When in Baton Rouge, one of the elders in our church had leant me a few talks be a speaker named Leonard Sweet. At the time, I enjoyed what he had to say, but had pretty much forgotten his name except for when I happen across a copy of his CD in my old discs. Well, tonight I saw his name on a Google list while querying around for karios/chronos discussions. Clicking over to his site I found a refreshingly interesting set of articles. The talk I heard did no justice to his ideas. As it turns out, he is much more a clever, spot-on thinker than I initially gave him credit for.

The one article that I ended up reading through fully is called "E.P.I.C. Preaching". In it he outlines how he suggests people respond to the paradigm shift from logically based-preaching to a more experientially-based , interactive style. One passage that stood out the most, and there were many that stood out, was where Sweet wrote on connectedness. It stood out to me because I had written a few weeks ago on meaning and connectivity, but Sweet took it in a more practical, hands-on direction. He wrote,

EPIC preaching is not pulpit oratory, it's pew connection and interaction. The "command-and-control" model of pulpit-centric preaching is fading, just as "command-and-control" models of information-sharing are fast disappearing. It's the connections that count. It's the connected that inherit the kingdom. The greater the number and quality of the connections, the greater the caliber and creativity of discipleship. And worship. That's why, in many ways, you can't write an essay on EPIC preaching. Only on EPIC worship. I found this out when I invited cutting-edge preachers from around the globe to address a conference. They wouldn't come without their worship leaders and other members with whom they connect.

This is the second time I've heard this idea of the Pharisaic preaching model being inferior and ineffective compared to Christ's approach recently. All in all, it is clear that connectedness, relationship and meaning are created more than ever now. With meaning from the past having been lost in the past few generations, we are in a place where we are called to create meaning and Sweet outlines a great place to start focusing.

Time is a major concept in modern culture that has been used to deceive people because its radical nature has been lost to most people. More precisely, the belief that time is an unwavering, constant thing which can be counted on as an absolute standard for judgment is wrong. Indeed, part of the flaw of physics, and all modern sciences which rest on empiricism as a solid ground for belief systems outside that of science, is that it treats, or at least until recently treated, time as an infallible measure of reality. For science, the three dimensions of length, depth and width are quantifiable measurements which can be converted into idealized qualities, i.e., numbers. To attempt to do the same thing with the mutable properties of the universe, scientists presumed that time is a fourth dimensions and the transformation of matter in this dimension is an accurate reflection of the changes that occur in physical reality.

With the advent of Einsteinian physics is became clear that the space-time continuum is much less of a fixed medium model the Newtonian mechanistic model aimed to establish but much more a dynamic, instable and highly changing entity. So, with that new foundation, scientists have been trying to draw the unseen conclusions that the leap from Newtonian to Einsteinian physics instantiated. However, it's ironic that these differences have been around as known concepts for millenia. In Scripture, there are two terms for time: kairos and chronos. I want to try and unfold the tremendous depth of these two words and the legacy the difference holds for us today. If people can see how time is touched on in Scripture differently perhaps they can begin to realize how time in their own lives works more effectively.

The first, chronos, actually refers to an ancient Greek myth of Chronos or Aeon (depending on which myth you refer to), the father of time. Now, I am not trying to go down the road of mythology, but, rather to introduce how the words used in Scripture had their own history we are simply unaware of for the most part. At any rate, some good stubs can be found here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronos). Chronos, in this picture, is the personification of unaging time. Now, that is significant because a person who never ages is captured at the same moment in their existence for time immemorial. They have no opportunity to do anything new. They are bound in the moment of their immortality.

In a less favorable light, chronos time, in its usage, is more of the concept of time that moves on without favor or concern for anyone. From it we the get the word for stopwatch (chronometer). And, there's the adage that "times stops for no one". The Greek notion of chronos had a less negative view of chronos time, but, what we have is unfavorable for the most part because it is neither caring nor forgiving, simply moving forward, the unending march of time. There are various references to the role Chronos played in Greek literature and poetry that essentially reveal Chronos is the arbiter of truth and ultimately establishes the will of the gods (their concepts, not mine!).

