On Friday July 11th Blanca Alzate hosted a late afternoon book party in her home on Long Island. Several women gathered to hear Dr. Dan expound the thesis of the book and hear about his teaching mission in Asia
“The whole experience was surreal,” Dr. Dan said. “I had not been on the Long Island Railroad since 2009 when for nine years almost every week or so I rode it somewhere in greater New York City. Off peak the ride for me is like crawling back in the womb, I love trains… ‘roll roll your burdens away.’ But the best part of returning for me was seeing a few of my old friends from Church in the Garden. I came to the book party feeling four feet tall and left feeling ten feet tall” he quipped. “After a five year hiatus the love and good will from my Ecuadorian and Columbian friends was as strong as the good old days.”
Those gathered wanted to hear about his teaching work but even more they wanted to hear about the book–and get a copy. When he left his pastorate at Church in the Garden Dr. Dan gave as his rationale his determination to transit his ministry to teaching, writing and publishing. It took four years to keep the book part of his promise and not a few of the members had remembered his public statement and wondered if he would deliver. After sharing a few experiences from his teaching work for struggling Bible Colleges and seminaries all over the Far East he took several minutes and developed the first strand of the thesis in the book. Here follows a few quotes taken from this part of the book party.
“The whole book is a development of one insight on the little phrase by Paul found in 2 Corinthians 5:7 ‘we walk by faith not by sight’ and the first glimmer of light on this text came from a Bible Study at the local Ecuadorian crossroads, Maria’s place on Braxton Street in Uniondale, Long Island back in early 2009” he said. “Living by faith imposes a form of blindness on us. Not only is God invisible to us His way in the world and His way with each of us personally is most often so wrapped in subtly it too is invisible. Faith means to live in this world ‘as if’ God is there and at work even though most of the time you can’t, see, touch, feel or sense this power, presence and activity.”
“But this is just the top side of the truth embedded in this text. What we as humans see, touch, feel and experience directly and immediately heats up at different junctures in our life journey and when this occurs we are seduced into taking the experiences we encounter too seriously and are in danger of losing ourselves and our souls. No matter how wise, cool, calm and collected a person may be by nature or training when life ‘heats-up’ she is inevitably sucked in to and under the magnitude of the visible immediate experience. Only when a person is connected by faith to a greater unseen magnitude (God and God’s promises and saving hope in and through Christ) is the immediate seen and felt experience sufficiently downsized and brought into perspective so that one can pass through it without losing herself. In the wisdom and providence of God the seen and the unseen are caught up together in a dialectic, so that the former cannot be safely enjoyed or endured without the latter. There are three strands of the thesis, this introduction summarizes the first strand.”
From this point Dr. Dan went on to give examples of how life heats-up and the immediate experience sucks us in and threatens to undo us. “For example our material security, Scripture asserts, is ultimately invisible, hidden in God who is Spirit. But when wealth comes knocking and visible security presents itself it tempts us into believing and trusting what we can see, touch and feel all the while weakening our spiritual connection to invisible security. The same is true of economic hard times and want which when it comes knocking tempts us to look at our visible deficit and conclude that our lives hang on the precipice of ruin. Without faith in the unseen hands of care under us we are driven beyond ourselves to chronic anxiety–myopic self concern, over working, over reaching, cheating, stealing and a host of other unsavory habits of the heart.” This is just one life setting he applied his thesis, “the book is replete with life settings, illustrating and illuminating the spiritual depth and mystery lodged in the ‘we walk by faith not by sight’ maxim of the Apostle,” he assured them.
Many thanks to Blanca Alzate for inviting the guests and opening her home and for the big platter of fresh fruit she served up. All toll about 15 books were purchased and several people donated to Dr. Dan’s teaching mission.
Blog Editor: Elizabeth Lindsay Age
existence and faith 