My Lifesong » School/Education

And Another One Down…

Jose — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 10:40:26 +0000

Last night we wrapped up our Christian Ethics class with two group presentations. We were tasked with opposing California’s Proposition 8 while the other group was tasked with supporting it. Initially, our group had trouble with the topic until we approached it from a biblical view and built our argument from that. Once we had the proper focus, the project flowed from that focus and I think we did a great job in presenting our findings. The pro group also did a great job, and I think it was a great end to one of my favorite classes. I think our professor did a great job with this class in engaging and challenging us, and it was always fun.

I only have a couple more physical classes left as I have decided to take the rest online in order to free up my schedule. I have commitments Sunday through Wednesday almost every week, and to get a night back, it would be awesome. This will also help me out in staying on course to complete my work by December of next year. After that, who knows??

Slowing Down

Jose — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 11:01:34 +0000

Many of you have noted that life has been really hectic for me the last few months, and I thank you for your concerns. November was filled with schoolwork, ministry, getting the house ready for guests, and anything else you can think of. Now that Thanksgiving has passed, things have slowed down a lot, and I am thankful for the break God has provided. I have one more week in my Christian Ethics class before a two week break until my Old Testament Poetry and Prophecy class starts. Two weeks may not sound like a long time, but in the CALL program, it's like a summer break. I will take the time to work ahead on my online class and try to finish that up before January just to take a breather (although I could take the time to work on my final for 30 days…I might have to consider that). Anyways, January will be here before you know it, and it's going to get busy again with planning the Mexico trip (with the added bonus of coordinating with three other churches), high school ministry, and everything else. The two main people that keep me sane are God and Nicole, and the quality time I spend with them. Everything else flows from that.

Where Does Evil Come From?

Jose — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 10:52:03 +0000

I am posting part of my final for my Literature of CS Lewis class because I felt like sharing. This part tasked us with contrasting the way Lewis views evil in The Screwtape Letters, The Problem of Pain, and The Great Divorce. I'm not sure why I am sharing, but maybe somebody will get something out of it.

Here it is….

In C.S. Lewis’ works, he approaches evil in differing ways based on the story. In The Screwtape Letters, evil is the product of demons tempting us away from the call of God to pervert natural inclinations into desires that distract us from God. In The Problem of Pain, Lewis sets out to show how evil and the resulting pain it causes is the result of our free will clashing with God’s sovereignty and essence. Lewis’ view of evil in The Great Divorce is that evil is the result of our inability to love others without the love of God being present within us. Despite the three differing views on the origin of evil that Lewis offers, he always portrays evil as a force that separates us from God.

In The Screwtape Letters, Wormwood the tempter corresponds with his uncle Screwtape on how to corrupt a human on earth. The only letters that we read in the novel are those from Screwtape to Wormwood, although Screwtape often refers to items Wormwood has written about. Throughout the novel, the tempters are portrayed as the chief purveyors of evil. They set about their work by appealing to human’s pleasures and corrupting them to the point wherein they are distracted from God and focused solely on their wants and desires, regardless of the needs they actually have. Screwtape advises Wormwood to use the Patient’s pleasures and to twist them into misguided notions of what God had designed them to be. Wormwood is advised to distract the Patient from the true purpose of prayer, to tempt him into superficiality, almost anything that will deaden the Patient’s mind and awareness to God. The resulting state of uncertainty that the Patient finds himself in will cause anxiety about his future with no regard or cognizance of what God’s plan may be for the Patient. Essentially, the tempters use our fallacies and misunderstandings to trick us into ignoring God and focusing on ourselves. Their evil lures us into ignoring God’s will and leads us into spite, envy, hatred, lust – everything that God is not. Thus evil is caused by the temptation of demons who lead us down a path into our sinful selves that draws us away from God and results in the evil that we do to ourselves and each other.

