George Martzen "georgos"

We are now well into our mission itineration - that's where we as GBGM (United Methodist) missionaries return to our home territory and visit our supporting churches, and potentially supporting churches.  Friday night Chin Cheak spoke to members of the Chinese congregation at First UMC, Alhambra.  Sunday morning I preached at Baldwin Park UMC (La Iglesia Methodista Unida).  Tomorrow we drive to Palm Springs where Chin Cheak will share with the United Methodist Women's unit.  Next Sunday we both preach for different services at China town UMC in Los Angeles, and the weekend after in San Diego.  This is a mercifully loose schedule that allows us to get other homeside matters taken care of, including for me a final synthesis paper for my 1.5 unit spiritualty course at PSR. With that little paper I hope to clarify my own position vis a vis the relationship between contemplation and action.  I am beginning to come up with a formula that needs to be filled out and tested: Critical

I haven't seen the concession speech, but at 6 pm Singapore time ( +8:00 GMT) it looks like Barack Obama will be President of the United States again.  I don't usually comment on US political events, but this election was so close - 50.2% to 48.3% of popular vote, though Obama had an overwhelming lead in the Electoral College.  I'm thinking more about the mood my family and I will meet as we arrive in southern California in two and a half weeks for our GBGM mission itineration.  We will be speaking to supporting churches there, before moving on to central and northern California.  California is a blue state in the elections, with the majority supporting Obama, but that doesn't mean it is uniformly Democrat or liberal. Hardly.   In fact, my inland California moderate Democratic views are considered conservative when I go to the Bay area. I can imagine from the Gospel passages about Jesus walking up and down first century Palestine that he did a lot of listening and obse

I just took a quiz on Beliefnet - " What's Your Spirituality Type ?"  I thought I'd check it out since I'm interested in liturgical spirituality, and currently doing some readings on the tension between contemplation and action.  The idea that there might be different "spiritual types" is not new.  Assuming one's spirituality is a mode of integrating one's relationship with God or the transcendent with the with the world and one's own life, it would make sense that some do it differently.  It's even possible there might be spiritual archetypes, just as a Jungian approach to personality could posit types and archetypes.  There are even inventories on spiritual gifts that suggest correspondance to a person's personality typology.  So what is my spirituality type? Actually this Beliefnet survey does not address these issues at all. It merely assumes a single hierarchy, not multiple archetypes, of "spiritual"assent to given rel

Today, 16 February, is the 10th anniversary of Dad's passing. One of the ironies for me of growing up is that I've got for more questions to ask of my parents now that they're gone. I sure had a lot of child-rearing questions. And some questions about how to live with the aches and pains of growing older. I sure would like to ask my Dad a lot more questions about the stars, not because I think he know that much more, but because I think he had the wisdom of gazing. I'd ask a lot more about WWII, and what it felt like to be fighting against people who spoke your mother-tongue. How did they manage after his father died in 1939? What was his favorite dish that his mother made? Did he ever knock anyone out in the boxing rink? Did he miss cartooning? Did he ever wish he could have gone on to get a degree in engineering? I have a lot more questions now that I could ask him. I wonder if that's typical of growing old after your parents die. I suppose he also h