Posts filed under 'Reflections'
Recently ordered some books from an unnamed bookstore (which is generally awesome). At checkout, I was given an error page, so I tried 3-4 more times, and each time, I got the same error page. Eventually, I returned back, and it worked. I did not receive a confirmation mail for more than one order, but nevertheless wrote their support in a slightly annoyed tone. Today, I receive a reply to the effect that the order had been drawn 4 times from my account, but they had canceled all but one order, and the money would be refunded. Great. So I write a slightly annoyed reply back, and get a sincere apology. This is when suddenly I realise something.. The books I was ordering were very Christian books.
I’ll tend to run in the park. For some reason – and I was really happy about that – Café Church decided to give me a t-shirt a while back; I often wear it when I run. That is, when I don’t forget I’m wearing it. And suddenly remember after sending some too-smoking people a disapproved look, or looking too long where I probably would be better off taking Job’s advise and averting my eyes.
This is what’s been hitting me more and more recently: No matter if we want it or not, we are, as Christians, walking billboards for what we profess. In a very real flesh-and-blood kind of way. Which is really great – the message of Jesus incarnate; when we display Him.
I’m not advocating flawless Christianity, or that we should ‘get our act together’ (nor that there are not extremely kind, loving and good people out there who are not Christian). I just find it interesting, that in the middle of the hype of ‘transparency’ in so many Christian circles, transparency suddenly hits us right between the eyes where we expect it the least.
juli 27th, 2009
Just randomly check my stats, and saw that one of the most used search terms to land on this blog is ‘church of raabjerg’. This strikes me as a strangely odd thing to search for…
juni 6th, 2009
So I just went to the ‘camp-meeting’ of the Adventist church in Norway (where, by the way, I’m staying for the summer). For those that don’t know what this is, it is where many members of the Adventist Church get together for sort of a day of fellowship.
First thought: It was nice. For various reasons, it’s been a couple of weeks since I last had the opportunity to worship with other believers, and that was really nice. Raafat Kamal – known better to some of us as Nat’s dad – gave a very forceful talk about the mission of the church, especially touching on the way we deal with people. Spot on.
Second thought (why am I putting this in bullet-point fashion?): It seems to me – it may not be so though, cf. a conversation I had in the car on the way back, but still, it seems to me – that often we can classify people in our church as belonging to two groups: Those that have their focus on the here and now and those that have their clear focus on his second coming. Within the Adventist Church, with our background and tradition, the latter translates to having a heavy focus on our being in the end time, the coming trials, the call to come out of her (interpretations of Rev 18.4), historical prophecies, and the signs of the times. The latter group seems to be more ‘mainstream’ in their Christian thinking, and generally (i) focus less on these things, while (ii) focusing more on the difference God can make in their lives here and now, the walk with God, the kingdom of God being at hand, and so on (if this group speak of the second coming, it is usually in quite general, more mainline, terms, and not as a focus-point; it’s just part of the bagage). Many times when people step up to the platform to sing a song, contribute with their thoughts, or take part in a debate, I get the feelings they are likely to belong to one of these groupings. I also get the feeling that the directions in which these groups are heading are not the same.
It would be nice to see a synthesis, or a direction that would maintain both, of these two foci – the here and now and the second coming / eternal life – if nothing else, because it seems that both Jesus and Paul managed to have them coexist in their thinking and doing and life. True, this picture is stylised, and I also see a more healthy middle ground in the church, but this seems a minority. I don’t have the answer on how to do it – my theology is probably flawed as well – but I recognise the need within our church for some sort of integration. Much of what has seemed integration up to this point to me does not seem so, since there is often still a lack of focus on the kingdom of God among us, as especially laid out by Jesus in the Gospel of Mark (forgive me if my labelings are not entirely consistent or my thinking not crystal-clear; I hope it still makes sense on some plane of thought). The music program did a good job of trying to integrate though. That was quite good.