In The Problem of Pain, Lewis attempts to explain how pain could exist in the light of a Creator who is omnipotent and holy. The book addresses the question of how could the sinful nature of man exist when man was created by a good and holy God? While this question seems to be one that many struggle with, Lewis takes it on and says that the evil that we do is the result of our free will and our willingness to do as we wish, not as God demands. Thus, the evil that we do is the result of our free will rejection of God and His laws. In turn, that evil leads to pain because of the struggle between our evil and God’s innate goodness. Lewis goes on to explain that despite the evil and pain we cause to ourselves and to those around us, God still finds a use for them to assert His Authority and Sovereignty. Through the pain that we cause, God is able to use it to shatter our ideas of self-sufficiency and the illusion that everything is okay in our world. The way we react to this pain will drive us further away from God – or closer to him. If we stray further away, then we will simply do more evil and cause more pain. However, if we are roused by “God’s megaphone,” then we can truly know God and realize that we need to rely on Him for everything. In turn, we can become a better servant to Him and each other. As such, the origin of evil in The Problem of Pain is found in our free willed rejection of God and His laws and our continuous rebellion against Him.

The third way that Lewis approaches the issue of evil is found in The Great Divorce. In this book, Lewis uses a story of fantasy in order to show how our residence in either Heaven or Hell is determined by our ability to love in the way God intended for us to love. In this story, Lewis shows how our twisted sense of love can lead us to hurt the ones we think we love. In this book, Lewis states that we are unable to truly love until we love God and allow Him to make us whole again. Since we are unable to love truly, we do things to hurt those we think we love. The exchange that best shows this is the story of Sarah Smith and her husband. When they were alive, Sarah found her identity in loving her husband, but she did not truly love him. Instead, she needed his love to feel complete and she filled her emotional need by using him. Now that she has found out what love truly is, she tells her husband that she is now complete and apologizes for using him. In response, her husband gets angry that Sarah says she no longer needs him and demands to know why she doesn’t pity him. Her response is that she will not be blackmailed into pitying someone so that they can feel better about themselves. At this the husband vanishes and Sarah is left to deal with his mouthpiece. After a little more conversation, the dummy disappears as well and Sarah continues on her way. Each of the conversations that the narrator comes across all deal with people who are blind to the reality that surrounds them and instead focus on the way they have always been, despite the spirits’ attempts to show them the error of their ways. In this view of evil, Lewis makes the case that it originates from our own selfish desires and stems from our inability to love.

The three views that Lewis puts forth all portray different ways that evil originates, but they all have one commonality – they all lead to pain and suffering. Whether it is demons leading us astray, or our free will causing us to act out against God, or our own selfish desires disabling us from truly loving others through loving God, evil’s destructiveness knows no bounds. In the end, evil leads everyone down the same path to hurting ourselves, the ones we love, and away from God.

Literature of C.S. Lewis

Jose — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 22:32:57 +0000

Well, last night I submitted my 3 part final for my class. The class covered four of Lewis' works: The Screwtape Letters, Great Divorce, Problem of Pain, and The Four Loves. These four books showed the various styles that Lewis used and I really enjoyed taking the class. It's the first online class that I have taken where I actually learned something. I am happy to say that I passed the class with a 98%! That helps keep me motivated and looking forward to being done by the end of next year.

Christian Ethics

Jose — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 17:51:43 +0000

Tonight is the second night of class and I am excited. In this class we do a ton of discussion, and that is a refreshing change of pace. A lot of thinking, a lot of interaction – I love it.

Graduation Parties

Jose — Sun, 01 Jun 2008 00:35:27 +0000

The annual rite of summer for those who work with the youth. Seniors and their families celebrating their graduation from high school. Friends and family gathering to share in their achievement. All sorts of food and treats and no cooking for weekends on end. What fun!

And a little sadness. It’s a goodbye to 4 years of your life. It’s a splitting of ways, of saying goodbyes. It’s never seeing your friends in the hallway everyday anymore. No more bad cafeteria food, no more buses to catch.

It’s also the beginning of a new path. For some, it’s college. For others, it’s work. But a new path nonetheless.

For me, it’s with seeing young men and women whom I’ve mentored going out into the world, spreading their wings and taking off to find their way. I wave goodbye with a mix of sadness and exhilaration, of hope and trepidation. Will they ever know how much they mean to me? How immensely I enjoyed serving them? Maybe. Maybe not. Those questions may never be answered, and maybe they will. Maybe they already know.

