ON MAKING A DIFFERENCE: A FISH STORY

[Click on image below or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wuSaNCIde4 about making a difference]

HANDS FOR GOD

"But now, O Lord, You are our Father,

We are the clay, and You our potter;

And all we are the work of Your hand.

(Isaiah 64.8.)

Make a difference today. Commit your life to something Godly and worthy. Be a Biblical Christian. Show your Christianity and let Christ use your hand's to show His love and care in the world. His hands were pierced for us. Remember it was the hand of God who made you and me. Make a difference today. 

Do you have a passion for the sacredness of human life? Then speak up for life, all life, at every state and stage.[1] Do it because God loves humanity.[2] Remember that all humanity bears the indelible image of God and deserves our respect, care and protection.[3]

Do you have a passion for the environment? Plant a tree, pick up garbage, write a letter to an elected official to enact laws that respect the land, the water, the air we breath.[4] We are stewards of God's creation. Our actions today will impact the world of tomorrow. We have a responsibility to the present and the future.

Is your passion for justice? Get involved with a ministry that cares for the homeless in your community, or the unborn, the disabled or the elderly.[5]  

Make a difference today, tomorrow and the tomorrows yet to come. Leave the world a better place than you found it. You can make a difference. 

Mark

[Click below or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIuQ2n4GvNA   for the beautiful guitar rendition of As the Deer, by Jim Greeninger.]

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[1] Proverbs 31.8-9.

[2] Jeremiah 31.3, John 3.16, 16.27. Cf. Romans 5.8, Ephesians 2.4,  1John 3.1.

[3] Genesis 1.26-27., 5.1., 9.6., James 3.9-10.

[4] Genesis 1.9-13.

[5] Psalm 82.3, Also see Matthew 25.31-40.

ONE LIFE CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE

There is a saying: "All for one and one for all." It within interdependent community that me becomes we. That's human interdependence.

I came across a wonderful video illustrating that a single life can make a difference. It's called The Power of One and is dedicated to the memory and legacy of Tyler Blain Genneken who died of cancer at the age of 14 years.  He made a difference in his short life.[1] 

One life can make a difference for good in our world. Make that one life your life and shake the world. God created you for a purpose.[2]

Mark 
[Click image below or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I7Wk14VWK4 For The Power of One.]

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[1] For more information about Tyler Genneken see http://tylergenneken.com/tyler/
[2] Images courtesy of http://www.21st-century-christianity.com/Make_A_Difference.html.

FAMILY: SOURCE OF PRIMARY NURTURE AND UNDERSTANDING INTERDEPENDENT COMMUNITY

"Children's children are a crown to the aged, 

and parents are the pride of their children." 

(Proverbs 17.6)

I suppose readers of this blog (well over 280,000 hits now) might think it extravagant of me to feature my family in a blog about Christian perspectives on suffering. (See previous posting.) You're right, it is extravagant. Forgive me.

My family brings me such joy. My legs are crippled but my heart soars. It thrills me to see my children and grandchildren reaching toward their potential. My wife of 40 years and our family are my earthly heritage: My heavenly heritage waits for me.

"I my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. 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 we that you may be where I am." -- Jesus (John 14.2-3)

After more than thirty years of chronic illness, I am now convinced that love (human and divine) is all that matters. Health and wealth, position and status will all disappear, only love and the soul will cross the grave's threshold.

As a husband, father and grandfather, my role is to nurture and encourage my family to be their best under the Lordship and leadership of Jesus Christ. It is in these roles that I feel  most at home. Next as a citizen, I must help nurture and encourage a community of concern and nurture in which every human being is helped to reach their full potential and blossom in the love of God.

We must reject the fashionable thinking of independent personal autonomy. It is diametrically opposed to the ideal of interdependent community -- which has its roots in the family. It is in the family where we are first introduced, as small children, to interdependence. When it works well, a family serves as a microcosm, a model of functioning, nurturing, interdependent community in miniature. And the glue of a family should be love. The glue of community is interdependence and loving kindness.

I have been given so much love in this life (both human and divine). Under such love human beings can soar -- even with legs that are crippled like mine.

[Click on image or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8nQy-aP_Koo, for Brandon Heath's "Love Never Fails".

Mark 

MY LOVELY BLONDE TRUMPETER

Grand piano at center stage of
the Eleanor Pickup Arts Centre

I have mentioned in previous blogs that my life is surrounded by creative people. There is a Canadian small town arts centre named after my mother who taught music for more than 60 years. The arts have made my life so rich despite my disability.

I enjoy Rod Stewart. Recently I came across a YouTube video of him performing the classic "What a Difference a Day Makes". Unexpectedly part way through the song a beautiful blonde woman (Karen Straw) stepped forward with a trumpet solo. 

My daughter 

She made me think of my lovely blonde daughter. In the 1990s, she also enchanted audiences with her trumpet. She worked her way up to be 1st trumpet for the Edmonton Youth Orchestra.[1] I have a tender memory of her playing with the orchestra at the Convocation Hall at the University of Alberta, with her adoring family in the audience. Her grandparents and great-grandparents (all gone now) were in attendance too.