Third thought: I have been able to be near – in different settings during the day – a small number of ‘core families’ that seemed to be working very well. It’s funny how you can usually tell when you come into the presence of such a family – the way they interact, the way they treat each other, the implicit respect the parents enjoy from, while not commanding of, the children. Simply a good solid family. Yes, solid is the word. Not coming from such a family myself, I may be more prone to picking up the difference. Whenever I meet people my age who has grown up in a solid family like this, our whole instinctive feeling about marriage seem to be completely opposite. For me, it has been interesting to note that for some people, it would be a strange and foreign thought to worry about the ‘what if’’s and the potential problems (true, some of it may be personality-related, but still I see a pattern). They simply assume, by instinct or experience, that things will work out fine.
Fourth thought: Norway is a really beautiful country. Driving up to Tyrifjord is simply amazing.
juni 6th, 2009
So today, having a fever, I took a bath. Having recently seen the movie Pi, where Sol paraphrases the story, and possible as a result of my feverish condition, I began to ponder the Archimedes principle of displacement. The quote from Pi goes:
“The king asks Archimedes to determine if a present he’s received is actually solid gold. Unsolved problem at the time. It tortures the great Greek mathematician for weeks – insomnia haunts him and he twists and turns in his bed for nights on end. Finally, his equally exhausted wife – she’s forced to share a bed with this genius – convinces him to take a bath to relax. While he’s entering the tub, Archimedes notices the bath water rise. Displacement, a way to determine volume, and that’s a way to determine density – weight over volume. And thus, Archimedes solves the problem. He screams ‘Eureka’ and he is so overwhelmed he runs dripping naked through the streets to the king’s palace to report his discovery.” (Sol’s point is that Max needs to ‘take a bath’ to solve his problem, but this quote spurred my interest, apparently)
Not remembering the quote exactly, I seemed to remember something about weight, and claims being made that the amount of water displaced were somehow related to the weight of the object, but I couldn’t get it to make sense that anything but the volume of the object would determine how much water it would displace. Enter google: Search archimedes gold displacement.
It seems reasonable to go from the top, and this site is on a .gov domain, carries the emblem of the US department of energy, so it seams at a 10-second glance to have some reliability. While, when reading it again, the scientists answering do not appear to give any outright wrong information, they don’t at all seem to convey the essence of the story. And when initially reading it, I strongly got the sense that some of them were arguing for a heavier object displacing more water than a lighter object (of the same volume).
Right, let’s try link 2: Now, suddenly, the crown under inspection could be partly silver instead of iron (as claimed by the first site), and this site is more or less about posing a critique against the method anyways, ending up suggesting a setup with scales, reminding me of the epic scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where Sir Bevedere goes ‘we shall use my largest scales’.
Browsing through the google-list once again, my eye caught (after having discarded link three as relatively unuseful for my purposes) a debate at ‘Science forums’. This debate again reminded me of the debate preceding the use of Sir Bedevere’s largest scales in the forementioned movie. A guy called Vexer seems determined not to get it, and during a full 2-page discussion seems to hold that the water displaced has to do with weight and not volume.
While scrolling down the list further, my eyes catch something most welcome: What looks like an authoritative source indeed – the Encyclopædia Britannica in it’s very person (the linked page was followed through a couple of additional links). However, my rejoicing is short, since you can read about 5 seconds off that page, before a nag screen pops up asking you to register. So I took a screenshot of the info and read it at my leasure. It seems that indeed, the volume of water (or any fluid for that matter) displaced by a fully immersed object is – dam dam dam – the volume of that object; irrespectable of its weight I might add (while it is of course true that the upward force has to do with the weight of the object, and so becomes relevant for determining to what degree the object will be immersed). Which incidently is the same conclusion found (albeit in even more understandable terms) at Wikipedia. Which adds another point to the trustworthiness of Wikipedia.
So I’m happy; I got confirmed what I initially thought to be true (which raises again another set of questions on the biasedness of my inquiry). However, what’s the point of writing it here, or, as one of my lecturers like to reiterate, ’so what?’
I had a chat with my dad yesterday evening about postmodernism and the pluralistic society in which we live. He thought much of it had come from technology (perhaps somewhat like Lyotard). And I was reluctant to accept that (there must be more). However, as this little exercise confirms, on any given topic – even the ones we consider to be very established and universally true – we can find a host of both confusing, opposing, and confirming information, since anyone with a keyboard and Internet access can contribute even further to the confusion (you and me both).
