a thought...

I saw this picture the other day.
Bono, blind folded, with the font of religious symbols and broken letters that speaks something far louder than any lyric or music.
On the site I found it, many posted comments of shock, horror, and judgement...not only was it a grammatical error in word structure...something had been put together that was, well, just humanly impossible.
It shocked all religious sensibility...and our unreal religious world view.

A couple thoughts...
The high school I attended did not have the question of faith really. We wrestled with theological dogma, the most serious of which was were you Penticostal or did you believe in eternal security.
There was little or no chance that we would be friends with someone with Islamic, Jewish or any other faith.

A generation later, my children have friends who are Islamic, Jewish, Shinto and the list goes on. We live undeniably in a world where ‘faiths’ are constantly intersecting. Interestingly enough, in this mosaic culture of faiths, there doesn't seem to be much dialog and conversation. We hunker down in our fox holes of fear and judgment, content with the isolation of our own traditions and stories. This is true in regards to how we approach other faith traditions, but I notice that it is often true of how we approach other traditions within our own faith. You know what I mean...Baptist vs. Penticostal vs. United Church vs. Alliance...

And maybe the more disturbing reality is that representative voices of faith tend to be the extremes. By their volume and actions they are usually seen and heard. Its the loud bully in the playground that is usually heard above everything else. He's usually what we remember, and fear...and want no part of. The reality is that the bully is only one voice. There are voices of humility, mercy, compassion, reconciliation...from all sides.

What does it look like(or feel like) to journey in love with people who do not share our 'faith' or faith perspective?
What does it mean to stay true to Jesus...and yet love others who are searching for Him...and maybe don't even know it?

thoughts?

a convo...

I have been reading much

listening much

reflecting much

And trying to digest all that I see, feel, and sense.

I have decided that I want to start writing some reflections and invite you to chew a little bit with us.

On what you ask?

I would like to wrestle with who Jesus is...and His reality versus what we have made Him personally...and corporately.

Still there?

Here is my initial thought:

Creating new structures in the Church is not our primary calling. Creating new programs, new orders of service, new strategic plans, or even having new visions or dreams are not our primary calling.
Our first calling is to belong to Jesus as Savior, Lord, Lover and Friend...and to continually find our lives nourished, enflamed, envigoured and satisfied at the well of His life. It is there that the call to partner with Him as He redemptively, compassionately and intentionally calls a lost and broken world towards Himself becomes life giving instead of guilt laying. It is in this place that we dream dreams and have visions that are motivated by love and not our need for significance.

To understand this is to allow the Christian disciplines to become places of life and not law...for how do we fulfill the command to love, except that we learn it of Jesus, and how do we learn it of Him, except that we pray, and live under His word and love His world?

I find myself asking the question often, “Would I rather be with people or with Jesus?” And unfortunately I often leave the question unanswered because it is painfully obvious.

I have lived lots of my life surrounded by books and people whose thrust has to do with ‘doing’ something significant for God. When I reflect, busyness often put me in good company...but stole the opportunity to connect easily with others because of our busyness and our collective shallowness. Religious nattering, including my own, wore me to the bone.

As I feel through this today, I find myself yearning for a ‘gray hair’ who knows and loves God, who would show me the way...the thought of which fills my heart.
How often have I exhorted, often prophetically, people to take full advantage of a liminal moment in their life and listen, listen, listen.

But what have I spent so much of my life doing? Plugging my ears and barrelling ahead hoping that my house of cards doesn’t collapse before I do.

Today I find myself longing to live a life that calls others back to where we belong and yet forget. In His embrace. Without a task list. Just an overwhelming awareness of, as Brennan Manning puts it, the furious longing of God.

Let me leave you with a poem I found...

Time past and time future
Allow but a little consciousness.
To be conscious is not to be in time
But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden,
The moment in the arbour where the rain beat,
The moment in the draughty church at smokefall
Be remembered; involved with past and future.
Only through time time is conquered…

paradox… we wait and we long and this is good..
we strive and move.. this is also good..
if only we take the stillness with us as we go..

Thoughts?

Slavery

Thoughts...

I don’t know about you...but before about 6 months ago...i didn’t think about slavery very often. How often do you think about slavery? How often to do you think about it in terms of an issue that we must wrestle with today? Let me talk to you a little about the internal Pandora's box I have opened...
People trafficking is one of the greatest human rights challenges of our time. Millions of people around the world suffer in silence in slave-like conditions of forced labour and sexual exploitation.
In the West, slavery has been outlawed since the early 1800s. But the modern scourge of human trafficking is no less a form of slavery than the one endured by Africans and others at the hands of wealthy merchants and landowners two hundred years ago.

Human trafficking is one of the fastest growing areas of international crime - and, sadly, one of the most lucrative. Worldwide, people traffickers will make between seven and nine billion dollars every year, with very little outlay at all.
In fact, some crime syndicates are now switching their cargo from drugs to human beings, because the potential profits are higher.

According to the UN, there may be as many as four million people trafficked every year, 70 percent of them female and 50 percent children. Both groups are targeted mainly for pornography and prostitution. Yet it's difficult to be precise about the true scale of the problem and teenage boys and men are sometimes victims, too, being trafficked into forced labour.
There are more than 28 million slaves world wide. Perspective? There are more slaves today, by percentage to the worlds population, than at any other time in history.

Victims of people trafficking normally come from developing countries, but trafficking is also a problem for nations like the Canada and the US, where, according to the Justice Dept, as many as 250,000 American/Canadian children may be at risk of being trafficked into the sex industry within our own countries.
The Council of Europe has identified people trafficking as a major problem in Europe, too. It says that trafficking has hit "unprecedented levels" and acknowledges that it really is "a new form of slavery".

