called to stand here

Matt Chandler has brain cancer. He is going through a harrowing sequence of symptom, diagnosis, surgery, chemo- and radiation therapy. He's doing this very publicly. He's a pastor of a church in Dallas , and continues, as he's granted strength, to teach there, and a couple of months ago at a conference . I recommend this video below as an amazing example of a theology of suffering followed by example of how to stand and pray with those in the midst of trial and affliction. God's kingdom advances when we do this right. Preparing Your Church for Suffering

Long ago, far away, the hope for a future included the hope for heaven. Nowadays the culture I live in looks for heaven only on earth, and the 'yearning for' in our souls is mostly a yearning for images and experiences. In earlier ages, there was a greater yearning for belief and ideals (Schudson, Michael. Advertising, The Uneasy Persuasion : Its Dubious Impact on American Society. 1984. New York: Basic Books, Inc., 209-233). Not that beliefs and ideals are dead in the culture. One of my sons is especially committed to an activist/anarchist community culture. But even there, the fascination (or obsession) with images and experiences is great. He works hard to contribute to the graphical presentation of the struggle. (Schudson has some really interesting things to day about socialist realist art.) My other sons are devoted to academia, and we might think there the culture would be like a star leading the pilgrim to ideas, if not ideals and beliefs. But today there was a report ...

Today I'm reading an article on John Sailhamer's view of creation —called "historic creationism" as opposed to the more familiar creationism. In his book, Genesis Unbound (1996, and out of print), he points out that the original Hebrew account describes creation in two separate bits: Genesis 1:1 as the creation of the cosmos over an indeterminate span of time and verses 2-31 describing the six days of preparing the land for man (Adam and Woman ) to occupy.* This invites us to view the creation of the universe in terms that don't require the contention between science and faith that is so familiar with creationism. In addition, it creates a framework that reveals some very interesting connections between the days of preparation (this is an interesting revelation: the days described in Gn 1:5, 1: 8, 1:11, etc., as the first day, the second day, etc., have typically been seen as days of creation rather than days of preparation; think about Jesus' statement, ...