The Curse of Natural Resources

Pandora's Box in Russia's Transition to a Market Economy

Here's an example of a 10 pager that deserved to be about 3 pages. 

Herman Melville on FTTA

"For the most part, in this tropic whaling life, a sublime uneventfulness invests you; you hear no news; read no gazettes; extras with startling accounts of commonplaces never delude you into unnecessary excitements; you hear of no domestic afflictions; bankrupt securities; fall of stocks; are never troubled with the thought of what you shall have for dinner - for all your meals for three years and more are snugly stowed in casks, and your bill of fare is immutable." 

The Week in Review

In this edition of "The Week in Review" we conduct some social media M&A work, explore the gospel records of Robert Zimmerman, and journey to a mega-church in Houston. We'll be back right after a short photography break...

Old San Juan, Puerto Rico

This week was monumental. Despite the longstanding acrimony between social media mongols Facebook and Twitter, (eyewitness account here), I conducted a merger whereby my Facebook and Twitter accounts are now linked. Anything posted to twitter should now go indirectly to my facebook page. This is a huge step. Get ready...


In other news, you probably didn't know that Bob Dylan's actual name is Robert Allen Zimmerman. And you may not know that Dylan and I have a very special bond: we are both left-handed, though we both overcame this enormous obstacle and learned to play the guitar right-handed. 


Okay, so did you know that Dylan went on to produced two gospel albums? They are titled Saved and Slow Train Coming. These records are powerful and convicting. Tonight I'm listening to "I Believe in You" and "Gotta Serve Somebody." Dylan's lyrics are gripping, uncompromising, and honest. There is a lot I would like to say about these songs, about these two albums, and about Dylan in general. This may warrant a separate post.


On a different note, God's Man in Texas was hosted on Southern California Public Radio this week. The audio aired on 90.3 KPCV tonight. It was simultaneously both painful and entertaining. The piece chronicles a church pastor who is growing old and becoming disenchanted with his congregation and the pace of new, "industrialized Christianity."  It's an incriminating work of art, poignantly highlighting the issues that have so rapidly impacted the landscape of Christianity in the United States. Take a listen, and see if you wouldn't agree.


All for now...

the rumors are true...

North Campus, The University of Georgia (photo credits: me)

Yes, this week I registered for MAcc classes at the University of Georgia. Classes begin on August 15th. Right now the agenda looks something like this: 

• Tax Policy
• Estate & Gift/Cross-Jurisdictional Tax 
• Special Topics-Int’l Fin Report Stndrds
• Int’l Legal Transactions
• Corporate Tax
• Data Management/Adv Business Applications

This was my last full week at Bibles for America, a local non-profit organization that distributes an awesome free study Bible.  I've been working there on a special project, but coming down to the final stretch. Next week I'll go in a couple of days to wrap things up, and then embark on a cross country trek back to the land of peaches and chickens (Georgia). 

I'm stoked  excited about going back to Athens. One thing I really want to do this year is set a daily Bible reading schedule, and have companions to help keep me accountable. What really helped me in undergrad was getting involved with other christian students at UGA. It was like having a huge family, with people always there to encourage me and strengthen me in my faith. 


p.s. In honor of this momentous step I'm using the "Georgia" font; I'm also scheduled to listen to Georgia music soon, courtesy of Gladys Knight and the Pips, and maybe that classic from Louis Armstrong. 

All for now...

Reflections on the Full Ministry of Christ (pt.1)

Many believers have a historical Christ and a future Jesus. But what is Christ doing today? In a series of posts over the coming months I want to examine this topic and consider its proper, practical application to our Christian living. Contrary to popular belief, Jesus is not a carpenter hammering away to prepare physical mansions for us in heaven. If you've read the gospels you would agree that this notion is a silly non sequitur. We want the revelation that comes from the Word of God, not myths that come from wild imaginations. 

I intend to progressively investigate this topic in three sections:  incarnation, inclusion, and intensification.  With this focus I believe we will gain a panoramic view of Christ’s full ministry. 

Two principles can guide us as we explore this subject. The first is that we desire to "know Christ” (Phil. 3:10). We want a “knowing” of Christ that is neither common nor general, but specific and particular.

And I will give them a heart to know me, that I am Jehovah; and they will be My people, and I will be their God; for they will return to Me with their whole heart. (Jeremiah 24:7)

The second principle is that as we see and know Christ we want also to "gain Christ” (Phil. 3:8). This means that we experience and enjoy Christ in each stage of his ministry. We are here to “learn Christ”  in a way that will revolutionize our Christian life!

From the outset, we have to acknowledge that all Scripture is God-breathed 
(2 Tim 3:16). Accordingly, we would never assume that God’s speaking in the New Testament is limited only to “red letters.” Rather, we want to examine the entire speaking of God.

The facts are that God is not silent, has never been silent. It is the nature of God to speak. The second Person of the Holy Trinity is called the Word.The Bible is the  inevitable outcome of God’s continuous speech. (A.W. TOZER, The Pursuit of God)

Dabbling into Dickens

Everyone knows the heart-gripping, painful conclusion of Tale of Two Cities. And everyone, of course, knows this is one of my favorite and most revered chapters in the narrow sphere of secular literature that I can ever recall reading. Here's a snippet:

I see that I hold a sanctuary in their hearts, and in the hearts of their descendants, generations hence. I see her, an old woman, weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see her and her husband, their course done, lying side by side in their last earthly bed, and I know that each was not more honoured and held sacred in the other's soul, than I was in the souls of both...It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.

