rereason: Why I'm a Red Letter Christian

rereason: Why I'm a Red Letter Christian







somethings are so good they should get digested twice
said the Holy Cow.

Chew on that for a while.

GREEN EARTH and BLUE SKY

Faith in an Unfolding Creation (Tsunamis and Earthquakes and all)

Despite the impossibility of this living green earth,
And of boundless blue skies so far beyond reach
Somehow we have crawled up onto a long lonely beach
Out of a deeply mysterious River of Water and Blood
And to this day the creation continues to shake and to move
As its destiny is overwhelmed by a powerful flood
Caused (?) by the hand of a ferocious and Invisible Love.















And since the rhymes and reasons are being parsed
By minds far too unsubtle to reveal the sublime
Or what lies hidden beneath this dark, oozing slime,
Men’s hearts ceaselessly break over and under
The unfulfilled longing for a vision holy and beatific
And this breaking causes our souls to yearn for and to ponder
The existence of a calm centre in realms eternally pacific.

As the anguish of this unmet longing refuses to abate
Then the cause of our times in lives, lived and unlived,
Become cleverly, yet most meaninglessly contrived.
In this age when men’s reason is deeply disturbed
It is clear that in such a world full of world-weary hearts
Pretence must be made of appearing unperturbed
By the lack of purpose that our own rules required at the start.

Yet somehow we crawl out of this pool of gore and raging blood,
And we continue to live, and to die in this deep, dark mystery.
We would be more secure in knowledge of the sacred history
Were our answers surer and less vulnerable to being overturned.
But then we would not need to change, to grow and to improve
As we hold onto the faith that Love wins even when spurned.
We must go on in the face of severe mercy and even severer love.













Yes it must be for a real and divine purpose
That this is the way we are asked to live and die.
So let us believe and wrestle, work and try
To act in a way that is genuinely loving and courageous
Because what matters most is the reality of this Holy Love
Lived on Green Earth and below Blue Sky over us.
As we work for it to be known down here as it is above.


LH

Zero Sex Appeal

Apparently evangelists given to unsound doctrines, lavish lifestyles, questionable methods and little integrity currently have no sex appeal.
The discrete profile views on my blog have not increased at all since naming and shaming some Christian (?) rascals in my May 25th (Jim Whittington) post.

The Desparate housewives and other assorted poor role models (Brittany Speers, Christine Agulera, Mariah Carey, Tom Cruise, Desparate Housewives, Rolling Stones, Michael Jackson, Vana White, Anna Nicole-Smith) post gave me over 20 extra viewers on the first evening.


Well I guess it is back to the old drawing board.


(Let's see if Bono brings in a few more fish.)

Gospel According to Bono

Bono and Christianity
Here is an excerpt from a book called Bono in Conversation, the new book of interviews with U2's front man by Michka Assayas. He's implying that religion is the source of many of the world's woes, so wouldn't we do better just to abandon it?


What do you think?

Assayas: Appalling things seem to happen when people become religious at too early an age or when their experience of life is nonexistent. Don't you think?

Bono: Zealots often have no love for the world. They're just getting through it to the next one. It's a favorite topic. It's the old cliché: "Eat s*** now, pie in the sky when you die." But I take Christ at his word: "On Earth as it is in Heaven." As to the first part of your question, in my experience, the older you get, the less chance you have to transform your life, the less open you are to love in a challenging way. You tend towards love that's more comforting and safe.

Assayas: As I told you, I think I am beginning to understand religion because I have started acting and thinking like a father. What do you make of that?

Bono: Yes, I think that's normal. It's a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the Universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma.

Assayas: I haven't heard you talk about that.

Bono: I really believe we've moved out of the realm of Karma into one of Grace.

Assayas: Well, that doesn't make it clearer for me.

Bono: You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It’s clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the Universe. I’m absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that “as you reap, so will you sow” stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff.

Assayas: I’d be interested to hear that.

Bono: That’s between me and God. But I’d be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I’d be in deep s***. It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for Grace. I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiosity.

