George Martzen "georgos"

In Equal Justice Under the Law , Sojourner's Jim Wallis has observed a strange irony in this week's U.S. Supreme Court rulings.  First, on June 25, the court struck down as unconstitutional a part of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 intended to maintain free voting access for low-income and people of color.  Many of my friends in justice ministries were shocked at this ruling.  When I first saw the headlines, I really thought it was a joke, or that someone had accidently brought up a news article from the 1930s.  The next day the same court also thwarted two laws that had prevented same-sex marriage, the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) and California's Proposition 8, the "Marriage Defense Act". While recognizing that many Christians have deep concerns about homosexuality, based on their reading of the Bible, Wallis has joined a growing number of religious people who support same-sex marriage as a matter of civil rights.  After all, legal marriage in the U...

I sat at the foot of the hill - Bukit Timah - and watched the show, energized. Rain coming down in buckets, whipped by the wind, like the swallows, dancing in the currents high above the trees, fully engaged in the movement.  Lightening struck here and there, in booming octophonic fidelity, electrifying the air. The music echoed from the clouds to the earth, from Bukit Timah to Bukit Gombak, between the great trees and the buildings .  Boom, boom, boom!  The trees all clapped their leaves and swayed to the rhythm of the sky, danced to the rhythm of the earth, pulsated with the leaping electrons.  Only the swallows dared venture out, twirling and soaring with nature's ensemble, joined to the fleeting liminality while ants and humans scuttled anxiously inside. The voice of thunder takes over during the reversal. Nature rules again; the birds, the trees the hills, the clouds and the earth all rejoice.  Slowly the rain subsides, the wind dies down, the atmospheri...

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 ...

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 liste...

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...

This week marks the 10th anniversary of our arrival as missionaries in Singapore. I have a framed B&W print next to our front door as a reminder that every transition has its trade-offs. Done by my brother Paul from one of may father's old negatives, the print is of our late Uncle Joe looking over a vineyard to the Kaweah peaks. Ten years ago I entered a different place in a new role full of challenges and blessings. But the transition has not been without emotional pain. It was a significant transition for me, on that day after Christmas, when Chin Cheak, Walter and I boarded the plane at LAX (a very chaotic place in those day because of 9/11). We arrived in Singapore 18 or so hours later on the 28th of December. I had visited Singapore before, but never expected I would be living in that "fine" city. Chin Cheak came to teach at her alma mater, Trinity Theological College; I came in nervous openness to the Spirit. I had already spoken over the phone with Bis...