Going Up?

Faster than the speed of sound!  This week, Austrian extreme athlete, Felix Baumgartner, became the first human to break the sound barrier.  Well, the first human to break the sound barrier without an airplane. 

“Fearless Felix” jumped from a capsule that more than 38 kilometers above the earth and before deploying his parachute he reached a speed of 1,342.8 km/h, which broke the sound barrier — 1,200 km/h.  Baumgartner’s jump broke the previous record that had been set in 1960 by US Air force Colonel Joe Kittinger.  Which was the year I was born. 

Very few if any of us will ever have the chance to break the sound barrier, at least not on the way down but maybe on the way up. The word of God tells us that someday the church, the bride of Christ, will disappear in the twinkling of an eye to be with Jesus. We don’t know if it will happen in our lifetime or not, but it might, and the question always has to be “Will you be ready to go?”  And going up will be even cooler than coming down, and so I leave you with this thought, “I trust that I’ll See you there or in the air.”      Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible.

Happy Thanksgiving

So, how was your Thanksgiving?  We had a full house this year. My folks were here from Saint John, our daughter and her family we up from Shelburne,  and we had some time with our son and his girlfriend in the Valley on Saturday.  We did the traditional feast on Monday and will eat leftovers for a good part of the week.  Thanksgiving was good, and we had a riot with the grandkids.  But it was a busy weekend, with a trip to the Valley on Saturday, three services on Sunday and the feast on Monday. I wonder how much time I really had for giving thanks.  And I have much to be thankful for, especially as I look around at the rest of the world, and I don’t just mean material blessings.  I love my wife and I love my life and there’s a lot to be said in that statement.   Often though I take those things  for granted, or worse, take them as my due.    

I’m not going to make promises about how next Thanksgiving weekend will be less rushed because  it won’t be.  But I am going to try really hard through the year to say “thank you” more to my family, my friends and my God. Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible.

It's Just a Matter of Time

The Toronto District School Board insists that it’s not endorsing polygamy.  In a recent promotion to help prevent “gender-based violence”, the school board’s website has a poster with the message “Love has no gender” in white capital letters surrounded by various hearts containing stick figure people.  In one of the hearts, there is an image of a man with two women; in another, two women with one man. 

Sounds like polygamy to me, but apparently not, at least not according to the school board.  “First, the board does not support polygamy,” said TDSB spokesman Ryan Bird. “The images in question were meant to support an individual's right to choose whom they love, regardless of gender. For example, the reason for depicting two women and one man was meant to show that a person can be attracted to more than one gender.”  That clarifies their stand, it would be wrong for a man to have a relationship with two women but all right for a woman to have a relationship with a man and a woman.  

It’s good to know that those who educate children would never endorse polygamy but have no problem endorsing bisexuality.  But really, polygamy is only a matter of time.    Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible. 

Who Cares?

The question apparently isn’t “was he or wasn’t he?”. . . the question is “Who cares?”   A couple of weeks ago it was reported that a fragment of manuscript had been discovered with the words “Jesus said to them, ‘my wife. . .’”.  Well, that set the cat amongst the pigeons, so to speak.  The “Jesus had a wife” bunch are saying, “We told you so”.  The other bunch are screaming “Heresy!”.  And most of the world is saying “Who cares?” 

ATV news did a web poll and 45% said it didn’t matter to them if Jesus was married. It’s kind of interesting that the number of people who said they didn’t care was 666……. I kid you not.  But if the manuscript is authentic, and if it didn’t refer to the plethora of Jesuses who lived 2000 years ago, what difference would it make to your understanding of Jesus?

I know that nowhere in the Bible does it say that Jesus was married, but nowhere does it say he wasn’t. The bible does tell us he was sinless but in no place does it tell us that marriage is sinful. 

Neither the words nor the grace of my Jesus would be minimized if he was married.  Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible. 

Panem et Circenses

Topless princesses or spoiled hockey players? The news is full of both stories.

It is interesting that the obscene salaries of professional athletes only becomes an issue when there is a strike or a lock out.  But as long as the fans have something to watch nobody really talks about salaries.  People are always decrying the salary of the CEO of Nova Scotia Power, but he has a real job with real responsibilities, making sure the power stays on for a million people.   Hockey Players “play” hockey and I know that their career may only last 5 years, but still. 

However the reality is that hockey players demand those salaries because they know they can get them, because people will pay to be entertained.  The same reason tabloids will pay for and print pictures of topless princesses.  The Romans had a phrase for this “Panem et Circenses”, “Bread and Circuses”, the entertainment of the masses.   Maybe it’s just my cynical nature and we aren’t really seeing the swirls of our society heading in the direction of the Roman Empire.

Can the church changes society?  Is that the churches job?  Nope.  It’s to preach Jesus because He can change people, and changed people will result in a changed society. Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible. 

Who's Your Daddy

Who’s your daddy? Or, who isn’t your daddy?  A company in New York City, cruising the city streets in a mobile medical clinic, is offering people a chance to find out for just $299.00.  DNA testing, once an expensive time-consuming process out of reach of most people, has suddenly become affordable.  Sources say over 500,000 of the relationship tests are done every year in the United States. However, experts are warning of the danger of these tests claiming that many clients may not be psychologically prepared for the results.

Many of those who purchase the test are looking for confirmation that their fathers or their children are or aren’t who they were told they were.  Social scientists warn that the results could diminish past family relationships if new biological connections are discovered.  In some cases they say it is better to let sleeping dogs lie.  But sometimes the dogs aren’t the only ones lying.

If you are a Christ follower then you will always know for sure who your father is, perhaps not your earthly father but ultimately your heavenly Father.  And you don’t need to spend $299.00 to have your DNA checked. All you have to do is read the New Testament.  Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible. 

Here Kitty, Kitty

It sounds like something from a science fiction novel, a harbinger of things to come.   A computer that has been taught to learn.  Can anything good come from this? 

In June, Google’s secretive X-Labs conducted an experiment involving the networking of 16,000 ultrafast computer processors.  Then they loaded 10 billion random images from YouTube videos and waited to see what would happen.  And . . are you ready for it?  The machine taught itself to recognize cats.  Which kind of makes sense when you think about it, if it was on YouTube and it wasn’t drunk then it was probably a cat.  Jeff Dean one of the scientist involved stated “We never told it during the training, ‘This is a cat.’ It basically invented the concept of a cat.”

One commentator wrote, “The frightening part of this report is that modern computers appear to be capable of independent learning through extrapolation.”  Hate to burst their bubble but what it took 16,000 ultrafast processors and billions of pictures to accomplish, our two year old granddaughter did last year.  Because there has never been a creation as marvellous as the one that God created on the sixth day.  And that is you!                   

 Have a great week and remember: To see what is really possible, you will have to attempt the impossible.