Blog hiatus

… until my paper is finished.

Quote for the week

I am presently reading “Seeing is believing” by Gregory A. Boyd (2004). He’s got an interesting point about the importance of picturing spiritual realities with our inner eyes.

In my twenty-three years as a pastor I found that the primary difference between those who love worship and are impacted by worship, on the one hand, and those who never seem to enjoy it or get much out of it,on the other, is not that one group is simply more spiritual or committed than the other. Rather, the fundamental difference, I have found, is that something’s happening in the minds of the first group that isn’t happening in the minds of the other.

…

In the same way, I have generally found that the difference between those who spend a good deal of time and get a lot out of prayer and those who do not is not necessarily that the first group is more mature and committed than the second group. Rather, they usually pray more because it feels real to them. And the reason it feels real to them is because something is going on in their minds when they pray that tends to be absent in the minds of those of us who find prayer laborious, boring and unreal. … They pray ‘with all five senses.’” p 100 (italics in the original)

I fond this very interesting because it is certainly true for me. But I thought it is just God’s way of communicating with me, based on how he created me, as I am rather visual (painting, photography) and because I am generally thinking in pictures, which I am told is typical for dyslectic people.

Now I am curious what you think about it.
Would you confirm these statements from your personal experience or not?

25 random things about me

I’m back after one week of involuntary internet withdrawal. It took me that long to establish an internet connection at my temporary home (for the next half year). During this week (without internet) I was tagged twice on Facebook with the meme “25 random things about me”. Now I will follow Tim’s example and also post it on my blog.

Rules: Once you’ve been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you. At the end, choose 25 people to be tagged. You have to tag the person who tagged you. If I tagged you, it’s because I want to know more about you.

(To do this, go to Facebook “notes” under tabs on your profile page (if it’s not there, use the “+” to get to it), paste these instructions in the body of the note, type your 25 random things, tag 25 people (in the upper right corner of the app) then click publish).

1. I am dyslexic and had a hard time in school with German and English, but was top of the class in Math. I consider it God’s humor that he called me into a language related work. This year I plan to learn my seventh language.

2. I can’t read a book or article without finding spelling mistakes.

3. I was not allowed to speak the local dialect as a child so my pronunciation sounded rather “German” (not Austrian), to the point that some Austrians would not believe me that I am Austrian, especially after 3 years at a Bible college in Germany. For Germans it was always clear that I am not German but Austrian. Talk about identity conflict.

4. I hate traveling but keep doing it a lot for the sake of God’s calling. I have lived in Austria, Germany, the Netherlands, Great Britain, Mexico, France, USA, Cameroon, Central African Republic, Mali. I have visited Italy, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Switzerland, Belgium, Spain, Zaire, Chad, Kenya, Senegal, Ivory Coast, Santa Domingo, Croatia, Greece, and maybe some more which I forgot. I even travelled three times to Eastern Europe as Bible smuggler before the fall of the Iron Curtain.

5. My original training was in plastic engineering, as part of a technical high school, but equivalent to a college degree. I would have needed to work in this domain for two years to obtain my engineers title, which I never did.

6. I am fascinated by other cultures and love to observe and analyze cultural differences. I also love guessing where people in public come from and what language they speak.

7. I am an organizer and love logic puzzles. My love for whodunits probably falls in the same category.

8. I first need a framework before any detail information makes sense to me.

9. I got my first camera at age 14 and loved photography ever since.

10. I am from the tribe of “hunters and gatherers” – in the past this meant catching frogs, lizards, grasshoppers, and collecting stamps, coins, dried plants, books, song texts, poems, etc. – Now most of my collecting is digital: photos, music files, computer programs, song texts, articles, etc). And I no longer put dead mice in my colleague’s in-baskets.

11. Ten years ago I started painting watercolors. I have experimented with a few other painting techniques but haven’t done a lot in recent years.

12. I love all kinds of dancing and started teaching others to dance at age 16. I once opened a ball with the Lutheran Bishop of Austria, Oskar Sakrausky – he was a very good dancer. During a recent furlough I won two tickets for the Concordia Ball, the ball of the Austrian Press club, in the Vienna Rathaus (city hall). It was a challenge to find all the things (dress, shoes, accessories) AND a dance partner within three days but it was great fun.

13. During school I learned playing recorder, during Bible college guitar, and during a recent furlough I started playing clarinet. I did not get very far with playing the pan flute.

14. During the same furlough I took singing classes and even reached the high B. During the next furlough I learned to more use my chest voice. Regrettably I am better in singing along than singing solo.

15. I love musicals and grew up listening to West Side Story, My Fair Lady, Man of La Mancha, Anatevka (Fiddler on the Roof), Porgy and Bess which my father had on tapes – old-fashioned big tapes.

16. I have a large family because my mother had 7 siblings and my grandfather 12. One of my great-grand-fathers was a wood turner. During his journeymanship he travelled all over Europe mostly on foot – Dresden, Vienna, Trieste, Lyon, Paris, London, and eventually got married in Paris with a wife sent from back home. Another line of my ancestors goes back to the Huguenots from France who fled to Czechoslovakia and later came to Austria.

17. I love watching (and photographing) sunsets and other sun atmospheres and clouds. They can calm my spirit in incredible ways. Watching birds from close by touches my heart deeply.

