Exercising Faith III – Emotional Shorthand

One thing that really bugs me about this new digital culture is the way in which we limit ourselves emotionally by saturating ourselves with news…BAD news.  Countless thousands of people will get up in the morning, brew their coffee, sit down at the computer and peruse the previous day’s tragedies.  We’re hit all the time with news of death, war, famine, pestilence…yes, I’ve mentioned the four horsemen of the Apocalypse specifically (They’re Biblical, and not just icons of popular understanding).  So much, in fact, that it destroys compassion and empathy.  And this is frightening.  We are deluged with so much loss and so much senselessness, and as a result we start to shut ourselves down emotionally, like circuit breakers.  We can’t bear the things we hear on our own strength, so we don’t try.  And that narrowing of the range of feelings short-changes the heart and soul of what we’ve been designed for.  In a nutshell, what happens is that we’ve designed our lives to communicate in emoticons, which I call emotional shorthand.

There’s a lot of reference in the Bible to things like fullness of joy, and there are a lot of people who don’t experience it, because of depression (spiritual or physical), distraction, delusion and division.  I kind of like the alliteration, and I’ll probably spend a post on these things a little later on.  But now, bear one thing in mind – We’re not designed as emotionless beings.  Nor are we meant to experience things like love and sorrow as brief blips on an otherwise steady ECG monitor.  We have hearts for a reason, and it’s no accident that in places like Ezekiel 11:18-21 and Ezekiel 36:25-27 the Lord expressly declares that he will give us hearts of flesh.  They are to be used for people, and to their full range…not as foolish little yellow heads to punctuate sentences.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer

Facebook Flipside – What You Consider Valuable.

I can’t really leave Facebook alone just yet, because you need to consider what it does to relationships outside of the computer screen and keyboard.  Sure, you can send Muppets or throw sheep.  But what happens when this becomes the only form of contact you have with people?  In my experience, it leads to a terrible isolation.  When you publish your status for others to read, it’s writing down how you feel, or something quirky, or inviting questions.  But how does that make up for time spent with friends?  How does that make up for going out for a coffee or some lunch and really taking the time to talk?

The direction that we’re taking is a dangerous one.  I can’t help but think of the desperate need for something to unify us that Facebook pretends to fill.  I can’t help but think of what it means when we no longer know how to interact with one another outside of, for example, playing meaningless games or ‘poking’.  I could go on a very long time about the nature of translating physical realities into digital languages.  Or about shorthand emotions, which eventually lead to us cutting off any wide-ranging passions.  In fact, I probably will go on a bit about that one soon.

The question really is, then…what kind of time do you consider valuable, and is it a correct assumption?

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

The Facebook Phenomenon

I was just thinking today about the meteoric rise of Facebook.  It seems to have literally come out of nowhere, and now dominates the lives of millions of people.  Games and apps seem to come out on a daily basis, and they range from the silly to the sublime.  For example, who wouldn’t want to send Muppets to people?  I mean, c’mon folks.  They’re fuzzy, they’re cool, they’re trendy.  They’re a North American icon.  Who do you know, for example, who hasn’t heard of Kermit the Frog?  Or how about throwing a sheep?  I’m good with that!  What really makes Facebook successful, however, is that it builds a different type of community.  It replaces quality time with feeds.  Bite-sized pieces of life.  And in a world that seems to really be looking for some sort of connection, something to bring us closer together, Facebook gives at least the semblance of fellowship to a content-driven society.

The thing with Facebook, however, is that you can reach such a wide number of people in such a short time.  Your profile updates with your status, links posted, what people have written you or what you have responded to them with.  It gives you a news reader for the personal lives of your friends.  But it also gives you a witnessing tool, if used effectively.  Not necessarily overhanded, swingeing statements about your beliefs, but something a little bit more subtle.  For example, I have a lot of friends who’ve taken to using a Bible verse-a-day application.  It’s not anything wild, just a little box that publishes, generally out of context (unfortunately) a Bible passage a day.  What’s really important to remember about this, however, is that it gets something of the word of the Lord out there.  Facebook friends are of all sorts, and if you can’t always spend time in fellowship with them, you can at least be a form of witness through simple tools such as this.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Exercising Faith II – Discernment

To draw the lens in just a tiny bit, I want to look more closely at discernment as a spiritual gift. I’ve been preoccupied with having a retreat day soon, but last night I was asking myself what agenda I have in seeking a retreat.

First, let me say that I do try to practice the discipline of retreat once in a while. Spiritual disciplines are an entirely different topic, but I need to give you some context for this one. The discipline of retreat is one that is not practiced nearly enough, in my opinion. We live in a world possessed of such incredibly diverse and seductive means of distraction from the Lord that I believe retreat to be essential, but I find, like many, that I’m just not sure how to go about it. Oh, I have some means – going ‘up the mountain’ literally is just one, long walks another – but what to do on days when you have to remain indoors or simply have no inner room into which you can retreat? And what defines a retreat?

