Slick Sledding on the South Side....

Yesterday Jenni and I decided to go sledding. So, I of course, set out to find the best sledding hill in all of southwest Kansas. My goal was to make concentric circles in ever widening paths outward from the epicenter of Garden City (my house) until we found the perfect hill. After about 20-30 minutes of driving in cirlces I decided to go out to the country. We drove around a bit, but thought better of sledding down a hill into a yuka plant. I finally decided we would check out the sand pits. We found the perfect spot. It was a dug out area that was nearly 60ft. deep and had one perfect run from top to bottom. It was seamless, no trees or weed to be seen and the width of two sleds. I was the first to slip and slide my way down this virgin path. I sailed like a condor. It was a beautiful thing. I got up, covered in snow and yelled back to Jenni to "let her rip". Jenni came whistling down. She began to get tipsy about half way through her run and fell to the side, laughing and giggling. I began to try and make my way to her when I realized something that would have been a nice tidbit of information to know before beginning this journey. The ground underneath the snow was straight ice. You see, we had chosen the southern side of this hill, the side that never saw the sun. It was still inches thick of ice from the weeks before. Jenni and I spent at least 30 minutes making our way back to the top. At the end, I was standing on a tree about 5 feet from the lip of the crevasse. Jenni crawled up me and I pushed her to the top. I said "just leave me behind and go find some help", I knew this was the moment in the movie where the hero sacrifices himself for the damsel. She reached out her hand and said "I'm not leaving you...", powerful music began to play and I clasped her hand (the camera pulled in tight and slow motioned as the snow flew off of our gloves). I dug deep and tugged on her (fully expecting her to go plummeting back down to the bottom under the pull of my weight), but instead, some ethereal force bit into my sweet wife, and she tossed me out of that bowl of icy death to the top of the snow covered mountain. It was truly amazing, a real Christmas miracle. I laid on top for another 15 minutes trying to catch my breath and pretending like I knew everything was going to be OK...

The moral of the story...

Always Bring a Rope...

Mr. Stumpy

Isaiah 6:13b
"But as the terebinth and oak leave stumps when they are cut down, so the holy seed will be the stump of the Lord." God may cut down the whole tree, but the stump will be holy...

Salvation Stipulation...

I was recently asked, "at what point is a person saved?". It was one of those theoretical questions that you feel like you can only give a heretical answer to. The underlying question this person was asking was, "Does baptism really have anything to do with salvation?". We talked about it and came to no great conclusion. I told him I view salvation as a process, not a one time event. It is a matter of repenting, believing, confessing and baptism. All these things do not happen every time all at once. So, if someone dies before the process is complete, are they saved. I would probably say yes, but for those of us alive, does that mean we can neglect the process, I would say no.
What it got me thinking about, and the reason for this rant is the idea of the word "saved" we Christians like to throw about. The idea that we accept Christ and are, at once, presently translated into a new person - we are longer on the recieving end of God's punishment stick. Our talk about being saved is as though it is a present reality a current occurence. Our idea of the word is tha "I am saved" (meaning I am currently, presently saved from sin), the scripture, on the other hand, talks about salation in the idea of "those who are being saved" (2 Corinthians 2:15), as far as I can tell, and I certainly will leave room for me to be wrong, salvation is a future tense reality, not a present occurrence in our lives. Hebrews 9:28, speaking of Christ's sacrifice to take away sin says "and he will appear a second time, not to bear sin, but to bring salvation to those who are waiting for him." 1 Peter 1:9 says "for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls." (The emphasis in both verses is mine). It seems that salvation is a life long process that we are all rending ourselves through until the day of Christ or our final breath on this earth. Does this mean that as believers we are no different? That no change has actually taken place in us? I would say not. We have become the dwelling place of God on earth. The Holy Spirit dwells within us, those who are believers, He is our deposit until the day of that salvation (read 2 Corinthians or follow this search link). This means that God is freeing us from sin and yet we are bound by it. This means that we still hurt, still die, still cannot understand, and we still see as though we are looking into a foggy mirror. There is a day when salvation will come on a white horse and he will have his name tattooed on his thigh. His sword will protrude from his mouth and once and for all we will be healed.
So, when is a person saved? When they die...

