Kevin J. Bowman - a pilgrim trying to be the hands and feet of Jesus

dispossessed

Brisket Recipe

Friday, June 26, 2009 9:28 AM

I promised some people I would post my brisket recipe so here goes: This is designed for a 6 lb brisket. When I cook a box of briskets for a large group I cut my briskets to this size.

Dry Rub:

• 4 TBS - Coarse Sea Salt
• 4 TSP - Minced Garlic
• 4 TSP - Smoked Paprika
  
• 2 TSP - Coarse Black Pepper
• 2 TSP - Chili Powder
• 1 TSP - Cayenne Pepper

Cooking Procedure
DO NOT TRIM BEEF - We Will Trim Before Serving!

1. Cover Meat In Dry Rub
2. Cook Uncovered on Grill for 1 Hour at 350
3. Wrap in 3 Layers of Heavy Duty Aluminum Foil
4. Roast Wrapped for 6 Hours at 225
5. Uncover in pan to preserve drippings
6. Return to Grill at 350 for 45 Minutes - Basting every 10 minutes with drippings
7. Return to Pan and wrap in towell for 30 minutes before serving

Serving Instructions

1. Trim Fat
2. Slice Thin Diagonals
3. Serve with White Bread and Jalapenos.

Labels: Brisket, Dry Rub, Recipie

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Deporting Jesus

Monday, June 22, 2009 3:14 PM

While looking for an old friend who was a very influential professor in my life I found a poem by him that had been published a few years ago.

The poem is about the story of an illegal immigrant Manuel Jesus Cordova Soberanes. Though he had successfully hiked his way only a short distance from civilization where there was work for the man who would earn enough as a bricklayer to feed and care for his 7 children back home, Manuel gave all this up refusing to abandon a lost boy in the desert. The boy named Christopher was the victim of a fatal car accident that had cost him his mothers life. Manuel cared for him though they shared no common language and Soberances knowing he would be returned to Mexico with nothing to show for his journey across the desert.

DEPORTING JESUS
Scott Simpson -Published by New Wineskins 2007

Two days across the desert
alone,
only eight hours more
to Tucson and work—
daily bread for four children
back home.

Generational son of brick layers,
Jésus Cordova had journeyed north
from the village of Magdalena de Kino
where in 1688 Jesuit Eusebio Kino
established Mission
Santa Maria Magdalena,
teaching the natives the art
of brick laying, and the words
of a carpenter
spent on outcasts.

Then suddenly, among the screwbean mesquite and
patches of arrow weed, Jésus meets
nine year old Christopher,
miles from any town
and night falling.

November 25th had deposited
a minivan at the bottom of a crumbling cliff
300 feet from the tight curve, misjudged,
the boy’s mother alive, but dying.

On a Thanksgiving night,
Christopher climbed for help
and stumbled upon Jesus
who shared what he had,
his coat, a fire
and the only common word
that bridged the barrier:
accidente.

Christopher is alive
because Jésus Cordova stayed with him
till dawn on the wrong side,

Jésus, the brick layer America rejected.

Labels: Scott Simpson

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Interview With Frank Viola

Tuesday, June 09, 2009 12:00 AM

As anyone who has had a conversation on just about any topic in the last few months knows, I am a HUGE fan of Frank Viola's book "From Eternity to Here." I was honored to see my original blog review of the book appear on The Ooze.

A few weeks ago I received an email from Frank's staff inviting me to participate in a blog circuit today promoting the book. The best part was the opportunity to submit questions regarding the book for response by Frank Viola. In the midst of a project this large (55 Bloggers In All) he was not able to answer all my questions, but I am grateful for the answers he did provide.. If just checking out Frank's answers to my questions wasn't exciting enough to excite you, my reader, I thought I'd sweeten the pot by giving a FREE COPY of the book away at the end of the interview.

1. You note the bride of Christ is removed from his side when the guard pierced Jesus' side (pleura) and blood and water flowed out. Is there a metaphorical significance to blood and water that you see there?

