A Dream remembered

I had a dream quite a while ago.  It might be 7 years now.  I am writing this down now because I remember it like it was yesterday and maybe one day I won't.  It isn't a happy dream.

I had a friend in my dream

He was a good guy but quite shy and hesitant within my group of friends

I had a very strong sense of ownership over him though

I wanted him to feel loved and welcomed in community

Slowly he began to become more comfortable

He actually was quite funny and charismatic 

My friends loved him

In fact, they began to always want to hang with him more than me

I was fine with that

I was just happy he was part of the community

One day we were walking

and he told me that he needed to talk to me

He had a secret

I asked him what it was knowing in my heart

There was nothing he could say that would make me not be his friend

What he told me was odd

He was a manufactured robot

He didn't want to tell anyone because he thought he would be rejected

I told him that it didn't matter 

When he told our friends they only loved him more

"What an honest guy!" 

They would say

From there he began to be encouraged to step in to leadership

People wanted to put him on a pedestal

Slowly he began to agree with them

In fact he was convinced that he should run for mayor of our city

The city loved him

He was a shoe in for victory

The election came and sure enough he won

We were all very proud of him

We were sitting at the victory dinner when he took the stand 

It was time for his speech

As he rose to the stand

Something inside of me cried out in terror

I heard a ticking 

*tick* *tick* *tick*

What was it?

I wasn't sure but I know that I needed to get out of there

I left the room 

Headed up the side of the mountain to where my mother lived

Suddenly I saw a great big light at my back

As I turned I saw a giant explosion

Mushroom cloud and all

People began running away from the city as fast as they could

I grabbed my moms hand and we started to run up the hill

As the city melted away behind me

My friend had been made by the enemy

He was designed to gain the trust of community 

Rise to the place of leader

And set off a bomb when all eyes were on him

That would destroy the city and the lives of many

That is where my dream ended.  What does it mean?  I don't know but I remember it so clearly.  

So I had a dream a few days ago.

I woke up and immediately looked for Something to write it down on.

After realizing my pen was dead I decided to just use my phone.

This was my dream.

I was in a meeting with a bunch of people

Who were part of something a long time ago.

Something significant that involved a movement of the Holy Spirit.

I wasn't part of that "something"

But I was invited to this meeting by my friend PMO

He was facilitating the meeting

Along with someone else.

I asked PMO if he was the leader of the movement that happened long ago.

He said "No, it was Leah"

I asked "Who is Leah?"

"Leah? You don't know who Leah is?

Leah is the girl who is facilitating with me tonight.

She used to be the heart and soul of the Meeting House."

Leah looked reluctant to be there.

As the meeting started I looked around to see who was there.

There was a lot of 35-50 year old people there.

Most of them I didn't recognize

But I did recognize 2 people in particular.

The first was Rev. Soko

The second person was Zaya Kuyena.

Zaya was way too young to of been part of the movement before.

As people started to pray and share where their heart was

Rev. Soko began to recite Psalm 23.

"...He makes me lie down in green pastures

He leads me by still waters

He restores my soul

He guides me along right paths

For His name sake

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death

I will fear no evil

For You are with me

Your rod and your staff

They comfort me."

When Rev. Soko recited the last line

YOUR ROD AND YOUR STAFF
THEY COMFORT ME

I felt like it was important to mention that

The rod and staff of God aren't weapons

But tools of comfort and protection.

However, instead of saying anything

I doubted myself and who I was.

I felt like I was in a room with some serious spiritual giants.

Immediately the room started to shake violently

But nobody was hurt.

PMO stopped the meeting and turned to look directly at me.

He said "Why did you doubt who He has made you to be?

Even the room shook because of your doubt."

He turned to everyone else and continued

"There is a person who has a significant prophetic gift here

And that person is Brian."

And turning back to me he said

"Don't ever doubt who you are."

After PMO was done
A girl who was seated to his right stood up

She said "I don't know about this whole prophetic thing."

It seemed like she was speaking from pasts wounds.

She then turned and walked out of the room.

I tried to explain to her that I had doubts too

But PMO told me to not worry about it.

It seemed like, however, the girl doubting

Was a catalyst to the prayer ending.

Everyone still managed to hang out for a bit though.

I then realized where we were meeting.

The meeting was taking place in a business loft that was high up in a building.

I could see where we were from a distant view.

It is though I was seeing everything in the third person for a moment.

In a city of tall buildings we were the only unit that had a light on.

