visible rhetoric

When doctors make a diagnosis they first look for signs.  They do this first by plain observation.  Depending on your complaints he listens to your heartbeats, he counts your pulse, he listens to your breathing.  By then the doctor may already have some initial findings based on his observation but he wants to be sure so and he uses another tool.  He tells the patient to undergo tests – blood tests, urinalysis, or x-rays.  All these are intelligent guesses based on observations of signs plus his experience.  Now unless the doctor opens you up and sees for himself the diseased organ, he can only rely on signs.  The doctor examines the signs or the symptoms.  And then from experience he tries to understand and know what kind disease is associated with these signs so that he can medicate and begin the process of healing. Jesus like a good doctor tells us first to see the signs.   The fig tree is budding.   See the signs.   Then it...

Today I am tasked to welcome you all to the Festival of Vocations.    Why create a festival for vocations?   What is in a vocation that is worth celebrating with a feast?   What?    We are celebrating the reality that we were created on purpose and with love.   We are celebrating the fact that we are not accidents of nature, we did not come into this world as a product of chance or we did not begin existing just because we are a random consequence of a coincidence.   No.   We were created on purpose, and because we were created on purpose, we have a purpose, each of us has a purpose?   That is what we are celebrating today.   We celebrate the reality that each of us has a purpose. Is this worth celebrating?   Ok here’s the alternative.   People who feel no sense of purpose in life are more prone to depression, more prone to anxiety attacks, more prone to drugs and to suicide. Why, because  “The mystery of ...

What do you do, or more specifically what does a Christian do in times of chaos, what does a Christian do when fear strikes our gut and heart?  Ambush in Maasin, the threat of terrorism, the threat of a revolutionary government, the ouster of the Mayor, the never-ending war on drugs, the extrajudicial killings where no one knows who and where and when it will strike next.  I am not discounting the other realities like cancer in the family, sickness and death, unemployment and marital conflicts, etc.  The point is what does a Christian do in these situations of fear? A Christian has to anchor himself to two things. First anchor.   When Daniel interpreted the writing on the wall he clearly said to the king, God in whose hand is your life breath , God in whose hand I the whole course of your life …   What does this mean?   Daniel is reminding the people and the king himself that God is greater than this mighty king.   God is greater than the chaos he...