Devotional Blog:

“Regroup”, 7/15/2012, Proverbs 9:9

So last weekend I was talking to my mom and last night I was talking to my sister and with both conversations I found myself pondering my choice of ‘life path’. If you’ve read previous entries in this section of my blog you will know that I’ve said that I’ve always just walked through the paths I feel like God has opened to me assuming that’s direction he wants me to go. It is after all the only path that’s opened up, so I just walk through it. Did I think ‘this’ is where my path was leading? Actually no.

It was my love and my treasure Short post…sentimental post. Over the past couple years I’ve neglected my love of Gaelic music. I got this love from my Mom who dabbled in learning Gaelic a bit. I remember singing along with some Gaelic songs trying to memorize what the lyrics mean while in high school, college and grad school–out of view of most people haha! My vocabulary is limited to what I learned through the music and I’m sure my pronunciation is pretty poor, but I’m slowly finding my passion for this music again.

I started wanting to write this blog based on one of the devotional entries in the book about what would happen if you took the ‘Christ’ out of Christmas. My mind wandered into wikipedia reading about the history of Christmas itself. My mental wanderings continued into various conversations with friends and acquaintances talking about the mesh of pagan and religious traditions mixed into Christmas nowadays. Then of course that leads to the blatant commercialism that Christmas has become. I’ve only to travel 2 minutes by skytrain to see the influence of Christmas in Bangkok, a Buddhist country. Though they don’t officially celebrate the holiday itself by days off work, they encourage gift giving and the market places are bedecked in lights, fake trees, cardboard snowmen and other such holiday decor.

The rest of my mental wanderings are hazy at best and clarified eventually into a deluge of memories–as though I was being visited by the ghost of Christmas past…

Devotional Blog:

Topic: “Love and Riddles”, 12/6/2011, Song of Songs (Solomon) 2:1-17

So I’ll be jumping around a bit as I play catch up in my devotional blog ‘series’ out of this book. I’m combining two entries in this blog. So Song of Songs or Solomon as its called in some Bibles is quite the ‘lovers’ book. It’s very short, only 8 short chapters (about 4 Bible pages) and sits between Ecclesiastes and Isaiah. I kept missing it when I was flipping through my Bible trying to find it. And the book is all about love and how to treat your lover. And how can you not think this books is about desire with verses like:

1:2 Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth–for your love is more delightful than wine. 1:13 My lover is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts.  1:16 My love is mine and I am his… 7:9-12 May the wine go straight to my lover, flowing gently over lips and teeth. I belong to my lover and his desire is for me. Come, my lover, let us go to the countryside let us spend the night in the villages. Let us go early to the vineyards to see if the vines have budded, if their blossoms have opened,and if the pomegrantes are in bloom–there I will give you my love.

In spite of the lack of explicitly religious content, Song of Songs can also be interpreted as an allegorical representation of the relationship of God and Israel, or for Christians, Christ and the Church or Christ and the human soul (Cited from Wikipedia).

What struck me was the sincere passion these two characters within this book had for each other. Like all good internet junkies I googled “love”…

Unofficial Devotional Blog: (not in book, but I’m gonna write it anyway)

Topic: “love, judgement, right and wrong” (verses…many, see below)

Since I started this devotional ‘section’ to my blog I’ve talked about a lot of different topics introduced to me by this rather ‘fluffy’ devotional book that I’ve been making my way through. And I actually was going to write another entry based in that book but as I opened the link to start a new blog…all this came flowing out instead. For an introduction to how this all got started in all the ‘devotion’ stuff see the first blog about my attempt at keeping regular devotions and analyzing my faith. Topics ranged in this book from finding your ‘hidden sin (blog post)’, leadership and mentorship (blog 1, blog 2), family and finances (blog), wishing for a different life (blog), acceptance (blog), love and forgiveness (blog), relationships with non-believers (blog), trauma (blog), life purpose/being saved for something I wrote on the anniversary of ⁹⁄₁₁ (blog) and many of the things I’ve said, done or written have gotten me pegged throughout life as a ‘lukewarm Christian’.

