Gone for a Long Time

Hey Y'all - sorry for the absence and delay in posting. The graphics card on my laptop burned up for the second time in three years and Toshiba is too ghetto hooptie to fix it here in Amsterdam. So, I still have yet to get it replaced. I've been out of it. I will try and post something new real soon...

Reaching Out, Taking In

How am I suppose to justify the belief in justice, truth and mercy, with the idea that I too am the culprit of so much injustice, so many lies and so much reckless harm. Romans 1 says...

"Furthermore, since they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, he gave them over to a depraved mind, to do what ought not to be done. They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit and malice. They are gossips, slanderers, God-haters, insolent, arrogant and boastful; they invent ways of doing evil; they disobey their parents; they are senseless, faithless, heartless, ruthless. Although they know God's righteous decree that those who do such things deserve death, they not only continue to do these very things but also approve of those who practice them."

To be honest, those verses really upset me. They make my stomach turn. They make me feel anger and bitterness against those who turn from the truth and follow the ways of wickedness in the world. I jump upon the pedestal of self righteousness and pretend that I am perfect, unphased by the temptation to live an easy life, a life filled with pleasure and virtue. I stand on the very same stage as those I harbor ill feelings towards. Then I read on...

" You, therefore, have no excuse, you who pass judgment on someone else, for at whatever point you judge the other, you are condemning yourself, because you who pass judgment do the same things. Now we know that God's judgment against those who do such things is based on truth. So when you, a mere man, pass judgment on them and yet do the same things, do you think you will escape God's judgment? Or do you show contempt for the riches of his kindness, tolerance and patience, not realizing that God's kindness leads you toward repentance?

But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God "will give to each person according to what he has done." To those who by persistence in doing good seek glory, honor and immortality, he will give eternal life. But for those who are self-seeking and who reject the truth and follow evil, there will be wrath and anger. There will be trouble and distress for every human being who does evil..."

It is the beautiful thing about Scripture. It humbles you, teaches you, instructs you. Above all else, in fact, it commands you to love. Love. Love. Love. There is no argument, there is no explanation, there is no reason other than love. When we fail to love, we fail to live.

I can stand on my pedestal of self absorbtion, or I can step down in humility and look up to the one who showed us the way. He reaches out. He invites. He calls. He accepts. He loves. There is no other way.

The Scream

You gotta check this out. What is our world coming to...? Really...? It's called "the SCREAM" and is a weapon used by the Israeli army to get crowds to disperse. This is some messed up stuff.

I can't help but to think of the Nazi's and all the terrible torture they put people through in order to understand the limits of the human body. It's insame quite literally.

I don't know, maybe I'm going too far here. It just pains me so much to see the evil and unrest in the world. This isn't for or against Israel, it's a state of the world at large. Sad.

right or left, up or down...?

" Abe Lincoln had it right. Our task shouold not be to invoke religion and the name of God by claiming God's blessing and endorsement for all our national policies and practices - saying, in effect, that God is on our side. Rather, Lincoln said, we should pray and worry earnestly whether we are on God's side.

Those are the two ways that religion has been brought into public life in American history. The first way - God on our side - leads inevitably to triumphalism, self-righteousness and bad theology, and, often, dangerous foreign policy. The second way - asking if we are on God's side - leads to much healthier things, namely, penitence and even repentance, humility, reflection, and even accountablility. We need much more of all these, because these are often missing values of politics.

Of course, Martin Luther King Jr. did it best. With his Bible in one hand and the Consitution in the other, King persuaded, not just pronounced. He reminded us all of God's purpose for justice, for peace, and for the "beloved community" where those always left out and behind get a front row seat."

Jim Wallis, God's Politics
: Why the Right gets it wrong and the Left doesn't get it

a biblical disease and a radical man

As Todd and I approached the former leper colony, we mused about the biblical significance of leprosy and the amazing effect that disease itself had on civilization two thousand years ago. It wasn't until we were actually on the island, that we learned how real and prevalent this devastating disease still is. We thought the leper colony was from biblical times and yet the leper colony was the last to inhabit Spinalonga. Again, I was humbled by my lack of world understanding especially when it comes to the plight and struggle of the Third World.

Leprosy is very real in 2005, with an estimated 400,000 cases infecting people today, mostly in India, Nepal and the surrounding region. (You can check out LEPRA or America Leprosy Mission for more details on leprosy and other devasting diseases) The picture posted above is of a bad case. If detected early and given the right treatement, leprosy can be controlled.

It's when I look at pictures like these that I realize what a radical revolutionary Jesus really was. In biblical times (and obviously in modern times as well) infected people where cast out from society to live as pariahs until death. You can't blame society. They were simply doing what Darwin would have called survival of the fittest - removing the weak from within. The mentally retarded, deformed, diseased, infected, abnormal people were and in many cases still are nothing.

