Some people I know blame all sin on Adam and Eve. They make it sound
like that they suffer just because Adam and Eve fell in the garden. They make it sound like that if not for this curse placed upon them they would have never sinned. I feel this is missing the point and missing something very important about sin.
The very nature of being human is that we fall. We all do. We try and try but on our own we never make it. Everybody is bitten by sin. Everyone is effected. Sin is like a virus in this world. We all suffer. We all hurt. All of our lives are bitten by sin.
Sin is an opportunity to heal. Doctors on the battlefield do not skip over the injured to give vaccines to the healthy. No! They chase down the fallen, the bleeding, the dieing. That is how Jesus was. He searched out the leaper, he hunted for the blind, the crippled, even the DEAD!
He touched them and He said, "You are forgiven. You have been restored!"
If you say that you are without sin you are joking yourself. If you think its just Adam and not your own bloody hands, you are deceived. We are all either hurt, hurting or being healed. We all need Jesus!
Saturday, July 21, 2007
Thursday, July 12, 2007
The Cat
THE CAT
Poem — Ryan Alexander
In April 2004, twenty-eight-year-old Ryan Alexander deployed to Iraq with the U.S. Army's Stryker Brigade Combat Team. (Alexander had served in the U.S. Marine Corps but was honorably discharged in 2001. When Operation Iraqi Freedom began, he volunteered to work with the SBCT as a civilian. The specifics of his job cannot be disclosed.) Alexander wrote the following poem about a cat he encountered soon after he arrived in Mosul.
She came to me skittish, wild.
The way you're meant to be,
surrounded by cruelty.
I did not blame her.
I would do the same.
A pregnant cat, a happy distraction;
some sort of normal thing.
Calico and innocent.
The kittens in her belly said feed me.
And I did.
She crept with careful eye,
Body held low to the dirt,
Snagged a bite,
And carried it just far enough away.
She liked the MREs,
the beef stew, the chicken breast, the barbeque pork,
but she did not like canned sardines.
I do not blame her.
I would do the same.
She came around again and again
finally deciding that I was no threat,
that this big man wasn't so bad.
I was afraid to touch her as the docs warned us.
Iraqi animals were carriers of flesh-eating disease.
I donned a plastic glove and was the first to pet
this wild creature who may be
the one true heart and mind that America
had won over.
After a while I forgot the glove and enjoyed
the tactile softness of short fur,
flesh-eating bacteria be damned.
Her belly swelled for weeks
and she disappeared for some days
until her kittens were safely birthed
in the shallow of a rusted desk
in the ruins that lined the road behind us.
She came around again slim
with afterbirth still matted to her hind legs.
She would return, but not quite as often.
She came to eat and for attention,
but there was nursing to be done.
One day she crept up with a kitten in her mouth.
She dropped it at my foot and stared up at me;
she expected something, but there was nothing I could do.
The young black and white kitten was dead,
its eyes not yet opened.
It looked like some shriveled old wise thing,
completely still, mouth puckered,
small body curled and limp.
She let me take the baby without a fight.
She knew, but seemed unaffected.
She had fetched me a gift,
a lesson,
among the worried nights,
shot nerves from poorly aimed mortar rounds:
Everything dies.
The evil, the innocent,
her baby and
me.
I thought I should say a prayer and bury
this poor little thing,
but I did for it what will be done for me.
I laid it in the burn can amongst the ash
and said I'm sorry.
From NPR 'Operation Homecoming'
Poem — Ryan Alexander
In April 2004, twenty-eight-year-old Ryan Alexander deployed to Iraq with the U.S. Army's Stryker Brigade Combat Team. (Alexander had served in the U.S. Marine Corps but was honorably discharged in 2001. When Operation Iraqi Freedom began, he volunteered to work with the SBCT as a civilian. The specifics of his job cannot be disclosed.) Alexander wrote the following poem about a cat he encountered soon after he arrived in Mosul.
She came to me skittish, wild.
The way you're meant to be,
surrounded by cruelty.
I did not blame her.
I would do the same.
A pregnant cat, a happy distraction;
some sort of normal thing.
Calico and innocent.
The kittens in her belly said feed me.
And I did.
She crept with careful eye,
Body held low to the dirt,
Snagged a bite,
And carried it just far enough away.
She liked the MREs,
the beef stew, the chicken breast, the barbeque pork,
but she did not like canned sardines.
I do not blame her.
