he wanted God as much as he wanted to penetrate the power and glory of God's creation.

To know Him, to love Him, and to love Him, and to serve Him - a personal God, who took on human flesh and became man and suffered and died for us. To find the way, not to the moon but to God - this is man's[sic] real desire, because of his need for love, and God is love."

Dorothy Day, The Catholic Worker, March-April 1976

I think often what amazes me in my poor understanding of God, but in my search after Him, is discovering the true desires of my heart. It can also be so frustrating at times to think how lost one can be - grasping and seeking out the ' penetration of the power and glory of God's creation' because sometimes that's all we know - sometimes that's all we want to know. It is also heartbreaking to look around and see all the energy put towards finding a way to love without ever thinking of the source and power of love itself. I believe wholly and truly that resting in the love of the heart of God is what I desire and I need. It is often, however, that I do not act in a way that shows this conclusion to be evident, even worse, in a way that enables me to grow closer to the heart of God.

But isn't it good that life is long - in order that we may have time to learn.

My New Favourite Song

2009-10-15T20:57:00.000-04:00

WOW - today I bought the Old Man Luedecke album because I love singing a long to his fun, poppy, and cheery songs. Little did I know I would find my new favourite song ever about my favourite event! You can't wipe the smile off my face! Please enjoy the only version I could find online:

Big Group Breakfast

interesting idea.

2009-09-24T20:33:00.001-04:00

lots of new things like this are popping up:

http://www.vittana.org/

soundtrack of life

2009-09-04T12:02:00.000-04:00

I want to learn to know God's love in my life so that reflecting on it feels like the rush of a powerful and beautiful song such as those in movie montages.

The other day I walked from the train to work listening to 'Inni mer syngur vtleysingur' or possibly more simply known as the 2nd track on sigur ros's latest album. you know that bounce you get in your step while walking or driving to an amazing song - as it just sort of fills you with energy?

I pray Lord that I can know your love more and more, such that I can be filled with the same sort of energy - energy that stems from the creativity in who you are.

One Week

2009-07-28T15:05:00.000-04:00

What would you do with One Week to live? Today over lunch I watched the movie One Week by Michael McGowan.

I think it is the greatest movie I have seen in a long time. Not just because it fully features ridiculous amounts of Toronto and Canada and places I have been and seen. Not just because I was tired and therefore I cried a lot (cheesy I know). Not just because I know most of the songs and it features many of my favourite bands.

I think it was because of this line: fighting with his fiancée Sam, Ben declares that his adventure is the right choice – he says

“If I can make each one of these days a life – that has to be a better choice”

What a way to express our life here on this world. Tell me I’m wrong – but I believe that we all just want every day to be a life. We want to live – OH we want to live. We want appreciation, acknowledgement, wisdom, new experience, meaningful relationship and love – OH do we want love. St. Augustine, in one of my favourite conclusions ever states,

“Our hearts are restless until they rest in You, Lord.”

This may have not been the conclusion of the movie – but, alas, I believe that the reason that the movie makes sense to us is because we know we all share the same feelings. It does NOT take the news that we are terminally ill for us to realize that we want to burst outwards in expression – we want to be in intimate deep connection and love with others – be appreciated for who we are. Ultimately we want to rest in the Lord. I am 1000% convinced that this forms the base of the longings and desires of every person who has ever lived.

I think adventure, much like Ben found out, can be vitally important to our lives. In most respects this throwing off of some responsibility and virtual spreading of our wings helps us to realize what we long for in our life. Ben turns from Sam and spreads his arms to the Rockies and says “This is right!” But Samantha has told him that he cannot drive around (and run away) forever. Trying to fulfill our heart’s restlessness only through adventure and experience is dangerous simply because it is impossible. We can never satiate our longings that way – we can only realize in moments of clarity what we long for.