My take on this is that there is an experience, a mental state, where people can easily get lost in this sense of time. It is really a depressed state, a place where there is no opportunity, no freedom, simply the unwavering progression of events that lead through life: birth, youth, adulthood, elderliness and death. Hope enters into this worldview only as a concept, empowered by the energy the holder of the concept brings to it. In reality, it's a pretty sad, harsh sense of events and gauge for change in life. Albert Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus really echoes the essence of what this mentality leads towards for the soul of man. (More on Camus' essay here.) There is, though not readily apparent in the English concept of time, another notion I want to highlight and whose significance I want to use Scripture to underline.

On the other hand, Karios is, in the Greek myths, the youngest child of Zeus. I think the following snippet summarizes the difference between the two most clearly:

Kairos (καιρός) is an ancient Greek word meaning the "right or opportune moment" . The ancient Greeks had two words for time, chronos and kairos. While the former refers to chronological or sequential time, the latter signifies "a time in between", a moment of undetermined period of time in which "something" special happens. What the special something is depends on who is using the word. While chronos is quantitative, kairos has a qualitative nature.

(Please see Wikipedia for the full reading.) Mythologically, Kairos was the child of favor, the one who had opportunity. In contrast to Kairos, opportunity and favor were not thing Chronos had access to. Therein lies the fundamental difference between the two mythological sense of time. But, let's look at the Scriptural differences.

There are moments when human history and eternity intersect and overlap. This is where God annoints the affairs of men and time is no longer the ordinary passage of day into night and back into day again, but rather the opportune moment when men and women are given permission to partake in God's creative will. History is made in moments such as this. Look at Mark 1:15. This is an instance of kairos in Scripture, when, "He said, "The time has come, and the kingdom of God is near. Change the way you think and act, and believe the Good News."" Prophecy is being fulfilled. The days written about in this verse are seasons when history is no longer just a record of events but the creation of something new, a turning point in history.

On a more personal level, kairos moments occur all the time. Look at Paul. His Damascus road experience was a kairos moment. Any encounter we have with God is kairos, an opportunity to change, to grow, to love. But, what is as important about realizing that we are in a special season (a karios time) is knowing what to do in response to that revelation. Last week my pastor spoke on how revelation and response are two key things that happens with regards to God. In this entry, I am simply touching on the fact that there are moments unlike the normal times in our lives when opportunity presents itself. That is the revelation and we simply need to be made aware of these moments. The other half of the equation is responding to those moments. If we are speaking to someone and the Holy Spirit comes to soften their heart for evangelists to sow the seed or harvest the fruit, one must be close enough to sense God's will in opportune moments. Without great enough intimacy with God to hear him when he speaks, being aware of the opportune times will do no good. Much like blind men who feel the breaking of cold clouds from the warmth of their skin, they still remain blind to see what God does when the seasons change.

Madeline L'Engle wrote in Walking on Water:

Kairos. Real time. God’s time.

That time which breaks through chronos with a shock of joy, that time we do not recognize while we are experiencing it, but only afterwards, because kairos has nothing to do with chronological time. In kairos we are completely unselfconscious, and yet paradoxically far more real than we can ever be when we’re constantly checking our watches for chronological time.

The saint in contemplation, lost to self in the mind of God is in kairos. The artist at work is in kairos. The child at play, totally thrown outside herself in the game, be it building a sand castle or making a daisy chain, is in kairos. In kairos we become what we are called to be as human beings, co-creators with God, touching on the wonder of creation.

Those moments when God breaks through the drudgery of our ordinary experience...that is the essence of kairos...and we as Christians seem lost in the war with time so much that we lose sight of these openings. We have to listen more closely to hear when we are given these timeless, divine appointments.

When first introduced to Plato's Republic it was made clear that real point of the book was justice, not any of the philosophical threads that have been spawned throughout history that are so commonly associated with the work. For a couple of years, I studied his ideas to see what they offered in practical terms, but, aside from the Socratic method, it became clear many of his discussions outlined little more than academic, in the most radical sense of the word, subject matter or pedagogical points of rhetoric. Nonetheless, the whole idea of justice was implanted in my brain in spite of the fact that my first exposure to a conception of justice might be failed to fully convey it.

Years later I was reintroduced to the concept of justice in regards to the Bible via John Paul Jackson's talks on the matter throughout Scripture. My wife's mentor, Valerie, has once told me the biggest thing I needed to focus on as a Christian was righteousness. For a long time I tried to grasp this concept with a pre-fabricated understanding of what justice is. To me, before I cast of my platonic idealism, justice was something demonstrated by Plato's ideas. All I had to do was reconcile the Bible's differences with Plato's and all would be well. It took a long time before I was given the realization that I had it backwards. Plato's ideas were just that, ideas, personal opinions founded on truth. Scripture, however, truly is about justice and righteousness; it's not a philosophical discussion of the matter.

