Author: Craig

Discovery, Passion, and Intuition

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Yesterday while driving across the city a couple of times I was able to listen to CBC Radio1’s rebroadcast of the Killam Prize Symposium.

It featured the following four winners:

Jean Grondin is a philosopher and professor at Université de Montréal. He is an expert on the ideas of Immanuel Kant and Martin Heidegger, and the author of over twenty books.

Louis Taillefer is a physicist and a leading international researcher on the topic of superconductors. He is a professor at Université de Sherbrooke and holds the Canada Research Chair in Quantum Materials.

John Whalley is Canada’s leading research economist. He is a professor in the Department of Economics at Western University in London, Ontario and director of the school’s Centre for the Study of International Economic Relations.

Mark A.Wainberg is one of the most renowned and productive researchers in the field of HIV/AIDS. He is a professor at McGill University, and his research is aimed at slowing the spread of HIV/AIDS in southern Africa.

I particularly enjoyed the conversation about discovery generated through the interaction of the “old” and the “young.”  As well the need for PI:  Passion and Intuition in the process of discovery.

Here’s to all my friends at UBC hoping for the next great DISCOVERY!

The broadcast is 53 minutes and its worth the time.

 

Suffering, Injustice, and Faith

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“John, calling two of his disciples to him, sent them to the Lord, saying, ‘Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?’”  Luke 7:18-19

John the Baptist had a crisis of belief.

Faith always has an object, a “who.” Who is your faith in?

Arrested for speaking critically about Herod’s relationships, John sat in prison and had time to wonder. He wondered, “Is Jesus really the one?”

I would have wondered, “Are you the one who is going to rescue me?”

Jesus sent the two disciples back with this message, “Go and tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good new preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”  (Luke 7:22-23)

Not a technical or a theoretical answer. Yet for the ear trained by the Scripture there would be echoes of the prophets.  (See Luke 4:16-21)

The Messiah had come. Jesus is The One.

Suffering can create intense self-awareness. Suffering can bend faith away from the One who loves us and for whom we were made. Jesus did not think less of John for this crisis of belief. In fact, Jesus went on to affirm John and to call him one of the greatest persons ever born. (Luke 7:28) Jesus called John to consider the Scripture and the evidence. Implicit in Jesus’ words is the call to remain full of faith even through the trials.

Water Policy

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Why study and develop water policy? Raul Pacheco-Vega writes,

If you consider that 85 per cent of the world lives in the driest half of the planet, that almost 2.5 billion people do not have access to proper sanitation, that more than 900 million individuals still defecate in the open, and that water availability is expected to decrease whereas water consumption is estimated to grow by about 19 per cent by the year 2050, you can realize now why I’m concerned about improving ways in which we govern the precious liquid.

Read the whole article.

 

Respecting the Old and the New

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36He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. 37And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. 38But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. 39And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, “The old is good.”   Luke 5:36-39

Both are valuable.

New wineskins and old wineskins.

Because of what they hold: wine.

Jesus tells this parable as His new community is under attack.

I believe He conveys the value of both the old and the new.

Put new wine in old wineskins and you spoil both.

Those who have partaken of the aged wine prefer the old rather than the new.

Most people who have experienced good times in community don’t really like change.  We want to hold onto those moments when we experienced God’s grace together.

The church is Jesus’ discipleship movement. But our assets like buildings, culture, music, books, and websites distract us from the fluidity of His Kingdom.  We are seduced into illusions of permanence and legacy that have little to do with His Kingdom.

We require the regenerative work of the Holy Spirit in order to live in the tension of honouring people graced by Jesus in the old and in the new. I know… I’m a church planter. I’m living in-between; sent from the old in order to plant seeds and gather the new. I’m learning that our critique of either will lead to sin if we fail to cherish the people He has and is drawing into the family of Jesus.

Power to Forgive Us

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Power to Forgive Us

 

Jesus said, “Man, your sins are forgiven you.” And the scribes and the Pharisees began to question, saying, “Who is this who speaks blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God alone?”   Luke 5:20-21

 

Forgiveness.

 

It must be delivered by the one

 

who has been offended or treated dishonorably.

 

We see that the religious people

 

listening in on Jesus’ conversation

 

with the paralyzed man

 

were rightly offended for as far as they knew

 

Jesus had no authority

 

to forgive

 

sin.

 

We see a paralyzed man loved by four friends,

 

lowered through a roof,

 

meeting Jesus and he’s forgiven, set free, and healed.

 

We see our deathly independent condition rendering us incapable

 

of merit, of sacrifices, or of goodness

 

sufficient to satisfy the heights God’s holiness.

 

But we see Jesus

 

who has authority to forgive;

 

It’s because of who He is.

 

He came down from the Father, and

 

suffered the humility of the Cross,

 

to forgive us

 

of sin.

 

Who will love us enough to bring us to Jesus?