Friday, July 24, 2009
Friday, July 10, 2009
Prayer and repetition
Listen carefully from 1:10 - 1:50.
Were the Greeks and Derrida on to something? Are we like Echo in our worship, stringing together the glimpses we have of God into some small response of love for Him?
Blogs
I am a man, in a body, and embodied language is my primary method of communication.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Beach
It's really good. But I miss everything.
I'm reading "A Secular Age" by Charles Taylor.
If anyone loves beaches and visiting, shoot me an email before you leave for Sauble and we'll hang, deal?
This isn't normal for me.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Crammin'
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htwkRYa0gOk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_S-Mijm9gQ&feature=channel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OJNCqkKJbBc
If you've got the time, watch a few of these.
Dunking has become such a huge status symbol. Ask any grade 10 basketball player and they will tell you how much they want to dunk. It's quite the feeling. Success in sports is euphoria - you've beaten the game, you've not cheated but you've completely dominated your opponent (if you really have time, look up some David Beckham free kicks). Sometimes, basketball seems like such a timewaster, but your whole self flourishes - has shalom - and sings praises - when you dunk. I've been doing a lot of leg presses lately.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Ballin'
Understanding sports is tough - it's such a passionate cultural phenomenon, and thus has plenty of potential to be used for Gods glory, but an equal amount of potential to be abused. If you think about it, basketball is just two groups of guys each trying to throw a ball through a hoop more times than the other group can throw the ball through the hoop. And that's fun. That's a game. But as soon as you decide that you want to get the ball through the hoop more than other teams on a consistent basis, against very good competition, basketball becomes a whole lot more than that. I don't know if that is what makes it a sport or not. Maybe someday I'll understand. In the interim, I'll coach as best as I know how.
People say that it's not about whether you win or lose, it's about having fun. Well, I have more fun when I win.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Christmas
There is a rusty and bent bedrail hammered into the ground to mark the northeast corner of my parents' property. Sometimes I stand on a little pile of dirt beside it and listen to the night silence when I get home late. Tonight, as I stood there I thought about what the world would be like if the sun went out - poof. I could survive in my house with the propane in our tank for a week, and eat some of the food we have. But it would be only a little while before the planet was a ball of ice. I was also thinking about the sun, and whether or not it really exists, or if God puts it in the sky every day, along with the stars, nebulae, and other things we humans have seen out there. All we can do to prove their existence is see them with our eyes - and what if our eyes lie? What if it's all a cosmic trick? A sense-experience Imax film played in our brains?
All this existential wandering happened on Christmas Night, which I think is cool, because part of the mystery of Christmas is faith. Are we really supposed to believe that Jesus Christ lived, died, rose, and mattered? On what evidence? The Word of God? It can be shredded by all kinds of criticism. Our own experience? My short 19 years have taught me that my senses are far less reliable than I give them credit for. So what am I doing? Am I a Christian or a fideist?
A Christian. I can't prove it to you, but this Christian story - it's true. God give me strength to live it.
May you meet the living Word this Christmas.
Love, Ben
I removed this from my blog because posting it on Christmas felt so unholy.