One of the most inspirational, eye-opening, spirit-raising Easter messages you will ever hear.

Enjoy, be challenged and, God willing, changed. It's only about 22 minutes, so no excuses...


MP3 File

Grace and Peace,
for He is Risen,
Raffi

-"Why do you look for the living among the dead?"

...Oh, yeah. And, just for fun, here's the Easter pie graph.

My 6-year-old daughter was recently mentioning to me that they had been learning about Martin Luther King, Jr. in her 1st grade social studies class. I was curious about how a teacher could communicate the greatness of someone like Dr. King to a group of 6-7 year olds, so I asked her, "So who was Martin Luther King?" She responded, simply, "He was a man who changed the rules." I was expecting to hear a response that I would need to add to, clarify, to get more in-depth upon, to explain to my unusually bright daughter the details. But when I heard her answer, I could only say "That's right, honey."

Q. This week, we marked the birthday of Martin Luther King. He was clearly a religious person who went out there and tried to deal with the hurts and injustices of the world. Are there models -- saints even -- that we can follow? King, Mother Teresa -- people who went out there?

A. Catholics talk about saints, but I don't hear much about them from evangelical Christians.

To me, this is one of the great resources that Roman Catholics bring to all other Christians -- this awareness that, by elevating certain people as heroes, we have some great examples to follow.

It's interesting that you mention both Mother Teresa and Dr. King because they represent to me two very important but very different models. Mother Teresa represents the model of caring for the poor, being with them as they die and, in a very personal and compassionate way, showing the love of God to poor people. Dr. King represents a very different approach, which says that we also have to deal with the unjust systems that keep causing people to suffer.

So I would hate to have Dr. King without Mother Teresa or Mother Teresa without Dr. King. But when we have the two of them, that's a great balance. It's the balance of mercy and justice.

"To become a disciple of Jesus is to accept now that inversion of human distinctions that will sooner or later be forced upon everyone by the irresistible reality of his kingdom."

- Dallas Willard



Join the conspiracy.

Grace and Peace,
Raffi

Remember those SAT analogy questions?

1.) BIRD : NEST as...

(A) dog : doghouse
(B) squirrel : tree
(C) beaver : dam
(D) cat : litter box
(E) book : library

I hated those questions. Though I was young, I knew in my bones that WORDS : ANALOGY as CUCUMBERS : MUSIC.

With that in mind...

Been noticing a lot of chatter on the Heaven/Hell issue lately. Since I'm sitting around with not much to do, I thought I'd throw in my two cents.

HEAT : COLD as LIGHT : DARKNESS.

and

COLD : REALITY as DARKNESS : REALITY as UNICORN : REALITY

That is, "cold" and "darkness" are not actual states of being. They don't, in a sense, exist.

They are states of nothingness.

"Cold" is simply the absence of "Heat," and Heat is simply the energization of lifelessness.

"Darkness" is simply the absence of "Light," and Light is simply the energization of emptiness.

Not everything has an opposite.

Take Love, for instance. You know, agape?

I used to think that the opposite of Love was Hate.

Then I got a little wisdom (a dangerous state), and concluded that the opposite of Love is Fear...that Hate was just a symptom of Fear.

As I've come (slowly and begrudgingly) to view and accept God's creation as complete, as "good," as "very good," I've also come to believe that the opposite of Love is neither Hate nor Fear. They are both symptoms.

Hellish symptoms.

The opposite of Love is Nothingness. Cold. Darkness.

HEAT : NOTHING as LIGHT : NOTHING as LOVE : NOTHING

The more removed I become from reading Genesis literally, the more I'm amazed at it's unexplainable, poetic accuracy.

I mean, think about the paradigm "Let there be..." There was not, and God said "Let there be..." Didn't have to be worded that way. Most other creation myths, if you examine them carefully, have creation occurring out of something else. Genesis? "There was not...Let there be...It (that which became) was good, very good."

To be or not to be? That is the question.

Imagine for a moment what would become of you (the eternal state of your soul, if you will) if you failed to embrace the notion that heat was real and necessary to life, and then lived accordingly. Or light.

There'd be some serious weeping and gnashing of teeth, I'd imagine.

Now then. How would you answer this one?

HEAVEN : HELL as...

...

Grace and Peace,
Raffi

Blog Action Day is an annual event that unites the world's bloggers in posting about the same issue on the same day on their own blogs with the aim of sparking discussion around an issue of global importance.

This year's topic is "Climate Change."

The Blog Action Day website contains a few suggestions for particular types of blogs on how they might address the issue. Some of the suggestions...

* A Technology or Business blog might write about emerging clean tech and how innovative companies might be able to help address the problem of climate change.
* A Health or Lifestyle blog might write about how climate change will affect our children's health and daily living.
* A Nonprofit or Political blog might write about how climate change is deeply connected to many other issues - such as poverty and conflict.
* A Design blog might write about new trends in eco-friendly or sustainable design.
* A Travel blog might write about the places you want to see now before climate change makes them difficult to access or, well, under the sea.

I didn't like any of those angles.

I like George Carlin's take on the issue.

Not always, mind you. There are days when I would violently disagree with George on this one. But sometimes, I think he's really on the right track here. Maybe (and I know this is shocking) the truth lies somewhere in the middle (and probably skewed a bit toward George's perspective).

And, in any event, I didn't think we'd be hearing too many voices coming from this particular angle on Blog Action Day. So in the interests of balance, perspective, humility and, perhaps most importantly, a bit of humor, here's what George Carlin would have said about this year's topic.



Grace and Peace,
Raffi