In fact, if I could borrow a common expression and practice used by Ronald Rolheiser, after the realization an adventure can bring, one of the only ways in which we can grow in our state of restlessness is by turning the other way. By quieting our souls and activity completely and trying (time after time) to search in our hearts; through prayer we can begin to meet God in a fuller way. In this development of our relationship with him we can slowly begin to claim some of the feelings of love that we long for. The full consummation of this relationship is not realizable in our current state of affairs. However, I have found in my life, that the only times when I feel like I am able to be slightly more fulfilled in my life is when I take time to pray and reflect after the occurrence of an outward seeking adventure or even just in the middle of the most mundane of activities (often while longing for one of those adventures). I am so pathetically bad at this. What I can do, however, is consider those people I know in life that seem the most content, and fulfilled in the every day, mundane, domesticated and ‘boring’ tasks of life. I think of my Nana, for one, and I see a lady who has spent countless hours focusing on deepening her relationship with the Lord simply so that she is able to understand her existence while resting further in God’s heart.

A friend of mine posted a quote about stories helping us to determine how to live our lives – the story of this movie helped me to concretize I think a lot of the above thoughts and realize that I must keep struggling to reflect, pray and cry out to God in the alone and simple times of the day in order to move towards rest.

The Greatest Wedding of All

2009-06-14T23:00:00.000-04:00

Weddings are awesome. Ultimately the wedding of Heaven and Earth will be the most awesome - I thank the Lord I am invited to THAT ceremony AND reception (one might even say heavily involved) and I pray that it will come ever so soon...

"And when they finally come together, that will be cause for rejoicing in the same way that a wedding is: a creational sign that God's project is going forward; that opposite poles within creation are made for union, not competition; that love and not hate have the last word in the universe; that fruitfulness and not sterility is God's will for creation." N.T. Wright, Surpised By Hope, pp. 105

ultimately yet another reason to dance! PTL

Creativity vs. Consumerism

2009-05-12T22:44:00.000-04:00

Why is it that some random days the urge to buy something comes easy?

Maybe its because I don't outlet enough creativity, just like Rolheiser talks about how creativity can be an answer to violence in his latest post - it could probably also answer the urge to buy something.

cool:

"Creativity can be as simple (and as wonderful) as gardening, growing flowers, sewing, raising children, baking bread, collecting stamps, keeping a journal, writing secret poems, being a teacher, being cub-scout leader, coaching a team, collecting baseball cards, doing secret dances in the privacy of your own room, fixing old cars, or building a deck off the porch. It doesn't have to be recognized and you don't need to get published. You only have to love doing it." - Rolheiser

SO I guess we just have to dance on!

A Challenging Prayer

2009-03-09T01:02:00.000-04:00

Lord, make me an instrument of Thy peace;

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

and where there is sadness, joy.

O Divine Master,

grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console;

to be understood, as to understand;

to be loved, as to love;

for it is in giving that we receive,

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned,

and it is in dying that we are born to Eternal Life.

Amen.

- Saint Francis of Assisi

This is very humbling for me, and that's probably why I love it.

John Locke is my Hero

2009-02-26T01:25:00.000-05:00

Warning: This is my unabashed love tribute to John Locke.

2nd Warning: If you don't watch LOST this may make no sense - but read it anyway as my submission of a reason why you should just take some time and watch all 5 seasons.

I love John Locke. I can't say it enough, I loved him from the first season of LOST when he just looked like my Dad. I loved him when he was given his legs. I loved him when he was obsessed by the hatch. I loved him when he walked around and tried to provide sage wisdom to anyone who would listen. I loved his flashbacks. I loved his leadership feud with Jack. I loved his decision to stay on the Island. I loved his passion and his insanity.

But it was only after tonight why I truly realized I loved him. John Locke is me - John Locke is you. John Locke is all humans. John Locke is Chosen, Blessed and Broken.

Locke is 'chosen' by the island - brought there repeatedly and involved deeply in its work and in its purpose and its events. Most importantly - he is chosen as someone 'special.' To the island, Locke is entirely and completely special. Locke is 'blessed' by the island - given his legs - his life - his purpose - his reason for living - and countless opportunities. Opportunities to lead and opportunities to love.

