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| Back in SeoulMy time in Korea this term has been quite tiring this last term. We are currently on term break, and it feels as if it didn't come soon enough. Last term I decided to move to the English Village that SDA Language Institute has been given to operate over the next two years. For some reason, English villages have been losing money, and it was hoped the SDALI could make a difference. I was to go there and see what I could do to help make things happen. At the school in Daegu, a teacher went out of town, so I substituted for her for about ten days. I then went to a school in Bundang, located just southeast of Seoul. A teacher had pneumonia, so I subbed for her for about a week. Then her husband came down with pneumonia, and I was there for a second week. They recovered, and I was sent to the textbook office at SDALI Main Campus to fill in for a teacher who accepted a job with the Korea Herald newspaper. The job duties have nothing to do with teaching. I write material for a textbook designed to help students prepare for an oral proficiency exam that is administered by computer. The need was so great that I was offered a permanent position with textbook development, and I accepted. So I spend time reading the Internet looking for ideas for the books we are preparing, as well as copyediting material, and looking over galley sheets as we prepare for the deadline coming up in July. My eyes hurt from eye strain. I don't wear my glasses while reading, which is okay, but I am forced to move closer to the computer screen so I can read it. My glasses make the computer screen print too small for me to read comfortably. It is a drag, but that is the way it is for now. I am writing. I am reading. I am trying to get back into a creative state of mind so I can take pictures and write poetry. It has been a long, dry period, and I hope the weather breaks soon. | | |
| Warrior-Priest
Warrior-Priest: High Jump - 2007
Warrior-Priest: Flight to Meditation - 2007
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| Hunter’s Green: My Celebration of Life in GeneralGreen
has always been my favorite color. Unlike some people, I have managed
to narrow it down to a specific shade of green found in the woods when
the skies are heavy with rain. After the rainfall, bounce the light
from the grey clouds off the grass onto the leaves above and you will
find my shade of green under the trees. Its a dark shade of green I
think of as Hunter Green. It's darker than olive drab, and to me is
full of life though it is best seen in the dark.
One of my
favorite memories of being in the woods occured sometime around
November 1988. It was my first time deer hunting. My brother-in-law and
a friend and I went deep into Lawrence County, Kentucky, early one very
cold and dark morning. We climbed out of the truck, got our rifles, and
set off into the wooded eastern Kentucky hills. At the top of a hill, I
took my place, sitting on the ground under a tree, looking down the
slope and just listened to the wind rustling through the leaves that
still remained on the branches overhead.
Occasionally I would
hear rifle fire from other hunters across the valley from me. I kept my
eyes open on the woods in front of me, and listened to the wind.
I
heard something move. I looked toward the sound, and I saw something
there, but I could not identify the animal. Slowly it moved, and I was
sure it was a deer. I sat there and watched it move. A moment later, I
heard a "baa" like a sheep. When I told my companions about it as we
perpared to leave, they told me that deer do make that sound.
Going
into the woods again to stalk deer is something I will never again get
to do. While I know I would enjoy it, it just isn't possible to do here
in Korea. However, there are many woods to explore in the vast national
park system operated by the South Korean government. I've been to Apsan
Park twice, Soraksan and Bukhansan National Parks once, and hiked
Namhansan Fortress four times. There are lots of woods and many shades
of green to explore and to photograph. So much beauty to experience, so
little time in which to experience it.
Last year, while living
in Chuncheon, I felt as if I missed the blooming of the spring. The
overabundance of air conditioning in the classrooms left me with cold
symptoms for most of the summer. It got cold again all too soon. My day
spent hiking Bongeiusan was one of coughing and clicking, but it was
also warm and beautiful, the way a summer day was meant to be
experienced. Classroom windows were closed to keep out the pollution
from the traffic four stories below our classrooms. What I got in
return was cold air forced through dirty air filters that had me
coughing three days a week. Too much time was spent indoors. Not enough
time was spent in the clean mountain air Chuncheon is famous for.
My
classroom windows are open. Outside the trees are green, the azaleas
have bloomed, and Daegu is proving itself to be a beautiful, colorful
city, though the peace is shattered by an overabundance of traffic and
the occasional scream of Eagles as twin turbofans push F-15Es of the
South Korean air force into the heavens. Peace, balance, harmony
between heaven, earth, the human race are in such a disorder that only
God can clean up the mess.
I hunted deer with a rifle that is no
longer in my hands. Two years later I was baptised into the Seventh-day
Adventist church, and with my renewed dedication to God to (attempt to)
keep holy the Sabbath came a stronger dedication in honoring His
creation of all life on earth. God told Adam and Eve to have dominion
over the earth. For me, "to have dominion over the earth" means that
the human race has a duty to preserve nature, to ensure that life on
earth thrives, is successful, abundant, and healthy. A king has
dominion over a kingdom. He should want his people to live in a country
that is beautiful, vibrant, full of life and that the people want to
love and preserve. So it should be that we as human beings would want
to take pride in ouir planet and keep it thriving for all generations
to enjoy. This reminder comes to me every week. There are fifty-two
Sabbaths in a year, and for me that is 52 times a year to celebrate
Earth Day, while honoring the One who gave us the blessing of this
planet that we are sytematically destroying.
