prayer wall 
  Originally uploaded by ratterrell

"The Lord is my constant companion.
There is no need that He cannot fulfill.
Whether His course for me points
to the mountain of glorious joy
or to the valley of human suffering,
He is by my side.
He is ever present with me.
He is close beside me
when I tread the dark streets of danger,
and even when I flirt with death itself,
He will not leave me.
When the pain is severe,
He is near to comfort.
When the burden is heavy,
He is there to lean upon.
When depression darkens my soul,
He touches me with eternal joy.
When I feel empty and alone,
He fills the aching vacuum with His power.
My security is in His promise
to be near me always
and in the knowledge
that He will never let me go."

- Leslie Brandt
Psalms Now

That GREAT and DREADFUL Day - Tall Tales from the American Swamp is SOLD OUT for Friday, February 29th and Saturday March 1st.  There is no space for walk ins!

Thanks for all of you how have helped to make this show a success.  We have been able to raise some money to help orphans in Kenya, since 7 out of every 10 dollars is going to this cause.

The next Artist @ the Fountain event will be April 19th, when we host a crew from the Invisible Children and watch a new film entitled Black is for Sunday, the story of the displaced chile of Uganda.

  Lux aeterna 
  Originally uploaded by Stringendo

"The test of whether we have truly found the peace of God will be in how we face the sufferings which befall us.  There are many Christians who bend their knees before the cross of Jesus Christ well enough, but who do nothing but resist and struggle against ever affliction in their own lives.  They believe that they love Christ's cross, but they hate the cross in their own lives.  In reality, therefore, they hate the cross of Jesus Christ as well: in reality, they are despisers of the cross, who for their part, seek to flee the cross by whatever means they can.  Whoever regards suffering and trouble in their own life as something wholly hostile, wholly evil, can know by this that they have not yet found peace with God at all.  Actually, they have only sought peace with the world, thinking perhaps that they could cope with themselves and all their questions with the cross of Jesus Christ; in other words, that they could find inner peace of mind.  Thus, they needed the cross but did not love it.  They sought peace for their own sake.  When sufferings come, however, this peace quickly disappears.  It was no peace with God because they hated the sufferings God sends... Whoever loves the cross of Jesus Christ, whoever has found peace in him, they begin to love even the sufferings in their life, and in the end, they will be able to say with Scripture, "We also rejoice in our sufferings." - Dietrich Bonhoeffer

  nyc poster 
  Originally uploaded by dream awakener

I have found that many who visit this blog on a regular basis enjoy learning more about the other people who visit this blog site.  So I try and give a monthly report of the 50 top cities that have visited this blog in the past month.  So here are the top cities for February of 2008.

TOP 50 CITIES VISITING THIS BLOG LAST MONTH

1.  Los Angeles, CA
2.  Tempe, AZ
3.  Richmond, VA
4.  Chicago, IL
5.  New York, NY
6.  Boston, MA
7.  Atlanta, GA
8.  Philadelphia, PA
9.  Irvine, CA
10. London, England
11. Fayetteville, NC
12. Mt. Laurel, NJ
13. San Francisco, CA
14. Washington, D.C.
15. Edmonton, Canada
16. Austin, TX
17. Herndon, VA
18. Plano, TX
19. Amsterdam, Netherlands
20. Everett, WA
21. Columbia, MO
22. Vancouver, Canada
23. San Jose, CA
24. Rochester, NY
25. Denver, CO
26. St. Louis, MO
27. Dallas, TX
28. San Diego, CA
29. Sydney, Australia
30. Calgary, Canada
31. Brooklyn, NY
32. Toronto, Canada
33. Bronx, NY
34. Redmond, WA
35. Canberra, Australia
36. Overland Park, KS
37. Columbus, OH
38. Ann Arbor, MI
39. Seattle, WA
40. Madison, WI
41. Miami, FL
42. Pasadena, CA
43. Hong Kong
44. Cheyenne, WY
45. Bethpage, NY
46. Portland, OR
47. Troy, MI
48. Tulsa, OK
49. Milwaukee, WI
50. Grass Valley, CA

SUMMARY
There are seven California cities in the top 50 and five from New York. London was in the top ten while Canada and Australia had four and two cities respectively. Amsterdam came in at number 19, while Hong Kong came in at number 43.  There were eight cities that were outside the United States in the top 50 and 22 different states that had a city represented in the top 50 this past month. 