Assayas: The son of God who takes away the sins of the world. I wish I could believe in that.

Bono: But I love the idea of the Sacrificial Lamb. I love the idea that God says: Look, you cretins, there are certain results to the way we are, to selfishness, and there’s mortality as part of your very sinful nature, and let’s face it, you’re not living a very good life, are you? There are consequences to actions. The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That’s the point. It should keep us humbled… It’s not our own good works that get us through the gates of Heaven.

Assayas: That’s a great idea, no denying it. Such great hope is wonderful, even though it’s close to lunacy , in my view. Christ has his rank among the world’s great thinkers. But Son of God, isn’t that farfetched?

Bono: No, it’s not farfetched to me. Look, the secular response to the Christ story always goes like this: he was a great prophet, obviously a very interesting guy, had a lot to say along the lines of other great prophets, be they Elijah, Muhammad, Buddha, or Confucius. But actually Christ doesn’t allow you that. He doesn’t let you off that hook. Christ says, No. I’m not saying I’m a teacher, don’t call me teacher. I’m not saying I’m a prophet. I’m saying: “I’m the Messiah.” I’m saying: “I am God incarnate.” And people say: No, no, please, just be a prophet. A prophet we can take. You’re a bit eccentric. We’ve had John the Baptist eating locusts and wild honey, we can handle that. But don’t mention the “M” word! Because, you know, we’re gonna have to crucify you. And he goes: No, no, I know you’re expecting me to come back with an army and set you free from these creeps, but actually I am the Messiah. At this point, everyone starts staring at their shoes, and says: Oh, my God, he gonna keep saying this. So what you’re left with is either Christ was who He said He was—the Messiah—or a complete nutcase. I mean, we’re talking nutcase on the level of Charles Manson. This man was like some of the people we’ve been talking about earlier. This man was strapping himself to a bomb, and had King of the Jews” on his head, and was they were putting him up on the Cross, was going: OK, martyrdom, here we go. Bring on the pain! I can take it. I’m not joking here. The idea that the entire course of civilization for over half of the globe could have its fate changed and turned upside-down by a nutcase, for me that’s farfetched…

Me: That's Good Gospel in my books?
I could only wish (and pray) that some of the rascals in the previous post would listen to U2's wonderful spiritual 'One' and repent .

Jim Whittington, Robert Tilton, Peter Popoff, Benny Hinn, Creflo Dollar, Kenneth Copeland, Fred Price,Jessie Duplantis, Jerry Falwell........

Ooopps I did it again.




I am getting a little desparate to add a few new viewers to the site so I have named names again.
Please pardon my blatant name dropping.

The rascals listed above are a few of the people who should join EFCA (Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability) or CCCC (Canadian Council of Christian Charities) . That is if they could get their houses in order so that they would qualify as worthy charities.

Several of these I know to be frauds, men stealers, merchandisers of the gospel and not nice guys. Some, I'm not sure about but wish they would allow their books to be examined so we can know if donated money is being used wisely and for real ministry purposes.

I won't tell you which I think are just rascals and which are crooks in order to protect the innocent (my opinion could be wrong) and to protect me from pesky lawsuits from the not so innocent.

Every good and trustworthy pastor should warn his flock to be wary of ministries that don't belong to a reputable accountability organization. If we could starve the rascals of the money they extort with threats of hellfire and the promise of earthly and heavenly delights they would have to get with the integrity program and turn in their private jets because it is the right thing to do. Or they will have to surrender their private jets and go bareback on the Elmer Gantry sawdust trail because they can't afford them any longer.


Either way,
'Get along little doggies'.








Does this mean I'm going to have to get a job now?

LH

Disabled Christianity

Jeff McNair hosts a wonderful discussion blog called Disabled Christianity.
Disabled Christianity is great name which highlights one of the reasons why we are having trouble re-establishing the church's influence in North American culture. The message of 'sanctified selfishness' has become a substitute for the gospel of 'servant love' and this has rendered us to the status of religiously veneered, money grubbing, status seeking hypocrites in the world's (and God's?) eyes.

