BNO

Last night was boys night out, with James, Mark & Mark. Man was it fun....

We went out for Pakistani food, and as usual, it was so delicious!

Afterwards we went to James' place, and played Rook until 4am. That's right, 6 hours of playing cards. Reminds me of my university days....

No More Longjohns!

Good news! The weather's (finally) warm enough now so that I don't have to wear longjohns outside anymore. Last week I wore them, and I began sweating ever so slightly even while walking outside. Yesterday I didn't wear them at all and it was perfectly fine.

I know I know .. my fellow Vancouverites are going to say I'm pathetic for wearing longjohns to begin with. It's not cold enough in Vancouver. To that I say "whatever .. buscense un bosque y pierdense.

Three cheers for Spring!!

Hip hip .. Horray!
Hip hip .. Horray!
Hip hip .. Horray!

Agnus Dei

Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace.

Sneeze

I've always made fun of people who are allergic to perfumes, colognes, or other fragrances. Well, no more laughter .. or better yet, now I can laugh at myself too!!

The past few weeks I've noticed that whenever I'm around someone who's wearing some kind of a fragrance, I start sneezing. Non-stop. It looks like I've caught the Fragrance Bug.

I'm concerned. What's gonna happen with the sweeties? How am I gonna work magic, how am I gonna get fresh with the ladies now?

Bob George And Fishing

Today's my father's 65th birthday, so it's very appropriate to write something about him.

My father's a great man, and I'm very proud of him. There are many reasons to be proud of him, but the most important reason is that he's a man of God.

I'm very thankful that I was raised in a Christian family. Of course, I haven't always enjoyed being a part of this family, but that's normal, isn't it? When I look at society nowadays, and the (lack of) family values that children are raised with, I can't help but fall on my knees and thank God for the kind of family we've had. The fact that I was raised in a loving, caring, God-fearing/honouring environment is largely due to my father.

I admire his strength of character and his determination. I also respect his convictions. True, some of his convictions are not the same as mine (Bob George or some other radio/televangelist may have something to do with this), but I deeply respect him nonetheless. In fact, my dad's convictions have been very challenging to my own faith. Whenever I hold a different point of view than his, he challenges me to defend it, and if I don't defend it well, he won't let me get away with it. On the other hand, he always defends his points of views very well.

Over the past few years he's developed an interest in fishing, and this has been very good. I've always believed that it's good for people to develop "hobbies", and it seems to me that dad has done just that. He's invited me to come along a few times, but I've always shied away. This summer that won't be the case. I look forward to go fishing with him.

Here's a picture of dad enjoying his new hobby. I believe this picture was taken in the summer of 2005:

Books Books Books

I went to the library today to get out books for my two research papers that are due by April 10th. I got out 28 books!!!

Here's proof:

I'm going to write two papers on the church, scripture, and tradition. One paper wil look at the history and effects of evangelicalism's disregard of tradition, and the other one will examine theological aspects of scripture and tradition in anglicanism. Details to follow....

False Creek In 2 Hours

On a beautifully sunny day, I decided to go for a walk around False Creek today. I took my camera with me, and took some pictures. Here's a sample of what I discovered:

10th and Columbia


Grafitti


Alley


Tugboat


Plaza


Walkway


False Creek


Babel


Poverty


Wealth


Cambie Street Bridge


I love this city! You can find a few more pictures I took here.

Friday Lunches

This semester, Friday lunches have been very special for me, for two reasons: communion, and lunch.

I have a class from 9-12 on Fridays, with Dr. Packer, and that in itself is a treat, but after class we have a communion service in the small prayer chapel, and these services have been deeply meaningful to me. There's usually a small group of us, between 10 and 15, who pack that small room, read The Communion service from the Book of Common Prayer, and listen to a small homily (usually from Dr. Packer).

What I love about this time together is fellowshiping in a small group around a common liturgy and communion. There is something special about being a part of a small group of people that gathers together to worship our loving Father in heaven.