And the whole place was bright and lit up the buildings around it.

Zoom back in and I began to take notice of who was at the meeting

Bruxy had been there the whole time but was sitting off to the side.

It seemed like the business loft was actually a dj supply store during the day.

I said hi to Brux and started to talk to someone.

As I was talking to this person

Bruxy got up suddenly and walked over till he was behind me.

He pulled out a black sharpie marker and wrote something on the back of my shirt

It was a name of some sort.

He then patted it and said

"That's for you."

I don't know what it said.

^1-2 God grabbed me. God's Spirit took me up and set me down in the middle of an open plain strewn with bones. He led me around and among them—a lot of bones! There were bones all over the plain—dry bones, bleached by the sun.

³ He said to me, "Son of man, can these bones live?"

I said, "Master God, only you know that."

⁴ He said to me, "Prophesy over these bones: 'Dry bones, listen to the Message of God!'"

^5-6 God, the Master, told the dry bones, "Watch this: I'm bringing the breath of life to you and you'll come to life. I'll attach sinews to you, put meat on your bones, cover you with skin, and breathe life into you. You'll come alive and you'll realize that I am God!"

^7-8 I prophesied just as I'd been commanded. As I prophesied, there was a sound and, oh, rustling! The bones moved and came together, bone to bone. I kept watching. Sinews formed, then muscles on the bones, then skin stretched over them. But they had no breath in them.

⁹ He said to me, "Prophesy to the breath. Prophesy, son of man. Tell the breath, 'God, the Master, says, Come from the four winds. Come, breath. Breathe on these slain bodies. Breathe life!'"

¹⁰ So I prophesied, just as he commanded me. The breath entered them and they came alive! They stood up on their feet, a huge army.

¹¹ Then God said to me, "Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel. Listen to what they're saying: 'Our bones are dried up, our hope is gone, there's nothing left of us.'

^12-14 "Therefore, prophesy. Tell them, 'God, the Master, says: I'll dig up your graves and bring you out alive—O my people! Then I'll take you straight to the land of Israel. When I dig up graves and bring you out as my people, you'll realize that I am God. I'll breathe my life into you and you'll live. Then I'll lead you straight back to your land and you'll realize that I am God. I've said it and I'll do it. God's Decree.'"

Without fail, passersby stop to crane their heads and admire the few early cherry blossom trees in full bloom at Tokyo's Ueno Park.

One girl leaps into the air giggling as she tries to touch a branch of the tree. Many snap pictures on their cellphones, while others stand and silently stare, taking in every petal of their frail beauty.


Cherry blossom viewing, or hanami, holds a special place in the hearts of the Japanese. It's a time to reflect on the fleeting nature of beauty and life.

The blossoms, or sakura, do not bear fruit. They last a mere week before they wither and fall to the ground. News agencies alert the Japanese to the peak cherry blossom viewing time.

When in bloom, the flower-heavy boughs form pink cloud-like canopies over entire swaths of parks. The Japanese vie for space on the ground to place their plastic tarps, then sit for hours to drink and eat in the company of friends.

This year, no doubt, the hanami season will be tinged by this proud nation's triple tragedy.

Japanese possess 'ganbare'

But perhaps it is more important than ever for the Japanese people to take that time to reflect - and gather together with their loved ones.

I just hope that in the months and years to come, our attention won't be as brief as the hanami season.

I lived here for two years, teaching English in a remote mountain village in Tochigi prefecture north of Tochigi. West of the disaster zone, it too was hit, though not as hard.

Leaving this unique country back in 2004 was hard. Leaving now when the country is reeling from the quake, tsunami and nuclear crisis is even harder.

But I am comforted by the strong Japanese "ganbare" - a hard-to-translate concept that in the simplest translation means "don't give up" and "keep trying." It's often yelled as a word of encouragement during sports or in trying times.

It is an everyday statement that is even more common and meaningful now.

So too is the highly respected trait of "gaman." Dictionaries define gaman as patience, endurance and tolerance. Perhaps it would be best summed up in the European "keep calm and carry on" post-war posters now enjoying a resurgence back home.

Rise from the ashes

On the opposite side of the spectrum is the reviled trait of "meiwaku," which means annoyance, nuisance and trouble, and often refers to those too selfish to consider the group.

These concepts are at the core of Japan's ability to come together and power through that has been the focus of so much media attention since the Tohoku quake and subsequent tsunami hit on March 11, .

