Monthly Archive

Smokie Norful
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3t5YhOJ_6PI&NR=1

Gray skies, wispy clouds
   Deep ache, misery without expression
Sorrow, sadness, loss
  Disconsulation, mysterious dark
Angst that is deep and apparently without end
  Pessimism towards hope
Disquiet, restlessness yet paralyzed motion,
  Tears, quiet sobs
 
AND yet in time

A breeze, a shaft of sunlight
  a subtle easing of the pain
A lifting of the dull pallor to life
  An easing of the downward slope of lips and eyebrows

I've been preparing this week to discuss definitions of mercy, justice and social transformation in the course so named. Part of the discussion will circle around music written by social dreamers.

"One" is one of U2's greatest songs and speaks of personal responsbility for engagement.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wq4Jh39KJ8U

I went back further to John Lennon's song "Imagine." Lennon could imagine a better world but he could not imagine this world with a sovereign, loving, just Creator.

"Though He slay me, yet I will hope in Him." Job 13:15

"Let human voices be silent; let human thoughts repose. To things incomprehensible they stretch out, not as if to comprehend them, but only to share in them. And share in them we shall." St. Augustine

"Courage faces fear and thereby masters it. Cowardice represses fear  and is thereby mastered by it." Martin Luther King Jr.

Hope: Challenging the Culture of Despair:

I received a question from someone who had been talking to a believer who along the human responsibility/divine sovereignty continuum was very much to the side of God electing a handful to salvation and electing the rest to "damnation." I was asked essentially how this was fair or how to process this. So here is a rough attempt to express my convicitions.

  1 O LORD, hear my prayer,

       listen to my cry for mercy;
       in your faithfulness and righteousness
       come to my relief.

    2 Do not bring your servant into judgment,
       for no one living is righteous before you.

    3 The enemy pursues me,
       he crushes me to the ground;

I've had two very difficult weeks pain-wise and experienced the deep disappointment of having to cancel my involvement in a pastoral leaders' conference in Christchurch a few weeks from now. There have been a number of big losses in my life over the past 9 weeks of this illness--trip to the U.S., teaching at Temple Unviersity in their executive MBA, loss of physical capabilities and debilitating pain, withdrawal from my primary work responsibilities and so forth. I am grieving many of these things right now and seeking to get to a better place physically.

Forgiveness

My research area academically is forgiveness. I am exploring a theory about forgiveness. the premises are as follows:

1. To forgive completely one must understand the full extent of the offense, the person's intent, the wounds/injuries his or her actions have inflicted and then the systemic effect of the sin on others impacted by one's life.

I grew up in a home, churches and universities that prized working hard--maximizing potential. This ethic is a good one. I value this value instilled in me by my parents and others in my life. At the same time, this is one that I have taken to an extreme for most of my life. Often doing the work of two people and working for organizations that valued this. But as I look back I realize that though at times Naomi, my kids, friends even leaders would caution me about setting boundaries to guard my physical and emotional health.