Pithy sayings 6

"Les enfants n'ont ni passé ni avenir et, ce qui ne nous arrive guère, ils jouissent du présent." Jean de La Bruyère

"Children have neither past nor future and, something which rarely happens for us, they really enjoy the present."

One of the big lessons from our Personal Development sections of Christian Counselling was learning to live in the present and not only to survive the present, but to make the most of every second! And in spiritual development we talk about accepting the moment and allowing the presence of God to permeate every moment. So it is also a question of confidence and trust in an Almighty God. It's also a question of understanding what liberty is for us. And children are so free to live for the moment !

And yet, our young people do grow up and have to move into the adult world. Last Sunday we had a send off for ours and the whole service was in their favour. They are such great people - we shared our faith the best way we could, and we released them into the wider world to discover other ways of living and developing their faith. May they let themselves be surprised and amazed by our God.

We pray for our young people. Note how small our community is still.

More sayings/quotes

"Le contraire des bruits qui courent des affaires ou des personnes est souvent la vérité." Jean de La Bruyère

"The opposite of rumours about business or about people is often the truth (of the matter)." Jean de la Bruyere.

Jean de La Bruyère, né à Paris le 17 août 1645 et mort à Versailles le 10 mai 1696, est un moraliste français. La Bruyère est célèbre pour une œuvre unique, Les Caractères ou les Mœurs de ce siècle. Wikipédia

Several scandals are making the headlines in France at the moment: misuse of public funds, political party debts, who gets how much and for what - leading to strikes. Even in Christian circles there can be different interpretations of same issues. Truth, real truth, can be an elusive thing. It's our Christian duty to seek the truth of any matter, including in our understanding of the Word of God. Our first reflex should be to ask the Holy Spirit to enlighten us and lead us in our ruminations.

At the Summer University Christian Counselling course (a 3-day conference at the end of June), we had some very interesting, thought-provoking teaching on the Word of God. François Vouga, a Swiss German theologian talked about what the parables of Jesus tell us about the development of our unique identity. (The Subject, in psych terms.)

Then Valérie Duval-Poujol did a masterful paper on how people's cultural vision influences their translation of the Bible and gave examples. Understanding the word 'flesh' (which leads to a rejection of our body) or words which describe our emotions  (which can lead to suppressing valid emotions). Male/female relationships or understanding of skin colour which can lead to racist attitudes.

Conclusion: the Bible has to remain 'Good News' for all and not encourage us to inflict a certain legalism.

"10 things a missionary won't tell you"

Hello everybody.

With my Iphone (thanks to a special donor) I have access to F/Bk and getting a little hooked on it, inspite of my reluctance to be a pawn in the whole social network thing. And then there are interesting things that appear and which are worth sharing.

Here are two:

http://www.trinitykenya.com/10-things-missionaries-wont-tell/

You may know I have another blog at MissionsHub. But I decided not to give the above link on that site: why? Although I agree with everything said in the article, I can't bring myself to repeat it on a specific missions blog. So I'm compromising with it being on my personal blog. Merits reflection ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IjaZ2g-21E

Ocean Clean-up

This really encourages me: we and previous generations have left rather a mess of our world with our selfish and excessive use of resources. I'm as much to blame as anyone - look at all the technology I use. Yet our young people should be encouraged to use their intelligence and creativity and they will help come up with solutions like this guy. Bravo!