I lived in
Kentucky for over 20 years. People from out of state would speak of the
beauty of the Kentucky highlands but lamented that Kentuckians trashed
the landscape. Driving any one of the backroads through Appalachian
Kentucky these visitors found beer cans, cigarette butts, fast food
wrappers, broken bottles, and other debris that shattered the natural
beauty of the landscape. Some residents I know were saddened by the
industrial pollution carried into northeastern Kentucky that caused
some older people to have problems with allergies or cold symptoms, or
worse. Often these travelers would tell me how much cleaner the
backroads were in neighboring Ohio.
My first experience with
yellow dust came in the spring of 2006. From a classroom I looked
outside at the yellowish-grey sky, wondering if my eyes were deceiving
me. It was one of the worst yellow dust storms to blow into Seoul, and
in the days ahead meteorologists were criticized for not predicting it
sooner. Many older people had some problems breathing as a result of
the dust storm. As I looked into yellow dust, I found out what heavy
metals it carried, as well as the pollution it picked up as the winds
carried it over China, Korea, Japan and eventually into the western
United States.
My past experiences with automobiles were so
bad that I was glad to come to Korea to serve as a missionary English
teacher. It meant that I would never again have to drive a car. Unlike
the "Green Meanies" of the environmental extremist movement who claim a
divine right to pollute without paying any penalty for their arrogance,
I walk when I can, and take the bus or subway or taxi when necessary. I
do not like the way the Green Meanies have hijacked my favorite color
and forsaken their obligation to preserve the earth according to the
common sense approach taken by hunters and conservationists in the gun
rights movement. Ted Nugent has more crediblity to me as an
environmentalist than Al Gore.
In my paradigm, life is sacred.
It is a gift that should not be taken for granted. The news I read on
the Internet tells me that many people promoting environmental causes
do not believe the way that I do. While we believe that the earth is
our home, we differ on how it should be preserved. I am saddened that
so much has been destroyed through overdevelopment, and yet, it is
difficult in finding a happy medium on which we would agree in making
things balance out in the end. I do not like the news that a developer
wants to continue the destruction of a Civil War battlefield in
Perryville, Kentucky, knowing that so much has already been detroyed by
developers around Gettysburg, Richmond and Petersburg, Virginia, and
other historical sites. We lose more than we gain by this
overdevelopment and the urban sprawl that many cities are dealing with.
Food
prices around the world are on the rise because of the Green Meanie
movement to produce biofuels from corn, wheat and barley, so that we
don't continue to rely on fossil fuels. People will starve to death
because they don't have food to eat, but that is okay, for some green
meanie will earn some points on a long term investment. For the green
meanie, it is money in the bank. For everyone else, it is one more hole
in the ground to be filled with tears of mourning.
Life goes on. Until Jesus Christ returns, death will go on, as well.
Go
outside. Walk in the woods. Stop and smell the roses. Know that God has
filled the earth with blue and green and is calling us to give praise.
Be joyful, for death will die soon enough. And life will go on in a
world where peace, balance, harmony has been restored between heaven,
earth and the human race.
Surely come quickly, Lord Jesus. Amen
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| Sabbath: What's the Issue?Anti-Judaism at root of 'Sunday Sabbath'?
4th century church banned observing Saturday at risk of ex-communication
Posted: March 16, 2008
5:25 pm Eastern
© 2008 WorldNetDaily
When
Samuele Bacchiocchi, a Seventh-Day Adventist, immersed himself in the
research of how the biblical Sabbath moved from Saturday to Sunday, he
did so in an unlikely environment for a non-Catholic – the Pontifical
Gregorian University in Rome.
He not only had open access to
long-forgotten historical records, he also graduated at the top of his
class – summa cum laude, an honor which included a gold medal from Pope
Paul VI.
But what he found in that investigation would probably
shock most Christians who have never studied the subject, nor thought
deeply about what became of the fourth commandment.
What caused
the switch from worship on Saturday to Sunday? One of the principle
motivations in the early church, Bacchiocchi finds, was anti-Judaism.
Consider
this Nicene conciliar letter from Constantine written in A.D. 325: "Let
us then have nothing in common with the detestable Jewish crowd: for we
have received from our Savior a different way ... Strive and pray
continually that the purity of your souls may not seem in anything to
be sullied by fellowship with the customs of these most wicked men ...
All should unite in desiring that which sound reason appears to demand
and in avoiding all participation in the perjured conduct of the Jews."
Not
surprisingly, anti-Sabbath laws followed in Rome – imposing harsh
penalties for anyone who refused to work on Saturday or who deigned to
worship on that day of the week.
