A deep question for my fellow Christ followers out there: Was there boredom before the fall? If not, does that mean boredom is tied directly to sin . . . and how do see it theologically? This came up (kind of out of the blue) at our small group last night . . .
Book Review: Three Weeks With My Brother by Nicholas Sparks
I picked this up in the library a few weeks ago. I read quite widely but this one was a bit of a stretch. I'd never heard of the author, never read anything by him, and yet I was drawn to it. Weird. Anyway, I picked the book up and realized it was about 2 men who were going on an around the world trip in three weeks. It was a story about intimate brotherhood, adventure, and seeing the world. I took a gamble and signed it out. I'm very glad I did.
Nicholas Sparks was actually more known to me then I knew. He wrote the books "A Walk To Remember" and "The Notebook", both of which I have seen as movies. I will say this, Sparks has a almost a perfect writing style for me. He uses humor well, crafts his characters in a way that causes you to empathize with them almost immediately, and strikes a near perfect balance between eloquence and simplicity in the way he uses language. I was engaged almost immediately. As I read it over the past week I kept telling Jobina "This is a really good book." I read a lot of books and so I think that got her attention.
Without giving too much away, the story is really an autobiography written in the guise of a travelogue. As the two brothers go away on their adventure trip of a lifetime, Sparks starts at the beginning and tells his story beginning at birth and by the time the trip is done brings the reader right up to the present in his life. His life is truly an amazing story; equal parts joy and sorrow. In many ways it is the "every" book; it is a story, a motivation speech, a travel journal, a treatise on family, a book about faith, a reflection on suffering, etc, etc. I was very moved by reading it, one night I couldn't sleep for several hours after putting the book down, so emotionally engaged was I.
This book may not be for everyone. I told Jobina that I wasn't sure if a woman would like it or not but if you like biographies I don't think you will be disappointed. There are so many good parts about this book that it is difficult to choose which one meant the most to me. I give Three Weeks With My Brother 4.7 ninja stars out of 5. Highly recommended.
In a relationship with an important person, we are always telling them things. Sometimes we even say it to them with words! Mostly though it is in our actions. We are constantly watching the other person, noting and interpreting the things they do. For instance, if I get my wife flowers, she might interpret it in one of the following ways:
1. "He loves me!"
2. "He cares about me!"
3. "He's apologizing to me!"
4. "He's hiding something from me!"
5. "He wants something!"
Sometimes our interpretations are positive: A handsome man walking down the street smiles at a young lady as he passes by. He thinks to himself "I just passed gas" or "Wow, she's dressed funny." She interprets it "He likes me" or "he thinks I'm hot."
It's comical really, because we are continually interpreting those we are close to all day long but we commonly get it wrong. Often our interpretations are negative. For instance, a man works long hours at the office thinking the message he's giving his wife is "I'm a good provider" or "I sacrifice for the family." The wife may however interpret it as "he doesn't want to spend time with me" or "working is more attractive then being home with me." We learn how to interpret as children.
Often the unintentional message we hear is some form of this; "_______ is more important then me." What can" ______" be that is more important then me? How about:
-your job
-your friends
-your computer
-your hobby
-your car
-your ex
-your children
-your pet
-your video games
-your church (or ministry)
-your TV shows
etc, etc.
Ever experienced any of these (or been "accused" of them)? The worst thing you can do if someone tells you they feel this way is try to convince them why it is not true (especially if it is your spouse)! Count is as blessing that they have had the courage to share it with you, even if they don't do it in the most courteous way and even if you don't agree with it. Something is wrong and needs to be dealt with. You now have before you a great opportunity to grow your relationship. What are you going to do with it?
My advice is to learn to be careful about the messages our actions have on others and let others know about the interpretations we are making about their actions. "Actions speak louder then words" is so true. I like it when my wife tells me how she's interpreting my actions, it helps us get stuff out in the open and avoid later conflict. Often in counselling I'll ask someone "What's the message you are getting from your spouse?" and the other person is shocked when they hear it. What message are you getting that you need to share with someone?
"One act of obedience is better than one hundred sermons." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer
I was reading in "The Purpose Driven Life" this morning about obedience and surrender. Warren notes that both of these words often leave bad tastes in our mouths (similar to words like "submit"). Obedience is a word we usually reserve for dogs . . . and occasionally children. It's definitely not in style.
Yet obedience, to God and man is such a high virtue. The Desert Fathers were a monastic community of radical believers during the fourth century in Egypt, Syria, and Palestine. Their communities were experiments in holiness and humility and their collected wisdom reflect this. Many of their sayings are recorded in story form. Like this one:
They said that abba Sylvanus had a disciple in Scetis, named Mark, who possessed in great measure the virtue of obedience. He had eleven other disciples who were aggrieved that he loved Mark more than them.
