Rebuilding

[via FutureShorts]



[YouTube link; Vimeo link]

For more about it: The Madman and the Cathedral

Lessons from The Ted Haggard Story

[via kingdom grace]

You are someone's favorite unfolding story

[via Redemption Junkie]

Those Who Stay, Those Who Leave

Great natural disasters, such as hurricanes or tidal waves, strike our world. Where there is warning, a few brave souls usually choose to remain in their homes. The vast majority of the inhabitants flee the coming devastation. After the storm abates, those who are able to do so return home. And at times there is a pattern that emerges between the lines of the news reports that are written for the world to read. Often there is a striking contrast between those who stay and those who leave. The hearts of the survivors are often full of gratitude that they are still alive. The returnees at times see only devastation and feel only anguish. The one who is lashed by the storm is often the one who is grateful.

from Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes: Cultural Studies in the Gospels, by Kenneth E. Bailey, [HT: Radical Womanhood]

In Order To Stand

regardless of the holes, i still believe in Jesus. i still believe in the weird and crazy ways of the Spirit, the unexplainable way God brings hope and peace and freedom to darkness and brokenness and emptiness. the upside-down ways expressed in the sermon on the mount still resonate in deep places in my heart and stir up a desire to live this short life on earth differently. i believe in the power of Jesus’ love and that it gets expressed in many diverse and wonderful ways that cross over our limitations of language and expression and culture. i do still really love the power and conviction and hope scripture sometimes brings.

and when i think of the power of the cross this holy week, it is comforting to me in ways that all of my cynicism about weird religious stuff and church politics can’t take away.

i don’t have new answers to all of the jenga pieces i have taken out over these past few years. it’s not like i just replaced the blocks with new certain, stronger, better ones. i am living in the tension of a lot of holes, a lot of uncertainty about things that somehow don’t seem to matter as much as i thought they did. some blocks i’ve looked at for a while and put back in. they didn’t need to come out all the way. others, i honestly don’t think they are going to be finessed back into place or placed back at the top; they’re pretty much out of the game.

when i reflect on Jesus’ ministry in the gospels i am reminded that he didn’t really have a long list of pieces that i needed to have in my jenga tower in order for it to stand. in fact, he sort of honed in on what was enough to focus on: love God, love people, including ourselves. honestly, for now, that is plenty to play with.

[via the carnival in my head]

More Transcendental Love

In Sickness and In Health

[via Radical Womanhood]

And If It Was The Other Way?

A director who shares the ideas of Iran's hardline president has produced what he says is the first film giving an Islamic view of Jesus Christ, in a bid to show the "common ground" between Muslims and Christians.

Nader Talebzadeh sees his movie, "Jesus, the Spirit of God," as an Islamic answer to Western productions like Mel Gibson's 2004 blockbuster "The Passion of the Christ," which he praised as admirable but quite simply "wrong". {continue...}

[HT: The Wittenburg Door]

Incarnating Peace, Hope and Love

Advent Week III: Peace

Advent Week II: Love

Advent Week I: Hope

[via Levellers]

Redemption Draweth Nigh

Blessed are the empty wombs

[via Randall Friesen]

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Right Here- Right Now

If God was focused on the afterlife/eternity/heaven as his main focus, don't you think there could have been a better way to motivate humanity than by identifying with us. He could select several humans in each generation to visit heaven and then make a documentary for the rest of us. He could give us samples of heaven – little bits of blinding lights and golden bling. He could make so that one of the confirmations of our assurance of heaven after this life was to get some sort of documentation of the fact.

and

Incarnation forces us to deal with this life as if it is important all on its own without the threat of some super existence we could escape to someday.

[via d'caffeinated pickle]

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Feasting On Thanksgiving

[via slacktivist]

'Why have we feasted,' they say,
'and you have not seen it?

 Why have we humbled ourselves,

 and you have not noticed?'

 Yet on the day of your feasting, you do as you please
and exploit all your workers.

Your feasting ends in quarreling and strife,

 and in striking each other with wicked fists.

 You cannot feast as you do today

 and expect your voice to be heard on high. {continued}

"The 'test of faith' card again?"

From Crackle: Mr. Deity and the Meaning - Season 2, Ep 2

[via Mr. Deity]

Distinquished Ladies

There's a subtle implication that Ruth Graham's life was somehow less than the life of the modern-day pastor's wife - a misfortune of being trapped in her husband's shadow. I wonder if the opposite is true: Ruth Graham actually lived an example of pronounced individuality. Today's famous pastor's wives seem to work hard to do the same thing as their husbands. I don't want to diminish the importance of what they do, I'm just questioning whether this actually gives them a singular identity, or simply blurs them into an almost indistinguishable extension of their husband. In today's upside down culture, we often discount the unique achievements of a quiet life, while pursuing celebrity, which ultimately diminishes us with its sameness. Something that can never be said about Ruth Graham.

[via the view from her]

Angry Young Men

[via IdeaJoy]

Cherish Inappropriately, or Honour Inadequately?

There's something very meaningful about the anniversary of Martin Luther King's death falling in Lent. Maybe it's because I've been studying the topic of eucharist as a Meal of Reconciliation, or maybe it's the whole pursuing a cause that you know may end in your death thing, but it just struck me this year as... apt.

I find it difficult to talk about MLK without sounding cheesy. I wrote about Nora[sic] Parks on October 25th, last year, and I'm afraid that I came across like a little star-struck school-kid. I guess it's difficult to speak about something of true meaning without sounding like an unreflective fanatic. And, ironically, that does a real disservice to those people and events that inspire us. It's as tasteless as saying, "Martin Luther King? Yeah, he was cool."

So, that's the difficulty we face: to cherish inappropriately, or honour inadequately? To risk saying too much and being left with empty words, or saying nothing and being left with empty air.

[via Leaving Munster]

Emotional Intimacy and Men: Deconstructing Contemporary Gender Myths

[via Faith Dance]

On that note, here's a humorous illustration...

Renewed Testament

I hate Christmas but I love Christ. I don’t have to like Christmas, but for some reason some people have a real problem with that and I have even had people try to guilt me into liking it. Nice. I guess I would just ask the question, how have you dealt with traumatic or negative events in your life? By celebrating them with cheer and presents, or by observing them, taking time to mourn the loses, the hurts, the pains, the memories that won’t go away, asking God for freedom and the strength to move forward. For me, Christmas is a time when I reflect on the birth of the saviour, and a time when I mourn, and a time when I ask God for renewal. Saying I hate Christmas doesn’t mean I see no hope, ...

[via Jayson Besserer]

Unnecessary Adversaries

Arguments in which both sides launch aggressive offenses and structure fortress-like defenses can be unnecessarily adversarial. I am not suggesting that such arguments have no place, but let’s acknowledge that their value is vastly over-rated

Stories cover the same territory, but they are testimonialsand it is hard to argue with someone’s testimony {read more}

[via Jesus Creed]