Thank you Mr. Stewart and Ms. Straw for reminding me of my beautiful blonde daughter and her trumpet. 

[Click on image below or http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YugDdRFiSPE For Rod Stewart performing "What a Difference a Day Makes" on the Alan Titchmarch Show.]

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[1] Edmonton is the capital city for the Canadian province of Alberta

A STUDY OF TRANSCENDING DISABILITY

Ludwig van Beethoven
(1770-1827)

I keep a bust of Ludwig van Beethoven on the fireplace mantle in my home. (It's behind me in the photograph at the top of this blog). It reminds me of the human capacity to overcome adversity to achieve great things. When I doubt myself in my own acquired disability of multiple sclerosis, I listen to Beethoven -- particularly his 9th symphony -- written in total deafness but at the peak of his creative prowess.

In his 9^th symphony I detect a triumph of human spirit over adversity, sustained by a spark of God’s love in a silent world. Although Beethoven used Schiller’s Ode to Joy, there is a spirituality or mystical quality to Beethoven’s 9th Symphony. It carries a note of authentic life experience; it contains great energy yet a peace and acceptance won by strife, and a wisdom only suffering can teach. To me, it illustrates how our loving God can reach into the silent world of a deaf genius and touch us even 190 years later.

Most people are aware that Beethoven was deaf when he wrote his 9^th Symphony. It was his crowning achievement. But I want to bring your attention to the fact that Beethoven was going deaf when he wrote his 1^st symphony. It was detectable when he began composing it in 1798, and when it was completed in 1800, Beethoven’s had become quite anxious about his malady. By his own words, Beethoven had noticed his hearing loss beginning in 1796 at the age of 26. By 1801 his physicians began various therapies, to no avail. His deafness increased to become near total, yet his creative prowess never faltered.

All 9 symphonies were composed with some level of deafness! His mind was so muscular. How could it be that the standard bearer of the Romantic era was a deaf composer? Despite this, Beethoven rose above his predicament to reach unequalled human achievement. His beloved Moon Light Sonata was composed in serious deafness. The same is true for his opera Fidelio, and Creatures of Prometheus.  It is doubtful he heard much of his 5^th Symphony, his concerto for violin and orchestra or his Masses.

In Beethoven’s life story, we read about his inner and outer grief, his disappointment with life, his isolation and emptiness brought on by his disability.

Beethoven addressed this isolation himself in a letter he wrote to his brother Karl in 1802.

“[F]orgive me when you see me draw back....for me there is no relaxation with my fellow man, no refined conversations, no mutual exchange of ideas. I must live almost alone, like one who has been banished. ...But what a humiliation for me when someone standing next to me heard a flute in the distance and I heard nothing, or someone standing next to me heard a shepherd singing and again I heard nothing. Such incidents drove me almost to despair; a little more of that and I would have ended my life – it was only my art that held me back.”

In that same letter, Beethoven prayed, “O Divine One, thou seest my inmost soul thou knowest that therein dwells the love of mankind and a desire to do good.”  At the end of his letter to Karl he wrote in his despair, “Farewell and do not wholly forget me when I am dead.”

These words were written at a crisis point for Beethoven about his increasing disability. Happily for us, his crisis passed and the great man rose above his deafness to eventually write his 9^th and final symphony at his height of creative power.

Throughout more than 30 years with degenerative MS, I have observed and studied grief – both my own and others. It is my experience that grief is diverse yet distinct. People grieve in various ways. They grieve visually, in sound and abstract ways. Perhaps grief rises at the sight of a lake, a flower or a certain café that reminds the griever of happier days before sickness or disability. A particular song may transport the griever to another time or place.

Grief is distinct in that it is focused on an object. Grief is often dynamic because it still interacts to its surroundings and stimulus. Healthy grieving is expressive. Grief can express a multitude of emotions through music, writing, drama or even dance. This is good. It indicates grief that is fluid and moving. As long as grief is moving and expressive the griever is likely to emerge spiritually matured. If it ceases to move, it may stagnate and settle into depression. (Depression tends to turns in on itself focusing of the darkness of the griever’s soul.)

Grief will come to every life. Surrender your anguish to God’s love to use as a vehicle for spiritual growth. The 17^th Century Christian Poet, John Donne, wrote: “No man hath affliction enough that is not matured, and ripened by it, and made fit for God by that affliction.” Having said this, Donne also recognized that some people may suffer and their suffering be no use to them.

Which will you be when grief comes? -- Mark

[Click on image below or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QDViACDYxnQ - Beethoven's 9th Symphony in D minor, Opus 125, 4th movement, performed by the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Leonard Bernstein. Vienna is the place of Beethoven's death on March 26th 1827.]

WHEN BEING CONNECTED IS DISCONNECTED

Today's blog post is short and contradictory. By posting it I encourage the very thing the message discourages. Having acknowledged my own hypocrisy, I want you to go to the link below. It will take you to a web-page under the title "This Is One of The Most Vital Messages Gen Y Needs to Hear (Video)." Click on the image of three girls leaning against a rail. Share it with people you know. 
http://elitedaily.com/news/world/this-is-one-of-the-most-vital-messages-gen-y-needs-to-hear-video/