"A cheerful heart is good medicine."  Proverbs 17:22 NLT

KARATE BABY

Introduction
We are broken people living in a broken world, so how should we pursue a sense of wholeness?  How do we find healing? What are we being healed for?  How does our sense of calling in life connect with our ability to find wholeness?  These are a couple of the themes that are addressed in Patch Adams and Good Will Hunting.

Plot Summary of Patch Adams

We meet Hunter Adams in the Psychiatric Institution, where he admits himself after attempting to take his life.  He goes to find healing from the doctors, but instead finds healing through the patients.  He finds healing as he helps the patients, thus earning the nickname “Patch.”  Arthur Mendelson asks Patch a question that sticks with him through the film, “How many fingers do you see?”  Through this question, Arthur helps Patch to focus beyond the problem in order to find solutions.  One of the keys to healing is looking at life from a different perspective.

Two years later Patch finds himself at a Medical Institution to get trained to be a doctor.  While Dean Wilcott and the institution want to “train the humanity” out of the students and make them Doctors, Patch Adams sees a need to bring humanity back into the healing process.  This sets up a major conflict between the institutional way of treating diseases to the Patch Adams way of bringing healing.

In the end, Patch realizes he needs to create a space outside of the institution, in order to bring a sense of healing to people.  As he takes this journey, he is able to dodge the arrows of the institution and endure the loss of the love of his life, because he realizes that wholeness comes when we are willing to lose our life by helping others.

Plot Summary of Good Will Hunting

Will Hunting lives in the tough part of South Boston with his buddies and works as a janitor at M.I.T..  He can solve math problems better than the M.I.T. professors, but has difficulty working through the issues of his own life.

Will is a genius when it comes to book knowledge, but an infant when it comes to understanding himself.  While he can speak about economics, science, history and art better than most people on the planet, he finds himself getting in fights, stealing cars and incapable of building a meaningful relationship with a woman.

He avoids a jail sentence by taking the invitation to work with Professor Lambeau and making a commitment to meet with a therapist.  Sean, the fifth therapist, helps Will to understand that there is much more to life than just book knowledge, and that the way to wholeness is by living, by experiencing, and by making commitments to imperfect people. 

Professor Lambeau wants Will to start thinking about the future and use his gifts to become successful.  Yet Sean, his therapist, wants Will to honestly face his past and find healing first.  As Will honestly works through his past and becomes more whole, he is able to take the risk to follow his heart, and leave his friends and a successful career to explore what it means to follow his passions and pursue life with a soul mate.

In part II I will take a look that the themes and issues these films bring up, and then in part III look at the insights the modernity and postmodernity make on these two films.

  Scenic* 
  Originally uploaded by imapix

As we continue our series on developing a rhythm of life, let us remember what a rhythm or rule of life is all about.  Marjorie Thompson in Soul Feast puts it this way, "A rule of life is a patter of spiritual disciplines that provides structure and direction for growth in holiness.  When we speak of patterns in our life, we mean attitudes, behaviors, or elements that are routine, repeated, regular.  Indeed, the Latin term for 'rule' is regula, from which our words regular and regulate derive."

We are developing a rhythm of life in the categories that Debra Farrington gives us in her book Living Faith Day by Day.  We have look at the area of God, prayer, and work, now we will look at the area of study.

