What can I learn?

Last week was Spring Break for me and the weeks before had been busy, so I have not posted with any level of faithfulness that would approach February. For that I could apologize or you could be happy that my random writings didn't appear in your reader feed.

Anyway, I'll have plenty to write now as I have lots of thoughts from my break that I need to write down, and stories to tell.

I was talking with my buddy Casey last Saturday and we were talking about my getting older within the campus church. I think I've had a cynical attitude at times and I really have not been able to pin down how to get rid of it.

He reminded me of a man in our church who is definitely an older guy and yet he takes notes feverishly for everything. He's married and yet will be fully engaged in a teaching about dating. His attitude of, "What can I learn?" strikes me very powerfully. What can I learn in any situation. Continuing that mantra has truly helped me even in this past week. There were many things that I experienced that I had not experienced for the first time by any stretch of the imagination, and yet by having an open ear and a soft heart, I was able to absorb new thoughts and perspectives.

Those perspectives will be shared with you, I promise...

But remember, no matter how mundane the situation, no matter how much older than another person you are, etc...what can you learn?

Cooperation with Grace

I'm taking a Religious Studies course here at the U of I called Intro to Christianity. What a fascinating course this is. We've spent the semester talking about what Christians have done. Just as simply as that. it is taught from an objective perspective and I'm pretty sure the professor himself has no religious affiliation. So while I must protect against slander to the church and things that would be wrong, I welcome the challenge to my faith, and I am getting a chance to see some of the great moments in the 2000 year history of Christianity. A very small number of the things I've learned or had confirmed include...

• The Catholic church was not always the Catholic church by name
• It was however the strong force for Christianity during the years up to the Reformation
• Christianity DID exist in the Middle Ages (that sounds like a stab, but I'm ok with it)
• The Papacy in Avignon was legit...for a while
• Aristotle plays a pretty large role in Christian thought
• The East-West Schism was caused by celibacy, unleavened bread, and "the son"...plus other things, but it seems so trivial to think that these things divide God's Church
• The Church hierarchy took a lot of liberty to anathematize people left and write
• The formation of the Canon of Scripture is far more complex than Protestants would believe...wow I sound SUPER Catholic today
  
• Christian theologians are fantastically deep people

That last point is my point of focus today. We've had to read documents of the Christian Church and a few of these have been from some of the greatest thinkers in the history of the faith. They include Augustine of Hippo, Anselm of Canterbury, Thomas Aquinas, and soon, Martin Luther.

To read the very thoughts of these great men and to see how much their interpretations of Scripture influence the modern church fascinates me. I really look forward to someday taking classes, maybe at a seminary, to better understand these writings from a Christian perspective. To read Aquinas' writings on the Eucharist fascinates me and helps to flesh out the thoughts of the church at that time and what my Catholic background teaches.

My thoughts tonight focus on Augustine and his discussions with his contemporary, Pelagius, laid the groundwork for thinkers like Aquinas, Anselm of Canterbury, and John Calvin.

These two men discussed predestination and Grace's role in salvation. Pelagius has been ascribed with thougths that humanity must work for their salvation, while Augustine presents the opposite extreme speaking of man's inability to earn salvation and it was dependent on Grace completely and he even spoke of predestination.

So, I find myself falling into moderation. I think I am pretty semi-Pelagian at this point in my life. (ICK, I hate labels. And if I totally butcher this, let me know). This concept came as a middle ground between the claimed extremes of the two thinkers. The Synod of Arles, c. 473 lays this out fairly well and says

Mans effort and endeavor is to be united with God's grace; man's freedom of will is not extinct but attenuated and weakened, he that is saved is in danger, and he that has perished could have been saved.

This feels like it still doesn't completely describe how Grace works, and I wouldn't expect it to. However, I think I agree with it. God makes the first move towards us. He draws us in, sometimes even when we don't want it, but he still lets us decide. He allows us to cooperate with him and buy into his plans for the world. I'm also pretty convinced that if we completely set ourselves apart from Him, he will step out of our lives for a while until he comes to draw us to him again, ala in the book of Hosea. So, once Grace presents itself, we must live our lives in cooperation with it. This has definitely become a life verse to challenge me and I'll use it again and again.

