Gosh! Almost two weeks since the last entry.
Well, just in case anyone reading here might be bothered by the inconsistency in the entries, be aware that I post here only as God requires - these posts are His.
The last several days the Lord has had me listening, not speaking.
Now, to the lesson.
About 18 months ago my mother-in-law died. She and I had issues, but we worked through them as they arose. Her death was a merciful event as she was suffering in many ways.
Following her death, my father-in-law, began a game wherein he tried to gather my wife and her siblings to him, as if he were trying to be a comfort and a strength, throwing about grandiose promises of "family" and safe harbor - promises of closeness never shown before.
Of course they were merely moves in the game.
Within two weeks he revealed that he had another woman (supposedly suddenly reappearing in his life just at the time of his wife's passing), this woman being an old flame, and that they intended to marry.
Suddenly, all the promises were forgotten, as his "plan" was to sell out, move away and "cut all ties" to be with this woman, the one he should have married 40 years ago.
We have watched as my wife's brother and sister have spiraled deeper and deeper into depression and despondency.
And it has occurred to me that I had just witnessed a sacrifice.
My father-in-law had sacrificed these 2 children by gaming them and then taking away the dangling prize in order to get this woman he thought was what he wanted.
Whether it has turned out like he imagined is another story for another day.
Still, a lesson learned. Even in small-town white-bread America, the games and sacrificing to the world system is a daily requirement for those willing to sell out for the here and now.
Slowly, daily, we are reaching these two with the Gospel and the hope of Christ, but how close it came to a completed sacrifice.
Thank you Jesus for opening our eyes and keeping us in Him - what a mercy that has been and is.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Tuesday, August 14, 2007
Highbrow Theology
When the theologians of days gone past weren't solving the more important issues like how many angels could dance on the head of a pin or justifying the slaughter of thousands of people in Languedoc towns for the purpose of martyring a few hundred Cathars, they spent idle time in answering questions from readers like this one:
"Does God act as He does because it is right; or are God's acts right because He is God?"
Ooh. No wonder the medieval clergy wanted to restrict access to the written word.
Looking around I found a consensus among those with the appropriate credentials that God does what He does because He can only do what is right.
How handy.
Since God is limited - ?! - to what is right (as defined by ?) - then what is ordained by His spokes folk (as assigned by ?) must be right....right?
Well, so sorry, but saying it is so doesn't make it so.
As useful as it may be to force God (ha ha, as if) into a box of human proportions, they prove their error by their own delimits.
The only truth can be that what God does is right because He is God.
After all, He is the One who set the universe in motion, instituted the laws of physics, and decided the end from the beginning and, as hard as it may be for many to take, created the totality of what exists which means us, them and Lucifer...all with full knowledge of what every creature would do and how it would turn out, i.e., God created evil.
Only when you or I accept without reservation that it is all God's, it is all God, and nothing exists apart from Him, do we have a prayer to move beyond the materialist dimension...but, God knew that.
"Does God act as He does because it is right; or are God's acts right because He is God?"
Ooh. No wonder the medieval clergy wanted to restrict access to the written word.
Looking around I found a consensus among those with the appropriate credentials that God does what He does because He can only do what is right.
How handy.
Since God is limited - ?! - to what is right (as defined by ?) - then what is ordained by His spokes folk (as assigned by ?) must be right....right?
Well, so sorry, but saying it is so doesn't make it so.
As useful as it may be to force God (ha ha, as if) into a box of human proportions, they prove their error by their own delimits.
The only truth can be that what God does is right because He is God.
After all, He is the One who set the universe in motion, instituted the laws of physics, and decided the end from the beginning and, as hard as it may be for many to take, created the totality of what exists which means us, them and Lucifer...all with full knowledge of what every creature would do and how it would turn out, i.e., God created evil.
Only when you or I accept without reservation that it is all God's, it is all God, and nothing exists apart from Him, do we have a prayer to move beyond the materialist dimension...but, God knew that.
Friday, August 10, 2007
Kittens
In our kitchen, there are two small, two- or three-day-old kittens.
They are likely going to die - a third one died this morning.