"Study is not done for mere curiosity for learning but because wisely ordered reading endows the mind with greater steadiness and serves as a basis for the contemplation of God in His Word." - Monks in Bethlehem

"Unless we grasp truth that is both a labor of love and a spiritual discicpline, we are likely to neglect study.  We should therefore support one another in regularly setting aside time for reading..."  - The Rule of the Society of St. John the Evangelist

"In the morning... after the prayers are finished they shall not return right away to their cells, but they shall discuss among themselves the instruction they heard from their housemates." - The Rule of Pachomius

"Our pursuit of knowledge is an expression of love for God's world and the riches of revelation.  As we bring our gifts of imagination and intellect to maturity we are able to glorify God more and more.  - The Rule of the Society of John the Evangelist

Here is my rhythm of life in the area of study for this coming year.  As you read through this, take some time to consider your rhythm of life in the area of study.

Study

• Read everyday and take time to share what I learn with others through my personal interactions and my blog

• Prepare well for each time that I preach, studying the scripture, books as well as surfing the internet

• Engage in group lectio divina during staff meetings and other settings as a way to meditate on the scripture

• Always be ready to learn from others, by asking good questions and listening well

• Take time to study both God’s creation and the city through taking photographs, walking and biking in the city, beach, mountains and desert, talking with people, as well as reading about creation and the city

• Read A Year with Dietrich Bonhoeffer as well as a little from Henri Nouwen each day, and record the best thoughts on my blog

• Become more aware of the Benedictine, Fransician and Ignatius religious orders and way of life

The next area we will look at in this series is community.

  Sepia* 
  Originally uploaded by imapix

Lord, God, Our Father,

We thank you that here with each other we can call on you and listen to you.  Before you, we are all equal.  You know that life, thoughts, path, and heart of each of us, down to the smallest and most hidden detail, and before your eyes none is righteous, no, not one.  But you have not forgotten or rejected, or condemned a single one of us.  Quite the opposite: you love each one of us; you know what we need, will grant it to us, will look at nothing but the empty hands that we stretch out to you, in order that they might be filled - not sparingly, but richly.  In the suffering and death of Jesus, your dear Son, you were gracious and exceedingly helpful when you took our place, you took our darkness and laments on yourself, and you have made us free to come to your light and rejoice as your children.

In his name, we ask that you now give each of us something of your good Holy Spirit, so that in this hour we may understand you, ourselves, and each other a little better, and that thereby we may be quickened and encouraged to take a step forward along the path that you have set for all of us, whether we know it or not - both then, as Jesus, hanging on the cross, bowed his head and died, and from all eternity. Amen.

From Fifty Prayers by Karl Barth

  one world, one Flickr 
  Originally uploaded by ie-fotografie

If you haven't had the chance to read Scot McKnight's article entitled The 8 Marks of a Robust Gospel - reviving forgotten chapters in the story of redemption, I would encourage you to take a moment and read it.  My friend Scot McKnight at the Jesus Creed reminds us how a world with big problems is in need of a large an full-bodied gospel.

The article begins like this:

"Our problems are not small. The most cursory glance at the newspaper will remind us of global crises like AIDS, local catastrophes of senseless violence, family failures, ecological threats, and church skirmishes. These problems resist easy solutions. They are robust—powerful, pervasive, and systemic.

Do we have a gospel big enough for these problems? Do we have the confidence to declare that these robust problems, all of which begin with sin against God and then creep into the world like cancer, have been conquered by a robust gospel? When I read the Gospels, I see a Lion of Judah who roared with a kingdom gospel that challenged both Israel's and Rome's mighty men, gathered up the sick and dying and made them whole, and united the purity-obsessed "clean" and the shame-laden "unclean" around one table. When I read the apostle Paul, I see a man who carried a gospel that he believed could save as well as unite Gentiles and barbarians with Abraham's sacred descendants. I do not think their gospel was too small."

Highlights of the 8 Marks
     1. The robust gospel is a story - with a beginning, a problem and a lengthy history.  To preach the  gospel and to believe the gospel is to offer and enter into a story.

     2. The robust gospel places transactions in the context of persons - the gospel is more than the transactions of imputation it is also personal.