Finally, and most endearingly, Locke is broken - repeatedly. Locke is broken physically an astounding number of times, and he struggles with this. But Locke is broken in a more deep and menacing way than that. Locke is repeatedly told by most that are not manipulating him that he is NOT SPECIAL - that he has no value to them. This, perhaps, is his most human quality. I've read Henri Nouwen say, "it is much easier to accept the inability to speak, walk, or feed oneself than it is to accept the inability to be of special value to another person ... when we sense that we no longer have anythign to offer to anyone, we quickly lose our grip on life." Pardon me for my Locke bro-mance, but I just can't get over what I see of my own struggles in him...

... and somehow it gives me hope - the Island which has chosen me has greater blessings, greater brokenness, and further gifts to give yet!

I submitted this for a class anthology...

2009-01-29T14:54:00.000-05:00

Growing up as a Christian, I knew a lot of kids that went on “mission trips” to far off places to help the less fortunate. My friends would gush about how life-changing the experience was to go to such and such poor country. They would tell me how the people, while poor, were so much richer in spirit than us here in North America. I always found this idea to be a little bit ridiculous. It seemed to me as if my friends going on these pricy trips to help “poor people” created this communal lie about the local people being so joyful, so full of life, so rich in love. It seemed like a convenient untruth that rich, white, Christians could tell themselves in order not to feel guilty about their personal wealth. It was hard for me to believe that all poor people in the developing world were happy and better off than us here, despite not being able to feed their children, not having electricity or adequate access to water. It all seemed like a pile of crap.

I studied international development in university. There I was taught to horrors of missionary work. I was shown how short term “service” trips can actually harm struggling communities in the developing world. I piously felt like the people who went on these trips, went for themselves, to add meaning to their own lives. I used the argument that the money spend to send down a team of x number of Canadians would be much more effective if it was used to hire local people to do the same work. I came to see these vacationing missionaries as modern day colonizers, taking with them a sense of superiority and advanced civility.

When I was 23 I took a job working for a church as a youth assistant. Part of my job was planning and helping lead a trip to Ecuador for a small group of youth. I stepped off of my soapbox (mostly in light of my desire to travel) and took up the job rather excitedly.

In Ecuador, in a small jungle village, I had one of my first “a-ha’ moments about class, race and privilege. We were building a community building in the village so that there would be a place for people to gather when it rained. The village had gotten running water only weeks before we arrived. I met a woman who I immediately liked. She was kind- her eyes were kind. She smiled at me and let me hold her baby. After some hand gesture charades due to the language barrier she took one of the students and myself to explore the forest where they got their food. She had her daughter shimmy up papaya trees to pick us fruit and taught us how to machete banana trees. She cooked us jungle potatoes and watched, with tangible joy on her face, as we ate them. What I learned in that moment is that classism and class division dissect our humanity. In an instant it became clear to me that while we were officially there to “help” her and her community, she had, through example, just given me so much more.

Class divisions create a world where we only want to associate and interact with those in our particular class. Sometimes, if we’re feeling ambitious, it is socially acceptable to converse with those in the class above you if you are looking to climb the social ladder. That day, in the Ecuadorian jungle, I learned that by only living within your societal class, one essentially negates all possibility of being fully human. The rich are not meant to be givers. They are not meant to be the “sugar daddies and mamas” who simply write checks to appease their consciences and the poor. The Poor are not meant to be receivers, constantly taking, giving nothing back. The middle class is not meant to sequester themselves off from both the rich and poor, protected by their picket fences and PTA meetings. Rather, each person, regardless of their socio-economic class is meant to be both a giver and a receiver. That is what it means to be human. We all have something to offer the world and we all have something we need from the world. We were not created to be self-maintaining organisms.

My friend in the jungle showed me that I needed her. That day, I needed her kindness, her generosity and papayas. By accepting her gift of fruit, I acknowledged not only thankfulness, but also broke down the false notion of giver and receiver, rich and poor.