I think my dad said something about how it used to be simpler. I agree. Maybe I’m missing a bit of that simplicity, even though I’ve never experienced it, or rather, I’ve probably experienced it growing up, since as a child, you tend to trust your authorities much more. I don’t think I’d like to go back though.
And even further, within especially religious communities, there tend to be those groups who view everything as being very simple. I am envious. However, I find it difficult to go back. And yet I agree. It is very simple. But perhaps simplicity is about choice, and that choice starts out with examination. And entails inspection. And then perhaps in the process, we learn which voices to ignore and which to include.
februar 1st, 2009
Met a cute dog in the Metro yesterday. The owner wasn’t too bad either 
During Christmas, me and my sister walked past the saddest looking dog. The owners lurked behind it and had exactly the same sad expression on their faces.
Funny how dogs and owners often look equally dull or interesting.
P.S. Me and my sister also met some other people with a quite nice dog, so if they should be reading this, don’t be mistaken
januar 8th, 2009
Sitting this Saturday evening just past sunset, I though I would take the opportunity to reflect on the day.
Went to bed a bit late last night after having been to Laura’s ’studenterfest’ (a party you throw when you’ve graduated from high school), but was fortunate enough to be able to sleep late today. Had the opportunity to see Bobby’s (our Café church minister) 1-minute Facebook video-intro to his sermon today on the topic of ‘real rest’.
So I got a little over eight hours of sleep before I was awoken by a phone call from a good friend, whom I was very glad to hear from, so this made a perfect start of the day. Afterwards, I had the opportunity to reflect a little, write in my journal, and read through Paul’s letter to Titus, which was the place to which I had come in the Scriptures, this morning. Especially Titus 3:9 made me pause a little: “But avoid stupid controversies, genealogies, dissensions, and quarrels about the law, for they are unprofitable and worthless.” (NRSV)
Soon after, I was out running. It was nice to feel that I’m getting a bit in shape, so I can actually run for most of the 25 minutes – on the route that used to take 30 – without having to stop for air. To add to the excitement, I ran into one of my cat friends 
I think I’ve met her before – I think it was a her – this black-brownish cat who looked very happy to see me in the rain, and came running towards me from the distance. So I took a few minutes to say hi and went on running. When I settle down sometime, I would definitely like a cat.
Afterwards, I made myself a nice brunch; I could post pictures, but you can just look down a couple of posts from last Saturday’s brunch to the picture of the baguettes with tomato, mozzarella, fresh basil, olive oil, salt and pepper, to see what I had This was enjoyed with freshly squeezed – that is, before they put it onto a box in the supermarket, but at least it was not diluted concentrate – orange juice and further conversation with the before-mentioned good friend.
After a tiny bit of reflection, I turned to Isaiah 58 and read most of it before walking out the door. It’s one of my favorite passages. I was out the door quite early, and thought I might just get out of the Metro one station early (Nørreport, that is), and walk to church along the lakes of central Copenhagen. While going to church, I had a very relaxed feeling. Just feeling good. I got out of the train at Kongens Nytorv, but got back onto the train right away, as I had the feeling I should go to Nørreport instead. So, I did. As I got out from the station and up to street-level, I wanted to cross over to one side of the street I was to walk up, but there was a red light to my left. Strangely, there was still 5 seconds of green light to my right. So, I went that way (it made no difference to my route, as it only determined I was walking upwards on the left side of the street, instead of the right). When I had crossed the footpath over the street to the right, I saw a woman sitting, holding out a cup, needing money. I felt impressed to give her some money, so I did. And besides, it was very fitting with the passage I’d read before going out the door. It all fit so well together, I couldn’t help but wonder if God had sent me past her today, for her benefit as well as for mine (the amount I gave her couldn’t have made a huge difference, but I hope it got her on the way to meeting just a small amount of her real material needs). I remembered one of my teachers at Newbold who said something like this in a tutorial session: “The main theme of the Old Testament is not even God’s love. It is His justice. He is the God who cares about the underdog. Who provides justice for those who have been mistreated.”
The topic of Bobby’s sermon today was ‘real rest’, taking his point of origin in 1 Kings 1:1-4. Just a couple of highlights (as I remember them):
‘You can’t explain about rest unless you’ve experienced it’
‘These servants knew that the King needed help. Needed help to do what he couldn’t do, to get warm.’