Yes, I believe so. The blood speaks of redemption. The water speaks of life. There are references to blood and water in John’s first epistle and in his Gospel. The Bride is cleaned by the blood; she is made alive and comes into being by the water (God’s life).

2. You note how important it is that Christ destroyed death to prepare the way for his bride. Was this a partial defeat reserved only for his bride or in totality for the restoration of the entire creation?

For the entire cosmos. The earth changed on resurrection day. On that day, the new creation was born. It will be consummated at the Lord’s return when His glorious Person will fill all things.

3. In the chapter on Mary Magdalene you note she was the first person Jesus spoke to an his words were an echo to Adam's "Woman..." Is Mary therefore the first member of the church?

I believe the church was formed on the day of Pentecost when the Spirit was poured out. Mary was certainly the first witness to His resurrection, which says a lot. Especially in how our Lord views women. In that day, a woman’s testimony wouldn’t hold up in a Jewish court of law. So the Lord made a great statement through appearing to Mary first. In the same way, Peter was the first male disciple who laid eyes on the resurrected Christ. Peter had just denied Him a few days earlier … three times in fact.

What a Lord of mercy and compassion!

4. Your chapter on the 2 tabernacles was certainly the high point of the book for me, so I have two questions about that. First, have you considered an entire work on this theme? Secondly, why was Solomon's temple completely skipped in this discussion?

Thanks. It’s my favorite image of God’s house. No plans for a book on that, but I gave an entire message on it that’s on CD. People have said that the spoken message on David’s Tabernacle is more powerful than the discussion of it in the book. I don’t know if that’s true or not. I don’t believe I skip Solomon’s temple, but I don’t treat it in any depth. When trying to capture the whole sweep of the Bible in a single book, you are forced to choose what you want to emphasis and expand. I felt David’s tabernacle was more fitting for this particular book.

I enjoyed the answers to the question, as I hoped you did too. I also hope our winner, Adam Mearse enjoys his free copy of the book I'll be sending over too. Also for those of you who did not win, I'll be giving away another copy on Friday, so if you did not get your name in the first time, be sure to add it between now and Thursday in the comments right here.

Labels: Frank Viola

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You Deserve Better

Tuesday, June 02, 2009 8:24 AM

It seems that you are on to the possibility that you deserve better, that you deserve to be put back together instead of torn apart. Wrapped in things that are true instead of lies. Shown pictures of hope instead of failure. - TWLOHA

If you have never heard of the organization To Write Love on Her Arms, you need to check them out. Their mission is to speak the truth of wholeness into the pain and brokenness of the secret world of self injury.Today they published a letter in response to the postcard that was in this Sunday's Postsecret.

I loved the above quote from their comments. Each person we meet whether they are struggling with self injury, or self righteousness is a broken vessel in need of being put back together. The historian Philo is often mis-credited with the quote,
"Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a great battle." Though the source to the wisdom is quite questionable, it's truth is not. The people we encounter, those we love, and those we struggle to love; those who love us and those who struggle to love us; those we attempt to ignore and those who attempt to ignore us; those we see as wise and those we see as fools, all of here on this great rock share the reality of pain.

"When you recognize that pain and response to pain is a universal thing, it helps explain so many things about others, just as it explains so much about yourself. It teaches you forbearance. It teaches you a moderation in your responses to other people's behavior. It teaches you a sort of understanding. It essentially tells you what everybody needs. You know what everybody needs? You want to put it in a single word? Everybody needs to be understood. And out of that comes every form of love. If someone truly feels that you understand them, an awful lot of neurotic behavior just disappears. Disappears on your part, disappears on their part. So if you're talking about what motivates this world to continue existing as a community, you've got to talk about love." - Sherwin Nuland

The great theologian Karl Barth was once asked what the greatest theological truth he had learned was and he replied, "Jesus loves me this I know, for the Bible tells me so." That truth is enhanced by the reality that every person I have ever loved, hated, respected, ignored, bandaged, or wounded is anchored by that same God love! It is my goal to live my life this way; to be brought into wholeness by God's healing power to such a point where I love enough to practice what I preach here, to make EVERY encounter of life a season of healing and wholeness, rather than adding to the pain and hurt!

