Relics

I came to a sudden realization as I was reading the Gospel of Luke the other day. Christ really lived and walked on this earth two thousand years ago. Now, I did not suddenly become a christian several days ago. I truly believed before this time that the Deus homo lived and walked on the earth, was crucified and resurrected on the third day. I simply had not thought of it in quantifiable terms. After reading nearly exclusively ancient history for a term, two thousand years does not seem so long.

The thought just struck me-

Christ did not burst into an alternate reality. He did not descend on a distant planet which was purer than our own. He walked on the good firma terra, and died on the cursed tree.

Relics begin to make sense to me. I can understand how, if someone believed that he is in the presence of a cloth that touched God he might get just a bit excited.

But why isn't every rock a relic; every grain of sand, and every leaf revered because it is God's handiwork? Why not frame every rainbow, or write poems praising every sunset? Such would be the response of a consistent relicist. But thankfully we are incapable of being consistent relicists, and this for the same reason we are incapable of being consistent God worshippers. But we are not called to praise every sunset. We are called to let every breath praise the LORD. So let's get started.

Praise the LORD!

I am continually amazed by Easter

So I learned a verb for Latin today. Shocking, I know. Anyhow, this verb is "pasc," and it means basically to bring livestock to food. Being the diligent (albeit ignorant) Lordship student that I am, I wondered if this was where we got "Pascha" from. Pascha, in case you don't know, is another name for Easter, used frequently in the Orthodox church. So I jumped to Google and typed in Pascha. According to OrthodoxWiki (which any Greek person can edit, so you know it's right), it's a transliteration from the Greek, which is transliterated from the Hebrew for Passover. Cool. Yet still I wonder. So I break out ye olde Whitaker's Words (a free Latin translator) and typed in Pascha. It popped up with "Easter, Passover." Yea, verily, this I knew. So I typed in "pasca" on a whim. Pasca means water mixed with vinegar, a traditional drink of Roman soldiers in the field and the drink of slaves. 

If your reaction at learning this is at all similar to mine, you're clapping hands over mouth in wonder. Because Easter is all of these. Easter is the new Pascha, the true Passover, when the blood of Christ, the Lamb of God, is poured out on us and protects us from judgment. It is the time of pascamur, when we are led like sheep to the manger, to eat of the Body that was placed there for us. It is when we remember that Christ drank pasca for us on the cross, when He took our place, the place of a slave, and drained the bitterness from our cup. Yet we also remember that He drank the pasca because He was the conquering Warrior, who was in the field because His work was not yet finished. 

Anyhow. Our God has an incredible way of tying things together. He is the Master Storyteller. 

I am back, like a famine.

Wow guys. I am sorry. I think it's been nearly a month since I posted anything. Yikes. And I dare to call myself a contributor to this blog! Anyhow, here I contribute.

1. I do have something of an excuse, as this is the first weekend in the last three or four weeks that I've had a functioning power cord for my laptop, so I've been bumming off of other people and therefore trying to cut things as short as possible.

2. Today was the first day Moscow broke 60 degrees!! Truly a red letter day, since it also marked the first day we've had a full day of sunlight! It was glorious. Two and a half hours of soccer make any day better, even, nay especially a day like this.

3. Want to read something that will blow your mind, change your life, and make you wonder where in the world you have been all these years? Try Surprised by Hope, by Bishop Tom Wright, or Heaven Misplaced, by Pastor Doug Wilson. We've got some work to do, people.

4. On a note that is not totally different, you can go here and see some other stuff by me. I'll be posting poetry, art, commonplaces, and some random ideas. Don't be fooled, though. It is but a sideshow, a halftime performance when compared to the Flabbergaster.

5. [a preview for #4...] A short poem I wrote recently. It's called the ocean. It's got some things going on with the rhythm and meter, so watch for that. It's also not just about water. In case you were wondering.

you know i always miss the ocean

on stormy days i miss its waves

and on the clear days too

cause three thousand miles are just

too many for my toes to trip

when we've just got a weekend.

i know the gut-punching sickness

that comes on darker nights

when i wake up and there you

aren't.

and how i've wished to weep

for now i know how it is to be alone

the slap of water in the sink,

any mirrored flash of light,

the frozen fountain in

-

the frozen square below

they all remind me of the ocean

and of the suns embrace

and loneliness loves to gnaw at my guts

its chewed all through my

heart

for you are gone so i'm not here;

pray God someday

that all of that will change

is this what earth feels like to heav'n

(now am i not absurd?)

but i say sometime in the sunlight

when on the highest crest of hills

when dancing with our life's true love

we long for what we do not know.

