Soul and Spirit

I’m Sorry

When it isn’t enough . . . .

Living I’m Sorry

I know two people, each with a parent who made a choice that severed the parent-child relationship. In one case, a father disappeared from his son’s life for a decade. In the other, a mother chose to stay with the man who was sexually abusing her daughter. All four of these people are now professing Christians, and both parents have asked for forgiveness. So these two relationships should be fine now, right?

Christians are commanded to honor our parents, after all, and further, to forgive those who trespass against us. Something I’ve learned about sin, however, having committed more than my share of it, is that it scars those around us, sometimes even cripples them. If I run over you with my car, it doesn’t matter how repentant I am — you’ll still be in that wheelchair. Likewise, if I abdicate my responsibility as a parent, though I may grieve over it in later years, my repentance doesn’t produce the trust and communion that parents and children are supposed to have. Understandably, neither of these parents is close to his child.

But there are significant differences, and as I observe these relationships unfold, I am learning something about repentance and healing. In one case . . . .

Please read the rest of the article at the link above.

It is excellent!

Beauty and the Beholder

I read this article in World‘s print version. I’m quite impressed by it:

Acquired taste
Beauty is more than in the eye of the beholder

Christians have to battle the mindset that insists “there are no absolutes.” But Christians often do not realize what the absolutes are that they need to defend. The classic thinkers spoke of three kinds of absolutes: the true, the good, and the beautiful.

Often, Christians reject the claims that truth and morality are relative while agreeing with the postmodernists that beauty is relative. But to think that beauty is nothing more than a subjective preference — unconnected to standards that originate in God Himself — is to buy into a foundational principle of today’s anti-Christian worldview.

The Bible tells us to set our minds on “whatever” is “excellent” and “of good report” (Philippians 4:8). Beauty does involve personal taste, but our tastes need discipline. Growing in taste means learning to take pleasure in what is objectively good.

Christianity 101: God defines that which is good. And that is absolutely so.

However, I was disappointed in what struck me as an apples-and-orangesutans comparison in the third paragraph from the end.

There is nothing wrong with an occasional indulgence in junk food, though if all you eat is sugar and French fries, you will be malnourished. Similarly, there is nothing wrong with an occasional indulgence in junk culture. But just as you need the nutrition found in a home-cooked meal, you need the cultural nutrition that comes from enjoying the best.

I submit to you that “there is nothing wrong with an occasional indulgence in junk culture” flies in the face God’s thoughts in Philippians 4:8 (which Mr. Veith even references in his third paragraph above!).

Christianity 101: “A little leaven leaveneth the whole lump” (Galatians 5:9) and “approve things that are excellent” (Philippians 1:10).

Despite that, I think you should read the entire article. (It has an interesting challenge regarding music.) Update, October 27, 2012: I see it’s now available only to subscribers; too bad.

VW, Continued

Vietnam War, Revised:

ChristianToday reports that the Vietnam War is still rumbling on – with Christians now regarded as the enemy, says one of the leading persecution watchdogs, Release International.

Christians in Vietnam are being targeted as ‘agents of America’. They describe torture and near starvation as the authorities threaten to kill them slowly.

Acquainted With Me

This morning I read about God being acquainted with all my ways. So I made this wallpaper for my computer:

Acquainted with all my ways

Then I read this:

State centers tap into personal data

Intelligence centers run by U.S. states have access to personal information about millions of Americans, The Washington Post reported on Wednesday.

[…]

A survey conducted last year shows the centers have subscriptions to private information-broker services that maintain records about Americans’ locations, financial holdings, associates, relatives, firearms licenses and other information, the newspaper said, citing officials familiar with the material.

Pennsylvania buys credit reports while analysts in Rhode Island have access to car-rental databases. Authorities in Maryland use a data broker called Entersect, which claims it maintains some 12 billion records about 98 percent of Americans, the Post reported.

I assume I’m among the 98 percent.

What do “they” have on record about me?

Not nearly as much as God knows about me!

Should I care?

I know some people who don’t care.

Or don’t seem to care.

And I thought they did.

Including me?

PS: If I’m in the 2 percent suggested above, why?!

