Thursday, July 30, 2009

The present

The Future of my Past

I come from there
I wash my face in it in the morning
I dress myself with it's colour
It is who I am
Genetically mutated by my past
It is whom I take into the future
My past, pre-dispostions me
So that my future prejusdices me
It is who I am and it will cloud whom I become
I am forever changed, but keep being the same
The past formed me for a future just like this one
And it's called the present,
A gift from the past to the future.

Wednesday, July 15, 2009

Friday, June 12, 2009

Phases:

So easily we look upon the times of our lives and refer to them as phases. There is the terrible two's, a phase when independence is tasted and suddenly what was a soft cuddly infant becomes a terrorist, that sabotages everything you atempt to do for them.

Then there is the shy phase, the naked phase, the teenager phase and much later the midlife crises phase.

Why do we call these times of change and self awareness phases? Like we just can't wait to get to the other side of this time. Write it off as a bad time?

We are lothing these special moments, but instead we should celebrate them.

I am going through a phase and so my family is going through this phase too. They want to get the other side of this time, but this it part of who I am becoming. This is not a phase, as much as going through puberty is not a phase, but a change after which you never can go back to how it was.

Saying that you long for the time before the phase would be uttering nonsence. When you get born, you are endowed with a certain set of skills to transform - a little like evolution. You were always going to change, it is in your genes after all.

So if the family wants you to return to what you were before the phase. It would be like trying to make the butterfly go back to being a worm.

Phased? Let me know.

Saturday, April 25, 2009

Monday, March 2, 2009

Insignificance amongst the greats of the past


My recent travels in the UK gave me a whole new view on my real place in this world. When facing a building that took 250 years to build, you start understanding how small you really are.

Today our expectations are that we could design and build all our dreams in a singular lifetime, but really good things take a a lot longer.Just take the Minstry in York. Every rock carved out of a solid slab to fit perfectly on the rock below it. In today's engineering world, everything is mass produced for as little as possible (the bricks we build with today are not custom sized for anything other than productivity) and we often dream of a standard like - all vehicles use the same size oil filter.

But the rocks on the Minstry and on so many other old historic buildings were each custom made just for the block below it. Unlike the song that used to be so popular in the 1980's and earlier with the words that say "...we are just another brick in the wall..." these stones are each unique and specially chiseled to fit just in that spot.

What makes this analogy even more of a trip is that the rock it is build of is perhaps millions of years old. If I had to determine the age of the Minstry by its components it would be calculated to be millions of years old. A faulty rational that doesn't seem to bother any of the evolutionist cronies.

I walked into the Minstry and there I saw art that was handmade. Now remember that this art form is not into wood or metal that you could melt and pour into some form to assure the repetitive accuracy of the end product, but from rock. Hard rock that was slowly chipped away at till it reached perfection. Perfection was the only thing that was good enough for an altar in any of these great buildings of yesteryear. Mostly places of worship that stood the test of time. I imagined the work that went into every detail of those wonderful buildings and I wondered if I would have been able to do that which was before me.

To understand me a little better I need to reveal that I am the kind of person that has very little fear in taking on something I have never done before. I watch extreme sports on TV and I find a force driving me to try it myself, but when I stood before these sculptures and pictured myself doing it, it brought a type of fear over me that I had never felt before. The person doing this work had to have the patience of a saint. Tirelessly, but never mindlessly, he had to chip and scratch away at the granite and marble. Big slabs of continuous stone with motif after motif on it. Portraits of different people who might have been men and woman of great esteem during this era of religious faith. And repeating intricate shapes flawlessly. Now working with marble or any rock, there are many small inconsistencies in these very hard materials and just think how long it must have taken one young man to produce such a fete of wonder. He might have had to work on it more than a year with his primitive tools and perhaps at the very end of this piece of work he loses his concentration and chips away a piece of rock that should still be part of the larger sculpture. What happened then. This was the fear I was feeling.I went to everyone and looked for the error, but found not one. I can only think that the young man started over. But that's okay, because he started on his work 4 lifetimes before the due date for the delivery of this magnificent building.