A philosphical question and a question of philosophy...

As Christians, we are constantly trying to get rid of those elements of society that function in an immoral manner - porn on the web, violence in video games, sex in TV and movies, etc. My question is for those "free willers" out there, those Armenian brothers:
If God is a God of choice, desiring that individuals chose him, then why do we try to rid an individual of choice? Let me clarify, why do we try to rid ourselves of the negative choices in life?
Do we make for stronger Christians if we remove any possibility of sin?
Do we make for better Christians if we take away any chance of falling away?
Will grace abound? Is our job to clean up society and remove temptations? (I am not talking at a personal level, I am talking at a corporate level).
Someone might well then say, "what choice do we have but to get rid of immoral things, they corrupt, kill, maim and smell bad." Of course they do, they are immoral because they are in direct opposition to the things of God (which tend to smell quite peculiar and tantalizing). But is getting "rid" of this societal corrosion really the answer? Even God left Adam & Eve with a choice, he left them the chance to be immoral. It has always boggled me how much time we Christians put into banning, badmouthing, and breaking down immoral activities only to have five more pop up in their wake. I have long felt that, if anything, we loose ground in this fight. Perhaps, we do not gain ground because our struggle is not meant to be against imoral "things". Perhaps, God has never desired a moral nation or people, but an obedient, loving community. Perhaps, He cares much more about the condition of our souls than the language on our lips (fixing the first will lead to a rebirth in the former).
This is why Christians being involved in the working of politics and schools, homes and businesses, is of the utmost importance, because we must find a way to give a choice to the masses. We must make sure that the world not only has sex, drugs, and rock n' roll to chose from, but that they are able to see and chose the grace that can be found in a relationship with Jesus... If we make clear what is wrong but leave out what is right, we only make for moral people. I am about changed lives, not moral people...

FWD: I feel so... Dirty.

by: Emily Dangdiddilydo Dodge
" the LORD God formed the man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being"
-Genesis 2:7

When I read the first few chapters of Genesis it's quite similar to me watching one of my favorite movies.
I love watching Robin Hood Men in Tights. I well never grow tired of it... ever. In fact.. now that I've mentioned it, I'll probably watch it tonight.
Anywho... While I watch that movie it's easy for me to just let everything fly by me.. because it's so redundant and I almost have every line memorized.
It's the same when I read Genesis. It's a story that I've been told since I can remember. I've read over the chapters several times. It's easy for me to just think.. "why, this is pleasant, I enjoy it". And not really pay attention.
But last night when I was reading, Genesis 2:7 popped out at me, and it really hit me. Harder than any Mel Brooks Quote... believe it or not. :0)
"formed the man from the dust of the ground" Are you kidding me??? Dust isn't even good enough to be dirt. Atleast people like dirt... you can do stuff with dirt, grow things and plant and walk on it. Dust is just there, an annoyance.
How easy it is for me to forget just where I came from, and who I am.
Why is it so easy to forget who God is? To blotch out all that God has done and continues to do. As if it's not a big deal.
It's hard for me to get over myself. Wether I'm complaining about how bad things are, or taking pride in something I've accomplished. It's stupidity.

Without God, I am nothing but Dust.

