A God Who Suffers is a God Who Loves

I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the Cross. In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it?

I have entered many Buddhist temples in different Asian countries and stood respectfully before the statue of the Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time, after awhile I have had to turn away.

And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wretched, brow bleeding from thorn pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me!

He laid aside His immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. Our sufferings become more manageable in the light of His. There is still a question mark against human suffering, but over it we boldly stamp another mark, the cross of Christ... is God's only self-justification in such a world as ours.

John Stott, "God on the Gallows"

Don't sweat the small stuff, for the sake of the long run.

You can be mad as a mad dog at the way things went
You can swear and curse the fates;
But when it comes to the end,
You have to let go.
-The Curious Case of Benjamin Button

Lessons on Fidelity From... the Ant?

You don't want to go too far with it, but Time Magazine posted a fascinating article on the mating "habits" of ants... copied below.

First Rule of the Ant Colony: No Hanky Panky

To the long list of reasons you should be glad you're not an ant, add this: You'd have to forget about having sex. You'd also have to forget about even trying. Sneak off for a little insectile assignation and the others members of the colony would know immediately — and attack you for it. Entomologists have long known this was the practice in the ant world, but what they didn't know is the forensic science that allows the community to uncover the crime. Now, thanks to a study in the current issue of Cell Biology, they do.

Ant colonies have good reason to be abstemious places. When you're trying to hold together so complex a society without — let's face it — a lot of brainpower, you want a population made up of the fittest individuals you can get. A queen that has the genetic mettle to crank out lots of good eggs that produce lots of good babies doesn't need any competition from other, lesser females setting up a nest nearby. Even the queen herself is not allowed to fool with the gene pool once it's been set. She mates only once in her life and stores all of the sperm she'll ever need for the thousands of eggs she'll produce. (See TIME's photos of the insect world)

The rules, of course, don't prevent the other ants in the colony — which spend their lives tending eggs, gathering food and digging tunnels — from feeling a little randy now and then (never mind the fact that they're all, genetically speaking, brothers and sisters). But not only are those who give into the procreative urge pounced on by the others, those who are even considering it are often restrained before they can try. The tip-off, as with so many other things in the animal world, appears to be smell.

Earlier studies had shown that a queen that senses potential competition from another fertile female will chemically mark the pretender; that female will then be attacked by lower-ranking females. Biologists Jürgen Liebig and Adrian Smith of Arizona State University suspected that something similar might go on even without the queen's intervention and believed the answer might lie in scent chemicals called cuticular hydrocarbons.

Ants that are capable of reproducing naturally emit hydrocarbon-based odors, and the eggs they produce smell the same way. Ants that can't reproduce emit no such odor. Liebig and Smith produced a synthetic hydrocarbon in the lab that had the same olfactory properties as the natural one, then plucked a few completely innocent ants from a nest and dabbed the chemical on them. When they were returned to the colony they were promptly attacked — never mind that they had essentially been framed.

The sexual environment does sometimes loosen up in ant colonies. While the place may never become a Caligulan free-for-all, collective breeding will resume if the queen dies or is experimentally removed — but only until a new queen establishes herself and the reproductive lockdown resumes.

Complex critters like us might be glad to be part of a species that's free of such Draconian sexual rules, but Liebig doesn't think it's wise to get above ourselves. All manner of lawsuits, divorces and blood feuds have erupted over people breeding when — or with whom — they oughtn't. Often, the methods used to expose the cheaters aren't terribly different from those of the ants: more than one philanderer, after all, has been exposed by a whiff of the wrong perfume on his clothes when he came home. "The idea that social harmony is dependent on strict systems to prevent and punish cheating seems to apply to most successful societies," Liebig explained in a comment released with his paper. Regardless of the genome, in matters of sex, nature still appears to prefer us not to stray.

Thoughts on Tradition

The irony of holding to "tradition" as some sort of unbreakable golden standard is that at their inception, those very traditions were new, groundbreaking and revolutionary (and sometimes controversial). Music is a great example of this axiom: classical forms, which are today considered by many to be "untouchable", were at their birth sounds or combinations of styles never before heard.

The point: lighten up, people - what is new is not inherently undesirable. In fact, the claim that "this is the way it's always been done" is mostly untenable, there was always a first time.

Learn to judge by innate quality (or lack thereof), not by comparison to a prior tradition, unless comparison is inescapable because of the nature of the form.

Follow up to last post

So the previous videos were terrible, but you can't mock this. Pity it's only representative of experimentation of 20 years ago and not more recent.

India - An Ancient Musical Culture

With great emotion, and with welling pride I present the present baton-carriers for an ancient cultural tradition of musical art of high excellence,

In instrumental virtuosity & showmanship


and in vocal excellence


Sniff. My eyes are filled with salt water.

A picture speaks for 200 lives.

Don't Sleep, There are Snakes.

Don't Sleep, There are Snakes seems to be an Interesting book, and I think I want to read it. From the review:

Daniel Everett came to the Pirahã as a Christian missionary. Thirty years later, he left an atheist. The indigenous Brazilian tribe had no need for his Jesus, just as they had no need for numbers, colors, rituals, sound sleep, daily meals, permanent shelter, the concept of God or stories about things that happened in the past.

