I haven’t joined in the jokes about Kim Jong Il’s death. By all accounts he was a terrible leader-according to many accounts truly awful-but I don’t relish the death of anyone.
But, I read about his mythical athletic prowess, and it is of course laughable. Many North Koreans cite these stats! Certainly it is impossible to know if they truly believe his monikers are accurate – “Best Leader Who Realized Human Wisdom,” “Master of Literature, Arts, and Architecture,” “Humankind’s Greatest Musical Genius,” “World’s Greatest Writer,” and “Greatest Man Who Ever Lived.” – or they were just coerced. Few really know, as informational transfer is so restricted.
We at least know that the Humankind’s Greatest Musical Genius is wrong. Nickleback gets that one.
No? Who then, Creed?
Sorry, back on track here… It is so easy to look into another culture and see how they misconstrue reality…how they miss the point. It made me stop and reflect a bit about how we do the same. Things that seem self-evident to us can be very easily seen through by others. Cultural nuances that we are blind to. It makes me want to be very deeply rooted and carefully reflective. It makes me want to be sure that I am among people who will help me to make sure I see myself and the world the way that God would have me.
Sure, I would never say I shot 5 (or 11) holes in one in a single day. But what other lies might I be very willing to tell myself? Makes me think of a Proverb that says, “Wounds from a friend can be trusted, but an enemy multiplies kisses.”
Let’s pray, for the sake of the South Korean people, that Kim Jong Un will do better.
I have am blessed to have very wise friends who have a variety of takes on any number of issues. One that is coming up right now is the issue around the phrase, “Merry Christmas!” Should we be allowed / encouraged to use that particular term at the expense of the more generic greeting, “Happy Holidays!” What do each of those phrases represent and what is the larger issue that is bubbling just under the surface? It is a very meaningful discussion, no?
This is an by Elizabeth Hunter, from .
While I don’t resonate with all of her thoughts, my question is… What are your thoughts on her thoughts?
This will likely be the last posting for the year as I am taking a few days off and then will be going to !
In the name of our Messiah whose birth I celebrate,
Jim
There is this very strange interaction between this young girl and an angel that I read about this morning. Not only strange, but it was one that made Christianity hard for me to accept for a long time. Let me just let you read it…
In the sixth month, God sent the angel Gabriel to Nazareth, a town in Galilee, to a virgin pledged to be married
to a man named Joseph, a descendant of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. The angel went to her and said, “Greetings, you who are highly favored! The Lord is with you.” Mary was greatly troubled at his words and wondered what kind of greeting this might be. But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.” “How will this be,” Mary asked the angel, “since I am a virgin?” The angel answered, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God. Even Elizabeth your relative is going to have a child in her old age, and she who was said to be barren is in her sixth month. For nothing is impossible with God.” “I am the Lord’s servant,” Mary answered. “May it be to me as you have said.” Then the angel left her.
Virgins getting pregnant, angels talking about it… it reads like a fairy tale. In fact for years that is all I thought the bible was, an extended set of fairy tales, stories that perhaps held some usefulness, but only in measured amounts and in measured places.
Then I started to reflect on what I was rejecting. I was one of those that read the background material that 99% of people think is painfully boring. I read evidences against the bible being an accurate translation and those in favor of it being an accurate one. Keep in mind, when I started this whole thing I was firmly in the not accurate camp. Over about a year I frustratingly became more and more convinced it was accurate. That it had held up over time .
That didn’t mean it was true, mind you. Just that what we have now is an accurate portrayal of what they had then. To answer the question in advance, yes I continue to read about this. I have probably read 20-30 books in the past ten years written by biblical or literary critics that argue against my position. Even on my sabbatical, I was reading about the political and sociological streams that have influenced how we come to the conclusions that we do about scripture. If you have questions about my conclusions with them, let me know…
Then I started to ask whether the book might be right. Over time I came to conclude it was. Again, please know that at this point I still didn’t like that it was true, I was still rejecting it. But I couldn’t deny what I had come to learn.
