Advocating Rest

Thoughts about the frantic pace of life have filtered through my head recently. Why am I so busy, when I don’t have mound of homework and papers hanging over my head? I’m just as tense as when I was in school, just as prone to anxiety about (relatively) lesser things… why? Why am I living like this?
I thought Offner’s article was honest about busyness. Both affirming and piercing, getting to the root of the problem… the suggestions at the end are helpful…

Why Are We So Busy?
by Kevin Offner

….We bow to the "Idol of the Full Schedule" because it gives a superficial, temporary legitimacy to our lives.

When we accomplish a lot we feel important, needed and necessary. We set ourselves dozens of daily goals, and if we meet most of them we feel successful. We long for a daily reassurance that we are loved - and we turn to a kind of "activism" to meet this need. We say we believe in grace, we say we believe that God's love is unconditional and that our justification in him is not based on our works, and yet in practice we live as though we've been abandoned or orphaned. We're convinced we must work in order to be approved.

Of course the point is not to exchange busyness for inactivity. Work is a good thing: God gave Adam and Eve work to do in the Garden even before they sinned. Also, we are told in the "Parable of the Talents" that it's the wise investor of one's abilities who will one day be rewarded. Our Lord Jesus himself was hard at work from sunrise to sunset. No, we don't need to stop working; but we may be pursuing the wrong work. We are to be busy or not busy because of obedience to God's call, not because of a nervous striving for self-worth. Knowing in our heart of hearts that we are fully accepted and loved by God in Christ, we do whatever work God calls us to do out of joy, peace and gratitude. Part of growing in grace, then, is to know what one's work is, when to work and when to rest. And we'll know this more surely as we grow to know God better.

We want to work voluntarily and enthusiastically, in response to God's initiative, not our restlessness. And we want to learn how to rest. Here are a few practical steps to take:

• Guard time alone with God. The Lord Jesus was as busy as anyone and yet it was his habit to arise "a great while before dawn" to pray.
• Guard the Sabbath. Let's be ruthless in keeping at least a day a week free, a different day from the other six. No scheduling of meetings, no homework and no agendas. A day to focus on God in a special way. A day to slow down, take inventory and be spontaneous.
• Always schedule large gaps between activities when possible. Get to places and appointments early and use that extra time to become quiet inside.
• Be as "fully present" as possible at each activity or with each person. Avoid turning to past conversations or future concerns, but rather give undivided attention to the immediate present.
• Spend more time in deliberate reflection. After conversations with people, at night before going to sleep and on your Sabbath day (Sundays are great for this!), ask deeper questions: what was the significance of that person's remark? That movie's main theme? or That class assignment's bigger issues? Write in a journal, write letters to others, reflect with close friends and meditate under God's eye. Always be open to what you might learn from God's providence by being a careful observer of life's experiences and people.

Let's be honest with ourselves and face the real reasons why we feel so compelled to busyness. And then, by God's grace, let's resolve to make better choices with how we use our time.

More goat news

Goat cheese factory creates opportunities

by Maria Sadoyan - World Vision Armenia Communications

A deserted canteen transformed into a goat cheese factory began operations recently, holding out the promise of wide-ranging community transformation for 600 villagers in remote southern Armenia.

The families of Halidzor village in Sisian Area Development Programme (ADP) will sell goat milk to the factory, which will in turn sell cheese in the Armenian capital of Yerevan, 220 kilometres to the north.

The provision of goat milk is possible as a result of a World Vision breeding project launched in December 2005. Goat cheese is highly rated in the market and is sold for US$7 per kilogram.

“The income from selling cheese in external markets will be invested in renovation of the village kindergarten and other community projects, which the villagers will prioritise,” said Emma Kajoyan, Sisian ADP Manager.

Villagers are proud of the factory, which is the only real technology and means of sophisticated production in the village. Most of the village residents are subsistence farmers.

The goat breeding project was introduced by community volunteers in the village and supported by Sisian ADP with 100 purebred she-goats distributed among ten families. Preference was given to families with many children.

The families signed an agreement with World Vision to return five goat kids and 100 kilograms of goat cheese to the community after one year. “Our project is a development and cooperation programme,” explained Ashot Babayan, Sisian ADP Project Coordinator.

Mher Parsyan, 55, the head of a family of seven adults and six children, has bred seven kids from ten goats. “My grandchildren now have excellent milk and cheese to eat. I'll be glad to see other families in the village who also benefit from this project.”

Homemade cheese produced in villages typically does not meet sanitation standards for sale in commercial markets.

Vanik Simonyan, a community volunteer, had the idea to build a small cheese factory. He knew an experienced cheese-maker, Albert Gevorgyan, from a nearby village who gave several weeks of time training another Halidzor volunteer, Armen Harutunyan.

Now Armen runs the factory equipped with World Vision’s support and repaired by the communal efforts of Halidzor villagers. They believe the factory may provide a good example for establishing similar productions in Halidzor.

Food for thought

This was an innovative ecological solution worth sharing...

Weeds got your goat?
Itasca State Park uses goats to get their weeds.

