a rolling stone waiting to be set in motion

"The religion of tomorrow will be less concerned with dogmas of theology and more concerned with the social welfare of humanity. When one sees the church spending its energies on the assertion of antiquated dogmas but dumb as an oyster to the poverty and misery all around, we can't help but recognize the need for a new interpretation of Christianity."- Tommy Douglas

I feel like we're still waiting for the religion of tomorrow to come. I mean it's here now, some of it, in pockets. Breaking off from evangelical traditions are the Emergent Church (conversation) movements which have a high focus on communal living and engaging the communitites we are in. Part of me sees this swinging to an extreme of monastic living, eventually leading to Christian bubble communities. But there is great possibility in some of these movements.

On the other hand, main line traditions have, to varying degrees, carried on some of the social gospel movements that started in their midst during the depression (and earlier). That's not to say that whole denominations have moved towards this 'religion of tomorrow'. Certainly even within the United church, there can still be found conservative parishes'. But there has been and continues to be an opening to a new (or possibly old) way of interpreting the bible. Getting away from the 'individual's problems' to looking more wider social problems.

Still it seems to always be a minority, a struggle. Maybe that's what it's all about, maybe that's what it comes down to.

Jeremiah 22
15 "Does it make you a king
to have more and more cedar?
Did not your father have food and drink?
He did what was right and just,
so all went well with him.

16 He defended the cause of the poor and needy,
and so all went well.
Is that not what it means to know me?"
declares the LORD.

(to defend and help the poor is to know God. After all this time I thought I knew God, but maybe not as well as I thought).

Matthew 25:31-46 The sheep and goats
The last part says:

45"He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me. 'Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life."

so basically those who treated the poor wrongly went to hell and those who treated them well went to heaven (whether or not they know the four spiritual laws). You could say that in order to go to heaven you have help the poor, advocate for them and so one. Or, to put it another way, If we ever want to see heaven on earth, then we need to take the cause of the poor seriously, as serious as we take Christ.

so it turns out that I am part Acadian. My great grandfather was adopted and we've been following the adoptive blood line, but if you follow the natural bloodline then it is of Acadian descent. Apparently one of my relatives was removed from the maritimes in the great expulsion, and then snuck back into the country/territory. So if my great grandfather was Acadian (we'll say full blooded for the sake of this) then would that make me 1/8th or 1/16th Acadian? (not that it matters).

(maybe If I had known this earlier, I would have paid better attention in French class)

So other job searches have failed and I am back at at the brockville harbour (it could be worse). I think I will try to chronicle my night shift musings, for you, my faithful readers. Here's night one:

Some people say that angels are mythical man beasts (or womyn beats, respectivly), dressed in white, with glowing halo's, wings penetrating from thier backs and so forth. However I belive this to be an incorrect definition. Let me give you the new one.
Angels are people who know that you are working night shift and so pick up some McDonalds to give you on thier way home. These are the kind's of angels that make real differences in people's lives.

also, locking yourself out of the building on your first night shift is never a good Idea. It's hard to pass 6 hours in the middle of the night on a cold windy island. But I managed...some how. Not to worry folks, your tax dollars are hard at work!

Good night (or good morning) I am off to bed! much love.

So I spent the last week at a christian (mostly anglican and mennonite) Advocacy and Justice camp. It was pretty amazing. My immersion group was Development and Aid. Some of the people we met with included the deputy high commissioner of Uganda, John McCallum, and the senior vice president of CIDA. Oh, and Bill Blaikie came the first day and gave a really intresting speech on the history of the christian left in Canada and where it is now.

All in all it was sweet. It was cool to get away from reading and interprting the bible in the evangelical sense where often you are looking for 'what does it mean to me' and instead often we would interpret it for 'what does it mean for the world, what does it mean for countries?'. Took me awhile to get my well trained brain to think that way, but once i could it was pretty awesome. There were also a ton of amazing people there. They had 50% over 30 and 50% under, so it was nice to see advocates from all generations. Oh, and anglicans like to drink...alot (we even had a wine and cheese in the church, which was the beginning of a long night). If I get a chance to collect my thoughts, i'll try to post more about it at a later date.

so with my half a week off, i've been doing what any normal 22 year old man would do. watching star trek TNG re-runs on space and spike tv.

Has anyone else notice that 90% of the time Troi has a camel tow? (espicially in the light blue jump suit). Thing they would have someone watching out for that kinda stuff, it's how many hundreds years in the future and they still don't have thatr kinda thing under control? Ridiculous.
I also love Hutch, Teddy is an amaizing charecter, very well acted.

it is finished! For better or for worse second year (i hope) is over (my third year overall, plus I took OAC. I am an old man in this program). My CGPA took a bit of a hit but my regular GPA is about the same*. besides that life is good. I clean up this apartment, have my placement interview tomorrow (which is for working with kids age 0-5). then I'm home for the weekend, have my summer job interview on monday (for social services in brockville) and then am back here the same day to show up late for the advocacy and justice camp. giggitty giggity goo.

*[for social work you have to maintain both a minimum gpa (for all electives, etc) and a CGPA (core gpa) for the mandatory classes, which is higher then the regular gpa. So even if you do amazing in most ofyour classes, you still have to maintain that minimum CGPA to stay off acadamic warning. vey exciting, I know]