Feb 4
If

I recently stumbled upon a little book called “If” by a woman named Amy Carmichael who served as a missionary in India.  In my Briercrest Days I read her biography and wrote  a paper on it. 

I expected the book to be boring but it stands out in my mind as one of the more interesting and inspiring papers I wrote in my time at the college because this woman was an inspiration. Although I probably wouldn’t agree with all of her theology, I absolutely find her unselfish and truly humble attitude something I would like to emulate.  There are bits and pieces of “If” all over the internet but I think I’m going to have to buy the book and read it through because so many of these little paragraphs are eloquent and challenging and inspiring all at the same time. I bolded the ones that particularly spoke to me.  Even if you don’t associate yourself with the way of Jesus, I think we can all appreciate a sacrificial, pure, selfless and all-encompassing love that is spoken of here as “Calvary Love”.  Enjoy.

If I belittle those whom I am called to serve, talk of their weak points in contrast perhaps with what I think of as my strong points; if I adopt a superior attitude, forgetting “Who made thee to differ? And what hast thou that thou hast not received?” then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I can write an unkind letter, speak an unkind word, think an unkind thought without grief and shame, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I can rebuke without a pang, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If my attitude be one of fear, not faith, about one who has disappointed me; if I say, “Just what I expected” if a fall occurs, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I am afraid to speak the truth, lest I loseWeight Exercise affection, or lest the one concerned should say, “You do not understand,” or because I fear to loseWeight Exercise my reputation for kindness; if I put my own good name before the other’s highest good, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I hold on to choices of any kind, just because they are my choice, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I am soft to myself and slide comfortably into self-pity and self-sympathy; If I do not by the grace of God practice fortitude, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I myself dominate myself, if my thoughts revolve round myself, if I am so occupied with myself I rarely have “a heart at leisure from itself,” then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If, the moment I am conscious of the shadow of self crossing my threshold, I do not shut the door, and keep that door shut, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I cannot in honest happiness take the second place (or the twentieth); if I cannot take the first without making a fuss about my unworthiness, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I take offense easily, if I am content to continue in a cool unfriendliness, though friendship be possible, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I feel injured when another lays to my charge things that I know not, forgetting that my sinless Savior trod this path to the end, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I feel bitter toward those who condemn me, as it seems to me, unjustly, forgetting that if they knew me as I know myself they would condemn me much more, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If souls can suffer alongside, and I hardly know it, because the spirit of discernment is not in me, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If the praise of others elates me and their blame depresses me; if I cannot rest under misunderstanding without defending myself; if I love to be loved more than to love, to be served more than to serve, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I crave hungrily to be used to show the way of liberty to a soul in bondage, instead of caring only that it be delivered; if I nurse my disappointment when I fail, instead of asking that to another the word of release may be given, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If the ultimate, the hardest, cannot be asked of me; if my fellows hesitate to ask it and turn to someone else, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

If I covet any place on earth but the dust at the foot of the Cross, then I know nothing of Calvary love.

That which I know not, teach Thou me, O Lord, my God.

-Amy Carmichael, “Calvary Love,” from If, by Dohnavur Fellowship.


 

 

Jan 31

A good reminder to us all about protecting the innocence in children and trying to recover our own softness. Thanks RLP.

Jan 18

This is interesting.  Right in line with my thinking on the whole birth control thing.  From a blog called Feministe.

So here’s my question: Why is the uterus the only part of the body that we’re supposed to let God fully control as He sees fit? When our other body parts aren’t doing what we want them to, we intervene. We cut our fingernails and toenails, despite the fact that, God-willing, they would grow out into long curling claws. Many Americans circumcise their sons, changing the natural appearance of their genitalia. We use radiation and chemotherapy to kill God-given cancer cells. We immunize ourselves against illnesses that we might otherwise contract if we submitted to the natural order of things. We have nationwide debates about artificially prolonging the life of someone who is unable to survive without medical intervention. Children born with deformities which don’t affect their physical abilities, but don’t “look right,” often have surgery. Diabetics take insulin. Plenty of good Christian men take Viagra. I’ll bet that the very Quiverfulls who insist that women’s bodies be at the mercy of God’s reproductive preferences would nonetheless allow medical intervention if those same women were near death during or after childbirth. I’ll bet they would allow for a C-section if the baby was going to die during birth without it.

Why all the interference with God’s plan?

Dec 10

Three out of five of the buttons on my nice winter coat fell off in the past week. I’m not entirely sure this isn’t a sign of the apocalypse or something.  But other than that, things are good. Kieran managed to cut not just one, but two teeth in the last couple of days. SCORE! Hopefully now his sleeping habits will become semi-decent again. 