Ryan Bakken,Herald Staff Writer

BAGLEY, Minn. - When Itasca State Park was invaded by a noxious weed, experts examined the latest science and came up with a solution:

Goats.

Yes, goats. To these homely, hoofed creatures, spotted knapweed is the equivalent of a chocolate eclair. It was the diet of choice for 31 goats that ate through six acres of the weed over six days. They have unconventional taste buds among grazers.

"Goats don't want grass, like sheep, cows and horses," said Peggy Fultz, the Bagley goat rancher who supplied the four-legged weed control agents. "They want brush and weeds. They made a beeline for that spotted knapweed."

They were a much better choice than herbicides. Remember, the mouth of the Mississippi River is in the park. It would be bad public relations to pollute it.

"It's a highly sensitive area here," said Becky Marty, a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources officer at Itasca. "The spotted knapweed is right along the Mississippi, plus we have a lot of wetlands and a high water table in the park."

Marty worked with Clearwater County extension agent Jim Stordahl on the project. They recruited Brooke Fultz, Peggy's 16-year-old daughter, to be a goat herder for two different stretches this summer. Multiple munching is required to kill the weeds.

"Spotted knapweed is like leafy spurge in North Dakota - there are wanted posters out on both of them," Stordahl said. "They're in the same cast of evil characters. They tend to choke out existing vegetation, which is bad for a variety of reasons."

Natural grasses were planted during these grazing periods. The goats' hooves helped to plant the seeds, and their waste provided nutrients.

"So we're weeding, planting, fertilizing and watering at the same time," Peggy said with a laugh. "So, it's a pretty unique project."

The Fultz family has 500 goats, among an estimated 1,200 within 10 miles of their home.

Goat meat is the most-consumed red meat in the world and is the fastest-growing consumed meat in Minnesota, Stordahl said. The reason is that Minnesota's new immigrants come from countries where it's the preferred meat.

The goat is the beast of choice in Third World countries because it can survive in the mountains, the brush and the desert. A goat is not a finicky eater, and it produces milk and meat.

"The meat is low in fat, low in cholesterol, tender, moist and able to absorb flavors," Peggy said.

Goat is also a proven weed-eater elsewhere, having been employed to destroy leafy spurge and poison ivy, among other vegetation villains.

"We went back to a tool used hundreds of years ago," Marty said. "We have so many tools to control our problems, but often it's best just to go back to the basics and use what's the healthiest for the ecosystem."

The Itasca project was a test. The scope may broaden, as goats may be used next year in gravel pits, where the spotted knapweed flourishes. The gravel and sand then is spread onto roads, broadening its reach.

"What's so exciting is that the goats are eating our problem," Marty said. "There are no chemical additives and no ground disturbances. There are lots of pluses and a huge potential."

Everyone's happy.

The DNR people are happy to get rid of a weed without a chemical spill floating down the Mighty Mississippi.

The Fultz family is happy to see their goats fattened.

And the goats are licking their lips over scrumptious spotted knapweed.

The LOVING Dispute

I began this train of thought before I attended Pristine Harmony this weekend, (September 23, 2006) which was encouraging and inspiring.. it brought a renewed passion for USING the knowledge I have. It needs to be shared... or what use does it have? So here are some thoughts on the Loving dispute of caring for creation...

"There are some people who think: 'It's our duty to destroy the earth so that we can be saved. We are instruments of God's will when we go through the drive-through, to make the world uninhabitable so that He will return.'" Hearing himself say this, Roberts shakes his head, as if to dispute it."

I dispute it also. But Mr. Roberts, founder of Legacy chocolates and profiled in this delicious article, is getting those ideas from somewhere. I am realizing I am beginning to have an apathy for this argument and becoming more impassioned with the core issue-- the gospel. God reconciling humanity to himself through His son IS the hope for the earth. God created the earth and everything in it, and cares so deeply about the wayward hostile people (or, as in the Hebrew, the COSMOS.. think about that) on it that He sent Jesus Christ as flesh to die for our sins, that we may now have right standing before God and live to glorify Him.

Some ideas on why the gospel is at stake in caring for creation:

1. Loving your neighbor
The tangible effects of selfishness on the land are seen in a country like Kenya. Say a wealthy landowner cuts down 20,000 acres of trees that once shaded a creek that feed the village well. Now there is serious erosion entering the stream, fish deaths due to temperature change, air pollution due to increased carbon dioxide, etc. etc. Taking Jesus' words seriously means asking "who is not my neighbor?" umm.. silence. Well, is no one, or conversely, is it everyone? Might loving my neighbor in China mean buying products and clothes that I know have been manufactured under safe conditions and with fair wages? It might mean buying less and giving more, and it might mean asking the Holy Spirit to guide and convict you in these issues...

2. Praying for those who persecute you
I have seen the anger from liberals and conservatives over environmental and social issues. There is a difference, in my mind, between politics and truth. There is a distinction between loving a brother and sister in Christ regardless of their identification with elephants, donkeys or greens. There is a difference between essential and non-essential issues. May the faithful take serious heed to ways in which their speech and actions demonstrate so clearly how they are not loving their "enemies." Christ commanded this.

