That is a simple statement, but it says a lot. Of all the studies humans can embark on theology presents a unique challenge. It is not merely because the topic is so big, though it is. It is not merely because God is Holy and we, left to our own efforts, are anything but holy. It is not merely because God is transcendent, for God is also immanent. The challenge is in the object of our study, for God is not an object that we can study. The only thing we can know about God is what He reveals to us.

I recall encountering that simple truth in a theology class with Dr. David Guretzki back at Briercrest Seminary. It was one of those pivotal moments in my own understanding of what it means to be a theologian. It is a simple truth that goes against our scientific methods and stands at odds with our postmodern influenced individualistic thinking.

In science we  strive to discover what other have yet to find. When we discover something new we might even have the object or theory named after us. We take the canvas and document what we have found.In science we in effect seek our own glory.  “Look at what we have discovered.” We are the artist and our understanding is the brush.

Postmodern influenced individualistic thinking on the other hand would seek to create its own truths. Instead of discovering what is out there, we create a reality that encompasses what we know and desire. We become the god of our reality. We are the artist who holds the brush.

Theology, however, takes a different course. We do not seek to discover something new about God. Instead we seek to understand what God has revealed of Himself to us. We are His creation. We are His reality. We are the creature. We are the object. There is nothing new we can bring to the table. At best we shuffle bits of knowledge and insight into a coherent understanding, an understanding that is at best incomplete.

More importantly, when we endeavour to study God, it is we who are the canvas that God paints on. It is His Word that paints on the canvas and changes us.  We bring a thread bare stained canvas and God creates a master work.

To study theology is to be changed. If the work of theology does not result in us being changed, we have not studied God. We have merely created a god of our liking. To endeavour to study God is to be transformed by God. God is the artist.

This change was made with some apprehension. I firmly believe that what we are in one aspect of our lives we are in all aspects of our lives. That said, I found myself reluctant to address some of the weighter and possibly controversial aspects of theology, life and ministry in a blog also dedicated to my art. They are two distinct audiences. That said, my Christian views will still be represented on the art site and you may even find art stuff here where appropriate.

I hope you find this new format and renewed commitment to blog informative, helpful and thought provoking.

I should also say that one of the main reasons I have neglected this blog over the past number of months is really quite simple. I have needed to focus on my role as pastor of a small church struggling to find its footing. Now it is time to get back at this.

I spent four years on campus at Briercrest Seminary and the better part of the last two years in ministry while trying to finish the last few requirements for my degree. Six years…it only took six years. It seems to me that I had hoped to do it in three.

In the end, graduation was anticlimactic. It was good to see some old friends and chat with the professors who were so formative in my studies. The pomp of the ceremony, however left me a little cold. It isn’t that the speeches weren’t good, they were.

The problem is that the robes and academic lingo seems out of place when the ministry I was trained for is at best messy. The dignity of doctoral robes and masters hoods is replace by obscurity and dismissal experienced in ministry. The formal language replaced by mono-syllabic expressions.

In some small way, I felt like a soldier coming back from the front, mud caked, blood and soil stained clothes, stumbling onto a parade ground with new recruits all decked out in their dress uniforms standing in tidy lines with polished boots and unloaded weapons. The scene is both comical and borderline tragic.

In fairness, I do know that many of my fellow seminary students have lived and served in the trenches. The same is true of many of the professors. Perhaps that is what made it all the more paradoxical. I don’t a one of those people who would put on their academic garb to feed the poor or visit the sick. I also know that their own journeys have taken them through the messiness of the trenches. That’s what made them particularly good teachers.

Perhaps our academic attire needs to be traded in for sack cloth and ashes, or unadorned “monk” robes. The only problem is that we couldn’t show off our achievements–our glory. That wouldn’t be Biblical would it? There is a humility in Scripture that is largely absent in the pomp of academic graduation.

At the same time, there is something profound in marking passages with extravagance. We do that for birthdays, weddings, and even funerals. Significant life passages were also marked in the life of Israel. There were the yearly festivals, circumcisions, marriages, and later baptisms.

So perhaps there is something Biblical about marking the passage of graduation with pomp…at least as long as it is God who is ultimately glorified. That is not always easy. There is a little narcissism in all of us.

Perhaps the graduation ceremony really is reflective of life in that it says something about us. We need to celebrate passages, but how easy it is to make it all about us. How hard it is to put on the robes and hoods while remembering that it’s all about Jesus. None of it would be possible without Him. For that matter, who would go to seminary if it wasn’t for Jesus.

We live in a fascinating times. It wasn’t that long ago–really it wasn’t–that social networking sites were little more than a coder’s twinkle in the eye. The concept, however is much older.

Fast forwarding past drums and snail mail….when I was in high school I got my amateur radio operators licence. This geeky kid with less than an exciting social life was the prototypical pimply high school computer geek of this age–except I had radio with vacuum tubes and no microprocessor.

Back in those days, even before the advent of computer bulletin boards–because almost no one had a computer yet–back in those dark years of later 1970s I used Morse Code to communicate to fellow amateur radio operators. Yes, Morse Code. If you don’t know what that is, Google it.

In time communications became a vocation. Spending my days fixing communications networks and being a consumer of them too, the idea of playing with radios in my spare time became less attractive. Mind you I also got married and there were many more attractive things to do, not to mention responsibilities.

As the years ticked by, PCs became readily available for the price of a good used car. I bought one. I played around with bulletin boards, but no one I really wanted to talk to used the one I was on, at least not anyone I didn’t see at work. I do recall when thanks to telnet I was able to access crude e-mail on the Internet…but I still didn’t have any one to talk to. Good thing I was married.

