Reflections on Ourselves and the World we live in …

the metamorphosis of shedding an old shell can be very painful for others who are watching, and especially us as we transform. it’s not an evaluation of failure on what’s past, but a trading of what has come into focus as incomplete for something better. so, in looking back, it’s all good, but it’s not all God!!

For a compassionate man nothing human is alien: no joy and
no sorrow, no way of living and no way of dying.
This compassion is authority because it does not tolerate
the pressures of the in-group, but breaks through the
boundaries between languages and countries, rich and poor,
educated and illiterate. This compassion pulls people away from
the fearful clique into the large world where they can see
every human face is the face of a neighbor. Thus the authority
of compassion is the possibility of man to forgive his brother,
because forgiveness is only real for him who has discovered the
weakness of his friends and the sins of his enemy in his own
heart.
… Henri J. M. Nouwen (1932-1996), The Wounded Healer:
Ministry in Contemporary Society [1979], New York:
Doubleday, 2013, p. 41

“If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world. If none of my earthy pleasures satisfy it, that does not prove that the universe is a fraud.”

“Yes, all lives do matter. But they only matter when Black lives matter, too.” – Stevie Wonder

“Science is a method,” Rasmussen said. “Just because it comes out in a peer-reviewed journal, that doesn’t mean it’s settled. All studies have their limitations, and the peer review process itself has its limitations.”

— Columbia University virologist Angela Rasmussen.

(https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2020/11/20/inconclusive-results-missing-data-why-experts-are-pushing-back-on-a-study-questioning-masks/)

this was stated in response to a study out of Denmark showing only a 14% difference in likelihood of one catching the covid-19 virus between those wearing a mask and those not wearing a mask, and this result was deemed less than significant.

but the bigger issue here is the acknowledgement that scientific data and conclusions does not deserve the title of final arbiter of truth. many have accepted the rationale that science is irrefutable, but in reality, the current inclination of scientific date may indicate an inclination of truth, while further/future study may totally turn that result away from original conclusions.

why?? because as recognized above, science is a method, and the “results” are our limited conclusions.

“He must increase, but I must decrease.” — John 3:30

I’m reading in Luke, and John has jumped off the pages.

Born of two old people, an only child raised without any brothers or sisters, raised with a tremendous parental generation gap, undoubtedly having both parents die early on, leaving him alone without any immediate family.

And yet he was born with an extra-ordinary beginning, having been announced by the very angel Gabriel, “that stand in the presence of God”! Can you imagine the words that sprung up in Zacharias as he would talk to his special son, telling him of his calling and how it all came about?! Such a mantle to be worn from birth.

And then for his father to die, the one to advise and guide and nurture him. He finally had a son, and one with a preordained mission, a son from the priestly tribe to be a herald, that “shall go before him (the Messiah) in the spirit and power of Elias (Elijah)”. How much more proud could a father be?? But his faith and encouragement was taken early from John, no doubt…

And then for his mother to die, the one who was blessed of God in her barrenness. “Thus hath the Lord dealt with me in the days wherein he looked on me, to take away my reproach among men.” How she must have loved and cherished her most special gift. And how she must have been proud and exhorting of that son for the special honor that had been laid on him. She would, to the end, steadfastly direct him toward his calling with an urgency born out of a deep devotion to her LORD. But her loving presence probably was taken from him early as well …

Where to go? What to do? “And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel.” You know, if you feel like you are in the ‘deserts’, it might not be a bad thing!

“Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar … the word {rhema} of God came unto John the son of Zacharias in the wilderness.” Isn’t that what we’re all waiting for?? That the word of God would come to us?!?

Note that John already had all of the Old Testament, so he already had the written word {logos}!! But that wasn’t what he was waiting and looking for, and desperately in need of!

Note also that his cousin Jesus (the Word made flesh) had not yet come to him, but instead here a different word was given to him, from another source, a ‘rhema’. [Rhema (ῥῆμα in Greek) literally means an “utterance” or “thing said” in Greek. It is a word that signifies the action of utterance — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhema (or vocal of some sort).

i long for the God of creation to speak to me ….

(to be continued)

This has been very helpful to me when i’m questioning whether a particular symptom is especially relevant to a Covid-19 diagnosis.  Hope it helps to put your mind at ease as well.