3. Loving mercy
Micah 6:8 says: and what does the Lord your God require of you, but to seek justice and love mercy and walk humbly with your God. Justice, mercy, and walking humbly reek of going against the world order.

4. Love is patient
This is one of the most annoying misconceptions for me personally: the Christian's duty to speed up Jesus' coming. (the only way I know is through Matthew 9:27!! Amen). It's not our duty to destroy the earth anymore than it is our duty to destroy our bodies so we die and go to heaven! If your child is sick you bring them to the doctor to treat their illness-- you don't deny it so the end comes quicker! Jesus taught us to pray "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done." Perhaps our emphasis could be less on Maranatha and more on ushering in HIS kingdom.

Oh, let the church and its members wake up to the light of the glorious gospel-- how it leads us to care for our neighbors and his creation. After all, if God created it, how can't we care about it?

The surrender

This article was encouraging-- I especially identified with the themes in bold. The point Collins mentions-- it's like a point of surrendering. I truly know that my moment of surrendering, of conversion, was the work of the Holy Spirit. It was not done through arguments or books, it was through His Word. What a beautiful thing.

The Sunday Times - Britain
June 11, 2006
I’ve found God, says man who cracked the genome
By Steven Swinford

THE scientist who led the team that cracked the human genome is to publish a book explaining why he now believes in the existence of God and is convinced that miracles are real.
Francis Collins, the director of the US National Human Genome Research Institute, claims there is a rational basis for a creator and that scientific discoveries bring man “closer to God”.

His book, The Language of God, to be published in September, will reopen the age-old debate about the relationship between science and faith. “One of the great tragedies of our time is this impression that has been created that science and religion have to be at war,” said Collins, 56.

“I don’t see that as necessary at all and I think it is deeply disappointing that the shrill voices that occupy the extremes of this spectrum have dominated the stage for the past 20 years.”
For Collins, unravelling the human genome did not create a conflict in his mind. Instead, it allowed him to “glimpse at the workings of God”.

“When you make a breakthrough it is a moment of scientific exhilaration because you have been on this search and seem to have found it,” he said. “But it is also a moment where I at least feel closeness to the creator in the sense of having now perceived something that no human knew before but God knew all along.

“When you have for the first time in front of you this 3.1 billion-letter instruction book that conveys all kinds of information and all kinds of mystery about humankind, you can’t survey that going through page after page without a sense of awe. I can’t help but look at those pages and have a vague sense that this is giving me a glimpse of God’s mind.”
Collins joins a line of scientists whose research deepened their belief in God. Isaac Newton, whose discovery of the laws of gravity reshaped our understanding of the universe, said: “This most beautiful system could only proceed from the dominion of an intelligent and powerful being.”

Although Einstein revolutionised our thinking about time, gravity and the conversion of matter to energy, he believed the universe had a creator. “I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details,” he said. However Galileo was famously questioned by the inquisition and put on trial in 1633 for the “heresy” of claiming that the earth moved around the sun.
Among Collins’s most controversial beliefs is that of “theistic evolution”, which claims natural selection is the tool that God chose to create man. In his version of the theory, he argues that man will not evolve further.

“I see God’s hand at work through the mechanism of evolution. If God chose to create human beings in his image and decided that the mechanism of evolution was an elegant way to accomplish that goal, who are we to say that is not the way,” he says.
“Scientifically, the forces of evolution by natural selection have been profoundly affected for humankind by the changes in culture and environment and the expansion of the human species to 6 billion members. So what you see is pretty much what you get.”
Collins was an atheist until the age of 27, when as a young doctor he was impressed by the strength that faith gave to some of his most critical patients.

“They had terrible diseases from which they were probably not going to escape, and yet instead of railing at God they seemed to lean on their faith as a source of great comfort and reassurance,” he said. “That was interesting, puzzling and unsettling.”

He decided to visit a Methodist minister and was given a copy of C S Lewis’s Mere Christianity, which argues that God is a rational possibility. The book transformed his life. “It was an argument I was not prepared to hear,” he said. “I was very happy with the idea that God didn’t exist, and had no interest in me. And yet at the same time, I could not turn away.”

His epiphany came when he went hiking through the Cascade Mountains in Washington state. He said: “It was a beautiful afternoon and suddenly the remarkable beauty of creation around me was so overwhelming, I felt, ‘I cannot resist this another moment’.”

Collins believes that science cannot be used to refute the existence of God because it is confined to the “natural” world. In this light he believes miracles are a real possibility. “If one is willing to accept the existence of God or some supernatural force outside nature then it is not a logical problem to admit that, occasionally, a supernatural force might stage an invasion,” he says.

The Dig

Did you ever boast that if you dug through the back yard and end up in China? That's not quite right. More like the Inidan Ocean :) Now you know.
This useful peace of information brought to us by Google Maps and my GPS class.

All of my days

The moon's an arrant thief,
And her pale fire she snatches from the sun.
Shakespeare, Timon of Athens

Inspiration from the word-of-the-day ... arrant: notorious, downright, confirmed.

In this twenty-second year, may I be an arrant lover of Christ, and following's Bill's imagery, a bold witness and reflector of His glory.