As I wave goodbye, I turn slowly to the next group of people I can share life with, and do it all over again.

Mind numbing

Jose — Wed, 28 May 2008 14:40:03 +0000

I just finished my latest class – Pauline Epistles – last night, and I have to admit that my brain is a little fried. Much like Christian Worldview, my teacher really pushed the boundaries of what we thought we knew about Paul and his letters. Travis challenged us on our beliefs, and while at times I didn’t agree with what he said, I could see where he was coming from. He taught us how to approach discussions and how not to argue our points (but really, has "that’s what we’ve always been taught" ever really been a valid rejoinder?) I also really got to understand Paul and his motivations, and realized that what I used to take for arrogance and boasting wasn’t really what it was. Paul spoke in the way any other teacher or leader of that time would, and since I was trying to interpret him from a 21st century point of view, I saw him as that. Learning to understand the world he lived in, I can admit that I was wrong about Paul. He wasn’t as bad as we see him to be.

On a side note, I got a B in Christian Worldview. Like I said, it was a hard class. Maybe I’ll go back and try to raise my A- in Old Testament History to an A. Nah, I’ll stick with what I have. After all, as long as I keep it above a 3.5, it should be okay, right?

Intellectual Life as a Christian Calling

Jose — Sun, 20 Apr 2008 22:17:57 +0000

In my Christian Worldview class, we are currently reading Habits of the Mind by James W. Sire, and the subtitle is “Intellectual Life as a Christian Calling.” Today at CRIBS we discussed the elephant in the room that is politics in the church, and I feel that we had a good discussion. At the end of the discussion, the adult leaders all made the same point that we are called to life of intelligence. We are called to always learn so that we aren’t caught unawares by whatever is happening around us. We have to make informed decisions in everything we do, and we have to have the ability to back up our decisions with sound reasoning and logic. We also have to be able to discuss things in a loving and peaceful manner. And that is the hardest thing we are called to do. Too often we let emotions take control and we says things that we shouldn’t, or we act in a manner that is incongruent with how we are called to act. Even though it’s hard, we should never forget to put God first. By putting our hearts after His, we can be confident in His ability to use us as He will. We’ll act in a way that honors and glorifies Him, and we’ll be able to match our words to our actions.

Let the Madness begin!!!

Jose — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 09:48:16 +0000

The most exciting time in sports starts today. March Madness officially kicks off today (No, I don’t recognize the play-in, um, "Opening Round," game). 48 games over the next 4 days!! There will be a lot of people taking vacation time, using sick time - whatever - to stay home and watch the games. A lot of people staying on the internet all day just to catch the latest scores. Many brackets will be busted this weekend, and many people will look like fortune tellers with their picks. What an exciting time! If your team is in it, I hope they do well! If your team isn’t, well, you’re in good company (I sure do hope my Hawkeyes play better next year).

In response to Janie’s questions….

Jose — Sat, 19 Jan 2008 14:05:21 +0000

Janie asked some good questions to my last post, so here is my repsonse.

I loved the class, and God constantly amazed me with the various themes that run throughout the OT. The one that hit hardest was the struggle between our struggle to yield to God-given identity and our desire to create to control our lives. I struggle with this personally. As much as I want to do God’s will, I oftimes find myself trying to do things to speed up the timetable. I try to control the outcome instead of letting God direct things. A huge takeaway from this class was what results from taking either path. As you look over the lives of the Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Joseph, you can see how their attempts to control yielded strife, anger, bitterness, etc., while the times they yielded to their identity in God produced good fruit, peace, restored relationships, etc. Much like what happens in everyday life.

As for the movies, I would love to see the stand off between God and Baal on Mt. Carmel. Imagine it – the 450 prophets of Baal trying to wake him up in order to set fire to the oxen. Elijah pouring water over the ox…at this point the camera focuses on the mixture of water and blood that has pooled…a cross flashes across the screen – forshadowing to an event that will happen many centuries later. It could be part of a series. What do you think?