Digression aside, I find that I’m in need of retreat in order to refocus myself, to find out where I should be directing my attentions and abilities, and to simply withdraw from things for a while.  The reason for this?  I’ve become unsure of things, as we all do and as we all must overcome.

Where this leads me, however, is to this:  Is a retreat going to be serving my purposes or God’s?  Or, in other words, what expectations must I have in order to retreat for the purposes of discernment?  Certainly, I have questions that I want to pray about, but am I praying with an expectation to hear what God has to say or what I want Him to say?

Discernment, I think, works the same way.  I think discernment, in its most relevant sense, is finding the will of the Lord in the circumstances which He has engineered for you.  If you are gifted in discernment, I think you have the ability to do this without thinking too much about it.  You can test and approve very easily, and Christ-mindedness comes more naturally to you.  I could be wrong; probably am, when it comes to gifts.  But that’s where I think discernment operates in retreat.  The difficult point is to come out of retreat, or away from a decision where discernment is required ready to act on what you’ve learned.  And I think this is one of the central purposes of prayer, as well; or at least, prayer for guidance.  We have a responsibility to do what we’re told, and not to simply toss it aside.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Making Magic Matter – The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe

Although the movie is a few years old, I said that I’d be doing a review of The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe for this week’s entry, as Prince Caspian is slated to open in a little over two weeks. Regrettably, I wasn’t able to complete it Friday due to a number of circumstances, but here it is, now two days late.

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A few years down the road from the theatrical release of Walden Media’s The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, we’ve seen the release of a four disc extended edition – I haven’t seen it yet, but I’d like to compare at some point – and the long awaited production of Prince Caspian, set for release on May 16. I thought I’d take the opportunity to revisit Narnia on film, and look at some of the important points of the first installment of The Chonicles of Narnia.

The Chronicles of Narnia : The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe follows the four Pevensie children, Lucy (Georgie Henley), Edmund (Skandar Keynes), Susan (Anna Popplewell) and Peter (William Moseley) from London after the Blitz to the country estate of Professor Digory Kirke (Jim Broadbent). Playing a game of hide and seek, Lucy stumbles on a wardrobe that opens to the magical land of Narnia. There she meets a faun, Mr. Tumnus (James AcAvoy) and sets in motion a chain of events that promises the fulfillment of a prophecy long present in the land, that two Sons of Adam and two Daughters of Eve will come from a far land and sit in the four empty thornes of Cair Paravel, there to rule Narnia. Determined to stop the prophecy from being fulfilled, Jadis, The White Witch (Tilda Swinton) seeks to capture or kill the children at all costs and ensure her continued dominion of the land.

Arguably the most competently organized and faithfully representative allegory of Christianity aside from John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, C.S. Lewis’ children’s story has been given due treatment on the screen by Walden Media and Walt Disney Pictures. While the movie does not enter as deeply in to the Christian story as Lewis’ book does, the key elements and the visual representations of those elements are there. The CG elements of the film – and there are many – do a surprisingly good job of visually focusing one’s attention on important points and subtly cuing audience reception of the message. One of the most prominent examples of visual storytelling here is actually the knighting of Peter Pevensie by Aslan the lion, the rightful ruler of Narnia,  as the film builds to its climactic battle scenes.  It struck me in theatres and strikes me again every time I watch the film.  Here, Aslan is surrounded by a bright golden light, highlighting his colouring and the obvious weight of import that this scene holds.

One other scene to point out is the expertly-filmed self-sacrifice of Aslan at the Stone Table.  This scene succeeds as few others have in visually and aurally representing the cruelty of evil when faced with the humility of good.  The scene evokes, no matter what religious affiliation, a sense of evil exalting in the defeat of good.  We have been carried along a rising tide of emotional response to the film, and this scene succeeds in bringing its audience in to the film as few others do, allowing its audience to truly identify with the story being played out on the screen.

In The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, the performance of the children is everything.  For Director Andrew Adamson, it was important to show the audience the wonder of a child in finding a magic world in a wardrobe.  Lucy Pevensie was his vehicle for doing this, and the innocence and excitement of her first trip into Narnia is captured extremely well in the film by Georgie Henley.  Edmund, the traitor, is well-played by Skandar Keynes, but his performance is lacklustre in a few places.  William Moseley’s Peter is well-played as the reluctant leader transformed, and the logical, reasoning Susan is apparent in Anna Popplewell’s rather stiff performance.

