I had several volumes of mixed tapes which I recall being labeled ‘depression to the max’, filled with pukey-heartbreak songs and raging-industrial-metal constantly on replay. I’d contemplate between making a big splash of my death or just going away quietly. But I never had the guts to do it.
Last week a 15 year-old girl jumped to her death from the 21st floor of my building.
It’s eerie walking by where life was lost.
We probably walk by people every day who are simply one tiny act away from ending everything.
I’m sure plenty of people might say – they’re only fifteen, what do they know about suffering or heartache?
And you could go as far as asking – what do any of us really know? You and I are merely dust; Or maybe organisms with advanced cognitive abilities.
Yet our hearts are loaded with so much more.
Our hearts can burst at the seams with joy. Our hearts can feel the weight of the world. Our hearts can create a gaping void so large the entire universe can’t even fill.
That’s why some of us want to escape. Heaven. Hell. Tranquil nothingness.
What do you say to someone when absolutely anything is better than the brokenness they’re currently in?
If sharing Christ is a matter of communicating information, then Christians are in a lot of trouble.
It still boggles my mind that pastors can spend 30+ hours preparing for to articulate a half hour message each week.
I’m positive that no one wants to die simply knowing a lot of stuff, yet so many of us (Christians in particular) seem to often live as if we do. * Note the amount of money and time we spend on conferences, books, and other information acquiring vehicles.
Chris Anderson argues in his latest book “Free” that the future of business is free with the costs of a vast array of products rapidly declining to zero. In particular he cites how “information wants to be free”. You can get the book free here.
And information is free today. At least any insight that involves connecting to the Living God. The gospel ‘message’ is a google search away from just about anyone in the west. Whether they care to know is a whole different story.
I think what people desire today is formation, not information. Information is the easier option to deliver and receive. It can also easily deceive us into thinking we’re accumulating building-blocks to a stronger faith and life, when we’re not.
Information is a piece of the puzzle, but we’re doing ourselves, and others, a disservice when we’re fire-hosing data.
I often read the Scriptures scriptures and wonder if the people in ancient times had some other type of DNA allowing them to simply hear and believe, or discover and act. Or, maybe those we could respond the same today as well, if we weren’t so inundated with information.
What would your faith gathering look like if it didn’t center around the transmission of information?
Grasshopper.com did a great job with their recent marketing campaign using social media. They created the above video, while a bit cliche, I thought it was nicely done.
The video works because its message rings true of the human spirit. We’re all summoned to create, risk, lead, and change, at least in some area in our lives. Whether we’re able to hear that calling, or do anything about it, might be a different story altogether.
I pour my heart into a lot of different things that I think are worthwhile, but I question if I’m changing the world. I’m in a city of nearly six million where a simple stroll through the downtown core can make you feel like a speck of dust.
I think when you’ve changed a life (including your own), you’ve already changed the world.
Europe a Muslim continent in a few decades? Can culture really be definied as narrowly as by population? How might President Obama’s speech in Cairo to the Muslim world shape things? Where does Christ fit into all of this?
Daddy daycare is over, and today’s my first time in a month having the 8 hours of the day all to myself.
Between having the best time in the world hanging out with my daughter, I’ve been squeezing in the odd hour or two each day, at my full time career… trying to change the world of course.
Let me say those of you who are stay-at-home parents, much honor and glory and praise is due to you! I have no doubt that many of you live with plans on hold and dreams deferred. You’re a gift to your child and to the world.
And single parents out there, I have no idea how you do it. period. You astound me.
Today I made breakfast and lunch for my wife and daughter. Read through the scriptures (I’ve been reading genesis, and going through John & Revelations backwards). While watching the Toronto Government 2.0 Summit, I finished preparing for a talk on the ‘theology of ecology’ I’ll be doing with my wife this Sunday.
Also managed to dig through some emails, book my next several meetings, and write up the next ten blog posts.
Introducing Jake Belder, a fellow Canadian living in Florida right now.
I feel that in many ways suburbia is like the antithesis of how God intended us to live. Where we were meant to live in community, we find rampant individualism. Where we were meant to give of ourselves and our resources, we find greed and consumerism. Where we were meant to serve, we find self-service and pride.
That’s just a couple of examples, but it just seems to be so polar opposite. And I think what troubles me the most about it is how much Christians have accommodated that ideology. I realize there are a lot of factors that drove people out to the suburbs (specifically economic and social issues like crime), and to some extent I suppose it is warranted, but there are also a lot of reasons people came here that are wrong (the mentality of the “other,” the We vs. Them). And Christians followed suit. Enter the whole mega-church nonsense and prosperity gospel junk.
This makes me think about how we have ‘rampant individualism’ because we can. We’re surrounded by such affluence that we don’t really need one another.
I’m critical of it, even though I sometimes take part in it. The church I attend here is lodged in the suburbs, the seminary is in the ‘burbs, and I live in them too. I can’t avoid it because I can’t afford to live down in the city and commute to school. It’s just too far. So I struggle with it a lot.
Many of my young adult friends, myself included, struggle with this. We’re aware of the trade-offs. We want the larger home but we don’t like the commute. We want to be part of this or that church, school, or group, but it’s way over there. I wonder if there are more fundamental questions we need to be asking ourselves before we even consider those options, ie. Where is Jesus in all of this?
It’s just so simple. You just don’t get involved in the messy lives of the poor and the oppressed in you’re locked up in your McMansion and your big SUV. You don’t think about it. Maybe you see the World Vision commercials to sponsor a child and send a few bucks a month to help out, but all that does is satisfy your pride. What about getting your hands dirty? Did Jesus just send money to those who needed help?
The problem of suburbia is so far-reaching that it’s going to be really hard to fix. I’ve found it really helpful to listen to the critiques of non-Christians as well because they realize too that suburbia is a serious threat to culture and community. I certainly don’t have the answers. Where do you even begin? I remember driving through Mississauga frequently when I still lived up there. How do you fix that? Just driving through it made it so obvious to me that it was wrong. But what exactly is it that’s wrong, what do we do to build and create community in a vast spread of urban landscape that was designed to avoid community?
I think this is the heart of the issue. A lot of suburbanites do care about having greater connectivity to their neighbors and to the world, but it seems like the physical and social structures surrounding them makes it so much more difficult. Where do you start?
Jake’s also got a great post on the local church and community here.
* Contact me if you’d like to write any guest blogs on Solar Crash
