They Thought They Were Right

I have been out of school for 2 years now, so my educational life has come to a stand still, at least as far as the classroom is concerned. I am a working man, I have a wonderful job, and finally am doing something that makes me happy. So there are times when I sit around and think, man I have done well, and must be at some superior level of education and knowledge, however, this isn't true. I believe the age old adage that "the more you learn the less you know" is now more true than ever.
Let me explain by starting over. When in school you are forced to read a lot of books that you might not otherwise have read. Sometimes the books in school are pleasant surprises, but for the most part they are dry and academic, and it makes it hard to pick up a book for enjoyment. So now that I am out of school I will pick up books and listen to audio books for pleasure, and to my chagrin, my own personal education. I get recommended books all the time to read and so I try to plow through them as best I can. Right now I have at least 4 books on the go, and I times I can have up to 8. All told this year I have read or listened to somewhere in the neighbourhood of a 16 books, not huge, but not nothing. All this is to say I am no more smart than when I started. I may have acquired some knowledge, in fact I know I have, but I still don't feel I am more learned now than I was before.
Many times in my life I have encountered people who thought they were the be all and end all of worldly knowledge and wisdom. (At times this person was even myself.) And what I have come to realize is that it is one of the worst sins to think like that. God never intended for us to find all the answers, but neither did he intend for us to stop trying. That is why I think human achievements are amazing and something to be marveled at, but not because we did those things, but because we tapped into the creativity God gave us to do those things. I wish I could look through history and show you that the people who thought they had the answers were stricken of this notion, however often times when someone seems so sure of something others will blindly follow, enabling the oft wrong thoughts. People who blindly follow anything should really step back and examine themselves and ask what it is they have devoted themselves too. I don't think God expects us to blindly follow him, that's why he has been revealed to each of us. The greatest testament to this is the people who follow Christ in spirit and in truth.
There is something so powerful about a person who actually follows Christ with their whole life, and it is something that I am really trying to explore in myself. What does it actually mean to follow this first century Jew who managed to actually change the world. This guy said and did some things that when you really get into it, were so far out there, so beyond comprehension that I am surprised he made to the age of 33. He made some bold claims, perhaps his boldest in my mind was "I am the way, the truth and the life..." I can't even imagine what people thought when they heard this. It sends chills down my spine just thinking about it. And to really dissect it would take pages, but let me focus on "the truth" part of it. He claimed to not only have the answers, but be the answers. Think about that. Would you blindly follow that? I hope not, I hope you would read about him, and learn what else he said and did. Find out if he lived that way, or was it a lie.
Too often we say that you just need to follow Christ, believe in your heart, and have faith. But do we ever tell people who Jesus was and is? Of course you need to believe in your heart, but you also need to believe in your mind, ask yourself "does this make sense?" I would love to see everyone come to see this God man Jesus in this way, where he isn't just words on a page, but is answers to questions, is a living breathing human being that said some of the most powerful sentences ever constructed that we take for granted. Ask yourself, do I know Jesus?
I think it's funny that we call him Jesus Christ, as if Christ is his last name. It was a title, Christos from the Greek, or the Hebrew Messiah (don't know the Hebrew true spelling, sorry.) This meant anointed one, or one with a blessing from above. It comes from the Hebrew tradition of appointing their king by anointing his head with oil. The idea is that it is a blessing from above. So think about it like this, Jesus the blessed one of God, or Jesus king with authority from heaven. This guy has been attributed the power from God to save his people. His words then have been regarded as holy truth, and rightly so, but I think because of that we gloss over them and don't actually realize what he was saying. What kind of king says the things he said, read it for yourself. I challenge you, and myself for that matter, to read his words, and if you trust them to actually live them out.

Merry Easter?

I think Easter needs a saying. Christmas has a bajillion greetings, Happy Holidays, Season's Tidings, Merry Christmas, the list goes on. Easter, however does not have, or to the best of my knowledge that greeting. One thing it does have I guess within the Christian circle is the traditional "He is risen" "He is risen indeed" call and response. And don't get me wrong, that is awesome, but I think we can do better. This is my challenge to myself, and my reading public to come up with an appropriate Easter greeting. I don't like Happy Easter, and I think that there must be better words to express the weight of this holiday. To me it is more important than Christmas. So again, I am putting it out there, let's come up with something far more classy and worthy of the day. Maybe it could be like, "Happy Resurrecton celebration." Well ok that was lame, but you get the idea. The sacrifice of Christ is a lot more important and special and it shouldn't be just a cliche kind of day. Does anyone know why they call it Good Friday anymore? I do, but I am not going to get into that rant now. Anyways it should not just be about chocolate and bunnies. What can we add or take away from this holiday to make it slghtly better and more meaningful? And maybe I am being stupid, maybe for Christians it doesn't matter, maybe we already understand. Maybe I am just complaning for the sake of complaining. Whatever it doesn't matter, I just want a better slogan.

Sacred Sadness?