James 2:14-17 (The Message)
Dear friends, do you think you'll get anywhere in this if you learn all the right words but never do anything? Does merely talking about faith indicate that a person really has it? For instance, you come upon an old friend dressed in rags and half-starved and say, "Good morning, friend! Be clothed in Christ! Be filled with the Holy Spirit!" and walk off without providing so much as a coat or a cup of soup—where does that get you? Isn't it obvious that God-talk without God-acts is outrageous nonsense?

So, that's a lot of writing and complicated thought. I know it isn't even complete, but it is a working model so to speak. Does it completely address salvation? Not really, and I think it is better that way. We must continue to live worthy, turn to God, and know that The King will bless us. I look forward to continuing to be baffled by God and his ways...

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Oh, and lots of new pics on flickr

Good or Evil...

Photo Credit: Milky Toast on Flickr (Mike Bordlemay)

I was doing a little studying of the Bible with some friends yesterday and we were in the book of Mark. I don't think I've ever been so struck by the following passage as I was last night

Mark 3

Doing Good on the Sabbath

Then he went back in the meeting place where he found a man with a crippled hand. The Pharisees had their eyes on Jesus to see if he would heal him, hoping to catch him in a Sabbath infraction. He said to the man with the crippled hand, "Stand here where we can see you." Then he spoke to the people: "What kind of action suits the Sabbath best? Doing good or doing evil? Helping people or leaving them helpless?" No one said a word. He looked them in the eye, one after another, angry now, furious at their hard-nosed religion. He said to the man, "Hold out your hand." He held it out—it was as good as new! The Pharisees got out as fast as they could, sputtering about how they would join forces with Herod's followers and ruin him. (Message)

The think that gets me about it is the quote, "What kind of action suits the Sabbath best? Doing good or doing evil? Helping people or leaving them helpless?" This kind of talk leaves no room for a middle ground. Either you are helping or you are hurting. Now I don't believe that means that in every situation we are only helping or hurting, but when we are presented with a situation, it is "doing evil" to leave them alone. This really struck. I've been convicted a lot lately about people asking for help or things. I know in the Christian realm, this idea comes up a lot. But still, what do we do? Does stewardship trump service, or does service trump stewardship? Or should we who are meant to live apart make more time in our schedules free so we are able to be there in these situations, so we may do good or evil.

Jesus highlights this service multiple times, another of which is the story of the sheep and the goats in Matthew 25

The Sheep and the Goats

"When he finally arrives, blazing in beauty and all his angels with him, the Son of Man will take his place on his glorious throne. Then all the nations will be arranged before him and he will sort the people out, much as a shepherd sorts out sheep and goats, putting sheep to his right and goats to his left.

"Then the King will say to those on his right, 'Enter, you who are blessed by my Father! Take what's coming to you in this kingdom. It's been ready for you since the world's foundation. And here's why:
I was hungry and you fed me,
I was thirsty and you gave me a drink,
I was homeless and you gave me a room,
I was shivering and you gave me clothes,
I was sick and you stopped to visit,
I was in prison and you came to me.'
"Then those 'sheep' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry and feed you, thirsty and give you a drink? And when did we ever see you sick or in prison and come to you?' Then the King will say, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you did one of these things to someone overlooked or ignored, that was me—you did it to me.'
"Then he will turn to the 'goats,' the ones on his left, and say, 'Get out, worthless goats! You're good for nothing but the fires of hell. And why? Because—
I was hungry and you gave me no meal,
I was thirsty and you gave me no drink,
I was homeless and you gave me no bed,
I was shivering and you gave me no clothes,
Sick and in prison, and you never visited me.
"Then those 'goats' are going to say, 'Master, what are you talking about? When did we ever see you hungry or thirsty or homeless or shivering or sick or in prison and didn't help?'
"He will answer them, 'I'm telling the solemn truth: Whenever you failed to do one of these things to someone who was being overlooked or ignored, that was me—you failed to do it to me.'
"Then those 'goats' will be herded to their eternal doom, but the 'sheep' to their eternal reward."

This concept has his me as well in the epistles of scripture, specifically the book of James, which I will leave you with (4:17)...

Remember, it is sin to know what you ought to do and then not do it.

Sacrificing for Beauty

I was out shopping today with my roommate Jonathan, and we were talking, as people do while grocery shopping. While walking into Aldi, the topic of beauty came up. And we started to think about the stupid things we as humans do for beautiful things. A few ideas popped into my head about the things that are beautiful that we sacrifice for.