Because the disabled (the ones Paul taught us to give greater honour to) are considered too much trouble to be included in our churches and our lives, we have effectively amputated a part of the body of Christ and undermined our claim to be His followers.

Hence

Disabled Christianity.

Jeff is a professor of Special Education at California Baptist University (cbu), and "minister" to individuals with disabilities, and perhaps a prophet, a voice calling in the wilderness asking us to make our paths straight so the Lord of Glory may come in.

Since he may be a prophet you will undoubtedly feel inclined to gnash your teeth and hurl insults and stones in his general direction but please refrain from doing so......at least till you have prayed about what he has to say.

Here is a link to his site and a great example of the clear and challenging thinking that he presents.

disabled Christianity

Please feel free to let me or Professor McNair know what you think of "Inclusion vs non exclusion".

And if you must throw a stone, please wrap it in a note explaining why you and your church have chosen to live without part of the body.

Do Unto Others As Ye Would Have Them Do Unto You.

Enjoy this powerful piece called A Credo for Support.

http://www.normemma.com/credo4web.htm


It is meant to express how people with disabilities would like to be treated but I can say for myself that I wish all people everywhere would treat each other in this manner. It could be a happier world.

A Beautiful Mind A Beautiful Heart A Beautiful Soul (Happy Mothers Day)

Alicia: I need to believe, that something extraordinary is possible.
Nash: I've made the most important discovery of my life. It's only in the mysterious equation of love that any logical reasons can be found. I'm only here tonight because of you. You're the only reason I am... you're all the reasons I am.
Nash: Perhaps it is good to have a beautiful mind, but an even greater gift is to discover a beautiful heart.


Evelyn M. Hambleton G. Leonard Hindle 1954













Jennifer Connelly (Alicia Nash) Russell Crowe (John Nash)




In the academy award winning film, A Beautiful Mind, there is a portrayal of faith that just may be the best Hollywood has ever presented. In my, not so beautiful, mind, this film does a far better job of revealing the meaning of the gospel than 90% of what is presented in Church Services and Christian television programs all over North America every week. The power at the heart of this movie is articulated at the mid point of the film in a dramatic exchange between John and his longsuffering wife, Alicia. Alicia is challenged to her breaking point by John's schizophrenia but when she is asked if she would abandon him she says, more in exasperation than hope, that she would stay because, "I need to believe that something extraordinary is possible". In a nonreligious way she was reflecting every human being's need to hope in the power of love and in the possibility of the miraculous.