I read a blog post entitled “I’m Christian unless you are Gay” written by a guy whose blog I follow because he has interesting things to say. Since it’s been written it’s gotten 74K plus facebook ‘likes’ and has been shared I’m sure countless times to ‘mixed’ reviews sometimes. I am one of those that shared this post on facebook and now I am sharing it here with my own take. I encourage you to read his post (linked above) in its entirety as well as some of the responses to the post both negative and positive. He’s caused quite the firestorm and some of the responses were very powerful.

After reading his post and all the responses…two quotes stuck with me.

Devotional Blog:

Topic: “Mark It”, 10/21/2011, Joshua 4:15-24

First I have a confession…I’d forgotten that Joshua was a book in the Bible! Horrible of me! Raised in this faith and when I saw the verse for the day I did a double take and asked myself–“This is a book in the Bible?…DOH!”. Bible literacy fail. Yes, I know the story of the fall of Jericho is in this book but for some reason I had it in my head that this story was in Deuteronomy–don’t ask why, I don’t know. So, in all fairness when was the last time I heard of this book? Eighth grade Bible history class at Bellevue Christian School where I attended one semester, does that excuse it? Probably not, but its what I’m going with.

The book of Joshua is about the Israelites journey into the promised land. When the crossed the Jordan, the Lord dried up the Jordan momentarily so they could pass. God then asked Joshua (who was leading them, he was the right hand of Moses by the way), anyway he asked Joshua to pick 12 men to take 1 stone each from the riverbed of the Jordan = 12 stones. When they’d stopped at Gilgal the western border of Jericho God told him to set up the stones as a reminder for generations to come that the Lord had pushed the waters back for their forefathers to walk on dry land into the promised land.

Pam, the author talking about ‘marking’ things that matter in our lives to solidify a memory in a solid shape of sorts, like making a stepping stone and putting into a garden then adding stepping stones. Thinking back I can remember all my ‘mementos’, my ‘mark it moments’ and when I got them, how I got them and where they are today and why they mattered. Compared to other families we had a more mobile life growing up so some of these ‘moments’ are no longer with me so I carry them in my heart instead…in no particular order…just as they come to me.

So I’ve gotten a few curious emails as to why only on this blog do I preface it with ‘Devotional Blog’. To answer: there are people who don’t really want to read about thoughts pertaining to faith, the Bible, religion in general so I’ve prefaced this blog so that those who want to skip it can do so easily without having to read it. Also on the right hand side of my blog are links by category topic…so those that want to read about specific topics can do so without having to sort through all the blogs on the front page.

OK, moving on…the following has stemmed from a conversation with a friend about love, grudges and forgiveness.

Devotional Blog:

Topic: “Forgiveness”, 10/7/11; 1 Peter 4:1-8

“Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins” -1 Peter 4:8 (NIV)

Who hasn’t been pissed at someone else? A friend, a relative, an immediate family member, the random Thai person that walks .25 miles/hr 3 people abreast blocking your ability to go around them and completely oblivious to your attempts to politely get through them…With friends usually the solution is fairly simple, you get mad at each other, you yell or heatedly talk through it and come to a resolution which hopefully keeps your friendship intact and usually does. Friends usually have a wide flexibility in pissing each other off because of how long you may have known them and the extenuating circumstances of the fight. You are usually willing to give them a voice to explain themselves before writing them off…usually. The same goes with family, or should go with family. There are grudges in my family that have withstood the test of time though–a few going on a a decade plus! Its amazing sometimes to realize how deep a persons anger or hurt goes and often times they don’t voice these problems face to face, leading to decades of silence each party believing themselves justified in their anger and judgement over the other person. And I’m not saying they don’t have good reason, in their position I don’t know what I would do. But today’s passage has made me think more about my own ‘grudges’ and anger at those who’ve insulted me in the past or done hurtful things.

We learn we are lovable or unlovable from other people…

Book: Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller

“My friend Kurt used to say finding a wife is a percentage game. He said you have to have two or three relationships going at once, never letting the one girl know about the others…Kurt believed you had to date about twenty girls before you found the one your were going to marry. He just believed it was easier to date them all at once. Kurt ended up marrying a girl from Dallas, everybody says he married her for her money. He is very happy…”