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~ Rejecting the gods of our culture since 1998.

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Category Archives: Spirituality

Disbelieving Victims

30 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by braddahr in Discovery, Observations, Rants, recovery, relationships, Spirituality

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Abuse, Church, deception, suvivors

This article is must reading. Then it’s a must stop doing. In this article by Mike published on the blog mikeinsac.com, the author relates tragic stories of how churches tend to disbelieve victims of abuse by pastoral leaders. Please be careful of triggers in this post and in the article at the link.

“The teacher knew she was a mandated reporter, but decided to report it to the school instead of the police. She told one of the vice-principals. He was also a mandated reporter. But he decided to tell the elders of the church about the accusation. They told the Senior Pastor and the investigation was on…

They had not handled it correctly. They should have gone to the police.”

Why are churches slow to believe the survivors of abuse? Why do they often protect abusers?  The author suggests the following reasons. Please read the article for the full details.

  • Familiarity Bias – congregations assume they really know a leader.
  • Over reliance on Personal Experience – the vast majority of people in a church have never known the pastor/principal/worship leader to abuse them.
  • A Theology of Leadership Protection – members feel no compulsion to abstain from criticizing him privately, but as soon as someone brings the criticism into the public eye, everyone becomes his defender.
  • He Who Controls the Microphone, Controls the Direction of the Discussion – When the Senior Pastor is an abuser, he is also the one who controls the narrative…
    Retroactive Reality – church members fear their own spiritual formation is tainted as a result.
  • Doubling Down – It has been proven that once people have taken a position, whether voting for a candidate or choosing a particular story to believe, they are more likely to keep holding onto that story even when evidence suggests they are wrong.
  • Maximum vs. Minimum Harm Concept – most people will choose the path of least harm time and time again.
  • Misapplication of Grace and Sin-Leveling – It is easy to see our own faults and think that we would want people to overlook our mistakes. But abuse is not a mistake.

I encourage you to read the full article and apply what you learn in your faith community. There is a spirit of murder against the women and children of this world and it’s time we start fighting back.

Listen Carefully

He was the principal of the Christian school which met at the church. His dad was the Senior Pastor. He had four years of teacher training and all the obligatory certifications, internships, and education needed. He added a Masters Degree in Theology and another Masters in Educational Administration. He was fully qualified to do the job he was doing.

During the five years he had been principal, his dad’s church had grown from 200 members to almost 1500. In that medium-sized town, the church dwarfed all the others. The main draw for newcomers was the Christian school.

And that’s when the accusations started.

One 8th grade girl told her teacher she wasn’t going to detention any longer. (Note: The school practiced corporal punishment and a very difficult regimen of consequences for even the smallest infractions. Detention often meant at least an hour of menial labor, supervised by a teacher or…

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Hounded

07 Monday May 2018

Posted by braddahr in Observations, Spirituality

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poetry

The Hound of Heaven

I fled Him, down the nights and down the days;
I fled Him, down the arches of the years;
I fled Him, down the labyrinthine ways
Of my own mind; and in the mist of tears
I hid from Him, and under running laughter.
Up vistaed hopes I sped;
And shot, precipitated,
Adown Titanic glooms of chasmèd fears,
From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.
But with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbéd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
They beat—and a Voice beat
More instant than the Feet—
“All things betray thee, who betrayest Me.”

I pleaded, outlaw-wise,
By many a hearted casement, curtained red,
Trellised with intertwining charities;
(For, though I knew His love Who followèd,
Yet was I sore adread
Lest, having Him, I must have naught beside.)
But, if one little casement parted wide,
The gust of His approach would clash it to:
Fear wist not to evade, as Love wist to pursue.
Across the margent of the world I fled,
And troubled the gold gateways of the stars,
Smiting for shelter on their clangèd bars:
Fretted to dulcet jars
And silvern chatter the pale ports o’ the moon.
I said to Dawn: Be sudden—to Eve: Be soon;
With thy young skiey blossoms heap me over
From this tremendous Lover—
Float thy vague veil about me, lest He see!
I tempted all His servitors, but to find
My own betrayal in their constancy,
In faith to Him their fickleness to me,
Their traitorous trueness, and their loyal deceit.
To all swift things for swiftness did I sue;
Clung to the whistling mane of every wind.
But whether they swept, smoothly fleet,
The long savannahs of the blue;
Or whether, Thunder-driven,
They clanged his chariot ’thwart a heaven,
Plashy with flying lightnings round the spurn o’ their feet:—
Fear wist not to evade as Love wist to pursue.
Still with unhurrying chase,
And unperturbéd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,
Came on the following Feet,
And a Voice above their beat—
“Naught shelters thee, who wilt not shelter Me.”