6. I have a fruit that I like now (don't read a lot into that statement; it's kind of a long and

somewhat embarrassing story that involves me not liking most fruits): the orange. It kind of makes my day.

7. What is it about the song Drift Away that makes anyone in the room sing along? I think it's kind of amazing how music does that to people.

8. One wonders if "sheds crystal shells" is not one of the best phrases in the English language. Props to Robert Frost.

9. People, this kind of makes my day. If you don't know where it's from, click here, and laugh.

10. Although it's not because of any of the typical pop culture reasons, College Spring Break is amazing. So are my grandmother's mashed potatoes, fried chicken, and biscuits and gravy. There is quite possibly a causal relationship there.

11. I broke the 10 item barrier. Rad. Now I look ridiculous and long-winded, instead of the usual, which would be just ridiculous. Oh well.

I just don't think people understand

So here's the headline I saw a few days ago:
U.N. alarmed by Lebanon rocket attacks on Israel
I am intrigued by this. Because, you see, it's so ridiculously obvious. Are there rocket attacks that don't alarm people? I would hate to see them. I mean really, how boring would that attack be?

We continue reading, though

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon

You've got to be kidding me. Just when Kofi Annan steps down, we get a man named
Ban Ki-moon? We serve a marvelously funny God, my friends

expressed alarm on Wednesday over reports of Lebanese rocket attacks against Israel and urged all parties in the region to avoid actions that could make a bad situation worse. "That is ... a very alarming, very disturbing and troubling situation," Ban told reporters

Again with the alarm. Apparently General Ban hasn't been told that this sort of thing has been happening since the Muslims invaded like 1,000 years ago. And now he's asking Israel not to retaliate. Someone needs to give the poor man a briefing. Retaliation is my Israeli neighbor's middle name. Not really, but you see my point. Revenge is something they are good at. Their ancestors avenged the rape of their sister by convincing an entire city of men to circumcise themselves, and then came in on the third day "when they were sore" and butchered the lot of them.

Ban said that U.N. peacekeepers in Lebanon, known as UNIFIL, were investigating the rocket attacks launched from inside Lebanon. The incident took place on the 19th day of Israel's offensive against Hamas militants in the Gaza strip.

Tough, that one. Israel fights Hamas militants. All of a sudden, rockets start
appearing out of Lebanon, a known supporter and harbor for Hamas militants.
Careful now, don't think about this too hard or you might get a headache.

Security sources in Lebanon said five rockets were fired, though two fell in Lebanon.

So these guys aren't just idiots because they're fighting against one of the most militant nations on the planet, they're also idiots in the traditional sense of the word. They can't even point and shoot.

"Hamas rocket attacks must stop and at the same time I have been condemning
the excessive military operation by the Israelis," he told an earlier news
conference in Cairo . . .

Apparently we're going to be forgetting that whole part where Hamas stole the land from Israel. Just like we forgot about Hitler annexing Austria. Because that worked so well.

The Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza said 1,010 Palestinians had been killed
and 4,700 wounded by Israel so far. The Israelis say on their side 10 soldiers,
and three civilians hit by cross-border Hamas rockets, have been killed.

The moral of this story, kids, is: don't mess with Israel. 13 deaths compared to 1,010?! That's absolutely incredible.

