The Needy : Poetic Letter Exercise

Laughing
Uncontrollably

Liking
Fanatically

Calming
Hysterically

Thanking
Profusely

Thanking
Frankly

Thanking
Surely

Praising
Ambitiously

Thanking
Bravely

Noticing
Terrifically

Involving
Needlessly

 Let us learn from Christ how to pray, to forgive, to sow peace, and to be near those in need

I am laughing as I lose control, uncontrollably, to uplift the needy
I am liking as a fanatic, fanatically, to love the needy
I am living in a calming hysteria, hysterically, to ease the needy
It is a profuse thankfulness I learn, profusely, to cherish the needy
I can only be frank and be thinking them, frankly, to honor the needy
It is a sure thankfulness, surely, to offer the needy
I am ambitious to praise, ambitiously, to glorify the needy
I give thanks to the brave, bravely, to cater the needy
One should be terrific to notice, terrifically, to aknowledge the needy
It would needlessly be involving others when we are not near the needy.

Voices

Speak to me so that I may hear
Say to me all I fear

For the darkness may come over me
But not by the purpose of my ear
guarded from the promises of despair

Let the hope of words
cascade amongst the hills
and the voices lifted up
from every work of every zeal

That the coldness of the heart
May not reside in the clear
That the day will glorify in me
That this is why I am here

To hear the words
Of the voice of our year
saying
thy glory will be thee
tear upon tear
wake upon wake
drudging and resisting the mere
Chance to forsake
to abdicate a quake
A rambling
In the channel of the ear

Could it be silent
In their rearing
Could it be seen
Distances ago?

Who was dreaming of the old
When the young were screaming

Whose voices were heard then so?
Who called for the ever glow
Of hope to entail what belonged

As the voices sang
For a new christening
A new below
And the voices shattering
The one to know.
The voice of thee, we shall sow.

Book Promotion

What if Protestantism were true? What if the Reformers really were heroes, the Bible the sole rule of faith, and Christ’s Church just an invisible collection of loosely united believers?
As an Evangelical, Devin Rose used to believe all of it. Then one day the nagging questions began. He noticed things about Protestant belief and practice that didn’t add up. He began following the logic of Protestant claims to places he never expected it to go—leading to conclusions no Christians would ever admit to holding.
In The Protestant’s Dilemma, Rose examines over thirty of those conclusions, showing with solid evidence, compelling reason, and gentle humor how the major tenets of Protestantism—if honestly pursued to their furthest extent— wind up in dead ends of absurdity.

http://protestantsdilemma.com/

from aleteia.org: Atheist to Catholic convert and apologist Devin Rose has a new book out from Catholic Answers entitled The Protestant's Dilemma. The book's unique rhetorical angle is to assume that Protestantism is true, and then to show how it leads to absurd conclusions given various facts about history and Scripture. Catholicism, on the other hand, is shown to lead to reasonable conclusions.

Rose self-published an earlier version of the book with the title If Protestantism Is True in the summer of 2011. With a successful low-budget, blog-to-blog marketing campaign, the book took off and sold thousands of copies. Catholics Answers took notice and offered to help him edit a new version and re-publish it. With the release of The Protestant's Dilemma, If Protestantism Is True has been discontinued (though you can find used copies on Amazon for upwards of $125!).

The website for The Protestant's Dilemma, which has options for buying print or ebook versions, has some impressive endorsements from other well known Catholic converts and authors Brandon Vogt, Taylor Marshall, and Francis Beckwith.

Abounding Reign of Love

The Love Abounds, 
From Your Glory
And it is only this Glory
Where Love is Fixed
As no Love is repeated
No other love Affixed
On one's heart

Lenny Kravitz's Father's Deathbed Conversion (WOW!)