Though there were a few reports of looting and scam charity agencies, it was nothing near the amount seen in the days following Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and earthquake in Haiti.

Family and community are the foundation of this society. The group rules over the individual. And the past is just as important as the future, with many homes containing Shinto shrines where they pay homage to their ancestors.

These characteristics will serve the Japanese well during their recovery, as they have in past tragedies.

As one person I interviewed said they have risen from the ashes before and they will do so again.

Of this, I have no doubt.

by Amber Hildebrandt of CBC

Fig.1. Kanagawa Oki Uranami - "The Hollow of the Deep-Sea Wave off Kanagawa", coloured woodcut from the collection of "Thirty-Six Views of Fuji" (1831) by Japanese artist Katsushika Hokusa. The contrast between the various elements reflects the harmonic order between Ying and Yang and the necessity of solidarity of men in case of natural disasters.

The destructive power of water from the sea - Ying- contrasts with the calmness of the fishermen - Yang- the symmetric symbol is also formed by the wave and the sky. The similar colour of the volcano in the background and the wave emphasise the harmony between mountain (symbol for the body) and wave (symbol for the soul).
Many books describe this wave as a tsunami, but it's shape, characterized by a deep leading through and a very peaked crest, reveals it's origin from the wind. Only some tsunamis resemble such a wave and only near the shore.
Fig.3. Drawing by Walter Molino, published in the Italian newspaper "La Domenica del Corriere" January 5, 1947, of a tsunami, probably the tsunami of the Great Tokyo Earthquake of the 1. September 1923. The devastation of the earthquake was caused mainly by the subsequent fire, but it triggered also a 11m high wave - estimated 90.000-130.000 people were killed.

Barren cherry blossom tree branches stand on a hill over the earthquake-and tsunami-destroyed town of Minamisanriku, northeastern Japan. -- PHOTO: AP

The “Yamadaka Jindai Cherry blossom” is counted to be one of the three largest cherry blossoms in Japan. It is known for its longest living, it is estimated to live up to 2000 years.






Sometimes there is Tsunamis' which are quite different. They are called Mega tsunami's. Why not? The distinction of this wave as compared to a normal tsunami is that a normal tsunami is caused by seismic activity where as a "mega' is caused by a large impact event. A landslide, a comet, anything major which causes a large displacement of water. Some of these waves can reach heights of 1700ft. Yes, that is right. In 1958, a mega tsunami caused by a landslide reached a height of 1710ft in Lituya Bay, Alaska.