I sought no more that after which I strayed
In face of man or maid;
But still within the little children’s eyes
Seems something, something that replies,
They at least are for me, surely for me!
I turned me to them very wistfully;
But just as their young eyes grew sudden fair
With dawning answers there,
Their angel plucked them from me by the hair.
“Come then, ye other children, Nature’s—share
With me” (said I) “your delicate fellowship;
Let me greet you lip to lip,
Let me twine you with caresses,
Wantoning
With our Lady-Mother’s vagrant tresses,
Banqueting
With her in her wind-walled palace,
Underneath her azured dais,
Quaffing, as your taintless way is,
From a chalice
Lucent-weeping out of the dayspring.”
So it was done:
I in their delicate fellowship was one—
Drew the bolt of Nature’s secrecies.
I knew all the swift importings
On the wilful face of skies;
I knew how the clouds arise
Spuméd of the wild sea-snortings;
All that’s born or dies
Rose and drooped with; made them shapers
Of mine own moods, or wailful or divine;
With them joyed and was bereaven.
I was heavy with the even,
When she lit her glimmering tapers
Round the day’s dead sanctities.
I laughed in the morning’s eyes.
I triumphed and I saddened with all weather,
Heaven and I wept together,
And its sweet tears were salt with mortal mine;
Against the red throb of its sunset-heart
I laid my own to beat,
And share commingling heat;
But not by that, by that, was eased my human smart.
In vain my tears were wet on Heaven’s grey cheek.
For ah! we know not what each other says,
These things and I; in sound I speak—
Their sound is but their stir, they speak by silences.
Nature, poor stepdame, cannot slake my drouth;
Let her, if she would owe me,
Drop yon blue bosom-veil of sky, and show me
The breasts o’ her tenderness:
Never did any milk of hers once bless
My thirsting mouth.
Nigh and nigh draws the chase,
With unperturbèd pace,
Deliberate speed, majestic instancy;
And past those noised Feet
A voice comes yet more fleet—
“Lo! naught contents thee, who content’st not Me.”

Naked I wait Thy love’s uplifted stroke!
My harness piece by piece Thou hast hewn from me,
And smitten me to my knee;
I am defenceless utterly.
I slept, methinks, and woke,
And, slowly gazing, find me stripped in sleep.
In the rash lustihead of my young powers,
I shook the pillaring hours
And pulled my life upon me; grimed with smears,
I stand amid the dust o’ the mounded years—
My mangled youth lies dead beneath the heap.
My days have crackled and gone up in smoke,
Have puffed and burst as sun-starts on a stream.
Yea, faileth now even dream
The dreamer, and the lute the lutanist.
Even the linked fantasies, in whose blossomy twist
I swung the earth a trinket at my wrist,
Are yielding; cords of all too weak account
For earth with heavy griefs so overplussed.
Ah! is Thy love indeed
A weed, albeit an amaranthine weed,
Suffering no flowers except its own to mount?
Ah! must—
Designer infinite!—
Ah! must Thou char the wood ere Thou can’st limn with it?
My freshness spent its wavering shower i’ the dust;
And now my heart is as a broken fount,
Wherein tear-drippings stagnate, spilt down ever
From the dank thoughts that shiver
Upon the sighful branches of my mind.
Such is; what is to be?
The pulp so bitter, how shall taste the rind?
I dimly guess what Time in mists confounds;
Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
From the hid battlements of Eternity;
Those shaken mists a space unsettle, then
Round the half-glimpséd turrets slowly wash again.
But not ere him who summoneth
I first have seen, enwound
With glooming robes purpureal, cypress-crowned;
His name I know, and what his trumpet saith.
Whether man’s heart or life it be which yields
Thee harvest, must Thy harvest-fields
Be dunged with rotten death?

Now of that long pursuit
Comes on at hand the bruit;
That Voice is round me like a bursting sea:
“And is thy earth so marred,
Shattered in shard on shard?
Lo, all things fly thee, for thou fliest Me!
Strange, piteous, futile thing!
Wherefore should any set thee love apart?
Seeing none but I makes much of naught” (He said),
“And human love needs human meriting:
How hast thou merited—
Of all man’s clotted clay the dingiest clot?
Alack, thou knowest not
How little worthy of any love thou art!
Whom wilt thou find to love ignoble thee,
Save Me, save only Me?
All which I took from thee I did but take,
Not for thy harms,
But just that thou might’st seek it in My arms.
All which thy child’s mistake
Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home:
Rise, clasp My hand, and come!”
Halts by me that footfall:
Is my gloom, after all,
Shade of His hand, outstretched caressingly?
“Ah, fondest, blindest, weakest,
I am He Whom thou seekest!
Thou dravest love from thee, who dravest Me.”