I personally have not seen anything that I could classify by the usual definition as a miracle. No amputated limbs restored, no sight regained, no Downs Syndrome reversed, no person with C. P. made free of his binding condition, no bodies of water parted for me to pass through, no lightning streaking from on high to smite mine pesky enemies, no plucking from harms way by an unexpected whirlwind, no raising a loved one from death. But what I have seen that can approach this type of miracle is the faith, love and strength of character revealed in the unheralded life and death of Evelyn Maude Hindle (nee Hambleton).
While growing up on a farm in the Niagara region, my mother was taught to believe all the stories of divine intervention that fill the pages of the Bible. She took this faith so seriously that after graduating from Bible College she went to the wilds of the Manitoulin Island where she helped establish several churches that have continuously preached the full Pentecostal gospel for over five decades. It was during this time, as she was pastoring the church at Tehkummah Ontario, that she met my father, G. Leonard Hindle.
When they met Dad claimed to have had a conversion experience and he maintained this position till a few years after they were married. In all likelihood he had an encounter that was genuine (I can't imagine my mother marrying him otherwise) but the overwhelming darkness of depression swept over my father again and again and no amount of prayer or doctor ordered port wine could alleviate his oppression. In his pain and frustration he became bitter against God and against those who talk so glibly about Him and His wonder working power. My father began making my mother's days extremely difficult. Her life became collateral damage in Dad's war with God.
My mother's faith and her family were everything to her but Dad would not tolerate her serving a God who had been impotent or unwilling to remove the dread darkness of depression in his life. I can't blame him too much because I feel the very same way a great deal of the time (heredity makes me susceptible to the same dark episodes and prayer hasn't changed that), but I might not have been able to forgive his treatment of my mother if it had not been for my mother's persevering love on her deathbed.
In 1993 my mother contracted pancreatic cancer and spent her last days in the Sudbury General Hospital. As she lay dying an awful, lingering death, she eventually fell into a coma. On the night before she left us, she regained consciouness and was able to speak for a few hours. The lady who shared her hospital room told us later how Mom said she was trusting for her healing but that she was ready for death if God called her. Mom shared how much her family meant to her and how she loved each one of us. She told her room mate that after her marriage her family had become her mission field and she tried with all her life to be faithful to that calling. She said she felt assured that her children would die in faith (despite evidence to the contrary at the time) but Mom was deeply concerned about her husband. She was burdened about the soul of the very one who had made her life so difficult, the one who thwarted her spiritual life whenever he could. Her heart went out to the man who forced her to stay up late after he had gone to bed so she could read her bible and pray. She was concerned about the man who would force her to turn off any religious broadcast she listened to, and who would not let her fellowship at her church.
As we were growing up our father would rail against God and faith and repeatedly claimed that all anyone would ever get out of life is six feet of dirt. He told us that we were dogs who die and our lives have no meaning or value. This type of sermon was especially hard for Mom to bear when her children were the congregation sitting under his teaching. Dad's pain drove him to undermine faith wherever it saw it, yet the soul of the man who tormented and taunted her faith was Mom's greatest burden on her deathbed. Her last conversation left her children with an assignment; 'Pray for Dad's soul'. I wanted to honour her request but in my heart I wondered if such an request was too much even to ask of God.
During the next eleven years after her burial my Dad continued spitting nails against the church (I can not blame him because I have seen so many excesses and fraudulent misuses of the gospel that are tolerated and sometimes practiced by Christian leaders).
By the summer of 2002 Dad had left his apartment to go live in the Wikwemikong Seniors Home. He had been in failing health. During one of our visits in the fall of 2003 I showed my father the last music video by Johnny Cash called Hurt. It is a retrospective of Cash's life and it doesn't paper over the suffering he felt and or the times he told God to. 'Stay the Hell Away from me , ya here!' . In the final scenes, his life's full meaning is revealed in pictures of the crucifixion of Jesus and then it shows Johnny Cash slowly and reverently closing the lid on his golden piano as if it were his own coffin.

The symbolism was powerful. My Dad and I were sitting in the lunchroom watching the video on my laptop computer and everyone in the room gathered around to share the moment with us. They seemed genuinely touched by the life story of the man in black. I told Dad that Johnny was a man of faith who believed despite the pain and disappointments of his life. That day Dad was very quiet and respectful. I think he knew that his time was short and that he needed to consider the last things. Perhaps it was then that he began to realize that love is more important than comfort, more important than riches, more important than pride or even death. Perhaps it was more important than having the last word.

My sister Lorna said she thought he was mellower and more thoughtful that winter.

In late January of 2004 Dad fell and broke some ribs. He had been suffering from dizziness and fainting spells for some time and no one could diagnose the cause. The ambulance was called and he was taken to the Little Current Hospital where he quickly developed pneumonia. That was a very stormy snowy winter and the hospital was an eight hours trip north of my home so I waited to hear from my sisters Muriel who came in from Sudbury and Lorna from Elliot Lake to tell me if he was recovering. I was ready to go but I wavered. Dad seemed to have an everlasting hold on this life and I wondered if he would ever leave the planet. Perhaps he would recover and live another decade.

