i stumbled across this book the other day. actually, i saw it recommended in mclean's so picked it up at the library. it is hilarious! also check out the molvania website.
"Molvania, A LAND UNTOUCHED BY MODERN DENTISTRY is the definitive guide to one of Eastern Europe's most overlooked destinations. Once known only by war historians and Soviet drug runners, this landlocked republic is now finally being discovered by the discerning traveller. And this latest Jetlag guide offers all you need to know about getting there, getting around and safely escaping the forgotten jewel that is Molvania."
go to your public library and check it out now!
what are you waiting for?
do it!
1.31.2005
molvania
1.28.2005
crazy times
it's been a crazy couple of weeks. karen and i are trying our darndest to follow God and are feeling the need to move closer to k-town. so monday we are meeting with a realtor to put our house up for sale. wednesday karen drove her car into a tree, so the past few days were spent recovering and dealing with insurance people. the saga continues. we are praying and thinking about building a new house, or buying, or renting...who knows. and i am feeling the need to rethink how i have been leading our youth ministry.
so many thoughts. so many questions. mmmm.....sleep.
1.18.2005
surprised by joy
a few weeks ago i promised a post on my reflections from reading c.s. lewis' biography, "surprised by joy." here it is.
several things struck me, in varying significance.
1) his definition of joy i found intriguing: "an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction." it made me wonder how often i have tasted something, how often i have caught merely a glimpse of something so grand that i enjoy even the longing for that thing more than any other pleasure. i think i have on occasion. reading "wild at heart" by john eldrege created such a longing in me. occasionally in conversations with people a similar longing has risen. it challenged me to ask myself how often i long after God? rarely, to be honest.
2) the second idea has to do with absolute idealism. consider these lines: "the Absolute...contained the reconciliation of all contraries, the transcendence of all finitude, the hidden glory which was the only perfectly real thing there is." "it is more important that Heaven should exist than that any of us should reach it." "God was to be obeyed simply because he was God. Long since, through the gods of Asgard, and later through the notion of the Absolute, He had taught me how a thing can be revered not for what it can do to us but for what it is in itself... If you ask why we should obey God, in the last resort the answer is , 'I am.' ...God is such that if (per impossibile) his power could vanish and His other attributes remain, so that the supreme right were forever robbed of the supreme might, we should still owe Him precisely the same kind and degree of allegiance as we now do."
for me this idea has stuck in my head. God deserves worship simply because he is. other reasons may drive me to worship, but even if God did nothing for me, he is still worthy of my worship. i do not know how to do this. some call it adoration, giving God praise and worship because he is worthy of it. this is beyond my comprehension at this point. i understand the concept, but i do not know how to do it. it makes my brain all fuzzy to think about it.
3) the third concept is more that of an experience of c.s. lewis' that i am finding myself relating to. once again, his own words: "You must picture me alone in that room at Magdalen, night after night, feeling, whenever my mind lifted even for a second from my work, the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I so earnestly desired not to meet. That which I greatly feared had at last come upon me. In the Trinity Term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that God was God, and knelt and prayed: perhaps, that night, the most dejected and reluctant convert in all England."
for lewis, this marked his conversion from atheism to theism. for me, the past few months have been as near as i have ever come to a living hell. for the first time in my life i wanted to run from church, from the christian faith. i did not want to be a christian. i was not sure that i even wanted to follow God, let alone attempt to lead others to do so. out of this experience i have discovered that i cannot run. i cannot be anything but a christ follower. to do anything less would make me the most miserable man imaginable. i cannot be anything but what i am - a Christ follower and a pastor. it is who i am, and i can be nothing else. i often wish i could, more than ever before in the past few months, but i cannot. to attempt such would pit me against myself in a way that would destroy me. i cannot believe there is no God - it is impossible for me to conceive of. i cannot believe any other religion but that of christianity, even with it's faults and failings. it is the only one that seems true to me.
thus i am left with a choice: misery or discipleship. i choose life.
a question: what is it to love God? at this point in my life, i do not feel love for God. i follow Christ not because of love, but because (as lewis discovered) i can do nothing else. and for now it is enough. God by his grace can use even me: perhaps, this night, the most dejected and reluctant pastor in ontario.
there were a few other thoughts from "surprised by joy" that i enjoyed, but this is all i have to say tonight.
1.12.2005
john wesley on tsunamii (plural of tsunami?)
i received an email from a fellow free methodist pastor over our list-serve with a link to a sermon by john wesley published in the year 1750. the sermon is on the subject of earthquakes, huge waves, and God's judgment. i thought wesley made some interesting points about God's judgment on sinful people. read his sermon here.
what i found most interesting, however, was this response from another fm pastor over the list-serve:
"I was recently reading in R.C. Sproul's THE HOLINESS OF GOD the chapter on"Holy Justice" in which he deals with some of "the most difficult, most offensive passages we can find in the Old Testament..." He deals with Nadab and Abihu, Uzziah, and the slaughter of the Canaanites. His point is that there are no "innocent" people. All are under the judgment of God, and because God extends mercy to us we come to expect it and are amazed and bewildered when we face judgment.
"Sproul refers to Hans Kung, "...the most mysterious aspect of the mystery of sin is not that sinners deserve to die, but rather that the sinner in the average situation continues to exist." p.153. "In fact He (God) is so slow to anger that when His anger does erupt we are shocked and offended by it. We forget rather quickly that God's patience is designed to lead us to repentance, to give us time to be redeemed."
"Sproul has an interesting comment on Luke 13:1-5 re. the Galileans killed by Pilate and the tower of Siloam falling and killing eighteen. Jesus is saying, "You should not be asking were these worst sinners, but rather, Why
didn't the tower fall on my head?" It seems to me the question has real application to us in Jan. '05. We need to be careful how we ask the question, but it is one we need to ponder. Our hearts go out to all those who died in the tragedy yet we are all under the sentence of death because of sin."
hmmmmm... interesting. i agree with the pastor i quoted above, but i am not sure i am comfortable with the notion that wesley had about natural disasters being God's judgment. yet it makes a lot of sense... what do you think? give wesley's sermon a read first, then respond. how do these thoughts fit with our thinking today?
ship of fools
i stumbled across a web site today called ship of fools. it's got some funny crap! you can find it here or follow the link in my links bar.
some other funny (but sad) stuff:
C.S. Lewis: The Devil's Wisest Fool - a page accusing lewis of being a sun worshipper, among other things.
Hypocrites on Parade - a site with videos claiming the pope to be the antichrist and all who support him doomed to hell, as well as some other stuff.
1.07.2005
redemption
karen and i finally bought a new computer. it is a dell, and it is working like a charm. ahh, the bliss. no more will i have to use a laptop that freezes up randomly. no longer will i waste valuable office time posting on my blog. now i can do it all from home! hurrah.
so anyway, perhaps now my postings will take on some semblance of regularity.
that's all i've got for now. my brain isn't ready to do too much thinking at the moment. hey - it's my day off. however, i have been reading "surprised by joy" - c.s. lewis' autobiography - and been enjoying it. i will have a post on that soon. i find his definition of joy both intriguing and disturbing. more on that later.
1.04.2005
computers are from hell
i haven't been having much luck with my computers lately. karen's laptop always freezes up on me - usually in the middle of typing up a post, and the network at the church is down. so i'm hurredly posting this one to say that karen and i ordered a new computer that should hopefully be here friday or early next week, and after that point my posting should have a bit more regularity. until then, adios.
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