A Borrowed Post from Fr. Longenecker, Patheos / Catholic 
UPDATE: For an example of the influence of the demonic in ordinary life. Read this astounding account of the deathbed of musician Lenny Kravitz’ father. His father, Sy Kravitz had lived a sinful life of promiscuity and adultery, then he had an amazing spiritual experience. This story is from a long interview with Kravitz here in the Daily Telegraph. H/T to Rod Dreher who also comments on the story here.
Eventually, his father had to go to hospital. That’s where it happened.
‘It sounds like…’ Kravitz begins, and then says, ‘It’s going to sound like whatever it sounds like, but this is what it was. I mean, spiritually hospitals are very intense places. It’s like death’s doorstep. And he was in his bed one night and he looked at me, and he wasn’t on drugs, and he said to me, “There are these things flying around my bed, and these things crawling on the floor.” I said, “What are you talking about?” This is from my dad. He doesn’t do with any kind of spiritual thing. No heebie-jeebie kind of thing. And he’s, “There’s black-winged things and they’re flying around my bed… the things that are crawling on the ground, they look like they’re rats and they’re not… I see them.” I didn’t quite know how to take it. And he then began having this revelation and he accepted Christ – this is a non-religious Jewish man – and somehow the spirit world opened up to him. Almost like he had spiritually been bound his whole life and now this thing was released.’
After this spiritual experience, his father started answering some of the questions Kravitz would never get answers for. When Kravitz asked him before, “Why did you do what you did? Why did you do this to Mom?”, his father would stonewall. ‘That’s just the way it is,’ he would say. But a couple of nights after the experience, sitting in hospital with Lenny and his two half-sisters, Sy started talking. ‘He apologised to us in the most sincere, heartfelt manner. “I am sorry for what I’ve done, how I’ve been, how I’ve treated you, and I love you.” Real. And it was shocking… And what he said to me is that he always wanted to change his life, and he felt there was this thing on his back and he couldn’t get it off. His whole life, he knew inside himself that he wanted to change. But, he said, “I couldn’t.”?’
There would be one further unexpected moment: ‘As he got closer to his death, another night in the hospital, he was really tired and he looked over at me and he goes, “There’s angels all around the room. Because of Jesus.” And that was it. He turned and looked away. If you knew my dad – it was the furthest thing from him.’

Who Can See a Messiah in Jesus?

  Although disputed by some modern Jews, the Jews did expect a Messiah.  Messiah was not just the 'anointed ONE'' but the ''anointed one'' as any king was anointed.

  All kings of the house of David were seen as 'anointed.' This is to say that all kings of Israel were seen as God's anointed leaders of Israel, but it is not to be mistaken!, one Messiah, one Savior was expected in 1rst century Judaea.

  An interesting topic of debate is, ''Did Jesus of Nazareth, son of Mary and Joseph, fulfill the role of  Messiah?''

  This question I will not directly address.  It take much more scholarship to make a sufficient post on such a question.  What I will do is address this with some common sense, not to prove whether Jesus fulfilled the role of Messiah, but why one would even use this title on Jesus based on the story we have.

 Jesus Christ.

 Christ is the English derivative of the Greek word used for the Hebrew word for Messiah.  So when we use the title, ''Christ,''  we invoke the title of the Jewish expectations of a King who was sent by God as THE anointed one.

 Most have come across the idea that Jesus was not what the Jews expected.  This is elementary, but let's take this very simple, general understanding and pose some questions to see if we can not establish Jesus as who He said He was.

  One has to know, at least generally, what the Jews were expecting. They were expecting the Anointed One to defeat the Romans and establish a kingdom which ruled all nations, that is, the whole world.

  Many interpret this as expecting a warrior, an Alexander the Great type, but Jewish.

  Jesus was not this, He was a teacher, a healer, and a professor of peace, love, and unity.

  So let us examine what this means, not to us, but for those who want to negate Christianity all together.

  Why in an era of great expectation, would men boast the death of a man who taught peace and love?

   Wouldn't this sound ridiculous to claim one as the Messiah, who was neither a crowned royal or a warrior hero?

   These were Jews who proclaimed the life of Jesus! Didn't they want what all Jews wanted?  Didn't they want to see Rome defeated and the Jews triumphant! 

   In fact, it was quite opposite! After the fall of the temple, Christianity spread even more rapidly, and Jesus' name was more affirmed by the many in the pagan Empire.

   Reflect on it, swallow it, and realize: this makes no sense for someone to make up a story about a man in Israel, to be not only a peacemaker, but to be put to death, with what to show for it?

  Let me answer myself!  One could surmise that this was a movement to glorify the deaths of the fallen brothers. 

  That this Messianic-type of hero in the body of Jesus of Nazareth was a archetype to illustrate the great struggle and heroism which prevailed in the day against the tyranny of the Roman superiors.

  I like the effort, but good try, this would mean that this message was for Jews, and only Jews! 

  What would the pagan Greeks and Roman slaves care about the heroism of the Jewish spirit?

   Please tell me! I tried to reflect on it! Can you give me one reason why someone would conjure up a story of such glorious meaning (i.e. of a Messiah), and not give the audience a convincing  rendition?

   I mean, why boast the death of a hero who failed?  What sense is in that? 

   Why make the Messiah a peacemaker and not a champion of great human privileges and honor?