I waited until Sunday morning when I was told Dad couldn't talk anymore and was fading quickly. I knew I couldn't wait any longer. My sister Lorna told Dad that I was coming and he seemed to understand and was relieved to hear that I was on my way. I wanted to say goodbye because, despite his gruffness, I knew he loved his family, it was just that he found his life too difficult, too painful and so he was hard pressed to show much affection or enthusiasm for anybody or anything. When I got about twenty kilometres south of Sudbury my cell phone rang. It was my sisters informing me that Dad had passed away. Since the storms had come in so quickly and often that winter I decided to turn around to get my wife Cathy and daughter Evie so we could all come up for the funeral. I didn't want to be stranded so far from home. As I drove back to London I asked God about Dad's soul. I have to confess that many times in my life, when Dad was most stubborn and I was most frustrated and evil, I had prayed for his death but this day I wished for a moment to hug him and tell him I loved him and that I understood how difficult his life had been. I wanted to assure him that the life that is Life indeed was be about to begin for him. I experienced some regret that I wasn't going to be able to do that but for some reason I felt at peace.

As I traveled and prayed I noticed that a beautiful song was playing on the secular radio station that I was listening to. The song was called 'I Can Only Imagine'. It tells of the emotions of a person who suddenly finds them self in heaven in the presence of God. It was full of beautiful images of love, acceptance, awe, wonder and joy and I began to imagine what Dad might be experiencing as he left this life. I was confident that even though my father had been a vocal opponent of God, his hard exterior would melt in the light of God's immediate presence.

The passage from this life to Life itself, or some may say to nothing, is an interesting one that has intrigued me for years. People have reported very similar near death experiences. These indicate that dying is a process and that the mind and heart are involved to the last instant. In the transition to whatever lies beyond there is usually an encounter with a being of light and love, God (?) Jesus (?) and loved ones who have gone on. In my heart I felt assured that Dad was not so strong or evil that he could resist that last best witness from the spirit of God Himself and I felt that Dad had bowed his knee and been received by grace into whatever lies beyond. A couple of days later just before the funeral my sister Lorna told me that she had heard from Isadore Pheasant and his wife Isabel, two native evangelists from the Wikwemikong Reserve. They had told her that our father had been attending Monday night services at the Seniors home that winter and that two days before he fell and broke his ribs he had confessed his faith and prayed with Isabel to receive Jesus. Before the funeral took place we had learned that Mom's final prayer had been answered.

My mother's enduring faith had been met by my Dad's newfound or resuscitated one and I knew 'that something remarkable can and did happen'. It had been born out of years of pain and bitter disappointment but it had happened. This was the 'something extraordinary' that tells me that the power of love and faithfulness, and the rule of courage and faith are things that endure and win in this world and the next. Just as Alicia Nash's more secular faith in A Beautiful Mind was met with the triumph of her love and was celebrated by John Nash during his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, my mother's heart cry was answered in the reconciliation of God and my father.

My personal assessment is that these things are much better than the sideshow that many evangelists and healing crusaders put on because Alicia Nash's and my mother's lives were real. It wasn't a quick prayer and a miracle that got them back on the road to Hollywood health, wealth and prosperity. It was much more difficult and important and wonderful. The miracle was love in the face of long suffering and many disappointments. It was Christianity lived in the little moments of an everyday life that was terribly difficult and often painful.

My mother's faith was authentic and it has become a wonderful legacy for her chidren.

Eventually this kind of faith may became the victory promised by Christ that overcomes the world.

Let us all pray for the grace to live in such a way that we may be part of that victory.


HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY MOM!
And Dad, did you remember to bring her flowers this year?
Somehow I imagine you did.

But of course for, now..............................................I can only imagine.

LH

Guess Who?

Let me introduce to you:

Cathy, my lovely wife whose boudless energy and love keeps our world from falling apart,

Evie, my wonderfully faithful and longsuffering daughter

Joshua (which being translated means Saviour of his People, and Destroyer of Worlds?)


and me, the Ape Who Was Impossible.

For I know that my Redeemer lives,and at last he will stand upon the earth;

Some scholars believe that Job is the oldest book in the Bible. I'm not sure how current that view is but I do hope this is true because over the years I have developed an affinity for the ideas expressed in this work. It seems fitting that the earliest book should deal most profoundly with the most difficult paradox that all human kind experiences; "The question of evil and innocent suffering."