If I was to start such a venture in those days, it was my son's son's son's son that would be at the inaugurational service and he would be the one to praise God in this magnificent building so fitting for service. A building that was the life's work of thousands of people over several generations. Families of workers, whose greatest fete was to have their sons carry on the work that they begun. The final completion of these churches was not witnessed by the layers of the foundation, but the completed product brought honour to all that lived their lives for its final blessing. A blessing of worship that would continue for many more generations than the 5 it took to erect it.

I stood inside these cathedrals and felt the presences of angels. Here was evidences of tears that was spilt form many for the lost souls of this world. Many a sinner became a saint on bended knee, within these pews and it was as if their prayers were still faintly echoing within those thick walls of stone. I could see how one would treasure such a building in your community. A place where there is so much beauty to behold, you might even forget about the pain you came there with, the reason you brought your prayer there. Surely if God was anywhere it had to be there.

As I was taking this all in, it occurred to me that in the same way, we are part of the generations of workers that build on the church of Christ. A building of the souls of people amongst whom God will dwell and where He will be worshiped. This church is the real McCoy, this church will forever stand. We have opportunity to be part of the workforce to build this ultimate building, that He calls - His church. And just like the young man, we would have to start over when we make a mistake. Herein is the patience of the saints that they labour on even though the rewards lay many generations into the future. And like the workers of the Minstry, Peter, Paul and John who laid the foundations to this church, bare honour with all who labour for its completion. How great that day when God pitches up for the that great inaugural service, but until then we labour on.

Another prelude to love is...

Love between a man and a woman was said to be started by the god Eros. Also know as Cupid, he shoots his arrow into the eye of the person and this arrow finds its way down to the heart. The reason for the arrow, to give some sort of understanding of the pain that comes with love. I'm guessing that this is especially true for lost love. There has been accounts of people simply dying from a broken heart. The will to continue, without the love in their grasp, disappears like the setting sun.

Is love depended upon a receiving party or can it exist alone. I believe that love has to be shared to be fulfilling, but it is possible to love another without that love being answered completely.

Love that exists in a shared environment and then is denied by one of the parties involved, becomes a tragedy. It is here that betrayal and deceit tear things apart till the only thing that is left, is the arrow stabbed through the heart. So great is the pain that is felt, one can hardly keep breathing. There is no cure and the pain can only be numbed when you numb everything, and that is essentially death. So frankly - love is the most dangerous of things to experience. Once you've been invaded by love, life as you knew it is over. Your new life has begun.

For some crazy reason, so many lives that are changed in this fashion, end on the jagged rocks below. The most precious gift of all gifts is simply abandoned or abused, taken for granted or betrayed. One can be betrayed in life on many fronts, but betrayed love leaves you with no recourse, no comeback, no stitches for the deep lacerations afflicted to your tender heart. Many become vindictive, an attempt to answer their own pain with the pain they might be able to inflict. Somewhere in their deepest Id they reason that the pain is connected to the object of their love. Take the object away and the pain will also go away, but, and this is a big BUT, what they don't understand is that the pain is there because the lover had the anti-serum for the pain that the arrow was inflicting. So the only real cure for the pain is to get the person to fall in love with you again.

Substitute love is often used, but substitute love will always be less than fulfilling. Your heart is "given away", stabbed by Cupid's arrow and the love you receive can't be stored, because it leaks out.

So there is no solution other than death? I'm not saying it. I know the God of the universe and He knows me. He is all powerful and in His hands, I know, lays healing. But like any cut on the body there will remain a scar. And as far as hearts go, they can't take too many cuts. You might say that God can do anything, but just remember that He was the One that made the heart this way!

Friday, February 27, 2009

Love is...

This might be my greatest work yet. I struggle to bring this one in, but in it must come so come back to see it soon right here. Guaranteed to alter the way you see many a thing, it did it for me and it'll do it to you. People I tell find something happening inside forever, changing.