The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe, releasing on the heels of the Lord of the Rings trilogy as it did, capitalized on the resurgence of the fantasy epic genre but stands on its own as a lovingly translated form of Lewis’ singular story.  Watching it now in preparation for Prince Caspian, the magic and the meaning of the story is completely renewed for me.  I look forward to Prince Caspian with the eager expectation of Lucy, wanting the fantastic to again make a memorable appearance.

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Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Exercising Faith I – Supernatural Gifts

Jesus rebuked his disciples for having little faith, and I wonder if we should not take that a little more seriously. I have a dear friend whose contention is that the faith which we profess is that faith which allows for the use of the same supernatural powers as Jesus Christ in all believers, and I happen to have some issues with such a broad categorization. In fact, I come from a background that seems to hold that the supernatural gifts displayed in the Bible by Jesus Christ and later his disciples passed away from the world with those disciples. I’m not sure where I stand on the gifts of the Spirit in their supernatural form. I’ve heard too many testimonies about healing and prophecy to entirely discount the possibility, but at the same time I can’t say that I’ve had the opportunity to witness supernatural gifts in action. Let me just preface this discourse by putting that out there.

What I’m thinking about is how people recognize the reality of God’s supernatural presence in their lives, and how they can be influenced in different ways by their own perceptions of that supernatural presence. You see, I find that I can give names to traits and abilities that I see in people, believers and non-believers alike, by referring to spiritual gifts. Is it possible, do you think, to exercise the gifts of the Spirit or to be given gifts of the Spirit as a non-believer? My answer would have to be no. People have gifts, yes. Even secularists don’t deny that. But from whence do those gifts come? And to what purpose are they to be used? In non-believers, I’d have to say that the gifts are designed to be deceptive, to entrap people by giving them a sense of the use of spiritual gifts as something produced of their own abilities. In believers, the issue becomes trickier. Because false teachers exist (and I’m going to go on a tear about false teachers before too long), so too do false uses of spiritual gifts, or uses of spiritual gifts that propagate satanic (and here I’m using the word to connote selfishness) teachings. The trouble lies in discernment, and in false discernment contention arises between those who claim to be brethren. So I say God forgive us for contention about the ways You choose to manifest yourself, and give us discernment about what You want to accomplish with Your gifts.

Here are some links to older posts I’ve done on the subject of supernatural gifts:

Christ: Supernatural 1 – Miracles

Christ: Supernatural 1 – Gifts

Christ: Supernatural 1 – Holy Spirit

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

New Tribes

When you think about it, all of our vaunted civilization is really just a series of tribal definitions. Looking at the face of any major city, you’ll find neighbourhoods. The Chinatowns, the Bronxes, the Heights crowd, the Hills. In Newfoundland, the baymen. Cities are collections of men and women who have identifying characteristics and tribal costumes. Whole societies have sprung up around cultural events and codes of behaviour. You’ve got your drinking buddies, your classmates, your elders, your professionals; Each one has things which identify them. Being a Christian, however, means that you stand outside tribes in one sense, in the thick of one in another. Part of the reason I believe that there’s such a communication gap between generations, especially, but even between people, is that we don’t understand that the tribal mentality still rules. We have to be aware of traditions, of ceremonies and taboos in order to bring Jesus to those who need him without transgressing the soul of a people and in order to redeem what the Lord has placed in our path for His glory. But more importantly, we need to be aware that the intent is not to impose as a command from ‘us’ to ‘you’ that every knee will bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord; Rather, it is to hold on to the hope that that statement gives us, living in the assurance of that hope. I think I’ll do one more on new tribes a little bit later on.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer

Seeing the Journey, Not the Destination

I rarely take the bus; mostly because I prefer to walk.  In all weather, mind you, and with great satisfaction regardless of conditions.  But on occasion, taking the bus gives you time to simply enjoy the ride.  You’ve paid your fare, you’ve found a seat if you’re lucky or you’re not hitting peak times, and you can sit back and simply take in the people around you.  I know, I know.  Hard for most of us to think about a bus ride that way.  Most of the time,  we’re busy listening to our tunes, reading, looking out the window instead of at the faces of the crowd with whom, for this brief time, we are locked up.  If any of you will dare admit that they’ve seen Speed, you’ll understand what I’m talking about when I say that for the duration of the ride, you’ve become brothers in arms regardless of what may keep you apart in any other circumsctances.The interesting thing about a bus is that you can share your ride with the most varied people.  Students. commuters, grocery shoppers, travelers…nomads on city streets.  Most of the time, people will sit down and shut up, keeping things to themselves or amongst a small group of friends with whom they are travelling.  What a fertile ground for studying life, for watching the glances of love between couples, for imagining what thoughts are going through the minds of your seatmates.  But also, for sharing a word of comfort with those who gaze sadly out the window.  For learning the most amazing things about people.  And for, if the opportunity arises, making ever-so-brief connections in a world increasingly fragmentary and tribal, despite growing global citizenship and humanist rhetoric.  Which was, if you think about it, the main ministry of Jesus Christ.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Operative Grace