Job's sufferings, like some of our own, are never explained, yet his story and ours is infused with the promise of good news.
I invite you to experience the
"substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not seen."

"Have pity on me, have pity on me,
O you my friends,for the hand of God has touched me!
Why do you, like God, pursue me?
Why are you not satisfied with my flesh?
"Oh that my words were written!Oh that they were inscribed in a book!
Oh that with an iron pen and leadthey were graven in the rock for ever!
For I know that my Redeemer lives,and at last he will stand upon the earth;
and after my skin has been thus destroyed,
then from my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see on my side,
and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
My heart faints within me!"

Job 19:21-27

Warmest RegardsLen Hindle

How God Answers Prayers

How God Answers Prayers
We may ask for many things, but all we're guaranteed to receive from our petitions is God himself.
By the Reverend Lloyd Prator

The recent study about the effect of prayer on healing has tweaked my long-standing concern about the kind of God that emerges from people's ideas about intercessory prayer. Intercession seems often to suggest a picture of a pretty odd God.
The Episcopal Book of Common Prayer describes God as the one who "knows our necessities before we ask and our ignorance in asking." If this is what we believe, then the needs of the patients being studied are well known to God before they checked into the hospital, received certification from their HMOs, and were divided into the groups who would be prayed for unknowingly, knowingly prayed for, or ignored. So what kind of a God do we have here, anyway? Does this God keep files, one for those being prayed for and one for those desolate folks ignored by the faithful? I suppose this view of God means that some poor person stands before God in desperate need, God checks the intercession file, and announces "Too bad, so sad, not enough prayers came in, so you, friend, are out of luck." Or, do we have a God who is forgetful of his creation and needs prayers to serve as something of a string around the divine finger to remind God to be compassionate?
I would like to think that God does not run the intercessory prayer enterprise like a popularity poll, with those most prayed for gaining the benefits and others neglected. I would find it unsettling for God to need to be reminded of his job. If we are to pray for each other, then we need to consider some more mature and compelling reasons for intercessions.
Intercession reminds us that human life is lived in community. The restoration of health involves people caring for the body, the mind and the human spirit. Chaplain Marek, at the Mayo Clinic offers an interesting explanation for why the people who knew they were prayed for had (slightly) more instances of postoperative complications. Perhaps they neglected their medical care during recovery because they thought that prayer covered all bases. It doesn't. Whenever we pray for the sick at our healing services, at the Episcopal parish where I serve, we always pray for physicians, nurses and all who minister to the suffering, recognizing that we are engaged in common endeavor.

For a Christian, all prayer takes us to the nearer presence of God. In fact, Luke the Evangelist uses just that phrase when he describes the prayer of Cornelius the Centurion in Acts (10:4ff). I like to think of that nearer presence of God like an intimate, special, distinctive place, almost like a room in which I meet more closely the one who created, redeemed and inspires me. When I pray for someone else, that prayer constitutes an invitation into that intimate place. In this way, prayer is an act of intimacy, an act of love, mirrored, perhaps, on the incarnation of God in which God took human flesh to be intimate with us in the most compelling possible way. Intercessory prayer, then, is an act of love.
Intercessory prayer may lead to all manner of good things, but it always leads to relationship with God. Again, Luke talks about asking, searching, and knocking on the door, all images of intercession or petition. Comparing God's generosity to parental generosity, Luke portrays Jesus speaking about our requests of God being answered by God who "gives the holy spirit to those who ask him." (Luke 11:12). We may ask for many things, but the one thing we are guaranteed of getting is God himself. For Christians, there is no realm of life, no human circumstance or condition into which God cannot penetrate by means of the Holy Spirit. Intercessory prayer is a reminder of the permanence of our relationship with God and its power to penetrate all of life.
Intercessory prayer needs to be integrated with the whole of human life. A prayer for healing is meaningless if it only reflects my desire not to have to live without my father's loving presence. A prayer for social justice is equally meaningless unless I am actively concerned with and working for adequate education for all children in our country. The answer to our intercessory prayers may well be a pointed inquiry about what we are doing to bring about the good things for which we pray. Anything less begins to look like an attempt to manipulate the world by means of supernatural trickery.
In rethinking intercessory prayer, Christians should ensure that the picture of God that emerges from our spiritual practices is actually the God in which we believe. Our God calls us to pray for others because such prayer reminds us of the way that the human community should function together. Our prayer for others is a symbol of our intimacy and love for them. Our prayers may or may not be answered in the way we want, but the one thing we always receive is God's presence. Our intercessory prayers should, when they are completed, turn our attention back to the world for which we pray, and compel our service to a world God love enough to die for.