Once this truth became clear it made the effort to reconcile Christianity to Platonism clearly a lost cause. At that point, I dropped the idea and started reading through Scriptures with an open mind, free of my own, half-baked ideas. Once I had let go of my faulty basis for concluded I knew about justice, God has been able to show me a lot about justice and injustice as well as righteousness and unrighteousness. With that experience of having had something so fundamentally wrong uncovered I often wonder if any of my other basic concepts about Scripture and Christianity are also incorrect and ultimately holding me back from a deeper relationship with God. Being a self-doubting soul makes it easy to over-analyze things, but that's where we simply have to trust God is standing next to us all the time, waiting to help us by giving us hints if we really listen and trust him.

As seems to happen so often lately, going to church provided me a large download of tasks. It happens in spurts. For the most part, my assignments have been small. Blog this. Write this email. Read this. However, I find it challenging to try and keep up with all these little activities. Generally, keeping up lately means creating...specifically, writing. Lots of tidbits and thoughts that I find important for recording, possibly rephrased more accurately, as transcribing. In the back of my mind, though, is the notion that the creative spirit I keep hearing mentioned at the few conferences I go to is trying to get a stronger connection with my life. But, I am digressing a bit. It's neat to see God giving me more tasks and focusing me in the arena of my heart, creative works and writing about the things of God.

Today's sermon was about worship. Reviewing the list of podcasts hosted on the church website showed at least one sermon in the past year discussing worship. Yet, today's sermon really connected with me on several levels. Yesterday I received Barbie's monthly newsletter. It had the following word, "Do you sense the stirring in your spirit and restlessness in your soul? You are still in a time of transition as you leave behind the things that no longer have relevance in your life and prepare for the days ahead. This is a time of sorting and sifting, and that which either hinders your progress or has become useless will be set aside or discarded. Be sensitive to the leading of My Spirit, says the Lord, and be willing to release everything that would impede your progress. And when you let go, you will suddenly be aware of a greater spiritual freedom."

That word resonated within me so completely it's hard to communicate how encouraging it was. The past few weeks have been hard for me. Since Kerri and I got married things that I either clung to out of selfishness or fear have slowly been being removed one by one. The biggest was running. Prior to getting married I was running about 110 miles a week with the ambition of becoming a professional long distance runner. Since I was 12 I have been running and marriage marked a real turning point for me. Now, I hardly run at all, for a variety of reasons, but that major draw on my life is now gone. It is no longer relevant like so many other things in my life.

Then, I hear this sermon today talking about worship. For years I have wondered exactly how to worship. I know at times that the Holy Spirit descends and at those moments I am connected with God. That is the heart of worship, honoring God will my fullest attention. But, today's sermon started at a familiar crossroads: John 4:23. One of my friends, and an elder at Baton Rouge Vineyard, Kent, taught a series on the gospel that began with this scripture and went into some heavy messages...things I am still processing and will probably not fully comprehend for some time. (PS: Micah just redid his site and it looks great!) At any rate, I feel like today's message was a call from on high to refocus on this message, "worshipping him in spirit and truth."

Before I even heard Kent's talks, I had tried to apply my spiritual mathetmatics (Simone Weil's coinage, not my own) to Scripture trying to find those meaningful patterns. For instance, Jesus declares "I am the way, the truth and the life." (John 10:7) To the best of my knowledge, no one else has ever declared, "I am the truth." Later on, Jesus also declares, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31-32) Though Jesus clearly stated "I am the truth" after he declared the power of truth, can nonetheless be rewritten as, "Then you will know me [the truth], and I [the truth] will set you free." It is Jesus who sets us free.

But, this type of axiomatic substitution doesn't meaningfully splash across scripture so I don't take it too heavily. For instance, when Jesus says "worship in spirit and truth" he's not talking about worshiping "in spirit and in me [truth]", so that doesn't really fit. Just in this one verse (8:31-32) does it really seem to add a dimension to what was being discussed. Freedom comes through relationship with Jesus, relationship with truth. It was an eye opener to try an substitute one scripture into another and see where it went, but it only worked in a few spots.