God help me to Love like That!!!!

Labels: TWLOHA

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Shame On You!

Monday, June 01, 2009 9:44 AM

Life in our house has been out of sorts for a few weeks now. Our amazing God, is doing a healing work in my wife, and healing gaping wound can at times seem more painful than the resolution to just live with it. I will not go into much detail, since you can read through her telling the story over at christibowman.com.

In this process of walking with her in love through this healing, the issue of shame has become a major source of conversation. People exiting the painful prison of abuse must always pass through the barbed gates of shame. Abusive control requires the abuser to hold their victim into the dark cell of worthlessness through the threat of more serious deeper piercing wounds. Shame is a weapon used to further damage an already weakened emotional prey.

Shame has been a part of the human experience since moments after the first bites from the forbidden tree. Adam and Eve, hid from God when his footsteps were heard in the garden. After a poor sacrifice Cain's shame caused him to kill his brother. Jacob's shame caused him to send a wealth of gifts ahead of himself and his family to appease Esau. David sent a trusted warrior to be killed in the front line of battle after his adulterous affair with the man's wife. Shame has caused many a reactions in the people facing it's brutal stare.

Shame unfortunately does not come from merely internal struggles with our enemy. It is often joined by a voice or a crowd of voices promoting their own agenda for another's life. Far to often people deputize themselves into Satan's work joining his voice in accusing others of their perceived wrong. In the middle ages "Priest of the Church" would sentence unruly women into wearing hideous masks inviting public scorn. In the early days of formalized public education under performing students were given a cone headed dunce cap to humiliate them. Humiliation and scorn remain two of the painful implements used to remind the person perceived as out of line of their disgrace.

Although my in-laws weapons of shame have been turned on me, they were as harmless as the burst of air from an Airzooka canon. The stinging spikes of their scorn and humiliation are not so painless for my wife, who was conditioned by their venomous remarks from the time she was a little girl. It is the fragile child in need of her parents acceptance that cowers helpless despite the rational logic of the amazing adult she has grown to become. In a classic formula of abuse she has been systematically indoctrinated with the idea that she is a burden, unworthy of love who should be gracious and compliant to them for their willingness to love in spite of her being undeserving and base. The truth that she is admirable, compassionate, intelligent and good is cloaked from her own vision since the catalogue of instances that illustrate her unworthiness are recounted in performance style each time she attempts to remove the shame mask or set aside their dunce cap.

In one of my favorite gospel stories a woman who is found for some reason in sexual relations with a man who is her not husband is dragged out by a group of religious elitist to be exposed in her shame as a trap for Jesus. Exhibited before the crowd she cowers awaiting the bludgeoning pain of the stones she is about to have hurled at her. Jesus squats down to ground, placing himself level with her he looks into her to see her life, her pain, her circumstances that have brought her to be discovered as she was using and being used by the man ignored by her accusers. Jesus, the incarnate God, looks deep inside, past the shame and guilt and sees the little girl. Jesus, the incarnate God, looks up to peer back inside the accusers who have no shame in the midst of their self righteous piety. "Let You," Jesus replies to them, "Who has never sinned be the first to cast a stone."

"SHAME!!! SHAME!!! SHAME!!!" Jesus says to the professional religionist. It is not the brokenness present in all mankind that the God of the universe shames, it is the lie of self righteousness that assumes one worthy of the authority to sit on the judgement seat of God. Jesus' biting "Shame on You!" is first for the oldest and then continuing down to his peers who view themselves as executioners of proper morality. When they have all dropped their stones and sulked away sullied by having their own nakedness displayed, Jesus positions himself beside her, lifts her into his arms, and steps through the razors of the barbed fence freeing her from their prison of shame. Jesus takes the wounding of the jagged blades as he tenderly tells her, "Neither do I condemn you."