Francis Thompson (1859-1907)
http://poetry.elcore.net/HoundOfHeavenInRtT.html

Dare to Compare

26 Monday Feb 2018

Posted by braddahr in Observations, relationships, Spirituality

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Comparison, compassion, Greed, Money, Morality

I stumbled upon this the other day…

Stanford researcher Leon Festinger developed a line of research in social comparison theory. He noted that in different situations we will tend to compare ourselves with people either above or below us, depending on which ladder we’re talking about.

For instance, on morality, we tend to compare ourselves with people we think are below us: mass murderers, drug dealers. On the topic of money, we compare ourselves to people above us, those who have more than we do.

Research shows that a tendency for upward financial comparisons generates increasing amounts of greed and decreasing amounts of compassion.

That reminds me of Richard Cory…

Heart, Mind and Soul

19 Friday Jan 2018

Posted by braddahr in Discovery, Observations, Rants, Spirituality

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Dragon, Hypocrisy, Jesus, Lamb, Love, relationships

In Jesus’ way, loving one’s neighbour includes the care and support of those who hate me, see me as less than, or simply don’t have the same worldview/faith/opinions. Click here if you need to become familiar with this teaching.
Apparently, 45’s latest action is to protect medical workers (presumably those who are of The Way) who want to REFUSE the care and support of those who hate them, see them as less than, or simply don’t have the same worldview/faith/opinions.
Truly, we are watching a nation that is posing as the lamb but has the heart, mind, and soul of the Dragon.

Present Passive Participle

11 Monday Dec 2017

Posted by braddahr in Beginnings, Observations, relationships, Spirituality

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belonging, Father, Good News, Jesus, Love, Redemption, Shame

I like good news. Somebody I want to meet up with actually commits to a plan. A surprise giphy-2cheque (or check for my American friends) that arrives in the mail. Final grades above 90%… or above 65% if I was in trouble and that’s what it took to pass the class.

What’s the last good news you received?

What about good advice? You should… You need to… Why don’t you do… You have to… Good advice can be helpful but it also can be annoying, worse if it’s unsolicited.

I’ve got some good news for you. It’s a bit technical but that’s what makes it so good.

When the apostle Paul wrote his letter to the Christian church in Rome – we’re talking first century AD – he noted the problem we all face:

“…all have sinned and
fall short of the glory of God,”
Romans 3:23

Now you might not buy into the idea of sin* or even God but just hang on for moment. Paul is saying, we’ve all got a past we’re not proud of and even now, as best as we can do, isn’t good enough; it’s all tainted. Even if you only count the last six of the commandments. we’ve all missed the mark at least once if not several times. (Note that the problem runs very deep – the commandment to not kill includes contempt and the one about adultery includes even lusting after (objectifying) another person.) This sin stuff, it’s messy. It unleashes death, killing us slowly from the inside out. Anyway, the point is, this is our continuous state.

But wait, didn’t I say something about good news? That’s not very good news at all. Well, Paul was simply stating the problem so he could tell us about the solution:

“…being justified
as a gift by His grace
through the redemption
which is in Christ Jesus…”
Romans 3:24

That phrase, being justified, is a Present Passive Participle. The what? This is the technical part. Being justified is a continuous expression related to the verb just before it – have sinned and fall short.

Being justified takes care of the past, the present and the future, too.

But what does it mean to be justified?

It’s a legal phrase. It’s one of the metaphors for talking about how God has done everything to reconcile us to his heart. The key is it’s not just simply forgiveness, although that’s included, it’s not a not guilty declaration, or an acquittal.

Because of what Christ Jesus has done, justification means that you and I, despite our past, our regrets, our shame, it’s as we never did the deed.

Why?

So that you can know, without a sliver of doubt, that you have the full love and acceptance of your heavenly Father who created you.

That’s good news.

* Sin has to do with alienation from God, from creation, and from one another. It breaks our relationships, hinders our fellowship, and ruins our stewardship of the earth.

Voice Detection 

04 Monday Sep 2017

Posted by braddahr in Spirituality

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

God, Jesus, Listening, prayer, relationship, Voice

I recently had a conversation about hearing the voice of God. The person was doubtful and scoffed at the idea that God speaks to us and that we can discern it. Can we?

It’s an interesting question because many people believe they hear from God. Personally, I had an experience where I sensed God call me to ministry. It was definitely out of the ordinary and it didn’t feel like I was just talking with myself. In the Bible, there are numerous stories where people hear from God. They seem to be really clear concerning who they are talking with.

