Wow. 7:02 We have got disasters on the brain and now this. I just experienced the biggest earthquake of my three and a half years in Japan. i sat there as my whole living room jumped and the cabinets popped open. Better start checking the news. I can guess this was probably a lot bigger somewhere else...
oh and by the way, from the a few posts back, both friends of mine who were in Thailand are just fine. One was stuck in Bangkok with an ironically lucky sickness, and the other managed to get up the mountain and out of harms way. Another guy who works at the same juku as me was in a boat getting ready to scuba dive. They said if he had been in the water he would have been gone, but being in the boat they just rode a really big wave. Apparently, it was safer being out at sea than on the shoreline.
Update: It was only a four. Wow. I wonder if I will be around if a five or a six ever hits.
Sunday, January 09, 2005
Modern day parable of the Kingdom of God
In Brooklyn, New York, Chush is a school that caters to learning-disabled children. At a Chush fund-raising dinner, the father of a Chush child delivered a speech that would never be forgotten by all who attended. After extolling the school and its dedicated staff, he cried out, "Where is the perfection in my son Shaya? Everything that God does is done with perfection. But my child cannot understand things as other children do. My child cannot remember facts and figures as other children do. Where is God's perfection?" The audience was shocked by the question, pained by the father's anguish and stilled by his piercing query.
"I believe," the father answered, "that when God brings a child like this into the world, the perfection that He seeks is in the way people react to this child."
He then told the following story about his son Shaya.
Shaya attends Chush throughout the week and regular Torah school on Sundays. One Sunday afternoon, Shaya and his father came to Torah school as his classmates were playing baseball. The game was in progress and as Shaya and his father made their way towards the ball field, Shaya said, "Do you think you could get me into the game?"
Shaya's father knew his son was not at all athletic, and that most boys would not want him on their team. But Shaya's father understood that if his son was chosen in, it would give him a comfortable sense of belonging.
Shaya's father approached one of the boys in the field and asked, "Do you think my Shaya could get into the game?"
The boy looked around for guidance from his team-mates. Getting none, he took matters into his own hands and said, "We are losing by six runs and the game is already in the eighth inning. I guess he can be on our team and we'll try to put him up to bat in the ninth inning."
Shaya's father was ecstatic as Shaya smiled broadly. Shaya was told to put on a glove and go out to play short center field, a position that exists only in softball. There were no protests from the opposing team, which would now be hitting with an extra man in the outfield.
In the bottom of the eighth inning, Shaya's team scored a few runs but was still behind by three. In the bottom of the ninth inning, Shaya's team scored again and now with two outs and the bases loaded and the potential winning runs on base, Shaya was scheduled to be up. Would the team actually let Shaya bat at this juncture and give away their chance to win the game?
Surprisingly, Shaya was told to take a bat and try to get a hit. Everyone knew that it was all but impossible, for Shaya didn't even know how to hold the bat properly, let alone hit with it. However as Shaya stepped up to the plate, the pitcher moved in a few steps to lob the ball in softly so that Shaya should at least be able to make contact.
The first pitch came in and Shaya swung clumsily and missed. One of Shaya's team-mates came up to Shaya and together they held the bat and faced the pitcher waiting for the next pitch. The pitcher again took a few steps forward to toss the ball softly towards Shaya.
As the next pitch came in, Shaya and his team-mate swung the bat and together they hit a slow ground ball to the pitcher. The pitcher picked up the soft grounder and could easily have thrown the ball to the first baseman. Shaya would have been out and that would have ended the game.
Instead, the pitcher took the ball and threw it on a high arc to right field, far and wide beyond the first baseman's reach. Everyone started yelling, "Shaya, run to first! Shaya, run to first!" Never in his life had Shaya run to first.
He scampered down the baseline wide eyed and startled. By the time he reached first base, the right fielder had the ball. He could have thrown the ball to the second baseman who would tag out Shaya, who was still running. But the right fielder understood what the pitcher's intentions were, so he threw the ball high and far over the third baseman's head, as everyone yelled, "Shaya, run to second! Shaya, run to second."
Shaya ran towards second base as the runners ahead of him deliriously circled the bases towards home. As Shaya reached second base, the opposing shortstop ran towards him, turned him towards the direction of third base and shouted "Shaya, run to third!"
As Shaya rounded third, the boys from both teams ran behind him screaming, "Shaya, run home! Shaya, run home!"
