the garden of eden (part 1)

i was going through a huge stack of papers in my home office tonight when i came across an assignment i had the youth in my old youth group do about 5 or 6 years ago. the assignment was this: “describe in your own words what you think the garden of eden looked like.” i thought it would be cool to post some of the responses over the coming days.

What I see…

A vast field with green, healthy plants; large, rugged trees; and gentle animals roaming through. At the edge of the utopia, a massive brick wall separates it from the slightest imperfection. The wall is covered with long vines, which seem to have no end. Although the yellow sun shines down on this place, warm drops of rain pour down, off the leaves and cover the ground, yet not leaving a single puddle. There is a nighttime, where pearly white stars flood the sky like a warm blanket. And the moon sets, while the beings lay down to rest.

To be honest, I can’t imagine what they would do in such a place, because I can’t comprehend a McDonald-less world!

No Little People

The people who receive praise from the Lord Jesus will not in every case be the people who hold leadership in this life. There will be many persons who were sticks of wood that stayed close to God and were quiet before Him, and were used in power by Him in a place which looks small to men.

Each Christian is to be a rod of God in the place God has for them. We must remember throughout our lives that in God’s sight there are no little people and no little places. Only one thing is important: to be consecrated persons in God’s place for us, at each moment.

Those who think of themselves as little people in little places, if committed to Christ and living under His Lordship in the whole of life, may, by God’s grace, change the flow of our generation.

~Francis Schaeffer~

A Prayer…

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going. I do not see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.

~Thomas Merton~

the “evolution” of christianity

I came across this quote today. A very interesting one actually.

“Christianity started out in Palestine as a fellowship; it moved to Greece and became a philosophy; it moved to Italy and became an institution; it moved to Europe and became a culture; it came to America and became an enterprise.” - Sam Pascoe, American scholar.

community

it is in community that we come to see God in the other. it is in community that we see our own emptiness filled up. it is community that calls me beyond the pinched horizons of my own life, my own country, my own race, and gives me the gifts I do not have within me.

- joan chittister

time flies by…

wow! i can’t believe it. it has been over a month since my last post. i am so bad at writing journals / blogs! grrr! but in my defense i must say that life has been very busy this past month and a half. school has kept me going - although i am now a university graduate! unbelievable! - and work is always a rush. but i hope to be able to better disciplne myself. we’ll see. more to come.

time can be lost…

As is usually the case with school, I find myself once again faced with the task of having to write a term paper! Got to love them! We have been given the task of choosing a “modern Christian thinker” and to examine the social and political facets of their work. I’m thinking of mabe doing my paper on Dietrich Bonhoeffer. I’ve always been intreaged by him for some reason. I picked up a copy of Letters and Papers from Prison, which I happen to own but have never read, and found this fascinating statement on the very first page. Cerrtainly made me pause and think.

“As time is the most valuable thing that we have, because it is the most irrevocable, the thought of any lost time troubles us whenever we look back. Time lost is time in which we have failed to live a full human life, gain experience, learn, create, enjoy, and suffer; it is time that has not been filled up, but left empty.”

A Motto for the New Millennium

I was doing little bit of “spring cleaning” today and came across this quote that I had found a while back. I thought it was worth posting.

“Though much is taken, much abides; and though we are not now that strength which in old days moved earth & heaven, that which we are - one equal temper of heroic hearts, made weak by time & fate, but strong in will to strive, to seek, to find & not yet yield.” (Alfred Lord Tennyson / Ulysses)

the end of the race is near! (part 1)

i am in my last class of my bachelor career at concordia university. i can’t wait to be finished. going back to school after 8 years was probably one of the greatest moves i’ve made. i have thoroughly enjoyed my time back there and have gotten so much more from it than i ever expected.

the class i find myself in now is called “modern christian thought.” essentially it is the study of many of the ‘great’ european christian thinkers from the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries. it is a lot of thick material to go through. but it is certainly giving me a better understanding of this thing call christianity and the challenges it has faced throughout the centuries. i am always amazed at how a movement such as christianity has withstood the test of time. christianity has had a colourful past - some good and some bad - but it has endured nonetheless. to think that God is nothing more than a human construct - in the words feuerbach and nietzche - is absurd to me. God is alive. not only in my mind, but in the world. when i look out my kitchen window and see birds sitting on the branch of our cherry tree, how could i deny their maker and designer? they, we, are fearfully and wonderfully made! what i have come to realize from many of these ‘modern’ thinkers is that they wanted separation from God. they sought to make themselves, in many ways, gods. they wanted ‘freedom’ from the rules and dogmas of christianity. in so doing it led people such as nietzche to proclaim, “God is dead, and we’ve killed him.” what a sad thought.

i need to study now for my mid-term tomorrow but really needed to start gettingsome of this ’stuff’ out. i’ll continue this thought at a later time.

Friends…