Spirit Gives Birth To Spirit

     Today we celebrate the fact that God sent us an ambulance in the parking lot of life.  A lifeline in place of despair.  A love that was so pure, it brought us into the light and set us right with God and the world.  So we would be set free. Free to love God and other people with the same pure love that he showed us first.       He sent us back to the garden, the perfect original Eden, and brought Eden into the world again.  Eden here already and not yet.  Eden here already and "not yet" because we, now set free, could go about the business of bringing it to pass in this world.  He reconciled us with Him and all of creation.  So now we "wait and groan with all of creation for the Sons of God to be revealed" as they, as we, come to life.  Coming from lives of lost seeking, and spiritual confusion - spiritual death to spiritual life.  Spiritual bondage to spiritual freedom.  He came to set the captives free!      Jesus at the start of his ministry read the

     In a previous post I made an off-handed comment about our five senses not being the sum total of what we experience in the world.  But I was taught in science classes as a child that there are just five senses.  Just as I was taught that there were nine planets.  I took it as fact.  I didn't know how science worked.  I didn't understand the subtle distinction between fact and hypothesis.  As you know, science is a set of hypothesis based on observations.  It makes no value judgments.  Anything that has been proven can be disproved or expounded upon or altered.  It is how we grow, how man grows as a creature of intellect. Science gives us a framework for that.       Sight, smell, taste, touch, hearing.  The original five senses proposed by Aristotle were taught to me as the totality of human physical experience.  There are many more.  Most scientists now would be hard pressed not to propose as many as as many as fourteen to twenty senses.  The Harvard Medical School propo

     The ancient Greek church fathers had a three-fold concept of the mind of man.  First, there was the Anima or psyche.  The core animal-like and reactive Anima soul was at the basis of our being.  It responds automatically to the world around us.  On top of this, or rather, in the middle of this, is the Animus.  It is the higher mind - conscious, reasoning, and active.  It doesn't necessary govern over the Anima, but rather communicates with it.  At one time we can be controlled by the Anima or Animus. But, according to the Greek Fathers, the true state of man is a higher third principle - the Spiritus. This is the part of man that communes with God, and communes with himself - his true self. Communing with God unites all these three parts of ourselves, so that we can be one whole being.       What does it look like if we are not an integrated whole?  What does it look like to not accept communion with God?  We are fractured.  Living out of the Anima or Animus.  A slave to

One of the biggest problem conscientious Christians in America must face is gun violence.  Take a look at where America falls on a graph of gun violence by gun owner in the world. That's the United States way at the top. Though the overall rates of gun deaths have declined over the past 100 years (we are no longer the wild west), the problem of mass shootings is on the rise at an unprecedented rate in the last two decades. In 2014 and 2015, it increased even further. What do we do?  In 2013 numerous studies found that states with stricter gun laws have fewer suicides and homicides by gun violence.   https://www.bostonglobe.com/lifestyle/health-wellness/2013/03/06/states-with-strictest-firearm-laws-have-lowest-rates-gun-deaths-boston-children-hospital-study-finds/fqTVlmioqukwRLHJ84M6jP/story.htm   .It is a myth that stricter gun laws will do nothing to curb the violence.  It is simply not true.  In fact, there is a direct inverse correlation between the st

    Our house was a fix and flip.  When we bought it, it had just been redone with new floors, a new basement, and a new patio.  The extra paver stones from the patio sat unused in a neat line up next to the house in the side yard. In the back yard, there was a fence with a new gate.  Problem was that every time it was the slightest bit damp outside, the area in front of the gate flooded and was impassible. To rectify this, there were large sheets of rotting plywood laid down in the area.  I got the idea one day to use the left over pavers from the side of the house to create a path. Makes sense, right? I read up on laying paver stones. I laid out what I had in front of the gate and realized I would have to get some more to complete the pattern. I called the previous owner and found out where he got the pavers.  I went, got the extra pavers, and dug down the required 8 inches and filled it in with paver gravel and paver base.  Then I laid out the new pavers.  It took a few days of wor

     One of my favorite movies is "Forrest Gump" from 1994, starring Tom Hanks.  You may think that is a strange movie to have as a favorite, but it is full of wisdom. Stranger still. Because Forrest is a man born in the 1950's who by society's standards, would be considered "simple," a dullard.  Though they don't specifically say it in the movie, he has a low IQ.  Hardly the hero we would hold up in our Western Society, so concerned are we with achievement and being the best and the brightest.  But buried in the movie is a wonderful message.  Forrest, though born with this deficit, is encouraged by his mother who focuses on the good in him and teaches him not to dwell on his limitations.  Only to accept life as "a box of chocolates - you never know what you're gonna get," as he famously repeats over and over.  So our dull hero, not knowing his limitations, perhaps to dull to comprehend that he has any, goes from one amazing success to an

     I woke up yesterday morning next to my wife and I was so thankful she was in my life.  She is a loving and caring woman who makes me a better man.  This thankfulness continued and I thought about the other people in my life, mostly guys I have come to know over the years:  Joao, Bruce, Don, Bart, Matt, John, Greg, Gordon, Tom and many others - all good men who try to live their lives for the lord.  And I am so thankful for them. And when I thought about this, I thought, I DO have friends.  (Sometimes I tell myself the lie that I am alone and I have no friends to share life with me).  This thankfulness directly counters that lie.       Thankfulness is such a powerful thing.  And it is a powerful ally against negative thinking.  After a day started with thankfulness I was joyful throughout the day.  And I went to bed and told my wife that I noticed that I was really happy during the day and she agreed.  I think I was actually smiling as I drifted off to sleep.      The bible