An added bonus (and in comparison to the communion sercive it really is just a bonus) is that after the service we all go out for lunch. We go to this super good chinese restaurant close to school, and yes, lunch is free. The Anglican Studies program pays for it. Amazing!

Is there anything better than fellowshiping with God and friends over a meal? I think not....

Spear Warrior

Someone looked up what my name means, and came up with the following:

* Great Spearman
* Rich spear, blessed spear

My name doesn't exactly have a profound meaning. But watch out, if you piss me off I'll stab ya through.

I've never been thrilled about my name, but I've never hated it either. I also don't like my name shortened. It sounds so damn short. It ends before you even start.

I wish I had a middle name. A biblical name like Caleb, or Joshua. Matthias is nice too.

Lower Expectations

I need to lower my expectations of people, especially my friends.

Prayer Of Jabez Falls Short In Africa

I found an interesting article, and have posted it for your reading pleasure. It illustrates how our theology of God directly affects how we view the world, and how we interact with it. Note: name of author and source follow article. Thoughts? Opinions?

Bruce Wilkinson, author of the best-selling book The Prayer of Jabez, made a big splash nearly four years ago when he announced his ambitious plan to help children suffering from AIDS in Africa.

Not everything for Wilkinson has gone according to plan, unfortunately. A page one feature in the Dec. 19 The Wall Street Journal captures the sad tale in a nutshell: "In 2002 Bruce Wilkinson, a Georgia preacher whose self-help prayer book had made him a rich man, heard God's call, moved to Africa and announced his intention to save one million children left orphaned by the AIDS epidemic. In October [2005], Wilkinson resigned in a huff from the African charity he founded. He abandoned his plan to house 10,000 children in a facility that was to be an orphanage, bed-and-breakfast, game reserve, Bible college, industrial park and Disneyesque tourist destination in the tiny kingdom of Swaziland. What happened in between is a story of grand hopes and inexperience, divine inspiration and human foibles. …[H]is departure left critics convinced he was just another in a long parade of outsiders who have come to Africa making big promises and quit the continent when local people didn't bend to their will."

It is not my aim to gloat at Wilkinson's failure. To the contrary, I mourn what this means for the millions of African children in crisis who apparently will not benefit from his efforts. I also want to honor Wilkinson's desire to help the least fortunate. It would have been easy for him to take the wealth he gained from his book sales and live a life of personal comfort.

This chain of events, however, should not pass without a moment of theological reflection. The "blessed life" that Wilkinson has helped to promote carries with it a number of assumptions about where God is present in the world, and how God acts in response to the prayers of the faithful.

The Prayer of Jabez is based on a passage out of the book of Chronicles, in which a devoted man named Jabez asks God for a favor: "Oh that you would bless me and enlarge my border, and that your hand might be with me, and that you would keep me from hurt and harm!" The fact that God honors Jabez' prayer and blesses him with great riches indicates to Wilkinson a God-principle. If we in pure heart ask God for a blessing - and do so using the very words that Jabez prayed - then God will bring wondrous gifts into our life. As The Wall Street Journal reports, Wilkinson interprets the wild commercial success of his books (roughly 20 million copies sold combined) as yet another proof of the miraculous power of the Jabez prayer. In other words, it worked for Jabez, it worked for Wilkinson, and now it should work for you. With the fiasco in Africa now behind him - and the full Journal report makes clear that fiasco is the appropriate term - I wonder if Wilkinson has reconsidered his theology.

Maybe because I spent so many years in poor regions of the globe I could never accept the prayer-in-blessing-out approach to faithful living. Straight to the point, I have known too many devoted Christians for whom life did not bring them material blessing. Their children still died of infectious diseases that plagued their village. They could not avoid the violence that dictators and ideologues so often use to cow the powerless. Their territory did not expand because their only path for survival was a daily labor with their hands. Yet they did not lose faith, or cease praying for God's blessing.

