I got this email from a friend of mine named Makinto, and I believe he got it from an email list he is a part of. Anyway... It was a good reminder for me.
Small Straws In A Soft Wind by Marsha Burns --
October 17, 2008:
Make a concerted effort to turn your focus from politics,
economy and world events to seek My face, says the
Lord. All of these concerns will steal your joy and
peace. Do you not know that I alone am in charge of
your world? And, I will bring to pass everything that is
necessary to establish My kingdom in the earth. My
government and authority are above all that you can
conceive of in the natural realm. So, I say, shift your
focus upward and trust that My order is being
established.
Isaiah 55:9 "For as the heavens are higher than the
earth, so are My ways higher than your ways, and My
thoughts than your thoughts."
And reading this also made me think of 1 Corinthians 2:6-13 -
"Yet among the mature we do speak wisdom, though it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to perish. But we speak God's wisdom, secret and hidden, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written,
'What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,
nor the human heart conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him - '
these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit; for the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. For what human being knows what is truly human except the human spirit that is within? So also no one comprehends what is truly God's except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit that is from God, so that we may understand the gifts bestowed on us by God. And we speak of these things in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual things to those who are spiritual."
Friday, October 17, 2008
Friday, August 29, 2008
Opposites Attract
I wish I was less interested in politics than I am, but I must admit I have been following the presidential race. Though I remain thoroughly confused on what the nuances of the candidates policies will mean in actual terms, what fascinates me the most is the process of campaigning and candidacy (my indebtedness to Jon Stewart on this point should be obvious).
The latest aspect of campaigning that fascinates me is the way opposites attract. I find it interesting that Barak Obama, the charismatic, young, black, candidate of change chooses Joe Biden, the seasoned, experienced, establishment white guy as his running mate. Similarly, John McCain, the verterain, old, fringe republican chooses Sarah Palin, a young, attractive, female who has creater appeal to the conservative Christian base of the party as his running mate.
Sadly, this again proves to me that campagns and elections are not about policy, effective leadership, and moral legislation, but about perception and spin. God Bless America, indeed!
The latest aspect of campaigning that fascinates me is the way opposites attract. I find it interesting that Barak Obama, the charismatic, young, black, candidate of change chooses Joe Biden, the seasoned, experienced, establishment white guy as his running mate. Similarly, John McCain, the verterain, old, fringe republican chooses Sarah Palin, a young, attractive, female who has creater appeal to the conservative Christian base of the party as his running mate.
Sadly, this again proves to me that campagns and elections are not about policy, effective leadership, and moral legislation, but about perception and spin. God Bless America, indeed!
Monday, July 14, 2008
Monday, June 23, 2008
Timebomb
I had seen this photo series by Chris Jordan a while back. It's an excellent visual depiction of unsustainable consumption habits in America today. Only recently did I stumble upon Beck's new video below. I like the taunting lyrics Beck uses in the song.
Friday, June 13, 2008
Nosotros somos estudiando espanol
My wife and I are learning Spanish. We've just started so I hope my title is grammatically correct.
Although it's already half-way to next Christmas, we still had a few hundred dollars of Christmas money lying around that we just couldn't figure out how to spend. We're trying to reduce the clutter in our lives as well as in our quickly-becoming-overcrowded one bedroom apartment, so we didn't want to buy any meaningless crap. And we also didn't want to just put the money toward our general living expenses. After all, we work to pay the bills. We wanted to enjoy our Christmas money and use it for something we wouldn't ordinarily buy or do.
We decided to buy Rosetta Stone. It's a great product, though a hefty investment. We didn't buy it just on a whim, so since I've been a real slacker in the blog department, I decided to share why we finally made the choice to purchase this product. I've created a top 10 because everyone knows that anything that's important requires a top 10 list ;) Some if not most of the items on the list were actually forethoughts that Emiley and I had before purchasing the product. Others were discoveries after getting into the program. I think it will be pretty clear which is which.
1) Spanish is just a fun language to learn. Both Emiley and I took some Spanish in high school and college - though she advanced much farther that I. We came to truly enjoyed the language and the various Latino cultures.
2) As a result, we both have a desire to travel throughout Central and South America. I'd love to see Machu Picchu, The Andes Mts., and cities like Santiago, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and Havana (though that might be a bit tricky to get to). Plus, when I was in high school we hosted an exchange student from Bogota - it would be cool to go see him on his home turf.
