In Case I Don't Post Today...

If you can read this and are in the Saskatoon area, my friend Warren Romancia is having a come-and-go party today, Saturday June 10th at Fuddrucker's, starting at 1pm (hopefully- more likely 2pm) until closing, rain or shine! Feel free to come and bring your friends, but please bring your own money. Possibilities for discounts and door prizes as well!

I'll be "staff", wearing glasses and probably looking frazzled, as I'm not quite the social butterfly...pray for me, I know I'll need it! *laughs*

Update: Whew! What a day! I'm glad it's only once a year.

The Higher Level

How do you decide whether to attempt a rescue? Are you allowed to think about your own ambitions, safety and finances, weighing those factors against the value of an endangered human life?

Think of this as the Parable of the Good Samaritan — acted out at 28,000 feet.

[via Get Religion]

Getting the "Dirt" Off

We live in an increasingly liberal world where physical boundaries are tumbling - the Berlin Wall, the Iron Curtain, cheap flight access to the world. What is interesting is that the decrease in these physical boundaries may appear to be matched by an increase in the experience of unspoken dirt boundaries. And the result of this is increased turmoil and unrest within communities.

People know that they need to be inclusive, non-racist, liberal, and that the law defends all of these things... but they feel uneasy, feel ignored and threatened by 'dirt' amongst them. Dirt issues that the tabloids are happy to exploit.

[via The Complex Christ, HT: Jordon Cooper]

Dissatisfaction with Either Alternative

Too often when churches do "engage in culture", the desired result is to use culture to affirm church culture or to make church culture acceptable to the wider culture instead of any real engagement with it.

From my own experience, the very few churches who are actually involved in their local culture and context (not the watered down idea of culture that passes for a Friends episode) are also the ones that value theology, discipleship, and pursue truth with passion. I don't know if it is a pursuit for truth that makes these communities more comfortable with dealing with the issues of culture (rather than the facial features on a lion) or if their engagement with culture leads them to pursue theology and discipleship but I take less offense with them than I do with the pursuit of culture as a way to boost attendance or to appear cool.

[via Jordon Cooper]

On the Altar of Others?

But, I'm beginning to think that I've not wrestled with the implications of relational ethics strongly enough. I'm worried that I've equated relational ethics with keeping everyone happy. And a life lived at the expense of the happiness of others is a costly life. I've begun to feel that I've become the perfect chameleon - I make everyone else so happy so that I can't even distinguish myself anymore.

Relational ethics demand that not only I strive to honour the alterity of the Other, but also that I recognize my own personhood as unique. Of course, in the everyday rough and tumble of life, alterity is an impossible dream, but it is an organizing principle that gives my actions direction. Relational ethics requires that I work to protect my own selfhood as much as respecting the dignity of others.

So, I have work to do. Work to better define who am I, and not be so quick to sacrifice me on the altar of others.

[via khora]

Finding the Good...

I look at life and I find no excitement for the future because of the things I miss from my past. Those time are gone and we are just supposed to look forward in excited anticipation to the future and what it holds. I cannot, however, look forward to future excitements because the pain of letting go of good times far out weighs the good times themselves. Why do we have to be shown what is good only to have to give it up?

[via PhiloBoy, emphasis mine]

Isn't it interesting how family, religion and accomplishment can be used as trump cards yet lose the hand?

Being wild is not equivalent to being chaotic.
Being focused is not equivalent to being tame.

Why do we suppress the truth so often by claiming we have it?

Why bother finding truth when we can't stop going astray?