Actually this account of this young girl, Mary, had a part in it. It was one of the first miracles that is recorded in the bible that I believed. (more…)
Yesterday someone said something to me that bugged me. It doesn’t matter who it was or what they said. I know this person cares about me and respects me. I am sure of it in fact. But they did. Said something that got me frustrated with them.
It was such a small comment.
But I felt offended a bit, insulted. I did however apply Prov 12.16 to the situation. It says a fool shows their annoyance at once but the prudent overlook an insult. That is something I try to do when I am frustrated. It helps me to not get into unnecessary arguments when they can be avoided, and many times I have discovered that the person who said the annoying thing didn’t mean anything by it. They meant no offense.
It was the right thing to do.
But later that day I ended up saying something much more thoughtless to someone else. I never meant my words to be hurtful but they were. An off-hand remark that I didn’t even notice at the time, but as soon as I was told about it I hurt for them. The person I said it to very graciously brought it up to me privately later. They offered grace before I even had time to ask for it.
My realization of how easily I can hurt someone with my words makes me desire to offer grace all the more. What I receive I want to give.
Peace, Jim
So, the inevitable piece of news. Westboro Baptist Church is coming to Blacksburg
today to protest in front of Cassell Coliseum today just before the of Officer Deriek Crouse. Notice no hotlink to Westboro’s site?
A bully in middle school taught me why.
There was a kid who lived near me (I won’t name a name as I am always surprised to see who reads this) who loved to mess with me. It kind of became his thing. I was a small kid with… ladies prepare yourselves… a bad haircut, bifocals, braces with headgear… That’s right. Add to that an almost complete lack of coordination, and a very smart mouth that often moved a bit faster than my brain.
Needless to say, I talked myself into a lot of situations.
This guy, who was much bigger, decided I would be his bullying muse for the year. I tried to fight back – verbally, physically. I tried being nice. Nothing would work.
Then I decided to simply render his insults irrelevant. He would make a comment and I’d say “not bad.” He would shove me when he walked by and I would say “nice form.” The first thing that did is it calmed me down. The next thing it did was it removed the audience he loved to get by messing with me.
I took his audience away.
In Proverbs 16 we are told that a wise persons’s heart makes their speech wise and more persuasive. I have learned over the years to tame my mouth -most of the time. Sometimes that means overlooking a wrong, other times to speak against it. Both of those pieces of wisdom are given to us in Proverbs and both are right.
But I think of this response as neither overlooking or speaking against.
I think Proverbs 26.4,5 shares the tension we walk in…
4 When arguing with fools, don’t answer their foolish arguments, or you will become as foolish as they are. 5 When arguing with fools, be sure to answer their foolish arguments, or they will become wise in their own estimation.
Both are true. When you understand the proverbial wisdom nature of, well, Proverbs, then you see these aren’t in contradiction. They are both right. Wisdom therefore, needs to guide us into which one we invoke. I think, today, verse four.
People have tried for years to speak wisdom and truth into these folks’ lives. I tried when they last came to Tech. I spoke with Shirley Phelps-Roper, unsurprisingly to no avail. They want the audience, they are somehow energized by the counter-protests. Their revenue stream is dependent on getting big numbers of web-hits, drawing big crowds. So, now, like my middle school bully, let’s move past them.
Let them come.
Ignore them.
With the prayer-filled hope that they will just fade away.
Yesterday was a swirl of emotions. A sinking feeling when I got the text about a shooting on campus. Growing fear as we heard about the possibility of another victim. Relief that more weren’t killed. Sadness as I reflected on the lives that ended. left a wife and five kids. Five kids! A friend of mine had to deliver the news to the brand new widow.
So we walk today in the tension of relief and sadness. The awareness that things aren’t as bad as they could be and still not as good we wish.
Jesus told us this was the case. That the reality of God’s presence in our world doesn’t mean that evil isn’t also here. And the fact that evil remains (for now) doesn’t mean God is sitting idly by. He is active and reminds us to be active as well.
Peter said it like this, “God isn’t late with his promise as some measure lateness. He is restraining himself on account of you, holding back the End because he doesn’t want anyone lost.” 2 Peter 3.9 The Message
And it is Jesus’ example of unfair suffering that inspires me to action. He died for a purpose, for the Kingdom. For us. Now he calls on me to lay down my life as he did.