      Jesus was betrayed, denied, and accused!  Is this the Messiah one would make up to convince the masses?      Hello! I found the Messiah, he hasn't taken over the world, he actually died before he could do that, but boy! he sure was a great guy! 

   Reflect on it!  There is something utterly unique in this tale.  A Messiah promised! And wait, here is the best part, he has died as a common criminal!  He manifested no ill against the enemy, His friends denied Him, can you believe it! The Messiah! A carpenter! A man condemned to death after three years of a bunch of chit chat and roaming around!

  There were others running around claiming to be a Messiah, their movements died at their death.  I think it easy to imagine without studying them that they were revolutionaries, bearing arms and rallying militias.  That is, playing to what was expected of them, taking up a role and not commanding understanding.

   This proclaimed Messiah, Jesus Christ, He came and claimed not the thrown of worldliness, but a thrown greater than that of the universe.  Who saw that coming? And who would dare believe it?

  Imagine in World War II if the occupied French were expecting liberation, and they got a Huckleberry Finn telling them, ''Give on to the Nazis what are the Nazis, and give on to me your greatest trust, as I will redeem you not through arms but through the spirit.''

  Lovely! Doesn't sound plausible for a second! Jesus is no Huckleberry Finn, but he is closer to that than Alexander the Great!

 Almost like Ghandi, but even Ghandi saw immediate societal success in his day.  Jesus did not, not as the proclaimed Messiah would have been expected!

  Other instances of the like:

       1) Women as witnesses -- In this day in Judaea, women were not seen as legitimate witnesses, yet their testimony is conveyed in the Resurrection story.  Again, poor job trying to convince people!  Didn't they learn that if they wanted to make an argument they needed to speak to their audience!
     
      2) Paul, a Jew, who was a persecutor of the Christians, suddenly makes a radical change and becomes on the of the primary evangelists of this message.  We have his letters and his testimony.

      3)  Peter, who in John 21 was told to feed Jesus' sheep and flock, denied Jesus three times, even was accused of being a hypocrite by Paul when Peter first tried to appease the Jewish Christians in the question of the Gentiles.  Yet, it was Peter who Jesus chose.  

    What a marvelous narration, time after time, we do not see heroes, we see follies and failure, outcasts and underachievers, denials and turn aways, and weakness and hesitance.  

  What are they trying to convince us of again?

        I hope when reflected on, you will see that this idea of the Messiah doesn't really seem legitimate if based on fiction. I propose, there is more reason to believe in the ''lack'' of Messiah than the expected Messiah in the embodiment of Jesus, as the story would not seem in the least believable to fit in the context of what the Messiah was to be. I find it hard to deceiver through why anyone would lay claim to the anti-messiah, if you will, in positioning a witness to the True Messiah, if it wasn't true! 

       This is just one exercise in defending Jesus as Christ, the Messiah.  There are several more, such as:
                       

 

 

Did the Jews Expect a 1rst Century Messiah?

A link to a in depth study on 1rst century Jewish expectations of the Messiah


EXAMPLES FROM JOSEPHUS

• [Josephus gives us much historical detail about self-proclaimed and popularly-embraced 'messiahs' of the period. As such, these would only document the popular belief in messianix, not necessarily his own. But this will suffice for my point here--that there WERE significant (if ill-formed) expectations of heaven-sent deliverance by one 'anointed' and/or 'inspired by God' to the task. I will cite two texts from J. that show BOTH the claimants' use of an appeal to being 'inspired/anointed/selected by God' for the task AS WELL AS a more 'legitimate' understanding of sovereignly-appointed leadership.
  
• Jewish War 2.258-60: "Besides these there arose another body of villains, with purer hands but more impious intentions, who no less that the assassins ruined the peace of the city. Deceivers and impostors, under the pretense of divine inspiration fostering revolutionary changes, they persuaded the multitude to act like madmen, and led them out into the desert under the belief that God would give them tokens of deliverance."
  
• Jewish War 6.312-13: "What more than all else incited them to the war was an ambiguous oracle, likewise found in their sacred scriptures, to the effect that at that time one from their country would become ruler of the world. This they understood to mean someone of their own race, and many of their wise men went astray in their interpretation of it. The oracle, however, in reality signified the sovereignty of Vespasian, who was proclaimed Emperor on Jewish soil."
  
• [Notice in the above quote that J. HELD TO the belief of a prophesied emperor, but differed on the identification of the figure(!), and that the phrase 'many of their wise men' probably indicates that the messianic expectation was (a) widespread and (b) not confined to the less-educated populace.]

Jesus came to tear down religion?