At a coffee shop and restaurant I frequent I was called on the carpet for what Harold and his devotees have been saying. My friends’ eyes would gleam as they razzed me for being connected to the same faith as Family Radio. Honestly, I used to get so angry when a Christian would step up to the bad quote plate and swing for the fences. I would have to answer for them. It seemed like every bad quote, every unkind, unreflected on sentiment, made my faith seem more and more silly to more and more people. These people were seen as jokes and Jesus (and I) was often thrown in with them.
Harold Camping, founder of the Christian station Family Radio, also known as the man who sounded the May 21 Doomsday alarm, warned the world will start falling apart as each time zone reached the six oclock hour. First we would experience an earthquake that “would put what Japan experienced to shame,” we would experience the Rapture, followed by five months of suffering for those who remained on earth. The 89 year old Camping has predicted the end of the world before. On Sunday he was quoted by the San Franciso Chronicle as being “flabbergasted his calculation was off.” Again.
Oh Harold.
But I don’t get angry at people like this anymore. I do get angry at the problems they cause. The followers of his highly obscure
teachings, his weird numbering of the 3,000th anniversary of the flood of Noah, a thirty three year season of tribulation of the church, and a level of certainty of the year of the death of Jesus that few share, have been devastated. Their faith is understandibly shaken. Life savings’ have been spent on getting the word out about what was to happen on Saturday. Even Camping’s own family has been torn apart by all this.
I do get angry at that.
For me, I try to look at what is going on in the world around me and look for what God is trying to say to me through it. What I noticed is that I really don’t think about Jesus’ return very much. With so many challenges in my life now, Jesus’ second coming rarely comes to mind. That is not a good thing to me. (more…)
And so, we are delivered to the last day of this posting. It is so perfect that this prayer is our prayer for today. I have been saving this one as it touches on the the truly profound human suffering that Christ endured. Let this be our focus on this Friday, the day that our Messiah was crucified.
I have loved this journey with you. It has been a blessing to me even as I hope it has blessed your soul as well.
BLOODY LORD, you are just too real. Blood is sticky, repulsive, frightening. We do not want to be stuck with a sacrificial God who bleeds. We want a spiritual faith about spiritual things, things bloodless and abstract. We want sacrificial spirits, not sacrificed bodies. But you have bloodied us with your people Israel and your Son, Jesus. We fear that by being Jesus’ people we too might have to bleed. If such is our destiny, we pray that your will, not ours, be done. AMEN. – Stanley Hauerwas.
For the last time in this series.
Peace, Jim
And now, we are at the next to the last post in this long series. 
THANK YOU LORD, for making us thankful. We thank you for life itself; for the energy your passion for your creation gives us; for friendships though which we discover our lives; for love that reminds us we are bodies; for that body called the church, where our bodies are enlarged; for the Eucharist, the great thanksgiving, in which we are made part of your redemption. For all this we thank you. AMEN. – Stanley Hauerwas
Thankfully with you, Jim
Our prayer for this forty-third day of Lent…
“FEROCIOUS God, we fear your peace. We say we want peace, but we confess that war and violence capture our imagination and our spirits. Violate our violence with the transforming power of your love. Wrench us from all hatreds and loves that are the breeding ground of our violence. We cannot will that your peace come, but through the Spirit you make it possible for us to live in your peace. So fire us with that Spirit that we world might be flooded with your reconciling kingdom. AMEN.” – Stanley Hauerwas
Strong words, I will be seeking to live them out today.
Peace, Jim
Wow.
Over the last forty plus days we have walked through this season of Lent together. These prayers, though not perfect, as none that are written just by we humans are, have been a great guide.
I have appreciated the thoughts you have shared along the way. So, as we make the turn into the last few days before we celebrate the resurrection of the only Messiah the world has ever known or could know, let us do it with fresh reflective focus.
“GOD of mighty truth, make us people of true speech, obedient speech, so that through our lives you may be revealed to others. We live in a world overcome by words that lie — but without words there is no truth. Work in us so that our words may be disciplined by your Word and the lies may be revealed. As those called to ministry, give us the courage to trust you, knowing you would never call a people to you who would prefer lies to truth. AMEN.” – Stanley Hauerwas
Peace (and truth) be with you, Jim
Anyone that knows me knows I cannot tell a joke. Just can’t do it.
And I rarely think they are funny enough to make me actually laugh. The Most Interesting Man in the World, and Chuck Norris jokes notwithstanding.
But ever since I found the site , I have been laughing every time I go to it.
My favorite so far.
Three blind mice walk into a pub. They are all unaware of their surroundings, so to derive humor from it would be exploitative.
Like I said, no purpose. But it made me laugh on a cold and dreary day.
Peace, Jim
In , I go into a bit of detail about . Some people refer to them as our empathy gene.