Thoughts Spawned by a Rabbi

So I have been listening to this podcast by Rabbi Mintz in New York. They are very interesting. The class is a study in the history of Jewish and Rabbinic Law. I have learned a lot and been very interested. It has been interesting in the way an art gallery full of replica paintings would be interesting. It is like seeing an origional and yet not having the same depth or character as the origional. I mean no disrespect. It is after all a study of the history of Law not of Yahwey. What the Jewish law makers set out to do after the period of the judges, kings and prophets was to take the torah and explain it. They did this through the Talmud and the Mishnah. These documents set out general explanations of the law found in the pentatuch (the first five books of the Old Testament- their only testament or covenant). What happened was, they Jewish community, after returning from exile, no longer had prophets to tell them what God wanted. They had a temple where they could sacrifice to him, but all they had to live by was the previous prophetic message, the law of Moses, and the oral tradition (said to be handed to Moses on Sinai and passed on orally). The early pharisees, the predisesors to the Rabbi's, would take a law like "You should keep the Sabbath holy", and they would say, "Ok, we understand that we need to keep the Sabbath holy, and that we are not to work on the Sabbath, but what constitutes holy and work." The Talmud and the Mishnah are authoritative works that define these types of open ideas. The Mishnah was created in the early 200's ad and it is the written oral tradition, the Talmud came shortly after and it is a commentary of sorts on the Mishna, it not only contains the tradition, but seeks to define the tradition even more by presenting differing Rabbinical arguments. An example of a law in the Torah that needed this kind of definitive process in more recent years is that they were not allowed to start a fire on the Sabbath, this was considered work. So, in modern days the Rabbi's argued and debated whether or not you could flip a light switch or not on the Sabbath, because when you flipped the switch they were not sure whether you were starting a fire or not. These laws are the replicas I spoke of in my annalogy. We are quick to dismiss this kind of legalism, but it comes out of a deep respect for God, it comes out of trying not to overstep what God has commanded. But as Jesus would say, you uphold your traditions and forget the great things of God's law, love and mercy. At the time of Jesus these laws were still in an oral form and you would go to a Rabbi to get his take or argument, his "Talmudic" type saying. When Jesus comes he takes the oral tradition and the teachings of the Rabbi's and turns them of their heads. He says in Matthew 23 some harsh words concerning they way they handle the law of God, vs 23-24:
"Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cummin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former. You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel."
You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel. It is such beautiful imagery and such fierce words. Jesus is attacking a not just a tradition, but something they believe to come from God on Sinai with Moses. He might as well have spit in their eyes. But, that is not the point of what I am saying although I do like to watch a good fight. What I am saying, I guess what struck me about listening to this Jewish Rabbi talk. Was just how little any of it had to do with God himself. The whole enterprise became so focused on the law that it forgot the lawmaker. It became so rigid in principles it set out that it could not conceive of a God who went beyond their principles. The tradition was to be fluid, it was to change with it's context, but it was always about the tradition, never about God, not really. I mean, that is what most of the prophets are screaming out. That is what Jesus came to rail against. This is why we needed a new covenant, because in the old, the law that was to only be a school teacher became the stumbling block... Anyway. This was very interesting to me, hope it makes sense. It is very long, and probably needs editing to make sense seeing as how it is 7:14 in the morning, but alas, I am to lazy and I figure you can grasp my meaning without me fixing my mode... Hah, I hope so anyway...

Sing Songy..

Wish washy, pish posh, ding dong, sling shot, billy goat... These words all come to mind this morning. Mostly cause I like the way they roll off the old tongue. I wish thoughts rolled out of your head like words roll from your lips. I am a thinker, not a great thinker, not a mediocre thinker, just a plan ol simple, can't get it out of my mind thinker. I analyse and criticize and chew and swallow and chew again. Sometimes this is a good thing, keeps me finding new ways to do things. Sometimes this is bad, keeps me from doing anything. Sometimes it makes me dwell on what needs no dwelling. And sometimes I can't help but look at the moon and wonder about all the grandness of God who shines a light even in the darkness. This morning it is my darkness that needs the light. It is not the kind of darkness the scripture speaks of, rather it is some sort of uncertainty some mystery within that seeks to break forth. There are ages and times when you deal more closely with these things. Where your inner man trys to break it's bonds and the Spirit within trys to free you. I think 28 in the winter must be one of those times for me. I will not bemoan this time, I will not grieve its existence. It is good to be at unrest and unsettled. It is good to not trust yourself. It is necessary for freedom and faith, belief and undoing. My darkness, my void, my inside man only seems to focus the light for me. I may not see God much clearer, but now I see that He can be seen clearer. And so I will let the good times roll, free my lips to sing songs and my heart to praise with lifted hands. I will find power in truth and justice, in Gods honor and glory and grace...