Skip to main content

the Friday list

1. This is Dean's new car, a Honda Accord. He picked it up on Monday and like he would say, "It doesn't totally suck." We have yet to name the computer woman who lives inside it and gives directions while you are driving and responds to commands like "Radio On." Any suggestions?

2. My car switched from winter tires to summer ones yesterday - the official sign of spring here in Quebec.

3. I had a cat incident this morning. Jazz jumped onto the bed, unaware that my face was exactly where she hoped to land. Surprised, she quickly dug her claws in and jumped right back off again. Ouch! I look like I have been in a bit of a street brawl with the lacerations above my left eye - hopefully this will improve my ability to intimidate and influence people to unquestioningly respond to my requests as they will assume I am someone not to be messed with! Well, one can hope, right?

4. I have been battling a silly cold all week (lost my voice for a few days as well) and yesterday started to feel symptoms that were not good: spells of fatigue and a heavy chest. These were all too reminiscent of my bout with pneumonia over a year ago and I did not want to go down that road again. I asked Dean to pray for me last night and as I was falling asleep, again asking God to clear my chest of any infection, I tried to figure out what "Be healed in the name of Jesus" really meant and if I honestly could say those words with conviction over myself. I know those words are in the Bible (In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk), but I feel uncomfortable with them for some reason. Nevertheless, I prayed for my body to come in line with the will of God and this morning I feel a lot better.

5. I am reading a book on hell (how often have you heard someone say that lately?). I didn't meant to buy a book on hell, I thought it was a story of one's man struggle with faith, but well, it turns out that your view of hell really determines what kind of God you believe in. Is he an exclusive God or an inclusive God? I am finding it an interesting read.

6. Well, I am trying to play backgammon with my friend from South Africa while I type this and I have already lost one game, so let me cease this unsuccessful attempt at multitasking and go and teach him a lesson on the second game.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Names of God

The Hebrew word "YHWH" (read from right to left) This past Sunday I gave a talk on the Names of God, the beginning of a series on this topic. This first talk was to be a gentle introduction so I thought it wouldn't take too many hours of preparation. Well, I quickly discovered that the research is almost bottomless; every time I thought I had a somewhat definitive list of names, I found another source which added a few more or gave a different twist on some of the names I had already come across. After several hours I was getting overwhelmed by the sheer amount of data (and that was only looking at the Hebrew Bible). I wondered how I could present this to people in an orderly and accessible fashion and within a reasonable time frame. Not everyone is up for a 3-hour lecture crammed full of detail on a Sunday morning. So I took a break and spent a bit of time meditating on this problem and asking the Spirit for guidance. And then I thought that being overwhelmed by Go...
3 comments
Read more

Esther's protest

I have been hesitant to write anything here pertaining to the student protests in Montreal, partly because I didn't believe I had any solutions to offer and partly because I just wanted to stay out of the controversial mess it has become.  Besides, I have studying to do.  But this weekend, something changed.  I read the book of Esther. First, some background:  the unrest started early in the year when a group of students decided to protest the tuition hikes proposed by the Quebec government ($325 a year for the next 5 years).  Seeing that tuition rates have been frozen for almost ten years, it seemed reasonable to the government to increase them to reflect rising costs.  This did not sit well with some students, and they organised an ongoing protest in which students were encouraged to boycott classes and refuse to hand in assignments.  It has now grown into a movement which has staged several organise...
9 comments
Read more

it's a mad mad mad world (of theology)

The mad dash for the end of term has begun.  I have finished all my required readings and have jumped into research reading.  One of my papers is on the madness of theology (the correlation seems more obvious to some of us than to others).  Truly inspiring stuff, I am finding.  Let me share a few quotes here: There is a certain madness in Christianity – in a desert God who is jealous and passionate, in a saviour who speaks in apocalyptic terms, in a life of sacrificial love, in the scandal of particularity.   In principle, a confessional theology should bear the mark of this madness, but the mark or wound must constantly be renewed. - Walter Lowe, "Postmodern Theology" in The Oxford Handbook of Systematic Theology , 2007.   “In the Scriptures the odd phenomena constituting the ‘Kingdom of God’ are the offspring of the shock that is delivered by the name of God to what is there called the ‘world,’ resulting in what I call a ‘sacred anarchy.’   C...
10 comments
Read more