     3.  The robust gospel deals with a robust problem - the problem is both personal and cosmic in nature, and so it the gospel.

     4.  A robust gospel has a grand vision - while the little gospel promises personal salvation and eternal life, the robust gospel doesn't stop there, it also promises a new society and a new creation.

     5.  A robust gospel includes the life of Jesus as well as his resurrection, and the gift of the Spirit alongside Good Friday - If our only problem is individual guilt, the solution can be reduced to Good Friday. But as we acknowledge our problem in its true biblical proportions, we need more than Good Friday: we need Christmas as Incarnation, Good Friday as Substitution and Paradigm and the stripping of systemic powers from their illegitimate thrones, Easter as New Creation, and Pentecost as Empowerment.

     6.  A robust gospel demands not only faith but everything - the biblical view of the gospel is a view of faith that involves trust, surrender, commitment and obedience.

     7.  A robust gospel includes the robust Spirit of God - the gospel is animated b God's powerful Spirit, and its result is Spirit-empowerment for new living.

     8.  A robust gospel emerges from and leads others to the church - the gospels intent, in facts its substance, is the creation of God's new society with Jesus on the throne.

"A cheerful heart is good medicine."  Proverbs 17:22 NLT

Cartoon by Dan Reynolds

In this series we are taking a look at brokenness and healing through Patch Adams and Good Will Hunting.  In part one, I just gave an overview of these films.  In today's post, I want to take a look at the themes and issues that these movies engage with. 

THEMES AND ISSUES

Both of these films deal with brokenness and healing.  In Patch Adams, Patch first discovers brokenness in himself and then brokenness in the institutions that are supposed to bring about healing.  In Good Will Hunting, we are shown the brokenness of Will long before he is willing to see this brokenness in himself.  We learn through these films that when we are honest with what is broken, we can better find our way to healing.

When it comes to bringing about healing, both of these films display conflict in regard to the best way to bring about wholeness.   They look to answer the question:  how does real healing come about?  In Patch Adams, the conflict is between the institutional way of bringing about healing and the Patch Adams way.  The institution tries to bring healing by creating the perfect doctors who through their objective knowledge, superiority and focus on the disease, can bring about healing.  On the other hand, Patch seeks to bring about healing through the mind and heart, subjective relationships, meeting people where they are at and treating the patient, not just the disease.  In Good Will Hunting, Will thinks that healing can happen through avoidance and book knowledge and Professor Lambeau believes healing can happen by becoming successful in the world’s eyes, while Psychiatrist Sean Maguire recognizes that the way to healing is to face the past honestly, for then one can move toward wholeness and more clearly see what the future holds.

Both of these films reflect on what it means to discover and live out our calling with a sense of passion, despite being pushed and pulled by institutional forces or people. In Patch Adams, we learn that we find our calling when we discover how we can truly help people. Patch learns to live out his calling, despite the institution’s training that tried to choke the life out of him.  In Good Will Hunting, we learn that some people in the world desire to shape our calling through manipulation according to their own personal dreams (what Professor Lambeau was trying to do with Will), while others help us to find our calling through self discovery and healing (what Sean did with Will).  Will found his sense of calling and passion near the end as he decided to go to California to seek his soul mate.

In the next post in this series, I will talk about the insights we gain into Modern/Postmodern Culture from these two films.   

  Scenic* 
  Originally uploaded by imapix

One of the areas we need to develop a rule or rhythm of life in is the area of community.  One of my favorite quotes about our need for community comes from the pen of C.S. Lewis when he says, ""To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it up carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket - safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable... The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers... of love is hell."