3) Emiley's works in social work and I'm preparing for ministry. Even a basic grasp of Spanish let along fluency is a huge asset.
4) The social landscape in the United States is changing. Latinos are quickly becoming the largest minority group and will achieve that status in the next few years if trends continue. The Southwest in general and LA in particular have always been centers for Hispanic culture. In fact, LA is the 2nd largest Mexican city outside of Mexico City. It's the second largest El Salvadorian city outside of San Salvador. And the list goes on. The Spanish language and Hispanic culture have been, are, and will always be major influences in the United States. It's about time Emiley and I catch up to that reality.
5) Kingdom Citizenship - I believe that as Christians our primary allegiance is to God's Kingdom over against any nation, people group, or culture. And God's Kingdom is a Kingdom that knows no human distinction. Therefore, my loyalties and values are shaped (hopefully) by the values of God's Kingdom rather than human values. As such, I've come to believe that followers of Christ are to show hospitality, mercy, and respect to the foreigner, alien, and sojourner. Now where did I get a crazy idea like that?
With this orientation, I have a view on immigration that some may call amnesty, soft, a disregard for law and order, even (gasp!) Liberal! Whatever. I'm not trying to pick a fight or provoke people, I'm just stating that, as a Christian, I support policy that is on the side of showing hospitality and justice and respect to immigrants. BUT - I've come to the conclusion that holding a particular ideology or agreeing with a particular policy is pretty superficial if it demands nothing of myself. So perhaps if I learn Spanish I will be able to hold my views with more integrity. And perhaps if I learn Spanish I can actually be an agent through which hospitality is shown directly to the alien among us. Perhaps learning Spanish will open up doors through which I can show love toward my Latino brothers, sisters, neighbors, and fellow citizens. Perhaps learning Spanish will open up Christian mission and service opportunities I otherwise wouldn't be able to participate in.
6) Hey now.... wait a minute!! Why is it always the privileged white guy who is in mission toward and shows charity to the poor Hispanic immigrant? Why should I be so arrogant to assume that I actually have something worthwhile to offer them? Well... I shouldn't.
An Anabaptist professor of mine at Fuller Seminary whom I've grown to deeply respect is of Hispanic heritage. Though his family is from a small town in Texas, he's spent much time ministering in Central America, and is well connected to various Latino churches. He argues that God may be is using Latino immigration into the United States as a way to reinvigorate the American church.
It's a provocative statement, but I see a lot of truth in it. The church is dying in the West. In the United States, it's being chocked to death by consumerism, national idolatry, unhealthy sexual behavior, and socio-economic disparities. Despite being economically marginalized, the church in the Global South - Latin America, Africa, and Asia - is experiencing rapid growth and is transforming communities and whole countries. So whatever they got down there, we could use some of that up here.
Learning Spanish is not just so I can be altruistic out of my abundance. Rather, learning Spanish may enable me to receive a gift I might not other wise have access to. I would truly welcome this. Perhaps it would even open doors for me to attend Semilla or CASAS as part of my degree at Fuller (though I may be getting ahead of myself. There's no way I'll be fluent enough by the time I've completed my program. But it's a cool idea).
7) Rosetta Stone's method for learning a language is very interesting. It's based entirely on listening and image association - like how we all learned our first language. You don't learn translation, you don't memorize grammar rules. In other words, it's not logical, left-brain learning. It's intuitive and incorporates your senses. It gets you out of your rational thinking. For a seminarian like me, this is a good thing. It puts me in touch with another side of myself and another side of how people think that is neglected in the typical western learning environment.
8) Related to number 7, this can lead to greater health. I don't know why, but 3 things that always suck me in on the TV are fishing shows, fundamentalist preachers, and new age gurus. A few weeks ago I got sucked into watching this new age guru who was talking about ways to stay young. One of the things he said was to always keep learning, and to learn things you never have before. This stimulates the brain and keeps you sharp. He was also arguing that this can prevent certain diseases and help you live longer. Well, I don't care so much about all that, and I definitely don't buy into the tendency and vanity of US culture to resist and deny aging. But I can appreciate the fact that keeping your mind stimulating has positive effects for ones life. Like any muscle, if you don't use it, it will experience atrophy. It makes sense that the brain is the same way. So, I consider learning Spanish a form of exercise.