‘Why does it say that David did not have sex with her? Remember the story in 2 Samuel? This shows us that David has grown.’
‘If there is no warmth in your thinking, God isn’t there’
‘Real rest is getting close to God’
(and there was another, brilliant, statement, but I just can’t remember it, which is driving me just a tiny bit crazy. No, not really, but still )
I think one of the main things I brought along is that the things we cannot do for ourselves, God can help us with. And that God can provide real rest for us. That He is the one who will provide it. And that nothing but God will provide us with real rest. None of the shorter-term things that we think will make us happy. But it’s hard to convey; these are just fragments. I hope they will get the recording of the sermons sorted soon, so they can be podcast (now also as a verb ).
The worship after the sermon in particular, was awesome, in the truest sense of the word. Just a couple of quite quiet songs, not intimidating in any way, and with quite a few a cappella-sections, God felt very present.
Afterwards, I went out with 4 friends and had a very nice meal at Jensens Bøfhus. Food, as always, was great. And the fact that the service wasn’t up to par was okay, since it provided us with free desserts
Sitting back in the apartment of the friend who’s been nice enough to have me staying for the summer, but who isn’t here at the moment, I am left with the feeling that today, I have experienced real rest. It’s not something tangible, but it’s still something I know I’ve experienced, and something I certainly know I would not be able to provide myself with these days. And I just want to acknowledge God for this.
juni 28th, 2008
Today, I attended a baptism at the home church of my childhood. It was a very moving service – come to think of it, I think all services should be baptismal services; it tends to provide the right focus that really should be present at any divine service, but for some reason is not always there.
For me, it was a personal experience as well. Seldom has it been that hard to sing ‘all to Jesus I surrender’. But I did sing it, and it felt good. About 1/3 of the song’s durations, I think I had to keep quiet in order to manage the river of tears that was wanting to run uncontrollably down my cheeks. Now, I just feel like sleeping.
I don’t know why I have to experience hardship (or for that matter why we all do), or, maybe I have some idea, but regardless, I believe God has a plan for me, plans for something better. The hardest part is probably patience while He does His stuff.
“Du kaldte mig, o Jesus,
nu kommer jeg til dig.
Jeg slipper alt mit eget,
jeg overgiver mig”
(Danish baptismal hymn from memory)
P.S. If the timestamp is confusing, I wrote some on this yesterday and some today :p
juni 8th, 2008
Just watched the not-quite-as-excellent as the Indiana Jones movie we watched earlier in the evening, though still enjoyable, movie, ‘The Fighting Temptations’, while sitting at my computer, being a good boy and drinking the feelgood drinks company’s ‘gorgeous’ cloudy lemon juice drink, while my friends were eating Ben & Jerry’s
A moment in the film made me pause and go into blog-admin mode: (boy and girl standing just having kissed, in kind of a pausing moment)
She: “Experience has taught me that fighting temptation makes you strong”
He: “Yes, but the problem with fighting temptation is that you might never get the chance again”
She (smiling): “Oh, yea of little faith”
maj 26th, 2008
Getting out of the metro today, while taking the escalator up to the surface, I got a glimpse of a little goodbye scene. A woman was smiling, crying, waving at her family; four persons standing outside by a pram and waving back.
I instantly got a flashback to the opening scene of ‘Love Actually’:
“Whenever I get gloomy with the state of the world, I think about the arrivals gate at Heathrow Airport. General opinion’s starting to make out that we live in a world of hatred and greed, but I don’t see that. It seems to me that love is everywhere. Often it’s not particularly dignified or newsworthy, but it’s always there – fathers and sons, mothers and daughters, husbands and wives, boyfriends, girlfriends, old friends. When the planes hit the Twin Towers, as far as I know none of the phone calls from the people on board were messages of hate or revenge – they were all messages of love. If you look for it, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion love actually is all around.”
maj 25th, 2008
At great risk, I’m throwing myself into the recent stream of opinions about reason and feelings. I am doing so with some anguish, as I am sure the NT’s will come, outsmart me, and win the debate. If nothing else, because that is important to them. And let’s face it; NT’s do argue more consistently and rationally – otherwise they would not be rationals. Therefore, I will not try and present an objective confirmable argument, but rather give you my view on things as they have developed over the last few days. Keep in mind however, that nothing is static.
