Archive for April, 2010

An asteroid supposedly passed between the moon and the Earth today, according to this article on CBS news who sourced it from another article in Yahoo! news. It stated:

The asteroid, called 2010 GA6, is a relatively small space rock about 71 feet (22 meters) wide and was discovered by astronomers with the Catalina Sky Survey in Tucson, Az. The space rock will fly within the orbit of the moon when it passes Earth Thursday at 7:06 p.m. EDT (2306 GMT), but NASA astronomers said not to worry…the planet is safe.

Apparently, these kinds of “fly-bys” happen more often than we think, in fact, the last one was just last January.

Vanity Fair called it “pure luck” that the world didn’t end today.

This makes sense as, actually, scientists estimate that the Earth most likely won’t be destroyed until at least 2014, when an asteroid that “could have the effect of 20 million Hiroshima atomic bombs” will approach (and, you know, maybe hit!) the planet.

With all the earthquakes and wars and civil unrest all over the world, plus the weather going haywire and the Global Warming, of course we have to ask, “Is this it? Is the end really coming?”

What if it is? How are you going to live your life knowing the end is near?

If the world stopped spinning
If the end was beginning
Would you even notice if i wasn’t there?
If the world stopped spinning around

(Plumb, Candycoated Waterdrops)

I was reading this yesterday from A Slice of Infinity and thought that this would be a good share for today.

Where was God in all this darkness and blood and suffering? He was right there… even in the darkest of events in history, He brings us out to the other side, to be a testimony of the power of forgiveness over retribution.

Dead People Walking

In war-torn relationships of Northern Uganda, forgiveness is complicated.  Betty was a teenager when her village was raided by the Lord’s Resistance Army, a rebel army known for its brutal tactics and widespread human rights violations.  She was kidnapped as a sex slave for a commander and ordered to commit callous acts of violence as a child soldier, until gradually she was broken and became an active member of the LRA.

After six years of bloodshed, however, Betty managed to escape, running across the country to freedom.  But coming home would not be a simple matter of returning.  She had committed violence against the very people she hoped to rejoin.  Her own guilt and shame was as palpable as the mistrust and anger of her village.  In her absence, two of her own brothers had been killed by the same army Betty fought alongside.

In the midst of such loss, with so many permanent scars, forgiveness might seem hopeful, but perhaps naïve at best.  Is reconciliation even to be desired when brokenness is irreversible?  Does forgiveness cease to be hopeful when neither party can ever be the same again?

The people of Uganda believe it is.  For hundreds and hundreds of children like Betty, terrorized by crimes they were forced to commit and returning home to terrorized villages, tribal elders have adapted a ceremony to make it possible for both.  In a ceremony that includes the act of breaking and stepping on an egg and an opobo branch, the returnee is cleansed from the things he or she has done while away.  The egg symbolizes innocent life, and by breaking and placing themselves in its broken substance, returnees declare before their village their desire to be restored to the way they used to be.  In a final step over a pole, the returnees step into new life.  In many cases, women returnees come home with babies who were born in the bush, usually a result of rape.  When they arrive at the broken egg, the child’s foot is placed in the substance, too.  The spirit of reconciliation, like warfare, must touch everyone.

In a single weekend, Christians have just remembered the crucifixion of Jesus, his burial on Good Friday, the silence of Holy Saturday, and the terror and amazement of Easter Sunday.  In a weekend, we were reminded how the disciples failed him miserably, falling asleep when he needed them most in prayer, denying ever knowing him as he was convicted for being himself, watching him die alone from a distance.  In a weekend, Christians moved from recognizing ourselves in this list of failures to sensing the hopeful confusion of the disciples, the overwhelm of Thomas, and the timid longing of the women at the tomb.  In a single weekend, we moved from complete despair to shocking hope, total darkness to surprising light, the finality of death to the last word of resurrection, from broken and sinful to restored and forgiven.

In this solitary weekend, Christians remember a story that should make the bold and touching forgiveness of war-torn Ugandans seem natural, expected, and necessary, however shocking or complicated or slow-coming it might be.  After the egg-breaking ceremony, Betty went from rebel to ex-rebel, shamed to restored.  “I feel cleansed,” she said of the ceremony.  After a day of being welcomed and celebrated, she adds, “Some of the bad things in my heart: they are gone.”(1)  Alex Boraine, deputy chair of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, notes of such radical forgiveness: “[With its] uncomfortable commitment to bringing the perpetrator back into the family, Africa has something to say to the world.”(2)

Indeed, so does Christ Jesus.  In one eventful weekend, we remember the ugly depths of our sin and stare into the deep scars of the servant who bore it away.  This utter shift in our condition is as overwhelming as Good Friday, as dumbfounding as Holy Saturday, and as inconceivable as Easter Sunday.  But it is our ceremony.  Christ is broken, we are covered in his blood, and we emerge as dead men and women walking.  How beyond our knowing, that in the Father’s inexplicable mercy and loving-kindness, to redeem a slave, He gave a Son.  Yet because God did, in a weekend, we can claim again the mystery; we can claim the power of reconciliation; we can claim Christ, who moves us from perpetrator to family.
Jill Carattini is managing editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Atlanta, Georgia.

(1) Abe McLaughlin, “Africa After War: Paths To Forgiveness—Ugandans Welcome ‘Terrorists’ Back” International Center for Transitional Justice, October 23, 2006.
(2) Ibid.

Back to work! It’s so funny how the line to the parking lot here in ABS-CBN is a whole block long when I got in! Normally, there’s still no lines at this time (9am). I guess, after Holy Week, everyone felt the work and deadlines piling up already. But I don’t want to leave Holy Week just yet for today’s reflection. After all, I was in camp for Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Black Saturday.

So let me tell you about camp– we called it Re-Creation. Not just because it was at Caliraya Re-creation center, hehe. But we focused on the transformative power of Salvation. These kids are mostly church-grown and have been going to Sunday School, only a few of them know what it’s like not to be a Christian. Their age range is from 12-16, with the college volunteers (that I handled) are 18-24. In our small groups, I was surprised how most of them aren’t even sure if they’re saved or not. And despite the lecture sessions (we had four- rebirth, regeneration, refocus, re-creation), some of them still have the wrong idea about how they could be saved. I was rather concerned when my college volunteer small group leader confessed to her group that she’s “not saved yet, but in the process of being saved.”

I wonder if some of us still think of our salvation is like that.

Anyway, that was my cue to swoop in and clarify that we get saved when we repent from our sins and accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, the moment we do that– that’s when we receive salvation, then the sanctification process follows. (Of course, I didn’t use the technical terms.) Salvation is not a process of years, like a college course, where if we fail, we won’t get a diploma.

But ultimately, who am I to say who is saved or not? It’s between the person’s heart and God, right? But shouldn’t it be seen in our lives if Jesus is in it or not? What’s the use of a relationship with the God of the Universe if we’re going to keep it private or just scheduled on Sundays?!

So what do you think?