Hey little bird

Oh little bird, how come you flew my way?
What was it you had to say?
Where to, were you on your way
When our eyes met this sultry day?
What did you see in their depths,
Did you see strength or was it weakness there beneath?
Could you see what I think, dream and believe?
I imagine you’ve been privy to many a scene.
Sat in a tree, watching people kiss and carve their names
With hearts committed to do the right thing.
Did you know their lives together would change everything?
Could you see their future from your perch?
How I wish I could fly where you’ve been.
See what you’ve seen.
Maybe I should keep the feathers from your wing,
Next to the Ice cream and the pepper thing.
See if they lead me in your ways.
See if they show me all of your days.
And see if they take me to a higher place
To know where I’m going and what trials I’m to face.
But then again – you never knew the last thing you’d ever see
was the whites of my eyes in the sight of me.
Are you some sort of make-shift offering
to the god of metal, glass, rubber and something rotating?
Sacrificed to a Higher power on a prayer and a wing.
For my sins and for my suffering.

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Theology majors still in the minors

This last weekend I went to listen to a pastor that now is Director of Ministry for our local church conference. He has spoken at conference meetings before and it was really good. It seemed that he was always bringing out topics that I had great interest in and enjoyed to find him put facts to my already held presuppositions.

If anyone knows me they will know that what impresses me in a speaker is not their title, but their ability to carry over a heavenly message of truth in a simple understanding. I believe that truth is always simple and easy to understand. If you find yourself lost in a sermon, you probably are being confused. This is not your doing, but usually the doing of the preacher. His own confusion is carried over into his sermon. The Bible is a book with many layers to be understood, but just like Jesus' parables, they are all easy to understand when you look at them with innocent eyes. Therefor we need to become like children again. We need to let the Spirit open our understanding and not think that the preacher's inability to do what God called him to do is our problem.

Well needless to say, this preacher missed so many points and brought me to one very clear understanding and that is that he had no clue.

His expressed purpose was to assure the congregation that God is not judging you by your deeds, but by the life and blood of Christ. The message he was teaching was essentially true, but was also fraught with his, personally induced, trip-ups. He wanted to condemn perfectionism, but instead his points were weak and allowed for confrontation. It became clear that he himself is still struggling to completely grasp the fact that Salvation is the priceless gift of God through the acts of His Son. And since this gift is not something you send in the mail in response to an application for salvation or hand to only those who love you, but assessed to your character even though you are not receptive to it. It is because of this fact that the Spirit wrestles with you to realize in you what your reality is.

Eternal death is only for those who insists on being judged by their own merit. Because that removes the Saviour from the picture. As long as the Saviour is allowed to do His work - He saves. After all, this is what Saviours do, they save. Now to fully get what happens on your behalf you need to understand that God the Father send His one and only child to do this very important super hero job. If He (Jesus) comes back empty handed or with only a few, then He was the wrong one to send and the Father who can not make a mistake, mistaken.

So it ends up being very simple. If you think you are better that your neighbour and more worthy of being saved, well then, you are very lost. If you are amazed that God would save even someone like you and gladly accept what ever He does for you - you are saved.


(Eze 34:16) I will seek that which was lost, and bring again that which was driven away, and will bind up that which was broken, and will strengthen that which was sick: but I will destroy the fat and the strong; I will feed them with judgment.

Friday, February 13, 2009

F=ma

The force at which two bodies meet are directly equivalent to the product of the density and size of those bodies.

The force at which two minds meet could theoretically be formulated, with Newton's Law, as the size of the heart and the contents of the brain. Now given the right circumstances for such a meeting of the minds and hearts to occur, the impact could be very significant. This impact results in a change in the way the objects move from that point on.

Force that my 6'3" body exerts on the surface of the earth is called my weight.
That force is really a measure of the potential impact that I could have on the earth and it in turn on me. The size of such an impact is really dependent on the rate at which the two object's relative movement changes. I fall to the earth from 20 meters in the sky and hit a rock - then I will come to an instantaneous stop and I would probably be exterminated, but if the air turns to water I would have a very slow deceleration and probably swim off unscathed.

So actually measuring the impact that two people have on each other has many additional complications, but I believe that Newton still explains this phenomena.

