felix hominum

christian ministry at the university of alberta...

Just had a great conversation & coffee with Scott from the U of A Navigators , and we chatted a bit about our various plans for campus ministry in the upcoming year here at the old U of A.  One of the things that seems to be coming back to me is prayer.   Part of being away for the last few weeks has given me a chance to rethink and pray about the various things I "do" as part of the various "Christian programming" on campus.   And while there is a necessary place for activities and programs of all sorts in campus ministry, I sense that God is continually calling me to more and deeper prayer.   Not sure where this is going,  but I want to spend more time in prayer for our campus, our residences, our faculty, ourselves.

There are some great Christian ministries at the U of A  (a few links on the sidebar, I'll add some more for the locals as the terms gears up).   

Pray.
Pray.
Pray.

one last look...

this has been the view from my office window over the last week or so...

back again

with only a few scrapes & bruises...

quick turnaround

back down from mt robson;  but we are now getting the canoes ready for the Adams river - leaving tomorrow....  will post pics upon return

a wandering aramaean was my father...

It's supposed to be, according to some, the "oldest text" in scripture.  It is the beginning of a story.   And it places the storyteller within the story - it is a connection.  During our retreat on Mt Robson, we won't be taking any "texts" with us (not even photcopies, but don't get me wrong). 

Instead we will be taking the stories.  We will be telling the stories  - of God meeting people on the mountains, and of Jesus on the mount of beatitudes and on the mount of transfiguration.   

And seeing how God is placing us in His story.

bloggin lite

since I'm just now packing things for the Mount Robson trip - see you all in a week or so...

good news for U of A undergrads

Sometimes things just go your way.  Check out the latest academic findings on drinking and thinking .  And then join me for a pint before calculus...

on recognizing Jesus in the storm

Healings & boats & nor’westers

Yesterday we had a conversation around “Jesus as Healer” at Sol Café.  It’s part of our continuing journey through the gospel of Matthew.  It is a topic that is rather close to my heart, as some of you who know me are aware.   Who is this Healer, how does he heal? 

It has been said that we Christians have a great “theology” of healing.  Pray, have faith, trust in this good Father God who wants only the best for his children.  The Scriptures are full of the miracles of Jesus. 

It has also been said that we have a lousy “theology” of not being healed. 

When we first found out that our daughter SJ had a number of “issues”, “difficulties” (or whatever other euphemism you want to use), we prayed for healing.  We asked others to pray for healing.  It didn't’t come.  There were any number of bits of “Christian advice” on the topic we received from different well meaning folks.  Let me recount just a few, as a bit of a model of what not to do if you are trying to help:

1]  “Just pray Jabez”.  I’m not kidding – I actually had one person tell me that the whole thing would be fine if I would just pray the prayer of Jabez into the situation.  Not sure exactly what that was about.  I suppose it is about “Magic” – with the right formula of words we can cast a spell on God and force him to act the way we want. 

2}  “Have more faith”.  Those who are dealing with sickness, disease and death do not need the added pressure of having the “quantity of their faith” measured and declared insufficient for the purposes at hand.  It also removes grace from healing – making healing dependent upon the number of litres of faith I happen to have, and if I need more faith, somehow I can just top up my spiritual engine with a few quarts of high grade at a whim.

The threads weaving together in my mind are also tied up with yesterday’s reading about Jesus and Peter and the storm and walking on water.  I spent a number of years on the East Coast of Canada;  I’ve done a bit of sailing.  I’ve been out there when the sea turns rough and the spray begins to blow and the visibility grows shorter by the minute.  You wonder why the disciples cried out in terror when they saw Jesus walking on the sea?   He was not walking on a calm little pond in someone’s backyard – he was walking on swells, in spray and mist in the dead of night. I’ve seen a storm or two on the water, and I’ve seen the sea on which He walked.

It is hard to recognize Jesus in the dead of night, in the midst of the storm, when the waves are chopping and the boat itself is barely a place of “safety”. The boat is a place of frantic activity – doing all you can to keep going, turning the bow into the waves at 90 degrees so you can cut through the chop; every shift of wind wants to turn you broadside – with the threat of capsizing.

It’s hard to recognize Jesus in the storm.

the myth of scarcity, part 2

A bit of a guest blog today, from Winston Pei:

I don't think there is anything wrong with saying "there's not enough: [insert commodity here]" -- that's the truth, resources are not infinite. I don't even think there is anything wrong with saying "Because I don't have enough [insert commodity here], I can't do [insert activity here]" -- I still have trouble saying "no" to people, but the truth is I don't have [time] to [raise a family and work three jobs and meet every friend for coffee and volunteer and exercise and go back to school and single-handedly save the entire world]. I can be creative and exercise with my children, work where I can meet my friends or make friends where I work, even volunteer with my family and friends somewhere where exercise and learning new things are involved. But at some point the clock strikes twelve and the day is done. And at some point The Big Clock strikes Now and it's time to Go Home.

The problem is when your reality contains too great a disjoint between perception and truth, and when the perceived lack of something becomes an excuse rather than an accurate assessment of the way things really are.  Where the "myth" is a distortion of the truth, as Brueggemann rightly sees the myth of scarcity, instead of an instructive and productive way of
viewing the world. As Rachel suggests in her posting, it's not about an actual lack of time, it's about how you choose to use your time and view your time.

Of course then the problem is that it becomes personal. No longer can you blame something safely external like lack of time or lack of money. It's all about whether your priorities are in the right place. And what is sometimes worse when people take it too personally, it's about saying to people or hearing from people that you are not a priority, even if your/their priorities are exactly where they should be.

Reminds me, as I am often reminded, of the parable of the talents  -- where we are all given different amounts of money [read time/ skills/ resources/ patience/ headspace/ insert commodity here] but will be judged not on what we have been given but rather on what we do with that with which we have been blessed.

So are you just earning interest? Are you putting everything you have -- your money, your time, your love, your talents -- out there into the world in order to make all that you can of it? Or have you just buried it in the ground out of fear for its scarcity?

the myth of scarcity

A little thought over at Rachel's blog reminded me a a piece that Walter Brueggemann wrote a while back:  The Liturgy of Abundance and the Myth of Scarcity.   

It's about saying "there's not enough:  [insert commodity here]".  time/ money/ virtue/ energy/ patience/ love/ headspace.  You name it, and chances are I'm convinced there's not enough of it to go around.  And so I convince myself that I can't do x, y or z.   I'll say a few other things on this later, when I have more time.