Here’s something good about discipleship you should check out if you have time.

Nov 17

Too many of us have a Christian vocabulary rather than a Christian experience. We think we are doing our duty when we’re only talking about it.
-Charles F. Banning

Faith is not belief in spite of evidence, but life in scorn of consequences — a courageous trust in the great purpose of all things, and pressing forward to finish the work which is in sight, whatever the price may be.
-Kirsopp Lake

Love does not inquire into the character of the recipient but it asks what he needs. It does not love him because he is such-and-such a person but because he is there. In all this it is quite the opposite of natural love: it “does not seek its own”. It does not perform the characteristic natural impulse of love and life. Therefore it is basically independent of the conduct of the other person; it is not conditional but absolute. It wants nothing for itself but only for others. Therefore it is also not vulnerable. It never “reacts” but is always “spontaneous”, emerging by its own strength — rather, from the power of God. Love is the real God-likeness of man for which he has been created. In so far as love is in man he really resembles God and shows himself to be the child of God.
-Emil Brunner

Oct 11

Tonight, as I sat reading Avery a bedtime story and holding Kieran on my lap I had this surreal feeling. “Are these really my kids? Am I really sitting here with these two precious babies who are telling me they love me in their own ways?” It felt good to have them there and I felt really content. It’s a good feeling. Cuddling my kids is good therapy for the thoughts weighing on my mind recently.

I’ve been in a weird mood lately. I feel like my life has gotten more “gray” in the last few months, if that’s possible. I’m going through a time of frustration and searching. I’ve always been very involved in our church but my personal spirituality has been evolving and changing. The usefulness of all the Christian ritual is lost on me. I don’t want to throw myself into the “worship” and “bible studies” in order to create a feeling. I doubt the ability of these rituals to really connect with the authentic spirit of God. I feel like people have so stretched, twisted and abused the bible that I no longer feel like I can trust it. Too many have made it say what they want it to say or argue that it is all completely true and seem not to be troubled by the many troubling parts of scripture that I don’t even want to confront my doubt anymore. It feels easier to ignore these unnerving questions. God exists. I believe this and I feel it is logical and right. I just wish I could figure out how to go about knowing Him.

Jun 15

An interesting post about Stephen Colbert I read on someone else’s blog.

Mar 25

I really appreciated this post by Real Live Preacher.  It applies to all aspects of life and it has given me a reasonable approach to dealing with narrow-minded people.

Mar 23

There have been two times in the last week where I have pulled up to my local mall parking lot, parked, and as I walked to the mall entrance through the rows of parked cars there was a car parked over the space where there is supposed to be a walkway. I honestly don’t believe that someone could park there by accident because the walkway is clearly marked with two rows of those concrete parking markers that are painted bright yellow and the cars have to drive over at least one of them to park there.

What is the attraction of this parking spot, you ask? It is prime parking real estate, located directly in front of the doors to the mall, right beside the handicapped parking spots.

It is really inconvenient when people park like this. It isn’t really a huge deal to walk around a car. Unless it is winter in the prairies, and it’s icy, and you’re seven months pregnant with balance that is more than a little compromised, and trying to keep a two year old from sliding around on the ice. If that were the case you might feel very precarious climbing over the banked snow and trying to manoeuver around a car that is parked where there is no room to pass.

And really, what makes a person feel they are entitled to block all of the pedestrian traffic into the mall just so that they won’t have to walk a few steps farther? Market Mall is not the busiest mall and the parking lot is not enormous. There is always ample parking and none of it requires you to walk more than a few seconds to get to the entrance.

Another thing that pisses me off about this situation is that it blocks shopping carts from getting through and so people (who may or may not be seven months pregnant) have to push their carts around rows of cars (through deep snow in the winter) unless they are lucky enough to find a spot where the cars are parked far enough apart for them to squeeze their cart through. Again, I have to ask, what makes a person decide that their needs are more important than the hundreds of other people at the mall?

I realize that it’s possible that it could be a person with a disability parked there, however I have yet to see a car parked in this spot who had a handicapped license plate or permit in their windshield. It boggles my mind how our “culture of entitlement” teaches us to put our own needs and wants before those of others. Maybe “culture of entitlement” is a bit of a buzzword (or buzzphrase?) but it describes the phenomenon so well. So many people behave as though they are the center of the universe and the fact that other people interact with them is mostly just an inconvenience.

And I have to say that this attitude is not restricted to people of my generation or teenagers and children. I have run into far too many seniors who have this attitude.

When my daughter was just a few months old I was in this same mall and stopped to use the washroom. I was carrying my daughter in her car seat so I used the “handicapped” stall so I could take her in with me. Obviously and adult, a diaper bag, and a baby carrier are not going to fit in a normal sized stall.