We speak about a heart, but also about someone that has heart. Having heart often makes people larger than life. So if I would equate that with the true size of a person then the depth of thought should be the measure of their density. So as the product of the volume and density of an object is equal to its mass so the heartful and thoughtful person will ultimately have greater inertia and less likely to be changed off course in the event of a collision with another. Two masses move along and their straight paths cross at a moment in time. The measure of their effect upon each other is relative to the direction of each object, the mass of that object and the speed of movement at the point of impact, which in turn is dependent on the possible acceleration of both or either object and the gravitational pull between the two objects.

I believe, just as the Newton model predicts, that the impact that two persons have on each other is directly proportionate to their direction in which they are moving. This would be an explanation for the commonly observed phenomena of two very opposite persons having such a great impact upon each other. And just like a bullet that impregnates its victim so too the impact that causes marriage and consequent pain from two opposite moving masses meeting, changes both objects and sends them careening into a completely new direction or at the very least it would be new for one of the two.

Now if this new found union isn't carefully steered, another such an impact could easily occur that once again could change the direction and speed of the combined masses or even dislodge the previous union to form a new combined mass.

But from all of this hypothesis there is one thing sure, and that is, that none of the objects involved with such collisions will ever move or be the same there after. They will ultimately be forever changed.

So the change that occurs in the human frailty is often dependent on which object has more mass and speed at the time of the impact. The product of the one who has more mass and speed would have the greater influence on the other's change. But even a very small directional change could over many years result in a very big difference.

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Help Me Please

Dear Lord, give me
Your eyes and help me to see in others what You see in them.
Your heart and help me suffer with the suffering.
Your ears and help me to hear people speak, so that I can hear what they fear.
Your hands so that my touch would not only be skin deep.
Your feet to go where I'll find Your lead, walking the paths You walked.
Your arms and help me to carry the burdens of others as You carry me
on Your out-stretched arms.
Your tong and help me to speak only of Your Glory.
Your brow and help me to take the beating while still loving he who beats me.
Your mind and help me to be everything you want me to be.

This I ask not in want, but in need, through the renewing of my mind.
Take hold of me - stretch me - break me - form me - but make me new, more like You.

For Lord I am deaf, blind and dumn,
My heart, feet and hands move none,
For my arms, mind and will are gone,
My Creator, Lord and Saviour You are ONE.
Now make me one
with the Name of the Father, Spirit and Son.

Monday, February 2, 2009

The mission

Where ever we go, those that care and love us, come up with good plans for our future.

Stay here! We miss you and without you nobody ever gets together anymore. You're always the one with the good ideas and the one who is able to get the crowds together. We seldom have fun anymore without you. Please stay here. There is such a need for people like you in this area. You can really earn big bucks if you came to stay here.

This we hear in South Africa and this we hear in the USA and we heard it in Mozambique. Always the second approach after the initial - What? Why would you want to go there? Have you not been reading about the place in the news papers? What about your family? Don't you care about their safety? Everyone is leaving the place and you want to go there. What's wrong with you - do you have a death wish? First extreme sports and now this?

The final plea is more from those who believe that they still own the right to order you to stay away. "You have to grow up now son. You have a daughter now and your first responsibility is to your child. You can't continue just doing as you please, you need to settle down and take your responsibilities more seriously. You're not going to be young forever you know."

In no way would I ever presume to compare myself with Jesus, but in this instance I almost think there is a correlation between the experience He had in the desert and my experience now.

First He was tempted with His immediate need to stuff Himself. Like Eve's temptation to try the fruit that would be good for taste and provide knowledge. I too am asked if I have considered the knowledge of the information out there. Eat of the fruit of knowledge and surely you would be changed. The promise to Eve was that she would be changed into a god. Like Jesus was told to look over all He could see and take it for Himself as a kingdom with a simple bow to His tempter. In the same way, I too am promised that I would have kingly status amongst my friends if only I stayed. ( Now for those of you that have said these thing to me, please don't be offended. Gleaning these little illustrations between my reality and my spirituality is what I am all about. So know that I am not implying that you might be the Devil even though I use your words to say just that.)