These to me are perhaps the most powerful lyrics of the entire piece. Yet they pale, fade, wither, etc. when compared to a single phrase uttered by Jesus on the cross, "Eloi, Eloi, lama sabachthani? which is interpreted, My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" Here is the ultimate sacrifice, the ultimate price, for behind it we find the most meaningful purpose of all creation. Perhaps this is where Dicken's novel is so touching; here, where it climaxes with asymptotic approach the ultimate sacrifice ever known to mankind.

And then we have the classic, epic, (and potentially hackneyed) opening stanza to this book, in which Dickens poetically recounts in the most superfluous fashion:

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way -- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only.

Here it seems as if Dickens was gathering some inspiration from Paul's testimony in 2 Corinthians 6:9-11, where the apostle describes a life of ministry as one who is being poured out on behalf of the souls of those for whom he labored. Where in other places the apostle describes the new covenant ministry (4:1, etc), here he portrays the living of the new covenant ministers:

As unknown and yet well known; as dying and yet behold we live; as being disciplined and yet not being put to death; As made sorrowful yet always rejoicing; as poor yet enriching many; as having nothing and yet possessing all things. Our mouth is opened to you, Corinthians; our heart is enlarged. 

For all the verbosity that is Charles Dickens, what I most appreciate about this chapter is his narrative personification (de rigueur?) of Fate and Death, the Woodman and the Farmer. The harbingers of revolution are bustling about, but they work unceasingly; they work silently. And it is this tantalizing art that makes A Tale of Two Cities into such a classic. So we end here tonight, with an excerpt from what now happens to be my favorite chapter in English literature:

It is likely enough that, rooted in the woods of France and Norway, there were growing trees, when that sufferer was put to death, already marked by the Woodman, Fate, to come down and be sawn into boards, to make a certain movable framework with a sack and a knife in it, terrible in history. It is likely enough that in the rough outhouses of some tillers of the heavy lands adjacent to Paris, there were sheltered from the weather that very day, rude carts, bespattered with rustic mire, snuffed about by pigs, and roosted in by poultry, which the Farmer, Death, had already set apart to be his tumbrels of the Revolution. But that Woodman and that Farmer, though they work unceasingly, work silently, and no one heard them as they went about with muffled tread: the rather, forasmuch as to entertain any suspicion that they were awake, was to be atheistical and traitorous. 

Do you know Leo Tolstoy?

"Have you seen any of my later writings?" Tolstoy inquired of a visitor who came to him as the admirer of "The Cossacks," of "War and Peace," of "Anna Karenina." The question referred to his religious writings. 


When he said no, Tolstoy could only exclaim, "Ah, then you do not know me at all. We must become acquainted." 


- from Ivan Panin's Lectures on Russian Literature.

The Bridge & Channel of God

A brother recommended this book to me during my last semester of college; I read it in three days. If any ministry book played had a significant role in my decision to attend the training, it was this one. I've purchased at least five (maybe six) copies and given many away to college students and fellow trainees. The first four chapters are messages given to college students; the sixth chapter is entitled, "Man Being the Bridge and Channel of God." This is an awesome chapter. Chapters 2 - 4 are Q&A sessions. One very helpful question reads, "What should I do if I have the heart to serve but am still in school and feel that my studies are a distraction?" Another student asks, "What is the difference between our thoughts and God's shining?" The final lines of Witness Lee's response reads:

We must emphasize again that the most important thing is our intention. If my intention is to fear the Lord and seek the Lord's way, even if I make a mistake, it will become right because my desire is to take the Lord's way. In terms of reasoning, this may be wrong, but in terms of principle, it is right...To be right in principle means that in our heart we want only God and that we therefore obey any feeling that comes from God. (p.49).

These words are very encouraging and practical. Here's another paragraph I highlighted:

Every one of us should consider what kind of person we want to be. Do we want to be a half-saved person, a "gray" Christian, or a Christian who loves the Lord absolutely?" Everyone in the world knows that the most absolute ones are the most profitable ones...If we desire to be worldly people, we should be worldly people absolutely; if we desire to be Christians, we should be Christians absolutely. Those who are wishy-washy are the least profitable and the lowest. No matter what we do, we must be absolute in doing it. The only requirement for a Christian is absoluteness. We should either not follow the Lord or follow Him absolutely. To be a Christian we must be absolute. (p.41).

Selah...

Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist says...

"For all of life's disparities in talent and wealth, each of us is given exactly the same amount of time in each hour, and in each day, and in each year..." 


From a commencement address to law school graduates, transcribed here. 

"Everything depends on God's mercy"

That is the title of the first message given by Watchman Nee during the resumption of his ministry in September, 1947. I probably need to read this message again....

It can be found here: Collected Works of Watchman Nee, Vol. 57: The Resumption of Watchman Nee's Ministry, ch.1. And is also available online at www.ministrybooks.com.