"I consider that life passed in company with a number of persons in the same habitation is more advantageous [than solitary living]. - The Long Rules of St. Basil

"You will find a source of wisdom and spiritual joy in the feasts of the Church.  The year is crowned with the signs of God's goodness.  If you celebrate these feasts with the Church then your own life and suffering, your enthusiasm and work, your  dying and rising and your waiting for the Lord will receive significance and impact." - Rule for a New Brother

"Christ, the Word made flesh, gives himself to us visibly in the Sacrament.  Therefore nourish yourself with the meal of thanksgiving, the Holy Communion, and do not forget that it is offered to the sick of the People of God.  It is there for you who are always weak and infirm." - The Rule of Taize

"The advice of a devout sage is a great asset...No matter how much you esteem your strength of will, place yourself under the direction of another." - The Rule of Comgall

Here is my rhythm of life in the area of spiritual community for this coming year.  As you read through this, take some time to consider your rhythm of life in the area of community.

SPIRITUAL COMMUNITY

• Worship regularly with my spiritual community at Kairos Hollywood, taking the time to focus on God, remember and reenact the story of God through the Christian calendar, as well as partake of the Eucharist weekly

• Practice the craft of what it means to embody the ministry of reconciliation

• Have regular meaningful connection with my fellow leaders in the church for support, confession as well as oversight of the church

• Make at least one connection a week with my various spiritual advisors

• Meet at least quarterly with a pastors support group outside of my local church

• Take time each week to spend with people who refresh me

The next area we will look at deals with our body.  Stay tuned.

We are broken people living in a broken who desire to experience healing in wholeness.  We are exploring this through two films.  In part one we looked at the plot summary of Patch Adams and Good Will Hunting.  In part two we looked at some themes and issues that the films especially related to brokenness and healing. Now I would like to take a look at insights into modern/postmodern culture through these films.  Today I want to look at Patch Adam.

PATCH ADAMS
In Patch Adams, the difference between modernity and postmodernity is displayed most concretely in the conflict between the institutional way to health (modernity) and the Patch Adams way to health (postmodernity).  The institution, best embodied in Dean Walcott, thinks that all the patients need are experts filled with the right kind of knowledge.  Dean Walcott feels that doctors need to remain distant from the patients in order to keep a sense of objectivity. In one of his showdowns with Patch, he says, “What you want is for us to get down there on the same level as our patients, to destroy objectivity, all to uphold some idealistic buddy system…” At another showdown, he tells Patch that people don’t need entertainers and friends, they need doctors.   

Patch, on the other hand, thinks it is important to connect with people personally, to call them by their name, not just their disease, and to bring a little joy and laughter to their lives.  He considers distance to be the problem, not the solution.  For him, heart knowledge is just as important as head knowledge, and it seems that his way catches on. For his roommate Mitch finally realizes that his rigorous studies can’t make his patient eat when she needs to eat.  He has to call in Patch to personally connect with her for healing to take place.

  Sepia* 
  Originally uploaded by imapix

Lord our God,

We are gathered here on this day to consider how you have carried out your good, firm will for the world and for all of us, by allowing our Lord Jesus Christ, your dear Son, to be captured that we might be free; to be found that we might rejoice; and to be given over to death that we might live forever.

Under our own power, we could only be lost.  And we have not deserved such a rescue - no, not one of us.  but in the inconceivable greatness of your mercy, you have shared in our sin and our poverty, in order to do such a great thing for us.  How else could we thank you but to grasp, take up, and acknowledge this great thing?  How else should this happen, but that the same living Savior who suffered for us, was crucified, died, was buried, and was also raised up, should now come into our midst, speak to our hearts and minds, open us to live by it and by it alone.

So we ask you in all humility, but also in all confidence, that this happen in the power of your Holy Spirit.  Amen.

From Fifty Prayers.