In 1 Corinthians 1:27 Paul teaches that, "But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty." It is a reminder of the great reversal of God's upside down kingdom. The boundless love of God speaks NO SHAME into our brokenness, and those who do sit in the judgment seat with their personal verdict and scorn, humiliation, and shame do not speak on his behalf.

Labels: Jesus, Shame

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Book Giveaway: From Eternity To Here - June 9th

Friday, May 29, 2009 1:00 PM

I am excited to be participating in a blog circuit for Frank Viola's book From Eternity to Here on June 9th. If you did not read my review of the book here or on The Ooze in the past, you can do so now, -http://kbow.us/hGzR. I do believe this is the most important, life changing book I have read this year.

F.E.T.H. is the third book in a trilogy by Viola. Starting in Pagan Christianity, Viola launched an outright attack on the perverted system of religion that culturally dominates under the name of Christianity. In Reimaging Church, he offers a constructive how to guide as a constructive response to Pagan Christianity. Finally in From Eternity To Her, the conclusion to the trilogy, you realize that you can't read this book without understanding that, in the way Pagan Christianity was an academic attack on the institutional church this is a narrative attack on it.

I facilitated a discussion on the book which you can listen to here if you are interested in a more detailed breakdown of the book's theme's and elements. However, an even better way to capture the book's message is to get a copy. SO, in honor of the June 9th blog circuit. I am giving away a FREE COPY of the book. Add your name to the comments on this post between now and June 8th, and then my son will draw a name from those participating to select a winner, which will be announced along with Viola's response to several questions I had about the book in the June 9th post right here..

Labels: Frank Viola, Giveaway

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God, I am Sorry

Tuesday, May 26, 2009 8:56 AM

Seth Barnes, the director of AIM, the organization we will be serving with in Nsoko, Swaziland, posted a wonderful blog and and challenged his readers to what prayer they would pray based on the Spirit's work in their life.

Check Out The Post - God, I'm Sorry

Here Is my Prayer:

Lord God, I too repent of my believing the lies of the American culture you trusted me into. I pursued safety, comfort, acquisition, and amusement, though you desired risk, suffering, surrender, and service. May your divine providence bring Jubilee to this selfish past!

Labels: Prayer, Seth Barnes

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1000th Post - Dispossessed

Friday, May 22, 2009 12:00 AM

I always assumed when I got to this point, 1000 posts, I would write some stirring post of great spiritual and literary value that demonstrated how I had grown as a writer and follower of God in the years since I started writing it. This will not be that post, I will include that as my goal for 2000th post. Instead I want to be honest and candid about who I am today, how I got here, and where I am going.

God is Love. It is the only way to start this story. I am more sure of this truth today than I have ever been. I am more convinced that this matters, than I have ever been convinced of anything mattering. I am thoroughly postmodern and therefore accept nothing with any level of final certainty except this one truth, God is Love.

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to heaven, we were all going direct the other way - Charles Dickens

I am a refugee from my homeland. My old citizenship was in an idealized version of Americana that has most likely never existed. It has been three years since I left that Americana and started this spiritual trek westward toward finding Eden. I must admit from my position in the desert, I am thankful for the water, the manna, and the quail; but I am not quite sure I can take another 37 years of it.

I grew up in the Church of Christ arm of the American Restoration Movement. My grand-father was affiliated with the non-institutional, non-sunday school, non-everything branch of our fellowship. My father was military so his frequent change of station brought us into contact with many types of these churches. This tribe that I have been raised in has it's merits and it's curses. In truth I have a "great Bible knowledge" because of the commitment to an academic approach to God's word that stems from the groups very modernistic worldview. The curse is that same modernist worldview creates an arrogant finality to the voice and language of God. The modern principle of "doctrinal purity" excludes any ability to wreslt with an ongoing dialog with the text.