He quotes Sylvester I, the pope
from 314-337: "If every Sunday is to be observed joyfully by the
Christians on account of the resurrection, then every Sabbath on
account of the burial is to be execration (loathing or cursing) of the
Jews."
Observing the Sabbath meant excommunication from the
church as of A.D. 363 and the Council of Laodicea: "Christians must not
judaize by resting on the Sabbath, but must work on that day, rather
honoring the Lord's Day; and, if they can, resting then as Christians.
But if any shall be found to be judaizers, let them be anathema from
Christ."
But Bacchiocchi also reminds readers the Saturday
Sabbath, despite official repression against it, never was completely
abandoned.
Likewise, over the years, some prominent voices have never forgotten the Sabbath – and what became of it.
Was it, indeed, a Roman Catholic decision made after the first century and the death of the apostles?
It's hard to argue with the historical record.
In fact, some Catholics revel in the role Rome played in the switch.
"The
Catholic Church of its own infallible authority created Sunday a holy
day to take the place of the Sabbath of the old law," wrote the Kansas
City Catholic on Feb. 9, 1893.
Other Catholic sources agree with little self-doubt.
"Sunday
is a Catholic institution, and its claims to observance can be defended
only on Catholic principles," wrote the Catholic Press in Sydney,
Australia, on Aug. 25, 1900. "From beginning to end of Scripture there
is not a single passage that warrants the transfer of weekly public
worship from the last day of the week to the first."
James
Cardinal Gibbons seconds the motion in his famous "The Faith of Our
Fathers," published in 1876: "You may read the Bible from Genesis to
Revelation, and you will not find a single line authorizing the
sanctification of Sunday. The Scriptures enforce the religious
observance of Saturday, a day which we never sanctify."
But it's
not just Catholics who acknowledge the church has just plain forgotten
one of God's great commandments – without so much as a second thought.
Dwight
L. Moody, one of America's great Protestant evangelists of the 19th
century, noted the omission in his book, "Weighed and Wanting."
"The
Sabbath was binding in Eden, and it has been in force ever since," he
wrote. "The fourth commandment begins with the word 'remember,' showing
that the Sabbath already existed when God wrote the law on the tablets
of stone at Sinai. How can men claim that this one commandment has been
done away with when they will admit that the other nine are still
binding?"
How do today's top Christian pastors refute the evidence the Sabbath is still in effect?
Greg
Laurie, a Calvary Chapel pastor with one of the largest congregations
in the country in Southern California, as well as a weekly columnist at
WND, says there are three reasons Christians do not observe the Sabbath:
It is the only commandment not repeated in the New Testament.
Jesus never taught anyone to keep the Sabbath.
The apostles never taught anyone to keep the Sabbath.
The Sabbath, he says, is a "shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ."
"It
would be like coming back from a long trip away from my wife and kids,"
he says. "I could not wait to get home and be reunited with them. Then
while getting off the plane I see them with the sun behind them casting
a long shadow before them. Then I get off the plane and run and fall
down and try to hug the shadow!"
----- my comments -----
Regarding
Greg Laurie's comments, it should be remembered that in the New
Testament, the Sabbath was not an issue because it was already the day
of worship. Jesus didn't teach anyone about keeping Sabbath because
they already knew about it and were keeping it. In the four gospels we
read that Mary the mother of Jesus and Mary Magdaline rested on Sabbath
then went to the tomb in the early hours of the first day of the week.
In Acts Paul preached on Sabbath. The gospel was to go to the Jew
first. Jews didn't need to be taught about Sabbath.
Is the
Sabbath a "shadow of things to come?" Jesus celebrated Sabbath with
Adam and Eve in Eden. The day will come when we will sit in His
pressence with the Father in heaven and keep the Sabbath. Sabbath
observance will never again become a point of contention between
Christians who pray for the peace of Jerusalem, ask for the mind of
Christ, and seek to enter into His rest as we strive for true unity in
the Holy Spirit.
There is a reason why God said "Remember the
Sabbath day." We have forgotten it and now as He tries to lead us back
into His rest, we treat it as if it were irrelevant, an old relic that
doesn't mean anything to us. If we break one commandment, then we are
guilty of breaking them all. If Sabbath is irrelevant, then so are the
commandments regarding adultery, murder, coveting, bearing false
witness, among others. If this is just a "shadow," then the people who
fought so hard to keep the Ten Commandments hanging in the courts
throughout America were just wasting time.
If the Ten
Commandments have value to Christians, then we must allow them to be
written on our hearts and imprinted on our minds so that we will not
sin against God or each other.
The world doesn't hate
Christians because of the love we claim to have for it. It hates us
because of our divisiveness and our hypocracy. Sabbath is just one more
issue that drives this point home. It is not an issue of salvation; it is an issue concerning obedience to God's laws that govern His kingdom.
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