Let me start by describing myself a bit. I am a quite abstract person, I think a lot, I feel a lot; sometimes I may even tend to let my emotions carry me a bit away. I view myself as being definitely NF (INFJ as it were), but even so, my secondary ‘type’ is the NT – I believe I have an NT’ish side of me which I am able to put into play at specific occasions, but not over a longer period of time.
What motivates me? People. Relations. Even at the job I’m sitting at now, where I am handling invoices in various ways, dealing much with computer systems, and communicating with people mostly through email, the thing that motivates me is that I get a lot done (probably my J-side which gets satisfaction from completion) and the feedback I get from the people I help, letting me know that they consider my job valuable to them. I always feel myself opposed to various attempts in the department to cut down on the level of personal contact with our users (of which there is not that much already), even if it would seemingly free our time to do even more processing, because I know it would not motivate me, but rather do the opposite.
What is the issue I am concerned about right now? Put simply, my right and privilege to be an NF-person without having to feel as if there was a better way for me. Much of this will be triggered by thoughts originating from a book called ‘Could it be this simple’, which proposes a hierarchy of the mind, in which reason along with conscience should be at the top, and feelings at the bottom. I will blog more about this book later, probably, but regardless of what the intentions of the book are, it has brought forth in my circle of friends the idea that all NF’s should strive towards becoming NT’s, being more rational and letting reason be the sole determinant of their choices.
At first glance, this seems obvious. Who would not want to let reason determine their choices? So I think we need to go into semantics here. For what is really meant by this reason seems to be (to me) cold, detached, calm rationalistic arguments, that objectively can tell you what to do. My problem is this: To me, the effect of trying to do this is to make me even more confused, more miserable, and ultimately less passionate and less caring about the choices I make. Why? Because I am simply not wired the way you (the thinking people) are. I am simply not wired to base my decisions on detached rational choices. I don’t feel good about it. If you are an NT, you will feel good about it. It’s that simple (to me).
The argument then tends to go something like ‘but you can’t trust your feelings. Think about the worst things you’ve done and whether or not they were based on feelings’. I think there may be a bit of semantic confusion as well, when we use the term ‘feelings’. For some people, feelings will be the naturally unhealthy and erratic impulses that goes here and there, not allowing us to settle, or rather, inciting us to do things that are plain wrong. But this is not how I see the feelings that the NF-type leans on when making decisions. I see them as also including the gut-feeling that you have, the deep conviction, the deep values that make you just know whether or not something is right or wrong. Some would call this conscience, and indeed, in Jenning’s (the ‘Could it be this simple?’-guy) book, he rightly argues that conscience should be balanced with reason. However, somehow reason still ends up being the most exalted entity in the book (my overall impression), which is not surprising, since the guy comes heavily across as being an NT. Furthermore, I do not see ‘feelings’ as containing the ‘animal passions’, lusts, and so on that Jennings ascribe to feelings. These are in a completely different category and are called sinful tendencies. And I believe they exist both in reason and feelings, as long as we continue to be marred, sinful, human beings.
Before we go on, I think there may be some confusion when it comes to the ‘thinking’ types as opposed to the ‘feeling’ types. In Keirsey’s model of reworking the Myers-Briggs inventory, he renames the T to tough-minded and the F to friendly, indicating that the T-types tend to be more detached when making decisions, and the F-types tend to be more involved people-wise when making decisions. In this way, F-types will not be devoid of reason, but they will employ it in a different way. Whereas NT’s will tend to be more focused on objective truth, and thus view the reason as performing more of a strictly logical exercise, the NF’s will use the reason along with their feelings to enhance their relations to other people, and enhance other people’s well-being (not accounting for sinful behaviour which inherently is selfish for everyone). When faced with a trade-off between objective truth and the well-being of an individual, the NT’s will tend to be tough-minded and choose the ‘truth’, where the NF will tend to give priority to the needs of the person. But still, the NF’s will also allow more room for considering their feelings when making decisions, and not the least, living in the world of their feelings, rather than their thoughts.