North Korean Christians

From The Voice of the Martyrs, this:

NORTH KOREA – The Voice of the Martyrs is calling on the Communist North Korean government to immediately release 10 college students in Ham Kyung Book Do Chung, North Korea, who were investigated and arrested for reading a Bible and watching a video CD about the Bible.

According to Free North Korea Broadcasting, Mr. Jung, former vice-president of GumRung Company of the Rodong Dang Labor Organization Department, reported the case and has since escaped to China to avoid arrest by the National Security Agency (Bowiboo). “In March 2006, 200 Life Bibles and several hundred CDs were purchased in China and secretly placed in flour bags before being smuggled into North Korea. This huge Bible smuggling case was headed by GumRung Company employees who were influenced by Christianity in China and underground Christians in Nasun City. All the leaders have been arrested and are being severely tortured. If I am caught, I will be sent to a prison camp for political criminals. I didn’t want to die in prison camp, so I escaped,” Mr. Jung said.

In the Free North Korea Broadcasting report, Mr. Jung added that most of the arrested students attended ChungJin College. “These students shared the Bible and video CD with their friends. They also distributed the Bibles and video CDs to the other college towns,” he said.

And what were you fussing about earlier today?

Calling WalMart Bashers

Attention!

Shortly before Hurricane Katrina made landfall on the U.S. Gulf Coast on the morning of Aug. 29, 2005, the chief executive officer of Wal-Mart, Lee Scott, gathered his subordinates and ordered a memorandum sent to every single regional and store manager in the imperiled area. His words were not especially exalted, but they ought to be mounted and framed on the wall of every chain retailer — and remembered as American business’s answer to the pre-battle oratory of George S. Patton or Henry V.

“A lot of you are going to have to make decisions above your level,” was Scott’s message to his people. “Make the best decision that you can with the information that’s available to you at the time, and above all, do the right thing.”

This extraordinary delegation of authority — essentially promising unlimited support for the decision-making of employees who were earning, in many cases, less than $100,000 a year — saved countless lives in the ensuing chaos. The results are recounted in a new paper on the disaster written by Steven Horwitz, an Austrian-school economist at St. Lawrence University in New York. While the Federal Emergency Management Agency fumbled about, doing almost as much to prevent essential supplies from reaching Louisiana and Mississippi as it could to facilitate it, Wal-Mart managers performed feats of heroism. In Kenner, La., an employee crashed a forklift through a warehouse door to get water for a nursing home. A Marrero, La., store served as a barracks for cops whose homes had been submerged. In Waveland, Miss., an assistant manager who could not reach her superiors had a bulldozer driven through the store to retrieve disaster necessities for community use, and broke into a locked pharmacy closet to obtain medicine for the local hospital.

😀

This Is Progress?

😯

The Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday:

Because pretty soon, we’re all going to have video cameras in our cellphones.

Also known as cellular video cameras. Meaning anyone will be able to broadcast from anywhere. Live.

[…]

At first, a phone that can shoot video might seem like just another gadget with just another feature. But the leap here is that coupling a video phone with the Web makes showing, sharing and storing video just about effortless.

[…]

Meaning it’ll be harder to get away with bad behavior. Start weaving too much on the 405, and the fellow behind you might send live video of you to the police. As well he should.

And that probably means, with the increased risk of being caught on tape, that the cautious among us will tend to shy away from unwise choices. I know my turnstile-jumping days are over.

I. Do. Not. Like. It.

Call me a phobic of some sort. Call me old-fashioned. Call me a security-and-privacy nut. Call me paranoid.

And call me a prophet.

This. Is. Not. Good.

On the other hand, this kind of technology emphasizes this Lesson-for-Living: Live the right way.

Imagine somebody using one of these phones to broadcast this riveting video-documentary: Mark Roth at WalMart.

What would viewers learn about the genuineness and depth and live-ability of my Christian faith? 😯

So, my friends, live your life and wear your face as though somebody were watching.

Soon they may well be.

(Actually, your fellow humans have been watching you for a long time. This technology just expands the audience as well as saves your life for future reference and review.)

Then there’s the matter that He has been watching you (and over you) from before your birth.

Now go do the right thing.

Above all, love God!