Travel, time and achievement

This VLOG was filmed in Cape Town and Johannesburg. We talk about our efforts and God's time and gaining some perspective as we bring these two into conversation with one another.

What happens if I don’t achieve the things I want to in life? Must I give up if it seems like I  may not reach a certain goal? Or, must we live within God’s time, doing our best, but realising that God holds time within God’s economy?

For me the struggle is frequently between wanting to see the 'fruit' of my efforts, yet having to understand that achievement is not the intended goal of Christian effort - faithfulness to God is the end of our good, faithful, creative, and courageous work. Since our work is directed towards God, and not ourselves, it means that God has the right to decide how and when to achieve what God wishes to achieve. My peace, and even joy, should come from knowing that I can serve a purpose (even a history) that is larger than myself.

I also talk about Theological Education by Extension College, see http://www.tee.co.za and read this great article on theological education and justice!

Kinsler, F.R. 1978. Theological Education by Extension: Service or Subversion? Missiology: An International Review, 6(2):181–196.

I also mention the following book:

Jürgen Moltmann ‘Theology of Hope’ 

Remember, it's not a lecture, just a thought…

I’d love you hear your feedback, comments, questions and ideas!

Christians and pessimism - A reminder to live for hope from Oscar Romero and Henri Nouwen

Last year was a tough year for many people around the world. I know it was difficult for many of my friends and family. Over the last couple of days I have had a number of conversations with friends who are feeling hopeless and concerned about issues ranging from politics, to economics and the environment.

In my reading I have come across a few quotes that challenge me to remember that as a person of faith I should live by a different standard. Christians live with a hope that is real, yet our hope cannot be collapsed into history, past, present or future, in its entirety. Yes, we must pay meticulous attention to what is happening around is. We must act with courage, grace and love in all situations. However, our hope is larger than history, it is based on a reality that is more real than our perception of what we believe to be real. Our hope comes from being claimed by the God of history. Our hope is eschatological - the fullness of life through the fullest Person (Jesus Christ) in the fullness of time.

Living with this kind of hope takes courage. It takes courage to live for someone, and something, more important than our immediate reaction to people and events. It takes grace to act, and react, in a manner that is different from other persons and the rest of the world. It takes commitment to live for the common good rather than just one's own comfort and security. It takes hard work and patience to stay on the path of rightness and justice for the long haul.

I pray that I will have the wisdom to live in this way, and that others will choose the live a life that is much better than mine.

Here are some quotes that inspired and challenged me on this journey:

“Christians cannot be pessimists. Christians must always nourish in their hearts the fullness of joy. Try it, brothers and sisters; I have tried it many times and in the darkest moments, when slander and persecution were at their worst: to unite myself intimately with Christ, my friend, and to feel a comfort that all the joys of the earth do not give – the joy of feeling yourself close to God, even when humans do not understand you. It is the deepest joy the heart can have.”

- Oscar Romero, The Violence of Love

"To be grateful for the good things that happen in our lives is easy, but to be grateful for all of our lives—the good as well as the bad, the moments of joy as well as the moments of sorrow, the successes as well as the failures, the rewards as well as the rejections—that requires hard spiritual work."

- Henri Nouwen, Bread for the journey (p.8)

And this quote about the importance of daily spiritual discipline in this life:

“The great spiritual task facing me is to so fully trust that I belong to God that I can be free in the world — free to speak even when my words are not received; free to act even when my actions are criticized, ridiculed, or considered useless… I am convinced that I will truly be able to love the world when I fully believe that I am loved far beyond its boundaries.”

- Henri Nouwen

What the internet was like in 1993

In light of my earlier post on how the internet has changed since I first discovered it in the early 1990's I cam across this great image that brought back wonderful memories!

Indeed, this was what the internet looked like in 1993 when I was at Rhodes University.  I would spend hours in the computer lab using TELNET and SLIP clients to 'browse' the web.  ELM was used for email.  I also had a 9600 baud modem that I used to use to dial into the modem rack at the university to get my 'snupm' email!  If I remember I had a Oliveti 386 SX computer with a 160MB hard drive and 4 MB of Ram.  I did most of my work in MS Dos since it was quick and nasty.  But I also had a copy of Windows 3.0 on there and later installed Red Hat Linux 1.  Of course it didn't realy matter what OS was on the machine since most of what I did was via a TELNET client on dialup... I had a little 'trick' (shall we say) to step the telphone company from metering my dialup calls ;-)

Steve Hayes was one of my first 'internet' connections in the Theology / Christian world. Of course I had a few other friends - at that stage mainly hackers, from across the world, that I would connect with. 

Yup, good old Archie to find files, Gopher for search and Mosaic and Netscape 1 for browsing!

Was anyone else using the internet on or before 1993? I'd love to hear your stories!