Is it wrong to get my life together so aspects of my life I'm really enjoying aren't screwed up?
I don't know that that makes sense. Let me explain.
If I'm reading my bible, simply because I don't want to reap the consequences of not reading it. I'm worried that something bad could happen in the good stuff in my life that I really like, so I'm reading my bible on a regular basis. I dont want, in a sense, bad karma.
Is that a sin? Or a problem?
I know when I was a jr. high leader, we would encourage students to read the Bible just to read it, so it would be habit forming. But I wonder if a good habit formed for a bad reason is still a good habit.
There is the idea that good things done for the wrong reasons are wrong, which worries me. But I'm not sure what the correct answer is. Obviously, I shouldn't just stop reading my Bible because I'm worried about my motives. And if my motives are bad, then it's a problem.
Typing this out has helped me. What I need to do is get my motive's right. It's not an action/behavior problem. It's a motive problem.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Saturday, April 12, 2008
Random Thoughts - 3
I think the way we see God a lot has to do with Paradigms.
It's clear that some people just relate to God in different ways. I relate differently than my roommate. Than my pastor friend. Than my best friend. Than my college buddy.
And I think it has to do with this idea of paradigm.
Because God is so much bigger than any one idea, but one idea sticks with us. God is father and shepherd and groom and lover and protector all at once. There are a billion names for God in the Bible. And I think we all have one that we relate to more than any other.
For example, I have a friend who thinks of God as her groom. And that has deep meaning for her. Personally, I struggle with that paradigm, because I don't like picturing myself as a bride.
For me, I see God most closely in the idea of community. The idea that God is a perfect, three-in-one community, that our community with God was broken in the fall, and that God has been striving to restore our community - through the work of Jesus.
That's my paradigm. Whats yours?
It's clear that some people just relate to God in different ways. I relate differently than my roommate. Than my pastor friend. Than my best friend. Than my college buddy.
And I think it has to do with this idea of paradigm.
Because God is so much bigger than any one idea, but one idea sticks with us. God is father and shepherd and groom and lover and protector all at once. There are a billion names for God in the Bible. And I think we all have one that we relate to more than any other.
For example, I have a friend who thinks of God as her groom. And that has deep meaning for her. Personally, I struggle with that paradigm, because I don't like picturing myself as a bride.
For me, I see God most closely in the idea of community. The idea that God is a perfect, three-in-one community, that our community with God was broken in the fall, and that God has been striving to restore our community - through the work of Jesus.
That's my paradigm. Whats yours?
Friday, April 4, 2008
300
That's the tentative title of my next writing project. I'm halfway through a second draft of Ashram, but I feel the need to write something new. It's kinda like I need a breath of fresh air, to get out of the madness that is editing.
So I'm going to write "300."
It will be a different type of book; more of a journey than a story. Ashram was something that had happened to me, 300 will be a chronicle of what is happening to me.
I don't want to reveal too much about the content. Suffice it to say that it will be very personal, and hopefully there will be a difference at the end of it.
Wish me luck.
So I'm going to write "300."
It will be a different type of book; more of a journey than a story. Ashram was something that had happened to me, 300 will be a chronicle of what is happening to me.
I don't want to reveal too much about the content. Suffice it to say that it will be very personal, and hopefully there will be a difference at the end of it.
Wish me luck.
Tuesday, April 1, 2008
Description of Rob Bell's Next Book:
Jesus Wants To Save Christians
by Rob Bell and Don Golden
There is a church not too far from us that recently added a $25 million addition to their building.
Our local newspaper ran a front-page story not too long ago about a study revealing that one in five people in our city lives in poverty.
This is a book about those two numbers.
It's a book about faith and fear,
wealth and war,
poverty, power, safety, terror,
Bibles, bombs, and homeland insecurity,
It's about empty empires and the truth that everybody's a priest, it's about oppression, occupation, and what happens when Christians support, animate and participate in the very things Jesus came to set people free from.
It's about what it means to be a part of the church of Jesus in a world where some people fly planes into buildings while others pick up groceries in Hummers.
October, 2008
by Rob Bell and Don Golden
There is a church not too far from us that recently added a $25 million addition to their building.
Our local newspaper ran a front-page story not too long ago about a study revealing that one in five people in our city lives in poverty.
This is a book about those two numbers.
It's a book about faith and fear,
wealth and war,
poverty, power, safety, terror,
Bibles, bombs, and homeland insecurity,
It's about empty empires and the truth that everybody's a priest, it's about oppression, occupation, and what happens when Christians support, animate and participate in the very things Jesus came to set people free from.
It's about what it means to be a part of the church of Jesus in a world where some people fly planes into buildings while others pick up groceries in Hummers.
October, 2008
I am Legend Review
I never bothered to review I Am Legend when it came out in December. Mostly because I thought it was a 2/3rds great movie, with some flawed sequences. I liked some of the religious connotations in it, and I think its a darn near perfect movie, but it misses on two important sequences. The sequence where Will Smith's character Robert tries to commit suicide is confusingly edited, and not very exciting. There is very little tension to it. And the finale... it's stitched together altogether too fast. Robert dies a hero's death, but he hasn't done anything to make us think he deserves it. He hands the woman a magical bottle of his blood, which it only took him three years to figure out is the antidote. And then blows himself up. The end. Not very good.
Well, yesterday, I watched the alternate cut. And it's different, but I think I like it more. The suicide sequence doesn't change, so I still have that complaint. But the original ending plays - where Robert realizes that the vampire/zombie/things actually are regaining human emotions, making him the monster.
And here's my beef - at the end of this version, Robert lives. Even though he now seems to deserve death. So if you're following, in one version he dies and shouldn't. In another, he doesnt die but should.
I still think I Am Legend is a good film(s). But if they had managed to nail those two sequences, it would have been note perfect.
Well, yesterday, I watched the alternate cut. And it's different, but I think I like it more. The suicide sequence doesn't change, so I still have that complaint. But the original ending plays - where Robert realizes that the vampire/zombie/things actually are regaining human emotions, making him the monster.
And here's my beef - at the end of this version, Robert lives. Even though he now seems to deserve death. So if you're following, in one version he dies and shouldn't. In another, he doesnt die but should.
I still think I Am Legend is a good film(s). But if they had managed to nail those two sequences, it would have been note perfect.
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