Well before I knew anything at all about modern and postmodern thought. I knew that I was not programmed the same way as my tribe. I faithfully remained a part of this group, and worked within it with the great love of radical revolutionary. From Jr. High on through adulthood I usually felt more beaten and bloodied by the ruling regime than ever feeling like progress was being made toward another way.

My wrestling with God, and with the tribe he had placed me within, did not stop with our method of reading and responding to the word of God. My conflict ran deeper into issues of ethic. The modernist bent of our tribe leads to a worship of all things quinessentially modern. This meant that the "great experiment in self government" was viewed as God's will for mankind. I could not and still can not reconcile the ethic of a church aligned with the national interest of a nation state who would use it's pulpit to become propaganda to that nation state.

In examples, I remember being a 17 year old pacifist in 1992 attempting to challenge the church's wholsale acceptance of violence against the Iraqi people. I remember asking questions like did Jesus really want girls pushed to back alley "doctors" with crude tools as "punishment" for their immorality. Challenges like this recieved me the label of instigator and accused of hijacking the Bible class. Questions like this were core to the ethic of what it meant to read this book our study calimed to revere.

As I studied in college and matured in the years since, my questions have remained the same. I continued to wonder if "church" should shape the morality of our interpersonal human interaction more than it shapes our doctrine of metaphysical truth. My tension in our differing approaches to the word of God eventually led to a seismic rift.

Three years ago, Jesus wrecked my life! I purchased a book titled Fields of the Fatherless mainly because I liked the cover description and it was on sale for $5. In that book I fell in love with Jesus. I knew God before this, inasmuch as I had been taught about him, employed to teach others about him, and experienced trying to serve him. I thought I knew Jesus too, but I did not. The Jesus I knew I can only best describe it as before this time I had only ever read about Jesus, in Tom Davis's book I met Jesus.

Meeting Jesus will always put you at odds with the world around you. The world is just not all that happy with a God who claims that downward mobility is the path to joy, and fills His kingdom with the poor, the immoral, and the wretched. That doesn't work well in a tri-fold brochure.

In January of this year our family felt led by God to leave the "church" we were affiliated with and venture into an entirely new model of the journey. We visited a church recently in the Rogers Park neighborhood where my oldest daughter met and connected to an older woman with some learning challenges. The woman liked my daughter a lot, and my daughter liked her too. The woman asked, "Will you be back next week?" To which my oldest replied, "Probably not, my parents just like to check things out." It was a most honest telling of the journey we have been on. We have been part of church that meets in our home and another that meets elsewhere, we have been part of a ministry to ex-offenders, we have pursued fellowship with an intentional Mennonite community, we have tried many other things too and still are wandering checking things out.

That is how I got here to who I am today. I am a dispossessed pilgrim trying to be the hands and feet of Jesus. I own a home in the burbs, but belong among the broken. I am in tension with the life I cut out for myself, and the life God created me to fulfill. I am made to live out the love of God, but mostly I just love enough to keep living. I am standing on the wrong side of the Jordan waiting to cross over. I am on a trek with almighty God, but ready to be settled down in his promised land. It is the best and worst of tension and times.

Where I am going is much harder than where I came from and where I am at. The old cliche says that the future is still unwritten, and I feel that way. God has confirmed a ministry to the orphans of Nsoko, yet our house is unsold and we are no longer connected to a support stream. I feel like the future has more to do with God's intervention than with my plans. With your grace as I mix metaphors, my Issac is tied to the altar and the knife is raised above my head.

I am dispossessed!

Labels: Kingdom of God, Promised Land

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The View From The Wilderness

Thursday, April 30, 2009 10:10 PM

In the New Testament Greek the word erhmos occurs a total of forty-seven times in five forms. Although most often it is translated as wilderness, in some forms of the scholars have felt the word is more appropriately translated as an isolated or remote place, in essence a place of voluntary solitude: this is the exception being translated this way only nine times.