When I came out of the stall an elderly woman was standing there waiting for me and she informed me in a less than friendly manner that “these stalls are normally reserved for senior citizens!” At the time I think I mumbled an apology and moved on. But the more I have thought about that encounter, the more frustrated I have become. First, if you want to get technical handicapped stalls are reserved for those with disabilities (ie. using a wheelchair or walker). But I don’t think that’s their main purpose. They are for anyone who is hindered in their ability to use the bathroom, whether by physical handicap, age, or baby carrier. What gave this woman the right to scold me? She could clearly see that I was loaded down with a baby, diaper bag and purse. The bathroom had plenty of empty stalls. And even if she felt she needed that particular stall, was waiting a few minutes going to kill her? Maybe. But that’s beside the point. She seemed to have come to the conclusion that she deserved priority over a young mother.

Just the other day I was standing in line at a store where there were only a couple of tills open. The line I was in was as long as most of the other ones but seemed to be moving slowly. I switched to a different lane. An elderly-ish couple (not really old, but definitely in their 60′s) switched lanes but then moved back to their lane because the other lane had put up a sign saying it was closed. Then the cashier moved the sign and before the couple could move back into the lane another man got to the till before them. They moved into line before him. The cashier noticed this and when the gentleman (who hadn’t noticed the drama) asked if she could help him she said “Yes sir, but were you here before the people behind you?”. The man hadn’t seen the couple and as far as he knew he was first. The couple behind him huffed and puffed and vehemently shook their heads but the cashier couldn’t really do much and she served the man quickly and moved onto the other couple. It was a minor inconvenience and, although they didn’t complain to the cashier, I could see the disgust on their faces.

It is just so amusing and disturbing at the same time that all of us, from the oldest to the youngest, feel we deserve to go first, to have the best seat, to get the most and the best as fast as possible. I notice this in myself all the time. Particularly when I am pregnant, and/or carrying a young child around. I expect people to notice how burdened I am and to feel sorry for me. I want to be babied and given preference. If it were acceptable I would probably wear a sign saying “Feel sorry for me! Let me go first.” Why is it so easy to slip into this mode of thinking? I have to conclude that it is part of human nature. My goal is to try and use these different experiences where I witness this attitude in other people to encourage myself to put others first. It is not my first intstinct to give preference to others. In fact, it is a bit of a revolutionary idea. But I think it is an attitude that could change the world.

Someone else said it better than I ever could. “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Eeach of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.” (Philippian 2:3-4)

Feb 11

While I was away  I finished reading “Hey Nostradamus!” by Douglas Coupland and I found there were a lot of thoughts in this book that really caught my attention, whether or not I agreed with them. The book describes a Columbine-type school shooting that takes place in Vancouver in the 80′s and a teenage girl who is killed in the shooting.

The girl is kind of a typical teenager who has become a generic zealous Christian but has experienced some disillusionment with her faith as she observes the narrow-minded judgment of her “Christian friends”. This girl, Cheryl, has secretly married her boyfriend, Jason, and much of the story revolves around the two of them. The book is divided into four parts, each written by a different character. One by Cheryl, one by Jason, one by Heather who is Jason’s girlfriend years after the school shooting, and Reg who is Jason’s extremely religious father.

This book has a lot of interesting reflections on Christianity and I find it strange to hear Coupland writing about this topic because, although some of his other books have a spiritual undertone, he doesn’t usual approach the topic of a specific faith. But he writes about it as though he has had an experience with the types of Christians he describes. And I think a lot of the things that Cheryl and Jason say could possibly be his opinion about these people. I don’t know if that’s what he intended but I wonder…

Anyway, this isn’t meant to be a book review (although I do recommend the book) but rather my exploration of lines that made me think and/or challenged me or resonated with me. So here are the things I noticed:

  • “Truth be told, I wanted everything those kids had, but I wanted it by playing the game correctly. This meant legally and religiously and – this is the part that was maybe wrong – I wanted to outsmart the world.  I had, and continue to have, a nagging suspicion that I used the system simply to get what I wanted. Religion included. Does that cancel out whatever goodness I might have inside me?” (p. 7)  These lines were written from the perspective of Cheryl, the shooting victim, but I believe they could very easily have been written by my teenage self and many other people who claim faith in the Christian God.  I have always been a person who played by the rules. I never skipped school, I never did drugs, I never smoked a cigarette. I don’t say this to prove how “good” I am but to remind myself that, if I am truly honest, the reason I didn’t do those things may have been because I was afraid of getting caught and because I am not, by nature, a rule-breaker rather than because I was concerned with being good.  I think that everyone has the desire for some things and they just go about getting them in different ways.  We all want a high and some people use drugs and others use religion.  We all want sex and some people go ahead and have sex when the opportunity arises and others wait until they are married, or (like Jason and Cheryl) get married really young because then they can have sex “legitimately”.  I don’t think that my faith was not real or is hypocritical because deep down I want the same things that everyone else wants. I think that Christians can really deceive themselves about their motivation for doing things.  I’d like to be more honest with myself because while I’m not sure what I believe about God, I think that any God I could believe in would prefer honesty to false piety anyway.  I think it would have benefited my teenage self to ask more often if I was using my faith to get what I wanted and still make it sound holy.  I don’t think that wanting things cancels out goodness. It simply forces us to see more clearly how much actual “goodness” we had all along. It’s still worth asking myself.
  • “I’m not sure if I used god or He used me,  but the result was the same. In the end, we are judged by our deeds, not our wishes. We’re the sum of our decisions.” (p. 16)  This is another line from Cheryl and it follows closely on what she was saying in the above quote.  I haven’t really decided whether I agree on her suggestion that it is only our deeds and not our wishes that God is concerned with.  If I do the right thing for the wrong reason something tells me I’ve missed out on something. But I’m not really sure.  That was just my initial reaction to her statement.  But it was the part about using God that really struck me.  Do I use God? Can I use God?  I don’t know.  But the possibility scares the shit out of me.
  • “A bland smile is like a green light at an intersection – it feels good when you get one, but you forget it the moment you’re past it.” (p. 24)  This is Cheryl describing her expression of choice in high school and, again, it sound like me in a lot of ways.  Her reason for affecting this expression were so that she wouldn’t have to interact with people in her school and i realized that I do that all the time.  And I don’t like that I do it.  I don’t want to be totally forgettable, but I also don’t want to be remembered for being annoying or awkward.  I feel uncomfortable interacting with people I am not really familiar with and in the end,  I’d rather be forgotten than socially inept.
  • “It always seemed to me that people who’d discovered religion had both lost and gained something. Outwardly, they’d gained calmness, confidence and a look of pupose, but what they’d lost was a certain willingness to connect with unconverted couls.  Looking a convert in the eyes was like trying to make eye contact with a horse.  They’d be alive and breathing, but they woulnd’t be a hundred percent there anymore.  They’d left the day-to-day world and joined the realm of eternal time.”  (p. 27)  This is a frightenly accurate statement. Who could read that and say “I want to be like that.”?  Is it possible to believe in a God and not loseWeight Exercise your humanness?  Is it possible to loseWeight Exercise your humanity?  I really believe that a faith that does not affect change in a person’s world and that causes them to loseWeight Exercise compassion and kindness and a focus on their community (rather than becoming judgmental and cold) is a perversion of the true nature of faith.  Are Christians so fearful that we retreat into a vacant stare to avoid the challenge of caring for people?  This really challenged me.
  • “There can be an archness, a meanness in the lives of the saved, an intolerance that can color their view of the weak and of the lost. It can make them hard when they ought to be listening, judgmental when they ought to be contrite.” (p. 28)  Again, I would rather live outside of faith altogether than come across this way.  It is a fair description of many Christians. But it shouldn’t be.  
  •  “…nothing makes a person less special than conversion – it…universalizes you.” (p. 32)  I have to say that I fundamentally disagree with this.  I mean I don’t believe conversion to a religion can “universalize” you any more than anything else about this life.  In some ways we are all exactly the same, no matter what we do.  In some ways I think conversion individualizes a person because it can be an individual connection to something outside yourself.  Of course, this is the same special connection that millions of others have had throughout history. So it is and it isn’t special.  We are and we aren’t exactly like every other person in the world.  It’s kind of a paradox.
  • “…I think in the end it’s maybe best to keep your doubts private.  Saying them aloud cheapens them – makes them a bunch of words just like everybody else’s bunch of words.” (p.33)  Yes. ….And no.  I’m not sure what I think.  But it’s one of those statements that inspires reflection.
  • “To acknowledge God is to fully accept the sorrow of the human condition.” (p. 41)  I think this is true. And yet, I think to deny God might also mean you have to accept the sorrow of the human condition as well.  I guess a lot just depends on your philosophy of the nature of humanity.  Acknowledging God means accepting sorrow but the gift I have gotten in return for that acceptance is hope.
  • “For what it’s worth, I think God is how you deal with everything that’s out of your own control. It’s as good a definition as any.” (p. 52) This is from Jason’s perspective.  His definition connects with me, where I’m at.

This is getting long so I think I’ll finish with it tomorrow and post what I have this far right now. 

[Edit: I never did do the second part of this post.  Oops!]

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