My thinking is that, the more time we spend getting to know God, through the Bible and prayer, the more we can recognize his voice when he speaks. The person that I was chatting with scoffed at that, too.

Do you know the musical “Hamilton”? We recently discovered the soundtrack and as we’ve been travelling a lot over the last year, we have listened to the soundtrack several times. My wife is a gifted singer and it’s a treat for me to hear her sing along. I try to keep up.

Then, one day, spending time with our GBs, we watched “Moana.” My wife said, “The composer is ‎the guy who did Hamilton. She meant Lin-Manuel Miranda and of course, I had to check it out to see if she was right and she was!

You see, she knows his voice.

 

I believe from Jesus own words, my experience and other’s testimony, the more time we spend in the Bible, particularly the Gospels, the more we will know his voice.

Want to try it out?

Benefactor

28 Monday Aug 2017

Posted by braddahr in Observations, Spirituality

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Benafactor, Boxing, healing, Jesus, Joe Louis, Max Schmeling, salvation, Sponsor

Lately, I’ve been really enjoying a radio program (aka podcast or Apple Music album) called Under the Influence. It’s about marketing and advertising and there are lots of great stories. In the episode, “Brands In Cars Getting Coffee: Sponsorship Marketing” there was a story about the boxing fights between Max Schmeling and Joe Louis.

The story begins with the 1936 boxing match between Max Schmeling and Joe Louis. Even though Louis was considered invincible, Schmeling knocked out Louis in the 12th round.  This was at the time Hitler was ramping up Germany for war and Schmeling, from Germany, was made an example of Aryan supremacy.  However, Schmeling wasn’t a Nazi and he refused to fire his Jewish manager despite intense pressure.

When it came time for their rematch, tensions were high and it had become more than just a boxing match – it was symbolic of “Germany against America. Nazism against democracy. It was a metaphor for WWII. It was almost as if the fate of the world hung in the balance.”

On the night of June 22nd, 1938, with a packed stadium and millions listening on the radio, the first round bell rang. Louis was devastating in this attack and within 124 seconds, Max Schmeling was defeated! This is a quote from the end of the story:

“In the years after their infamous bout, the tables turned again. A former New York boxing commissioner, turned Coca Cola executive, offered Max Schmeling the post-war Coke franchise in Germany. It would make Schmeling a very rich man.

Champion Joe Louis, on the other hand, slowly went broke. He owed millions to the taxman. His health deteriorated. He was suffering mental issues from the damage he took late in his career. He developed a drug habit.

Through that difficult time, a silent benefactor quietly paid Joe’s medical bills. When Louis died in 1981, the same benefactor paid for Joe’s funeral. That benefactor had underwritten Joe Louis’s final years. He had quietly supported Joe.

That person… was Max Schemling.”

When I heard that story, I thought of Jesus’ love for us. Even though he was the champion, he stepped into this world and was beaten down, bloodied, and killed by those he came to serve and save. And yet, in his defeat he was in victory. Revelation paints a picture of our risen king, returning and laying claim to his dearest treasure – planet earth.

That means we are like Joe Louis. While he had that victory, in reality he was brain damaged, broke, and dying.

This is the beautiful part: Jesus doesn’t forsake us, doesn’t give up on us. He comforts us and takes care of us. He will love us all the way back to his heart.

He is the ultimate benefactor.

Not Without You

07 Monday Aug 2017

Posted by braddahr in Inspiration, relationships, Spirituality

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

belonging, Good News, Jesus, Love, second coming

I recently heard an apparently true story about a man urgently needing to catch a plane home from a business trip. He was desperate to get home because his toddler grandson lay in a coma, the victim of terrible child abuse at the hands of his mom’s live in boyfriend. The little boy wasn’t going to live; he was to be disconnected from life support. After he died, his organs would be donated so others might live. The man wanted to get home to see his grandson one more time.

While he was on the way to the Los Angeles airport, his wife called Southwestern airlines to find the fastest flight home. As she bought the ticket she explained their desperate situation. Unfortunately, her husband ran into delay after delay – a traffic jam on the freeway, a congested airport, delays in security.

When the man finally reached the gate for his flight, he realized he was 15 minutes late, he was sure the plane had left.

An airline employee at the gate approached him and asked his name and if he was the one trying to get home to his grandson. The man confirmed who he was.

Then the man at the gate said:

“Well, I’m the pilot and the plane isn’t going anywhere without me.
And I’m not going anywhere without you.”