Human trafficking seems to flourish in societies that are going through, or have just come out of, long periods of conflict. For example, during the Kosovo conflict, women and girls were often kidnapped by armed gangs or enticed away from refugee camps. Today, the former Yugoslavia has become a primary trafficking destination and an important transit point for European trafficking.
Trafficking also increases when poor countries share borders with richer neighbours. Poor people look at the opportunities over the border and are easily lured by false promises of a richer life on the other side.

What can be done about the stain and horror of international human trafficking?

Some people might argue that since slavery has long been a part of human history, there's not much we can do about it. But we can't afford to be complacent or defeatist in our attitude. Either we shape the future of our world, or someone else's vision of that future will reshape us.

Some global thoughts first.
Governments NEED to maintain humane and sensible immigration policies.

Some people have tried to use trafficking as an excuse for closing borders altogether. But people will always want to migrate, especially if there are better opportunities abroad, and immigration brings many benefits. Denying people access through safe, legal channels only makes it more likely that they will fall for the false promises of the traffickers.

Governments also NEED to courageously tackle the problem of prostitution.
In 1999, the Swedish government made laws prohibiting the purchase of a sexual service, with the penalty of fines or imprisonment.
Since then, there has been a significant drop in the number of women in prostitution and a reduction in the number of men who try to buy their services. The fall in demand has also reduced the number of foreign women who are trafficked into prostitution.
Some governments NEED to reassess how they treat people who've already been trafficked into their nations. It's one thing to free a victim, but then they need to be re-educated, re-housed and basically given a whole new start, one without discrimination or legal hassles.

More Personal thoughts...

We NEED to begin to grapple with how trafficking is linked to economic reform and development programmes. Tragically, there are lots of cases where the sex trade has served foreign aid workers and even peacekeepers.

And we need more research into the factors that fuel the demand for people trafficking -- including the links between migration policies and the demand for cheap labour.

It took more than a generation for William Wilberforce and his colleagues to bring in laws banning slave-trade in the British domain. But their persistence - and their faith - paid off.
Ours is arguably a much more complex world and organized crime is the dark underbelly of globalization. But at ground level, in vulnerable areas, there are still things we can do to guard people -- especially the young -- against trafficking.

There are anti-trafficking charities that community groups can connect with. Some educate children in vulnerable areas, developing skills that will help them to avoid being trafficked. Others work to encourage children to stay in school longer, while create local jobs for when they leave school.

We NEED to be morality driven even in our necessary consumption. Meaning? Where you shop and what you buy has slave trade implications. Do we shop at stores that use Fair Trade goods? These products are traffick-free and buying them helps people to lift themselves out of poverty, making them less vulnerable, as opposed to purchasing and using goods that have used child labour and the slave trade to build their economic prowess.

We NEED volunteer more. For example, choosing to work in one of the projects that helps people find their way out of prostitution. We can donate to support a safe house for trafficking victims.

We NEED to write to local MPs on the issue, to keep the issue front and centre in political terms. Check out the following websites regarding how you can be involved:
www.freetheslaves.net
www.catwinternational.org/factbook/Canada.php
www.savethechildren.ca

EDUCATE YOURSELF. How often do we read stuff that turns our stomachs? How often do we choose to learn or push our way into understanding the dark underbelly of our world? What good is the light if it refuses to be used in darkness? If you would like a list of books that you could read, email me...i have many on this issue.
Finally, we can talk up the whole issue of people trafficking, through letters to local newspapers and the like - and even just in conversation with friends. John Pollock, in his biography of William Wilberforce, wrote that: 'One man can change his times, but he cannot do it alone.'

Like Wilberforce and his abolitionists, we must once again do whatever we can to end a vile trade, by standing for those who cannot stand for themselves...and standing alongside people and organizations who are giving their lives for others freedom.

I wanna change the world.
J

my name is don quixote

dar and i went to a show yesterday in rosebud, ab (http://www.rosebudtheatre.com/)...as part of our sixth anniversary (yeah baby!!!). as a sidenote/commercial, next time you're 'in the area', be sure to drop into the rosebud valley...i've never left the theatre here without being moved.
the premiere summer production here is 'man of la mancha', or the story of don quixote. its chief character is a man on a quest...searching (despite the dissuading of others) for meaning...dreaming (at the risk of sanity) of life's true meaning. good stuff. the title song is one that we come across with some regularity in our culture (youtube it)... "to dream the impossible dream". here are some of the lyrics...

to dream the impossible dream,
to fight the unbeatable foe,
to bear with unbearable sorrow,
to run where the brave dare not go;
to right the unrightable wrong.

to love, pure and chaste, from afar,
to try, when your arms are too weary,
to reach the unreachable star!

this is my Quest to follow that star,
No matter how hopeless, no matter how far,
To fight for the right,
Without question or pause,
To be willing to march into hell
For a heavenly cause!

it's crazy how theology can jump out of the margins in our lives...how meaning can arrest us when we least expect it. watching the characters and hearing the music yesterday, i was deeply moved by how our journey of faith should be marked by 'questing'. i found myself in that darkened theatre overwhelmed by the cry of a 'faith-filled' life...the beckoning voice of god luring my wandering heart to pursue life's dream. i heard a curious resemblance to jesus' teaching, and his invitation to be a seeker/finder of men whose hearts have lost their ability to hope. this is my quest.
any thoughts on questing? on how our faith looks less like a journey and more like a 'stay-cation'? on jesus' call to dream?