Shaya ran home, stepped on home plate and all 18 boys lifted him on their shoulders and made him the hero, as he had just hit the "grand slam" and won the game for his team."That day," said the father who now had tears rolling down his face, "those 18 boys reached their level of perfection. They showed that it is not only those who are talented that should be recognized, but also those who have less talent. They too are human beings, they too have feelings and emotions, they too are people, they too want to feel important."
via Scott Williams
Friday, January 07, 2005
Monday, January 03, 2005
Reading
I read the bible sometimes and usually when I do, I write thoughts that come to mind down on sticky notes and stick them in the pages somewhere. Now, the sticky notes tend to fall out and I lose for eternity those brilliant nuggets of wisdom, or at least until I find them on the bottom of my sock. So seeing that primarily I use this blog to store things for the future, and that virtually my only readers are Jen, Brian, Paul, and all those people looking for tsunami pictures - and possibly sometimes Steve - oh wait, and Erich, I think, and I know Rachael drops in - anyway, I want to start posting those nuggets here, mainly for me to read in the future, but you guys will see them too, so if you have any "sticky notes" to add, please do...
Ok, so first reading. John 14 and 15.
* The gist of these two chapters to me is Jesus explaining to the disciples just who exactly are really his followers, and it all clearly revolves around love.
* Those who love him are the ones who obey his commandments (v. 21), and his commandment is to love each other.
* In another place Jesus goes as far as to say that all the law and prophets are summed up in the commandments to love (Paul too)
* And in v.21, interesting order. sounds a lot like the open-endedness of 1 John 4:7 - those who obey my commandments are the ones who love me, and then I will reveal myself to each one of them
* Jesus adds that "you can not be fruitful apart from me" (15:4). Acting out in love can not be done apart from God, because God is the source of all love - indeed of every good thing, because God is love. So someone who acts out in love is demonstrating their connection to Christ.
* You see this in Judas question of clarification. He says, in effect (John's Modern English Paraphrase), "Jesus, it doesn't really seem fair that you would only reveal yourself to us in this small select group, and not to the rest of the world. What's up with that (haven't we all thought that!!!)?? Jesus replies, "the world over, wherever there is someone who loves me, you will know it because they will be the ones doing the things I have taught you about(v. 23). Don't doubt for a second that such people are connected to both my father and me. People who don't love me, don't do the stuff I told you was most important. That's what the Father is trying to communicate."
* Matthew 7:21 - "Not all people who sound religious are really godly. They may refer to me as `Lord,' but they still won't enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The decisive issue is whether they obey my Father in heaven..."
* Matthew 7:18 - "A good tree can't produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can't produce good fruit".
*Again, his disciple John echoes this loudly in 1 John 4:7. And Paul in his words on Mars Hill about the unknown god, along with the example of Cornelius, who's prayers and kindness to the poor were heard by God before there was any encounter with Christ. And then Peter in Acts 10:34, "I see clearly now that God doesn't show partiality. In every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what is right."
* In one way these ideas are terribly inclusive - too much so for a lot of conservative theologians. In another way, it is even more exclusive, because love is damn hard to live. It's the narrow path. Selfishness is considerably easier than selflessness.
Whoah. That ended up being longer than I expected. Guess these things still get me fired up...
Ok, so first reading. John 14 and 15.
* The gist of these two chapters to me is Jesus explaining to the disciples just who exactly are really his followers, and it all clearly revolves around love.
* Those who love him are the ones who obey his commandments (v. 21), and his commandment is to love each other.
* In another place Jesus goes as far as to say that all the law and prophets are summed up in the commandments to love (Paul too)
* And in v.21, interesting order. sounds a lot like the open-endedness of 1 John 4:7 - those who obey my commandments are the ones who love me, and then I will reveal myself to each one of them
* Jesus adds that "you can not be fruitful apart from me" (15:4). Acting out in love can not be done apart from God, because God is the source of all love - indeed of every good thing, because God is love. So someone who acts out in love is demonstrating their connection to Christ.
* You see this in Judas question of clarification. He says, in effect (John's Modern English Paraphrase), "Jesus, it doesn't really seem fair that you would only reveal yourself to us in this small select group, and not to the rest of the world. What's up with that (haven't we all thought that!!!)?? Jesus replies, "the world over, wherever there is someone who loves me, you will know it because they will be the ones doing the things I have taught you about(v. 23). Don't doubt for a second that such people are connected to both my father and me. People who don't love me, don't do the stuff I told you was most important. That's what the Father is trying to communicate."
* Matthew 7:21 - "Not all people who sound religious are really godly. They may refer to me as `Lord,' but they still won't enter the Kingdom of Heaven. The decisive issue is whether they obey my Father in heaven..."
