• again, didn’t take long for the apostles to be put in a position to witness, huh?
• i wonder what it was like to stand before the jewish authorities.  i’ve stood before a judge before, but all he could do was deny my request to dismiss my traffic ticket and demand me to pay the fine.  i’ve stood before a social worker who has the authority to take my children away from me in an instant (tends to be what happens when your 9 month old falls off the bed and breaks his leg in a way that looks like child abuse). that was fairly nerve wracking to say the least, but i’ve never stood before a council that basically has the authority to kill you.
• also, the church in acts 4 is pretty rad.  they actually sold their homes and held all of their positions in common.  i keep going back to the fact that these people had experienced pentecost — they experienced the Holy Spirit coming in power.  maybe that’s how they were empowered to sell their things, knowing they would be ok. we surely don’t do anything like this today, and maybe it’s because we haven’t been empowered by the Spirit.  just wondering.

Like a flower straining toward the sun, the sugarloaf-dome of the temple of Kali surfaced from the imbroglio of alleyways, residences, hovels, stores and pilgrims’ rest houses.  This high place of militant Hinduism, built near a branch of the Ganges, on the banks of which the dead were burned, was the most frequented shrine in Calcutta.  Day and night crowds of the faithful swarmed inside and around its gray walls.  Rich families, their arms laden with offerings of fruit and food wrapped in gold paper; penitents dressed in white cotton, leading goats to the sacrifice; yogis in saffron robes, their hair tied up and knotted on the crowns of their heads, the sign of their sect painted in vermillion on their foreheads; troubadours singing canticles as plaintive as sighs; musicians, tradesmen, tourists; the motley throng milled about in an atmosphere of festivity.

This is alone one of the most congested places in the overpopulated city.  Hundreds of shops surround the temple with a string of multicolored stalls.  There is something of everything sold here: fruit, flowers, powders, imitation jewels, perfumes, devotional objects, gilded copper utensils, toys, and even fresh fish and caged birds.  Above the antlike activity hovers the bluish mist of the funeral pyres and the smell of incense mingled with the burning of flesh.  Numerous funeral corteges wend their way between the cows, dogs, the children playing in the street, and the flock of faithful worshippers.  At the temple of Kali, the most vibrant life goes hand in hand with death.

• One thing Lapierre misses is the beggars surrounding the temple.  the temple attracts most of the white/western tourists in the city and that, in turn, attracts beggars.  i just wish i had the courage to tell one of them to stand and walk.

that being said, i didn’t really make a ‘new year’s resolution.’ i did, however, commit to investing myself in God’s word again.  i decided that for the first 40 days of 2012 i will simply read a chapter a day, and for some reason i chose Acts.  i’m hoping to create good reading habits again, and to once again feel like i can’t go a single day without relying on God’s word.  so it begins, and i will write a small reflection on the day’s reading here…

- I’m completely enamored with the idea of incarnation. The fact that God — the One who uses the earth as a footstool (Isa. 46) — came to dwell among humans… OMG, as some would say. But what I’m sort of awestruck at today is that humanity didn’t have to wait for the advent of Jesus for God to dwell among them. After the first sin – “they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze.” GOD… was walking in the garden — and this seems to have been a routine occurrence — the sinners recognized the sound because they probably heard it before! God tangibly (not sure if physically is the right word there…) sought humanity even after they disobeyed. As a dad, it’s not a surprising thing that I seek my children even after they disobey me, but God has the power to basically strike Adam and Even from the record… to start clean with one movement from a mighty hand. It’s like God could have said, “darn, well that didn’t work… let me try this again.” …..but God walked in the garden among the people, and still does so today.

His post was about the internal armed conflict in Guatemala from 1960-1996 that resulted in the deaths of approximately 200,000 people.  Randy is currently in Guatemala with some students trying to figure out how a country can deal with these types of things — and on a more intimate level, how we (as Americans) deal with the fact that our own government funded the insurrection that began it all.  But, the post was mostly a lament for the identified and unidentified bones that fill rooms in Guatemala like catacombs.

My first reaction was sadness, followed by, “how in the world have I not heard about this before?”  I remember thinking the same thing about the Rwandan genocide in ’94.  I had a short conversation with Gia and one of our friends about how we fail to hear (and possibly do something?) about these things.  It is very disturbing to me that they can largely go unnoticed and not talked about by us, particularly when our very own government played such an enormous part.

Without absolving myself from the proactivity needed to get the right information, I think I was provided with at least part of the reason only 30 minutes later when the 10 o’clock news came on, and the lead story was about Lindsey Lohan spending the night in jail. Apparently, this is so important that we need to know that her jail sentence was reduced a few days… so important that her dad gets air time with Larry King to protest the judge’s decision.  This is the stuff we truly care about in America. And it’s pretty disheartening.

It took some teaching, however, for Bella to arrive at that conclusion.  “Jesus died, but on the third day… do you know what happened on the third day, Bella?”  “The Easter Bunny came?”  My daughter is hilarious.  I’m wondering, however, if the Santa’s and Easter Bunny’s of the world aren’t just fun, little, meaningless things to do with our children anymore.  The reality is these things take the place of our reflection and praise of Jesus.  And anything that robs Jesus of his full glory is something that should give us pause.

Lastly, as we were driving to church, Gia shed some light on the resurrection in a way that I had never thought about.  Imagine, she says, that this morning we were going to grave of a good friend who died only two days ago.  Imagine the grief, sorrow, and utter confusion we would be experiencing.  Imagine the pride we would have to buy the best flowers, thinking of the moment we would place them on the grave to honor our dead friend.  Perhaps we would only feel grief, but we would undoubtedly swap stories about or friend:  how funny, intelligent, passionate, and inspiring he or she was.  The nerves would take over, however, as we walked from the car to the grave, facing the reality that we would never be able to have another conversation or enjoy the company of our close friend.  Then as we approach the grave, there is no body there.  Your friend lies in the grave no longer.  He is alive and well.  That is essentially what the women experienced on the morning they went to visit Jesus in his tomb.  On this Easter my only hope is that anyone who might be reading this will sit for a few moments at least, and ponder the reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  What does that mean for you?  What does that mean for the world?  The situation you find yourself in right now is this:  either this story is probably the greatest fabrication and lie ever told to you, or it is real and a man really did die and resurrect from the grave.  If it is false, just keep living how you are.  If it is true, however, think about what that would mean for you, and for the entire world.