Hopewit

. . . a really nice place “The presence of God is infinte, everywhere, always, and forever. You cannot not be in the presence of God. There’s no other place to be. It is we who are not present to Presence. We’ll make any excuse to be somewhere else than right here. Right here, right now never seems enough. It actually is, but it is we who are not aware enough yet.” (Richard Rohr, https://cac.org/category/daily-meditations/ ) I’d be the first to admit that the contemplative life—including the language that contemplatives use—escapes me most of the time. “Contemplative prayer,” “emptying oneself,” “living in the here and now,” “God as presence,” these phrases mostly leave me feeling inadequate. I think of monks and gurus and orders like the Franciscans of Richard Rohr and wonder what I’m missing . . . and then wonder if it’s they that are missing something substantial that my Anabaptist heritage bequeathed to me. Radical Reformation Anabaptism and Evangelicalism...

WARNING: This post may contain misinformation, repetition of lies that were mistakenly believed by the writer, and assertions that reflect the writer’s biases. It may also leave out what should be said because prejudices of the writer have inserted themselves. It’s that kind of a world. "Beauty is truth, truth beauty," – that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. - John Keats (Ode on a Grecian Urn ) Psalm 52:2-4 (NIV) You who practice deceit, your tongue plots destruction; it is like a sharpened razor. You love evil rather than good, falsehood rather than speaking the truth. You love every harmful word, you deceitful tongue! Does it begin when we’re children, defending ourselves with disinformation about someone else? Do we set out early on the road of equating falsehood with truth if doing so benefits us? And if we assert vehemently that “Joey broke the window,” and our mother says, “I believe you, honey” and gives us a hug, ...

Let's revise our constitution, YAWN It matters little how small or large your institution, organization, church, club or family is, fixing your constitution and bylaws —beginning with your mission statement—seems to represent the first task to which we will ever have to set our collective minds. The mission statement outlines the reasons for which all of the following bits and pieces exist, for the “because we want to be this, and accomplish this and that, we will do our politics this way . . . for now.” The value in composing mission statements, goals and bylaws is not in the text they eventually produce, it’s in the exercise of getting there. The evidence for that lies in the degree to which the resulting text is referred to or ignored as time goes by. In many organizations, the constitution and handbook have been hauled out and altered occasionally—piecemeal and haphazardly, generally—but most members are hard-pressed to know where the true, revised copy exist...

Creation's attention to detail #1 Paul lifts a prayer for the church at Ephesus: “. . . that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give unto you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him; the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that ye may know what is the hope of his calling, and what [are] the riches of the glory of his inheritance in the saints . . ..” (Ephesians 1:17-18, KJV) Parsing the central thought here, Paul expresses the hope that God—in sending Jesus—has extended to them the “spirit of wisdom and revelation” so that they are in reach of the knowledge of what Christ’s coming means. The “spirit of wisdom and revelation” having “ enlightened the eyes of their understanding ,” Paul prays that they will recognize what a great hope lies in store for them. Maybe because I was born with one good eye and one “lodged with me useless,”  in Milton’s words—and am now living with cataracts and threatening glaucoma—that the ...

"Swimming in the same chaotic sea" - Taboga I’m halfway through rereading Stuart Murray’s, The Naked Anabaptist. As is often the case—I suspect with most people who have spent years studying and teaching the language medium—my mind wanders into the area of words, sentences, paragraphs, grammar, connotation and denotation. Why did Murray use that word? What connotations does this sentence carry that may be unintended? Murray’s use of the English language is generally above serious criticism; he was, after all, born and raised in England where education has tended to emphasize language-arts as core . . . at least historically. Without even having thought about it much, nearly all of us—I think—have come to know that semantically, words that end in ist are usually nouns and words that end in ic are generally adjectives (words that modify the meaning of nouns). In the sentence, “He’s a sarcastIC AnabaptIST,” the last word categorizes the person, the former adds...

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines. (I Corinthians 12:4-11, NIV) The summer edition, 2017, of History Manitoba contains an article called “ Evangelization, not Legislation ,” by Nolan Bro...

   . . . for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. If you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise. (Gal. 3:27-9, NIV)  One new humanity out of two, or three, or 2 million?? For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. His purpose was to create in himself one new humanity out of the two, thus making peace, and in one body to reconcile both of them to God through the cross, by which he put to death their hostility. (Eph. 2:14-16, NIV) South Korean born American citizen, Euna Lee, was captured by North Korean border guards as she was filming in a remote area along the Chinese/North Korean border....