secrets and humanity...

WARNING: the contents of this post might push a few boundaries that you may not be prepared to cross.
Tonight, I watched this interview here highlighting Frank Warren's website and subsequent books called POSTSECRET which can be found here.
Frank has invited people to send him thier deepest, darkest, wildest, secrets on a postcard. He recieves a thousand or so each week and posts only 20 on his blog site. If you go there you will see this...

or this...

and even this..

but like I said - there is stuff on his sight that you might find disturbing. And I suppose I have to admit here to at least some level of voyeristic inclination into other people's thoughts and realities. But I am far more intrigued and motivated by what this sight has to say about the human condition. The premise of having a place where the things you choose or dare not say are openly displayed but not quite revealed makes this idea something unique in the its approach to human social, emotional, and mental well being.
A post card is a very small place to encapsulate any idea and as is suggested in the interview it often, I suppose, leaves much more uncovered than it reveals.
Tomorrow, morning I will chew on this as I go for my walk. I'll be thinking about confession, trust, privacy vs. transperancy, and a whole lot more I suspect...

Just do it...

some thoughts from Gil's summer ramblings
"For a while I thought that maybe I was missing something. Maybe God did things for and said things to other people in more direct ways. Maybe there was some defect in my practice of the Christian faith that accounted for this gap, some lack of faith or fundamental misunderstanding of how the whole thing was supposed to work. But gradually it became obvious that we were all in the same boat, interpreting (for the most part) ambiguous events and circumstances in light of our faith that God was, in fact, active and present within them."
What is interesting about this is that the degree to which we seem to attribute circumstances to God's action is directly proportional to our need to both absolve our own (human) responsibility for the action and our need to favorably reinforce our belief in God. Pretty self serving - I guess. It may be that the distorted view of God that we and others have may stem from this flaw...

Let me ask you a question...

Can you recognize truth wherever you find it?
Is it hard for you to see truth because you've forgotten the source of truth?
Is this truth?

Does this video clip speak truth?
The idea that we should take the focus off of ourselves and focus on the needs of others is a solid Biblical teaching. You can find that taught in many places through out the Scriptures but...
...this video is made by a Buddhist.
What do you think about it now?
Is it still truth in your mind?
What does this works authorship do to your analysis of the content? Do you tend to reject it? Or criticize it? Are you indifferent? Could you careless about what kind of person created this piece?
Should you care?
There would be those who would suggest that this video is actually Satan disguising himself as a n 'angel of light' in order to suck unwitting people into Buddhism. Could this actually be so? And if it is must we not then also discount the message of the video as false? And if we do that - how does that affect our understanding of Scripture's teaching?
There would also be those who might use this precise peice of work to prove that Buddhism is not unlike Christianity and that in fact every religion is essentially the same in purpose. Could this actually be so? Why is it possible to erase clear and important distinctives between two faith perspectives in a single stroke?
And of our reaction to this?
Well for me - my reaction goes like this.
First I was drawn to confession - "He who does not love is brother does not love God"
Second I was reminded of the faces of inner city Calgary that I visited several weeks ago with our senior high group. I was moved to prayer and reminded of my commitment to serve them.
Third there was a tiny seed of embarrassment/jealousy that a Christian organization or author had but this same video together. I wish it would have been us. I'm not sure if this embarrassment is the right way to feel but...

ht: reflections

A Parable about Misunderstandings

A friend of mine gave me permission to reprint this story. The story illustrates well how critical it is for us to be fearless in our pursuit of truth. It also reminds us not to carelessly react when alarming appearances present themselves.

