“Where are you Going” April 22, 2007
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Lots of thoughts lately on lots of different things, here are the titles of the next few posts (in no particular order):
“Houston”
“Robin hood”
“Bonhoeffer”
“Home”
Easter Reflection April 10, 2007
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“I want you to see the depth of his love in the freedom of it—the willingness of it, the eagerness of it, and even the joy of it. He loved us with all his heart. Not a fraction of his heart. Not with a slight inclination, with some cosmic force pressing him to do what he didn’t want to do. And as we look at the freedom of Christ in loving us, the Easter connection will become clear—because the very freedom with which he loved us, is the freedom with which he rose from the dead.”
Heavy words. Worthy of heavy contemplation.
“As yourself” April 9, 2007
Posted by broadwell in love.add a comment
“Caregivers love God by loving others.” My wife is a caregiver. She oozes compassion. I want to be a caregiver. I think Jesus expects it of those who belong to him. Matthew 22 34-40 is telling. In fact “on these two commandments depend the whole Law and Prophets.”
I saved some email correspondence from about two years ago when I was pondering the question of how to approach the command to “love your neighbor as yourself.” I have not asked permission to post their thoughts; however, their identities will remain undisclosed to protect the innocent.
“…yeah I’ve thought about that too. I guess the most natural human inclination is love for self. We do it naturally. Even people who appear to abhor themselves are ultimately grounded in self-interest. So I guess it’s just God’s way of using a primal instinct we all have to show us what we need to do. The way we fight for our own survival, the way we meet our own needs, the way we play to our own interests…we should instead put our neighbor in the place of ourselves-we should want their good over our own. Of course, our sinfulness makes this impossible; this makes us cling to Christ. We need Christ to do this work through us because it is completely against our own nature.”
“McQuilken’s chapter on love was a really good chapter, and his definition cut me to the core as I thought about my inability to express genuine love to people. He said, ‘love is a desire and an affection for the welfare of another that moves one to a commitment to act on the other’s behalf.’ He goes on to say that love has both internal and external aspects. Internally, love is motive, disposition, and affection. Externally, love is a choice and action. I think we think of only one aspect at a time.”
More to come…
More on “Pathways” April 4, 2007
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I was thinking on the way home today about the previous post. I dug through my notebook from KBM and found the section on “pathways.” What I forgot to mention is that it is a book by Gary Chapman called Sacred Pathways. Here are the nine pathways:
Naturalist, Sensate, Traditionalist, Ascetic, Activist, Caregiver, Enthusiast, Contemplative, Intellectual
Ron (the guy who taught the class) gave biblical examples of some of the pathways. I laughed tonight when I saw that he listed Mordeci (See the book of Esther) and Jesus under the caregiver pathway. Caregivers love God by loving others.
“Pathways” April 3, 2007
Posted by broadwell in Avenues.add a comment
I’ve wanted to post for some time now about the Avenues. The “Avenues” is a term I made up to describe how God teaches me things. Primarily this occurs from processing the things I’ve read. The mechanism is often visual or auditory In other words, sometimes I learn through actual direct application and other times it doesn’t take me physically doing an act, all it takes is seeing or hearing someone or something performing some sort of act to make the connection. I don’t expect this to make sense for everyone it just seems to me one of the main ways by which I walk the avenues. I remember one time when I was at a Disciple Now weekend in Georgia telling my group that “we all connect in different ways,” which was a modified short version summary of the class I had in Colorado called “Pathways with God.” For some it happens through nature, for others it might be through people. I think an argument could be made that we “connect” in everyway not just one or two. However, I do think that there are individual ways in which the frequency is higher and clearer. Again this is not to say that we should only pursue the clearer channel, but perhaps in doing so the resulting growth helps to make the other “pathways” straight and wide.