It is these people with whom Jesus built his ministry. He touched the untouchable, loved the unlovable, sought after the unseekable, and healed the unhealable. He did things others never dreamed of. He made friends with outcasts and created family with the unwanted. He was a radical instrument of love. It is absolutely no wonder the powers that be wanted him dead. He stood for everything they stood against. This is the man I want to follow.

Now, will I...?

an old journey with an old friend to an old place

It started with a simple journey on a sea kayak to an island just off the coast of Crete, itself being a very large island. We departed from a small beach near the town of Plaka (in Elounda Bay) and were to Spinalonga in only about 15 minutes. Once there we were confronted by large walls, obviously the work of human hands rather than nature. The walls were clearly meant to keep people out or keep people in, whichever way you want to look at it. I think it was for both, depending on the period of history.

The Venetians finished a powerful fortress there in 1579 as a way to protect trade routes through the Eastern Mediterranean. It succeeded. Even when the Ottoman Empire defeated Crete, they did not conquer Spinalonga for years afterward. During that time, the fortress island was used as a santuary for Christians in defiance of the Muslim rule. It is believed that the ecumenical church on the island is the first ever built of its kind. More recently, the island was used as a leper colony. From 1903 until about 1957, lepers were sent here to live out there dying days seperated from the rest of civilisation.

They walked what is known as "the street of pain" day in and day out suffering though a terrible disease, the cure of which was only found in 1947. It is this suffering and this disease that brings me to the story I've thought about for days now.

The upcoming posts will detail this story.

Simple Moments

Did you ever just sit back in a lawn chair, kick back in a hammock, lay down in the grass, put your feet up on the table near the garden and close your eyes for a moment - take a deep breath - exhale - and then open your eyes to find things are different than when you left them...? It happens most easily when you're sitting somewhere quiet, with few distractions, sun shining brightly on your face and your head tilted back about 45 degrees, so your eyelids can sort of droop like half drawn curtains over your eyeballs. It's a moment in time when nothing else matters but the moment itself.

Nothing can steal the moment because it's all yours and yours alone. No one else can steal it from you because no one else can see it, no one else can feel it, no one else can sense it. It is yours. You can be completely selfish with it, consumed with it, controlled by it.

It's yours.

It's a thought. It's a dream. It's a crazy idea. Sometimes it's just the realization of how little control we have over the natural world, how little we actually know about the life that is all around us. We are small, insignificant. We live it. We breath it. We touch it and smell it and seek it out. We desire to know it. We desire to have answers. We desire to know the secrets that were never meant to be known. They drive us mad.

In the moment though, nothing else matters.

In the moment, those questions, those answers don't matter. You can simply sit back in quiet relaxation and not care. You can appreciate what is right before you in the now - in water, in nature, in air, in life. It's the simple beauty of a flower blooming atop a fragile stem, help up only by water really, which the flower harvested from the earth. It is the bumblebee dancing from flower to flower gathering as it may, content to bless other flowers with it's dust. It's the tree in the background whose roots are buried deep within the confines of the ground, ever seeking new territories and new nutrients, which by the way are only there because flowers died last year and gave of themselves back to the earth from which they came.

It's an appreciation for life that in the moment simply doesn't matter. It doesn't matter how each of these things works. It doesn't matter if we know how the flower made it's colors, or how the roots grow through rock and shale and concrete. It doesn't matter that we have no idea how a bumblebee can fly at all. What matters is the moment. And that moment is all about the creation. The moment of creation is when we let go of questions and we attach ourselves to the answers.

It's simple, beautiful and true.

make poverty gone...

Check it out yo - this is the real deal. People coming together, led by U2 and the celebrity community. This is no joke.

www.one.org

www.makepovertyhistory.org

Never Seen It Before

There is a first time for everything. Let's take this morning for example. It appeared to be a normal morning, well normal is relative these days I suppose. A six week old baby is anything but normal. Still though, let's pretend that everything is mostly normal.

I wake up and roll over towards my wife in order to snuggle her, wrapping my arm around her and enveloping her in a stank of bad breath that could kill most living organisms. Normal. My ears are alerted to the steady beat of Leo's tail (pictured above) batting against anything and everything within a 4 foot diameter. It's a vicious tail. Being the good dog owner that I am, I exit our bedroom and step into the friendly confines of Leo's temporary prison. You see, Leo had his second knee surgery a couple of weeks ago, so we have to confine him in this way, else there will be a third surgery before you can say "bankrupt". Normal.