A most interesting exception to this is Luke 15:14 which in modern translations is translated as open pasture or open country. The translation note I read from the NET translation pointed out that this was an editorial decision because they did not like the sense the verse left when wilderness was used. I am no Greek expert at all, having barely passed it 14 years ago, I am still quite bothered by editorial decisions that are not reflected in the text. So I decided to use my gifts where they lie, and consult a database for further enlightenment. Liddell, a secular lexicon, has no such definition for the word.

At this point you may very well feel I am nit picking a word, and the editorial decision is harmless and changes nothing. In fact we like the idea as insiders on this "God family" that God leaves us nestled away in the safety of our open pasture while he treks out to find other lost sheep. Yet the language of Jesus, a master of story telling imagery, does not leave a crowd of insiders safe inside the sheep pen. Instead he leaves us in the wilderness, the same wilderness that he was driven off into to be tempted, the same wilderness that symbolizes the barren woman's desolation.

The wilderness is not a welcoming picture at all. In fact scholar Roderick Fraser-Nash in his work Wilderness and the American Mind points out that our word wilderness "comes from the concept of wildeor, used in the 8th-century Beowulf epic the word is a mixture of “will”—self-willed, uncontrollable nature and deor, meaning savage beast. So then the “wilderness” is the place where uncontrollable dangerous beasts lurk, it is dark and threatening place. It is the kind of place where mythical horrors like Sasquatch and Chupacabra lurk. It's the kind of place where the son of God goes toe to toe with his enemy. This is the place the Great shepherd leaves his flock.

The abandonment in the isolation of the wilderness, is not unfamiliar to anyone who has been in this Christianity thing for long. Honestly speaking, I am here in it right now. A year ago our plans were to be in Swaziland, ministering to orphans. Tonight, I still sit here in Chicago, same house, same job, same...., The isolation of the sameness is a wilderness, a year has come and gone and the work I long to be doing for the Kingdom, still sits miles away on the other side of this wilderness. It can be depressing if I allow it to be.

Yet for here, and for now I take comfort. Though I am out here in the wilderness, it is just the place the Great shepherd left me, and he is still about the business of rescue. I am in a desolate place, but remain in good hands.

Labels: Wilderness

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Don't Do It

Wednesday, April 29, 2009 1:00 PM

Take care, brothers, lest there be in any of you an evil, unbelieving heart, leading you to fall away from the living God. But exhort one another every day, as long as it is called "today," that none of you may be hardened by the deceitfulness of sin. For we have come to share in Christ, if indeed we hold our original confidence firm to the end - Hebrews 3:12-14

"the point of intersection of the sovereignty of God and the collective believers’ subjective state is an intersection of the Father’s decision to act, and our fully recognized state of utter helplessness until He does...As long as we imagine that God is awaiting our facilitating of His purpose, we deceive ourselves into thinking that we are not, in fact, spiritually bankrupt in and of ourselves and bereft of any ability to contribute to the doing of God" - John Gavazzoni

I am not inclined to be helpless. It is not in my nature to wait. I would rather do! Yet, it is our calling to just BE! In the words of my friend Jed Brewer, "I bring nothing to the table. We could never split the tab." This is a truth I know in my head, yet struggle to migrate into my heart. God is initiation to me is "Don't do it, just learn to be in me." This is the sanctification that enables love, joy, and peace. I can not do love, it is to BE lived. I can not do joy, it is to BE lived. I can not do peace, it is to BE lived. I can not DO for I AM, I can only BE His!

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Parable of the Leaven - Fr. Thomas Keating

Monday, April 27, 2009 12:00 PM

He told them another parable: 'The kingdom of God is like yeast which a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.' (Matthew 13:33)

Jesus says the kingdom of God is like leaven. In the ancient Mediterranean world as we saw, leaven had very negative associations. It was the archetype of uncleanness and corruption. Leaven was made by putting a piece of bread in a dark, damp place until it molded and stank. Both leaven and the process of leavening were symbols of corruption.