Everett is a professor of linguistics, and his studies in themselves seem to be fascinating. But the question that I want to hear him answer is what led him to reject his profession of faith, not sure he will, but I want to see what the book says about his relationship with Christ before his journey, during his journey... faithlessness is never sudden.

Not of This World

A great brief exposition by John Piper on 1 Corinthians 7:29-31
He used it to talk about voting, but I like it as it is... so I edited it up to post here.

1. “Let those who have wives live as though they had none.”
This doesn’t mean move out of the house, don’t have sex, and don’t call her Honey. Earlier in this chapter Paul says, “The husband should give to his wife her conjugal rights” (1 Corinthians 7:3). He also says to love her the way Christ loved the church, leading and providing and protecting (Ephesians 5:25-30). It means this: Marriage is momentary. It’s over at death, and there is no marriage in the resurrection. Wives and husbands are second priorities, not first. Christ is first. Marriage is for making much of him.

It means: If she is exquisitely desirable, beware of desiring her more than Christ. And if she is deeply disappointing, beware of being hurt too much. This is temporary—only a brief lifetime. Then comes the never-disappointing life which is life indeed.

2. “Let those who mourn [do so] as though they were not mourning.”
Christians mourn with real, deep, painful mourning, especially over losses—loss of those we love, loss of health, loss of a dream. These losses hurt. We cry when we are hurt. But we cry as though not crying. We mourn knowing we have not lost something so valuable we cannot rejoice in our mourning. Our losses do not incapacitate us. They do not blind us to the possibility of a fruitful future serving Christ. The Lord gives and takes away. But he remains blessed. And we remain hopeful in our mourning.

3. “Let those who rejoice [do so] as though they were not rejoicing.”
Christians rejoice in health (James 5:13) and in sickness (James 1:2). There are a thousand good and perfect things that come down from God that call forth the feeling of happiness. Beautiful weather. Good friends who want to spend time with us. Delicious food and someone to share it with. A successful plan. A person helped by our efforts.

But none of these good and beautiful things can satisfy our soul. Even the best cannot replace what we were made for, namely, the full experience of the risen Christ (John 17:24). Even fellowship with him here is not the final and best gift. There is more of him to have after we die (Philippians 1:21-23)—and even more after the resurrection. The best experiences here are foretastes. The best sights of glory are through a mirror dimly. The joy that rises from these previews does not and should not rise to the level of the hope of glory. These pleasures will one day be as though they were not. So we rejoice remembering this joy is a foretaste, and will be replaced by a vastly better joy.

4. “Let those who buy [do so] as though they had no goods.”
Let Christians keep on buying while this age lasts. Christianity is not withdrawal from business. We are involved, but as though not involved. Business simply does not have the weight in our hearts that it has for many. All our getting and all our having in this world is getting and having things that are not ultimately important. Our car, our house, our books, our computers, our heirlooms—we possess them with a loose grip. If they are taken away, we say that in a sense we did not have them. We are not here to possess. We are here to lay up treasures in heaven.

This world matters. But it is not ultimate. It is the stage for living in such a way to show that this world is not our God, but that Christ is our God. It is the stage for using the world to show that Christ is more precious than the world.

5. “Let those who deal with the world [do so] as though they had no dealings with it.”
Christians should deal with the world. This world is here to be used. Dealt with. There is no avoiding it. Not to deal with it is to deal with it that way. Not to weed your garden is to cultivate a weedy garden. Not to wear a coat in Minnesota is to freeze—to deal with the cold that way. Not to stop when the light is red is to spend your money on fines or hospital bills and deal with the world that way. We must deal with the world.

But as we deal with it, we don’t give it our fullest attention. We don’t ascribe to the world the greatest status. There are unseen things that are vastly more precious than the world. We use the world without offering it our whole soul. We may work with all our might when dealing with the world, but the full passions of our heart will be attached to something higher—Godward purposes. We use the world, but not as an end in itself. It is a means. We deal with the world in order to make much of Christ.

Remember: “The world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever” (1 John 2:17).

The Gospel In Hindi - "Do Marg"

This is a Hindi translation of an English message of the Gospel of Christ on Matthew 7:13-14. It is actually a translation of John MacArthur's sermon on the same passage.


Free to share this link.
Audio Here

Hide not Thou Thy face from me

Who, O Lord, will grant that I may repose in Thee? Who will grant that Thou mayest enter in my heart and inebriate it, that I may forget all my wicked ways and embrace Thee, my only good? What art Thou unto me O Lord? Have mercy on me that I may speak to Thee. Or what am I to Thee, that Thou shouldst command me to love Thee; yea, and be angry and threaten to lay huge miseries upon me if I love Thee not? Is it perhaps of itself no great misery, if I do not love Thee? Woe be unto me. Tell me, even for Thy mercy's sake, O Lord my God, what Thou art unto me. Say unto my soul, "I am thy salvation," but say it so that I may hear Thee. Behold the ears of my heart are set before Thee, open Thou them, O Lord, and say unto my soul, "I am thy salvation." I will run after the sound of that Voice and thereby lay hold on Thee. Hide not Thou Thy face from me; let me die, that I may see it, lest otherwise I die because I see it not.

from The Confessions of St. Augustine, Chapter V

For Orissa

We ought always to give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly, and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves boast about you in the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith in all your persecutions and in the afflictions that you are enduring.