Here's what I don't think people get. People don't understand that God's promises to Israel aren't finished. If God is going to redeem the nation of Israel as He has promised, He's got to have something to redeem.* In the Six Day War in 1967, Israel was attacked by Syria, Jordan, Iraq, and Egypt. They were outnumbered almost 2 to 1 in infantry, 3 to 1 in the air, and 3 to 1 in tanks. By the end of those six days, Israel had had 800 men killed, 2500 wounded, and 15 captured. The four Arabic nations had lost 13,000 men, 8,000 wounded, and 6,000 prisoners. Israel lost 46 aircraft as compared to more than 400 aircraft. Don't mess with the Lord's chosen. David didn't kill Saul even though he was unfaithful, because Saul was God's chosen one. I can think of no other nation on earth that is that small, surrounded by that many enemies, and that has lasted for that long. So, as the eloquent Pastor Hadding has said on many an occasion, I'm not sayin', I'm just sayin'. 

*This does, in fact and in most every way, represent what I believe. It may or may not represent what Rob believes, we haven't discussed it yet. Something tells me we will shortly. 

I answer my own question

So here's my answer. Why are there poor? Well, it's my fault. And it's yours. I hope it's the fault of every single one of you. It's President Bush's fault, it seems to be Obama's fault, Clinton claims it's his fault, but I'm not so sure that we can blame it directly on bin Laden, Hussein, or even the serpent. 

The poor are the Church's fault. I come very close to believing that when I stand before the Judgment Seat, God will ask me "And how about that guy you saw under the bridge and didn't stop for on January 6, 2009? What did you do about that? Hmm. Well, what about . . . " 

Most of us have heard Mr. Doug Jones's take on the gravity of economic sins. I'd agree with that. Too many preachers use the divorce rating among Christians as a barometer for the Church (this is not at all to justify or reduce the importance of marriage as holy and sacred; divorce is horrible, but we fail to realize that poverty and hunger are equally horrible tragedies). What about the number of people below the poverty line? What about the number of deaths by starvation in the US? What about the number of thefts carried out by desperate parents?  I'm not even touching Africa yet. I'm just asking you to look at what is happening in our own backyard. 

Christ said that it wasn't the healthy but the sick who need the doctor. The gospel dies in upper middle class Suburbia. It explodes in the projects. While popular European Christianity (and, some argue, even American Christianity) begins to die, the faith is growing by leaps and bounds in China, Pakistan, India, Africa, and the Middle East. Could it be because the Catholic church did so little to relieve the abject poverty of the natives that South America has never been stable and prosperous? 

What I'm saying is this: the Church is to disciple all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Trinity. We preach the Gospel and disciple the nations by living out the faith. We start living like Christians, and people will start noticing. Spurgeon once said, joy is our missionary. As Pastor Wilson said, you don't reach atheists by debating them; you get to them by having them over for dinner. Theology doesn't save people; the Gospel does. St. James applies this to giving when he says "If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, 'Go in peace, be warmed and filled,' without giving them the things needed for the body, what good is that?" Too often Christians talk about God's love to an atheist as if it's this ethereal emotional thing that couldn't help anyone even though, deep down, it really wanted to. God's love is not a pretty, teardrop-eyed, softly-glowing-in-the-snowy-moonlight sort of thing. It's visceral, physical, and sometimes it looks like a toothless, legless, drugged up old man in a wheelchair who hasn't had a bath in a month. If an atheist looks over and sees a Christian volunteering at a soup kitchen every Thursday, when you start picking up homeless guys and buying them dinner, when he sees you sacrifice for those less fortunate, he'll be ready to hear about that love. That Love that will turn the world upside down. 

Giving to the poor is the Church's responsibility, its duty. We can't expect the government or other agencies to do it, however willing President Obama may be to do so. The poor are out there because we Christians are letting them be out there. Every family that starves to death is an indictment on Christianity; every homeless drug addict is condemnation. And who knows, perhaps the day the Church ends poverty will be last day of all? 

I ask a very leading question

This has been on my mind recently. 

Why are there poor?

And answers like "sin" or "Adam in the Garden" are copouts. I mean, here and now, in 2009, why are there still people who cannot buy food? 

P.S. Sorry we've been so out of touch recently. Family has taken priority. Hope everyone had a Merry Christmas, a Happy New Year, and that you all watched that guy Robbie Maddison almost kill himself in 14 different ways, and then drop the mighty-mighty-f-bomb on live ESPN TV. American entertainment at its best, folks. 

I respond.

Friends, Americans, Countrymen (and all you international types too), a gauntlet has been thrown down. 

