NUDGINGS: a journey into the unknown

I was having a discussion the other day about the concept of God found in the Old Testament. “God is found in a burning bush,” said my friend, “and in the wind. God is experienced as a formless voice and also in the words of the prophets. It seems to me that to the writers of the Old Testament, God was elusive.” God wasn’t experienced the same way by everyone.  The prophets couldn’t even agree on what the message was. In fact the Old Testament writers refused, or perhaps couldn’t, put God into a box. Jesus, in the New Testament, is also portrayed through the eyes of others. To Matthew,  Jesus is Jewish and so he wrote to a Jewish audience living nearby.  Mark presented Jesus as an elusive figure, while Luke paints him as an ethical figure in the Hellenistic culture . John’s is a spiritual gospel which tells the story of Jesus in a symbolic way, Paul’s mission was to carry the good news of Jesus Christ to the gentiles. So once again no over-arching portrait occurs, bu...

“If honest, however, we will acknowledge that insights are not always desired on our part. Insight makes demands we may be unwilling or unable to meet. Henri Nouwen observes that for learning to be a redemptive process one has to consider first whether one wants insight.” [ Excerpt From: Richard E. Brewer. “Living into the Journey with God.] As a teacher, I was always concerned when student didn't learn, and would try approaching the same information from another angle, perhaps hands-on, perhaps in a group, perhaps using drama, whatever I could think of that would help that student learn and perhaps cement the information for another. And that works in elementary school! But what about adults and adult learning? We no longer have report cards, no longer have expectations to be met before we can go on to the next level, no longer are we expected to keep up with our friends. And yes, some of us live for our complete adult lives satisfied with what we already know. We m...

Do you ever shop online? Well, I do!! I think it is one of the best things out there.  Shopping online allows me to shop from the comfort of my home during inclement weather, shop when it is convenient for me not when the stores are open, and especially for this senior with arthritic knees, doesn’t involve any walking.  There is no more trudging from store to store trying to find exactly what I want - if it even exists! All that is done with a click of the mouse. Then there is the fact that the parcels are delivered to my door making transporting and carrying them a thing of the past. So I ask, why wouldn’t I take advantage of it? Does this mean I never go into a store anymore? NO! A couple of times a year, I visit the clothing stores to try on the new styles being showcased to see what I like. We have been involved in renovations for the past little while and I visited the Home Improvement store to pick out the colour of countertop I wanted. [After all who can trust ...

‘The race is not always to the swift, Nor the battle to the strong, Nor satisfaction to the wise, Nor riches to the smart, Nor grace to the learned. Sooner or later bad luck hits us all.’ Ecclesiastes 9:11b - The Message Bible I was tired, dragging myself through each day, from one activity to the next. When I went to my doctor, he sent me off for 2 different sets of blood work, only to proclaim after everything was in, that I was the proverbial picture of health. What!!!!  I was hoping that my thyroid was out of whack, that my B12 levels were low that my iron was non-existence. Nothing wrong???? “It can’t be that you’re telling me I’m getting older can it?”, I asked. The half-grin on his face told me the answer, the answer I didn’t like and didn’t want! We are just a few short days into another new year, a time when we traditionally take stock of our life and making some New Year’s Resolutions about things that we want to change to make it even better. Perhaps it’s getti...