Finally I am ordered to disregard the sacred words of the promise and follow the new teaching. For Eve it was the order to disregard the promised consequence of eating the fruit - "you'll surely not die". To Jesus it was - "surely You wouldn't even bump your toe if you only jump from the top", and to me the order is to not believe that He calls those He calls and that I should conform to the ways of this established society. I have no right to place my daughter in the hands of the One who gave her to me. I have to trust only that which is familiar and never seek out the unknown. I am to hold on in my own strength and not trust the illusion of a God that feeds the birds of the sky and clothes the flowers of the field, but rather to believe in a God that helps those that help themselves.

For myself and all those that wonder about my sanity I write this: Men are often honoured with purple hearts and silver crosses for their acts of bravery. They ran back into the flames that enveloped a building to save a child, or they swam the rough seas to safe a drowning man. Recently a man was honoured in his death. He jumped onto a live grenade and protected his comrades in arms by shielding them from the explosion with his own body. We celebrate these men and woman and animals for their great courage, but to the lowly missionary that travels across the globe to take a message of hope and life to a village bound in its superstition, we have little respect. When they lose their lives we think only of the uselessness of their endeavor. The idea of them flying all the way out there to be the main course on the local menu the day after they arrive, seems like such a waste.

I would like to put my whole endeavor in a different light. Often we watch movies where multiple men die in the process of saving only one. You watch because the theme is about bravery and courage, but if you were to do a simple mathematical equation you could easily see that it doesn't make sense. After all, all men have the same worth so why would you sacrifice 3 or 4 lives for just one?

Jesus' equation made much more sense. One died so that many could live. Yet we keep watching how many give their lives to the purpose of saving only one. How do you feel about this? Is it not stupid? I believe it is not. Because it is always a worthwhile equation when free men freely give their lives so that bound men - no matter how many - could be free.

So if you heard of 35 children in a foreign country bound, chained to their circumstances, and you were asked to go there to fetch them and bring them home - would you not go? You as a free man or woman, given these circumstance, would you find reason to pass on the other side of the road? I'll bet you that most of you reading this post would believe that they would go if asked.

Now let us raise the stakes. If you'd be asked to go and there was a possibility that you might die while doing this rescue mission would you still go? Put it in perspective. Do you have any guarantees on life. I mean, you could die in your shower (slip and fall), die in your car on the way to work (just ask my friend Claire @ mymemoirofyou.blogspot.com) or even die in your sleep (heart or brain clot). So death or life is not really in your power, but what is in your power is to go or to stay. Now to fully appreciate this situation you need to add the fact that it is not your boss telling you to go, nor your general, or even your parents, but it is God the Lord of all that is, that is asking you to go. Now put that into the equation. Would you go now? He who holds life and death in His hands asks you to go and retrieve 35 children. Now this mission might take a bit of time, may be that it would take the rest of your life. Are you still wanting to go, did you have other plans then? O! You want to do more than just save only 35 children - then complete this question: Why do you celebrate when a movie character succeeds in extracting a singular individual after sacrificing several of his fellow men in action and in the odd case,that draws a few tears, loses his own life almost in the very end? All he did was save that one person. It is because the human spirit is always touched by the heroic selfless action of another person. We also like the lead person to do fantastic acts that distinguishes that person from the ones that try to prevent him from succeeding with his mission. In realistic terms we can also see that the supernatural aspects of any person are revealed when, they that are free, chooses to go set free, they that are bound.

I have accepted such an opportunity. I plan on serving 35 orphans with my knowledge, energy, problem solving skills and my leadership. And as God is my leader I will strive to succeed in saving 35 lives by introducing them to my loving Father and showing them what it means to have faith enough to go where He leads. Setting free 35 more to go to set free many that are not free.

These orhans are located on the eastern boarder of a Southern African country called Zimbabwe. They live in a village called Murange and they need our help. They will die, but it will be better if they die free and if we could schedule such terminating events far in the future. So if you want to walk on the same side as the suffering then drop us a note.