A SATURDAY MORNING FIRE ALARM
Back in the early fifties life in North Kildonan was pretty much laid back. In summer us kids hoed the family garden, skinned our knees on dusty gravel roads while biking, and watched the big guys play baseball at the KSA (Kildonan Sports Association) ball field. Oh yes, there was also a two hundred-some odd acre wood lot that had a kind of Narnian appeal to us kids. The Klassens grew watermelon in clearings within the woods and woe any one that would dare steal even one melon.
Not much changed in winter, oh sure, we learned how to hang on car bumpers and slide on our moccasins to the corner store, unless some evil intentioned neighbor threw out the ashes the night before. Ouch! and a pair of wrecked moccasins. After school and on weekends we spent our time at KSA’s outdoor rink. Life was simple.
North Kildonan was a north east suburb of Winnipeg. In the forties and fifties it was virtually a Mennonite reservation. Groceries were bought at Nick Dick’s grocery, your dad worked at either DeFehr Furniture ( Palliser ) or Klassen Iron Works. We didn’t need gas because the street car rail head was a short mile away. And there were two large Mennonite congregations, socially and religiously dividing us all very nicely.
It was hard to get into trouble in this kind of controlled environment, after all Grandma usually lived just down the road, Aunty lived on the next block, and every house had at least one window were the drapes were split just enough that inquisitive eyes could see your every move. Yet somehow kids were blamed for a lot of mischief. Mostly innocent stuff, knock-out-ginger, peering up through gaps in the wooden sidewalks as unsuspecting females would travel the walks spanning the little gullies here and there, and of course the older fellows never failed to move at least one outhouse every Halloween. This last bit of mischief was much talked about the week following the celebration of fall’s arrival. In great detail the victim’s late evening visit to the toilet was told, retold, embellished, and retold again.
It was one cold crisp winter morning that one of the neighborhood lads found his heroic efforts seemingly reduced to naughty mischief, and even infamy. Our young friend was anxious to be first at the rink that Saturday morning, not hard for him; since his home was just a block from KSA’s rink. Smoke was already drifting up from the club house chimney; at least he would be able to put on his skates in the warm shack which served as the club house. It was the fellows at Klassen’s Iron Works; located just across the street that would get the wood stove going in the mornings. It was a good arrangement, much appreciated by the North Kildonan youngsters. Yes, he would be the first to lace up his skates that morning but just before entering the shack he glanced up the street one more time, it was that momentary pause that changed the day; and perhaps much more, for the youngster.
Rushing in the rink’s direction was ‘aunt’ Agatha Klassen. Every youth in North Kildonan adored Aunt Agatha, a soft spoken lady that never forgot your birthday. Every Sunday School student would receive a birthday card from this gentle saintly spinster. The skates were quickly dropped and our youth ran to meet Aunt Agatha who was obviously in great distress. As the boy neared aunt Agatha he heard her crying out, "fire!, fire!" There down the street a few houses past his own, at his Grandma’s home, he saw to his horror large black billowing smoke. Aunt Agatha quickly instructed the lad to rush over to Klassen’s Iron Works and report the fire, she was in a hurry to catch Saturday morning’s downtown streetcar.
It was the right thing to do, report a fire to either DeFehr Furniture or Klassen’s Iron Works, these businesses provided the volunteer firemen. Frantically the lad ran to Klassen’s where he called in the fire alarm, employees quickly called for the fire truck and prepared to roll out the fire hose. Help was on the way, the process had begun. Catching his breath the young fellow raced back to the rink picked up his skates and rushed off for home where he dropped off his skates and continued on to Grandma’s place imagining the worst. Only three houses over, it didn’t take long to get to Grandma’s; smoke ,now more grey, was still rising from the property but there was a sinister silence about the place. Slowly suspicion compounded his fears. Perhaps, a false alarm?
Sure enough, hurriedly rounding the back of Grandma’s house the lad was the first to discover the enormity of his mistake. Cheerily, his two uncles, beside their huge fire heated caldron greeted him and invited him to help them make soap for Grandma. Visibly shaken and already hearing the fire truck coming down the street the young lad turned and fled for home passing the volunteer fire men unrolling the last of the quarter mile of hose.
Well by now you probably suspect that I know too much about this incident to be an innocent observer, I spent that entire day hidden in my room. Only in the evening did I dare talk to mom and dad about the mysterious fire alarm, and that, only because I knew the next morning I would be the person of considerable interest at church. The Klassens were close family friends but not ones to readily give up a good story. I was mortified at my colossal blunder. Really it was our blunder; Aunt Agatha Klassen and I had arrived at conclusions without verifying the facts. We certainly were anxious to do the right thing but we skipped some important steps in trying to achieve the desired goal.

The Great Global Warming Swindle

got an hour and half on your hands like I did saturday night and this might worth a gander...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P6Wr1hcIp2U

ht: jc

Now, it should not surprize us that this film exists at the same time that Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth is surging into popularity. And because environmentalism is such a strong force in popular culture it shouldn't surprize us that this film also elicits a mostly negative response. What should surprize us is that would let AIT to use the word truth in the way that they have. If we were smarter we would all be aghast at the brash retorical use of this word to evoke a political perspective. Saying that LET ME BE CLEAR I am not the one to be making judgements on which scientific perspective is superior and better able to reflect what is actually happening. But the worst thing about both of these films is not that they are doing good or bad science it is in fact they are claiming to unequivocally hold the truth on this issue. (And have used overly emotional rhetoric to accomplish that...)

What I mean is that once a person engages the brain several things become perfectly clear almost instantly...

1. It is stupid to to be wasteful with the resources that we have been given in nature.

2. Our capacity to exploit natures resources (and even its essence) is greater by far than at any other time in history.

3. There are numerous cases of abuse of nature that should not only shock us but move us to ardent redress of these mistakes.

4. Personal actions are political statements. (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle)

5. It is important to take precautions to avoid disasters caused by wacky weather.

6. Smog is disgusting.

Of course when we claim to possess the truth so completely as both of these shows do, the temptation is to pick sides. We reject everything about one or the other option. This is a senseless personal position. And it is completely irresponsible on the part of any of these scientist who wish to have an honest discussion about what is actually happening...

Love, Truth and who we really are?

I am reading this and this which got me thinking about:

Most people would identify love as being essentially selfless. Love should not expect any rewards otherwise we wonder if it truly is love. Right?
So we have a husband who keeps on visiting his comatose wife who can not respond in any way to his gestures about love. We say that is a very loving thing to do. But we can also see that it is out of his sense of duty or obligation that he continues to do what is clearly something he would not do naturally. He does is duty. But isn’t even his duty something that fulfills some personally directed motive? Essentially, selfish? But yet we say this is a good thing for him to do. So what do we do? Change our definition of love so that we include selfish motives as acceptable reasons for loving? Can we trust ourselves enough to say that? Even if it is duty why is one thing seen as a duty and another thing seen gratuitous? Do we need to change our understanding of who we are? Are we essentially good or intrinsically bad or flawed? I love this stuff - it is fascinating.