Dear Brian,
Thanks for checking in with me on Sunday. It was great to talk to you. I have to tell you how encouraging it has been to see God moving in your life. Who would of thought that we would both be living downtown Toronto and helping to start a site here? Not me.
When you asked me about my class on Sunday it got me thinking. I want to explain to you what I have been learning in my class because I think you could really benefit from it. You know how you told me that you have struggled with what your purpose is? Well, it turns out that the Church in North America has really struggled with this as well. We know that we are supposed to be doing something here but there is a lot of confusion of what that looks like and it seems that most churches are losing the trust and commitment of people. So this class is really about how we can me effective leaders in our community by encouraging us to be a different type of community than what the world offers. It’s all about fostering and encouraging God’s children to be what we are called to be, the people of God. Let me explain.
We live in an interesting time. After almost 1700 years the church no longer has the same voice within the structures of our culture. The majority of people don’t look to their local churches when making decisions or enacting new laws. You probably have heard the term, Christendom. That is what the world experienced when the Church had privileges within the structures of the world to help enact laws and holidays in order to push the general public towards following God through a top down structure. I know what you are probably thinking. Yes, that has caused a lot of problems but it took us a while to get to the point where we could see that and it wasn’t always a problem.
Over the last few hundred years, society in the west has developed into a very individualistic culture. I think anyone can see that. We look out for our own interests and fight for our own rights and privileges even if that means that we step on the rights and privileges of others. Our economic system encourages the hoarding of possessions and money and the production of more and more in order to continue growth and sustainability. We can see the damage that has caused us as we have slowly run out of resources and look to other places to find them. Our social structures changed into roles and titles within the economic system where the more influence and power you have to more you are seen as important. We have seen our own agendas as most important while at the same time we’ve been tied to jobs that feed the system of marketing to our individualistic mindset. Our understanding of truth has been defined by what we can measure and prove through science and study while ignoring our feelings and emotions and intuition. You have probably heard the term modernism. That’s what our parents have grown up in.
This all started to shift about 20 years ago when the system experienced a economic downturn. The things we were told to trust and believe in failed us. Profits were down and so was income. People lost jobs and didn’t know where to turn. Around this time a generation of people started to look for truth in other places but since we have been trained to be individualistic and encouraging of our own rights and opinions we looked to what we believed was individual truth. This is now. This is what most of our generation have grown up with. Marketing campaigns directed at our individual identities and opinions, cars which allow us to go wherever we want to go whenever we want, and jobs which ignore normal social interaction and ask us to work long hours so we can earn the money to buy what will feed our personal identity.
So what does the Church have to do with this? After 1700 years of privilege the Church has gone along for the ride and allowed the culture of this world to dictate who we are, how we see things, and how we organize our communities. Our parents were raised to believe that attendance on Sunday morning was essential to being a good Christian, our possessions, and positions of power are a sign of God’s favour, and our communities are top down structures organized around business culture and the techniques used to get results. They were taught that the removal of the rights the Church they grew up in was something they should be willing to die for. Essentially, the Church has become a reflection of the culture that it was in instead of being the people of God representing His way of doing things. When society stopped coming to us for advice for help and for community they started to look to the things that culture told them to look at, themselves.
So what do we do? I know that you are asking this question. Well there are many people who are trying to figure this out. A big part of this question revolves around where God has put us and what he is asking us to be. If we were to lay out a plan of how to communicate the truth of God to our world we would probably need to know who we are talking to, wouldn’t you say? There have been many theories over the years about how we do that and how we interact with our culture. Some think we need to remove ourselves from culture, some think we need to change culture, some think we need to use culture to further our own agenda, some think we need to be immersed in culture. What we actually need to do is be in culture but offering an alternative to what culture tells us.
What would it look like to be in culture and at the same time present an alternative way of doing things? Take a moment to dream about it. It is difficult isn’t it? You probably are already thinking about the things that you would like to see from your own perspective. What is God’s perspective? What is important to Him in the way that we live our lives and how we represent Him to the world? We can look no further than Jesus. Jesus Christ is God’s best foot forward when trying to show what His heart is for the world and what it means to be His people. We call ourselves Christians because we find our identity in Christ. If Jesus shows us what God wants to do with this world we see a world made right. Jesus didn’t sit on an earthly thrown to rule from a place. His thrown in the hearts and the minds of his kids, us!
In Jesus God announced that He had made things right. The very thing that has kept us from being who we were called to be has been taken care of for us. Our brokenness and sin, which nobody is exempt from, has been taken care of. We no longer need to worry about death separating us from God. Death will come but when we have faith that Jesus has already gone through it, paid our ransom, and then was raised again we know that God’s reign is here! We no longer can do anything to earn that favour with God. It is taken care of for us. We now need to live like it. We need to live in the new reality of the kingdom of God.
God’s kingdom is a where we find out citizenship. It will be as though we are aliens here in Canada. You know when you meet someone from another country that is living here and talks about the country they are from with fondness, affection, and tries their best to live out the customs of their country here? Well that is what we are called to do while living among foreigners here in Canada or wherever we are. We are not citizens of a nation of people but God. This country has different ways of doing things which are completely different, in fact, opposite of the way the world tells us to live.
Instead of starting a violent protest to gain some privileges for our churches we turn to God and worship Him in an act of complete trust. That is our political statement. Complete trust in God to provide what we need. In God’s economy we don’t follow what the world says “survival of the fittest”. Instead, we believe that survival of all is more important. We don’t value ourselves as more important than anyone else so we share with each other and put others needs ahead of our own. Remember our political statement? God will take care of us. When we are given some sort of power, whether it is with money or with our charisma or with our intellect, we don’t use it to further our own selfish reasons. We use it to help others. When we could us violence to gain our own way of doing things we follow Jesus lead and lay down our own lives for those of others (and others means people who aren’t like us as well). Often when this topic comes up people will say that we are irresponsible to not act violently to help people or to overthrow an oppressive government. The question to ask is who are we responsible to? I’ll let you figure that one out. How do we be the community that is authentic in the world that is fake? Basically, everything this world tells us we are is what we reject and live in the reality of the kingdom of God.
So all of that still probably has you asking about why we use the world Missional. If you notice I never talk about us getting people to come to us. We are called in be IN the world. We all have a part to play. God has gifted us in many different ways to share in the mission of living in the world as the people of God showing the world that there is an alternative way of life that is actually the way we were created to be.
In this class I’m learning what it looks like to lead this type of community. You want to know how? It is about pointing out all these gifts that are in all of us. It is about encouraging people like you to share the same vision that God has for our world. The reign of God is here buddy. You have gifts, just like everyone else, that are needed in the kingdom of God. We live in a world that has told us to not ask for help, to get stronger, to make your own identity, to take care of yourself and prop yourself up. I’m learning to teach people to rely on help when they don’t need it, to submit when you are strong, to find your identity in Christ and His kingdom, and to take care of others and serve others. I’m learning to teach this community to be the Church where we are, to be pioneers instead of settlers, to expand the kingdom of God in the hearts and minds of people everywhere.
You have a part to play brother. You have an ability to relate to people and explain things better than most people I know. The kingdom of God needs you and the gifts you have (gifts not skills or power) to allow people to see the heart of God. Let’s keep talking about this. You have a lot of friends who need to hear the good news that God has given them a option that is life changing and eternal but they need to see it more than they need to hear about it.
I love you brother and I can’t wait to see how God is going to use you. Thanks so much for asking me about this.
Your brother in Christ,
Brian Raney