In a nutshell, if you watch me prick my finger with a pin, you cringe along with me. Partially because it is a bit gross, 
but not just because of that. To many in the cognitive neuroscience and cognitive psychology fields, those neurons trigger a similar response in the viewer as in the one engaging in the action itself. Simply put, if you watch me prick my finger, your body is aware that it isn’t your finger that was pricked, but only mostly aware. Your body responds as if it were hurt as well, just to a lesser degree.
It’s fascinating.
Want to hear about another unexpected connection our body makes?
In a similar way, the emotional pain of romantic rejection, the “it’s not you it’s me” speech, seems to also trigger a surprising response. Whereas the general thinking has been that romantic rejection most directly would register in the affective centers of the brain (the emotional control centers), that would seem to not be fully the case.
In research out of the University of Michigan (go Big Blue) a team has discovered that the parts of the brain that light up when hot water was poured on a subjects arm also light up when a subject would view an image depicting their social rejection.
I haven’t seen the peer reviews of this study yet, and I know from my past research that studies like this are notoriously difficult to interpret as the human brain is incredibly complex. But what this does show is that emotional pain registers similarly to physical pain. Emotional hurt can trigger similar responses as physical pain. A fascinating demonstration of the connectedness between our emotional and physical worlds!
If only it worked the other way as well… having an orthopedic surgeon set and cast a broken leg is much more expensive than eating a tub of Rocky Road and listening to “I can’t fight this feeling anymore!”
But, broken leg or no, if you are now jonesing for some REO Speedwagon, here you go. As always, you are welcome.
Peace, Jim
Okay, this is just funny. Please note the Leprechaun flute that is shown towards the end.
Because we deserve a shot at that gold too.
Peace, Jim
This is part three of a three part posting on processing when God doesn’t do what we ask him to do. Posts one and two are below.
When we do that, we can start to do what Nouwen describes here.
“Dear God, I am so afraid to open my clenched fists!
Who will I be when I have nothing left to hold on to? Who will I be when I stand before you with empty hands?
Please help me to gradually open my hands and to discover that I am not what I own, but what you want to give me.
And what you want to give me is love, unconditional, everlasting love. Amen.”
— Henri Nouwen (The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life)
Nouwen’s point is that we hold things with an open hand. That we trust God enough to relax and instead of grasping or feeling the need to grasp, we relax. It doesn’t mean we don’t work or that effort isn’t needed. It certainly doesn’t mean we don’t ask for specifics, if anything, this has drawn me into asking for more than I did before. It gets to our heart in the midst of that work and effort.
When we are able to see God’s presence in our everyday lives and experiences, and when we can realize that he is more deeply committed to our good and us than we are ever to his. Then our faith, which is the promise of that which is unseen and that which is hoped for, begins to truly come alive.
So, my friend continues to pray for his job. Yes, he would prefer predictability, but what inspires me is his willingness to hang in there for the ride. To pray, to trust, and to remember that he is not alone in this, and he hasn’t been from the start of it.
So, to me, that is what faith is. It isn’t greater predictability, it isn’t a lack of confusion at times or often. It isn’t ceasing asking for specifics out of frustration or confusion. Faith means asking the Father you are convinced loves you for the things that matter to you, and then trusting him, whatever the response. It means holding everything with an open hand, and relaxing. Often he will respond in ways that make sense to us. But that honestly isn’t the point anymore. What matters more than getting what I want is the confidence that I will get what he thinks is best.
More and more, that is enough.
To me, that is the assurance of things unseen, the promise of things hoped for.
Peace, Jim
I have been aware of the season of Lent for as long as I can remember. As a child I remember people talking about it being the time that you gave up chocolate before Easter. In my mind, you wouldn’t eat it so that when you got all the candy on Easter morning, you wouldn’t gain too much weight.
Over the years I have come to understand the whole deal a bit better. I have come to understand the 40-day period of fasting, prayer, generosity and scripture reading as something that is much more robust than something that keeps us trim. A period that was symbolically set at the 40 days prior to Easter after the period of time that Jesus was in the wilderness fasting and preparing for his earthly ministry to begin. Simply put,and likely overly simply put, we take these days to reflect and consider what Christ did in his life, death and resurecttion. We prepare our hearts for what needs to be the biggest day on a follow of Christ’s calendar, the day he phyically showed that even death wasn’t strong enough to hold him. Even death has been overcome.
But I cannot think of the last time that I felt led by the Lord to give anything up for it. I don’t belong to a denomination or group of churches that mandates engaging in this process. So, while most years I would spend time to prepare for the resurrection of Jesus, I never fully engaged the season. I just never sensed that God would telling me to and so I chose not to.
This year is different. And I cannot fully tell you why. (more…)