So don’t get me wrong. We should all lean on our rational capabilities. There should be balance. Not even the most rabid NF should cease using their reason, and not even the most abstract thinker calling himself an NT should cease feeling. But, please don’t try to make me feel so passionately about consistent reasoning and rationales as you do. It’s not me. It’s not who I am. (even if I am one of the more analytical NF’s you will meet)
Some will argue that unless you let reason have complete control over your actions, you will end up doing terrible things. Those of you that know me well know that I have done some bad stuff not too long ago, and some of you will ascribe it to my NF-traits, and claim that if I was more of an NT, letting reason control my actions, I would not have given in to temptation. However, I believe this to be a simplification. I believe that if I had listened to my conscience, and decided to take heed of it, I – and other people – would have been better off. This leads us to the will. I believe the will governs both the way we reason and feel, or rather, that the will should take inputs from both our reason and our emotional world. I think I would place the will as the highest entity we have (just looking at Jenning’s book, I realise I may be using his terminology a bit loosely, so I will not make to much comparison at this point). I believe both NT’s and NF’s alike can be controlled by sinful drives. Is the way to defend against this to think, or to use our strengths to combat the desires we feel? (I certainly agree that reason has its place in tempting situations, as do conscience. But I believe the power to overcome temptation can come only from God, and that He will only provide this when we with our will has taken the stand that we do not wish to give in to it. For me, being an NF, the greatest motivation for such a stand is not that it is rationally wrong, but that it is relationally wrong – that God has forbidden this for the very specific reason that it will do harm to myself and the people around me)
Let me return to the argument about feelings being the root of all the bad choices we make, and that if we only trust reason, it will go much better. When I think about much of the bad stuff I have done, I realise that it is not necessarily feelings that motivate. Almost always, after having committed a sin, I do not feel good. In fact, I feel badly about it – this is probably my conscience talking, but I see the conscience as having some part in my emotional world as well. Before I commit sin, I usually think that it will make me feel good. So somehow, the sin is based on a lie (this is true, even if it really feels good when committing that sin). So really, the problem has been a misconception about the way that act would make me feel. This misconception is as much in the mind as in the feelings. I believe that here, only God can enter and shed his light. His truth – as we find it in the Bible – is not merely absorbed through reason. The reason for my trust in the Bible is not that I find it to be rationally coherent and ‘proven’; rather it is that God has shown Himself to me through his word, and that whenever I have managed to build my life on the Scriptures, God has proven to me in practice that His principles do work. It is the effect this book has on me when I read it. It is the deep conviction that here, I am sitting with something of not only human, but also divine, origin. It is the revelation of God that is evident when I read this book. Also, I believe God can speak to us in other ways than through the Bible. I believe God, the Holy Spirit, can prompt us through our conscience to do or abstain from certain things. I do not believe we only take inputs from God through our reason. I believe we also get them from our conscience, and that our emotions also originate from somewhere, which will make them reflect what we may have experienced with God.
I cannot be satisfied with reasoning detached about everything I do. I am a complete person, created with a great emotional depth, and I thrive on emotions and harmonious relations – not abstract mind structures that have (to me) no purpose (ok, sometimes, but not consistently ). I believe I am created with this capability, and that there is not a basic problem with being an NF (as stated before, there may be some areas in which I am weaker, but this is then something I will need to deal with – not by trying to act like an NT, that is). On the contrary, I see us as having great purpose. I am right now struggling a bit to see the purpose of detached reason-based NT’s, but I think I am beginning to see some of that as well (and of course, the picture is always mixed – I probably would not like to see a 100% NF person either). They will have great strengths that I do not (This also goes for the S-types, by the way, for whom there was sadly no place in this post).
In summary, I am made as an NF. The NF-trait has weak sides. So does the NT-trait. Please don’t try and rationalize me. I am happy to engage in discussion with you, and I enjoy it. But I enjoy it for your company and for getting to know you better. Not for the sake of the argument itself. And in that respect, we are different. I am passionate about other things than you. If you try and make me into you, my passion will be strangled, and the world will be a poorer place, just as it would if I tried to make you feel all the time, thus strangling your passion for thinking great thoughts.
(Many thanks to Serina and Katrine for providing some feedback on these thoughts while in the creative process
)
maj 25th, 2008
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