In the Jewish tradition men were considered ritually pure and women were ritually unclean. As a consequence, rabbis were forbidden to speak to women in public. No rabbi giving a formal sermon would cite a woman as heroine of any story. Jesus frequently did so in his parables, however, ignoring the stereotypes of his day.

In this parable Jesus addresses the popular idea that the kingdom of God is holy, good, and triumphant. The kingdom turns out to be active in the marginalized and the poor, both of whom regarded in Jesus' day as objects of God's abandonment. The state of poverty was regarded as the result of sin and hence was a symbol of corruption. Natural calamities"

I have had this wonderful story sitting in my drafts for over three years. I keep meaning to post it and write a reflection on it. However, really what could I add to such a beautiful commission.

Labels: Kingdom of God

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Bart Campolo - I'm Gonna Kill You

Saturday, April 25, 2009 8:00 AM

One 14-year-old boy in the program had shot and killed an innocent teenager to prove himself to his gang. At the trial, the victim’s mother sat impassively silent until the end, when the youth was convicted of the killing. After the verdict was announced, she stood up slowly and stared directly at him and stated, “I’m going to kill you.” Then the youth was taken away to serve several years in the juvenile facility.

After the first half-year the mother of the slain child went to visit his killer. He had been living on the streets before the killing, and she was the only visitor (in jail) he’d had. For a time they talked, and when she left she gave him some money for cigarettes. Then she started step-by-step to visit him more regularly, bringing food and small gifts.

Near the end of his three-year sentence, she asked him what he would be doing when he got out. He was confused and very uncertain, so she offered to help set him up with a job at a friend’s company. Then she inquired about where he would live, and since he had no family to return to, she offered him temporary use of the spare room in her home. For eight months he lived there, ate her food, and worked at the job.

Then one evening she called him into the living room to talk. She sat down opposite him and waited. Then she started, “Do you remember in the courtroom when I said I was going to kill you?” “I sure do,” he replied. “I’ll never forget that moment.” “Well, I did it,” she went on. “I did not want the boy who could kill my son for no reason to remain alive on this earth. I wanted him to die. That’s why I started to visit you and bring you things. That’s why I got you the job and let you live here in my house. That’s how I set about changing you. And that old boy, he’s gone. So now I want to ask you, since my son is gone, and that killer is gone, if you’ll stay here. I’ve got room and I’d like to adopt you if you let me.” And she became the mother he never had.

May the God of all love, joy, and peace transform our hearts like he did this woman's

Labels: Kingdom of God

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Brennan Manning - Furious Longing of God - Quote

Thursday, April 23, 2009 12:40 PM

Jesus Christ has irreparably changed the world...His sentences stand like quivering swords of flame because he did not come to bring peace but a revolution. The gospel is not a children's fairytale. But rather a cutting edge, rolling thunder, convulsive earthquake against the world of the human spirit.

This is not the God of the philosophers who speak of a supreme being. A supreme being would never allow spit on his face. It is jarring indeed to learn, that what he (Christ) went through in his passion and death is meant for us too; that the invitation he extends is, “Don’t weep for me, join me.”

The life he has for Christian’s is a life much like he lived. He was not poor, so I could be made rich. He was not mocked that we might be honored. He was not laughed at so we would be lauded. On the contrary he paints a picture that includes you and me.

Labels: Quotes

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Now That's What I Call Nutritous

Monday, April 20, 2009 12:05 PM

Over the past eight years I have been through periods of intense health consciousness, and periods of slack dietary habits where I consumed the Standard American Diet. I have read and listened to the work of a number of health food practitioners including Dr. Joel Robbins, Rev George Malkus, Dr. Joel Fuhrman, Dr Gerson and Dr. Mercola. I do believe their research which proves that we are in the best health when we eat a diet of raw plant based materials. Although I agree with this, the invitation to the wonderful tempation of Portillos, and the convience of processed foods has often seduced me back to the S.A.D. so easily available around me.