When the old men nearby heard that he loved Mark above the others, they took it ill. One day they visited him and abba Sylvanus took them with him, and going out of his cell, began to knock on the door of each of his disciples, saying, "Brother, come out, I have work for you." And not one of them appeared immediately.
Then he came to Mark's cell and knocked, saying, "Mark." And as soon as Mark heard the voice of the old man he came outside and the old man sent him away on some errand.
So abba Sylvanus said to the old men, "Where are the other brothers?" and he went into Mark's cell and found the book in which he had been writing and he was making the letter O; and when he heard the old man's voice, he had not finished the lines of the O. And the old men said, "Truly, abba, we also love the one whom you love; for God loves him too."
This story always touches something in me. Perhaps its partially because the obedient disciple shares my name, but I marvel at the beauty of his wholehearted surrender. I know the story is not perfect and that favoritism is not a good thing but still I find it compelling. Jesus said that we love him if we obey him. Obedience is the true test of love. My goal in life is to possess the virtue of obedience (like Mark did in the story) to Christ and his commands. You have to trust someone alot to be that obedient. God, build up my trust in you! Amen.
On the way back from a board meeting tonight I was listening to CJOB which is a local news/talk radio station here in Manitoba. Even though it probably makes me old and boring, I really like news and talk radio. There, I'm coming out of the closet. Don't judge me! Don't judge me.
Anyway, there was an interview with a guy from the Humane Society. The host admitted to him taking his dog to the vet a few days ago and confessed that after he got his bill for over $400 he fleetingly wondered "How much would have cost just to put the dog down?" This lead into a big discussion on how much a person would be willing to put into saving their animal before they'd say "enough." Never being really attached to my pet, I thought $400 was a crazy amount. But soon someone called in and said they had paid over $1000. I was shocked. But then someone said they had paid over $3000 - (twice) on their dog's health! That's over $6000 on an animal. Many of these callers said that money was no object. Once you get attached to an animal you will anything within your power to save them.
This made me think, how much would I be willing to spend to save a dog? And is there an ethical problem if you are not willing to spend money giving life giving donations to starving children but you are willing to pay thousands to replace your dog's hip or repair its torn ACL? I suppose the reason someone can do this is because they are emotionally attached to the dog and not emotionally attached to the starving children. Intellectually we know that millions of children starving is more important then one dog, but because we get bonded to an animal that is in front of us, it's no contest - the dog will win every time. I'm not saying we shouldn't do all we can to save animals (I think animals deserve care and compassion) but I wonder where we ought to draw the line? And what does God think of it all? Is he impressed by our compassion for animals even as we ignore the human needs around us?
Today I biked to and from work. It took me about 45 minutes this morning and just less then an hour when I got home late this evening. The reason for the time difference? I bonked.
Bonking, according to the dictionary of mountain bike slang is as follows:
bonk v. to run out of energy or grow exhausted on a ride. "I bonked so early it was embarrassing."
Basically bonking is "hitting the wall." I didn't have supper and so about half way through my ride later in the evening I simply ran out of fuel. Suddenly it took all my effort just to keep pedaling at any speed (which ended up being slow). The final couple of blocks I was barely moving. Bonking is a rookie mistake but I guess I haven't done any real biking in quite a while.
The idea of bonking appeals to me because the truth of it is transferable to so many things. If you are not careful, you can run out of fuel
1. In your marriage.
2. In your spiritual life.
3. In your ministry.
4. For your job.
and many more.
It's foolish to think of trying to drive a car without gas, yet when it comes to other things we think we can go forever! Oh how we deceive ourselves. Rest, food, time away, training, etc are all things we need to keep fueled up for the important stuff, yet most of us try to see how low we can get the tank before refueling. Why do we do it? Bravado, a death wish, pride, temporary insanity? For me it's usually pride . . . mixed with equal parts laziness and delusions of "I'm better then that." Beware! This kind of stupidity is contagious - you can catch it from others and it can also infect even a large organization. Keep your tank full this week!
hysteria: behavior exhibiting overwhelming or unmanageable fear or emotional excess
Neatorama had a link today to this article which was interesting:
The swine virus does appear able to spread easily among humans, which persuaded the WHO to boost its influenza pandemic alert level to phase 5, indicating that a worldwide outbreak of infection is very likely. And the CDC reported on its website that "a pattern of more severe illness associated with the virus may be emerging in the United States." [...]
But certainly nothing that would dwarf a typical flu season. In the U.S., between 5% and 20% of the population becomes ill and 36,000 people die — a mortality rate of between 0.24% and 0.96%.
Dirk Brockmann, a professor of engineering and applied mathematics at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., used a computer model of human travel patterns to predict how this swine flu virus would spread in the worst-case scenario, in which nothing is done to contain the disease.
After four weeks, almost 1,700 people in the U.S. would have symptoms, including 198 in Los Angeles, according to his model. That’s just a fraction of the county’s thousands of yearly flu victims.