This is evidence of the righteous judgment of God, that you may be considered worthy of the kingdom of God, for which you are also suffering— since indeed God considers it just to repay with affliction those who afflict you, and to grant relief to you who are afflicted as well as to us, when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire...

...To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

From 2 Thessalonians 1:3-8,11-12

Karan Thapar on the VHP's violence against Christians in Orissa

Karan Thapar is a journalist of renown, a Hindu.
From the Hindustan Times:

Of love, and hope.

Love is not defined
by the hopelessness of past relationships

Love is not characterized
by the negativity of one's own limited frame of reference

Love is not an uncontrollable temporary passion
that passes when the inferno fades

Love is as hopeful
as the work you are willing to put into it

Love is as strong
as the habits of years

Love is as energetic
as the emotion you invest in it

Love is as long-lasting
as your own humble tenacity with it

Love is as happy
as the joy of serving the object of one's love

Love is as powerful
as the source from Whom true love is experienced

Love has no inevitable collapse,
it needs no optimist's saccharine promise

Love is evidently modeled. Look up.

Unsung Grace

The hymn's oft-sung, worldwide, but here's a verse from Amazing Grace, which John Newton penned that should be sung often, and isn't at all:

The earth shall soon dissolve like snow,
The sun forbear to shine;
But God, who called me here below,
Will be forever mine.

How to fix a leak...

...a Skittles Leak.



These ads are priceless. The great thing is there are so many out there!

Oprah's on the Downslide. Yay.

I unashamedly despise what Oprah Winfrey stands for, and I think that what she espouses is an embodiment of the subtle godlessness that media broadcasts so freely (that, and her religion). Call me what you like, It's got nothing to do with my views of women.
Why Is Oprah Sliding? Don't Blame the Other O
From the Article:

Oprah is perhaps the closest thing America has to a secular religious figure (“She was like the pope,” a professor told the New York Times) or even, let’s be honest, a goddess. She inspired worship and devotion. She guided her flock spiritually. She anointed disciples (Rachael Ray, Dr. Phil) and sent them out into the world.

This kind of thing warms me on the soulside.

Fatwa!

It is human tendency to generalize. I guess when we generalize about someone other than us, it makes it easier to categorize, package, and label them, so that we know why we're not them, and we tell ourselves that's why we're better than them. But it's rarely that simple in reality is it?

Here's a great example. Just saw this news article and it made me chuckle. While strongly differ with the Islamic belief system, I don't have to argue through generalization, that just alienates people. After all it stings when those same kinds of generalizations come back around our way.

Muslims issue fatwa against terrorism.

Cricketer of the Year

For anyone who's been following the IPL (Indian Premier League) 20-20 cricket series, I have just found the Most Valuable Player of the tournament, as far as I'm concerned.

It's got nothing to do with cricket, and everything to do with having the most creative parents ever. I don't even know if he's actually played an official match yet off the bench. Ladies and gents, I give you... the one, the only...


Napoleon Einstein

No, I don't know if he's related to the Dynamite clan.

Skinny Contemplations on Art

Is it just me, or does it seem that the more immersed an artist (regardless of field) is in a particular art, the further away from truth about God that artist seems to get?

Maybe I'm generalizing from my own limited experience, but it just seems that eccentricity and moral ambiguity seems to be directly proportionate to serious art, and it makes me wonder...

Edit:
On further thought, I applied this to audio-visual media: entertainment, movies, books, music... and the prognosis isn't good. Art in general does not deal with the righteousness of God. Having realized the secular-humanistic (and therefore godless) perspective of the entertainment industry as a whole, it becomes obvious that the morality present in these art forms will be fatally flawed. Not because it is always necessarily immoral or amoral (as many times is the case) but because even any morality that is sourced in humanism is limited by its very man-centeredness. Holiness is not the measure, and therefore God is not the standard; social relationship is.

In sum, be it the most inane work of art, what is presented about love, about romance, about human relationships, about service, about politics, about violence, about peace, about sexuality, about business, about anything you can think of, even religion, all this is ensconced in a man-centered world-view. Man is the focus of the universe. The godlessness of it all is not explicit, but subtle.

The themes of good vs. evil, or the goodness of man, or the love between human beings all become a facade that subtly encourages the ignorance of God's perspective and ultimately the abandonment of true religion. Morality by itself is damning, a religion that in reality despises God.

All that to say guard your heart. Protect the gates. Know what you watch, read and listen, and don't inform your morality or practice from entertainment or art, ultimately, set God at the center and inform your life with His Word at the center. Let that center inform all pursuit of art.

I will ponder the way that is blameless.
Oh when will you come to me?
I will walk with integrity of heart
within my house;
I will not set before my eyes
anything that is worthless.
I hate the work of those who fall away;
it shall not cling to me.
Psalm 101:2,3