As I ponder on their lives, I find a more fitting theology for God's presence and action in the world to be laid out in the book of Hebrews. There we are encouraged to have "faith in things not yet seen," and are offered models of individuals who tried to lead devoted lives that honor God. We read that some of them did receive great material blessings, while others ended up in the dens of lions or stoned due to their principled living. We learn, in other words, that God does hear their prayers and loves them profoundly, but it does not always bring them material riches or expanded territory.

Wilkinson's doctrine in fact implies that social structures are immaterial. An individual reciting the right prayer can transcend an AIDS epidemic in his or her village or escape being bought and sold into slavery (like 27 million people on this planet yet today). Perhaps now that Wilkinson has immersed himself in Africa, he better understands that the curse of poverty is not a spiritual punishment, or an indication of a lack of faith. To bring blessings to the orphans and widows of Africa, a dramatic shift in values - political, economic, and personal - will be required. And that challenge cannot be owned by Africans alone; it falls squarely on the shoulders of us in rich nations, who enjoy such great material "blessings."
Just like the next Bible reader, I could pick out individual passages that seem to suggest that God will give us whatever we desire as long as we ask for it with a pure heart. "You can even move this mountain" with such a prayer, as Jesus teaches his disciples in the gospels. I do not summarily discount these passages, nor do I assume that we should never pray for rain in a time of drought.

But the weight of the biblical message balances heavily toward a prayer life that yields courage, love, and compassion to do the will of God. The expectation of material gain and miraculous blessings may even distract us on that pilgrimage. The passage in Hebrews calls us, based on past heroes of the faith, "to run the race in front of us," confident that devoting our lives to God's work is all the reward we will ever need.

_____

This article was written by David Batstone, and can be found on the Sojourners website.

My First Sermon(ette)

I just came back from preaching my first sermon: well, it was a mini-sermon.

No, I didn't preach to our church congregation, but preaching to our church interns and pastor was nerveracking enough...!

I preached on Philippians 1:1-11. I was not nearly as nervous as I thought I would be. This is likely due to prayer and preparation. I'm thankful for friends who prayed for me as I prepared for this task. It also seems true that the more work and preparation we put into a task, the more we learn, and the more comfortable we get "doing" that task.

After my sermon I was critiqued in terms of primarily theological content/message, but also style. My fellow-interns are so gracious. They are so good to me. Our pastor's comment about my sermon was that it was "very serious and got us right to the core of the gospel without wasting any time, and that's good". That sorta made me laugh.

Thank you Jesus. May your Name be lifted, to the glory of the Father.

Stormy

Today was a stormy day. The weather began calm enough in the morning, just a little bit cloudy. But by 10am it was raining hard, and it continued to rain pretty much all day.

In the afternoon it started to snow - huge, thick, wet flakes that didn't stick to the ground.

In the early evening it hailed.

Now, 10pm, it's back to rain. It's windy too.

My Weekend

Friday evening:

* went to Claudia's for a party. It was a last-minute thing, and even though very few people came, I still had a good time. Damian, a first year student whom I'm getting to know a little, came along. He is engaged to a Brazilian-Japanese girl. Funny, 3rd culture kids are becoming more and more common. Maybe that'll help make me feel less like a fish out of water..!

* surprise news of the night was Terri's engagement. The thing is, I didn't even know she had a boyfriend, and I know her fairly well (or so I thought!!!). I can't believe she kept that she had a boyfriend a secret from her own friends. Seems strangely bizzarre to me. But then again, her story is a bit unusual. Whatever....

* also, Suzannah who just recently came back from her 8 month missions term in El Salvador, was at Claudia's. She came back, and is marrying my good Bolivian buddy David in a few weeks time. It was great seeing her again.

Saturday:

* uneventful day, except for two things. I made decent progress on a book that I'm reading on the church and tradition. Maybe I'll write about this topic one of these days.

* in the evening I went out for a late movie with a couple of buddies. Had a good time, and I enjoyed the movie. But it did remind me why I don't watch movies anymore: I always walk out disturbed and astonished at how desensitized I've become to issues such as profanity, sexuality, and killing. They seem so normal to me. There's no difference between them and eating a slice of toast. That makes me uncomfortable. On the other hand, the movie did have some redeeming qualities, and it was good to see it, as it gives me a pulse of what's happening in our surrounding culture, but still, it disturbs me spiritually. Spending time with friends was good though, after spending the rest of the day cooped up inside my apartment.