* Matthew 7:18 - "A good tree can't produce bad fruit, and a bad tree can't produce good fruit".
*Again, his disciple John echoes this loudly in 1 John 4:7. And Paul in his words on Mars Hill about the unknown god, along with the example of Cornelius, who's prayers and kindness to the poor were heard by God before there was any encounter with Christ. And then Peter in Acts 10:34, "I see clearly now that God doesn't show partiality. In every nation he accepts those who fear him and do what is right."
* In one way these ideas are terribly inclusive - too much so for a lot of conservative theologians. In another way, it is even more exclusive, because love is damn hard to live. It's the narrow path. Selfishness is considerably easier than selflessness.
Whoah. That ended up being longer than I expected. Guess these things still get me fired up...
Saturday, January 01, 2005
Happy New Year from Japan
They are ringing the bells and eating mochi. It is 2005 in Japan. I made my way down to the temple actually for the first time in three new years' that I have been here. But that was just for a short walk. Other than that, we spent the evening enjoying the other Japanese New Year's Eve tradition, that of watching grown men beat each other bloody in a fiesta of broken bones or noses. I suppose if I think long enough, I could come up with some sort of spiritual significance to that, but right at the moment, I got nothing. At any rate, Emelianenko the Russian won, and tonight that is all I need to go to bed happy.
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Wired article on Bittorrent
You could think of BitTorrent as Napster redux - another rumble in the endless copyright wars. But BitTorrent is something deeper and more subtle. It's a technology that is changing the landscape of broadcast media.
"All hell's about to break loose," says Brad Burnham, a venture capitalist with Union Square Ventures in Manhattan, which studies the impact of new technology on traditional media. BitTorrent does not require the wires or airwaves that the cable and network giants have spent billions constructing and buying. And it pounds the final nail into the coffin of must-see, appointment television. BitTorrent transforms the Internet into the world's largest TiVo.
One example of how the world has already changed: Gary Lerhaupt, a graduate student in computer science at Stanford, became fascinated with Outfoxed, the documentary critical of Fox News, and thought more people should see it. So he convinced the film's producer to let him put a chunk of it on his Web site for free, as a 500-Mbyte torrent. Within two months, nearly 1,500 people downloaded it. That's almost 750 gigs of traffic, a heck of a wallop. But to get the ball rolling, Lerhaupt's site needed to serve up only 5 gigs. After that, the peers took over and hosted it themselves. His bill for that bandwidth? $4. There are drinks at Starbucks that cost more. "It's amazing - I'm a movie distributor," he says. "If I had my own content, I'd be a TV station."
During the last century, movie and TV companies had to be massive to afford distribution. Those economies of scale aren't needed anymore. Will the future of broadcasting need networks, or even channels?
via Gen Kanai
Tuesday, December 28, 2004
Tsunami disaster
The tsunami disaster is hitting home for us here. Two of my friends and coworkers were in Thailand for beach holidays, and as of yet, nobody here has heard anything from them.
Sifting through the reports of the damamge and death, seeing pictures of little children dead in their parents' arms, I'll admit, gives me some real theological trouble. It is almost easier, thinking about God and all that, to hear of disasters involving human evil, because there humankind and all its evil choices are clearly the focus of the blame. But what to do in a situation like this? Just cry and shake your head I guess.
I remember reading an interview with the famous agnostic Charles Templeton wherein he describes to the interviewer the photograph that led to his loss of faith:
That really bugs me.
Sifting through the reports of the damamge and death, seeing pictures of little children dead in their parents' arms, I'll admit, gives me some real theological trouble. It is almost easier, thinking about God and all that, to hear of disasters involving human evil, because there humankind and all its evil choices are clearly the focus of the blame. But what to do in a situation like this? Just cry and shake your head I guess.
I remember reading an interview with the famous agnostic Charles Templeton wherein he describes to the interviewer the photograph that led to his loss of faith:
"Was there one thing in particular that caused you to lose your faith in God?" I asked at the outset.
He thought for a moment. "It was a photograph in Life magazine," he said finally.
"Really?" I said. "A photograph? How so?"
He narrowed his eyes a bit and looked off to the side, as if he were viewing the photo afresh and reliving the moment. "It was a picture of a black woman in Northern Africa," he explained. "They were experiencing a devastating drought. And she was holding her dead baby in her arms and looking up to heaven with the most forlorn expression. I looked at it and I thought, ‘Is it possible to believe that there is a loving or caring Creator when all this woman needed was rain?’"