Dial up Internet access, now that changed things a little. With that I could easily send e-mails to people I knew who had Internet access–which was almost no one. Back then they were even talking about this weird idea of the world wide web–weird ‘eh.

Fast forward a few years…have things ever changed. My kids have basically grown up in a world where cell phones and instant messaging have “always been there.” I wonder if my youngest would know how to talk to her friends with out texting, messaging, Facebook, twiddle and tweet.

So what has changed? Accessibility.

Thanks to high sales volumes of high tech gadgetry and networks, what was once expensive and complicated has become affordable and usable by most people (at least in my neck of the woods). What was but a dream when I graduated from high school in 1980 has caused a revolution in how we relate to one another.

I tend to view the philosophical constructs of “modern” and “postmodern” as descriptive rather than prescriptive. How we define community today is vastly different than how we did just a few decades ago–a mere flicker in the human timeline. Community used to be defined by geography. Live in the same village and you were part of that community, like it or not. Today we create the communities of our liking. All that is required is mutual access to a network. If people subscribe to texting, messaging, or social networking sites, you can be part of their community.

Point in case. Much to my dismay, I had lost touch with almost all of my high school class mates. I moved out of town and became part of other communities. Some stayed in that beautiful valley (it really is beautiful) while others moved on. When my 10th year reunion came up, I couldn’t make it for personal reasons. When my 20th year reunion arrived, business demands prevented me from going. I figured I would probably never reconnect with any one other than the occasional chance meeting…and then along comes Facebook.

I was slow to get on Facebook. My kids were on Facebook, but I stuck with a blog. A few days ago I broke down and subscribed to Facebook. Then it happened. First one old school mate and then another appeared. I confess I have had to work at remembering who some of them are. My Grad Year Book got damaged beyond repair in a flood so I can’t even go back to that to remind myself. How sad.

The beauty of it all is this; I can re-enter a community that apparently remembers me better than I remember them (to my shame). I can do it because in this postmodern world, community is accessible. I look forward to getting reacquainted with people who in a sense I never knew, at least not as adults free of the vagaries of teen age social pressures. May be a better way of stating it would be to say that I used to worry about being “weird,” but now I don’t mind it at all

I’ll end this ramble with two thoughts.

First, it is ironic that I start “high tech” networking with a single key, but now it takes a keyboard full. It took one key to say -.-. –.- -.. . …- .–…  but nine keys to say CQ THIS IS VE7.

The second, is a wee bit of paranoia…what happens when the power goes out. Did you ever consider that our postmodern idealism of community building as enabled by technologies such as Facebook was adding to global warming?  I told you I was weird.

PS – I am still happily married. Even though we live in the same house, we have been known to text each other at home–just to silly. It got really strange though when I left a message on my wife’s Facebook wall.

Not much serious here. Just a little story from a guy wanting to sit on the deck on a warm day and read a good book.

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    Frosty’s his heart melted when he saw the sheriff ride up to the snow fort, its walls crumpling under the mid day sun. The sheriff was a green horn. Just a kid from the south. The sheriff could feel Frosty’s icy glare, like a ice crystals blown by a howling north wind. A lesser man would have slipped and fallen, but not the intrepid sheriff with a warm heart and a laugh that could melt the heart of the coldest gal in town. Frosty’s time was up. He had a ball while it lasted.

     Frosty’s feet felt frozen to the ground. He couldn’t move. For a moment he thought he was sweating. Then he realized he was melting.

     “What do you want sheriff Spring?” The chill in Frosty’s voice was fading fast.

     “Frosty, the folks of this fine town have had enough of you. They’re tired you abusing them so you can have a fat account in the snow bank. They’re tired of hiding in there homes. They’re tired of your icy grip. ”

     “And what are you going to do about it Sheriff?” Frosty did his best to sound calm and cool.

     “Frosty, either ride out of town or you’ll be down the creek with out a paddle.” Frosty glanced down at the puddle by his feet…no he wasn’t that scared…yet.  

     Sheriff spring noticed the puddle too. “Are you cold or just shaking in your boots.”

     “You don’t scare me sheriff.” There was a lingering chill in Frosty’s voice.

     “The folks in town want you gone. Either head north or feel your life trickle away, one drip at a time.”

     “Are you threatening me Sheriff? Just wait until the heat of summer and you will all be paying big bucks for snow cones, blizzards and iced tea.”

     “Nice try Frosty, but it wouldn’t work. Your days are numbered. You’re getting old. You’re not as tall as you used to be. You’re getting soft.”

     “Who are you calling soft Sheriff. You’re just a green twig of a man. Why don’t you just leave.”

     “Oh, I plan to leave, leaf that is.”

     “What are you going to do, pun me to death…or are you packing heat?”

     “No frosty, I’ll save the bullets and let the mid day sun do that. Say, isn’t sweat running down you face. Right, cool guys like you don’t sweat.” 

     “Yeah I’m cool and your not. All you have to offer the town is mud and flowers. What kind of sheriff are you anyway. You break me up Spring.”

     “You’re melting Frosty. You’re the one making the mess. It’s time for you and your flakey friends to get out of town.”

     “Yeah, well maybe I’ll go, but I’ll be back.”

     “Not so fast snow man. Why don’t you just run off now.”

     Frosty’s fear was getting the better of him. His legs were feeling watery. His heart melted. He began to droop as his strength flowed out of him. Soon he would be snow more.