1. The opposite sex. I only speak as a man, but I know guys do really ridiculous things and sacrifice time, money, and any other number of resources just to meet, please, or get to know a girl.

2. Mountains/views. Again, I speak from only my experience, but I know we spend hours of miserable climbing and walking (not all of it is miserable) to be able to summit a peak and attain a beautiful biew. There's even potential for beauty along the hike, but I promise you there are some pretty boring sections as well.

3. Sunrises. We get our sorry butts up and out of bed for the incredible beauty of the sun peeking over the edge of the earth. The colors that appear at this time are so unique and the draw us to them.

4. Friendships. This might seem out there, but I think you could call a friendship a beautiful thing, and for sure we sacrifice a lot of time to cultivate and keep these relationships healthy. Without that time, a relationship can get ugly.

I think there are other things for sure, and clearly we enjoy them. So of course you could say, 'duh' why wouldn't we sacrifice for it. But in themselves, these things don't benefit us directly. So why do we do it? It seems like we consider some sort of benefit of giving up more essential life needs, for these things.

Photo Credit: Rob Bergman

Culture Shock

So, whilst watching Ninja Warrior recently, there were some intense changes. The reason for these changes most likely falls on the shoulders of Makoto Nagano. He is the man that in Sasuke 17 achieved Ultimate Victory. This lead to a complete overhaul of the courses used in the program for the 18th competition. So, that puts us at watching Sasuke 18 on G4 the other day.

Now that we're caught up, we are watching Stage 3 of the competition where 2 instances of different culture revealed themselves.

The first was when a competitor failed on a section of the course. He graciously said that the section had gotten the best of him. In fact, I paraphrase him when I say he thought he trained enough, but his failure on the day of the competition shows his training clearly was not enough. He said this even though the obstacle had be redesigned.

The second was when Makoto disqualified himself from the course because he broke a rule. In fact, the officials hadn't disqualified him because either his mistake wasn't caught or they were going to allow it. He would have most likely completed the stage had he allowed himself to continue along.

So, what do these two instances say? They show a culture of intense respect and honor. My feeling is that here in the States, people would have a far bigger problem with losing. In fact, we would blame our loss on the course. It's not our fault the course changed. Why should we be penalized? And in the case of the self-disqualification, it seems like that took such guts and honor to do. If we can get away with something, we do it. The phrase, "If you ain't cheating, you ain't trying" is an indicator of the American attitude towards victory at all costs. I even consider a guy Terrell Owens or other professional athletes with historically bad attitudes and can't imagine a similar outcome.

So that's the culture shock. We in general in America seem to be more concerned with victory than honor. It makes for an interesting conversation for sure

The English Language

I find the English language to be such a poor tool that we use in poor ways. When we think about an object we are describing and we call it 'that', then we want to say it did something. We want th say "that that thing did that other thing." We use it daily, yet we don't understand the full breadth of it. I find it especially difficult to use to describe God. That is why I think he has given us other tools of expression and art like music, sculpture, painting, etc. We can't even express certain things with the English language, and even if we try to, it takes 3 more sentences than in other languages.

This is why I want to master it the best I can. That way I can communicate the most effectively. Even creating a nomenclature to communicate has been helpful this summer. A few examples exist...

Love Languages: This is a highly recommended book/concept by Gary Chapman. The author is a counselor and he talks about the 5 basic ways we express love to each other . These are physical touch, words of affirmation, acts of service, quality time, and gifts. Now, these aren't the ONLY ways we show love, but when we and someone else know the nomenclature, we can best communicate with each other and better know how to love one another.

Core Values: This is a concept heard before, but for me, refined in Craig Groeschel's book, Chazown. He asks what things made us passionately angry, or passionately joyful. So now I have a list of words that I can expound upon that explains how I feel about things I care about. It's just wonderful to have that.

Programming and Worship: Just knowing how a service works and understanding the words that people use, the concepts they understand, and the actions they take. I love this stuff. I love bouncing ideas off of people and seeing how they feel. It's also good to be able to communicate expectations clearly before a service is about to start.



As you can tell, one of my major core values is communication. I feel very passionately about communicating things effectively. I really want to strive to be the clearest communicator I can be.