9) Related to #8 is the issue of TV. In January or February (or whenever the date is) the analogue TV signal will be no more and everything is going digital. Emiley and I are not ones to waste money on cable, and we're also resistant to even spend the $30-$40 to get the special digital converter for the antenna. Plus, I feel a little rebellious to not conform to this forced technology change. Is that the anarchist or the Amish in me? Anyway... come the new year we won't get any channels which means we'll have more free time. Thus, we're trying to find creative, constructive ways to fill that void. Learning a language seems like a worthy void-filler.
We'll see if we actually follow through with not getting the digital converter. We may flake out. Plus, since half the stations we get are Spanish-language stations, watching tele novela, fotbol, and Que Dice la Gente provides more opportunities to practice and utilize the language. So we'll see.
10) Rosetta Stone is a product created by Mennonite entrepreneurs in Harrsionburg, VA. Harrisonburg also happens to be the town where Emiley and I went to college at Eastern Mennonite University.
Being that we flow in Mennonite circles, and being that the Mennonite realm can be pretty small at times, there was an unexpected added bonus to using Rosetta Stone. Since the program uses image association to teach the language, they use tons of pictures with every conceivable gesture and action in order to teach the language. So far, we've come across several people we know in the pictures. It makes me laugh every time.
Although it's already half-way to next Christmas, we still had a few hundred dollars of Christmas money lying around that we just couldn't figure out how to spend. We're trying to reduce the clutter in our lives as well as in our quickly-becoming-overcrowded one bedroom apartment, so we didn't want to buy any meaningless crap. And we also didn't want to just put the money toward our general living expenses. After all, we work to pay the bills. We wanted to enjoy our Christmas money and use it for something we wouldn't ordinarily buy or do.
We decided to buy Rosetta Stone. It's a great product, though a hefty investment. We didn't buy it just on a whim, so since I've been a real slacker in the blog department, I decided to share why we finally made the choice to purchase this product. I've created a top 10 because everyone knows that anything that's important requires a top 10 list ;) Some if not most of the items on the list were actually forethoughts that Emiley and I had before purchasing the product. Others were discoveries after getting into the program. I think it will be pretty clear which is which.
1) Spanish is just a fun language to learn. Both Emiley and I took some Spanish in high school and college - though she advanced much farther that I. We came to truly enjoyed the language and the various Latino cultures.
2) As a result, we both have a desire to travel throughout Central and South America. I'd love to see Machu Picchu, The Andes Mts., and cities like Santiago, Buenos Aires, Mexico City, and Havana (though that might be a bit tricky to get to). Plus, when I was in high school we hosted an exchange student from Bogota - it would be cool to go see him on his home turf.
3) Emiley's works in social work and I'm preparing for ministry. Even a basic grasp of Spanish let along fluency is a huge asset.
4) The social landscape in the United States is changing. Latinos are quickly becoming the largest minority group and will achieve that status in the next few years if trends continue. The Southwest in general and LA in particular have always been centers for Hispanic culture. In fact, LA is the 2nd largest Mexican city outside of Mexico City. It's the second largest El Salvadorian city outside of San Salvador. And the list goes on. The Spanish language and Hispanic culture have been, are, and will always be major influences in the United States. It's about time Emiley and I catch up to that reality.
5) Kingdom Citizenship - I believe that as Christians our primary allegiance is to God's Kingdom over against any nation, people group, or culture. And God's Kingdom is a Kingdom that knows no human distinction. Therefore, my loyalties and values are shaped (hopefully) by the values of God's Kingdom rather than human values. As such, I've come to believe that followers of Christ are to show hospitality, mercy, and respect to the foreigner, alien, and sojourner. Now where did I get a crazy idea like that?
With this orientation, I have a view on immigration that some may call amnesty, soft, a disregard for law and order, even (gasp!) Liberal! Whatever. I'm not trying to pick a fight or provoke people, I'm just stating that, as a Christian, I support policy that is on the side of showing hospitality and justice and respect to immigrants. BUT - I've come to the conclusion that holding a particular ideology or agreeing with a particular policy is pretty superficial if it demands nothing of myself. So perhaps if I learn Spanish I will be able to hold my views with more integrity. And perhaps if I learn Spanish I can actually be an agent through which hospitality is shown directly to the alien among us. Perhaps learning Spanish will open up doors through which I can show love toward my Latino brothers, sisters, neighbors, and fellow citizens. Perhaps learning Spanish will open up Christian mission and service opportunities I otherwise wouldn't be able to participate in.