I am referring, of course, to the last post, which features a stunning portrait of myself, along with sundry gibberish. The only proper response to such behavior is to post another cooler, more generally awesome, and somehow better-looking picture of myself to top Rob's.

I leave you to judge how well I succeeded. 

But I jest. Nay, the real response must be to Rob's incredible claim to harbor abused words. As indeed he does. If by harbor you mean beat, bend, and violate. Rob claims to shelter misused words, and does so by further misusing and abusing them. One imagines his similar shelter for abused dogs including such friendly items as whips, over-tight muzzles, and cattle prods (I jest, of course, Rob loves dogs - medium rare). Despite my redneck upbringing, my Southern heritage, and years of bad influence, I refuze too right sentence's "like" this won hear. It gives me a headache. 

Also, and on a separate note, as Josiah deftly pointed out below, and as Theresa predicted, I missed two of my calls on films if we're going by Rotten Tomatoes. As I went with the RT the first time, I'll stick by them now, although I note in passing that they've been wrong before. Looks like Valkyrie passed and Bedtime Stories washed. I had such hopes, but I should have known the minute I saw Courtney Cox was involved.

Well, all, the world is made new. The world of orphans, divorce, rape, murder, oppression, cancer, and the stomach flu has already been reborn, renewed, and remade, just not yet. Praise to our Christ, the God-man. Merry Christmas, even if it's late. 

P.S. Rob is really an animal lover. He has more love for dogs than almost anybody I know. Which makes it all the more rad and hysterical that I make him out as a dog hater. And yes, I totally said "rad" so I could use the label "I said rad." While we're at it, sigma. Got another one. 

I give the Flabbergasted Bump

That's right, faithful readership. I'm givin' this video the legendary Flabbergasted Bump™. Watch it, love it, Tell it. That's how this one goes people. You watch it, you just happen to love it, and you end up showing it to 40 of your closest friends, worst enemies, and remote acquaintances, including several relatives. 

A little background on the material: Pastor Doug Wilson (our pastor here in Idaho) recently went on a debate tour with noted atheist Christopher Hitchens. If you don't know who Hitchens is, Google him immediately and read some things about him, maybe not so much by him, especially if you're younger. He can get a little crazy. He's what's commonly called a rabid atheist, as you may see in this video if you're a careful viewer. Anyhows, here it is. Enjoy. 

I am going to shutup

The Dow is down 486 points, the S&P is down 52 points, and the NASDAQ is down 98 points. Curtis was right, and I was oh-so-very wrong. Not a real big surprise, considering my knowledge of economics. 

Anyhow, I'm not going to conjecture about why this happened, except to say that I don't really know who these "investors" are. Seriously, does anybody know? I also don't think that it was because people are realizing that Obama's just a politician. They've only had 18 hours to realize that, and I think it'll take more like 18 months, and that may be optimistic. 

Separate and tangentially related: Barack Hussein bin Ladin Jong Il Ayatollah Chavez Castro Stalin Obama is probably Muslim and he was probably born in Kenya, he's consorting with terrorists, and he just might have gotten rid of his grandmother (all things that, if Fox News haven't actually said yet, have been hinted in that particular lack of subtlety that seems to be their trademark), but he's going to be the President of the US of A unless something really crazy happens. So let's drop the blatant ad hominems and stick to criticizing his position, not him. I respect President Bush, I despise the war in Iraq. I love my friends, I hate their sins. Okay? So no more name-calling or other irrelevancies that do no help to anyone, vishte?*

*- That said, let's not get too terribly huffy and prissy. Let's laugh like Christians if something genuinely witty and still respectful comes along. Cue the Colbert, people.  

I was convicted

So on Sunday I was sitting in church (go figure). Come time to pass the sacrament, Pastor Wilson gave his weekly exhortation. It was incredible. We've been discussing Augustine and Calvin in Lordship and how we as Christians not so much as partake in Christ as be Christ. We die when Christ dies, we live when He lives. By His humility we are exalted, in His defeat of death we are victors. And then this little minute talk by Pastor Wilson synthesized these thoughts and practically applied them in a way that convicts me more every time I read it. God help me to be consumed as I have consumed.

