Wednesday, August 16, 2017

Two more Weekends




Two more weekends!  We are on the marathon to finish a summer full of events such as weddings, wedding anniversaries, birthdays and family reunions.  To make it busier, I have been engaged to play piano and organ at some of these.

Overlaid over all this celebrating was all the world-wide political turmoil, and this reminds me of Jesus' saying, that he will come like a thief in the night while people are busy doing their business, getting married... Even Luther said, in any case, if he knew ahead of time, he would still plant that apple tree, do what he loved.

Nevertheless, as we know, man is like the grass, here today, fresh and green, and gone tomorrow.  I did feel very mortal this summer.  I did lose some sleep worrying over Korea and the new missiles. Fall will come and after seasons or weddings and anniversaries come seasons of funerals and losses.  But please not such a horror as we can imagine.

We've been reading Romans, at home, and it helped me.  One, if Abraham is the father of faith believing that from death can come new life, so can we.  And also, if Christ died for all of us, we can die, too.  We shall, by God's grace, follow in their footsteps, dying and rising.


Image result for Romans letter

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

Discernment

It has happened to me lately, that people who profess to profess Nothing, have written off anyone who believes Something, as "divisive", "stupid", and "full of phobias".

When they have said this to me, directly, to the face, as a confessing Christian/Lutheran, even though I have tried to treat them with consideration and care, have fed them, given them free lessons, helped their children--even though they profess to believe Nothing--I don't think they really have thought about what they are doing to the interpersonal relationship in the community we actually live in.

As Jesus said:  "Father forgive them, they don't know what they are doing."  He said this while they were nailing him to the cross.  I don't think they have really thought about it.

We must note, however, that they have made it very easy for themselves.  They don't know what you believe, don't want to know what you believe, don't want to know the reasons why, don't want to know how these beliefs contrast with others, they only know one thing:  they are better because the confess Nothing.

It is really quite a magic trick.  By a slight of hand you can accuse others of everything and anything, and absolve yourself of everything and anything, even "without" "religion".

I mean, even the famous Dalai Lama, sits and smiles and wishes everyone the best, but condemns monotheistic religions and anyone who has a God with "attributes."

Or the other day, Pope Francis, in the name of global citizenship, critiques all conservative American Protestants and their Roman Catholic supporters.  Somehow, he expects American Roman Catholics to have no political views, all the while he meddles in American affairs by commenting.

Of course, nobody professes Nothing.  The Dalai Lama advocates acquiescence but campaigns for Tibet.  The Pope has his own political ideas, just not in line with a number of conservatives in the world or his curia. The friendly atheist is about as fervent as anyone can come in his non-ideology.  And indeed, he is rarely friendly, by the way, but I don't think he sees it.

It is one thing to accuse someone of some real faults, and there we all should have our ears opened.  We all have major issues.  And as Paul and Jesus point out to us all, there is not one righteous.  (Read the Sermon on the Mount, and also the Letter to the Romans.)  (Not a single one.  Not you.  And not me.)  Fine.  I certainly confess exactly that, that I am not righteous, but only that my Lord is righteous.  But when someone is accused of stupidity, just because he believes Something, we have someone acting as an accuser who would like to be righteous on his own terms.

It does not work, though.  It never has.




Liberal Onslaught on Christianity Continues - Here's the Proof an Anti-Christian Bigotry Map

Saturday, August 5, 2017

Funeral for German Roman Catholic Bishop

Just to mention:  I don't follow Roman Catholic teachers and bishops, but someone sent me these two links to Cardinal Meisner.  They were very interesting and somewhat edifying, but they are in the German language.  In one of them Cardinal Meisner recounts the events of his life under dictatorships and expulsion from Silesia.  Since my father and his family was expelled from Silesia, and many ethnic Germans where I live in Canada have refugee background, this was important to me, touchingly and well told.

Here is the link to the funeral.

Here is the link to the interview and life story telling.

I enjoyed the sermon at the funeral when it focused on adoration of God and how we become important and human to each other when we adore God.  It reminded me of Bonhoeffer's "Life Together", where he shows that we don't live to manipulate each other, but that we are brothers and sisters to each other in Christ, and only in Christ.  Jesus is with us and between us.  All of this made me push harder to have evening devotions with my husband, he and I now being our own little home congregation of two.

In speaking about the expulsion from Silesia, Meisner points out, how many people had to go through heroic efforts to get their families out alive in severe winter weather, traveling the roads and relying on help from strangers.  His group survived intact, but we also know of plenty of tragedies.  These things are hardly treated in the media and history telling, which is unfortunate, he observes.  Yes, spoken like a Silesian.

He also tells stories about being Catholic in East Germany and contrasts his approach to Angela Merkel's. He explains how he was moved to Cologne from Berlin, by the Pope, against his own wishes to remain in Communist Germany to bloom where he is planted, so to speak.  He obviously was a thorn in a few people's sides, but he always considered this a good sign--it meant to him that he was on the right path.

So much about that, but now I have the links here.


Image result for Cardinal Meisner

Friday, August 4, 2017

Dear Blog



Dear Blog:  I have neglected you for three months.  There are a number of reasons for this.  Firstly, the world seems to be going from bad to worse, and I really did not want to write about it since everyone can read about it for themselves, though it does seem that quite a few have their heads in the sand, not bothering with much besides themselves. Nevertheless, there are many things that worry many of us, from North Korea, to Trump, to Trudeau, to transgender-ism pushed on little children, to the persecution of Christians around the world, and so on.  But I want to leave all that alone.  It is a vale of tears, and one day our Lord will sort it all out...  We pray, and vote and discuss where it makes sense to.

The second reason is that we have managed to go on holiday to Germany for the 500th Anniversary of the Reformation. This kept us busy, but I can write some things about that, which could be interesting and which might be fun for me to reflect upon.  I also picked up some cookbooks and maybe I will post some recipes and things I've tried. I have mostly given up on dialectics and discussions, as they have seemed mostly fruitless.  Maybe the men should hash it out among themselves.  Let the fighting-cocks keep going at it forever, and ever.  I have promised myself to stop wasting my time.

I do want to write some things because I am finding that after three months of summer fun, I need to pull some of my thoughts together. We started bullet journal-ling in our home, one for him and one for me, which has helped us tremendously in staying focused and in touch with each other about items for the calendar or shopping, etc. In the back, I write some some thoughts, but mostly, I let some other people write thoughts in it.  This has been fun, but it is not reading and blogging.

I seriously do recommend the bullet journaling to everyone, as we are pulled in so many directions these days, and it can really help you put your mind to things.  Seriously.  My bullet journal is a pink Leuchtturm.  I love the feel of the paper and after all this typing we have been doing since the advent of the internet, I truly adore the feeling of paper between my fingers.  Adore.  The Leuchtturm paper is buttery and luxurious and such a thrill.