That story reminds me of one of my most favourite Bible passages:

“Do not let your hearts be troubled.
You believe in God; believe also in me.
My Father’s house has many rooms;
if that were not so, would I have told you
that I am going there to prepare a place for you?
And if I go and prepare a place for you,
I will come back and take you to be with me
that you also may be where I am.”
(John 14:1-3 New International Version)

Jesus’ promise is loaded with hope, love and acceptance. He is making this promise to his friends who, in just hours while he is in his greatest struggle, will desert him, betray him, deny him. He’s saying, despite all your failures, hang on to me, hang on to me because I want you to be with me. It’s a promise we can personally claim today. Isn’t that pretty outrageous grace?

Because Jesus’ promise can be counted on, we know that he will prepare those places and he will return. The Bible vividly describes this event – Jesus will arrive with all his angels, the dead in Christ will be resurrected, the living in Christ will be transformed and all will be gathered by the angels – he will take us to be with him.

I hear Jesus’ promise echo to you and to me in the pilot’s words:

“I’m the pilot and the angels aren’t going anywhere without me.
And I’m not
going anywhere
without
you.”

 

2 Word Good News

24 Monday Jul 2017

Posted by braddahr in Discovery, Spirituality

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

acceptance, belonging, Good News, personal, relationships

Have you ever really blown it? I mean you did or said something that so damaged a relationship that it still hasn’t recovered? Maybe you messed up so bad you’ve lost your connection in your family or community?

Yeah, me too.

If you are familiar with the apostles in the Good News, you might now about Peter. He was loud and brash; quick to speak and slow to listen. He seems to have been a leader in that he tends to get listed first among Jesus closest friends. Like the other disciples, he was given the ability to heal people and set people free from possession. He preached boldly and hundreds committed their lives to God. Eventually he would be imprisoned for his faith.

And yet, he blew it. Big time.

After Jesus had been captured and his trials had begun, Peter was being questioned about his relationship with Jesus. After denying he knows Jesus a couple times, he gets asked one more time and we’re told, “Then he began to call down curses, and he swore to them, “I don’t know the man!””

Can you picture it? Peter spewing out cuss words and swearing on God’s name (super serious back then) that he doesn’t know his best friend Jesus, who is the Christ, the Son of God. You just know that word of this spread like wildfire among the other apostles. Can you imagine how he felt? Do you remember how you felt when you did something so bad you felt disqualified from everything?

But here’s the thing.

After the cross, on resurrection morning, the women coming to finish embalming Jesus, discover he has risen and they encounter an angel and the story goes like this:

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’” Mark 16:6-7 New International Version (NIV)

At a time when the disciples thought the hope of Jesus had ended in disaster, when they were scattered and afraid, they discover Jesus isn’t dead, the mission is still on, they are called to press forward and stay hopeful.

But did you catch it? The Good News in just two words?

And Peter.

To the one who had blown it, ran scared, and denied his best friend with angry curses, is still welcome at the table, still invited to be a part of the movement, and will still be used to turn the world upside with Good News; the Good News that despite his failures he was still loved and accepted, still valued and worthy.

And so are you.

 

The Love Letter

05 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by braddahr in Discovery, Spirituality

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Bible, commandments, Exodus, God, Jesus, Love, relationship, Testimony

Rules are hard to follow. Sure the ones we directly benefit from are easier to keep but generally we try to bend them here and there. I mean, have you seen what people do at stop signs? Have you noticed that the best motivation is love?

One of the most beautiful parts of the Bible is God’s testimony*, a revelation of his character, what most people call the ten commandments or in other words, rules. People struggle to keep these rules – even those that believe they’re valid. Others, thinking they are hard rules, ignore or undermine them. What we miss is that they’re not rules. This testimony is beautiful because it’s an invitation into a loving relationship. My friend José Sánchez recently shared God’s testimony this way:

Today, my personal love letter to Jesus based on Exodus 20 says:

Jesus, as I meditate on what you did at the cross for me, my heart overwhelms with joy
and love.
1. I can’t imagine living without you!
2. Nothing can replace you!
3. I’ll never take you for granted.
4. I’m looking forward to spending quality time with you.
5. I’ll treat my parents as you treat your Father.
6. I’ll love others as you love me.
7. I’ll love my spouse as you love your church.
8. I’ll be content with the blessings you provide for me.
9. I’ll be just to others as you are with me.
10. I’ll rejoice when I see how you’ve blessed my friends.
Thank you for your love, Jesus. I love you, too.

Isn’t that beautiful?

*Over and over the Bible refers to what we call the ten commandments as God’s testimony. Even the box they were held in was called the ark of the testimony. 

 

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