As he emphasized the word rain, his bushy gray eyebrows shot up and his arms gestured toward heaven as if beckoning for a response.
"How could a loving God do this to that woman?" he implored as he got more animated, moving to the edge of his chair. "Who runs the rain? I don’t; you don't. He does — or that’s what I thought. But when I saw that photograph, I immediately knew it is not possible for this to happen and for there to be a loving God. There was no way. Who else but a fiend could destroy a baby and virtually kill its mother with agony — when all that was needed was rain?"
That really bugs me.
Sunday, December 26, 2004
Wendell Berry, from Sex, Economy, & Community
...That possibility, though little honored, is well known; its most famous statement is this: "Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you." I did not include this idea as a precious possession of our civilization because it is not one. It is an idea given to our civilization but so far not accepted.
In times of war, our leaders always speak of their prayers. They wish us to know that they say prayers because they wish us to believe that they are deeply worried and that they take their responsibilities seriously. Perhaps they believe or hope that prayer will help. But within the circumstances of war, prayer becomes a word as befuddled in meaning as liberate or order or victory or peace. These prayers are usually understood to be Christian prayers. But Christian prayers are made to or in the name of Jesus, who loved, prayed for, and forgave his enemies and who instructed his followers to do likewise. A Christian supplicant, therefore, who has resolved to kill those whom he is enjoined to love, to bless, to do good to, to pray for, and to forgive as he hopes to be forgiven is not conceivably in a situation in which he can be at peace with himself. Anyone who has tried to apply this doctrine to a merely personal enmity will be aware of the enormous anguish that it could cause a national leader in wartime. No wonder that national leaders have ignored it for nearly two thousand years.
Saturday, December 25, 2004
John's Christmas appeal...
Just got a merry christmas email from Oleg and Rita in Vladivostok, Russia. It is looking a little chilly there, but it reminds me of home. Like really does. That could be my Dad's farm yard.
Anyway, check out Oleg and Rita and their family. They are two very big-hearted people who live together in a foster-family situation with all these kids in Vladivostok.
I know I have said it before, but in case you missed it, you can help them out with the expenses of helping out all these kids. Just go over to russianorphan.org and give it some thought. There are a few homes being supported through that page. Oleg and Rita's specifically is here.
Anyway, check out Oleg and Rita and their family. They are two very big-hearted people who live together in a foster-family situation with all these kids in Vladivostok.
I know I have said it before, but in case you missed it, you can help them out with the expenses of helping out all these kids. Just go over to russianorphan.org and give it some thought. There are a few homes being supported through that page. Oleg and Rita's specifically is here.
Thursday, December 23, 2004
Smile or else
Well, I tried and tried to get a good family Christmas photo for the yearly Christmas card, but after too many tries, this was the best that we could do. So what follows is what happens on Christmas cards when your kids are at an uncooperative age:
See next post...
See next post...
Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Vernand Eller from the preface of Christian Anarchy
Why, I asked myself, did I always wind up on the wrong side of each of the Christian Left's enthusiasms--peace, justice, equality, liberation, feminism? After all, I was supposed to be part of that gang, not an outsider. Yet no matter what was said or implied about me, I knew I was not a "conservative" over against their "liberalism." I was every bit as unhappy with the positions of conservatism as with those of liberalism. So, being neither a radical, a liberal, nor a conservative, what under the sun was I? What other option could there be?
The chapters here following will recount my discovery of the rather easily identifiable but almost entirely subconscious and submerged tradition of "Christian Anarchy." And with that tradition I had found my home and am at peace. All of my battles of the past thirty years now fall into place and make sense. Now I can see a consistency throughout; I knew what I was doing but didn't have name for it.
I really do believe the key was in coming up with the requisite terminology: "anarchy," with the derivatives "arky" and "arky faith." All along, of course, Scripture itself provided the terms that should have led us to this understanding but had not. Its talk of "the powers" would have done it--except that we automatically identified those only as the evil powers we were eager to combat and not at all including the good powers we embraced. Likewise, both with Jesus' "being not of the world" and Paul's "not being conformed to the world," we read them as counsels to separate ourselves only from the world's bad powers and certainly not from its good ones. Consequently, lacking an explicit terminology, even the greatest Christian anarchists--from Jesus on down--have not had themselves or their condition identified in a way that would make possible explicit consideration, analysis, and debate.
Vernand Eller from the preface of Christian Anarchy
Tuesday, December 21, 2004
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