What is a miracle?

My generation, not unlike those who have gone before, have done a great job of hijacking particular words - Gay, cool, fundamentalist, etc In one way its a sign of heathy and vibrant society that we can morph terminology to fit context and meaning. In some ways it can be frustrating.
Does the word MIRACLE fit in there?

"It's a miracle I found a parking spot"
"The Twins won - its a miracle"
"They were miraculously healed from cancer after the chemo and drug treatment"

If your definition of miracle is limited to the suspension of God's natural laws, or the direct intervention of God in any moment in time - then perhaps it does. God is so unbox-able that I feel some true miracles are slipping our attention.
Somewhere along that spectrum of thought - our bikes that were stolen have been found again!
In what can only be described as both a suspension of natural law and possibly God's direct intervention in a moment of time, a phone call from the St. Louis Park police confirmed that our two stolen bikes had been recovered and were still rideable.
Praise the Lord indeed!

Theory of Reciprocity

Humour me for a minute.

I've been walking down a track of thought concerning these these three elements: refugees, dignity and ministry. (I'm happy to be part of an org. that doesn't think they are mutually exclusive!) There are a few influences here - discussions at work and the need to sumit a thesis for credit work.

The deeper I consider these links on a procedural rather than propositional level, the more evident it appears that there is a natural law wrapped up in ministry. That is, ministry comes or evolves to entirety when we allow the effect of what we offer (as opposed to affect of what we give) to reflect back on us. I feel the need to explore on a deeper level the whole idea of ministry as an exchange. (BTW way, there must be a better noun than ministry to define this)

I am definitely not talking about prosperity doctrine, or the tickling of selfish desires here. Consider the following real example that I have experienced countless times.

A refugee invites you to come and speak with them, be with them - to be present without any goal or aim other than to be together. During the 'exchange' it becomes evident that they are serving you food that will mean they they will go without later on, without you knowing, due to their poverty. Our natural instinct as followers of Jesus is to spare them this hardship by politely refusing their offer of exchange. We figure that we are doing them a favour.

Most missionary training (that is worthwhile) will communicate that in such circumstances, the right thing to do is to accept the exchange because culturally it is impolite.

Why?
Is that a cultural point?
Or with more thought, is their maybe a universal at work here?

Just maybe when we limit our ministry to only be being the givers and 'they' being the receivers - we inadvertently break the cycle of what I will clumsily call reciprocity - that one of the ways God allows us to minister to each other is by allowing the circle of reciprocity to run by being receivers as well as givers.

I talk, they listen they talk, I learn.
I offer transportation, they arrive at the destination, we are together, I benefit.


As we struggle to harness our learning in International teams, the difficulty for me come with defining exactly what the word benefit in the sentence above, looks like.

I'd love to hear your thoughts as to whether you agree the extent we complete this the cycle of reciprocity is directly proportional to the amount of dignity we bring.
As well as the whole idea of exchange.

Tulips are up!

Some of our tulips have bloomed.
Like life, they're around for a much shorter time than I would wish for.

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Adobe to buy out Macromedia

Boy does this suck big time and so does Go Live.

I've been pretty much glued to Dreamweaver for the last 6 months. We just went to contribute in the office for updates too.
The only crack of hope that it does open is for Apple to begin work on its own web editing software.

Apple has pretty much shafted Adobe with better products than Premiere and Acrobat.

Wait and see . . .

New Psalms

You know when someone says something, even part way through a sentence and it grabs you,

makes you pause,
mutes down the rest of the sentence as they talk on,
causes you mind to perform one a hitchcock like zoom in/move out focus.

I had a moment like that tonight during tonights message.
At SP we are going through the Psalms. That oversimplified, Psalms break into three categories:

* order and hope
* disorder/lament
* disorder leading to hope

Doug used a powerful segment out of Jenell's blog using it to illustrate how one of the Psalm styles is disorder to hope, or something like that. But thats not what grabbed me.

He offered that blogs were maybe the new way of Psalm-ing.

I think that's true (now, to be psalm like, I'd better think of something to rhyme with that)

Request for help

If you know of authors or research dealing with "regaining the centrality of story in Biblical understanding" could you leave a comment with details?

The Pretender

For some reason I've been straying back into the 70's of late music wise.
Jackson Browne sings a song called 'the pretender' which has some great lines in it and a more than applicable statement that I'm tempted to change this blog title to:

" I'm going to be a happy idiot
And struggle for the legal tender
Where the ads take aim and lay their claim
To the heart and the soul of the spender
And believe in whatever may lie
In those things that money can buy
Thought true love could have been a contender
Are you there?
Say a prayer for the Pretender
Who started out so young and strong
Only to surrender . ."

Don't you think that would make a great title for a blog . . my blog!

P.S. - be kind.

Story

At the moment I'm preparing some work for Australia.