I would do the same.
She came around again and again
finally deciding that I was no threat,
that this big man wasn't so bad.
I was afraid to touch her as the docs warned us.
Iraqi animals were carriers of flesh-eating disease.
I donned a plastic glove and was the first to pet
this wild creature who may be
the one true heart and mind that America
had won over.
After a while I forgot the glove and enjoyed
the tactile softness of short fur,
flesh-eating bacteria be damned.
Her belly swelled for weeks
and she disappeared for some days
until her kittens were safely birthed
in the shallow of a rusted desk
in the ruins that lined the road behind us.
She came around again slim
with afterbirth still matted to her hind legs.
She would return, but not quite as often.
She came to eat and for attention,
but there was nursing to be done.
One day she crept up with a kitten in her mouth.
She dropped it at my foot and stared up at me;
she expected something, but there was nothing I could do.
The young black and white kitten was dead,
its eyes not yet opened.
It looked like some shriveled old wise thing,
completely still, mouth puckered,
small body curled and limp.
She let me take the baby without a fight.
She knew, but seemed unaffected.
She had fetched me a gift,
a lesson,
among the worried nights,
shot nerves from poorly aimed mortar rounds:
Everything dies.
The evil, the innocent,
her baby and
me.
I thought I should say a prayer and bury
this poor little thing,
but I did for it what will be done for me.
I laid it in the burn can amongst the ash
and said I'm sorry.
From NPR 'Operation Homecoming'
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Thank God
I thank God that we are...
Just the fact that humanity exists is at all is quite something. The earth exists at the perfect distance from the sun, has the perfect climate and meets our needs. It is a wonder that everything lined up perfectly that our world is hospitalable to us. It is an amazing thing to ponder.
I thank God that we are made...
Perhaps the greatest gift of life is breath, getting a chance to live. We have one life here on this earth and it is such a wonder, so rich with ups and downs, highs and lows, the very daily struggles that make life a miracle.
I thank God that we are made to serve...
We are placed here for a purpose. We aren't just mindless robots. We aren't just animals that go about meeting basic survival needs. We think, we reason, we dream. This great gift drives us towards goals. Make no mistake, we all serve something. OUr endevours work to build something. What a gift it is to work towards a purpose.
I thank God that we are made to serve HIM.
Even though God is big, bigger than the moon, bigger than the sky, bigger than anything we can grasp, He created us and called us to come back to Him and serve Him. He loves us and cares for us, even when we cannot see His hand at work in our lives. We aren't complete until we sacrifice our own lives and give them to his purpose. That is when we truly become alive.
Yes it is a miracle this gift of life. The fact that humanity exists at all is a wonder. But without a purpose, without God's perfect plan, we are just chance, a lucky run of random hapenstance. But with a wonderful creator of everything laying out a map of marvously miracles to place us here, called to the destiny of becoming His children, with a goal and a challenghe to live for, now that is an awesome thing to contemplate.
Thank GOD!
Just the fact that humanity exists is at all is quite something. The earth exists at the perfect distance from the sun, has the perfect climate and meets our needs. It is a wonder that everything lined up perfectly that our world is hospitalable to us. It is an amazing thing to ponder.
I thank God that we are made...
Perhaps the greatest gift of life is breath, getting a chance to live. We have one life here on this earth and it is such a wonder, so rich with ups and downs, highs and lows, the very daily struggles that make life a miracle.
I thank God that we are made to serve...
We are placed here for a purpose. We aren't just mindless robots. We aren't just animals that go about meeting basic survival needs. We think, we reason, we dream. This great gift drives us towards goals. Make no mistake, we all serve something. OUr endevours work to build something. What a gift it is to work towards a purpose.
I thank God that we are made to serve HIM.
Even though God is big, bigger than the moon, bigger than the sky, bigger than anything we can grasp, He created us and called us to come back to Him and serve Him. He loves us and cares for us, even when we cannot see His hand at work in our lives. We aren't complete until we sacrifice our own lives and give them to his purpose. That is when we truly become alive.
Yes it is a miracle this gift of life. The fact that humanity exists at all is a wonder. But without a purpose, without God's perfect plan, we are just chance, a lucky run of random hapenstance. But with a wonderful creator of everything laying out a map of marvously miracles to place us here, called to the destiny of becoming His children, with a goal and a challenghe to live for, now that is an awesome thing to contemplate.
Thank GOD!
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