Of course, all this rests on the premise that the gospels are considered equivalent in their scope and message. They're not. John is set apart as not being one of the synoptic gospels so I am at times reluctant to base actions on the one gospel of the four that is least like the others. But, at the same time, it has more merit despite it's more deliberate theological content; John was the only gospel writer, as far as I know, to know Jesus personally. Futhermore, he was certainly the only gospel writer who was an Apostle. So, despite its variance from the common message, John's veracity comes to mind more quickly than the others.

Because I had some exposure to different facets of literature than I think lots of folks hearing this message it struck me oddly. In my philosophical readings I ran into a movement that focused on truth as a mathematical topic, one of pure logic. From, I learned, and this is pretty basic grad school fodder, truth is a matter of symbolic language. Words are symbols communicating information. In the case of truth, words communicate the way things really are. Now, going back to my basic word swapping approach, thinking of Jesus as a symbol communicating the way things really are made a lot of sense. If Jesus is the truth, his actions are how truth behaves and his speech is an expression of truth. Now, that is a lot more significant than where I started going with my word substitutions.

Well, Kent talked at length about Jesus' life and works, in particular how we, as modern evangelical Christians, have a tendancy to associate the "word" with the bible and by so doing effectively misrepresent what Jesus was all about. We negate the truth and the power of truth by connecting the wrong acts with the wrong words. This incorrect association bears out in the parallel logic of my little word experiments. If language is the medium through which truth is communicated, would truth exist without the right language connecting to the right meaning? Of course not. Now, if Christ's teachings without Christ are powerless, why do we persist in teaching that the gospel without the works of Christ is meaningful? Christian truth is a manifestion of Jesus Christ's life and spirit. Without this as the basis of our approach to life, Christianity is meaningless and disconnected from what the gospel teaches.

What is truth without language? Nothing. So, what is Christ without the Word? The word here is not the bible, the recorded history of his life and words. It is the living, life-giving spirit that raised him from the dead. Works, wonders and signs are prophetic inheritance we adopted from the Old Testament through Christ and his followers and I see life as a Christian without them as more harmful a reflection on Christ's life than otherwise. We are to worship him in spirit and truth. This calls us to fully focus our lives on God and the life modelled by Jesus in a way to which nothing else can compare. It is from this wholly focused body, soul and spirit that true worship and following of Christ comes. He echoes his own teaching, "Jesus replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.” with these calls. Put God first in every part of your being and worship will occur wherever you are. You will see all creation as God's holy work. You will praise him for all things. It is our divine command. How can we not fully devote ourselves to him without knowing we are living a lie?

Also, it came clear that we can only do this, worship God in spirit and truth, by being completely focused on God. Let me take a real world analogy. Most people have five senses. It is easy to use one of these senses to know something. But, using all five senses gives a tremendous experience of something. Imagine something you can see, taste, touch, smell and hear. Whatever this is will have a powerful connection and provide a tremendous experience. In this case, the five senses overlap to create a very unique absorption in connection with the thing being experienced. It is almost as if nothing else can be experienced when one is so completed focused on this object.

Now, let's get a little less tangible: the soul. Augustine describes the soul as the mind, will and emotions. Much of what God wrestles over throughout scripture is the soul. Bodies can be healed. Souls, however, are not his domain, at least, not something over which he has unlimited control. He could. It is certainly within his right. But, he has chosen to create the dynamic of free will in order to receive true love and worship. Now, with that in mind, we must consider the three parts of the soul like we considered the five senses.

If the mind is focused on God, but the will and emotions are off in pursuit of selfish matters, God is not worshipped by what we do. Likewise, if the emotions are given to God but the mind and will are off on their own, he's still not honored. God is honored most when our mind, will and emotions are all focused on giving him glory. Now, what does that look like? It looks like worship. When we are making thoughtful, passionate choices for the kingdom in spirit and truth, God is going to be glorified. That is the fullest measure of worship the soul can offer. Beyond that is only physical, soul and spirit worship in union. That, when performed for years on end leads to holiness. That is the kind of worshipper God seeks, one who sets aside every part of their lives because they love him so much nothing can come between him and his lovers.

One of my long standing projects and, it seems like lifelong, goals is to explore the spiritual warfare passages from Ephesians. The first few times I read these verse they really stood out to me. Yet, the book only fully opened up for me as I prepared to teach a small study group on the section. One of the elders from my church had shared with me the greatest tool a teacher can use is anything that makes your points practical, concrete and real to the people you're trying to share your ideas with.