Something that I have been learning lately has a lot to do with emotions. I think while I was in India, and as well as now that I am back God has been teaching me what it means to have human emotion. I know that sounds like a robotic statement, so for the record I do have emotions. What I am saying though, is that I think that we as humans forget that we have a full range of emotions. Sometimes as Christians we think that we should be happy all the time, and that so-called joy needs to exude from us at every moment. But I want to begin here with that word JOY. I have a good friend with the middle name joy, and we got into a good discussion about what that word actually means. Joy, or what we as Christians use the word for comes from the Greek word Chara, (χαρά) say it like you have a hairball stuck in your throat. The true definition of that word is calm delight. I will say it again for emphasis, calm delight. It is not happy go lucky, but rather calm and delighting in God for what he has done for you. Joy, in my opinion can be happy, but happy isn't joy. Happiness comes from external things and is temporary, for example I got a cheque from the government so I am happy. Joy comes from God and is internal and eternal, for example God has given me good parents, therefore I rejoice in that. By the way to rejoice is to take joy in. So when we have joy we are calmly delighting in the Lord, in our full range of human emotions.
Now onto those pesky emotions. God, showed it best, he showed us the full range of emotions, anger, sadness, happiness, jealousy etc... Now I heard someone say, jealousy? Yes even jealousy, like a good father who has lost his daughter to a horrible man, he jealously wants her back. Anger, in a righteous and calm way is right. Happiness, in a calm way is right. It is not about the emotion that you have, but how you react when the emotion rears its head. Anger is not wrong, when it is directed at injustice, in fact I think it is one of the most necessary human emotions. For example when I went to India I said to someone, "If being here doesn't make you angry about human suffering, I don't know what will." Anger can often drive us to do great things. And when you do get angry and people see you react with no hostility, but rather a calm delight, I think that is a great testimony. God never intended us to hide our emotions behind a wall. He never had to teach us how to be happy, or how to laugh, those things come to us easily. He did need to show us how to get angry, and how to cry.

So it snowed.

So it snowed. I have decided I hate snow. I am not a very good Canadian, mostly because I can't skate well, and am not terribly fond of the white stuff. It got me to thinking though, I love it in India where it is exceptionally hot all year round. Even there winters, if you can call them that, are not too cold. A winter jacket is an unheard of device. I would like to say I am going to move out of here and never experience the joy of shovelling the drive way, but I know it may still be a year or two yet before I can make that guarantee. What it did make me think though, is that I think God can using something like snow in April to remind me that I have a desire to get out and see the world, or just India. I like it when the most inane thing makes you stop and go huh. But huh in the isn't that curious kind of way, not the I didn't understand that kind of way. God can use the most curious things to make us think about our life, and our mission. I guess it is hard to tell other people to find there snow, there silly little thing, but what I would say is pay attention. Romans tells us that creation screams out God's name. It is all about paying attention to the world around you. You can't be like a horse with blinders on, I say open up your eyes and appreciate what is going on around you. You never know what you will see and what it will remind you of.

An excuse, not a reason

So, ummm ya I decided to start writing blogs again, for what reason I am not sure. I made a promise to a friend, you know who you are, and so I need to fulfil that duty. But maybe the question should be, why did I stop. I think I have an adequate excuse. I am too happy. There it is, I said it. I have found that I write best when I am depressed. I had a friend in a band once tell me he wrote all his best songs when he was depressed about girls. I am beginning to believe that is true. For some reason, when I am down in the dumps, and what my friends call Mr. Melancholy, I seem to write more better. See when I am happy I use poor grammar like more better, it just isn't right. However, I think when I am happy, or at least in a better state of mind I am just not focused on the poetic words of my down state of mind, I am not striving for the meaning to my sadness. So now that I am in what I would consider a better state off mind, I need to actually think about things I want to write about. I actually have to work at arriving at some topic and think about reasons and logic and form an opinion and blah blah blah. It really takes some of the fun out of it. I do love writing though, and I am glad to have a venue to do it. I think though that due to the busy-ness of life that it won't be an everyday event, rather something I do when inspired by God, or life, and I know that the world must hear this urgent news of mine. So have no fear, I am here to share.

Fresh Aesthetics

Passion

I was thinking of Passion today, and what I am passionate about. I was watching Darfur Now, a phenomenal movie about the war in Darfur. Whether it is a genocide or not is a moot point, but what is important is the passion that people have to see change. In the movie they talk about an American guy who took a social class in his college about Rwanda and it opened his eyes to the suffering of people and he discovered the pain of the people in Darfur. He took action and the culmination of that was that he got a law put into effect that would divest California from Darfur, so that America was taking a step toward stopping the atrocities there. For him this was and is his passion. I looked up to etymology of the word passion and I was not surprised to find it comes from Christ and His work on the cross. Apparently His suffering is what brought that word into origin. Passion is a word fraught with suffering for something you believe in so much you are willing to die for it. I think as a Christ follower I need to be that passionate about the gospel. But what else? What else causes me to make my spirit stir within? Like when Paul saw the idols in Athens in Acts 17. For me there are a few things, the plight of youth at home and abroad, and my work in India. They both cause me to believe that is what I am passionate about. Youth can be marginalized sometimes so much that they get overlooked. But in Africa youth are forced to arms to fight for something they don't believe in. In India the young women are forced into prostitution or marriage in order to lose a financial burden. The boys are forced to work from a young age and get married so they are out of their parents house. In China young women are cast aside for men who are seen as stronger and more capable. Here in Canada, youth are seen as irresponsible and disrespectful and are given no respect. These things cause my spirit to stir, the question is, how to change it? I am not sure entirely. This is a blog of questions, not answers.