Understanding Spirituality and Culture through Christ
Maintaining appearances is easy, what is difficult is living a life where every aspect of our life is permeated by the love of Christ. This is a great responsibility. If we think we can love others as Christ loved us, with our own strength and resources, we are dead wrong - we are naive if not delusional about the power of the selfish gene in us. We need the Help!
Read MoreHappiness is an allegory as happiness is always pointing to something else. One does not get to rest in happiness. On the other hand unhappiness makes for a better story because suffering and struggle makes for a good story. If the prince did not have to suffer crossing seven seas, climbing seven mountains, defeating seven monsters to get to the princess, it wouldn't be meaningful story or romance. In fact, one could almost say, blessed are the unhappy for it makes their story more meaningful (Matt 5:4). That is why unhappiness in not (always) a bad things after all.
Read MoreIn as much as our lives do not have hope for redemption, our stories seem meaningless. If there are no stories worth living for, then we end up living for something else - money, power or knowledge. In as much as our identities are solely determined by the bottom-lines factors of money, power or knowledge we end up living lives of shunted humanity. In as much as we take a step back from our bottom-line obsessions with money, power and knowledge, we will see that there are richer stories to be lived with eternal hope (Rev 21:4) in which our stories will be redeemed.
Read MoreThe opposite of obsessive desires is not to disavow desires, rather it is yielding to rightly ordered desires. Rightly ordered desires starts with loving people close to us, which is exactly what the mythic Sultan, Von Rumple, and the magicians Angier and Borden miss and end up as lonely angry men dead in their spirit.
Read MoreI have to remind myself that to have faith is to trust that the Father in Heaven knows what He is doing better than I do. If I am able to trust my motorcycle to my mechanic and teeth to my dentist, then by God, I should be able to trust my life to the hands of the Father in Heaven even when I feel like wanting to freak out!
Read MoreTick! Tick! Tick! goes Life
A perpetual loss
Of time
Of loved ones
Of precious moments
All is evanescence
All lost into oblivion
Is the ticket worth it, Alyosha?
Or can the earth be kissed, Ivan?
But oh wait!
Little buds becoming roses
Little babies becoming lovers
Time becoming blessedness
New Creation coming into Being.
Tick! Tick! Tick! goes Life.
My prediction is that the subsequent movies in this Trilogy will have the look and feel of the original Star Wars, for that helps the merchandising. The content and the characters will have a Disneyish formula applied to them. It will not have the idiosyncratic brilliance of Lucas and so will not be timeless, but still it will give a good movie going experience, after all Disney has mastered the art of creating good movie going experience, though one would be hard pressed to remember much of it.
Read MoreHolden in many ways is like the millennials who care more for meaning in life than materialistic excesses. Such people are attracted to simplicity than flamboyance, ethics over economics, authenticity over pretension. Those who, like the nuns, live as people imbibing the Sermon on the Mount will be attractive to the meaning seeking millennials.
Read MoreReality is hard, truth is sharp and facing it head-on broke me and cut me deep but I know (better) who I am.
Read MoreAt the most fundamental level to be Christian is not about having the right ideas, but about having the encounter with Christ through the power of the Spirit. Unfortunately, the Buzzfeed Christians have nothing to say about Christ or about an encounter with Him. They have essentially created a new legalism of conformity towards cultural sophisticated ideas in the place of Christ.
Read MoreTolkien's Hobbit world, in which I wish I was living in, as of today, having crossed over my 33rd year, I would no longer be considered a Tween. Between ages 20 and 33, the Hobbits were considered to be in their "irresponsible twenties" - the tweens.
Read MoreIn Christian living, when our goals do not pan out the way we want it to, how we respond to that shows our true colors and we know if we are being Iago or not. Our response when facing disappointments brings up the question of whether in spite of God not meeting what we deem to be our minimalist goals, we will still follow God.
Read Moreprayer gives us union with Christ, the greatest gift. In union with Christ we can face any reality. Without union with Christ we cannot face any reality. Without union with Christ we can do nothing.
Read MoreInside Out is a brilliantly written deeply moving story that shows why knowing how to grieve is important for healthy living. Inside Out takes an inside out view of the human psyche to show that if we do not know how to make grief into a shared loving experience, we will loose our ability to be human.
Read MoreWhen St. Augustine says "weight moving me is love", he means that if his love is heavy like earth then it will be stuck in the materialism of this world. On the other hand when one's love is light like the fire, it will raise up towards the Heavens where God resides.
Read MoreHow can a 'banana republic', which serves the interest of the rich and powerful, become a democratic republic, which serves the interests of the 'least of these'? The answer: by forming Christ-like, self-giving Christian Leaders in the community, which is the work Micah Project is incarnationally involved in at Honduras.
Read MoreSometimes, the Holy Spirit channels a bit of Jerry Maguire in the life of the Christian, so to speak. He is there as the 'Helper' who wants to see us become the great Child of God, but in order to do that, He has to help us by convicting us of our sins - by helping us break away fom the prison of our own pride, ambitions and dreams.
Read MoreWe leave the obsessiveness and anxiety of finite time that culminates in ending and death, and enter into eternity.
Read MoreThe willingness to suffer is a prerequisite for any enterprise to be successful. Pain avoidance is a bad strategy. People who are unwilling to suffer cannot participate in a purpose bigger than them selves. In the case of Tony Soprano, the bigger purpose was Tony's own glory. In the case of the Christian, the bigger purpose is the Kingdom of God.
Read MoreBonehoeffer, "...(God) responds to sincere prayer and responsible actions." Jesus in His humanity had prayer and obedience as his primary values was He walked through suffering (Heb 5:7-8). If we are to be conformed to His image, our values should be His - Sincere Prayer and Responsible (obedient) action.
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