Don’t misunderstand. We are not watching them suffer with indifference. Quite the contrary.
Our children, they of the compassionate and ever-hopeful hearts, are making heroic efforts to preserve the little lives. The kittens are housed in soft bedding, constantly stroked and encouraged and generously fed, with a dropper, cream (which is as close as we can get to mother’s milk at the moment).
If human effort and belief alone could save these kits, our kids will make it so. We’ve seen them love an animal back to health from the precipice before.
Still, the odds are not good.
As I watch this unfold, it occurs to me how much we lambs, those whom God has set aside and marked as His, begin like the kittens.
We come into this dimension wholly incapable of preserving our lives, blindly searching in the darkness for the milk we require to sustain us.
God has to provide everything.
We are wholly helpless and at the mercy of the world. God must do it all. He must not only provide the food but also bring the food to us. He must groom us, make us walk or rest, even clean up our messes.
Left alone we would die, even in the hands of some who may have compassion, because we need more than the material world can provide.
But God does not abandon us. He cares for our needs, no matter how ornery we are. He keeps us in His den, nurturing, training, toughening.
Then one day, if we make it to adulthood, spiritually mature, He has a cat - indifferent to the world, true to its nature, tough and strong as needed, soft and warm and cozy in the cold.
Watch your cat, as aloof as it seems, it still knows where it is fed.
Are we just as dependent on God for all - even our next breath?
They are likely going to die - a third one died this morning.
Don’t misunderstand. We are not watching them suffer with indifference. Quite the contrary.
Our children, they of the compassionate and ever-hopeful hearts, are making heroic efforts to preserve the little lives. The kittens are housed in soft bedding, constantly stroked and encouraged and generously fed, with a dropper, cream (which is as close as we can get to mother’s milk at the moment).
If human effort and belief alone could save these kits, our kids will make it so. We’ve seen them love an animal back to health from the precipice before.
Still, the odds are not good.
As I watch this unfold, it occurs to me how much we lambs, those whom God has set aside and marked as His, begin like the kittens.
We come into this dimension wholly incapable of preserving our lives, blindly searching in the darkness for the milk we require to sustain us.
God has to provide everything.
We are wholly helpless and at the mercy of the world. God must do it all. He must not only provide the food but also bring the food to us. He must groom us, make us walk or rest, even clean up our messes.
Left alone we would die, even in the hands of some who may have compassion, because we need more than the material world can provide.
But God does not abandon us. He cares for our needs, no matter how ornery we are. He keeps us in His den, nurturing, training, toughening.
Then one day, if we make it to adulthood, spiritually mature, He has a cat - indifferent to the world, true to its nature, tough and strong as needed, soft and warm and cozy in the cold.
Watch your cat, as aloof as it seems, it still knows where it is fed.
Are we just as dependent on God for all - even our next breath?
Sunday, August 5, 2007
Is There a Monty Python Movie In Here?
From The Times
August 4, 2007
China tells living Buddhas to obtain permission before they reincarnate
Jane Macartney in Beijing
Tibet’s living Buddhas have been banned from reincarnation without permission from China’s atheist leaders. The ban is included in new rules intended to assert Beijing’s authority over Tibet’s restive and deeply Buddhist people.
“The so-called reincarnated living Buddha without government approval is illegal and invalid,” according to the order, which comes into effect on September 1.
The 14-part regulation issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs is aimed at limiting the influence of Tibet’s exiled god-king, the Dalai Lama, and at preventing the re-incarnation of the 72-year-old monk without approval from Beijing.
It is the latest in a series of measures by the Communist authorities to tighten their grip over Tibet. Reincarnate lamas, known as tulkus, often lead religious communities and oversee the training of monks, giving them enormous influence over religious life in the Himalayan region. Anyone outside China is banned from taking part in the process of seeking and recognising a living Buddha, effectively excluding the Dalai Lama, who traditionally can play an important role in giving recognition to candidate reincarnates.
For the first time China has given the Government the power to ensure that no new living Buddha can be identified, sounding a possible death knell to a mystical system that dates back at least as far as the 12th century.