So, now I'm in the pen, stroking Leo's head and telling him in the sweetest of scratchy, morning voices what a good boy he is. Of course, this doesn't mean anything to him. He just wants two things right now - food and a place to go urinate. Normal. I oblige and carefully lead him to the kitchen, where we find his empty bowl next to the door leading out to our garden. I reach down into his dog food bag and scoop out his normal allotment for breakfast. Normal. Now, excuse me while a digress for a moment...

...you see, Leo is known the world over for his ability to consume food. He is equivalent to the greatest industrial vacuum even known - he sucks down anything within nose reach. I don't know how to even explain his ability to consume food. He rarely chews food, after all, that would be a huge waste of time. You know those "indestructible" toys they make for dogs...? They have never tested them on Leo. The guy likes to eat and chew and destroy, so when it comes to eating breakfast, there is little time to waste.

...Back to the story. Remember, the food is in the bowl. The vacuum in the form of a Chesapeake Bay Retriever is hovering over the bowl. Normal. Now, here is the part that leads me to this entry. He puts his face into the bowl and then stops, turns, looks me straight in the eye as if to say "what is the world is this...?" I encourage him to try it and he obliges. He crunches a few times and this time quits completely, walking back to his pen in disgust. Abnormal. I've never seen this before.

I can only attribute it to the fact that he simply doesn't get the attention he used to get - that he is depressed. He misses the absolute devotion of two dog lovers without a six week old baby to get in the way. Poor dog. I hope he decides to eat.

Who is Johnny...?

I'm not sure how it started, but I've been fascinated with Johnny for years now. I think some friends used to use the term "Johnny" for people who annoyed them at the time. I have the perfect example.

My wife and I were on our honeymoon in beautiful Kauai, minding our own business, taking full advantage of the many outdoor activities to do on such an island. Snorkeling, swimming, sunbathing, running, hiking and eating outside on perfectly sunny days take a lot of energy away from you. You want to take a nap. We lay down on the first day of our trip sometime in the afternoon for what is destined to be a much needed and refreshing nap, when out of nowhere comes this terrible sound. I know you have heard it before. It's a two-cycle engine. If you have heard a moped, or a waverunner, or a snowmobile or a scooter in Amsterdam, or a lawn mower - these are the glorious sounds of a two cycle engine. Anyway - just as we about to sleep, this horrible noise screams by our window. Ok, no big deal, it woke me up. I flutter off into a dreamy state, when next thing I know, I'm awoken by this crazy racket again. And again, and again, and again. This guy is riding this very annoying dirt bike, up and down a path right outside the hotel. It's his right I say to myself and just get up from bed. All hope is not lost, as we're still in Kauai - what could be better?

It's now the same time the next day and we are once again lying down to take a nap, exhausted from our morning ritual of Hawaiian coffee, some snorkeling and nice lunch on a beach somewhere. It's a rough life. I'm just about to fall asleep, when, you guessed it, here comes the dirt bike again. I can think of no other thing to say, besides "Oh no! Here comes dirt bike JOHNNY!"

The ULTIMATE description

So, I've been playing Ultimate Frisbee lately... for those of you who know what it is, this description may help you... and for those who don't - Check it out:

Clearly you do not understand the glory of frisbee-throwing and why the hero loves it so. I will take the liberty of explaining it to you:

Hero does this thing because it offers him an opportunity to leap through the air at an object that is moving just barely slower than a trotting Kenyan. The frisbee flies through the air and all on the field scream and yell at it, and one –only one- can be the hero. To Quote Conner McLeod; “There can be only one…”. This affords the catcher a moment of extreme happiness, euphoria, and glee because they have CAUGHT the frisbee. Not to mention being the center of attention of 'extremely happy people'. To a lesser degree the person who threw the frisbee will also experience some degree of happiness and glee. Often the thrower and the catcher will acknowledge each other’s prowess of tossing and receiving by either executing a ‘high-five’ or ‘hug’ accompanied by ‘back-slapping’ depending on the how important it was to catch the frisbee at that particular moment.

During my very brief experience watching the game I was able to glean some understanding of the glory of frisbee-tossing between smoking weed, drinking beer and long naps: levels of glee can be boosted by executing a particularly daring catching manoeuvre. Usually this involves waiting patiently until the frisbee is near you and also low to the ground and initiating a ‘dive’. If you catch the frisbee while sliding on the ground on your chest you are deemed a hero. Similarly if you slide on your side, back, face, or ass; all of these are considered ‘dives’. If you don’t catch the frisbee you have still slid on the ground and you are ‘somewhat of a hero’
affording ‘somewhat of glee’. Another way to optimize your frisbee-tossing glee is execute a ‘high leap’. Again you wait until the frisbee is high in the air and ‘leap high’ to catch it. This does not raise glee as much as the ‘dive’ and by the same token not catching the frisbee during a ‘high leap’
does not look as cool as missing the low frisbee.

Now.