I’m getting more and more bowled over by the way I see the hand of the Lord in all sorts of things.  It’s amazing to see how He works in the lives of non-believers and they just seem to ignore it or are unable to see it.  But I guess that’s one of the way’s in which we can tell that He is alive in us, because we get to see it and are reduced to tears at His goodness in letting us see it.  There’s a song by Mercy Me that really describes this.  It’s called “Bring The Rain”, and here are some of the lyrics:

I can count a million times / people asking me how I / can praise You with all that I’ve gone through.  The question just amazes me / can circumstances possibly change / who I forever am in You?

The depth of feeling in these lyrics is something else.  But what it really speaks to is how a Christian experiences life as opposed to a non-Christian.  I mean, I can see how God’s at work to change the hearts and minds of people I work with, to incline them more to one another in love.  Now, it’s not the great turning towards God that still needs to come, but it’s a start.  What I find most amazing is that in learning not to take each other for granted, these people are taking small steps towards learning more about what God feels for His children.  And I have been placed in the position of being able to observe this and offer the truth of Christianity in it.  This is what’s really amazing.

Acting on that, however, is what will make the difference.  Not speculation, not thoughtful commentary.

Action.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.

Keeping Company with The Dead II

For fear of making even less sense than I normally do , I stopped early last night to sleep.  There are a number of things that I’m still thinking about regarding this whole concept of living among the dead.

It’s a hard thing to accept physical death.  All of us have experienced, at one time or another, the death of a friend, a family member, or someone else.  But at least there is a clear sense that something has passed away.  What happens, though, when we find ourselves walking among the dead?  To give you some sense of what I’m saying, I’ll briefly quote Matthew 8:18-22:

“Now, when Jesus saw a crowd around him, he gave orders to go over to the other side.  And a scribe came up and said to him, ‘Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go.’  And Jesus said to him, ‘Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.’   Another of the disciples said to him, ‘Lord, let me first go and bury my father.’  And Jesus said to him, ‘Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their own dead.’”

Leave the dead to bury their own dead. What does this mean?  On the one hand, it doesn’t make any earthly sense.  How can the dead bury their own dead?  There’s no life to give them energy, no work that they can do if they’re physically dead.  That is, unless they’re zombies.  I could spend some time reflecting on what it means to be a zombie and how very closely related to the lives of many people the condition truly is.  But I won’t, for your sake and for mine.   On the other, we have a profound insight into the spiritual condition of the follower of Christ as opposed to the citizen of the world.  And an extemporization of the cost associated with such a radical lifestyle change.  But centrally, this passage speaks to me about one thing.  The necessity of considering eternal life in Christ as more important than anything that we or our enemy might raise up against it.

The second point of this whole idea of keeping company with the dead is the fact of the loneliness of the condition, the isolation and wretchedness of letting Satan have his way.  I’ve heard many observations about the fact that Christ crossed the sea of Galilee for one man…the demoniac who, in Mark and Luke becomes the messenger of the life-changing purpose of Christ.  But one thing I haven’t seen much on is the causality of the whole thing. Look at it with me for a time.

Christ has just come down from the Mount of Olives, having preached revolutionary ideas to a culture with hundreds of years of entrenched legalism.  He’s going to want to rest for a bit, because he’s just led a service of worship for five or six hours.  He still has time, however, to make two crucial statements to two different people regarding the essentially nomadic lifestyle that His followers must subscribe to. The first declares that He has no home, no place of permanent rest.  The rest of the follower of Christ is in Him.  The second statement declares the ultimate value of following Christ, that those who would follow him are called into life, while those whom we have lived with, been raised by and been loved by are left in death.  Jesus then asks for a boat to be made ready to cross the Galilee, is obeyed, and promptly falls asleep.  A storm blows up, during which Jesus remains asleep while his disciples, frantic, wake him up.  He rebukes them for having little faith, and calms the waters of the sea completely.  Finally, he arrives amidst the tombs of the region of the Gadarenes, meeting two men (more likely one man) and casts a legion of demons out of him.  I could spend a post on authority here, but the essential point I want to make is that, in my thinking, Christ is using this man as an example of rebirth, something that, until now, he had not demonstrated.  Furthermore, that this man is going to physically leave the houses of the dead that he has been living among and go to spread the message of rebirth to those who still live among the metaphorical dead.  Here’s the crucial part…Christ’s message hinders the men of privilege who ask Him if they may follow, but the men (or man) without even a home or a given name, who have nothing, are given health and wholeness.  The most despised and feared become the most readily transformed, and this after those who have willingly asked have found the cost too hard.

Blessings;

Christ-bearer.