I don't post enough probably but I try to post things which impact my thinking or things that have shaken the ground on which I naively stand with security.

This video shakes me because it is the gospel. It is the story of God and His incredible redemption of us through Jesus Christ. Creatively telling this story in ways which are accessible to our culture.

G.O.S.P.E.L. from Humble Beast Records on Vimeo.

An amazing talk by an incredibly inspiring lady Janel Anema.
Listen here

Free Fall from ProlifikFilms on Vimeo.

Ignatius of Loyola

New York City

³¹ What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? ³² He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? ³³Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. ³⁴ Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. ³⁵ Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? ³⁶ As it is written:

“For your sake we face death all day long;
we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered.”

³⁷ No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. ³⁸ For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, ³⁹ neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

New York is dangerous, littered with thieves
We've no morals here, we just do as we please....
But I don't wanna go home where they all stare at me
cause I'm tattoed, and fired up, and drunk, and obscene...

You wear your religion like a War Sweater.
You ask for the truth, but you know you could do so much better,
and you sat on your fences, you've screamed no retreat...
So now what will your legacy be?
(We...)

Battle lines drawn if you wonder which side speaks the truth
then look closely to which speaks from pride
I love you. I swear it. I would never lie...
But I fear for our lives and I fear your closed eyes...

You wear your religion like a War Sweater.
You ask for the truth, but you know you could do so much better,
and you sat on your fences, you've screamed no retreat...
So now what will your legacy be?
So what will your legacy be?
So what will your legacy be?
(We...)

I'm in the mood where I come all untied,
I'm in the mood to say things that'll change people's minds...
I love you. I swear it. I would never lie...
But I fear for our lives and I fear your closed eyes...

You wear your religion like a War Sweater.
You ask for the truth, but you know you could do so much better,
and you sat on your fences, you've screamed no retreat...
So now what will your legacy be?
So what will your legacy be?
So what will your legacy be?

The tree begins with a single see. An acorn or its equivalent falls into the earth: tiny, vulnerable, alone. It germinates and puts out roots down into the dark earth. Simultaneously it send up a shoot into the light and air. The roots quickly diverge and probe all over the place, looking for nourishment and water. The shoot becomes a trunk, again a single upright stalk, but this, too, quickly diverges. An oak or a cedar will spread far and wide in all directions. Even the tall, narrow poplar is far more than just a single trunk. The river flows from many into one; the tree grows from one into many.
We need both images if we are to understand the church.
The church is like a river. In the last book of the Bible, John the visionary sees a huge throng of people from every nation, kindred, tribe, and tongue coming together in a great chorus of praise. Like the river, they all started in different places, but they have now brought their different streams into a single flow. The image of the river reminds us forcibly that, though the church consists by definition of people from the widest possible variety of backgrounds, part of the point of it is that they belong to one another, and are meant to be part of the same powerful flow, going now in the same single direction. Diversity gives way to unity.
But at the same time the church is like a tree. The single seed, Jesus himself, has been sown in the dark earth and has produced an amazing plant. Branches have set off in all directions, some pointing almost directly upward, some reaching down to the earth, some heading out over neighboring walls. Looking at the eager, outstretched branches, you'd hardly know they were all from the same stem. But they are. Unity generates diversity.
N.T. Wright-Simply Christian