Frisbee is a NON CONTACT game. Any, pushing, shoving, slapping, mauling, kissing, hugging, holding, kicking, checking, grasping and sodomy is performed AFTER the game when all players on BOTH teams recount the amazing ‘dives’ and ‘high leaps’ they executed during the course of the ten minute game.

Another aspect of the game is hollering. Like curling -in which players scream like castrati hyenas at a rock moving slowly along the ice- the players of frisbee-tossing holler at each other and at the frisbee. This hollering does little to affect the languid movements of the frisbee, however it can be used as a fierce weapon to confuse your opponent and tell your team-mates what position it has in the air. By hollering either “High leap!” or “Dive!” you can cause your peers to execute either one of these manoeuvres regardless of where the frisbee is. Hollering is also used when the frisbee is caught, missed, thrown, slapped, or bounced of the head of a player. It is also done when a point is scored; that being when a person ‘high leaps’ or ‘dives’ in the endzone (inre: football, rugby or any other real sport).

Now. I have just recalled that frisbee-tossing is in fact officially called ‘Ultimate’ which to me is like calling curling ‘Awesome’, lawn darts ‘Wicked’ or ptong ‘Excellent’. I assume this is a way of legitimizing what is essentially frisbee-tossing with ‘dives’, ‘high-leaps’, and ‘hollering’.

What are shutters for anyway if they are never used...? Decoration I suppose - and these are some cool shutters. 

Sorry, I've been out of it for awhile now, but I've had a few other things on my mind lately, including these two feet. Asher Ryan was born on the 31st of March at 11:22am here in Amsterdam. He is awesome. 

Some sun in Amsterdam never hurt anyone. It's nice to be riding along and you see your shadow unincumbered by the grayness of clouds gone by - clouds that cut the sun off from reaching this city - clouds that turn beautiful canals into pits of death. I'm amazed at the wonderful life that sun brings to this city. Cafe's are busy with people enjoying a beer, couples staring intently into each other's sparkling eyes or simply the lonely stranger, coffee in hand, eyes closed, loving every second of sun that hits her face. It's a wonderful site and one which I hope we see lots more of in Amsterdam soon. 

I've often wondered what it must be like for Leo to meet the ducks face to face, so I decided to check it out for myself. When I later looked at this picture, I found myself scared and at the time, thinking I should run. 

making an entrance

I was out walking the other day with my dog, Leo, and I came across this hole in a tree. Standing there wondering what such a hole might be used for, I noticed these beautiful green parakeets (or something of the nature) flying around in the trees, singing to the sun. It's kind of funny seeing these tropical birds at all when you are walking in Amsterdam. Nonetheless, I kept walking unsure what to think.

I circled around again though and sure enough, this little green bird emerges from the hole. Imagine that. In Amsterdam. Nature. It made me happy.

don't quite understand...

Walking through the streets of Amsterdam, I'm amazed at the number of signs, posters, and flyers around. I guess the part that amazes me most is that I have no idea what most of them are advertising - are they even advertisements at all...? I walked past this shop the other day and was so perplexed. What is the point...?

So, it made me start thinking about the point in general. We are bombarded with sensory overload, but what's the point...? What is the reason for such things...? Do we need it...? Have I ever bought anything because I saw it on a poster...? I was thinking - do the staples of life ever get advertised...? I mean, I've never seen an advertisement for flour, or tap water, or sugar. I suppose there were some famous commercials for milk a few years ago - the milk moustache, but for the most part, our true needs are never advertised. Newer cars, newer gadgets, newer things - these are the advertisements that clutter our vision, infect our ears and bombard our brains.

It makes me long for the mountains where the peace and tranquility of simplicity surrounds and where creation sings in it's glory. I long for the trees, which carry no advertisement other than beauty. I long for the smells and fragrances of life that are found only in the pines. I long to hear birds uninterrupted by the cacophony of autos and buses. I long for a rock outcropping where my view is nature, obscured by neither skyscrapers nor concrete.

What is the point anyway...

One of the best I've seen...

I saw "Million Dollar Baby" last night. There is no doubt in mind why this movie won so many Oscar's. It was brilliant. It has everything - great directing, great acting, great story. It's truly one to be seen. Check out this review from Roger Ebert.

http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041214/REVIEWS/41201004/1023

An Epidemic unlike any other....

The Aids epidemic is one that many of us in Western Europe and the United States cannot understand. It Western Culture we attribute it to drug use, sexual promiscuity and homosexuality - which may not be fair assumptions in the first place - but in Africa and now India and China, the AIDS problem is turning into the single greatest epidemic ever to face humanity. This is an issue we simply cannot ignore.

Check out this article to learn more...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/4317019.stm

God in America...from the beginning

An interesting article on God and the founding forefathers...

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/27/weekinreview/27kirk.html?