  Students Help Others 
  Originally uploaded by Old Shoe Woman

"The Bible is there to enable God's people to be equipped to do God's work in God's world, not to give them an excuse to sit back smugly, knowing they possess all God's truth." - N.T. Wright

So I am working hard this week, as this is finals week for me at Fuller.  I am reading and writing like a mad man.  I am not only writing for classes these days, but over a month ago I was commissioned by someone to do some writing for their denomination.  He had read some of the things I wrote and thought that it should have a wider reading.  It is going to be six little books dealing with the equippers in Ephesians chapter four.  (I should note that these are a series of workbooks, so they will have that kind of style) The first book is an overview and the other five books will deal with each of the equippers.  Today my friend sent me a copy of the covers to get my opinion.  And now I am posting them here to get your feedback.  Let me know what you think. Keep in mind this particular set is for a particular audience that my friend knows well.  If I were decide to in the future to put this all in one book it may take a very different form.  So now you have a little sense of the audience and work. You have a couple of days to give feedback.  I will be sharing with him my feedback this coming Monday.  I'm not personally attached to anything so be honest. Thanks for your help.  Click the image for a larger view.

  Measured Response 
  Originally uploaded by Steve Stone

How do you measure success in what you are doing?  Too often our measurements of success are dictated by the business culture around us in terms of the "bottom line."  Joseph Myers contends that story is a better measurement of life because it opens wide the multiple ways we can measure success.  With that in mind, check out this quote:

"The quality of our experience is not measured by the seconds on the clock, but by the timelessness of our experience. We fool ourselves if we ask how long it will take before we know who we are, become conscious, identify with our purpose, or remember our own history in a more forgiving way.

The things that matter to us are measured by depth.  Would you assess your humanity by its pace?  When I view myself as a time-sensitive product, valued for what I produce, then I have made depth, extended thought, and the inward journey marginal indulgences."  - Peter Block, The Answer to How is Yes

We are broken people living in a broken who desire to experience
healing in wholeness.  We are exploring this through two films.  In part one we looked at the plot summary of Patch Adams and Good Will Hunting.  In part two we
looked at some themes and issues that the films especially related to
brokenness and healing. Now I would like to take a look at insights
into modern/postmodern culture through these films. In my last entry we took at look at Patch Adams, today we will look at Good Will Hunting.   

GOOD WILL HUNTING
One of the ways that I see the contrast of modernity and postmodernity in Good Will Hunting is through the life of Will Hunting.  Will in some ways is the perfect product of modernity.  He is a genius filled with all kinds of knowledge.  He is machine-like in his ability to learn and regurgitate book knowledge.  Yet in all of his book knowledge, he remains isolated in his hurt – radical individualism (modernity).   When Sean meets with him, he confronts him on this.  One of the most amazing scenes is the second time they get together, when Sean talks about the difference between book knowledge and life experience.  Here is just the beginning of that scene, “If I asked you about art, you’d probably give me the skinny on every art book written.  Michelangelo, you know a lot about him, life work, political ambitions, him and the Pope, sexual orientation, the whole works, right?  I bet you can’t tell me what it smells like in the Sistine chapel.  You’ve never actually stood there and looked up at that beautiful ceiling and seen that…”  Throughout the movie Sean, in his therapy sessions, not only helped Will to honestly face his past, but he helped him to move from radical individualism (modernity) toward relational selfhood (postmodernity).

  The Fool on the Hill - The Beatles 
  Originally uploaded by Gunnsi

"A cheerful heart is good medicine."  Proverbs 17:22 NLT

How do you respond to people who attack you?

I remember the story about the famous evangelist D.L. Moody.  He is the founder of Moody Bible Institute up in Chicago and was the Billy Graham of his day.  One night when he was about to start the final service in one of his campaigns an usher ran up to him and handed him an envelope.  Moody assumed it was some sort of notice and held up his hand for silence.  He opened the envelope and took out a sheet of paper.  The word “fool” was written on it. 

Moody looked at his attentive audience and said, “This is the most unusual thing I have seen.  I have just been handed a message which consists of but one word – the word is “fool.”  I repeat this is most unusual.  I have often heard of those who have written letters and forgotten to sign their names, but this is the first time I have ever heard of anyone who signed his name and forgot to write the letter.”  Moody understood how to deal with people who tried to attack him.  Proverbs 26:5 says, "Answer fools according to their folly, or they will be wise in their own eyes."  Of course Proverbs 26:4 reminds us that there are also times that we shouldn't answer a fool according to their folly, lest we be like them.