Kari's recovery has been painstakingly slow.  But there HAS been progress. One HUGE development has been the 88+ hours that Kari has been able to remain off of the respirator!  Aaron tells about this encouraging development on their blog. Kari is also feeling pain in unexpected areas (perhaps a paradoxical source of praise and petition), but one thing is for sure -- Kari and Aaron still very much need our prayers!  Thanks for joining me in this important task.

Benjy and I have been attending the Free Methodist's Bishop's School of Renewal this week (we love our bishops!).  During a small group break-out discussion, one of our colleagues pointed out that in today's culture, far too many people are simply "doing" life as opposed to "sharing" life.  People fill their lives (and the lives of their children) with a plethora of activities and experiences, yet fail to connect with others in other than a cursory manner.

Have you observed this as being true?

I'm still months behind with my 'reading list', but managed to finally read the N.T. Wright piece in the current issue of Response (from Seattle Pacific University). "The Right Reverend Father in God Nicholas Thomas Wright, by Divine Providence Lord Bishop of Durham" is much more than a high ranking leader in the Anglican Church -- he is a leading advocate for the relevance of Christianity in a postmodern world.  SPU president, Phillip Eaton, has called him "the C.S. Lewis for our time."

Wright's recent series of lectures at SPU inspired the article, and the full-version transcripts of these lectures are definitely worth the read:

The Christian Challenge in the Postmodern World

Decoding the DaVinci Code

The Bible and Christian Imagination

God, 9/11, the Tsunami, and the New Problem of Evil

Today was an amazing day.  It was the first time I've incorporated into our morning worship service, our Free Methodist liturgy for an infant baptism.  Wow!

When I joined the Free Methodist family of faith six years ago, I really struggled with their practice of infant/child baptism (it was primarily my re-action to a more fundamentalist upbringing).  As time went on, and I began resonating with a more postmodern philosophy of ministry I found myself increasingly drawn to our church's liturgical roots and other ancient faith practices within Christianity.

As our congregation stood in support of the parents and godparents who were presenting their child for baptism, and joined in offering a common prayer on their behalf, I was deeply moved by a profound awareness of the Holy Spirit's presence within our community of faith.  As a former charismatic, I have had many wonderful "experiences" related to the power and presence of God's Spirit.  What happened during this morning's baptism rivaled most of them.

I have enjoyed the richness of Christian community in many places and in many ways, but today's experience was unique -- it was a Holy Spirit thing -- I'm not sure how else to describe it.

Have you ever encountered a strong sense of the Holy Spirit's presence and pleasure in Christian community before?  If so, I'd love to hear about it.

Whoohoo! 

Paradoxology passed a milestone this weekend: 100,000 pages visited!

Much has been written and discussed and blogged of late, discounting the notion that there is a difference between what is 'sacred' and what is 'secular.'  And granted, although we should consider all of live as sacred, we must be careful not to assume that everything in our world is sacred.  The Incarnation itself bears testimony to this very thing.  Jesus came proclaiming the in-breaking of God's reign (kingdom) into the various self-made kingdoms we humans are notorious for.  And although we are living in a time when 'spirituality' is in vogue, the desire to de-sacred-ize our world is still very much with us.

Case-in-point: I recently performed two weddings on the same day -- weddings which had an amazingly opposite 'feels' to them.  In wedding #1, the family desired to de-Christianize the sanctuary, wanting to remove all the visable signs of faith. They wanted to make the sacred secular.  In wedding #2, the exact opposite occurred -- they desired to transform their secular setting (a party house in an exclusive neighborhood) by bringing in an altar, crosses, and Holy Communion. They wanted to make the secular sacred.

In both instances, the desire to make the sacred secular, or secular sacred was driven by ordinary, delightful people -- not religious professionals. This phenomenon still has me thinking about its implications, and so I invite you to share any thoughts or insights you might have.