Daniel Im

Pastor + Author

holistic

An Artesian Spring Dialogue

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In the passage below, I love how Jesus exemplified dialogue education by being a guide on the side, rather than a sage on the stage. His love for the woman at the well and his disciples was clearly exemplified by his persistence to have them discover and encounter truth, and drink from the well of living artesian water.

Jesus accomplished this through dialogue and I want to do the same.

Jesus empowered the woman and his disciples through dialogue by hearing their stories, and I want to do the same.

I need to resist my tendency to assume that I understand those I am leading, and I need to engage them in dialogue by first hearing their story. It is only when I hear their story that I can faithfully teach them and love them in the way that Jesus would want me to.

“A woman, a Samaritan, came to draw water. Jesus said, “Would you give me a drink of water?” (His disciples had gone to the village to buy food for lunch.) [Read more…] about An Artesian Spring Dialogue

blessings from God

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I just read an awesome and insightful entry by Pete Wilson, which you can check out here.

The following are my thoughts on a similar topic:

We are blessed. Having the technology, time, and money to access the internet and view this post means that you are blessed. I probably don’t even have to convince you regarding how much you are blessed. Just look at the clothes you’re wearing, the things in your house, the fact that you have a roof over your head, the people in your life, etc.

As a result, there are a few different types of people. There are those who don’t even consider themselves blessed, in comparison to others, and have this insatiable desire for more. These people don’t feel like they have enough as it is, and are always thinking about what else they could buy.

On the other hand, there are those who consider themselves blessed, but still want more regardless.

We hear and read about all the people in the world who are suffering. The fact that one child dies every five seconds from hunger related causes (that’s 16 000 children everyday). The fact that 12 million people have been orphaned by AIDS, across sub-Saharan Africa, by the end of 2005. The fact that 10.1 million children died before they reached their fifth birthday in 2005. And the fact that approximately 30 000 people go to bed hungry everyday.

Sure we read and hear about these facts, but is our heart moved? Are we compelled to act? Maybe…maybe not.

I believe that if we do the following and make a paradigm shift in our thinking, our actions will follow suit:

[Read more…] about blessings from God

Constant Daylight

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I just came back from my vacation in Alaska. Here are one of the posts that I was hoping to put up while in Alaska, but chose not to after realizing that it would cost me $0.75 per minute to use the internet on the cruise ship.

June 28, 2008

Upon embarking in Alaska for my vacation, I realized the mind blowing fact that there is no night time in the summer. After 3 hours of sleep, 12 hours of traveling and 7 hours of touring around Anchorage, Alaska (and that was just my first day here), my body was dead tired, but my brain seemed to be confused. My body knew it should be sleeping, but my brain kept on telling my body that it’s still day time!!

In a region where there is nearly 24 hours of daylight 6 months of the year, and nearly 19 hours of darkness the other 6 months, I wonder what kind of holistic effect this has on life?

– Psychological Effect: Does work productivity decrease during the dark winters?

– Sociological Effect: What about our natural patterns/locations in creating community? In the Winter and Summer, I found out that the city of Anchorage puts on lots of carnivals and festivals to provide opportunities to build community and get people out of their homes. They will also create skating rinks and trails.

– Physical Effect: Our personal body clock – is it natural to experience these kinds of extremes? What about our natural body rhythms?

– Spiritual Effect: Depression and suicide? Are there higher rates in these regions?

If there is anyone who has any insight on this, either first hand or second hand, let’s talk about it.

maturity and independence – mutually exclusive?

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…a boy who puts shaving cream on his face…
…a girl who puts on lipstick and tries on her mom’s heels…
…a teenager who demands complete freedom, while still living at home and being dependent on his/her parents…

I am sure all of us can imagine some point in our life where any one of these scenarios (or like ones) were true. In fact, in the West, we all have this obsession with wanting to grow up and mature. don’t we? This obsession has actually led us to believe that “maturity = independence.”

However, is this notion that “maturity=independence” a hindrance to our maturing as human beings? If “maturity=independence” then, in order to reach maturity, doesn’t logic dictate that we should strive to become as independent as we can? Does independence really lead to maturity though? Real, deep, true, lasting, and holistic maturity? Or does independence actually lead us elsewhere?

Is our obsession with independence a reason why there seems to be a lack of deep maturity in adults today?

What if true maturity does not equal independence?

“We do not discover who we are, we do not reach true humanness, in a solitary state; we discover it through mutual dependency, in weakness, in learning through belonging.”
Jean Vanier – Becoming Human