The "Holy" Crusades

When the mission loses it's divine mystery it becomes human tyrany.

When passion becomes fury your self gets in the way of your mission, and the bigger picture becomes a narrowed glimpse of individualism. Then you give permission to your passion to turn into a rage of words and actions. We forget empathy and compassion. We foget the holiness of the mission, and we forget the humanity partnered with the divine.

"I regret my abortion"

We become a shouter hoping that our voice gets not only heard, but also taken seriously.

We walk in a protest. A protest that allows us to yell and shout and curse the other side. The "immoral" side. We no longer use Atticus' sense of understanding and we send individuals to Hell with no regard for their actions. We take no responsibility for anyone else. As long as we can yell louder than the other party we are justified to undress the sins of someone else.

"Why abortion started
1.) Women started wearing pants in the church"

We violentley vomit disgrace on the other party and act like we are allowed to serve as a judge to all. We condemn rather that convict, we repremand rather than rebuke, we hate rather than love. We no longer see the big picture all we see is the cause. The right to be heard, the right to be right.

"Face it...abortion Kills"

Our holy motivation from the beginning gets lost in the secular realm of ideas and soon the reality sets in that we are controlling everything said and everything done. Everything gets lost in the shuffle and no one longer cares if you speak up because we no longer are making anysort of difference. We have been added to the rank of the annoying and unintelligent and we no longer are taken seriously.

There is no longer a point because no one listens. No one listens because the dark cannot attract the dark. The dark cannot make any sort of impact on the dark.

When the church starts blaming others for sin itself we have become lost and no longer understand Christ.

"Let others complain that the age is wicked; my complaint is that it is paltry; for it lacks passion. Men's thoughts are thin and flimsy like lace, they are themselves pitiable like the lacemakers. The thoughts of their hearts are too paltry to be sinful. For a worm it might be regarded as a sin to harbor such thoughts, but not for a being made in the image of God. Their lusts are dull and sluggish, their passions sleepy. they do their duty, these shopkeeping souls, but they clip the coin a trifle, like the Jews; they think that even if the Lord keeps ever so careful a set of books, they may still cheat Him a little." Either/Or, Kierkegaard

The passion that we have, cannot control us or we will be in a heap of debt and we will no longer see the plan that God has for our world and every single person in it.

Keroke and our adventures on Saturday Night

Jake on the phone with me, angry because we are lost.... Jake on the phone with me, excited that were coming(even though we got lost and didn't make it)

Chubby Cheeks. I didn't bring this up.
Travis and Jake singing their hearts out.
Amy, Tiffany, and I at Kareoke!

Saved

Mr. Leeds: Does man kind deserve to be saved?
Cleavland Heap: What?
Mr. Leeds: Man?
Cleavland Heep:pauses... Yes

The ultimate question occurs in this simple dialogue that occurs in Lady in the Water between the main character and a side character. Cleavland's family murdered and his life has never been the same. When Cleavland meets Story, the lady in the water, his purpose becomes clear, but not until the end of his journey.

He is on a mission to save this mythical creature and in his journey this simple conversation takes place.

This question that has been on the mind of people for centuries and in a time like this is even more prevelant.

Does man kind really deserve to be saved?

On Saturday night I went with a couple of friends out on the town. Unfortunatley we got lost for a couple of hours, but we had a pretty interesting conversation in the car on the way to Denny's/on the way back to Lincoln. We had two different aspects of the spectrum. One party declared that God was ultimatley Good so why would he 'send' people to Hell. The other party was setting up the argument just simply asked this question....

"Well does man kind deserved to be saved?"

Many of us have this internal thought that Humanity has been skidded through these rough and tumble times because of God, while others believe that we have been skidded through these times because of our indignant self proclamations. We believe that we are God and so as Christians when we approach this subject we go to one extreme or the other.

We either become inclusivists or exclusivists. Many of us either try to demonstrate God primarily with the characteristics from the Old Testament. We go for the Holiness attributes rather than the relational attributes. However, this cannot be the only way that we look at God when concerning this this issued. When we look into the New Testament this subject of the after life has been skewed to fit a certian agenda by certain extreme groups(sounds quite similar to most of our Christian history).

When Jesus comes onto the scene the question again presents itself.

Does man kind deserve to be saved?

Christ enters as the superhero. An underdog individual that clearly has the stamina of a great human leader but has the divine qualities of a servant. He intellectually can step over the akwardness that is tied to the academic world and can use it with every individual He meets. He has the relational capacity to prioritize needs and can touch the reality of the human soul.

Jesus comes and saves the world.

The question still remains however,

Does Man kind deserve to be saved?

Unceasing, Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart

"Some of the old monksof this sect went to see Abba Lucius. "The old man asked them, 'What is your manual work?' They said, 'We do not touch manual work but as the Apostle says, we pray without ceasing.' The old man asked them if they did not eat and they replied they did. So he said to them, 'When you are eating who prays for you then?'

Again he asked them if they did not sleep and they replied they did. And he said to them, 'When you are asleep, who prays for you then?'

They could not find any answer to give him. He said to them, 'Forgive me, but you do not act as you speak. I will show you how, while doing my manual work, I pray without interruption. I sit down with God, soaking my reeds and plaiting my ropes, and say, "God, have mercy on me; according to your great goodness and according to the multitude of your mercies, save me from my sins."'

So he asked them if this were not prayer and they replied it was. They he said to them, 'So when I have spent the whole day working and praying, making thirteen pieces of money more or less, I put two pieces of money outside my door and I pay for my food with the rest of the money. He who takes the two pieces of money prays for me when I am eating and when I am sleeping; so, by the grace of God, I fulfill the precept to pray without ceasing."'

This story offers a very practical answer to the question "How can I pray without ceasing while I am busy with many other things?" The answer involves the neighbor."

www.toothpastefordinner.com

"The Furnace of Transformation"

"In solitude I get rid of my scaffolding; no friends to talk with, no telephone calls to make, no meetings to attend, no music to entertain, no books to distract, just me--naked, vulnerable, weak, sinful, deprived, broken-nothing.

It is this nothingness that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadful that everything in me wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions so that I can forget my nothingness and make myself believe that I am worth something.

But that is not all. As soon as I decide to stay in my solitude, confusing ideas, disturbing images, wild fantasies and weird associations jump about in my mind like monkeys in a banana tree. Anger and greed begin to show their ugly faces. I give long, hostile speeches to my enemies and dream lustful dreams in which I am wealthy, influential, and very attractive-or poor, ugly, and in need of immediate consolation. Thus I try again to run from the dark abyss of my nothingness and restore my false self in all it's vain glory." pg.27-28 The Way of the Heart, Henri J.M. Nouwen