Before I could make Paul's writings real, I had to know what they were about to begin with. So, I began studying the book as a whole. What was its context? Where did it fit in the scope of other books? When was it written? What had Paul done prior to being in Ephesus? Why was he in prison? The list went on for quite some time. To be able to put ourselves in Paul's mind we had to be able to first get in the room he was in, in the place in history to peer into what deeper things God was revealing through these verses.

It was with this research that God began to reveal some interesting pieces of revelation about the passage more closely than I had known before. Ephesians is one of three epistles written during Paul's imprisonment. He was being guarded by a member of the Praetorian Guard at all times. This would be much like a member of our modern Secret Service or Central Security Service being with us twenty four, seven. These were the most esteemed and honored of warriors in the Roman Empire. So, Paul had a lot of time to familiarize himself with the Roman soldier.

In fact, I felt led to examine the nature and history of the Roman military to understand what Paul was writing more fully. The verses he penned probably were written in or near the presence of one of these soldiers. He had only to look up or walk outside of his house to see what a warrior looked like. Yet, in the context of his spiritual life, Paul himself understood warfare more so than even this most honored of warriors. Paul himself is not unlike a general writing to his soldiers in the letter. His commands, "be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power", are unlike the words of an ordinary man. He had the ability to speak with supernatural authority. When he spoke, power filled his words and things happened. We often read lightly what he writes in these passages and consider his commands as meaningful writings worth considering when we feel strong and focused as Christians.

In the army orders from a general are not considered, they are obeyed. And, thinking of Paul as a spiritual general of the highest order, how can Christians dismiss what is being said...or more specifically, ordered...without failing to understand the importance of Paul's writings? He speaks not to suggest but rather to empower. As Jesus spoke and supernatural power changed lives, Paul's words are meant to fill the hearer (or reader) with a supernatural call to action. "Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes." Read this and think, Paul had fought every kind of battle a spiritual soldier can fight and has been aided to victory by the Lord. He has been promoted and called by Christ himself. When he says, "Put on the full armor", we are to do it.

This kind of approach to reading this passage has been lost in translation due to generations forgetting the perspective and character of the man writing the letter. We are warriors and God is our shield. Surrounding ourselves with love and warring in that spirit for God's will and justice to be done can do some amazing things. But, remember, we have to be prepared. How many police officers wake up and go to work without Kevlar vests, badges and sidearms? None. How many Christians take the same precautions? Far more than I would care to admit. If we remember that we are in an eternal battle with an enemy whose sole purpose and ambition is to destroy us it's easy to keep focused. But, most people prefer to live in a demilitarized zone. It's just easier.

One particular passage that stood out to me was actually brought to me by Page. One day, while we still lived in Baton Rouge, I had been meditating on these verses. As always she was just being interested in something and grabbed a little blue book of one of our shelves and handed it to me. It was a Catholic book of saints. I thought, hmmm, that's interesting. At that moment, I became curious about whether the angels, Gabriel and Michael, were honored as saints. Sure enough they were. I read Michael's bio and thumbed through the book considering how odd it is that an angel, a created being but not a human, became a saint. What sort of strange theology what was...

Then, another thought occurred to me: in Latin the term for righteousness is virtue. At that moment, it clicked: one of the orders of angels mentioned by several early church fathers was the virtues. Since righteousness is a virtue, we are surrounded by angelic protection by the Lord. The breastplate of righteousness, as mentioned in the Ephesians passage, is, in reality, the presence of God's angelic guard. The language of Ephesians is symbolic, but the link to God's real guardianship is unmistakable. Paul was instructing his charges to daily put on righteousness, a character quality, in order to protect our hearts and our souls. Indeed, what does a breastplate protect most, the torso, but, more specifically, the heart.

As is said throughout scripture, man is wicked all the days of his life. But, through God's grace and mercy we may receive the opportunity to be surrounded by his righteousness. Through obedience to his word and faithfulness to his laws we grow closer to him. Daily putting on righteousness, daily choosing to honor God with everything we do will protect our hearts...for, we will not grow greedy or bitter. Humility and thanksgiving flow from a heart that is surrounded by righteousness. What a great protection Paul wrote of.

