it only works if you talk back.

Well, I have been absent from the blogosphere for quite some time now. Last time I was here I was telling tales of weight loss… Pounds which I have likely gained back. I don’t even recall if I spoke of romance much, but now I find myself betrothed to the love of my life. School was coming to a close, now I am struggling through an online course. Work was on the horizon, and now I’m struggling to make ends meet with a low-ish paying job. I’m looking forward to the end of July, mostly because of this past week and the week coming. August seems like greener pastures right now, with paychecks not being claimed by large deposits or purchases to be made. Yet August still means I’m doing my course… I can’t wait for that to end…

Resurrection: Rob Bell from The Work of Rob Bell on Vimeo.

I’ve never purchased my own domain before… this is new, this is fun. This is awesome.

If there’s a time in the year where change just seems easiest, or perhaps simply most appropriate, it’s September.

Now to be fair, I’ve been making changes over the last few weeks, even a month, but it still falls (no pun intended) in that same general time-frame.

It feels good to change, and these changes have been a long time coming.

#1. As previously stated in my last “change” post, I have taken up the use of public transportation. Just to update everyone: I love it. It’s been wonderful, and while I’m sure the -30 weather will suck to wait for the bus in, at least I won’t have to drive those shitty roads.

#2. I have decided to become a vegetarian. This has been something I’ve wanted to do for about a year now, and I finally decided there’s no time like the present.

#3. This kinda goes with the second, I have decided to be more conscious of buying local and organic. Granted, it’s not always possible or easy and I sometimes cop out, but the whole point is to avoid that which might be “easier” for that which is better not only for my body, but also for my local economy.

#4. I’ve started a new job. I have cast off the sacred green apron from Starbucks, no longer will I make your latte. I’m the new Student Life Assistant at Vanguard. This means I’ll be making posters for Student Life junk, working with the dean of students, and making sure that Community Life Groups aren’t a total gong show.

#5. I’m finally starting to do something about my desire to build relationships with the LGBT community in Edmonton. My friend Brook and I are starting a small group which will explore how we can begin to build bridges between the Church and the LGBT community, and elevating that conversation to a place of openness and understanding.

#6. I’m a double student this semester. Meaning, I’m “full-time” at Vanguard and “part-time” at the U of A. In reality I’m just in Open Studies at the U of A for one course: Science and Religion. This is a class I’ve been excited to take for quite a while, and it’s worth the extra cost to take it. It also feels kinda cool to have a ONEcard, I feel pretty legit.

I think that’s about it for changes, I hope I’m not doing too many things at once… that would suck if I bailed on half of these things :)

Ever since listening to the free audiobook of Free: The Future of a Radical Price, I’ve been plagued by what the content of this book actually means (if anything) for Christianity.
If you haven’t read the book/listened to it, you have nothing to lose (in terms of $, and the time is worth the insight into our shift from an atom based culture to a bit based culture) check it out for free here

So, my thoughts have mainly revolved around the idea of salvation as free, and how that translates to our culture, and whether or not it actually is free or if it is rather “free”

What I mean by “free” is that old idea of free, with strings attached; it’s the free prize inside of a box of cereal, the free sample to get you to buy a bigger supply, or the free razor for which you are forced to eternally buy disposable blades.

The last example seems fitting for Scientology, where knowledge and advancement in the ‘religion’ costs money every step of the way. (For Jehova’s Witnesses it’s a matter of ‘while supplies last’) But I wonder if we’ve sold Christianity as such?

I don’t even mean it in terms of purely monetary terms either (ie tithes and offerings) but in time, service, purity, morality, etc. Is there an eternal price tag attached to the salvation that Christianity offers? What I’m asking is really nothing unfamiliar to the Christian tradition, because the debate of grace vs. works is old news. I firmly believe that it is by grace that we are saved, absolutely nothing else. (Ephesians 2:8,9) Yet ultimately works become a natural out-flowing of the free salvation we have received by grace.

I am reminded of the words of Paul in 1 Corinthians 3:

10 According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 11For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 12Now if anyone builds on the foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw— 13 each one’s work will become manifest, for the Day will disclose it, because it will be revealed by fire, and the fire will test what sort of work each one has done. 14If the work that anyone has built on the foundation survives, he will receive a reward. 15If anyone’s work is burned up, he will suffer loss, though he himself will be saved, but only as through fire.

I do believe that salvation is the free gift inside of an expensive box of cereal*

*no purchase necessary.

Ultimately one can build his/her whole life with hay, wood, straw. It doesn’t cost that person anything, and they will receive the same salvation. Yet there are also those who pay everything for salvation; their time, money, power, and even their lives.

This, in some way, also relfects the way many free services on the Internet work. Those where 10% of the users pay and their money ensures that the other 90% get the same service for free. Yet with salvation, it is not a matter of dollars and cents, and it isn’t God who is missing out on some potential ‘profit’ by having fewer people ‘pay.’ It is the user who misses out. I’m not talking about a 2 tiered system where there is some sort of ‘premium’ salvation which costs you $25/year.

I think there is more to be gained through the cost. Is that gain in a shiny crown? I couldn’t care less about something like that. Honestly, I don’t know what that gain is in precise terms, other than knowing I followed in the self-sacrificial footsteps of Christ.

I think that’s enough for me right now.