the old bill

whew. passed biblical literacy.

whew. passed. sigh. beaten by Gord Waldie.  in the biblical literacy test.  here's my results:

ACTS AND PAULINE LETTERS 100%   
GOSPELS    83%   
HISTORICAL BOOKS  92%   
PENTATEUCH   64%   
PROPHETS     88%   
PSALMS AND WISDOM LITERATURE   60%   
REST OF NEW TESTAMENT   80% 
TOTAL   82%   

i knew wisdom wouldn't be my strength but pentateuch . . .  okay former fundies, i'm ready to have my butt kicked, let me know how you do.  btw i figured the little hint-reference things were kinda like cheating, wonder if my score would have been different if i'd checked.  sometimes I had no idea where the stuff was from!  Thanks to Gord for this.

adhd pattern thots

no time to sort my ridlin starved thoughts, but here's some stuff I found interesting:

First from Phil at Headway Youth - thought this was interesting, especially in the light of all that's been happening in London.  Interesting tidbits on emergent worship.

Fancied a bit of a change last night so i went over to Visions in York. It was a bit of a drive but well worth it the service wasn't particularly dynamic, but it provided much needed space. The guy welcomed everyone began by saying something like "Good evening everyone. Lots of stuff is going to happen tonight and you're free to duck in and out of anything we do, the only thing that is compulsary is coming to the pub afterwards!"

Second jonny baker et al are doing some interesting explorations on emerging church in a multi-faith context in an event called blah - should be some interesting posts as a follow-up.  Maybe especially interesting to folk interested in kn/exion & fusion locally.

Third Jordon's got some health stuff - good to hold him, wendy & family in  prayers.

CBC radio today shared with listeners this valuable insight into the life of fishflies.  The fishfly [also called mayfly] can live for up to 2 years as an aquatic nymph, but lives only for one day as a flying adult - it eats nothing [not even mosquitoes, as we used to think] and has only one objective - to have sex. Once that is accomplished, that's it.  Make of it what you will.  You'd never guess by looking at them, eh?

David has returned from Vancouver where he participated in the Pan-American Nikkei Conference - and will be around during the summer while I am on holidays.  I think there is still room for one or two in his trip to Japan this fall.  See Knox website.

Can't remember if I've ever written about David Penner, the architect for the proposed knox cafe.  David has been amazing to work with - literally a godsent - and does brilliant work.  Here's a couple of  examples: link 1, link 2,

A number of folk using the images of Jesus have commented/asked about the pix of George W. In a couple of these George & Jesus are in the same frame, and in one Bush is wearing a crown of thorns.  I figure these should be self-explanatory.  The confusion may come from the first Bush image, which looks siimply like a badly pixelated image of George - but if you zoom you will find that all those wee sqare thingies are in fact images of Jesus. 

satsang

We had the honour of being invited to the home of friends, Bankim & Rika, for satsang ['truth-community'] on Saturday night.  Bankim is the owner of Second Cup where our daughter works - a person who truly understands the social importance of cafes [and provided me with a glimpse of the role cafes can have in the church].  Satsang includes chanting  [for almost an hour] followed by a teaching and prayers. They follow the teachings of Sai Baba - and the 'discourse' was provided by Andrew Maharaj.   I found I could relate it to my Christian faith immediately.  It was really about dying to self and opening to God.  He concluded with words that 'what God wants is not your devotion, but your transformation'.  Wonderful image.  The teacher sat in the middle of the group, with a microphone, rather than in front of the group. A feast followed satsang for the 200 guests, long rows of white paper were rolled out on the carpet, and servers walked down the middle of these, serving us as we sat on the floor.  All of it was great, but there was a yoghurt-curry soup that was astonishing.  It's great to find community in unexpected places.

cross-prairie journal

day 1:

Heading halfway across the country today [June 30] with my daughter Alison , who has just returned from New Zealand, on a quest to connect with my other daughter Kristin at Lake Louise - after a couple of months in Vancouver and points west.  Left at 6:00 am. Best momentwas driving through Saskatchewan, heading West, on Highway 1 and looking over to the eastbound lanes where the RCMP had set up a bale of hay on the shoulder of the highway, then hidden their cruiser car behind it - they were just poking their heads out a wee bit with their radar gun.  Neither of us could stop laughing.  Only in Saskatchewan would folk assume that no one would notice a big bale of hay suddenly sitting on the shoulder of the road. 

day 2:  crossing canada on canada day

What could be better:  leaving Lake Louise just after dawn, driving through the rockies as the fog begins to burn off, sun blazing through at the tops of mountains, driving down through ranch country, picking up a case of nanton water, and then heading across the prairies. .   .    

