Kat,
Here is another painting I did. Its from Good Friday as I reflected on the end of Lent and approaching Easter. I have a few more uploaded to flicr that I may post over here later.
and yup my IRS stuff is e-filed. woohoo
I apologize for a lack of pictures of hamsters and wheels. Today, I offer you this - a hamster in a jar. It is the best I can do. It may not save the world (in fact it will not) or bring about peace or solve the problems of world hunger or AIDS or poverty or win any awards, but it is indeed a picture of a hamster in a jar.
enjoy
This last week back from the retreat a single question/idea has been bouncing in our campus ministry in various forms and wordings - but it comes back to one core thought - as Leonard Sweet states “How did we get the point but miss the person?” In our old people bible study (read graduates and young professionals) the question came from discussion in Dallas Willard’s Spirit of the Disciplines how/when/why did we begin to focus on the things (in this case good spiritual disciplines), on how to be like Jesus in a certain situation/moment/etc rather than being transformed into Christ likeness so that those moments occur naturally?
When did Christianity become adopting the right belief system rather than the call to folllow, the call to leave all, to die, and to be transformed? When did it get reduced to a 2×2 tract that unfolds or fits neatly in your pocket?
Where did relationship go? Is it because it seems harder? Less concrete? Less modern? Is it because its something you can’t “do” but rather who you are? Is it because its not a categorizeable momentary decision, but a life transformation? A transplant of heart and soul? Is it because as a society we like neat boxes and rules and certainty – and by its very nature relationships are dynamic and risky and unpredictable? Much less entering into relationship with the Almighty Creator God of the World whose primary concern is his glory and not my personal health and wants.
How did we move away from departmentalization to holistic relationship? Then it would also require greater relationships within the body of Christ itself. Maybe these are naïve words from a college minister – who with her own school, grad school, and work has found her in many churches since 1997- who knows what it is like to be able to be a member of a church that didnt require relationship. But what would a true understanding of the relationship that we are called to, strike that invited into with YHWH, look like among our church body and the smaller ministries within that body? How would it form our classes, interactions, speech, and worship? Fully realizing that simply changing the way we do things would not change this into relationship? What would happen if our hearts could get themselves around Colossians 1:15-20 and then the massive statement in 1:27 – the mystery of the gospel – Christ in you, the hope of glory?
Just thoughts that ran through this week and today as I spent time in the batting cages.
and also in the box its friends: A Generous Orthodoxy (McLaren), God’s Politics (Wallis), and Out of the Question … into the Mystery (Sweet). I will be busy reading for awhile!
Ok well maybe not ever. But check out http://maps.google.com and click on satellite. This fine shot is of the campus center where I am now working. Actually the dot is directly across the street. Those funny white buildings near the dot are the campus green houses which I am looking at right now from my window
