"There are two ways to live your life. One is as though nothing is a miracle. The other is as though everything is a miracle." - Albert Einstein
Mr. and Mrs. Wang having a quick breakfast before they left this morning.
A goodbye picture with the Tianji Volunteers.
The Stanley House was pretty active this morning as the Jilin gang was up early getting ready for a 6:00 am departure to return to the Northeast. (Above some of the gang in the bus leaving from the Stanley House.)
Yesterday, I went with some of the Jilin gang to Chang Zhou Island 长洲 for a meal and meeting. Some pictures below:
On the Ferry to the Island.
Taking Pictures....
on the street...
and of the fishing boats
Wang Wei and Gao Jing
Today’s gospel and some comments:
When the whole crowd saw Jesus, they were immediately overcome with awe, and they ran forward to greet him. He asked them, ‘What are you arguing about with them?’ Someone from the crowd answered him, ‘Teacher, I brought you my son; he has a spirit that makes him unable to speak; and whenever it seizes him, it dashes him down; and he foams and grinds his teeth and becomes rigid; and I asked your disciples to cast it out, but they could not do so.’ He answered them, ‘You faithless generation, how much longer must I be among you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him to me.’ And they brought the boy to him. When the spirit saw him, immediately it threw the boy into convulsions, and he fell on the ground and rolled about, foaming at the mouth. Jesus asked the father, ‘How long has this been happening to him?’ And he said, ‘From childhood. It has often cast him into the fire and into the water, to destroy him; but if you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us.’ Jesus said to him, ‘If you are able!—All things can be done for the one who believes.’ Immediately the father of the child cried out, ‘I believe; help my unbelief!’ When Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, ‘You spirit that keep this boy from speaking and hearing, I command you, come out of him, and never enter him again!’ After crying out and convulsing him terribly, it came out, and the boy was like a corpse, so that most of them said, ‘He is dead.’ But Jesus took him by the hand and lifted him up, and he was able to stand. When he had entered the house, his disciples asked him privately, ‘Why could we not cast it out?’ He said to them, ‘This kind can come out only through prayer.’ Mark 9:14-29
“If you are able,” the man said. Once we allow the word ‘if’ a place in religion, all is lost. It is like allowing a hole in the bottom of a bucket; no matter how small the hole, everything leaks out. “Why do you say, ‘If you can’?” said Jesus. What are you doing – hedging your bets?
What happens when there is no ‘if’? “All things are possible for one who believes.” ‘Belief’ isn't a matter of calculating the odds and finding them to be satisfactory. The word ‘trust’ would translate it better. The great tragedy of misunderstanding at the Reformation, people now see, was that this was missed. Fiducia, trust, was an essential part of faith for Martin Luther. For Catholics, fiducia was bracketed under the virtue of hope rather than under faith. What Luther meant by faith included what Catholics meant by hope. We wonder now why they thought it important to fight about packaging. Faith, hope and love are inseparable; it would make sense to put them all in one word: faithhopelove.
“I do believe, help my unbelief,” said the man in today’s reading. Is that a contradiction? Perhaps yes if you were to take belief as isolated from fiducia, trust. There's a yes or no quality about pure belief, but there are many degrees of trust; in fact trust is all about degrees. By trusting you learn how to trust, and by trusting again you learn to trust more. Belief (or faith as we prefer to call it) doesn’t just lie changeless in the mind; it grows out of itself by degrees. That's how every living thing grows.
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