Lloyd Prator is the rector of St. John's Church in New York City, a graduate of the Center for Christian Spirituality at the General Theological Seminary, and a former adjunct instructor at that school.

This piece appeared on Beliefnet.com on May 4, 2006.
http://www.beliefnet.com/story/189/story_18949_1.html

When Theology Crashes with Reality

By Daniel Salinas
More than once theology has crashed with reality as we deal with our ongoing family challenges -- causing faith crises that can easily lead into mortal doubt. When this happens we have three options. First we can toss our theology and faith "out the window" because it does not make any sense; it is simply too painful. Many have followed this deceptive path of "throwing in the towel." Or we can leave our beliefs intact and keep on living, but, as if reality didn’t exist. This spiritual schizophrenia is all too common among believers. "Just rejoice in the Lord, brother, and everything will be all right." But the "less traveled road" is when we struggle to balance our theology with reality -- even when it takes time and tears.
My wife, Gayna, and I have gone through all the three options above at different stages, to different degrees during the last five and a half years. The idea of a loving God who always gives good things to his children has been hard to swallow at times. The constant painful shouts and severe disabilities of our daughter, Karis, have been too big a challenge. Broken dreams and shattered expectations. Daily disillusionment and constant frustrations. A deep sense of powerlessness and total incapacity. All of these things have wounded our faith and our souls in a way that only eternity will heal.

No pat answers

"Job’s friends" have been around us too. People with pat answers and a predictable god. And the pain grows. Rejection and cheap compassion have been by far the most common responses. And one more string of the rope, from which our faith hangs, tears off. The night comes and one more day of weeping is gone. Heaven is closer.
Karis has seen the best and the worst of us. We love her deeply but reject forcefully her condition. And sometimes our reactions have blurred the boundaries. Her total dependence takes away our precious independence. Her lack of words leaves us guessing about her needs and wants. Sometimes we get it wrong. Her twisting body leads us to see the future, trembling with fear.

God’s grace and prayer

Today we wonder how we have made it this far and how much longer we can continue. Is God’s grace the answer? What about the sincere prayers of many people? These are the two elements that have kept us from total despair. We thought we knew what grace meant, but we didn’t. God is way too big to figure out.
Karis is facing yet another surgery in the coming days. Her colon is deformed, enlarged and swollen. This probably accounts for many of her digestive problems. Nobody knows if the procedure will help her. It’s worth a try. But we keep our expectations low. We now know better.
Karis’s condition has moved lots of people to pray. Many of them have never seen her, but to them she is precious. We know that the spiritual support of those godly warriors is crucial. Often we tire of asking God to heal her or to do something to change her when nothing happens. But still -- others keep praying.
Habakkuk’s words sound idealistic and they challenge my faith every day:
"Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vines, though the olive crop fails and the fields produce no food, though there are no sheep in the pen and no cattle in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Savior."
Would this still be true, even if he gives us a wheelchair for life?


From the Latin Evangelist Oct-Dec 1999. http://www.lam.org/

God has a plan that is too mysterious to fathom. Faith is required.

Daniel's daughter Karis has died since this article was published. This too is reality.
May God Bless the Salinas' lives and ministries and the lives and ministries of all those who care for sick, wounded and disabled members of the human family.