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.

More to it then that.

I love how when we glance at the simple things in life there is always more to it then that. My dad tonight was sitting down in the family room trying to figure out his new toy, a big screen tv. Trying to get all the cables, and HDMI, and Blueray, and blah blah put together without too much headache. But the first struggle is the packaging on the cables, and that little red tool you see on tv does not work so easily. Then you gotta hook em all up in the right place. It gives me a headache thinking about it. In some ways I think people look at being a Christ Follower like that. We advertise ourselves as a simple answer, but we complicate so much of our faith. It gives me headache thinking about systematic theology, high Christology, Nomism, Gnosticisim, blah blah blah. It is important don't get me wrong, but it is not necessary for faith. To me I think faith is the courage to wake up every morning and say I am going to fight for what I believe in my heart. And faith is being certain of what we hope for. Charles Price spoke at my church this weekend and mentioned that faith is only as strong as the object that we put it in. So faith in God can only be strong if God is strong. And He is! That is the exciting part, that God is worth putting our faith in. The gospel is simple, so simple a child could understand. Simplicity in some ways should mark our lives. Obedience to God should make our lives so easy and simple to live. It is often us though that mess it up with our sinful carnal desires. The flesh, that Paul warns us about so much is so dangerous. Our desires to fulfil our most base pleasures is often our weakest point of attack for the evil one. And I am not just talking about lust, I mean money, food, ego, all the things that make us separate ourselves from God. No, Christ never wanted us to complicate things, he made it simple, Love God, Love Man. Once we accept His free gift of grace, life should become simple, Love God, Love Man, there is no more to it than that.