well parabola you’re looking mighty artsy today

Radiolab has made Math look so hip. enjoy…and also listen to their pod casts. They’re so interesting

 

 

Steven…i’m sorry but for as long as i live math will always make me think of you.

simple pleasure #5

baking….pies most specifically

simple pleasure #4

quiet.

.

simple pleasure #3

naps.

simple pleasures #2

the smell of old books.

its the simple things

its the simple pleasures that give us sweet tastes of happiness in this life. having the ability to appreciate the small things will get you more than any luxury will. its the simple things that will be like treasures when life begins to dull and sweet times are vastly separated by the bitter.
in hopes to become a better blogger i will try posting once a week (maybe even more often) one of my favorite simple pleasures.

today.
hot cup of coffee on a cool morning spent on the beach.

the clouds

this post has been a brewin’ since we went to Florida in April and saw a lightning storm from the plane on the way home.  It was…..well, see for yourself. It’s only 1:33 long.

We felt like that wasn’t ours to see.  Man wasn’t made for the heavens, he was made for the earth.  Nahum says that the clouds are the dust of God’s feet, that even where he walks is above us.  And there’s Psalm 104 that says, “You are clothed with splendor and majesty, covering yourself with light as with a garment, stretching out the heavens like a tent. He lays the beams of his chambers on the waters;he makes the clouds his chariot.  Here, God is wrapped in light, but on the clouds.

Yet earlier in 2 Samuel 22, David says that he called on the Lord and he showed up and among other things, “He made darkness around him his canopy, thick clouds, a gathering of water.”  So God is surrounded by the cloud, obscuring our view of him.  It’s same in Psalm 97 with “Clouds and thick darkness are all around him; righteousness and justice are the foundation of his throne.”  It reminds me of the early part of Independence Day when the space ships are coming through the atmosphere and the clouds are all in fire and you can’t see what’s going on behind it.

God is both in the clouds and rides upon the clouds.  There is so much we don’t understand, but can still be in awe of as God declares himself in these heavens and this earth.  Here are some other examples of this from our trip.

Christ in the suburbs

This has been on my radar a long time, as I grew up in what some refer to as “white bread land”.  I finally found some people who are processing through some of the same stuff I’ve had to go through in coming out of that situation.  Ultimately, I faced the question “is living in the suburbs wrong?”
Entrance stage right,  thesubtext.org

“Right now it’s cool to love the city and loathe the suburbs, but I do not believe this reflects the heart of God. I believe God has a love/hate relationship with this culture. My culture. And I’m working hard to maintain that balance in my own heart.”  -Joe Thorn

I want to go on record that I believe the theology of the city is weak sauce.  That if you truly believed what was said about the city, then you could apply that to the suburbs, the hay fields, the where ever you live.  God made all creation and called it good, so there is good to find and redeem in the suburbs too.  And it needs finding, because the suburbs are broken….just like the city is broken.  There is no more or less good you can do living in the city than living in the burbs.

p.s. Does this mean that cities are not important? No, but you don’t need a theology of the city to tell me that people are important.  FYI, there are lots of people in cities. People are important, people have souls, and their souls are eternally made to worship God.

The good samaritan

So I was reading this morning in Leviticus, and not one, but two passages made me think of that particular story Jesus tells the lawyer in the Gospel of Luke.  Leviticus 19.18 is what Jesus is quoting when he says “You shall not take vengeance, nor bear any grudge against the sons of your people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself; I am the Lord.”  I was stunned that this verse that Jesus quotes is specifically about how you treat other Jews.  I hadn’t realized that before.
And then when I got to Leviticus 21, which is all about the priests, the first thing commanded of the sons of Aaron is “no one shall defile himself for a dead person among his people, except for his relatives who are nearest to him, his mother and his father and his son and his daughter and his brother, and also for his virgin sister. “   And I said, “woah”.

Remember those priests in the story of the good samaritan?  When they come up on the guy, Jesus has said in the story that the guy was beaten and naked and looked half dead(luke 10.30).  Those priests are not being the uncaring, insensitve jerks I’ve always been told they were by walking past him on the road.  They went so far as to pass by him on the other side of the path, because if they go look to see if he’s dead and it turns out that he is, then they are defiled and can’t be priests anymore.  Or if they start to help him and he dies while they are helping him…..defiled.  It’s a lose/lose situation for them, and they know it because they have been told this part of the law since they were kids.

Here’s the kicker though, and I think this is the point Jesus was making to his lawyer friend.  While the priest and the Levite are keeping the law by not touching him, the samaritan is fulfilling the law in helping him.  The context for this whole story was that the lawyer has answered Jesus correctly on the fulfillment of the law which leads to eternal life(v25-28), but then wants to what? justify himself(v29).  So we get the question, “who is my neighbor?”

I am that lawyer every day.  I seek to justify myself by asking “what must I do?” and hoping for the easy answer.  That lawyer wants Jesus to say “love your fellow Jew” because he can do that and he has done it, it’s easy for him.  Jesus rocks his world by giving him a situation where fulfilling the law is in almost complete contradiction of keeping the law.  He’s also rocking mine.  What about you?  Is Jesus asking you to fulfill the law in your life instead of just keeping it?

p.s.  You don’t really want to just be keeping the law.  it’s too much to even keep and you’ll only end of condemning yourself.  That’s what the lawyer didn’t realize and Jesus was showing him, that keeping the law won’t get him anywhere without a mediator to fulfill it on his behalf.  Praise God that Jesus is that mediator, for both that supid lawyer and stupid me.

An evening at home with the newest Janis

His name is Dr. Dublin Fenimore Janis.