Sunday:

* I went to the early morning church service, 7:30am. I love that service. Have been attending it semi-regularly for the past 4 months, and plan to continue doing so.

* for the rest of the day I studied Scripture, Philippians 1:1-11. I'm preaching a 5 minute homily/sermonette on it this Thursday, to the other church interns. I'm quite intimidated, preaching to a bunch of guys who have preached many times before. But they are very gracious, and I think they will be very supportive. On a related note, I'm astonished how immersing myself in Scripture affects me. It lifts me up. It feeds me in "spiritual mysteries" the way few other things do. Praise be!

Today's Plan

7:30am - get up, journal until 8:30

8:30 - breakfast, shower

9:30 - bus to school

10 - research, read

12:30pm - lunch

1 - ministry interview

2:30 - research, read

5:30 - bus home

8 - party @ Claudia's .. details to follow

Better

I'm feeling much better lately. I can't quite put my finger on the reason, because all the things that usually cause me anxiety are still there, minus the anxiety.

I'm feeling more upbeat. Perhaps it's because spring is on the way. Or maybe it's because I'm excited about my summer trip to Europe. Or could it be that after a six month emotional "drought" season things are beginning to normalize?

Earlier today I sat down and had a hot chocolate with Christina: wow, she's so lovely! Then I studied with Annie for awhile. She just may have the most intoxicating smile I know. Finally, I ended the day by talking with Faith on the phone. Oh wait, her smile is equally intoxicating. Hmmmm.

(Incidentally, I did not get much work done today) :-D

All three women are very godly. All three are gems. But alas, all of them are forbidden gems.

Still, I'm feeling better.

Who Am I? Here Am I!

Tomorrow is Ash Wednesday, bringing upon us my favourite time of the year: Lent, leading to Easter. I didn't grow up observing Lent, but over the past five years it has become the most meaningful time of the year for me. It is a time of repentance and renewal. It is the advent of springtime. Orthodox liturgy points in this direction: The Springtime of Fast has dawned, the flower of repentance has begun to open.

Indeed, as Orthodox archbishop and author Kallistos Ware says: "Repentance - metanoia, 'change of mind' - is not just ashes, but an opening flower." I love the simplicity and profundity of that statement. Lent lasts for 46 days, and culminates on the day of our Lord's Resurrection on Easter Sunday.

Below is an excerpt of archbishop Ware's writings* on Lent:

'Lent has, therefore, a fundamentally baptismal orientation, which we often overlook and which we need to retrieve. The Lenten Fast is an annual opportunity for us to reflect afresh on the centrality of baptism in our Christian experience, and a call for us each to renew our baptismal promise ... '

'It is an invitation to reaffirm, not just through words but through actions, our rootedness in baptism as the foundation of all our Christian life; it is a season of self-exploration during which we become actively conscious of the indwelling presence of Christ and the Holy Spirit that exists 'secretly' or 'mystically' within our hearts from the moment of our baptism.'

'At the same time, Lent is more than that. As well as renewing my own baptismal commitment, I need also to ask myself: what am I personally doing to bring others to faith and baptism in Christ?

... whether we are clergy or laity, each is to see evangelism as her or his direct responsibility. What am I myself doing to preach the gospel 'to all nations'? ... We are to ask ourselves: What have I done since last Easter to communicate this light to others?

'Lent, then, is about baptism and mission. It signifies a reawakening of our baptismal initiation, a revivified missionary dedication. It is to say both: 'who am I?' and 'here am I.' Recalling our identity as baptized Christians, we ask ourselves: who am I? And, responding to Christ's missionary command, we affirm with the prophet (Isaiah 6:8): here am I.'

_____

Excerpt taken from Archbishop Ware's essay, "Lent and Consumer Society".