Over the next several weeks, my wife and I have committed to participating in a juicing fast, to provide our bodies not only with an intense burst of nutrition and healing, but to once again help propell us into a lifestyle of better health choices. This is not a total fast, in the fact that we will eat a cooked starch based evening meal. This fast is not like a "wilderness fast" where we are being devoid of calories and nutrition, but instead has a strict regimine of ultra-nutritious freshly made vegetables juices.

Here is my "consumption schedule" for each weekday during this period of nurtitional revitalization.

8:00 - Wake Up! - Consume nothing first hour awake.
9:00 - Vegetable Juice - Today I started with a carrott - beet juice to get some sugar in my system.
10:00 - Barley Max - A manufactured version of a wheatgrass like beverage.
11:00 - Vegetable Juice
12:00 - Barley Max
1:00 - Vegetable Juice
2:00 - Barley Max
3:00 - Vegetable Juice
5:00 - Barley Max
6:00- Vegetable Juice
7:00 - 1 Large Baked Potato or 1 Cup Brown Rice

This in addition to all the water we want to drink, is our total consumption for the five workdays each week of the fast.

On weekends we still won't consume anything the first hour we are awake and we will use the Barley Max only twice each day for those two days. Our food on the weekends will still be all plant based, but it will involve more traditional cooked foods, rather than just the juices.

Personally, I feel there is more than just the benefit of the healing power of great nutrition. We live in a society of on demand pleasure. If my tummy rumbles, I fill it. If my sweet tooth suggest, I comply. If I smell it, then I taste it. Although this is not "evil" per say. For me, it steals an awareness to the needs of others around me. Since I quickly and thoughtlessly meet every perceived need as I experience it, I am blinded to the needs those surrounding me can not meet. It is my prayer during this exercise in nutritional fasting, that God will use the pangs in my tummy, or the neglect of my sweet tooth to give me his vision into the pangs and neglect of needs that I would normally walk past.

Labels: Fasting, Juicing

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Holy Week Thursday: Dirty Feet

Thursday, April 09, 2009 11:00 PM

"For I received from the Lord what I also passed on to you, that the Lord Jesus on the night in which he was betrayed took off his outer robe and bent down to serve, washing his disciples feet he said, “This is my body, which is for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” - 1 Cor 11:13 (with liberties)

John tells the story of Jesus washing the disciples' feet, in about the same place in the storyline where the others tell about the institution of the Lord's supper. I find it interesting that John doesn't mention the actual passover meal at all, and yet details a good portion of the dialouge in much greater detail than the other writers. By conclusion I figure the feet washing affected him more profoundly than it did Matthew, who by profession we know was a wealthy educated Jew. Matthew was caught up by the now realized fulfillment of the Passover meal. The son of thunder was caught up by the master choosing to be the slave.

John has come a long way in his life from the "son of thunder" we meet at the beginning of his life with Jesus, to the aged saint and elder of the church who writes 1 John, the epistle of love. I wonder how profoundly this act has much to do with that.

I have read authors point out that the feet washing instruction Jesus gives is about service within the family God. This is not to say that Jesus did not want the church to serve those outside the "church", since he makes that clear in many other place. However this act, this is about how the people of God treat each other.

I get the idea when John writes, "whoever has stuff and sees his brother in need without caring, how can he call himself a lover of God" (1 John 3:17 paraphrased) he is thinking back to this example Jesus set.

For John, in the entirety of his writing, we see that love for one another actualized through service to one another, is a sacramental act. For John, having his feet washed was a saving moment.

Holy Week Prayer: Lord Father, remind me constantly that loving my brother, through actual sacrificial service on my part, is an act of sacrament in your Kingdom.

An Observation on John 13:1-17

Labels: Holy Week

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"I want to prepare like an evangelical; preach like a Pentecostal; pray like a mystic; do the spiritual disciplines like a Desert Father; art like a Catholic; and social justice like a liberal."- Mark Driscoll

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