6) Hey now.... wait a minute!! Why is it always the privileged white guy who is in mission toward and shows charity to the poor Hispanic immigrant? Why should I be so arrogant to assume that I actually have something worthwhile to offer them? Well... I shouldn't.
An Anabaptist professor of mine at Fuller Seminary whom I've grown to deeply respect is of Hispanic heritage. Though his family is from a small town in Texas, he's spent much time ministering in Central America, and is well connected to various Latino churches. He argues that God may be is using Latino immigration into the United States as a way to reinvigorate the American church.
It's a provocative statement, but I see a lot of truth in it. The church is dying in the West. In the United States, it's being chocked to death by consumerism, national idolatry, unhealthy sexual behavior, and socio-economic disparities. Despite being economically marginalized, the church in the Global South - Latin America, Africa, and Asia - is experiencing rapid growth and is transforming communities and whole countries. So whatever they got down there, we could use some of that up here.
Learning Spanish is not just so I can be altruistic out of my abundance. Rather, learning Spanish may enable me to receive a gift I might not other wise have access to. I would truly welcome this. Perhaps it would even open doors for me to attend Semilla or CASAS as part of my degree at Fuller (though I may be getting ahead of myself. There's no way I'll be fluent enough by the time I've completed my program. But it's a cool idea).
7) Rosetta Stone's method for learning a language is very interesting. It's based entirely on listening and image association - like how we all learned our first language. You don't learn translation, you don't memorize grammar rules. In other words, it's not logical, left-brain learning. It's intuitive and incorporates your senses. It gets you out of your rational thinking. For a seminarian like me, this is a good thing. It puts me in touch with another side of myself and another side of how people think that is neglected in the typical western learning environment.
8) Related to number 7, this can lead to greater health. I don't know why, but 3 things that always suck me in on the TV are fishing shows, fundamentalist preachers, and new age gurus. A few weeks ago I got sucked into watching this new age guru who was talking about ways to stay young. One of the things he said was to always keep learning, and to learn things you never have before. This stimulates the brain and keeps you sharp. He was also arguing that this can prevent certain diseases and help you live longer. Well, I don't care so much about all that, and I definitely don't buy into the tendency and vanity of US culture to resist and deny aging. But I can appreciate the fact that keeping your mind stimulating has positive effects for ones life. Like any muscle, if you don't use it, it will experience atrophy. It makes sense that the brain is the same way. So, I consider learning Spanish a form of exercise.
9) Related to #8 is the issue of TV. In January or February (or whenever the date is) the analogue TV signal will be no more and everything is going digital. Emiley and I are not ones to waste money on cable, and we're also resistant to even spend the $30-$40 to get the special digital converter for the antenna. Plus, I feel a little rebellious to not conform to this forced technology change. Is that the anarchist or the Amish in me? Anyway... come the new year we won't get any channels which means we'll have more free time. Thus, we're trying to find creative, constructive ways to fill that void. Learning a language seems like a worthy void-filler.
We'll see if we actually follow through with not getting the digital converter. We may flake out. Plus, since half the stations we get are Spanish-language stations, watching tele novela, fotbol, and Que Dice la Gente provides more opportunities to practice and utilize the language. So we'll see.
10) Rosetta Stone is a product created by Mennonite entrepreneurs in Harrsionburg, VA. Harrisonburg also happens to be the town where Emiley and I went to college at Eastern Mennonite University.
Being that we flow in Mennonite circles, and being that the Mennonite realm can be pretty small at times, there was an unexpected added bonus to using Rosetta Stone. Since the program uses image association to teach the language, they use tons of pictures with every conceivable gesture and action in order to teach the language. So far, we've come across several people we know in the pictures. It makes me laugh every time.
NPR.org - Tim Russert, NBC Stalwart, Dies of Heart Attack : NPR
Tim Russert, NBC Stalwart, Dies of Heart Attack : NPR
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91488979&sc=emaf
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91488979&sc=emaf
I havent blogged in 3 months, but this news was a big surprise. I was also a bit saddened by it as I always respected and appreciated Russerts presence in the US political scene.
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Thursday, March 13, 2008
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