Not just refugee ministry stuff, but also thinking through some other important issues and how to communicate them effectively.

Far from being an isolated area of missiology, my engagement with refugees has so many points of cross over into the mainstream praxis of the theology of everyday life.
One of the big awakenings of the past few years has been the often overlooked central place of the story as a, no - the Biblical genre.

I'm struck again that both the Old and New Testaments begin with the phrase "In the Beginning". Doesn't that sound much like "Once upon a time"?

Many times, myself included, preachers have battled the urge to demythologise, or extract from the story what God has really given us.

Almost like a reverse osmosis system, we have too often reckoned that the story has been in the way of the truth or a mere conveyer of what God really wanted to deliver to us. When very often the story is not only the messenger, but the message itself.
For example when Jesus yelled at the disciples to allow the children to push through the crowds to see him. Sure, we can extract principles from that. Yes Jesus loves children. Yes we must have faith like a child. But isn't there wonder in the story itself. Just consider the scene. The most influential world leader in history with a limited time frame to work in, and a full appointment book, publicly corrects his friends to allow kids to be near him, use his time.

Maybe it is because of the way modern culture has hijacked the words 'story' and even 'myth' and and loaded them meaning leaning toward fiction. Maybe using those words sometimes embarrasses preachers. The challenge then is to venture into this epistemology a little deeper, push through the reluctance, and speak with enough eloquence to allow these words to defend themselves.

The tradition I am from has not too subtly distanced itself from the emotive and heart connection of the story.
In some cases for very good reasons.
Yet I fear we lose something life giving when we dichotomize the head from the heart. It was a foreign idea to scripture writers. Thats why they had such a hard time translating locative words of emotion to organs like the stomach and bones - we use the idea of the heart when referring to the emotive. Maybe its just me but surely words of life cannot be divided - cognitive and emotion or mind and heart.
Surely when Jesus was explaining the greatest commandment in terms of soul, heart and mind and strength, he was emphasising totality, not divisability.
To use the words of someone I know well, either extreme is a place of dysfunction or in this situation, of disconnection. Some may see the need to combine into their practice of all things Jesus, more emphasis on the amazing wisdom and sense that he taught. After all, he berated those who bobbed around on the sea moved to and fro by the currents and the wind.

Others, like me need to self correct a little more toward the heart because the gospel is so much more than a combined set of propositions.

EPA To Drop 'E,' 'P' From Name

WASHINGTON, DC—Days after unveiling new power-plant pollution regulations that rely on an industry-favored market-trading approach to cutting mercury emissions, EPA Acting Administrator Stephen Johnson announced that the agency will remove the "E" and "P" from its name. "We're not really 'environmental' anymore, and we certainly aren't 'protecting' anything," Johnson said. "'The Agency' is a name that reflects our current agenda and encapsulates our new function as a government-funded body devoted to handling documents, scheduling meetings, and fielding phone calls." The change comes on the heels of the Department of Health and Human Services' January decision to shorten its name to the Department of Services.

From "The Onion" March 23

Dafur: a mirror on humanity

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"After the mass slaughter in Bosnia and Rwanda in the 1990s, the world said “never again”. Yet the world has stood by while genocide, or something like it, has been perpetrated in Darfur.
America, with its reluctance to back the ICC, is not the only culprit:
China has blocked effective sanctions, fearing the consequences for itself if precedents are set for tough UN action against human-rights abuses.
But America’s dilemma over Darfur has been especially acute: on the one hand, it has been in the forefront of pressing for tough action against Sudan;
on the other hand, the White House’s vehement rejection of what President George Bush calls a “foreign court” with “unaccountable judges” has made it highly reluctant to “legitimise” the ICC by agreeing to send suspects for trial.
The compromise reached at the UN this week is an ugly one, with the immunity offered to American citizens creating double standards. But it seems to have been the only way forward."

Quoted from "After 300,000 deaths, a modicum of justice", Apr 1st 2005, From The Economist Global Agenda

The whole concept of the nation state is well over its due date. I sway between despair and frustration that the developed world speaks and idealises one way, but legislates and funds in another. Human rights still bow in the wake of the economy. Bringing it down to a personal scale, do I have the right to complain? Do I ever have to learn the same lessons more than once? I know, I know. But there is something in the collective hope of several empires that leaves me constantly disappointed. When we revisit this scale of lesson, hundreds of thousand if not millions of souls pay for it.
Part of me sympathises with the UN though.
At the moment a group us up are thinking of ways in which we can harness and transfer the wisdom and skill we have picked up through the experience of people on refugee teams around the world.
It is much harder to manifest than I would have thought.

But I'm just a guy working in a non-profit, they are a billion $ international org trusted with the protection and justice of those they keep failing.
I know the pope is dear and important, as is a tragic school shooting, but media where are you?