I still cannot understand how people light read this passage. Most of the emphasis is placed on the verses that talk about principalities and powers. In reality, the important part of the verses lie in what we are commanded to do. Daily war demands...survival to fulfill our missions demand on learning and adhering to Paul's orders. Find the true meaning of what each piece of armor means and you are ready for the true battles that confront your daily walk. Here's the list of items with the literal meanings:

Belt - truthfulness
Breastplate - righteousness
Shield - faith
Feet - readiness
Helmet - knowledge and certainty of salvation
Sword - Word of God

Those principles-truthfulness, righteousness, faith, readiness, certainty of salvation and strong grip on the Word-cannot be surpassed. Sitting there watching his guard, Paul was modeling his message on a real, tangible example of what excellence in warfare was all about, the Praetorian Guard. But, he was teaching, instructing, what it meant to do battle in love.

I like to try and find analogies between emerging technology and established trends, things which have been entrenched into the fabric of society. Blogging, though not exactly original, is novel in that it allows easy access to writings from anywhere. You don't have to have your notebook or a specific computer to pull a bit you wrote in April 1995 any longer. Hopefully this particular host will stay around long enough for the writing I do now to one day serve as a reflective point...something I can read and say, "I remember when I wrote that." In fact, that's one of the major points I consider when I blog. Sure, I like to get my pie-in-the-sky ideas out of my head, but storing them in a place for posterity's sake makes blogging really interesting. My gravest fear is that the hosting service drops or the databases are lost. I would presume a major service uses high fault tolerant server storage to prevent loss, but it's not always the case that expectations are met. Hopefully they will be in this case.

With that sidetrack in mind, I want to jot down a few little things that happened the past week for reflection later. I did actually create a little database-driven desktop web application for tracking spiritual events because I like to try and identify patterns. Unless you actually record things though, you only have memory to rely on, and that ain't so grand most of the time. Anyhow, about two weeks ago Page was put to bed early for some out-of-bounds activity. She doesn't really like the dark, so she screamed and wailed a bit. Finally, we figured she passed out as she often does. The next morning, she told Kerri that she was scared of the dark and two birds came in and sang to her. Well, Kerri and I immediately knew what that was. It is nice to see our kids learning of the presence of God and his ministering spirits so early in their lives. Perhaps we can usher them into the Kingdom work earlier than we were called by teaching them from the start instead of 25 years into our lives.

Kerri also had some interesting experiences. As always we talked about our dreams on Thursday morning. She told me all she could remember about the one dream was fried chicken. Not much else. Well, as the Lord would have it, one of the pastors at church this morning used a story about fried chicken to relate the tendency of the current church's reluctance or unwillingness to reach out to the world and minister only to itself. I have had a growing dissatisfaction with my own life and its remarkably non-Christian feel lately. For the most part I get too caught up in my head with unspoken mind games, philosophical debates and spiritual musings to stay focused on the great commission and really become guilty of doing nothing to share the gospel. Of course that ties into the other ongoing debate, what exactly am I called to do...but that is another post altogether.

The other instance Kerri had was Friday. When she went in for her 20 week checkup, a woman who had come in before her was watching Kerri play with the kids. As always Kerri did a great job with the kids. Fully armed with books in hard, snacks, drinks, the works, Kerri kept the kids focused and engaged while waiting. After being called to the back and having gathered everything the woman stopped Kerri and gave a huge word of encouragement about how well she handled the kids. Apparently, she had been watching her the whole time. Kerri noted that she also didn't seem to write a single word while waiting almost 30 minutes. A little odd if you ask us...a pregnant woman doing nothing and giving Kerri a nice edifying word out of the blue. The most interesting part is that Kerri had been miserable the night before and talked about how much she needed a break and how drained she was. Seems like the Lord is speaking into those areas of our lives.

Cool stuff going on.

A nice long work day gave me lots of time to think about some different things that seem important in these days. For years I have wondered what worship must have been like for the prophets. They wrote these songs that are amazing insights into the heart and spirit of God. Their songs literally utter freedom and God's will into the world in a new way. Then, as I was thinking about the prophetic voice, I remembered that poetry is often thought of as retelling the old in a new way. Look at most any modern poetry, at least anything that is worth reading, and their themes are perennial, almost timeless echoes of what has come before...put in a new form of expression.