China already insists that only the Government can approve the appointments of Tibet’s two most important monks, the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. The Dalai Lama’s announcement in May 1995 that a search inside Tibet — and with the co- operation of a prominent abbot — had identified the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, who died in 1989, enraged Beijing. That prompted the Communist authorities to restart the search and to send a senior Politburo member to Lhasa to oversee the final choice. This resulted in top Communist officials presiding over a ceremony at the main Jokhang temple in Lhasa in which names of three boys inscribed on ivory sticks were placed inside a golden urn and a lot was then drawn to find the true reincarnation.
The boy chosen by the Dalai Lama has disappeared. The abbot who worked with the Dalai Lama was jailed and has since vanished. Several sets of rules on seeking out “soul boys” were promulgated in 1995, but were effectively in abeyance and hundreds of living Buddhas are now believed to live inside and outside China.
All Tibetans believe in reincarnation, but only the holiest or most outstanding individuals are believed to be recognisable — a tulku, or apparent body. One Tibetan monk told The Times: “In the past there was no such regulation. The management of living Buddhas is becoming more strict.”
The search for a reincarnation is a mystical process involving clues left by the deceased and visions among leading monks on where to look. The current Dalai Lama, the fourteenth of the line, was identified in 1937 when monks came to his village.
China has long insisted that it must have the final say over the appointment of the most senior lamas. Tibet experts said that the new regulations may also be aimed at limiting the influence of new lamas.
August 4, 2007
China tells living Buddhas to obtain permission before they reincarnate
Jane Macartney in Beijing
Tibet’s living Buddhas have been banned from reincarnation without permission from China’s atheist leaders. The ban is included in new rules intended to assert Beijing’s authority over Tibet’s restive and deeply Buddhist people.
“The so-called reincarnated living Buddha without government approval is illegal and invalid,” according to the order, which comes into effect on September 1.
The 14-part regulation issued by the State Administration for Religious Affairs is aimed at limiting the influence of Tibet’s exiled god-king, the Dalai Lama, and at preventing the re-incarnation of the 72-year-old monk without approval from Beijing.
It is the latest in a series of measures by the Communist authorities to tighten their grip over Tibet. Reincarnate lamas, known as tulkus, often lead religious communities and oversee the training of monks, giving them enormous influence over religious life in the Himalayan region. Anyone outside China is banned from taking part in the process of seeking and recognising a living Buddha, effectively excluding the Dalai Lama, who traditionally can play an important role in giving recognition to candidate reincarnates.
For the first time China has given the Government the power to ensure that no new living Buddha can be identified, sounding a possible death knell to a mystical system that dates back at least as far as the 12th century.
China already insists that only the Government can approve the appointments of Tibet’s two most important monks, the Dalai Lama and the Panchen Lama. The Dalai Lama’s announcement in May 1995 that a search inside Tibet — and with the co- operation of a prominent abbot — had identified the 11th reincarnation of the Panchen Lama, who died in 1989, enraged Beijing. That prompted the Communist authorities to restart the search and to send a senior Politburo member to Lhasa to oversee the final choice. This resulted in top Communist officials presiding over a ceremony at the main Jokhang temple in Lhasa in which names of three boys inscribed on ivory sticks were placed inside a golden urn and a lot was then drawn to find the true reincarnation.
The boy chosen by the Dalai Lama has disappeared. The abbot who worked with the Dalai Lama was jailed and has since vanished. Several sets of rules on seeking out “soul boys” were promulgated in 1995, but were effectively in abeyance and hundreds of living Buddhas are now believed to live inside and outside China.
All Tibetans believe in reincarnation, but only the holiest or most outstanding individuals are believed to be recognisable — a tulku, or apparent body. One Tibetan monk told The Times: “In the past there was no such regulation. The management of living Buddhas is becoming more strict.”
The search for a reincarnation is a mystical process involving clues left by the deceased and visions among leading monks on where to look. The current Dalai Lama, the fourteenth of the line, was identified in 1937 when monks came to his village.
China has long insisted that it must have the final say over the appointment of the most senior lamas. Tibet experts said that the new regulations may also be aimed at limiting the influence of new lamas.
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