When I came home from Ecuador, I had a much better understanding of why friends in the past had come back and said that the people were so joyful, so happy, and free. I still would not fully agree with that analysis, or the singular story it tries tell of an entire country’s population. Instead, I’d like to suggest, that my friends, like me, had realized that they were receivers, not only givers. Perhaps what my friends were seeing was their own joy reflected back. This is the most real truth I know about class- It divides us. We cannot experience wholeness existing in human-made class groups. We need the poor and the rich. They need each other. Furthermore, we cannot care for the poor or the rich unless we know their names, their stories and their hearts. Ending class division will take a lot more than writing big checks; it will take more than philanthropy and charitable foundations. Ending class division will only happen when we create space for us to get to know each other. A place to have coffee, to talk about the weather and our kids and reality tv. Class division will not end until we accept that “they” are just like “us”.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp...

2009-01-22T11:08:00.000-05:00

Because I liked it so much....

Praise song for the day.

Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others’ eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, “I need to see what’s on the other side; I know there’s something better down the road.”

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

On the brink, on the

What Exile?

2009-01-18T01:13:00.001-05:00

These things that have comforted me, I drive away
This place that is my home I cannot stay
My only faith's in the broken bones and bruises I display
Bruce Springsteen – in ‘The Wrestler’

There is often much discussion of ‘exile’ in theological circles. I just finished reading and enjoying Rob Bell and Don Golden’s book “Jesus wants to Save Christians.” It discusses the importance of remembering the exodus God has given us from our imprisonment to the empire of sin, violence and death. It talks about the Israelites and their disobedience when they had all the power of an empire under Solomon – and their resultant exile under Babylon’s rule in order to bring them back into dependence on God and an understanding of the blessing they had been given and what God desired for them to use that blessing for.

In the book there is much talk of empire – a worldly empire of violence, sin and death (Bell 57) and also of 2 modes of existence as defined by Paul: “the body of Sin and the body of Christ.” (Bell 105) It is discussed how people who ultimately believe in the prevailing empire use the power they have in order to promote themselves, and further their influence and then grow what they feel they are entitled to. God desires for people to use their power to help those who most need it. When God wanted to show Solomon and company that they were misusing the power they had been blessed with – he put them in exile into Babylon – away from any source of power of their own.

They had forgotten their story – the story of exodus and of God’s compassionate reaching out to them when they most needed it in order that they would do that for others. Many theologians discuss how the Church today is in some sort of exile. Part of the reasoning that prompted this post was examining the exile discussion in this Rob Bell book and thinking about other discussions of exile that I have heard about and whether or not I see a lack of worldly ‘power’ or empire influence in the church or a lack of the presence of God’s Holy Spirit working in the world.

The most vivid picture of exile that I have seen recently is that of Randy the Ram in the ‘The Wrestler.’ Mickey Rourke did a fantastic job of portraying a man who was exiled from his home and his family. This was an exile that happened because of his choices in the use of power – he chose to use his power to satisfy himself and to increase his reign and his entitlement. However, again the exile that he experienced was one truly of pain – of visible separation from the prevailing culture.

But I ask – where is the exile of the church (ala Israel into Babylon or in Egypt) if there has been no removal from physical blessing (and empire power) in North America? Or more aptly how does the current exile parallel that of the Israelites?

Could it be – in North America – it as though some parts of the body of Christ and some Christians have bought so whole-heartedly into the prevailing empire of consumption that God has allowed their OWN corrupted system of power to be Babylon in their lives – or at least definitely in my life! It would be as if, seeing the sin of Solomon – his building of military might and the big-headed centralization of his power to further his own purposes rather than help those in need, God just allowed the Israelites all to be consumed by this as it ran its course. Obviously, this isn’t an exile from earthly, or worldly physical power for the Israelites – but what it IS is an exile from the power to be able to do the work of showing God’s love and compassion by helping others most effectively. This is because the body of people is too tied up in their own selfish pressures.

