Sep
16
2004
jen and noah
This is Noah (our campus minister’s middle son) and me at dinner tonight. The kids were playing with my camera.
Sep
15
2004
tired (and look i wrote 2 whole pages!)
Today has been an extremely long day. productive. good conversations. challenging questions and thoughts at bible study. long.
Since the last elder’s meeting last night, I have a handful of conversations/notes from people back in Abilene. Currently I feel as if I am in limbo between two places as I struggle to find a niche of my own outside of the college ministry here. It is more challenging than I expected. I will not begin working toward an MDiv at Harding. I am currently auditing an internet course from ACU, but will not be doing coursework from Harding. I am not sure if the MDiv is the next step for me, and if it is if I want to work on it at a C/C school.
A small little book is challenging me once again. I am rereading “The Smell of Sin - and the Fresh Air of Grace” but Don Everett (works with InterVarsity). I purchased it again on Friday (someone who will remain nameless in Abilene “kept” my copy). I am working on being more disciplined when I read - I have a small notebook for each book that I am reading and I write the things that I underline or note in the book itself in the notebook. I have a tendency to read books quickly and as a result don’t always look at the magnitude of what it said or challenged. This is one of those books that I have not previously fully read and chewed on what the author is saying. While the book looks at sin, the author makes the point form the beginning that Jesus and the gospels focus was never AVOID SIN (yes it was addressed) but over and over they proclaimed EMBRACE LIFE. The books looks at the graphic examples Jesus used to describe sin and the lies that we often believe instead. When we talked about it tonight in our women’s study (it still makes me laugh when I heard students talk/teach on things that the two of us have worked on at an earlier point) I was able to see the shock on people’s faces when they truly compared two examples.
Here is a brief snippet (this is what you get at 2:30 when I have been going all day) which originated from the aforementioned book. One way in which we traditionally view sin is in the classroom. In elementary schools, the teacher often laminated “the rules” on a sheet of poster board and hangs it on the wall for all to see - a list. There are consequences for breaking the rules - and you will be caught. Over time you see others break the rules and there is no apparent punishment (however anytime the teacher is not at her desk - there is a chance that she is walking around the room - just out of sight). Attitudes shift - from excitement on the first day to resentment towards the rules which were given to us. We too, after looking around (and thinking how arbitrary the rules seem - and knowing they were set long before we were a part of this class, and knowing that at any time at the teacher’s whim they could change) - we begin to bend and break the rules. I am personally very comfortable with a view of sin like this (I didn’t say it was biblical, but it works well for my human condition).
There are several problems with this - specifically its not at all what Jesus said. It negates the role of family for a teacher who is waiting to smite anyone who breaks the rules. Rather looking at this family relationship comes the example of a child coming downstairs to a feast of a breakfast, which they enjoy among the company of their family - then at the end of their he/she walks up to their mother and spits directly in her face. Her hands go to her face to cover her tears as she begins to weep as one who has been hurt deeply. The question is no longer what can/can’t I do - but why would I do this? What does this do to/for the relationship I am in? Please do NOT queue the “Does he still feel the nails” song - this is not a rant on how we should feel when we realize what our sin does to relationship (so this is not the exact example given by Jesus, but the similarities are evident with the son who asks his father for his inheritance and leaves).
This is causing me to question many things - among them what I am choosing between when I choose to sin? A fellow student of mine recently posted on the “worst sin” - I am being challenged to look past the action and to see what I am really choosing between? What if one of the many ways we are deceived is in what we are choosing between? How is my attitude, life, and relationship affected with these different views of sin? By viewing sin as listical am I choosing death rather than embracing life?
I have also been challenged to look at the specific images Jesus used when talking about sinning and hold them up to how I really feel about sin (he is much more convicted than I am). One of the things Don mentions is we often say “Jesus didn’t mean to say that” and then water down what was said (Yes I believe that not everything is to be taken literal - but that doesn’t remove the severity - yet we often seem to). Drastic measures such as cutting off limbs or being drowned are not appealing to me and I am soberly realizing that I have bought into a poor theology of what it means to sin and what it means to embrace life - and that I have underestimated both.
So as I ramble and am in a period of incongruence - I am being called to reevaluate many things - and to guide others as they enter this same awkwardness. If you haven’t ever read this book, I highly recommend it (you might even be able to snag my copy that some still unmentioned person has in the big A).
Here are 4 happy links (but you have to cut and paste because I am not going to take the time to fix them tonight) for you
For my Mac friends - check this out for your iTunes. It makes mine happy!
http://www.yousoftware.com/itunes/
What more can you say besides 30 sec major motion films and bunnies
http://www.angryaliens.com
Where have you been if you have not seen this. And are you really my friend? Amanda is! Season 2 is here.
http://www.makingfiends.com
Check out this little HR Gem
http://www.homestarrunner.com/answer11.html
Sep
11
2004
Three Years Ago
It was a Tuesday and I was driving to class. For some reason I was early (my TTh classes started about 45 later than my MWF classes) - on the way to school when I realized I was early, I decided to work on some things at CA (our campus ministry campus center) and watch some TV. I remember hearing about the first plane on the radio. I remember hearing and not completely understanding - the magnitude of what was being said hadn’t sunk in for anyone yet. I got to CA and turned on the TV - not too much later I was joined by my friend Keith (who was soon leaving to join the Air Force) and as we were watching, the second plane flew into the other tower. I remember going to my class and it being briefly mentioned by my professor (we were still unsure of what exactly was happening - it was only 9:30) - so I sat through our Animal Behavior Class with all of my classmates. I rememebr heading back to CA for lunch and meeting with a student whose father was a pilot and they couldn’t reach them. I remember many trying to contact friends and family but got no answers. I remember that worship for the next evening was on songs of lament - there would be no formal service the next day and like many other places of worship we gathered as a church and neighborhood community to pray and weep. I can remember the next week when we talked about psalms of lament - when the words of Psalm 137 seem like familiar words and the television coverage of others in foreign countries cheering at the news of the attacks cut deep. I also remember the call for us to remember the radical prayer of Jesus “to forgive them for they do not know ”
Psalm 137
An Experience of the Captivity.
1 By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.
2 Upon the willows in the midst of it we hung our harps.
3 For there our captors demanded of us songs, and our tormentors mirth, saying, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”
4 How can we sing the LORD’S song in a foreign land?
5 If I forget you, O Jerusalem,may my right hand forget her skill.
6 May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not exalt Jerusalem above my chief joy.
7 Remember, O LORD, against the sons of Edom the day of Jerusalem, who said, “Raze it, raze it to its very foundation.”
8 O daughter of Babylon, you devastated one, How blessed will be the one who repays you with the recompense with which you have repaid us.
9 How blessed will be the one who seizes and dashes your little ones against the rock