18. I can be very curious. Which really helps with strange food – I have eaten porcupine, snake, bush rat, monkey, gazelle, elephant trunk, elephant guts, cat, giant frog (3kg! photo below for those who can’t believe it), caterpillars, termites, locusts. Elephant trunk is the finest meat and caterpillars with koko leaves in peanut sauce was my favorite dish in CAR.

19. I won a bike with three gears at age 14 in a youth traffic quiz. I had it for may years until it was stolen in the Netherlands.

20. For a real vacation I like to read a lot and swim, preferably in the ocean with lots of surf. A special bonus is when I also have a chance to do windsurfing which unfortunately does not happen very often.

21. I never stick to a recipe but like to change it and call it creativity.

22. I learned the hard way that maintaining relationships is more important than avoiding high telephone costs.

23. I am half-African when it comes to temperatures after living in Africa for 15+ years – I hate the cold, and everything below 26C/80F is cold for me, which does not mean that I like it when it’s too hot, i.e. above 32C/90F.

24. I think that there are no black people, not even in Africa, because even those called black are shades of brown.

25. I love worshiping God through songs and started expressing them through free style worship dance a few years ago.

At first I could not think of so many random facts, but after reading the list of several friends, my own list got longer and longer, until I had to delete a few.  Let me know if you have done a similar list on Facebook.

Good or evil?

The following quotes are part of the conversation in “The Shack“ (pp 134-136) that I intentionally left out in my last post. God explains there to Mac why our parameters for deciding what is good and what is evil are often wrong.

“Evil is the word we use to describe the absence of Good, just as we use the word darkness to describe the absence of Light or death to describe the absence of Life. Both evil and darkness can only be understood in relation to Light and Good; they do not have any actual existence. I am Light and I am Good. I am Love and there is no darkness in me. Light and Good actually exist. So, removing yourself from me will plunge you into darkness. Declaring independence will result in evil because apart from me, you can only draw upon yourself. This is death because you have separated yourself from me: Life.”

I have contemplated this a lot and found it really helpful. As long as we discern good and evil based on our subjective feelings and perception, we will often get it wrong and miss how “bad” things can be “good” for us. And this in turn will undermine our trust in God. Only when we understand that God’s presence makes something good and his absence makes something evil, can we understand that “in one instance, the good may be the presence of cancer or the loss of income – or even a life.”

It is often the hard things that drive us into God’s presence, mold our character and transform us into his image. Unfortunately, difficult times seem to be the only way we learn and experience transformation.

This also sheds a different light on our pursuit of independance. Being independent from God removes us from the Vine. We are called to remain in Him, abide in Him, because apart from Him we can do nothing. (John 15:5) A well known passage, but how often do we manage to put it into practice?

What does it mean to practice it? Here is what Mac heard God say to him about this:

“You must give up your right to decide what is good and evil in your own terms. This is a hard pill to swallow; choosing to only live in me. To do that you know me enough to trust me and learn to rest in my inherent goodness.”

So this brings us back to the issue of trust. If we decide on our own what is good and bad, we easily come to the conclusion God is not trustworthy. Or as Wayne Jacobson puts it – we practice a “Daisy Pedal Christianity” (He loves me!) going back and forth between “God loves me” and “God loves me not” depending on whether things happening in our life are “good” or “bad” according to our subjective perception. Whenever we don’t like what is happening to us, we conclude that God does not love us, instead of looking for the good God intended with it.

I know, it is not easy to apply this in some extreme situations, but why not start with every day situations and try to see them through God’s eyes? I have been mulling over this topic for some time. It was a pleasant surprise recently, when I experienced a very disappointing situation and in the middle of it was able to hold back on my subjective judgment, but trust that God has good plans for his children. (More about it in a future post)

The Shack

I just finished reading this book “The Shack” and plan to write more about it some time soon. For now just let me tell that it is an awesome book and I can only recommend it highly. Go and get your own copy!

“When the imagination of a writer and the passion of a theologian cross-fertilize the result is a novel on the order of The Shack. This book has the potential to do for our generation what John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress did for his. It’s that good!”

Eugene Peterson, Professor Emeritus Of Spiritual Theology,
Regent College, Vancouver, B.C.

God speaks through pain

When I wrote the last entry, I was reminded of a quote that has become very important to me about 10 years ago. Since then I have often quoted it and reflected upon it.

“a significant question, that one of our pastoral advisers placed before us (…) will you concentrate on the pain of this broken world experience and resist it, OR will you permit the pain to become an environment in which God can clearly speak to you about matters he deems of ultimate importance? The choice is yours.

(…) It was not a one-timer choice. We made it again and again as time passed. (…) Would we fight the pain or permit it to be the environment in which God speaks? Usually, we chose the latter.”

(from “Rebuilding Your Broken World” by Gordon MacDonald)

In view of my last entry, I am wondering if this not a similar principle. Only when we face the pain, God can work on the deeper issues, things that we usually try to fight and medicate with addictive behavior, because we don’t like to face them.

Food for thought

“Every day I must choose to lay down my defensiveness and allow the healing balm of Jesus to attend to my wounds and allow him to be my God, my Strength, my Defender. He told me that I did not need to defend myself anymore, that was his job. He is my Defender and Advocate. Would I let him be that for me?”

John & Stasi Eldredge in “Captivating“