Maybe I am wandering a bit here but the problem is, at the lowest level, I have so forgotten the story of my exodus, the cause of my redemption, and the ‘way’ that I travel from the one reality of the body of Sin to the reality of the body of Christ – I have so forgotten this story – that it could be as though I am in exile - exile from being able to live out this compassionate powerful love of God – exile in this Babylon of North American consumer culture. Thankfully, the ‘way’ of Christ is STILL there to be walked. Just as the prophets spoke – the universal sacrifice and way out of exile has been provided – I just need to begin to remember the story of how I was redeemed and make it central to everything that I do in order to live with that power!

What I ask now is how is it that I should begin to remember my exodus? More importantly, Lord, how shall I begin to cause my memory of that exodus to prophecy truth of the power of the body of Christ into my life? Bell and Golden suggest that the Israelites were instructed to remember by remembering the poor, by giving unconditionally, and by extending grace (Bell 162).

I know that you work in power Lord all over the world and I pray that somehow I would begin to fully remember, to use the power you have made available in order to bless the weakest of those with whom I interact – to show them your love not after I’ve claimed my own entitlement – but to realize that everything is yours and is given to me simply for the purpose of giving to others.

Please forgive me for forgetting the story of my own journey through the desert to the New Jerusalem even as it is still unfolding! And anyone reading this post your thoughts and the ways that you remember your exodus story.

Rob Bell and Don Golden, Jesus Wants to Save Christians (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2008)

Rolheiser

2009-01-15T13:44:00.000-05:00

I love the work of this guy.
Plus, he gets some points for being Canadian too.

I stumbled across this today and thought it was worth reading.

thoughts?

*c

My Talk at the FRWY last night....

2009-01-12T11:30:00.001-05:00

So without any further ado....

Quite often I wonder why life doesn’t seem very fair. Yakno, we talk a lot about justice, and I would hope that most of us try and pursue justice for ourselves and others, but it doesn’t always seem to be present. In my own life, I have things that don’t seem to just. It doesn’t seem very fair that no matter how hard I work at school, my grades won’t be as great as my brother’s or sister’s. It doesn’t seem very fair that some students at my school have their tuition fully paid for, but I wasn’t given that luxury. To put those complaints in perspective though, there are many more harsh and severe injustices in the lives of people I know and hear about. I wonder why friend A had to be let go because of the recession. I wonder why friend B had to lose a friend or family member so close to them. I wonder why friend C had to get sick. All these thoughts lead me to feel down sometimes thinking that life’s not fair, justice isn’t really present. And I wonder, what am I supposed to do to feel okay about that? How am I supposed to believe and serve a so-called loving God when he didn’t create a just world?
Now before I go any further, I must make a couple brief comments. I by no means intend on approaching the topic of injustice with any form of answer to why it exists, I just thought my words might possibly be appreciated. Also, I do not mean to be insensitive to anyone’s hurt or experience of injustice and I hope I don’t come across in this manner.
So the reason I say all of this is because I find it quite challenging to identify with God and appreciate him when I see and experience so much injustice. And I hope now, to discuss an idea that helps me in my efforts to identify and appreciate him.
You see, the passage I chose to refer to in my talk, is Philippians 2:5-13. This is actually thought to be a verse from an early Christian hymn or creed that Paul placed in his letter. In this verse, it states that Jesus emptied himself and chose to become nothing. He then proceeded to go through death as a human, and specifically death on a cross as the text says. I highlight this verse because it tells us something about Jesus’ character and experience. Jesus endured suffering and injustice just like us. And he chose it. He chose to have life not be fair. In other parts of the Bible, we learn that Jesus was rejected by his family, his hometown, and even one of his closest disciples, Peter. And he died a more terrifying death than I would like to think about. I say this because the fact that Jesus experienced injustice makes me appreciate him more and helps me to identify with his love for us.
Also, I think it is fair to assume that God, the Father, must suffer in a similar capacity. The biblical narrative teaches us that God gave us as humans freedom to choose what to do and value with our lives. And when we reject his love, abuse his creation, or treat others like dirt, I can’t help but think he suffers too.
Now I say all this for a reason. And that reason is not because I claim to understand why injustice exists in this world. It sure doesn’t make a ton of sense to me. I really wish life seemed a little more fair for us all at times. But I do find a significant bit of solace and comfort in knowing that our God suffers and experiences injustice just like us. He knows what its like yakno? And not only that, but he chose to experience this so in a lot of ways we wouldn’t have to. I don’t mean to sound cheesy, I just think God becomes a little more likable when I think of things this way.

