Practical Atheism

Practical Atheism...

.living, thinking, believing

like He doesn't exist,
like He didn't die so that I could be reconciled,
like He wasn't resurrected so that I could live faithfully, gratefully, fully,
that He reigns sovereignly over that which I worry over so easily, so frequently.

I want need to look at this closer this year. A year, I hope, of understanding how 
Incarnation,
Life,
Death,
Resurrection
Reign of Christ means...... that I breathe, live, think, love, worship wholeheartedly.

Sight

I can’t see this ...

Telophase HeLa (cancer) cells expressing Aurora B-EGFP (green) (100x)

  or these

Zebrafish olfactory bulbs (250x)

or this

Soap Film

with only eyes...

Hexanitrodiphenylamine high-explosive crystals (35x)

  All there……..waiting to be seen

Given the right tools, I can, past the veil of my seemingly limited sight

 sit in awestruck wonder, simply delight.

The right tools bring the far-off

Spicules: Jets on the Sun

just a little closer

The Necklace Nebula

into view

Comet Hartley 2 Flyby

Seeing prompts me to choose the right words to name what I see, what I experience. 

Given the right word I better understand and now possess a way to share. 

My love of the unseen world was feed by a loving dad who gave a microscope as a Christmas gift one year. Before that he made sure we stayed up on a hot July night to watch as men walked, leapt on the moon. He delights in the world...and in its people... in his daughters. And in his delight, he shares. His delight becomes tangible as I received his gifts, ...and his delight grows as I share those with others. 

Seeing the unseen helps me to perceive the seen with eyes now tuned to wonder.

It’s there, I just need the right tools, understanding to see it

And so with my soul

Tools...rather gifts from the Father; fasting, communion, prayer, meditation, the Word, confession, fellowship with the body of Christ….

all used by the hand of the Holy Spirit 

to teach me to see, to understand, to share

All used to restore in me
the image of Christ
I am to embody the unseen

love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,  gentleness and self-control

WORD Incarnate
-

Joni and Breast Cancer

Please keep Joni in your prayers as she has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer and will have surgery on Monday. More here

Joy in the Journey and Jesus Let Us Come To Know You

There was no Joy in [my] Journey. There was anything but. These songs came during what was in my life, a period of time that was soul-crushingly difficult. Over the course of a year I lost a lifelong young friend to ovarian cancer, dealt with my husband's brain surgery and partial hearing loss, wrestled with marital difficulties, and then after a head-on collision faced almost four months of bed-rest in order to keep my younger daughter alive, well, and in the womb. After the collision I remember bewilderingly, hopelessly asking God, "What are You doing?". That's when I began to learn that what I longed for and still do is to see His face.

Jesus let us come to know you
Let us see you face to face
Touch us, hold us, use us, mold us
Only let us live in you Jesus draw us every nearer
Hold us in your loving arms
Wrap us in your gentle presence
And when the end comes bring us home

Answers may come but what I wanted and still do is to simply see His face.  And knowing that I will  is what teaches me that there is Joy in the Journey.

There is a joy in the journey
There's a light we can love on the way
There is a wonder and wildness to life
And freedom for those who obey

And all those who seek it shall find it
A pardon for all who believe
Hope for the hopeless and sight for the blind

To all who've been born in the Spirit
And who share incarnation with Him
Who belong to eternity stranded in time
And weary of struggling with sin

Forget not the hope that's before you
And never stop counting the cost
Remember the hopelessness when you were lost

There is a joy in the journey
There's a light we can love on the way
There is a wonder and wildness to life
And freedom for those who obey

And freedom for those who obey...

Orson Bean and God

Read this for another example of walking in faith although you don't really understand why.

Belief

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Book 7)

Young voice: Harry's also referred to as the chosen one. So are there religious--
J.K. Rowling: Well, there-- there clearly is a religious-- undertone. And-- it's always been difficult to talk about that because until we reached Book Seven, views of what happens after death and so on, it would give away a lot of what was coming. So … yes, my belief and my struggling with religious belief and so on I think is quite apparent in this book.
Meredith Vieira: And what is the struggle?
J.K. Rowling: Well my struggle really is to keep believing.
Meredith Vieira: To keep believing?
J.K. Rowling: Yes.

Although I don't know Rowling's specific religious beliefs, other than the fact that she does believe in God and calls herself a Christian-which can mean anything-she does rightly grasp the difficulty with living a life of faith that is inherent in our world, to keep believing. The struggle to believe and to live out that belief is one that Scripture acknowledges and gives us encouragement to deal with it. Our pastor preached on this during his July 29th sermon. Just click on the link to listen. I have no idea of our pastor's thoughts about Harry Potter but his sermon dealt with the difficult, but necessary task of maintaining belief and the role that patience, community support and not bargaining our way out of difficulty play in living a faithful life. All themes creatively embodied in the Harry Potter series.