Driving across this country makes one appreciate not only its beauty but its sheer volume, the volume of possibilities.  It also leads one to think about the politics of the place, and the politics of our neighbours who will be celebrating their national holiday in a few days,  how a nation that once stood so passionately for human rights and democracy, now readily accepts their leadership's position that one group of people, Muslims mostly,  have no human rights.  Not even the rights of POWs.  Basic rights exist by virtue of simply being human , therefore those in the camps are not human.   We've seen it before.  Jews are vermin.  Tutsi cockroaches.  It is characteristic of evil to deny the essential humanity of people.  Why is the American church so silent on this?  More frightening, they have become supporters .  Yet we know this too - Hitler’s anti-semitism had its roots in the church.  What will it be like on July 4 for the apparent minority who question all of this?

Nothing but blue sky and a few puffy white clouds, slightly rolling hills, as we enter Saskatchewan.  The remarkable sound of my daughters reconnecting.  In villages and towns folk are having picnics.  There’ll be fireworks tonight.  It’s so beautiful out here.

the meaning of meme

I have been tagged by a meme by brother maynard and I don't know what a meme is [see name of blog for clue] nor do I know who brother maynard is [though I hope we can meet for coffee] . . . but, here goes.  It's a book meme [am I using the term correctly?]

Total number of books:  If you include all the ones in boxes that Mary and I never quite found a place for, must be over 1500. 

Last book I bought:  The Sociopath Next Door by Martha Stout.  [sorry you asked?].  Could be a must read for anyone doing congregational work, organizational work or just trying to figure out twisted relationships.

Last book I read:  the curious incident of the dog in the night time.  Mark haddon.  Wonderful book written from perspective of an autistic boy.   The train ride had me terrified.  Book I am currently craving is Dylan's Visions of Sin  Christopher Ricks.  Now reading A Short History of Progress Ronald Wright [Massey lectures 2004]

Five books that mean a lot to me [that come to my mind right now at least]
Night:  Elie Wiesel.  Changed my life.  I knew that either God matters in the face of Auschwitz, or I would walk away from God forever.  Spent many years seeking a real hope in the face of holocaust.
Beyond Tragedy.  Reinhold Niebuhr.  Especially the essay "The Suffering Servant and the Son of Man" - love enters the world and is crucified by it - that is the expected course. When it succeeds it is a symbol of the resurrection that is beyond time, drawing us toward itself. 
When God is Silent.  Barbara Brown Taylor.  Not only her ideas, but her remarkable ability to turn a phrase.
Narnia. C.S.Lewis.  If I had to pick just one i'd say The Magician's Nephew because of 1) The Wood between the Worlds and 2) that astonishing creation scene. I might have gone for A Grief Observed, but my list was already so dark and brooding . . .
Wuthering Heights.  Emily Bronte.  I saw for the first time that love can be an elemental force, like wind or fire, and because it was the first book I ever gave Mary. 

Two books from when I was a kid: I wish I could say that it was The BFG and Fantastic Mr. Fox both by Raold Dahl - but really I just loved reading them to our kids.  When I was young I only had one book: The Big Ball of String but [I hope my mother doesn't read my blogs] I hated it really. Maybe I had more, but I just remember that kid tying up his doorknob to his lamp.  When i was older, Lord of the Rings.

Now, revenge.  People I want to tag:
Adam Gerhard [also a Winnipegger & owns seasons 1 & 2 of Knight Rider]
Ron Cole - - a good source of interestng thots
Phil Smith - who just made the mistake of emailing me