Voting....

The US is going through a pretty crucial time in the next few days during which choices will be made on whether who and what we choose that would be best for the country. Consequently, these choices are closely related to how we define and interpret our obligations based on what we hold important, ethical, and believe. It continually stupefies me that there are so many of us who continue to assume and insist that the issues are simple and if one claims to be of a certain philosophy or faith, then one must and ought to vote a certain way. Yet, there is almost a negligence to think through the complexity of the issues that are insisted to be forced to fit in a particular belief. I have just been told that i'm not a Christian because of my voting positions and my understanding of the issues which are drastically different than others who claim to be of the same belief (the same group who also accused me that I'm not christian because i did not vote for Bush during the past presidential election). I was repeatedly told that they will be praying for me. I don't oppose that, glad that someone could be praying for me. Yet, when one insist their interpretation of what is Christian is the correct interpretation and to presume that i do not know the Bible...well, that's worth a contention at the very least. Back to the argument though on how could we singly define what is Christian based on one issue yet exclude concepts related to justice and love and state that those are not part of the equation regardless of their profession of faith....hmm, once again, a suspicion understanding of what Christ taught. i think discussions and disagreements are good and healthy because it widens our perspectives and allows people to dialogue and tests our understanding and belief...but does this always mean that our belief is always on the line??

labri reunions

so, in the fall of 2006, these group of little kids met at some small little mountain town in Switzerland. Most didn't know each other, and had no idea what their future relationships might entail. Little did they know is that the legend of labri continues to be alive, and will take hold of some of them....two of these little ones will become one next month:)

Chateau Chillon in the background

2007 reunion at Hermosa Beach pier

Friends are friends forever if the Lord's the Lord of them.....(Micheal W, where are you???)

I think we gotten to know each other better than our first meeting at the lake. Look at us, we can't get enough of each other and need to keep holding on...
friends, see ya at our Labor day reunion '08:)

switzerland

Times cherished

lots of tulips in different shades

sitting by the lake with friends and having lunch

hiking up the snowy mountains

come on, we dare ya!

having lunch with Juanita in Thonon, France

these are moments that i crave, just hanging out with friends and enjoying the scenery. can't believe its been almost a year since i've left europe and now just visiting. it was weird to be back there and feel as if i've never left...the only difference was that i did have to leave after being there for just a week.

a song....

"Fathers be good to your daughters
Daughters will love like you do
Girls become lovers who turn into mothers
So mothers be good to your daughters too"

this song by john mayer pops in my head once in a while. working with different families has been challenging,
yet, a privilege when they allow you to enter their lives, and sometimes, become one of them.
yet, there are times when you just don't want to accept the reality of how some families understand
what their roles and relationships are. right along these lyrics is also the biblical command
for parents not to embitter their children. This verse has been more meaningful after working with children who suffer from abuse, mostly from their own families. Whether as actual perpetrator or colluders
by not protecting their children.
How did we get this far, that we have convoluted relationships and love to the point of destroying one another? Will we recognize a redeemed relationship apart from this mire of
destructive relationships? I can't wait for the day when everything will all be fully redeemed....

Love your neighbors as yourself pt 2

some thoughts about the morning service that i attended today... i was wondering about why repentance is important, actually necessary to better appreciate forgiveness, and how this is related to the commandment of "love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind..and love your neighbor as yourself.

i think there is much of needing to temper our tendencies of being self-idolatrous, that repentance is required in order to recognize our status as ones who has received grace and have been pardoned, and keeping us in check from our tendencies to equate ourselves with God (recognizing our sinfulness to help us be aware that we are in the receiving end, instead of refusing our culpability from our actions)...i think it's also similar in the commandment..that there is more to why God put the command of loving him in relation to loving our neighbor as self...again, i wonder if he is referring to our tendency of self-idolatry, and thus needs to be tempered by loving ones neighbor because that this is necessary in order to help us to not just focus on ourselves...and that our neighbor would critique us if this was happening. but i don't think that loving our neighbor was merely functionally necessary to avoid self-idolatry...but maybe it was also necessary because our neighbors are created in God's image, that if we are to love God, that we would need to love our neighbors who are more immediately accessible and are 'God-like" due to being creatures in His image. that maybe God's commandments are not merely commands to protect from an outside intruder/perpetrator or lists of things to do..that maybe this is also something to protect us from ourselves (well, history has proven that this is quite necessary) and keep us aware of our own tendencies...whether we accept his 'commands' or not...and the command to not make idols might be directly referring to us.

Debt

i just finished a short story by Wendell Berry called "It wasn't me". The storyline is about a man who was bequeathed a farm but struggles through how he came to receive it. This man was used to doing things by himself and does not want to have any debts to anyone...one of them who grew up in the "pull your own bootstraps" mentality. It was interesting how Berry dealt with this notion of repayment of debts...and forces one to think if debts could fully be repaid in any circumstances because of its effectual influence on multiple aspects of one's life. debts in the means of monetary transactions can be paid, but can one really monetarily place value on the effectual change that the 'bought' item might bring about? one of the quotes in the story is when one of the characters talks about buying a farm:

"the place is not its price. its price stands for it for just a minute or two while its bought and sold, and may hang over it a while after that and have an influence on it, but the place has been here since the evening and the morning were the third day"

maybe we too often confuse "value" and "price" and interchangeablely use them for our own self identification. we surely misuse it well (value and price) in the way we categorize people in the workfield....that we have come to place a person working in the field becoming less valueable than one who plays professional basketball? have we distorted our own value that we have placed a price on ourselves, too often so cheaply, that our very being is revolting against us? i see this in many relationships with people whom i work with....children pricing their parents love for them, or materials measuring an individual's worth to another. i recognize that there are more things attached to the complexity of the relationship between emotions and materials...yet somehow, we have relied on the materials to determine how our emotion and identification are viewed and recognized.
i think for me, it makes it a bit clearer and more significant that Christ paid for my debt: its at that moment in time that no one else can do it; the value of his sacrifice has no price that could ever be repaid by anyone else.