Looking back again at how the prophets sang, they did something very similar. They expressed their awe and appreciation for God's love and majesty in a new way. Indeed, that is one of the things that has always drawn me to the prophetic scriptures, their poetic nature. To avoid getting sidetracked, I'll just point out that realizing we can worship in a similar way helped me breakthrough my own limitations. I'm not a songwriters, and I'm certainly not a poet. Nonetheless, I do have the same heart, a desire to sing to God a new song, to create something new that reflects him.

As I meditated on this circle of thoughts it came to mind that there are no songs that speak of this prophetic praise...at least not many that are popular. I know in my dream interpretation I have learned to begin thinking of things in a new way, a more metaphorical, symbolic manner. Taking this further, putting old scripture into new song could connect with people. In the Old Testament the priest was to sprinkle the holy of holies with blood from his hands. (I'll have to check on the exact protocol to be sure I have the details right.) We don't do this today, seeing as, 1) it's not needed with the new covenant and 2) people are turned off by such practices. However, that is no reason to stop us from worshipping symbolically this way.

In dream interpretation, we are taught to understand that certain things are merely representative in dreams, though there can certainly be times where the dream is literal. For instance, hands are often thought to symbolize relationships. Blood can symbolically considered to be the blood of Christ. So, instead of sprinkling blood on the altar with our hands, we can spread the sanctifying power of Christ through our relationships as a form of modern worship. By applying the symbols to old practices we can identify new ways to worship God. Reaching out and finding these types of new worship is a poetic expression, a prophetic expression I think God would find pleasing and the world would be blessed by.

In philosophy they like to throw around some heavy concepts. One of the more fringe topics I like to read about, at least just to see what people are thinking every now and again, revolves around the concept of embodiment. Essentially, embodiment is a condition of being whereby something is (or is not) required to have a physical being in order to be real. So, for most people, the concept of being a human being requires embodiment. If you have no body, you can't be a human being.

One thing I like to ponder is the nature of personhood with relationship to embodiment. This poses the most interest for me simply because of the Christian paradox of angels. We know angels exist, but they do not always have bodies. Though some do (Abram's visitors) generally angels require no body. Yet, if they have no body at other times, how can we interact with and know them? One of the more challenging ideas materialism faces is the idea that being can have no body and still be a part of our normal universe. If they have no body, how can they affect our world? The obvious answer is they can't, but I think a little less superficial consideration reveals that embodiment is not necessarily a condition for spiritual experiences. Well, if spiritual beings don't have to have a body, how can we get to know them? Isn't that the 50-million dollar question....

Another interesting topic is that of the soul's relationship to embodiment. For instance, if Christians have a relationship with Jesus, what is it? It's easy to get off into mystical contemplation, but when trying to paint by numbers with the Rembrandt of reality we fail to put two and two together. Jesus is still embodied, but he is in the third heaven. The Holy Spirit however can have a body or not at any time if He so chooses and as the Father's will dictates.

Ok, so what? I often have mock conversations with myself about things I might discuss with folks that don't quite see things Christian the same way I do. One thought regarding the issue of Jesus' immaterial relationship with believers pointed to this analogy. Let's say someone has a grandfather they never knew. He did, however, leave tremendous impacts on your life via people that knew him and you. The question is, just because he was not a physical presence in your life...did he not change who you are? I would wager no. In that case, the point that a person need not physically be present in your life to affect it becomes valid. In much the same way, Jesus is not directly, physically in my life, but, he does affect it whether I can see him or not.

And, on another throught...

On a slightly less focused theme, I find myself noticing some interesting symbolism in Scripture. In both the negative path and the positive I find it easy to think of the spiritual body as something akin to an electric body. Now, I'm not trying to superimpose the idea of subtle bodies from theosophy onto Christianity. It's merely a thought I had pass through my brain.

People often talk about their nerves as being on fire. For instance, the talk of hell is that it is an endless fire, a void without God. Now, I know the implications of the reality of hell are much more than what I am alluding to here. But, there is a similarity to the concept of a human spirit removed from the sheath of the human body and that of the spiritual experiences mystics mention. If we cast off this body (become disembodied) the purity (or impurity) of our spirit is directly exposes to the power of God. It's much like a person being hooked up to a 220V outlet. The power flows through the body at a tremendous rate. Only, the holy person feels the power and glory of God while the unrighteous person feels the glory destroying them. It is as if their disembodied spiritual self cannot bear to be in the presence of pure love.

This is very poorly put together, but I felt a need to at least start writing about it.