Exactly So
Last week we considered the truth that we do more than consume in this meal—we are consumed as well. If the entire congregation is the loaf, as St. Paul plainly teaches, then we are—all of us—both eating and being eaten. We consume and are consumed.

Christ gives Himself to us, certainly. But we also surrender ourselves to Him in this partaking. The head of the body communicates, just as the body does. And as each part of the body eats, so each part of the body is eaten. My life for yours.

This sounds noble, and quite lovely, in this context. We are all seated in church, the bread and wine are on the table, and we have just finished worshipping the Lord. But this reality, this table, governs the next six days, and it does not leave any spaces. My life for yours feels quite different when the kids are tearing off in six different directions, when your business partner is being difficult, when an old friend appears to be losing it, when someone in the church badmouths you, when you can’t get all your work done and others aren’t helping, and when you feel misunderstood by everybody.

When such moments come—and there will likely be a number of them in the next six days—you will feel like you are being consumed. But then you should think to yourself, "ah, exactly so. I offered myself for that, just this last Sunday."

I think this is quite appropriate

Joel Osteen: Megachurch "pastor," speaker, Larry King interviewee, and author. Of fiction.

Props to http://faithandinches.wordpress.com/ Taken in JFK airport, of all places. Those Yankees get some things right, don't they? Hope for everybody, I suppose.

I gave a great big sigh of relief

The world gets a reprieve! Turns out that yours truly predicted exactly what was going to happen with the old CERN project. Remember? Okay, well, maybe not exactly. But the problem turns out to have been the "hi-tech version of a soldering joint to link the two stretches of cable together." I said it before, I said it now, and I'll say it again. You gotta love it when a multi-billion dollar science-fair project gets sidelined because some random intern or highly skilled welder didn't want to miss his Manchester United game. Well, looks like the good old earth'll be around till 2009.

I find this amusing

This is an interesting article on a very interesting story. These dudes in France/Switzerland are about to fire off the most powerful cannon the world has ever seen in order to smash together two particles so small we can't even see them with our most powerful optics in order to find out if something exists which we won't be able to see even if we do find out it exists. And on top of that, 5 minutes of data collecting will give them 50 years of data analysis, at least. Anyhow, that's all well and good, and I'm all about some dark matter (just read some of Augustine's thoughts on Creation and you'll find that he'd go absolutely crazy over this stuff, saying that it proved God), but the response from "skeptics" is what entertains me. The article notes "that some skeptics fear [the experiment] could create micro "black holes" and endanger the planet."
First off, if you think an experiment is going to destroy the frippin' world, does that classify you as a "skeptic," or an "objector on basis of desiring to exist?" I mean honestly, could we get a better description here?
Secondly, micro black holes. Black holes get bigger the more they suck in, and they suck in stars, planets, and galaxies. I'd say this isn't really "endangering the planet" so much as destroying the world. Anytime the world gets turned inside out because of an anti-matter hole somewhere in Europe, we've got problems.

I guess what I'm saying is, I think this cautionary science-talk is absolutely hysterical. And, in the end, it has to be rather nerve-wracking, being a pagan in the middle of all this. After all, we know we aren't going to destroy the planet. They can only hope.

Update: Wouldn't you hate to be this guy and lay part of that track backwards and blow the whole thing up? That whole thought makes me laugh very much. 9.8 billion (that's right, with a b) of the hardest-earned goes up in smoke because some random dude mislaid a 1 foot long magnet.

I had my modern conceptions of fairness blown far, far away

So I'm perusing - no, strike that, try break-neck speed reading - Augustine's City of God, and I come across a quotation of Genesis 17:13-14:

[God spoke to Abraham] "He who is born in your house and he who is bought with your money must be circumcised, and My covenant shall be in your flesh for an everlasting covenant. And the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin, that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant."

Let's get this straight: a baby boy who is not circumcised by his parents has already broken the covenant with God. If he dies at nine days old and has not been circumcised, he dies outside the covenant of grace. Whoa.
Then Christ comes and renews the covenant, replacing circumcision with baptism. But does this change the principle? Obviously there is enough condemnation in original sin to damn a babe in arms. Again, the burden must be on the parents.