Father Denny Dempsey

E=JC2

Jesus ascended to the Father in heaven, but where is heaven? Needing a sense of direction toward God, we raise hands and prayers upward in prayer, but God is everywhere…omnipresent.

Unlike ourselves, God doesn’t have a body. Having a body is good, especially if you are happy with the one you’ve got and it works well, but a body cannot be everywhere. It can only be in one place to the exclusion of all others. Did Jesus ascend to heaven with a body? If so, how, as second Person of the Trinity, is he omnipresent? How can Jesus be “seated at the right hand of the Father”, as we say in the Creed, if the Father is not localized in one place but is everywhere?

Breaking duh fishy code

More basis in reality and true facts than found in the da Vinci Code...an ancient secret society's treasure hidden right here in Northfield!

In 1827 Joseph Smith, a jack of all trades in upperstate New York, was led by God's angel Moroni to a small woods where he discovered a set of golden tablets.  All but one tablet were translated from ancient Egyptian texts into the Book of Mormon...all but one.  The most important tablet, the one which held the greatest secrets God had ever revealed, disappeared...stolen by one of Smith's neighbors, Adam Jacobs. 

Much more than Smith's neighbor, Jacobs was in reality a descendant of the Jaredites, the lost tribe of Israel that escaped the Babylonian conquest of Judah in 587 B.C.E. and sailed to this continent.  Over a thousand years ago a set of golden tablets entrusted to them by an angel of God had been buried by their chief who was murdered before being able to tell any others of their exact location. 

The secret of the tablets was handed down by the Jaredites, father to son, for generations.  They carefully searched thousands of square miles of upperstate New York but without success.  As the most secret society in the history of our country, the Jaredites bound themselves by sacred oath to recover the tablets and, if found by someone not of their group, to give their lives, if necessary in the effort and bury them where they could never be found again.

Full moon?

"Was there a full moon last night?"  asked one of my staff members this afternoon.  There sure seemed to be a lot of people upset about a variety of topics today. 

Before I came to Northfield in June of 2004, one of the locals told me, "The sign outside of town is wrong.  It should say Northfield...colleges, cows and CONTENTION!  Well, some days like today contention does seem to be more accurate than contentment, but I like the fact that many people have strong opinions and are more than willing to share them.  There are some words for that: passionate, convicted, dedicated, committed...add open and respectful to the mix and it works for the good of all.  Still, I wonder...was there a full moon last night?

Aliens sighted in Northfield!

I went over to church the other evening, only to discover I had walked right into a group of aliens.

The word "aliens" conjurs up images of beings from other planets.  It does also mean people from countries other than the United States...like the people I saw at church. 

While coming into Minneapolis on 35W a few weeks ago, I realized that all the other drivers on the crowded freeway were illegals. 

No, I wasn't surrounded by Hispanic drivers.  All the cars and trucks were going over the posted speed limit.  Thus, all those drivers were illegals. 

The two words undocumented immigrants describe clearly the majority of the Hispanic population here in Northfield.  Sure, you'd be technically correct to use the words illegal aliens to describe such people...sometimes shortened to the non-word illegals or half-way modification to illegal immigrants...but the phrase undocumented immigrants is actually more understandable and certainly more respectful. 

A piece of fish

Last Sunday's gospel recounts Jesus' Easter appearance to the apostles (Luke 24:36ff).  To convince them that he is not a ghost, Jesus asks for something to eat.  They have a piece of cooked fish left over from their meal. 

A fitting menu choice for a bunch of fishermen and friends.  How many times in the "good old days" had they shared fish dinners with Jesus?  It was comfort food to these guys. 

Now, maybe that's all there was to the story.  Maybe Luke was just reporting a fact, nothing more.  Nevertheless, I was looking for something more symbolic.  It is very possible that, around the time Luke was writing his gospel,  a simple two-curved line drawing of a fish was becoming a popular Christian symbol.  It's the one you've seen on the back of car trunks and bumpers.