I tried to keep it pretty honest and candid. Along with keeping it short haha.

All in good time

2009-01-04T22:24:00.000-05:00

hello friends

Just a quick note to say hello- and that I do intend on sharing some links/thoughts here soon. My mind is a little dulled from the INCREDIBLE Raptors game that I was at today. If I were to write something tonight it would be something along the lines of how Jamario Moon should be the MVP for his tats and headband alone and how it really is time to trade Kapono....you get the idea. But tomorrow is a new day and it won't be long before my musings about faith.jesus.god.life.love.etc will need a home.

Peace and love,

Cait

Conversation

2009-01-04T14:21:00.000-05:00

hey everyone,

i'm sure there is going to be a little bit of hesitance to contribute or post to this blog because you feel like it isn't your own (or you already have your own blog). But even if you just post a link to your other blog post or a small thought - i think it would be really appreciated. I personally think you're all real smart and I appreciate your contributions to my faith - so that's why I'd love to continue the conversation.

Image of God at Scarborough Town Centre

2009-01-04T14:19:00.000-05:00

This is something I wrote while waiting in Scarborough after a bus had dropped me off. I'd love to hear your comments on it, further challenges, as well as suggestions for practical application.

“Christ has taken on this human form … In Christ’s incarnation all of humanity regains the dignity of bearing the image of God. Whoever from now on attacks the least of the people attacks Christ, who took on human form and who in himself has restored the image of God for all who bear a human countenance.”
- Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Beginning to understand this truth has radically changed the way I look at people as I sit waiting here at the food court of Scarborough Town Centre. I think I’ve read of this before and begun to think about it – at least I remember a similar idea in Greg Paul’s book – “God in the Alley” where he explains how he discovered that as he helped a friend of his through one of his lowest human moments he saw the face of Jesus in him in a profound way. I understood it at the time in terms of seeing Jesus in the oppressed or suffering – which I think is a very valid and valuable concept – but the idea of seeing God’s presence in all others simply because they are human has given me a new, fresh understanding.

I’ve dwelt much lately on how as I look at others walking around campus I judge them. Basically, my walk through the busy paths between classes consists of looking at a person and determining my decision of their worth. A practice that I have been, well, trying to practice, is looking at a person and declaring my love toward them (in my head). It seems to create a drastic difference in my attitude toward them. Reading the above quote from a book on ‘mystic-activism’ by Curtiss Paul DeYoung reinforces this idea for me. To be part of the body of Christ is to understand fundamentally the necessary humanization of ‘others’. By understanding that each person currently walking around me is a human – and therefore reflects the image of God – it seems almost easier, nay necessary to love them. I hopefully love God with all my heart, with all my soul, and with all my mind and therefore I have no option but to love all of His creations – with all my heart and all my soul and all my mind!

As DeYoung goes on to discuss this he emphasizes that it includes, in so many situations the oppressed and the oppressor. It brings to mind the words of Jesus – “Whatever you do to the least of these – you have done to me” - how true it is.

Lord the challenge of living out your love is unbelievably difficult, unbelievably rewarding, and unbelievably human. Help me to continue to understand your love in such a way that I have no choice but to extend it towards those around me.

I'll have a number 2 switch the back bacon for strips

2009-01-04T12:18:00.000-05:00

This is the start of our blog.