Yesterday reminds me this life isn’t a game.
I am conflicted about the Occupy Wall Street movement.
I can understand the frustration that many feel when they think about our current political system. I feel that pursuit of power and lack of willingness to serve is not connected with any political party. It is a part of who we are as people. So, I get the idea that “Just vote them out,” only replaces one problem with another. We are almost always in campaign mode and the problems of our country and world require more focus than they receive.
I can also understand the frustration of those who look at the ways the OWS movement is getting in the way of the commerce of the regular working class people they are claiming to represent. The excesses, the question of whether it will ever really amount to anything. Who are the 99%, do they really represent me, and what is it that they would suggest that is better?
This certainly isn’t the first to handle that dilemma, but I like it and wanted to pass it along. Thoughts?
Jesus Ween. Let it sink in. Jesus Ween. 
Here is the from Tamara Gignac of the . Please know, it isn’t the heart of what Paul Ade is doing that is the problem as much as the cheese factor of the naming.
CALGARY — Tiny ghosts and goblins hoping for sugary snacks may find something odd in their loot bags this Halloween: a bible.
A Calgary pastor is promoting Jesus Ween, a faith-based alternative to the traditional holiday fare of candy and spooky garb.
Instead of chocolate bars and gummy bears, he’s asking people to shun demonic costumes and instead dole out pocket-sized bibles or other “Christian gifts.”
The idea has caught on in communities across North America, according to Jesus Ween creator Paul Ade. He’s hoping it will bring a new perspective to an otherwise pagan festival, he said.
“I do not associate myself with ghosts, demons, Satan and witches. These are things I want to get rid of,” he said.
“If it’s OK for a child to know about demons, it should also be OK for a child to know about Jesus.”
Jesus Ween has attracted international attention, with media reports circulating as far away as Britain.
The Calgary man’s efforts to reinvent Halloween even prompted parody south of the border, with recent gags from U.S. pop culture satirist Stephen Colbert and late-night television host Jimmy Kimmel. (more…)
I guess I have a few concerns about this whole . I mean, beyond the potential misuse of millions of dollars in endowment
money…
What is clear here is that the church leadership is trying to blend two things that I feel are not good to blend. 1) the scriptural challenge to help one another out – this one I like; and then 2) the cultural value of keeping others away from us – this one I don’t. 
It would seem that the church is so comfortable maintaining distance between the leadership and the members that they don’t see the disconnect. So you get “Please help out by sending over meals – but give them to the limo drivers, please don’t come by our home.”
Am I the only one who is bothered by this?
On this day in 1517, the priest and scholar approaches the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg, Germany, and nails a piece of paper to it containing the 95 revolutionary opinions that would begin the Protestant Reformation.
If you want a brief rundown of the ensuing years, hit .
And so began the Protestant movement, even though it wasn’t called that until a number of years later.
I am a product of that, especially now that I am a pastor of a non-denominational church near Va. Tech. My question is, “do we as Protestants, or better yet, do I as a Protestant, protest too much?” This question comes up as we as a church are in the midst of a series on the Lord’s Prayer. A prayer that many recite weekly in church’s all over the world.
We as a church don’t.
And my question is, is that good? Is it good to include in the general flow of a Sunday gathering time something that can easily become rote and mundane? Or the counter, is it wise to not regularly participate in one of the traditions the church has widely participated in over the centuries?
My concern with the former is that we can easily mishandle very sacred things. A bit like eating on the good china everyday somehow reduces the specialness of it. But my concern with not engaging in its reading and reciting is that I am pushing away something very valuable just to show that we are different.
To be fair, to me and the elder team I lead with, we have thought about this a great deal. We aren’t just pushing away tradition for the sake of pushing away tradition. But, on the anniversary of this moment in time that truly created a fork in the road, I do wonder if there are areas I simply protest for reasons less well thought out. How much of my decision making is influenced by the fact I am a Protestant, who is in ministry primarily among generations that are much more comfortable determining what they are against than what they are for.
So… thoughts?
Peace, Jim
