Spiritual Life

The ancient kingdoms of Judah and Israel were attacked by the prophets for their betrayal of Israel’s ancient vision of a people governed by faithfulness and mercy. The founding story of these two nations linked by a common faith and shared story told of an oppressed people delivered from bondage. The legal code that governed them was attributed to the God who had led them out from Egypt and encountered them at Mount Sinai.

What we refer to as the Ten Commandments encapsulate a set of laws and customs that defined a just community. One of the pivotal commands was to remember that they had been slaves in Egypt and even the cattle were to have one day of rest in seven.

As I write this, Tropical Storm Barry is barreling down on New Orleans and southeast Louisiana, triggering collective and painful memories of the destruction and death wrought by Hurricane Katrina in 2005. A week doesn’t go by without breaking news of new peer-reviewed scientific research outlining mounting and dire concerns correlated to unbridled global warming.

Erupting climate change places further unbearable burdens on migrating refugees fleeing national and regional crises around the world. Wildfires across the west are fueled by persistent and stagnant high-pressure ridges in the jet stream resulting in long-lasting droughts. And when it does rain, fattened atmospheric rivers dump torrential downpours resulting in massive mudslides and erosion of the ground beneath foot.

Courtesy of Bill Myers
Popular author Bill Myers grins for the camera as a winged friend photo-bombs him.

With titles like “My Life as Alien Monster Bait,” it’s no wonder that Bill Myers’ books are popular among Los Altos students in elementary school. His books and animated series, including “The Adventures of McGee and Me,” line the shelves at Los Altos Christian School and the Los Altos Library.

Myers has sold more than 8 million books, garnered more than 80 national and international awards – including the C.S. Lewis Honor Award – and recently finished production in Simi Valley on a film based on his book “Secret Agent Dingledorf: The Case of the Giggling Geeks.”

Foothills Congregational Church is scheduled to host a presentation and book signing with authors Les Kaye and Teresa Bouza 5-6:30 p.m. Saturday in the church’s Parish Hall, 461 Orange Ave., Los Altos.

Kaye and Bouza are authors of “A Sense of Something Greater: Zen and the Search for Balance in Silicon Valley” (Parallax Press, 2018), which explores the ways Zen practice awakens people’s inherent spiritual dimension and brings meaning and authenticity to pressure-packed lives of work and family.

Ashby

Union Presbyterian Church of Los Altos has scheduled a luncheon featuring a presentation by Bernadette Ashby on the exploitation of women in Asia noon May 10 in the church’s Fellowship Hall, 858 University Ave.

Ashby, who travels each year to Bangkok and Pattaya in Thailand to oversee volunteers who are helping women there learn new ways to achieve economic independence, will discuss the thousands of women and children from poor countries in Asia who are forced into the sex trade around the world each year.

Christians don’t base their faith in Jesus on the story of creation in the Bible. Good Christians disagree about where on the scale of literal to allegorical the first few chapters of the Bible are exactly, so it is clear that our faith is not based on that. Our faith isn’t based on the correct version of the Bible, though we talk about that a fair bit, too. Our faith is not based on which denomination, which pastor is the correct pastor, which view of the Revelation of John is precisely correct, either.

Our faith is built on an event, a one-time event. An event where lots of people saw a man die, clearly die, and then saw Him alive three days later. If Jesus was not raised from the dead, then Christians are to be pitied for their faith in something that isn’t true – that we have foolishly based our present lives and our eternal future on something that isn’t true.